The Hallowed Isle Book Two: The Book of the Spear by Diana L. Paxson

Author:Diana L. Paxson [Paxson, Diana L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Retail, TPL
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Leaderless, the Picts fled northward like fallen leaves before the wind. Artor released his infantry and the men who lived farthest away to go home to their harvests while the British cavalry sped after the enemy, disposing of stragglers in a series of brief, bitter engagements that left the enemy dead, or less often, captive. The Picts were not destroyed entirely. Small groups of riders who knew the land could go where the larger, more heavily armed pursuers would never find them. Nonetheless, only a tithe of the great army that Naitan Morbet had led southward at Beltain ever returned to celebrate the feast of Lugus in the Caledonian hills and glens, and an unhappy line of prisoners followed when Artor’s army at last reached Dun Eidyn.

From the high ridge of rock and the dun that crowned it to the flat meadow in the cleft below, the air pulsed with the sound of the drumming. From time to time a bitter skirling of pipes would gather the rhythm into their music, but when it ceased, the drums continued, the audible heartbeat of the land. The noise had continued since the beginning of the festival. By now, Betiver was aware of it only intermittently, when some shift in the wind amplified the volume, or when, for no reason that he understood, for a few moments it would stop. Sometimes, when the drums beat softly, he thought that pulsing might be the mead pounding in his brain, for during the past three days food and drink had flowed freely.

Those of Artor’s men who had not gone home to help with the grain harvest camped in the meadow; it was a welcome opportunity to relax and recuperate from the long days on the trail. The hay had been cut, and the cattle brought down from the hills. The first fields of grain to ripen had been ceremonially harvested, and the clans of the Votadini, with the cattle they wanted to sell and the daughters they wanted to marry off, had come in. For the princes and lords of the king’s household, it was a visit to a more ancient world that had never gone under the yoke of Rome.

“Is it so different?” asked Oesc, leaning back on the spread hides beside him. “My own people also make offerings at harvest time.” Light from the bonfire reddened his fair hair.

Betiver shrugged. “At home in Gallia the priest offers prayers for the success of the harvest and the laborers feast when it is done. Maybe the country folk do other things, but I lived in towns and never saw them. There was never this great gathering.” He sunk his teeth into the flesh that clung to the beef rib he was holding and worried it free.

“That is true. Among the Saxons, the next great feast will not be until autumn’s ending, but that is for the family, like Yule. It is at Ostara and sometimes Midsummer that our tribes come together for the sacrifices.”

“In Eriu, Lugos of the Long Arm is still honored,” said Cunorix.

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