His eyes adapted. He trod at military pace to the oak where his two enemies were.
Side by side, he knelt on the frozen snow with Budic. Soren dipped the sprig of mistletoe in the chalice of water and signed first the King, then the man who would be King. Breath smoked from his lips as he intoned the Punic prayer. It came with a shock to Gratillonius that when he considered what dying would be like a few minutes ago, he quite forgot his spirit would go on pilgrimage toward Mithras. He tried to imagine that and desire it, but failed. He felt altogether empty of anything but tiredness and sorrow.
“Go forth,” said the Speaker for Taranis, “and may the will of the God be done.”
This time he refrained from adding more. His gaze followed the contestants while they departed. Everybody’s did.
Though Gratillonius never looked back, he knew when he and his follower had passed out of sight. How well he knew, after all his prowlings among these huge dark boles. They enclosed him like the pillars of the Lodge, the pillars that were carved in the forms of Gods; but these had nothing of human or even beast about them, they bore forms much older and mightier. Their shadows turned the snow into a blue lake from which islands of brush lifted stiff, toning shrilly when a leg or a shield knocked ice off them. Here was a hall of ice. Its beams were hung with swords beyond naming; they shimmered and flashed in the light that came out of an unseen east and often struck sparks from them. Maybe death was like this, not a road to the stars nor a solitary night but hollowness within an ice labyrinth that reached endlessly onward.
Silent. Whatever else death was, surely it was silent. And he heard withes snicker, their ice tinkle, the snow creak beneath his feet.
He heard the footsteps behind him stop, then stamp. At the edge of an eye he glimpsed the movement.
His body had answered before he understood. He had flung himself aside, caught balance again, spun about. The thrust of the heavy javelin barely missed his neck.
He dropped his own spears and fell into single-combat stance, feet at right angles, knees tensed and slightly bent, shield ready between them and his chin. The sword flew free in his grasp. Budic had recovered too and withdrawn a couple of yards, clutching his light javelin.
For a space they stared into each other’s eyes. A remote part of Gratillonius noticed that he still felt nothing, no fear or anger or surprise. It merely seemed incumbent on him to say, level-toned, “I should have expected that. However, I didn’t know you for a coward as well as a traitor.”
Budic likewise held his voice down, but unevenness crowded through it. “You’ll die regardless. This way would have been kinder.”
“Also to you, when you remembered afterward?”
The face that once remained so boyish was—not aged; beyond time. “No. You see, I’m damned whatever I do. It’s sensible to win as easily as I can.”
Puzzlement stirred faint in Gratillonius. “Why? What brought you to this?”
Budic edged backward between two trees. “It’s best for everyone,” he said. “For Ys, for Rome. I couldn’t take the reins at once if I were badly hurt, and I must. You understand, don’t you? I promise you burial according to the rites of your faith, and an honored memory.”
Suddenly he brought his right arm up, back, forward. The javelin leaped.
Gratillonius had foreknown. Let that head bite into his shield, and the dragging shaft would make half his defense into a hindrance. He counted on Budic’s tendency to hook. The lad couldn’t be as calm as he pretended. There were only a couple of heartbeats’ leeway, but Gratillonius was ready. He slanted the shield. The missile skittered over the curved surface and fell. Adminius would be proud of me, thought Gratillonius, and all at once that was funny; he barked a laugh.
Budic drew blade. He kept his place to see what his opponent would do. Gratillonius dismissed the idea of hurling a javelin back. As close as they were, Budic could be on him before he retrieved and cast. Next he decided against moving ahead. The two of them were equally armed and armored now. Let Budic come to him.
Time stretched. Gratillonius settled down into waiting.
Budic’s mask shattered. “Very well!” he snarled, and advanced. He kept to legionary style, though, which showed how dangerous he still was.
The distant part of Gratillonius noticed that he himself was making no gesture of surrender, in body or in mind. He meant to play the game out as well as he was able. It was something to do. The upshot didn’t matter.
Just outside sword reach, Budic circled slowly in search of an opening. Gratillonius turned with him. They had scant room for maneuver here in the thick of the grove. Getting snagged by a bush or tripped by a fallen bough hidden under the snow could be fatal.
In a single motion, Budic stopped his sidewise course, made a step ahead, and stabbed at Gratillonius’s right thigh. Gratillonius shifted shield to intercept and tried for Budic’s bare forearm. Budic’s blade curved about. Steel rang on steel and slithered back. Both men retreated. The circling resumed.
Budic passed close by a tree. Gratillonius saw when a limb would block him in bringing his shield leftward. Releasing tension on his right knee, Gratillonius pivoted on the left leg and struck at that side. Were he as young as Budic, he might have gotten around the edge. Budic was too quick for him, swung his whole body left and caught the point on his shield. It thudded into the wood. Budic stabbed at the arm. Gratillonius got clear barely in time. Blood oozed along a scratch from wrist to elbow.
“Hunh!” Budic grunted, and attacked. For a while they stood shield pressed against shield, thrust and cut, up, down, to, fro. Repeatedly, each tried the rim-catching trick, but the other was alert for it. They went on, stab, slash, defend, strike, a storm of iron.
When they broke off and paused, a few feet apart, Gratillonius was trembling. Air rattled in and out of a throat gone mummy-dry. Sweat drenched his garments; he felt it begin to chill. The ice cave pulsed, closed in on him, drew back into immensity, closed in anew.
Am I winded already? he wondered. Am I still this weak after my bones have knit? I thought I could do better.
He looked at the shadows of the ice-leaf trees and realized that the strife had gone on longer than he had counted.
Budic’s breaths were deep but rhythmical. He smiled a curious, archaic smile. “You’re going to die, old man,” he said hoarsely. “Want to make it easy on yourself?”
Gratillonius shook his head. “Rather you.”
Budic grew plaintive. “I hate this, you know. I have to kill you, but please let me do it clean and painless. Then we can be friends again when we meet in hell.”
Once more, surprise stirred. “Do you really think you’re sending yourself to Tartarus?” Gratillonius panted. “In God’s name, any God’s, why?”
Budic poised for a renewed assault. “Dahut is worth every price,” he said.
“After you murdered her father?”
Budic’s voice throbbed. “She’s ready for me.”
The rage that burst up through Gratillonius was like nothing else in his life. It froze all the world. Its white wind filled all space and time. It bore away humanness, mortality, the divine; nothing remained but ice, the crystalline logic of what to do.
The centurion took a military stride forward. “Soldier—atten-TION!” he shouted.
During the instant that habits and loyalties held Budic locked, Gratillonius reached him. Budic became aware. Gratillonius had slipped shield under shield edge. He threw his last strength into the motion that levered Budic’s defense aside. Budic staggered. He smote. His weapon stopped on his foeman’s mail. Gratillonius’s point went into the throat.
He could do no more. He let go, dropped to his knees, rested his weight on his hands, and shuddered.
He had done enough. Blood spouted, a shout of red. Where it hit the snow, steam puffed. Budic lurched against a tree. The impact shook it. Icicles dropped. They made a brief bright knife-rain over Budic. He slid downward. Head and shoulders propped up by the bole, he sought Gratillonius with his
eyes. His lips moved. He half raised his hands. Did he ask forgiveness? No telling, as fast as he died.
Too bad, thought Gratillonius. If I could’ve taken you alive, I’d have twisted out of you what you meant by that last obscenity.
Strength crept back, and a measure of compassion. At length he rose, went to the body, stood in the wildly colored pool where it lay. Dead, Budic looked very young. Gratillonius remembered marches, campflres, battles, parades, and stammered confidences.
He stooped, eased the corpse onto its back, closed eyes and jaw, secured them with sticks broken off a frosty shrub.
He didn’t want to meet Corentinus, but he’d send a message bidding the pastor arrange Christian burial for this member of his flock.
And what had led the sheep astray? Gratillonius recovered his sword, wiped it clean on a section of his kilt onto which blood had not spurted, sheathed it. He also recovered the javelins before he trudged back to the Lodge. Good practice. Waste not, want not.
Something had gone hideously wrong. It had lured a man of his command to mutiny, death, damnation according to every faith Gratillonius knew about. He must find out what. Somehow it did involve Dahut. A shadow had fallen over the daughter of Dahilis. Well, her old Papa would bring her clear of it. That was plenty to live for. And his other girls, and Bodilis, Forsquilis, Tambilis—all the Queens, really, with all Ys, his comrades, his men, everybody who trusted him. He’d be too busy for regrets.
Gratillonius straightened. His stride grew longer, onward through the winter wood.
2
Bodilis, Forsquilis, Tambilis, wisdom, knowledge, friendship. Thus Gratillonius thought of them as he entered and found them seated in expectation. Love went without saying, but here it bore three strangely different faces.
Well, they were three different people. He halted and returned their regard, their carefully formal greetings. Beneath the grayed waves of her hair, through the lines that time had plowed, he saw concern in Bodilis’s countenance, and an underlying calm as strong as the bones. Forsquilis leaned back with the deceptive ease of a cat, the enigmatic expression of a Grecian idol. O Venus, she was beautiful, in the fullest ripeness of her womanhood; memory burned him. Tambilis perched nervous on the edge of her chair. Her pregnancy had just begun to show, early rounding out of belly and bosom, haggardness in visage. Like her two previous, it was causing her frequent discomfort. She had not sought his bed this past month or more, nor he hers; once she had whispered him hurried thanks for that, and a promise to make it up as soon as she felt better. With royal and military affairs cramming in on him, and daily exercises to the point of exhaustion in order that he get back in condition, he usually slept well anyhow.
Last night he had not.
“Be seated,” Tambilis invited. Her gesture included a small table between their chairs and his, where wine, water, and cups waited.
“Thank you, I’d liefer stand for the present,” Gratillonius replied. In fact, he started to pace, back and forth in front of them.
“I hope we can open up that cage you are in,” said Bodilis.
He gave her half a smile. “I do myself. ’Tis no pleasant abode.”
“Speak,” said Forsquilis.
He cleared his throat and began. It was impossible for him to come straight to the point. He had prepared words that would lead toward it.
“In the three days since my last combat, I’ve been thinking and questioning much. ’Twas hard. So hard that hitherto I’d shied off. Nay, better said, I’d refused to believe there was aught that required asking about. Give Budic thanks of a sort, for that his… rebellion… shocked me into understanding. I woke the next morning and found myself aware that some riddles must be resolved. To go on thence took all the courage I own.
“Why did Budic turn against me? Tommaltach and Carsa—well, they were young, headstrong. Ambition and, and lust seemed to account for their actions. Not that I’d imagined any such baseness in their metal. The betrayals hurt worse than the weapons. However, we’re ofttimes surprised in this life.
“But Budic! My faithful soldier for almost twenty years. We stood on the Wall together. Together we came here and slowly learned that this was our home. His Christianity never divided us. If anything, devout as he was, it made him the more true to his oath. But then, without the least forewarning, he broke it, broke with everything he had been and believed in. Why?
“His messmates, his Ysan companions, everybody who knew him and whom I inquired of, are as amazed as me. None can explain it. I summoned his widow and interrogated her; she blubbered that she knew naught, but in the past two months he scarcely swapped a word with her.”
“That pitiful creature,” Bodilis murmured. “You were not harsh, were you?”
“Nay, no cause for that. I’ve seen to it that she’ll get her pension. Folk do agree Budic grew moody and withdrawn at about that date. He’d absent himself for long whiles, and when he returned would tell nobody where he’d been. Some persons noticed him in Lowtown or out on the northern heights. Doubtless others saw him also but failed to recognize him, for he’d dress in plain clothes and keep his head covered. Something was gnawing in him.”
“Have you spoken with Corentinus?” Forsquilis asked.
Gratillonius scowled, shook his head, quickened his pace. “Not yet. I did send him a note requesting he tell me aught he knew. He wrote back that he had no information save that Budic had quit seeking his guidance as of yore. We’ve neither of us any desire to meet.”
Tambilis swallowed, ran tongue over lips, finally achieved saying, “Sisters, I’ve kept silence about this until today, but they quarreled… over Dahut.”
“Aye,” Gratillonius rasped. Now he could delay no more; but he was in motion, he could go ahead like a legionary quick-stepping toward the enemy line. “He claimed she’d poisoned the minds of Tommaltach and Carsa, that she wanted my death so my slayer would make her his Queen. Of course I threw him out. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”
Forsquilis straightened. “He’s far from the only one who’s borne such thoughts,” she said in a voice that stabbed. “He alone had the honesty to tell you them.”
Gratillonius slammed to a stop. He reached for a carafe, pulled back his hand before he threw the vessel at her, and coughed, “You too?”
Tears stood in the eyes of Bodilis. “We must needs be blind and deaf not to have… wondered. Daily I’ve prayed the suspicion prove false. Belisama has not heeded me.”
“I don’t believe it!” Tambilis cried. “My own Sister!”
Gratillonius held his gaze on Forsquilis. “What of you, witch Queen?” he demanded.
Her look at him was unwavering. “You know what I told you in a certain dawn,” she answered. “The Gods are at work. We are fated. I wish you had not asked me to be here this day.”
“Do you, then, say we are helpless? I scorn that thought.”
“Belike we can save something. What if you departed Ys and never came back? The strife might die away.”
He bridled. “Desert my post? Abandon Dahut in her need?”
“I knew you’d refuse,” Forsquilis sighed. “My one thin hope is that you may think further about this.”
His indignation collapsed. “Dahut cannot be guilty,” he groaned.
Abruptly the three women were at his side, embraced him, kissed him, stroked and murmured to him. He shivered and gulped.
After a while he could draw apart and tell them, flatly but resolvedly: “What I confront, much too late, is that those suspicions exist. They are hellish wrong, but they are not groundless. I must cease calling enemy anyone who feels them. Instead, I must get them done away with. I must uncover the truth beyond every possible doubt.
“How, though? I asked you to come, you, the three Gallicenae I can wholly rely on—come and give me your counsel, your help. For her sake.”
His self-possession broke again. “What shall we do?” he pleaded.
“We awaited this,” Bodilis told him. “Let us sit d
own, calm ourselves as best we may with a cupful, and think.”
They did. Silence followed.
At last Tambilis inquired timidly, “Could you speak with her, Grallon?”
He grimaced. “I’m afraid to. She’d be so hurt that I could even utter the foul thing, and—and what could she do but swear she’s innocent?” He paused. “You can better sound her out. Gain her confidence, till she tells you, shows you what it really is that she’s been doing.”
“I’ve tried already, darling.” Tambilis’s head drooped.
“She is indeed alienated,” said Bodilis softly. “That’s understandable. She was earnest in her worship when a child. Does she now go away to be alone with the Gods and seek Their mercy—on you, on Ys?”
“My arts have not availed to find it out,” said Forsquilis. “However, there are folk who can follow a person unbeknownst.”
Gratillonius’s fists whitened on his knees. “You were always the one to speak the cruel thing…. Oh, ’twas necessary. I’ve made myself consider setting spies on her, though the idea gagged me. But who? Dirty little wretches from the Fishtail? They’d know how, as a decent man would not. I can see them leering through a window while she… undresses for bed…. Could we trust their reports? Could they themselves know what it meant, whatever they glimpsed?”
Forsquilis nodded. “Aye. Suppose she danced before Taranis. ’Tis a rite forbidden men to witness. Or—other possibilities come to mind. And she could well grow aware of watchers. She has an awesome gift for sorcery, does Dahut. ’Tis ill to think what she might perchance wreak in revenge.”
“But she’d never harm those who love her,” Tambilis protested.
Gratillonius skinned his teeth. “If she struck the spy blind and palsied, ’twould suffice.”
“She’s only an apprentice witch,” Forsquilis reminded them. “I myself could not cast such a spell. And yet—”
“Action is vital, true,” Bodilis declared. “But let us move with the utmost caution. I know how you suffer under this, Gratillonius, beloved. Still, you can endure while we feel our way forward.”
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