Roma Mater

by Poul Anderson

  And terrible, Gratillonius thought. Dahilis loaded her arms. The dew on leaves and blossoms was cool, almost cold, like moonlight.

  4

  Innilis needed pretty things around her. The house that she inherited she had had painted rosy pink on the outside; within, the walls became pale blue trimmed with gold, where they did not carry paintings of blooms and birds. Delicate objects filled the rooms, statuettes, crystal, silver, as well as gauzy hangings. Most she had not bought, for she lived quietly and spent much of her stipend on alms and charitable works; she had received it from people who rejoiced to behold her joy. Two servants, man and wife, sufficed her. They were apt to go about their work he smiling, she singing.

  Ocean sheened as if polished beneath a late sun when Vindilis arrived. Innilis let: her in. They two could merely exchange salutation and looks while the woman attendant stood by. ‘Welcome, oh, welcome,’ Innilis whispered. She drew breath and turned to the servitor. ‘Evar, the Queen and I have m-m-much to discuss. We’ll sup – after dark, I suppose. I know not when, I’ll tell you at the time, it need only be a light collation. Come.’ She hastened from the atrium. Vindilis strode at her side.

  In the conference room, they closed the door and curtained the windows. Thereafter the kiss went on and on. ‘’Tis been so long,’ Innilis half sobbed, her cheek upon Vindilis’s small bosom.

  ‘Aye,’ Vindilis replied into the fragrant brown hair. Nobody else in Ys had heard her croon. ‘But this time is ours. We’ve done our duty, now we may have our reward.’

  Innilis stepped back, keeping hands linked with hands, stared up into the gaunt visage before her, and said sadly, ‘Not yet may I take much ease, dear darling. Those men worst hurt in the battle – many wounds have become inflamed – men lie tossing on their beds, sometimes raving, while their wives and children know naught to do save pray.’

  ‘And call on you,’ Vindilis added. ‘’Tis ever thus. You, the Sister of mercy.’

  Innilis shook her head. ‘Nay, you know better. Bodilis, Fennalis, Lanarvilis –’

  ‘They do what they can, but the grace of the Goddess is in your touch.’

  Innilis flushed. ‘You’ve had your work too.’

  ‘In truth.’ Vindilis’s tone hardened. ‘Our King would fain turn everything topsy-turvy. Along with much else, he wants changes in management of the public treasury, starting with inventory of every coffer, religious and civil alike. I must agree ’tis not necessarily a bad thing. I’d no idea how slipshod record-keeping had become in the Temple. Yet the Nine shall retain control of its finances. Quinipilis and I are overseeing the work. Her strength flags early in the day, so most of it falls on me.’ She laughed. ‘That’s why my note said we should meet here. At my house, some female prothonotary is like to burst in at any moment with a question.’

  Innilis’s smile lighted the chamber. ‘Well, you are here,’ she sighed, and swayed close again.

  They undressed each other with many endearments and little jests. There was a broad couch. They sank on to it. Hands, lips, tongues went seeking, caressing. Time passed unheeded.

  The door opened. Dahilis came through. She carried a basket full of Belisama’s Cup. ‘Innilis, dear,’ she called happily. ‘Evar told me you –’ She dropped the basket and choked off a scream.

  Vindilis bounded to her feet. ‘Shut the door!’ she hissed.

  Numbly, Dahilis did. Her glance went from the lean, crouched form with fingers crooked like talons, to Innilis huddled back on the couch, an arm across her breasts, a hand over her loins, mouth parted, eyes widened till the blue was ringed in white.

  Vindilis stalked forward. ‘You meddlesome witling.’ Her fury was like the iceberg that flays a ship. ‘How dared you? How dared you?’

  Dahilis retreated. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Vindilis, darling, she couldn’t have,’ Innilis quavered. ‘I should have told Evar … not to let anybody in, not even a Sister … I forgot. I was so glad y-you were coming … I forgot. ’Tis my fault, mine alone!’ She cast herself down on a pillow and wept.

  Vindilis halted. ‘Well, I might have noticed and seen to it, but I didn’t,’ she said. ‘Whatever the blame, we’ll share it, as we’ve shared our hearts.’

  Dahilis squared shoulders. ‘Belike this was … the will of the Goddess,’ she said. ‘Certes ’twas never mine.’

  ‘I’ll yield you that.’ Vindilis picked up her cloak and covered her nakedness. Grimly: ‘What we must decide is how to cope with the matter.’

  Dahilis went to the couch, knelt beside it, threw arms around Innilis. ‘Cry not, little Sister, cry no longer,’ she begged. ‘I love you. I love you best of all my Sisters. Never will I betray you, nay, not to my lord himself.’

  Vindilis let her continue murmuring, soothing, stroking hair and brow, while she reclad herself fully. When at length Innilis was quiet, save for gulps and hiccoughs and nose-blowing, Vindilis fetched a nightgown from the bedroom. Dahilis helped Innilis draw it on. Its fluffiness made her seem a child. She sat up near the head of the couch, the other two sat on the foot, and they looked back and forth through dimming light.

  ‘I thank you for your loyalty, Dahilis,’ said Vindilis.

  ‘Well, you were kind to me in the past,’ responded Dahilis.

  ‘Less kind than I might have been. I see that now. But ’tis not my nature.’ Vindilis paused. ‘Nor is it my nature to care for men.’

  Dahilis cast a troubled regard at Innilis, who faltered, ‘I, I know not what my nature is. Hoel and Gratillonius –but they never taught me!’

  Dahilis bit her lip. ‘That may be my doing. I’ve been … greedy … about him. I fear that’s offended the Goddess.’

  Vindilis bridled. ‘Think you this has?’ she challenged. ‘Nay, we twain gave each other the strength to endure Colconor. Thus we could carry out our duties, and not go mad. Love is the gift of Belisama. Should we spurn it, for a man who cares naught?’

  ‘You wrong him,’ Dahilis protested. She clenched her fists. ‘Aye, there I think is your sin, that you turn your back on the King the Three sent to deliver us. Innilis … you, at least … oh, do!’

  ‘I can try,’ came the whisper. ‘If he will. But never can I forsake Vindilis.’

  ‘That may perhaps be – Who am I to say? Who are we?’

  Slowly, Dahilis unclenched her hands. She stroked them over her belly, once, and calm flowed after them. Rising, she looked straight at the two and said:

  ‘I promised I’d keep faith with you, and I will. But we must find what is right. Let us think where we may seek. Tell me when you feel ready. Until then, farewell, my Sisters.’

  She walked out. The hem of her skirt scattered the spilled flowers.

  XVIII

  1

  A short way north of Warriors’ House where fighting men on duty had barracks, the Water Tower raised its great bulk higher than the adjacent battlements of Ys. A conduit under city wall and pomoerium led the flow of the canal there; ox-turned machinery pumped it to chambers near the top, whence pipelines redescended beneath pavement and carried it off to certain temples, important homes, fountains, and baths. The pipes were ceramic, because people here had a notion that lead was slow poison. Otherwise, and mainly, they depended on catch-basins and storage tanks with sand filters; rainfall kept those well enough filled.

  The roof of the Water Tower held an observatory. Many Ysans did not trust in astrology, but many others did. In any case, stars and planets were vital to timekeeping, navigation, religious rites. Moreover, there was an ancient tradition of gathering knowledge for its own sake. This work required a building hard by to contain instruments, library, scriptoria, auditorium. The Romans who remodelled Ys gave it a new Star House, in an Athenian style modified for the Northern climate. It came to be the meeting place of philosophers, scholars, poets, artists, visitors, who had interesting things to tell, citizens whom the Symposium voted into membership.

  A King could not be denied. Few had availed themselves of the privile
ge – more than once or twice, at any rate. Gratillonius wanted to, but had not hitherto found time. Now he could go.

  A supper would be followed by free conversation, which might well outlast the night; but first the afternoon was for formal discussion. Word that the King would attend had brought well-nigh everyone who belonged. Decently clad though never sumptuously, most wearing togas, they reclined like the ancients on couches arranged in a circle, a couple of dozen men and Queen Bodilis. Between each pair, a small table bore dilute wine, raisins, nuts, cheese, which barefoot youths – noiselessly, always listening – kept replenished, not for the gratification of stomachs but to maintain clear heads while the drink lubricated tongues. The room was austere unless one considered the beauty of its marble and onyx or the extraordinarily clear, almost colour-free window glass.

  Today the president of the symposium was Iram Eliuni, otherwise Lord of Gold. A short, bald-headed, fussy man, he was not without humour as he said, ‘Fain would I begin by lodging a complaint against our distinguished guest, Gratillonius the King. For generations my office was a sinecure, and I have had leisure to cultivate learning. Of late, he insists the treasury do something.’

  He cleared his throat and proceeded: ‘However, that is not the topic chosen for this gathering. ’Twas agreed by the committee that faith – that which men believe is the nature of God and Spirit, the meaning and destiny of Creation – that this is the highest and deepest question to which our souls can aspire. Moreover, if men be sane and righteous, belief will determine how they think, how they behave. In sooth, if you know not the faith of a man – or a woman, of course, my Lady Bodilis – then you understand that person not at all. Is this stipulated? Aye. Accordingly, we shall in mutual respectfulness investigate each other’s religions. Gratillonius?’

  Forewarned, the Roman could answer readily: ‘You wish me to explain mine? Well, to be frank, I doubt I can say much which this group knows not already. Mithraism was widespread when Ys was close-knitted to the Empire. You must have descriptions. I’ll be glad to talk about whatever you want to hear, as long as ’tis allowable for me, but I really think ’twill suffice to assure you afresh that I can and do honour the Gods of Ys … barring minor matters of ritual which count for naught … and if I’ve overstepped my bounds, ’tis been for lack of information, not of good will.’ He looked around the circle, face by face. Bodilis, in a grey gown, wore perhaps the gravest expression. ‘Let me make a request,’ said Gratillonius. ‘Let me ask you first about your religion. I pray you, enlighten me.’

  ‘Where’d we begin?’ asked a hoarse voice. Several men smiled. The inquirer was among the four regular members who belonged to no Suffete family – an artisan, but in his free time an experimenter who studied the behaviour of material objects.

  ‘Perhaps by starting with history, which you recall we’ve talked about, Gratillonius,’ suggested Bodilis.

  ‘We have,’ the centurion replied. ‘Sirs and my lady, I’ve knocked about in the world. I know how often the Romans of old were mistaken when they reckoned a foreign God to be the same as Jupiter or Neptunus or Whoever. Thus far I’ve not been able to make entire sense of your Ysan pantheon. No disrespect; I simply haven’t.’

  ‘For example?’

  ‘Oh … some of your Gods appear to come from the South or from Asia, but some are Gallic. And yet not Gallic. Taranis Himself – here in Ys He has taken the primacy from Lugh and the hammer from Sucellus, neither of Them having any cult among you as far as I know –’ Gratillonius ventured a smile of his own. ‘Help me understand what I have become!’

  Esmunin Sironai said, almost inaudibly out of his thin chest: ‘I trust you realize that we, at least we who are educated, do not take ancestral myths for literal truth, as if we were Christians. They are symbols. As different languages, or different words in one language, may denote the same thing – albeit with subtle variations of aspect – so, too, may different Gods represent the same Being. They change with time as languages do, They develop, according to the evolving needs of Their worshippers. The very heavens change through the aeons; nevertheless, the reality of Heaven endures.’ He was the chief astrologer, once tall, now frail, white-bearded, nearly blind. Under his direction his students, who loved him, continued his researches: for he was not satisfied with Ptolemaeus’s depiction of the universe.

  ‘Mayhap ‘twould help if the chronicle of the Gods were set briefly forth,’ propounded Taenus Himilco. ‘Parts you will have heard, Gratillonius, but not the whole, nor in orderly wise.’

  A murmur of assent went around the circle. ‘Do you do this,’ Iram Eliuni decided. ‘You are best qualified among us.’ Of aristocratic appearance and bearing, with a seat on the Council of Suffetes, Taenus was also a landholder near the Wood of the King. He knew not only what city dwellers thought, but what countryfolk did.

  At Gratillonius’s urging, he commenced:

  ‘In the Beginning, Tiamat, the Serpent of Chaos, threatened to destroy Creation. Taranis slew Her. But She was the mother of Lir, Who therefore waylaid Taranis and killed Him. Heaven and earth were plunged into darkness, until Belisama descended into the underworld. At a fearful price, She ransomed Taranis and brought Him back; and She made peace between Him and Lir. A condition of this peace was that Taranis must die over and over, until the End of All Things, though He would ever be reborn. This mystery we enact in Ys. Formerly ’twas by yearly human sacrifice. Today ’tis in the person of the King. He dies in battle, he is resurrected in the victor, who fathers new life upon the Gallicenae, the chosen of the Goddess.

  ‘In a sense, therefore, every daughter of King and Queens is divinely engendered. Only nine at a time are actual avatars. The rest live common human lives. Likewise do persons born of congress between other divinities and mortals. We have families claiming descent from, say, Teutatis, Esus, Cernunnos – mine – or from female deities by mortal lovers, Epona, Banba … ’Tis mere ancestry, unattested save by legend. More meaningful, mayhap, though vague as sea-fog, is a tale that in the Ferriers of the Dead flows blood of cold Lir …’

  Silence fell. Gratillonius nerved himself to break it: ‘The Ferriers. I’ve heard of them. But nobody wants to speak of it. What does happen to the dead?’

  ‘That no one knows. The stories are many, many. Ghosts haunting their homesteads, barrow-wights, the Wild Hunt – dim Hades or utter oblivion – Here in the city and along the coast, we bury our dead at sea, as you know. Their bodies. The Ferriers have the task of bringing the souls out to Sena, for which terrifying reason they are exempt from tax or civic labour. Yonder, ’tis thought, Belisama judges those souls, though some say Lir shares in it. Many say that certain are reborn – that dead Gallicenae, especially, may become seals, which linger until they can accompany their own beloved into the Beyond – But we do not pretend to know.’

  ‘As you Mithraists do,’ Bodilis said coolly.

  Gratillonius flushed. ‘I know not what will become of me,’ he snapped. ‘A man can but strive to earn salvation.’

  ‘A man. Is it denied to any who are not washed in the blood of the Bull? That would admit only the wealthy to Heaven.’

  ‘Nay!’ exclaimed Gratillonius, doubly stung that she should be the one who gibed. ‘The Taurobolium – that ugly business where the worshipper stands in a pit and the blood bathes him – that’s for Cybele. The Great Mother, they call her.’

  ‘You were sanctified by the blood of a King. Why should others not be sanctified by the blood of the Bull?’

  ‘As you will. ’Tis not required among them either. The rites are open to women.’ Gratillonius stopped himself from admitting how closely the Temples of Mithras and Cybele had often cooperated. He had never liked that cult, where men driven hysterical had been known to castrate themselves. Let women follow Christ, Who was good enough for his mother. ‘When we slay a beast to Mithras, we do it with dignity, as He did.’

  ‘I pray you, I pray you!’ Iram cried. ‘This is a comparison of views, an exchange of cognizances.
Debates, if debates are desired, must be arranged separately.’

  Gratillonius suppressed his temper. ‘Well, about human destiny,’ he said, ‘many of my fellowship believe ’tis controlled by the planets, but I confess to doubts about that. Could the learned Esmunin enlighten us?’

  ‘I am not in the least sure of the horoscopes I cast,’ replied the old man, ‘although I do my best as duty demands. If there is fate, then methinks ’tis on a grander scale, the forces of it all but incomprehensible to us. The apparition of comets, enigmatic eclipses, precession of the equinoxes –’

  It became fascinating.

  2

  Gratillonius would happily have stayed as late as the last philosopher, but soon after the meal Bodilis plucked his toga and said low, ‘Come away with me. We’ve things to talk about.’

  Despite lingering resentment, he knew she would not request this idly, and made his excuses. No armed guard was necessary hereabouts; a lantern bearer sufficed, a boy who did not know Latin.

  ‘I’m sorry I angered you,’ Bodilis said in that language. ‘But given the opportunity, I thought I must.’

  Astonished, Gratillonius glanced at her. Stars threw more light on her face than did the glow bobbing ahead. He studied its strong moulding as if for the first time until, confusedly, his gaze roved off, past the towers to the vast glimmer of Ocean. The night was cool. Footfalls rang.

  ‘You see,’ she said presently, ‘you do not understand free women. If you’re to reign as we both hope, you need to. I gave you a taste of what you’ve been giving us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he protested. ‘My mother, my sisters – no slaves they. Nor most of those I’ve known.’

  ‘But not equals either,’ she retorted. ‘We Gallicenae are. Never forget that.’

  ‘What have I done wrong?’

  She sighed, then smiled and took his arm. ‘Not your fault, really. Everywhere else, unless perhaps among some of the barbarians, women are underlings. The Romans honoured their matrons, but gave them no voice in affairs. The Greeks shut theirs away in houses; no wonder that became a nation of boy-lovers, as dull as they made their poor women! Your cult won’t admit them. The Christians will – but subservient, looked at askance as vessels of temptation, denied any possibility of ever administering the sacraments. How could you know?’