Final Solstice (16 page)

Chapter 20

Nearly two hours later, Mason finally looked up from the last page of the report. The only pages he wound up skimming were the bibliography and footnote sections at the end, already more than firmly convinced of her scholarly expertise by that point. But what had intrigued him the most was her ability to theorize and to fill in gaps in the agreeably scant and competing historical sources.

His mind was still spinning with fact and dates, with names of Roman generals and lieutenants, of British sites and ancient towns, geography and conditions, battle strategies and troop movements, political schemes and cultural beliefs. It was a time period he had known precious little about, a complicated era of Roman expansion that he had been all too happy to leave behind in the halls of high school history. But Shelby had fastened onto this era with relentless focus and enthusiasm, digging her teeth into all the material and shaking it for every drop of value.

She had focused on the Romans’ relentless drive to stamp out the local druids, a mysterious group of mostly Welsh practitioners of magical arts. They were a sect at once feared and loved by the Britons, and they moved among them with impunity, helping in cases and controlling in others. They had no written history, and as such, the legends about them sprang up through stories and oral history, and from classical writers of the time. Often competing, these sources were rarely backed up by anything other than simple myth and anecdote. They were compared to the priesthoods of antiquity, the Indian Brahmins, the Pythagoreans and the Chaldean astronomers of Babylon. Julius Caesar wrote that they “know much about the stars and celestial motions, and about the size of the earth and universe, and about the essential nature of things, and about the powers and authority of the immortal gods; and these things they teach to their pupils.”

Druids were attributed great powers: the ability to control nature especially, conjuring storms. They were able to direct the weather, causing rain or drought, fog and wind. They could turn day into night and cause blinding snowstorms to confound invading forces. There were stories of enemy troops besieged by wild animals at the command of just one or two of these hooded magicians, and equally unlikely tales that druids were capable of shape-shifting into animal form. They could glamour susceptible people into forgetfulness or charm them into falling in love. They could turn forests into armies and could induce (possibly through suggestive hypnosis) audible and visual hallucinations, making enemies believe they were surrounded by superior forces or eldritch adversaries.

However, despite all these powers, they were apparently still no match for the might of Rome. Starting in 43 AD, Claudius invaded Britain, and with successive incursions, the loose confederation of tribal areas fell to his legions—and those of his successors. But conquering a people and ruling them were different things altogether. Rebellions persisted, and certain areas further north still evaded Roman control. Throughout occupation, rumors of these druids stalking the Romans and stirring up trouble, rallying the local tribes, caused Rome no end of trouble. In 60 AD, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus was given the singular mission to stamp them out once and for all, and acting on information that the seat of druidic power was the Welsh island of Anglesey off the Northeast coast, he set off with ten thousand troops and began construction of narrow boats for the invasion.

It was here that Shelby’s treatise diverged from the more established history—which was colorful enough already. A few eyewitness accounts, plus the histories of Claudius, describe the next events. But as Shelby pointed out, this “history” should be rightly viewed through a lens of bias … as something written by the victors—or in this case, by the only side that kept a written history. Claudius relates a bizarre confrontation that occurred before the ultimate massacre on the island. The boats landed on the shore and the Romans found several thousand men and women waiting for them. Most were unarmed, just standing and chanting. Among them moved a few women in black robes, carrying staves and torches, singing and humming and calling down magical forces in tongues that couldn’t be translated. A Roman soldier recounted how his legion was struck with fear, overcome with the urge to flee before the surging waters could sweep them away. The trees and the brush and even the stones themselves rallied to stand in the way of the invaders. But somehow the tide was turned, the spell broken and Suetonius rallied his men into action. They stormed ahead and slaughtered everyone in their path, sparing none. Dispensing with superstition, they burned the sacred groves, shattered the altars and demolished the standing stones, laying waste to all the sources of claimed druidic power, hoping this would in fact end the control of the troublesome magicians.

Against this backdrop of blood, slaughter and fire, Shelby had found many inconsistencies. But primarily she had turned her focus to the one especially thorny aspect of reported druid behavior that had the Romans in a genocidal fury … that of human sacrifice. Rome had long since given up the practice of sacrificing humans to the gods, and couldn’t stomach it in any of their occupied lands. Finding that these lawless druids still engaged in the practice gave the invaders further impetus to stamp them out. However, as Shelby pointed out, the human sacrifice the druids practiced was of a different slant. Instead of one comprised of torture and pain upon an unwilling subject, it often took the form of a volunteer granting the use of his or her body. A martyr situation almost, for the greater good of the tribe or the grove. In some cases, it was undertaken just to right the imbalances in nature and cause a shift in weather or seasonal change. The body, housing the magical carcass of the soul, needed to be voluntarily rent open to release the powerful energy within, which could then fuel the change in the spiritual realm that controlled nature and the world.

So with that notion in the foreground, Shelby looked at the Massacre at Menai, as it was called, in a different light. By accounts, these druids were nearly clairvoyant, knowing everything that happened in their realms. That they could be blind and deaf to the movement of ten thousand troops against their most sacred center was beyond logic. That they would not be ready for a fight, with no weapons at the ready, with no means or intention even, of defense? Perhaps, Shelby reasoned, there was another explanation.

The solution, she extrapolated, had something to do with what happened next—or almost simultaneously back on the eastern side of the mainland. While Roman forces were focused on Anglesey, and the general and his top aides had pulled away from the occupied lands, rebellion struck. History doesn’t make such a direct connection, instead calling out other unaligned factors, but in any case, almost simultaneously with the massacre, the British queen Boudicca, in a move later immortalizing her as a symbol of national pride as well as putting her in epic Joan of Arc fame, massed an army and attacked the unsuspecting Roman legion guarding her city. With particular zeal and ruthlessness, her troops massacred five thousand men in an hour, and with the taste of blood in their veins, they continued on the march, moving on to Camulodunum and then on to Londinium (modern day London), sacking and burning the city, and then tearing through the Ninth Spanish Legion and doing the same to Verulamium (St. Albans). All told she destroyed some 80,000 Roman troops before Suetonius could rally his men, wait for reinforcements and then counterattack. Eventually he broke her resistance and with superior training and discipline, destroyed her army on the plains of the West Midlands. She would commit suicide before capture, but the damage had been done. Rome was left severely weakened, and Suetonius himself was recalled in disgrace shortly afterwards.

Shelby’s theory then, dealt with the sacrifice at Anglesey, for surely that was what it was. A willing sacrifice, one that could be seen in just such a military-strategic light: pulling an army’s strength away and allowing its weaker remnants to be picked apart. But that wasn’t all, Shelby insisted. There was a larger spiritual goal in mind, a cleansing perhaps of the land, one that was intended to right the balance and restore natural order. What’s more, the true incendiary claim in her paper was that the sacrifice—or the massacre—call it whatever you liked, wasn’t anywhere near what the history books (written by the Romans) tell us. For what was reported? A large force, unarmed, waiting for Suetonius. And moving among the crowd were hooded females, stirring up the air and the very atmosphere with song and fire and incantations.

These were surely the druids, Shelby argued. Maybe a handful of them, ten or twelve at the most. But those others? The ragtag “army” that chose to come and help out—without any weapons? Were they likewise druids? Unlikely. And if not druids, who? Again, not warriors, but just … people. Unarmed people that disturbed and frightened the overmatched Roman legions to the point of terror? This is where Shelby reminded the reader of the supposed powers of these druids. The ability to make the forest and the stones appear as men, to get into the heads of invaders and cause them to see that which wasn’t there.

Was the invasion of Anglesey a massacre of thousands of unarmed men and women? Or was it the sacrifice of only a dozen highly skilled druids who confidently gave their lives in a strategic ploy and magical gambit that would ultimately break down the invaders’ forces? Shelby went on to describe the most damning evidence in support of her theory—that archaeological digs on the island failed to find bones in quantities demanded by such a massacre. Nothing even close.

Mason closed the document and sat back, looking at his untouched plate of high calorie food. His mind spun, both with admiration of his daughter’s work, and with the coherent argument it made for a fascinating second look at history.

He turned his attention to the thumb drive, then looked at his watch. He had ten minutes, but they might be coming for him sooner. After inserting the thumb drive into the USB port, he waited, sipped at some lukewarm coffee and then sighed. The screen popped up asking for a password.

Frowning, he almost reached for his phone to call Shelby and ask about it, but then remembered that it was getting late over there and he better wait. Plus, he wasn’t supposed to have opened this. Still, he couldn’t imagine why she didn’t want him to read her paper. It was amazing work, really, and nothing to be concerned about. It would have been a great conversational piece for them. And Lauren! She loved history, and would eat this stuff up. She’d be so proud of Shelby, and Mason could see the two of them talking about the research all night long. Even his old boss Pamela would love this, and use it as further support in her possible hiring of Shelby down the road (if Solstice didn’t work out).

But all that would have to wait, as would whatever else was on the thumb drive. Was that what she didn’t want him to see?

He removed the thumb drive and put it in his pocket. That could all wait. Now it was time to work.

The news crew had arrived.