The master walked straight to the altar. He did not glance back to see if Caradoc was following, and with a wave of resentment it seemed to Caradoc that the man had forgotten he was there. He strode through the circles and came up to the altar to see the master remove a small leather pouch from his belt and tip a pile of powdery, grayish grains into the hollow that had been scooped out of the stone. Then he spoke. “See how dark it has become,” he said. “I can hardly see you, and you cannot see me,” and suddenly Caradoc noticed that full darkness had indeed fallen, and between the Druid and himself was a wall of blackness that his eyes could hardly pierce. “Now we wait,” the master said, turning to face the east, and Caradoc also turned, wondering what marvel he would see. But the night was calm. A few stars pricked out, their light still muted, and as yet the moon had not appeared. In the trees a nightjar rasped his ugly song. The two men stood motionless while the stars swung higher, then all at once it was there, the moon, three quarters to the full and very clear, its blue-shadowed surface aloof. The master sighed. “Watch very carefully, Caradoc,” he murmured. “Keep your eyes on the stones beneath the moon’s face,” and Caradoc strained to see.
After a few minutes, a ray of moonlight touched the base of one of the stones in the farthest circle. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, it traveled upward, until for a moment it crowned the blunt, plain shaft with a drop of dry water, then Caradoc lost it only to find it again, halfway up the stone that stood in the second circle, directly behind the first. Once more the light slid up, tipped the stone, then fell to begin another ascent of the inmost circle. Caradoc glanced up. The moon was higher, though he had not been aware of the passage of time. He looked back. The ray of light was inching toward him now, seeming not to move, yet growing nearer, then it was crawling up the side of the altar. The Druid turned, flint at the ready. The pale light came on, and just as it found the incense cup he struck a bright spark. Immediately the powder began to smoulder, and a cloying but sweet-smelling odor filled the cold, tasteless night air.
“Look behind you,” the master ordered, and Caradoc swung round. “Do you see the star that perches glittering on the top of the farthest stone? That is your star. I saw it first in that position when Bran returned from his first visit to you, when you were a very young man. Now it sits there again, full of the knowledge of your years between. Stand on the other side of the altar and breathe on the incense.” Caradoc did as he was told, leaning over to be enveloped for a second in warm smoke. “Now stand very still and keep your eyes on it. Do not look at me.”
Caradoc felt the man withdraw into himself, and he suddenly felt lonely. His body cooled and he began to shiver, and his thoughts slipped past the plume of incense, past the tall, gray-folded figure opposite him and the old, spell-hugging circles, to his son, and Emrys, and Madoc. What were they doing, back in the country where solid flesh met warm, solid flesh, and all one needed to understand was that swords can kill? Were they limply asleep around a warm Council fire? He pictured Llyn’s curling hair spread upon his pallet, the room dim, the shadows red, the fire falling into embers. He saw him breathing softly, deeply, lost in his dreams. Dreams. He glanced across at the master, and felt horror race for a moment across his skin. The man was staring at him, eyes wide and fixed, and the moonlight had sucked all pigment from them so that now they seemed white. The rest of him was dim, dark gray tunic, a cloud of darkness that was his hair and his swarthy face, but those two grotesque, inhuman orbs wreathed in incense were full of a pale, sickly glow. Horror turned to fear, and then to panic.
For the first time in his life, Caradoc wanted to run away, run, swim, scramble sobbing through the mountains, anything to escape the coldness seeping to him from the man who no longer seemed like a man. He looked wildly at the sky. The moon was setting. Incredibly, the hours had gone by. The sight of the stars calmed him and he dropped his gaze once more to the thinning plume of smoke, and then he saw a hand reach out, cover the incense cup, and the glow abruptly died.
“You make me tired, Caradoc, with your terrors,” the master said dully. “I am nothing more than a man, and nothing less.” There was no timbre to his voice now, no tones of virility, no laughter. It came quietly out of the darkness like the voice of the stones themselves, heavy, ageless, without inflection. “I am a seer, the greatest seer the Druithin have ever known, but the burden is great, and what use are visions if they cannot be interpreted? Come. Let us sit under the trees and talk.”
He led the way, walking slowly like a cripple, back hunched, and they both sank onto the grass beneath an oak. “I am tired,” he went on after a moment. “I would like to sleep for one night, just one, without dreams.” Then he seemed to recover. His hands found the interior of his sleeves and he shrugged his tunic over his knees. “I had few words for you today, Caradoc, because visions for an arviragus are not for public ears. Yet the day was not wasted. You have been seeing yourself. The magic conjured here can do that to a man, for all the unknown secrets he brings with him become clear to him, and he goes away with no hiding place anymore.”
“You made the magic,” Caradoc snapped, his terror gone, his voice sounding harsh and loud in his ears. “You gave me memories, Druithin, but they were false.”
“Were they? All of them? I can bring truths to the surface of men’s souls, Caradoc, but I cannot take away the lies. And I tell you that the memory which seemed to you the purest was in fact the most untruthful of all. I see you look at me, and there is bitterness. Why am I chosen? you ask me in your heart. Has my life never been my own, after all? What is an arviragus, then, but a stupid gaming piece of the Druithin? You are beginning to see, aren’t you, Caradoc? And did you know that beneath the memories is hidden a lingering affection for the men of Rome? Truly the child still holds a ghostly knife to the throat of the man.”
“No! No! You are wrong!” The master’s words flayed him as though he were a dead white bull, a sacred offering being stripped of its skin. The blood of his slaughter gushed from his throat, his body was rigid with pain. “I have given all for you, I have followed Bran into suffering, I have denied myself a peaceful home and the company of my children! I am empty. Empty! Do you hear me? Even an honorable death was taken from me!”
“You are lying to yourself.”
“No,” Caradoc snarled. “No, not I. You wander in your visions, master, but who can say which ones are true and which are the dancing images of madness? If you knew the secret twistings of my mind you would not push me as you do!”
“I do know them,” the master said gently. “And I also know that without them you would be simply Caradoc, Catuvellaunian warrior. The Druithin do not hold you a witless prisoner, Caradoc. You, and only you, have the power to say yes or no to us, as you have done before.
Indeed it is you who hold us in your hands, every one of us, and all the tribes besides. An arviragus is lord over the Druithin, as well as his followers, for strong reasons, and above all men, he must be master of himself. This is why I show you the darkest places of your heart. This is why you are tormented by your own visions and dreams. An arviragus is unique.”
“But I am not an arviragus yet.”
“No, you are not, but you will be. So l must give you not only your past, but such of your future as I have been able to divine. I am not infallible, Caradoc. I see not one future but many, path upon path, and those paths branching into other paths, all leading only to the possible. I cannot often disentangle truth from shadow. I am not permitted to tell you what I have seen, but I can advise. Will you listen?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. The omens and visions are very mixed for you, perhaps because you and Albion are intertwined, and your fates are bound together. I can tell you little. I have seen you victorious, I have seen you ambushed and killed in a lonely valley, I have seen you in a great battle. Once, many years ago, I saw you at Camulodunon, living at peace with the Romans as your overlords, but that avenue of vision is now closed. I can tell you what you will do
tomorrow with certainty, and the day after that with probability, but then the visions multiply, split, become unsound because of all the decisions, your own and others, crowding into the moments of each day. All I know with certainty is that you are the chosen one, you will be arviragus for good or ill, and that the universe is indestructible!”
“What use are your dreams then, Master, if you cannot tell me whether I shall succeed or fail?” The man beside him leaned back. The colorless eyes were hooded as he bent his head.
“I did not say that I was powerless before the dreams, Caradoc. I have been dreaming now for nearly thirty years and I have learned to catch the fleet heel of truth as it goes rushing by me. Also, I read the stars, and meld what I learn from them to the message of my visions. If there is no agreement between the two, then there is no truth.”
“Well, tell me then! Do not leave me to the daily agony of seeing my people die and never knowing whether their deaths will be in vain!”
“The stars tell me that you will fail, and that your failure will be turned to good, but my visions tell me that you will succeed. Therefore I see it thus. You will come to a point in time, Caradoc, a place, a moment of great destiny, and so fine will be the line dividing failure from success that even the stars waver and dare not fearlessly predict the outcome. Neither must I. I cannot make conjecture. You have flaws, arviragus, but whether those flaws will destroy the tribes is entirely up to you, and I know also that there is no finer, more cunning warrior in Albion. So the only advice I can give you is this. Trust only your own judgment in all things, and then test that judgment in your heart. But when you are in grave doubt, listen to Bran. He is not a seer but his intuitions are perhaps more valuable to you than my visions.”
Caradoc was stiff with the cold of the approaching dawn. He was stiff with anger also, yet, though he wanted to call the master an impostor out of his own disappointment, he did not dare. He sat with knees hunched to chin, his heart chilled, his mind in a ferment, and the master chuckled. “You hate me, Caradoc, and you wish to believe either that I am keeping truth from you or that I am a false seer, but you know that truth is many-faced and subtle, and that not only am I a seer but I can see into your thoughts when you let me. You can shut yourself off from me, Caradoc, if you are strong enough!”
Caradoc knew that the master was joking with him at his expense and in spite of his irritation, he smiled. “Forgive me,” he said. “I wanted a great blast on the carnyx of truth, Master. I wanted all my doubts laid to rest.”
“Even if I could have done this, I would have refused. The Druithin are bound by ancient laws, Caradoc, and we break them at our peril. One of those laws states that no man may be told his future, for then the power of choice is removed from him and he loses his soul. This means that my brethren and I must learn to circumvent the will of the people, to move from Council to Council with words that are not always welcome, and to clothe our advice in riddles.”
“Will you at least perform the last test?”
“The Bull Dream?” The master shivered a little, then scrambled to his feet. In the east a thin band of gray light was growing, and now Caradoc could see the night’s lines grooved into the handsome face of the Druid, and the toll his dreams took of him. I should go mad under such a load, Caradoc knew suddenly. This man must be as strong as a mountain. They began to walk back down the drowsy path together.
“Yes, I will, but know that I pay a high price for doing it. What will you give me?”
A single bird began to trill, high in the oak branches, and the morning breeze began to lift the hair from the master’s bent shoulders. Hope came to Caradoc. He felt as though he had lived a thousand ages this night, fought a thousand battles with himself, yet he could not remember a single coherent thought. He flung back his head, and smiled. “I will give you back the whole of Albion,” he said. “Is that enough?”
“Oh I think so,” the master retorted, then burst out laughing, and before long the still-silent huts of the town came into view, clustered by the dark, cool waters of the river.
They all ate together two hours after the dawn, then the master embraced them and bade them farewell. “Remember, Caradoc, speak ill to no man or woman, friend or foe, for from now on you will not be able to discern either,” he admonished. “Love the gods, but love your honor more. Now go.” They bowed to him and he strode away whis tling, then they made their way back to the beach and the waiting boat, and the gray, forested line of the mainland.
“Tell me, Eurgain,” Caradoc said as the little craft skimmed over an ocean that was as calm and limpid as the sky. “What did the Druid show you?”
She was silent for a moment, trailing her fingers in the dark water, then she said, “He showed me many marvels in the sky, and told me many wonders.” She tried to speak again, struggled with the words, then burst into tears.
For three days they lingered in the village that gave onto the narrows and the island, then a snow took them by surprise, sweeping on the wings of a wind that shifted suddenly to the north, and Caradoc was galvanized into action. “We must go,” he told his hosts urgently. “We must not be cut off from your ricon.” He was afraid for Llyn if they had to winter here, afraid of Emrys’s dark, unfathomable warrior’s mind, afraid of the mountains, afraid of the time passing. There was so much to fear, he thought in despair, so much, and I am only a man. “Do not return the way you came,” he was told. “Go south along the coast until you reach the Demetae border, then turn east. There is a track, good in summer, and the ricon uses it to send the refugees to us.”
But it is almost winter now, Caradoc thought grimly, looking out at the swirling whiteness that obscured the island. Yet we must go. They farewelled the villagers and thanked them for their kindness, then checked their swords, picked up their packs, and disappeared.
The snow did not lie for long. It was too early in the season. It melted and the sun shone bleakly though the wind knifed through the travelers with a cutting edge that could only grow keener. Almost at once they entered Gangani territory, but the chiefs of the village had told them not to worry. The Ordovices had a temporary treaty with the men of the peninsula and they would not be molested. They could have cut the peninsula off but Caradoc, after consideration, decided to keep to the coast. He had no wish to be caught in more unfamiliar country with winter on its way, so they slogged forward, bent against the wind, exposed above an uninviting, forlornly vacant coastline. Caradoc’s thoughts went to his sister as he walked, the thunder of the cold surf in his ears and his face stung by spray. Where was she? Had Rome executed her or was she a slave now, chained to some officer’s household? Gladys would not live long in chains, he knew. If she did not kill herself then the loss of the freedom she prized so vehemently would drive her mad. But he could not feel, he could only think. He had no emotions left.
In two weeks they turned inland. They had no difficulty in spotting the track, for it was wide and well worn, but within three days of their leaving the coast the first real snow of winter fell, and it did not go away. The track narrowed. Bran led them, having walked it many times with the refugees he had escorted to Mona. His gray cloak was hard to see against the whiteness of the still, cold world around them, and they plodded doggedly after him, their faces and hands blue with cold, and their feet wet and frozen. The track began to rise, feeling for the drier heights where the traveler could have some view of where he was going. They had to follow it at the risk of becoming lost, though the gorges had offered shelter. There was none on the crests of the increasingly sharper hills and they ate and slept without warmth, buffeted continually. At night they huddled close together, arms around each other, trying with the heat of their bodies to comfort each other, locked in the silence of exhaustion. The wild animals had gone to ground and Cinnamus often came back to them empty handed. Caradoc found his sanity stretching out, the thread of reason thinning daily, and with an effort of will that took all his energy he hung onto it, leaving his body to obey the other bodies
that pressed against it, shivering in the nights. If he gave in all battles were lost, all visions gone for naught. He no longer slept. He dozed between fiery waves of dizziness when the wind shrieked at him with a fell voice, and he dreamed that Eurgain came to him, soft and beautiful as she had been in their first youth together, whispering of the peace of abdication and the blessed rest of defeat. He wanted to rip out his brains and fling them away. He wanted to take out his sword and skewer his eyes in an effort to reach the seat of his anguish, but he clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and night after night he held on, while Eurgain and Caelte crushed against him, and Bran watched him with a black, expressionless gaze.
It took them three more weeks to reach the Ordovician town. Weeks of hunger, privation, and wet, chilled misery, but gradually the land smoothed out until they were striding the backs of the rolling, dark-forested foothills. Snow turned to sleet, became rain. Cinnamus speared a deer, dazed with cold and hunger, and Eurgain found dry wood under the protecting branches of the oaks. The worst of their journeying was over.
Two days after Samain they were greeted at the bridge by Llyn, Emrys, and Sine. They came to a halt and stood before the chieftain, their packs falling to the wet ground, and Llyn ran forward and embraced them all. Still they did not speak and Emrys, looking from one to the other, nodded. They were scarecrows, the tattered remnants of their once-gay tunics and cloaks flapping against bodies from which all softness had been eaten away. The skin of their thin faces and hands was burned dark brown and it peeled in places to the tender flesh beneath, and their eyes were cups full of mountain magic, an essence compounded of suffering, loneliness, and fear and pounded in the pestle of their souls by the proud, jealous peaks themselves. The Ordovices blooded their sons by sending them into the mountains and they all, the ones that returned, came back with those eyes, and the mystery never left them. Emrys nodded again and Sine removed her bronze mask, meeting Eurgain’s gaze with the same plumbless detachment. Caradoc took one step.
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