Hadrian's wall

by William Dietrich

  Then the Celtic woman strung her longbow, notched an arrow, motioned for Valeria and Savia to get up, and pointed to her crotch and some bushes.

  "You don't have to be crude." Valeria spoke for the first time in Celtic. "I understand your tongue."

  The woman was instantly wary. "How does a Roman know the language of the free tribes? You've never been in our country."

  "I've been learning from the Celts at Petrianis."

  "Why? Are you a spy?"

  "I wanted to understand your people."

  "You learned from your slaves, didn't you?"

  "My helpmates."

  "Your captive dogs, whipped and shorn of pride. They are Celts no more." Brisa glanced at Savia. "Does this woman know our tongue?"

  "Enough to answer you," Savia said.

  She considered them. "I admit that it's a novelty to meet Roman girls less stupid than the donkeys that pull them about. I've never seen one who cares for anything but her own comforts."

  The savage pretended to superiority! "If you'd rather, we can try your Latin," Valeria said to put her in her place.

  She motioned them to move. "You can piss," she allowed, "but if you run, I'll kill you."

  The women did their business and then went to the stream to wash as the barbarian leader had. The water was shockingly cold but also restorative, jerking Valeria from weary fog to harsh, all-too-vivid life. How grubby she already felt, just a day removed from her daily bath, her combs, and her table of paints! She mourned her imagined appearance, her hair unfixed, her clothes stained, her jewelry left behind in her reckless thirst for adventure. It wasn't comfort she craved, but simple decency. She must look as rustic as the Celtic woman sitting silently behind her… except in truth the woman didn't look all that plain but was strangely compelling in her warrior garb, a bright necklace of silver at her throat and bracelets at her wrists. A baldric and belt held a short sword, her mail had a sheen like raindrops on a window, and the laced boots that reached to her calves were of doeskin. Her cloak was a deep green, and she displayed the same animal grace as the man Arden.

  "What are you doing here?" Valeria asked her bluntly.

  The woman understood what she meant. "I'm Brisa, daughter of Quint and a warrior of the Attacotti tribe. No man has yet won me, so I ride with the men."

  "But you're a woman."

  "What of it? I can shoot straighter than any man here, and outrun them too. They know it, and fear and respect me for it. When my brother was killed, I took his armor and sword. We Celtic women aren't soft and stupid like you. We go where we please and do what we wish and lie with who we want to."

  "Like animals."

  "Like free women of choice. We fulfill nature's demands by openly lying with the best men, while you Romans commit your adultery with the worst. You boast of how superior you are, and then chain yourself with fear and custom and hypocrisy. I wanted to see this wall of yours, and now I've seen it and am not impressed. I could scale it in a heartbeat."

  "And be arrested just as quickly."

  Brisa snorted. "I haven't seen you Romans catch one of us yet."

  "It isn't natural for a woman to dress like a man," Valeria insisted doggedly.

  The Celt laughed. "I'm dressed for war and riding! What isn't natural is to dress without sense, like you do. Maybe those men over there, the ones dressed like me, are dressed like women! Have you considered that?"

  This Celt was turning everything around! "How did you learn to shoot?"

  "My father taught me, as my mother taught me weaving. I could teach you, if we decide not to kill you." It was a matter-of-fact offer, as if the precariousness of her future was obvious enough. "To shoot, at least. We'll see if you can hit anything."

  Valeria eyed the bow, secretly intrigued. "I don't even know if I could draw it."

  "You pull each day, and each day you can pull it a little farther." Brisa sprang up, enjoying this opportunity to boast. "Here, I'll show you." She pulled off a bracelet. "Take this and walk twenty paces back toward the pine where you were tied."

  Valeria hesitated.

  "Go on, I won't hurt you. But I might hurt your companion here if you don't do what I say." She nodded toward Savia.

  Valeria took the circular bracelet and began to walk back to the tree.

  "There! Stop and turn!"

  She did so.

  "Now, hold the bracelet out at arm's length…"

  Valeria lifted. Before her arm had steadied, the Celt pulled and shot. A puff of wind kissed the captive's fingertips, and the shaft sang through the bracelet and hit the pine beyond. It was so sudden that the Roman heard the arrow hit wood before realizing what had happened.

  She dropped the ring as if it were hot. "You could have killed me!"

  Brisa walked over and scooped up her bracelet. "I didn't touch you, but I can put my arrow through any Roman's eye, so don't quarrel with me until I've taught you to do the same. If Arden lets you live." She shouldered her bow. "Which I suspect he'll do, from the way he looks at you. Come, the food smells ready. You need meat on those bones of yours if you're going to stay warm in the north."

  The food and the fire were restorative, and despite her apprehension, Valeria felt a drowsy relief. The barbarians gathered around the flames afterward to sing and boast. None bothered to post a watch. No rescuers appeared. Instead, the captives had to hear their enemies crow, each in turn, about their prowess in the ambush. To these ragged people the mere deed was not enough, it seemed, but only took on true importance in the retelling. They were as vain as children. "The Romans understand our tongue, brothers," the woman told them. "Let's remind them of what they have seen."

  Brisa boasted that shooting through the neck of the Celtic spy had been "like threading a bone needle in a lightless room." Luca recounted how he'd tripped the Roman tribune with a stick shoved out from the bushes. The warriors guffawed at the memory of Clodius's awkward sprawl. A Celt named Hool bragged that his second arrow at the Roman soldiers was notched and drawn before the first had even hit home. The stripling named Gurn claimed to have stolen all the Roman horses before their riders were dead.

  Only the chieftain Arden stayed quiet, declining to retell how he'd killed the Roman tribune with a bold and desperate thrust. Instead he studied Valeria across the fire, as if speculating what to do with her. As the eating ended and the warriors rolled themselves up in their cloaks, swords alongside, he came around to sit by her. She stiffened warily.

  "I saw what Brisa did with her arrow," he said quietly. "Don't be afraid. We're warriors, not thieves. You're a prize of war and will be kept safe."

  "But there's no war."

  "There's been a war ever since your husband burned our sacred grove. He united the tribes as no druid could have."

  "That was because you attacked me before! The ambush, in the forest!"

  "The druids had nothing to do with that."

  "That's not what our spy told my Marcus."

  "Told Marcus? Or told Galba?"

  "They wanted to burn me in a wicker cage."

  He smiled. "You know nothing of what's going on. But there are men in your cavalry who know the truth."

  "Which men?"

  He wouldn't answer.

  She studied him curiously. He'd killed Clodius, true, but his bearing and words suggested he wasn't a simple savage. His look was thoughtful, his manner almost courtly, his bearing slightly Roman. "You don't have the beard or the mustache or the manners of a Celt," she said. "Your Latin is fluent and your swordsmanship trained. Who are you?"

  "I'm of my people."

  "No. You're something more."

  "You seem very confident in your judgment."

  "You don't conceal yourself as well as you think."

  He smiled. "Roman aristocrats judge and rank people as surely as a Briton hound trails a badger."

  "There, you see? You know too much about Roman aristocrats!"

  He laughed. "You're my prisoner! I should be asking questions of you!"
>
  "But you act as if you know all about me. It's I who am in your power, and who doesn't know her fate. Why have you taken me, and what are you going to do with me?"

  He thought before answering, studying her features in the fire like a trophy long sought. "I'm a Caledonian of the Attacotti tribe," he said finally, "with a long bloodline among the tribes of the north. But yes, I know something of Rome." He raised an arm, revealing a tattoo. "I enlisted in your army."

  "You're a deserter!"

  "I'm a free man, come back to help my people remain free. I enlisted to see this Roman world of yours and learn enough to beat you. I'm a patriot, lady, fighting against the suffocations of your world."

  His conviction was maddening. "I was wrong in my guess," she said. "You know nothing of Rome."

  "It's you, pampered and highborn, who knows nothing. How much do you know about the commoners who groan to feed your kind?"

  "I know more than you think! My father is a senator with feeling for the poor."

  "Who sent his own daughter to the edge of the empire for enough coin to maintain his office. And so now you sit captive and cold, with a deserter and murderer and traitor like me, while he gives speeches and takes bribes a thousand miles away."

  "That's not fair!"

  "It's the morality of a poisoned empire."

  "We brought the world peace!"

  "By leaving it a wasteland."

  "Yet you don't fear my husband's revenge."

  "My fear is why you're alive. Your safety is our own. Our doom is yours."

  Valeria drew her cloak around herself, pondering. It was odd being outdoors at night, the fire's warm fingers caressing the front of her, the night's cold teeth biting at her back. With no roof overhead, the dark emptiness yawed above like a pool she could fall into. "There's something more," she said with sudden certainty. "Some other reason you hate Rome and have made me captive."

  He stood up. "I need to sleep now."

  "But you haven't even told me your name yet."

  "It's Arden. As you know."

  "Yes, but what other name do you go by? What's the name of your clan?"

  His response was so quiet she almost missed it. "I go by Arden Caratacus. Caratacus the patriot." He gave her a quick look and then stepped away.

  Valeria watched him disappear into the shadows. Arden Caratacus: Galba's spy.

  XXV

  The dungeon of the legionary fortress of Eburacum was hewn out of foundation rock by captive Britons some three hundred years ago. The prison, when its oak and iron door is swung open, has the encrusted odor of blood and tears of all that time. Stone steps, worn down in the center from the ceaseless tramp of hobnailed boots, descend into lamp-lit gloom. Even I, who have interviewed countless prisoners in the meanest of cells, hesitate. The Roman sentry beckons impatiently. I follow, my footfalls returning to me as echoes, and I wonder what it must feel like to be dragged down this stone staircase and hear the door slamming ominously above for the last time, cast into darkness and lost forever to sunlight.

  Up to now my informants have been brought to me. This one, the Celtic priest Kalin, I must visit myself. The soldiers fear him and will not risk allowing him up to the surface. He's a druid with claim to ancient magic and prophetic visions, and so is chained deep to keep his powers buried. Most of the garrison would prefer to see him dead, but I've ordered him kept alive. These druids, these relics from the past: Were they instigators or victims? Will the barbarians come again?

  At the bottom of the steps is a dank tunnel much like a catacomb. The air inside feels heavy, and it stinks of the smoke of oil lamps. A feeble cone of light from the narrow ventilation shaft at the tunnel's far end shows cavities gated with iron bars. Behind these sit the dungeon's inhabitants, dispirited men that if not executed will simply grow crazed. The guards say you get used to the smell and the sorrow, but I don't believe them. Dungeon duty is considered punishment. Despair grinds at a man.

  "This way, inspector."

  I wonder what infraction won this soldier, this day, the task of being my guide.

  We walk down the passageway past the deserters, traitors, murderers, and madmen, the rapists and politically ill-favored, all those banished to underworlds such as this. At the very end is Kalin. The druid's brown robe clings to him like an old dry husk. The druid's spirit is gone, I think. I hope he is not already insane. But no. A moment later he recognizes our presence and moves toward us, in the tentative way of a beaten dog. His chains rattle when he does so.

  "Open the door," I command.

  "It's safer to speak to him from out here, inspector."

  "And less useful. Lock me in with him and leave us alone."

  The cell door clangs shut behind me and I listen to the rap of boots fade away. I cough, trying to ignore the druid's stink. When we're caged like animals we become animals. Kalin unfolds himself from his corner and stands waveringly, his wrists weighted with shackles. His eyes are sunken, his lips cracked, his hair a greasy tangle. The bravado with which he led barbarian armies has left him, of course. Dangerous? He seems broken enough.

  "Is it over?" he whispers.

  He means death. "No." I disappoint him. "I am Inspector Draco, come to explain the recent uprising against the Wall. I need to understand what happened. "

  He looks at me dully. "Understand? I'm here. I've lost."

  "Of course you have lost. But the emperor desires permanent peace. He wants to understand your people."

  "My people?"

  "The Celts. The druids. The tribes. The ones who choose to live as barbarians. We seek neither to conquer you nor fight you. That is why the Wall was built. We wish only to maintain our border. So: why did you attack us?"

  He blinks. It occurs to me that it might be difficult for him to remember beyond the nightmare of his incarceration. Then: "You attacked us."

  "You mean the incident at the grove."

  He doesn't like my choice of word. "Your 'incident,' Roman, slew the high priestess Mebde and burned the sacred oak."

  "The druids were inciting the tribes."

  "That's a lie. We care nothing for politics. We simply worship wood and rock., stream and sky."

  This is the lie, I know. The druids wield as much power as barbarian chieftains and guard their influence zealously, plying on the superstition of their followers. Spirit, magic, and capricious fortune dominate the Celtic world. Their wizards and witches are all. "And yet you were there to direct the ambush at the grove, I am told. It was a trap for the Roman cavalry, was it not? A trap set by Caratacus to either massacre the Petriana or provoke the tribes. And you helped later to assault the Wall."

  "You asked why. The answer is that it is you who started the trouble, not us."

  "Except that the wife of the Roman commander, Marcus Flavius, was nearly abducted on the way to her wedding."

  "I know nothing of that."

  "Yet you met the lady afterward, at the hill fort of Arden Caratacus, after a second abduction succeeded."

  "So?" His tone is guarded.

  "I am interested in this woman. I am trying to understand her role in what happened. My theory is that if the tribes hadn't tried to steal her, perhaps none of this would have ever occurred."

  He smiles thinly. "You think a single woman can cause so much trouble?"

  That's my question-remember Troy! — but his skepticism makes me hesitant. "I want to know what became of her."

  Kalin, pinned like a brown butterfly to our rock wall, shakes his head. "If you want reason for events, look to the gods, inspector. Look at what you Romans have done to the sacred places. Look to Taranis and Dagda and Morrigan. Hear them in the summer thunder and the winter winds. You're a plague upon the land, you Romans, with your crowded cities and arrogant engineers. But the old gods are rising again."

  Brave words for a man shackled in a hole, I think. "No, Kalin, it is your gods who are dead. Sometimes I think even Rome's gods are dead, replaced by this Jewish usurper. Maybe all the gods are dea
d, and men are alone in this world. In any event, I know Rome will endure as Rome has always endured."

  He shakes his head doggedly. "I see it coming. I see your end."

  It's his blind conviction that chills me, his certainty in the face of all reason. The generals are right It's extermination of his kind, not conversion, that's the only solution if civilization is to remain safe. "And yet you're conquered, and I'm among the conquerors."

  He squats. "So kill me and be done with it."

  Here he gives me the opportunity to enlist him. "No, I have ordered you kept alive. I honestly want to understand these gods of yours, and something of this Roman woman you took. This Valeria. I don't understand what the tribes wanted with her."

  "You'll keep me alive if I tell you this?"

  "I will do my best."

  "Existence in this burrow isn't life."

  "We fear your magic, wizard."

  "My people don't build dungeons. We let every man live in the open air. If he's a transgressor, then his clan must make payment to the clan that was sinned upon. If he's defiant, we cast him out. If he returns, we sacrifice him. But cage him? That's cruelty."

  "You are not among your people."

  "I want to go back to my people."

  I'm quiet a moment. "I will confer with the duke if you will help me." There's no chance, of course, but I need Kalin's hope.

  "You'll do more than that." Suddenly his smile is disturbingly confident.

  "You're wrong, Inspector Draco. My gods are not dead. Last night the full moon hung above the shaft and whispered to me from her milk. Then today you've come. It's a sign that what I say is true. The gods speak through you.

  You're a messenger of fate."

  This is so obviously insane that I know better than to say so. "But I will not speak to the duke until you help me," I go on. "Until you tell me why this woman was abducted."

  "You 're obsessed with her, aren't you? Like Caratacus."

  "And who is he?"

  "A Celt turned Roman soldier, come back to our side with sorrow and revenge in his heart. This senator's daughter could bring ransom. She was a hostage to control the cavalry of her husband. She bought us time while people found their courage."