by Lynne Jonell
Will had been wondering the same thing. “Maybe it takes longer, the farther back in time we go,” he said, scarcely moving his lips.
Jamie pressed close to Will’s side. “I don’t want to fight the Romans,” he whispered. “Did you see their swords?”
“These people have swords, too,” Will whispered back. His eyes were adjusting to the dim light now, and he could see the glint of weapons stacked off to one side of the hut.
On the far side of the fire, the wild young men had gathered around two tall, carved chairs. In one of the chairs was an older man, broad of shoulder. He wore an armband that looked like a coiled snake, and around his neck was a thick iron chain, or torc. A scar ran from his brow across his cheek, pulling one eye down at the corner so that his frown looked very fierce indeed.
In the other chair was a woman, tall and queenly, her hair bound back from her forehead with an iron circlet. Her eyes were steady, but her face looked as if she hadn’t laughed in a long time. She was speaking now, her voice high and clear. “Magic we can use.”
She made a gesture, and the edge of her sleeve swept over the carved arm of the chair. “But why do these children not speak for themselves?” She gazed at the huddled group under their sheepskins; the firelight caught her cheek and made a tiny shadow along the lines at the corner of her mouth. “Come, now, surely you have voices?”
“They speak a foreign tongue, my lady Brethia,” said the wolfskin-clad man. “They may even be Romans themselves, though”—his gaze swept grimly over the huddled children—“they seem to have come out in their underclothes for some strange reason.”
The chieftain shifted in his chair, and his iron torc gleamed in the flickering light. “The children are not as important as the news you bring of Romans camping nearby. We knew the Romans had built a fort at the Island in the Flooded Stream, but that was a day’s march away. This—this is the enemy at our very door!” He brought his fist up to his mouth as if to keep himself from saying anything else.
The man with the missing ear and fingers spoke up. “My chieftain, if the children are Romans, we can make them tell us what the Romans are planning.”
The chieftain gave a short, bitter laugh. “Roman plans are always the same. Invade our lands, kill and torture, demand our young for slaves, and force tribute from whoever is left!” He gripped the armrests of his chair as if they were sword hilts. “It was Romans who did this,” he said, tilting his chin to show the slash on his cheek, “and who killed my only son at the Battle of the Bloody Hands. And it was Romans who gave you the scars you carry to this day.” He stared at Will, Nan, and Jamie with cold dark eyes. “If these children are Romans, they will use their magic to hurt us, not to help.”
There was a sudden bustle at the entrance, and a swirl as a cloak was flung off. “Magic? Did somebody say magic?”
The girl who had raced them in her chariot entered the spacious hut, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. Droplets flung from her passing sprinkled Will as she moved toward the fire. “So, what magic? And who are these strangers?” She turned and looked them over, her mouth curving. “Surely they are dressed somewhat … oddly?”
“Breet,” said the queenly woman reprovingly. “Where are your manners? Greet us properly.”
The girl’s smile opened, and the space between her teeth flashed into view. She joined her hands together into a double fist and thumped them against her chest. “Father. Mother. Your daughter returns and greets you. With greatest respect,” she added hurriedly, “more respect than you would believe, truly, and who are these people?”
“They are Roman children,” her father said. “We’re deciding what to do with them.”
“Probably kill them,” said the man with the twisted arm.
“Oh, don’t do that!” said Breet. She lifted her hands in sudden appeal, and her iron armband flashed in the light. It was coiled like a snake around her upper arm, but Will saw that its head had been worked into the shape of a strange, long-nosed beast. He stared at it and numbly hoped that the chieftain wouldn’t decide to kill them.
“It’s what they do to our children, after all,” Twisted Arm said bitterly.
“We’re not Romans,” Will blurted out.
There was a sudden silence. All eyes turned to him.
“If you can speak our tongue, why did you not answer when we spoke to you in the forest?” Missing Ear sounded irate.
Will stood up and the sheepskin slid off his shoulders. “We couldn’t understand it then. The language of—of our ancestors—only comes to us after we’ve heard it for a little while.”
“Ancestors?” said Breet quickly. Her gray eyes sparked, and her chin lifted slightly. “If we had one of our druids here, he could recite every ancestor we’ve ever had. I do not think you are among them.”
“We’re not your ancestors,” Will tried to explain. “You’re ours.”
“If you are not Romans,” interrupted Missing Ear, intent on his own train of thought, “why, then, did your dog run to them? And why did you try to follow?”
“Who, us?” Will glanced at Nan.
“Don’t pretend innocence!” shouted Missing Ear. “We saw you!”
Nan threw off her sheepskin and stood shoulder to shoulder with Will. “Please stop shouting!” Her voice trembled a little, and she lifted her chin. “He’s told you the truth—why don’t you believe him? We’re not Romans. And our dog didn’t run to them because she knew them. It’s just that she wanted to make friends.”
“Foolish of her,” said Twisted Arm. “She may discover they are not so friendly in return.”
The man with the chest scars hitched his wolfskin over his shoulder. “You say you are not Romans. But then who are you? We know you use magic, but you do not look like druids. Did a druid send you?”
Jamie pointed to Will proudly. “A druid didn’t do the magic. My brother did!”
The chieftain’s eyes seemed to bore a hole in Will. “Then do your magic now,” he commanded.
Will wished with all his heart that he had never learned to open a time window. People were never content to just look—they kept walking through and messing everything up. He didn’t want to let a bunch of warlike Picts into some other time and then try to get them all back. He was going to have enough trouble rounding up Gormlaith—
“Well?” said the chieftain sternly. “If you truly have magic, as our druids have, you will not hesitate to show us. And if you are not Roman, then I demand to know—where did you come from? Why are you on our lands?”
Will was trying to figure out which question to answer first, when Nan swept out her arm in imitation of the lady Brethia. “We come,” she said in a sonorous voice, “from a future time. We have come to visit you, our ancestors.” She gazed around impressively. “Now that we have seen you, we wish only to return to our own time. And—er—take our dog with us,” she added.
There was a silence.
“Ancestors you may be,” said Wolfskin in a courteous, disbelieving tone, “but you still have not shown the chieftain your magic. If you are friendly to us, you will do this. If you are our enemy, and refuse, we will…” He glanced around the fire at the crowd that had gathered. Behind him, Twisted Arm made a motion as if he were wringing someone’s neck.
“All right, I’ll do it.” Will jutted out his chin to hide the sudden fear that jabbed him. “But only for the chieftain. Nobody else can watch.”
The chieftain raised his arm and flicked his hand. The queenly Brethia rose and took a resisting Breet by the hand. “But I want to see the magic, too!” Will heard the girl say, with a flash of temper, as her mother towed her toward the exit. The rest of the crowd followed, murmuring. Only Wolfskin remained.
“My chieftain,” he said quietly, “consider that they have magic. What if they are planning treachery?”
The chieftain rubbed his chin with a callused hand. “Take the lass and the small lad out. Feed them if they are hungry, but keep them under guard while the young dr
uid shows me his magic. He will not dare to betray me while I hold his brother and—friend?”
“Cousin,” said Nan faintly.
“While I hold his family hostage.”
Will could not help a small, startled jerk. Hostage. It was the same word he had heard Nan’s parents using, when they were talking of his mother and thought he was not listening, and now he understood what it meant. It meant to keep someone prisoner until someone else, who cared about them, gave you what you wanted.
Jamie and Nan stumbled out, their shoulders gripped by Wolfskin’s huge hands. A trickle of cold moved down Will’s spine as he realized the power of taking a hostage. Bleakly, he knew that he would do anything the chieftain asked. Anything at all.
“Now,” said the chieftain, “show me your magic.”
Will forced himself to breath evenly, in and out. “Take hold of my shoulder,” he said. “And stand behind me, and watch.”
The chieftain’s hand was heavy. His body smelled of smoke and sweat, and his breath was loud in Will’s ear.
The room was full of shadows. Will turned away from the glare of the fire and focused on a spot a few feet ahead. The air became lighter. He shifted back and forward, searching, groping through future ages. And then, as easily as breathing, he opened a window to the time that he knew best.
Behind him, the chieftain gasped as the sunshine of a summer’s day filled a rough-edged square that hung in the air before his eyes. Above and to each side of him loomed the solid walls and sturdy beams of his dwelling place, but directly before him a vision of a bare hilltop had appeared, windswept and bright, covered with bracken and mossy stones.
“What am I seeing?” the chieftain asked hoarsely.
Will did not blink as he answered. “You are seeing the same hilltop we’re standing on, only in a future time.”
“It cannot be real.” The chieftain’s voice trembled. “This is an illusion.”
“It’s real enough,” said Will. “We stepped through a window just like this one, and came into your time. Your men saw us.”
The chieftain leaned forward. Tentatively he put a hand through. He snatched it back and turned, his dark eyes startled. “I felt the wind!”
Will kept his focus steady. “Now will you let us go? You’ve seen my magic, and it isn’t anything that will help you fight the Romans.”
The chieftain stared at the bare, sunlit hillside. “I want to go there.”
“Of course you do,” said Will, sighing. “Listen, can’t you just look from here? It’s much less complicated that way.”
“I must find out for myself if it is true,” said the chieftain in a low voice.
“Will you promise to come back?” Will countered. “Will you come back right away? It’s hard for me to hold the window open for very long.”
“I will indeed return quickly. It will not take me long to see what I need to see.”
The chieftain was as good as his word. He stepped into the future; gazed in every direction; went to the edge of the hilltop and looked over; turned around, spinning on his heel. Then Will put a hand through the window to guide him, and the chieftain came back into his own time with a face as set and hard as iron.
“Close it,” he said grimly, “and open it no more in my sight. To me!” he shouted, and in a moment, his fighting men crowded into the hut, followed by the rest of the villagers.
“Arm yourselves. Paint your bodies with warrior patterns. Say your prayers to the gods and prepare yourselves; we attack the Roman camp tonight, at sundown. Mothers,” he said, and his voice cracked, “paint yourselves and your children with patterns of the afterlife. What was done after the Battle of the Bloody Hands must be done here. Do not forget that we are the People—though we go down into the dark, we will go down fighting.”
Bewildered, Will glanced around him. The Pictish faces were contracted in grief, as if they had all been suddenly struck with the sharpest of swords. A low sound, like a stifled groan, ran through the group like the whimper of one great, wounded beast.
What had the chieftain seen when he went through the window? It couldn’t have been anything so very terrible. The scene had been peaceful—at least as much of it as Will had seen. He opened his mouth but only managed to get out a sort of protesting croak, when the chieftain whirled on him.
“GO!” the chieftain ordered. “Go where you will and trouble me no more! Your magic only brings despair!”
* * *
Will sat dangling his legs on the high stone wall overlooking the river valley. Nan had brought some flatbread and a lump of yellow cheese, which she and Jamie hadn’t finished; Jamie had put his head in Will’s lap and was fast asleep. Though the rain had stopped, the day was gloomy and cold, and Will tucked a sheepskin closely around Jamie’s shivering body. Behind them, all throughout the hilltop village, the Picts were busy sharpening weapons, checking harnesses and other tack, mending chariots, and painting themselves with spiraling blue designs and dots. Through all the preparation there came a humming sort of moan, now soft, now rising louder, but never quite going away, as if a whole people were grieving terribly, without words.
“We’ve got to get out of here.” Nan glanced behind her. “These people are crazy.”
Will didn’t think they were crazy, but he didn’t understand them. And he didn’t know what they were intending to do. “You’re right,” he said thickly through a mouthful of bread and cheese. “We have to get back. But there’s still Gormlaith, too.”
Nan narrowed her eyes against the late afternoon glare off the river. “I know where we are. That’s the River Lyon, and that’s the Tay. If we were back home, I mean in our own time, all we’d have to do is cross the Lyon at that bridge and we’d be on a road that would take us straight to Castle Menzies. The Romans made their camp right about where the castle is.”
“You mean, ‘going to be,’” Will said.
“Right. Anyway, I know where it is, and with luck, Gormly is still there. But it’s probably four miles at least, and with him”—she nodded at Jamie’s sleeping form—“it could take hours.”
“Not to mention the Picts might get nasty if they see us heading off in that direction,” Will said gloomily.
“The Romans might get nasty if they see us, too,” Nan said. “I don’t know anything about the Battle of the Bloody Hands, but it didn’t sound good.” She gnawed on a fingernail. “They wouldn’t be mean to a dog, though, would they?”
Behind them came a scraping noise, and Breet scrambled up onto the stone wall, breathing hard. “What in the name of the gods did you show my father?” she demanded. “What made him decide to sacrifice us all?”
Will gulped. “Sacrifice?”
“Yes, sacrifice!” Breet hissed. “You heard him. Do you not know what was done after the Battle of the Bloody Hands?”
Will shook his head. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“Two springs ago,” said Breet furiously, “we had a great army of the People, twice as many as Romans, and we met them far to the northeast, on a great plain. The carnyx blew and the druids wailed—”
“What’s a carnyx?” Will interrupted, unwisely.
Breet glared. “It’s a great loud beast horn that strikes the fear of death into our enemies. And so it did at the Battle of the Bloody Hands—for a while. But then the fighters came close together, so close our warriors did not have room to swing their great swords. The Romans, though, had short, sharp swords—wondrous sharp,” she added bitterly, “that could stab and thrust from inches away. So many lay dead in the end that the warriors who were left saw they could not win, and fled back into the hills. And then—” She clenched her fists and fell silent.
Nan asked, “Is that why it was called the Battle of the Bloody Hands? Because so many died?”
Breet shook her bowed head, her hair a curtain that swayed back and forth. “It was because of what happened after. There were hill forts nearby, small villages like ours, too close to the battlefield. The Romans were
pursuing, and our warriors could not carry all the children and the pregnant women and the old people with them.…” She lifted her head, and her eyes were tearless and hard, like glimmering stones. “We all know what happens when the Romans come upon defenseless villages. Terrible things, things I will not speak of. And when they are finished, they take those who are still alive and sell them—like cattle—and turn them into slaves. Do you know what happens to slaves?”
Will looked at his hands and nodded slowly. He had learned about slavery at school. He had a suspicion, however, that he hadn’t been told everything.
“Then you will know,” said Breet, “that it is better to die and go to one’s gods than to ever live as a slave. And that is what the People did. When the Romans came to those villages, they found only bodies and smoking ruins. We had beaten them. They found no one left alive that they could torture, or take captive as a slave.”
Nan made a strange gulping sound. “Is that what your father wants to do here? Have the villagers kill themselves, just in case the Romans come?”
Breet nodded. She touched the coils of her armband and rubbed her thumb against the strange beast head, as if it gave her comfort.
“But why?” Will exploded. Jamie stirred in his lap, flinging out an arm, and Will lowered his voice. “Listen, all I did was let your father go to the hilltop in the future. There was nothing there to make him go crazy, I swear it!”
Breet leaned forward, her gray eyes intent. “Show me,” she said. “I ask it as the chieftain’s daughter. I want to see what he saw.”
“All right.” Will swung his legs out from under Jamie and moved him carefully over to Nan. “But we need to do it where nobody can see you disappear.”
Breet pointed downward. “There’s nobody there but sheep.”
Will jumped off the wall and tumbled to his knees on the sheep-bitten turf. Breet followed a moment after, and Will gave her instructions. Then he looked back toward the wall, now between him and the top of the hill.
He breathed in and out, slowly. He let all thoughts drop from his mind except that he wanted to find the same time as before. As he had hoped, the last opening of the time window had left a thin trace on the air—he could still almost see it, glimmering like a spider’s web in the sun. He followed the trace; the window opened as before, and a patch of bright sunlit hilltop appeared in the middle of the rough stone wall.