by E. Knight
“Explain!” she said through clenched teeth.
“Come with me,” I signaled. “Leave your men here, and I will tell you all.”
Her soldiers were only too glad to dismount and stretch. It was clear she’d been driving them hard.
She followed me into a small glen. I turned to her. “How did you know he was Roman so quickly?” I asked, curious.
“The blisters and sores on his feet are in the pattern of Roman boots,” she said with a shudder. I must have looked confused, for she added, “The sight of Roman feet is etched into my memory in a way that will not be purged until they are all exterminated.”
I looked away as I understood she was referring to her attack. An image of Gara’s smiling face appeared in my mind, and I prayed she’d had an easy death. A death not compounded by the suffering this girl had faced.
“Where did you get him?” Sorcha asked.
“I took him from Mona.”
“And they are not hunting for him?”
“They do not appear to know that he’s been taken,” I said. “I assume they believe he died in the fires. I believe it is the gods’ way of protecting us.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The gods saved me and gave me this man so I could fulfill the ritual that will ensure the success of our people against the invaders,” I explained. “They have directed me to perform this most holy ritual in a sacred grove near your mother’s army. That is why we travel in this direction.”
Did she understand what ritual I meant? She must have, for her eyes widened with hope. She nodded. “How can I help you, Priest?”
The lightening of her expression touched me, for it gave a brief glimpse of the bright-eyed young girl that still lived under the armor of prickly rage she’d wrapped around herself like a heavy cloak.
“We travel alone, for every able-bodied man who can wield a weapon has been streaming to join your forces,” I said. “And although my guide is strong, a warrior for protection would be most welcome.”
“You shall have it!” she said.
“The man you leave with me must be able to go into local villages and secure some of the sacred implements I will need for the holy rite,” I pointed out.
“Of course!” she said, signaling to a young man with a blood-spattered beard. “Vanus is both Dobunni and Durotriges and will be welcomed and trusted by all as you move farther and farther south.”
Perfect! I’d been worrying about how I would obtain what I would need for the rite—a rope unused, a blessed dagger, mead boiled with mugwort in a sheep’s bladder, and, most important of all, a white robe. And here was a warrior princess promising help. The gods were indeed smiling down upon me! “You said you were on your way to your mother’s sister’s people?”
She nodded. “The Cornovii. She is on the southern edge of her territories right now. The more tribes we can convince to fight with us, the faster our victory.”
“I will beseech the gods on your behalf,” I said after cautioning her about the marching legions. She would likely have to take a circuitous route to avoid them and their scouts.
A swift suddenly poked its head out of a hole in a tree to my right and, with a little high-pitched call, soared into the sky in a soot-brown blur. But unlike most of the swifts that only bore a small bit of smudged-white at its throat, this one’s chest and belly were as pale as a martin’s. “A blessing,” I breathed. The princess followed my gaze, her eyes suddenly sad.
“My people say my birth was a blessing—they called me 'the lucky princess.'” Her voice was so bleak. “But I don't think I bring luck to anyone now.”
“You've brought it to me today,” I said gently. “You are blessed, Princess. So am I because the gods saved me. So is he—” I pointed at Felix. “His name means lucky in his ugly language, and the gods gave him to me for sacrifice. We lucky three will bring your mother victory.”
I smiled. And just as her mother had done years before in the sacred wood with the living elder, the princess' eyes filled with water. This beautiful, tall, hurting girl gave me a shaky smile of such innocent hope it nearly cleaved my chest in two.
FELIX
The sun indicated we were moving westward as well as southward. Were there slave markets on the western edges of these bloody lands? That made me sit up in the cart. The western coasts of this land of horrors were not as securely Roman as the eastern. What if he was taking me to a slave market controlled by the mysterious ones that were rumored to sail off the edge of the world in black ships? My stomach coiled into knots. I’d grown lazy, thinking that as soon as we got near the Roman ports, I would speak Latin, and then they’d be done for. But if these ports were held by even stranger savages . . . I needed to get serious about breaking out.
Also, I didn’t like the new guy that had mysteriously joined us. I’d awoken one afternoon to find some bear-fat-stinking sod staring daggers at me. Apparently, I’d missed the excitement when some native girl had dropped him off. A fucking girl! I could’ve used one of them, even if she was a barbarian savage. But no, I had to sleep through it all.
I took to baiting the idiot who, lucky for me, also spoke Gaulish. He rode his mount beside the cart when I began. “First, they will whip you,” I said, explaining what would happen when I finally escaped and hunted him down. “But not hard enough to kill you—just enough to make it agony when they throw you down on the long beam.”
He pretended not to hear me as we clopped along, but I could see his neck reddening. “Then they will spread your arms on the crossbeam and drive iron nails into your forearms below the wrists, right where the bones separate. Seriously, the sound is amazing. If you can hear it over the screams.”
Nothing.
“We do the same thing at the ankle bones, but that takes a bit more work as you need one of the heavier mallets—you know, the ones with the iron heads. Then, when your guy is nice and bolted onto the beams, you plow the whole structure into the ground so their naked indignity can be seen by all.”
There. A twitch. I was getting to him.
“It can take days for a bloke to die, which is part of the show. Sometimes our lads give them wine or water when their throats swell so that they can continue screaming. They take bets on when the idiot will die. Occasionally, crows will pluck out their eyes or pull at their noses, waking them up. Now that’s a sight! But the show ends when the prisoner finally suffocates to death because he can no longer keep his head up.”
Still nothing. Balls of bronze this guy has.
“I thought you should know exactly how you’re going to die,” I continued. “Consider it a courtesy.”
Faster than I could blink, he vaulted off his horse and had a dagger at my neck. “You will shut your fat mouth now, or I will cut off your lips to hear you scream.”
I grinned into his big red sweaty face.
The little Druid called him off me, as I knew he would.
The savage spit and stomped off. I could do nothing about the slimy glob rolling down my cheek except to think that getting him to lose control had been completely worth it.
Not long after, we stopped and made camp in a mysterious wood that I was sure was filled with either strong magic or malevolent spirits. The Druidling seemed to glow from the inside with a weird serenity that couldn’t be budged, even when I baited him over his lost girl.
The more questions I asked, the quieter he got. And although I couldn’t say why, the calmer he got, the more uneasy it made me. He kept watching the sky as if it were talking to him. And maybe it was—those Druids were powerful magicians. The great Caesar had said so. And I’d witnessed Centurion Flacca’s death-by-cursing. Not to mention the blinding spell one of them had cast on me. I shivered in disgust.
Groups of locals began to camp around us. They kept me near the fires at night. Children gathered to stare at me. A couple of young women came over and talked softly to each other about me. When their eyes roamed over my body, e
verything tingled. And I mean everything. This only made them smile and giggle appreciatively. It was all so strange that I didn’t know what to make of it.
The Druid boy started disappearing into the woods for long periods. When I asked him what he did there, he only gave me that stupid, sly smile again. What a knob.
At least it was clear we were staying here for a while, which meant we weren’t headed to unknown western ports, after all. Certainly, with all the new people around us and all the distractions, it was just a matter of time before someone forgot to tighten the ropes on my ankles.
That’s when I would run.
YORATH
Sorcha’s warrior-guard had performed his duties well and had obtained everything I needed for the ritual. Still, as we sat by the campfire, I could tell he was troubled.
“Walk with me,” I said, leaving the young gawkers around my prisoner. When I was sure we would not be overheard, I asked him what weighed so heavily on his heart.
“I need not bother you, Priest,” he said, not meeting my eyes.
“But something haunts you,” I said. “You must clear yourself of it if you are to serve me. I need you whole for this rite.”
He looked at me, hazel eyes wide with fear. He swallowed. “What the Romans did at Mona . . . it is beyond loathsome. And yet . . .” He stopped and rubbed his face.
“And yet what?”
It all came flooding out. “And yet the armies of our own people also killed civilians and innocents in Camulodunum. It was outright slaughter. We were no better, don’t you see? Honorable battle I understand, but this slaughter of women, children, and old people is beneath us. I keep seeing the bodies and hearing the screams of children and women.”
“As do I,” I said. “This means we have not lost our sense of honor as people of the gods of this land. The Romans brought with them a savagery and cycle of violence so ugly and deep it is not surprising that we have adopted some of their ways in order to defeat them.”
The young warrior continued to frown.
“When we have purged the Romans from our lands, and the Old Ways of our gods have returned, we will cleanse all of our people of the stain of the Romans,” I promised. “The gods themselves will absolve you.”
He nodded, thanked me, and returned to the camp. I watched him go, and my inner eye saw that while on the outside he seemed soothed by my words, on the inside he continued to be torn in two. I doubted he was the only warrior in Boudica's war band troubled by the violence he must commit to defeat Rome. Such was the cost of dealing with the Romans: even when one fought against them, the stain of their violence licked and crackled at the soul like a fire about to engulf an entire forest.
I fasted and bathed in moving waters as the night of the full moon approached. The nights were warm now—the last days of spring had passed into summer, and the year stood at its height. Here it was pleasantly warm. In the south, where Boudica’s war band carried death to the Romans, I imagined it was already as hot as a forge.
My body seemed to thrum with mingled fear and awe the closer we came to performing the most sacred ritual of all. One night, I dreamed that I was back again on Mona with the elder priest and the Iceni queen. His white beard shook as he thundered, “The unworthy think to read the signs of the gods but see only the reflections of their deepest desires or their greatest fears.”
When Boudica opened her mouth to argue, he roared, “And how many hundreds of moons have you spent on Mona studying the sacred ways?”
When I awoke, I wondered why the gods sent this particular part of the memory-dream again. A cold doubt writhed in my belly. Had the elder been warning me and not Boudica? What if I was the one misreading the signs?
But I was the only one of Mona left! True, I had not trained for as long as the elder Druid had, but he was no longer here. The reality was that the gods saved me and not him. Which meant they trusted me.
No, it had to be a message for the queen.
FELIX
They took me to a mist-filled glen filled with so many rich shades of vibrant green it was clearly a place favored by their strange gods. I felt expansive and smiled stupidly as I looked around. Had they put something in my mead before we set off? I should have been angry about that, but I wasn't. Maybe it wasn't mead—maybe the magic of this place was powerful all on its own. It somehow filled my head with air so that it gently separated from my body and floated amidst the clouds.
Two girls came and took me by the arms—the same girls who regularly came to the fire to smile sweetly at me. Gods, they were lovely. These girls weren’t savages. They smelled of sage and sunshine. Was I dead? Was this Elysium?
No, this had to be a place of magic in these strange lands. The kind of place the lads whispered about in the dark. But it wasn’t a place of terror. It was a place of peace and beauty. The Druid brought me here. Why had we wanted them all dead when they knew the secrets of a place like this? I couldn’t remember.
I tried to muster Agricola’s face to stay strong, but it drifted away.
The girls were speaking to me, and I noticed we were naked.
When did that happen?
Gods, they were pretty. One was raven-haired and the other was copper-haired, like the Queen of Iceni was rumored to be. I glanced down and saw that all of her was that color and complimented her on her beauty. She smiled and shook her head, reminding me that she couldn’t understand me. I leaned toward her for a kiss, but she pulled away, though she was still smiling.
The next thing I knew, we were all three walking into a deep, clear spring. By Numa’s cock, the water was freezing! The three of us squealed and laughed. We took turns dunking each other.
The raven-haired one dove down for some time, and I could’ve sworn she’d turned into a fish, but then she surfaced, wet hair gleaming blue-black in the shimmering light, her hands filled with tiny shells and rocks and debris that she used to scrub me. Still, it seemed that the half of her still in the water flashed with silver-green scales beneath the sparkling water. The other one dove down, too, and they took turns washing me. I wanted to wash them, too, but they wouldn’t let me.
Strangely, a flash of memory came and went like a darting swallow: my mother and sisters washing a piglet until it glowed pink on the day they would sacrifice it before the spring planting. The dark-haired girl spent a lot of time cleaning my fingernails. Time seemed to expand and shrink.
Had I fallen asleep? I was in the sunlight now, covered in blankets. When the sun touched the tip of the tallest pine, the copper-haired girl came to me. By the way she touched me—lovingly, slowly, with a sweet smile of desire—I knew that she wanted me, and for some reason, that realization made me want to cry.
I’d only ever paid for sex, and I could only afford the ones who didn’t even bother to pretend to want me or to enjoy themselves. This girl chose me, and the certainty of this made every sensation of pleasure pulse more deeply than I could’ve ever imagined possible. I came with so much force and pleasure it was as if I was actually being turned inside out with it. The girl did not stop moving when I was done. Instead, she took my hand and pressed herself against it, rocking until she gasped and shuddered, too. That this girl had wanted me and actually enjoyed herself with me was a revelation. I wanted to stay there with her, in her, in the sunshine, naked like animals, forever.
The hours swirled together, just as our bodies joined over and over.
I must have fallen asleep again because the sun was gone. I was dressed in a tunic and trousers of fine quality. The only rope on me was a twisted decorative belt around my waist. Laughing, I realized that now that I was dressed and untied, I could escape but did not want to—I had entered a magical wood where I would happily spend the rest of my days with this girl who had hair the color of the setting sun.
Maybe the Druid was right. Maybe I was a tribesman at heart, like my ancestors in Gaul. Vaguely, I had a sense of wrongness. No, I was Roman. A soldier. But I was in a magi
c wood with this beautiful girl who wanted me.
I began to laugh, and she laughed too. “My name means lucky!” I said. “And this is the first bit of luck I’ve ever had.”
She just laughed again.
“What is your name?” I asked. “Please tell me.”
The girl spoke, but I could not understand. It didn’t matter, though, because I could tell she still liked me by the way she stroked my cheek. She hand-fed me a type of burnt griddle bread covered in honey, the taste exploding in my mouth in a burst of strange textures and thick sweetness. She held a cup of mead to my mouth, and I drank deeply of the strange-tasting brew.
Suddenly, there were lots of people around us, and I smiled expansively at all of them. Torches flickered in a circle, and I was moved by the sheer beauty and wholeness of it.
The Druid boy appeared, and I wanted to thank him for the gift of these woods and this day, for the miracle of the girl who wanted me. Because I knew that somehow he’d done this.
He held out his arms, and all of the people began to chant and sway in rhythm. He glowed in a moon-white robe. Arcing his hands in strange curves, he made pronouncements that sounded like gibberish to me. What did I care as long as the girl was by my side?
Suddenly, I realized he was speaking me in Gaulish. “Felix of Gaul, of the People of the Elders before the Time of Rome, do you come to the arms of the woods willingly?”
I grinned widely and threw my arms out. “Yes, yes! A million times, yes!”
My answer sent a ripple of awe and excitement around the circle of torch holders. I looked at the girl, and she smiled widely at me.
“As long as she stays with me in these woods!” I added, but nobody seemed to hear me as the chanting grew louder and louder.
So I repeated it again and again. I would stay with this magical girl in this magical place until the end of time if they let me.