Druids (62 page)

I was deeply moved, and deeply ashamed. I had thought Rix indifferent to the concepts of druidry—yet he could teach us all about sacrifice. In his nobility he made the rest of us feel ennobled just by belonging to the same race of men.

386 Morgan Llywelyn

Some of the men in the assembly house were openly weeping by now.

We were a people who cried.

“No!” a voice shouted.

Onuava ran forward, thrusting her way through the crowd until she stood in front of her husband. “No!” she cried again. “Don’t leave it up to Caesar! Go to him alive! You are a resourceful man;

as long as there is breath in your body you may find some way to escape him and come back to us.”

He looked at her from under heavy lids. “You think I should grovel at his feet, then?”

She drew back in horror. “A king of the Arvemi? Grovel at the feet of a Roman? I ‘d rather see you dead!”

In spite of himself, Rix laughed. Many of us did. Onuava reddened, a thing I would not have thought possible.

Rix said to his wife,’ ‘You see? It’s an impossible choice. That’s why I prefer to leave it to Caesar. It’s the only bribe I have left to offer him. but the Romans understand bribes.”

“It’s too large a price to pay,” said Cotuatus. “Your life for ours …”

“My life is forfeit in any case,” Rix reminded him. “You know as well as I do that Caesar will kill me, one way or another. But there’s no reason everyone here should die with me if it can be prevented.”

“It is better to die than to live enslaved,” I spoke up. “Death is only temporary.”

Rix turned toward me. “You truly believe that, druid?” he asked as if the two of us were alone.

“I do. I know it.”

He sighed. “If we had enough time, perhaps you could convince me. I wish you could. But we’ve run out of time. This will have to be just another of those unfinished conversations. …” He turned back toward the gathering. “Choose a deputation to send to Caesar,” he told them. “Now.”

Onuava put her hands over her face.

Rix patted her absentmindedly on the shoulder, men said to me, “If Caesar wants me killed now, Ainvar, I command you to do it.”

I went cold. “I’m not a sacrificer!”

“You were taught to use the knife though, weren’t you? And you’re my friend. Who else could I ask?” Then he added, with ironic amusement, “Besides, if you don’t believe in death you won’t be doing anything so terrible to me.”

DRUIDS 387

He had a clever head! Vercingetorix would have made a great druid. He would have been superb at anything he did. His eyes locked with mine compellingly. I felt the final crushing weight of

the final crushing responsibility press down on me.

When I was afraid to watch a sacrifice, all those long years ago, was I foreseeing and dreading this moment?

While we waited for the deputation to return from Caesar, Rix went to his tent. I wanted to be with him; Onuava wanted to be with him. The princes of Gaul wanted to be with him. But he insisted on being alone.

I understood. There are arrangements a man must make with his spirit that can only be made in privacy.

I had my own arrangements to make.

Sending for the Goban Saor, I asked him to search out the finest knife in the fort, and sharpen it to its utmost.

“Soul friend,” I kept repeating to myself while I waited. “Soul friend.”

The deputation returned from Caesar

And Vercingetorix sent for me.

WITH THE SHARPENED knife thrust through my belt, I went to him. My mouth was dry. My emotions were hidden behind an impassive face.

The first light of dawn was staining the eastern sky, but I did not pause to smg the song for the sun. There was no singing left m me.

The inhabitants of Alesia and the surviving warriors, huddled in silent groups, watched as I passed. The warriors no longer divided themselves by tribe, my head observed. Aeduan, Arvernian, Parisian, Senonian, they stood together. They were now simply the Gauls—

38S Morgan Llywelyn

Vercingetorix had made of them one tribe after all.

He was waiting for me inside his tent. “I greet you as a free person, Ainvar,” he said as I entered.

“And I, you.”

“I wanted to hear those words one more time. Caesar has sent for me to be brought to him alive.”

A rush of contradictory emotions overwhelmed me so I could not speak.

Rix glanced at the knife in my belt. “You won’t need that.”

“Unfortunately,” I managed to say.

“Yes, I think you are right. But … this is what the Roman wants. Myself, alive, in return for whatever mercy he may show my people.”

“Do you really believe he will be merciful?”

“I’m gambling, Ainvar. Caesar has been known to make gestures of extraordinary generosity.”

“To serve his own purposes.”

*‘I know that. I’m gambling that this time it will serve his purpose to be generous to a defeated enemy in order to avoid stirring up further resistance.”

“Caesar might not think that way,” I warned.

“I know that too. If I am wrong, and he means to take revenge on our people even after I have given myself over to him … will you try to get the women and children out, Ainvar?”

“I will. I made plans for that eventuality some tune ago.”

“Ainvar me thinker. I should have known. How do you propose to rescue them?”

“Magic,” I replied solemnly.

He laughed. It was the last time I ever heard Vercingetorix laugh.

I accompanied the deputation that escorted him to Caesar-He could not have kept me away and he knew it. The escorts had been promised safe conduct back to Alesia once Vercingetorix was delivered, but even if we knew Caesar meant to kill us all on the spot I would have gone with Rix.

He was my soul friend.

He dressed for the occasion in his best tunic, all his gold jewelry, his kingly cloak lined with wolf far. The black stallion, last surviving horse in Alesia, was bony but burnished with loving hands, and when he sat on its back the animal snorted softly and curved its neck with pride in the old way.

Our silent group walked down the slope from Alesia toward the Roman camp. Caesar had set up his command tent on a little

DRUIDS 389

knoll, where the eagle standards could be seen stabbing the sky. Even at a distance the crimson dot that was the Roman’s cloak was clearly visible as he waited for us.

Vercingetorix approached Caesar wearing the full regalia of a champion and carrying all his weapons of war. As we drew near the Roman line, I saw how the enemy eyes were assessing him. Even in defeat, without the braying of the trumpets and the screams of defiance and the clashing of shields, the Celt could arouse dread in his foes.

Vercingetorix had cast aside his battered and dented shield and carried a new one, patterned with spirals and set with bronze bosses. A gold-plated belt around his waist held a dagger, but at his right hip he wore his father’s massive long sword, too heavy for a lesser man to wield. One hand held the reins of the black stallion. The other carried a casting spear with an iron head almost as long as a Roman sword.

Vercingetorix rode calmly at the walk, but he rode with his arm cocked back and the spear lifted, ready to be hurled.

The Romans watched him approach. Tension rippled along their lines. They raised their weapons. We heard Caesar bark a command, and his men froze.

Uttering one wild, free cry, Vercingetorix suddenly urged his horse forward in a full gallop. With a splendid feat of horseman-ship he raced in a circle on the plain before the Roman command tent, letting the enemy see the full glory of who and what he was;

who and what we were.

My heart ached in my breast. My eyes blurred with tears.

When the black horse had gone fall circle, Vercingetorix reined him in so sharply the animal rose onto his hind legs and pawed the sky. At that moment, the King of the World threw his spear.

It sang a song of death through the air, and thudded into the earth, quivering, at the very feet of Julius Caesar.

Caesar was seated on a Roman campaign stool in front of the command tent. During Vercingetorix’s display he had not moved. Even when the spear was thrown he reacted with no more than a flicker of his eyelids and an involuntary tensing of the muscles in his bare arms as they rested on the arms of the stool.

With the last brave flourish of his youth, Vercingetorix flung back his cloak and slid from his horse while the spear still quivered in the earth. He stood immobile beside it for a long moment, his head high. Then he knelt and laid his father’s sword at Caesar’s feet.

The conqueror only stared, stony and cold and silent.

390 Morgan Llywelyn

“Do you speak the Roman tongue?” an aide beside Caesar asked.

“I can interpret,” I said.

Caesar’s gaze slanted toward me. I wore the hooded robe but the hood was thrown back; his eyes rested on my tonsure.

“Druid?” he inquired. His voice was high-pitched and rasping.

“I am of the Order of the Wise.”

“Sorcerers,” sneered the Roman. “We shall rid this land of your kind now. As for you,” he addressed Vercingetorix, ‘ ‘what have you to say to me?”

I repeated his question to Rix, then carefully translated his reply.

“Once you sent me tokens of friendship, Caesar. If they were sincerely meant, I remind you of them now. I ask you in the name of friendship to spare the lives of the men who fought beside me. They fought nobly and sought no unfair advantage, and their cause was just, the cause of freedom, which you yourself must prize. Do what you like with me, I am your battle trophy. But spare my men as I would spare yours. It was never our way to humiliate a defeated enemy.”

Caesar listened to this without shifting on his seat or taking his brooding gaze from Vercingetorix. When I finished speaking he said, in that waspish voice, “Barbarians have no concept of friendship or of honor. I have seen that proven time and again in Gaul. I have extended the hand of friendship on numerous occasions, only to be betrayed. I no longer make that mistake. The only enemy I do not fear is a dead enemy—or a man in chains.”

He raised his chin and snapped his fingers. Men ran forward and seized Vercingetorix. It happened so fast he had no time to struggle, but he did not attempt to struggle. He let them bind him and pull him to his feet in front of Caesar.

As thin as he was, the Arvemian was impressive drawn up to his full height. His long Celtic bones made him a head taller than the tallest legionary. The ghost of a smile crossed Caesar’s lips. “I shall take you back to Rome with me, to show the people just what sort of a creature I was able to conquer. You won’t die, at least for a while. You will be my trophy, as you said.”

I felt strong hands take hold of me from either side. The Ro-mans grabbed and held each member of our deputation, forcing us to watch what happened next.

Caesar, looking amused, signaled to his watching centurions to come forward and examine the captured barbarian. It was a

DRUIDS 391

deliberate insult. We watched in helpless rage as they stepped forward to taunt Vercingetorix and spit on him.

But he did not notice. He stood immobile, gazing over the heads of the Romans into some distant, inner space they could not penetrate. He let them swarm over him like gnats, but paid them not the smallest attention. The Romans were less than nothing to him, his bearing said; they did not exist in any world he knew or understood. And so he was not touched by them, though they ran their hands brutally over his entire body, poking at the iron muscles in an admiration they could not quite conceal. Stroking up the great length of leg and arm bone, even hefting the genitals and exchanging meaningful glances, for who could fail to be impressed by the equipment he carried?

Yet none of this touched Vercingetorix. When they fumbled beneath his tunic, he did not even feel it. They had no power to make him feel it. At last they felt the stinging lash of ridicule turned back upon them in some silent, terrible way. They withdrew, smirking to preserve some sense of superiority, leaving Vercingetorix alone in a bright, hard place they could never reach.

I was glad, in that moment, that I had not killed him. His spirit had won a victory over them and everyone watching knew it.

Caesar knew it. His lips drew back in a snaii. “Go back to your fort,” he said to me, “and tell your people to have all the gates thrown open to my men.”

The Romans released us. They sent us back to Alesia at the run, shouting derision after us.

I risked one backward look. Vercingetorix was standing exactly as before, in front of Gaius Caesar, gazing beyond him.

I wondered what he saw.

The Gauls were waiting for us at the gales of Alesia. They crowded around, pulling at our clothes, imploring us to give them some sort of good news.

There was no good news.

“Is it to be slavery, then?” someone asked with a sob of despair.

I saw Onuava’s white face staring toward me from the crowd.

I shook my head. “We can expect no mercy from Caesar. I think he’ll take the most salable among us as slaves and have the rest of us killed. But we’re going to try to save as many women and children as we can, especially the children. Now, listen to me …”

They listened. No druid ever had a more intense audience.

By the time the sentries on the wall warned us the legions were

392 Morgan Llywelyn

forming up and would soon advance on Alesia. we were ready. The children and the strongest of the mothers, the ones who stood the best chance of surviving, were gathered at a side gate. Just inside the gate stood the wheeled wooden platform the Goban Saor had made, carrying an object covered with leather painted with druidic symbols. The Goban Saor and Cotuatus would serve as draft horses for the strange vehicle. They stood in front of it, awaiting my signal.

I sent everyone else who was still strong enough to do so to climb the ladders to the tops of the walls. They had their instructions. “We are going to work magic together,” I had told them. “Each of you is alive and life is magic, so there is magic inside each of you. Use it today.”