The
31st October is an exciting time for my grandkids who love to dress up and pop
over to my house where we 'dook fir
aipples'. I'm not sure if that's happening this year, since their time for
visiting me now competes with visiting friends' houses. Whatever happens, there
are enough left of the apples from my garden to indulge them in the traditional
‘dook’, or to just eat them instead
along with the nuts and special shortbread shapes that I usually make for
Halloween. This year the shortbread will be pumpkin shaped, so long as I stop
my formatting for Ingram Spark publishing for a while and get around to baking
the shortbread!
But
what would my characters in the Celtic
Fervour Saga Series be doing on Samhain?
Samhain is the Celtic word for the quarter year beginning of winter festival.
Samhain is traditionally a different festival from the other three and has more
spooky associations. At Samhain, when the land is asleep and unproductive and the
weather has turned cold and often frosty, the veil between the living and the dead
is thinner. At Samhain, during the long hours of darkness till the first rays
of the new dawn of the 1st November the dead can mingle with the living…
Hence
the modern commercial concept of Halloween with its ghouls and ghosts and
witches and warlocks.
In After
Whorl: Bran Reborn, Book 2 of the Celtic Fervour Series, At Samhain in A.D
73, Ineda is not experiencing anything like the commercial Halloween that
pervades western society just now, and neither is she able to observe her
tribal traditional Celtic Samhain. Why is this? Ineda has been captured by an
Ancient Roman Tribune and kept as his personal slave, a bed slave and more.
In
the following extract Ineda has already found that not everything is the same
between her Celtic worship of multiple deities and those of the Romans. If
Ineda wants to pray to her goddess Rhianna, or Brigantia, she needs no trappings
around her. Tribune Gaius Livanus Valerius is different…
After Whorl: Bran Reborn is currently on a fantastic blog Tour organised by Rachel Gilbey of Rachel's Random Resources and will be visiting around 21 Blog during the coming week! Look out for the special competition if you've not yet read the Celtic Fervour Saga Series!
Inside the wooden temple building were many cubicles
separated by simple wooden walls to a little above head-height. Ineda had not
seen what lay in each niche as Tribune Valerius used only one when he dragged
her along. Whether, or not, he prayed to other gods or goddesses when he was alone,
she could not say. At present she could detect only the murmurs of a few other
worshippers.
That seemed to be how he preferred it. For reasons
unknown, he always waited if the building was full of worshippers. She guessed
he wanted his deity to have no confusion over who might make a plea.
“Kneel!”
She knew the drill, could have slipped to the floor,
but preferred to make him do the ordering – that way she accommodated her
forced capture better.
The niche he had towed her to, dedicated to the
goddess Etain, had a small altar just of sufficient height for the average
soldier to top when kneeling with bent head. As Tribune Valerius knelt down
beside her she could not fail to notice that the bowl set in the stone showed
traces of dark brownish-red, indicating a sacrifice had not long since been
offered. Attempts had been made to wipe it clear, but the smears across the
rim, and the drips to the side, coupled with the acrid blood tang that lingered
in the air, told it was a recent event.
It mattered little to her, and did not surprise her;
she was now well used to the frequency of the rituals. The aedes was a temple used by the whole garrison, and the altar she
faced was only one of many.
“Etain hear my plea…” Tribune Valerius’ words were
low, suffused with zeal.
He had never had a sacrifice conducted in her
presence, though to her knowledge, his secutore
organised it often enough for him. His main scribe, Pomponius, was a bustling
little man full of his own importance, yet she knew Gaius Livanus Valerius
relied heavily on the man to carry out his duties faithfully and competently.
She understood Tribune Valerius’ need for privacy at
such times, but wondered why. Bloody sacrifice was a ritual she had witnessed
often enough to her own goddess Rhianna and to Taranis before battle, the Celts
being no stranger to the proceedings. He understood that about her.
Sacrifice was denied her, but in this frequent ritual
he now conducted she was included. Roman ways were definitely strange, and the
tribune was a very perplexing man.
“Worship, Ineda!”
Fierce. He sounded fiercer than she had ever heard
before.
She joined his low mutterings, praying to Etain, the
goddess not unfamiliar to her. He murmured feverishly alongside, his pleas
louder than hers, never appearing aware of what she always asked for. Her
request never varied, but if he ever heard her murmurs he never acknowledged
it.
“Freedom, my lady, Etain,” she whispered a repeated
refrain. “I beg my freedom. I hate him, hate him…” She made her usual pleas
though added a new one, whispering it so that it was not overheard. “Give my
King Venutius the means and the opportunity to overcome this Roman dung horde,
and make Agricola and Cerialis capitulate like they make the Celts do…and…expel
the Roman oppressors from our land!”
She never had anything personal to offer the goddess
in turn for the favour, but she prayed, nonetheless.
Directly behind the stone focus of the altar was a representation of the horse goddess in carved
wood. It was a crudely-made image depicting Etain riding a horse, the beast’s
forelegs high in the air. Etain was partially naked, breasts proud and bountiful,
her open bratt flying wide to her sides. Contemplating the goddess Etain drew
her attention for a while.
Tribune Valerius’ mutterings grew louder, more
harried, too fast for any comprehension.
She allowed her head to dip further, surreptitiously
checking to see if the fool tironis
remained in place at the door. Too bad that he was; he had no wit to disobey
and wander off.
“Etain, lady, hear my pleas…” Tribune Valerius was so
intent.
Ineda scoffed silently. Etain was not heeding any of
her pleas for freedom.
His murmurs continued. She knew this bit, since he
always chanted it very slowly, nearing the end of his ritual. Why he towed her
along every now and then to the aedes
she had not yet worked out. Perhaps the frenzied part of the prayers concerned
her? If so, she never ever detected her name as part of it. To discover all of
his ritual she knew she would need to learn a lot more of the Latin tongue,
though learning more of the Latin tongue was something she wanted to do anyway
– regardless of the tribune’s instructions.
As his intonation tapered off, she tried to read the
letters that decorated the pedestal, but knew only the part which stood for Legio XX.
He held on to her shoulder as he rose to his feet. Not
because he was in poor health or incapable: it was more that he was somehow
claiming her in the sight of his deity. Turning back to his assistant his voice
seemed much calmer now, though she felt a great tension in his fingers as his
full power seemed to fall on her through his heavy squeeze.
“The herbs.”
Tribune Valerius gathered the bunch proffered by his
secutore. Splitting the greenery to each side of the focus, he went on to the next part of his ritual, the conclusion.
The mumbling coming from behind her was usual as his
scribe made his own prayers.
“Come!”
Monosyllabic orders from Tribune Valerius were the
norm in the aedes.
Towing after him, she side-stepped the scribe who went
to lay down an apple to each side of the stone basin before kneeling at the
altar. The underling always produced something of his own for the focus, but
only after his superior officer was completely finished.
“Take her back to my quarters!”
The tironis outside
the door acknowledged the order accordingly before Tribune Valerius turned away
from her without any further speech.
Deep, deep anger simmered. Ignoring her as though her
value was again redundant was a habit she could well do without, his treatment
constantly exasperating her. Desperation to escape surfaced to swamping level
at such times as these.
She sensed Tribune Valerius was desperate to get along
to Antonius Pulis Praefectus Castrorum – the camp commandant – who was the third most senior soldier
at the garrison fortress and a man who did not ever like to be held up. She had
seen him before, and he was a formidable veteran soldier. Pulis was not one she
would want to cross – except if it gained her the freedom she sought every
single day.
Happy Samhain / Halloween!
Slainthe!
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