Chapter 7

Chapter  7  “ Nemeton”

“Never fear the unknown. Fear that which is in front of you. “

--Scribonius Largus

A bracing wind came from the west, out of the forest itself, bringing with it the smell of blood and death mingled with smoke and sweet incense. In response to the putrid odor, Caradoc put his arm to his face.

His horse let out a stubborn snort, and then reared high into the cold night air. As its hooves touched the earth, the Catuvellaunian warrior dismounted, grabbed the reigns, and headed toward the line of oak before him.

The moonlight pouring into the meadow revealed very little of what lay beyond the trees. Even through the darkness, Caradoc was sure he had come to the right place. He wrapped the reigns around the nearest limb, shrugged back his thick woolen cloak, revealing a great long-sword at his side. He untied a bundle from behind the saddle, picked it up, and adjusted it until it cradled easily in his arm. He then turned toward the trees before him.

Looking at the darkness, he reverently reached up and grabbed a thick-coiled bit of bronze, fashioned so that it curved around his neck. Then he raised his face to the moon, as if he was soaking in its strength. The bronze torc reflected the light and shimmered in the moonlight. His long, flaxen hair blew wildly in the wind. He took a few long steps and breached the barrier of trees into the clearing beyond—the Druid sacred grove.

“The Nemeton,” he whispered.

Caradoc let his eyes adjust to the dark interior. He could barely make out a stone table and before it a man in a long white woolen robe staring wide-eyed in his direction. Caradoc marched up to this man, leaned in close and, trying to be heard over the roaring of the wind in the trees around the copse, he yelled into the face of the Druid.

“These are to be sacrificed. Now!” 

Caradoc shoved the bundle past the Druid and put them hard on the table. Then turning to go back to his horse, he gave a dismissive wave of his hand, “Without delay,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“But there are two of them,” the Druid gasped as he peeled back the dark woolen wrapping. Looking into the bundle placed on the altar, he declared, “Why, twins they are. Boys. Newborn.” And then softly as he examined them, he whispered, “Pure.”

Caradoc heard the word and it sounded vulgar to him. He stopped.

“Pure. That’s what she had called them,” Caradoc said.

He had listened from the doorway when she prayed.

“She was going to cut them for her god,” he sneered in contempt.

Caradoc shook his head to clear his thoughts and remembered his purpose. “No sons of mine will be given to any foreign gods. I will see to that.”

He looked to where his horse was as the man waited for a reply. “He said he would send my curs to Rome,” he recalled, “For what? To train them in their ways only to send them back to replace me? Rome will not conquer me this way. I will not allow it. To give them to my brother to train as he wishes would be just as bad.”

Without turning, he yelled back to the Druid, “Yes! Yes! Blast it! Two of them, the more life force to give to the gods, you goat! I gave you orders. Carry them out. Now, kill them!”

He continued to walk out of the clearing. When he got to his horse outside the tree line, he loosened the reins from the limb and yanked them hard. “These imbeciles, they better not foul this up.”

“What is it you seek?” someone yelled behind him.

Caradoc’s hand instinctively grabbed the hilt of his sword as he quickly turned to face more Druids filtering through the trees. They carried torches.

One of them pushed several of the others aside and stepped forward carrying Caradoc’s bundle. This man, although attired in a white robe like the man he had seen before, had a large noticeable bloody-red spot on his left shoulder.

He held up the babes, “What do you desire from such a gift as this?”  He then handed the twins to an attendant, and walked directly toward the warrior.

Caradoc clinched his fist and waited for the Druid to reach him.

“This must be the head butcher,” he murmured, “they are nothing but men-wives.”

The wind died down as he watched the man coming toward him. He walked the slow, reverential gait Caradoc had seen among all Druids, as if they were floating above the ground in their long white robes. Caradoc spat on the ground. He grabbed a handful of the horse’s mane and turned to mount his steed once again.

“Stop! Come with me. I have questions,” the Druid demanded.

The chance that someone would ask questions about the boys caused Caradoc to reconsider his course. He had made plans. He needed to keep things balanced, if he was to succeed. If he left now there was a possibility that the task would not be completed.

“It must be done tonight. I don’t have time for your questions.” he said.

“You must give me answers or we cannot do what you demand,” the Druid said.

“If you must, but, I warn you,” Caradoc fumbled with another bundle tied to his saddle, “I have much left to do before sunrise. I will return and listen to your questions – only for a moment. Make sure you do what I say.”

Hitching his horse again, Caradoc led the way back through the trees into the clearing, the Druids following.

Back in the grove, the Druid, who had spoken to him, grabbed a torch from the nook of a tree, lit it, and handed it to the warrior. He indicated that Caradoc was to stay next to the table and then walked into the shadows. He left Caradoc to wait.

“Be quick about it,” Caradoc said. He placed the torch back in its tree-perch, crossed his arms and leaned against the cool bark of the nearest oak wondering why the Druid had left. Looking at the table he saw that the Druids had once again placed the children on the stone. The little ones stirred under the woolen covering. The warrior let out a huff and turned away. “This better not take long.”

He looked around at the torch-lit oaken grove before him. There, in the flickering firelight, he saw the shadows of various victims of sacrifice and ritual evisceration hanging from the massive limbs of the trees that edged the clearing. The shadows moved as the torchlight played upon the forms making them look as if they could still be alive. In the center of the grove was a massive stone table—a large grey-speckled boulder that was flat and smooth on the top. It appeared weathered by age and use.

He turned to his left. There he saw human carcasses: men disemboweled—entrails spilled on the ground and spread out where they had been sifted through by the Druids who were looking for signs from the gods. There was blood collecting in a bronze bowl beneath a body, each bloody drop that fell from the victim’s naked feet made a distinctive plop. Heads—twisted faces of death—positioned on stakes, lined the outer ring of the grove.

Caradoc was familiar with this practice of collecting the trophy heads of those overcome in battle. They added power to the soul of the taker and gave a clear message to potential adversaries of accomplishment. He, himself, had many such heads hanging from his gate back at his hill fort—and one such trophy hung from his saddle, even now.

“The containers of men’s souls,” Caradoc grinned, “Perhaps these Druids are not so weak, but more like me after all. They kill for their gods. I kill for my own name. Nevertheless, both of us kill to gain position or power from others,’ he relaxed deeper into the tree behind him as his mood improved; “There is no difference in that.”

Across from him, in the torchlight he could see the body of a man, sitting bound to a tree. His chest raised and lowered in labored breaths as he clung to what remained of his life. A large, blackened color of a man with a thick brow and large nostrils positioned close to his lips. In the flickering light, the visage reminded Caradoc of the face of a horse. He had never seen such a man as this.

“Certainly, a man that large contains more life-force than those paltry boys of mine.”

He chuckled to himself as he entertained the idea of asking for the extra sacrifice of this horse-faced man until he noticed the man was wearing a red tunic.

“How did this man, dressed in Roman red, end up here? Auxiliary conscript perhaps?” Caradoc turned away, “It doesn’t matter. Priests will sacrifice anyone nowadays, especially criminals. Any Roman fits that description as far as I’m concerned.”

He counted the bodies of the captives in the trees. Eight. Eight in all. Good, he thought, Druids like doing things in nines. Nines and Threes. The man tied to the tree was number nine.

“Eight directions in the world

 and in their center - nine.

Nine are the Celtic Maidens,

 standing stones in a line.

Nine virgins to attend Bridgit

Nine through the fire alone.

Nine - the number of the eternal

The triple triad of our home.”

Caradoc let the drinking song flow through his mind as he waited.

“Which god do you bequest, my lord?” It was that Druid again, returning as if he just appeared from the darkness. He handed several vials and some cloth to one of the other men.

Caradoc examined the Druid in the torchlight. He was short. Body round with spindly arms. The short man rubbed the sweat from his bald head before it could run down into his hedgerow of bushy eyebrows. The eyes beneath were dark, not only the pupils, but the iris as well. They were sunken, almost skull-like. He smiled a large thin-lipped toothy smile that appeared to swallow his small upturned nose.

“What is it you want, O Great Warrior?”

“Doesn’t matter, O… Adored One,” Caradoc replied sarcastically.

“I am Kenjar; I am only a vessel for your use.” He bowed.

Caradoc snorted out a quick laugh. “Fool!”

The Druid continued, “Do you not want the children? They are strong and of your stock, I presume? Custom dictates giving sons to be raised by the brother of the birth mother. Certainly, they cannot be burdensome to you? Is the mother still alive? Did she die in birthing them?”

“Their mother?” Caradoc said, scrunching his large nose, as he motioned to the babes. “She is Jewish, a gift from Rome. Monies I paid to keep a wolf at bay only yielded a piece of worthless flesh as change.” He saw the Druid look at him with eyes wide, bushy brows raised, mouth pursed tightly.

“The birth-mother is not of our people?”

Caradoc did not want to explain. She was a slave-wife, caught up in her foreign religion, unwilling to convert to the Catuvellaunian way—despite his orders to do so. “The children are my property—not hers—to do with as I please.” He spat again as if to get a foul taste out of his mouth. “She is nothing. Her family is nothing. Yes, my eldest brother, Adminius, claims them for training. I despise him. He is weak and kisses Rome’s behind,” he wiped the back of his hand across his nose, “They will never be his.”

Kenjar motioned for another Druid to attend him and pointed to the ground where the spittle lay. Whispering incantations, the younger Druid bent down and attempted to clean the soil with the hem of his robe.

“You’re asking too many questions.” Caradoc kicked dirt at the Druid cleaning the sputum. “Get on with it!”

“We have no problem with sacrifice, as you can see. I merely need to know what ritual to perform for you. Why must we do this for you? Children are your inheritance. Your land goes to them. We have done many ritual deaths to insure a man’s family size remains small and property is not spread too thin.”

The warrior looked to the table in the center of the grove; his twin sons bundled together were asleep on the cold stone slab. A sugar-teat, made from the patch of cloth, and soaked in strong wine and honey that the Druid had prepared, kept them both quiet.

Caradoc’s face showed no care, no feeling for the children lying oblivious to their surroundings. His long mustache drew in and out with each hot breath as he considered what the man was asking. He clinched his hands till he felt the nails in his flesh. This man was beginning to irritate him. He felt the uncertainty and lack of confidence in the Druids demeanor. Stepping close to the slab, he fingered the place where blood had stained deep into the rock from years of sacrifice. “They are weaklings. They deserve this.”

“My lord, speak up. What did you say?” Kenjar said, straining to hear the warriors’ musings.

One of the boys’ lips stuck out in a tiny pout.

Caradoc’s impatience turned toward anger. It burned as he looked at the boys.
            “You’ll slay them on this stone!” Caradoc yelled and then slapped the table twice. He stepped back, drew his sword and turned to face the man. “You are going to sacrifice them – NOW!” He pointed his long blade to the young babes sleeping on the cold stone. When the Druid did not react, Caradoc pressed forward and grabbed the man’s robe where the blood-red spot met the man’s collarbone. It was not a Druidic insignia. It was blood.  He pulled the man closer, pushing the sword up to his throat. Then, between his teeth, he tersely said, “You are not the high Druid, I know this.” 

 “W-w-why not do it yourself?” Kenjar said, “Your sword is ready.”