He was deep into Selgovantia--Dumfrieshire, and there were ten or more men ahead of him. They spoke infrequently and in low voices yet their manner was not one of secrecy. Subdued, fearful almost and one seemed blind, having to be led.
Having come upon the group by accident, Marcus followed them, stepping silently fifty paces or so behind. Their way led through overgrown woodland with only the odd splash of moonlight to relieve the darkness and reassure him that he still followed the narrow game trail.
At length, the group stopped and Marcus left the pathway to approach from the side, well hidden by the undergrowth. The odd word came to him but most of the desultory conversation was indecipherable. With the utmost caution, he crept closer and hid behind a partially cleft trunk of a great sycamore at the very edge of the glade. A bush grew close to the larger tree and added some concealment.
Dark clouds drifted leisurely across the nighttime sky to cast slow shadows over the small clearing. Brief glimpses of the quarter moon limned the ragged edges of the cloud rack with silver; the light gleamed palely from metal jewellery and weapons.
Apart from the stately progression of the clouds, the barest movement of leaves, the night had become still.
Twelve men stood in a close ring about a thirteenth, as near naked as the others although his head was covered with the skin of an animal and tied about the throat.
All of them were rigid in their stillness. The twelve encircling--watchful sentinels. The one within: apprehensive; an occasional twitch of a muscle or a shiver belying his apparent composure.
Marcus could see little and he looked up at the tree above him. The trunk supported a growth of ivy, strong enough to bear his weight if he moved carefully. He began to climb slowly, hauling himself gently until he reached the first of the sycamore's lower limbs. Still cautious, Marcus settled himself against the trunk and stared downward.
A night bird called from a nearby tree and Marcus' heart froze, the others all jumped slightly at the sound. "Will he still come?" asked one of the twelve and his neighbour, a man built like an oak of seven generations, a giant, replied.
"He will, Manon, he will. He told me this: 'the sixth day of the moon.' This is the day he said. 'Twice three.'"
A larger gap in the clouds allowed the moon to drench the glade with sudden silver, and the waiting men shifted uncomfortably in the brighter light. Their bodies were covered from head to toe in intricate tattoos of blue dye Braided torques of hair worked with silver wire hung around their necks and waists. Each of the twelve held a long sword and the fingers of the thirteenth were still curled from long habit, about the handle of a heavy though imaginary weapon.
Glances criss-crossed the circle watching faces that each knew as intimately as brother or father or son for all were close kin, even he in the center. All were tied by blood, born from the union of cousins and second cousins, uncles and nieces. The family resemblance was strong; it marked them all with heavy brows and strong jaws; pale eyes and fair hair; tall, big boned bodies.
A sound other than that of night birds and small creeping things brought them to full alert. The sound of feet running, no attempt to muffle the noise or to tread carefully, they relaxed and the runner broke from the nearby trees on the eastern side. "He comes, brothers, he comes." He fell to his knees just off the path and waited. Marcus, perched almost above the pathway, nearly lost his balance as he tried to see who was coming.
There was the sound of a second pair of feet. Slower, the pace more measured and those in the circle turned to face the newcomer.
"Keep the circle." The voice was deep, powerful, one accustomed to command and without the need to confirm that the wish was implemented.
A small whimper came from the hooded man at the center and like a cornered boar will, ran suddenly at the circle wall. But he had no tusks with which to gore, no weapons. He was pushed back again and again with no sign of family feeling. He stood quietly at last, shivering and sweating in the chill night air as though he had been the one to run ahead of the Vate, the Seer, and not the one who was just now rising from his knees. The captive's head hung in dejection--there would be no release but the one ordained by his deeds.
The old Seer came, his staff clicking on the rocky ground, punctuating soft footfalls. "What has he done?"
The question was aimed at no one man--the tone one of total disinterest; a duty to be performed.
The big man who had answered Manon spoke again and the Vate seemed to gaze at the fellow's tattooed chest, an ascending moon atop a setting sun. "He lay with a young girl of the Cruagh and killed her afterwards. He hid her body under leaves in the deep forest in hope that a wolf might take his work." He was silent for a moment and then added, "He asked not her father's permission nor that of our chief."
The old man, the Vate, nodded and threw back the hood of his cloak whereupon there was a great gasp at the sight of his dead white eye, which glared past the great hooked nose at each of them in turn. "Is there a Cruagh present?"
Dag Liogh, eldest son of the Clan Liogh shook his head. "No." The Vate had been too many times in his Father's house for Dag Liogh to have been as overawed by the dreadful evil eye as his kin.
"But this is truth, the Gods who have taken our sacrifices know that no Liogh lies in this, they are content for us to make our own justice."
Liogh. From his vantage, Marcus Gellorix heard the name clearly, knew the tribe. A small one, relative newcomers--no more than four, perhaps five generations. He shivered; a chill breeze blew at this height.
The Seer nodded. The questioning was pure formality, of little importance and he took a long bright blade from within his cloak. Moonlight glittered from the interlocking patterns inscribed along its length until abruptly; he sheathed the knife in the condemned man's abdomen. The act was precise, the wound exact, inflicted with careless mastery.
The victim dropped to the floor as blood, black in the moonlight, flowed thickly. The Vate watched. Through his good eye, the one with mortal sight, he watched the convulsions attentively; through the dead eye, he saw the way the blood ran, the writhing of the spirit as it struggled free of the body.
Manon shivered, not because of his newly dead kinsman but at sight of that dead eye, familiar but somehow more terrible at night. Behind his back, Manon crossed his fingers.
As the convulsions ceased and the body became at last, a corpse, the Seer looked up at the others. He smiled, a black grin punctuated by three ill-spaced teeth.
"I know of great deeds done and still to come. I know of warriors gone to drink with the Gods and of others who will drink the blood of the invaders from the east. I know of a stone wall that stretches to the dawn and a wall of turves stretching to the setting sun.
"I know what will come. What would you hear from me?"
"Tell us what is to come," cried all with a single voice.
The Vate seemed to grow in stature so that he towered above the others who surrounded him. He turned slowly from the west where he had been pointing, to the south, to east, to north, to west and round again and again. The sound of his voice mesmeric, compelling.
"In three days will come a wet mist from the sunset. I know that you will attack the wall by the river, and you will attack from the south, from the side of the Brytons. And you, my sons, I know that you will lead the way."
There were mumbles of surprise, scepticism which the old man ignored.
"Thirty hands of men will attack the accursed wall and thirty of those will journey to the Gods. Those who stay upon this world will take with them great treasure and much grain, enough to store against the winter."
The sweet green grass, now the whip ... "The Gods will be watching."
The old man fell silent. The earthly eye and the seeing one closed as though he were listening to some voice deep inside. His listeners held their breath, their need for air forgotten until; at last the seer looked about him again. There was a collective sigh from grateful lungs as the old man continued.
"Afterward, three crows will show the way to your homes. Those who do not see them will be scattered like chaff upon the wind; they will neither sit with the Gods nor lay with their women.
"This is what I know."
"How many will return to the Clan?"
"Dag Liogh, I have told you what I know. Do you have another's blood to spill?" Several shook their heads.
"Let me be gone then. I have others to see before the night is done."
And as they left, the watcher waited for the forest sounds to return before clambering stiffly from his perch to the ground.
Dag Liogh. Son of the Chief and Manon, his younger brother. As an agent of the Roman army, Marcus had traded with the tribe though no trader was ever invited to the home village. Hitherto the Clan Liogh had been a secretive tribe but now they were to be in the forefront of whatever trouble was brewing.
Marcus made his way back to his horse, treading as carefully as before. He had known for days that something was in the offing; there had been a tension in the air--like the feeling just before a lightning strike.
An attack by the river. Marcus could think of three which passed through the Wall within half a day's ride. Which one did they mean? And when? There was so much I couldn't make out properly. Marcus paused in mid-stride. An attack from the Brytonic side--is that what the seer told them? He continued on, Vircovicium was several hours ride away. Perhaps there will be others there; maybe they will have information to add to mine. Whatever, he had to report in to the senior Centurion, let Aemilius Karras think about it; let him make up his own mind.
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