side he could see various small huts and houses. Even the lowliest shed bore a smooth coat of bright-coloured paint.
A number of people were standing around, watching their procession straggle into the courtyard. They all had the same furled ears and cat-slit eyes as the healer; they all wore tunics and sandals like his as well. Off to one side someone was leading a horse around the end of the main building, a stocky warhorse whose coat shone like gold and whose mane and tail flowed like silver. Rhodorix had a brief moment of wondering if he’d died without noticing and now walked in the Otherlands, but his thirst drove the fancy away. Dead men didn’t long for water.
Bells chimed over the courtyard, followed by the louder boom and reverberation of huge metallic gongs. The sound came from the top of the tower to his left. When he looked up, Rhodorix saw men on the roofs, and the gleam of metal swinging as they struck the gongs. Up on the mountain peak the sun slipped a little lower. The long knife-blade of light disappeared. The gongs fell silent as the healer urged his men forward again.
They entered the largest building by a narrow door at one end. More colours, more mosaic walls – they turned down a corridor with walls painted with images of trees and deer, then passed red-curtained alcoves and went through a gilded room into a mostly blue corridor, decorated with a long frieze of circles and triangles. Glowing cylinders topped with flame burned in little tiled alcoves on the walls. In this maze of design and brightness, Rhodorix could barely distinguish what he was seeing, nor could he tell in what direction they walked.
At last the healer ushered them into a small chamber with a narrow plank bed, a round table, a scatter of chairs, and a window open to the air. The men with the litter transferred Gerontos to the planks, then pulled off his hauberk and his boots. They bowed to the healer and left.
Rhodorix was just wondering how to ask for water when four cat-eyed servants came trotting in. He assumed they were servants because they carried plates of bread, silver pitchers, and a tray of golden cups. One of them filled a cup with water and handed it to Rhodorix without being asked. Thirst and dust choked his mouth so badly that he could only smile for thanks. The fellow pointed to the food on the table with a sweep of his arm that seemed to mean ‘help yourself’.
Other servants carried in big baskets and set them down beside the plank bed. The healer took out several sticks with spikes at one end and put them on the table. Onto the spikes he put thick cylinders of wax with a bit of thread coming out of their tops. When he snapped his fingers, the threads caught fire, and a soft glow of light spread through the shadowed room. Rhodorix took a fast couple of steps back. The healer smiled at his surprise, then pointed to the food and water before returning to Gerontos’s side.
Rhodorix drank half a pitcher of water before his head cleared enough for him to consider food. He took a chunk of bread and stood eating it while he watched the healer and two of the servants washing Gerontos’s broken leg. By then his brother had fainted. And a good thing, too, Rhodorix thought when the healer grabbed Gerontos’s ankle with one hand and guided the leg straight with the other. Gerontos woke with the pain, groaned, and fainted again. A servant came forward with a bowl of some thick, reddish substance. At first Rhodorix thought it blood, but the smell told him that it was in fact honey mixed with red wine and some ingredient that made the liquid glisten.
The healer dipped strips of cloth into the mixture, then bound them round the break in the leg, over and over until he’d built up a thick layer. A servant came forward with a bowl of water and held it out while he washed his hands. Another slipped a pillow under Gerontos’s head. At that Gerontos woke again, groaning repeatedly, turning his head this way and that. Rhodorix strode over to the opposite side of the bed from the healer and caught his brother’s hand. Gerontos fell silent and tried to smile at him. His mouth contorted into a painful twist.
Two servants hurried over to help Gerontos drink from a cup of the yellow liquid. A third handed Rhodorix a cup of red wine, which he sipped, watching his brother’s pain ease with every swallow of the yellow drink. The healer himself considered Rhodorix, seemed to be about to speak, then smiled, a little ruefully, as if perhaps remembering that Rhodorix wouldn’t understand a word he said. He went to the doorway and spoke to someone standing just outside. A woman’s voice answered him; then the woman herself strode into the chamber.
She stood by the bed and set her hands on her hips to look Gerontos over while the healer talked on. Now and then she nodded as if agreeing with something he said. Tall, nearly as tall as Rhodorix, she wore her pale hair pulled back into a pair of braids. Under thin brows her eyes were the blue of river ice and deep-set in a face that most likely became lovely when she smiled. At the moment, frowning in thought as she considered Gerontos’s leg, she looked as grim as a druid at a sacrifice. Gerontos looked at Rhodorix and quirked an eyebrow. Once, during Vindex’s ill-fated rebellion, they’d seen a contingent of Belgae warriors, all of them as pale-haired and pale-eyed as this woman.
‘She must be a Belgae woman,’ Rhodorix said.
‘Indeed,’ Gerontos whispered. ‘Unless she’s from Germania.’
Neither the woman or the healer took any notice of their talk. She wore a long tunic, belted at the waist like the healer’s, pinned at one shoulder with a gold brooch in the shape of a bird with outstretched wings. Around her neck hung a cluster of what Rhodorix took to be charms on leather thongs. One of the Belgae wise women, he assumed – he’d heard about them back home in Gallia. Eventually she turned to him and spoke. He understood nothing. All he could do was shake his head and spread his hands to show confusion. Her eyes widened in surprise.
The healer came over to him, made a questioning sort of face, and pointed to his ear.
‘I’m not deaf.’ Rhodorix made a guess at the meaning. He pointed to his own ear and smiled, nodding. ‘I can hear you.’
The healer seemed to understand. He in turn nodded his agreement, then spoke to the woman. They left the chamber together.
‘What was all that?’ Gerontos said.
‘I don’t know for certain,’ Rhodorix said. ‘But I’d guess they were expecting us to understand her talk. They were certainly surprised about somewhat.’ He paused to sip from the cup. ‘This wine is very good.’ He pointed at a servant, then at his brother.
The fellow filled a second cup and brought it over. With Rhodorix’s help, Gerontos raised himself up enough to take a few sips. He sighed and lay back down.
‘Enough for now,’ Gerontos whispered. ‘Go eat. I have to sleep.’
The servants took themselves away. Rhodorix got up and returned to the table, but even though he ate, he was considering suicide. He could go outside to the courtyard, find a corner where no one would see him, and fall upon his sword. Or, if the guards would let him, he could climb one of the high towers and step off into death on the stones below. Death seemed the only honourable act left to him after his failure of the day, yet at the same time, how could he abandon his brother here among these strange folk?
If only Galerinos were still with them, he could ask the young druid to cast omens or deliver some kind of opinion based on the holy laws, but Gallo was far away – safe, or so he hoped. He finished his wine, downed what Gerontos had left, then poured himself more. Lacking a holy man, he sought his answers in drink. After the fourth cupful, the room began dancing around him. Rhodorix lay down on the carpeted floor and slept.
‘I don’t understand,’ Nallatanadario said. ‘If they don’t belong to your people, who are they?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hwilli said. ‘But they certainly didn’t understand a word I said to them.’
The
