Ulrika looked down at the flat stones. "Where is the beginning?"

     "At the place where you were conceived, for that is when your life began."

     "But that is in Persia, which is a vast land! How will I find such a place?"

     "It is where you must go. There, you will find your destiny."

     Her mind filled with puzzled thoughts, Ulrika thanked the two women, and struck off southward.

     As they watched her go, the other old woman, who had not spoken, rested her gnarled hand on the first one's arm and said, "Sister, how can you be so calm about this?"

     "I am not calm, Hilde. I wanted to embrace her, but I had to hold myself back, for her sake."

     "Did Wulf know she was coming?"

     "Wulf does not even know she exists."

     As they watched Ulrika disappear through charred trees, the second of the old women said, "But why did you lie to her? Why not tell her the truth?"

     She could not, for the truth was a great secret: after the deaths of Arminius's wife Thusnelda and their only son, the German hero never married again. But when Arminius was grieving bitterly for his loss, he found comfort in the sacred grove dedicated to the Goddess of the Red-Gold Tears,where the beautiful young priestess took him into her arms. Wulf was the result of that secret union.

     "Could you not at least tell her that her father is alive?" Hilde asked gently.

     Milky blue eyes filled with tears. "A great and strange destiny awaits my granddaughter, and if she knew her father was still alive, she would stay here and go in search of him and never fulfill that destiny. Believing him to be dead, she will follow the correct path."

     "Will she come back to us?"

     "Perhaps someday, the gods willing," said the elder seeress of the Cherusci tribe, herself called Ulrika and after whom her granddaughter had been named.

10

THE DAY DIED, THE FOREST GREW MENACING.

     Ulrika had been following the stream as the old woman had instructed, but it seemed to be leading nowhere. How far was the river?

     Her packs grew heavy as the stream seemed to meander aimlessly through dense pines and oaks, down a narrow valley pocked with ancient caves. Ulrika felt the eyes of woodland creatures measure her progress as she stumbled, her right foot bare, over prickly ground.

     Snap!

     She stopped, held her breath to listen.

     Snap!

     Footfall. Too heavy for an animal.

     Rustling in the underbrush. Something—or someone—was following her.

     She scanned the forest, her eyes wide in the dying daylight. Shadows took on forbidding shapes, seemed to move. The gurgle of the stream faded while other sounds grew loud—the screech of a hawk, the wind high in treetops, another snap of underbrush.

     Wondering if she could outrun whatever was following her, Ulrika turned in the direction of the sounds, saw silhouettes moving, and realized they were men. When the first emerged into the small clearing beside the stream, and Ulrika saw that he was tall and bearded, wearing a belted tunic and leather leggings, when she saw the tribal tattoos and long twisted hair, she frantically searched for a place to hide.

     Four more emerged from the oaks and pines, swords in hand, angry looks on their faces. One had dried blood caked on his arm, another limped on an injured leg. As they drew near, brandishing swords smeared with blood, Ulrika saw the crazed look in their eyes. She thought of her own dagger, tucked out of reach in one of her packs.

     She fell back a step. The strangers exchanged words which she did not understand. But she understood their intent. Killing lust burned in the eyes of these survivors of a humiliating defeat.

     She fell back another step and felt the slope of the ground as it began the descent to the bank of the stream. The sun had left the forest; gloom surrounded Ulrika and the five warriors. They crept closer. She smelled their sweat. She saw scars, old and new. The long blond beards, unruly hair. The faces smeared with blood and dirt.

     Then she saw the man at the rear, a barrel-chested giant with red hair, separate himself from the others and inch around to come up from behind. He leered at Ulrika with a gap-toothed grin. Reaching for the strap of one of her travel packs, she drew it from her shoulder and swung it with all her might. The warrior laughed as he grabbed the pack and tossed it away.

     Ulrika tried another, swinging it at her assailants, but it too was wrenched from her grasp and thrown out of reach. She tried to step to the side, but a third man blocked her way. They encircled her. Ulrika could not watch all of them.

     The leader raised his sword, grinning like his comrades, the look in his eyes no longer one of killing lust but lust of another kind. The man behind grabbed Ulrika's hair, as half had come uncoiled during her forest trek. She cried out. He dragged her to him. She felt strong arms go around her waist. She kicked, tried to bite. The leader seized her ankles. Ulrika cursed her weakness. Afternoons sitting at her loom, browsing in bookstores—

     They dragged her to the ground and pinned her down. The leader bent over her, grinning as he tugged at her dress. He lowered himself, and then suddenly looked at her in surprise. Ulrika stared up into his scarred face and their eyes met for an instant before he collapsed onto her, suffocating her with his weight. The others were suddenly on their feet, shouting. Pushing the unconscious man away, Ulrika sat up and saw Sebastianus Gallus, in a white tunic and blue cloak, come flying out of the forest, swinging a sword. She watched in amazement as the four warriors descended upon him, their swords meeting his.

     Ulrika shot to her feet and searched for something to use as a weapon. She saw the dagger in the dead man's back, which Gallus had thrown on the run. She yanked it out and looked for a target, but the men were moving too quickly.

     As metal clanged with metal, the Galician reached for the fastening at his throat, drew his cloak from his shoulders and threw it over the heads of Ulrika's assailants. One of them became tangled in the cloth and fell backwards. The other three continued to fight, attacking from all sides, with the Spaniard deftly meeting each plunge of a Barbarian's sword.

     Gripping Gallus's dagger, Ulrika gave a cry and flew at the man with red hair, sinking the weapon into the meat of his shoulder. He bellowed and swung about. Ulrika managed to pull the dagger out and jump aside, to jab at another warrior.

     With the clang of metal ringing in her ears as she thrust and hit and screamed, driven by fury and grief and self-recrimination, her eyes blinded by tears, Ulrika caught flashes of Sebastianus Gallus as he fought the Barbarians. She saw thickly muscled arms, broad shoulders, and a strong back as he swung his massive sword again and again, sending his foes reeling, staggering beneath his blows.

     Gallus kept up with them, even though outnumbered, thrusting, slicing, spinning this way and that, meeting each blow that came his way until one attacker fell, and then another. With one man left standing, and Gallus advancing with his sword, relentlessly driving the Barbarian backwards, the others scrambled to their feet and ran off, shouting oaths over their shoulders as they plunged into the woods and disappeared.

     Heaving for breath, Sebastianus watched them go, then he wiped his brow and looked at Ulrika. "Are you all right?"