Myths of the Modern Man (26 page)

“
What of your daughters?”

“
I cannot protect them now. If they have news of this in my kingdom, surely they will seek refuge with another tribe. If there are any tribe of us left.”

“
The Celts will live on. They will live to fight, and fight again.”

“
My people?”

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Their children’s children, for generations to come.”

“
Will they ever be victorious against the Romans?”

“
The Romans will fall away, like dried leaves. This is the lesson of time. There will be other enemies, and the meaning of victory may change, I think.” Do you understand Billy O’Malley? Will people like you ever understand?

“
What will happen to Cartimandua?” she asked, her voice weaker. I smiled. Some things never will change, like envy of a rival.

“
She will take her exiled husband’s servant as a lover. Her appalled kingdom will unite against her, under her husband Venutius, who will return in a new revolt and be victorious and rule the Brigantian kingdom. A detachment of Romans will reluctantly rescue Cartimandua from her husband’s wrath, but never from her own weaknesses. She will be further lost to history. But, your name will live forever.”

Boudicca smiled her satisfaction. It was the least I could do. She did not seem to see that such a thing could have also happened to us, her people revolting against her if she had taken me as a lover and made me king. However, if her people, likewise appalled at our relationship, had turned against her, the Romans would not bother to rescue her. They wanted nothing to do with Boudicca. She was far, far too much trouble.

“
I ask a favor now,” she said, “not as queen.”

“
Anything.”

“
Hold me.”

I sat on the ground beside her and pulled her against me. I stroked her back, and kissed her shoulder. I ran my hands tenderly over her for her last sensation of this life, and hummed softly one of Billy’s sad love songs he’d learned in a bar somewhere. I whispered her name into her ear, Budheachas.

Her breaths became shallow, then they did not come at all. I grabbed a fistful of her thick hair and touched it to my face.

Taliesin, who had given her the poison, had no more magic for her, except to take his dagger, which had been given back to him before the great battle, and begin to scratch out her grave. I sat with her a while, until I could convince myself that she did not feel my comforting. She was in Avalon now. She was with Prasutagas.

I laid her body out on the ground, and helped Taliesin finish the grave. Together we placed her body in the grave, and broke the axle of her chariot, placing the chariot, wheels, axle and all, in with her. We had no food to send her on her trip, but we put her sword in her arms, confident she could kill her own food in Avalon. I folded the grip of the weapon in her cold right hand, and rested the flat of its blade against her left breast.

We covered the grave, and camouflaged it with the briar thicket. The thought of possibly having to identify this grave in another two thousand plus years at Eleanor’s order, that it might be exhumed for study at Dr. Ford’s pleasure, made me sick. I knew, though, I really wouldn’t be able to find it, and that made me glad.

Hers would not be the only suicide in this affair. Poenius Postumus, commander of the II Legion, who had disobeyed and did not send his cohorts to the great battle, would expediently kill himself upon receiving news of the Roman victory. I wonder what he would have done if they’d lost. Probably the same thing.

But, they did not lose. Around 80,000 Celts were killed, according to Tacitus’ best guess, which had been about eighty percent of their force. Roman losses amounted in the hundreds. It was a grand and glorious rout.

Taliesin drew his dagger again.

“
Shall I make a sacrifice of you for her?” he asked me.

“
You offer me a choice?” He offered to kill me in her memory, or perhaps more for my sake.

“
It was once custom for retainers to perish with the sovereign. Now, it is left to our own hearts.” He said, “I would do it for you. It is fortunate she died on the Samhein. The otherworld is close to her now, and she may enter freely, as will you.”

Samhein? It was October?

Halloween. The night of the Samhein. I was supposed to go back now, to an otherworld Taliesin could not imagine. Had Dr. Roberts failed?

I looked at his knife. It had been well used this summer.

“
Will you tell me who you are?” he asked.

“
A foreigner, Taliesin.”

“
You are no slave. I know. You see the future, you know the outcome of the day. Yet, do not think your magic is stronger than mine.”

“
I do not think that.” Especially since I was still here. Okay, so what if I miss the Halloween window? Wander around Britannia trick or treating until the Romans sell me into slavery, get killed by vengeful troops, get killed by Taliesin with his best intentions? Decisions, decisions.

“
Are you certain this is the night of the Samhein?”

“
Of course.” He scoffed at me like I was an idiot.

“
What of the Druids?” he asked, “What will our future be? How far, to what other lands will our power thrive?”

Oh, boy.

I looked at him, tall, thin, perennially concerned expression. For his time, a most learned man. I think Dr. Ford and he would hit it off well. They both tended to think in abstracts.

But, he was honest, and demanded an honest answer. He could not tell the future, not even with his magic, but he would recognize the truth.

“
There will be no Druids one day.” I said, “Few,” I amended. He looked as if I had punched him in the stomach, then he took another deep breath and looked up at my old friends, and I suddenly realized his too, the constellations.

“
Where will you go, Taliesin? Do not go to Mona.”

“
I will go north. Find refuge with another tribe. I will live for as long as I can.”

“
You may find refuge in Hibernia.”

“
Hibernia? That is how the Romans say it.”

I shrugged and nodded.

“
If I can make it past the Romans in the west, I should consider it.”

“
Yes, that would be well.”

We walked onward a short way, saying nothing. The Sidhe walked the earth this night with us, and heralded a new season, and a new age. Truly, it was a land of the dead.

“
Taliesin,” I said to him on a dark hilltop now pelted by autumn rain, “the Romans will fortify their cities here now with thick walls. No more will they trust in the Celt’s submission in Britannia. Still, Romans will rule here for the next 400 years.”

That was stupid of me, but I couldn’t seem to stop talking about it.

Taliesin’s eyes widened, and I’m not sure if he knew how much 400 years was.

“
Now you lie, or make a story for me.”

Yes, he had some idea how long that was.

“
Next year, in Rome, a man named Paul will be put under arrest. He, and other apostles of a man named Jesus Christ will spread a new religion of one God, called Christianity, to Europe and to the world.”

He shook his head, “I don’t understand you.”

“
In three years, these Christians’ faith will spread, be taken up by many, and the Romans will hate them and see them as a threat. They will persecute them, and will kill the apostle named Paul.”

“
Christians.”

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Named after Christ, who some called the Messiah. He also died on a Roman cross.”

“
He was crucified?”

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About thirty years ago.”

“
When you were a boy?”

I smiled. I had no answer for that one, but he was clearly as interested as he was troubled.

“
The religion named for him would live on. One day, Celts will too follow this religion, and will not look to MacCecht, or Lugh, or Macha, or any of the other Celtic gods, or to the Druids for directions.”

He wore the pained look of a man being downsized.

“
And the Romans?”

“
The biggest joke of all. One day the Romans will also become Christians, but their empire will crumble and fall, and all the peoples under their yoke shall have independence, but only for as long as they use it wisely. That is the way of it.”

“
What?”

“
Life is a great cycle, my friend. I cannot tell you when it begins or ends, only that we repeat the lessons over and over.”

“
You have told me much.”

“
Do you believe me?”

“
Yes, I believe you. Now, tell me what you know of my own future.”

“
I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

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You must.”

“
I don’t. Truly, Taliesin, I do not.”

“
Then what of your future?”

“
My own future is revealed to me only one day at a time.” He frowned and shook his head. He was in no mood for riddles.

“
Taliesin, when we first met each other you were for killing me with your dagger. Yet when Nemain demanded you sacrifice me in Cailte’s tent, you did not. Now, at the queen’s burial, you offer me my death, again. We have a curious friendship.”

“
Do you count me a friend?”

“
Yes.”

He considered this amazing thing, and untied Boudicca’s horse from the tree branch and wrapped the worn rein around his hand.

“
Then will you go with me to the north?” he asked.

“
Yes, I will.”

He led the animal behind us, and we started to foot it towards Caledonia. At least, that is what the Romans called it.

“
Taliesin, I may yet ask you to sacrifice me.”

“
I hope I have the courage. I did not once.”

“
Perhaps it was not a lack of courage that made you stay your hand. Perhaps you did not like to kill a man for no purpose.”

For no purpose was as close to morality and the Golden Rule as we were going to get here. To my naïve pleasure, he slowly nodded. He combed his wet hair off his forehead with his hand, and puzzled over his own change of heart.

“
This may be true.”

“
Then you have my thanks.”

Then, over our footsteps, came a sound such as will follow me to my grave. The three Roman soldiers were suddenly before us. They held their short swords in an advance. They did not come from nowhere, they were there all along. I was too busy talking to notice.

I pushed Taliesin.

“
Run!” I yelled, and he began to, but stopped when he heard me groan. One soldier had grabbed my arm that had gestured for Taliesin to run, the second soldier grabbed my other arm, and the third belted me in the stomach. When I slumped to the ground, he lifted his hobnailed boot and put it nearly through my face. I heard, rather than saw Taliesin stumble back. I looked up in time to see him pull his dagger and bury it in the back of the third soldier. It took all his strength, and he groaned in sympathetic agony along with the stricken soldier as he did it, a thing I had never seen him do with his sacrificial victims. The solider fell in front of me, a last white-faced gasp before he began to suck up the mud, with a futile flailing of his arms at the dagger that he just could not reach. He died trying to reach it.

The two soldiers that held me dropped me on top of their comrade, pulled their swords and chased after Taliesin, who had stood momentarily paralyzed at what he had done.

He had killed not for druid sacrifice, or for self defense, or for revenge. He had killed to save another person. He killed to save me.

“
GO!” I yelled.

Our eyes met for an instant, a kind of goodbye, and he ran. He tore back through the damp, dark undergrowth with the two Roman soldiers chasing him. They did not slump and crawl and dodge, and maneuver through the brush as Taliesin did, but slashed through it with their short swords, making quick progress through sheer havoc.

I caught my breath and stumbled after them.

I followed them into the clearing, and saw Taliesin stumble towards Boudicca’s horse, which had not strayed from where Taliesin left her.

Taliesin climbed onto the back of Boudicca’s horse, and kicked her in gear. One of the soldiers drew his javelin, and as I ran to stop it from happening, he fired off the missile. I fell on the soldier too late.

Taliesin caught the javelin in his ribs. He wavered, his legs clinging to the horse’s sleek, wet body, but his strength was gone. Abruptly, he slipped off the horse. He fell with a sickening thud to the wet ground. A groan, and a splash and the Druid priest was dead. The horse of Boudicca did not stop running. She braved the dark night of the Samhein, the wind and the rain for her freedom. In my mind, she is running still.

The soldiers beat me. They belted and kicked me, and spitting through bloody saliva, I shouted “Pax vobiscum” for no other reason than that I was sure I was dead and a sense of humor always comes upon me at such moments. The soldiers probably did not hear “peace be with you” that often from their victims. Not yet anyway. Not until Christians became prime time entertainment in the Coliseum. Disgusted, but suddenly tolerant because I knew their language, they tied me, and dragged me back to a holding area for potential slaves. In the morning we would all be put on a galley for Rome.