Hadrian's wall

XXVII

The euphoria didn't last long.

It was past noon the next day, and Valeria was bewildered, depressed, and increasingly afraid. The forest she found herself in was still and deep, without lane or trail, trunk ranked behind trunk as densely as a phalanx. All vision was blocked. All navigation was impossible. It was too drizzly to see the sun, and her sense of direction had become muddled. Just hours after her bold escape, the Roman fugitive was thoroughly lost.

At first her flight had gone well. She'd slid to the bottom of the fortress hill, grateful that the rain shrouded her movements. Dawn had been a sullen lightening of grays that neither awakened the settlement nor silhouetted her against the trees. She'd crept past farm fields of young grain, darted through an orchard, and found horses grazing in a long-grass meadow. Squirming through a brushwood fence that scratched her face and arms, she'd managed to approach a brown mare without spooking it. Valeria's soft murmurs had gotten her close enough to reach the animal's mane, and even as the horse began to sidestep, she'd hauled herself up and on, feeling precarious but bold for riding bareback. A kick got the horse moving, and a cry from a watchboy helped urge it to run. She'd closed her eyes as they neared the brushwood boundary; the horse bunched and leaped, and they were breathlessly over, weaving through a natural park of trees as the lowing bleat of a cattle horn gave first warning.

She'd feared immediate pursuit, but there'd been no sign of one.

Maybe she'd truly outrun the drunken, snoring barbarians.

The horse had slowed after a while, its flanks heaving as it blew great clouds of vapor after its dash. Clucking to urge it forward, Valeria had angled upward along the slope of a ridge until gaining the grass-and-rock crest, trying to aim south. Then fearing pursuit along so direct a course, she'd left the ridge after two miles and ridden down into a narrow valley to cross a stream and gain another ridge on the far side. She'd angle east while making for the Wall. More ridges, across a small wood and smaller clearing, up a hill and over, down into a much larger forest, picking her way through dense trees…

Now she was lost.

It wasn't simply that she didn't know the best way home through these woods. She didn't even know how to find her way out of them. They seemed endless, like that forest where Caratacus had almost captured her before the marriage. It was summer by the calendar, cold but leafy, and the green canopy was so thick and dark that her way was a labyrinth of sylvan tunnels. Valeria was fiercely hungry; her escape had been so sudden and impulsive that she'd forgotten to bring food. She was cold because she'd fled without her cloak. She'd counted on sun that wouldn't appear and a swift route she couldn't find. Worse, she was dispirited and lonely. She hadn't enough sleep since leaving the Petriana, and was operating on fear.

Hours passed, a blur of trees and bogs and blind, tiny meadows. She came finally to a small stream winding through the forest, its steel gleam reflecting leaden sky. This brook was marshy and surrounded by dead alder, the sticklike trees drowned by dark water. It was a desolate place. Following the boggy waterway might mire her horse, so she decided to cross in hopes of finding firmer ground on the other side. She'd have to hurry because the day was waning. The thought of spending a night alone in the woods terrified her.

She started down the muddy bank, no different from a dozen others, and then stopped in confusion.

There were hoof prints in the mud, filled with water.

Valeria looked around. The woods were quiet, with no sign that other humans had ever passed here. And yet there was something familiar about this crossing, that leaning trunk, this sunken log…

Her heart sank as she realized the truth. She was riding in circles.

Valeria looked at her tracks in stupefaction, then slid from her horse to cry.

There was a boulder on the bank, and she sat miserably on that, weeping in frustration and cursing herself for not having remained on the ridges. Cursing herself for having come to Britannia at all! Clodius had been right. It was a hideous country of barbarians and swamps. Her decision to follow Marcus to Britannia had been a disaster, and her decision to find him on her own was disaster compounded. Her own girlish impulsiveness had finally doomed her. Animals would pick at her bones. And now she'd fled and left behind her closest remaining friend, Savia.

She wanted to go forward but had no idea how to find Hadrian's Wall, and wanted to retreat but had no idea how to find Arden's fort again. She wanted to sleep but was too wet and cold, and wanted to eat but had no food. Her horse looked as forlorn and soaked as she felt, and she supposed that if anyone from Rome were to see her right now, they would pass by a particularly dirty, bedraggled, drowned cat of a woman, a beggar, a leper, an orphan…

"It's easy country to get lost in, isn't it?"

Her head jerked up in surprise, alarm, and sudden outrage. Caratacus! Arden had somehow crept up on her and now was standing not twenty feet away, calmly taking a bite of sausage and looking perfectly at home. The thick woolen cloak he was wearing was drawn over his head and beaded with rain. His sword was sheathed, and his hands were weaponless. He made no move to come closer and looked as calm as she felt despairing, as if their reunion was the most inevitable thing in the world.

"What are you doing here?"

"Following you, of course, since no sane man would come into Iola Wood unless a particularly fine stag had run this way-and maybe not even then. It's a tangle. Do you know that when you haven't been traveling in circles, you've been riding northeast, away from that Roman wall of yours?"

"I most certainly have not!"

"You're farther from your rescuing cavalry than ever."

She whirled around to find evidence to contradict him, but there was none, of course. The sun hid, the sky was slate gray, the forest a maze.

"How did you find me?" she finally asked.

"I've been following you for hours."

"Hours! Then why didn't you recapture me?"

"So we wouldn't have to do this again. I don't want to cage you, lady, but you need to realize how hopeless it is to try to reach this wall of yours. You can't find your way. Even if you could, we wouldn't let you. Your only luck is that you didn't do slightly better, because that would have meant the hounds, not me. They might have chewed on you for a bit before I could call them off." He took another bite himself, which made her stomach growl. "Now come. I'm tired of this game."

"Why don't you just kill me?" she pleaded miserably.

He appeared to consider this. "Because you're entirely too valuable. Because poor Savia is at wit's end, furious that you left her behind. Because I enjoy watching the choices you make, even the stupid ones. Because you've got some spark to you."

"I'm too wet to have any spark left."

He grinned. "I don't think so. We'll turn you into a Celt yet."

They led their horses into the trees and tied them. Arden gave her a cloak he'd rolled behind his saddle, as if anticipating her recapture from the moment he'd called for his horse. His confidence infuriated her. Yet she took the garment with gratitude, her body thoroughly chilled, and watched dumbly as he gathered wood for a fire, picking dry scraps from under a log and flicking shavings with a knife. Flint and steel struck a spark. Despite her annoyance at recapture, his quiet efficiency at this vital task couldn't help but reassure her. A flame caught in the nest of duff, and he added twigs and then branches to nurse it to size, a reassuring pop sending sparks wafting upward. The heat was hypnotizing. She stood near, opening the cloak to dry her sodden clothes underneath.

"My thanks for the fire."

"It's not for you. The smoke signals that I found you." He handed her bread and sausage. "It lets everyone else go back inside and get warm."

"Oh."

"But it's true I don't want you dead of exposure. What use would you be then?"

"Oh." Was he mocking? Or afraid to admit kindness? The bread was ambrosia, the sausage a different kind of heat.

"I was lost," she admitted.

"Obviously."

"I thought you'd kill me if you caught me."

"Well, it might have saved me a piece of bread. But then why catch you?"

So he wasn't going to kill her. He gave no sign he intended to molest her, either. Despite all her dire expectations she suddenly felt strangely safe with this man, this barbarian, this murderer, this awful hunter of heads and consorter with witches and leader of brigands: not imprisoned but rescued, as if rescued from herself. The feeling was so unexpected that it confused her. She'd felt so bold and clever to escape, and now so foolish.

"I would have found my way eventually," she impulsively insisted.

"Your way where?"

"To my husband."

He grunted. Mention of Marcus irked him. "Who you barely know."

"He's where my heart lies. Sooner or later, it would lead me to him."

Arden shook his head. "You've yet to feel your heart, I think. Yet to feel love. You're nothing like your husband at all."

"You don't know that!"

"Everyone along the Wall knows that."

"How dare you say such a thing!"

"Everyone knows about the marriage, and his appointment because of it, and the fact that you're three times braver than your husband and five times smarter. The Romans fear you, and the Celts admire you. You've come to a better place, believe me."

She didn't believe him, not for a moment, and yet his comment about the longings of her heart disturbed her. Secretly she suspected there was some tiny truth in his presumptions, and yet he was also maddening. Who was he to say what her heart had felt, or how deeply she'd loved? Still, there was a yearning in her breast that remained unfulfilled, a formality to her marriage that seemed to belie the promises that the seer had made in Londinium. Perhaps deep love would develop, but this brigand had stolen some of her complacency. "I know my husband is looking for me right now, at the head of five hundred armed men," she said.

"And I know he isn't." Arden had seated himself on a log and was ripping off great chunks of bread with his teeth, gulping them down like a wolf. The man was disgusting! And yet there was something compelling about his lack of self-consciousness, his freedom from doubt.

"He'll catch you unawares," she argued doggedly.

"No, he won't."

"Why are you so certain?"

"Because we've already sent him one of the heads of the soldiers we killed, preserved in cedar oil, with a warning that yours will come next if he dares try to rescue you. If he truly loves you, he'll leave you, with me."

"No, you didn't. I saw the four heads in your Great House."

"You saw four of what were five."

Her heart chilled.

"Hool stayed behind for a while to package the head of the man who first tried to save you. We've sent it to the Romans."

"Clodius? You're a monster!"

"I'm a warrior and a realist."

Furious at herself for showing weakness, she began to weep again.

"Oh, come, lady, it's not as bad as all that. Your young soldier died in battle, the best fate of all men, and his head is being honored. It means his soul is still protecting you. I'd be flattered if our fortunes were reversed." He reached in a leather bag. "Here, have some dried fruit." He held up shriveled apple and pear.

She was still hungry enough to want it but instead refused, sitting across the fire to fume. She couldn't believe Marcus wouldn't try rescue. Clodius's poor head would spur him on, not deter him!

Yet where was he?

Perhaps she should just wait for her husband. Wait in the warmth of Arden's fort.

She hated men and their cruelties.

"So," Caratacus went on, "the question is what to do with you in the meantime. Everything I've heard and seen suggests that you're a natural horsewoman, a Morrigan of the Romans."

"Who's Morrigan?"

"How ignorant you Romans are about the island you've conquered! She's the goddess of war and the hunt. Her symbol is the horse."

"I simply like horses. They seem as noble as men are base."

"So we agree on something after all. Will you go riding with me, then?"

"Back to the fort?"

"Yes, on your stolen mare, and we need to go before darkness falls. But beyond that, will you ride with me on a hunt?"

"A hunt?"

"We've got one planned for sport and necessity."

"A woman on a hunt?"

"A woman can do what she wants."

"Not in Rome, she can't."

"You're not in Rome. You're in a place, unlike your country, where a woman can own property and wield a spear and choose who she wants for her bed and who for her marriage. Believe me, they're not always the same person. Come with me. It's exciting."

"You're trying to enlist me."

"I'm trying to calm you."

"Why, after I've escaped? Why don't you lock me in a cage?"

"But you didn't escape, did you? Here you are, still my prisoner. And if you try again, it will only give me an excuse to abduct you once more." He was grinning.

She said nothing, not wanting to give him satisfaction.

"Are you recovered enough to ride at least?"

She nodded glumly.

"Then let's make our way home, then. My home, and temporarily yours."

They rode on faint game trails that Valeria had been too anxious and inexperienced to see, Arden making no effort to tie or restrain her. While he was leading her to what he called his home, his hill fort called Tiranen, it occurred to her that he seemed even more at home here, in this forest. If there were willow gods and dark shrines, he showed no fear.

"How can you find your way so easily?" She needed to talk about something, because she kept thinking about the persistence of his pursuit and abduction. The result was unsettling in ways she didn't want to admit.

"I grew up in this country. But Iola Wood is confusing even to those of us who know it well. It's no embarrassment you were lost."

"One of my husband's soldiers told me that you Celts believe the woods are haunted. That trees like the willow can pull people underground."

"We believe that the woods are inhabited by spirits, or rather that the trees are spirits themselves, but that doesn't mean they're haunted. The willow story is just for children." He turned in his saddle to look at her. "Not that I'd sleep under one, mind you."

"Titus talked about Esus, some woodman's god, who demands a tribute of blood."

"Esus must be placated, it's true. A god should be honored with sacrifice, giving back to her some small portion of what she has given to us. But there's also Dagda, the good god, who walks through these trees as a Roman walks through his garden. The‹ groves of oak are places of both darkness and of light, just like the world as a whole."

"Savia believes there's only one god."

"I've heard this. And the Christians eat their god and drink his blood to be made strong by him, which sounds far more savage to me than sacrificing a captive to Esus. The Christians talk of a father and a son and a spirit as well, and argue among themselves whether the three are one or the one is three. Is this not true? I listened when I soldiered in your world. That's not so different from us Celts. Three is our most sacred number, and our gods are often trinities, like Morrigan, Babd, and Nemhain, separate and yet the same."

"If they are the same, then why three?"

"Three is a sacred number. Three can surround itself, each member flanked by two others. Druids believe that the educated mind requires, first, knowledge, second, nature, and third, truth. All these are the same, and yet they're different as well."

"Perhaps you should become a Christian, then."

"Theirs is a very weak god, a humble man killed so easily that none even remember what he looked like. In our world we worship strength. Besides, how can one god do the work of dozens? How silly to have different people, with different needs, all worship the same god. That defies common sense."

"Christ is the god of civilization. The god, now, of Rome."

"And what good is civilization? Your poor are worked like animals, and your rich become tyrants. In our world men and women alike are more equal, and we share in toil, and we move with the wind and season and allow ourselves to enjoy life. We care nothing for monuments but only for deeds, nothing for power but only for friendship, nothing for death-which is only sweet release-but only for life. We care for the deer and the oak and the brook and the stone. Christians are proud their god walked among them, but our Celtic gods are with us all the time, in everything we see and touch. The Christian god has gone away, but ours speak to us with wind and thunder and sometimes, more softly, in the call of birds."

"And yet it is Rome that rules the world."

"Not this world. Not this warrior." He glanced upward into the trees and pointed. "Let me show you." Reaching up, he grabbed the limb of an oak and swung himself off his horse as easily as an acrobat. Climbing to the topmost bough, he sawed at something with his dagger and then descended, his catlike drop to the ground reminding her of the time he'd surprised the mule pulling her cart. Then he remounted and walked his horse over.

"Here."

It was a branch of polished leaves and white berry, very different from the oak it came from. "What is it?"

"The sacred mistletoe. It's a magic plant that grows at the crown of trees. Wear a sprig in your hair, and it will protect you from evil spirits. Keep it at hand, and it will ward off death and disfigurement. Put it over a cradle, and it will prevent a baby from being abducted by faeries. This is the most powerful plant the gods have put on Earth, and it's free for the taking. It symbolizes the truth of the world, that wood and water give us all we really need."

She looked skeptical. "And yet you barbarians sneak into Roman territory to steal, so you can live as Romans do."

He laughed. "How clever you are! Some do, I don't deny it. But there's more to the magic of this mistletoe." His arm stretched, and he held it near her face, dangling from his hand, and then leaned and kissed her, a kiss as swift and fleeting as one of Brisa's arrows. "There!"

She leaned back in consternation. "Why did you do that?"

"Because the mistletoe is also our plant of friendship and conciliation. Our plant of love. Because you're pretty. Because I felt like doing it."

Her face was aflame. "Well, I did not feel like it, and I'll not let any man take liberties without permission." It reminded her of Galba. "I'll, I'll…" She thought desperately for a threat. "I'll stick you with a brooch again!"

He roared with laughter and backed his horse away. "It's only a Celtic custom, girl! But if you're threatening with your brooch, then I'll throw my charm away." He raised his arm to toss the mistletoe aside.

"No!" she relented. "No, no. Don't kiss me, but I want a sprig for protection like you said. Please give me one."

So he plucked a piece and gave it to her. She put it in her hair.

Then they turned and rode again, finally breaking free of Iola Wood just as the sun broke clear of ragged cloud, setting toward crags in the west. They galloped up a steep ridge to a place from where it seemed they could see the entire world… all of it, perhaps, except the distant wall. Lakes, painted gold by the late fire, lay in every hollow. Mist swirled along the ridge crests like wool combed from the sky. Rainbows arced like portals to the heavens. Rocks glistened from the recent rain, their veins a raiment of diamonds. The raw beauty took her breath away.

"How wondrous the world," she murmured, as much to herself as him. Then, remembering her plight, "Will we get back before dark?"

"There, Tiranen." He pointed, and she saw the cone of his hill and its fort, just two ridges away. "Come, race me there!" Then he cried like an eagle, a wild screech, and rode like the wind without even bothering to look behind, Valeria following as gamely as she could, clinging to her racing mare.

She'd not come very far from the fort at all, she admitted to herself. Yet Arden had made her curious about his world. Maybe she could learn something useful from these strange people. Something important to take back to her Romans. Back to her Marcus.