Mr Wicker

by Maria Alexander

  “So you have.”

  “Why are we fleeing, Litu?”

  “Ariovistus has been raiding our lands long enough. Last season, there was more bloodshed than ever before. He almost killed Vercetillos. So, at the last war council, we clasped hands with the other tribes and swore to leave. The Rauraci, the Latobrigi. Everyone is leaving.”

  Drunos exploded. “How could the Helvetii be so cowardly?”

  “We have lost too much to Ariovistus! He will terrorize us no more. In seven nights, we shall meet the Boii and cross the Rhône bridge into Genava. The Allobroges have been fighting off the Romani. They’ll appreciate help from our warriors.”

  Drunos brooded.

  “I thought,” Litu continued calmly, “that you of all the nobility might support the decision. We had good omens.”

  “Support what? That we become cowards? That we burn our lands and leave the valleys that have nurtured us? This brings us shame.”

  “What care you about fighting? You do not have to fight. You do not even have to pay taxes now. You have far less to fear than any other celtae.”

  “My mother, my father—my kin died for nothing,” Drunos growled. “Teutates is dishonored. He’ll punish us for this cowardice.”

  Children on horseback galloped past, taunting one another. Litugenalos said nothing for a while.

  “I want a home, Litu,” Drunos continued. “I want a fire, meat, bed. I want to rest.”

  “Ariovistus would give you plenty of rest.” Litugenalos prodded his horse to a trot further up into the caravan.

  Drunos released the slaves and wagon to return to Briton, taking what supplies they could spare. Just before dusk, a lean teenage boy with long, lime-streaked hair rode to him. A pretty girl of about twelve summers who looked much like him shared the horse. “Drunos! Uncle, you are home!” she cried happily. She stood on the steed as it neared and leapt to Drunos, her brother tossing her by the hips. The druid caught her in his arms and settled her on the padding before him. She wore bracae on her legs like her brother, thistles and foxtails snagged in the wool of the pant legs. Over a bright green shirt, she pinned a square cloak of crimson and black wool.

  “You have started throwing women since I left, Lucos?”

  “Aye! Because they have been throwing me,” the boy laughed.

  A long blade with an intricate boar’s head hilt swayed from his gold-plated belt. The sight of real weaponry on Lucos infused Drunos with pride. He remembered his nephew as a boy with a wooden sword, howling like a Helvetian warrior in nothing but his boots.

  He kissed his niece on the top of her head. “How do you fare, Little Bear?”

  “My name is not Little Bear,” she responded indignantly. “It’s Arctosa, remember?”

  “I remember your name,” he said. “You are named after the goddess who took the shape of a bear. You may be a bear, but you are still a little bear.” He mussed her hair. She harrumphed and turned in the seat to look at him with eyes the soft blue of birds’ eggs. Her fingers patted at his gold earrings, as well as the beard covering his chin and lips. “Did the Britons steal your moustache?” she asked with astonishment.

  Drunos smiled for the first time since he had returned home. “Druids are clean shaven during their studies. Look.” He pulled back his hood to reveal a thin layer of soft blond hair covering his scalp. It had grown in a bit over the last month of travel, but it was by no means the ragged mane he wore when he left for the Isle. “It’s growing back. Soon I will look as I did before.”

  They rode together, the two children plying him for stories about the gods, the Isle of Briton, the Romani. “The Romani are like dark ants,” he told them. “They have tiny, straight swords and big shields to protect their weak bodies. To hide their puniness, they wear their sails for clothes, draping them around their shoulders.”

  “How do you know this?” Lucos asked breathlessly.

  “I saw them,” Drunos explained. “Roman ambassadors were embarking on the Isle as I left. But let me save some stories for the fire, eh?”

  When blackest night came, the wagons, chariots, and horses halted in a valley formed by two hills giving way at the shoulders. Lucos brought Drunos to some of his kin toward the front of the caravan, and they struck camp together. He clasped hands repeatedly with Medudorix—the round-bellied master craftsman who designed the exquisite hilt of his son Lucos’ sword, as well as the hilt of every warlord. He then kissed Medudorix’s clever, willowy wife, Rosmerta. She had been married to Drunos’ brother before he died. Drunos was glad to see that Medudorix loved her now. She appeared ill, her face bloated. His uncle and fellow nobleman, Suros, was camping with Vercetillos the vergobret. By the time eating, drinking, singing and swordplay had finished, and tales of the tiny Roman soldiers petered to punchy jokes about ants and boats, heavy clouds rolled over the encampment and showered the ground until it muddied. Thunder broke in the sky in deafening bursts.

  Medudorix called to Drunos through the flaps of his tent. Inside, Arctosa wept uncontrollably in Rosmerta’s arms.

  “Explain to her, Drunos, what the great noise is,” Rosmerta pleaded. “She will not listen to us. She would listen to Litugenalos, but he sleeps closer to the vergobret than the people these nights.”

  “Shhhh! Little Bear,” he whispered, squatting beside mother and daughter. He stroked her hair as he spoke. “The great noise is just the voice of Tara Nis the Thunderer. He always shouts during times of change.” Arctosa’s sobs subsided. Drunos looked up reassuringly at Rosmerta, whose face wrinkled bitterly, and then to Medudorix, whose brow was crushed with stress.

  “Can you see anything in the clouds besides the wet, cousin?” Medudorix asked.

  Drunos paused before answering. “That is for Litugenalos to divine.”

  Rain sprayed the tent’s leathery dome. Drawing Drunos aside, Medudorix lowered his voice. “You are wise not to openly cross Litugenalos. Do you sense it?”

  “I do,” Drunos answered. “But why?”

  “After you left, he argued strongly against having sent you to the Isle to become a druid.”

  “Truly? For what reason?”

  “Plenty, you fool! Listen!” he said. “One voice to the gods. One voice to the councils. One voice to the Romani.” Lucos stirred in his bed, whispering for his parents to sleep now. Medudorix hushed him. “His family grows stronger every day, while ours...this is all that remains.”

  Suspicion sunk painful roots into Drunos’ bones as he considered the implications of his mentor turning against him. Gentle Litu, they’d called his mentor. His name literally meant “the fire that sleeps.” The druid line typically stayed in noble families, but Litu’s mother bore only an idiot son besides him. Some thought perhaps his mother had been behind more than one druid death and was cursed. Several druids had been killed through plots and misfortunes over the years before Drunos was chosen from the line of royal craftsmen. Despite his appeal to women, Litu himself had had no fortune in producing children, his seed withered.

  “Vercetillos says the Allobroges are weak and that they will yield the bridge over the Rhône. What do the augers say? Will we be safe?” Medudorix pressed.

  “Who needs augurs?” Drunos replied at last. “This whole migration is madness. It will yield nothing but death.”

  The tribe awoke to the blaring of a ram’s horn. Drunos had not slept well. The crush of his tribesmen, the cold, and the duress of the migration ripped Drunos from the arms of his dreams. As the caravan lurched along the valley floor, Drunos studied the black cloud formations on the horizon. They had not changed since the night before despite the rain and the winds that shortly followed. More bad omens.

  The Helvetian vergobret, Vercetillos, found Drunos and greeted him warmly. His stocky warhorse lumbered beside Drunos’ white mare.

  “I hear that you will press us through the Allobrogian territory,” Drunos said. “Why so dangerous a route?”

  “Because the Jura pass admits only one wagon at a time,�
� the vergobret replied. “We will not settle by summer’s end if we take such a tedious course.”

  “But what of the Allobroges and their allies? Will they allow us to cross the bridge? The Sequani pass is quite defensible. I rode that route to and from the Isle.”

  “The Allobroges are easy to overcome. We need only say we mean to take the bridge by force and they will surrender.” The warlord bragged of the standing forces, the strength of the people, and what the mighty Helvetii could do in the lands to the southwest—even if the lands had to be cut from the feet of their enemies.

  “I thought we sought peace for once, not war.”

  “If we must give Teutates his due to find peace, then so be it. What else concerns you, Druid? Your wisdom was not weighed in debate.”

  The warlord was testing his allegiance and ambition, Drunos thought. He rode for a few moments before breaking his silence. “I would have better wisdom to offer if I knew the current disposition of the Allobroges. Should we not send ambassadors to them first to see what agreements can be made before our arrival? And what about the Boii? Are they meeting us as agreed? Or have they met difficulties? At worst,” Drunos offered, “we will have to backtrack for two nights to the pass.”

  The vergobret answered to the Druids; Drunos and Litu were the only two Druids in the tribe. With a grunt of acquiescence—“I will send them with haste”—Vercetillos then made a surprising order. “I will provide you with slaves and guards for the duration of the migration.”

  Potential spies from Litugenalos. Drunos almost protested, but since they were natural markings of his priestly rank, he accepted graciously to avoid suspicion. He would have to watch his mannerisms and speech, trying not to contradict Litugenalos. But Drunos’ mood did lighten a bit to know that Vercetillos respected his wisdom.

  Drunos sought out Medudorix and discovered that Rosmerta had taken to riding in the wagon with her head covered. “She’s sick,” Medudorix explained.

  “From the incessant rumble and sway of the wagon, no wonder,” Drunos offered. “I could prepare something for her—”

  “It’s not just the wagon,” Medudorix countered. “She’s pregnant.”

  Pregnant. Rosemerta had not been fertile for some time.

  Children on horseback suddenly crowded around Drunos and Medudorix, who winked at the druid as the children begged sweetly to hear stories about the Isle.

  The Isle. Where the Britons live and teach celtae how to be druids.

  “The Britons speak much like we do,” Drunos explained. “And our gods speak to them, as well. They live in the mists, near the mounds where the gods dwell beneath the oak roots. The Danu nurses her Children with abundant crops and herds. They do not eat the hare, or even the dog, as these are sacred to the Danu. I saw the stones laid by the thousandfold fathers in the fields. I heard the fearsome groans of war harps on the cliffs as the great god Tara Nis breathed upon the strings. I learned the secrets of herbs to heal dying warriors and bring sacred dreams to see the future of kings. I witnessed the passing of a soul from one dying to the lips of a babe being born. I fell in love with a witch with long red hair from the north. I lit the fire of sacrifice for Teutates, our father of war, and sang hymns as criminals and animals burned in a towering man made of branches.”

  “Where is the witch?” a boy asked. “Would she not be your wife?”

  Drunos winced. “That is a story for when you are grown.”

  Before the sixth nightfall, the ambassadors returned from Allobroges, and Vercetillos requested Drunos join the council. A thousand fires burned in the camp. Drunos followed his slave’s torch to the massive tent of Vercetillos. The domed ceiling passed far above even Drunos’ head, the sloped walls embracing the company of several vergobrets and nobility from the tribes. Litugenalos smoked in the far corner as he listened to the men argue. The ambassadors sat beside Vercetillos, faces bleak with hard travel as they dug fingers into wool cloaks. Several other noble families were present, including the many-times grandmother Dirona. Slaves replenished the food and Grecian wine. Drunos took a seat near Litu.

  Suros stood as Drunos entered. His beard cascaded like white drifts over the rain-carved stones of Jura’s cliffs. They clasped hands and his wrinkled face reddened. “Drunos, welcome! What make you of these fools?”

  “I will first hear everything,” Drunos replied, glancing to Litugenalos. “And then we will consult augurs, because wisdom comes not to men but through the gods.”

  Suros wiped the spittle from his mouth and pointed to the addled ambassadors. “The Boii have not kept their promise and the Allobroges have joined the Romani. The Roman king, Caesar, has taken residence within Vienne. We should not seek the bridge.”

  The Allobroges are indeed easy to overcome, Drunos thought. And this time not by the Helvetii.

  Vercetillos slammed down his cup. “We have no other choice!”

  “We could go the pass,” Drunos reminded him.

  Dirona sat forward, her fat gray braids ratted like wool ropes draped against her round, splotchy cheeks. She put a knotted finger forward, emphasizing each word to Vercetillos. “I will not see our children freeze on those cursed cliffs! Nor will I see them buried when the winds bring avalanches!”

  “The pass is controlled by the Sequani,” Drunos reminded her. “We need only request aid from Dumnorix—”

  “Dumnorix is power hungry and would betray his own people,” Suros said.

  Litugenalos withdrew his pipe and spoke. “We must make concession to Caesar’s desires so that he will consider our case.”

  Drunos could not believe that Litu spoke out of turn. The druids were not to interfere in the politics of the clans unless addressed directly. Plenty of nobles had opinions on the matter that needed to be sifted through. The older druid never looked at Drunos, but kept his eyes fixed on Vercetillos, whose face sweated with the resolve to fight.

  Suros asked, “Concessions? Such as?”

  “Hostages,” Litugenalos said. He puffed on the pipe languorously and looked to Vercetillos. “Or whatever they demand—within reason, of course. And we send our finest as ambassadors to Genava.” He pointed to two young men whom Drunos had known as well-considered citizens even before he left; they were now finely attired in bracae and cloaks black as midnight, with golden torques on their necks and wrists. They received the elder druid’s recommendation with great poise. “Numeios and Verudoctios. You go to the Roman king and plead our request. Ask for his consent, tell him we are not of hostile disposition. If he resists—”

  “We take the bridge by force,” Vercetillos said.

  The slighter of the two ambassadors spoke, cheeks pinched pink from the brisk ride. “But my lord, the legions of Caesar have formed considerable allies—”

  Dirona waved off the word legions. “And I have the head of Lucius Cassius in a trunk!”

  Everyone laughed raucously, slamming wine cups together. Drunos shrugged his cloak over his head and stepped between the flaps, his slave after him. The clouds broke overhead to admit the deepest blue mysteries. Drunos looked for even one celestial outpost, the faintest indication that the plans within held some hope for his people, but he saw nothing beneath the shapeless mask of night.

  Suros abruptly left the tent and stood with Drunos. Gazing up into the mystery, he held his cloak tightly about him. “My lord, I for one eagerly await the augurs. Your augurs.”

  “Will it matter?” Drunos replied. “Or will the council do as it pleases?”

  Suros hung his head as if shamed by the druid’s question.

  The slave lit his torch, standing at command. Drunos ordered him to move to a farther tent before he addressed Suros. “I looked to the sky. And, although there was a break in the storm, I saw no signs of salvation.”

  “Why do you say this to me and not the assembly? It does me no good.”

  “Because there are dangers if I contradict Litu.”

  Suros nodded. “Many and more than you suspect. But do not doubt that
the council dreads your magic. I will do my best to honor the omen you alone have witnessed, upon Teutates I swear.”

  Drunos returned to his own tent, where he wept with exhaustion and fear until, starved of wood, the fires died and the winds spun them to wraiths on the horizon.

  “Drunos!”

  Drunos awoke with his chest burning with sadness. The dampness from the fog seeped through his tent as the horses stomped impatiently outside.

  “Drunos!”

  He wrapped himself in his cloak and left the tent. Suros stood outside with Numeios and Verudoctios, horses prepared for the journey to Genava.

  His uncle took the bridle of one horse as he spoke. “Drunos, it has been requested that you ride with Numeios and Verudoctios to speak with Caesar. If you accept, you must leave at once.”

  “Who requests this?” Drunos asked. The mists reminded him of the Isle, and for a moment he thought he heard the distant chant of a woman as she worked enchantments in the grove.

  “I requested it,” Suros said. “As did the young men.” The two ambassadors nodded to one another and then respectfully averted their eyes from Drunos.

  “But what good would it do for me to stand before Caesar when I’m not committed to the course proposed?”

  “You are committed to the tribe’s safety,” Suros replied. “And you judge wisely.”

  Drunos sifted through shards of shattered sleep to find his thoughts. When tribes send ambassadors to other tribes, they never send druids. Teachers, priests, judges—while they are the most eloquent speakers to be found, druids are never used to create liaisons between tribes, much less nations. “You don’t think Caesar will take offense? That he will feel threatened?”

  “The Romani fear our druids more than our swords!” Suros replied. “But when they see you are peaceful and sensible, he will know we are of the same mind.”