why was there more laughter in Tiranen than at Petrianis, or even the Roman house of Senator Valens? Because they had so little, they worried less about keeping it.
Because they had so little to be proud of, they seemed less poisoned by the sin of pride.'
'Surely Valeria longed for Roman comforts-'
'Their barbarism meant that our own worries receded as well. I'd never noticed as many flowers and as many birds as I did that summer. I enjoyed rain, and the sewing that it meant inside, and then sun because it meant we'd roam the meadows. Valeria rode almost every day on the new mare that had been given her, and Brisa began to teach her the bow and arrow. The archer had taken my lady under her wing, finding a kind of sibling that she'd missed since the deaths of her brothers. As Valeria improved her Celtic, Brisa learned some Latin. We were so dependent on our captors that we developed a strange fondness for them, the natural surrender of child to parent, or slave to master, or legionary to centurion. We still expected rescue and return, of course, so we regarded it all as an interlude. Almost a dream.'
'The barbarians were kind to you?'
'The barbarians were people. Some were kind, and some were vulgar. None molested us except Asa, who resented Valeria and would play her little tricks. Once it was a burr under the saddle that caused her new horse to buck her off. The bitch would slip salt into a serving of honey or vinegar into a draught of wine. Petty things and catty gossip. It was annoying, and Valeria's protests did no good.'
'Why did Asa resent her so much?'
'Because Asa was in love with Arden, and he'd forgotten the Celtic girl's existence. He'd been blinded by Valeria. She can do that, you know; the pretty minx has known how to manipulate and get her way since she was a young child. She'd flirt with him even while clinging to her married purity, and enjoy his torture without admitting it to herself. He'd warned others to leave her be and so felt he had to do so, too, and feared she'd lose her value as a hostage if despoiled. Yet it tormented him. Despite his professed hatred of Rome, he viewed her as exotic, somehow better than the women in Caledonia. I think he wanted Rome as much as he wanted to destroy it: his hatred and fascination came in part from a conviction of inferiority. The awkwardness was made worse because she was attracted to him. She tried to hide it, but I knew. Everyone did-'
'He was more her own age than her husband was.'
'And handsome, daring, and commanding. Every woman felt a tremor when he went by. And yet it was more than that, I believe. The two fit naturally together like the halves of a broken coin. Despite his protestations, he was Roman enough to understand her world, and she wild enough to understand his. Yet they kept apart as if they'd burn if they touched. Both seemed haunted, and it worried the warriors. There were rumblings that he should either couple with the Roman vixen or get rid of her.'
'What did you advise? '
'That she remain loyal to Marcus, of course. But when he didn't come and didn't come, I could see the child's doubt. Each evening we'd go to the palisade, and the country to the south would be empty of rescue. She'd never really been married; the man was too remote. Now this barbarian was at her side. My counsel was duty, hut my secret question was, Where did her happiness lie? Finally I went to see Kalin.'
'What a meeting that must have been! The Christian and the Celtic mystic!'
'We'd talked before. He feared my god because I didn't fear his. I told him the old gods were dead and that he'd see as much if he tried to attack the Wall; that Rome had the protection of the Jesus it had once crucified. My warning made him wary. For men to sacrifice to the gods, this he understood, but for a god to be sacrificed for men: this, he complained, was almost impossible to believe. How could people follow such nonsense? And yet I'd describe how the Christian martyrs had in turn sacrificed themselves. He was fascinated by a Rome he could scarcely imagine, and I was intrigued by his herbs and roots to ward off sickness and heal wounds.'
'So you were friends?'
Savia laughs. 'I was determined he not sacrifice me!'
I smile. I'm not the first man Savia has manipulated. 'What did he suggest for Arden and Valeria?'
'The new year's feast comes after the leaves fall from the trees. The Celts date their year from the end of harvest and the start of winter, and call it Samhain. They believe the spirits of their dead ancestors wake to walk the earth that night, and that the festival grants strange powers and unusual liberties. There's a fertility rite that involves two Celtic gods, the male Dagda and the female Morrigan. Each year a different man and a different woman are chosen by lot to play the roles. Kalin draws the lots.'
'He decided to draw Arden and Valeria.'
'He said it is a night of that other world, not this one, and that what happened between them on Samhain would be in the hands of gods, not men.'
XXXI
Samhain was the first night of winter, the end and the beginning of the Celtic year, and thus a night outside the normal cycle of time. The world stopped, the dead rose to dance in the glens, and reality became a dream.
Valeria never imagined she'd still be at Tiranen so late in the Roman year, and so enmeshed in a world not her own.
She existed that long northern summer without any news of rescue, enjoying days in which dusk would linger past bedtime and the east would blush before the wheel of stars had barely turned. It was as if night were near repeal. Cattle fattened, crops ripened, and the clan celebrated the festival of the god Lugh-the-Many-Talented near high summer. Valeria had never spent so much time outside, hardening to the weather and invigorated by the smell of sea and heather. She rode, she gathered, she walked, she weaved, she waited, and she learned skills a patrician would never learn in Rome. She was in a carefree limbo of captivity, past and future having disappeared. While her entire life was held captive, many of her ordinary worries had disappeared because of her own initial helplessness and, later, a reluctance to recognize and confront her own confused feelings.
It was easier to drift.
Then the sun began slipping south, the night began to lengthen, and eventually it was time for Harvest Home, the gathering of the autumn equinox. Every clan member from child to chief took part in the great harvest, and the captive Romans were no exception.
Valeria and Savia found themselves with the other women one dawn at the fringe of yellow wheat, a bag on one shoulder and a leather flask of spring water at their waist. A drum and flute began, a song arose, and the line of women began moving through the high grain with hands outstretched, nimble fingers breaking loose the fat and brittle heads. The kernels sifted past their bright metal rings like a tumble of coins, cascading into shoulder sacks with a whisper. The harvesters swayed as they worked, forming a slow dance of Celtic females in blue, yellow, and scarlet tunics who moved across the fields like feasting songbirds. Their men came in rhythmic line behind, stroking with their scythes to cut the stalks for winter straw and hay. Mice ran from the stubble and so hawks orbited overhead, picking them off.
It was the first time Valeria had harvested the bread she ate. At midday the women sat in the shade together, gossiping and eating a lunch brought from the huts by the youngest children. Her labor made her a part of them, and she enjoyed this strange new camaraderie of shared work. At day's end her hands were raw, her back stooped, her feet aching, and yet when her bag of grain cascaded into its storage hole, she felt it was filling her as well, even before she ate it. She tried to share her enthusiasm with Brisa.
'It's still a novelty to you,' grumbled the archer, groaning as she massaged her feet. 'I've been harvesting since I could walk. I'd rather practice archery.'
'It's astonishing to work together. Rome is so crowded that you're never together with anyone.'
'That makes no sense.'
'Cities don't, sometimes.'
'I've never been to one, and from your description, I don't care to.'
Valeria found herself eating like a wolf and never gaining any girth. Her skin tanned a common, scandalous brown; her endurance increased. She noticed things she'd never really seen before: the curve of windswept grass that signaled a change to rain or sun, the progressive migration of birds, the heaviness of dew, the twin half-moons of a deer print in the mud, the hiss of rain on straw. After harvest, Arden took her riding up into highlands so
