Stone Cold

Twenty-Two

High in the hills, inside the cave from which the Spring of Prophecy bubbled from the rocks, the Arch Druid Vincentrix paced the floor.

All day he had sat cross-legged in front of his fire, patiently adding his magic herbs to the crackling flames and waiting for his gods to arrive. All day he had sat alone, and then he had sat alone all through the steadily lengthening night. No morsel of food had passed the Druid's lips to contaminate his communion with the Eternal Ones, and the only water he had drunk was that which sprang in purity from the stone. But there was no purity in Vincentrix's heart, only the burning heat of anger, and anger, as he knew full well, was a sin.

Yet he was powerless to stop it.

He watched the first shaft of light brighten the sky over the hills, and his ears opened to the sweet trill of the blackbird, always the first to start the daily chorus.

Years peeled back. Suddenly, he was seventeen again. A besotted, loyal virgin bridegroom contracted to an empty marriage bed. She only married him, she said, because her family kept pressing her to take a husband. What comfort, knowing Vincentrix had been the only youth in Gaul not to see through the bitch!

Warblers, flycatchers and finches joined the chorus.

It was not through inheritance when her aunt had died that his wife acquired the ring. Vincentrix had stolen it from a Roman goldsmith's shop, an act that had liberated him in more ways than he had envisaged, since not only had the ring funded his wife's travels, the theft had demonstrated an innate ability to blend with his surroundings. But the humiliating knowledge that everyone in Santonum knew the truth about his frigid bride still rankled. There was only one solution. By volunteering to become a Druid, he would rise above them — above them all. But even as he had boarded the boat bound for Britain, Vincentrix had no suspicion of the destiny that awaited him.

He had the Gift, the Elders had told him. It was Vincentrix who had been chosen by the gods. He was the Special One. In that cold, far-distant land across the water, where the winter winds whistled down bleak valleys and the snow piled high across the pastures, two decades of his life had been devoted to communing with the gods. As youth passed to manhood, he learned to suppress human emotions. As manhood passed to early middle age, he subjugated bodily desires, because it was his duty, the Druid Elders informed him, to rise above secular passions and channel those energies into a spiritual union with the Divine Ones, so that Vincentrix might lead his people through Darkness and the Hall of Change to Light.

'We are born in blood,' ran the ancient texts. 'Blood gives us life, and it is through blood that the power of the gods is replenished.'

His hand did not falter, nor his eye blink, the day he set torch to his first screaming wicker man.

As a priest, Vincentrix had been taught how to gauge the mood of the gods. Through prayer, through meditation, through his fire and through his herbs he was able to predict when blood was needed, and how much, and from whom. It was this wisdom, coupled with his ability to commune with those he served on the astral plane, that had ensured his election as Head of the Collegiate when he eventually returned to Gaul. Feared and revered in equal measure, his new role guaranteed that the people of Santonum forgot the shame of his past — but old habits die hard. He couldn't resist mingling unobtrusively among the crowds to make sure, one day perhaps a woodsman carrying bundles of faggots or charcoals, another a huntsman, a thatcher, a peasant in hooded leather jerkin. Disguise brought rewards of its own. Snippets of conversation here, secrets overheard there, folk observed doing things they should not. All these Vincentrix stored in his specially trained memory and his power grew.

So what had gone wrong?

Vincentrix held his head under the running spring water, shuddering at its icy coldness as it pounded his scalp, and washed away the lime that helped him blend with the crowd. The answer was simple. The power of the gods was waning, because the tribes were turning away from the old ways in favour of more earthly — and immediate — pleasures. He lifted his face from the water, wrung out his hair and combed it through with his fingers.

The conquerors did not believe in putting themselves out, he thought bitterly. None of this trekking into the sacred, silent heart of the forests to conduct their religion. Lazy bastards worshipped in the street, if you please, where temples of stone soared on marble pillars into the clouds to impress the weak and the gullible, while simple folk were drawn to the feasting that usually followed the sacrifice, to the music and laughter, dancing and singing — and the lure, he had to acknowledge, was strong. But until now, until he had spent a full day and a full night waiting in vain, Vincentrix hadn't realized how strong the pull was, or how harmful.

The anger that he had been trained to suppress boiled up until he could contain it no more. Balling his right hand into a fist, he let out an almighty roar and slammed it against the rock face. As blood oozed down the white limestone, the Druid began to chant, channelling his rage as he had been taught all those years before, until sunlight flooded the cave and the chariot of the Shining One was high in the sky.

The power of the gods was waning, this was true. But tomorrow would see the start of the autumnal equinox…

'By the hammer of the Thunderer and the sword of the Piercer of Shields, I will harness the powers of the universe,' he vowed. 'I will strap them to the seasons, yoke them to the moon, drive them between the shafts of the tides.'

Holding his throbbing knuckles beneath the waters of the Spring of Prophecy, he bound flesh with spirit, passion with reason, fire with ice, thus binding the oath for eternity.

'You will have your powers restored,' the gods were assured, as Vincentrix solemnly placed his lips against the Ring of Pledge. 'By all that is holy, you will have the blood that is owed you.'

Better still, he knew exactly whose blood it would be.