Hadrian's wall

XXVI

As Valeria's abductors rode up a grassy hill to the earth-and-wooden fort that crowned it, her eyes desperately sought escape. Surely cavalry patrols were searching for her right now! Not only did she need rescue, she had information vital to the Roman cause: that Galba's informant was, in fact, the brigand who'd first ambushed her. Just what this meant she wasn't sure, but Marcus needed to know that the agent who'd told the Petriana about the druids in the sacred grove actually seemed faithful to the barbarian side. Either that, or he was a scoundrel who played each camp against the other. Why? Was this Arden trying to foment a full-scale war? By capturing a senator's daughter, he'd surely taken a dangerous step toward one.

She looked toward the tall and arrogant man riding ahead of her, his unbound hair falling in a mane to his shoulders, his sword strapped across his broad back, his arms bare and brown and corded with muscle as he gripped the reins of his stallion, his neck revealing the glint, when he turned, of a golden torque of valor. His manner seemed careless now that he was back in his own country, and that was good. His confidence would be his undoing.

The chieftain's fort crowned the hill like a tonsure, circling its crest with a ditch, earthen dike, and low palisade. The crude enclosure protected a large, timbered central building, a dozen round Celtic houses with peaked thatched roofs, and pens and corrals for livestock and horses. Twin wooden towers flanked the gate, warriors on the platform of each blowing horns of welcome as the raiding party rode the winding path up the slope. More barbarians crowded the fort's log parapet, yelling and jeering.

The climb gave a grand view of the country they'd just ridden through, and Valeria looked back across the gray hills to the south. The world looked wild and disturbingly empty, a haven only for barbarians and beasts. She imagined for a moment she saw out there a flash of armor from pursuing horsemen, pounding to her rescue, but then admitted it was just the reflection of the sun on distant ponds. She imagined she saw the white of the Wall, but admitted it was only low, distant cloud. She did notice that at the base of the hill were more houses, a ramble of grain fields, and an enclosure for horses. Could she steal one and ride away on her own? Or would they lock her in a wicker man, the flame kept ready for her husband's approach?

The Roman aristocrat glanced down the line of horsemen to poor Savia, hoping her maidservant might have ideas that had eluded her. Yet the slave didn't return her look, having slumped into despondency. If Arden's promise of freedom had encouraged the woman, Savia gave no sign. Even her complaints had ceased. Valeria had never felt so hopeless.

Arden Caratacus, in contrast, rode like a prince, his fist lifted to the whoops of men and cheers of women, savoring his triumph like a general of Rome. They called to him from his fort. "You've brought us a Roman kitten, I see!" "Did she not stick your horse this time, topple-bottom?" "Does she fuck as well as she fights?" "How much gold can we squeeze with this one?" And then howls and shouts as they rode between the two towers. "Where's your husband, my pretty? Has he lost you?" "Rome must be ripe for robbery to give up the likes of you!" "This is what Romans get for burning sacred trees, tyrant bitch!" The fortress courtyard was a bog of mud, straw, and manure, a trampled forum in which dogs leaped, horses pissed, and children screamed and scampered. Cooking smoke drifted from the buildings, and flies orbited a dung pile. As the mounted warriors swung down into the mire, the mob streamed off the earthen dike to greet them in an exultant tide. Valeria and Savia stayed stiffly mounted, disdainful of the filth and fearful of the host of alien blonds and redheads who crowded around. While most of this enclosure was drab, the clothing of both sexes was a complicated pattern of browns and bright colors, Valeria noticed, all checks and stripes and diamonds. Their jewelry was heavy and ostentatious, their weapons oversize, their hair a deliberate cascade of curls. There was no subtlety or stoicism among them; all was for display. The women were as boisterous as men, rude and coarse-tongued, and their children wrestled and punched and squealed. Most in the crowd were young, and all were fit, so why didn't they have energy for simple paving? The place was a sty, and not one of these Celts had the breeding to even notice. Males were pummeling Caratacus in welcome, and females were giving him hugs and lewd kisses, all of them exultant at the capture of an aristocratic Roman. She was a trophy.

Only one woman didn't share the mood of triumph. She searched the riders' faces with growing dismay and then ran wailing to the shrouded body of the Celt that Clodius had killed with the javelin, throwing herself against the horse that bore the corpse and sobbing sorrow to her gods.

Arden glanced in sympathy but made no move to comfort. Death was the warrior's fate, and everyone knew it.

Instead, he raised both arms to quiet his rabble. "I've brought you guests!"

They howled anew, buffeting the Romans with taunts. "Take the fat off the one and fit it to the bones of the other, and you'd have a single decent captive, Arden!"

"Does the regal one like to gallop?"

"Give me the other for my barn! She's got the butt of my horse, the udders of my cow, and the pout of my prettiest sow!"

Valeria sat straight, determined to maintain aristocratic indifference. You are a daughter of Rome! Secretly, she feared she was about to be raped.

Caratacus motioned for quiet again. "And as guests of the clan of Caratacus, tribe of the Attacotti, land of the Caledonians, these women are to be treated as you'd treat your mother or sister. These captives are weapon and resource if treated well; useless if foolishly harmed. I say to them now that I guarantee their safety with my own heart and arm-and if any trespass against them, then they have trespassed against me." He glanced around in challenge. His warning briefly subdued the crowd.

"And trespassed against me," another rough voice added. Valeria felt a shock of recognition at the sound. Cassius! It was her bodyguard, who'd disappeared at the ambush. "I protected her once, and I'll do so again," the ex-gladiator told his new clan. "I had no quarrel with the girl when I ran to freedom." He shouldered his way to the front of the crowd, more thickly muscled than any of them, now a great Celtic sword at his side.

Arden nodded and went on. "I've freed the fat one named Savia, but she'll work in the Great House as she worked for Rome. Eventually she'll choose her own future. The skinny one is called Valeria, and she's going to tell us more about her husband and his men. Don't insult her, for she's a great lady in the city of Rome."

They hooted in derision, laughing at their great lady.

"No, listen!" Arden protested. "We can learn from her!"

"Learn arrogance and corruption and crushing taxation!" one man shouted.

"Learn treachery and ruthlessness!" added another.

"Valeria will learn from us in turn: the pleasure of life among the free and proud Attacotti!" At this they roared approval. There was promise and a glint of humor in his eyes as he looked at her then, as if he knew her heart and understood her fears. She found it disquieting that he believed he could understand anything at all about her, and disturbing to find herself grateful for his small charities. This man was her husband's enemy and friend's killer. "She'll live among us and become one of us."

"And which bed will she share, Arden Caratacus?" one woman cackled.

He looked solemn. "Whichever she chooses, like any Celtic woman. She'll begin in the Great House as guest, and have her maid for company if the freed woman Savia agrees."

Heads turned to the maidservant.

"I'll not leave my mistress no matter what you proclaim," Savia said, her voice quavering but her words unexpectedly brave. "I, too, am a woman of Rome, and I still serve my lady." She stiffly got off her horse, legs buckling for a moment, and then walked unsteadily to help Valeria dismount as well. The two women stood in the mud and held each other against the tall people who surrounded them, the men powerful, the women lovely and haughty, the children curious and impudent, their dogs pushing to sniff and whine.

"I'm terrified of being alone with these savages," the slave whispered.

"They've freed you, Savia."

"I'm terrified of depending on myself."

The rectangular Great House dominated the hill fort like a forum's temple or a castle's keep, its forty-foot height and two-hundred-foot length evidence of more sophisticated construction than Valeria had expected the Celts could produce. Its pillars were made of intricately carved pine, birds riding curved vines that climbed in swirls up the length of each column. Beams ended in the sculpted and painted heads of dragons and unicorns and gaping gods. Painted moons and stars were scattered across the tall door. Pictured horses, sinuous and galloping, circled the otherwise gray and weathered wood of the building's periphery as black-and-white abstractions. It was as intricate a construction as her trousseau chest from Rome, and infinitely larger. How had these rude people built such a thing? How had they even dragged the trees?

Inside, high windows under the building's eaves let in a cross-hatch of light from glassless openings that could be shuttered against storms. Smoke had stained the interior dark, but in compensation the side aisles and rafters were decorated with bright banners, woven tapestries, painted shields, and crossed spears. Horns and heads of trophy animals were mounted on every pillar. Underfoot were rush mats to catch the courtyard mud. The long oaken tables smelled of wood, smoke, and beer.

It was here that the clan of Arden Caratacus gathered each evening to eat, boast, sing, and plot. Here that legend and druidic lore was passed on, generation after generation. Here that information was traded, gossip spawned, lies told and challenged, quarrels settled, flirtations started, children spanked, games played, cups filled, dogs fed, and cats left to hunt mice in the alcoves.

Wood-paneled sleeping cells opened off the communal hall. It was to one of these that Brisa, the archer, and Cassius, the escaped slave, led Valeria and Savia.

"Since you don't have man or family, you'll sleep here," Brisa said. The chamber had two wooden sleeping platforms piled with wool fleece and furs, a copper basin to wash in, and a scrubbed board floor. There was a tapestry of a fantastic forest, woven in rainbow colors, a table with a bronze hand mirror, and a shelf with rank of candles. The wax smelled of berries and the sea. It was plain, but clean.

"Are you going to lock us in?" Savia asked, peering from the threshold.

"There's no need. You've nowhere to go."

"Can we lock others out?" Valeria asked.

"None will bother you."

"I sleep nearby," Cassius said, "and I'll protect you as I did before. Don't fear, lady, you're safer here than on the streets of Rome."

"Not very reassuring, Cassius, after your desertion in the forest."

He bowed his head. "That wasn't meant as insult to you. I know how Roman soldiers mock gladiators, and I'd no desire to live among them. I was dreading the Wall."

"These people treat you like a prince, it seems."

"I'm free, lady, and not just by being my own master. I'm free in ways hard to explain. You'll understand in time."

Savia sniffed. "It's a rude and primitive place you're free in, Cassius."

"And you, too, woman. Arden told me what he granted you."

She blushed.

"What's going to happen to us?" Valeria asked.

Brisa shrugged. "Only the gods know that. The gods and the druids."

Valeria felt apprehensive at mention of their priests. While Marcus had tried to keep the ghastly tales from her, slaves kept nothing secret. She'd heard the rumors of human sacrifice. "I've seen no druids here," she said with faint hope. "Only that cocky thief who brought us here, this Caratacus."

"He's a chieftain, not a thief. And Kalin, priest of the sacred oak, will be here tonight like the midnight owl."

"Who's Kalin?"

"The druid who advises our clan. He fought your Romans in the sacred grove."

"Why is he coming here?"

"To see you, of course."

"Am I to be ransomed?" It was a polite way to ask if she was going to be killed.

"You're asking as if it were my decision to make," the Celtic woman said, not unkindly. "Or Cassius, or Arden, or Kalin. But you're north of the Wall now, Roman. Maybe it will be you who decides your fate. You and your goddess. Maybe your future is already cast by the runes and the stars."

"Or by the one true god, the Lord Jesus," Savia spoke up.

"Who?" Brisa asked.

"The Savior of us all," the maidservant said.

"I haven't heard of this god."

"He's the new god of the Roman world. Even the emperor worships him."

"And what kind of god is he?"

"A good and meek one," Savia said. "He was killed by Roman soldiers."

The woman laughed. "This is your savior? A god who can't save himself?"

"He rose from the dead."

At this she showed more respect. "When was this?"

"More than three hundred years ago."

Now she looked skeptical. "And where is he now?"

"In heaven."

"Well." She looked at them with doubt. "Each woman finds her own goddess or god who speaks to her heart in a special way, like a lover or brother or husband. So you can have this alive-and-dead-and-remote god if you wish, it matters not to me. But our gods are all around us, in the rocks and the trees and the flowers, in every spring and every cloud, and they've kept my people free of you Romans for that same three hundred years. In Caledonia it's these gods that have power. My advice is to listen for the god that sings to your heart and ask him or her, not me, what will become of you."

"You suggest this," Valeria objected, "after we've been abducted and brought here against our will and shown to this small room."

"But perhaps not against your god's will." Brisa gave them a slight smile. "You're of our clan now, Roman lady, and your fate is linked to ours. You can spend your days wishing you were somewhere else if you want, but I say you should eat and sleep and weave and hunt and wait for gods, not men, to tell us what to do."

A hundred people ate in the Great Hall, women shocking Valeria by sitting casually on the benches alongside their men. Both sexes helped cook and serve, children fought and crawled underfoot, dogs prowled for scraps and nipped each other's flanks, and the hearth fires cast a red, wavering light. A great iron kettle was filled with water and warmed by heated stones for the company to wash there before eating, the Celts surprising her with their fastidiousness. Contrary to what she'd been warned in Rome, they cared how they looked and smelled! For this celebration of Arden's return, the men and women had carefully combed their hair and chosen their best jewelry, some men painting the stripes of war on their faces, and some women using berry juice and ash to accent their lips and highlight their eyes. Yet just when she was ready to admit that Romans had some things in common with these rough people, and hope that she might understand them, a common cup was passed down their rank, and Valeria realized to her horror that the cup was in fact the crown of a skull, hacked from some victim, given two handles and plated with yellow gold.

"You drink from the dead?"

"We honor the spirit of our enemies by venerating their heads," Brisa explained matter-of-factly. "The head is the seat of the soul."

The Celts paid their prisoners no particular mind, neither honoring a Roman lady with proper seat and deference nor putting her in shackles or bonds. Savia was drafted to help with the serving, but Valeria was spared that indignity, the rough warriors glancing almost shyly at her beauty while their tall chieftain pretended indifference. Their lack of watchfulness astounded and somewhat heartened her. I could thrust this carving knife right into one of their eyes, she thought. Yet she also feared that such an assault would be more difficult than it seemed in the genial chaos of supper, that a strong arm would be quick to deflect her blow or a maid to cry warning, and then she herself would be dead. So she did nothing, eating an embarrassing amount because she was so famished, and watched with fascination the pride and equality that the women assumed with their men, challenging their boasts and braying their own jokes and offering their own opinions on the pasturing of the clan herd, the tyrannies of weather, or the impotence of Romans. A single turma of disciplined cavalry could slice through the lot like a pin through a grape, she knew, and yet the warriors who'd captured her boasted yet again of its prowess at the spring, and the haplessness of her doomed rescuers.

The forced memory brought to mind the death of Clodius and the waste of his young life, depressing Valeria anew. The barbarian had slain her best friend, the man she'd ridden to protect! He'd belittled the power of her husband! He was a sworn enemy of Rome! She glanced at his handsome figure at the head of the table, hating his triumph. Should she endure existence among them and wait for fate, as Brisa had suggested? Somehow try to signal the soldiers she was certain must be searching? Or escape to find a way home?

While the men seemed less threatening than she'd feared, one of the women seemed more so. She was a Celtic beauty with a proud and watchful manner and flame-red hair who periodically would cast a glance of distaste at Valeria and then look past to give a covetous stare at Arden. Well, that was plain enough. You can have him! Yet the chieftain seemed to pay no mind to her, either. If the maid hoped to cast a spell with her eye, the chieftain just as assiduously avoided it. Valeria asked Brisa who she was.

"That's Asa." She speared a piece of pork. "A lover of Caratacus but not betrothed as she'd hoped. She's as skilled with weapons as I am, and dangerous to cross. Stay friends with Brisa, Roman, if Asa becomes your enemy."

"She's very beautiful."

"She's used to having men's eyes on her, not you. Don't be alone with her."

The songs turned from skirmishes with the Romans to older and grander tales of great raids and foggy voyages, of dragon hoards and mythic beasts. While the company lingered at table, they ate sparingly, Valeria realized, avoiding the intentional gluttony she'd seen at Roman banquets. Savia kept munching contentedly, as starved by the recent adventures as Valeria was, and Brisa began looking disapprovingly at the maidservant's steady consumption. Finally she spoke sharply.

"Leave off, freed Roman, or you'll owe the table the fatgelt."

Savia looked up with her mouth full. "The what?"

"It's a useless Celt that can't run and fight. We levy a tax on anyone who gets too fat. A body's form is a reflection of the gods. Eat too much, and you'll pay for it until you lose enough to earn it back."

"But I'm not a Celt."

"You are if you prove yourself useful. Turned out to starve if you don't."

Savia glanced around at the others and reluctantly sat back from her plate. "Yours is a cruel country, to prepare all this food and not eat it."

"Only Romans eat everything. We eat only what we need. That is why your side of the Wall is so poor, all cut over and the earth sliced open and streams impounded, while on ours it is more like the gods intended it, where flowers still sing to the sun."

"If you farmed better, you could eat more."

"If I built a fire twenty feet high, I could sit farther away, but where's the sense in that?"

At length it was late, and Valeria longed for sleep, yet the assembly showed no sign of breaking up. She could hear a hiss of rain and guessed that most of the clan had decided to sleep through the coming wet morning. Perhaps time had less meaning here.

There was also a camaraderie that made clan members linger. Most of these Celts were related, and all had a role to play in their small society: the storyteller, the jokester, the warrior, the mother hen, the tippler, the magician, the singer, the cook. They knew each other's strengths, weaknesses, skills, feelings, and past, and interacted without rank. Valeria herself felt isolated, defeated, and homesick, and wanted only to crawl between the woolens and furs of her bed. She began to watch for an opportunity to creep off and do so, but before it came, there were shouts, the opening of a door that let in a blast of wet wind, and then its slamming shut behind a newly entered guest, hooded and mud-splattered. It was a man, Valeria saw, stamping and wet, his frame tall and gaunt, his features shrouded. At his arrival the crowd grew quiet.

The newcomer lingered in shadow a moment, his gaze briefly holding every eye, and Valeria felt chilled at realizing who this must be, this figure of dark gods and blood sacrifice. Would she be given to him for his magic?

"You've come to us like the midnight owl, Kalin!" Arden called.

"An owl, yes, but not wise enough to stay out of the rain." The self-deprecation surprised her. "It's wet as a crannog in a spring freshet out there. Cold as the butt of a bony woman. Dark as the hole in a centurion's ass."

The assembly laughed.

The druid put back his hood, and Valeria could see he was balding on top, his hair cut short, his nose like a beak, and his eyes sly and inquisitive. The man's flickering gaze picked her out, too. He came through the group, making quiet greeting, working his way to the head of the plank table while occasionally glancing at her, and finally came to Arden with his eye still fixed on the Roman. "Well, Caratacus. Is that piece of downy fluff your latest capture?"

Valeria felt physically and emotionally ragged but still carried her Italian beauty and Roman poise: her complexion unblemished, her stola stained but fine, her figure trim, her carriage delicate. Unconsciously, she held herself straighter.

"Our highborn guest," Arden replied.

"Welcome to the north, Roman lady," the druid said. "Refuge of the free, home of the unconquered, where we give no tribute to distant emperors and honor the gods of the oak. I've heard your tale. You've Celtic spirit to ride to save a friend."

"And yet he wasn't saved," Valeria replied more coolly than she felt, startled at the sound of her own voice in the quiet. "And I'm not really free."

"A temporary situation. Soon all Britannia will be free. When it is, you will be too."

His smug confidence annoyed her. "No, soon this fort will be burned by the Roman cavalry, and you'll cook in its flames. That's when I'll be free."

The assembly cheered this boldness.

"You haven't won her over yet," Kalin observed to Arden.

"She's not an easy one to win."

"Do you fear her?"

"I respect her."

"And will her husband come after her?"

"We can hope, but I've no word of it yet."

This news stung. Surely the men of the Petriana were looking by now! Perhaps they were waiting for Marcus to hurry back from his meeting with the duke. Perhaps this conversation was a trick to make her give up hope. "He'll come," Valeria promised.

"No," the druid said. "He'll bluster, but he'll not risk your death or his own career by challenging us so deep in Caledonii territory. We're letting him know that it would be your dying throes we'd use to forecast the course of battle." Savia took sharp breath at this threat. "Unless your husband is a very stupid man, lady, you'll be our guest for some time. As a water girl, perhaps. Or a grinder."

"Absolutely not! Treat me nobly or suffer the consequences!"

"She likes to make threats," Arden said, as if he had to explain for her.

"Threats that are laughable unless you have the power to carry them out," the druid said. And indeed, the men were laughing at her! They were treating her like a fool! Even Asa, still watching from the end, was smirking.

"Send me home so we can avert a war," Valeria tried miserably.

"The war has started, lady, with your husband's burning. The drums and pipes have been sounded all along the Highlands ever since to bear the tale. Caratacus here invited Roman miscalculation, and your husband had only two choices in the grove: to be destroyed by ambush or, failing that, to provoke wider war. Now we wait for the right moment. You're our guarantee of safety until that moment comes."

"Then I'll run away, long before you use me in this war of yours!"

The druid smiled and gestured at the shadows of the Great Hall, larger and blacker as the coals died. "Where would you run? How would you find your way home? Before you go back to your old world, why don't you open your eyes to this one? Then report back to the Romans. Make them understand."

"Understand what?"

"That for the first time in your life you're free, and thus truly alive. Give thanks, because the alternative is to be like them." He pointed.

It was then she realized that the corner shadows were not as empty as she'd assumed them to be, that four faces were watching her, and that the four were the mournful, shut-eyed, severed heads of the Romans that had dangled from a pony, now mounted on spear points and posted in the murk of the four corners of the hall.

Valeria sat up near dawn.

As Brisa said, there was no lock at her chamber. Savia was snoring gently, overcome by exhaustion, but her mistress had been too distraught to sleep. It wasn't just her own plight that was agonizing. Her capture could paralyze her husband and destroy his career. There would never be a better time to escape. She must take advantage of their arrogance.

Stealthily, she opened her door and peered out. There were a few drunk and satiated Celts passed out in the banquet hall, but none stirred when she emerged. There was no guard to issue a challenge. Did they really think her so helpless? The Roman crept along to a side door and slipped outside, pressing herself against the wood of the Great House. She regretting leaving Savia, but the slave would only slow her down.

A light rain still fell, obscuring the moon. The only glow she saw was from a watchfire at the guardhouse near the main gate. No escape that way, and no chance of taking her mare Boudicca. Yet she remembered the horses corralled in the dell below. She ran lightly across the wet mud of the courtyard between two of the round dwellings. A dog barked to no one. She scrambled up the dike that formed the lower part of the fort wall and peered over the log palisade. The night was ink. She couldn't see the bottom of the surrounding ditch or the slope of the hill beyond. Good. No one would see her, either. She hoisted herself, balanced a moment on the rough logs while fearing a cry or arrow, and then jumped, slithering down into the ditch and its puddles. Then up the other side and down the grassy hill, breathless and exultant.

No one saw her. No one called.

She was soaked, cold, and free.