Leaping Wolf, page 5
part #2 of Caledon Saga Series
Gwydion was still happily grappling with Pryder, trying to topple him.
‘I’ve not felt as many sausages in my life as you have Tar!’
Gawan watched them bicker and smiled with just his eyes. He rarely engaged in banter like this but he always enjoyed listening to it. Hewin and Pryder had been fighting beside them for most of seven winters, and Gwydion and Tarwyn had known each other for twice as long. After all the blood and death they’d seen, it was nice to hear them laugh.
Hewin, his stubby fingers wrapped around another sausage, grinned at the group, his voice low.
‘Between us, I’d not say no to this new chieftain getting a feel of mine.’
Gwydion smirked.
‘Well I hope you and Karadoc are very happy together!’
Hewin looked ready to throw the meat then remembered his stomach and settled for shaking a hollow fist at his friend.
‘Their chieftain you plough-end.’
Tarwyn raised an eyebrow.
‘The Wildcat?’
Hewin took a bite and spoke as he chewed.
‘Are you saying you wouldn’t?’
Tarwyn just shrugged but Gwydion grinned.
‘Maybe; assuming I survived to tell of it! Would you want her claws turned on you?’
The others chuckled and Gawan smirked to himself as he drew the stick from the fire and dropped the sausage into some bread. Rhianwyn was appealing in a forest-sprite sort of way but she was nothing to a woman like Emeryn. And of course, he’d never wanted to kill Emeryn. He looked over to their bed. The blankets weren’t thin but he could still see the outline of her body through them, and as he watched he saw a length of pale leg come into view. Emeryn seemed to be coming awake and Gawan felt himself stir at the sight of her flesh.
He poured out a second cup of ale and rose to his feet.
‘I’ll see the Wildcat at this moot no doubt, I’ll make sure to pass on your affections.’
Hewin looked slightly shamefaced but couldn’t hide his smile, and the others grinned or shoved at him good-naturedly. Gawan nodded towards Emeryn.
‘Meanwhile I have concerns of my own.’
His fellow Gadarim chuckled as he walked off and he heard Hewin mutter to his companions.
‘I swear, some men have all the good fortune.’
For a heartbeat Gawan felt his good mood punctured as he thought of how very wrong that sentiment was. But then Emeryn’s dark eyes met his and she beckoned to him lazily, and his mind was taken up by other things.
*
Gawan hated to admit it, but this young Caderyn druid looked every inch the equal of Hywel. The Gorvic holy man must have seen threescore winters at least, and his grey hair and beard were testament to his years of experience and wisdom. He wore his white robes as though born in them and the hands that clutched his oaken staff were almost as gnarled as the wood. His eyes were deep and dark, his features long and serious, and the impression Gawan had always had was one of quiet dignity and knowledge. And he spoke to Bael as though addressing a peer, not an acolyte. The Caderyn seemed barely older than his soon-to-be chieftain, yet something in how he carried himself belied his lack of years. Gawan knew that there were druids among the Caderyn who were older than he but they seemed not to have objected to Bael’s representing them here, and it was not difficult to see their reasoning. Though there was no hint of silver in his hair or beard his blue eyes were full of wisdom, and Gawan couldn’t help but think he was a worthy stand-in for Reaghan.
They were standing about in Bryngarth’s longhall and besides the two druids the only people there were a handful of Gadarim and Rhianwyn herself. Many of the headmen had been sleeping there of course but they had stepped outside with another of the druids for a blessing before the moot began. Gawan took the mug of ale that Owain handed him and the pair strode towards the high table. Though he’d only been there a few times in the past, it was strange not to see Carradan’s blocky frame in the chieftain’s chair. He’d not been a tall man but he’d had a certain presence about him, and the lean figure of Rhianwyn looked almost comical in his place.
The two druids stopped their talking as the Gadarim approached but not in such a way as to seem suspicious or secretive. They had probably been talking of things that Gawan and Owain wouldn’t understand anyway and the warriors both nodded politely to their tribes’ holy men. The druids nodded back but said nothing and the Gadarim continued to the table. Gawan briefly pondered what the druids thought about the idea of the Caledon, and decided fairly quickly that most were in favour of it. It had been Reaghan’s idea in the first place after all, and druids were fond of saying how Lurians killing one another should be avoided. Their say in things will go far in persuading the tribes to stick together. But druids for all their influence always stop shy of commanding men, and plenty of chiefs will have doubts about remaining as allies.
Gawan leaned on the table near the place he’d once sat years ago, when he’d come to Bryngarth as a prisoner after losing at Broken Stream. He’d had a choice few words with Rhianwyn and her first husband that night, and once again he was struck by the strangeness of seeing her sitting in the chieftain’s chair. Owain moved to sit beside her while Kyran took a seat near to Gawan. The Gorvic looked at his fellow First Men and wondered if they could have seemed more different. Owain was pale-haired with a broad and honest face, his body stocky and short-limbed, almost like a Carrock. Kyran on the other hand was tall and lean, with a hard, gaunt face that made Gawan think of predator birds. His hair and beard were dark and below one eye was the tiny scar that marked the faces of all Dariniae Gadarim. Like his fellows he was covered in permanent battle-marks but Gawan found himself wondering, as he often had, how the islanders’ rituals differed from his own.
The Caderyn’s First Man addressed his chieftain.
‘Have you given any thought to what we spoke of earlier?’
Rhianwyn looked a little awkward for a moment and scratched the ears of the brown dog who sat beside her chair.
‘I am still considering it.’
Gawan was only mildly curious but apparently Kyran was more interested. Though the Darin’s voice was naturally harsh, like cold iron scraping on rock, his tone was courteous enough.
‘May I ask what this is?’
Rhianwyn didn’t answer and so Owain turned to his comrade.
‘With Madoc and Marius both dead, it will be down to me to teach the boy Lucan about our ways. I had been wondering if we should talk about where to start, and when.’
Kyran nodded his approval.
‘Quite right.’ He faced Rhianwyn. ‘You will want him to join the Dragon Legion one day, I assume?’
The chieftain looked hesitant.
‘I want him taught our ways of course, but to join the legion? I am not sure. He still has family in Tamora and I had thought to send him back there to be given a Gaian education. He will need it if he is to treat with the Gaians, which he will inevitably have to do someday.’
Gawan’s brow furrowed slightly and he decided to weigh in.
‘You will do the boy no service by making him into one of them. Nor will your people stand for it if he is to become High Chieftain after you.’
He put a very subtle emphasis on ‘your’ as opposed to ‘our’. He was still far from convinced about how long the Caledon would last, let alone this so-called treaty with the Gaians. Rhianwyn had her answer prepared. She probably knew this argument was coming.
‘We are fools not to keep on good terms with the Gaians. Lucan’s being educated in Tamora is our best hope for keeping that.’
Owain took over the argument against her, his voice a fraction more respectful than Gawan’s had been.
‘If he is to be our chief he must be raised Lurian and be seen as Lurian by all.’
Kyran nodded gravely.
‘Already too many people see him as the soft-handed son of a Gaian.’
Rhianwyn held in her temper but Gawan could see it bubbling beneath the surface.
‘He will be Lurian because he is Lurian. I promise you that he will learn our ways and be a part of us but a Gaian education will take him far, as will his being known in Tamora’s society. In his time there he may build friendships to help secure our treaty for another generation.’
Gawan suspected that few enough of them trusted the notion of this Gaian ‘treaty’. Rhianwyn, to her credit, had done her best to ensure that they honoured it, even going so far as to write it down as was their tradition, but there was little enough cause for mutual trust between Gaian and Lurian. Owain seemed about to say something of the kind but Rhianwyn cut him off.
‘Lepidus was but one man. Not only should we not judge them all by his standards, but we must also remember that he was a man acting alone. We fought him off true enough, but the Emperor is another matter. Should Tiberian decide he wishes all of Daeria to be conquered then our one legion would be no match for the armies he might bring. But he will not commit troops and resources to a campaign that is not necessary.’
She turned from Owain to address the group.
‘Whether we will it or no, the Gaians rule the world. They are the future, and if we do not seize this chance to be their allies then a year or ten years or twenty years from now we will be destroyed as their enemies.’
Gawan could see that even as she argued she was denting her own pride, and he half-sympathised with her for it. But his own pride was stung just as hard, and he found himself speaking at the same time as Kyran.
‘We have won before.’
‘We stopped them once.’
It was a stupid thing to say and Gawan knew it but he couldn’t stop himself. The truth that she was speaking was making all of them feel helpless, and he had lived his life as the predator, not the prey. Rhianwyn was clearly frustrated and was rescued from speaking by Hywel. The grey-haired man spoke quietly but everybody listened. No-one ignored a druid.
‘We stopped two legions, one of them under-strength and frenzied beyond discipline, and another that withdrew largely by its own will.’
Gawan grudgingly agreed with him. He was still uncertain as to why the Lions who’d been flanking them had fallen back near the end of the battle, but then they’d been less tampered-with than had the Panther Legion. Perhaps their leader had thought to keep their formation intact and had fallen back to guard their fleeing general. Gawan almost snorted. For all the good it did him. Lepidus had been stabbed by his own slave as he tried to escape the battle; a Basian that the Gorvicae had subsequently taken in. Apparently he was an odd little fellow but he had done them a great service, and had been welcomed into the tribe with open arms.
Hywel continued in his patient voice.
‘But the Blackbirds alone could decimate our damaged legion, and the Gaian Emperor has many more legions with him across the water.’
Rhianwyn nodded to him respectfully.
‘Indeed, father. When last I heard tell of it Tiberian had seven more serving legions in Caspea and as you say, even those Gaians here now could cause us serious trouble. Not that they will.’
Gawan scowled. The Blackbird Legion were still far too close to them for comfort, for all that Rhianwyn was friendly with their general. They had allegedly marched into Caderyn lands to stop Lepidus and to deal with the rebel Gaian legions; the Lions by escorting them home to be judged, the Panthers by hunting them down and killing them. Though these clever Gaians seem to have missed a few!
Owain and Kyran wore expressions similar to Gawan’s. They too hated to feel helpless but the fact of it was that a Gaian legion was almost unstoppable if it managed to maintain its discipline. More than a match for the battered Caledon. Gawan might have known the truth of it but still resentment swelled up in him at what Rhianwyn was saying. She has seen them for what they are. Has she no pride? He was unpleasantly reminded of Baercban and his voice didn’t rise but still it came out hard.
‘How far can you trust these men who have used sorcery to butcher our people? Would you first beg them for their mercy and then deliver them a hostage?’
There was a silent beat as blue eyes bored into Gawan’s grey ones. For a woman who’d not seen thirty winters Rhianwyn had a glare to match most men. There is strength there, no doubt about it. Whatever the Wildcat argues for, she does not do it out of cowardice. All the same the Gorvic didn’t look away when she spoke, her voice very cold and hard.
‘They are not all alike, Gawan.’
The silence that followed this was awkward and Gawan eased his tone a little.
‘Not all of one tribe share one mind, true. But the only Gaian I even half-trusted was burned to ash on this very hillside.’ Rhianwyn looked like she might say something to that and Gawan held up a pacifying hand. ‘And no doubt he crossed his river unharmed. But even if there are more decent Gaians out there, I do not trust those who they allow to lead them. And I have good cause to feel so.’
He suspected that the other Gadarim agreed with him but only Kyran nodded along while Owain remained motionless. Bael, who had been watching all this in polite silence, spoke up.
‘There is truth in what both of you say. Lucan must indeed know our ways and be seen as one of us, yet we would be fools to think the Gaians will hold to their peace while they see us as strangers. All men fear what they do not understand and that fear can all too easily turn to hatred.’
He cast his piercing eyes around them and Gawan had the distinct feeling of being judged. He spoke as respectfully as he could but couldn’t quite bring himself to call the young man father. It was a term for elders after all, not just for druids.
‘I hate them not through ignorance but through experience.’
The others looked disapproving that he had answered back to a druid like that, but Bael was completely unfazed.
‘You have experienced some of them comrade, and even you have said that not all think alike.’
The young man had referred to him as if part of his own tribe, countering Gawan’s rudeness with courtesy. Gawan wanted to argue with him but he stayed silent. The druid continued.
‘We would be wise to let them see that our chieftain is one who understands them and can deal with them. Rhianwyn has shown this of herself but,’ he gave her a soft look, ‘she will not live forever. An experience of Gaian life would serve the boy well, and through him it would serve us all.’
Hywel nodded his head in accord. Gawan still didn’t like it and found something else to be stubborn about.
‘What of when he marries? Our own people will be right to expect that he marries one of his own yet the Gaians may expect him to wed a Gaian.’
Rhianwyn looked both irritated and conflicted and Gawan got the feeling that this thought had crossed her mind already, and that she didn’t have an answer to it yet. Owain spoke gently from beside her.
‘For that matter Rhianwyn; will you be marrying again? Camelas knows you have lived through hard times and of course there is no hurry but all the same, you are still young.’
Perhaps Owain had meant to give her something else to talk about but deliberate or not his question raised another, unspoken concern. It was not rare for children to succumb to sicknesses and Lucan was an only child. Gaians or not, a chieftain needed an heir. Rhianwyn was indeed still young and fair, and there would be no shortage of volunteer husbands, either for the woman herself or the prestige of fathering a potential High Chieftain. But then she was married to the Lion for five years and had only one child from it. It could be that one of them at least was none too fertile.
The Caderyn chief kept her voice confident, though Gawan suspected it was a bluff.
‘I am in no rush to hear another man’s snoring as I try to sleep. I may choose to wed again, I may choose not to.’
It was said with finality and Owain fell silent on the matter. Bael spoke up quietly.
‘And Lucan?’
A line appeared between Rhianwyn’s brows and once again she scratched at the sitting hound’s ears.
‘He has not yet seen his fifth summer. Such things can wait.’
Gawan wondered whether or not he ought to speak again. This was Caderyn business after all, even if it might affect them all. The decision was made for him when the doors at the far end of the hall swung open and the first half-dozen Caderyn headmen came in. The huddle at the high table knew their conversation was over, at least for now, and that the moot to decide the new leader of the tribe was about to begin.
Gawan knew only a few of the men who would decide their tribe’s fate. Some had come with them from Nantwyn while others had come to Bryngarth from across Caderyn territory. The two senior men he recognised as Merwyn and Alraig. The former was the eldest of all the Caderyn chiefs and frankly, he looked it. While not much bent with age his hair was whiter than Hywel’s, and he walked with a subtly stiff-legged gait. He wore several thick bracelets but beyond that he was plainly dressed, wearing a buff tunic and a sleeveless sheepskin coat that seemed to meld with his hair and beard.
Alraig was not that much younger but the years seemed to have been kinder to him, and he strode through the hall with strength and poise. His hair was still mostly brown, though he had streaks of silver at his temples and another running down the middle of his beard. He wore a deep red cloak, a dark tunic, and what looked like the studded belt of a Gaian legionary. He had not brought a sword with him of course but a second glance showed Gawan that a legion-issue dagger was sheathed at his hip. I wonder, did he take that from a Panther or a Lion? He had not been a part of the Dragon Legion but Gawan knew he had been present at Nantwyn, fighting with a group of his warriors up in the town itself.
Behind these two came others and Gawan vaguely recalled a few names. The lanky one he thought was called Gwynfor, the wild-haired one was Rhys, and the man with the scar across his nose could only be Uthyr. Beyond that the Caderyn headmen all blended together into a mass of faces that he had seen but couldn’t name. One man he did know well was Boryn, one of the few Gorvicae chiefs who had come with them from Nantwyn. Rhianwyn had invited him to the moot out of courtesy, and as a way of showing unity between the tribes.
