Hadrian's wall

XXV

The dungeon of the legionary fortress of Eburacum was hewn out of foundation rock by captive Britons some three hundred years ago. The prison, when its oak and iron door is swung open, has the encrusted odor of blood and tears of all that time. Stone steps, worn down in the center from the ceaseless tramp of hobnailed boots, descend into lamp-lit gloom. Even I, who have interviewed countless prisoners in the meanest of cells, hesitate. The Roman sentry beckons impatiently. I follow, my footfalls returning to me as echoes, and I wonder what it must feel like to be dragged down this stone staircase and hear the door slamming ominously above for the last time, cast into darkness and lost forever to sunlight.

Up to now my informants have been brought to me. This one, the Celtic priest Kalin, I must visit myself. The soldiers fear him and will not risk allowing him up to the surface. He's a druid with claim to ancient magic and prophetic visions, and so is chained deep to keep his powers buried. Most of the garrison would prefer to see him dead, but I've ordered him kept alive. These druids, these relics from the past: Were they instigators or victims? Will the barbarians come again?

At the bottom of the steps is a dank tunnel much like a catacomb. The air inside feels heavy, and it stinks of the smoke of oil lamps. A feeble cone of light from the narrow ventilation shaft at the tunnel's far end shows cavities gated with iron bars. Behind these sit the dungeon's inhabitants, dispirited men that if not executed will simply grow crazed. The guards say you get used to the smell and the sorrow, but I don't believe them. Dungeon duty is considered punishment. Despair grinds at a man.

"This way, inspector."

I wonder what infraction won this soldier, this day, the task of being my guide.

We walk down the passageway past the deserters, traitors, murderers, and madmen, the rapists and politically ill-favored, all those banished to underworlds such as this. At the very end is Kalin. The druid's brown robe clings to him like an old dry husk. The druid's spirit is gone, I think. I hope he is not already insane. But no. A moment later he recognizes our presence and moves toward us, in the tentative way of a beaten dog. His chains rattle when he does so.

"Open the door," I command.

"It's safer to speak to him from out here, inspector."

"And less useful. Lock me in with him and leave us alone."

The cell door clangs shut behind me and I listen to the rap of boots fade away. I cough, trying to ignore the druid's stink. When we're caged like animals we become animals. Kalin unfolds himself from his corner and stands waveringly, his wrists weighted with shackles. His eyes are sunken, his lips cracked, his hair a greasy tangle. The bravado with which he led barbarian armies has left him, of course. Dangerous? He seems broken enough.

"Is it over?" he whispers.

He means death. "No." I disappoint him. "I am Inspector Draco, come to explain the recent uprising against the Wall. I need to understand what happened. "

He looks at me dully. "Understand? I'm here. I've lost."

"Of course you have lost. But the emperor desires permanent peace. He wants to understand your people."

"My people?"

"The Celts. The druids. The tribes. The ones who choose to live as barbarians. We seek neither to conquer you nor fight you. That is why the Wall was built. We wish only to maintain our border. So: why did you attack us?"

He blinks. It occurs to me that it might be difficult for him to remember beyond the nightmare of his incarceration. Then: "You attacked us."

"You mean the incident at the grove."

He doesn't like my choice of word. "Your 'incident,' Roman, slew the high priestess Mebde and burned the sacred oak."

"The druids were inciting the tribes."

"That's a lie. We care nothing for politics. We simply worship wood and rock., stream and sky."

This is the lie, I know. The druids wield as much power as barbarian chieftains and guard their influence zealously, plying on the superstition of their followers. Spirit, magic, and capricious fortune dominate the Celtic world. Their wizards and witches are all. "And yet you were there to direct the ambush at the grove, I am told. It was a trap for the Roman cavalry, was it not? A trap set by Caratacus to either massacre the Petriana or provoke the tribes. And you helped later to assault the Wall."

"You asked why. The answer is that it is you who started the trouble, not us."

"Except that the wife of the Roman commander, Marcus Flavius, was nearly abducted on the way to her wedding."

"I know nothing of that."

"Yet you met the lady afterward, at the hill fort of Arden Caratacus, after a second abduction succeeded."

"So?" His tone is guarded.

"I am interested in this woman. I am trying to understand her role in what happened. My theory is that if the tribes hadn't tried to steal her, perhaps none of this would have ever occurred."

He smiles thinly. "You think a single woman can cause so much trouble?"

That's my question-remember Troy! — but his skepticism makes me hesitant. "I want to know what became of her."

Kalin, pinned like a brown butterfly to our rock wall, shakes his head. "If you want reason for events, look to the gods, inspector. Look at what you Romans have done to the sacred places. Look to Taranis and Dagda and Morrigan. Hear them in the summer thunder and the winter winds. You're a plague upon the land, you Romans, with your crowded cities and arrogant engineers. But the old gods are rising again."

Brave words for a man shackled in a hole, I think. "No, Kalin, it is your gods who are dead. Sometimes I think even Rome's gods are dead, replaced by this Jewish usurper. Maybe all the gods are dead, and men are alone in this world. In any event, I know Rome will endure as Rome has always endured."

He shakes his head doggedly. "I see it coming. I see your end."

It's his blind conviction that chills me, his certainty in the face of all reason. The generals are right It's extermination of his kind, not conversion, that's the only solution if civilization is to remain safe. "And yet you're conquered, and I'm among the conquerors."

He squats. "So kill me and be done with it."

Here he gives me the opportunity to enlist him. "No, I have ordered you kept alive. I honestly want to understand these gods of yours, and something of this Roman woman you took. This Valeria. I don't understand what the tribes wanted with her."

"You'll keep me alive if I tell you this?"

"I will do my best."

"Existence in this burrow isn't life."

"We fear your magic, wizard."

"My people don't build dungeons. We let every man live in the open air. If he's a transgressor, then his clan must make payment to the clan that was sinned upon. If he's defiant, we cast him out. If he returns, we sacrifice him. But cage him? That's cruelty."

"You are not among your people."

"I want to go back to my people."

I'm quiet a moment. "I will confer with the duke if you will help me." There's no chance, of course, but I need Kalin's hope.

"You'll do more than that." Suddenly his smile is disturbingly confident.

"You're wrong, Inspector Draco. My gods are not dead. Last night the full moon hung above the shaft and whispered to me from her milk. Then today you've come. It's a sign that what I say is true. The gods speak through you.

You're a messenger of fate."

This is so obviously insane that I know better than to say so. "But I will not speak to the duke until you help me," I go on. "Until you tell me why this woman was abducted."

"You 're obsessed with her, aren't you? Like Caratacus."

"And who is he?"

"A Celt turned Roman soldier, come back to our side with sorrow and revenge in his heart. This senator's daughter could bring ransom. She was a hostage to control the cavalry of her husband. She bought us time while people found their courage."

"So she was a strategic asset, "I sum up. "That's why this Caratacus risked capturing her a second time. Yet how did he know she'd be at that spring?"

"Galba promised she'd be there."

Here we have it, at last. "Brassidias was a traitor, then."

"Was he? Giving Valeria to Caledonia actually kept the peace. Her capture left her husband impotent. Her abduction promised to preserve that truce you say Rome desires."

"Galba used her for peace?"

"Galba understood the Wall in ways that his commander never could."

"And Caratacus was Galba's agent."

"Arden was no man's agent, and no man's dupe. It was he who suggested trying a second time to capture the woman, not Galba."

"But you said Caratacus wanted revenge, not peace."

"I say the motives of Arden were as transparent as those of Galba were complex. The rest of us could see it in his eyes and his manner."

"What? What was he after?"

"Not just what the woman could do for us, but the woman herself, of course."

Why am I surprised?

"Don't you understand what happened?" Kalin asks. "He'd been ensnared by her during that first ambush in the forest. The capture had nothing to do with war or revenge or Roman plotting. He simply couldn't rest until he won her for himself."