Jack Whyte: The Skystone

Caius smiled back at him, and I felt relief flooding over me like cooling water.

"We can be friends, I think, Sir King, " Caius said through a smile.

"We will be friends, I know, Sir Briton!" He placed an arm on each of our shoulders and led us out from among the stones of Stonehenge into the brightness of the morning sun.

I allowed our men to break ranks and stand down as soon as we emerged from the temple. Ullic's men had already lighted fires and were preparing food. I saw casks being unloaded from the wagons and heard voices raised in song. A party of Druids had joined the gathering and their white robes gleamed in the strong sunlight.

The remainder of the day was spent in feasting. There were footraces and contests of all kinds, including a demonstration by our men of Roman drill, swordplay and spear-throwing. The Celts were throwers, too, as well as archers, and the championship went to one of them, a skinny stretch of a man who threw a Roman pilum fifteen paces further than his nearest rival.

As the sky began to darken, a great fire was built up of logs the Celts had brought with them on a cart, for there were no trees on the empty plain. One of the Celts produced a stringed instrument much like a Roman lyre and began to play, and a Druid priest stepped forward and sang to the sound of the strings. His voice was magical — clear, vibrant and possessed of enormous strength. We were enthralled when, at one point in the song, everyone else joined in and the music soared to a great crescendo, dying off suddenly to leave the Druid's voice shining alone. They sang in their own tongue and none of us could understand a word, but we had never heard such beauty coming from human throats. Again the Druid reached that certain point, and again everyone joined in.

"What are they singing?" I asked Ullic.

"A song about our land — our mountains and our lakes. "

"It's magnificent. I must see your mountains some day. "

"You will."

"That Druid sings too well to be a priest. "

He looked at me and laughed outright. "Too well to be a priest?" He guffawed. "That's why he is a priest, man! It's their art! Druids are trained from boyhood to protect the history of our people in their songs. They are our history, Varrus... the Druids are our history! They are our pride, our bards, our singing joy in life, man. That's why they are Druids. That's why they ARE!"

I was somewhat taken aback by the force of his contention. "You mean they know your legends? All of them?"

"Nay, man! Not legends. History!" The singsong lilt of his liquid Celtic language had infiltrated his Latin heavily, making our Roman language musical — no simple feat. "Legends are what you people have. A legend is a story told by strangers, changing form as it is passed from mouth to mouth down through the years until the people that it happened to would never recognize it. Look here, " he said, "let me try to explain to you. Each time something great, something momentous, even something funny happens that is worth recalling, one of our Druids sings it as a song. And then that song is learned, word upon word, perfectly, and passed on. It is intact, you see. It does not change — the details never vary. That is the sacred trust of the Druids. They are the bearers of our history-. "

"But... All of it? How many songs are there?"

He shrugged. "Who knows? Thousands, I should think. Thousands and thousands, maybe. "

"How then can men remember all of them? A man's mind cannot hold so much!"

"Rubbish, Varrus! Who knows what a man's mind can hold? Have you ever met a man whose mind was full up?"

"No, I don't think I have. " I smiled at the thought. "And yet, thousands of songs, you say?"

"Aye. and hundreds of Druids. They don't all sing the same songs, you know. There are some great songs every Druid knows, but each has his own that he is taught in boyhood, perhaps even some he made up himself, that he will teach to others, passing them on. It is their art, you see." I shook my head in wonder and listened once again to the song; the voices rose to one more crashing climax and then were still. It had become quite dark, and another Druid now stepped into the firelight, bearing his own instrument. A silence fell, and he began to sing. There was a ghostly, fragile beauty to the song he sang, and as it went on, verse after exquisite verse, I found myself lost in the texture of the melody. He varied the strength and power of his voice widely, now soft and plaintive, now alive and strong, now angry, suiting his facial expressions to the mood. And then I noticed the faces of these men who sat and listened, enraptured by his song, and was astounded to see many weeping shamelessly. As his voice finally died away, the silence that ensued seemed unnatural; no one spoke, moved or applauded.

Ullic rose to his feet and stepped into the firelight. He looked around him at his men and mine and began to speak. As he did so, Cymric, our official interpreter, seated himself between Caius and me and translated for us; I saw many more of Ullic's warriors doing the same for our men. He spoke to them as an equal, but with great authority. He told them the details of our meeting at Stonehenge and went on to say that, from this day forth, we were no longer to be known as Romans. We were Britons, born in this land like them, proud of this land and ready to defend it against their foes and ours. He told them that if and when the legions were withdrawn, there might be numbers of them left behind, and that, if these should turn to banditry, we were prepared to fight them, too, Romans though they might nominally be.

We had talked long that day, he, Britannicus and I, he said. The alliance that we formed between us now was to be no mere alliance of convenience. We were to seek true brotherhood, and if our people chose to intermarry, such marriages would be welcome. This was news to me, and to Caius, I could see, but I found myself admiring the vision of this man Ullic. He was no fool. He told his men that we would send our soldiers to their mountains, to train their people in the Roman ways of fighting, and that they in turn would teach us their Celtic ways. And he ended by asking them to welcome us as brothers and neighbours to this new land of Britain, soon to be free of foreign Roman rule.

As soon as he had finished, one of his men leaped to his feet and burst into a song that was taken up by everyone before the second line. It was obviously a song of welcome and of celebration, and its stirring tune swept us along. When it ended, they cheered us, and just as I was beginning to feel that we should reciprocate in some way, Caius stood up and walked to the fire. I wondered what was in his mind and what he would say, but I would never have believed, even after his outburst of the morning, that he would say or do what he did. He stopped in front of the fire and looked at the faces watching him expectantly.

"Thank you!" he said. "Today, I stopped being Roman. " And then, in front of them all, he stripped off his beautiful toga and threw it on the fire. There was an astounded silence, and then a roar of approval, in the middle of which Ullic stepped up and draped his royal cloak around Caius's shoulders. Caius thanked him, smiling, and held up his arms for silence. When it came, he cried, "Any of my soldiers attempting to do what I have just done will be court martialled immediately. " There were cheers and laughter and whistles from our men. He waited for silence again.

"Seriously, my friends. It is a foolish man who does not learn from history. Roman weapons and armour are the best ever devised for waging war. We will keep them. Perhaps we will change the colours. I like this red.

" He indicated the cloak he was now wearing. There were more cheers and shouting, and a new cask of ale was hauled into the firelight. Before it could be opened, however, Ullic spoke again, lifting his voice high.