Seirian said to Lucius, ‘You know it.’
Lucius looked down, as if obscurely ashamed.
‘Then man has choice,’ Gamaliel continued, ‘and the future is unwritten, and prophecies are worthless doggerel. Even the parchment they’re written on isn’t fit for wiping an emperor’s arse!’
Lucius grinned. ‘Then why bother with them?’
‘Because men believe in prophecies. They hear their horoscopes avidly, they cling to their birth-stones and their mythical forebears and their little, little lies. Our systems have their day, they have their day and cease to be. But during that day they surely have their power, to hurt or to heal. Therein lies their power.’
Lucius nodded slowly.
‘The world is changed,’ said Gamaliel, ‘and we with it.’ He smiled at them with sadness. ‘And to this gentle land, and even to this valley, the Saxons are coming.’
Seirian spoke. ‘I know little of the Saxons. I know that their name means “the People of the Sword”. I never saw a sword drawn in quiet valley till that day. And I know that now my every dream of them is a dream of blood.’
‘That is how they want to be seen – and dreamt of, too,’ said Gamaliel. He went on, in a low chant: ‘Nine days and nine nights,
Lord Odin hung
Nailed to the world-tree,
A sacrifice to himself.
‘Then the sky cracked open,
The thunder spoke,
The dawn arose
And the longships set sail.
‘A sword-people, an axe-people,
An ice-age, a wolf-age,
And no quarter given
Between man and man.’
‘They are but one of many coming tribes,’ said Gamaliel. ‘Yes, they are a fierce and terrible people. In time, out of that fierceness something great and passionate may come, but now they are a People of the Sword, as you say, dear Seirian, and a People of Blood, and saxa is their word for their dreadful, biting longswords. They worship strange, dark gods, and the name of Christ is a torment to their ears. The sea is theirs, and in their narrow-beaked ships they traverse it by day and by night with a great hunger and with lust in their eyes. They laugh that they will sail across the uttermost ocean, to the mouth of Hell itself, which is like a great dark cave into which the sea flows in a black torrent. They jest without fear of the gods that they will sail into that infernal abyss itself and ransack even Hell for gold.’
Despite the warmth of the fire, Seirian shivered.
‘Then what must we do?’ asked Lucius.
‘The last of the Celtic kingdoms will fight against the pagan invaders,’ said Gamaliel. ‘And the fight will be glorious.’
‘Will Britain be extinguished in the end?’
‘Every nation and empire will be extinguished in the end,’ said Gamaliel with a gentle sadness. ‘But not all will live on in legend as gloriously as the last of the Celtic kingdoms will live on.’ He looked into the fire. ‘It is as our soothsayers have said. It is as the Man of Myrddin has said. A hard age is coming for us all, and everywhere beyond the frontiers the tribes are stirring. The Saxons are a fierce people, yet no fiercer than the Sueves or the Goths or the Vandals, nor yet that other tribe that will come from farthest off. “Storm from the east, O Storm that will not cease.”’
‘What will become of us, Gamaliel?’
Gamaliel smiled. Often, when he was at his gloomiest, as if surprised by a cheerfulness which welled up from deep within and which no one else could feel or comprehend, his lined and ancient face would break into a mysterious smile, and he would say, as he said now, ‘All will be well, and all manner of things will be well.’
‘How can that be?’
‘What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly, as I was told by a wise old man whom I met in the mountains between China and the deserts of Scythia.’
‘You talk in riddles, old friend.’
‘I talk in riddles because life is a riddle. Not a riddle to be solved, either, but one to be taken upon your shoulders, as you would take a heavy load, and to be carried on down the road, singing the praises of the world that God in his wisdom has made, untroubled in your heart.’ He stirred the fire with the battered end of his staff. ‘And, just so, we will bring your Cadoc back. For he is of the line of Bran, praise-singer and hymn-maker, and he was born for a purpose, which will not be served by his standing in chains in the slave markets of Colonia Agrippina.’
Seirian winced at the cruel image and bowed her head. But Gamaliel would do nothing to lessen the truth of Cadoc’s plight. He only said again, ‘We will bring him back.’
‘ Can you bring him back?’ asked Seirian, aggression and anger in her doubt.
Gamaliel said, ‘We shall see.’ He smiled gently at her and laid his dry old hand over hers. ‘In the heart of the darkest night-time, we shall see.’
‘Riddler,’ said Lucius.
Gamaliel rested his other hand on Lucius’ muscular forearm. ‘Old friend,’ he said.
The next morning, Seirian and Gamaliel stood watching Ailsa herding the chickens out into the yard, with Lucius up on the hill above, mending a fence by first light.
Seirian said to Gamaliel, ‘He does not talk.’
Gamaliel sighed. ‘He is a soldier, not an orator. If you want to know his heart, mark his deeds, not his words. You know how little he wants to go back to the empire. He only wants to find his son – for himself, for Ailsa, and for you. Watch his heavy tread and his weariness as he walks the road out of the valley. Remember why he does it, and with what heaviness of heart he leaves you again. Do not doubt him.’
‘I do not doubt him!’ exclaimed Seirian with sudden fierceness, her eyes flashing darkly. ‘I have never doubted him. There is not a breath of cowardice or faithlessness in him. It is that which makes me despair. A weaker man would give up, and stay home, and, and…’
‘And you would live happily ever after?’
She looked down at the rough cobbles of the yard, and shook her head. ‘No. You are right. It is because he is going that I love him. If he stayed by our fireside and tended me, all smiles and kisses and sweet nothings, like some high-born noble lover, I would despise him a little.’ She smiled a little at the contrariness of the human heart.
‘He is a good man,’ said Gamaliel. ‘Good is the opposite of weak, and it often enjoys little comfort and contentment in the world. Be patient, and watch over Ailsa like a mother-hawk, as I know you will. And watch, too, for the dark shadows of the Saxon longships, for there is no knowing when they may come again. We will be back. Before too long, we will be back, with your son, and you will be a family once more.’
Seirian brushed her tears angrily from her eyes and nodded briskly. ‘I know. I know. Here,’ and she turned and slipped back into the cottage. Gamaliel followed her in, stooping low so as not to bump his head, as he had often done before. She retrieved a cloth package from the bread oven beside the hearth and thrust it into his gnarled hands. ‘I made some honey-cakes.’
‘Ah, the far-famed honey-cakes of Seirian, daughter of Maradoc!’ cried Gamaliel, raising them above his head. ‘How can we come to harm with such talismans of great power in our pockets? Surely even the gods look down and smell their savour rising unto heaven, and toss aside their bowls of ambrosia and their cups of nectar, and wish themselves mortal men upon the earth, that they might taste the joys of the blessed honey-cakes of Seirian, daughter of Maradoc!’
‘Enough, enough, you old fool!’ cried Seirian, and she bundled the old man out of doors into the sunshine.
Ailsa had finished herding the chickens to her satisfaction, and she came over to him and stopped in front of the tall old man and squinted up. ‘Cadoc showed me the flowers, and he always caught fish,’ she said, ‘lots of fish. He was very clever.’
‘He still is very clever,’ said the old man gently.
Aisla stared up at him. ‘Now when we have breakfast he’s not there