Poul Anderson - Star of the Sea

“Now I, in your name, have given the Anses a man, no mere thrall but a chieftain. Let this news go abroad, and see how hope comes to fresh birth among the warriors!”

Edh’s look struck at him like a sword. “Ha, do you think your one little slaying will reck aught to them? Know, while you were gone, another messenger from Burhmund found me. His men killed everyone and destroyed everything at Castra Vetera. They glutted their gods.”

The spear jerked in Heidhin’s grip before he locked his face shut. A time went by. At last he said slowly, “How could I foresee that? It is well.”

“It is not. Burhmund was enraged. He knows it is bound to stiffen Roman will. And now you, you have robbed me of a captive who might have been a go-between for us.”

Heidhin clenched his jaws. “I could not have known,” he muttered. “And what use would one man be, anyhow?”

“You have robbed me of yourself, too, it seems,” Edh went on bleakly. “I had thought you would go to Colonia for me.”

Surprised, he twisted his neck around to stare at her. The high cheekbones, long straight nose, full mouth stayed forward-aimed, away from him. “Colonia?”

“That was in Burhmund’s message too. From Castra Vetera he is going on to Colonia Agrippinensis. He thinks they may yield. But once they hear of the slaughter—and they will ere he reaches them—why should they? Why not fight on, in hopes of relief, when they have nothing to lose? Burhmund wants me to lay my curse, the withering wrath of Nerha, on whoever breaks the terms of surrender.”

His wonted shrewdness returned to Heidhin and calmed him. “Hm, so.” His free hand stroked his beard. “Yes, that may well sway them in Colonia. They must know of you. The Ubii are Germans, for all they call themselves Roman. If your avouching was spoken aloud to Burhmund’s host, near the wall where the defenders could see and hear—”

“Who shall utter it, now?”

“Yourself?”

“Hardly.”

He nodded. “No, that’s right. Best you hold aloof. Few outside the Bructeri have seen you. There is more awesomeness in a tale than in flesh and blood.”

Her laugh was wolfish. “Flesh and blood which must eat, drink, sleep, rid itself of wastes, maybe catch cold, surely grow weary.” The tone dropped. She lowered her head. “Indeed I am weary,” she whispered. “Liefest would I be alone.”

“That may well be wise,” Heidhin said. “Yes. Withdraw for a while into your tower. Make known that you are thinking, brewing witchcraft, calling the goddess to you. I will bear your word into the world.”

She straightened. “So I thought,” she snapped. “But after what you did, how can I trust you?”

“You can. I’ll swear to it”—Heidhin’s voice stumbled a bit—“if our years together are not enough.” At once he donned pride. “You understand you have no better spokesman. I am more than the first among your followers, I am a leader in my own right. Men heed me.”

She was long silent. They walked by a paddock where a bull stood, Tiw’s beast, his horns mighty beneath the sun. At last she asked: “You will give forth my words unwarped, and work in good faith to have their meaning carried out?”

He shaped his answer with skill. “It hurts that you should mistrust me, Edh.”

Then she looked at him. Her eyes thawed. “All these years-dear old friend—”

They stopped where they were, on a muddy track through the swelling grass. “I would have been more than friend to you, had you let me,” he said.

“You knew I never could. And you honored it. How can I do other than forgive you? Yes, go to Colonia for me.”

Sternness came upon him. “I will, and wherever else you may send me, serving you as best I can, if only you do not tell me to break the vow I made on the shore of the Eyn.”

“That—” Color flowed and ebbed in her face. “It was long ago.”

“To me it is as if I swore it yesterday. No peace with the Romans. War while I live, and after I am dead I will harry them on their way down hell-road.”

“Niaerdh could release you from it.”

“I could never release myself.” Like a heavily striking hammer, Heidhin bade her: “Either send me from you this day, for always, or swear that you will never ask me to make peace with Rome.”

She shook her head. “I cannot do that. If they offer us, our kinfolk, all of us, our freedom—”

He turned that over in his mind before he said unwillingly, “Well, if they do, take it of them. I daresay you would have to.”

“Niaerdh herself would want it. She is no bloodthirsty Ans.”

“Hm, aforetime you said otherwise.” Heidhin grinned. “I do not await the Romans will gladly let the western tribes and their scot to them go. But should they, then I will take me off, with whatever men will follow me, and raid them in their lands till I fall under their blades.”

“May that never be!” she cried.

He laid his hands on her shoulders. “Swear to me—bring Niaerdh to witness—that you will call for war without end until the Romans leave these lands or . . . or, at the least, I am dead. If you do this, then I can work for anything else you wish, yes, even for the sparing of what Romans we catch alive.”

“If you will have it thus.” Edh sighed. She stepped back from him. Command rang: “Come, then, let us seek the halidom, mingle our blood on the earth and our words in the air, to fasten this bond. I want you riding to Burhmund tomorrow. Time is on our heels.”

Once the city had been Oppidum Ubiorum, or so the Romans called it. Otherwise Germans did not build towns; but the Ubii, on the left bank of the Rhine, were under heavy Gallic influence. After Caesar’s conquest, they soon came into the Empire and, unlike most of their kinsmen, were content with this, the trade, the learning, the openings to the world outside. In the reign of Claudius the town was made a Roman colony and named for his wife. Eagerly Latinizing themselves, the Ubii changed their own name to the Agrippinenses. The city waxed. It would be Köln—Cologne, to French and English speakers—but that was far in the future.

On this day the ground below its massive Roman-built walls seethed. Smoke rose from a hundred campfires, barbarian standards reared above leather tents, pelts and blankets lay spread about where those slept who had brought no shelter along. Horses neighed and stamped. Cattle lowed, sheep bleated in the wattled pens that held them until they were butchered for the army. Men milled to and fro, wild warriors from beyond the river, Gallic rabble from this side. Quieter were the armed yeomen of Batavia and its near neighbors; disciplined were Civilis’s and Classicus’s veterans. Apart huddled the dispirited legionaries who had been marched here from Novesium. Along the way they had endured such taunts that at last a cavalry troop of theirs said to hell with it, repudiated the pledge of allegiance given the Empire of Gaul, and struck south to rejoin Rome.

A small set of tents stood by itself near the stream. No rebel ventured within yards of it unless he had cause, and then he approached most quietly. Bructerian men-at-arms kept watch at the corners, but only as an honor guard. What warded it was a sheaf of grain to which was tied several apples, atop an erected pole—from last year, dried and faded, yet emblems of Nerha.

“Whence came you?” asked Everard.

Heidhin peered at him. The answer hissed. “If you trekked hither out of the east as you say, you know. The Angrivarri remember Wael-Edh; the Langobardi do, the Lemovii, and more. Did none among them ever say aught of her to you?”

“She passed through years ago—”

“I know they remember, for we hear from them through traders, landloupers, and the fighters lately come to Burhmund.” A cloud shadow swept over the men where they sat, on a rude bench before Heidhin’s pavilion. Darkening his visage, it seemed to whet the piercing stare. Wind bore a puff of smoke, a clang of iron. “Who are you truly, Everard, and what would you here in our midst?”