Druids (6 page)

The chief druid held out his hand, and Grannus placed a thin, sharp dart of polished bone on his open palm.

“Men must know they can endure pain,” Menua intoned.

I had expected something of the sort, but not at the start of the ritual. Though it was worse than I anticipated, I gritted my teeth and endured. When the bone needle entered Crom’s chest skin behind the nipple and came out again, I heard him gasp. Menua had pinched up the skin to avoid having the dart pierce the chest cavity, but the procedure was acutely painful in such a sensitive area.

Vercingetorix never flinched. A smile lifted the edges of his lips where the warrior’s moustache was already sprouting. “Perhaps they’ll have us demonstrate our prowess with a woman next,” he said out of the side of his mouth to me.

He was mistaken. Next we were each given a stone and told to place a bare foot on it while water was poured over our outstretched arms. “Stone does not yield,” said Menua. “Thereare times when a man must be like stone. Take the spirit of the stone into yourself.

‘ ‘Water does not resist. There are other times when a man must be like water. Take the spirit of the water into yourselves.”

I closed my eyes obediently and tried to feel like stone; like water. Somewhere between the two I encountered a shifting line that made me queasy. Startled, I opened my eyes.

“What about women?” Vercingetorix muttered.

Menua heard him.

The chief druid whirled on the Arvemian. Thrusting his face into the boy’s, he roared, “You have a confused idea of manhood! Tell me, child with a presumptuous name—if your people were attacked, would you defend them by climbing onto a woman?”

Several of the watching youths sniggered.

Vercingetorix took a step backward; Menua was almost on top of him. ‘ ‘Of course not. I ‘d take up a shield and attack the attackers with sword and spear.”

“Would you?” In the blink of an eye, Menua’s demeanor

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changed completely. He went from furious to courteous, he be-came a benign fellow calmly seeking information. “Would you really? And would that impress them?”

Vercingetorix was off balance. Having experienced the chief druid’s disconcerting changes of pace myself, I could almost feel sorry for him. He tried to sound as calm as Menua, but there was a faint stammer in his voice as he replied, “I’m wonderful with sword and spear.”

“Are you? Isn’t that nice for you.” Menua lifted his bushy eyebrows. Expecting it, I saw him change again. With sudden withering sarcasm, he snarled, “And if you had no weapons, King of the World, how then would you impress your enemies? With empty hands and a mouth full of wind, how could you frighten anybody?”

He turned away, as if Vercingetorix was no longer worthy of interest. The Arvemian burned red beneath his freckles. I doubted if anyone had spoken to the son of Celtillus in such a way in his life. I wondered if Menua had made an enemy.

The manmaking resumed as if there had been no interruption.

We were tested throughout a wearyingly long day. I tried to keep my sleepy head alert and not scratch my skin where the blood dried in itchy crusts.

When the sun was low in the sky, we faced the final challenge. Beyond me trees a wide pit had been dug, and in it Aberth the sacrificer built a fire of blackthorn, the wood-of-testing. Each group of three was told to select its heaviest member. Ours was obviously Vercingetorix. Carrying the heaviest between them, the other two were to leap across the pit where the flames were high-est.

“A man must know he can exceed his own limits,” Menua told us. “And a man must honor his promises. Each of you will promise the other two not to fail them.”

The pit was dauntingly wide. If the two jumpers did not make a mighty effort, or if the one balanced on their locked arms moved at the wrong moment, all three would fall and be burned, perhaps fatally.

Crom Daral’s nerve broke. He shrank against me. “I can’t do it, Ainvar,” he whispered.

Vercingetorix spared him only a glance, then said to me as if issuing a command, ‘ ‘Ask for someone else to be our third.”

Part of me was grateful for that instant, confident leadership. I almost surrendered to it. But Crom was blood kin and had long been my friend. I would not deny him his manmaking to please

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Vercingetorix. The Arvemi were of Celtic blood like us, but they were not us. We Camutes had gone to war against them in the past and would again; that was what tribes did.

My head would decide the matter.

‘ ‘We three are going to jump together,” I announced firmly.

Crom protested m a faltering voice. “But I’m too tired.”

My temper frayed. “We’re all tired! We’re supposed to be, this isn’t meant to be easy for us. Neither is it impossible or they would not ask it. The tribe needs new men.”

Crom’s lower lip jutted forward. His eyes were blank, reflect-ing the flames. “I can’t.”

“Leave him,” said the Arvemian.

A voice murmured in my mind. I clutched the idea before it could fly away. “I know what we can do, Vercingetorix. Help me. Collect an armload of rocks, hurry!”

He stared at me. He was not accustomed to taking orders from someone his own age. Feeling the powerful tug of wills between us, I became very aware of the awesome strength of his.

Summon the spirit of the stone, said the voice in my head.

I obeyed. I concentrated; I became stone.

A heartbeat passed. Another. Then Vercingetorix grinned and I knew I had won.

We loaded Crom’s arms with rocks until he was heavier than either of us. Then he sat on our locked arms and Vercingetorix and I leaped the blazing pit.

We left the ground in stride like a team of trained chariot horses. Up, up! Beneath us the fire snarled and crackled. A thrill ran through me, but it had nothing to do with the danger.

We soared’

Linked together we became more than two, Vercingetorix and I. For that brief flight we were one creature with the combined abilities of both, and something more. Something glorious.

When we landed on the far side of the pit and set Crom down, Vercingetorix looked at me and I knew he had felt it too, that numinous moment when together we could have leaped a pit twice as wide, over flames twice as high. We exchanged a glance of exultation.

Crom intercepted the glance. He sagged and sat down cross-legged on the earth, staring dully at the pit.

Five sets of boys fell. Two were badly burned.

The manmaking concluded, Dian Cet laid hands on each of

our heads in turn. I hardly felt the touch of the druid Judge, or

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heard his voice as he said, “Tonight you are a man, Ainvarofthe Carnutes.”

My senses were still flooded with the feeling ofVercingetorix’s hands clamped on my arms, and the memory of transcendence as we soared above the fire.

When we returned to the fort, Vercingetorix and I walked side by side. We did not speak, but I was increasingly aware of the tidal pull of his personality, drawing me to him. Whatever was in him had been intensified by his manmaking.

Of course, my head affirmed. That is the purpose. A small feast was served to the newly initiated men. I sat beside Vercingetorix, and we shared a few oatcakes and a lot of wine. At some point in the festivities I found myself calling him Rix.

We had a succession of sun-soaked days together before Gobannitio returned to take Rix home. During that time I told him of my family and he told me of his, particularly of his ambitious father, Celtillus, who was warring against the Aedui in the south. Celtillus dreamed of making the Arvemi the supreme tribe in Gaul, Rix confided, although me king of the tribe had smaller goals and was content with things as they were.

“My uncle Gobannitio agrees with the king,” Rix said. “He says we would lose more men than we can afford to lose if we tried to subjugate all the tribes of Gaul.”

“What do you think?”

Rix smiled. “I like a bold dream.”

“You’ll never defeat the Camutes,” I assured him, but I laughed as I said it and there was no hostility between us. We had become friends. We fished in the river and rolled our eyes at the women and the time we had together was too short.

“Perhaps you have found a soul friend,” Menua suggested to me in private.

“What is a soul friend?”

“A person you have known … before. And almost remember. A person with whom you have a special link. When one of such a pair is a druid, the druid is obliged to serve as guide and counselor for his soul friend.”

“Does Vercingetorix know about soul friends?”

“I doubt it,”

” Should I tell him?”

“He might laugh at you; he might not understand,” Menua replied with a perceptiveness I would only appreciate later.

My head knew Menua was right; the Arvemian and I were soul

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friends. I recognized the spirit that looked out at me from Rix’s long-lidded eyes.

I began taking my obligation seriously, giving him much gra-tuitous advice. To my surprise, he accepted it, or at least listened.

Rix had a habit common to those who live with others. He announced what he was going to do before he did it, often in unnecessary detail. “I’m going to bed now, I’m sleepy and I want to be fresh for hunting tomorrow,” he would say. Or, “I’m going outside for a piss, my belly is too full of wine.”

As Menua had advised me, I advised Rix. “Don’t announce your intentions so freely. The less others know, the better.”

“Secrecy is for druids,” he replied.

“Secrecy could be good strategy for warriors, too,” I suggested.

Rix studied me through narrowed eyes. “You are clever, Ain-var.”

His compliment embarrassed me. “I use my head,” I said diffidently.

“If you find anything else in that head of yours that might be of use to me, share it. I’m trying to assemble an armory.”

“The King of the World will need one.” I could not resist teasing.

He hit me. I hit him. We rolled in the dirt, punching and pounding, until laughter broke us apart.

When Gobannitio came for Rix our leavetaking was awkward. We had almost been enemies; we had become more than friends. We were not bards and so did not have the agility of tongue to express our feelings-In near silence, I helped Rix collect his things in the lodge. When he lifted his rolled bedding onto his shoulder, he said, “Beware of the man with the crooked shoulder, Ainvar. He failed himself at the manmaking and you were a witness. He won’t forgive you for having seen his weakness.”

“You don’t understand, Rix. Crom was my friend.”

“Just remember what I said. You have a clever head, but I am a pretty good judge of men.”

“I’ll remember,” I promised.

At the doorway he turned back toward me. Had we belonged to the same tribe we would have hugged fiercely, grabbed one another by the beard, and kissed both cheekbones. But he was

Arvemian and I was Camutian. A chasm yawned between us.

Rix grinned. “We jumped the pit together, Ainvar,” he said unexpectedly.

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We threw our arms around each other then and hugged hard enough to crack bones.

His parting words to me were,’ ‘I salute you as a free person!

“And I, you!” I shouted as he strode away.

I did not follow him to the gate. I did not want to stand with the others, waving as Gobannitio and his nephew drove away. I knew Vercingetorix would never look back.

I was alone, and I was a man.

I would be a druid.

MY INSTRUCTION RESUMED; my classrooms were the glades of the forest. Menua wanted me to absorb the wisdom of the trees. Druid, as he explained to me, meant “having the knowledge of the oak.”

He said, “When men were as vapor, trees were vapor. The forests are older than memory and time is stored in their roots and branches. It is the nature of trees to be generous, so open yourself and be still. Receive what they impart.”

I learned to listen to the trees.

Of my generation, I was the only person within a day’s walk being trained in druidry. Menua spoke wistfully of bygone years when many gifted youngsters had presented themselves for training and the forest had rung with voices reciting in chorus. He could not explain the shortage of hopefuls for the Order, and it weighed heavily on him.

“But things are as they are,” he told me with a sigh. “Until the pattern presents us with more talented people, I have only you to instruct in the natural sciences.”

We were sitting in a small glade, he on a fallen tree and I cross-legged at his feet. The current topic for study was the Greek language, and we had been discussing the term “natural sci—

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ence,” by which the Greeks meant the druidical arts. Menua admired the Greeks; he knew their writing and their customs. Menua knew everything, almost.

“The Greeks understand us better than the Romans,” he told me. “The Romans call us ‘priests,’ which is a mistake. The Hellenes who used to trade with the Camutes in my youth referred

to druids as ‘philosophers.’ When I learned to understand their language, I realized the term was appropriate.

“Once the various Greek tribes traveled more or less freely throughout Gaul, before their subjugation by the Romans. I miss them, Ainvar. They were interesting people with subtle minds. I once had a discussion with a Greek who called himself a ‘geographer.’ and appeared to grasp the concept of the pattern as readily as a Celt.”

“I’m not certain I understand about the pattern myself,” I admitted. “You speak of it so often. But just what is it?”

Menua pointed toward the interplay of light and shadow among the branches above us. ‘ ‘There is the pattern. From star to tree to insect, each fragment of creation is part of one design, the pattern of being, that extends unbroken from the Otherworld to this world. The pattern is constantly in motion, connecting us in life and in death to the Source of All Being.”

“But how do you recognize the pattern?” I asked, staring at the branches that were only limbs and leaves to me.

Menua nodded slowly. “Now’you give voice to one of the greatest of questions. When you know the answer, you will know yourself to be a druid. You will have learned from experience to feel the pattern in your bones and your blood.”