Free Celtika by Robert Holdstock Page A

moment because Jason was still watching me, the furrow between his eyes deepening.
    ‘How did you know?’ he asked at last. ‘How did you find out about Kinos and Thesokorus?’
    I told him that I had found only Thesokorus, the ‘little bull leaper’, as Jason had called him for his adventurous spirit. Of the ‘little dreamer’, Kinos, I’d heard only a riddle.
    ‘Thesokorus. He’ll be so grown, now,’ Jason mused.
    ‘He’s known by another name.’
    ‘Names don’t matter. Did you see him? Does he take after me?’
    I had been anticipating this moment with some apprehension. Not so much because of the truth of what had happened to his beloved boys, but because of what Jason would now have to learn about himself.
    I knew about Thesokorus because I had passed by an oracle and heard a series of questions from a son about his father.

CHAPTER FIVE
    In Makedonia
    From where I sat, in the shade of an oak at the edge of the town square, I could see the hazy hills and the sparkle of sunlight on the marble gates that marked the entrance to the sanctuary of the oracle.
    I had been here for eight days, waiting for the sounding of the bronze horn from the high slopes above this white-walled Makedonian town. The oracle was under the protection of the god Poseidon; the oracle herself was capricious and unreliable and it was rumoured she was a shade of Persephone, who walked the dark corridors of Hades. No human medium was used to express the voice of this goddess; the voice came directly from the cave where, when it suited her, she rose from the gloom. She was nameless, never addresssed directly, known only as the ‘caught breath of Time’; and she came and vanished from her caverns like a breeze on a still summer’s day.
    I had heard stories of visitors waiting a year or more until they were called to consult her, and I had already decided to move on along my path in a day or so, since my main purpose here was curiosity rather than consultation. I had time enough on my hands to visit the strangest of places in the world, should I hear of them.
    The town was small and was already crowded with groups of Romans, Makedonians, Etruscans, Carthaginians, Scythians and Illyrians, most of whom had pitched their camps outside the walls and now idly wandered its narrow streets in search of wine, olives and the succulent mutton that was produced in the clay ovens throughout the day. The visitors were bored, listless, irritable and offensive to each other, but at least they seemed at ease with the local population.
    Unlike the small group who sat edgily in the shade of three twisted olive trees, across the square from where I spent my hours in thought.
    There were six of them. They were nervous, suspicious and defensive. I had recognised them at once as what the Greeklanders called keltoi, a warrior band from the northern countries, Hercynia, Hyperborea, Gaul Land and the like. To the locals, to the Romans especially, they were barbarians. I knew better. I had encountered many of their tribes on my journeys and I knew of their reputation for fairness, chivalry, single combat and complete adherence to a set of laws and codes that at once made them the most welcoming of hosts, and the most uncompromising of enemies.
    Watching them, I couldn’t tell from which part of the wilderness of forest, marsh and mountain to the north they came. Not from among the clans of Alba or Gaul in the west, I was sure of that. Their kilts, trousers and short cloaks were dyed blue and red, their hair tied in topknots with colourfully beaded string, since they were not at war. Their moustaches were long, covering their mouths, the drooping tips stiffened into points with animal fat and reaching below their chins. They walked with an arrogant bearing, staring menacingly and lingeringly at any passer-by.
    At all times one of them stood guard, holding his patterned oval shield in front of him, his spear resting lightly against his shoulder. The others sat in