When I finished bathing, the soldiers finished standing at attention and resumed polishing armour, sharpening swords, and making arrows.
I went back to the tiny clearing and paced back and forth, driving Demos crazy with my questions.
‘What will you do?’ I asked.
‘Wait and see what happens.’
‘Why?’
Demos frowned. ‘Because Axiom said that a large delegation of druids arrived in Orce just before we left, and they’re heading this way.’
‘Why let them through? Why not storm the village and surprise them at night?’
‘Because they will be wary and on their guard. We have to wait until they are involved in the ceremony before attacking. We will know then how many of them there are, and we will be able to surround them.’
‘Do they know we’re here?’
‘No, I don’t think so. They might think you and Plexis are out here with a few more people from the village, but I don’t think they’ll expect the Romans.’
‘Why did the villagers from Orce agree to come?’
‘Because the Eaters of the Dead have been taking their children. The villagers want to recover their family members, if they’re still alive.’
‘Oh.’ I frowned and thought a while. ‘Why didn’t they do that before?’
‘They were afraid.’ Demos spoke shortly.
‘Of what? The village isn’t very big, and the people aren’t that numerous. I saw the Eaters of the Dead. They’re short and have dark hair but they don’t look dangerous.’
‘No, you saw the people from Nordica. The Eaters of the Dead don’t live in the village. They only come out on special occasions.’
‘Where do they live? What occasions?’
‘They live in caves in the mountains far behind the village. And they come to the ceremonies to eat the dead. And the villagers of Orce have tried to find them, but every time a hunting party sets out they never return.’
I shut my mouth. Demos was looking at the sky. I shivered despite the hot sun. For a while we didn’t speak. Demos used a reed to sketch a map in the dust at his feet, chewing now and then on the end of his reed and frowning. He was a mountain of a man and even sitting down he looked forbidding. He’d been a tactician in Darius’s army, and according to Alexander, one of the best.
‘If anyone could have defeated me it was Demos,’ Alexander had told me one night. ‘But Darius, silly fool, didn’t believe him. Worse, he ordered his death as a traitor. Luckily, Demos escaped the prison.’
‘Luckily for you, Darius didn’t listen to him!’ I’d said.
‘Perhaps.’ Alexander had given an eloquent shrug. ‘It would have made the fight more interesting.’
I shivered again. History hinged on little details like that. If Darius had listened to Demos, Alexander would likely have been stopped at Issus, the first battle against Darius, and pushed back to Greece. Perhaps the war would have ended there. Persia would have stayed Persian under Darius, and Greece and Macedonia would have merged and become one under Alexander.
Alexander the Great would simply have been Alexander, ruler of Greece and Macedonia. He never would have spread Greek culture east as far as India, or have founded the cities of Alexandria; cities with parks, temples, gymnasiums, libraries, civic amenities, swimming pools, and hydraulic and sewer systems. Greek art and philosophy would have stayed put, trade would have been limited, and the great kingdom of Alexander would never have existed. All because of a difference of opinion between Darius and Demos.
Other little things could have changed history, but perhaps not as radically as that quarrel. Radical changes like that concerned the Time-Senders. Small changes are often absorbed into the normal flow of events or are part of an existing trend towards change.
However, the Romans were vital to the history of the world. I had to make sure that they were not beaten before they even started. Somehow, we had to get Alexander and Paul out of that pit.
Demos reached over and clapped my shoulder with his massive hand, nearly pushing me off the log. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll save your son and husband.’
I blinked quickly, then smiled up at him. ‘I’m trying not to worry, honest. But I can’t help it. I’m afraid of Voltarrix. He’s dangerous. He knows how to fight. And I have a feeling the other druids know, too. Voltarrix wouldn’t call ordinary druids north to help him. He must know we’re here and he’s waiting for us. He has something planned; I only wish I knew what it was.’
Demos was silent. He stared at his map again and scratched out a line with the pointed end of the reed. Finally he said, ‘Our plan has nothing to do with surprise. As you said, he most likely knows we’re here, although I doubt he knows how many we are. However, we can act quickly; maybe that will be to our advantage. We want to rescue the prisoners and set the villagers free – perhaps Voltarrix doesn’t realize that.’
I was confused. ‘What do you mean? Why else would we be here?’
‘To rape and pillage?’ He grinned. ‘You were right about one thing, the other druids are warriors. And they look dangerous. Maybe Voltarrix thinks we’re here to kill the druids.’
‘Has the group Axiom spotted arrived in the village yet?’ I hated to be so far away. Demos had set up our camp in a marshy area a good two-hour hike from the outskirts of the village. There was a stream, to be sure, but, judging by the quantity of mosquitoes buzzing around, we were close to a swamp as well. The air hung as hot and muggy as an old muslin curtain in a Turkish bath.
I slapped at a biting insect and rubbed another handful of lemon balm over my arms and legs, filling the air with the sharp scent of lemons. Lemon balm grew in clumps, it was plentiful, and the leaves were velvety and easily crushed. However, the scent didn’t last very long and the soft leaves left bright green streaks. Well, good for camouflage, I supposed.
Demos didn’t seem bothered by mosquitoes. Nothing seemed to bother him. He sat solid and still on the log, looking down between his feet at the map, scratching his rough beard and muttering now and then.
One thing I’d forgotten to ask him. I cleared my throat. ‘Charidemos?’
‘Yes?’ He turned to me, a question in his dark brown eyes. We didn’t usually use his full name.
‘How did you escape? I mean why …?’ I broke off, flustered. I didn’t know how to phrase my question.
‘Why did I abandon Paul, you mean?’ His eyes were serious.
I sighed. I wished I weren’t so transparent. ‘I know you would never have left him if he were in danger. But how did you escape? It was hard enough for Plexis and me, and we were not being watched very closely.’
‘I pretended to die. Alexander and I got in a huge fight and he stabbed me. It was a good act. Copious blood and guts of an animal did the rest. I hid in the shallow grave that Alexander, “in a fit of remorse”, dug for me, until the coast was clear.’
I swallowed. ‘A grave? He stabbed you?’
‘No, he didn’t really stab me, and the grave was carefully engineered to let me breathe. I did have a hard time getting out. It’s a good thing I’m strong,’ he said without bragging. ‘I waited two days and then sneaked back to Orce. I didn’t see you and Plexis. But then again, I didn’t expect to. He’s a crafty woodsman. He came upon us without anyone hearing. Even the scouts were fooled. I had to thrash two of them, just to set an example. But I honestly don’t know anyone who could have spotted him.’
‘How did Axiom managed to convince the Valerians to fight?’
‘The people of Orce have no love for the Eaters of the Dead. They fear them above all other men. However, they are too few and too disorganized to fight them, and, like I said, their last forays were all disasters. When Axiom asked for their help, at first they said “no”. Then he turned to the Roman soldiers and Phaleria emptied her treasury to hire them. With the soldiers on our side, it was easier to convince the people of Orce to come with us. And there was the weird-woman, of course.’
‘What di
d she do?’ I asked.
‘She is the chief of the village, in case you hadn’t realized. She called a meeting and told the men to fight. She made them sound like awful sissies. You should have seen her; she pointed at each one as if she could see him, and called him by name. It was eerie, I got chills just watching.’ He shivered.
‘I imagine so! She made them join Axiom’s army.’ I shook my head. ‘I wish I could have seen that. Axiom has saved us all.’
‘Well, the fight hasn’t started yet. Maybe we’ll lose and end up as slaves, or dead.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ I said.
He grinned at me. ‘I know.’
Chapter Eight
We ate lunch: cold vegetables and meat that the Romans had with them. The meat resembled the sole of a leather shoe. It was dried, smoked, too tough to chew, and the Romans informed me they brought it on all their campaigns. I remarked that if they wanted to keep up the morale, they’d do well to imitate Alexander’s army and bring good cooks. The soldiers said that food was unimportant; discipline and hard work kept up the morale.
They were serious. A more serious bunch of guys was hard to imagine. They marched straight, stood straight, sat straight, and slept lying in straight lines. They built straight roads. They were hard workers and disciplined. They were tough and highly trained.
When Julius Caesar invaded Gaul, Roman soldiers accomplished incredible feats of engineering. For example, in one week they built a wall fifty kilometres long and dug a ditch around it two metres wide and two metres deep. Then they cleared a big area in front of it and stuck thousands of pikes in the ground to keep men on horseback away from the wall. Around the wall, every hundred metres, they built towers for armed sentries. The ninety thousand Gauls who’d taken refuge in the fortified town of Alesia had no chance of escape. Julius Caesar’s fifty thousand soldiers fought off the two hundred thousand men who came to free the Gauls. The Northern men were defeated in a huge bloodbath, and Julius Caesar went on to conquer Gaul with his disciplined, hard-working, highly trained soldiers.
Alexander’s fighters had been tough and disciplined, but the Romans put them to shame. Well, except the Spartans. The men from Sparta were so tough they often died because they just didn’t know when to give up. More Spartans had been lost in the wrestling matches than on the battlefield. The words, ‘I give up’, were not in the Spartans’ vocabulary. The words, ‘It’s impossible’, were not in the Romans’ vocabulary.
I watched the Roman soldiers for a while, but they tired me out even doing nothing. I wondered why I worried about the druids. After all, they couldn’t be better warriors than these soldiers, could they?
That afternoon we crept towards the village. We walked in single file as silently as possible. Scouts moved along ahead of us and at our flanks, but I couldn’t see or hear anyone. It was like being alone in the forest. As we approached the village, Demos started imitating bird calls, and some of the soldiers answered back exactly like birds singing, ‘it’s a lovely day and all’s well in the forest’. I had to admit it was a nice touch. Birds sang, warbled, and chirped all day, but if they noticed intruders, they became silent. This way, if there were any druids on guard at the edge of the forest, they wouldn’t be forewarned.
Demos and I slithered to the edge of the cliff and peered down. He’d chosen this vantage point because, he reasoned, Voltarrix wouldn’t expect us to come down such a sheer rock face. It was open and unprotected.
I looked down and my heart lurched. I think that if Demos hadn’t clapped his huge hand on my back just about knocking the wind out of me, I would have screamed.
We were on the side next to the standing stones. The megaliths were still covered with millions of flies. They looked as if they were vibrating. Only now, there was a double circle of druids around them.
Big druids, tall druids, thin druids, and short druids, all carrying iron spears and swords. They were armed to the teeth, and they were standing in two concentric circles around the stones. Each druid’s face and chest were painted with ochre. Around their shoulders were wolf pelts with the heads still attached. They wore the heads like hoods, and gaping jaws nearly hid the druids’ faces. Necklaces made of sharp teeth gleamed around their throats. The pelts were huge; some of the tails dragged on the ground. I started to understand where the legends of the shapeshifters came from.
There must have been at least a hundred druids. My heart was beating so hard it shook me. My chest hurt and tears blurred my vision. In the very middle of the circle was Alexander, and he looked more dead than alive.
He was hanging by his wrists from a gibbet. His body was streaked with blood, and flies swarmed around him in a dark cloud. His head had fallen forward so that I couldn’t see his face. Every rib showed, and I wondered if he’d been fed in the pit. Then I reasoned they’d starved him in order to weaken him. The druids wouldn’t want to tangle with a fit Alexander. I shuddered and clenched my teeth to keep the bile down.
I have to stay strong, I have to stay strong, I thought sternly to myself. For Alexander’s sake, if he were still alive, and for Paul. I took shallow breaths and watched. I was hoping for some sign of life. The slightest twitch to show me he was breathing, but he didn’t move – and neither did the druids.
It took me a while to realize Demos was swearing quietly under his breath.
‘What is it?’ I managed to ask him when I’d unclenched my jaw.
‘They’re waiting for the Eaters of the Dead. Until then they will guard him.’
‘Is he still alive?’ My voice broke and I hated myself for it. ‘Be strong,’ I whispered angrily in English, ‘Just be strong.’
Demos covered my hand with his massive one. ‘Yes, he’s still alive. They can’t kill him until the moon and the sun share the same sky. It won’t happen until midnight tonight. By then I hope we’ll have a plan.’
‘What? You don’t have a plan?’
‘No. Do you?’
I stared at him, but he was serious. I turned my head, peering through the leaves, trying to catch sight of the Roman soldiers, but they were too well hidden. ‘Can we use the tunnel I cut through the nettles?’ I asked hopefully.
‘That’s for you. You’re going to use that tunnel. When the fighting breaks out, grab Paul and go straight up the side of the mountain and back to the camp. Plexis will be waiting at the place where you usually watched the village.’
‘He’s not fighting?’ I asked, forgetting for a moment about his arm. ‘No, I’m sorry, don’t answer that. I’ll do as you say.’
He nodded and turned his attention back to the druids.
The sun rose higher. I couldn’t look at Alexander. Each time I did I had to clench my fists in order not to scream at him, ‘We’re here! Don’t give up hope!’ I must have whispered it once though, because Demos told me that Alexander knew we were there. I can’t say that it gave me any comfort.
When the sun was high enough, Demos said that our allies were getting into position. I strained my eyes and ears, but all I heard were the liquid notes of bird calls and the rustle of leaves.
It was summer, the summer solstice to be exact. Today the sun would not set, and the moon would join it in the sky at midnight. At that hour, the moon and the sun would stare across the standing stones at each other in perfect alignment. The shadows of the stones would criss-cross, forming sacred symbols on the earth. Then the druids would feed the stones. Carved from the limestone cliffs in the south, they were porous and thirsty in the hot sun – the stones drank blood. When the ceremonies were over, the Eaters of the Dead would come out of their caves in the mountains and accept the sacrifices made for them.
At least, that’s what Demos told me, as we lay in the shade watching the villagers prepare for the ceremony.
It was a very long and complicated process. Voltarrix was in charge of everything. He showed where the pits were to be dug for the fires and supervised building a tent by the stream for the purifying baths. A large fire was built next to t
he tent, and armloads of fresh herbs were tossed onto it filling the air with a pungent smoke.
The smoke billowed around the camp and rose into the air. Soon we could smell it. It was bitter and made my eyes water.
The village children put the goats into their pasture, took three pure white kids out from the herd, and led them away. These would be sacrificed along with a white bull tied to a large wooden post near the standing stones.
The bull was content; a pile of hay was at his feet and hundreds of flowers strewn around him. He munched on the hay and flowers, unaware of his role in the proceedings. The three kids baa’d plaintively for their mothers. The children wove garlands of flowers and put them around the goats’ white necks.
Flowers were everywhere. Each hut had a wreath on its door. Each woman had a necklace of blossoms, and the men had crowns made of yellow flowers. The children made daisy chains, twisted flowers into their hair, and wore them around their necks, ankles, and wrists.
More druids materialized. They came from the valley following the stream. I counted fifty of them. They weren’t armed. They were dressed in long robes, had long beards, and carried staffs with green leaves on them. When they arrived in the village it was a sign for everyone to hasten with their chores. All at once, everyone was rushing about. Wood was carried to woodpiles, animals were herded into their pens, and last minute bouquets deposited in strategic spots around the village. When all was ready – pits dug, wood stacked, caldrons set to boil, knives sharpened, and flowers arranged – it was time to bathe and dress.
The Soul of Time Page 8