Most of what new knowledge we got was from Conomar, after we continued our journey. Having found that his home would be safe, Gairwarth was willing, for pay, to keep on with us as far as the river mouth. He earned that pay. Sullen, snarling, at first the Celt refused food. Among his people, if a man has no other way of getting justice or revenge, he can lay terrible shame on his enemy by starving himself to death. Gairwarth patiently—and, I am sure, cunningly—brought him to see that this means was always open to him but before thus giving up all hope of release it would be better, yes, manlier to bide his time, watchful for any opening. Thereafter, bit by bit, he coaxed more of an account forth. He told me he did it oftenest by provoking boasts and threats.
"Not that Conomar is witless or unwitting," he said. "I begin to think that behind that fiery, hasty heart is a mind with depths I cannot sound. However, the Celts are a talkative as well as proud race, two strings from which notes may be plucked." He shook his head. "I'm glad, though, that he's in bonds." They whom we had thought of as merely wild are in reality a people of much accomplishment. Their priests are living storehouses of lore. They honor their poets almost as highly, and the lowliest herdsman has a share in that heritage, however small. Some of the wonderfully made things that had reached us in the North were from their own craftsmen; this had been forgotten or misunderstood over the long trade routes. When 1 looked closely, I saw that Conomar's blanket was finely enough woven to be worthy of a king among us.
Quarrelsome, warlike, they nonetheless have a good awareness of the world around them. News travels swiftly from end to end of their lands. It spreads to everyone at the councils and fairs they hold throughout the year. Thus Conomar could name tribes far to the east of his Boii, and others well to the west. Some had settled in great mountains, from which they were spilling south into a land of cities. Some were crossing a river mightier than the Ailavo. All this movement sent tides clashing to and fro among the Celts themselves. Gairwarth's guess had been right, the Boii were at odds with their neighbors on either side, in no mood to make terms with anybody.
Today I am not quite sure whether I found out most of what I am recalling then or later, as shards of
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knowledge—and often, I suppose, mistakenness—have come to us here at home. Nor do I care. What stands before me is our last encampment with Gairwarth. On the morrow we would reach the estuary settlement and leave him to take passage back with whatever fellow traders touched there. He had become our friend. We broke out the last ale aboard to drink with him. Night fell while we did.
It is as if we sit again around the fire, mingled without regard to birth, for we had become so few and shared so much grief. Horns, filled out of the clay jugs, pass from hand to grimy, calloused hand. Light flickers red across us, then loses itself in the huge dark or the resin-sweet smoke. Wood crackles, spitting sparks. I remember nothing we said, only that it was slow and comradely, save for this: Gairwarth leaned toward me and asked, "What will you do with him?"
The prisoner sat apart, still hobbled, now leashed to a tree. At Gairwarth's rede we gave him a share of the drink. He surprised us by muttering a sort of thanks. He had already begun to pick up our tongue. "Keep him," I answered. "What else?"
Gairwarth lowered his voice. "Do you think kindlier of him than before?"
"Well, not very, but we can find work for him, and anyhow, I wouldn't butcher a helpless man."
"He isn't. Havakh, do not, not take him into your household, whether as slave or freedman. He's grow n more careful, but—I know his breed, and I've gained some feeling of him as a man—he lives for revenge. Someday, somehow, after as many years as need be, he'll take it, on you or on someone dear to you."
I shivered slightly, though the night was forest-warm. "Do you truly think so? Then how should I
handle him? Let him go? Wouldn't that be to loose a wolf on the dwellers along his way?"
While we spoke softly, to make sure Conomar wouldn't guess what we said, others nearby heard.
Ernu broke in. "Ah-um! Lord, why not give him to me? I'll take good heed of him, I will."
We stared at him. He grinned. "Away off in the bogland, how could he hurt you or yours, lord? We've use for every pair of hands, we poor folk. If he took flight, he'd soon be lost, but we'd track him down, and if he'd killed, we'd make him sorry. Not that I'm afraid he would. Better a life amongst us than penned up at the great hall, no? Why, he might earn himself a woman."
I glanced toward Gairwarth, who spread his hands to show that he couldn't judge.
"You promised me reward, over and above those bronze tools and cloth, after I saved your life, lord," wheedled Ernu. "This'd be a lordly gift, and rid your dear ones of a danger too, I make bold to say."
Yes, shrewd, I knew. He listened closely indeed. My gaze sought to the captive. Dooming him to such wretchedness—and yet not to full un-freedom—a vengeance of my own, of which I need not be ashamed? "I will think about it," I said.
But when at length I agreed, I had so much else on my mind that it was almost carelessly.
We did not linger after we left Gairwarth off, for there was a tide we could catch and a hunger in our hearts. The sea voyage was hard only because we were undermanned. When at last we drew up on our own strand and saw our own folk eagerly gathering to meet us, it was such an utterly lovely late-summer day that for that short span I, at least, forgot this was a sorrowful return.
Sunlight struck dazzlement from water and tall white clouds. Surely nowhere else in the world were grass and leaves as green. Wavelets clucked, fowl mewed and cried, and on the holy hilltop the trumpeters sang welcome. In the gentle weather, several well-born maidens had put on a garb seldom worn anymore, close-fitting knit bodice, bronze beltplate disc, and string skirt ending well above the knees. Great sheafs of fair hair tumbled over their shoulders, down past their breasts. Suddenly, shakingly, I kenned one among them, daughter of a goodly house, Daemagh her name.
I have always been glad that my lady can talk with anyone, man or woman, high or low, readily and wisely. Never has this served us so well as today. Lost in memories, I am barely half aware of the feast and the company, barely able to give some kind of reply when somebody speaks to me. Her flowing words and sun-bright smiles draw their heed. Thus I dare hope that they little mark my withdrawnness.
She does. I see her glance flit across me whenever it can without betraying the trouble in her. She wonders what has gone wrong. I do myself. Why should a small surprise, the appearance of Ernu and Conomar after all these years, during which I scarcely ever gave them a thought, why should it
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cast my soul back through time? Does something in me—a ghost out of the Otherworld?—sense that this meeting may be fateful, and seek to learn how it has come about? I sit cold and alone, hosting the sun-feast.
Yet it clatters on, horns and trenchers, chatter and laughter, gossip and tales, while youths and maidens look at each other and forward to tonight, and meanwhile sunlight streams in the open doors to glow on gold and amber and brightly dyed garb. And slowly the spell on me fades, like dawntide fog giving way to clear morning. Little by little I come back to myself and the now. It is as if I must call up each happening of long ago, but once I have done so, it lets go its hold on me.
Or could it simply be that when I was reminded, that wakened a powerful wish to recall? Old men dwell much on the past, and I am no longer young. Surely a high holy day is a time for remembering friends who are gone: Herut, Athalberh, my elder brother who had so briefly held this seat that was our father's—
The guests rise, the trestle tables are cleared away, a hush falls. I go to the hearthstones and bless the dying fire. Two of my daughters bring a tub of ashes from former years. With beechwood scoops they gather today's and the embers and bear them off. At sunset I will make our needfire, and with a torch from it light the balefire, as balefires will be lighted everywhere over the land. The great and solemn moment sets me wholly free of my ghosts.
>
Daemagh and I return to the high seat. "Are you well?" she murmurs.
"I am again," I reply, also softly. "I went. . . dreamy for a span, but that's over with."
Her forefinger draws the branching sign of Mother Yortha. "May it never come upon you again. I was afraid for you."
"I don't believe it was anything to fear," I tell her and myself. "This is a good midsummer. Not like those our forebears knew, but better than many we've seen. We can hope it bodes well."
We take our seat, side by side. Our guests bench themselves along the walls, cheerful and expectant.
Their gifts have been laid there, often wrapped in cloth, and now most of them take these things onto
their laps. Serving wenches go about refilling their horns. Manservants bring mine in and stand
holding them. I say my words, Daemagh says hers, and the giving begins. One by one, in order of
rank or, for equal rank, age, the heads of households come up for their little speeches and their
presentations, amber lumps, pelts, hides, carved tokens, meaning that a horse or a cow is tethered
outside—no surprises, merely the best they can offer in these lean times. Mine to them are
likewise traditional, bronze knives and ornaments, cloaks, tunics, well-made harness, a goblet from
abroad that the dwindling trade has carried this far—the best I too can bestow, meager though my
father would have reckoned it. So do we renew the ties that have held us together from of old.
Meanwhile the humbler folk have gathered outside. My steward steps forth to let them know it is their turn. By twos and threes, some shyly, some brashly, they come in, stand before me, utter a few awkward words, and set down whatever they are carrying. I say thanks, Daemagh gives each one her smile, and I beckon a servant to pick the thing up and another to fetch over whatever I deem is a fair exchange—for a ham, a useful bronze tool; for a sheepskin, a small brooch; for a straw basket full of hazelnuts, a comb— It goes on. Making so many quick judgments is not quite easy. But it is part of being a lord.
All the while, I am inwardly wondering what Ernu will bring, and why, and how I shall deal with it. If he gives me, say, a foxskin, a crock of honey would be a generous return, maybe overgenerous. But Cono-mar is with him—
How I wish I had kept better track of them. I did at first, inquiring of peat carters and suchlike men when they came by. Ernu had taken a strange and dangerous slave into his hut. If Conomar did anything untoward, I wanted to know, and set matters right, hunting him down if I must. But the word was that he had settled in, seemingly without the men of the bog having to break him with beatings, and the two of them worked together. There were rumors of witchcraft, and presently news of a second hut built nearby. Others shunned the place. However, Ernu had never been very neighborly, and after his voyage he kept more and more to himself. He raised his brood to do the same. When they did meet with other folk, they talked surlily and no more than was needful. Yet the bog dwellers suffered no worse ills—sickness, injury, and the like—than they had always done. Whatever wizardry Conomar tried, and Ernu tried to learn, was either harmless or lacking in force at
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this distance from its homeland. As for that new hut, it was known that Ernu had given him a daughter early on, and it was said he got the others too when they became fit, if they lived. Anyhow, Ernu never turned them over to anyone else. So maybe Conomar had cast a spell on him, at least.
I disliked hearing of such things, they posed no threat that I could see, and the gods knew how much else was pressing itself on my heed. After a while I stopped inquiring, then well-nigh forgot about it.
Now, all at once—
The last and lowliest of my people gives his gift, takes his gift, and leaves us. Ernu's bulk darkens the doorway. He shambles forward, bold as a bear. Conomar strides beside him. Both have gone gray and lost teeth. Well, so have I, and even my Daemagh. The bones stand sharp in Conomar's face above a thicket of beard. His eyes are the same wintry blue, defying me.
The hall goes silent. A breath of strangeness has blown through it, and everyone sits taut, watching. The pair stop before the high seat.
"Welcome again," I say lamely. "It's been a long time."
"Have you missed us, lord?" asks Conomar in our own language— mocking me, but I had better not respond. It would look as though I were afraid of him. Breath hisses between Daemagh's lips. Otherwise we keep still and wait. "Well, we took a long time making a thing for you," says Ernu. "The two of us. We wanted it should be great." He holds it to his breast, bundled in a mildewy hide. "That is . . . well thought of." Unless this be a curse. "Both of you?" I know no cause for Ernu to love me, but neither for him to hate me. Conomar, though—
The Boian takes the word. While his speech is rough, bog-dweller speech, it flows, and a Celtic lilt is in it. "Lord Havakh, once we fough t, and you fought bravely yourself. It's bad luck that caught me, and you did not do as ill by me as you might have. You passed me on to a man who's become my friend, and sure but the friend of my friend must be mine too."
Does he mean that? I wonder. Daemagh knows the story, of course. As often erstwhile, she asks the right question. "Has it not been a poor and lonely life for you?"
"That it has, my lady." His smile and his tone charm, but the eyes are unwavering. "Yet it could have been worse. When Ernu here and his house listened to my tales, poems, songs, I was no longer alone, not really. Homesick I have been, but not alone like a fish caught and thrown on the riverbank to wait for the beheading."
This has made it easier for them to keep their backs to the outside world, I understand. They've had a bard with them. And what else was he, is he? Oh, indeed I have underreckoned both the warrior and the bogman.
"And he listened to more than that," Conomar goes on. "We've come to work well together, the pair of us."
"I'm . . . glad to hear this," I say for lack of better.
Ernu sweeps a hand through the air. He fairly swells with his own importance—which is not just in his head, I know now. "At last, lord, we can bring you a worthy gift," he booms. "You remember that sword we—you took when we fared yonder?"
I can only nod. I gave it to the king when he came through on his yearly procession, and I believe he has kept it in his treasury. Since then, I also believe, some few iron knives and the like have trickled to the North, though I have not seen them.
"Well, lord," Ernu says, "this'n's not so good, not yet, but it's ours what we made for you, and there'll be better to come." He unrolls the bundle, tosses the skin to the floor, and reaches the thing up to me. It is an iron sword.
Crudely done, yes. Already, holding it, staring at it, while gasps and mutters go through the hall, I can see it's inferior to a good bronze blade, less sharp, dull-hued, the marks of the hammer everywhere on it—but it is long, a weapon not to thrust with but to hew with; it is iron.
"Where did you get the metal?" is all I can find to ask.
"From the bog, lord, the bog," Ernu tells me victoriously. "Conomar knew to poke down with a
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stick and find the lumps of, of, uh, ore. He knew to make a kiln, and heat the stuff and pound it and, uh, quench it— He didn't know the whole thing, lord. We worked it out together, year by year, the how of it. There's much yet to work out, yes, I won't say otherwise, but I will work it out, and already I can do tools and things worth swapping for. Already I'm a blacksmith."
And thereby a man of power, a man who may reforge our world.
I force the eerie thought aside. Is it not high time that we in the North began to gain these skills? First, however— "This is a great gift," I hear myself saying. "It's hard to know what I can give back."
"We've thought on that—" he begins.
"My freedom, my freedom," Conomar croons. "A boat that takes me to the mainland, a weapon, a little gold or amber so I can pay when I need to, and I'll make my way home. Is that too much, lord?"
"No. Yo
u shall have it," I must say. "And you, Ernu, shall have honor and a home here," he and his family and their uncouthness, well rewarded for each new discovery he makes, because he is now a blacksmith. I can only hope that soon there will be more.
Yes, they thought far ahead, these two.
I should be glad. Why do I find vengeful joy in Conomar's eyes? He is a poet, it seems, and poets
are seers. What foreknowledge may he have?
I woke instantly, but lay for minutes bewildered. So much, so much— Rennie sat by the bed. The sight of him and of the objects around us, chairs, a desk, a computer, an Ansel Adams landscape framed and hung on the wall, a floor lamp lighted against the dusk gathering in the windows, those gave me back my reality. I was again the one I had always been. Jane and Myrtis were waiting for me at home.
It was not like rousing from a dream, though. I remembered what I had been as clearly as I remembered them, with none of the vagueness and illogic of dreams. I loved them, but I had lived longer with Daemagh and she had borne me more children.
No. She was Havakh's. I must be clear about that.
"Are you all right?" Rennie asked quietly.
"Yes." I got up. My feet were steady. "Just, well, overwhelmed."
"To be expected. Come on downstairs and relax awhile, start sorting your experiences out, then we'll call either your wife or a taxi." He had advised me not to drive here.
Already my scientist thoughts were busy. Yet sorrow was rising and rising. When he poured me a glass of wine, I drained it indecently fast. Doubtless I wasn't unique, for he had left the bottle on the table and gave me a refill without commenting. Instead, he let me brood while I sipped more slowly and the alcohol began to ease me a little.
"Was your experience helpful?" he asked at last.
Turtledove, Harry - Anthology 07 - New Tales Of The Bronze Age - The First Heroes (with Doyle, Noreen) Page 42