The oaks within this circle were even more ancient and mammoth, their trunks as thick as a village hut and their roots writhing across the ground like a nest of snakes. In crooks and hollows were wooden and stone and clay images, crude and grotesque.
"Who are they?" Marcus murmured to Longinus.
"Celtic gods. There's Badb the crow and Cernunnos of the horns." They rode slowly on, the man pointing. "Blood-drenched Esus. Thunderous Taranis. Flowing-maned Epona. That one is the great Queen Morrigan, of war and horse and fertility. These are all gods from the beginning of time."
There were hanging garlands of fresh and dried fruit, necklaces of bone, and concoctions of shell and wood and tin that tinkled in the slight breeze. A rack of antlers was tied to one limb, the horns of a bull to another. Shafts of sunlight were beginning to shine through the boughs now, burning the mist, and beyond the huge trees was a grass meadow studded with standing stones. The monoliths shone with morning dew.
Marcus's skin prickled. He felt he was being watched by something white, and so he urged his horse forward to look more closely. The object he had sensed was nestled in the dead and hollow heart of an ancient tree, gleaming as if rubbed and staring at him with twin pools of permanent night. He swallowed. A human skull.
"Who dares violate the sacred grove of Dagda?" a high voice now challenged in Latin.
The praefectus yanked to swing his horse's head around and walked it to the clearing. A frail figure was waiting amid the standing stones, thin and longhaired and leaning on a dark wooden staff topped with a carving of a raven. The druid was unarmed and wearing a white robe, as slight and insubstantial as a dried leaf, and showing no fear at the enveloping hedge of Roman cavalry, huge and hulking in their mail and helmets, swords gleaming at rest on the front two horns of their saddles. Marcus slowly recognized that the challenger was actually a woman, a priestess, who looked as old as the trees she tended. "Who commits murder in the sacred wood?" she called thinly.
Her head was oddly tilted as she spoke, as if blind.
"Not murder, but war," Marcus replied, raising his voice so his men could hear. "I am Lucius Marcus Flavius of the Petriana cavalry, hunting for bandits who ambushed my bride. We've word that their orders came from this grove."
"We know nothing of this ambush, Roman."
"We've word that it's the work of the druids."
"That word is false. Go back where you belong."
"This is where I belong, witch!" Even as he said it, he didn't believe it. The mist seemed to swallow his words.
She pointed south. "You know better than I that Rome ends at your wall. It was your soldiers who drew that line across the earth, not us."
"And your followers who violated that line, according to spies among your own people." Where were the rest of the Celts? He could sense them, waiting and unseen, but even as he twisted to see, he could find no one. "Give up the trespassers, and we'll leave."
"You know there's no trespassers but you," she insisted. "Can't you feel it?" She paused to let them hear the silence, oppressive and ominous. His men shifted nervously. Those who were Christians crossed themselves. "In any event a man's life is not mine to give, nor yours to take. The people of the oak have souls as free as wolves and elusive as the wind. They belong to the trees, rocks, and water of this island."
Marcus was becoming impatient. Yes, they belonged to the land, and that was precisely the problem; under proper civilization, land belonged to people. "If you answer to a tree, then that tree will come down," he proclaimed. "If you commit crimes for a rock, then the rock must be shattered. If you sacrifice to water, then that water must be drained." He turned to a decurion and pointed to the oak with the skull. "Chop that one down unless she gives us what we came for. Burn it, and the trinkets that hang on it."
The soldier nodded and jumped off his horse, beckoning several men to follow. They untied axes that had been secured to their saddles and advanced to the tree.
"You're marking your own doom, Roman!" He ignored her. "Smash the skull first. I don't like it looking at me."
One of the Roman troopers swung. There was a sharp crack as bone shattered into a spray of splinters. The skull's lower jaw dropped as if in surprise.
"That's what I think of your gods, witch! They've no power against Rome!"
She raised her staff.
There was a shriek, and Marcus realized it had come from one of his men. He turned and saw that the soldier had an arrow jutting from his back shoulder, punched through his mail. Blood was welling from its shaft. Then there was a buzz in the air, like fat sizzling on a barracks skillet, and a rock banged against the head of a second man, taking his helmet off. His horse neighed as its rider lurched sideways, his face broken and his nose spraying blood.
"Barbarians!" his men cried. "Ambush!"
The Celts came from ahead and behind, darting through the standing stones and surging over the encircling embankment. Unable to withstand a Roman charge, they ran crouched to get at the cavalry from underneath. They fired arrows and slung stones and flung spears, without armor and without shields: half naked, painted, and howling. Where had they come from? They were wild as animals and desperate as gladiators, swinging swords and so heedless of their own danger that for a moment it seemed the trapping Romans had become trapped.
Yet even as Marcus and the Roman horse wheeled and sidestepped awkwardly against them, swords high and hooves thrashing, another lituus sounded.
This was the battle he'd craved. And Clodius and Falco were coming.
XIX
There was a wild barbarian rush, and then Marcus's men and their attackers swirled together in a clash of spear and sword, locked in fierce struggle. Despite their surprise, the Romans had the advantage of height, horses, and armor. They kicked to override the Celts and chopped down at them. Agile barbarians in turn ducked under the mounts and stabbed upward, or danced around tree trunks, using them as shields. As wounded horses went down, their stunned riders were hauled off their saddles and hacked without mercy. Hooves in turn kicked and trampled the barbarians.
A rock buzzed by Marcus's ear, exciting him and hitting nothing, and then he leaned and swung, the edge of his sword striking an attacker between shoulder and neck and the shock of the strike felt up to Marcus's elbow. The Celt grunted and fell, Homer dancing across him, and Marcus's spatha was finally bloody. The praefectus looked wildly around for another target, yanking his reins to haul the mount around. An arrow thumped and quivered in a tree just two feet from his head. His heart hammered.
A Celt cried out "Marroo!" — "Kill!"
It was another druid, Marcus saw, this one a younger and taller male, standing on the dike and directing barbarian fire at the praefectus, or dubgalclass="underline" invader. Marcus ducked as another arrow whizzed by.
"Get their priest!" the Roman roared in reply. Here was the source of attack, he guessed, a wizard of war. Destroy their leadership, and the barbarians would submit. The druids thought they could win in their grove of oak, but their magic would be their doom. At Marcus's direction troopers began to cut their way toward the druid. Could they capture and interrogate him?
"Kalin!" As the Romans closed, someone pulled from behind, and the priest abruptly vanished, even as more Celts emerged from the trees. One rammed a spear into the breast of a horse, toppling it backward. Another had his unprotected skull cleaved by a spatha, the bearded face exploding in a spray of blood.