The Greener Shore (2 page)

AINVAR HAD FOUGHT CAESAR WITH HIS HEAD, NOT HIS SWORD. HIS
was a long and noble head packed with the wisdom of centuries, accrued since before the before and added to in every generation.

But the sword had won. A lust to dominate and a thirst for power had won.

Where was the justice in that?

TRIBAL WARFARE HAD BEEN THE CELTIC WAY OF LIFE FOR UNTOLD
generations. As with stags in a forest, success in battle was the way in which leaders proved themselves. Chieftains competed for the best land or access to the most profitable trade routes. When the women joined their men in battle, they were reputed to be fiercer than the males.

The Carnutes had proudly styled themselves “The Sons of War and Thunder.” Their territory was considered to be the very heart of Gaul.

They have all but ceased to exist.

ONLY A SCORE OF AINVAR’S CLAN SURVIVE; A HUDDLE OF REFUGEES IN
two open boats, lashed by the indifferent waves, at the mercy of forces beyond the control of druids. The sacred land that nurtured their mortal bodies and their immortal spirits has been conquered by a man to whom nothing is sacred. Julius Caesar slaughtered the people who worshipped the land—but not because he hated them. He did not even know them. They were simply in his way.

THE VESSEL’S SQUARE SAIL FILLS WITH A RISING WIND. THE SAIL IS
emblazoned with the emblem of the Order of the Wise, but it means nothing to Ainvar anymore. The potent symbols he trusted all his life have failed him.

He feels as if his body has been torn open and his entrails ripped out.

Druids read the future in entrails. The odious Caesar was only interested in spilling entrails for personal gain. He left the bloody ruin of an entire nation strewn across the lovely face of Gaul.

FROM HER PLACE IN THE PROW BRIGA KEEPS AN EYE ON AINVAR. HER
heart aches for the tall, gaunt figure crouching in his cloak as if it were a cave. The others assume he still mourns the slaughtered tribes, but Briga knows that her husband’s unremitting melancholy has a more specific source. The chief druid of the Carnutes cannot forgive himself for failing to save Vercingetorix, chieftain of the Arverni.

Vercingetorix is a wound that will not heal.

The spirit housed in Briga’s body is much brighter. The moment she stepped into the boat, she tidied away regret like domestic debris and turned her face toward the horizon. It was part of Briga’s nature to open herself to possibilities.

When she suggested that Ainvar do the same, he made a bitter shape of his mouth. “Let the past go? How can I let go of something that’s entangled with my spirit like mistletoe on an oak tree?”

Since then Briga has kept her own counsel. Patience with their men is one of the many gifts of women.

AINVAR STRUGGLES TO KEEP FROM LOOKING BACK. HE IS SO FILLED
with pain that to add one drop to the total might cause it to overflow. To distract himself he tries to think of something else, yet within a few heartbeats he is mentally running through the names of the loved and lost. Until he comes to Vercingetorix.

There he stops. With the loss of Vercingetorix, everything stopped.

THE BOAT LEAPS WITH THE LIFT OF THE WAVES. IT RIDES UPWARD,
upward toward the distant sun as if offering its passengers as a sacrifice, hangs suspended for a timeless moment, then swoops sickeningly downward into a deep dark trough of sea.

The boat always comes up again.

Nature, instructor in all things, is making a point.

chapter
I

T
HE SUN IS THE SYMBOL OF THE GREAT FIRE OF LIFE, CREATED BY
the Source of All Being. I remind myself of this whenever the glare of the sun makes me squint.

I, Ainvar, salute the Source of All Being.

The Source of All Troubles is Caesar the Reprehensible. I should have recognized that from the beginning. I keep going over and over events as if by tumbling them in my hands like pebbles I can change their shape. I cannot. Even a chief druid cannot redraw the Pattern.

But I can see it. Oh yes. Looking back, I can see it so clearly. At some crucial point the tribes of Gaul must have disrupted the harmony of the Pattern, thus precipitating catastrophe. Which means that at some crucial point the druids failed.

I failed.

At first the Gauls had welcomed traders from the tribes of Latium as they had welcomed the Hellenes before them. The Latin language was not beautiful to the Celtic ear, being hard and abrupt rather than musical, but we shared the vocabulary of trade: a nod, a grunt, a slap of hands. In this manner arrangements were concluded and goods exchanged. Gaul offered salt and iron and grain; the speakers of Latin brought wine and olive oil and luxury goods from the Mid-Earth Sea. Traders from each side were able to provide enough to satisfy the other side. Everyone benefited. For a while.

Then one tribe, the Romans, proved they did not understand the concept of Enough; they wanted More. Their traders brought warriors to stand at their shoulders while they made unreasonable demands. The Gauls swatted the more importunate traders away as one swats a fly. The Romans kept coming. Tendrils of a poisonous weed, they extended their reach until at last we realized their true and deadly intent. Led by someone called Gaius Julius Caesar—a figure of walking excrement that needs three names to make it feel like a man—the Romans meant to steal everything from us, even the land on which we lived. Our sacred Mother Earth.

If I close my eyes I can still see the glorious victories we won; the desperate battles we lost. And then the final battle. And the subsequent destruction of all we held dear.

The destruction of the Great Grove of the Carnutes blew us away like chaff on the wind.

I chew on my memories as if they were food, but receive no nourishment from them. When I dream, I dream of the lost skies of Gaul.

Free Gaul, which bled to death to fatten Caesar’s purse.