Hag of the Hills, page 24
I had to accept the challenge. He had been hurling javelins when I was still at my wet nurse’s tit, but I trusted Vidav more than my fist. Tratonius had pleaded for no blood, and I should have listened to him for the sake of the morale of our men.
Cicarus knew I had no choice but to accept the challenge and play his game. He would choose boxing, indeed, because he had bested me in a boxing match that had ended in my humiliation. He would humiliate me again, in front of all my men, Myrnna, and the triple gods called to our camp on that night of feasting. He would leave me an abashed lord. I needed the men, they did not need me, and Cicarus had been so clever to expose that weakness.
‘Shall we duel with swords, lordling?’ he said with a grin. His cloak fluttered in the wind behind him and the bonfire danced wildly.
‘I said no blood!’ Tratonius shouted over us. I grimaced at the deepness in his voice, and would not challenge him on that.
‘May I mediate?’ Antedios asked.
‘Yes, you may,’ Tratonius said, clapping the lad on both shoulders.
Cicarus’ grin grew wider, his snub nose rustled, and his eyes squinted. He knew I would not challenge him to another contest, such as drinking, or racing, or archery. The challenge he offered me had been martial and by martial means it must be resolved.
‘Boxing,’ I said. Cicarus laughed. He laughed hard, so hard, dear Luceo, that I swore right there to the Morrigan that he would never laugh again.
We unbuckled our belts, and placed them on the bench. Soon we were stripped to the waist, and the crowd gathered around us.
‘Come on, lordling,’ he said, his grin not ceasing.
‘Over to the stream, then,’ I said, thinking it a fitting place to fight.
‘The stream?’ he asked, and his grin faded. ‘My good lordling, do you not remember the loch monster? That stream runs from the loch down the hill. Let’s stay away from it.’
‘Are you scared of it?’
‘Come on, man,’ he said, now crestfallen. ‘You know what happened there.’
‘Aye,’ I said. ‘When I saved all of your lives.’
‘Or maybe you endangered us to begin with! I’m thirty years old. I have seen the world from Hibernia to Scythia, and never have I seen something like that before! No. That only showed up with you here and your sight!’
‘Told you it would have been easier to just kill him,’ Aldryd said, swirling his ale, away from the rest of us. I ignored him.
‘You’re afraid of water now, Cicarus? How will you wash yourself after I bloody you?’ I asked.
‘Don’t give me that,’ he said, now scowling.
‘Coward,’ I said. The words bit into him because his scowl deepened, his forehead wrinkled, and he wrung his hands.
I walked to the stream, and he followed, as did everyone else. I stood a step away from the stream in the gravel. I kneeled and washed my face with the water, and then cupped my hands and drank. I turned back to him. ‘I see nothing in there, do you? Perhaps a kelpie – the white horse that drags us to our deaths?’
‘Little lord,’ he said, grinning again, and raising his fists. ‘Cease talking and strike me, if you dare.’
I raised my fists and we circled. I stopped when his back faced the water.
‘Be careful now, not too far back. You may slip in.’
‘On with it, strike me!’ He said, bouncing foot to foot.
‘Do you remember its black eyes?’ I asked. ‘They looked like the Otherworld.’
‘Quiet, by Mannanen, quiet, lordling!’
Lordling? I grew tired of hearing that insult.
‘I saw into them,’ I said. ‘I saw the Otherworld. I saw you there, Cicarus.’
‘Quiet!’
I quieted. Not from him, but because I heard something. Above the bluster of the men and the tinkling of the stream, I heard something. It was a croon, a hoarse voice, like from a twisted throat. It sang from the tents. And Luceo, I knew what it was. Badb! It was the head of the Amazon!
‘Can you hear it, Cicarus? It’s your head. She’s singing – relax and listen.’
He stilled, he cupped an ear, and his face blanched. He heard it, too.
Eyes wide, he began to bounce again, approaching me with his lean fists raised.
‘She’s singing,’ I said, ‘can you hear the words? She tells me she’s going to haunt you until you bury her, Cicarus. And when you’re in the afterlife, her handmaidens are going to gnash your bones with their teeth.’
‘Shut up, lordling! Shut up! It’s all your tricks – I don’t know what you have – sorcerer, if you are, perhaps this is all just an illusion? Why you, of all people, get to have this power? You’re nothing but a lordling!’
I heard the last of that insult. I approached him now. I raised my fist to swing. ‘A message from the Amazon queen: ill to your luck.’
Cicarus tripped. I dove in, shoulders forward, and punched him in the jaw. He staggered backwards, and I pummelled him now, both fists. The crowd roared as Cicarus fell to his rear and I smote him again and again and again astride his shoulder, his body wobbled and fell backwards. Someone pried me off him. Cicarus rolled into the stream and then shot out of it like a wildcat out of water, onto his feet drunkenly, until Tratonius held him up, arm around shoulder.
‘Winner!’ Antedios grabbed be by the wrist and pulled my arm into
the air.
‘Now listen you,’ I said to Cicarus, and pointed at him. ‘You’re welcome to fight alongside us, but don’t you dare ever challenge me again, or she’ll sing to you again, and you’ll never rest!’
Cicarus said nothing. He just dizzied around, and Tratonius escorted him back to the camp. ‘We’re all going to die,’ Cicarus said, ‘we’re all going to die, and I’ll never get to see my grandma.’
We feasted. The men were sombre, and hardly were there any stories, just grumbles and silent drinking. It was hardly the feast I had imagined after a boar hunt, and before my first day of war, but I sat there, belly full of boar and ale, with my men.
At the end of the feast, Aster approached me from the moorlands. He was holding something in his hand, and the dim light obscured it. When he came close, he held up my lion figurine, the other gift from my ancestor. I reached down into my pouch and found it empty.
‘It fell from your bag,’ he said, and handed it to me. We returned to camp, and in the bright fire, I showed it to him. He inspected for a while. By the time he finished, Verc had taken Frowon away to his tent, while Sabella and Mawaz cleaned up.
‘Zeus Christus – I’ve never seen anything like this. Huh – I think it’s made of ivory.’
‘What’s ivory?’ I asked.
‘Tusks from an elephant’, he said.
I had heard of elephants, gigantic shaggy beasts from very far to the south.
‘You found it below the corpse that you took the sword from?’
‘I received both from my ancestor,’ I said.
‘What a strange thing, to find ivory so far from where elephants are. And this indeed looks like a lion, huh. There are no lions here, are there?’
‘No.’
‘Yes, you can find some in my country, but they’re rare. We hunt them.’
Marthelm motioned to take the figurine, and he held it in his hands. His grey eyes glimmered.
‘I saw something like this, yes. When I was a boy, I crawled into a cave and there I found something that looked like this. I brought it home, and my grandfather was furious, and ordered me to go take it back, lest our luck be damned. I brought it back to the cave immediately and never went there again. It looked like this one, except longer. I’ll never forget it.’
Orca ripped it from Marthelm’s hands and handled it roughly in his meaty fingers. ‘A lion-man,’ he said.
‘Lion man is Leandros in my tongue,’ Aster said. ‘Huh, so beneath the interred in the tomb?’
‘In a little croft underneath.’
‘Huh.’ He received the lion figurine back. ‘If the man whose things you took had this underneath him, perhaps that’s what he was. This Leandros.’ He placed it back into my palms.
‘Then I am a Leandros also. That man was my ancestor. Perhaps we were first lions, until we walked upright, like this lion. We all became men, and that’s why there are no more lions here. Yes, that’s what I will do. I will be a Leandros, to honour him.’
‘We’re born from trees,’ Marthelm said with conviction. ‘But believe what gives you courage.’
‘Vidav the Leandros, that is my title.’
‘Huh,’ Aster said, stroking his beard. ‘I’m for a change myself. I don’t feel Aster anymore. You know, Vidav, I too have been known by many names, and no one knows my birth name, and I will never tell anyone. Did you know that? Huh, I think I shall be Artaxes now.’
‘Lion-men!’ Antedios said. ‘Let me be one, too, while I am in debt to you.’
I nodded.
‘And you, Cattos?’ I asked him. He was crouched by a log and seemed to be shining something with his back to me.
‘I’m busy,’ he said. ‘But all right.’
‘Then we will become Leandros,’ I said. ‘And who else?’
No one responded except Tratonius.
‘Can’t,’ he said and knocked his bald head. ‘Can’t grow a mane. Got some burns. But do what you want. Leandres, is that? That’s plural, so you know, Vidav. But also you should know that Aster here is now calling himself Artaxes – that means lion king. What a humble fellow he is! He is the lion king, while his lord just calls himself the lowly lion man. But Anatolius, Aster, Artaxes – or whomever he is this week, will never bow completely to a barbarian lord.’
Verc returned from his tent with Frowon, and now he lined up all three slaves among us. ‘Come on, then, lion-man,’ he said. ‘It is time to pick the slave to die tonight.’
CHAPTER XVII
We spotted a small boat rowing toward us from the north along the coast. It carried three men, all dark-haired. They all were shirtless and in brown trousers and had dark beards. They docked at the jetty from where we fished and came to us. We met them, that is, myself, Tratonius, Marthelm and Verc, who were my council. Chaser and Groaner trailed us, and that was good, because lords have dogs. I donned my torc and met them there, in the glimmering sun. They were all unarmed. I noticed their leader wearing a headdress of eagle feathers, and he carried a wooden sceptre ringed in gold. He had gold arm rings around both of his upper arms, and a gold medallion hanging across the hair of his chest. They were Hillmen, and this was my first meeting with a Hillman emissary.
‘We come to offer a truce,’ their leader shouted in Celtic.
‘At least hear what they have to say,’ Tratonius said.
They came across the shale and we met them in the briny breeze. It was another clear day, and we were all sunburnt again.
‘We have a message from queen Slighan herself.’
Queen Slighan? I thought back to what Cailleach had said, that her queen will return soon. Had I really released the queen? Badb crawled in my chest but I quenched her. I could not show insecurity in the face of the Hillmen.
‘Who is this Slighan?’ I asked.
‘She is the Great Queen, the true ruler of Skye – even Sgàthach herself bows to queen Slighan – and the one who shall bring the light of quartz to the darkness of iron,’ he said.
‘That means they don’t like metal,’ Tratonius said. ‘No iron or bonze, just stone weapons, right?’
‘Yes,’ replied the emissary. ‘Iron and bronze are for brutes and cruel men; we are gifted stone by the queen. Your ancestors drove ours into the sea back in those days, because they used bronze. We hate it. We shall eradicate it from this world.’
Bronze. My sword was bronze. Luceo, at that moment, I knew that what I must do: slay this so-called queen Slighan with Vidav, the bronze of my ancestors.
‘We’ve taken over Skye, and we have killed or forced to kowtow all those who wield iron and bronze that we have found. Only Dun Torrin holds out, and soon that will fall to us.’
‘Dun Torrin won’t fall,’ I said. ‘That Fenn Beg Corm is stubborn.’
‘He’s a dotard, and soon we will nail his guts to a tree and have him run laps around it,’ he said.
Camulus now flared in me. He came to me without warning, a flickering fire. Truth be told, Luceo, I disliked Fenn Mag Corm. He was a foreign king from Alba, who carved out a petty kingdom on the south of the island because he had been banished from his realm. He brought with him his band of Eponians, those excellent riders that dye their hair black and wear them like horse’s manes and dedicate every moment of each day of their lives to Epona. But I felt a kinship with that foreign king, because even though he was foreign, he was another branch of the same tree as I. I could tolerate him, but I had no tolerance for the Hillmen, the enemy of all Celts.
‘Let us get to business,’ the leader said. ‘We are aware of your skirmish a few days ago. You’ve broken your truce, so the penalty will be steep.’
‘I’ll hear it then,’ I said.
‘We are aware that you have in your possession Ambicatos’ daughter, Myrnna,’ he said.
I had said back on my land that I had Myrnna with me. I remembered that Sego, Fennigus’ lad, had said that the Hillmen asked Ambicatos for Myrnna, too. What did they want with her?
‘Hand Myrnna over to us, and we will forget this besmirchment, and we will have a permanent truce. That and the offer for you to fight for us still stands.’
‘Vidav would never give up his oath!’ Verc said, crossing his arms in defiance against the Hillmen. I heard a hint of pride in his voice, and that caused me to puff out my chest.
Tratonius was quiet. I looked at him. He just looked back, forlorn, frowning.
‘Well,’ Tratonius said, ‘what else will you request?’
‘Myrnna only, or we go to war,’ the leader replied. ‘May I remind you that there are thousands of us and only a handful of you, and don’t think you will be able to leave the island. We will hunt you down.’
‘Then why don’t you just come and take her?’ I asked, and Tratonius groaned.
‘We’re giving you a chance. You see, the queen needs mercenaries still. Besides, she honours her truces. Hand over Myrnna or we will come and take her.’
‘There must be some other way,’ Tratonius said, before I could say anything. I wanted no truces with the Hillmen, and Seonaidh had advised us to march against them tomorrow, anyway. But I was curious about the Hillmen now, since Artaxes had taught me to learn about my enemy, so that I may war against them more effectively.
‘Why does the queen need mercenaries? Especially ones that use iron?’
‘It’s temporary,’ the leader said. ‘The queen needs mercenaries to defeat Fenn Beg Corm, after which you will all be released.’
‘And what does she want with Myrnna?’
‘We’re not telling you, but do know this, Celt, that we will have her, whether you hand her over or we kill you all and take her.’
Camulus pounded in my chest now. Badb shirked away and Camulus marched up and down my heart. I knew at that moment, Luceo, why men meet to speak of things of this nature unarmed, for I would have killed him then and there.
‘He’s not giving her up right now,’ Tratonius said. ‘Tell us a price to buy us some time to discuss this further.’
‘Fine then,’ the leader said, and I hardly heard his words as my mind wandered into the battlefield. ‘A bushel of grain, nine pots of berries or herbs, three buckets of fish, and a slave girl. That will buy you a day.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘then we’ll give you just that. Pick them up on the beach in the morning.’
‘Right, then,’ he said, and nodded and the three of them left. Once they were out of earshot, I turned to my men.
‘It’s a start,’ Tratonius said, ‘but we’re in a real bind here.’
‘We’re still marching down the beach tomorrow,’ I said.
‘By the gods, why, man? Why did you agree to their terms?’
‘We’ll give them just what they want, but they aren’t going to like it.’
‘You cannot mean that,’ Tratonius said, his face went white.
‘Yes!’ Verc shouted. ‘Tomorrow we sacrifice to Camulus!’
Tratonius stormed away toward the camp.
‘I don’t like it,’ Marthelm said. ‘But a sacrifice will show the gods that we are willing to give up something precious. Indeed, nothing more precious than a life, even a slave. Which one will you sacrifice?’
‘Sabella has too much useful skills to lose. It must be one of the younger ones,’ Verc said.
‘Ah, yes, one of the Germans. Then let her die like a German. I will help you.’
‘Good. We will conduct it together then. Now let us hold the feast. You will take the first pick of the meat, Vidav. Then you will truly be lordly!’
I will never tell you how Mawaz died, Luceo. It was grisly and unbecoming, and no one should hear it. I will allow that Sabella was involved, that repulsive thing she is, and I had wished it had been her so the world could have been less disgusting without her.
We burned the bushel of grain, smashed all nine pots full of berries, fruits and herbs against the rocks on the beach, we bashed the buckets and scattered its fish, and we left poor Mawaz spreadeagled on the shale. We sacrificed to Camulus, that blood-stained god, and thus the men stopped quarrelling with me.
The seagulls ate well that day. They whirled through the air and blanketed our sacrifice in white and grey. Then came the Hillmen. We watched them from afar, as they came ashore, and our gruesome sacrifice met them.
We decamped early that morning. The two mules were packed with our things. We poured libations to the sidhe that dwell near the camp as thanks for hosting us there, and we dressed for war. The Celts donned resin in their hair and waxed their moustaches. I would have joined them, as I had been groomed on Dun Ashaig, but I had been bald-headed and bald-faced when I had been enslaved, though I vowed to grow my hair and beard out now that I was a Lion-man. I wore my torc and my cloak. The dogs had been fitted with leather collars and wool smocks to protect their necks and chests. All the men were dressed for war.
