I
The night before the battle, there were many watchfires. As he walked
from the Cimbri, out into darkness, Eodan saw the Roman camp across the
miles as a tiny ring of guttering red. Now the search has ended, he
thought; this earth we shall have tomorrow, or be slain.
He thought, while his blood beat swiftly, I do not await my death.
Only the ghostliest edge of a moon was up, and the stars seemed blurred
after the mountain sky. He felt Italy's air as thick. And the ground
underfoot was dusty where tens of thousands of folk, their horses and
cattle, had tramped over ripening grain. A poplar grove nearby stood
unmoving in windless gloom. Suddenly, sharp as a thrown war-dart,
Eodan recalled Jutland, Cimberland--great rolling heathery hills and
storm-noisy oaks, a hawk wheeling in heaven and the far bright blink of
the Limfjord.
But that was fifteen years ago. His folk, angry with their gods, had
wandered since then to the world's edge. And now the Cimbrian bull must
meet for one last time that she-wolf they said guarded Rome. It was
unlucky to call up forsaken places in your head.
Besides, thought Eodan, this was good land here. He could make it a
pastureland of horses ... yes, he might well take his share of Italy on
the Raudian plain, beneath the high Alps.
The night was hot. He rested his spear in the crook of an arm while
he took off his wolfskin cloak. Under it he wore the legginged coarse
breeches of any Cimbrian warrior; but his shirt was red silk, made
for him by Hwicca from a looted bolt of cloth. The twining leaves
and leaping stags of the North looked harsh across its shimmer. He
wore a golden torque around his neck, gold rings on his arms and a
tooled-leather belt heavy with silver god-masks. The dagger it held
bore a new hilt of ivory on the old iron blade. The Cimbri had reaved
from many folk, until their wagons were stuffed with wealth. Yet it was
only land they sought.
There was not much more air to be found beyond the watchfires than
within the camp. And it was hardly less full of noise here: the cattle
lowed enormously outside the wagons, one great clotted mass of horned
flesh. Eodan remembered Hwicca and turned back again.
A guard hailed him as he passed. "Hoy, there, Boierik's son, are you
wise to go out alone? _I_ would have scouts in the dark, to slice any
such throat that offered itself."
Eodan grinned and said scornfully, "How many miles away would you hear
a Roman, puffing and clanking on tiptoe?"
The warrior laughed. A Cimbrian of common mold, the wagons held
thousands like him. A big man, with heavy bones and thews, his skin was
white where sun and wind and mountain frosts had not burned it red, his
eyes were snapping blue under shaggy brows. He wore his hair shoulder
length, drawn into a tail at the back of the head; his beard was
braided, and his face and arms showed the tattoo marks of tribe, clan,
lodge or mere fancy. He bore an iron breastplate, a helmet roughly
hammered into the shape of a boar's head and a painted wooden shield.
His weapons were a spear and a long single-edged sword.
Eodan himself was taller even than most of the tall Cimbri. His
eyes were green, set far apart over high cheekbones in a broad,
straight-nosed, square-chinned face. His yellow hair was cut like
everyone else's, but like most of the younger men he had taken on the
Southland fashion of shaving his beard once or twice a week. His only
tattoo was on his forehead, the holy triskele marking him as a son of
Boierik, who led the people in wandering, war and sacrifice. The other
old ties, clan or blood brotherhood, had loosened on the long trek;
these wild, youthful horsemen were more fain for battle or gold or
women than for the rites of their grandfathers.
"And besides, Ingwar, there is a truce until tomorrow," Eodan went on.
"I thought everyone knew that. I and a few others rode with my father
to the Roman camp and spoke with their chief. We agreed where and when
to meet for battle. I do not think the Romans are overly eager to feed
the crows. They won't attack us beforehand."
Ingwar's thick features showed a moment's uneasiness in the wavering
firelight. "Is it true what I heard say, that the Teutones and Ambrones
were wiped out last year by this same Roman?"
"It is true," said Eodan. "When my father and his chiefs first went to
talk with Marius, to tell him we wanted land and would in turn become
allies of Rome, my father said he also spoke on behalf of our comrades,
those tribes which had gone to enter Italy through the western passes.
Marius scoffed and said he had already given the Teutones and Ambrones
their lands, which they would now hold forever. At this my father grew
angry and swore they would avenge that insult when they arrived in
Italy. Then Marius said, 'They are already here.' And he had the chief
of the Teutones led forth in chains."
Ingwar shuddered and made a sign against trolldom. "Then we are alone,"
he said.
"So much the more for us, when we sack Rome and take Italy's acres,"
answered Eodan gaily.
"But--"
"Ingwar, Ingwar, you are older than I. I had barely seen six winters
when we left Cimberland; you were already a wedded man. Must I then
tell you of all we have done since? How we went through forests and
rivers, over mountains, along the Danube year after year to Shar Dagh
itself ... and all the tribes there could not halt us--we reaped their
grain and wintered in their houses and rolled on in spring, leaving
their wives heavy with our children! How we smote the Romans at Noreia
twelve years ago, and again eight and four years ago--besides all the
Gauls and Iberians and the Bull knows how many others that stood in our
way--how we pushed one Roman army before us across the Adige, when they
would bar Italy--how this is the host they can hope to raise against
us, and we outnumber it perhaps three men to one!"
The victories rushed off Eodan's tongue, a river in springtime flood.
He thought of one Roman tribune after the next, tied like an ox to a
Cimbrian wagon, or stark on a reddened field among his unbreathing
legionaries. He remembered roaring songs and the whirlwind gallop
of Cimberland's young men, drunk with victory and the eyes of their
dear tall girls. It did not occur to him--then--how the trek had
nevertheless lasted for fifteen years, north and south, east and west,
from Jutland down to the Balkan spine and back to the Belgic plains,
from the orchards of Gaul to the gaunt uplands of Spain. And for all
the burning towns and weeping new-caught women, all the men killed and
all the gold lifted, the Cimbri had not found a home. There had been
too many people, forever too many; you could not plow when the very
earth spewed armed men up into your face.
"Well," said Ingwar. "Well, yes. Yes." He nodded his bushy head. "It's
plain to see whose son you are. His youngest, perhaps, not counting
the baseborn, but still son to Boierik. And that's something. Me, I am
only a crofter, or will be when I get my bit of land, but you'll be a
king or whatever they call it. So remember me, old Ingwar that bounced
you on his knee back home, and let me bring my mares for your fine
stallions to breed, eh?"
"Eh, indeed." Eodan slapped the broad back and went on into the camp.
The wagons were drawn up in many rings, the whole forming a circle
bound together by low breastworks of earth and logs. It seethed with
folk, there among the wheels. Even from his own height, Eodan could not
see far across that brawl of big fair men and free-striding girls.
Here a band of boys whooped and wrestled at a campfire, while an old
wife stirred a kettle of stew, naked towheaded children rolled in the
dust, dogs barked and horses stamped. There a gang of men knelt about
the dice, shouting as the wagers went, betting all they owned down to
their very weapons--for tomorrow they would settle with Marius and own
Rome herself. An aged bard, chilly even in summer, huddled into a worn
bearskin and listened dumbly to the war-song of a beardless lad whose
hands had already been bloodied. A youth and a maiden stole between
wagons, seeking darkness; her mother shook her head after them in some
bitterness, for it was not like the time when she was young--all this
rootless drifting had ended the staid old ways, and no good would
come of it. A thrall from the homeland, hairy and ragged, grabbed
lumberingly for a timid lass stolen out of Gaul, and got a kick and a
curse from the warrior who owned them both. A man whetted an ax against
tomorrow's use; beside him snored three friends, empty wine cups in
their hands. Here, there, here, there, it became one great whirl for
Eodan, and the voices and feet and ringing iron were like the surf he
had not heard in fifteen years.
He pushed his way through them all, grinning at those he knew, taking
a horn of beer offered by one man and a bite of blood sausage from
another, but not staying. Out there, alone in the night, he had
remembered Hwicca, and it came to him that the night was not so long
after all.
His own wagons stood near his father's, which were close to the
god-cars. In two of these lived the hags who tended the holy fire, took
omens and cast spells for luck--ugh, they looked like empty leather
sacks, and it was said they rode broomsticks through the air. But
another held the mightiest Cimbrian treasures, ancient lur horns and a
wooden earth-god and the huge golden oath-ring. Eodan and Hwicca had
laid their hands on that ring last year to be wedded. The Bull rode in
the same wagon, but tonight Boierik had ordered it set in an open cart,
that all might see it and be heartened. It was a heavy image, cast in
bronze, with horns that seemed to threaten the stars.
They had wandered far, the Cimbri, and they had lost much of old habit
and belief and belongingness. They were not even the Cimbri any longer.
That was only the chief tribe of many which had joined their trek.
There were other Jutes, driven from Jutland by the same succession of
wild wet years when no harvest ripened and hail fell like knuckle-bones
on Midsummer Eve. There were Germans gathered in along the way;
Helvetians from the Alps and Basques from the Pyrenees, neighbors to
the sky; even adventurous Celts, throwing in with these newcomers who
so merrily ransacked all nations. They had no gods in common, nor did
they care much for any gods; they had no high ancestors whose barrows
must be sacrificed to; they had not even a single language.
Red Boierik and the Bull held them together. Eodan, with scant
reverence for anything else, shaded his eyes in awe as he passed the
green, horned bulk of it.
Then he saw his own wagon and his best horses tethered beside it. A low
fire was burning, and Flavius was squatting above it, poking with a
stick.
"Well," said Eodan, "are you cold? Or afraid?"
The Roman stood up, slowly and easily as a cat. He wore only a rag of
a tunic, thrown him one day by his master, but he wore it like a toga
in the Senate. Men had advised Eodan not to trust such a thrall--stick
a spear in him, or at least beat the haughtiness out, or one day he'll
put a knife in your back. Eodan had disregarded them. Now and then
he would knock Flavius over with a single open-handed cuff, when the
fellow spoke too sharply, but nothing worse had been needed; and he was
more use than a dozen shambling Northern oafs.
"Neither," he said. "I wanted a little more light, to see the camp
better. This may be my last night in it."
"Hoy!" said Eodan. "Speak no unlucky words, or I'll kick your teeth in."
He made no move against the Roman. War or the chase were one thing;
beating those who could not fight back was another, a distasteful work.
Eodan laid the whip on his thralls less often than most. Lately he had
given Flavius the job, and the Roman had shown Roman skill at it.
"After all, master, I could have meant that tomorrow we will sleep in
Vercellae, and a few nights thereafter in Rome." Flavius smiled, the
odd closed-lipped smile with drooping eyelids that made Cimbrian men
somehow raw along the nerves but seemed to draw Cimbrian women. In
his mouth the rough, burring Northern language became something else,
almost a song.
He was about ten years older than Eodan, not as tall or as broad of
shoulder, but more supple. His skin was nearly as fair, though his hair
curled black; his face was narrow, smooth, with wide red lips, but his
jaw jutted, and his nose was curving chiseled beauty; his rust-colored
eyes had lashes a woman might envy. Four years as a Cimbrian slave had
put certain skills in his hands, but did not seem to have dulled his
gaze or numbed his tongue.
Eodan gave him a hard stare. "If I were you, not tied to the wheel
tonight and my fellows close by, I'd slip from here. You'd have a
better chance of escaping now than you ever had before."
"Not a good enough chance," said Flavius. "Tomorrow you will win and
I would be scourged or killed if caught. Or the Romans will win and I
shall be released. I can wait. My folk are older than yours--you are a
nation of children, but we are schooled in waiting."
"Which makes you less trouble to me!" laughed the Cimbrian. "You can be
my overseer, when I build my garth. I'll even get you a Roman wife."
"I told you I have one. Such as she is." Flavius grimaced delicately.
Eodan bristled. It meant nothing for Flavius to bed with thrall
women--any man would do that if no better were to be had. The ugly,
hardly understandable gossip about boys could be overlooked. But a
man's wife was his _wife_, sworn to him in the sight of proud folk.
Even if he did not get on with her, he was less than a man for speaking
her name badly before others.