The Blood Road

I - The Bitter Taste of Life-1

I

Vita Amarum

‘The Bitter Taste of Life’

It was a world apart, a place of peace…beautiful and serene, full of life, and of colour…truly, the eye of a great storm that raged without.

Dagon, the lord of his people, a king, sat alone upon the slopes of one of Ynis Wytrin’s hills, beneath the limbs of the tree planted by the strange Christian, Joseph. There he found it easy to think, to remember the hurt, the betrayals, the horrors they had all experienced. There, he could grapple with them, stare them in the face and bring them to their knees for another short period of time.

It has been almost two years since those frightful days when the vipers of Rome had destroyed their lives, murdered his brothers, his people. The god of the sacred sword had not come to their aid then. They had fought alone on foreign fields.

He prayed to Epona that wherever his surviving men were, that they were safe from Rome’s grasp, from Caracalla’s hunters.

Dagon closed his eyes and felt the sun upon his face, its soft, warm light filtered through the misty wall that surrounded the Isle of the Blessed.

Blessed? he thought, shaking his head and feeling his eyes burn. Not for everyone.

Even there, the shadows of the world were able to creep in with fingers of guilt, resentment, anger, lack, and hatred. Even there, among the dancing petals of the apple blossoms and the winking leaves of the ancient oak groves…even there, the poison of the outside world leeched into the Goddess’ veins, or tightened the thorny crown of the Christus. Even there.

And it was his own happiness that tortured him most of all, for even with his brethren scattered to the wind, and the silent torture of his best friends, he still managed to feel joy.

Why did the Gods choose to bless me in all of the chaos? To be angry and bitter would have been easier than all the guilt that accompanies this joy…and yet…I would not change it.

And the Gods multiplied his guilt at this.

Dagon turned to his left and saw Briana walking slowly up the slope of the hill toward him. He could not help but smile.

Their daughter was walking more steadily now, pulling to get away from Briana at every chance, wishing to explore the world around her.

Briana caught his eye and smiled. She bent over to hold the girl’s hand as she wandered in the direction of the steep slope to their left.

“Baba!” the girl said when she spotted her father and toddled toward him with her arms out.

Dagon stood and knelt to receive her. “Antiope!” he said as he wrapped his arms about her and picked her up. “You’re getting stronger every day!”

The child blew at the wisps of sandy hair that danced about her face and placed her tiny hands upon his cheeks.

I will never let anything happen to you, he thought.

“Are we disturbing you?” Briana said, coming to his side and kissing him.

“Never.” He smiled, but then sighed deeply, one arm holding his child, the other around Briana. The flowering thorn beside them whispered in the wind that blew across the levels from the sea, and the two of them felt the longed-for calm that they always got when they were alone in that spot.

Briana looked up at her husband and felt the weight of his worries again, the great guilt that chained him to the world outside of Ynis Wytrin.

“How are they today?” Dagon asked her.

“Phoebus and Calliope are helping Father Gilmore, Rachel and Aaron with the lambing… It is keeping them busy.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Dagon felt his heart tighten. “Those children…they’ve been through so much. The last months have been a trial for them.”

“For everyone,” Briana added. She looked at her husband’s eyes as they strayed to the slopes of the Tor and the hill of the Chalice beside it.

From where they stood, they could see the roof of the lone roundhouse where the three of them lived peacefully together beyond the apple orchards, alone, away from the others.

That too was a source of guilt.

Antiope gazed into her father’s eyes and her little hand reached up to wipe away the tear that wended its way down the creases of his face and into his beard.

The Gods, it seemed, had turned their backs fully upon the Dragon’s family, and now that they all knew the truth, a great distance had opened up in the earth between them, a gulf no horse and rider could leap over.

“Come,” Briana said. “Let us show Antiope the children at work.”

Together they walked back down the slope of the hill, past the chapel and the orchard, now in full bloom, and made for the animal pens.

Dagon and Briana looked toward the great oak and saw her, Adara Metella, sitting alone as she seemed always to be, gazing out at the dark lake waters, the mist. She had not spoken for so long, and yet now, the truth, the reality of it all, seemed to have sealed her voice and soul up more tightly.

“You go ahead,” Briana said. “I will try.”

Dagon nodded and took Antiope’s hand. “I love you,” he said.

Briana smiled, and then turned to walk away as her husband and daughter joined the others. She watched them for a moment, saw Antiope run to Phoebus and Calliope who both knelt to hug her, to welcome her with their open arms, desperate for affection.

She wanted to weep, but knew it would not help things in that moment. Briana turned back toward the oak and the black-cloaked figure of her friend. She would not give up on her. She would be there for her no matter what, no matter the resentment.

Adara Metella felt cold as she sat upon one of the stumps beneath the broad, ancient limbs of the oak, the thick wool of her cloak doing very little to shield her body from the breeze that blew from across the lapping water before her. Every day, she sat there, watching the reeds and rushes sway, and the birds skirting the surface about the silent, wading herons.

There was life all around her and yet, she felt a loneliness she had never felt before, a loneliness of such brutal strength that she could not break free of its grasp. Even with Phoebus and Calliope behind her, the sweet sound of their young voices joining with the other children, trying to move on, she could not withdraw from the dark, choking cloud that surrounded her.

Her hand instinctively reached beneath her cloak to the ugly scar across her abdomen, that talisman of bitter memory and loss.

So much loss...

She could not shake the memory of Death standing before her, reaching out to rip her child from her hands as she lay beaten and bleeding. Her life had burned down all around her, and she had felt helpless to do anything but weep.

And she had wept. During her weeks in the healing houses of Ynis Wytrin, she had wept in her sleep, and while awake. Her sadness had known no end, but there had been a ray of light through the dark that she had clung to.

Phoebus and Calliope had survived the chaos of that night of fire and death, even as so many had perished.

And Lucius… Lucius…

His light had fallen and faded before her eyes, plunged into an engulfing darkness.

She could still see it clearly, her love plummeting, hear the crack of his body upon the earth like a god tumbling out of the sky.

He had died before her, for her, and she had not known…none of them had known. Not Dagon or Einion, Briana, Weylyn, Gilmore or even Etain.

Adara Metella had shed her tears for her lost infant when she had come out of her tortured and healing sleep, drawn by the voice of her daughter and son at her side - the three had wept together - but those waterways had run their course over the months since. Now, they had opened up again, but only when the tide of anger and betrayal ebbed away.

It was easier to shutter the soul at that point.

“Adara?”

Briana’s voice invaded her thoughts, but she did not turn her gaze from the dark water in the distance, the depths she had considered joining permanently at times.

She felt a hand upon her shoulder and fought the temptation to lean into its possessor beside her.

“Please Adara…look at me,” Briana said.

“Please leave me alone,” Adara whispered.

“No. I won’t, because you are not alone. You are surrounded by friends, people who love you.”

Adara was silent.

“You’ve come so far. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but the Gods have watched over you. In the ways of nature, neither of you should have survived, but you did. And you have a purpose - your children.”

Adara turned slowly to face the Briton. “Not all my children.”

Briana looked down, unable to face that angry gaze. “Please…don’t. I have wept with you and for you. It is not my fault, nor anyone else’s but the evil man you slew. He is gone.”

“Do not speak of him, or of my slain child.”

“I won’t,” Briana said, removing her hand. “But I will speak of the living.” Briana turned to kneel in front of Adara and look up at her pale face beneath the cowl of her cloak.

Adara’s once-brilliant green eyes were shot and faded now, the strands of her long dark hair streaked with grey. The tightly clenched hands were thin and pale too, the ring of intertwined dragons loose about her finger.

Briana pried the hands open to hold them and held Adara’s gaze.

“Phoebus and Calliope need you! They need your love. No one else is their mother. Do you know what they have been through? Have you pondered that? They watched you lingering on the verge of death for weeks. They watched their father die before them as his body sank to the bottom of the red waters of the chalice…”

Even Briana wept at the memory then, of what they had all seen as Aaron and Rachel had reached in to pull the Dragon out.

Adara had not seen it, but she had imagined it over and over again, tried to make sense of it all.

Now, with the truths she had recently learned, it made sense. It made her angry.

“I have failed my children,” Adara whispered, her guilt so very heavy upon her hunched shoulders. “I know I have.”

“No! You haven’t!” Briana snapped. “You survived. You fought so that they could escape fire and death.”

“By sacrificing my baby.”

Briana could feel her desperate frustration, but she reined it in. “By living, Adara. You are still here for them. No one else can be what you are for them.”

Adara could feel the tears stinging her eyes, and her head sank a little lower into her trembling hands.

Briana leaned forward to wrap her arms about her friend, to hold her.

This time, as had happened so many times before that moment, Adara did not push her away in disgust or jealousy. Briana held her quivering body tightly, making her feel that she was not alone.

After a time, Briana stood, pulling Adara to her feet, wanting to take her to her children. But she had to say it. She could not stop herself.

“He…he needs you too.”

“He lied to me!” Adara snapped, pulling away. “After all that happened to him in Dumnonia…all that he learned!”

Briana could see the anger flaming up again in Adara’s eyes, burning away the tender tears she had wept for her children, to be replaced by the feelings of anger and betrayal she had pinned upon the man she had loved so very deeply.

“The man I knew is gone. Dead.”

“But he’s not! He lives, Adara!” Briana pointed up to the high slopes of the Tor beyond to the lonely, black silhouette against the sky. “Lucius is there! He is the same man who loved you. He is the father of those two blessed children behind us. And he needs you more than ever.” Briana felt her patience waning quickly, and pulled back before she said things she did not mean, things she would regret having uttered. “He hid things to protect us all, truths he could not fathom because the Gods had kept him in the dark. Think of the burden he carried before the flames took him. He fell trying to keep us all safe, to make the world better.”