5

IAGO

The month of Luis, 8,255 SB, Lugdunum

43 BC, present-day Lyons

H orrified, I looked at the gaping wound in my hand, blood pouring out of it; my thumb was hanging motionless like a flap of skin. The young woman with the hood wiped the blade of her small dagger in the folds of her muddy skirt, turned around, and darted off like a weasel, disappearing among the dark laneways that ran alongside the wall of Lugdunum, “the fortress of the god Lug,” as the Celts still preferred to call it behind the Romans’ backs.

“Are you mad, woman?” I yelled, my voice harsh with pain. I tore a strip of cloth from my sleeve as best I could, used it to stop the hemorrhaging, and caught up with my aggressor in four giant strides.

She wheeled around in surprise, and I felt something sharp at my groin. She was threatening me with her weapon again, and this time I couldn’t afford the consequences.

“Tell me, traveler, who sent you in search of me?” she whispered angrily.

I still couldn’t make out her face. She was short in stature, scarcely reaching my chest, but I was pretty sure it was her.

“Calm down, girl. No one’s paid me to find you. I just want to talk to you, that’s all,” I replied, my voice less firm than I would have liked. I was still losing blood, and I could hear a buzzing in my ears. I knew I was close to losing consciousness.

“I’ve yet to meet a man who only wants to talk to me,” she replied, pressing her body to mine and ripping the fabric covering my genitals with her dagger. “You’ve been following me for three moon cycles, ever since my elderly husband and I arrived by boat and unloaded our merchandise. You’re only alive because I’m curious. But I’m impatient, so out with it, or you’ll die.”

“I just want to see your face, check if it bears the marks I’m looking for.”

“And what exactly are you looking for?”

“I’m searching for a woman with the Lyra constellation on her left cheek. I’m looking for a highway robber whom the valley-dwelling Leuci called Cyra. Decades later, among the inland Turones, they spoke to me of a woman outlaw who used to hide in the woods: Dyra. On the north coast, the Caleti would spit on the ground whenever they mentioned a certain Eyra, a thief and the leader of a group of savages . . . Shall I go on, Nyra?”

I sensed that she was moving her weapon away from my body and, for the first time, she let me look into her eyes.

“It can’t be that you yourself have heard all those stories . . . Too much time has passed,” she whispered. The anger had gone from her voice and given way to confusion.

“Let’s just go to a well-lit spot, and let me see you,” I begged, my strength almost gone.

She consented, part curious, part suspicious. We walked toward the light of a bonfire that the Roman soldiers had left unattended. Lyra removed her hood. A sense of relief, centuries old, relaxed the tension in my face. Finally, after searching for so long, combing all of Gaul, I’d found her. It really was her. Her birthmark, those deep-blue eyes she shared with her mother . . .

“And now tell me who you are,” she requested, the authority gone from her voice.

“Come with me. I travel lightly, but I have a roof to sleep under. I must stitch up my hand now or I’ll bleed to death. I will tell you a tale on the way.”

“What tale, Iberian?” she asked, following me.

“The tale of my family, and why you should finally come back to us.”