Druids (16 page)

I would not have accepted it anyway.

Blisters formed and broke and reformed. We traveled on. When we came to herders’ camps and fanning villages, we were given hospitality; there was singing around the fires. Day followed night followed day. One night I realized I had joined in the singing and forgotten the pain. The next day it was gone.

Our way took us to Avaricum, stronghold of the Bituriges, a fortified town like Cenabum. Avaricum was protected by marsh and river and embraced with a wall of huge beams laid crosswise, the spaces between filled with rubble, the whole faced with boul-ders. Buried in earth and stone, the beams were impervious to fire and could not be shaken by a battering ram. The Bituriges claimed Avaricum was the finest town in Gaul.

Their chief druid, Nantua, made me welcome and promised me instruction in their grove, but the most important thing I learned from him had nothing to do with the Order. He happened to mention, quite casually, that war had broken out among the Arvemians.

“War within the tribe?” I asked in surprise.

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“A new leader has taken control and a prince who hoped to be king himself, a man called CeltiUus, has been slain.”

I almost choked on the wine I was drinking. CeltiUus was father to Vercingetorix.

Though I pressed Nantua for more information, he knew little. He had received the message m the usual way, through shouts borne on the wind. No details. Abandoning any further druidic instruction, I told Nantua I must go south at once.

He chose to be insulted. “You won’t learn as much from the Arvemians as you could here.”

“I am certain you’re right,” I said tactfully, “but I have an Arvemian friend who may need me.”

“A friend? In another tribe?” Nantua lifted his eyebrows at such an unlikely situation.

“He’s my soul friend.”

“Ah.” Nantua nodded, mollified. “Does this Arvemian know you are soul friends?”

“I doubt it,” I admitted. Intuition told me Rix had little interest in the tenets of druidry-He was a warrior; his mother had baked him with a hard crust.

We set off agam and this time I pushed the pace. Baroc complained that the mule had not had time to rest. Baroc was a bondservant working off a debt to my clan. He was a yellow-haired man with a small mind but a large capacity for complaining. Since the mule was not complaining, I paid him little mind.

Central Gaul was seething with birthing and planting, but already anticipating the sunseason langor that would precede harvest. When the wind blew green and heavy with bee-hum, men would sing or sleep or drink or contest; women would meet to exchange ways of plaiting hair, or to gossip by wells and springs. A free people, we loved our leisure and worked hard to earn it.

But something was wrong. As the newly planted einkom and emer sprouted, the fields showed shadings I did not like. Birds flew in strange, broken patterns. We saw a flock of small-homed ewes, usually the most placid of creatures, flee in panic from a configuration of clouds that swept over them.

Something was wrong. I lengthened my stride and increased our pace.

Following the river Alher, we reached the highland plateau which signaled that Arvemian territory lay just ahead of us. By now the air tingled with trouble. To my surprise, Tarvos, whom I had thought the least sensitive of men, began carrying his shortsword openly in his hand. I pulled the druidic amulet out of the

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neck of my tunic and displayed it prominently on my chest, and told Baroc to keep a tight hold on the mule.

The Arvemians we met along the traders’ trackway were closemouthed and wary. No one wanted to talk about the death of CeltiUus. If I asked too many questions, people turned surly or hurried away from us. Not until the walls of the great fortress of Gergovia rose in the distance did we happen to meet a bard who was willing to talk.

That was his name: Hanesa the Talker. Florid and stocky, with a pattern of broken veins across his nose, the bard had a rich, full mane of hair and a rich, full voice as well. Even in casual conversation he spoke with rhetorical flourishes.

When I told him we were going to Gergovia, Hanesa grew lyrical about the size and strength of the principal stronghold of the Arvemi, claiming it made both Avaricum and Cenabum shabby by comparison. When I asked if he knew of Vercingetorix, his grandiloquence knew no bounds. “That young man is the most ferocious fighter ever bom m Gaul!” he cried, waving his arms. “I have watched him at play and in training, and I tell you no man is his physical equal. He has the strength of ten and his character is of the noblest. He is much admired …”

“As was his father?” I asked innocently.

“Ah. Mmm.” Hanesa’s spate of words dried away. He eyed me speculatively, pleating his lower Up between his fingers. “What does a Camutian know of CeltiUus?”

“I heard he was killed recently. And I am concerned; his son Vercingetorix is a friend of mine.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” The sun came back; Hanesa beamed. “I am a friend of his myself and am just now on my way to find him. He is my destiny.”

This statement was so pompous, and uttered with such seriousness, I had to fight to keep from smiling and insulting the man. “Oh, really?”

“Indeed he is! I mean to be the most celebrated bard in Gaul, which requires I have stories to tell that none other can equal. I shaU acquire those stories at the elbow of a mighty hero, a man fated to do great things. Since his birth, such an existence has been prophesied for Vercingetorix. Since recent events have driven him from Gergovia, I have, ah, been settling some affairs of my own, and just now am free to join him. If you are a friend of his you are welcome to come with me.”

‘ ‘Why did he have to leave Gergovia? ” As I asked this, I conspicuously fingered my gold amulet, so Hanesa, who as a bard

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was also a member of the Order of the Wise, would know I was someone to be trusted.

Asking a bard a question is like tipping a brimming jug. Soon we were all off the road and sitting in the shade of a tree, and Baroc, at my command, was portioning out bread and cheese while Hanesa described the recent upheaval in his tribe.

As he talked, he ate right-and left-handed. Every bard I have ever known has had a voracious appetite. As the food vanished into Hanesa’s maw, I imagined how Baroc would complain about having his share given to a stranger. Princes and druids have to be hospitable. Bondservants do not.

Between mouthfuls, Hanesa told us, “The trouble goes back for generations-As I’m sure you know, the Arvemi once were supreme among all Gaulish tribes.” He paused for effect, watching to see if I contradicted him.

Since I wanted him to go on talking, I kept quiet, though any number of tribes make the same claim and it is no more true of the Arvemi man of any other. Dominance among the tribes has always been a shifting business.

‘ ‘The noble prince Celtillus became obsessed with a dream of returning our tribe to their former eminence,” Hanesa went on. ‘ To that end he sought the kingship when our old king outlived his strength. But the title was contested and another man won the election. Celtillus took it hard. He would not accept his defeat … though he was famed both for his wisdom and his magnanimous spirit!” Hanesa could not resist declaiming. His eyes sparkled, his throat vibrated, his speech abounded with chortles and exclamations. Listening to him was a feast.

‘ ‘To defend his position against the continuing threat of Celtillus and his followers, the new king sought help. He did not, you will appreciate, feel secure in his kingship, and he mentioned this to the Roman traders in Gergovia, with whom he was doing a sizable business.”

At the mention of Romans I felt myself stiffen as if Menua had nudged me. Hanesa finished his meal and continued his recital.

“The traders relayed this information to their principals, and in time help was offered. By someone. Arrangements were made, no one will say what or by whom. But within the last moon the body of Celtillus was found hacked to death in a ditch, and when his oldest son, who discovered it, went wild with grief, the new king, Potomarus, had him driven from Gergovia under threat of death.”

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My heart ached for Rix, the oldest son. “Who actually killed Celtillus, bard?”

“No one admits knowing the answer. But history is my profession; I know how to ask questions so I can pass on the truth of events to future generations. Through sources I must protect I learned that the traders told Celtillus he could make a special deal for weaponry and additional warriors that would enable him to take the kingship by force. Someone—no names given—would meet him in secret and take him to yet another secret location where the deal could be struck.

“But only Celtillus was struck. Those who saw his body afterward say the wounds in his flesh were of the shape Roman swords make.” Hanesa dropped his voice to a sinister whisper.

“Why would Roman traders or their principals involve themselves in a struggle for control of the tribe?”

Hanesa shook his head. ‘ ‘Who can say? To protect their established trading partner, Potomarus, I suppose. But Celtillus died and with him died his dream of gathering all the tribes of Gaul under Arvemian leadership. A foolish dream, really,” he added with another rueful shake of his head. “But glorious.”

The dream was indeed foolish, my head observed; just the sort of dream Celts adored. Free Gaul comprised over sixty tribes, both large and small, who agreed on nothing but me pleasure of fighting one another to demonstrate their manhood. The idea of forcing them to accept a single leadership was preposterous.

“What of Vercingetorix now?” I wanted to know-Light leaped in Hanesa’s eyes. “Ah, they should have killed that one when they killed his father. He has been shaken by what happened, but when he recovers he will take a spectacular revenge, that’s his styie. I’m on my way to offer myself as his personal bard because I want to be on hand to see it happen.”

Of course, I thought. Revenge spawns epics.

“Let us go to him at once, Hanesa,” I urged. “I’m anxious to know he’s all right.”

“As am I. But be careful of anyone we might meet along the way. Tempers are still running high on both sides.”

“No one would harm a druid,” I said.

Tarvos spoke up unexpectedly. “Which you aren’t, Ainvar. Not yet, anyway.”

I shot him an annoyed glance that bounced off him like a spear off oxhide. I could not intimidate Tarvos.

Rix had taken refuge below Gergovia, on the west bank of the Allier. To reach him we had to make our way through a stand of

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second-growth woodland clogged with underbrush. I understood trees; while they clawed at Hanesa I slipped through easily.

“You northern tribes are as forest-wise as Germans,” the bard said bitterly the third time his face was scratched.

I bristled. Being classed with the Germans was an insult to any Gaul.

Like ourselves, the people who lived across the Rhine were divided into a number of tribes. We called these tribes by the common title of Germani, or Germans, though some of them claimed Celtic blood and had legends similar to ours. There was no friendship between Gaul and German, however. They were hostile and aggressive nomads; we occupied prosperous, settled territories with fortified strongholds. The Germans had no druids. They lived in dense forests, which they never bothered to clear, and many of them reputedly went naked both summer and winter or dressed in the raw skins of bears. We considered the Germanic tribes to be brutes of low cunning and disgusting habits.

There was no denying they were awesome in battle, however. They retained a ferocity celebrated in our own bardic legends, but now rarely practiced by the Gaulish Celts. The Germans were a constant threat on our borderlands, where they slaughtered and plundered. The Aedui in particular had lost territory to them.

Tribal pride had led Hanesa to insult me; of course I could not accept it. Making my voice as cold as iron on a winter’s night, I said to him, “No matter what your Celtillus believed, the Arvemians are in no way superior to the Camutes. Quite the reverse, in fact. If anyone should lead the Gauls it should be my tribe.

“May I remind you that the greatest of all sacred groves, the true heart of Gaul, is in our territory? “

That stopped him. For almost sixty paces Hanesa the Talker said nothing at all.

Gnats hummed, thickening Ac air. I swatted at them to keep them from my ears and nostrils. We were close to the river now;

I could smell her water. Rivers are female. Goddesses, each with her own name and properties, though each is an aspect of the Source. The Sequana, for example, which ran through the land of the Parisii, was famous for both healing and …

My musing was interrupted by a sudden thud. I whirled to find myself facing a bearded giant who had leaped from the branch of a tree almost directly over my head. A bearded giant who had a naked sword in his hand.

And murder in his eyes.

TARVOS YELLED AND plunged forward, spear aimed for the

thrust.

The attacker’s eyes locked with mine.

I flung myself not at him, but at Tarvos, twisting his spear away from him before he could drive it into the man’s heart.

Tarvos vented a howl of outrage and almost turned on me instead. He recovered himself with difficulty and looked from one to the other of us as Hanesa and Baroc came hurrying up. The man who had almost killed me slowly lowered his sword, which was a massive jewel-hilted weapon that any man but himself would have had to wield with two hands. He held it easily in one.

“So I find the King of the World hiding in a thicket,” I drawled.

An ivory grin shone through his drooping golden moustache. “Ainvar? Can it be you?”

“Probably. It was when I awoke this morning. That was a long time ago, however, and people do change.”

“Your voice hasn’t changed, nor your eyes. Lucky for you, or there would be two of you right now, for my sword would have split you down the middle from skull to crotch.”

“There is no such thing as luck,” I replied.