by P. C. Cast
There was a scent on the smoke-filled breeze that Alex couldn’t quite identify, though it made her stomach feel funny. “No,” she repeated more softly. “But maybe he wasn’t in there. Maybe he’s still in the city somewhere.”
Caradoc glanced around until he found a familiar face, then strode over to the warrior, with Alex close behind him.
“Saidear, is Boudica close by?”
He shook his head. “The queen has returned to camp to visit the wounded.”
“And she is well and unharmed?”
Saidear’s smile was fierce. “She is! Boudica fought like Andraste come to earth.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Caradoc said. “As the queen is busy elsewhere, perhaps you can aid me.”
“Of course, Caradoc.” The Celt bowed his head respectfully.
“I am on a mission for the goddess. Her priestess must find the tax collector, Catus. Have you seen the Roman?” Caradoc asked.
“The creature who ordered our queen beaten and her daughters raped? Aye, many of us have seen him. There!” The warrior made a disdainful gesture toward the burning temple. “That is where he and the rest of the Roman cowards ran, hoping our vengeance would be slaked with their slaves and the citizens of Londinium. And there is where Boudica ordered them burned alive, and sent to their Jupiter for judgment.”
Sickened by the realization that the disturbing scent wafting on the breeze was human flesh burning, Alex gagged and stumbled away from the temple, not caring that the Celts were watching her with curious expressions on their fire reddened faces.
Caradoc’s strong arm went around her. “We’re getting out of here,” he said grimly.
All she could do was nod. Silently, she allowed him to lead her back to their horses, and then they were galloping for the forest. Alex was unbelievably relieved when the trees closed in a soothing canopy over their heads.
“Do you want to return to Boudica’s tent, or to my camp? It is your choice, Blonwen,” Caradoc said as she slid down from her horse.
“I want to go with you,” she replied with no hesitation. Alex knew she couldn’t face Boudica or her daughters just then, as they celebrated their victory over the Romans. The scent of burning human flesh was still in her nose, and the screams of the dead still echoed in her ears.
As she walked beside the silent druid, Alex tried to organize her thoughts and figure out what the hell she was going to do now. But she couldn’t seem to make her mind work. It kept circling around and around scenes of the dying Celts, Londinium ablaze and the screams of burning men.
“Drink this and sit close to the fire.” Caradoc pressed a goblet of mead into her hands and guided her back to the log near his campfire.
Alex blinked and gazed around her. She hadn’t even noticed when they’d reached his camp.
“Do as I say,” he told her.
She nodded numbly and drained the goblet, glad for the slow, simmering burn of the sweet, strong mead.
“You have never seen battle before, have you?”
Alex thought about her TDY tours to the communication centers in Turkey and Afghanistan. “Nothing like that,” she said.
He nodded. “Warriors want to believe war is glorious and vengeance is sweet. The truth is war is sometimes necessary, but it is always more about death and destruction than it is about fulfilling the vainglorious fantasies of man.” Caradoc paused a moment. “I want you to know that what the Romans did to the Isle of Mona and the druids and priestesses and their families was far more terrible than what happened to Londinium today.”
“That’s hard for me to imagine,” she said.
“Don’t try to imagine it. Just know that even though war is terrible, Boudica’s cause is just. We cannot live as slaves, with the Romans able to discard our lives and our families at whim. We are a free people, and we must remain that way.”
“I understand fighting for your freedom,” Alex said. “It’s just that seeing it makes it…” Her voice trailed off, as if she was unable to put her feelings into words.
“Seeing it makes a magnificent abstract concept real, and reality tends to taint even the most wonderful ideas,” he finished for her.
“Yes,” she sighed. “I think that’s what I mean.”
He touched her cheek gently. “Boudica will be calling for me as soon as she finishes with the wounded. I must go to her.”
“She’ll want me, too,” Alex said, and her stomach felt it would turn inside out at the thought of facing the queen and her inner circle of blood-spattered warriors.
“Boudica will understand that your service of Andraste has left you exhausted. Blonwen, you understand that I am saying only truth, don’t you? Look deep within yourself. What you witnessed was horrendous, but the despair I see in your eyes is there because the goddess has drained you today. Stay here. Rest. Draw strength and comfort from the forest. I will return as soon as I am able.”
With a huge sense of relief, Alex nodded.
Caradoc kissed her softly on her lips and then he was gone.
Alex poured herself another goblet of mead; this one she drank more slowly. as she took the druid’s advice and looked within herself. She was exhausted all the way through to her bones. She’d been too busy, too worried to realize just how unimaginably tired she really was. With the understanding that she truly was drained and at the end of her reserves, Alex could acknowledge that some of the horror she was feeling was because her defenses were down. What had happened in Londinium had been terrible, but she was well aware that war wasn’t pretty. And she knew from Carswell’s briefing, as well as firsthand from the Celts themselves, that the Romans had been brutalizing the Iceni for decades. Alex didn’t really want to turn from Boudica just because the queen had exacted retribution from her enemies.
“I do need to recharge and get my perspective back,” Alex said aloud. Resolutely, she swallowed the rest of the mead and then got up and, thinking of the cleansing stream, made her way to where it bubbled over smooth stones not far from Caradoc’s campsite.
Alex knelt on the mossy bank, cupped the cool, clear water in her hands and splashed it over her face again and again, until she couldn’t smell the scent of burning flesh anymore. Then she bent, cupped her hands again and drank deeply of the water. It was so clean it almost tasted sweet. Already feeling better, Alex scooted back until she leaned against the bark of a thick old oak. She ran her damp fingers through her hair, working out snarls and re-forming curls. The act of combing her hands through her hair was soothing, and Alex felt the numbness that had weighed down her spirit begin to lift.
She was still terribly tired, but now it was just a normal weariness, and not the exhaustion that had paralyzed her mind. Her thoughts didn’t circle around the horror of violence and destruction; instead, they were her own again, to put to order and reason through. And reason she did. She had half the medallion, or at least knew where half was. She could see it, and could eventually figure out how to get it from Boudica.
Could Carswell do anything if Alex grabbed the torque and returned with only part of the medallion? Could she make a cast of that and reconstruct from it what the other half of the piece should look like? Maybe. It was a question Alex hadn’t posed to the professor. Obviously, no one had, or the answer would have been included in her very thorough briefing.
So, worst-case scenario, Alex could still get a part of the medallion to Flagstaff.
And run away from Caradoc, never to see him again?
Alex mentally shook herself. Now was not the time to get stuck on a man, literally. This wasn’t her era; she didn’t belong in AD 60, no matter what her heart or soul might wish.
“I have to get the mission done. Then I can think about him.” She whispered the words as if trying to conjure a spell that would make her heart and soul behave, and quit filling her with thoughts that didn’t matter, about a future that couldn’t be hers. “Just get the job done,” she muttered.
But how was she supposed to do that? Catus was de
ad and the piece of the puzzle that completed her mission was either burned with him, or hidden by him.
Then Alex’s eyes widened. “That’s it! Carswell even said the medallion was surrounded by the dead. That’s why they needed me for this mission!”
Chapter 15
E xcited, Alex stood and began to pace, still muttering to herself. “So what if Catus is dead? As long as he knew where the medallion was, what difference does that make? I can talk to dead people!” Alex came to an abrupt halt. That was it! That was what she had to do to finish her mission. Caradoc had said Soul Speakers could summon the dead—that they used the power of the forest to do it. She already had some experience with forest power; surely she could figure out how to call one newly dead spirit! She’d ask Catus to tell her where he’d put the medallion, and then she’d retrieve it from his hiding place, even if she had to wait for the temple to turn to cold ashes.
She shivered, not wanting to think about sifting through bodies and rubble to find a little medallion piece. Of course, it might not be in the temple. Actually, it would be logical for it not to be. Why would Catus keep his personal things there? It was probably wherever he’d been living.
Feeling more optimistic by the second, Alex continued pacing and thinking, until one thought brought her up short, and she gasped as the final piece of the puzzle fitted into place. She’d been making this mission way too difficult. She didn’t have to steal the damn torque from the queen; all she needed to do after she got the medallion piece from Catus was talk Boudica into letting her borrow her torque.
“That should be fairly easy to do. I’ll just make up a blessing or cleansing or something that the goddess would want me to do to it.”
Once Boudica let her have the torque, Alex would return to the future, give the medallion pieces to Professor Carswell and ask her to make quick copies of them. Alex would fit them into the torque and then return. She didn’t have to be the priestess who betrayed the queen and stole the last thing she had from her dead husband, after all!
And what do I do about Caradoc?
“I’ll figure that out later,” she told herself sternly. “Get one job done at a time, and job one needs to be done now.”
Alex looked around her, peering through the dense greenery of the forest for the telltale glimpse of white she needed. She wasn’t really surprised to see the snowy flowers of a rowan tree only a few paces beyond the stream.
Alex took off her shoes and, carrying them in one hand, and lifting her tunic with the other, waded across, liking how the cool water and smooth stones felt against her feet. She approached the rowan slowly, taking her time to study it while she slowed her breathing and centered herself.
When her mind was calm and focused, she pressed her palms against the rough bark of the tree.
And realized she didn’t know what the hell she was doing.
She wasn’t really a priestess. She was just a weird girl from a world way off in the future who talked to dead people and really had no damn life at all.
A frustrated tear slipped down Alex’s cheek and she brushed her face against her shoulder and sniffled. She was so tired! And she was in way over her head with all of this. Yeah, her plan had seemed doable—if she knew what she was doing!
Have more confidence in yourself, child. The unearthly voice drifted down from above her.
Alex jumped a little and jerked her hands from the rowan’s bark as she peered up into the green-and-white boughs, to see Caradoc’s mom sitting snuggly where the massive tree formed a y. Alex frowned. “You’re not the ghost I need to talk to.” Then her spirit brightened. “But can you tell me how to call a different ghost here?”
I do not need to tell you something you already know within yourself. You must learn to trust your heart and your soul. Start now. Listen within and act upon what you hear.
“Your son’s less cryptic,” Alex told her.
My son can instruct you, but his lessons won’t do any good if you do not trust yourself, and that is something no one can teach you. You must find a way to believe in yourself on your own.
Alex wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, she clamped down on her temper and looked up at Caradoc’s mother again. “Seriously, can’t you just tell me what to do? I really don’t have the time or energy to waste messing up and starting over a bunch of times.”
The ghost’s brows lifted, reminding Alex very much of her son. I didn’t take you for the sort of woman who just wished to follow orders given by others.
Alex felt the shock of the far-reaching truth of the ghost’s words. She didn’t like to take orders. She hadn’t left the air force simply because the dead had begun to overwhelm her. She’d left because it didn’t rest easy with her to live a life dictated by others, especially when those others called themselves her “superiors.” Alex liked to make her own choices and her own decisions.
“You’re right. I don’t like to be told what to do.”
Then look within yourself and have the confidence to find your own way, the ghost said, lifting her palm that held the spiral tattoo as if in blessing.
“Okay, I will,” Alex said, more to herself than to the spirit.
She raised her hands again and pressed them against the bark of the ancient rowan. Alex closed her eyes and focused her thoughts, and then, with a sense of release, she reached out, searching for the energy she’d tapped into before.
It zapped her just as before, and she gasped. Against her palms, Alex could almost feel the tree breathing, as crazy as that sounded. But there was energy and warmth and…she concentrated harder…there was even a sense of awareness that Alex knew could absolutely not be something she was imagining.
She drew a deep breath and said, “I need your help.”
The bark of the tree seemed to quiver under her palms.
“I’m a Soul Speaker, and I need to find a particular soul. I ask that you lend me your power and help me find a spirit that was recently in Londinium. His name was Catus. He was a Roman tax collector—the man who ordered Boudica beaten and her daughters raped.” Alex added the description, guessing that trees might not know names and such, but all the Celts seemed to know Catus as the guy who’d caused the queen and her family to be brutalized, so it made sense that the watching forest might know him, too. “So, please, I ask you in the name of the goddess Andraste, who I would be honored to serve, that you show me Catus!”
Her hands heated immensely, so much that she had to grit her teeth and force herself not to pull away. Then there was a shimmering brightness to her right, and Alex watched as what looked like the fabric of reality split, shifted and opened. Speechless with amazement, she peered through a glittering veil to see Jupiter’s temple, only this temple wasn’t ablaze. It was in a state of chaos, though. Men wearing togas were rushing in a panicked group into the temple, shouting about barring the doors and keeping out the barbarians. Like a video spotlight, Alex’s eye was drawn to the side steps of the temple, where a fat man wearing a richly trimmed toga was talking in a low, urgent voice with a younger, less opulently dressed man. Catus…the name came through the bark of the tree and was absorbed into Alex’s body. It was the weirdest thing she’d ever experienced, but she knew beyond any doubt that the fat guy was the tax collector.
“I need to see what happens to him!” Alex said quickly.
She watched as Catus sent the man off on an errand. When he was gone, the fat man left the temple steps and ducked into a beautiful marble building situated beside it. Inside, he unlocked an inner room and opened a chest, pulling out several heavy bags that were obviously filled with coins. These he tucked into the huge belt that encircled his midsection, then he rushed out of the building, to pace back and forth.
Minutes later the young man raced up on the back of a horse, leading another.
“Flavius! Here! Come to me!”
Flavius guided the horses to the fat man, pulling them to a skidding halt. Instantly, Catus grabbed the young man’s toga and dragged him
off his mount’s back.
“My lord! What are you doing?” Flavius asked, as Catus literally used his body as a mounting block.
“I am leaving this accursed city,” the tax collector said, peering down his long nose at the young man.
Flavius started to move to the second horse, which was saddled and tethered to the other, but Catus guided his mount forward, blocking his path.
“I don’t understand,” said the young man.
“I am leaving alone. I’ll need to ride hard and fast to escape, and I’ll need the second horse to relieve this one.”
“But I’ve been your assistant for two seasons! I’ve served you loyally.”
Catus shrugged. “And now, Flavius, your time of service is over.” The tax collector jerked his fat chin at Jupiter’s temple. “Hide there with the rest of the rabble. Perhaps Jupiter will protect you.” Then he leaned forward and gouged his heels into the horse, causing his assistant to leap aside to avoid being knocked down. Obviously not knowing what else to do, the young man ran to Jupiter’s temple, and to his doom.
The scene shimmered and the veil of reality shifted and closed again.
Breathing hard, Alex leaned wearily against the tree. “Catus isn’t dead,” she said.
The coward escaped. Sometimes Fate is inexplicably unjust, said Caradoc’s mother. She wasn’t perched in the tree anymore, but was sitting on the moss-lined bank of the stream.
“Well, at least I was partially successful. I think I know how to call spirits to me. I mean, I needed to see Catus, and the power of the forest let me do so. I suppose the same thing will happen when I call for someone who is actually dead.”
But Catus isn’t dead.
“No, but he has something I need. Someone who knew him must know where it is—whether it’s with him or whether he left it behind.”
Do you not think you should try another calling after you have grounded yourself? It isn’t wise to traffic in the spirit realm unless you’re firmly attached to the mortal world.