Druids (42 page)

Cotuatus was a different matter. When I went out to his camp to tell him, he was furious. “I’ll never return to Cenabum so long as another man occupies the king’s lodge. It should have been mine!”

“It might have been,” I told him, “if you’d had the support you claimed. But even among the elders there were only two who spoke for you. Leam from this experience, Cotuatus, and you may yet be king one day. Just not now.”

“But—”

“Are you arguing with me?”

“No.” He dropped his eyes.

I thought I could control him.

When we returned to the fort with the news of the kingship, my people were surprised but pleased. A different sort of surprise awaited me, however,

Bnga, wreathed in smiles, met me at the gates. I received the welcome a man dreams of, but then she said, “Someone else is living in our lodge now, by the way.”

My first, terrible thought was that Crom Daral had come dragging his bitterness under my rooftree, thrusting himself between me and Briga by demanding hospitality.

“You can’t invite guests in my name!” 1 scolded her.

Briga merely smiled—mysteriously. ‘ ‘I only did what I knew you would have done,” she said.

I had acquired a dislike for surprises.

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When we entered the lodge was dark, for the fire had bumed low and no lamps were lighted. Then a darker form stirred among the shadows.

Lakutu stepped forward, offering a shy smile.

Briga said, “With Tarvos dead she has no family. And she’s

pregnant-I knew you’d want to care for her for his sake.”

“Did he know?”

“She only discovered it while you were away before. She was going to tell him when you returned, but…”

“So when you learned of it, you said she could live here?”

“Of course,” Briga replied with the assurance of a prince’s daughter.

The fort was amused. No one said anything to the chief druid outright, of course, but I saw the glances, the hidden smirks. Most of the time I pretended not to notice, but once in an unguarded moment I remarked to the Goban Saor, ‘ ‘I ‘m thinking of collecting women, starting a new tradition. I may take in a dozen or so.”

“Druid humor,” he observed correctly.

If I had had little time for Briga, I had none at all for two women. I found myself totally occupied with my responsibilities and with keeping abreast of Caesar’s activities.

By early summer he had returned to Gaul to consolidate not only his conquest of the Veneti, but of all the tribes along the western seaboard. He had warships built and sailed them along the coast, keeping potential danger areas under constant surveil-lance. His winter camps in Gaul had made many tribes aware of what the Roman presence actually meant, and there were sporadic revolts throughout the land. But since the tribes revolted independently, Caesar met them one by one and cut them down, bloodily and savagely.

One by one.

In that terrible year we in central Gaul felt the Roman’s fist tightening slowly but surely as he defeated the tribes around our perimeter. He also stationed a legion among the Nantuates southeast of the Aedui, to enable him to open a route through the Alps for more armies. He began negotiations with cowed kings in various areas to supply his forces with corn and other necessities.

He was sending considerable plunder back to Rome.

He also sent agents to Cenabum to investigate the death of Tasgetius.

Conco rode north to the grove to tell me what happened. “The Romans are enormously suspicious but they can’t prove anything,

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Ainvar. No one can say who wielded the sword. The Romans have asked a lot of questions about Cotuatus and even a few about me, but gotten no satisfactory answers, I’m happy to say. And old Nantoms seems so harmless he has them puzzled. I don’t think me problem is over; the traders will continue to complain because Nantorus isn’t cooperating with them as Tasgetius did. But Caesar’s people have left Cenabum—for now.”

It was that “for now” I did not like.

Obviously I had chosen wisely in urging Nantorus to be restored as king. Though Cotuatus would not like it, things must remain as they were until Rix was ready to make his move. He was not a boastful fool like Cotuatus; he would not claim support he did not have and act prematurely. The Gallic confederacy was growing; it was only a matter of time.

It was only a matter of time before Caesar closed his fist on free Gaul also.

I sent Conco back to Cotuatus to repeat the order to keep his head down and wait. Conco was not pleased to carry such a message; like his kinsman, he wanted action.

They did not understand that my desire for action was just as great as theirs.

Meanwhile, the killer of Tasgetius was, predictably, making trouble within the Fort of the Grove, He had returned as I ordered and taken up residence in his old lodge, but far from being grateful for the refuge afforded him, Crom complained constantly. He had found a kindred spirit in Baroc the porter, and the two could be found at any time of day or night, drinking together and condemning everyone but themselves.

The Goban Saor intercepted me one day as I returned from the vineyard, where we were still performing healing rituals on the ravaged earth in anticipation of planting new vines. “I’m afraid I passed along, quite in jest, your remark about collecting women, Ainvar,” he told me. “Someone who heard me repeated it to someone else who repeated it to Crom Daral, and now … ah, you know how one word borrows another. He says you boast of having stolen his woman from him and plan to steal more.”

“I’ll talk to him,” I said disgustedly.

But talking to Crom did no good. His head was stone, his opinions carved in. “I know what I know,” was all he said.

I told Sulis, “I refused to give him the satisfaction of explaining in detail. I only told him Briga and I had always behaved with respect for his feelings, which is the truth. And as for Lakutu—I certainly didn’t steal her!”

DRUIDS 263

” What will become of her after the child is bom? *’ the healer asked, giving me a sideways glance.

“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” was my honest answer.

“Beltaine is upon us; I assume you intend to marry Briga then?”

“I do.”

“Hmmm,” said Sulis.

Though I rejoiced with Lakutu that a part of Tarvos lived in her, her presence in the lodge was a disturbing influence. On me rare occasions when I had time to embrace Briga, I was always aware of Lakutu. Just knowing that she was under the same roof acted like a bucket of cold water thrown on my passion. I held myself in, I whispered instead of shouting with joy. I felt the disappointment in Briga.

But I could not enjoy her in privacy outside, somewhere among trees and grass, for whenever I emerged from my doorway someone appeared with a demand upon the time and effort of me chief druid.

My reputation for wisdom was growing. Every problem was brought to me—though I could not solve my own.

Once Lakutu’s child is bom, my head suggested, it might be wise to suggest her as a wife for Crom Daral.

I did not discuss this with Briga, who was fond of Lakutu. Briga was fond of anyone she helped.

There were many things I did not discuss with Briga, to my sorrow. I had once imagined mat when we were together I would be able to open myself fillly to her and share those aspects of Ainvar that only she would understand. Yet she did not open herself to me. She held something back, hidden in the shadows in her eyes. She was afraid to love because she was afraid to lose. So I, loo, retreated, becoming critical, jealous, suing by a sense of incompletion I had not anticipated.

The magic was missing—

Yet sometimes in passing, Briga would reach up, very quickly, and just touch the streak of silver in my hair with her fingertips. At such moments there was a brief look of awe on her face. I longed to ask her what she had seen mat day in the grove that made her come to me afterward, but I did not. I had her; that was enough.

Sometimes it was too much.

I began to suspect I wanted the dream of Briga more than the reality—

The reality was a woman who could distract me equally with

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her presence or her absence; a woman who could not be ignored, but could ignore me; who constantly gnawed her fingernails; who did not say the words I had imagined her saying to me; who sometimes looked at other men with speculation in her eyes;

who made decisions on her own without asking my permission.

In short, a free person.

Trusting in the power of ritual, I expected marriage would change her. The ancient ceremonies at Beltaine had been designed not only to stimulate fertility, but also to enforce the pattern of female submission.

Ah, the beauty of Beltaine that year! Even with Rome’s clouds in the sky, we rejoiced. The Great Fire burned hot above us, kindling an answering heat in me, and Briga threw back her flower-crowned head and laughed.

Dian Cet recited the laws of marrying, but I hardly heard him. My eyes kept straying to the plump little woman in the pleated skirt who blushed when I looked at her but then made sexually explicit gestures with her fingers where none but I could see them. Briga!

Her hair hung down her back in three heavy plaits, with a stem of grain from last year’s harvest twisted through each. There was a golden glow in the air around her I thought everyone must surely see. Briga, my Briga.

The women who were being married stepped forward with great solemnity to reverence the Beltaine tree. We men watched, imagining those worshipful hands and mouths on our bodies. Then we all joined to dance the pattern that reenacted pursuit and capture and prepared the women to surrender.

We danced as Celts had done for countless centuries, stamping and singing, glorying in being alive. Through our linked hands I felt immortality running like a river from the past to the future. The ritual that was meant to influence Briga was speaking powerfully to me. As my feet danced the ancient pattern that was old when mankind was new, the meaning of existence was revealed to me, perfect and pure.

Life is.

We are.

The great and holy cosmological imperative is simply: Be.

When the dance ended, I stood behind Briga with no space between us. My thighs pressed against her buttocks, my hands slid up her rib cage to cup her breasts. I pulled her tightly against me, against every aching part of me, and shouted with the joy of being alive.

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The flesh, more eloquent than words, took over.

We lay on the earth while the great thunder gathered in me. Briga buried her teeth in the muscle of my shoulder as I spun out of myself, whirled into a creative vortex where the Source was forever making and unmaking worlds, spinning with the ceaseless motion that maintains all in balance. Patterns formed behind my closed eyes in ever-increasing layers of complexity, then dissolved to build anew.

When at last I lay spent and throbbing, Briga whispered my

name.

I raised my head. All around us people were murmuring and stirring as they slowly recovered themselves. Some always join the newly married pairs to reinforce their first wedded coupling, but this time participation had been total. Suits lay with Dian Cet, and me Goban Saor with a pretty bondservant. Every man had a woman. Teyrnon the smith was embracing someone who was not his wife, while a little distance away, Damona was clinging happily to a young man who was certainly not her husband, but had made her feel young again, and filled with joy.

There was laughter around us, happy and unembarrassed, me sound of people delighted with themselves.

“Our strong young druid carried us all with him,” I heard someone say.

Grannus came toward me, picking his way rather unsteadily among couples still lying locked on the earth. He had, I observed, a flushed face and his robe was hiked up on one side, with sticks and smears of dirt testifying to his recent activities.

Old Grannus, who had survived his seventieth winter.

“Take your wife to whatever private place you have prepared for her,” he was saying formally to each married couple in turn, “and celebrate together until the honey moon wanes.” When he came to us he added, “It’s all right, Ainvar-Even the chief druid is not so indispensable we cannot spare him long enough to drink his cask of mead.”

Following marriage, each new couple was traditionally given a cask of mead, which was honey wine, to drink, and for whatever remained of the Beltaine moon they were allowed to be alone together.

Briga and I made the most of the nights and days of the honey moon. I had made a nest for us in a secluded glade deep in the woods, with a leather tent against the rain and one of my bodyguard* on duty at all times, within shouting distance but out of sight. We were rarely in the tent, however.

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Usually we slept beneath the trees and stars.

When our cask of honey wine was empty, we returned to the fort and my lodge, where I found a pile of gold ornaments just inside the door. “Where did these come from?” I asked Lakutu.

“They’re mine,*’ Briga interjected. ‘“I sent for them.”

“How? When?”

“After the Beltaine dance, while you were collecting our mead and supplies. I spoke to two of your men and asked (hem to go to my Sequani kinfolk and tell them mat I was now married to the chief druid of the Camutes, and must not be shamed before his tribe by my poverty. They sent this marriage portion,” she added

proudly.

‘ ‘You sent my messengers on an errand of your own? After we were married?”

“But of course,” she replied with a shrug.

Life resumed as before.

On a night of summer stars, Lakutu bore her child. When Briga fold me she was in labor, I summoned help, for she was not a strong woman anymore. The lodge was soon crowded to overflowing. I wanted to leave, but Lakutu called out to me and I stayed, though some of the women frowned at me when I got in their way.

Suits rubbed Lakutu’s belly with imported oil of sandaiwood, and Briga and Damona supported her in a squatting position to make birth easier. We chanted in rhythm with her efforts, all of us sweating together to produce life.