Hag of the Hills, page 19
‘I’m not going to get talked down upon by some brat that killed just one man! I challenge your debt by law of blood!’
It spread throughout the men. I stood under Orca, his black beard full of morsels of mackerel, his dark eyes ablaze. I nearly cowered, that iron dagger in his hefty hand could probably take my head off. I looked around and Tratonius shrugged.
‘You want men’s oaths? Then expect a challenge,’ he said, and I wished he had not said that, because I saw fire rouse within the eyes of Verc, and the others must think the same. I had to defeat Orca, because if he won his freedom through blood, and if I even lived, I would have to fight the rest, and even if I somehow managed to defeat Orca, there was no guarantee I would defeat the others, especially after wounds or exhaustion.
Tratonius spoke again, ‘but not to the death, we have enough of that already!’
‘If they can avoid it,’ Marthelm said.
‘Then avoid it,’ Tratonius said. ‘Slash, don’t stab.’
Orca’s eyes looked tired, though fierce. He passed the dagger from hand to hand, squaring me up, approaching me slowly.
I could have backed down. There was a safe route, Luceo, and that was to back down from the fight and just demand Myrnna. That was all. Demand the girl and leave for Dun Torrin. But I had my plan. The plan had formed after I had birthed as the man with the bronze sword. I was destined to be a lord, Luceo. It was my blood. It was my heritage. I needed men, since all lords have men, and these were good, seasoned, proud men to have. I had to defeat Orca. If I lost that fight, then I would lose all the men, and my rebirth would have been for nothing.
‘No shields, you can use that sword if you want,’ Orca said. ‘But it doesn’t matter. Just bend over so I may shove it up your arse. How dare you demand oath-debt from me! I have killed men for less! Why, I will tell you… once I had been brought to Rome – in chains – for I was pillaging their caravans that dared pass into Umbrian mountains. I let them take me there, bound, naked, humiliated – but it was a ruse! I broke my own chains by just the strength of my sinew, and I slew the magistrate by bashing his stupid blond head in with my broken cuffs! I am no one’s oath-man! I spit on your debt! Fight me, now, man-lover!’
‘Aye,’ I said. I poised the bronze sword at him. We stood two men’s lengths away, and the mercenaries all formed a ring around us.
‘He’s more experienced than you,’ Marthelm said. ‘And bigger. But you’re craftier.’
I wondered why Marthelm would offer me advice.
‘Don’t take him lightly,’ I heard Verc say to Orca. ‘Remember what he did to that monster in the loch!’
Orca’s great hairy breast heaved. He was shirtless, and he was covered in a thick mat of black hair with white patterns much like an Orca, hence his nickname, I suppose. He kept one hand akimbo and his dagger hand at his collar, and he approached me. He blew snot out of his nose onto the ground as he neared.
I had to defeat him. There was no other option. I would lose my oath this time. Nothing would be salvageable. But how? He was much bigger than I, more experienced, and less inhibited. He slew men as easily as he farted. Badb crawled in my chest and threatened to cower me before him and plead with him to find another way.
Orca charged me. I parried his blow and our blades screeched and we danced them against each other. He drew his dagger back, then poised to strike. I raised to parry, but he had feinted and grabbed my sword-arm with his big meaty fist. My muscles contorted, I dug my feet into the ground, I groaned hard as Orca pried the bronze sword from my hands. He tossed the sword over the heads of the mercenaries and it clanged down somewhere far away.
I wheeled backwards away from him. ‘Badb!’ All that trouble to get a sword, such a powerful sword, and now I stand disarmed.
Orca grinned at me, his fat neck jiggling, waiting for me to surrender. I considered it, but the words of my father returned to me then.
Nothing is unconquerable. Even our gods can die.
That thought brought me back nine Samhains. Once while training, I charged my father with a blunt dagger, and my father smacked his palm against my clenched fist. The weapon flew out of my hand. My father had disarmed me with ease.
That did little to strike me with confidence. It was easy for my father to do that. He had grown up a warrior. He had lived as a warrior. He had died as a warrior. I struggled to even hold the sword correctly. How could I ever defeat Orca, especially when I had been disarmed?
No, that would have been what Brennus would have said. I am no longer Brennus. I am the new man now.
Nothing is unconquerable. Even our gods can die.
But you’re craftier.
I hopped over to him, much in the manner of Cicarus, and Orca juggled his dagger from hand to hand. I raised my fist to punch Orca, who raised his knife in response. But I pulled my fist back, and ducked behind Orca and punched him hard in the lower back. Orca wheeled around and struck at me and I ducked and then elbowed him hard in his fat gut.
Orca wheezed. He raised his now glimmering dagger to strike. I saw my opportunity. I clapped both hands against his burly wrist, just as my father had done to me. The dagger launched out of his hand and landed in the grass. I grabbed it off the ground.
A meaty hand wrapped around my forearm. Orca moved slow, but he moved right, he was upon me and his great girth had closed the distance between us and now I had become disarmed again, for his grip was too hefty for me to move my arm. I pulled my fist back and struck at his face, but he just dug his head down into his shoulders and my knuckles checked against his big, hard, head. He began to wring me about, my feet off the ground, like a hare in the jaws of a dog.
I dug my heels into the ground and wrestled with him for the dagger with my other hand. Our bodies jammed together, trading saliva and sweat, his fat man-breasts and chest warm against mine.
But you’re craftier.
The gods had blessed Orca with much pithiness. His barrel chest. His bulging belly. His sausage-fingers that wrapped around my forearm and wringed and wrenched. His short fat feet and his stubby little toes in his sandals.
Stubby little toes!
I stomped hard on the crowd of sandaled toes. Orca yelped and let go of my forearm. It had been a relief, as if I had been unbound. Orca stumbled back and composed himself just as I swiped the dagger at his chest.
His arm was butchered open. Blood sprouted and the flesh flapped like a tent caught in the wind. He cried dry and fell to his knees. He had raised his arm to defend his chest and I had cut it wide open from wrist to elbow. I leaned down and put the dagger to his double chin.
‘Surrender!’ I shouted at him, the black-bloodied knife bristling against his unshaven neck.
Orca could not even answer, his arm nothing but a flank-steak.
‘Stop the bleeding!’ someone yelled and shoved me out of the way. Sabella came running out with a leather sack.
‘Brenn won!’ someone shouted, perhaps Antedios.
‘I am not Brennus!’ I shouted back. ‘I am the man with the bronze sword,’ I said, and pointed to Mawaz. ‘Bring me my sword!’
She complied, and now I had two weapons.
‘Who is next?!’
I waited for the next opponent. No one stepped up to the challenge.
They watered his wound and stitched it up and he moaned all throughout it. He complained and even threatened to slap Sabella, who laughed at him, and told him to hit her hard, but he didn’t. There was much blood all over the campsite. He had lost a lot, and I overheard Verc muttering that he hoped it would fester and he would die. Sabella finished stitching him and he drank water and demanded food, and Frowon brought him some fish. He gnawed at it like a dog.
‘You got me good,’ Orca said, licking the grease from his fingers.
‘It was a good fight,’ I said.
‘It was! Now I have this ugly scar. I’ll never hear the end of it. Another ugly scar. You’re pretty and young, you know,’ he reached out to touch my bare chest. ‘I used to look just like you. I was pretty and young and lively, now I’m fat and ugly and old,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘I’ll never hear the end of it when I return to Umbria.’
I handed the dagger back to him, handle first. With a raised voice, I spoke.
‘Since no one is going to challenge me, then,’ I said, and Verc spoke up.
‘Teutoles! Lad, we’re still half drowned!’
‘I’ve made my demands. And if you don’t like it, we can get back into the pit.’
Verc said nothing. He was standing up, his arms crossed over his thin chest. He was a lithe man, with skinny shoulders and thin calves, but there was something wolflike about him that made me uneasy.
‘Told you it was easier to kill him,’ Aldryd said, sipping his ale. ‘He’s got balls. And now he has us by the balls. Bloody bog people on this island – can’t expect them to give us a break.’
‘You’re mercenaries! Listen to me – what do you mercenaries want? You live on the road. You make widows. You sell women and children into slavery. You live for gold and glory and women.
‘I’m in it for more than just the gold, glory, and women. I’m after revenge. And you’re all going to help me, but don’t think you won’t get anything out of it. The island teems with plunder, once we pillage the Hillmen. They took our women, our cattle, who knows – it is all for the taking.’
‘Not too bad. So be it,’ Aldryd said.
‘But you’re still not experienced enough to lead us,’ Tratonius said.
‘Then you will train me!’
‘Who, me?’ Tratonius asked.
‘Yes, you. All of you. I want to learn to fight better, I want to learn how to speak your languages,’ I said and looked at the Greek. ‘I even want to learn how to read!’
No one answered. Cattos and Antedios just looked at me, eyes affixed to their spears. I knew they desired to challenge me, but neither of them stepped up to me. I had won their lives and now they owed me, was it worth a wound like Orca’s? Was it worth their lives?
The tomb of my ancestor renewed me. Clad in his death clothes, armed with his cold sword, and blessed by his lingering ghost, I salvaged my oath. Myrnna, looking on from the side-lines, was mine again. I now had my men. I was lord, and I would wage war with my retinue, just like my father had. What I thought had been destined to remain an unobtainable dream, became the truth before my eyes. I fixed my eyes upon the clear blue sky, basking in Belanus’ light, his chariot wheel spinning his glory upon me. I looked upon my men, my weapons, my mules, my horses, my tents, my slaves, and my girls. They were all mine, and I thanked Belenus, my father, and my ancestor, and I caressed the lion figurine in my pouch.
Now that I was a new man, I needed a new name for my men to swear on.
I unsheathed the bronze sword and approached Aster. He flinched, and climbed to his feet, but I held out an empty palm. I handed the sword to him handle first. He hesitated until he raised an eyebrow when I pointed to the inscription.
‘You’re a Greek. Is that Greek writing?’
He held the sword close to his brown eyes. ‘Yes – where did you get this?’
‘From the tomb of my ancestor,’ I said. ‘Is it a word?’
‘Actually,’ he said, running his dirty finger over each letter of the inscription. ‘Iota, theta, and alpha – but another letter that appears twice. Digamma. We don’t use it where I’m from.’
‘What?’
‘You wouldn’t understand, you’re a barbarian after all.’
‘Then tell me what it says. Is it a word?’
‘Nothing I know of,’ he said, and handed it back to me. ‘But it’s pronounced Widaw.’
He drew me in close and I leaned over his shoulder. He had lean shoulders with a physique covered in moles, like rigged quartzite. He spoke Celtic with a heavy accent that I struggled to understand. ‘Widaw, I think. See that? That’s a letter, and it represents a sound,’ he said, pointing to the inscription, ‘that’s the wa sound, then uh sound, and da sound, ah sound, and wa again. Widaw.’
‘Is that the name of the sword?’
‘It must be,’ Marthelm said. Marthelm took my sword from Aster. He placed a finger under the edge of the blade and let it hang loose until it balanced on his finger. He nodded. He then stood up, and waved it, took a sidestep, and stabbed in the air. Verc took the sword from him, and did much the same as Marthelm.
‘A fine sword for thrusting’, Marthelm said, ‘my sword is called Tiwaz,’ he unsheathed his sword. It was long and flat without a blemish of rust on it, and had a polished antler handle. ‘It was blessed by the god Tiwaz himself. I honour him with each strike. Yes, yes, your sword is called Vidav,’ he said, mispronouncing the wa sound as people are wont to do.
‘Vidav the bronze sword,’ Aster said.
Verc lunged forward, stabbing the air, then gathered his feet together and lunged again, sword-point first. ‘A fine stabbing sword indeed, Marthelm. A waste on a novice, and bronze is no match for iron,’ he said without looking at me, then handed it off to Cattos, who too found the balance point. Cattos handed the sword back to me, and I held it in both of my hands. Its green-pocked bronze blade shimmered in the sunlight.
‘Vidav,’ I said. That word rang as the name of my ancestor. Now he empowered me through his weapon. I would honour him with each strike.
‘Brennus is dead! I am Vidav! You will all swear an oath to me.’
The men all said nothing. I would get their oaths. I would release them only after I had the Hillmen queen’s head, or death took me.
I thought back to when the new warriors had been sworn in on Dun Ashaig. They did every nine years, on Lughnasa. The druids oversaw the ceremony, and circled around the naked warriors, clad in their white robes. The warriors each swore an oath to their lord, and fell to their knees, kissed his ring, and were hit with the flat of his sword. They did this one by one, and then they were clothed and given swordbelts by their lord. Their lord and his men all swore an oath to Lugus, god of oaths. The men swore to serve their lord with their lives, and the lord to always care for and love his men.
I am Vidav. I am a new man. Yet I was still partially the old Brennus. I would need an oath swearing ceremony, presided over by the druids. Yet it had to be different. I would not force nudity upon them, since I feared the foreigners would resent me for it. I would not have belts to give, but I would promise them cloaks, all matching colours for our retinue. I would also need a druid, and I knew where to find one.
‘Hail Vidav!’ I shouted and poised my sword skyward.
‘Hail Vidav!’ Antedios replied.
‘Hail Vidav!’ Cattos and Antedios both said in unison. I never asked if they were mocking me, Luceo. Regardless of their sincerity, it rejuvenated me. The miasma that overshadowed me, that pitiful disgrace when I left the mercenary camp and Myrnna to the mercy of the sellswords, had been cast away. The mistakes that had turned me wretched and forlorn had sunk away from me like the tentacles of the loch-thing after I had slain it.
‘What say you?’ I asked Cicarus. ‘What are you still doing here, free man? Go home to Hibernia.’
‘I will not leave yet. I don’t want to leave my friends. Yes, you heard me, I don’t want to leave my friends just yet. I promised Tratonius I’d stay until Beltane, and I mean that. So, you have my friends as your oath-men, fine, but I’ll fight for you for spoils, I suppose. Just don’t try to get me killed, I’m off to Ulster after Beltane, and I want to see my grandmother.’
His declaration of loyalty to his friends took me aback, and I could not object. I could use all the help I could get, though I feared he would take revenge upon me. I would have to post a man outside my tent each evening as I slept. It was a good idea, with the Hillmen about, to keep sentries anyway.
‘So be it,’ I said. ‘But you provide for yourself. And you don’t have access to our girls. And tell me, Tratonius, is the tent he sleeps in his?’
Tratonius shook his head no. He had been quiet, grumbling to himself or others.
‘Then it’s my tent now. And Myrnna. We’re sleeping in there together. Now, let us eat breakfast. At twilight, when the sidhe are at their most powerful, we shall all swear an oath to Lugus.’
We ate breakfast. My slave girls had collected shellfish from the beach. Antedios, Cattos, and Verc all refused to eat the food. ‘The sea is where you go when you die, and one should not eat from it.’ Verc said. They ate some sausages instead, but we would need more food for them soon.
After we ate, I cornered Aster near his tent. He had been sweating and dragging a large empty red pot. ‘Greek, you know much about things we don’t here. Teach me everything.’
He looked surprised. He edged past me. ‘Teach a barbarian? Your language is inferior,’ he said, moving further away. ‘You will never understand without knowing Greek.’
‘Then teach me your language,’ I said, and he went aghast.
‘Teach a barbarian Greek? And what for?’
‘So you may teach me your ways. You Greeks have much power, and you’re skilled at war, and you have all sorts of expensive things we don’t have. It must be the power of your tongue.’
‘It’s because the gods have blessed our land. We are the bravest,’ he said, and held his head up high and smiled and flipped his long, curly black hair behind his shoulders. ‘Do you know why the gods despise you? It’s because you think you’re brave. You put on a good, brave show, but once the battle starts you cower like women.’
‘Then teach us not to cower like women.’
‘I have taught these men not to, and I will teach you, too,’ he said.
‘You let him insult us with that trite?’ Verc said, emerging from his tent. His shirt was off and he combed his long, grey moustache with a shell comb.
‘You Greeks think you’re brave, too, but you’re not. You hide behind your armour like a child hides behind his mother’s leg. A Greek can never beat a Gaul in a fair fight,’ he said to Aster, and then to me, ‘I will drill the men.’
