He stared glumly into the gloomy day. Rain and mist made vague the encampment of the invaders, though he heard their boisterousness loudly enough. Closer by, servants of the dispossessed labored at the cookhouse to prepare a magnificent meal, or at the pens to feed cattle that would doubtless be herded away.
At last the guards let the newcomers in. When Éndae’s champion announced him, and the Laginach King himself entered, Niall did not rise, nor even lift a knee. However, he did in seemly words offer a few seats he had reserved, and call for full cups that the guests be refreshed. Attendants bore off their overgarments and brought dry cloaks for them to wrap themselves in against the chill.
“Well,” said Niall presently, “shall there be peace between us or shall there not?”
“That we must see,” answered Éndae. He was a lean man, gray of hair and beard.
“Let us begin by knowing each the other,” Niall said, and beckoned Laidchenn to name the Mide men on hand, with their honors.
“No such show have I this mournful day,” Éndae said, “but myself I will tell you who accompanies me.” He gestured. “Here are my sons—”
He came to one about the same age as Dumnuald and Tigernach, also clearly a war-virgin until now: slim, comely, intensely black of hair, white of skin, blue of eye. “Eochaid, youngest who has followed me; but younger still are brothers he has at home, and they growing.”
“Why, that is the name my father bore,” Niall said with a smile. “Well met, Eochaid, I hope.”
He got back a glower. Cruel it was that defeat make rank a lad’s first taste of battle.
Éndae hastened on with the introductions. “Now, then,” he concluded, “the Gods this day have seen fit to grant you the victory, Niall maqq Echach; but you will be acknowledging that it was dearly bought, and the valor of the Lagini abides. What offer do you make us, that we swear peace with you?”
Niall tossed back his bright locks. “No offer, Éndae Qennsalach. Why should I pay for that which I have won? Henceforward you shall keep your spoon out of my stewpot; and, obedient at last to oaths given long ago, you shall deliver the Boruma.”
Breath hissed between teeth, but men sat still, not altogether surprised—save young Eochaid, who leaped to his feet and howled, “What, would you gnaw us bare, you maggots? Never!” His voice cracked across, which enraged him the more. “Well pull you from our flesh and stamp you flat!”
“Quiet,” Éndae commanded. He reached to pluck at his son’s sleeve. “You disobey.”
Eochaid was unaware. “Maggots, blowflies, beetles you are!” he raved. “Wait, only wait, and we’ll seek your nests and smoke you out!”
Laidchenn surged erect. The bulk of him loomed huge in the flickering gloom, a touch of flame in his beard. He rang his poet’s chimes. Men shrank into silence. “Have a care, boy,” he warned. “Overwrought or no, you slander honorable foes, like some mad crone in a ditch. Behave yourself.”
Eochaid wept. His arms flailed. “Crone, am I? Go back to your sheepfold, old ewe, and let the rams tup you again!”
Horror ran around the room. Before anyone else could rally the wit to speak, Laidchenn’s son Tigernach was up also. In him, fury was a winter storm.
“You fling filth like that at my father, at a poet?” he hissed. “Go down in the dung yourself.” He made a twin spike of the first two fingers on his left hand and thrust it toward Eochaid. As if something inside him had foreseen, brooded, prepared, the verses snarled from him:
“Listen, you light-witted youth!
For that you thus dared speaking
Words unwise and without truth,
We shall soon hear you shrieking.
“Bellowing your bluster out
As if you a gnawed a nettle,
You’d be shrewder not to shout
But kick an empty kettle.
“Shame there shall be on your face.
It is of your own earning.
Curs will cringe when in disgrace.
May likewise you be learning!”
Eochaid screamed, stumbled backward, fell to his knees, clutched at his head. On cheeks and brow three great blisters were springing forth, bloodred, sleet-white, mould-black. He groaned in his pain.
4
Toward sundown the rains blew over and the wind lay down to rest. Laidchenn and his son walked from the house, away from others who likewise came forth, off toward the river.
Clouds still towered in deepening blue. Light, pouring level through the valley, reached to a rainbow. Grass drank those rays and gave them back in glitter and green glow. They made treetops smolder, water glimmer. The air was cold and quiet, save as shoes scuffed and slithered over wetness or voices came faint across distance. Most of those cries were sounded by carrion birds, scared into darkling clouds by men who searched the battlefield for kin and comrade.
“You should not have done it,” said Laidchenn softly. “I did not reproach you then, for that would further have undermined King Niall; but now I tell you, a satire is a weapon more fearsome than knife or poison.”
Stubbornness made Tigernach thrust out his lower lip, though it quivered. “How did it harm our King, if one who behaved thus in his presence suffered punishment?”
Laidchenn sighed. “It was too harsh for a grieving, bewildered boy. His insults diminished none but himself. Surely his father was about to send him outdoors with a heavy penance to do. Now—The blisters will heal. They may or may not leave disfiguring scars. But the wound in the soul will fester for aye. Niall saw this—I could tell—and softened his demands. Else the damaged, unappeased honor of the Lagini would have forced them into war to the death. After Ys he can, as yet, ill afford that. You have cost him dearly, my son.”
Tigernach’s will broke. He shuddered, covered his eyes, wavered on his feet. “If the King wants my head for that,” he choked, “here it is.”
“Not so.” Laidchenn squeezed the shoulder beside him, and kept his hand on it as the two walked along. “We understand each other, himself and I. His feelings were clear to me from his glances my way and the words he used. Folk should certainly avenge injuries done their darlings. He is not angry because of your anger on my behalf. He is only… rueful. After all, he did win the day; he did exact good terms; the Bóruma was really too much to hope for, unless in some later year.”
Still Tigernach sorrowed. “Indeed, my heart,” Laidchenn went on after a moment, “none was more surprised than me at what happened. Who would have thought that you, as far as you are from being an ollam poet, that you could already cast a destructive satire? Did a God seize you, or do you have it in you to become at last as powerful as Torna? Whichever, clear is to see that you have been marked for a fate that will touch many lives.”
Tigernach drew an uneven breath and straightened.
Laidchenn gazed toward the river. Mysterious Sittings and rustlings went through the reeds along the bank. “Beware,” he said. “Henceforward be always careful, and never use your art but on those occasions when you feel sure you must. This day you have made us an unforgiving enemy. Do not do it again without sore need. Your fate will be famous, but perhaps it will not be happy.”
VII
1
At high summer, the rain sometimes fell nearly warm through unmoving air. It was heavy upon the day when Queen Lanarvilis received her Captain and the Speaker for Taranis. Sight quickly lost itself in that iron-colored cataract; it found no more sky, no more sea, only dim walls along streets where water rushed and gurgled. What filled the world was the noise of the downpour on roofs and paving, and below this, remote and eternal, waves a-crash against the rampart of Ys.
The men gave their hooded cloaks over to the servant who admitted them and proceeded directly to the room where the priestess waited. For them, its numerous candles did not truly fend off gloom, nor its red-blue-ivory-crystal sumptuousness offer comfort. She had attired herself in a loosely cut dress of white silk whose folds and drapes joined with a silver headband to make a timeless d
ignity. The visitors were in plain civil tunic, trousers, half-boots. Besides the weather being unsuited for robes, they had not wanted to draw notice on their way here.
“Welcome,” she said, touching her breast in the salutation between equals. The gaze of Soren Cartagi followed that hand. “Be seated, pray. I’ve naught set out but wine and water, for your message asked I receive you on grave business. Gladly, though, will I call for better fare, and afterward have you be my guests at supper.”
Taking the couch that faced her chair, Hannon Baltisi shook his craggy head. “I thank you, my lady, but best we not linger, the Speaker and me,” he said. “Folk might wonder why, and this needs to be secret.”
Soren joined his companion. For a moment, play of light tricked the eye, and Soren’s hair and beard seemed as gray as Hannon’s. As he settled down, they regained their darkness around his broad, beak-nosed visage. It was just the scattered white in them, more of it all the time. He and Lanarvilis regarded each other, forgetting that a third party was present, until she said slowly: “This concerns the King, does it not?”
“Who else?” Soren growled.
Her voice wavered a little. “What’s wrong? I read trouble, anger on you, but—but he’s done naught that he shouldn’t.” Flushing, compelling herself to look steadily into the faces, both the faces: “It happens he spent last night with me. After three years wedded to him, I’d have known if aught was awry. Did it touch the city, he’d have told me.”
“What had he to say, then?” Soren asked impulsively.
The color mounted in her cheeks. “No affair of anyone else!” She regained self-possession; she had had much practice at that. “Oh, mainly small talk. We played a while with Julia, and he babbled about the latest wonderful thing Dahut has accomplished, and we went on to discuss his journey in autumn. Naught new. His plans remain the same that he set forth at the Solstice Council.”
Hannon nodded. Tension gathered in his lank frame. At that meeting he had led the opposition to the King’s proposal to make yet another circuit about western Armorica and down to Portus Namnetum, weaving tighter his web of alliances. Gratillonius had been far too much away, neglecting his sacral duties to the point of contumely before the Gods. In the end, a compromise had been reached. Gratillonius would go, but not until after the equinox, and he pledged himself to have returned by winter solstice.
Before Hannon could speak, Soren did: “I beg my lady’s pardon. No intrusion—no discourtesy intended. The more so when we are here to seek your counsel and help.”
Lanarvilis leaned back in her chair and let her hands lie quietly crossed on her lap. “Say on.”
“Tis this, this temple of his foreign God Mithras he means to build.” Soren choked and coughed.
“Why, I thought that was agreed on. Reluctantly by a number of Suffetes, aye. But when we, the Gallicenae, having searched our hearts, our books, and our dreams, could find naught forbidding it, as long as he stays dutiful toward the Gods of Ys—”
“How long will that be? At the combat in the Wood—” Soren curbed himself. “No matter that. ’Tis Lir Captain who bears the word today. I simply came along to give my support, my own plea for yours. You and I have worked together often over the years, Lanarvilis.” He hunched where he sat.
The older man’s voice rolled forth as if once again he trod the deck of a ship. His look commanded, too.
“Forgive me if I’m curt, my lady. You know ’tis my way.
“Ill did Grallon’s wish strike me. Bad enough having a Christian priest mewling amongst us again. The King can’t help that, I give you, and no true man or woman ’ull pay any heed. But this Mithras, now—well, in my seafaring days I learned somewhat about Mithras. Mind you, he’s no bad God like yon Christ. He stands for uprightness, manliness, and He’ll let other Gods abide. But He is the Bullslayer, the Comrade of the Sun. He sets Himself above the rest and lays a law of His own on His worshippers. Remember how Grallon must needs refuse the crown after he won Kingship. Not a great thing in itself, maybe, but a sign of… what else?
“In storm, in fog, in dead calm and sea-blink through endless silences: I have known the Dread of Lir, my lady. Ys lives on His sufferance. No disrespect to Belisama or Taranis, nay, nay. We live by Them too. But the Pact of Brennilis made Ys forever hostage to Lir, did it nay?”
Quietness deepened until the rainfall sounded torrential. Lanarvilis nodded and signed herself. Soren knotted his fists.
“And Lir wears no human face,” Hannon said.
After a heartbeat, he went on: “Well, Grallon aims to take a warehouse down by the harbor, unused since trade went to hell ere we were born, he’ll take that and make it into a temple of Mithras. You remember this was after the Council wouldn’t let him buy land and dig a cave out in the hinterland.”
They could barely hear Lanarvilis: “The earth is Belisama’s. And Mithras will have no women devotees.”
“Taranis makes fruitful the earth,” rumbled from Soren.
“Therefore Grallon needs a house in town,” Hannon said. “Now that arrangement seemed to me just as wrong. What gave it Lir for His honor, Lir Who’s so quick to wrath?” He paused, filled his lungs, stared past the Queen. “Well,” he said, “people don’t pray to Lir, you know. We sacrifice, we obey, but He’ll have none of our cries, none of our tears. His sea is already salt enough.
“And yet—well, sometimes He does make His will known, ’stead of whelming those who go against it. He did for Brennilis, long ago. If now we’re at the end of the Age she birthed, might He again? I went forth by myself, in a boat, beyond sight of land. I fasted, I thirsted, I held myself sleepless, till—”
He surged to his feet. “Nay, no vision, no voice, only a remembrance. But when I uttered it aloud, soon there came a breeze blowing me back home, and seals and dolphins gamboled all about under the moon.”
He placed the big, scarred sailor’s hands on his hips, stood astraddle next to the second servant of Taranis, looking down at the high priestess of Belisama, and said: “This is my simple thought. That Lir be honored, let the temple of Mithras also be hostage to Him. When the Romans built our wall, the waters didn’t come so high as they do today. In the seaward towers are rooms which’re below the waves, abandoned on that account. I’ve been to see, and one at the bottom of the Raven Tower would do fine. ’Twas never meant for more than a storage cellar; no windows. Dripping wet, but that can be fixed. ’Tis lower than anything he could dig ashore, so ’tis a cave, better than trickery with a warehouse. And—I met Mithras folk when I was young, abroad—the raven is a holy bird to them. What happier sign could Grallon ask for? Or we?”
Again silence, but for the rain. Air slithered, candle flames guttered.
“I see,” Lanarvilis finally murmured. Her head was bowed; Soren could no longer read her face.
“You understand, don’t you?” the Speaker asked eagerly. “If Gratillonius will accept this, every faction should be satisfied. We’ll have interior peace, and peace with the Gods.”
She lifted her glance to confront his. “You want my help,” she said, flat-voiced, “because you know he is no fool. He’ll know that means placing Mithras under Lir.”
“Nay, not really. A gesture of respect, and should there not be respect between Gods? Lir gives Mithras this fine site. Mithras, in turn, acknowledges that Lir, that the Three are the patrons of Ys.”
Soren leaned forward. Impetuously, he reached across the table between couch and chair. Blindly, Lanarvilis did likewise. Their hands met and clung. Hannon sat back down, folded his arms, rested like a reef outside Sena.
“You want me to… persuade the King,” Lanarvilis said.
“First, we suppose, persuade your Sisters,” replied Soren. “Make the Gallicenae work together on Gratillonius till he agrees.”
“I expect we can,” Lanarvilis said.
“You can do so much with him, you Nine,” rushed from Soren. “The power that lies in women!”
She withdrew her hands, sat
straight, and told him, “Most of that power comes from patience, Soren, from endurance.”
He snatched a cup and half emptied it in a gulp, though the wine had not been watered.
2
Some thirty miles east of Ys lay the head of navigation on the River Odita. Thence the stream flowed south for about ten miles to the sea. These were birdflight distances; it was longer for a man, whether he went by land or water through the winding valleys of Armorica. There a Roman veteran had taken the lead in founding a colony, three hundred years ago. It was actually a little below the farthest north a ship could reach when tide was high; that point was just above the confluence of the Odita with the lesser Stegir. He chose the site because of its handiness to a Gallic settlement and hill fort on the heights behind. Those had long since been abandoned, leveled by man and nature until only traces remained. Houses and small farms replaced them, though for the most part Mons Ferruginus was unpeopled, a woodland through which a few trails wound.
The Roman named the colony Aquilo, from the Aquilonian district of Apuleia in Italy whence he hailed. Sufficiently inland not to fear surprise attack by pirates, it became a minor seaport. Here entered wares of metal and glass, olives, oil, textiles. Out went mainly products of the heavily forested hinterland, hides, furs, nuts, pigskin, preserved meat, tallow, honey, beeswax, timber—but also salt, beneficiated iron ore, preserved fish, garum sauce, and the marvelous things they wrought in gold, silver, ivory, shell, and fabric in Ys.
The fortunes of Aquilo waxed and waned with those of the Empire. However, its leadership stayed in the hands of the founder’s descendants. These Apuleii intermarried with their Osismiic neighbors and folk of other cantons until by blood they were almost purely Armorican. In their lives they stayed Roman, even claiming that their ancestor had been kin to the famous writer. They sent their elder sons to be educated at such centers of learning as Durocotorum, Treverorum, and Lugdunum. Eventually they won elevation to senatorial rank. As such, they were no longer supposed to engage in trade; but they had ample relatives to serve as their agents while they devoted themselves to civic and—increasingly of recent decades—military affairs.
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