Read Druids for Free Online Page A

numbers.
    The wagon came rumbling up the rutted trackway from the south, accompanied by an escort of Arvemian warriors with weapons at the ready. In tribeland not their own, they shot suspicious glances at every rock and bush.
    Gobannitio was easily recognized. He stood in the front of the cart, wearing a massive tore of twisted gold around his neck to protect his nape and announce his status. His arms and fingers gleamed with rings of gold and bronze. Earrings of imported enamelware dangled from his ears. Luxury goods from the Mid-Earth Sea were very popular among Gaulish princes.
    In spite of his splendor, my eyes were drawn to the person who rode beside him, a youth of my own age and height. This must be the lad come for his manmaking.
    I could not help staring.
    From the first glimpse I sensed in the boy a surging urgency, as if he might explode at any moment. Though he was affecting a glaze of princely boredom for our benefit, he seemed more alive than anyone I had ever seen.
    He felt my eyes on him and turned toward me. Our gazes met and locked. For one heartbeat his eyes were cold, measuring me.
    28 Morgan Llywelyn
    Then his aloof expression dissolved into a grin that went all the way to his ears.
    “My nephew Vercingetorix,” Gobannitio was announcing to Menua and the waiting druids. “The name was given him at birth by our seer. It means “King of the World.’ ”
    Vercingetorix. I knew from that first moment that we were as different as ice and fire. We were not going to like each other.
    Instead of stepping from the wagon, he put one hand on the side panel and vaulted out. Gobannitio followed in the more customary way, and Menua. together with Dian Cet and Grannus, escorted the pair into the chief druid’s lodge.
    I was left outside.
    After a little stylized posturing, the Arvemian escort relaxed and mingled with our own warriors-Fighting men have a common language beyond tribal dialects. Soon they were sharing cups. I was left to slink around outside the lodge on my own, wondering if Vercingetorix was drinking wine with the adults.
    The life of the fort went on around me. Metal clanged; the craftsmen, who were honored next to warriors, were getting the tools ready for planting season. Meanwhile, women swept and scrubbed and baked and sang the songs of work and weariness. Knee-children scrabbled in the dirt, whooping and shrieking.
    Eventually Vercingetorix emerged from Menua’s lodge and glanced around. “Where is the lad with the bronze-colored hair? Ah, there you are. Help me with my things, I’m going to be
    sleeping here.”
    “/am the only other person allowed to sleep in the chief druid’s lodge,” I retorted, prickling with indignation.
    He flashed me another of his engaging grins. His sandy-gold hair entitled him to a face full of freckles. He had a sharply chis-eled nose with little indentation below the brow, like a Hellene’s. His eyes sloped downward at the outer comers, giving him a deceptively lazy expression as he drawled, “But Menua just told me I am to share his lodge. So you are wrong. Wrong often, are you?” he added insultingly.
    Menua might accuse me of being wrong, and often did, but no stranger from another tribe could saunter into my birthplace and insult me. I hit him, of course. I am a Celt.
    He hit me back, of course. He was a Celt.
    At once we were rolling in the dirt, grunting and swearing and pummeling each other. He sank a fist under my ribs that knocked the breath out of me, but not before I managed to strike him
    DRUIDS 29
    squarely in one of those sleepy, hooded eyes. It would be rainbowed before the sun set.
    Rough hands pulled us apart. I looked up to see Menua glaring at me, and beyond him an amused circle of onlookers. “You disgrace me, Ainvar,” said the chief druid.
    Vercingetorix and I scrambled to our feet. He had the nerve to try to help me brush myself off, but I shoved him away.
    Menua regarded me sourly. “Having an Arvemian prince entrusted to us