“Nobles of the Suevi, my friends and battle brothers, welcome to this gathering where I see among you the fiercest, the wisest and the most cunning of my loyal followers. Your fame goes before you and all men know of your deeds, what more can a man ask?”
A great roar of approval surged over him. The king lifted one hand and continued.
“Well, if we can seek no higher honour in this world, what of that realm of mysteries known only to the initiated, can we look for glory there?”
He paused, seeing unease pass across the faces turned to him. Matters of shades, of spirits and of gods were best left alone. Men they could fight. Beasts they could master or bring down in the hunt. But the other worlds above and below filled them with dread.
“A priest came to me,” the king said, “a holy and learned priest. He asked me to name a man who is worthy to perform a great duty. He asked me to name a man who is a fit person to journey to the grove of the white horses that we all know of but never enter and there assist in the mysteries. Did I know of such a man, someone whose name stands in such spotless regard that he could accept this sign of highest esteem among all the Suevi? I told him that I did. I told him that Badurad is courageous and wise and noble. I told him that Badurad is the man. Stand up my battle counsel and tell us if you will undertake this task?”
Badurad stood up slowly and pulled himself to his full height. He raised both his arms out to the sides.
“For the good of my people and my king, I humbly accept.”
The king beamed. The warriors shouted acclaim. Badurad sat down again, folded his arms and contemplated the dancing firelight.
The king raised his ale horn and saluted Badurad.
“Travel well to the grove, my friend. You are expected in four night’s time.”
When Badurad arrived back at his clan’s summer village, he slid down from his horse and tossed the reins to a waiting slave. Then, ducking his head low he entered his hut. For all his wealth and standing, it was a humble dwelling, simply furnished. The free peoples across the Rhine frowned on luxury. Excessive comfort led to weakness and too many possessions either made a man selfish or others envious. A warrior needed nothing but his courage and his weapons. They would earn him all he required; a wife to share his life and give him children, horses, cattle and slaves to work the fields.
Badurad’s wife, Odila and their daughter, Saxa squatted by the hearth laying out pieces of doeskin before sewing them together into a simple shift. The little girl jumped to her feet and ran over to him, wrapping her arms round one of his legs and beaming up at her beloved father. He bent over and lovingly stroked her head. His wife smiled at the sight.
“I have news,” he said. “I am chosen to attend the sacred horses.”
Her eyes went wide. She rose and walked over to him, hugging him to her. She was almost as tall as her husband, broad-shouldered and wide-hipped. He felt the strength of her firm arms squeezing his ribs.
“Our name is honoured,” she told him.
Suevi women were not owned by or subservient to their men, nor were they sold in marriage by their families. Young men and women came together as equals and the bride’s gift to her new mate was always the same thing; a spear and a shield. It was a way of saying, “Your duty is to fight and hunt, leave the rest to me. United we are strong.” So Badurad’s glory was also reflected on his wife, his family and his clan.
The next day he pushed a pole through the arms of his battle-shirt and hung it spread out between two trees. He stood on one side with a patch of soft leather coated with wet sand from the bucket at his feet and polished each fish-scale plate. His son, Otto, stood on the other side patiently working at the same task.
Otto was nearly sixteen, all gangly arms and legs and elbows and knees, already a fraction taller than Badurad. In two or three years he would begin to fill out and become as powerful as his father, or his mother. The boy’s long side-lock hung to his waist, it had never been cut and his eyes were so palely blue they seemed almost colourless in bright daylight. He was whistling through his teeth as he sanded the metal plates until they gleamed.
“I know you want to come with me,” his father told him. “And you know you can’t. You’ve been man enough not to plead with me so here is your reward. The next time I go to the king, you will be with me. I will present you to him and tell the assembled warriors your name. They will acknowledge you as numbered among the Suevi.”
The whistling stopped. Otto hurled himself past the shirt and embraced his father. He was speechless with joy. He would no longer be a boy. He would be a warrior. He had no words with which to thank Badurad.
The night before he left on his mission, Odila took out the braid in her husband’s hair and went through it with a fine comb dipped in water in which wild violets and chestnuts had been boiled. They sat leaning over the hearth. Some of the lice she found she cracked between her finger and thumb nails, others fell onto the hot ash and exploded with a faint popping sound. When she had done, she plaited his hair and looked at him admiringly. She saw the desire mount in his eyes and shook her head.
“What you are going to do is a sacred mystery,” she told him. “Stay purified but keep yourself in readiness for me when you come back.”
Her lips were very soft and gentle as she kissed him.
In the morning, Badurad leaped onto his immaculately groomed horse with the light splintering off his armour as he moved. He rode slowly between the ranks of his clansmen gathered to wish him well and into the forest where he faded from their sight among the dark pines.
He knew where the sacred site was located. They all did, so that they could avoid it. But this time he headed straight for the valley where scores of rounded boulders many paces across thrust up through the ground. Some said they were the skulls of giants buried upright in the earth, others that they were the stones they had flung at each other when they had fought. However they came to be there, they lent a brooding sense of menace to the valley which rose to a narrow pass between two low cliffs. It looked like a hill that had been cleaved with a mighty axe, exposing its bones. A foaming torrent ran out of the ominous gap.
Badurad stopped his horse and looked into the dark maw through which he must go. His heart beat faster in his chest and his mouth became suddenly dry as a sense of superstitious awe grew within him. In the battle line facing a yelling enemy, in the hunt approaching a cornered boar, he did not know fear. But he was about to arrive at a place where gods and shades and men came together. Forces beyond his understanding and control would be at play. He waited a long while considering whether he could live with himself if he turned back, so great was his terror. But with a sigh of resignation, he touched his heels to his mount’s flanks and urged it into the stream. He had not mastered his fear; he had accepted it. Going on was better than losing his reputation, without which his life would be unliveable.
He rode upstream into the deathly chill of the cleft in the rock that the sun never reached. The rough walls either side of him were green with dripping cushions of moss that dulled all echoes. The silence was thick around him other than for the gurgling and splashing water. It sounded to Badurad as if someone or something was whispering and laughing beneath the surface. He clenched his teeth and began to shiver. He was relieved to feel the temperature rise several degrees as he passed through and was in the open once more.
He found himself in a wide, level meadow bounded by rocky escarpments in all directions. Ahead of him was a holly hedge. It was so closely planted that it would be impossible for a man to force his way through it unharmed. He rode closer and saw hawthorn and brambles twined between the tree trunks to make it even more formidable. The dense mass of glossy holly-leaves edged with spines was clearly intended as much as a screen to keep the secret of what lay within as a physical barrier. He turned his horse to the right and began to ride slowly along looking for an entrance. He soon realised the barrier was circular and after half a mile, he saw three tethered horses ahead. He eased
his sword in its scabbard and approached them.
A group of men were sitting on benches near the grazing animals. A steaming cauldron was suspended over a fire from which a thin spiral of fragrant smoke arose. One of the men stood up and opened his arms wide in greeting. He was dressed in a long, grey tunic. He threw back the hood as he rose. His head and face were completely hairless, even to the absence of eyebrows. He was so thin that the outline of his skull and facial bones could be seen beneath his skin. The tendons of his neck tightened and released like bowstrings as he spoke. At first glance Badurad had thought he was an old man but it was not so. He held himself very straight, his shoulders squared, his keen eyes were bright; he could not have been much above forty. Badurad began to give his name and rank but before he could utter more than a word, he was stopped.
“You have nothing to tell us; no lineage and no battle-fame. Neither do these men from elsewhere…” he gestured to the others looking curiously at the newcomer with the fine sword. “Here you are nameless under the gaze of the gods.” He indicated two robed men tending the cauldron over the fire. “We are servants of the servant of the gods. Vow in your heart to say not one word unless invited and to obey without question the instructions you are given and thus be welcome. Vow in your heart that you will speak not one word of what you see or hear in this place and thus be received with joy. If you cannot give your oath, go now and never come near again as you value your life in this world and your place in the world to come. Man, will you stay under these conditions? You may answer.”
“I will,” Badurad replied.
The priest smiled and nodded.
“Then dismount. We shall see to your horse. Come; sit with us now we are all gathered together.”
Badurad nodded a greeting and took his place on a bench. He looked around. Three of the company were dressed and equipped similarly to himself. He did not know any of them. He rightly guessed that they were warriors sent by their kings as he had been. He noticed a brook flowing out from behind the hedge a few yards away. Part of the banks on either side had been cut back to form a pool. He glimpsed what seemed to be a sort of gate concealed among the holly branches.
Still standing, the priest looked down on them, nodded his approval and began to speak. “All know of the grove of the white horses and that it is a place where gods reveal their will to men. Tomorrow each of you will harness one horse to the sacred chariot. The high priest shall mount it and let the holy steeds go where they will within the grove. The direction they take and how they behave will make clear the intentions of the gods. What they say, if indeed, they speak at all, is not of your concern. Once you have completed your task, you will leave the grove and not look back. Your mounts and weapons must stay here; they will be looked after. Now sit,” he ordered. “You must be hungry. We have food for you.”
One of the other robed men lifted the lid off the cauldron and spooned thick gruel into four wooden bowls. He handed them out.
“Eat,” he grunted.
Badurad tipped the bowl to his lips and began to suck up the vegetable stew it contained. It tasted bitter but he persisted until it was almost gone and then….
A hand on his shoulder was shaking him awake. He tried to sit up but his arms and legs seemed incapable of obeying his will. He was dragged into an upright position. A drinking horn was pressed to his lips.
“Here,” a voice said. “Empty it, take it all down.”
Badurad tasted fresh milk; he swallowed it in hurried gulps. The mist in his head tore into shreds and drifted away and he became aware of his surroundings. It was dawn. He stood up, staggered a little and shook his head. One of the priests stood in front of him. He pointed to an indeterminate spot a few yards away.
“Go over there and piss,” he commanded. “When you’re finished, come back here.” Badurad did as he was told. “Now strip and immerse yourself in the purifying waters; right in, head under.”
He stepped off the bank into the pool. The water was deeper than it had looked and came up to his chest, the cold driving the breath from his lungs. He leaned forward and ducked his head under, held himself there for a few seconds and climbed out gasping. He went to pick up his clothes but a length of coarse cloth was thrown to him before he could reach them.
“Dry yourself,” came the order.
The sun was up but there was no warmth in it. Badurad stood with his three naked companions. He made an effort to relax and stop shivering. The hairless priest stood in front of them unsmiling. He held a broad axe in his hands.
“You have eaten the magic potage which makes men sleep soundlessly and deeply. In that sleep, no-one mumbles or cries out things close to his heart others may overhear. Noble chieftains, fierce warriors you may be but to the gods you are as new-born infants. That is why you will go naked into the grove. There you will see the sacred chariot under its canopy and four white horses. Each horse wears a head stall with two silver rings. You will approach one of them and lead it to the chariot. You will thread a pair of traces through the rings and secure them. Once this is done, depart the way you came. Do not look back.”
Unseen hands on the inside swung the gates open and they stepped through. Badurad took a deep breath and tried to convince himself that the tingling in his arms and the weakness he felt in his knees was not fear but as the result of the plunge into deep, cold waters when he had been barely awake.
Within the ring of holly was another of oaks. Some were huge trees in the prime of their lives, festooned with mistletoe, still covered in green and yellow leaves, in spite of the season. Others were ancient beyond counting, barely alive, gnarled and twisted into fantastic shapes. A spring of clear water emerged from a jagged boulder in the centre of the inner circle and ran across the open expanse and out into the streambed in which they had bathed.
Near it stood an arch of green boughs housing a brightly painted two wheeled chariot. The chief priest stood close by it. He was a tall man robed in white matching his head of long, snowy hair crowned in a wreath of greenery. His beard fell to the silver rope around his waist. He lifted his arms in blessing and they bowed. The guardians fell back and closed the gate, standing reverently either side of it.
Now that Badurad had entered the inner sanctum and had neither been struck down by lightning nor the hand of a god, he relaxed and began to look about him. Far off to his left he saw a fine white horse, its hide unblemished with any spot of a darker colour. The hair of its mane had been dressed to fall in plaits across its neck and its well-combed tail flowed almost to the grass beneath its hooves. Badurad walked calmly towards it, admiring the animal’s flawless lines as he came nearer. It stood watching him with dark, intelligent eyes. The horse raised its head and snuffed the air through dilated nostrils. Badurad lifted an unhurried hand to grasp the head collar. Without warning the horse stretched out its neck and snapped at him, only his battle-trained reactions made Badurad whip his fingers out of the way of those clashing teeth. It reared and pawed the air above his head before swivelling on its back legs, dropping down and dancing a few paces away, arching its back, snorting and kicking out.
He heard the high priest call from a distance.
“Remove that man. He has no place here.”
Hands grasped him by both arms as the two guardians ran him out, slamming the gates behind him. And there he stood, proud Badurad; naked and breathless, confused and ashamed.
The priest with the axe indicated his clothes and horse.
“Dress now, mount up and go.”
Badurad obeyed but as he was about to move off, the man took hold of his horse’s bridle.
“This has happened before. It is not unknown nor does it tarnish your honour. The gods speak through the horses in many ways all of which must remain unsaid outside the grove. Return to your people and think no more of it.”
The reunion between Odila and Badurad had not been the happy celebration for which she had hoped. There was a shadow on her husband but Odila was wise enough neither to co
mment nor to ask what was wrong.
In spite of the assistant priest’s advice, Badurad could think of nothing other than what he saw as his humiliation in the sacred grove. Had the gods singled him out as uniquely unworthy? Or had it been as the priest had said, not without precedent? He was still inwardly consumed by his struggle to understand as he rode at the head of his people into their winter camp.
Chapter 3
The legionary on watch over the Principalis Dextra gate of The Second Lucan Legion’s permanent camp stamped his cold, damp boots in a vain attempt to shake some of the dewdrops off his helmet and the shoulders of his sodden, red military cloak. He had been walking the seven paces across the raised walkway behind the double leafed gate since midnight. Every five minutes he met his fellow sentry coming the other way in the middle but they did not speak. His arms ached from the weight of the shield and two javelins he carried but he was not unhappy. The legion’s marching season was over for this year. He could look forward to spending the cold months sleeping in a warm wooden hut and not in a draughty, leather tent in some forest miles from the gods knew where. Yes, there would be daily training, fatigues and route marches but there would also be ample food and wine and some leisure in which to enjoy them.
Dawn was not far away. Soon he would be stood down and eating his breakfast of freshly baked bread and bacon, then excused duties until the afternoon, once he had cleaned and dried his kit. All in all, things could be a lot worse as he knew from ten years of army experience. He looked over to the eastern horizon willing the sun to appear.
The ground had been cleared of trees for at least a mile from the camp on all sides. To the east, where the sentry stared into the darkness, the land rose gradually to the tree line of that endless German forest. To the north, the silver snake of the Rhine slithered, a little under two miles away. To the south a small, nameless stream looped around two sides of the camp and ran into the great river. Beyond the stream, a collection of tents and huts housing wine shops, brothels and the dubious commercial enterprises of the camp-followers had mushroomed almost as soon as the legion had marched in ten days ago. To the west, the ground was ploughed and dotted with modest farmhouses. Some of the legionaries had taken their end of service bonuses, married local women and now farmed practically in the shadow of the walls. They felt protected so close to the legion, had a ready market for their produce and could keep in touch with friends still serving.
Knight of Rome Part I Page 2