The First Heroes Read online

  I pushed them down, blinked the stinging from my eyes, and squared my shoulders. Later I could mourn, we could all mourn. Right this now, with work to do, it was unworthy of a lord.

  I went from prow to stern, giving men orders and words to hearten them, my voice sounding eerily calm in my ears. We had lost some paddles, broken underfoot or thrown overboard in the fight, but a few spares lay stowed, and presently enough were swinging to carry us at a good downstream speed. We dared not stop yet, but we laid out our five dead and bound the wounds of our half dozen most sorely hurt as best we were able while afloat. I set those few who were more or less hale and otherwise unengaged to cleaning off the blood and filth. Even in midstream, a cloud of flies was buzzing nastily about us. We never got all the stains out of the timbers.

  There were three Boian corpses. One looked as though somebody had slit his throat after a blow stunned him, but—I didn’t inquire—maybe not, for the only weapon of theirs we found was a dagger sheathed at this man’s waist. Dying, each seemed to have cast his sword into the river, or else a comrade did it for him. I sent those bodies after their glaives. Ravens flew from the woods and wheeled above our wake with guttural cries.

  The sun was westering through air gone hot and still when at last Gairwarth and I could draw a little aside and talk. “Are they mad yonder?” I asked. “Would they not at least hear what we had to say?”

  “They are what they are,” he answered. Though his tone was as dull as mine in our weariness, the trader wits were again busy. “Plain to see, now, the signs and rumors of unrest amongst them bore truth. I’d guess they’re at war with each other, or, anyhow, a feud’s begun and been spreading, as feuds do. Well, when a Celt is in battle rage, he’s dangerous to everybody. That’s how they’re raised to be. And the rage can smolder just under the skin, always ready to burst into flame. I’d also guess the fellows we met lost a fight not long ago, got driven off the field, are still full of fury and pain about that. Here we came, somebody to strike at—our powers unknown to them, save that craft like ours had never been seen in these parts before, so we must be strong enough that honor could be won by beating us. And loot; but honor, what they call honor, meant much more. If the chief had listened to us and invited us to land, we’d have become his guests, our persons sacred while we stayed. So he didn’t.”

  I shook my head. “You may say it’s their way of thinking. I say it’s madness. And yet—did they throw away the swords to keep us from having them? That sounds like forethought.”

  “No, I’d guess, instead, they didn’t want the weapons, which they believe have souls, to become captive, any more than they’d want a brother taken for a slave.” Gairwarth sighed. “Those few wouldn’t make a markable difference to us, would they? I see naught for you now but to return home. What you’ve gained is the knowledge that there’ll be no dealing with them for a long time to come.”

  “Yes.” I tried to tell myself that that was something to show for our losses and deaths. Suddenly I stiffened. “We have a prisoner!” With all else there was to do, I had quite forgotten.

  Gairwarth nodded. “I noticed. And his sword, for whatever it may be worth.” He grinned. “If the poor dog is still alive. That’s a hefty weight squatting on him.”

  I hastened forward. Yes, Ernu held the Boian fast. His hands remained at the throat, though he had eased their grip once the warrior understood that otherwise there would be no breathing. He looked over his shoulder as I neared, Gairwarth beside me. “Can I let go now, lord?” he asked. “My knees are sore, my legs are nigh gone asleep, and we’re both wet from when I had to piss.”

  A laugh like a crow’s broke from me. I drew my blade; Gairwarth lowered the spear he had taken again as I started off. Ernu clambered to his feet, grabbed the iron sword, and lurched aside. Yes, flashed through me, Gairwarth was right, he does have a yokelish canniness.

  The Boian croaked and sat up. We peered. He was somewhat shorter than most of those we had fought, a little bandy-legged, but his upper body and arms were heavily thewed. Blanket, sandals, and a scabbard hung slantwise across his back were his only garb. Ruddy hair was braided behind a round head. A mustache of the same hue bristled on a long upper lip below a snub nose. Blue eyes glared. His neck was badly bruised, and at first he could barely utter a few hoarse words.

  “He’d attack us and die like a warrior if he had strength,” Gairwarth explained. “Instead, he asks us to kill him. Nothing less than death—his, since he can’t give us ours—will make good the indignity he’s suffered.”

  Ernu half raised the iron sword. “Want me to do it, lord?” he rumbled with a leer. “I’d like to try this thing.”

  “No,” I decided. “Better we keep him and question him. Our undertaking was—is for the sake of learning about his folk.”

  “Safer to keep a wolf or a wild boar,” Gairwarth warned.

  “I know—now.” My thoughts had sharpened themselves afresh. They were as bleak as our winters have become. “Tell him this. We’ll hobble his wrists and ankles with thongs. We’ll tie a rope around his waist and secure the other end about a thwart, so if he jumps overboard we can at once haul him back. If he nonetheless misbehaves, we won’t kill him, we’ll blind and geld him.”

  Ernu slapped his thigh. “Haa, good!” he guffawed.

  Gairwarth was more troubled. “That does not seem much like you, Havakh.”

  I stared aft. We had spread bedrolls over our dead. I had myself set Herut’s head straight, closed the eyes, washed the body. Yet there he lay, and others with him, and already it was clear that one of the gravely wounded would soon die. As for our second boat, I could merely hope that Athalberh and the rest had fallen. Yet it was not hatred that replied, it was will. “I swore to do what I can.” Now, though, entering the hall of my fathers, I think it was also a foreshadowing of the cruel years ahead.

  Gairwarth grimaced, then shrugged. “Well, I understand. But I’ll have to put it to him less bluntly, not all at once. What may I offer him?”

  “Oh, if nothing else, a livelihood among us after we’re home, if he’s behaved himself,” I answered indifferently. “Maybe someday his freedom, if he somehow earns it. Take charge of him. See to his needs. And question him. Belike I’ll think of questions of my own later, but do you begin.” I paused. “I suppose you can deem how trustworthy he is.”

  “It’ll take time and patience to draw him out,” said Gairwarth, “and maybe a few small kindnesses. However, I see no reason why he should lie, and indeed that’s unbefitting a Celtic warrior.”

  “I’ll tell off men to stand by as guards.” I turned to go. Bone-tired I might be, but so were my crew, and I had become their skipper. I stopped. “Give me that sword, Ernu.”

  The bog dweller handed it over. “A good thing to have, hey, lord?” A slight whine slipped into his growl. “I didn’t do so bad by you, did I?”

  “No,” I acknowledged. “You saved my life, and afterward you were useful. You shall have the reward I promised when we return home. And more,” honor made me add.

  “My kinsmen, lord? They didn’t start that squabble, nor me. It was Kleggu and his breed, lord. And they’re off to hell now.”

  I frowned at the unseemly gloating. He swallowed it. “Yes,” I felt I must give him. “We’ll pay your kinsmen too.” I cut off his thanks—can a bear fawn?—and sent him back to work. Thereafter I set about discovering duties of my own.

  We camped briefly that night, with sentries posted, and surely everyone’s sleep was uneasy and dream-haunted. At dawn we swallowed some food and paddled onward. Again things blur together for me. It is enough that we went onward.

  And that when we came to the clearing where folk had lived, we drew ashore, gathered brushwood, cut logs, and burned our dead: for this was right, rather than they bloat and stink, waiting to be set free. We did it as properly as we were able, bearing in mind that we were few and must keep watchmen out and be ready to escape pursuit. Those who could danced around and around the bl
aze while I, for lack of anyone and anything better, cast amber and sweet herbs into it and bade the souls a joyous faring home to the sun. We stayed overnight, letting the ashes cool, then in the morning gathered what pieces of bone we could find and buried them.

  And onward.

  Meanwhile Gairwarth dealt with our prisoner. He continued after we reached Suwebburh, where we rested a while—and burned and buried two more men—with increasing success. He learned that there was no danger of an invasion anytime soon. The raids in the south had been simply that, spillover from widespread violence, gangs with their fierceness kindled who had nowhere else to take the fire until the next real war. A fresh wave of wandering was going through the Celts. Tribes eastward, fast-breeding, hungry for new land, pushed west. This stirred no few of those who had settled ahead of them and were, after all, themselves becoming many, to move on. It was not peaceful. Wars went like backflows in an incoming, wind-driven tide. But the tide itself was sweeping ever higher, it still is, and I know not when or where it will finally ebb.

  Our captive hight Conomar, as nearly as I can voice the name. I never troubled to remember the names of his father or his . . . clan? In everyday life he was only a grazier, but he boasted that his brother was a smith and that he had sometimes helped that highly respected, slightly feared man.

  When I studied his sword, I myself could well-nigh believe there are unhuman powers in iron that touch those who work it. Long, lean—gaunt, I almost thought—and darkly shining, the weapon weighed less for its size than mine, as if the more ready to leap. Where the fight had left mine battered and blunted, in need of hammer and file, this thing seemed well-nigh untouched, the keenness barely off the edge at a few places where it had hit something hard. The guard did not curve down, it was straight; the pommel was not much rounded or decorated; the grip was riveted oakwood, which I could see had often been clutched in a sweaty hand.

  I tested it a number of times, as did several other of our well-born, hewing at a block or, after duly begging pardon, a tree. But we gained no skill. That would have taken years and been of scant use when we had only the one and nothing of the mysterious art that had gone into the making.

  Most of what new knowledge we got was from Conomar, after we continued our journey. Having found that his home would be safe, Gairwarth was willing, for pay, to keep on with us as far as the river mouth. He earned that pay. Sullen, snarling, at first the Celt refused food. Among his people, if a man has no other way of getting justice or revenge, he can lay terrible shame on his enemy by starving himself to death. Gairwarth patiently—and, I am sure, cunningly—brought him to see that this means was always open to him but before thus giving up all hope of release it would be better, yes, manlier to bide his time, watchful for any opening. Thereafter, bit by bit, he coaxed more of an account forth. He told me he did it oftenest by provoking boasts and threats.

  “Not that Conomar is witless or unwitting,” he said. “I begin to think that behind that fiery, hasty heart is a mind with depths I cannot sound. However, the Celts are a talkative as well as proud race, two strings from which notes may be plucked.” He shook his head. “I’m glad, though, that he’s in bonds.”

  They whom we had thought of as merely wild are in reality a people of much accomplishment. Their priests are living storehouses of lore. They honor their poets almost as highly, and the lowliest herdsman has a share in that heritage, however small. Some of the wonderfully made things that had reached us in the North were from their own craftsmen; this had been forgotten or misunderstood over the long trade routes. When I looked closely, I saw that Conomar’s blanket was finely enough woven to be worthy of a king among us.

  Quarrelsome, warlike, they nonetheless have a good awareness of the world around them. News travels swiftly from end to end of their lands. It spreads to everyone at the councils and fairs they hold throughout the year. Thus Conomar could name tribes far to the east of his Boii, and others well to the west. Some had settled in great mountains, from which they were spilling south into a land of cities. Some were crossing a river mightier than the Ailavo. All this movement sent tides clashing to and fro among the Celts themselves. Gairwarth’s guess had been right, the Boii were at odds with their neighbors on either side, in no mood to make terms with anybody.

  Today I am not quite sure whether I found out most of what I am recalling then or later, as shards of knowledge—and often, I suppose, mistakenness—have come to us here at home. Nor do I care. What stands before me is our last encampment with Gairwarth. On the morrow we would reach the estuary settlement and leave him to take passage back with whatever fellow traders touched there. He had become our friend. We broke out the last ale aboard to drink with him. Night fell while we did.

  It is as if we sit again around the fire, mingled without regard to birth, for we had become so few and shared so much grief. Horns, filled out of the clay jugs, pass from hand to grimy, calloused hand. Light flickers red across us, then loses itself in the huge dark or the resin-sweet smoke. Wood crackles, spitting sparks. I remember nothing we said, only that it was slow and comradely, save for this: Gairwarth leaned toward me and asked, “What will you do with him?”

  The prisoner sat apart, still hobbled, now leashed to a tree. At Gairwarth’s rede we gave him a share of the drink. He surprised us by muttering a sort of thanks. He had already begun to pick up our tongue. “Keep him,” I answered. “What else?”

  Gairwarth lowered his voice. “Do you think kindlier of him than before?”

  “Well, not very, but we can find work for him, and anyhow, I wouldn’t butcher a helpless man.”

  “He isn’t. Havakh, do not, not take him into your household, whether as slave or freedman. He’s grown more careful, but—I know his breed, and I’ve gained some feeling of him as a man—he lives for revenge. Someday, somehow, after as many years as need be, he’ll take it, on you or on someone dear to you.”

  I shivered slightly, though the night was forest-warm. “Do you truly think so? Then how should I handle him? Let him go? Wouldn’t that be to loose a wolf on the dwellers along his way?”

  While we spoke softly, to make sure Conomar wouldn’t guess what we said, others nearby heard. Ernu broke in. “Ah-um! Lord, why not give him to me? I’ll take good heed of him, I will.”

  We stared at him. He grinned. “Away off in the bogland, how could he hurt you or yours, lord? We’ve use for every pair of hands, we poor folk. If he took flight, he’d soon be lost, but we’d track him down, and if he’d killed, we’d make him sorry. Not that I’m afraid he would. Better a life amongst us than penned up at the great hall, no? Why, he might earn himself a woman.”

  I glanced toward Gairwarth, who spread his hands to show that he couldn’t judge.

  “You promised me reward, over and above those bronze tools and cloth, after I saved your life, lord,” wheedled Ernu. “This’d be a lordly gift, and rid your dear ones of a danger too, I make bold to say.”

  Yes, shrewd, I knew. He listened closely indeed. My gaze sought to the captive. Dooming him to such wretchedness—and yet not to full unfreedom—a vengeance of my own, of which I need not be ashamed? “I will think about it,” I said.

  But when at length I agreed, I had so much else on my mind that it was almost carelessly.

  We did not linger after we left Gairwarth off, for there was a tide we could catch and a hunger in our hearts. The sea voyage was hard only because we were undermanned. When at last we drew up on our own strand and saw our own folk eagerly gathering to meet us, it was such an utterly lovely late-summer day that for that short span I, at least, forgot this was a sorrowful return.

  Sunlight struck dazzlement from water and tall white clouds. Surely nowhere else in the world were grass and leaves as green. Wavelets clucked, fowl mewed and cried, and on the holy hilltop the trumpeters sang welcome. In the gentle weather, several well-born maidens had put on a garb seldom worn anymore, close-fitting knit bodice, bronze beltplate disc, and string skirt ending well above
the knees. Great sheafs of fair hair tumbled over their shoulders, down past their breasts. Suddenly, shakingly, I kenned one among them, daughter of a goodly house, Daemagh her name.

  I have always been glad that my lady can talk with anyone, man or woman, high or low, readily and wisely. Never has this served us so well as today. Lost in memories, I am barely half aware of the feast and the company, barely able to give some kind of reply when somebody speaks to me. Her flowing words and sun-bright smiles draw their heed. Thus I dare hope that they little mark my withdrawnness.

  She does. I see her glance flit across me whenever it can without betraying the trouble in her. She wonders what has gone wrong. I do myself. Why should a small surprise, the appearance of Ernu and Conomar after all these years, during which I scarcely ever gave them a thought, why should it cast my soul back through time? Does something in me—a ghost out of the Otherworld?—sense that this meeting may be fateful, and seek to learn how it has come about? I sit cold and alone, hosting the sun-feast.

  Yet it clatters on, horns and trenchers, chatter and laughter, gossip and tales, while youths and maidens look at each other and forward to tonight, and meanwhile sunlight streams in the open doors to glow on gold and amber and brightly dyed garb. And slowly the spell on me fades, like dawntide fog giving way to clear morning. Little by little I come back to myself and the now. It is as if I must call up each happening of long ago, but once I have done so, it lets go its hold on me.

  Or could it simply be that when I was reminded, that wakened a powerful wish to recall? Old men dwell much on the past, and I am no longer young. Surely a high holy day is a time for remembering friends who are gone: Herut, Athalberh, my elder brother who had so briefly held this seat that was our father’s—

  The guests rise, the trestle tables are cleared away, a hush falls. I go to the hearthstones and bless the dying fire. Two of my daughters bring a tub of ashes from former years. With beechwood scoops they gather today’s and the embers and bear them off. At sunset I will make our needfire, and with a torch from it light the balefire, as balefires will be lighted everywhere over the land. The great and solemn moment sets me wholly free of my ghosts.