Myths of the Modern Man (14 page)

“
Come to me after,” she directed, and stepped inside.

For what?

Okay, okay, don’t jump ahead with the story. Be patient, Milly. I know your dirty little mind.

I hobbled off on a long staff made for me by Taliesin. I don’t know if he imparted to it any magic powers, but it got me around camp.

I found Cailte. He sat brooding by his own fire, filling up on mead instead of meat.

The woman brought him the mead. She did not look me in the eye.

“
My thanks for mending my clothes.” I said to her. She did not reply, but nodded, and turned away from me.

Cailte looked over his shoulder at her, curiously. I don’t think he knew she’d done my clothes for me.

“
More,” he said to her, “Then get out of my sight.”

“
You fought bravely.” I said to Cailte. He stood, and then kicked my staff out from under me. I fell hard on my back.

“
You are still a slave,” he said contemptuously.

I waited for my breath to return, and decided to lay there like a dog who shows submission to a larger dog, hoping not be bitten. That’s how charming I am. However, he did not sniff me over. He turned his back to me.

“
Go back to your mistress.”

“
She is my queen. She is your queen.”

“
Her daughter will be my wife. If she makes a reward of her to you, I will kill you.”

Ah, then it was not Boudicca he was after. I caught myself feeling relieved.

“
She must mean her daughters for young men, Cailte. I am past my years.”

“
You are not an old man.”

“
I am more old than young now. I have crossed that.”

He turned sullenly and looked at me.

“
And I am crippled,” I added.

“
For always?” his eyes narrowed, distrustful, as if he dared not hope it was true.

I shrugged.

I let him chew that over, and I think he may have softened towards me a little. He was still angry, dangerously resentful.

“
You have her confidence,” he said.

“
I know a little of Roman ways. For now, I am of use to her.”

He nodded.

I pulled myself up with difficulty. He did not offer to help me.

“
Does she love you? The one you want?” I did not trouble to ask which one. I’m not sure which one mattered to him.

“
Yes.” he looked insulted, and then repeated, “I would kill you.”

“
Where is your man?”

“
Worthless swine ran in the confusion. Another time I would bother to bring him back. It does not matter now, it can wait. The boy is well old enough to do his work.”

“
I am sorry you had misfortune with him. Still, you have fine servants in the other two.”

“
I am pleased you make use of them,” he said, inferring much more.

“
I would not presume to make use of them, yet I understand a servant’s life, and have pity. As you said yourself, in many ways I am still a slave.”

“
You have pity? They are well treated.”

“
For slaves, perhaps.”

“
How else should they be treated, if not as slaves?”

“
Like fellow Celts.”

“
You make a companion of the queen, of the queen’s daughters, and of my servant woman. You are quite an easy fellow.” There was venom in his baritone voice, and murder is his deep gray eyes.

“
Mac Cecht, god of eloquence, has truly blessed you, Cailte. I have no answer, except to offer you my friendship as well. For tonight, I salute your bravery and skill with your sword. Please return to your food. I would not keep you.”

I hobbled away. It was the only thing I could do under the circumstances. Well, not the only thing. I could have popped the uppity little bastard. I could have kicked his aristocratic ass. I had to remember that he was a man of his time, not that us humans have changed much in two thousand years, but I couldn’t sit down and have a chat with him about inalienable rights. There were none, not for slaves, not for peasants, not even for aristocrats like Cailte or Boudicca. Life and death was nearly the same for them as for the lower classes. You plunks down your dinars, you takes your chances.

I took a wide detour, and sneaked around to the rear of Cailte’s tent. The woman was lying under a blanket on a bed of straw. Her head rested on her arm, and her eyes were open. I lowered myself to an uncomfortable kneeling position, leaning on my staff, and motioned her to make no noise. She did not lift her head, nor say a word, but she looked me in the eyes this time, almost as if she expected me, or at least expected someone.

There was a figure beside her huddled under the blanket. Drowsy Bouchal’s head darted from underneath the blanket and emerged in startled confusion.

She rested her hand on his bottom, and patted him reassuringly.

“
Shh, Avic. Not the master. It is the friend. Sleep, you.”

He nestled back down beside her.

“
Does he call you mother?”

“
No.”

“
He should. Send for me if you have trouble,” I jerked my head towards the direction of the jerk by his fire.

“
My thanks. But go now.”

“
How long will you keep your eyes open?”

“
Until he is asleep.”

I did not need to ask who. There would be no sleep for her tonight if Cailte did not sleep. I pulled myself up, stifling a groan, and left her.

Dr. Ford would be interested in the woman with no name. He would ruminate on her interpersonal relationships as a foster mother and slave/concubine in ancient Celtic society. He would calculate her life expectancy. He would probably ask me how many teeth she still had. He would miss the whole point. He would miss the heartbreaking, ecstatic challenge of being alive here and now, and what she had to do to make that possible.

Could he ever appreciate how hard it was for her to live? How hard it was for me to stumble away?

She rolled onto her side, and gently draped her tired arm protectively over the boy.

Just survive, he says. We’ll take care of the analysis when you get back. Yeah.

Fires whipped by the night breeze dotted the dark field, and decorated with tents and the free-form design of thousands sleeping out in the open on the ground, not far from the mirror image of the dead who lay strewn on the battlefield and the city streets of Camulodunum.

Just before I reached Boudicca’s tent, I noticed with relief the sounds of torture from the forest behind us had stopped. The night sounds took over, normal sounds of the mysterious world of nature the druids found so evil and tried to appease. To me, it was just crickets, and I tried to forget everything else that made this night truly evil.

Boudicca’s tent was still lit from within. I felt silly relief. I entered.

Her maidservant covered her with a blanket. The servant went to her own corner and covered herself, pretending to be invisible.

Boudicca glanced at me as I stood in the tent’s opening, leaning on my staff. Cinnamon eyes, almost wine colored in the reflection of a torqueh bowl.

“
You will stay with me tonight.”

CHAPTER 11

Colonel Moore’s body was still absent from module. Eleanor chided herself, realizing that her increasing glances at the empty place were becoming automatic and ritual, and compulsive. Involuntary wondering leading to actual and unaccustomed moments of concern brought her pale eyes back to it.

Silly, really. Constantly reaffirming that there was no body under the clear shield did not vouch for the mission’s success. When he came back, that would be a kind of success. When he told them he had been to the mission location at the appointment time in past history, that would further speak of success. When he told them that he personally was as little involved in his surroundings or company as possible, thereby protecting the integrity of the mission, that would be the final feather in her cap. She hoped he would bring back some kind of tangible proof, though. It would make thing so much easier with General English.

She hoped he would not bring back a Celt. That would be so like him.

That her future directorship of this department, and of the hoped-for new agency, was dependent on John Moore, of all people, made her wince with pained irony. He was the least dependable person she had ever met. Well, no, that was not true. He was not undependable, but his attention to task had a lot to do with what he felt like doing at any particular time. His arrogance remained clearly his biggest liability, to himself and to others who had the misfortune to depend on him.

What Ford said about her wanting him, that was typical bait-and-switch debating, so like Cassius.

It could also be another handy knife in the drawer if she chose to use it.

She reviewed her projections again, but that was also futile. If she wasn’t wrong fifteen minutes ago, she wasn’t wrong now. She pushed away her keyboard like one of the half-eaten containers of cottage cheese in her refrigerator at her apartment, and refused to look at it anymore. Eleanor suddenly realized it was too late for damage control, should she need it. She had always left that sort of thing to General English. She realized now that was a mistake. He would look after his own interests. That was human nature, after all. No one would look after her, except herself. It had been that way since she was a child at the mercy of a neglectful mother and a bullying sister.

She had foolishly begun to rely on luck, and with stubborn belief in herself that made her now realize that she, too, could be accused of arrogance. Was that what John saw in her?

What did it matter what John Moore saw in her?

The door opened and closed with the soft warning click, and Dr. Ford quietly entered the lab, leaning against the closed door, his arms folded, and a slight smile on his face. Eleanor did not pretend to be busy this time.

“
Cassius,” she said, never calling him “C.C.” like everyone else for she liked the dignity of his name, “what happens if he doesn’t come back?”

Dr. Ford aborted his approach and looked a bit more shocked than she thought he should.

“
What?”

He cleared throat and folded his arms across his chest again.

“
To be truthful, Eleanor, I never once thought you’d fail.”

“
Really? Well, I suppose I should be flattered, but I’m really more surprised. I should think that Dr. L’Esperance had just now been filling your head with her insinuations of my failure….”

“
Eleanor,” he signed, “you take her too personally.”

“
Of course failure is an option, Cassius. But, I admit, I didn’t plan for it, and that’s the truth, too. How real is the general’s threat of a budget cut if this doesn’t pan out? Do you think that was only carrot and stick talk? I don’t really trust him.”

Dr. Ford, still with that lazy, incredulous, but bemused expression on his face, pulled out a stool and sat down.

“
I suppose the tightrope he makes us walk is real enough. We’re dependent on funding and public opinion. Why all this now, Eleanor? Is there anything going wrong? Or should you tell me?”

“
Should I tell you? That sounds suspiciously like a man who wants to protect his own back.”

“
Perhaps I do.” He smiled. Now it was her turn to be dumfounded.

She remained quiet a moment, and mechanically, even involuntarily, put her emotions in reverse thrust, an old habit when baited by her sister. She had learned to make herself unemotional, because her sister would only taunt her further if she sensed it made Eleanor emotional. Eleanor’s cheeks colored, she drew a deep breath and looked just over Dr. Ford’s shoulder to avoid eye contact.

“
Nothing has gone wrong so far, nor do I expect it to,” she replied, as if reading a speech, “I only wondered who I could count on if it did.”

Dr. Ford considered this. He stood and strolled to the console by the module.

“
Why did you prefer Yorke to Moore, Eleanor?” he addressed the console, but was never brave enough, or curious enough to touch it.

“
You read my evaluation.”

“
All very sound. But, suppose something went terribly wrong with this mission? Colonel Moore is an already very famous guy. A national hero,” Dr. Ford then added, “Whether he likes it or not. Losing him would be disastrous. I mean, from a publicity angle as well.”

“
So you feel Yorke was expendable?”

“
I wonder if you did.”

“
My God, Cassius, that’s a horrible thing to say.”

“
Yes. I guess it is.” He looked at the emptiness under the clear shield. He turned and faced Eleanor, being careful not to lean on anything or touch anything in the lab.

“
Eleanor, I, I have to leave. General English wants me up for a round table before the cameras. He’s concerned about the latest disaster in the Rockies ruining our chances for much prime time coverage this week. I’m to put a human face on the project and recount stories of what it was like for people two thousand years ago.” He smirked and shrugged modestly, and she admitted to herself that General English was finally learning to be smart about courting he press, and was equally glad that was his job and not hers.