“Hm,” Cerialis said. “I’ll want a fuller account.” He cleared his throat. “Later. Today we’ll stick to business. I do want my men out of the mud.”
I find that I kind of like this guy. In many ways he reminds me of George Patton. Yes, we can dicker.
Cerialis weighed his words. “Tell your lordlings this, and have them pass it on to Civilis. I see one big stumbling block. You speak of the Germans beyond the Rhine. I can’t concede what he wants and pull the legions out while they are faunching for somebody to whistle them up all over again.”
“He would not, I assure you,” Everard said. “Under the conditions proposed, he’d have won what he was fighting for, or at least a decent compromise. Who else might start a new war?”
Cerialis’s mouth tightened. “Veleda.”
“The sibyl among the Bructeri?”
“The witch. D’you know, I’ve thought about a strike into that country just to seize her. But she’d vanish into the woods.”
“And if you did somehow succeed, it’d be like snatching a hornets’ nest.”
Cerialis nodded. “Every crazy tribesman from the Rhine to the Suebian Sea up in arms.” He meant the Baltic, and he was right. “But it might well be worse, for my grandchildren if not me, to let her go on spewing her venom amongst them.” He sighed. “Except for that, the furor could die down. But as is—”
“I think,” said Everard weightily, “if Civilis and his allies are promised honorable terms, I think we can get her to call for peace.” Cerialis goggled. “You mean that?”
“Try it,” Everard said. “Negotiate with her as well as with the male leaders. I can carry word between you.”
Cerialis shook his head. “We couldn’t leave her running loose. Too dangerous. We’d have to keep an eye on her.”
“But not a hand.”
Cerialis blinked, then chuckled. “Ha! I see what you mean. You’ve got a gift of gab, Everardus. True, if ever we arrested her or anything like that, we’d likely get a whole new rebellion. But what if she provoked it? How can we know she’ll behave herself?”
“She will, once she’s reconciled with Rome.”
“What’s that worth? I know barbarians. Flighty as geese.” Evidently it didn’t occur to the general that he might offend the emissary, unless he didn’t care. “From what I’ve gathered, that’s a war goddess she serves. What if Veleda takes it into her head that this Bellona’s hollering for blood once more? We could have another Boadicea on our hands.”
A sore point with you, huh? Everard sipped of his wine. The sweetness glowed down his throat, invoking summers and southlands against the weather that ramped outside. “Give it a try,” he said. “What can you lose by exchanging messages with her? I think a settlement that everybody can live with is possible.”
Whether in superstition or in metaphor, Cerialis replied, surprisingly quietly, “That will depend on the goddess, won’t it?”
17
The early sunset smoldered above the forest. Boughs were like black bones athwart it. Puddles in field and paddock glowed dull red with it beneath a greenish sky as cold as the wind that eddied whimpering across them. A flight of crows passed. Their hoarse cries sounded for a while after the dusk had swallowed them up.
A hind carrying hay between stack and house shivered, not only because of the weather, when he saw Wael-Edh go by. She was not unkindly, in her stark way, but she was in league with the Powers, and now she walked from the halidom. What there had she heard and said? For months no man had fared hither to speak with her, as often erstwhile. By day she paced her grounds or sat under a tree and brooded, alone. It was surely at her own behest—but why? This was a grim time, even for the Bructeri. Too many of their men had come home from Batavian or Frisian lands with tales of mishap or woe, or had not come home at all. Could the gods be turning from their spaewife? The hind muttered a luck-spell and hastened his steps.
Her tower loomed dark ahead of the woman. The warrior on watch dipped his spear to her. She nodded and opened the door. In the room beyond, a pair of thralls sat cross-legged at a low hearthfire, palms held close. Smoke drifted around bitter until it found its outlet. Their breath mingled with it, wan in the light of two lamps. They scrambled to their feet. “Does my lady want food or drink?” the man asked.
Wael-Edh shook her head. “I will sleep,” she answered.
“We will guard your dreaming well,” the girl said. It was needless, nobody save Heidhin would dare climb the ladder unbidden, but she was new here. She gave her mistress one of the lamps and Wael-Edh went up.
A ghost of daylight lingered in a window covered with thin-scraped gut, and the flame burned yellow. Nonetheless the loft-room was already heavy with gloom, wherein her things crouched like trolls underground. Not yet wishing for her shut-bed, she put the lamp on a shelf and sat down on her high three-legged witch-seat, cloak drawn tight. Her gaze sought the shifty shadows.
Air whuffed in her face. The floor groaned beneath a sudden heavy weight. Edh leaped back. The stool clattered to the boards. She gasped.
Soft radiance flowed out of a ball atop the horns of the thing that stood before her. Two saddles were on its back, it was the bull of Frae, cast in iron, and on it rode the goddess who had claimed it from him.
“Niaerdh, oh, Niaerdh—”
Janne Floris got off the timecycle and stood as stately as might be. Last time, caught unawares, she had been garbed like any Germanic woman of the Iron Age. It hadn’t mattered then, but no doubt memory made her more impressive, and for this visit she had outfitted herself with care. Her gown draped lustrous white, jewels glinted in the belt, a silver pectoral had the pattern of a fishnet, and her hair hung in twin amber-hued braids below a diadem.
“Fear not,” she said. The tongue she used was the dialect of Edh’s girlhood. “Speak low. I have returned to you as I promised.”
Edh straightened, pressed hands to breasts, swallowed once or twice. Her eyes stood huge in the thin, strong-boned countenance. The hood had fallen back and light picked out the gray that was stealing across her head. For a few seconds she only breathed. Then, amazingly fast, a sort of calm flowed into her, an acceptance more stoic than exalted but altogether willing.
“Ever I knew you would,” she said. “I am ready to go.” A whisper: “How very ready.”
“Go?” asked Floris.
“Down hell-road. You will bring me to darkness and peace.” Anxiety fluttered. “Will you not?”
Floris tautened. “Ach, what I want of you is harder than death.”
Edh was silent a little before she replied, “As you will. I am no stranger to pain.”
“I would not hurt you!” Floris blurted. She regained due gravity. “You have served me for long years.”
Edh nodded. “Since you gave me back my life.”
Floris could not stifle a sigh. “A life lamed and twisted, I fear.”
Emotion quickened. “You did not save me for nothing, I know. It was for all the others, wasn’t it? All the women ravished, men slain, children bereft, free folk laid in bonds. I was to call their avenging down upon Rome. Was I not?”
“You are no longer sure?”
Tears glinted on lashes. “If I was wrong, Niaerdh, why did you let me go on?”
“You were not wrong. But child, hearken.” Floris held out her hands. Like a small girl in truth, Edh took them. Hers were cold and faintly atremble. Floris drew breath. The majestic words rolled forth.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”