IV – The Set Stage

Haze blankets a sea that burns silver under the high sun. Shadows appear along the vanishing point, first five and then ten, until there are too many ships to count.

Those fleeing the continent speak of Prince Mandubracius and his deal with the Roman battle king, Kaiser. Those fresh from the fight say warlord Dumnorix plans to sabotage the Roman battle king with a hidden armada. Alas, it’s now clear that Dumnorix is as dead as his ships, and Mandubracius comes home for his crown.

Their driver grunts softly, a short oaf with more muscles than thoughts. Begat, a crone older than dirt, thinks enough for them both. She comes alongside Aedan and lends a churlish nod.

“Ships can’t crawl over land.” She speaks as if revealing newfound knowledge.

“What battle king in his right mind brings ships over land?” Aedan studies the fleas nesting in her pale, oily hair. “Those ships will make shore and shit blood-thirsty soldiers with legs capable of crawling over just about anything,”

The driver whispers, “Look at how many,” and with his wits lost, jogs back to the flat-top cart. He climbs sloppily onto the driver’s bench, rousing both horses from their grazing.

Begat looks after him. “That one will die first, I reckon,”

“One of many to greet Dumnorix before we do,” adds Aedan.

Eyes meet, and laughter fills the space between them.

“You’re a strange one, Owl King.” Her breath stinks of shellfish and mint. “Strange ones always survive.”

“Why is that?” he asks, standing in her stunted shadow.

“Gods have use for the strange ones,” she says, leading him back to the cart. “So alive you stay,”

The ride back provides little respite from the heat. Aedan wears his father’s robe, open and off his bony shoulders, while he stands atop the cart’s horses, a bare foot planted upon each of their backs. The driver gawks at his exposed ass with a mix of curiosity and disgust. Most men don’t mind Aedan’s gaunt body after tasting his hole. It’s his soul they find unpalatable.

Within sight of the hilltop fort, the horses’ breaths shallow on the charge to its plank gate. Lofty double doors part, coming together quickly as they pass between them. The beasts slow to a trot in familiar surroundings, and that’s when old Begat darts from the flatbed and disappears into the shadows.

Aedan backflips to the ground, cartwheeling past newcomers whose swords gleam in the sunlight. He pulls his robe to rights before entering the largest roundhouse, where his mother whispers to her little brother at his table full of sand. The druid Taran, his alleged blood father, is the leader of this settlement, and details his plans in the sand while Ciniod gushes. The pair sours him enough that he eagerly announces Rome’s arrival before the oafish cart driver formulates the words.

Truth is a wicked stew, and Aedan enjoys serving it with too much salt.

“They got more ships than the sea got fish,” the driver says.

“Seven hundred and ninety-three fly Roman colors.” One swift hop puts Aedan atop the table’s edge. He curls his toes around its hedging. “Three of them fly Treberoi colors,”

Ciniod starts. “Indutiomarus sails with Rome?”

Before he can tell her, Cassibelanus enters like a bad smell.

“Cingetorix rules the Treberoi now,” booms the warlord, his thin lips curling under a pelmet of thick brown. His clean-shaven jowls contain spots, unlike his bare head—and that hairless noggin is his only attractive trait.

Aedan tolerates the hulking Cenimagni because there’s always an entourage of fuckable warriors around him.

Today’s group includes a sturdy redhead whose broad pale chest boasts the palest strands of hair. Freckles fade beneath light eyes that steal glances at Aedan, but when Aedan stares back, the redhead seems a manlet barely weaned from his mother’s tits.

“If Kaiser is here,” Taran proclaims. “Then Dumnorix is dead.”

The young redhead whispers to his leader, “Why would the leader of the Treberoi fight alongside his enemy?”

“Their families are under the Roman knife.” Aedan studies the manlet’s shapely bicep. “If they flee or revolt, their kin die,”

“It’s called being a hostage.” Cassibelanus comes between them and slaps Aedan on the small of his back—not a touch he savors. “Look at you perched up here like an owl. I bet you weigh no more than one, at that,”

“This is the Owl?” says the manlet.

“Go get your mother, Kelr,” Cassibelanus orders the youth, then stalks to Ciniod and sweeps her into his bearish arms. “Chinny, girl, you’re looking well for a widow!”

Mother shows her blackened teeth and titters like a girl who has never bled. “Put me down, you fool!”

“My words are true even if foolish.” Cassibelanus sets her down and speaks in an affectionate tone. “You’re still beautiful, Chinny.”

Aedan retches loudly, startling Taran and the warriors.

“Enough of that,” his mother snarls, familiar with his antics.

“How can you carouse,” Aedan accuses with little emotion, “while my father remains undigested by the Gods?”

Ciniod glares at her son until the warlord steps into place between them.

“We’ve bigger concerns,” says Cassibelanus.

Aedan’s eyes shift to him. “Nearly eight hundred concerns make landfall as we speak.”

The warlord turns thoughtful, and before the moment passes, Aedan swears he can smell roasting meat coming from inside the man’s skull. “Do you remember Imanuentius’s cattle?”

The warlord meets his gaze.

“Before you killed him,” Aedan explains, “He owned six hundred heads. Eight hundred is more than that.”

The skin on Cassibelanus’s arms turns to that of a plucked goose.

“Taran,” comes the birdlike voice of Avalin the Catubellauni.

The sixth child and only daughter of the man who called Cassibelanus his heir, she floats in like a butterfly and embraces his lanky uncle. She then sings Aedan’s name and smothers him with kisses before tousling his curls.

“You’ve become a man,” she beams, planting a kiss on his cheek that he doesn’t wipe away like he does his mother’s.

Chunky and perfumed, the honey-haired Avalin mothers every child, no matter their nature. If the Romans brought children, she would love them as her own.

“Is it true? Have the wolves returned?” Bright brown eyes drift from Taran to his sister. “Chinny, remember the first time we saw them? How we stood with our men and fathers on the cliffs?”

Mother forces a subservient smile. Avalin commands many, relying on Cassibelanus, a man she has raised since he was a pup, to keep them in line. Childless most of her days, the Gods saw fit to award Avalin with a son long after her bleeding became irregular.

“Your boy will have his first battle,” Ciniod expresses false excitement.

“We’ll set out before sunrise and attack their beachhead,” says Taran.

“Is that wise?” Cassibelanus asks.

“They’ll not be waiting for you,” Aedan scowls, jumping to his feet. “They’ll march the bulk of their forces through the night and find this place.”

Taran shakes his head, “They don’t know this land.”

“Don’t bet against it,” Aedan counters. “It’s not their first visit.”

“I’m aware. I’ve faced Rome,” Taran reminds him. “On and off this island,”

“You faced Rome,” Aedan counters. “And lost your face,”

Avalin steps behind Cassibelanus, who grins at their exchange.

“You would have me send fighters in the night?” Taran goads. “Their torches, targets in the trees?”

“I would have you dispatch the night hunters,” Aedan says. “Set traps along the widest swaths of the wood.”

“Wouldn’t they use the trees as cover?” Ciniod asks.

“No,” says Cassibelanus. “Showing their numbers is strategic.”

“Yes, and they’re disciplined creatures,” Aedan adds. “They march four by four on known roads and three by three over natural paths,”

All eyes find him.

“My father’s letters found me well enough,” he defends, then confronts Taran. “Your frontal assaults failed on the continent, and they’ll fail here.”

“I know this land,” Taran tempers his rage. “I’ve killed for it,”

“And I’ve killed to see its future,” says Aedan. “All I ask is that you plan a contingency for when your beach attack fails.”

“That’s a fair request,” Cassibelanus interjects. “Lead a small war party to intercept their scouts.”

Taran nods, “Or better still, we fortify a nearby river.” He draws a circle in the sand around a serpentine line of dull blue thread. “We’ll gather at the Avona.”

“It’s too close,” Aedan says quickly.

Taran tuts, earning a gentle pat on the hand from Ciniod.

“I was thinking farther north,” says Cassibelanus.

Taran shakes his head. “They’ll not cross the Avona,”

“Oh, but they will,” Aedan taunts him. “And our dead will be their bridge.”

Avalin gasps. “Is that what you saw at the Tamesa?”

“He saw nothing,” Taran says. “Bloodlust clouded any divination.”

Aedan stares at him in silence.

“We’ll hold half the force east of the wood,” Taran decides. “If the wolves manage to cross the Avona, we’ll fight them in the grass here,”

“They’re strongest on an open field,” blurts Aedan.

Taran calmly taunts, “Faced many Romans, have you?”

“As if that matters since you’ve done so and learned nothing.” Aedan relays his thoughts without emotion. “They’ve bested you time and again in free-range skirmishes, and here you are, humping the same leg you did on the continent, like an addle-brained dog.”

Cassibelanus tilts his bulk over the table, putting himself between a taciturn Aedan and the enraged Taran.

“What do you suggest, Owl?”

“He’s not Fintan’s successor,” Taran exclaims.

“If not him, then who?” Ciniod whispers, quieting him.

Aedan says, “Send an emissary to open talks.”

“Would you have us invite them for some mutton?” Cassibelanus asks, eliciting laughter from his entourage.

“The river is too close.” Aedan jabs a finger into the sand where the eastern grasslands run and draws a line to the stone marking their current location. “Kaiser’s horsemen will follow Taran’s retreat and burn this place to the ground.”

“Get out,” Taran growls. “I tolerated you because of your father, but no more.”

“I thought you were my father,” Aedan says.

Cassibelanus lowers his head, and Ciniod aims her deadliest look at him. Avalin, a consummate peacemaker, steps to the emotionally wounded druid and takes his big ears in her hands.

“Taran, he’s lost his father, and you’ve lost your…” She turns her sad eyes to Aedan, “Let’s hash this out further when your tempers have settled.”

Aedan retreats, with Taran’s sour regard tickling his back.

“The boy lacks his father’s temperament,” he hears his mother say. Cassibelanus counters, “Yet wields his father’s cunning.”

Outside, Aedan overhears the warlord’s intention to return north. Taran sounds hurt, and Cassibelanus insists they make their stand at the Tamesa, where he’ll have gathered the numbers needed to face Rome.

“We’re the first line of defense,” Taran’s voice wavers. “Are you of this thought?”

“I wish for no fight at all,” Avalin’s voice placates. “But if there’s to be a confrontation, we shall have it on our home shores at the Tamesa.”

Ciniod announces her intent to remain by Taran’s side. Aedan finds her bid for the warlord’s attention as pathetic as her loyalty to Taran. She hopes Cassibelanus might beg her to accompany him north or at least provide her with some men for protection if she stays. Lack of the former standing as proof that he’s not ready to share her bed. Any unwillingness on his part isn’t down to respect for her dead husband—no, it’s the length of her teeth: Cassibelanus prefers young juicy cunts over those requiring grease before poking.

“I saw you at the ceremony, Owl King.”

Kelr’s breath tickles his neck, and Aedan turns to find the manlet’s boyish face studying him.

“Mother’s right,” his thin lips twist. “Your eyes are darker than a raven’s beak,”

Aedan dips his tilted head closer.

“Can you see yourself in my dark eyes?”

“No,” says Kelr, pensive. “Am I supposed to?”

Without warning, Aedan shoves him. Kelr keeps his footing, but his cheeks burn red as he grips Aedan’s narrow upper arms. He shoves Aedan to the ground, his mood a perfect mix of upset and irritation. Aedan bites his lower lip, opens his legs, and bucks his groin at him. The manlet blinks in confusion, a protective hand cradling his gut.

Bored with such indecision, the limber Aedan rolls backward to standing. “When you’re ready to be a man, come find me.”

Kelr paces after him. “Why did you provoke a fight?”

“I hit you. You hit me.” Aedan climbs the water well to perch upon its bucket brace. “I fight you. You beat me. We fuck.”

“That’s insane,” Kelr blurts out.

Aedan’s dark eyes gleam. “A punch to the face feels good.”

“Do you,” Kelr swallows hard, “do you like that?”

“I like that,” Aedan parrots, then softens.

They regard one another for several moments as passers-by bustle about.

“Fine then,” says Kelr, unsure. “I can try what you want,”

Aedan backflips and lands on his feet before walking away.

“I need a man that does,” he calls over his shoulder. “Not a boy who tries.”