“Well, well!” he said. “How good to see you two again. I’ll spare you any remarks about how you’ve grown since last. We’re doing nicely in Ys. I’ve much to tell you about that. For a start, here’re a couple of little things from there for you.”
He squatted on the gravel and opened the package. Its contents were modest, because Apuleius frowned on ostentation. However, they drew a shout from Salomon, a soft cry from Verania. He got a Roman sword and sheath, scaled to his size. “A copy of my old military piece. Someday, I think, you’ll lead men too.” She received a portable harp, exquisitely carved. “From Hivernia. I know you’re musical. Among the Scoti, some of their poets and bards are women.”
Worship looked back at him, until Salomon sprang up. “I know what we’ve got for you!” he crowed.
“Hush,” said Verania. “Wait till father’s ready.”
Apuleius laughed. “Why wait? Here we are. Before we step indoors and have a cup of something, let’s go see.” He linked his arm with Gratillonius’s. “You,ve been so generous to us over the years, so helpful, that we’d like to make some slight return.”
Salomon capered and hallooed. Verania walked on the other side of the prefect, not quite touching him, her glance bent downward.
The stable was dim, warm, smelling sweetly of hay and pungently of manure. Apuleius halted at one stall. From within, a stallion colt looked alertly out. Gratillonius would learn that he had overestimated the age, about six months, because it was so large—a splendid creature, sorrel with a white star, of the tall kind that bore cataphracts to battle.
“This is yours to take back with you,” Apuleius said.
“By Hercules, but you’re generous!” Gratillonius marveled.
“Well, as a matter of fact, my interest in breeding this sort began when you told me how your father’s been trying the same in Britannia. I think we’re having some success. Favonius is our best thus far. I suspect he’ll prove the best possible. You’re a horseman. We want you to have him.”
“Thank you so much.” Gratillonius reached over the bars, stroked mane and head, cupped his hand around the muzzle. How soft it was. “I’ll raise him right, and—and when I ride him here in future, help yourself to his stud services. Favonius, did you say?”
“Our name for him. You can change it if you like. It’s a rather literary word, meaning the west wind that brings the springtime.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I’ll keep it.”
Apuleius smiled in the duskiness. “May he bear you to a springtime of your own.”
XVI
1
Tiberius Metellus Carsa was of Cadurcic descent, but his family had long dwelt in Burdigala and mingled its blood with others that pulsed in the city. Its men took to the sea, and he himself inherited the rank of captain after he was trained and a position had opened up. For some years he carried freight between the ports of Aquitania and as far as northern Hispania. At last he encountered pirates. Many such had taken advantage of the strife between Theodosius and Arbogast, and not all were immediately suppressed after the Empire was pacified.
With Carsa in this battle was his oldest son Aulus, born to the trade and, at age fourteen, making his first real sea voyage. The boy acquitted himself well. He was expert with the sling. Though he had not grown into his full strength, from the cabin top he wrought havoc, certainly braining one man and disabling several. Meanwhile his father led a spirited defense at the rail. The upshot was that the reavers took heavy losses and fled before their vessel should be boarded.
That incident decided the owners to put Carsa on the Armorican run.
Those waters were tricky, but the human hazard had much diminished in the decade or so since Ys emerged from isolation. True, lately the barbarians had again been grieving Britannia. However, Ys kept them at arm’s length; and now that he had disposed of his rival, the praetorian prefect of the East, Stilicho was dispatching an expeditionary force against them.
Therefore, when shipping season began next year, Carsa sailed the seven-hundred-ton Livia down the Garumna and north-northwest over the gulf. His cargo was mostly wine and olive oil, his destination Ys. With him went Aulus.
It was a rough passage, winds often foul, taking a full ten days because the captain was cautious. “I’d rather arrive late in Ys than early in hell,” he said. “Although I’ve heard churchmen declare there is a great deal of hell already in that town.”
Young Aulus scarcely heard. He was staring ahead. Wonder stood before him.
The day was chill and gusty, casting saltiness off the whitecaps onto his lips. Waves brawled green, here and there darkened by kelp, bursting white over rocks. Afar lay an island, its flatness broken by a single turreted building. Fowl rode the water and wheeled overhead, hundredfold, crying through wind and surf, gulls, terns, guillemots, puffins, cormorants. Seals frolicked about or basked on skerries. Livia rocked forward under shortened sail, the master peering now at the reefs and now at the periplus fluttering in his grasp, men at the sides ready to fend off if need be. This cape had a grim reputation. It did not seem to trouble the vessels, mostly fishermen, that were in sight; but Roman mariners supposed Ys had a pact with the demons its people worshipped.
The city lay ahead. Its wall bowed out into the sea whose queen it was, filling the space between two looming promontories, the hue of dark roses, up and up to a frieze of fabulous creatures and thereafter battlements and turrets. Farther back, higher still, spires pierced heaven, glass agleam, until the roofs flared into fantastical shapes. As tidal flow commenced the gate was slowly closing. The harbor beyond, docks, warehouses, ships, boats, life, seemed to Aulus a paradise about to be denied him.
Out of the basin hastened four longboats. Shouts went back and forth. Lines snaked downward, were caught and made fast. The Romans struck sail. The Ysans bent to their oars and towed the ship in. Aulus gasped as he passed the sheer, copper-green doors.
In a haze of delight, he watched the tugmen warp Livia into a slip and collect their pay; a robed official come up the gangplank, accompanied by two guards in armor unlike any elsewhere, and confer with his father; the crew snug things down for the stay in port and, impatiently, shoulder their bags; the captain at last, at last grant shore leave!
Among the longshoremen, hawkers, whores, strolling entertainers, curious spectators who thronged the dock, were runners from various inns, each trying to outsing the others in praise of his place. They all knew some Latin. Tiberius grinned. “Let’s hope our poor devils don’t get fleeced too badly,” he said to his son. “We’ll be here for several days. If we’re to ply this route regularly, we need to familiarize ourselves with the port.”
“Where’ll we stay, you and I?” Aulus asked breathlessly.
“A respectable hostel. I have directions. Get our baggage and we’ll go.”
On their way, the Carsae found much—everything—to stare at. Nothing, not even those things the Romans had built, was quite like home; always the proportions and the artwork were subtly altered into something elongated and sleek, swirling and surging. The city throbbed and clamored with activity. Most Ysans appeared prosperous. It showed more in bright garments and jewelry than on bodies, except that folk were bathed and well groomed. They tended to be lean, energetic, but basically dignified. Many resembled the aborigines and Celts who had been among their ancestors, but often the Phoenician heritage revealed itself in hawk face or dark complexion. Men usually had close-trimmed beards and hair drawn into a queue; some wore tunics, some jacket and trousers, a few robes. Women’s tresses were set according to fancy, from high-piled coiffure to free flow beneath a headband. They generally wore long-sleeved, broad-belted gowns that gave ample freedom of movement, and they walked as boldly as men. The Carsae had heard their rights and liberties were essentially equal. Servants, too, were free agents working for pay, slavery being banned in Ys—an almost exact reversal of Roman practice.
Like the city it stood in, the hostel was clean and well furnished. In the ro
om that father and son got, a fresco depicted a ship at sea and, sky-tall and beautiful, a woman in a blue cloak whose hand upheld a star above the mast.
“Pagans,” Tiberius muttered. “Damned souls. Licentious too, I hear. But they have a Christian church somewhere.”
“We, we must deal with them… mustn’t we?” asked Aulus. “They can’t be wicked. Not if—” He waved an awkward hand at the view in the window. “Not if they made this.”
“Oh, well mind our manners, you and I. The trade’s too profitable. Also, we’ve got much to learn, and there’ll be pleasures as well. Only be sure to keep your soul steady as she goes. I’m told the Armoricans have stories like ours, about sirens who lure seamen onto the rocks. Well, even inside wall and gate, the reefs of hell are underneath us.”
Some of the food set before them in the common room was curious, all was delicious—marinated mussels, leeks cooked in chicken broth, plaice lightly fried with thyme and watercress, white bread wherein hazelnuts had been baked, sweet butter, blue-veined cheese, honeycake, and a dry, herbal-flavored mead that sang on the tongue. The serving wench, about Aulus’s age, gave him glances and smiles that caused his father to frown.
However, Tiberius responded gladly when a messenger appeared, a boy whose red tunic had embroidered upon the breast a golden wheel. “Captain Carsa?” he asked. His Latin had a peculiar construction. “I am from King Gratillonius. Ever is he desirous of making strangers welcome and hearing from them about the larger world. Therefore is word of them always borne to him. He will be glad to receive you this very eventide.”
“Why, why, of course!” Tiberius exclaimed. “But I’m just a merchant skipper.”
“One new to us, sir. Let me say as well that a ship of ours returned from Hivernia on the morning tide, and its chief passengers will likewise be at the palace.”
Tiberius glanced at Aulus, saw strickenness, and cleared his throat. “Um, this is my son—”
“I understand, sir. He is invited too.”
Joy kindled a beacon.
The two put on their best clothes and went with the messenger for a guide. Along the way he pointed out sights till Aulus’s head whirled.
Four men flanked the entrance gate of the royal grounds, two in Ysan battle array, two in Roman. Beyond, labyrinthine paths among flowerbeds, hedges, topiaries, bowers seemed to create more room than was possible. The palace was of modest size, but the pride was boundless. Its side walls bore scenes of wild beasts in the forest. A bronze boar and bear guarded the main staircase. Above a copper roof swelled a dome, whereon the image of an eagle spread wings whose gilt blazed against sundown.
Passing through an anteroom, the visitors came into a chamber great and marble-pillared, frescoed with pictures of the four seasons, floor mosaic of a chariot race. Clerestory windows were duskening, but oil lamps and wax candles gave lavish light. Servants glided about refilling wine cups and offering titbits of food. Flute and harp trilled in a corner.
Only a few persons were on hand, none elaborately clad. Seated in chairs as if presiding over an occasion of state, they nonetheless appeared quite at ease. A big, auburn-haired man with rugged features lifted his arm as the new guests entered. “Greeting,” he said. His Latin was plain-spoken, with a South Britannic overtone. “I’m Gaius Valerius Gratillonius, centurion in the Second, prefect of Rome, and—” he smiled—“King of Ys. I’d like to hear whatever you care to tell and try to answer your questions, but feel free to mingle with people. We’ll have a lantern bearer to take you back.”
He introduced the others. Two were female, two of his notorious nine wives. They conveyed no sense of being more than handsome middle-aged ladies—until they joined the conversation as outspokenly and intelligently as any man. A couple of male Ysans were present, an old scholar and the head of a mercantile house. A fairly young Redonian—lean, tough-looking with his fork beard and scarred cheek—was one of those in from Hivernia; Aulus caught his name at once, Rufinus, because it had been famous last year as somebody else’s. With him was a fellow not much older than Aulus, defiantly attired in a Scotic kilt and a saffron-dyed shirt secured at the throat by a penannular brooch.
“Sit down,” Gratillonius urged. “Drink. You aren’t on stage. This isn’t the Symposium, eh, Bodilis? Tell me, Captain Carsa, how was your voyage?”
He had a gift for putting company at ease: though Aulus suspected that when he administered a tongue-lashing, lightning sizzled blue. Before long, individuals were freely at converse with whomever they chose. Gratillonius drew Tiberius out about happenings in the South. Since Aulus already knew that, he shortly found himself off in a corner with Tommaltach.
That was the Scotian. His Latin was still somewhat broken, but had a musical lilt to it. Despite his having done battle in his home island, despite his being pagan and unlettered, his liveliness ranged so widely that Aulus felt like a child again. Yet Tommaltach did not patronize him.
—“Ah, you could do well among the girls of Ys, Carsa,” he laughed. His glance probed. Aulus’s frame was filling out into sturdiness; his countenance was broad, blunt-nosed, regular, beneath curly dark-brown hair. “Can you get away? The hunting’s better with two. I’m not talking of some copper-a-tumble whore, you understand; not but what such aren’t usually well worth it in Ys. I mean lusty servant women, hoping to marry someday but meanwhile ready for fun if they like you. They’re apt to saunter the streets in pairs—”
The Roman wished his face would not heat.
“You could be staying over a while,” Tommaltach said, “between two calls your ship makes. My friend Rufinus would take care of arrangements. Sure, and he’s a good-hearted man. Your dad should be happy, if you ask him right.” Seriously: “It’s more than pleasure this would be. It’s an e-du-cation. The learning, the folk from everywhere, the marvels, the magic—”
He broke off, turned, and stared. Silence fell upon the room. The girl who had entered, already more than half woman, was so beautiful.
In white raiment, garland of apple blossoms on the loose amber-colored hair, she flowed over the floor to Gratillonius. She murmured huskily in Ysan, then, observing the company, changed to excellent Latin: “Why, father, you didn’t tell me you expected guests. I could have left my Temple duties earlier.”
The King beamed. “I didn’t know you meant to spend the night here, darling. Wasn’t it to be with Maldunilis?”
“Oh, she only wants to lie about and eat sweetmeats. I must find a place of my own.” The girl checked herself, lifted a hand, and said gravely: “Welcome, honored sirs. May the Gods look upon you with kindness.”
“My daughter Dahut,” Gratillonius announced. “Captain Metellus Carsa, newly from Burdigala. His son… Aulus. I don’t believe you’ve met Tommaltach of Mumu, either. You should have, but it never chanced till now.”
Dahut kindled a smile.
Gratillonius laughed. “Well, why do you wait, little flirt? Go brighten their lives for the young men.”
Dahut lowered her eyes, raised them again, and demurely joined the elders. However, the time was not long before she was in their corner chatting with Tommaltach and the junior Carsa.
2
Summer lay heavy over the land. Westward, cloud masses loomed on the horizon, blue-shadowed white above a sea that shone as if burnished. Ys glittered like a jewel. Grass greened and softened the headlands, save where boulders or ancient stoneworks denied it. The heights leading east bore such wealth of leafage that most of the homes nestled in their folds were hidden. In between, the valley stretched lush and hushed. Warmth baked fragrance out of soil, plants, flowers. Bees droned through clover.
In the courtyard of the Sacred Precinct, two men fought. Wearing full Roman combat armor, they circled warily, probed, defended with shield or sword, sometimes rushed together for a moment’s fury. Their hobnails struck sparks from the slate flags. Neither getting past the defense of the other, they broke apart and resumed their stalking. They breathed hard. Sweat runneled down their fac
es and stung their eyes. The sun turned the metal they wore into furnaces.
Maeloch the fisher arrived on Processional Way. His stride jarred to a halt. He gaped.
Menservants were watching too, from the porch of the great red house that filled the opposite side of the square. Right and left, its ancillary buildings formed two more boundaries of the courtyard. Black, all but featureless, they radiated that heat which the blood-colored lodge uttered to the vision. The fourth side opened onto the paving of the road. High above roofs, the Wood of the King lifted its crowns, an oakenshaw whose rough circle spanned some seven hundred feet, silence and shadow.
The mightiest of the trees grew at the middle of the courtyard. From the lowest bough of the Challenge Oak hung a round brazen shield, too big and heavy for use. Sunlight dazzled away sight of the wild, bearded visage molded on it, or the many dents made by the sledge hammer that hung beside.
Blows thudded. They did not rattle or clash. Maeloch eased. Both blades were cased in horsehide.
The slender, more agile man saw himself about to be forced against the bole. He turned on his heel to slip aside. Suddenly swift, the large man moved at him, not in a leap but in a pivot on widespread, bent legs that kept his footing always firm. His swordpoint slammed at the other’s knee and ran up the thigh below the chain mail. The struck man lurched and gasped a Britannic curse.
“Enough, Cynan!” called his opponent. “If this’d been real, you’d be bleeding to death now.”
“Well done, sir,” panted the other. “I’m glad you stopped short of my crotch.”
“Ha, never fear. I need my roadpounders entire. Besides, your wife would have my head.”
Cynan limped. “You did catch me a good one, sir. I’m afraid I can’t give you any more worthwhile practice today.”
“I’ve had plenty as is. Come, let’s go inside, get this tin off us, wash up and have a drink.”
Maeloch, whose Latin was scant, had gotten the drift. His rolling sailor’s gait bore him forward. “My lord King,” he said in Ysan, “I’ve sore need to talk with ye.”
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