Gratillonius removed his helmet. He knew this man, as he did every Ferrier of the Dead. “I’ll hold public court in a few days,” he answered.
The shaggy head shook. “Can’t wait, my lord. Aye, ye’re standing your Watch. Never kept ye from handling any business you felt like. And—I also deal with the Gods.”
Gratillonius met the unflinching gaze and smiled. “A stubborn lot, you fishers. Well, come along, then. Have a beaker while I get clean.”
“I thank ye,” said Maeloch, as he would have replied to an invitation from a fellow seaman.
The three mounted the stairs to the portico. Its columns were carved into images of Taranis and his attributes, wild boar, eagle, thunderbolt, oak tree. Beyond, the massive timbers and shake roof enclosed a feasting hall. Its pillars and wainscots were likewise carved, but hard to make out in the dimness. Age-eaten banners hung from the crossbeams like bats. The fire-trenches in the clay floor lay empty. Nostrils were glad to inhale cool air.
Gratillonius and Cynan stripped and went on into the modernized section for a bath and fresh clothes. Maeloch accepted a goblet of ale and sat down on a bench built into a side. Three men carried the military gear out for cleaning and stowage. A fourth took a feather duster and went about in search of cobwebs.
Maeloch beckoned to him. “What Queen is here today?” he asked.
The servant halted. “None, sir.” Unlike his livery, his voice was subdued. A Ferrier of the Dead, in this house of the killers, raised too many ghosts.
“Why? He’s no weakling, our King. Besides, ’tis plain justice to them, one man with nine wives.”
“The Princess Dahut wanted to dwell here for the three days and nights of this month’s Watch. She wanted no grown woman about.”
“Dahut, ye say? What makes the child have such a wish?”
“Tis not for me to guess, sir. But her royal father agreed.”
“Aye, he can deny her naught, I hear. And who’d blame him for that? Where is she now?”
“In the Wood, I believe, sir. She’s hours on end in the Wood, both by daylight and moonlight.”
Maeloch frowned. “That could be dangerous. What if a sacred boar turned ugly? Nay, Grallon yields her too much there.”
“Pray pardon, sir, I must keep on with my work.”
Maeloch nodded, leaned back against the smoke-darkened relief of a scene in an ancient tale—the hero Belcar combatting the demonic mermaid Quanis—and pondered.
Lightly clad, Gratillonius emerged with Cynan. He clapped his hands. “Cold mead for two,” he called. “More ale for our guest if he wishes. Well, Maeloch, what would you of me?”
The seaman had not risen. “Best we speak under four eyes, my lord,” he replied.
“Hm, you are in a surly mood, nay? Then wait your turn. Sit down, Cynan. I’d like to talk about a couple of things,” Gratillonius said, pointedly, in Latin. “It was plain, stupid luck that you didn’t nail me earlier today with the shield-hooking trick. I’ve got to overcome my slackness about it. Who can tell what the next challenger will know?”
A man brought the mead, which had been cooled by leaving its bottle in a porous jar full of water. Cynan drank and spoke hurriedly. Despite his centurion’s protestations, he soon left.
Gratillonius dismissed the attendants and sat down on the bench beside Maeloch. “Well?” he asked.
The fisher drew breath. “This, my lord. We’re angry at ye in Scot’s Landing, for that ye had poor Usun and Intil flogged. I said I’d bring the grievance. Usun’s my shipmate.”
Gratillonius nodded. “I thought that was the trouble,” he said slowly. “’Flogging’ is the wrong word. Three cuts of an unleaded thong, across those turtle backs, couldn’t have hurt much. ’Twas meant for an example, a warning.”
“A disgrace!”
“Nay, now. How often have you decked a man who was unruly or foolish, or triced him up for a few tastes of a rope’s end, with no lasting grudges afterward?”
Maeloch’s huge fists knotted on his knees. “What harm had they done? In this year of poor catches, they took a boat; they fared down the peninsula; they brought back Roman-made wares to sell. But your spies were watching.”
“No spies were needed. Those two flouted the law with no special effort to hide what they were about.”
“What law? we’ve aye been free traders in Ys, till ye made that bloody decree. Grallon, I’m nay yet your foe. But I warn ye, ye’re going astray. Ye whipped two men and took away their goods. Ye had no right.”
Gratillonius sighed. “Hark, friend. Before Mithras, I wish I’d not had to do it. But they forced me. I’d made it clear as the pool at the Nymphaeum, henceforward our traders into Roman territory must go through the Roman customs. These men did not. Liefer than pay tax, they smuggled Ysan cloth to the Veneti, and took those wares in exchange. Let them count themselves lucky the Romans didn’t catch them at it. I punished them for the sake of every lad in Ys who’s tempted to try the same. If anyone gets arrested, I can do naught—naught, do you hear?—to save him.”
Some of the bitterness drained out of Maeloch. Pain rose in its stead. “But why, Grallon?” he whispered harshly. “After all these years, why feed yon sharks?”
“I did not spell out the reasons as fully as mayhap I should have. My thought was that ’twould stir up too much wrath, too much pride. Some among us might go off and make trouble merely to ease their feelings. And we dare not have that. So I simply declared ’tis high time Ys honor her ancient treaties with Rome, and observe Roman law in Roman lands. The fact is—Think, Maeloch. Shiploads of soldiers are now in Britannia. When they’ve cleared it of barbarians, if they can, what shall they do next? The Emperor, or rather his guardian Stilicho, is already being urged to crush contumaciously pagan Ys. Naught but our usefulness to Rome keeps us free. We must not provoke Rome further. The Council of Suffetes agreed at equinox.”
Gratillonius laid a hand on the shoulder at his side. “Bide a while, friend,” he went on, softly. “I want you to understand, and make your comrades understand, that this is done for their sake.”
He paused before adding: “Let me say at once, confidentially, I know those are poor men, those two, and confiscation of their cargo means hardship for their families. Well, I cannot let them profit by their misdeed, but… between us, surely you and I can work out some quiet way to see them through without undue suffering.”
Maeloch choked. “What? Grallon, ye are a good man.”
A slim form briefly darkened the open doorway. Dahut entered the hall. She seemed to light up its cavernous depths.
“Why, Maeloch,” she cried, “dear old Maeloch!” and hurried forward to take both his hands. “Had I but known! You will stay and take supper here, will you not? Say you will!”
Helpless, he must answer, “Aye, Princess, since ’tis ye who ask.”
Underneath his words rustled a question. What had she been doing in the Wood, why did she want to prowl it, the Wood where someday a stranger was to kill her father?
3
To the Greater Monastery in the Liger valley, near Caesarodunum Turonum, came a pilgrim. Autumn cooled and hazed the air but decked trees in brilliant vestments. The river glided darkling past the huts that clustered on a flat bank. Hemming this in, hills rose nearly sheer, riddled with caves where monks also dwelt. Many were in sight, coarsely clad, roughly tonsured, unwashed. The newcomer had to search before he found one who was not at prayer or meditation but spading a vegetable garden.
“In Christ’s holy name, greeting,” he ventured.
“His peace be with you,” replied the monk. He saw a young man, fair-haired, rangy, in tunic, trousers, shoes of stout material though showing hard use. A bedroll and meager pack of rations were on his back, a wallet for minor objects at his waist, a staff in his hand. Nothing but a curious accent, not quite Britannic, marked him out from countless wanderers.
“Do you seek work?” asked the monk. “I hear they’re short-handed on the Jovianus latifundiu
m.” And they did not inquire as to the antecedents of an able-bodied man. Imperial laws binding folk to the soil had succeeded in displacing thousands of them, as farm after farm went under.
The stranger smiled. “Not field work, at least not in any earthly fields. Of course, I’ll gladly help if my labor is needed. Where may I find your bishop?”
“Holy Martinus? No, son, you’ve no call to interrupt him at his devotions. Well put you up for the night, never fear.”
“I beg you. This is necessary. He cannot have so entirely forsaken the world that he would refuse to see a kinsman returned from slavery among the heathen.”
Astounded, the monk gave information. The founder and leader of the monastery occupied a single-roomed wattle-and-daub hut, as small and crude as the rest. Its door sagged ajar, to show him prostrate at his prayers. The traveller leaned on his staff and waited.
After about an hour, Martinus emerged. He blinked, for his blue eyes were dimming with age. Thin white hair made an aureole around a face shriveled and shrunken in on itself. Yet he still moved briskly and spoke vigorously. “What do you wish, my son?”
“Audience with you, if you will give me that charity,” replied the young man. “I am Sucat, son of your niece Conchessa and her husband Calpurnius, curial in the Britannic town Banaventa.”
Air soughed in between Martinus’s gums. “Sucat? No, can’t be. Sucat perished these… seven years ago, was it not, when the Scoti raided along the Sabrina?”
“I did not die, sir. I was borne away captive. Let me prove myself by relating family history. My father was a Silurian who joined the army and rose to centurion’s rank. While stationed in Pannonia, he met and married your niece. Upon his discharge, he brought her to his homeland and settled there. He was a pious man, who despite becoming a curial became a deacon as well—”
Martinus cast himself against Sucat and hugged him with surprising force. Tears burst from his eyes. “God forgive me! Why should I have doubted you? Welcome back, beloved, welcome home!”
He took his visitor into the hut. Virtually its only furniture was a wooden chest and a pair of three-legged stools; but atop the box lay several books. The men sat down. “Tell me what happened, I beg you, and how you escaped and, oh, everything,” Martinus exclaimed.
Sucat sighed. “It’s a long story, sir. I was carried away with unfortunates—all, how dare I call myself unfortunate when I remember the poor young women?—I came to Ériu, Hivernia. There I fell to the lot of a chieftain in Condacht—well, he took me to his estate in the far west of the island and put me to tending his flocks. For six years I did.”
“You bore it bravely.”
Sucat smiled. “It was no terrible fate. True, the mountainside was often wet or cold, but God gave me health to endure that. My owner was not cruel by nature, and some other people did me kindnesses from time to time, and often in good weather little children would seek me out in the pasture, to hear me play on a whistle I’d carved or tell stories I remembered from nursery and school—once I’d mastered the language, of course, which has many differences from ours at home. And then, alone under heaven, I found my way back to God. For I confess to having been a light-minded youth, who forgot Him and trod the paths of sin. Now I said a hundred prayers by day and almost as many by night.”
“His mercy is unbounded.”
“I might be there still, for escape across that wild land and the waters beyond looked impossible. But a dream came to me at last, and I knew it was from God and required my obedience. Pursuit never found me. I nearly starved, but always, somehow, there was something to eat in time to keep me from falling. They are so hospitable in Ériu…. When I could not ask directions, I guessed, and my guesses led me aright. In the end I reached that harbor on the Ulatach shore which my dream had named, and there Was a ship loading for Britannia.”
Martinus’s military practicality struck through. “What? I’ve heard the army is cleaning the barbarians out of Britannia.”
“It is, though I fear, from what I saw, that that’s like weeding thistles. Anyhow, peaceful traders aren’t forbidden. This cargo was a pack of the great wolfhounds they breed in Ériu. At first the captain spurned me, as ragged and coinless as I was. But I persisted, and God softened his heart.”
“You have gifts of persuasion, it seems.”
Sucat flushed. “Well, it was another hard journey on the Britannic side, as devastated as the Westlands are, but home I came in the end. My father had gone to his reward—did you know?—but my mother and various kinfolk remain, and made me welcome with hosannahs. They wanted me to stay forever.”
“Why did you not?” Martinus asked.
“I am haunted, reverend father. I cannot forget the people of Ériu—the women who smiled and spoke softly and slipped me a bit of something sweet, the rough comradeliness of men, the innocent children who came to me—even the proud warriors, the majestic druids. It’s as if they are all weeping, beseeching, in the night that binds them, crying for the Light.” Sucat swallowed. “I believe I have a vocation. Because you are my kinsman, and have made this a famous holy place, a school for bishops and missionaries—I beg you, in Christ’s name, take me in, teach me, and if I prove worthy, ordain me.”
Martinus was silent a long while. Shadows crept across the floor and lifted in the valley as the sun declined. Finally he murmured: “I think you’re right. I think you’re in the hand of God. But we dare not presume to know His will, not without much prayer and thought and austerity. Abide here, dear son, and we’ll see what we can do for you. I’ve a feeling already that a great work awaits you, but you’ll be long in preparing for it.” His voice strengthened, rang: “Yet if I am not mistaken, you’ll reach the forefront of ministry; you will be Christ’s patrician.”
4
Midwinter rites and festival, together with the Council meeting, went past solstice. On the first midnight after they ended, Forsquilis took Dahut out onto Point Vanis.
The air lay windless and cold. Stars crowded heaven; the river of Tiamat foamed across it ghost-white, ghost-silent. By that light the sentries at Northbridge Gate knew the Athene face whose pallor a cowled cloak framed. They presented arms. Mute, woman and girl passed by, onto the short bridge to the headland.
Huge rocks jutted from the water beneath. An incoming tide roared and snarled among them, dashing itself between wall and cliff, spurting whiteness upward out of jet. Hoarfrost grayed the earth ahead. To the west, Ocean bore a faint, uneasy shimmer on its raven immensity. A gibbous moon was crawling from the eastern hills.
Where the road from the bridge met Redonian Way, Forsquilis left both and led Dahut northeast across the foreland. The track she followed wound almost too narrow to walk, between tussocks, gorse, dead thistles, boulders. Dahut stumbled. “I can’t see where my feet go,” she complained.
Forsquilis, cat-sure of her own way, answered softly. “You shall become one with the darkness, I promise you.”
“When? How?”
“Hush. There are those abroad who might hear.” Each word blew forth as a tiny white phantom, instantly lost.
The two went on. The moon crept higher. Stars coruscated. Frost brought leaves forth against shadow. Footfalls and the dry rustle of twigs being brushed were the solitary sounds, until sea-murmur deepened and loudened as the walkers drew near the northern edge.
The destination hove in sight. Centuries of weather had worn down earthen walls which once bulked threefold on the clifftop of a small ness. Grass and brambles had bestormed the fortress, covered it over, crumbled it away with their roots; timbers had rotted and rubble fill washed down into the surf; surely the very dead beneath had yielded their bones to the soil.
Forsquilis stopped before the ruin. Casting back her cloak, she raised arms and chanted, not in Ysan but in the sacred Punic of the Founders: “Mighty ones, spirits asleep in the depths of time, be not wroth. Awake ye and remember. I, a high priestess of Ishtar, bring unto you Dahut, a virgin who bears fate in her womb. Bid us come
into your dreams.”
It was as if the sea moaned.
The Queen turned to the princess. “Be not afraid,” she said. “Where we go tonight, none but the fearless may enter unscathed.”
Dahut straightened. Her hood had fallen off the braids into which her hair was coiled, held by a silver clasp in the form of a snake. Moonlight silvered the right half of her face; the left was in bluish darkness. “You know I am not afraid,” she replied.
Forsquilis smiled bleakly. “Aye, well do I know. Of your own free will have you ranged along the borders of the Otherworld, all your brief life; or its creatures have sought you out, but then you never quailed. Ere ever your strange birth, the Gods made you Theirs for some purpose hidden from mortals—and, it may be, from Themselves. Every omen avows it, with never a sign we can clearly read. I have told you how the hope of the Nine has become this: that you, gaining skill in the Old Wisdom that men call witchcraft, may find your way forward to an understanding of your destiny, and make it not terrible but splendid.”
Dahut nodded, wordless.
“It is a heavy load to lay on a young girl,” Forsquilis said. “Once all the Gallicenae had the gift; but generation by generation, the Power has faded. We can still sometimes command the weather, cast a curse, lay a blessing, summon a wanderer, ward off illness or other misfortune, make a death gentle. But Innilis alone has the healer’s Touch; I alone can make a Sending or call a demon or lure a God or hear the dead when they speak; and these are fugitive dowers, failing us oftener for each year that slips between our fingers. No longer do the Gallicenae teach a little of the ancient arts to each vestal, all to each new-made Queen. For most, that would be knowledge frightening, troublous, and useless. Give wings to a hare and they will but drag her down, and make her easy prey for the wolf.”
“The eagle’s wings lift her!” cried Dahut. “They give her the sky and her quarry.”
“Well spoken. I pray we have judged you aright, and you yourself. Twill be years until we can tell. This night is the barest beginning.”
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