As the eastern section was completed, the main army moved west with the building camps and for the second time since his posting to the Sixth Victrix, Postumus found himself actually serving in the same place as his legion. The Victrix was the best of its kind, as Licinius had said, a legion to build a loyalty to, and Postumus soon renewed acquaintance with most of the officers posted near Castra Damnoniorum, including the now happily landlocked Appius Paulinus. Detachments from the Second Augusta and the Twentieth Valeria Victrix were also at work on the wall and they too were quartered in the western forts, while the auxiliary garrisons were sent to permanent postings along the completed stretch of the frontier. Frontinus, however, stayed. Aelius Silanus had lost the senior centurion of his Fifth Cohort in a skirmish with the Picts, and had formed a favorable opinion of the Damnoniorum camp commander. Applying cajolery and a hoarded amphora of Falernian wine in his arguments with the governor, he had managed to hang on to Centurion Frontinus as a replacement.
Postumus, Lucian, and the new Fifth Cohort commander held a small celebration that night in Frontinus’s new quarters. His old rooms in the Praetorium were now occupied by the legate, but as Frontinus said cheerfully, it was a fair enough exchange. Posting to a legionary cohort meant promotion and more pay, and a better stab at further advancement.
“Not that there’ll be much chance for anyone to cover himself with glory this year.” He rubbed the scar on his cheek. “It’s going to snow soon. I don’t like the looks of this winter. We’ll just get the damned wall up in time.”
* * *
It was Samhain again, the leaves turning gold and copper and then fluttering away on the wicked little wind that cut through all the chinks in the walls. In the High King’s hold, the hearth fires were cold and the cattle had been driven down from the summer pastures before nightfall. The need-fire lay ready to light with the first spark of the fire drill. Everyone of the High King’s clan would be gathered within the walls by dusk, against whatever rode a Samhain wind. Galt leaned, arms crossed, in the doorway of the Great Hall in the upper courtyard, under the row of skulls that adorned the lintel, with the blood of the Sacrifice splashed across the stones under his feet. He had long ago given up hoping for the old king to come back on that wind, but it was a habit all the same, to watch the New Fire lit and see the sparks rush up into the black sky like a message.
In the falling dusk, a chariot came whipping up the switchbacked road and through the triple gates. Rider and driver dropped down near the unlit fire as a slave came up to take the ponies’ reins.
“Phah! A bad night to be late!” Dawid stamped his feet in the gray cold. “Are the rest here?”
“Rhodri and Duncan came in this morning,” Galt said. “Conor was just before you.”
“And the Pict?”
“He’s here.”
The open courtyard was dressed with evergreen and bundles of corn from the last cutting and the air was thick with the smell of roasting meat, turned on spits all day before the fires were doused. Men and women both wore their best, the bright thick woolens of native weaving and the thin silks dyed with foreign dyes from Rome that were a mark of wealth, gold or bronze or enameled torques and rings on their necks and arms. Even slaves were given new clothes this night, at the start of the new year.
The High King came from the dark hall with his Council behind him, and everyone turned to stare at the stranger who walked beside the Council lords. He was tall and red-haired and thickly tattooed across his face and whatever else of him could be seen beyond his checkered breeches and cloak of wolfskins.
Galt and Dawid fell into step beside them as dusk deepened into blackness and six of the Council lords’ households approached the great fire drill, with Talhaiere at their head, a small green branch of yew stuck through his belt. They wore their hair loose and were weaponless. Iron would cut across the magic of a need-fire and douse it before it could begin. Talhaiere raised his staff to the sky, and the six took it in pairs, spinning the drill on its base, wood on wood, raising fire by friction. The clan held its breath. Here in the Brigantian Hills it was ink black, almost too dark to see each other, with only the great river of stars and a sliver of bronze moon over the horizon, no braziers or hearth fires left to keep old men warm or the stew hot. The fire drill’s first pair handed off to the next, sweating even in the cold air. A wisp of smoke rose and the smallest household hounds knelt beside it to feed it wisps of tinder, as the next team took the drill seamlessly from the first. The need-fire was a task for free men, not slaves, and an honor if you brought the first spark. A third pair stepped up as the second gave over, Rhys and Dawid’s small Colin, proudly taking his first turn since graduating from hound status to warrior at Beltane. A spark glowed in the tinder suddenly and they spun the drill faster. A tiny flame flowered, wavering in the wind. The hounds carefully fed it more dry grass, and then small twigs and soon it lengthened and leapt up, and there was enough for a torch to light the bonfire. When it was blazing, the oldest child from each house fed their own torches at it and ran through the night to rekindle the hearths.
Galt gave a sigh of relief. For the New Fire to fail at the first try was always a bad omen, but worse when the Pictish emissary was there to see it.
A slave broached a barrel of beer in the courtyard beside the fire and small boys passed wooden cups, filled at the hinge of the year to drink the new one in.
Bran led the Council and the Pictish lord back into the Great Hall where meat carved from the sheep and cattle sacrificed on the king’s sill at midday was piled on silver platters, dressed with herbs and sauce and quartered apples. The length of the table was laden with bowls of late summer fruit, berries, apples, breads, and pastries, and slaves circulated with flagons of beer and cups of silver or Roman glass or polished oak banded with gold. The High King’s wealth shone in the gold on his head and neck and arms and on the riches of his table.
Talhaiere said something softly to Bran and the High King shook his head angrily and lifted his cup. Rhys had gone to Talhaiere to make penance after a week of evil dreams. The king had not and it was clear that he was not going to, not even now at Samhain. If I told the Pict that, he would leave, Galt thought. He shook his head. It would happen as it happened. A bout of coughing shook him. The winter cold had settled in his lungs through the summer.
Bran took a long swallow from his cup, a deep two-handled vessel of gold embossed with a human figure bearing stag’s antlers. The Horned One was an old god and the cup had been the old king’s, and it was perhaps an ill choice too, Galt thought, and then, Pah! I see omens in every shadow.
Bran glared at Talhaiere. “Let us sit, and we will hear what words the envoy of the Caledones has to speak.”
They took seats around the feast table, with the Pict, who was called Aedan, beside the king. Galt sat at Bran’s other side, and Dawid, Conor, Rhodri, and Duncan across. The clan chiefs’ hounds squabbled with the king’s dogs underneath until a slave with a pitcher of beer kicked them into silence as she passed.
“From Dergdian, king of the Caledones, his greeting.” Aedan’s accent was odd to their ears but understandable. He was the son of the king’s sister, and because kingship among the Picts passed in the mother’s line, Dergdian’s likely heir. Thus he carried more authority than Brendan’s envoy had done. Under his wolfskin cloak he wore a shirt of finely dyed scarlet and breeches checkered brown and green. A heavy torque of twisted gold wire marked him as a lord of standing in his tribe, and a double spiral of red gold clasped his russet hair.
“What does Dergdian send beside greetings?” Duncan inquired. He stabbed a piece of meat with his knife.
The Pict gave him a level look. “He sends me to ask if the Brigantes will pull carts under the yoke of Rome again, or fight like men.”
Bran stiffened, but Galt said quietly, “It is an ill idea to insult a king in his hall, Aedan.”
Aedan shrugged. “No insult is meant.” He drank from his cup, of Roman glass filigreed with gol
d. “The king of the Brigantes will do as he thinks best for his clans. In the highlands, we are averse to stone roads cutting our fields in half and to foragers reaping our grain and driving our cattle off, and to young men taken across the water to fight Rome’s battles.”
“When we last made peace with Rome,” Galt said, carefully selecting a piece of sauced mutton as he spoke, “Dergdian’s men left the council hall and took the legion’s gold Eagle with them. That did not sweeten Rome’s terms.”
Aedan shrugged. The hearth fire snapped and gave off a gout of smoke. Galt coughed, his lungs burning. He put his mouth to his sleeve and when it came away there was blood on the cloth.
Aedan’s expression was more speculative than solicitous. “The king’s harper is not well?”
“I am well enough,” Galt snapped.
“Where is the Roman Eagle now?” Rhodri asked.
Aedan shrugged. “Perhaps in the king’s hall.” And perhaps not. Things like that carried powerful magic. Dergdian would not part with it for some Brigante lord’s asking.
“Were we to ride, what surety can the Caledones give that they will have our backs?” Conor asked.
“If we did not ride when Brendan called, for what reason would we ride now?” Dawid asked.
“They will have almost all their soldiers on that wall,” Rhodri said. “If Dergdian pins them there…”
“If? Again, what is our surety?” Conor leaned across the table.
Bran watched them, his head turning slightly toward each voice. Galt could see his fingers clenched on his cup. He had been in a vile temper all day, fighting with Talhaiere and blaming Galt. The cup was empty again and he held it out to the slave to fill.
“The Eagle,” Rhodri said again. The Brigantes, living in the shadow of a legion, knew what an Eagle meant. It was the soul of a legion, its loss a disgrace. The Romans thought it could turn the tide of a battle. It would be a most useful thing.
“The last lord of the Brigantes let the Eagle slip from his fingers,” Aedan said. “We would not be giving it to an untried pup.”
The insult in his tone was calculated, and Duncan and Conor both rose from their chairs in a fury, scattering small dishes and salt cellars.
Bran rose too and slammed his chair back so that it rocked on its legs and nearly toppled. Aedan’s cup tipped over, its dregs of beer spreading on the table. “Let Lugh Shining Spear hear me! There will be no talk of pups from the Caledones’ lackey! The Brigantes will march!” He picked up the spilled cup and smashed it on the table so that the shards fanned out like spread fingers.
Afterward, the Council tried to make something of that besides the obvious while Aedan watched, uninterested. They would do what they would do. If he had provoked the Brigantes’ king to war, that was good, whether they allied with the Caledones or not.
XIII. Beann Caledon
Dergdian watched the woman unpack her cures with some suspicion and the ever-present hope of a man with a chronic condition. His fiery hair was streaked with gray, bound at his forehead with a gold fillet. Gold bands set with carnelian encircled his arms and over his shirt and breeches of fine ocher wool he wore a fur-lined cloak against the damp cold of the stone-built fortress that hugged the slopes of Beann Caledon. None of which did anything for the itching sore in his eye. He scratched at it as she knelt in the strewn rushes on the floor, unpacking her goods.
She took note of the eye, set in a long impassive face that made her think of masks from the midsummer Horse Dance, and offered him a disk of ointment in a clay pot, with a respectful gesture. “For soreness of the eye, this treatment dissolved in water with a few drops of wine is most efficient.”
Dergdian’s slaves and household had gathered while she spread the rest of her goods on the rug in which they had been rolled. A small child peered at her from behind his mother’s skirts. Visitors, even traders and cure-sellers, were rare. A slave took her wet cloak and hung it on a hook by the hearth and she nodded at him gratefully. It had been raining all day, all week in fact, and a sodden journey through the highlands had left her chilled to the bone. She was dressed in a plain brown woolen gown with fur boots beneath. Her brown hair hung in braids tipped with little enameled balls but otherwise she was without adornment save for the flower that bloomed just under her collarbone and the spiral patterns encircling her arms.
Dergdian inspected the cake of ointment, stamped with an oculist’s mark that spoke of a journey from the south. “What are you called?”
“Aifa,” she said, spreading out her other wares.
“You have come from the south? Through the Eagles’ new wall?”
“The Eagles pay little attention to such as me,” Aifa said. “I was born in the north islands of Orkney, and I have been as far south as the Silure lands where the traders’ boats come in at Sabrina Mouth, and to the great palace in Londinium, just to bring these cures to you.”
A gray-bearded priest in a white robe folded his arms and glared at her. A gold sun disk two handspans wide hung across his chest. She would need to tread warily with him.
“And they let you through their gate?” Dergdian said thoughtfully. “Marked as you are?” He nodded at her arms, the blue patterns showing where she had pushed back her sleeves.
“These are Cornovi marks, not Caledone.” It had been thought best to choose a tribe she was unlikely to actually encounter. The Cornovi inhabited the wild islands off the farthest northern shore and were all reputed to be witches and half-seal.
“My grandmother was a Cornovi woman,” Dergdian said. “What house do you come from?”
“None,” she said shortly, cursing Dergdian’s grandmother. “My mother was a Cornovi woman. I don’t know about my father. Perhaps he was a gray seal, as she said once when I asked. At any rate she took me to the priests for my initiation and they allowed it, so that is all I know.”
Dergdian seemed satisfied. If she was rumored to be a seal child, it was clear why she hadn’t stayed among her people. Any prospective husband would be waiting for her to disappear into the sea some night. It had been rumored that his own grandfather had hidden his wife’s sealskin in a chest to keep her with him.
“And you are recently come past the Romans’ camps?” the priest inquired. “What are they doing there now?”
“Building things,” she said. “Granaries and temples to their gods and bathing houses. And wall. Mostly wall.”
“Their wall is cursed,” the priest said flatly. “They will see.”
“No doubt.” She continued to arrange her wares. “For pain in the ear. And for toothache.” She set a stoppered green glass flask of oil and a bronze pot of unguent on the rug. “And quicksilver for troubles in the generative parts.” This was bottled in an iron flask since the cure tended to dissolve other metals. “And for cough and to sweeten the breath, frankincense from the Incense Route in the vastness of the East.”
She wrapped the cake of eye ointment in its silk bag again and added a substantial piece of frankincense, the most valuable of her wares. “A hearth gift for the lord of the Caledones,” she said, presenting it to Dergdian.
He nodded and took the bag, formalities achieved. “You are wet and tired, which is no way to welcome a stranger among us. Rest and eat and there will be time in the morning to show your wares to the house.”
“The lord of the Caledones is kind. I am weary, as he says. In the morning I will be most happy to see any in the lord’s hold who seek a cure.”
They gave her a chamber in the upper levels of the hold, a straw mattress with a blue rug over it, and a meal of mutton and beer with the king’s household, where the priest studied her with a suspicious eye. A pile of great gray hounds lay under the long table, occasionally squabbling halfheartedly over whatever was dropped, but mainly sleeping. Her own sleeping chamber was plain, but someone had warmed the bed for her and there was a fire banked on the hearth. The girl who showed her to it assured her that the slave who minded her pack ponies had been fed and bedded down wi
th the king’s people, and the ponies stabled out of the rain. Probably into a better space than Brys, she thought, yawning. Poor Brys.
In the morning she saw such patients as suffered from the afflictions whose cures she peddled, in an unused chamber in the west of the lower court, furnished for private consultations with two rough chairs and a table. Unlike the chamber she had slept in, it was a dismal room, dank and windowless, lit by tallow lamps, with water leaking from the walls.
A slave with matted hair and a worn gown brought her a cushion for her chair and a breakfast of porridge and beer. “Maon High Priest says I’m to see to you, Lady. I am Teasag if you need anything more.”
Aifa cocked her head to the small stream running down the wall. The floor was packed earth and the water sank in quickly but it left a pattern like a river delta. “Does this chamber always leak like that?”
“Often enough when it’s been raining,” the girl said. “That’s why it isn’t used. This is more than usual, but it will stop when the sky clears.”
Aifa gave the wall a long look. There was substantial water in there, she thought, maybe enough to bring the western wing down one day if it was built over one of the limestone caves that pocked the ground here. Claudia Silva would know that. But Aifa wouldn’t, and needed no discussion of the source of her knowledge. “Thank you, Teasag,” she said. “If there are people to see me, send them in one by one.”
“Would the lady be willing to look at me?” Teasag looked miserable. “I can’t pay but I have this.” She held out a small bit of amber on a grubby thong. “It hurts all the time.”
The Wall at the Edge of the World Page 18