The Blood Road

II - A Memory of Fire-1

II

Ignis Memoria

‘A Memory of Fire’

The weeks slipped by, and time began to heal for some in the isle, that misty place of peace, hidden from the brutal world without.

The bonds of family and of friendship began to mend, if not quickly, then surely.

Adara spent more time with Briana, Dagon and their child without bitter jealousy invading her heart. She began to be a mother once more to her son and daughter too.

Etain, Weylyn, and Father Gilmore all watched the transformation and smiled gratefully among themselves. However, they worried for Lucius, for he only seemed to grow more distant, nursing a secret anger which they knew could come to no good.

“We need to move him out of the healing house and back with his family,” Etain said one day. “We have done all we can for him.”

Weylyn nodded, but Gilmore shook his head, still determined that the Metelli should leave Ynis Wytrin.

“I will speak with him,” Etain said, looking up at the leaves of the oak under which the three of them sat that morning.

Etain knew where to find Lucius. He lingered often at the gateway to Annwn, as if drawn to it, longing for the forgetfulness of the Otherworld. She began the slow ascent along the sacred path that led to the top of the Tor on an afternoon filled with birdsong and sun.

She enjoyed the walk, moving slowly and reaching out to touch the boughs of oak and yew, rowan and ivy as she went, feeling her connection with them, with the earth at her feet.

It had been a strange night.

In her dreamless sleep, the Gods had asked for her help with the Dragon.

She had gazed into the star-whirling eyes of Apollo and Venus for the first time, and it had left her with a calm purpose, but also a weight.

And the Dragon has felt that gaze the whole of his days…

She felt pity for Lucius as she wended her way up to the top of the Tor where she found him standing alone in the wind, crows diving in the sky above. The sight filled her with a little dread, for in that moment, she thought she spied the Morrigan standing in his place. But she was wrong.

It was the Dragon. Though she and her priestesses had helped him to heal muscle, sinew, and bone, they had not managed to get at the root of the pain he still felt. None but he could do that.

And that was worrisome, for as Etain stared at Lucius where he gazed across the levels to the ruins of the hillfort, she knew he was nursing a darkness that had no place in Ynis Wytrin.

“I feel your thoughts, Lucius Metellus Anguis,” she said, her voice reaching out with the kindness she knew he needed. “You are not alone.”

Lucius was silent for a moment. “We had thought to make our home there. We did…and it was beautiful…”

Etain walked slowly to Lucius’ side, her fingers reaching up to touch the crescent moon that hung about her neck, wisps of her red hair blowing sideways across her brow.

“I can’t feel the wind upon my skin,” Lucius said to her.

“That will return in time.”

“I feel little of anything.”

Etain’s green eyes looked at him.

“That’s wrong,” he added. “I do feel… I feel anger and hate…toward those who did this to us…toward Rome…”

“Anger and hate will not serve you now, Lucius Metellus Anguis.”

Lucius turned his burned face to her.

She did not flinch, but gazed back with kindness in her brilliant eyes.

“I hate myself too.”

She shook her head, but could not answer, for she could indeed see and feel that he meant what he said.

“I did this, lady. Me. I had hubris enough to believe that I could change the world, that I could make it a better place for all of us-”

“And you did!” Etain took Lucius’ hands, and even though he tried to pull away, she held them fast. “That home you built on the sacred hill of our ancestors had lain dead and dormant for three generations before you came, before you brought life back to it. The Britons who dwelled about it were practically slaves before you arrived, forgotten by the Gods. But then you built that temple and allowed them to honour all the Gods.”

“It was a little thing,” Lucius said, pulling his hands away slowly.

“No. It was not. It was a great thing, and so much so that they risked their lives to help you and your family when you were in need. Such sacrifice is not given lightly or for no reason.”

“And now the hillfort is destroyed forever.”

“No. It only sleeps now, but I have had a vision of it alive again, a place of beauty and inspiration, a home of dragons once more.”

“You dream, lady,” Lucius said bitterly. “Just as I dreamed, just as I thought I could be emperor and right all the wrongs of this world.”

“You are so blessed. You have no idea.”

“I was blessed.”

“You are!” Etain said, her voice more stern. “You are blessed in that you did not perish in the flames. You are blessed by the Gods-”

“Pfft!”

“You are blessed in the wife and children who have survived along with you and who love you.”

Lucius was silent. I’ve failed them most of all, he thought.

Then be there for them! Etain answered, having heard his thoughts.

Lucius stepped away from her in surprise, but she remained with him, close, intent.

“Your wife and children need you more than ever now, and you need them!”

Lucius had no answer, no angry retort. He knew that if there was any goodness left in the world, it was them.

“I don’t know how to be there for them,” he said sadly, his hand reaching up to touch his burned face.

Etain reached up to take his hand away. “Go to them. It has been well over a year. It is time to leave the healing houses. Live together as the Gods intended.”

“The Gods?” Lucius said, the angry edge returning to his voice.

“Yes,” Etain answered him. “For they are your family too.” She began to go back down the spine of the Tor and leave Lucius with his thoughts. “We are all here for you, Dragon. You are not alone.”

With those parting words, Etain turned and began the long walk down, leaving Lucius alone at the top to think on what she had said.

She had tried, and she would continue to try for she knew in her heart that Lucius Metellus Anguis and his family still had an important role to play in the future of Ynis Wytrin and all who dwelled there, though she did not yet know how.

Three days later, Lucius was moved from the sterile world of the healing houses to the large guest house where Adara and the children had been living for over a year.

It felt strange to be a family again, to try and move on after the trauma they had all experienced. Each of them was quiet, wary of happiness.

However, the silent, soft embrace each of them gave to Lucius as he stepped through the threshold of their small dwelling was the first step in a long process of rebuilding, a process Lucius and Adara were not sure was possible.

They each had separate beds in different corners of the long room, for Lucius could not sleep beside his wife yet, his skin still too fragile, though he felt very little himself.

A wooden shelf upon the stone wall now held the phials of oil and pots of resin that Weylyn had prepared, as well as fresh linens to wrap about Lucius’ limbs. The old druid had instructed Adara on how to apply them daily so that Lucius’ skin could continue to heal.

“He will mend, my dear,” Weylyn had said to Adara as they waited for the priestesses to help Lucius down the hill from the healing houses. “It will take time for you all.”

“I don’t believe he knows how much you have all done for him,” Adara said. “Thank you.” She gripped Weylyn’s hands.

“He was between worlds for a long time. That alone will be difficult for him to fathom. Be patient with each other…and look to your children.” Weylyn glanced at Phoebus and Calliope who sat with Aaron and Rachel beneath the oak tree nearby. “They are our greatest teachers.”

Adara smiled then, and though there was sadness behind the veil of that smile, it did feel good and true. “Thank you,” she said, beginning to weep.

Weylyn reached out and held her to him, let her weep into his robes as they waited for the wounded Dragon.

Slowly, life began to attain some form of rhythm, even if it was broken and harsh at times.

Though he was present with his family in that house near the misty shores of Ynis Wytrin, Lucius Metellus Anguis was often withdrawn and quiet.

Adara tried to be understanding, to set aside her own thoughts of pain so that she could reach out to him, but it was no easy task.

There were moments, however, and she clung to those moments just as she clung to her children who waited for the father they had known to emerge from the physical wreckage that sat in their midst.

Calliope was often content to sit beside Lucius, to wait until that moment when he would reach out and hold her hand in his. No words were spoken, no glances exchanged.

It was more difficult for Phoebus, for the young man was now himself withdrawn in his father’s presence. It was as if Phoebus held the fact that his father had not been there when their world went up in flames against him. The son also seemed to fear the father somewhat, for he had heard the truth of who he was, and pondered the implications for all of them.

The nights, however, were the worst.

It was then that Lucius spoke, or cried out in pain. It was then that all of his anger and rage emerged as he tossed and turned in his sleep. He wept and raged alternately as if he were still on fire, as if he relived the burning.

With the children weeping in the darkness, Adara invited them to her own bed where she held them close, as if they were talismans of hope against the pain of the world.

Almost nightly, they would watch Lucius’ shadow writhe in the darkness, waiting for him to awaken so that they could care for his wounds anew.

It had felt strange when Lucius left the healing houses of Ynis Wytrin. He was not ready to face the world, to face his family.

The other day at the Well of the Chalice, there had been hope, and so he wondered if maybe, just maybe, that was a good starting point.

However, when he saw Adara and the children waiting for him outside of the guest house as Etain and Olwyn Conn Coran led him there, he began to worry, to feel the guilt begin to chew at his flesh once more, like some horrible beast that followed him everywhere he went.

And now that beast followed him into the home he would share with his wife and children.

They don’t deserve this, he thought as they approached, his eyes looking up from the ground occasionally to meet Adara’s before she and the children crowded around him and held him as the others looked on.

It was a beginning, but just as the days nurtured that beginning, the nights fed the trauma of the past.

After a week of restless nights in the guest house with his family, Lucius relived that dread night of fire, as if the Gods wanted him to burn all over again.

This time, as Lucius dreamed, Adara and the children listened to it all, as if in the audience of some ancient, grisly tragedy.

Lucius was bound in the dark with the faces of his enemies surrounding him. Praetorian spies laughed at him and prodded him. Serenus Crescens and his hateful son chided him, and beat him. And Marcus Claudius Picus laughed at him as he spoke of his wife and children and what he would do to them.

Lucius cried out in rage but the faces before him only shimmered in the darkness.

The doors of the roundhouse where he had been tied shot open and there, ahead of him, he saw it again.

Barta, his friend and bodyguard, was tied between those two trees as Claudius cut him and tortured him.

“Anguis!!!” Barta cried. “HELP ME!”