The Divining (10 page)

     "Why would they choose me to be their servant?"

     "Because, daughter, you have inherited a special gift." She paused. "You do have a special gift, do you not?"

     The old woman waited, while her companion sat in watchful silence.

     The bowl of broth stopped at Ulrika's lips. She lowered it to her lap and said, "What special gift?"

     A long bony arm reached out, and for an instant Ulrika glimpsed smooth skin and strong muscles. The old woman touched Ulrika's forehead and whispered, "It is called the Divining."

     The smoke from the sputtering torch seemed to grow stronger. Ulrika's head swam for a moment, and then she said, "Do you mean my visions? But it is an illness."

     The woman shook her head, casting platinum highlights off her white hair. "It is a gift, daughter. You are afraid of the visions. You must not be.
You must embrace them because they came from the gods and are therefore sacred."

     "How do you know this?"

     "You say you are the daughter of Wulf. The Divining is in his bloodline."

     "But my visions make no sense. Nor can I command them. They are like random dreams that come and go and are beyond interpretation. What sort of gift is that?"

     "You will learn to control them and read them."

     "To what purpose? I have no wish to know the future."

     "That is not the purpose of your visions."

     "Then what?" Ulrika set the bowl aside. "What good do such nonsensical visions do for me?"

     "They are not for you, daughter. You must use your gift to help others, not yourself."

     Ulrika massaged her temples. "I still do not understand."

     "Your gift has been handed down to you from a long line of women who possessed it. But your gift is young and undisciplined, which is why your visions make no sense. You must learn to tame your gift, control it. Learn to use it to help others."

     "But what is the Divining?"

     "That you will learn when you learn discipline."

     "Who will teach me this discipline?"

     "It must come from within yourself. But there will be teachers. You will not know them. Only when you have left them behind will you know who they were. That is why you must open your mind and heart to all whom you encounter in your life's path. Sleep again, child. Rest. Tomorrow you must return to where you belong. Tomorrow you begin a new and special journey."

     Beneath the soft comfort of wolf pelts, in the coziness of the forest hut, Ulrika closed her eyes and slipped away into deep, welcome sleep.

     When she awoke to find sunlight streaming through the overhead twigs and branches, her memory of the night before came back. As she bathed in a nearby stream and refreshed herself on a humble breakfast of mushrooms and acorns, Ulrika pondered the mysterious words the old woman had spoken.

     When she was ready to leave, the senior caretaker of the grove supplied
Ulrika with nuts and berries, a waterskin, and fresh boots for her feet. "Do not go back by way of the battleground," she cautioned. "Directly south of here, you will come to another stream. Follow its current and it will take you to the river your people call the Rhine. You will be safe along the way, daughter, for the spirits of the stream will protect you."

     As an added precaution, the caretaker of the grove reached into a leather pouch on her belt and withdrew a handful of curious stones, flat and variously shaped, each with a symbol drawn on it. She cast these stones onto the ground and studied the symbols for a long moment while birdsong filled the air. She frowned, white brows coming together, then she straightened and said, "The runes say that you have strayed from your destined path. You must go back to the beginning of your path and set out upon it again. This time you will stay true to your destiny."

     Ulrika looked down at the flat stones. "Where is the beginning?"

     "At the place where you were conceived, for that is when your life began."

     "But that is in Persia, which is a vast land! How will I find such a place?"

     "It is where you must go. There, you will find your destiny."

     Her mind filled with puzzled thoughts, Ulrika thanked the two women, and struck off southward.

     As they watched her go, the other old woman, who had not spoken, rested her gnarled hand on the first one's arm and said, "Sister, how can you be so calm about this?"

     "I am not calm, Hilde. I wanted to embrace her, but I had to hold myself back, for her sake."

     "Did Wulf know she was coming?"

     "Wulf does not even know she exists."

     As they watched Ulrika disappear through charred trees, the second of the old women said, "But why did you lie to her? Why not tell her the truth?"

     She could not, for the truth was a great secret: after the deaths of Arminius's wife Thusnelda and their only son, the German hero never married again. But when Arminius was grieving bitterly for his loss, he found comfort in the sacred grove dedicated to the Goddess of the Red-Gold Tears,
where the beautiful young priestess took him into her arms. Wulf was the result of that secret union.

     "Could you not at least tell her that her father is alive?" Hilde asked gently.

     Milky blue eyes filled with tears. "A great and strange destiny awaits my granddaughter, and if she knew her father was still alive, she would stay here and go in search of him and never fulfill that destiny. Believing him to be dead, she will follow the correct path."

     "Will she come back to us?"

     "Perhaps someday, the gods willing," said the elder seeress of the Cherusci tribe, herself called Ulrika and after whom her granddaughter had been named.

T
HE DAY DIED, THE FOREST GREW MENACING
.

     Ulrika had been following the stream as the old woman had instructed, but it seemed to be leading nowhere. How far was the river?

     Her packs grew heavy as the stream seemed to meander aimlessly through dense pines and oaks, down a narrow valley pocked with ancient caves. Ulrika felt the eyes of woodland creatures measure her progress as she stumbled, her right foot bare, over prickly ground.

     
Snap!

     She stopped, held her breath to listen.

     
Snap!

     Footfall. Too heavy for an animal.

     Rustling in the underbrush. Something—or someone—was following her.

     She scanned the forest, her eyes wide in the dying daylight. Shadows took on forbidding shapes, seemed to move. The gurgle of the stream faded while other sounds grew loud—the screech of a hawk, the wind high in treetops, another snap of underbrush.

     Wondering if she could outrun whatever was following her, Ulrika turned in the direction of the sounds, saw silhouettes moving, and realized they were men. When the first emerged into the small clearing beside the stream, and Ulrika saw that he was tall and bearded, wearing a belted tunic and leather leggings, when she saw the tribal tattoos and long twisted hair, she frantically searched for a place to hide.

     Four more emerged from the oaks and pines, swords in hand, angry looks on their faces. One had dried blood caked on his arm, another limped on an injured leg. As they drew near, brandishing swords smeared with blood, Ulrika saw the crazed look in their eyes. She thought of her own dagger, tucked out of reach in one of her packs.

     She fell back a step. The strangers exchanged words which she did not understand. But she understood their intent. Killing lust burned in the eyes of these survivors of a humiliating defeat.

     She fell back another step and felt the slope of the ground as it began the descent to the bank of the stream. The sun had left the forest; gloom surrounded Ulrika and the five warriors. They crept closer. She smelled their sweat. She saw scars, old and new. The long blond beards, unruly hair. The faces smeared with blood and dirt.

     Then she saw the man at the rear, a barrel-chested giant with red hair, separate himself from the others and inch around to come up from behind. He leered at Ulrika with a gap-toothed grin. Reaching for the strap of one of her travel packs, she drew it from her shoulder and swung it with all her might. The warrior laughed as he grabbed the pack and tossed it away.

     Ulrika tried another, swinging it at her assailants, but it too was wrenched from her grasp and thrown out of reach. She tried to step to the side, but a third man blocked her way. They encircled her. Ulrika could not watch all of them.

     The leader raised his sword, grinning like his comrades, the look in his eyes no longer one of killing lust but lust of another kind. The man behind grabbed Ulrika's hair, as half had come uncoiled during her forest trek. She cried out. He dragged her to him. She felt strong arms go around her waist. She kicked, tried to bite. The leader seized her ankles. Ulrika cursed her weakness. Afternoons sitting at her loom, browsing in bookstores—

     They dragged her to the ground and pinned her down. The leader bent over her, grinning as he tugged at her dress. He lowered himself, and then suddenly looked at her in surprise. Ulrika stared up into his scarred face and their eyes met for an instant before he collapsed onto her, suffocating her with his weight. The others were suddenly on their feet, shouting. Pushing the unconscious man away, Ulrika sat up and saw Sebastianus Gallus, in a white tunic and blue cloak, come flying out of the forest, swinging a sword. She watched in amazement as the four warriors descended upon him, their swords meeting his.

     Ulrika shot to her feet and searched for something to use as a weapon. She saw the dagger in the dead man's back, which Gallus had thrown on the run. She yanked it out and looked for a target, but the men were moving too quickly.

     As metal clanged with metal, the Galician reached for the fastening at his throat, drew his cloak from his shoulders and threw it over the heads of Ulrika's assailants. One of them became tangled in the cloth and fell backwards. The other three continued to fight, attacking from all sides, with the Spaniard deftly meeting each plunge of a Barbarian's sword.

     Gripping Gallus's dagger, Ulrika gave a cry and flew at the man with red hair, sinking the weapon into the meat of his shoulder. He bellowed and swung about. Ulrika managed to pull the dagger out and jump aside, to jab at another warrior.

     With the clang of metal ringing in her ears as she thrust and hit and screamed, driven by fury and grief and self-recrimination, her eyes blinded by tears, Ulrika caught flashes of Sebastianus Gallus as he fought the Barbarians. She saw thickly muscled arms, broad shoulders, and a strong back as he swung his massive sword again and again, sending his foes reeling, staggering beneath his blows.

     Gallus kept up with them, even though outnumbered, thrusting, slicing, spinning this way and that, meeting each blow that came his way until one attacker fell, and then another. With one man left standing, and Gallus advancing with his sword, relentlessly driving the Barbarian backwards, the others scrambled to their feet and ran off, shouting oaths over their shoulders as they plunged into the woods and disappeared.

     Heaving for breath, Sebastianus watched them go, then he wiped his brow and looked at Ulrika. "Are you all right?"

     She stared at him. "Yes—" she began. Was he truly here, or was he a vision?
Why
was he here? How had he found her? Gallus gulped for air, his chest expanding, muscles straining the fabric of his tunic. His closely cropped bronze hair and beard glistened with the sweat of combat. Ulrika was speechless at the sight of him. Sebastianus's sword was massive, yet he had swung it with ease.

     "They will come back," he said as he retrieved his cloak from the ground and then picked up Ulrika's packs. He looked around the forest gloom. The sun had gone, night was nearly upon them. "I got separated from my party. I'll never find them in the dark. Those caves look safe for now."

     Ulrika fell wordlessly into step at his side. She was numb with shock. Judging by their tribal tattoos, her attackers had been Cherusci, her father's countrymen. And yet her rescuer was really a stranger to her, with whom she had no connection, materializing out of nowhere, startling her with his strength and power—a man who sat with his abacus, counting sacks of grain.

     "Here," Sebastianus said when they reached a cave surrounded by stunted trees and trailing blackberries. The fissure was small, barely visible, with just enough room for them to slip inside. "They won't find us in here."

     But Ulrika held back. "No, not this one," she said.

     "Why not? It's defensible. And we can camouflage the opening." Sebastianus glanced back toward the forest. They needed to find a hiding place quickly. As he stepped toward the cave entrance, Ulrika said, "No, they will find us in there."

     She turned and surveyed the dark woods, listened to the stream trickling nearby. In the darkening twilight she saw ahead, on the other side of a stand of oak trees, a larger cave, with a wide opening, and no brush surrounding it. "There," she said, pointing. "We will be safe in there."