Mr Wicker Read online

  “But then killing you would not prevent their mutiny, would it?” Crassus added.

  “Nullo modo, nullo pacto,” Drunos replied.

  By no means...

  Months passed like ice floes breaking reluctantly from frigid shores.

  Quintus permitted Drunos to attend plays to improve his Latin, engage in games of chance, and attend feasts. He caught rumors about the war as they slipped down alleyways, into wine cups, and out of the occasional pocket. The legions pursued the Helvetii and the tribes who joined them across the Aedui territory toward the Saone. And Caesar had named Ariovistus a “Friend of the Empire.” But Drunos heard nothing of the battles or losses on either side. Quintus appeared genuinely uninformed about the efforts of Caesar to crush the Helvetii in their migration. A capable teacher in every subject, he instead offered Drunos long discussions of philosophy and law, supplemented by reading sessions of political and philosophical tracts. Quintus exclaimed that Drunos spoke and read Latin almost as well as a Roman.

  One especially elaborate feast held in Drunos’ honor on the Day of Mercury took place in the home of Medumara, a very wealthy Allobrogian landowner on the shores of the Rhône. Scar pocked and snowy haired, Medumara grew his beard in tufts, denounced philosophy as Greek propaganda, and confounded Roman fashion by wearing the brightest colored toga he could fashion from imported silks. His family owned several choice pieces of land near the river and elsewhere. As an aristocrat in the burgeoning Roman province, he supported one of the more ridiculous construction plans—namely the bath proposed by Voccio, an Allobrogian tax collector appointed by Caesar. The bath would benefit from the aqueduct that Quintus so passionately anticipated. In this way, Medumara bought favor with both Voccio and Quintus, and thus widened his berth for impropriety.

  “Medumara, have you forgotten?” Drunos said. “Today is Aidrinijâ. We should be celebrating Lugus, the winner of the harvest and lord of spears.”

  Medumara and his kin fell silent.

  “Drûis,” he answered at last, “you learned much on the Isle. The many chants. So very many words...” The wild-haired man held an imported fig and examined it before tucking it between his whiskered lips. “The time has come to forget.”

  That night, Drunos awoke just over an hour before daybreak to a keening between his lobes that burned at his temples. A faint rasping came from the far side of the room. Drunos lit the candle at his bedside and the keening faded as if carried away on a swift current.

  At the base of the open door, a large bird hopped into the room. Its tiny tongue worked in its mouth. Click. Cluck. Click.

  A boduus. A raven.

  Drunos watched with fear as the carrion eater approached him. On the Isle, the raven belonged to Badb, the goddess of war, but also to Bran—the god of songs and death. He then knew his people were under the sword, and he wondered if this was another druid in shape shift or if Badb had come to enlist him to confuse the enemy with magic. Almost one hundred miles away, he had heard them in his sleep. Their voices pierced his heart. Pure and valorous.

  “Litu?” he asked. Then, more fearfully, “Or are you one of the gods?”

  The bird kraaawed with a low, throaty rasp. It turned a glassy black eye at Drunos and hopped forward another step.

  Drunos sat naked on the floor with legs crossed and, holding hands out to his sides, he raised his palms to the heavens and chanted. Lowly, darkly. With the unbroken patter of the rain. He chanted to Teutates, the god of war, the one-handed one who would bring them victory, and the raven leapt onto his wrist. Into the morning hours, the druid continued to chant. Legs numb. Hands icy. Claws pricking his skin. Where his anatîjâ—his spirit—went he could not say, but it walked the wastelands of his chanting, a shade on the bleak moorlands, lending strength to his people. A giant man of flames collapsed on the horizon. Teutates?

  Teutates!

  The slaves were whispering to one another at the doorway when Quintus arrived. They grasped at his arms and hands, begging him not to enter. Quintus brushed them aside, but when he reached for the door, a layer of ragged frost coating the door singed his fingers. The frost continued up the door and a rivulet of crystals encrusted the ceiling above. With the awe of a believer, Quintus backed away from the door. “Leave him be for now,” he said, not taking his eyes off the anomaly. “I will return later.”

  As the sun set once again, the raven erupted from his perch and soared out the door into the hall. Faint shrieks from the slaves discharged somewhere in the belly of the dwelling. Drunos rocked his body until the nerves in his hips awoke and his veins flushed with fire. He rubbed life back into his stiffened arms before attempting to stand. The room blurred until the druid’s eyes adjusted to this world.

  A rap on his door. “Drunos?”

  “Come in, Quintus.”

  The young administrator entered. Drunos saw in his eyes that something had happened while he chanted. Something that drove fear into the man’s soul. “Are you hungry?” Quintus asked. “Would you like another candle?”

  Drunos’ stomach burned with hunger. “Yes. Both.”

  Quintus left and returned with a platter of food. He set it hastily on the table by the bed and started toward the door.

  “Where are the slaves?”

  Quintus froze. “They refuse,” he said. “They will be punished.”

  “Why are you afraid?”

  Drip.

  Drip. Drip.

  Drunos looked up for the first time since awakening. As if the Jura winds had breathed on the surface, blades of frost crisscrossed the ceiling, creeping out to the walls of the room above where Drunos chanted. The edges beaded and dripped as they thawed.

  Quintus swept back from Drunos as if the water would singe his sandals. “I don’t know what you have done here,” Quintus said, eyelids twitching, “but it is an abomination!”

  “My gods are in the water, the grass, the hills, and snow. Not marble. Not temples with sculpted columns—” Quintus fled the room as Drunos shouted into the hallway after him. “And not men!”

  A fortnight passed before Quintus summoned Drunos to the terrarium in the house one afternoon. Outside, thousands of footfalls invaded the city. The servants and other inhabitants called to one another throughout the house.

  Caesar had arrived.

  The legions remained elsewhere with their baggage train whilst he traveled with a convoy of almost one hundred officers and some cavalry back to Vienne.

  But what could he want of Vienne? Drunos wondered as he entered the terrarium.

  Quintus fingered some of the purple blooms that climbed a finely carved trellis. Even as Drunos approached, Quintus let his hand wander over the flowers. He wore a bright white toga that caught the white strands in his curly hair. “I was away in Lugdunum,” he explained. “I was very harsh with you before I left,” he said. “I should not have been.” Sore news hung at the corners of his mouth.

  “Why has Caesar come back to Vienne?”

  “He wishes to tell you himself.”

  The Gaul and the Roman walked side by side to the forum, where the Allobrogian temple had been transformed into an elaborate Senate, holy mosaics defiled by the installation of Roman seats and tapestries. Every wealthy or ambitious Allobrogian clamored with his neighbor for audience with Caesar. Prostitutes threw Drunos solicitous looks from the porticoes, while the poorest Allobrogians reached for him with grimy hands, begging for coin. The masses roiled like maggots in carrion. The ugliness burrowed under Drunos’ skin as Quintus parted the crowd and they ascended the steps to the temple.

  The mirth of the Allobrogian administrators startled him. Had his people brought the Romani the promised destruction? Is that why Caesar returned with so few cavalry?

  Skin glistening with bathing oil, Caesar sat in the widest seat surrounded by his officers. Quintus walked Drunos to the edge of the audience and waited until Caesar looked up from his writing table. The wax tablets were covered in scratches but Drunos was not close enough to
read. Those eyes once shaped by self-assurance now bore the glint of determination. Caesar motioned to Quintus and stood balancing a tablet in his hand. “Ave Drûis,” he said. “Were you were treated well?”

  “I was given much respect, care, and education about your people, Proconsul Caesar,” Drunos responded in perfect Latin. “But I was denied reports of my people. Was it because of your shameful defeat?”

  Caesar dropped his gaze from Drunos to the tablet in his hand. “We surprised your people as they attempted to cross the River Saone after raiding the Aedui,” he said. Then, more gently, “Of the two hundred and sixty-three thousand...”

  Grief hammered Drunos before Caesar could speak the words.

  “...only sixty thousand survived.” He closed the tablet and handed it to one of his officers. “We sent them home, Drunos,” he said. “You may follow them or you may stay here with us. Quintus and many others speak highly of you. I embrace you as a brother.”

  Blackness. Shadows, passing. A thin light.

  Chapter 26

  He stopped the story there. He couldn’t bear having her know the true end.

  The end of his humanity.

  Chapter 27

  Alicia buried her cheek in Mr. Wicker’s chest as she fought tears for Drunos.

  “No, no.” Mr. Wicker stroked her hair. “I am no longer human. I no longer cry for these things.” He snapped his fingers at another book. It flipped open to a chorus of piano and violins, and he began to sway. Alicia clung to him, reluctant to open her eyes and leave the fantastic ancient world. She did not want him to see her cry, although he already knew she was weeping because her tears soaked his chest. She worried he would think she was weak and maybe sympathetic to his offer. She had to be strong. But she related to his being a hostage. His loss of freedom affected her. And to be betrayed by a lover...her husband had ejected her from the life she’d loved. Those wounds were opened anew at the telling of this tale. And the very idea that he’d been forbidden to write—writing was the thing that kept her alive for so long.

  “Litugenalos betrayed me. All along he was allied with the Romans like his Aeduan counterpart, Diviciacus. But these things are, quite literally, ancient history.”

  The gentle swaying gave way to a brisk waltz. The two moved about the Library as before, sweeping between large tables as the music rose from the book’s ink-streaked pages. Just as her body relaxed into the hands of the rhythm, white light tore through the far wall.

  Alicia didn’t want to anger the Librarian, especially not after he’d opened up to her like this, but she felt powerfully defensive of Sirona. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She cleared her throat to make way for words. “But you said Sirona betrayed you, too.”

  Mr. Wicker looked surprised. “She did.”

  “Are you sure? Just because she told the Arch Druid about that dream? I know it had dire consequences for you, but maybe he’d threatened to kill her if she didn’t tell him what she saw. Or maybe he’d forced her to tell him through magic. I don’t know. I understand Litu betraying you, but it sounded to me like Sirona truly loved you. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she threw herself off the cliffs after you left.” She hesitated. “I would have,” she whispered.

  Eyes welling with bloody tears, Mr. Wicker kissed her. A kiss holier than a thousand mosques yet dirtier than a million brothels. She plummeted into his whisper softness and then he spun her closer to the light. Alicia fed him one last glance before uncurling her fingers from his as the light engulfed her.

  And as the radiance pressed a warm hand against her back, Alicia suddenly realized there was someone on the other side waiting for her. Someone very important. Dead? Alive?

  Who?

  SMASH CUT TO:

  EXT. GALACTIC FORTRESS—NIGHT

  The GALACTIC FORTRESS winks and shimmers like a Las Vegas hotel in space. Brassy lights bubble up and down the metallic pillars. Tiny space pods randomly float in and out of unfolding iris holes in the surface. All the while two VAST SPACE FLEETS hover around the fortress: one SILVER, the other BLACK. Both poised for battle.

  ON ONE GLINTING SPACE PLATFORM: the meaty villain RAFARIUS BART wears glossy black armor, Samurai hat, and something resembling a white hockey mask with an eye slat. A comically large KATANA is strapped to his back.

  He faces off against an ADVERSARY on the slick platform.

  RAFARIUS

  Did I not defeat you once? Must I crush you again and again? Foolish Son of Zarquat!

  The foolish Son of Zarquat—also known as the GALACTIC AVENGER—wears a silver cape, gloves, and Zorro-style mask. He holds one hand behind his back.

  GALACTIC AVENGER

  You will not win this time, Rafarius Bart! For stealing the woman I love and my Galactic Fortress, I will make you suffer in this duel to the death!

  Peering out of a SPACE WINDOW, the PRINCESS KOMENGEDIT waves her arms at the Galactic Avenger, her neon pink braids bouncing with enthusiasm.

  PRINCESS KOMENGEDIT

  Galactic Avenger! Save me from this evil man!

  Rafarius Bart squats like a Samurai and draws the katana.

  RAFARIUS

  No more good guy/bad guy posturing! Now—you die!

  He lunges at the Galactic Avenger, who pulls his hand out from behind his back to reveal a REALLY HUGE LASER GUN.

  The Galactic Avenger pelts Rafarius Bart with LASER BLASTS, the gun rattling like Jesse’s toy space gun. The laser blasts are merely miniature golf park balls that Rafarius Bart deflects with his sword, making MARTIAL ARTS MOVES and WEIRD KARATE SOUNDS, like Wonder Woman in a hockey mask with a katana.

  CUT TO:

  Dr. Farron wiped away tears of laughter with his palm. As the battle heated up between the two cartoon heroes, his phone rang. Clutching the remote and punching the mute button like a Star Trek phaser, he rolled over twice on the rumpled California King to snatch the phone from the receiver on the bed stand. “Hello?”

  “Farron,” Dr. Sark barked, “you don’t answer your cell anymore, do you?”

  A momentary flash of panic heated his skin as Dr. Sark spoke. “Crap!” He patted down the bed sheets, the nightstand. “It must be in the living room.” He usually kept his cell phone by the bed. The day had definitely gotten to him.

  The news was bad. Really bad.

  Alicia was missing. And she did not appear on any security camera.

  Hospital security had combed the ward, and now they were searching the rest of the hospital. They suspected that she had somehow escaped, but wouldn’t contact the Alameda County Sheriff until they were certain she didn’t just fall asleep in a janitor’s closet somewhere or, worse, do some harm to herself in another ward of the hospital.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Dr. Sark dropped the statement like a bowling ball. But Dr. Farron was so panicked about Alicia that it rolled past him. A gutter shot.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  The scene at the hospital was hushed on the lower floors, but security officers in bulky blue nylon jackets spoke into bleating walkie-talkies as they blearily scoured each floor. Dr. Farron stepped into the elevator and pressed the floor button for the psych unit. When he slipped his hand into the pocket of his white doctor coat for his security card, a burning in his solar plexus told him to bypass the floor. His finger hovered over the button to the children’s ward and he pushed it deliberately. He pushed it again when the elevator stopped at the psych unit so the elevator would jump past.

  The doors slid open with a ring. He inhaled deeply and stepped into the corridor. The night nurses greeted him with surprise and inquired if he was working late.

  “Yup. How are you all this evening?”

  “Oh, fine since the power failure earlier,” one nurse said, weary. “The emergency backups didn’t work as they should.”

  “A complete power failure? Jesus, is everyone okay?”

  “Scared the be-jeezus out of us, that’s for sure!” another nurse offered. �
��But everything is okay now. Miraculously.”

  “Good to hear.” Dr. Farron excused himself and said he needed to check one of his tape recorders. If Alicia was in darkness for any amount of time, there’s no telling what she might have done. But how did she get out of the psych unit? Especially if the power had failed. The elevators would have been inoperative. Perhaps the failure was limited to a certain area?

  Where the hell could she be?

  As Dr. Farron invaded the ward, he passed room after room of sleeping child. He leaned into doorways that exhaled gusts of soap, blood, and anesthetic. Tape recorders were mounted above most of the beds, but he only taped the children he suspected had been abused. When he reached Georgeta’s room, he entered heady and flushed as her stertorous breathing tore through the silence. From the rattle in her chest, it sounded like she was due for a visit from the respiratory therapist.

  Her father had been driving drunk with Georgeta in the passenger seat—the murder seat, as the Sheriff calls it. The mother died on impact. How anyone could put his family in harm’s way was just totally beyond Dr. Farron’s understanding, even if it was his job to understand it. Even knowing that alcoholism was a disease did not assuage his anger toward the father.

  Shadows burst past the doorway. Dr. Farron spun toward the opening and froze, uncertain of what he had seen. He approached the doorway, placed a hand on the frame, and peered out.

  The linoleum dimly reflected with the lights from around the hallway corner. The hospital corridor yawned with boredom until it reached the dead end.