The Forest King Read online

  The Hibernians seemed to note the soldiers’ deference towards Darius. Several of them spoke to him, their voices mocking. A red-haired Celt who looked to be in his teens marched exaggeratedly alongside him in imitation of Darius’s soldierly gate, to the guffaws of his fellows. Darius merely regarded them with dull confusion, as if their mockery was past his comprehension. It wasn’t entirely an act; the pain in his head only made his weariness worse, and he felt certain that if he were to stumble he would simply fall asleep. After some minutes passed without any sort of interesting reaction from Darius, the Celts bored of the game.

  Darius couldn’t tell if they were following a path or not. His sense of direction told him they were headed west, away from the coast and deeper into the Hibernian forest than Rome had penetrated. But beyond that, he was lost. To keep himself upright, he occupied himself with recounting facts from the farmers’ almanac his father had nearly memorized—planting times; harvest yields; fungal treatments; soil conditions. It was a strange thing to ruminate on in the circumstances, he supposed, but it was where his mind went.

  They walked for hours. Afterwards, Darius found it difficult to believe he had stayed conscious for the journey. Perhaps he hadn’t; the march was blurry in his memory, as if he had passed most of it in a dreamy haze. He could recall that at one point, he managed to speak to two soldiers quietly without the Celts noticing, during which he mentioned that this was his third capture by barbarians, and the only time they had offered refreshments. The men smiled, for they knew what Darius had been through in Gaul—most who served with him knew the story—and were heartened by the ease with which he made light of it.

  Towards morning, the Celts finally called for a halt. They set up a watch, arranging the prisoners on the banks of a fell stream lined with strangely-scented blue flowers that looked black in the darkness. Darius sank against the tree indicated by the Celt guarding him and was instantly asleep.

  He was shaken awake what felt like moments later, but was likely two or three hours, judging by the position of the sun. The sky was blue, and songbirds chirruped in the trees. Darius thought of the sweet call of the Sicilian lark and felt an ache in his chest.

  The Celts allowed the prisoners to relieve themselves and then offered them water and some of the hard Hibernian bread that Darius had shared with Fionn. He showed the soldiers how to soften it by soaking it in the water. He was surprised by their treatment by the Celts—neither rough nor gentle, but simply matter-of-fact. Darius, who apart from Fionn had known only vicious Robogdi warriors and embarrassingly servile Darini ambassadors, was slightly unsettled to discover yet another facet of the Hibernian man.

  “Volundi?” he asked the one who appeared to be their leader, a tall man with a long brown braid running down his back. He nodded peaceably. Then he surprised Darius.

  “Roman?”

  Darius felt a smile crack his face. One of the other Celts chuckled, and Darius even saw smiles from the Roman soldiers who heard the exchange. It was a strange moment, and a brief one. The man spoke a series of calm commands to his compatriots, and the Romans were helped to their feet and made to march in a line again.

  They walked all day. Darius was used to such long marches, but not after fighting several skirmishes, receiving a blow to the head, and two nights of little sleep. It was a test of his endurance, and he passed but barely. One of the soldiers wasn’t so fortunate. After a long, hard scrabble up a rocky hillside, he fell to his knees and vomited. An hour later, a second soldier simply fainted, tumbling onto his side. When that happened, the Celtic leader called a halt. He offered the Romans more water and food—real food this time, in the form of cheese and dried meat. After that, they took breaks every three hours or so, and there were no more collapses.

  Darius began to wonder if they were going to walk all the way to the distant west coast of Hibernia—it was said that the Volundi’s territory extended so far. He had no idea what they would discover there. Rome had circumnavigated the entire island, of course, but had only rudimentary maps to show for it. More detailed surveys were to have come later, after Hibernia had been pacified.

  They spent another night sleeping on hard ground beneath whispering trees, and though they were given more time to rest, Darius’s sleep was disturbed by a light rain that began around midnight and continued, off and on, until morning. Dawn brought the Romans to their feet almost eagerly, for motion would chase the chill from their bones.

  “How much farther?” Darius asked the leader, only so he could hear the question in his voice. He drew the path of the sun in the sky with his fingers.

  The man smiled again. He had very white teeth, though one in the front was missing. He clapped Darius on the shoulder, and though Darius was certain he had understood him, did not try to mime a response.

  Darius soon realized the reason. After three or four hours, they reached their destination.

  Darius felt a moment of dull shock. The forest parted, revealing a blue lake cupped between towering mountains like a jewel. Along the shore, nestled into the greens and purples of the hillside, was a village of Celtic houses, round with thatched roofs. These were neatly laid out and numbered perhaps a hundred, which in Darius’s experience made this a large village by Celtic standards. Further up the mountainside were farms where sheep and cattle grazed, and earth lay in neat rows that suggested vegetable plots.

  It was nearly a mirror image of the village Fionn had described to him that sweet night they had spent together in the forest—the primitive but tidy houses; the lake crowded with reflections.

  Could Fionn be here? Darius didn’t know whether he hoped for or dreaded the idea. He found himself searching the faces of everyone he passed. They looked back calmly enough, men and women both, as if Roman soldiers being paraded through their village was a commonplace sight.

  Perhaps it was. Darius wouldn’t be surprised if the Volundi held other Romans captive—from Undanum, or even Sylvanum.

  Darius saw palpable relief on the faces of the warriors who had captured him, as well as a certain expectancy. They looked forward to their hero’s welcome after their successes against Rome, with their Roman prisoners as further evidence of their daring. Indeed, as they moved deeper into the village, they were hailed by passing villagers, some who even clapped them on the back or put their hands together in a strange, over-exuberant form of applause. Another group of warriors approached and spoke with the dark-haired leader briefly. Then Darius and the other soldiers were led on.

  Darius found himself looking not just for Fionn among the villagers, but for people like Fionn. But the Volundi, on the whole, looked little different from the Robogdi, being mostly pale and golden-haired, with some freckled redheads and blue-eyed brunettes thrown in for variety.

  They were taken to a fort-like structure at the edge of the village. It was encircled with tall walls of sharpened tree trunks. Within the walls were several structures—two large versions of the Celtic round house, joined together, and a towering longhouse made from branches and daub that Darius had never seen in a Celtic village before. Between them lay paths paved in flat stone through the muddy grass, and a large open area with rows of benches that resembled a gathering place. Upon these, Darius and the others were seated.

  He looked about him. Celtic soldiers milled around, but he saw no Roman faces. He wondered if they were holding other captives in the longhouse, which had a slapped-together look, as if it had been constructed in a hurry.

  “What do you think they’re waiting for?” one of the soldiers muttered to Darius. One of the Celts guarding them looked their way sharply, forestalling Darius’s reply. He answered the man with the faintest of shrugs.

  In truth, Darius was relieved just to be sitting down. Their captors had kept them relatively well fed and watered throughout the journey, and his headache had lessened. His dominant emotion was exhaustion. He could hardly process all that had happened. He had little appetite to scrutinize the Celts’ hostage-taking practices. Most
ly, he just wanted to sleep.

  The gate opened again, and several Celts walked in. Darius regarded them passively, but then his gaze sharpened.

  One of the Celts was Fionn.

  Darius’s heart stuttered to a stop, then restarted unevenly. His first reaction to Fionn’s appearance was one of overwhelming relief. He realized that part of him had been afraid that Fionn had been harmed in the Celts’ war with Rome, though he had never allowed himself to think it. Fionn looked tired, or as tired as a creature like him was capable of, with darkly shadowed eyes and skin even paler than usual. His moonlight hair stuck up at one side. He wore an odd sort of cloak—white wolfskin, with an embroidered gold lining. Darius had seen the Darini king wear a similar cloak. What was it doing on Fionn? Each of the men he passed bowed their heads to him. Darius’s breath froze.

  Was Fionn related to the Volundi king, Odran?

  It would make sense. Fionn had always had an air of unthinking authority about him, but Darius had put it down to his unnatural abilities and the respect his fellow Celts no doubt accorded him.

  But perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps he had been raised in wealth among one of the Hibernian royal families, with all the power that entailed.

  All these thoughts ran through his head in the space of a few heartbeats. Fionn spoke to the dark-haired leader of their captors. Then he turned, and with an air of only vague interest, passed his gaze over the Romans. He looked at Darius, then continued on to the next man. Anyone watching him would have seen little of note in that brief gaze. He did, perhaps, hesitate longer on Darius than on any of the others, but it was a difference of a second or two.

  But Darius had seen the slight stiffening of his mouth before he turned his gaze to the next man. He had seen that look before—it was how Fionn suppressed emotion. He didn’t look back at Darius after he had examined the other soldiers, merely turned to the dark-haired man and continued their conversation.

  “Odran?” Darius said to the nearest Celt. He wasn’t sure how the man would react to being questioned by him, but he didn’t care. Fionn’s appearance had thrown him, and he was willing to risk a blow. Fortunately, the man was a placable sort, and merely gave a short shake of his head. He mimed an arrow to the throat. “Odran,” he said.

  Odran was dead then. Likely recently, by the look on the man’s face. He motioned at Fionn and said something that was unmistakeably his name, pronounced in a manner that Darius had never been able to achieve. Then he said another word, conochvarr.

  It was the Hibernian word for king.

  Chapter Three

  Fionn turned back to the Roman captives. There was distaste on his face as he surveyed them, but there was something affected about it, as if he wore a mask. His eyes met Darius’s again, and Darius could read nothing in his expression. He hoped his own was sufficiently composed, but he doubted it.

  Fionn spoke to three Volundi warriors, who turned to look at Darius with interest in their eyes. Then, without another glance at his captives, Fionn strode through the gate, trailed by the same retinue he had arrived with. One of them, a slender, grey-haired woman, was speaking to him rapidly.

  The Volundi warriors came to Darius’s side and pulled him to his feet, neither gently nor ungently, as was their wont. One of them said something that elicited a few chuckles from the others, but apart from that, they were silent. They led Darius to the back of the fort where there stood a smaller roundhouse. Within it was a single room that looked designed for some form of storage, having only one narrow window, shelves against one wall, and a floor piled with sacks of some sort of grain. These were removed, and a low bed piled with rushes and furs was brought into the roundhouse, along with a wash basin, chamberpot, clothing, and a meal of berries, bread, and stew, which was set upon a small table. Then the Celts left, one of them gesturing to the supplies provided. Two of them arranged themselves just outside the door, which was left open, admitting snatches of their conversation. Clearly, they had been chosen for guard duty.

  For a moment, Darius simply stared. Fionn had done this for him. Fionn had marked him out, and come up with some excuse for protecting him.

  Fionn could do all that, because Fionn was Odran’s son, and now the Volundi king.

  It was too much. Darius ate the food and drank the water, barely tasting it. He pulled off his tunic and boots, thinking that he would wash, but the next thing he knew, he had lain down upon the bed. After that, he knew no more.

  *

  Darius awoke in darkness. It seemed he had slept away the rest of the day and most of the night—a sliver of pearly dawn sky was visible through the window.

  For a moment, Darius had no idea where he was. Then he thought he was back in the cave by the river, and wondered why he could see the sky at all, and whether he would be able to sit up without his leg giving him pain.

  Then, slowly, the memories trickled back. Every last, painful one, a kaleidoscope of misery and defeat.

  It would have been easy to fall into despair in that moment. But Darius had faced such situations before, if less dire, and he pushed the dark thoughts back. He had to believe that Marcus had made it off the island, that there were other Roman survivors. He had to believe that he could find some means of escape. For that was what he had to focus on: escape. He ignored the voice that reminded him that he was in the middle of the Hibernian wilderness, much deeper than Rome had penetrated, with only a rudimentary idea of how to get back to the coast. He had always found a way out of difficulties in the past. He would find one now.

  Viewed from that angle—that Darius’s sole focus must be escape—the fact that Fionn was the Volundi king mattered little. He should be able to push that aside, too. Yes, he had lain with the man, even developed an attachment to him. But there could be nothing beyond that. Fionn was the enemy. His tribe had attacked Rome, destroyed her forts and killed her men.

  He knew all this, yet he couldn’t stop thinking of Fionn. Bizarrely, he found he was angry at him. Could the man not have told him he was the heir to a kingdom?

  Darius forced himself out of the bed. His body ached from the long trek to the Volundi village, as well as the fighting and deprivations that had preceded it. He realized that someone had entered the roundhouse while he slept and laid out fresh food for him on a table, which told him how exhausted he had been. Normally he had a soldier’s knack for sleeping light.

  The food was porridge of the kind that Fionn had served him in the past. There were also berries and the sour Hibernian tea. The food and drink were still warm—they must have been left within the last ten minutes or so. Darius devoured everything without hesitation and even with a small measure of enjoyment, noting uneasily how accustomed he had become to Hibernian food. Then he turned his attention to washing.

  This was a difficult business. There was a basin of warmish water in one corner of the room next to a jug and a low bench, along with a rough-bristled brush that looked like it was designed for some form of torture. Darius assumed that a Celt would bathe seated on the bench, and attempted to do so. But with his stiffness, it took him twice as long as it should have, as he had difficulty lifting the heavy jug while scrubbing with the brush. Eventually, he succeeded in getting himself relatively clean. Just as he was towelling off, the door opened.

  It was a skinny man in his twenties with that disconcerting Celtic combination of dark hair and milk-pale skin. He looked so thoroughly horrified at the sight of Darius undressed that Darius glanced down at his body, certain he’d overlooked some gruesome battle wound.

  “I apologize,” the man said in thickly accented Latin. “I come back.” Then he was gone.

  Darius stared at the empty doorway. He had just heard a Celt speak Latin. The occurrence was rare enough in Britannia—he had never heard one of the Hibernians do it. The Darini king had memorized a few phrases, but that was all. Had the man been Britannian?

  Darius dressed in the Celtic tunic and trousers that had been left out for him, though he ignored the odd
, woven sandals in favour of his familiar boots. He was pouring himself another cup of tea, which he found he had taken a liking to, when the dark-haired Celt returned.

  “You are Darius Lucilius?” he inquired.

  “Yes.” Darius set his cup down on the table. “How do you—”

  “I am Kealan i Ochreth,” he said. “I am sent by the king to question you.”

  “I see,” Darius said cautiously, watching the man pull up a bench across from Darius. The expression on his face was a hostile one, though his tone was calm enough. “How is it that you speak Latin? Are you from Britannia?”

  “No. But I am raised there. The Volundi treat with a tribe on the southwestern coast—some of our children foster there; some of theirs foster here. The Roman dogs build a fort not far from my village. I make it my business to learn your language.”

  From his tone, Darius doubted his motivations for doing so were peaceable. “I see. Forgive my surprise—I have not met anyone on this isle who speaks my tongue.”

  “You think us incapable of learning?” the man spat.

  Darius could see the interview was spiralling downwards. He kept his tone businesslike. “Not at all. You say that your king sent you to question me. Am I also permitted to ask questions of you?”

  “King Fionnwyn gives me leave to answer your questions,” he said in as grudging a tone as Darius had ever heard. “But first I am to ask if you are hurt.”

  Darius was struck with an odd pang of longing. He wished that Fionn was there asking the question himself. “No. I took a blow to the head, but I believe it is better.”

  The man nodded. “Any injury, he says I am to get the healer. She will look at you today.”

  “The king—Fionnwyn, you called him?” The man winced slightly at Darius’s pronunciation, but nodded. “He seems greatly interested in my wellbeing.” He kept his voice neutral.