Druids (56 page)

But for once my brain ran faster than my tongue. Before I could open my mouth, my head warned: Leave the credit with Rix. Let

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the bards sing of his sagacity. Druids do nol require praise for fulfilling the design of the Source.

I rewarded Onuava with my most opaque smile. “Perhaps your husband is simply more devious than you think—or should I say. clever? It is easy to underestimate the person you five with and overestimate the stranger.”

Behind her eyes, something measured me. “I don’t think I’m overestimating you, Ainvar. I’ll have to know you better to be sure.”

“We won’t have time to know one another belter.”

“Why not? Do you think the war is over?” Her fingers were rubbing the nape of my neck again.

“No,” I told her honestly. “We shall have a respite for a little while, that’s all. According to our patrols, Caesar has gone to the land of the Aedui to attempt to win the tribe back to him. But between our friend Litaviccus and the current chief magistrate, he’s going to have a hard time of it. He will be occupied for a while. But he’ll be back, Onuava; I assure you he hasn’t abandoned his plans for Gaul.”

“And what of your plans, Amvar? Will you go home while Caesar is away?”

I had meant to, actually. But it was a long journey and I had already missed Beltaine. I would have to wait another year before I could dance around the Beltaine tree with Lakutu.

Next year for certain, I promised myself. When Caesar is finally defeated and driven out of Gaul. Next year.

In the meantime Onuava leaned her warm body against mine and refilled my cup.

The king of the Nitiobriges, who had escaped the Romans half-naked, riding a wounded horse, suddenly leaped onto the nearest table and gave a mighty shout. “I am free!” he cried in drunken exultation. “We are all free! And the earth is drinking Roman blood!” He bellowed with laughter and everyone joined in, yelling, stamping their feet, beating on the nearest surface with cup

and fist and weapon.

Everyone but me. His reference to Roman blood had sobered me like cold water thrown in my face.

For the rest of the night, while the others celebrated, I sat quietly and thought druid thoughts. Onuava eventually moved away from me to lean on someone else but I hardly noticed her leaving. I was dismayed by a realization that I should have had much sooner—after our very first battle in free Gaul against Gaius Caesar.

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I was a druid. I knew the power of blood.

At first light I left the king’s lodge. Behind me, the drunken celebration continued unabated. As soon as I had joined Secumos in singing the song for the sun, I motioned to one of the sentries to open a gate and I left the fortress.

Below the massive walls ofGergovia the land fell away sharply. The whole area had seen savage fighting. Roman litter bearers had subsequently carried away their dead, but quantities of blood were still soaking into the earth.

Like a sacrifice.

Roman blood feeding and invigorating Gaulish soil.

Establishing a claim.

The earth is a goddess and not sentimental. As long as she receives her due, she does not ask the name of the sacrificer. Caesar had access to hundreds of thousands of men whose blood he could spend in the conquest of Gaul. Would his sacrifice ultimately outweigh ours? Would the claim of Roman blood be honored in the Otherworld?

I returned to Gergovia and sought out Secumos. For once I did not want to be with Rix.

The passage of the seasons was being kind to the Arvernian chief druid. His hair was as dark as ever, and his lean body and constantly moving hands were still agile. I could see the years in his eyes, though.

I wondered what he could see in mine.

I told him of my misgivings. “We need to discover a ritual to counteract the effect of all that Roman blood, Secumos.”

He had survived more winters than I, but I was Keeper of the Grove. With disturbingly total faith he said, “You cost Caesar the Aeduans, Ainvar; you’ll find the necessary ritual. The Otherworid will guide you to whatever needs to be done.”

He was looking at me as the warriors looked at Rix after the

victory ofGergovia.

The burden of another person’s belief can be crushingly heavy.

Shortly after highsun that day, reports reached us of fierce fighting and much bloodshed in the land of the Parish. The four legions that Caesar had sent north had gathered at a fishing village on the Sequana River, and were attacking a Parisian fort situated on an island in the river. After learning that Caesar had suffered a defeat at our hands and was having to deal with an Aeduan revolt, the neighboring tribes, including the ferocious Bellovaci, were all rising against the Romans.

Secumos and I went to the sacred grove of the Arvemi. Amid

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its trees, I opened the senses of my spirit and tried to reach the Otherworid, tried to find a new pattern of protection. But my bare feet were not touching earth I knew. The watching trees did not murmur my name. I needed to be in my own grove.

I could not admit failure to Secumos, however. Faith is magic too, and I must not destroy his, so I sent for his chief sacrificer and we offered cows and red cockerels and one of Rix’s African mares … over his protests. We chanted, we danced, we invoked the Source.

Meanwhile, with the battle of Gergovia won, Rix’s Parisian contingent was pleading more loudly than ever to be allowed to return home and defend its tribeland. Every tribe was being pulled in the direction of its self-interest. They all threatened to scatter like an explosion of stars.

Once more Rix held them. Summoning not only the princes but the warriors of all the tribes, he made a great speech, com-mending his army not only on its valor during the recent battle, but on something rarer to the Celtic nature, and more valuable in our current circumstances.

“You have accepted discipline,” Vercingetorix said. “You kept calm and lured the Romans into a trap. Now they are trying to do the same thing to you, but we will outsmart them. It would do you no good to hurry home, men of the Parisii, because no matter how fast you travel, the outcome will have been decided by the time you get there. Do not be impetuous. Rein in your tempers as the cavalry reins in their horses.

“We shall fight Caesar again,” he promised. “Not one of his commanders, but Caesar himself, and soon. But you must stay with me if you wish to take part in the battle that will win Gaul for us. It is not going to be determined by small victories m distant places, but by what happens when Gaius Caesar next confronts the King of the World!”

I was astonished to hear Rix apply that term in such an arrogant fashion, but it was exactly what the men needed to hear. They cheered him until some coughed blood.

Even upon learning that the Romans had won in the north, his

men did not lose faith in Vercingetorix.

“Isn’t he splendid?” Hanesa said enthusiastically. “He can do anything!”

We learned that following their victory in the north the four legions had marched to a permanent camp Caesar had established in the land of the Lingones. After a brief stay to collect additional

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supplies and weaponry, they set off on a three days’ march to rejoin Caesar, who by this time was in the land of the Senones.

The Aeduans had risen against him almost totally. Upon his return to his homeland, Litaviccus had been welcomed as a hero in Bibracte, the Aeduan stronghold, and had been called brother by the chief magistrate of the tribe. Leaving his legions in camp, Caesar had made various diplomatic forays to try to reestablish alliances with the Aeduan princes, but he had been heartily re-buffed. The Aeduans had been plundering Roman settlements in the region and they liked the taste of the goods they had seized. Our victory at Gergovia convinced them ours was the winning side, and so they rejected Caesar.

Caesar had not given up all hope of reclaiming the Aeduans. however, so he refrained from a total attack. Besides, he needed supplies from them—supplies they were of course refusing to give him.

Caesar found he had two choices. He could withdraw into the Province, or he could go north.

He marched north into the land of the Senones, where the four legions joined him.

Now the Senones among us screamed to go home.

In his lodge at night, Rix watched the Senonian princes with brooding eyes. I caught his surreptitious signal and went to his side. ‘ ‘A messenger arrived just a little while ago from Bibracte,” he said to me in a low voice not meant for anyone else to hear. ‘ ‘The Aeduans claim to be solidly in support of the Gaulish confederacy now. They want us to come to Bibracte to discuss a unified campaign to drive Caesar from Gaul.”

“With the aid of Aeduan warriors? That’s what you’ve been hoping for, Rix.”

“I know. But… but I cannot totally trust the Aeduans.”

“That is because your tribe and theirs are traditional enemies. You of all people know that tribalism must be set aside for the good of Gaul. You tell your princes that every day.”

“It is easier to give advice than to take it,” Rix said with a sigh. “We shall go to Bibracte, then.”

I felt a faint tremor of intuition. “Let me take time first to visit the grove and read the signs and portents. …”

“No, Ainvar,” he said, thrusting out his jaw. “Once my mind is decided, I act. We don’t need all that magic. We march. We’ve defeated Caesar once; now is the time to close with him and inflict the final defeat. That’s what he does to his enemies, isn’t it? Once

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he has them on the run he follows them and slaughters them mercilessly!”

Yes, my head agreed. That is the Roman pattern. But it has never been ours. I felt an unease I could not set aside.

On the evening before our army left Gergovia, I was making a circuit of the walls, with the stars and my thoughts for company, when Onuava intercepted me. She strode up beside me and matched her pace to mine. Onuava was a big woman with long legs; I did not tower over her. “If you’ve come to ask me to invoke protections for your husband,” I began, “I’ve already—”

“That isn’t why I’m here,” she interrupted. “No, don’t stop, just keep walking. I need to talk to you … about myself.”

Just then we saw the glow of a fire ahead of us. By its light several warriors were counting and stacking Roman weapons scavenged from the battlefield. They were removing iron javelin heads from broken wooden shafts and feeding the shafts to the flame, while arguing among themselves as to who would claim the best weapons.

Onuava approached them with a wide smile, clearly visible in the firelight. Her teeth gleamed. Stopping their work, the men gaped at the king’s wife. She gathered them all up with her smile like fish in a net, then turned back toward me, triumphant. “You see how the men like me,” she said.

I replied with a noncommittal murmur.

“Do you like me, Ainvar?”

Another murmur.

“You think I’m a simple woman, do you not? A big hearty female who enjoys men and food and probably snores.”

This came so close to the truth that it made me uncomfortable.

Onuava laughed. “I do enjoy men, and food, but no one has ever complained about my snoring. And I’m not simple. I don’t have a druid head, but I listen to everything said around me and I do my own thinking.

“I watch other people, too. I was watching you, the night after the battle. At first you were celebrating with the others, but then something gave you pause. Your expression changed and you seemed to gather a sort of darkness around you. You weren’t paying attention to me anymore, but that isn’t what bothered me. What bothered me was the expression on your face.

“You think Caesar is going to win, don’t you? Or even worse, you know he is going to win.”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly, surprised to find she had thrown me so off balance that we were even having such a con—

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versation. Onuava was right—she was not as simple as she seemed. I told her, “I’ve consulted for years with our best prophesiers and diviners and no one is able to give me a definite answer. There are just too many contradictory omens.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means me situation could go either way.”

“What will decide it, then?”

Once I would have given her some facile reply from an era when there were simpler answers and we of the Order thought we knew what there was to know. But life is change, and simplicity had been swept away on a Roman floodtide. Now, among the complex tangle of tribes and princes and personalities, ambitions and strategies and shifts of power, I could see no clear pattern. Even if there had been, Caesar and Vercingetorix, two men of inexhaustible energy and unyielding determination, would have pulled it apart between them and forced a new shape.

But if that were true, then living men, not the Otherworid, determined events.

Or was it possible that Caesar and Vercingetorix were but part of a still larger pattern, one I could not guess? Was the end to be determined not by them, or the Order, or even the world of the spirits as I understood it?

How much larger was reality than what I perceived?

What was really out there, beyond the firelight, in the night?

I came back from some lost and lonely pathway inside my head to find Onuava gripping my arm and peering intently into my face. “Ainvar? Speak to me, Ainvar!”

With an effort, I concentrated on her.

“For a moment I thought you were ill,” she said.

I passed one hand across my forehead from the silver streak to the opposite temple, following the line of the druid tonsure. “I’m all right. I was just thinking. Why are you asking me these questions, Onuava?”

‘ ‘I should mink that would be perfectly obvious,” she snapped. “Because I’m a woman.”

“Your womanhood is perfectly obvious,” I assured her, “but…”

“Women have to survive, Ainvar, don’t you understand? I need to know what to expect so I can make preparations. My husband and his warriors will ride off to glory no matter which way the tree falls, but what about their women? We shall be left behind with the future on our hands and in our wombs. Women have to