Song of the Centurion

by Steven A McKay

  The druid sighed loudly and shook his head. “So you’re innocent? All right, I’m done.” He sat down on the damp grass, next to the suspect who watched him blankly. “I’m sure it was the second man I questioned anyway. He nearly shit himself when we brought him here, like he was terrified the child’s vengeful shade would come for him. Ha! Poor fool. It won’t be a ghost he needs to fear in the morning, it’ll be the wrath of the villagers.” He pulled the stopper from his ale-skin and tipped it back. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he handed it to the young man who took it gladly.

  Bellicus had ordered the five suspects be given no food or drink all day to make them more pliable, and less alert for his questioning. The young man greedily sucked at the ale-skin like a newborn at its mother’s breast, then handed it back with a grin.

  “Can I go then, druid? Are we finished?”

  “Not yet,” Bellicus replied after a few moments, and he too grinned. “First I would have the truth from you.”

  “I already told you the truth,” Cynbel replied irritably, getting to his feet although somewhat unsteadily.

  “I didn’t say you could go, boy. Sit down!”

  The young man instantly collapsed onto the grass as if his legs had become boneless, and fear was written all across his face for the druid hadn’t even touched him.

  “What have you done to me?”

  “The gods have come,” Bellicus whispered, looking around at the trees. “Do you see them? There is Taranis, borne over the sea on the north wind…And there –” he pointed at the shadows cast behind the birch trees by the weak rushlights. “Cernunnos.”

  Aeron Cynbel lay on the hard, frosty ground and now there was a change in him – his eyes bulged as he scanned the night sky, seeing things Bellicus could only guess at. The ale, which the druid had only pretended to drink, was laced with a concoction of hallucinogenic mushrooms and now the potent mixture was taking effect.

  “Who is that rising up from beneath the earth?” the druid hissed, nudging Cai, who growled in response. “Ah, hear that? It is Dis, the god of dead.”

  “What’s happening to me?” the man mumbled, staring at the dog which turned its head towards him, sending him scurrying backwards until he came up against a tree.

  “What’s happening?” Bellicus repeated, striding across the ground to stand, towering over the hallucinating suspect. “The gods have come for you Aeron Cynbel, and they will hear your confession.”

  * * *

  The next morning dawned cold, grey and cloudy, and Bellicus didn’t feel at all rested. The story the murderer had told him the previous night still lingered in his mind, and would do for a long time. He felt changed by what he’d heard – he’d always known men were capable of despicable acts of sadism and wickedness, but never before had he been so close to something such as this and he wished he was back in Dun Breatann, standing protectively over young Catia.

  If the druid felt scarred by his experience so too did the man accused of the child’s murder. Gone was the sullen confidence of the night before, replaced by a haunted look and darting eyes that swept fearfully about the room he’d been confined to by the headman and the villagers.

  “What did you do to him?” Duro asked, noting the change in the young man. “He seemed unshakeable yesterday.”

  “So he was,” Bellicus replied as they watched two tall villagers bind the murderer’s hands behind his back, then drag him out into the open where he was met with jeers and hisses and screams of rage from the family of the defiled girl. “Because he did not believe in the gods. You must have met men in the legions who cared nothing for other people’s suffering. Men who enjoy hurting others.” He ruffled Cai’s ears, letting the dog know there was no danger to them from the angry, shouting mob.

  “Of course,” Duro agreed. “They make fine soldiers, but poor friends.”

  “Indeed. Without a natural sense of compassion though, why don’t they all become murderers or rapists?”

  Duro thought about it a moment. “Fear of the law?”

  “Exactly.” The dead child’s mother ran to the prisoner and attacked him with her bare hands, clawing at his face and screaming in fury. The two guards allowed her to draw blood and then she was held back by the crowd who wanted to see the rest of the spectacle play out. “Men usually fear retribution from other men, or from the gods. That’s what stops our entire culture disintegrating into chaos and killing.”

  The prisoner, face a mass of bloody claw marks, stumbled and was dragged roughly to his feet by the guards who led him inexorably towards a wagon.

  “That young man did not believe in the gods and did not fear the men of the village here. Or me, for that matter.”

  “How did you get him to confess then?” Duro demanded, somewhat exasperated now.

  “I showed him the gods. And then, probably for the first time ever, he knew real fear.”

  A man, probably another relative of the murder victim, was kicking the prisoner now and, again, he was allowed to land several savage blows before being restrained. Small flakes of snow started to fall but few in the crowd noticed.

  “What will they do to him?” the centurion asked, peering at the wagon which had a large cauldron sitting beside it. Conall mac Gabrain stood there, lips drawn into a thin line as he glared at the killer, who was unceremoniously helped up onto the wagon by his guards.

  “Drown him,” Bellicus replied.

  Duro grunted. “Shouldn’t we be on our way then, now that you’ve done your duty? We still have a king to kill and if this snow gets heavier it’ll make our journey even harder.”

  The druid shook his head slowly and looked on as the murderer was dragged, crying and begging for mercy now, up, onto the bed of the wagon. “Not yet. I want to see the bastard die. Besides, my duty isn’t done just yet. Stay, Cai.”

  He strode forward, past Conall and the other angry villagers and climbed onto the wagon, raising his staff high into the air. The crowd fell silent, respecting the druid’s office and feeling suddenly that the gods were in attendance – come to receive this sacrifice and see justice done.

  “You all know what this man is accused of,” Bellicus said, powerful voice carrying out across the gathering. There were nods and shouts of agreement, and vengeful cries from the dead girl’s family. “He killed the child, Fedelmid, and confessed his actions to me last night, in the presence of Dis, God of the Dead.” More cries of outrage, and he turned to the condemned man. “Do you have anything to say?”

  “It wasn’t me. You’re making a mistake.” The prisoner’s features contorted with anger and he struggled to get down from the wagon but one of the guards punched him hard in the face, then again, and Bellicus, to his shame, enjoyed seeing the blows strike home. There should be no pleasure in these proceedings, he thought, but by all the gods, that young man deserved to suffer for what he’d done.

  “In accordance with the law of this settlement, I pronounce you guilty of murder,” the druid announced, raising his staff again and nodding towards the two guards. “The sentence is death. Lift him up.”

  One man swept the prisoner’s legs away, so he fell awkwardly and struggled to rise again, but, with his hands tied behind his back he merely flopped like a landed fish until the guards grasped his ankles and lifted him up.

  “No! Please, don’t! Please!” It was as if the condemned man only now realised what was about to happen and he screamed, pleading for mercy, for his life, for forgiveness, beseeching the murdered girl’s mother, oddly, to help him.

  His words were cut off as Bel nodded and the guards lowered the victim headfirst into the freezing water in the cauldron.

  “Dis take him, and make him the servant of Fedelmid in the underworld.”

  There was no clap of thunder or other sign from the gods as the Aeron Cynbel was slowly suffocated. The guards were strong, and the hatred for the prisoner so deep, that they prolonged the ritual killing for as long as possible and, by the time they were finished a thin
shaft of sunlight had broken through the clouds, casting the scene in a dull, yellow hue.

  “Justice is done,” said the druid into the silence, and then he jumped down from the wagon and walked to Duro.

  “What now?” the centurion asked.

  “Now we go and find Loarn mac Eirc.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In many places the terrain was hard from the winter frosts, but, in others, the rain and general dampness of the country made it soft and muddy. Bellicus and Duro had wanted to avoid the well-worn paths and roads as they made their way deeper into Dalriadan lands, but there seemed little need for there were few other travellers.

  “No-one else is stupid enough to go wandering about the place in the depths of winter,” Duro grumbled, fatigued by the uniformity of the landscape. “We should be back in Dun Breatann playing music and drinking ale in front of that fire.”

  The druid laughed, well used to his friend’s moaning by now. “Depths of winter? It’s almost spring. You just feel the cold worse in those old joints of yours.”

  “We must be nearly there,” Duro said, not rising to the bait this time.

  Bellicus agreed with his assessment of their position. “Aye, we’ll be able to see Dunadd by tomorrow morning I’d say, if we keep up this pace.”

  “Why don’t we stop for the night then?” The centurion pointed at a grove of yew trees. “No one will see us if we camp there.”

  “Looks like it’s surrounded by marsh,” Bellicus said, eyes scanning the ground. “There must be a path leading in, for a sacred grove like this would have been well-tended before Loarn made his people convert to Christianity.”

  “That’s good then,” Duro said. “Should prevent anyone sneaking up on us if there’s only one way in.”

  The druid liked the idea and there seemed no better place for them to spend the night, so he led the way towards the yew grove, keeping Cai close by his side in case the dog became bogged down in the marsh.

  “Should we chance a fire?”

  Bellicus shrugged. “Why not? We’re just a couple of travellers trying to keep warm. There’s no reason anyone should come and check us out, even if they see our smoke.”

  “What if word’s reached Loarn mac Eirc that you’re in his lands?”

  “I don’t think we’re in any danger yet.”

  Despite the druid’s earlier claim that it was nearly spring, he knew they might freeze to death without a fire to keep the chill at bay, especially if it snowed during the night.

  So they looked for dry kindling and also two long, straight branches which they used to erect their simple two-man leather tent, then Duro set about igniting the dried mushrooms he kept in his pack as tinder. While he did this, the druid took out some fresh cuts of meat the headman in Arachar had gifted him and poked a couple of the sticks through them, ready to cook.

  “You keep your nose away, boy,” he said sternly to Cai, who looked sheepishly away, out across the marshes, although his eyes came back often to the raw pork. Bellicus smiled, knowing exactly how the dog felt, for he was just as hungry after their day’s march.

  It didn’t take Duro long to get the fire going and the pair found logs to sit on as they waited for their meal to heat, ale-skins in hand and a shallow bowl of water for Cai who made short work of it before returning to his previous task of guarding the roasting pork.

  “So,” Duro said. “You don’t think Loarn mac Eirc will think anything of it if he hears you, the druid of Dun Breatann, is in his lands? Bearing in mind your king is at war with these people and swore to kill Loarn in a quite brutal manner?”

  Bellicus stretched out his legs and rolled his shoulders, trying to work out the stiffness brought on by their recent travelling as he pondered the question.

  “He might wonder what we’re doing here,” he conceded. “And send soldiers to question us. But I doubt he’ll see the two of us as any threat – how could we be?”

  “We might be scouts, going ahead of a bigger force of Coroticus’s men,” Duro replied, although he didn’t really believe that was a realistic suggestion himself, and Bellicus shook his head.

  “Who would send such conspicuous scouts? No,” the druid leaned forward and turned his chunks of pork to save one side from charring. “I’ve been thinking about this all the way here. We need to capture, or kill, Loarn mac Eirc, right? That seems like an impossible task, but we’ll visit some of the settlements and find out what the local gossips have to say—maybe we’ll hear something useful. If not…”

  Duro took lifted one of his own skewers and blew on the glistening, smoke-darkened meat before biting a small piece and, inevitably, burning his mouth. He cursed and reached for his ale-skin as Bellicus shook his head in amusement.

  “By Lug, you’re worse than the dog.”

  Cai’s head jerked around at this and the druid lifted off a piece of his own meat, one with rather more gristle than he’d like, and set it aside to cool for his canine friend.

  “If not?”

  Bellicus looked puzzled. “If not, what?”

  Duro sighed and took another bite of his pork, this time finding it just about cool enough to chew. “You said, ‘if not’. What did you mean? What are we going to do if the settlements hereabouts don’t offer any clue as to how we should proceed? Which,” he noted with a raised eyebrow, “they probably won’t, let’s be honest.”

  “Well,” the druid said, setting about his own meal with gusto, “it’s possible that news of my fight with Coroticus has reached Loarn by now. Probable, in fact. So, we have the perfect reason for being here, and, if we’re taken by his soldiers, well…At least it will get us inside the fort.”

  Duro chewed that over along with his roast meat. “Shouldn’t be too hard to kill the king then. Getting out alive afterwards is another matter though.”

  Bellicus tossed the fatty pieces of pork to Cai who wolfed them down in moments then lay watching his master finish the rest of the food as the sun went down and the temperature dropped even further.

  “What’s that?” Bellicus suddenly demanded, gesturing at something protruding from the centurion’s pack.

  Duro smiled and drew out the rest of the item, firelight glinting off its smooth surface. “My flute,” he replied. “Thought a bit of music might do us good on this adventure.”

  “Music?” Bellicus frowned and looked around at the darkness before shrugging. “I suppose no-one will come to investigate the sound of a flute any more than the smoke from our fire.” He grinned. “Actually, if anyone hears it, out here in the middle of nowhere, they’ll probably think fairies or demons are abroad and make sure to keep away. I rather wish I’d brought my lute now!”

  The centurion began to play – just little flurries of notes at first as he warmed up, and then the simple, well-known melodies that he’d used to learn the instrument back in Dun Breatann. Bellicus drank his ale and enjoyed his friend’s music until, at last, Duro handed the flute to him.

  “You play now. ‘Alatucca’s Song’. I’ll sing.”

  The druid took the instrument and they performed the song that meant so much to the centurion, although without the rousing end section which really required more musicians to work properly. When it was over they stared into the campfire, both lost in their thoughts, remembering times and people now gone forever.

  Eventually, Duro placed more wood into the dying fire and poked it back to life. The flames licked higher and the two men sat in companionable silence, comfortable, warm and relaxed, as a barn owl called out from somewhere across the marshes.

  “Do you think there is any possible way we can succeed in this insane quest?” Duro murmured at last, and Bellicus’s teeth flashed white in the gloom as he smiled confidently.

  “Of course. Loarn is only a man, and the gods will guide us, as always. You get some sleep now. I’ll take first watch.”

  The centurion offered no argument and was soon snoring softly within the tent. Bellicus was still smiling as he got up and walked si
lently away from the camp to empty his bladder.

  He didn’t really believe they would kill Loarn mac Eirc – he didn’t think they would even get close enough to try, and he had no intention of being captured by the Dalriadan king who had a reputation for being cruel to captured enemies.

  There were worse places to be in life though, than on the road with two friends, a campfire, music, and plentiful meat and ale. Tomorrow would bring what it may, but Bellicus was content with his lot at that moment.

  * * *

  The next morning brought rain again, which made the trip back over the marshes to the road even more treacherous than the previous day, but the downpour also meant many of the inhabitants of the nearest settlement were indoors. This allowed the giant druid and his companions to walk around the place without drawing too much attention to themselves.

  The village only consisted of a handful of houses and workshops and appeared to be, rather to Duro’s surprise, populated by skilled craftsmen – artisans who made carved wooden or cast metal ornaments and jewellery.

  “I didn’t realise they did such fine work this far north,” the centurion admitted after speaking for a few moments to the man in the first building.

  “Did you think everyone further up than the old Roman wall was a dirty savage?” Bellicus asked, only half in jest. “I must admit I don’t know much about the Dalriadan culture, compared to, say, the Picts. But everyone, no matter where they’re from, appreciates nice things, whether it be the eagle on my staff, or the amulet you carry showing Mithras slaying the bull, or Queen Narina’s gem-encrusted brooches. They have to be made somewhere and, in my experience, artists like to spend a lot of time on their own. It doesn’t surprise me that a few of them have come here to live and work.”

  “I suppose so,” Duro said. “And we’re not far from Dunadd anyway, you say, so, if there was trouble – an invasion or something like that – the folk here would just retreat to the fort. Not a bad way to live actually. Peaceful if nothing else.”