The WIglaff Tales (The Wiglaff Chronicles Book 1)

by E. W. Farnsworth

  Wiglaff excused himself for a moment and went outside to relieve himself. When he reentered the cavern, Alma and Peter were having a heated argument about the nature of the gods.

  “Yes, a god should be good, Peter. I entirely agree with you. Mercury is good.”

  “He’s good at things. He’s not inherently good. He’s a trickster, a slippery character. If he walked into this cavern, you’d immediately distrust him.”

  “Ooh!” Alma was furious at Peter’s blasphemous description of her god.

  “Have you ever seen Mercury in the flesh? I don’t mean one of the ten thousand odd statues or mosaics. I mean standing right in front of you in flesh and blood.”

  “Of course not. Have you seen Jesus in that way?”

  “I see him every day.”

  “What? Now I know you’re lying. I thought you said believers in Jesus didn’t lie.” She sounded almost gleeful, as if she finally had the proof to use against him now.

  “What I mean is Jesus is always with me. I feel I can talk with him directly. He gives me good advice. He comforts me when I’m stressed. Does Mercury do that for you?”

  “When I need Mercury, I pay and he’s there. He comes when I make gold from quartz. He lives in the liquid quicksilver that brings out the gold and leaves it when I’m done.”

  “But you don’t feel he’s your friend?”

  “No. He’s a god. You might as well want the Emperor to be your friend.”

  “I think you understand what I was trying to say. I won’t argue anymore because I know I’m right.”

  Boadicea smiled to see her favorite believer win the argument with her nemesis. Wiglaff noticed that his daughter favored the man. He resolved to keep a close eye on how things developed between them.

  Wiglaff said to no one in particular, “Last night I had a dream that frightened me. I thought you all might help me discover what it meant. I saw a long table with Roman soldiers eating alongside their enemies. There was plenty of meat and drink. At the head of the table was an enormous man with a hawk-beaked nose. He was sitting on a throne of blood, eating a human leg. That’s when I woke up. Does anyone know what this could mean?”

  The assemblage was stunned to hear the content of the dream. Alma was the first to speak.

  “It was the table of the god Mavors or Mars. His sign is the hawk. He devours humans in battle. The table in the dream was not the soldiers’ feast, but his. The table was the battlefield where Romans and their enemies meet to communicate by killing.” She breathed in and waited for other comments.

  Mornow gave his interpretation next. He said, “You catalyzed the tribunal that brought our people and the Romans together. Everyone has blood on his hands, for all are soldiers and killers. On one level, it’s a great feast in the sharing of grievances, with equality of expression all around. Only when the tribunal was established in your mind did you see the real arbiter of the feast. It was Mavors or Enyo or Mars, the god of war, doing what he always does—devouring humans. The human leg was his drumstick and an appetizer presaging war.”

  “Peter and Simon, what do you have to say about my dream?”

  Simon spoke tentatively at first and then with growing fervor. “I see things differently. The table is the world. At the table are all humans, Romans and others. Since I come from the tradition of Jesus, I think of the Last Supper, when he ate a symbolic meal with his disciples. He offered wine and bread, but called them his blood and his body. By eating him, we may gain the key to heaven. The figure presiding at the feast was a pretender, the very opposite of Jesus and a hideous parody of Him.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, acknowledging Simon’s words without stating an opinion. Then he turned to Peter.

  “Peter, you’ve been very quiet. How do you view the image?”

  “I agree with Simon that the meal you saw was infernal and evil. It’s a meal we soldiers see whenever we go to war. The opposite of that image of war is peace, the reward for having passed through the evil meal to its end. Did you have another dream last night? Perhaps one that showed the reward at the end of the feast?”

  “I saw a flowery meadow in the sun, with skylarks rising and flying into the sun. I had the feeling I was in an eternal place.”

  “It was the Elysian Fields,” Alma said with determination.

  “It was the clearing in the woods behind Winna’s village,” Boadicea added.

  “It was the antidote to the evil feast,” said Simon.

  Peter waited until everyone had given his opinion. “It was your image of heaven. Was there any other dream vision in your sleep last night?”

  Wiglaff smiled. “Yes. Thank you for reminding me, Peter. There was a third vision. I saw the winged feet of the god Mercury hurrying time along too fast for human thought. Alma, since you’re the priestess of Mercury, please tell us what that vision means.”

  Alma was transfixed with the image. “You said you saw the winged feet. You saw nothing more? Not a torso or legs, or anything?”

  “Only the winged feet. A man’s feet, with wings at the rear.”

  “How are you so sure that the figure was the god Mercury?” She sounded defensive now, as though annoyed and even distraught that someone besides her would have a dream of her god.

  “I recognized the feet as his while dreaming. The name Mercury came to me in the dream. I made no conscious association afterward.”

  “And Mercury was hurrying time, not himself?”

  “That’s right. And because of him, time was hastening too fast for human thought.”

  “The Greek philosophers talk of two kinds of time,” Alma said. “The first is Chronos, which is the concept of time as an absolute. Chronos was a Titan. The second is kairos, which is the concept of the right time or timing. It’s not a god or Titan at all. Chronos can’t be hastened by any means. Kairos therefore is the time you visualized. When events overtake the human mind’s ability to understand what’s happening, the human mind becomes paralyzed by information overload, enhancing time’s ability to overtake the human. Contrariwise, the god can follow and not be paralyzed by time. Therefore, Mercury can push events so humans cannot comprehend what’s going on.”

  “You’ve lost me, Alma. Try to explain that again in other terms.” Mornow was trying to grasp her meaning. He leaned towards her to encourage her to be clear.

  She sat back into his arm, which now supported her back.

  “Life can be very complex, Mornow. It can also be very simple. We grow when we can follow events and control our thoughts as well. The gods send us challenges that stress us. Those challenges can hurt us if we let them. Rather than succumb to challenges, we must change our frame of reference. Something complex thereby becomes simple. Love is complex. It involves so many things. The complex becomes simple by surrender.”

  Boadicea interjected a thought. “War is also complex. It involves very many things coming at you all at once in a chaos. It becomes simple by death.”

  Everyone became silent while they brooded on this new thought.

  Peter spoke in a whisper, “Love and death come together in faith. We’re in time, and then we’re out of time and free.”

  Simon saw where Peter was heading. “The wings of angels carry our souls beyond the changes of this world into the next. Time hurries until it stops. Then kairos becomes Chronos. And we enter the realm of eternity.”

  Wiglaff was transported by the enthusiasm of his flock. “I think we’ve somehow arrived where I wanted to be three days from now. Will you help me eat this food? It’s much too much for me.” He passed the food around, and they all ate. The two followers of Jesus stopped to offer a prayer.

  Peter invited everyone to participate. He made it short: “Lord, help us hasten time so it and we shall be no more as we are, but gathered in to you for eternity. Amen.”

  Onya stood by the entry to the cavern when Peter uttered the prayer.

  “That’s beautiful,” she said, with tears in her eyes. Then she brightened up. “I’ve
brought more food for everyone. Boadicea, come down to the village with me. I know you got no sleep at all last night. Wiglaff, you can watch the prisoners while your daughter takes a nap.”

  Onya and Boadicea went down the mountain together, Onya short and almost frail, with her daughter large and powerful walking beside her. Wiglaff heard his daughter talking excitedly with her mother, “Yes, that one was Peter, mother. . . . I think I love him.”

  For the rest of the day the two prisoners, the betrothed couple and Wiglaff rang the changes on Wiglaff’s questions. At sundown, Wiglaff told the others to go down to the village for dinner. He lit a torch so Mornow could show them the way to the hut.

  About the time they should have arrived at the hut, a gentle rain began to fall. It came in small drops that grew into large drops. Then the heavens opened and the rain poured down in sheets. The air smelled fresh and clean. Wiglaff stretched and looked out into the wet night. He heard the sounds of night creatures against the backdrop of droplets hitting leaves and the forest floor. The crow flew off its perch to sit on Wiglaff’s shoulder as if he wanted comfort.

  Wiglaff knew the bird was hungry, so he fed it. The bird cawed, and the shaman cawed with it in a natural chorus.

  That night while meditating, Wiglaff conjured a full-blown vision that lasted until the cock crowed in the morning. The vision started with an enormous rainstorm, like the tempest he and Ugard had conjured to stop the Roman advance almost twenty years before. When the storm in the vision broke up, men, women and children from many villages gathered to celebrate a double wedding. A Caledonian warrior woman was marrying a Roman soldier. A shaman was marrying a Roman priestess. It was planned as a long day of festivity, marred by news that the tribunal’s negotiations had broken down and the Romans were going to attack Caledonia soon. The weddings continued in spite of the threat. In the middle of the ceremony, a figure in a white robe and sandals walked into the village to announce that something had happened to stop the Romans’ plan to advance. Wiglaff embraced the figure warmly, and then the cock crew, awakening him.

  Wiglaff saw Boadicea and Winna standing patiently at the entrance to the cavern. They were whispering with Peter and Simon. They had evidently been reluctant to interrupt Wiglaff while he was in his trance.

  “He’s awake now!” Boadicea exclaimed. “Father, Winna has important news. Tell him, Winna.”

  “Wiglaff, our negotiations with the Romans have broken down. Everyone has left the place where the tribunal was being held. All items on the negotiation list are now in limbo. The Caledonian Confederation has estimated that the Roman advance is imminent. In view of that, they’ve issued a general call to arms. I’ve been given orders to kill all Roman prisoners because Rome has issued the order to kill all imprisoned Caledonians. But Boadicea won’t kill Peter and Simon. She claims they are her family.”

  “How is this so?”

  “Father, I intend to marry Peter today. I won’t let him or his brother Simon be killed. Will you let them stay in the cavern with you until we arrange for the marriage feast?” She said this forcefully. She had made a decision and was determined to see it through.

  “Of course. Peter and Simon, come in and sit down. You’re my guests. I won’t let anyone harm you by our custom of hospitality.”

  Boadicea hugged her father and kissed him on the cheek. Then she ran down the mountain to arrange the marriage feast with Onya.

  Winna told Wiglaff, “The fate of these prisoners is now in your hands, brother.”

  Winna and Wiglaff then fell to discussing military strategy against the Romans. After a few minutes, Mornow and Alma arrived. It was clear from their ruddy complexions that they had run up the mountain. They needed to catch their breaths.

  Alma announced, “In view of what’s happening at the Wall, we’ve decided to advance our wedding date to today.”

  “You’ve what? Mornow, what’s been going on?” Winna was taken entirely by surprise. She had received no warning of her son’s proposal to the Roman spy and priestess.

  “Alma and I are betrothed, mother. We’re going to be married today before the war changes everything. If we don’t get married, I’m afraid of what will happen to her.”

  “If marriage will make you both happy, it shall be so. Your father is in the war council right now with the Caledonian Confederacy. He probably won’t be able to attend the wedding. I’m sure he won’t be pleased by it. Anyway, I’ll send one of my women warriors to him with the news. Your wedding is prudent because then we won’t have to kill Alma as a precaution.”

  Wiglaff interjected, “Winna, I’m glad you approve. Last night I had a vision about a glorious double wedding. It seems the vision came just in time. Mornow, go down to the village and coordinate your wedding plans with Boadicea. Alma, Peter and Simon will remain here for their own safety.”

  “Wiglaff, I think it may be time to bring the torrential rain again. How long will it take you to conjure it? Should I run down and bring back Ugard to help you?” Winna was trying to gain maximum advantage against the Romans through the weather.

  “Yes, please have Ugard come up and tell Onna and Onya we’ll need food for a week for seven people in the cavern.”

  Winna dashed down the mountain trail.

  Alma asked Wiglaff, “Is there anything I can do?”

  “You’re in our family now. I need your help understanding a vision I had last night. I foresaw the breakdown of negotiations and the resultant calls to arms. I also envisioned the double wedding that will occur in spite of the furor that’s occurred. What I’m having a hard time understanding are two details that have not yet come to pass.”

  “What are those?” she asked.

  “In the middle of the wedding ceremony, a figure in a white robe and sandals walked into the village to announce that something had happened to stop the Romans’ plan to advance. I embraced the figure, and then the cock crew, awakening me. Can you help me decipher those things?”

  Alma thought about the vision. “If someone were to arrive that quickly, he could not be a human. He therefore must be a god. Mercury can travel faster than any human. So perhaps the white-robed figure was he, though I’ve never seen him depicted as wearing a white robe. He sometimes wears sandals. Were the figure’s feet winged?”

  “No, they weren’t. And I have no idea why I embraced him, but just when I did the cock crew.”

  “The cock is an emblem of Mercury, so that would fit. I can’t understand the embrace, unless it meant you became a follower of Mercury. If that happened, you probably would have bowed and bestowed some form of gift or offering to him. I’ll have to brood on this a while.”

  From the back of the cave, Peter and Simon, who had overheard Wiglaff’s description and Alma’s interpretation, walked forward.

  Peter said, “We think we know what the vision means. May we speak?”

  Wiglaff said, “Speak freely. I’m glad to have good ideas at this crucial time.”

  “We think you saw our master Jesus. He came to tell you the good tidings of the one event that could stop the Roman plan immediately. That event could only be the death of the elderly Emperor Septimius Severus. He made the plan. His son Caracalla hates the whole idea of a new Caledonian campaign.”

  Alma, who was somewhat relieved and not irritated that the dream might be about Jesus when she thought it was about Mercury, said, “I agree with Peter that the only event that could stop the war is the Emperor’s death. I know he was intending to go south to York. He might be assassinated. He might simply die. We have no proof that either event has occurred yet. What makes you so sure, Peter, that the figure in Wiglaff’s dream was your Jesus?”

  Peter had a gleam in his eye when he answered, “Some say Jesus wore a seamless white robe and sandals the day he was taken by the Romans. The cock crows in the stories about his capture. Because the cock crows at sunrise, it’s an emblem of the Resurrection when the dead will rise to heaven.” Peter stepped forward and opened his arms. Wiglaff hugged h
im. The crow cawed on its perch.

  “Mornow trained the crow to caw like a rooster. So I’ve hugged a Christian and the cock has crowed.”

  Alma looked at Wiglaff and shrugged. “I suppose we’ll know fairly soon whether the Emperor has died.”

  “How will we know that?”

  Simon answered, “When the Emperor dies, all the ensigns will be draped with black cloth for mourning. They’ll be visible all along the Wall.”

  Ugard, Winna, Onna and Onya arrived, carrying food for the cavern. While Onna and Onya unpacked the food, Wiglaff told Ugard and Winna about the interpretations of his vision.

  “Onna and Onya, thank you for bringing the food. I’m hoping we won’t need it now. Winna, your women warriors should watch for signs of black cloth on the Roman ensigns at the Wall. We need to know immediately when they see the signs.”

  While Winna hurried down the mountain to give orders to her warriors, Wiglaff turned to the others.

  “Ugard, you and I need to discuss how to orchestrate the storm after the weddings if we need to do that. Please compose your thoughts on the matter. We’ll discuss it later. Meanwhile, Onya, how are the preparations for the wedding feast going?”

  “Everything has been happening so fast, I hardly know what to expect next. Boadicea and Mornow are running around the village making preparations. Everyone’s excited. No one wants to be left out.” As she spoke, she was pacing, fidgeting and twirling strands of her hair as she did in her teenage years.

  “All our children are helping with the food and drink. When we’re ready down below, Boadicea and Mornow will come back to the cavern to exchange promises with Peter and Alma. The sooner that happens, the better things will be for everyone. Do you need anything else that I can provide?”

  “Not now, Onya. We have everything we need. Thanks for everything. You and Onna go back down to the village and wait for the feast. If anything happens that I should know about, send one of the children up to tell me.”

  Onya helped Onna down to the village. On their way, Boadicea and Mornow passed them going up. The older women hugged and congratulated them. They urged them to hurry so their marriages were accomplished before any of the Caledonian Confederation troops arrived. They understood the urgency, but once the marriages occurred, the Romans would be immune to Caledonian vengeance.