Hag of the Hills, page 30
‘I didn’t know you swore an oath to do that,’ Artaxes said. ‘I thought it was more of a promise. Huh, I think this is a poor deal, what did you get out of this besides a brooch?’
I fingered the brooch that latched the cloak to my chest. Marthelm must have seen my face, and he spoke.
‘This task that he was given is very important to him. So, let us not speak about it. Vidav, I think you should swear an oath to him. We came here to fight for the Hillmen, now we fight against the Hillmen. Fenn Beg Corm will offer us many riches from plunder. You will be his oathsman, but you will be on your homeland, fighting for it.’
‘Vidav,’ Tratonius said, and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You will not like what I am about to say. I watched you these last few weeks. You were nothing but a stupid boy when we first met, too idealistic. You threatened us and you even tried to box Cicarus, you were prideful and that was your downfall. You were our slave, and then you won your freedom and we banished you. Do you not remember that? Then you came back, a changed man – new name – new sword, and you saved us. You led us, despite our advice against it, down to our certain deaths. But we survived, we survived and humiliated the Hillmen. They will recover, but they will forever remember that humiliation that we inflicted upon them. But it was luck that we did so. You know better by now. You’ve learned now. You should learn that there will be no luck next time. I’ve seen what the Hillmen are capable of, Vidav. There are thousands of them, and thousands more come each day. There is no stopping them. This is the way Skye is going – to become entirely queen Slighan’s domain. Sure, Fenn Beg Corm will hold out, probably all winter, perhaps even for years – or he will end up nothing but a mere client to the queen. But that is the end, the Hillmen are the future of this island. You should know that. Did you know that, in my country, a warlord crossed the Alps with his elephants? He will ravage the country, and there will be no more, or at least, it will be different after he is through. It is the same here. You will never have your farm back. You will never have your old life back. You will never have Skye back. Let us leave it.’
I had no words. I just stared at Tratonius. Something crawled through my chest, not Badb, for this did not scare me, but was just a feeling of looming defeat.
‘And furthermore, it would be the best for Myrnna to take her far away from the Hillmen, since they have an interest in her.’
And then the whisper.
I’ll give you the life you want, for a price.
Goosebumps prickled over my flesh, my hair stood up on end, my knees buckled, and I turned to the Slighan Hill. Thereupon it, a gigantic shadow, thrice the size of the peak of the mountain itself, with a great wingspan that would blot out the sun had it been high enough in the sky. A flying, massive, long-necked shadow of a creature. I fell to my knees and gripped the grass between my fingers, I held my head down and I screamed into the dirt.
Marthelm helped me to my feet. Now all three of them looked at me, and all three frowned. How could I ever tell them that my breakdown was due to that flying monster on the Slighan Hill, and not Tratonius’ words? I could not justify myself, and I wished for nothing but enough time to pass to forget about this humiliation.
‘Where would we go?’ I asked.
‘Back to my country. There will be great plunder.’
‘You will join the foreign warlord?’
‘Foreigners rule my land anyway, so I owe loyalty to no one.’
‘How long will it take to get there?’
‘Months, I’d say,’ he said. ‘But we should get as far south as possible before winter. To the dogs with another winter away from the Mediterranean.’
Bodvoc. I thought of Bodvoc’s skull, left exposed on the ground of my farm. What did the Hillmen do with it? Hang it from a rope? Crush it under their feet? Use it as a ball? Where were my cattle? Were they meat by now? Sold? Grazing somewhere else? What of Auneé? Where was she? Chattel? The wife of some Hillman warlord? Sold off? Dead? What of the corpses of my clansmen on the fields of Dun Ashaig? Carrion for the crows? Fennigus and his lads deserved to be sent off just like the great Verc. I yearned for revenge. But could I venge myself against the Hillmen, knowing what Tratonius said, that it is hopeless? Is that suicide?
‘You don’t have to make your decision now, you have some time,’ Marthelm said.
‘He has until tomorrow evening,’ Tratonius said. ‘I say you should leave, Marthelm says you should stay, what say you, Artaxes?’
‘I said it already. I believe he should wed the girl to Fenn Beg Corm. We can get more out of Fenn Beg Corm for her. We can get more slaves, some gold – horses. He really likes her,’ he said and turned to me. ‘Speak to a druid if you are worried about your oath.’
We left, and then headed back toward Dun Torrin. We came to a copse of dying trees on the trackway, typical of my windswept, rainswept, stormbound island. Galadrest, horsed, watched over two shirtless men who stood over two naked Hillmen tied to a stump.
One of Galadrest’s men took hold of the shirtless man on the left, an older man, his black hair matted over his eyes. He stretched the captive’s arm out so the back of his hand lay over the stump, stretched his fingers, and then the other Eponian slammed a stone adze hard onto his fingers. The Hillman screamed so loud that Galadrest’s horse snorted and threatened to buck, but he pulled on the reins.
‘What was your name?’ Galadrest asked loud.
‘Krannus of the Ashmore clan!’
I must have looked aghast because Tratonius raised an eyebrow at me.
‘And why did you serve the Hillmen?’
‘They told me I had to or I’d die!’
Galadrest shouted ‘Hit!’ and the flat of the adze crashed down again on the fingers of the traitor. This time he screeched and whined like a girl, thumping his arse up and down and his legs curled toward his chest. He whimpered, and then the Eponians laughed, except Galadrest.
‘And you?’ Galadrest asked the other.
‘Senghen! You know me, Galadrest!’
‘Hit!’ Galadrest shouted. A thump and Senghen whinnied like a horse.
‘Why did you join the Hillmen?’
‘They told me to serve or die, I had no choice!’
‘It was better for you to die,’ Galadrest said. ‘How many of your clan joined?’
‘Most, if not all of them.’
‘Hit!’
Another thump and another scream.
We approached and stood next to Galadrest.
‘How many traitors are there?’ I asked.
Galadrest looked down at me from his horse, his eyes ablaze, and he turned back to them and commanded ‘Strike – both!’ The adze went down again, the men both screamed, and fingers fell upon the grass.
‘A lot,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you heard? Most of these so-called Hillmen are traitors. I’m rooting them out, so that they may pay the penalty, and their memories be forgotten forever.’
‘Most of the Hillmen?’ I asked, looking at the two men, wheeling against the stump. I knew Krannus, he was from a neighbouring clan and he often came to Dun Ashaig to trade. Now he sat there, missing fingers, miserable, scurrying against the stump.
‘The traitors will suffer more than the others. There are others, too. Some of them haven’t dyed their hair, the bastards. They’re from all over. But most of the Hillmen seem to be traitors. The Hillmen force men to join them or, forgive me if I vomit, some even join them willingly. Either way, they are traitors or cowards, and they will suffer before they die. Hit!’
Two thumps and just one screech, Senghen had bit his lip so hard that blood rushed from his mouth. He choked and tears fell from his eyes.
‘How could they?’ I asked.
‘Are you daft, lad? They’re cowards and then they turn traitor. That is who the Hillmen are. They turn traitor and they give up all their ways. They become Hillmen, they don’t use iron or bronze or metals at all, just stone weapons. They worship their queen like a goddess. Then she sics these pathetic wretches on us and we will defeat and kill them all. The only way they pose a threat to us is in their numbers, which grow because this world is apparently full of cowards and traitors. We defeat them whenever we meet them in equal numbers, all except the shining ones. And those are the worst. Slighan’s elite men, good duelling lads, so loyal and fervorous for Slighan that she allows them, and them only, to use iron.’
I remembered now when we battled the shining ones. They duelled us as we duelled them, man versus man, iron versus iron, heart versus heart. Then I remembered when I found the traitor against the escarpment, Aihaun. How did he become a shining one, in the chaotic aftermath of the battle of Dun Ashaig? If he survived it, could Fennigus have?
Pride struck me, I stood straight, looking at those wretches against the slumps, and smiled at them. I knew Fennigus and his lads would never turn traitor against us, and neither would I. I knew now that I could never abandon Skye, my homeland, no matter if it meant swearing an oath to that foreign, rotten king, and no matter if all the world turned into Hillmen and I stood against them all, alone. If the whole world stood against me, I would fight them and kill as many of them before they all killed me. I made my decision.
We left for Dun Torrin, where I would tell Fenn Beg Corm that I would swear an oath to him.
CHAPTER XXI
Blood spilled over the bier. A horse whinnied and fell. The king hacked at its head, again, again, again. The beast trembled and settled. Three white-bearded druids in blood-stained white robes crowded around it, butchering it where it stood.
The druids shouted ‘Epona!’
Throngs of men, women, children, slaves, and dogs all crowded around the bier. The slaves collected the horse’s blood in buckets. They ferried the buckets over to a cauldron, hot over the fire, and poured the blood in. Soon the slaves added vegetables and herbs, then came the druids with haunches of butchered horse meat to toss into the cauldron.
‘Epona!’
Now came the riders, Eponians on their horses, scores of them all riding in a circle around the inner walls of Dun Torrin. They each held their spears outward with one hand and with the head of a Hillman in the other. The trampling of the horses created a tumult and then came Fenn Beg Corm, arriving at Dun Torrin upon his chariot. He sped right toward us, and the crowd parted. The chariot had been gilded, and the king himself bore a bronze horned helmet, the same helmet as the one that Verc had used to crown me as Camulus. His nine wives, all dressed in white, sent flowers fluttering in their husband’s wake, the white petals landing all over the sward and in the brown ruts of the chariot’s tires.
Now came jugglers, firebreathers, painted clowns, an animal handler with a whip whipping a young bear in the rear causing the beast to lurch to its hind legs and dance. There were whores with bare saffron painted breasts, wolfhounds trotting with swords in their mouths, pipers, drummers, trumpeters.
Then came the carnyxes that bellowed over all as the Fenn Beg Corm, danced from one rail on his chariot to the other, stepping forward and backwards, lunging onto one horse and grabbing its hinds and then flipping over to the other horse. The chariot raced past us as he flipped again to the other horse, and then stood with one leg on each horse, and unsheathed his sword.
While still in motion, his lean, scruffy charioteer tossed a severed Hillman head, its dry haunch of a neck still flapping with sinew and loose skin. The king caught it, and then flung it into the air ahead of himself. When the chariot came near the falling head, he impaled it right through its neck with his sword. He brandished the head toward the crowd. The Hillman had been a shining one, for gold dangled from his grey ears.
The crowd erupted into a roar. Cries of ‘Epona!’, ‘Andrasta!’, ‘Morrigan!’, ‘Nodens!’, and‘Camulus!’ came forth, and then Fenn Beg Corm and his Eponians all assembled in a great throng, the king in the centre and fifty riders on each of his flanks. Then came the performers and they all crowded to the left and ride, and then at once everyone took a bow, except Fenn Beg Corm who raised the head even higher. The crowd shouted ‘King Beg Corm!’ until others joined in a chant and soon nearly all chanted.
The druids came and hushed us all, and they rolled out the wicker man on a cart hauled by oxen. It was the size of five men, a wicker frame wrought like a man with a straw head. Its framework bulged and there were two sheep in its feet, bleating, and upon them a cram of men. I could not count, but all of them were naked, black-headed and beaten. Their bare skins were full of bruises, welts, and long slashes. Some were bleeding and others looked dead already, while more pleaded, some in Celtic.
The druids commanded the slaves to roll the wicker man to the centre of the fort. Then the slaves piled straw at its feet. The slaves scurried off as a flame-bearing druid illuminated red in the low light by his torch tossed it onto the straw. The flames spread and the men in the wicker shouted in discord. I could hardly hear them over the sizzling and the smell of skin turned sour. A great puff of smoke engulfed it all and when the wind picked up, the wicker man came crashing down, and after a while, all that was left of it all were charred husks.
Tratonius leaned into me. ‘You Gauls love your spectacles.’
‘What is a Gaul?’ I asked him, because the Eponians wore their hair differently and possessed different garments than us.
‘You,’ he said. ‘You ones with your check pants, and your hair up in spikes. You all live up north, some of you in the vineyards in Italia, others like you all the way on the stormy edge of the world. You all fancy lopping off heads, and you’re similar in tongue and gods. And you believe the only fear you face is if the sky falls down on your head or the ground opens up under you.
‘And this spectacle is Gaulish, very Gaulish. It befits such a fight as the one we had yesterday.’
I reached down into my pouch and touched the lion-man figurine, my ancestor. I then thought back to Verc on his boat, sailing back home to Gaul. If Nodens carried his body back home, his clansmen would recognize him as their own, since he wore their colours in his death. What colours do I wear? If I died far from home, would anyone recognize me if I were not in my clan colours?
I gazed upon the Eponians and their king, in their colours of blue, red, and green, check-patterned trousers and their long red capes.
My men stood piebald, multiple colours, multiple types of weapons and armour, a mixture of traditions from far-reaching lands. I hesitated. The old mercenaries would never yield to my demands for them to change costume or pick up Celtic weaponry. They have not even become Leandres. But the Leandres would, and so would I. I looked upon the Eponians, foreigners in my land, retaining their sacred rites, their dress, their ways. I then turned to my Leandres, Cattos, Antedios and Artaxes.
‘We are to wear my clan’s colours from now on. The green and the yellow. These are our colours.’
‘A Hellene in Celtic colours,’ Artaxes said. ‘What an oddity.’
‘We will still be Leandres,’ I said, ‘but we will wear clan Ashaiger colours. We will be Celts, and we will fight like Verc, and we will honour him and the Ashaigers.’
The sour smell of burnt skin never relinquished at the feast. The wind carried it and ensured we would all be reminded that we feast at night because at day death nearly dragged us all down to the Otherworld. After, we feasted on horse and drank ale with our feet propped on the backs of dogs, wetting lips and filling our bellies at twilight. Our table had all my men, with Myrnna seated next to me. She neither said nor ate anything.
We sat there for a while, myself dressed in my own clothes, and we discussed manners of dye for Artaxes and the lads so that they may wear Ashaiger colours. We needed saffron and woad, which was expensive, but we had gold and silver to trade, and perchance, plunder from the Hillmen in the impending raiding season.
After some time, Antedios and Cattos returned with Chaser. They had been out hunting, and Chaser came first with a pheasant in his mouth, the bird limp. Sabella and Frowon gathered it up, plucked its feathers and roasted it over one of the many campfires in the vicinity.
We sat for a spell, and I listened to the men speak. Today they spoke of the battle, and they recounted their triumphs and near pitfalls. We all drank to Verc again, and finally I askedTratonius about what had been on my mind for so long.
'In Italia, the Celts fight for the warlord. Why?’
‘Because the Romans invaded their lands, and they want revenge,’ he said with a slur, he had been drinking quite a bit. ‘Took their crops. Took their gold, silver, iron. Humped their women. Probably humped the men, too.’
‘Why did the Romans do that?’ I asked.
‘Why does anyone raid anything? There isn’t enough space for all of us, so someone has to suffer.’
‘And who should suffer?’
‘The other guy,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Now come on, it’s been years since the warlord invaded. I haven’t heard who won yet. Maybe they’re still warring. Maybe it will be over before daybreak. But there’s much plunder in Rome. Much plunder. And we need a new Sabella, this one is getting old.’
‘And the Celts in Italia – or your people – why did they not defeat the Romans?’
‘Because that’s the way it goes,’ Tratonius said. ‘I’ve seen it. Once it starts going, there is little to stop it. You can stand athwart a river and yell halt, but will it? It will wash over you, crash you into its bed and knock you silly until you drown. You could try to swim against it, but the current is always stronger than you. When it rushes, it rushes, and there is nothing you can do but float with it. You can swim with the current, and accept it. That’s what the Umbri did. That’s what the Cisalpine Gauls did. Now that’s what the warlord is doing to the Romans. And that’s what the Hillmen will do to you.’
