Dahut

by Poul Anderson

  Her vestal gown billowed white around her slimness, so hastily she strode. The hair streaming loose from under a chaplet of laurel seemed almost a part of the deep-yellow rays from across the western sea. In her right hand she carried a twig of mistletoe and a stalk of borage.

  People saw her and pressed together to give room as she demanded. A few breathed greetings. Nearly all touched hand to brow. Awe sprang forth on their visages. In several it mingled with adoration.

  The four guards at the entrance were legionaries. “Open for me,” Dahut said.

  “I’m sorry,” Cynan replied, “but our orders are to let nobody in.”

  She bridled. “Who told you that?”

  “Rivelin, the physician. He says your father should not be disturbed.”

  “I countermand it, in the name of the Goddess Who whispered to me while I prayed in Her Temple.”

  “Let her by,” Budic exclaimed. The other two men growled assent. Their years in Ys had taught them that what was lunacy elsewhere could be truth here. Cynan hesitated an instant longer, then turned about and undid the portal himself.

  Dahut passed through, up the blossom-lined walk of crushed shell, between the stone boar and bear on the staircase, to the bronze door. She struck fist against the relief of an armored man as if he were an enemy. His breastplate, hollow, rang aloud. A servant swung the door aside. Before he could speak dismay, Dahut had swept past, into the atrium.

  A graybeard in a dark robe advanced across the charioteer mosaic to greet her. “Bring me to him,” she said.

  “He sleeps, my lady,” Rivelin demurred anxiously. “His prime need now is for rest. No one should touch him, unless perchance a Queen—”

  “Ah, be still, old dodderer. I know where he must be. Abide my return.”

  Dahut went onward. He started to follow. She spun about, glared, hissed like a cat. Fear took him and he rocked to a halt.

  She let herself into the main bedchamber. Drapes made it crepuscular, obscuring the wall’s representation of Taranis directing His thunderous, fecundating rain over the earth. Gratillonius lay in a spread-eagled posture, naked beneath a sheet. He had been shaven so his hurt could be examined, washed, bandaged. That would have made him seem years younger, despite the lines plowed into his face, had it not been for a waxy pallor under the tan. Only his breast stirred. He snored heavily, which he scarcely ever had done before.

  Dahut stood a while gazing down at him. Her left hand stole forth to take hold of the sheet. She peeled it back and stared a while longer, lips parted over the white teeth.

  Thereupon she touched fingertips to him and held them, very lightly, above the heart. With her free hand she stroked the sacred plants across him, brow, eyelids, cheeks, mouth, jaw, throat. Murmuring arcane words, she raised his head and laid the cuttings under it. Stooped over him, she ran both hands along his body, circling motions through the crisp hair on his chest, down the belly to pause at the navel, on until they came together and cupped him at the loins.

  “Father, awake,” she said low.

  Stepping back, she pointed at his head and spoke again, “Awake, awake, awake!” in a voice that sang with assurance.

  Gratillonius opened his eyes. He blinked, glanced around, saw her at the bedside, and sat up with a gasp. “Hercules! What is that?”

  Dahut leaned close. “Are you well, father?” It was scarcely a question.

  “Why, I think—I seem—” He felt of his head. “What happened? That Frank, I did for him but then I remembered no more—but—” He noticed that he was exposed and snatched at the sheet. A healthy red suffused his skin.

  Dahut laughed. “You killed him, but in his death throes he gave you a blow to the jaw that cast you from your senses. ’Tis the hour of sundown.” Her tone grew steely. “You’ll have call for your full strength. The Goddess told me, within myself, to come restore you.”

  “You have the Touch—you, already?” he asked wonderingly.

  “I have my destiny.”

  He stroked his padded, smooth chin, flexed his muscles, abruptly swung feet to floor and stood up, the sheet draped around him. His look encountered hers.

  She lifted her head higher. “My destiny is other than a filthy barbarian wallowing on me,” she said.

  “You are no Queen,” he responded slowly.

  “Well, I would be—” Dahut caught his arm. All at once she was a young girl pleading. “Oh, father, you can’t fall to those horrible men, you mustn’t, everything would fall with you! Drive them off! I know you can.”

  His features set. “Fennalis will soon leave us,” he said in an undertone. “If the Sign does come on you, when I also am dead—Nay!” he bellowed.

  Military habits revived. “Go out and wait for me to dress myself. We shall most certainly see about this.”

  Dahut obeyed exultantly. In the atrium she met Forsquilis and Innilis, who had just arrived and forced admittance. “I’ve made him whole,” she said.

  Innilis whitened, her eyes grew enormous. “What? Oh, nay, darling, you cannot have, you shouldn’t have—”

  Sternness came over Forsquilis. “Hush. There is a fate in her, whatever it be.”

  Gratillonius entered in tunic and sandals. He barked a few inquiries about the situation. “Come with me,” he said then, and went onward.

  Trailing after him, wringing her hands, Innilis wailed, “What do you mean to do?”

  “Gather a force and destroy them,” he flung back.

  Forsquilis caught a breath.

  “But you’ve been challenged!” Innilis expostulated in horror.

  “If we tarry, we’ll lose any chance at surprise, and Mithras knows we need every advantage we can scrape up,” Gratillonius said.

  “The Gods are with us,” Dahut added at her father’s side.

  Forsquilis bit off a reply.

  At the gate, Gratillonius spoke tersely to his soldiers. They laid down a shield for him to stand on. Each took a corner and raised him high, his auburn locks catching the sunset, like a Gallic chieftain of old. The people shouted. “Hear me,” he trumpeted. “Ys, your city, her Nine holy Queens, and you her children shall not fall prey to brigands through any vile trick of theirs. Carry this word for me. Every man of Ys who can fight and who cherishes honor, freedom, and his own household, every such man should meet with me at moonrise, bringing his weapons!”

  4

  The rendezvous was the manor of Taenus Himilco, Landholder Councillor, on the fertile northern slope of the heights, somewhat beyond the Wood. Had the Ysans come in a body they would have betrayed themselves to the Franks, whose fires glowed baleful on the headland above the sea cliffs. Instead, they slipped out by ones, twos, threes as the summons found them and they reached decision and made ready. It stretched over hours, for the moon, waning toward the half, did not appear till almost midnight.

  Gratillonius could not have made himself sit still in the darkened house. That would have been unwise of him, anyhow. He went to and fro through the gloom outside, welcoming newcomers, talking, getting the men roughly organized and informed, radiating a confidence that was a lie. He knew how forlorn his venture was. It had nothing in its favor save that it was better than waiting to be crushed.

  The time finally came. He read it in the stars and heaved his armored mass onto Favonius. The stallion stumbled occasionally, pushing along under trees. Gratillonius heard more horses move likewise at his back, those ridden by such well-to-do men of fighting age as had been inspired or shamed into joining him. The bulk of his army—he had no good idea how large—was ordinary folk, sailors, artisans, laborers, farmers, shepherds, carters, shopkeepers, a few foreigners who chanced to be on hand and willing for a brawl. He heard the soft swearing of his legionaries as they threaded back and forth, trying to keep the crowd in some kind of order.

  When he came out on the nearly treeless promontory, vision got clearer. The moon, wan above eastern hills, with stars and Milky Way turned gray the grass, bushes, rocks, and silvered the waters be
yond A breeze whined chill. Glancing behind, he saw his followers straggle from the orchard they had passed through. Pikes and the infrequent ax or mailcoat glimmered amidst shapelessness. He estimated three hundred men. That well outnumbered the Franks, but those were soldiers by trade, properly equipped and strongly encamped. Gratillonius felt sure it was shrewdness rather than fear of ghosts that had made Theuderich ignore Lost Castle. The ruined earthworks and ditch would aid defense, but without a hinterland for support, a band like his could too easily be trapped and starved on the small jut of land.

  Still, the Ysans were no lambs either. As they regrouped, Gratillonius spied Maeloch’s bulk and heard him rumble, “Usun, take ye your post here; Intil, ye over here—and the twain of ye remember what ye owe your King, ha?—And the rest of ye—so, so, so—crossbowmen and slingers, at the middle—” The mariners of Ys were trained to fight pirates. Many landsmen had also once prepared against bandits, and had maybe not let their skills decay too much during the past peaceful years. Rufinus had taken charge of several woodcutters and charcoal burners; word had gone a ways out into the hinterland. His former Bacaudae would have been infinitely welcome, but—

  Adminius approached the centurion. “We’re ’bout’s ready as we’ll ever be, I think, sir,” the deputy said.

  “Very well,” Gratillonius answered. “Let me repeat, the quieter we move, the likelier it is that most of us will be there to revel around the Fire Fountain tomorrow evening.”

  “We will, sir, we will! Us boys’ll go around shushing the civilians. God be with yer, sir.”

  Gratillonius clucked to his mount and started off. His chosen route was not to Redonian Way and then due west, but slantwise across the promontory. Though slower and more difficult, it offered a hope of not being noticed too early.

  As always when battle drew nigh, doubts and qualms fell away from him. He was committed to action now, and rode at peace with himself. If he lost, if he fell in the fray—well, during the hours at Taenus’s home, he had spoken with Maeloch, and the Ferrier had promised passage to Britannia for Dahut and the other princesses, from himself or any surviving son of his. The Gallicenae—the Gallicenae would abide and endure, because they must, but this they had done before, until finally they witched forth a stranger to free them.

  Behind his right shoulder, summer’s dawnlight crept after the moon.

  Time and a mile ebbed away. The Frankish camp grew plainer in sight. Horses and mules were secured at intervals around it. Cookfires were banked, each a small red constellation surrounded by men rolled into their cloaks. A watchfire danced yellow and smoky at the center, and the spearheads of sentries threw back the eastern glow.

  At any instant, someone would see the Ysans and cry alarm. Gratillonius swung sword on high. “Charge! Kill them!”

  With a yell that went on and on, a growl beneath it, like wind and wave on a shingle beach, the Ysans plunged forward. Gratillonius checked his horse, which neighed and reared. He must hold back, try to oversee what happened, lead his Roman cadre wherever it was most needed, as he had done on that day when Eppillus fell, Eppillus who slept just beyond the bivouac of this new enemy.

  The young Soctian Tommaltach dashed past, battle-crazy, shouting and brandishing his blade, wild to be first in the onslaught. Gratillonius could only briefly hope the boy would live. The chances of the young Burdigalan Carsa looked better; he was bound for a slight rise of ground, a commanding position, where he could use the sling that whipped to and fro in his hand.

  The men of Ys swept by Gratillonius. They were not altogether a rabble. Shipmate ran beside shipmate, neighbor beside neighbor.

  The Franks boiled out of slumber, grabbed their weapons, sprang to form a square. The Ysans should have thrust straight in to prevent it. But they lacked officers. They surfed against the array as it was taking shape, and those in front got in the way of those that followed, and men recoiled and milled about.

  They did well even so. Few Franks were in armor. Ax, knife, sword, pike, club, missile worked havoc. Defenders fell and for a moment it was as if the attackers would break the square. Then Theuderich winded a horn in signal, and his men charged in what became a wedge. Slaughter churned. The Ysans withdrew in confusion, leaving their dead and badly wounded to be trampled underfoot or lie ululating. The Franks closed up afresh, howled threats and taunts, moved around as one to collect what mail they had left behind.

  Tommaltach went among his comrades like wildfire, blade and war cry aloft. Maeloch spat on his hands and beckoned his followers to pull back together. Rufinus got his to take stance nearby. Crossbow bolts and arrows began to sigh into lightening heaven, seeking prey. More wicked were the slingstones of sailors, herdsmen, and Carsa, splintering temples or knocking out eyes, from every quarter around the foe.

  Yet Gratillonius saw from his distance that whatever slight military order his men had had was fast going out of them. They clamored and prowled like a pack of dogs. At best, a few groups retained cohesion, and those could merely keep their places and shoot the last missiles remaining to them. The legionaries at Gratillonius’s back cursed aloud.

  Theuderich understood equally well. His horn sounded anew. The Franks moved forward and began hewing. Ysans fell, stumbled off, scattered. Gratillonius saw the barbarians bound his way. He was the goal. With him and his veterans down, the Franks could kill at their leisure until their opponents fled. And if he retreated, Ysan resolution would break at once.

  He jumped to earth, cast the reins of Favonius over the muzzle, unshipped his shield. “We’ll meet them halfway and cut them apart,” he said, knowing they would not unless a miracle occurred. They knew it too, but closed ranks and marched with their centurion.

  Behind them, the sun cleared the inland hills. It flared off Frankish iron.

  Mithras, also a soldier—

  What can I promise You for Your aid, not to me but to my Ys, now in this hour without mercy? he thought in an odd, detached fashion. He was not bargaining, but explaining.—Mithras, God of the Light that holds off the Dark of Ahriman, Your chosen sacrifice is a pure heart, and this I do not have; but in token and to Your honor I vow a bull, white and perfect, that in the slaying of him I may tell the world how You at the sunrise of time made it come alive, and that You abide still, Mithras, also a soldier.

  What radiance burst forth? The sun should dazzle the Franks, not the Romans.

  Gigantic under the sudden blue, the figure of a man strode in advance of the legionaries, on the seaward flank so that they could see he was beautiful and smiling. He was armored like them, in his right hand a shortsword whereon it seemed that flames flickered, in his left grip a shield whereon stood the Cross of Light, and it too blazed; but on his head was a Phrygian cap, which fluttered in the morning wind like a flag.

  “Taranis, Taranis!*’ Gratillonius thought he heard dimly from the strewn Ysans. He knew otherwise, and yet he did not know, he was lost in the vision, all he could do was lead his men onward against the enemy. What it said for them that they held firm and got to work!

  The vision was gone. The Franks were shattered. Bawling in terror, they broke ranks, ran, stood their ground when cornered and died piecemeal as the Ysans came over them. Someone—not Theuderich, who lay with his brothers gaping fallen-jawed at the sky while the gulls and scaldcrows circled low—someone winded a horn again and again. In some chaotic, valiant fashion he drew his surviving comrades together, into formation, homeward bound on Redonian Way.

  After disposing of the hostile wounded, the Ysans gleefully pursued. They did not seek another clash, but were content to harass from the sides, with arrow and slingstone. Few Franks got as far as the Osismiian border. There they could only save themselves by dispersing, in threes or twos or alone, into the woods, and thus straggle back to their kinsmen and the widows outside Redonum.

  VIII

  1

  In the Council chamber of the basilica, before his ranked soldiers beneath the eidolons of the Three, Gratillonius stood on t
he dais, robed, the Key out on his breast in plain sight above the emblem of the Wheel, Adminius holding the Hammer near his right hand; and he said to the Suffetes:

  “I did not call this meeting in order that we chop law, as some of you have been seeking to do. My position is simple. Let me state it.

  “We attacked the Franks because they were invaders, come in violation of the Oath that Brennilis and Caesar, Ys and Rome, swore these four and a half centuries agone. Barbarians, they befouled the water that flows from the Nymphaeum, blocked traffic on our main highway, and would surely soon have been wreaking worse. True sons of Ys rallied behind their King to cast them out, and succeeded, with fewer casualties than would have been reasonably awaited.

  “Aye, it seems the challenger I should have met in the Wood fell in that battle, to a hand unknown. What of that? He fell on his own misdeeds. Had he survived and come back like an honest man, of course I would have fought him myself. If any living Frank wishes vengeance, let him arrive by himself and strike the Shield; he shall have the full protection of our law until the combat.

  “The people cheer. Though it has cost them losses and wounds, they know what they freed themselves from. Will you, my lords, tell them they should have submitted? I warn you against that.

  “On the face of it, ours was a desperate venture. Nonetheless it was victorious, and overwhelmingly.” (Surely many believe this.) “That shows the Gods of Ys fought with us, and are well pleased. You have heard how most who were there saw a shining vision—I did myself—a sight that dismayed the enemy so that his line broke before us. I, a plain soldier, albeit the high priest of Taranis, I venture not to say more about this. Bethink you, though.

  “Enough talk. We should put quibbles aside and get on with coping with the very real troubles and dangers ahead of us.”

  “‘Quibbles,’ you call them?” cried Hannon Baltisi, Lir Captain. “If you’d led the attack after doing your second combat in the Wood, aye—but you flouted the sacred law. Dare you tell us the Gods smile on your plea of military necessity? They are more strict than that, Grallon. Their patience is great, but sorely have you tried it.”