Druids (8 page)

“Being a warrior is about getting killed,” he replied simply. “Warriors are born to be killed.”

“Are you afraid of dying, Tarvos?” It was a druid sort of question.

He took another drink. “You druids teach that death is merely an incident in the middle of a long life, don’t you? So why fear it? It’s no more lasting than flicking or farting.” He drained the cup. “What warriors fear,” he went on, “is losing. Most of us are more afraid of losing than we are eager to win. The losers are usually badly injured, perhaps crippled for life. I don’t fear death but I don’t like pain. The wounds you get in battle may not hurt at the time, there’s too much going on, but they are a misery after. Some say they don’t mind. I do mind.”

“So you fight to avoid losing?”

He nodded his shaggy head. “Most of us. Or to avoid being

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called coward. And for a share of the loot, if there is any. Of course, a few men are different: the champions. The warriors with the greatest style fight for their own reasons.”

“What do you mean by the greatest style?”

He held out his empty cup and waited. I filled it. Tarvos nodded again, solemnly. “Style is what sets a champion apart, Ainvar. They are crazy-brave, they do things that would get any other man

killed but they walk away laughing. When you see the style of a champion, you recognize it, it’s like a glowing inside him.”

Vercingetorix has style, my head informed me. He is one of those rare beings who achieve because they never deviate from the pattern that applies to themselves.

Yet how does he know? Do champions, like druids, receive some special guidance from the Otherworid? Or is it accidental, so they are subject to failure at any time?

Tarvos was watching me over the rim of his cup- “Do you want to be a champion, Tarvos?” I asked him.

He looked startled. “Not me! I’m content to carry my spears and try to kill the other man before he kills me. All that fancy style just makes me tired. I think it’s as unnecessary as teats on a boar.”

He finished his second cup and rubbed his belly, spreading the warm glow. “Can I ask you a question, Ainvar?”

“You may.”

‘ ‘Why did you choose me mat day? To be your bodyguard, I mean.”

I thought back. “I was actually looking for Ogmios, to ask him—”

“You were looking for Ogmios yet you chose me?” Tarvos interrupted.

I was learning to listen: 1 recognized the concealed pleasure in the Bull’s voice. I bit off the words I had meant to say about Ogmios and his son, Crom Daral, and said instead, “When I saw you, Tarvos, I found the man I needed.”

My reward was the expression of satisfaction on his blunt face and the flash of his teeth in his beard when he smiled.

He left the lodge to get some food for me from Damona, and I lay back on my bed, thinking. I had spoken the truth, I now realized. I had chosen the right man, though on that day I was looking for someone very different.

I had gone in search of Crom Daral to ask him to be my bodyguard, hoping that would somehow be a start toward mending the

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breach between us. But he was hard to find, even in our small fort. He had been deliberately avoiding me since the manmaking.

I had thought Ogmios, as captain of the guard, would surely know where his son was. I went in search of him among the company of warriors who could usually be found near the main gate of the fort, boasting and wrestling to pass the time. But before I saw Ogmios I discovered his son embedded in the group, listening with unsmiling face to the rough banter. I shouted “Crom!”

and raised an arm in greeting.

He turned at me sound of my voice and met my eyes. Then he deliberately turned his back on me.

I halted in midstride-My head echoed Vercingetorix’s words:

“He failed himself and you were a witness. He won’t forgive you.”

My eyes chanced to meet those of a burly young man with hair the color of dirty thatch, lounging at the edge of the cluster of warriors. Impulsively I shouted to him, loud enough for Crom to hear, “You there! You’re the very one I want! Bring your spear and come with me, on command of the chief druid.”

Tarvos had been with me since, proving to be the ideal ally. Solid and steady, he conformed to my need, fitting exactly into my pattern although I had taken him on impulse.

What, then, is impulse?

Such questions roil the brains of druids.

In any event, I could not hold Tarvos to my side much longer. My strength rapidly returned; soon 1 did not even need to lean on him when I went to relieve myself at the squatting trench.

Before I could dismiss him formally, he was taken from me by his primary obligation.

A great shout came thundering across the land. The warning was cried from plowman to herdsman to woodcutter until it reached our fort, and it would be shouted on from there by a network of the common class all the way to Cenabum, which was two nights from us by foot but only a short distance by voice. “Invasion and attack!” came the cry.

Details followed. A large war party of the neighboring Senones had moved into Camute territory east of the fort and was plundering the more prosperous farmsteads there. Our fort and its warriors were sufficient to defend the grove and to shelter nearby farmers, but for this son of problem we needed Nantorus and a larger army. The shouts soon brought him from Cenabum with a full complement of fighting men. Our warriors ran to join them, yelling and clashing their weapons to make a frightful racket.

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We all crowded the gateway to see them leave for war. In the crush a small red-haired boy who was jammed against my knee tugged impatiently at my tunic. “What do you see?” he kept asking—

1 started to lift him up so he could see for himself, then realized he was blind. I knew the boy; he belonged to a clan of smallholders who planted barley just beyond the fort. He was always wandering away from his distracted mother. His pale gray eyes were covered with a milky film that Sulis the healer had never been able to clear. Sundered from the sun, his was an endless night.

I picked him up and held him so my lips were close to his ear. He was very young, he hardly weighed anything. But he vibrated with life. “I see the king,” I told him. “Nantorus rides with his charioteer in a wicker-sided war chariot. He wears a tunic of iron links taken from the Bituriges in battle; they have iron mines in their territory,” I added, unable to resist teaching. “His horses are matched brown stallions seized from the Turones, and his long hair flows below a bronze helmet crested with a boar’s head, a trophy of war taken from the Parish.”

“Ooohhh’” breathed the child, clapping tiny hands. “Are there many chariots? How do they fight in them?”

“They don’t, not anymore. Once they did, but a chariot is an unstable platform for battle, and now the tribes only use them for the initial display before the real fighting begins. In their chariots the two war leaders will charge at each other, hurling spears and insults, while their cavalry and foot soldiers try to intimidate each other with more threats and insults. Each side wants to look larger and more ferocious than the other.”

“What are cavalry?”

“Warriors mounted on horses. My father was horse rank,” I added with sudden pride. “My grandmother had me taught to ride by our warriors when I was not so much older than you.”

“Will I leam to ride a horse and be part of the cavalry?” the child asked eagerly.

I had a painful vision of the limitations of his worid. “No, because your clan belongs to the common class,” I said as gently as I could, unwilling to remind him of his blindness. “Only warriors of horse rank can be cavalry. But most warriors, although belonging to the noble class and entitled to wear the gold arm ring, are foot soldiers.”

As I spoke, I caught a glimpse of Tarvos running forward with the other foot soldiers, yelling with excitement and beating his spear against his shield.

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“Tell me about the battle,” the boy urged-

“One of the ways our kings have earned their kingship is through proving themselves as fighting champions,” I explained, “so the opposing kings have their chariots driven in huge circles, trying to make iheir horses look as if they are wild and out of control. Then when they feel they have impressed each other sufficiently, they dismount and fight on foot, with swords. Their warriors watch and cheer their style, then join in the general bat-tle. Some throw off their tunics and fight naked to intimidate their opponents with the size and rigidity of their manhoods-Each side hurls itself against the other in wave after wave, until one side is overcome.”

“I would like to be a champion with a chariot,” the little boy confided, snuggling against me. His coppery hair smelled of the

sun. One of his clan came elbowing through the crowd to us.

“There he is! We’ve been looking everywhere… .”

He was taken from my arms with reluctance on both sides.

“The boy often wanders,” his kinsman said apologetically. “He’s quite fearless, blind as he is and small as he is.”

“He’s safe anywhere near the fort,” I assured the man. “We’re all tribesmen. Even the current enemy wouldn’t hurt him, you know. Children, like druids, are sacrosanct.”

I watched the bright head being carried away through the crowd. There was a tap on my shoulder- “You can help me,” said Menua.

He was frowning. Taking me by the elbow, he steered me away from the crowd. “Did you observe how thin the warriors are, Ainvar? Planting weni well but we haven’t yet harvested, and the effects of the bad winter can be seen on gaunt faces. Our men have not rebuilt their full strength. They are running with excitement now, but by the time they reach the Senones they will be dragging their feet. They need the aid of the druids. Particularly yours,” he added.

His eyes twinkled mysteriously.

We went to the lodge together. There he rummaged in his carved wooden chest, then removed a mirror of polished metal. Its back was inlaid with bronze and silver wires in a curvilinear design that represented nothing but suggested everything.

“Here,” said the chief druid, handing me the mirror. “Use this to part your hair into four equal sections. Here are strips of cloth to bind each section, blue for water, brown for earth, yellow for sun, red for blood. Be certain the partings are straight, and tie the strands securely so no strength can run out of them.”

I must have given him a quizzical look, because Menua almost,

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but not quite, smiled. “Strength must be hoarded until it is needed. There is strength in your hair, it being the part of you nearest your brain. The brain, in the sacred head, is the source of all strength, all vigor and vitality.

“We are going to use your strength, amplified by the power of the grove, to send our warriors the vitality they need to win in the coming battle. So you must prepare yourself precisely as I instruct, young Ainvar.

“Today you will leam about sex magic.”

I HAD NEVER seen myself in a mirror made by one of our skilled craftsmen. Rosmerta had not kept one; long before she died her face had ceased to be her friend.

During my childhood, ponds and puddles had given me glimpses of unformed features to be grimaced at and splashed away. For the first time I was seeing those features firmed into maturity and reflected in polished metal. If I did not know who he was, I would not have recognized the young man staring back at me.

He had an elegant narrow head with a long skull suitable for storing knowledge. The eye sockets were deeply carved, the cheekbones high, the nose prominent and thrusting. It was a strong clear timeless face full of contradictions, brooding yet mischievous, reserved yet involved. Fathomless eyes and curving lips spoke of intense passions carefully suppressed, concentrated in stillness.

Those somber, smoldering features startled me so badly I al-most dropped the mirror. “I look like fW?”

“You do now. We cannot know what you really look like until your spirit has had many years to carve your face into a representation of itself. Perhaps it will be much like the face you wear

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now, perhaps not. Now stop staring at yourself and get to work, prepare your hair as I instructed. You must do sex magic soon.”

Menua handed me a bronze comb, but for some reason I could not carve straight partings in my hair. Nervous fingers make mistakes.

Sex magic, I kept thinking.

As we left the fort and set out for the forest on the ridge, we were joined by several other members of the Order of the Wise. Though their hoods were raised, I recognized Suits the healer, Grannus, the judge Dian Cet, Keryth the seer, and Narlos the exhorter. I was thankful that Aberth was not among them. The sacrificer’s gifts were essential for the welfare of the tribe, but his presence made me uncomfortable.

Sulis also made me uncomfortable, though in a different way. She was good to look at, with a fine strong face and, as Tarvos had observed, a tempting curve to her hips.

As he walked beside me, Menua saw me glance toward her. “She pleases you?” he inquired pleasantly.

One could never be certain what hidden meanings lurked in his words. I nodded but made no reply other than a ransom noise in my throat that Menua could interpret as he chose.

“She is our youngest initiate,” he remarked. “She comes of a talented family. Her brother, whom we call the Goban Saor, shows remarkable gifts of craftsmanship. He can make anything with his hands, from jewelry to a stone wall. Suits’s hands are also gifted; her touch relieves pain. She is a fine healer. A fine woman in many ways,” he added thoughtfully.

He turned toward me. “Have you had much experience of

women, Ainvar? Aside from the games children play, I mean?”

The memory of some of those games came vividly back to me. I must have reddened, for the chief druid chuckled. “Good, good, we want boys and girls to explore each other’s bodies, it’s the best way to leam. Then you can be comfortable together later on, when you are old enough to mate.

“Sex takes practice, Ainvar. And appreciation. It is like the channel of a river, directing the life force lhat flows from the Source of All Being. Think of it. A man and woman join their bodies together, life flows through them, and a child is born. What greater magic? ” There was a sense of awe in his voice, awe that had not faded with the passing of the years.