The fate of our union, p.10
The Fate of Our Union, page 10
Keresaspa turned from the cavalry, showering a rain of arrows, toward Sunu and Rufus, showing them an anxious receptiveness. My mother and sister need me here, but He wants me to go with them.
The dilemma hounded her mind as the hooves neared.
She unclenched her fist. “I’ll go with you.”
“You want us to aid a fugitive we hardly know and incur the wrath of her victim’s avengers?” Sunu turned back, smirking at Keresaspa. “All right, but no sword fights on this horse.”
Tension eased, she wished to assure them. “As a friend would to a friend.”
“To his friend a man should be a friend.” Sunu and Rufus shared parallel expressions. “I’ll return a friend’s friendship.”
“You can sit next to—” Sunu did not see the dappled goat behind Rufus. “Where’s Tanngnjóstr?”
Cracking bleats came from above.
Sunu, Rufus, and Keresaspa raised their heads and saw the black, white-dappled goat bleating high on the mountain, lightning striking around him. The splaying bolts chipped boulders from the mountain’s side. They rolled down its peak from heaven to earth, storming past them toward the charging riders.
“By Thundering Jove.”
The pasture trembled beneath them.
“Tanngnjóstr!” Sunu cupped his mouth, hollering, “Are you coming?”
“Tanngnjóstr’s staying there,” said Long Ears’s front-facing head. “Keresaspa will take his seat.”
“We can meet him.” Behind Rufus, the princess mounted the flying, seven-headed stallion, its rear-facing heads and unfolding wings sweeping her out of her head into a magical presence. “On the mountain top!”
“this is where the gods ride!” Keresaspa rose like a waelcyrie above the Ural’s pasture, amid the big clouds that beat the mountains.
Rufus beheld one mountain rising above the rest. “Mount Olympus?” Inspired, he withdrew his tablet and stylus, writing, Led by Jupiter and the Parcae, I found myself high in the Ural mountains on a flying seven-headed stallion, winged and white as Pegasus, with two people from very different lands, from distant circles, who are closer to myself and each other than one might imagine . . .
Farther north, the mountains became higher, colder, and whiter. “It’s like the spine of the giant Ymir,” Sunu compared the snow-capped ridges and edges. “Maybe we’ll see his descendants—the frost giants.”
“It’s breathtaking, Long Ears!” Keresaspa’s sapphire blues reflected white peaks under billowy clouds.
“I’ll have to bring you back,” said Long Ears’s front-left head, turning all seven streaming manes in his westward flight.
“What you see when he lands is also eye-opening.” Sunu’s hair and cloak whipped as the stallion wheeled. “In a different way.”
“Brace yourself,” Long Ears’s back-right head advised, flying upward toward the Barents Sea and Perkūnas’s Sky, then southwest in a straight path—so swift that everything around his riders was a blur.
Anticipation was growing as Long Ears swooped from the clouds, spread wings brushing still air until his hooves were clopping the forested earth.
Sunu frowned. “We’ve come all this way, and we’re still in the woods.”
“We’re back in the Bohemian Forest.” Rufus recognized the spruce and firs. “Not where I want to be, either.”
“We were brought here for a purpose.” Keresaspa’s tone was intuition.
Sunu looked back at her, over Rufus. “Let us in on your wisdom.”
“The purpose is,” Long Ears’s forward-facing head answered for her, “to be united and bring unity.”
“If we’re going to be united,” Keresaspa’s tone became more collaborative, “I ought to know more about you two than just your names and races, like the story behind your bynames.”
“Since there are no wars and my father helps keep our tribe out of others’ wars,” Sunu began as Long Ears strolled them through the forest, “my tribesmen and I recreate past battles, play manly sports, and hunt the most impressive beasts. So far, mine is the best—a giant white bull with golden horns, surpassing the seven most revered hunters.” Sunu showed Keresaspa his golden drinking horn and the scar it bestowed. “Between hunting and sport, I like helping others with tasks they cannot do themselves.”
“Beautifully impressive!” Keresaspa’s sapphire brow moons sparkled. “Wherever did you find this bull?”
“In a cave, where I also found five glowing red cows.”
“Usas’s rousing, you’re quite the herdsman.” Keresaspa’s interest livened with the energy of the Aryan dawn goddess. “What about you, Rufus?”
“I wanted to be a historian like Tacitus, a lawyer like Cicero, and a philosopher like Socrates, the most famous and revered. When I left Rome, I no longer had access to all their works, though I could still find their inspiration in my copy of Plato’s Republic and Plutarch’s Life of Cato. Forgive me if I speak of the unknown as if you should know.” Rufus acknowledged Sunu’s curious glances and Keresaspa’s pondering hmms. “Through my knowledge, I like helping others as well. I bring the white sheep toward the fire—out of the cave of the unenlightened in which they are bound—seeing only the shadows of what is.”
“Beautifully profound.” Keresaspa’s face reflected deep thought. “As a warrior and a priestess, I am a fighter guided by the light of spiritual philosophy.”
“Those with philosophic natures, those courageous lovers of all truth, non-lovers of money, make the best leaders. Along with the cave allegory, the Republic theorizes men and women philosophers who possess no private property as the most just guardians of a city, free of factions among themselves and their citizenry.”
Sunu’s hunter ear perked. “Listen.”
The sound of two arguing men arose.
All three went silent as Long Ears’s soft hooves brought them closer to the men’s loud voices. Camouflaged by fir leaves, Sunu, Rufus, and Keresaspa saw two groups of Bohemians, four hundred on each side, wielding short blades and long spears while exchanging sharp words. Among the bare limbs and ragged clothes were a few sporting finer threads and precious metals with an air of status.
Keresaspa identified men and women bearing fierce animal tattoos. “Some people on that side are Sarmatian Iazyges; I recognize their dialect and art style.”
“The Iazyges are among the Marcomanns.” Rufus pointed between fir leaves. “They’re all wearing Swabian knots and beards dyed red or redder, if already so, as a factional identifier. The Iazyges, their allies, have conspicuous horse tattoos and tamga brands as their factional markers.”
Sunu pushed the leaves, opening a fuller view. “Those men, on the other side, look and talk like Celts.”
“They’re Celtic Boii.” Rufus’s eyes followed Sunu’s between the leaves. “Their long mustaches and lime-bleached spiked hair mark them as such. There are Dacians among them; some mark themselves with the image of their dead king Decebalus, while others conform to Boii identity.”
“My father spoke of this disunity,” Sunu soberingly admitted. “Why are they divided?”
“Bohemia means ‘home of the Boii,’” Rufus began in a matter-of-fact tone. “Some of them migrated to southern Gaul, and with the consent of Julius Caesar, they settled by the Aedui. Some migrated south of the Danube and perished there in a war against their Dacian neighbors; the rest remained here but were eventually expelled by Marcomanns.”
“So the Boii and the Marcomanns are divided over the land?” Sunu asked as they faced each other like fighting rams.
“Yes.” Rufus watched the tension mount.
Keresaspa spoke from factional experience. “And the Iazyges and Dacians have taken sides based on their interests.”
“Precisely.” Rufus viewed each fiery line as fuel-doused teams in the king’s arena. “The Boii entreated the Bohemian king, who’s a Marcomann, to return their ancestral land. The king used this request as conquest: to gain their absolute loyalty, increase his tax base, and divide his citizenry. ‘Divide and rule,’ as Romans say.”
Sunu scowled. “What a dishonorable deed.”
“Indeed, a mockery of justice that’s infuriated the common Marcomanns, who now have strained resources, overcrowding, and socio-political anxiety. To further his power and division, the king exploited Dacian refugees fleeing the tyranny of the Roman Empire by demanding their subservience to his throne in return for Bohemian citizenship.” Rufus had seen passive aggression among the tribes and advocated dispassionate resolutions. “The king confiscated the Iazyges’ horses and the Marcomanns’ land to accommodate the Boii, the Dacians, and Establishment interests who want them all dependent. With their shared grievance over property and previous military alliance, the Marcomanns and Iazyges formed a factional coalition while the Boii and the Dacians, who’ve forgotten their past conflict, formed their own coalition.”
“I sense you’re alone among these herds.” Keresaspa glanced at him who was not with them. “Hence the name Black Sheep.”
“Sunu gave me that name, and it’s quite befitting since I do not belong to any faction and reject most conventions. However, there’s a third faction composed of Romans and Greeks. They’re the wealthiest and most influential Bohemians, hated by the Boii and Marcomanns, though not all the third faction is crooked.” Rufus knew he could be misjudged based on his race. “Unbeknownst to the Boii and Marcomanns, the Romans and Greeks provoke their division because it takes the focus off them and their puppet king, Landscaðo, who secures their labor-exploiting businesses and luxury homes.”
Sunu’s face lit with curiosity, observing the heated camps. “Why don’t the first two factions fight the third?”
“That would be the obvious question—if they were paying a spark of attention. Yet the best solution is a unifying matter for all three.” Rufus imagined them shaking hands instead of fists. “This would be a great feat since they’re attached to their issues and cannot let go of their pride, as you can see and hear.”
“Don’t blame us for your problems when it was your people who stole our land,” cried a leader of the Boii with white spiked hair to a Marcomann with a red Swabian knot.
“No one here is responsible for stealing your land; your ancestors were responsible for losing it,” the Marcomann leader rebutted.
“Your ancestors were inferior builders who had to steal our people’s towns.”
“Your ancestors were inferior warriors who could not properly defend them.”
“Tanarus knows we’re the better warriors and will decide we’re the rightful heirs of this land!”
“Thunor knows whether you’ll cry like women when we defeat you or whether you’ll take defeat like men!”
Rufus turned to Sunu and Keresaspa. “Jupiter only knows who can stop this useful foolery.”
Sunu and Keresaspa set their sights on Rufus.
I appreciate that. He felt the call of duty amid the conflagration of doubt. But you don’t know how bad truly bad things are.
“Maybe you’re the Socrates who’ll show them the fire,” Keresaspa inspired.
“You can be the Hercules who’ll bring them out of the cave,” Sunu encouraged.
“I may need his club when I stir the sleeping cyclops.” Rufus steeled as he emerged from the fir. “—Cave dwellers ridicule and kill those who show them the light.” He ran between the two factions of unyielding man walls, the Boii displaced in war and the Marcomanns oppressed by kings, ’til he was standing between their leaders, provoking their side to fight. “By the God of Thunder!” Rufus extended his right hand. “This factionalism is absurd when we have more in common than not—”
“Silence, privileged Roman!” The Boii leader shoved Rufus to the ground, then thrust his javelin at the Marcomann leader. “We’ll avenge our people’s injustice—woe to the vanquished!”
“Rufus!” Sunu and Keresaspa dashed from the fir as the fire-hardened ash pierced the Marcomann’s trunk.
Rufus rose to his feet, feeling overwhelmed and underprivileged. “Vengeance and violence are not justice!” As Sunu and Keresaspa arrived at his side, the factional armies collided—battering all three like storm waves. It felt like a hundred feet were trampling their bodies. I think they understand now.
A Marcomann pierced overhead with his long spear. “Your people are overcrowding our clans’ villages and freeloading our hard-tilled soil!”
A Boii slashed crosswise with his short sword. “Your people are dishonoring our sacred mounds and debasing our well-built forts!”
Spear against shield, shield against blade, the cry of blade against blood—the music of Celtic swords sang in the rain of Germanic spears. As Sunu, Rufus, and Keresaspa bucked the furious hosts off their backs, they heard thundering and felt quaking as if cavalry were approaching. They shot up to their feet, looking over fists and iron in the forest of fighting ashes, to see Long Ears leading a herd of nine hundred swift horses.
Stay together. His front-left head whispered in their three heads.
The Red Stallion, Black Sheep, and Bullish One of the steppe stood bravely back-to-back as the terror of the stampeding horses scattered the tribal factions. Long Ears rode to their side while the horses ran through them like wind—horses galloped at their side; horses leapt over their heads; Long Ears diminished their fear as horses charged them with whipping manes, passing through them with lashing tails—disappearing into the surrounding forest.
“No one can best Long Ears’s entrances!” Sunu praised with flailing hair and a lively face, reliving his vision of steppe heroes on thundering horses.
The three friends mounted Long Ears, and he drove them onward.
“You two brought me from my chaos into your chaos,” Keresaspa shrilled, her eyes bedazzled. “But the horses have been miraculous!”
“I thought we were leaving this chaos.” Rufus brought it back to Bohemia.
“Where are we going now?” Sunu pined for more excitement without the conflict.
Long Ears’s side-right head replied, “There is a market nearby, with merchants of many lands. There, you’ll find something of value amid the illusion of value.”
As Long Ears trotted them onward, Sunu opened the king’s purse and saw coins from Gaul, Rome, and Greece. “Look at this scat!” Sunu’s anticipation grew as he gazed at all the men immortalized in gold and silver. “Maybe my face could be on one of these.”
“They’re just pieces of metal; they can’t be eaten, but they can be inflated, as Trajan has done, then you can’t afford to eat.” Rufus looked down upon the metal, face turning to stone. “The father of my philosophy warned, ‘Men should not coin money for traffic or travel.’”
“Inflated?” Sunu examined a coin minted with the image of Perseus beheading Medusa, snakes hissing around her face.
Keresaspa had seen the Aorsi king introduce devalued coins. “Meaning, people who use them will receive less milk than if they’d traded nannies for cows.”
As they neared the edge of the Bohemian Forest, muffled sounds were manifesting. “I hear something.” Sunu’s hunter ear perked.
Rufus stayed relaxed yet warned, “I’m not sure you’re prepared for the irrational animals you’re about to see.”
Sunu smirked fearlessly. “Are there more wolfskins to slay, more factions to scatter, more kings to noose?”
“No wolves,” Rufus uttered as if it were worse.
Long Ears slowed to a halt while Sunu grabbed the hilts of their cavalry swords.
Sunu’s eyes widened as he peered through the trees. “Ye gods!” At the edge of the forest lay a bustling market. The crowd took him aback.
“Cave-dwelling white sheep.” The Black Sheep was indifferent to the consumers but preferred to keep them at a distance.
“I’ve never seen so many people exchanging goods.” Holding apart leafy branches, Sunu gaped at them ambivalently. “It’s like a forest of free trade.”
Keresaspa saw no room to ride. “I’m already feeling homesick.”
“You must mix with the herd without blending in,” Long Ears’s forward-facing head advised. “If all the shepherds lower their staffs, there will be no one to lead the sheep.”
“You’d better hide those ash fellers,” Rufus cautioned Sunu about the swords.
Sunu winced. “I have to go in there unarmed?”
Rufus brought his attention to armored guards watching over weapons and wine not produced by the king. “Unless you trust those men to hold them.”
Sunu waved the Fetter of Awe over the swords, changing them into a shepherd’s staff. “They won’t bother a three-legged fellow.” Sunu dismounted, stepping with the staff, Rufus and Keresaspa’s four legs herding behind.
“Now, I need a disguise.” Rufus considered his dissident status.
“You’re being hunted, like me.” Keresaspa could feel the darkness beneath Rufus’s indifference. “By hounds, unlike mine.”
Rufus disregarded the king’s defaming of his character yet acknowledged the consequences. “I’m being hounded by untruths that make me more than just unliked.”
Sunu turned to Keresaspa as he withdrew his noose. “What should we do with that honest, innocent face?”
“I think it would look good with a beard,” Keresaspa advised.
“I agree.” Sunu smiled at Rufus’s naked face. “Let’s make him more intimidating.” He raised the noose to Rufus’s chin, growing thick red hairs from his cheeks until they touched his feet. “Who is this Langobard?” Sunu laughed. “That’s what Woden called Winnili women when they made their hair look like beards.”
Keresaspa giggled. “Looks like he’s sitting under a shaggy horse’s tail.”
Sunu was awed by its length and girth. “He looks more barbarian than we do.”
Rufus lifted his curly, draping beard. “I feel like I’m wearing the Nemean Lion.”
Keresaspa nodded. “Very leonine, aye.”
“Let me see if I can do this now.” Sunu waved the noose over Rufus’s head, magically shaping his short ginger curls into a perfect Swabian knot. “You’re unrecognizable to men and maybe to gods.” Sunu turned to his seven-headed winged stallion, unusually concerned he may draw too much attention. “Now, what should we do with you?”
