Roma Mater

by Poul Anderson

  Nevertheless it was a swine of a job to erect the tent. Leather flapped into faces, cords flew abut like slave-drivers’ whips. Men said no profane word, but obscenities were plentiful. Afterwards, watching for Dahilis, Gratilonius realized she must have gone out again, inland, while he was thus engaged. He had not seen her greeting to him.

  Finally the task was over. He said his appreciative goodbye. The crew embarked, cast loose, fended off, departed. He stood watching the galley dwindle: a brave sight, but how fragile amidst the surges and surfs, like Dahilis beneath the sky.

  Having sadly given up on seeing her again for hours, he busied himself settling in. There were things to stow, food such as didn’t need cooking, water, wine, bedroll, towels, washbasin, comb, teeth cleansers – the list went on, ending with what he had brought to pass the time. A book could have been too easily blotted, ruined; and he possessed no musical gift whatsoever. He did, though, have waxed tablets and a stylus, for noting down any thoughts that occurred to him about Ys and Armorica. Mainly he had brought pieces of wood, and tools to carve them into ornaments for furniture and toys for his step-daughters. And why not for his own daughter as well, his and Dahilis’s? She’d not appreciate more than a rag doll at first, but later she would enjoy, say, a tiny wagon …

  Gratillonius smiled as he crossed his legs on the rug. He reached for a whetstone. Several of his blades needed sharpening, and no servant of his had quite the right final feather-touch.

  Wind gusted, screeched, noisily flapped the doorfolds, which had been tied back to admit light. His pleasure drained from him. He should not be doing work as mechanical as this. It freed his mind to wonder how Dahilis was, alone with her Gods at Midwinter.

  3

  Gratillonius did not notice her. He and the sailors were struggling to put up his tent. Dahilis wished she could linger till his glance wandered her way. But already she had had to be hasty in the first communion rite. More than half the short day was gone, while clouds drew downward, ever darker, and wind grew still more fierce. She must be back before nightfall was complete, so she could see to kindle fire – on the hearth for herself, in lamps for herself and the Goddess.

  ‘Belisama, Queen and Mother, watch over him,’ she whispered, and started forth.

  For a space the footpath followed the shoreline. Cast-offs of the tide lay strewn, kelp, shells, dead fish, pieces from the many wrecks that these waters had claimed over the years. Beyond churned and foamed the sea itself, nearly black save where it burst in gigantic whiteness. Growl and roar were like drums beneath the war horn of the wind. Seals swam in the turmoil, They kept turning their heads inland – towards her? The path bent that way, then west again; she lost sight of them.

  It hurt to turn her back on the Kindly Ones. It hurt to leave Gratillonius behind. It hurt!

  Dahilis halted with a gasp. The pain started at the small of her back and came around to grip her in the belly. It was like the pangs of lightening, but those had been brief and mild. This laid hold of her inmost depths. She barred a cry behind her teeth. Dear Isis, had the birth begun so early?

  The cramp passed. A while she stood shivering. Best return, start the fire, wait. If this went on, seek Gratillonius.

  Nay. Dead Brennilis, speaking through the mouth of Forsquilis, had warned that the trial would be severe. This was not worse than she, Dahilis, could endure. The pains might well be false. In any event, likelihood was that she could move about freely, most of the time, for hours and hours yet. Let her do so, and win her man forgiveness.

  And the Sisterhood and Ys, of course.

  She strode on. The wind was now straight in her face. She tasted the salt spray that it flung the length of Sena. It sought to tear the cloak from her shoulders. She could barely hold the garment together; it fluttered and snapped frantically. The cold probed through every opening. Her gown made valiant defence, but the wind flattened it against her and her babe, jeered as it lifted the hem, swirled up from underneath. The low, scudding clouds had given way to a roiling leadenness above, a monstrous gloom ahead. Leafless bushes flicked their twigs above stones and patches of withered grass. Hoot and howl streamed around her.

  But there were the two menhirs, where she had helped bring Gratillonius and, later, bring him the aid he needed against the reavers out at sea – A second spasm coiled through her. She waited it out.

  Shakily, she approached the Bird and the Beast. She said the words, she danced the sunwise dance, she ate the salt and gave the drop of blood, she asked leave to depart and peace on the Old Folk. It seemed a good omen that the next attack held off until this was all done.

  After that, though, she lost count of how many stops she must make on her way west. Belike the wind slowed her, she thought: thrusting, battering, chilling, as if Lir had sent it to keep her away from Him. The flat landscape seemed everywhere the same. As she went on, it grew vague in her sight. The wind was lashing such tears from her eyes. Spray flew ever thicker. Its bitterness caked on her lips. Snow that was half sleet began drifting against her. Horizon and sky were lost.

  ‘Lir,’ she appealed, ‘Lir, are You really angered that he buried his friend, in the name of their God, above Your sea? You can’t be. You are Captain and Helmsman. You understand what manhood is.’

  But Lir had nothing of humanity about Him. He was the storm that whelmed ships, the lightless depths that drowned men, the waves that flung them on to rocks for gulls to eat what the eels had not. Well did He nourish great whales, and dolphins to frolic about sailors and seals to watch over them. Well did He raise great shoals of fish and the winds that bore rich cargoes homeward. But He was Ocean, the Son of Chaos, and Ys lived only on sufferance of His, only because it had made itself forever a hostage to His wrath.

  Let her appeal and appease – She sank to knees, to all fours, and could not quite hold back a cry. Some births came fast. This, her first, too early at that, this birth ought not to, but, ‘Belisama, Mother, help me.’

  Dahilis lurched back to her feet. The drift around her grew more white as everything else grew blacker.

  Then ahead, at endless last, she spied the tip of the island. Surf ramped beyond it; she heard the boom and long, withdrawing snarl, she could well-nigh feel them through her bones. That was farther out than she must go. She need only descend a few tiers of rock to one that jutted out above high-water mark. Upon it stood an altar, a block of stone, sea-worn until ledges and carven symbols were nearly gone. There she must give Lir His honour. Afterwards she could return to the House of the Goddess.

  She picked her way down carefully, half blinded as she was. Wind raved, snow and spindrift flew. Her womb contracted. She bent herself around the anguish. Her heel slipped on wetness. She felt herself toppling, helpless. It seemed to go on and on, while she stood aside and watched. Shock, pain, those too struck somebody remote.

  – They waited patiently until she crawled back from wherever she had been. That was a slow battle. Often she slid back downwards. A birth pang would drag her up again. The agony in her right leg resisted this, as the wind had resisted her walking. But when she did break free, it became her friend. It was something other than a confusion of wind, snow, water, darkness, and noise. Her mind clung to it. Don’t let go, she begged. If you do, I’ll slip away from this, and I mustn’t.

  Scrabbling, her fingers hoisted her gown. The right foot was bent awry. Fractured ankle. She would dance no more, not soon. How long had she lain unaware? Not long; her head was unhurt, mayhap saved by the cloth wrapped around it, though that had come loose. Nonetheless, thought fumbled through drift of snow and scud. Her garments were drenched, weighting her when she tried to raise herself on her hands. Water sheeted. The tide was coming in swiftly. With the wind behind it, surf would reach around the altar of Lir. It might pull her off to Him, or it might simply kill her and the child.

  She must find shelter before the chill reached her womb. Already she felt numbness stealing inwards. She tried to get up on the sound foot and hop. That knee b
uckled. She fell on the broken ankle. Bright lightnings cast her back into the dark.

  It was closing in on the world when she next regained herself. Another cramp pulsed through her. She felt it more keenly than she now felt the broken bones. ‘Hold,’ she muttered. ‘Abide. We’ll go to him.’ His right name eluded her. It was lengthy, Latin, unmusical. Her tongue remembered how Ysans sometimes rendered it. ‘Grallon. Oh, Grallon.’

  Dahilis began to crawl.

  When she had hitched her way over the terraces, on to the flatland, she could not find the path. Whiteness lay thin upon rock and soil. It flowed along in the air, on the wind, through the deepening dusk. The crash and rush of the sea behind her filled her skull. She must get away from the sea. Somewhere yonder were Grallon and Beli-sama. ‘Be not hasty,’ she told her daughter. ‘Wait till he can help us.’ She knew little else, but she did know that she must creep onwards, each time that the pains allowed.

  4

  As twilight fell, Gratillonius grew more and more uneasy. Ignoring cold, he sat in the entrance of his tent. It opened towards the building. He did not see her, he did not see her. By every hell of every faith, she ought to be back. Ought she not? The island was small. Any healthy person could walk it from end to end in an hour or so. Allow as much for the return. She did have her duties along the way, but they couldn’t be too elaborate, could they? A slight snow had begun, dry flakes borne nearly level out of the west. It hindered vision. He might miss sight of her. He didn’t want that.

  His woodcarving forgotten, he waited. Thoughts tumbled through him, memories, mother, father, the farm, camp, girls who seemed to have gone unreal, the Wall, Parnesius, combats that no longer mattered – where was Dahilis? – Maximus’s will to power, the march to Ys, Dahilis, Dahilis, things he needed to do, also among her Sisters – what in Ahriman’s name was keeping her? – how he might disengage himself from Ys after his work in Armorica was done, but not from Dahilis, no, he must win her over to Rome, and where was she, what was keeping her? The snow streaked denser than before.

  Finally he realized he’d better start fire while he could still see. That meant closing the tent against the gusts that had been whirling about in it. The consequent gloom, and his own impatience, cost him several failures before he had ignited the tinder, blown it to life, kindled a punk-stick, and brought that to a candle. Then it took a while more to get his lantern going. It was a fine big one, bronze with glass panes, but awkward in the ignition. He’d be stupid not to use it, however, for a naked flame might well die when he reopened the tent flaps.

  It did. He blinked at night. Not dark already! He should stand outside and let his eyes adapt. The wind savaged his face. Waves bawled unseen; he felt the wharf tremble to their blows. With the slowness of a torturer, some vision came to him. He discerned the House not as a mass but as an abyss, blacker than black. If Dahilis had entered it while he wasn’t looking, she must be asleep in there.

  The knowledge struck into him like a swordthrust. ‘Asleep?’ he yelled. ‘Can’t be!’ Not as early as Midwinter nightfall was. She had spoken of an evensong; surely that required lamps. And she would have lighted a hearthfire. But never a glimmer –

  He fought himself till the breath sobbed in his gullet. He’d missed sight of her. Shutters and door blocked light. If he went there, she would be aghast. She was supposed to seek him, should necessity come upon her. Stand fast, Gratillonius, stand your watch, keep your post.

  Snow hissed. Blindness deepened. He raised his hands. ‘Mithras, God of the Law, what shall I do?’

  A still small voice replied: Look for the smoke.

  Gratillonius’s heart stumbled. The smoke of sacrifice, the smoke of the hearth, it rose. However swiftly wind snatched it away from its outlet, firelight from beneath should glimmer on it … and on the flying snow … but there was no light. None whatsoever.

  A faraway part of him recalled moments of commitment to battle. In them had been a certain eerie bliss. You had no more thinking to do, nor hoping nor praying. You only drew sword.

  He fetched the lantern and carried it by the lug, as low down as might readily be so that he could pick his way up the path. Wind, snow, night had receded to remoteness; he barely heard the sea. The door of the House bore a knocker formed like a triskele. He thudded it as hard as he was able. ‘Dahilis, Dahilis, are you within?’ The noise disappeared.

  ‘The sacrilege is mine,’ he said, mainly for her sake, and opened the door.

  Shadows wavered misshapen around a single room. From the Roman-tiled floor a wooden staircase led up into the tower. But that was for refuge. Here he saw a hearth, an oven, utensils, chair, stool, table, cabinet … rug on the floor, lamps and candlesticks on a shelf, hangings to relieve the bleakness of stone walls … at the far end, what might be an altar … closer by, a single bed, and tossed on to it the rolled sheets and blankets he knew.

  ‘Dahilis!’ he roared. Echoes laughed.

  So, he thought.

  She would need a fire, but he didn’t know when he would come back with her. He laid out the nicely stacked kindling and sticks. From a jug he drenched them with lamp oil. Let that soak in, that he might be able to start a blaze immediately when he had brought her here to shelter.

  Fire … He could be a long while searching. Best that he take several tallow candles to recharge the lantern. He snatched them off their shelf and stuffed them into the pouch at the belt of his Ysan garb. Down with them he put flint, steel, tinder, and punk, just in case – though he’d need some kind of windbreak before trying to start anything burning. Across his left arm he slung a wool blanket, while he took a firm grip on the lantern, ready to keep it level should he trip. Then he set forth.

  ‘Dahilis!’ he cried. ‘Dahilis!’

  The wind whistled, the waves resounded, his voice was lost. As he left the House behind, he glimpsed a seal that had come ashore to lie on the strand. Its gaze followed him till he was gone into his darkness.

  He didn’t know this damned island at all. There should be a footpath of some kind, but where? Snow had laid enough of a veil over the ground that he couldn’t tell by looking. He only knew that it wasn’t under the hummocks and tufts of winter grass or the bare, snickering bushes; but those grew sparsely. Besides, she might be anywhere.

  It would do no good to run around yelling like a scared pup. Best he weave his way to and fro across the narrow land, guiding himself as best he was able by whatever clues there might be, such as the noise of the waters north and south. At that, he could easily miss her, if she didn’t hear him and call an answer. Well, if so, he would work back again. Come daylight he could see farther than by the feeble glow he carried.

  But it would be a long night.

  – Dahilis, Dahilis!’

  –He came upon a pair of menhirs. Much taller than he, close together, one bluntly pointed and one with a beaklike projection near the top, they must be the Stones about which he had heard words let slip. They might be something towards which she would seek. At least they were things, here in the middle of nothingness. He cast around and around. She was not there. His voice was giving out.

  –The snowfall ended in a last, spiteful sleet.

  –He could only croak, like a crow with a bad cold.

  –When he replaced the candle, fatigue made his hand shake so that he nearly dropped it.

  –The wind slackened, but chill strengthened. Heaven was lightless. Gratillonius began to hear surf at the western end of Sena.

  –He came upon her quite suddenly. Another shadow he wasn’t sure of; a turn for a closer look; he stubbed his toe on a rock; and there she lay. Ice had formed in crackly little patches on her drenched garments. She was huddled around her unborn. Her face was bloodless and peaceful. The lids were not entirely shut, lantern light flicked off eyeballs. As he stooped above, he saw the wrecked ankle. O Mithras! Belisama, why did You let this happen?

  He knelt beside her. His hand sought beneath her gown, his ear to her nostrils. Faint, faint … but
she lived, the weather had not yet killed her … Almost as faint was the throb farther down. What, was her daughter trying to be born?

  You will have to wait your turn, child.

  It was less that strength came back to Gratillonius than that he ceased to feel weariness. He got the blanket around Dahilis, both arms under her, thumb and forefinger crooked again at the handle of his lantern. Rising, he began to walk. Meanwhile he, or someone inside him, laid plans. He must know his every move beforehand, for time would be short. His father, in mariner days, had instructed him about death from cold, what the danger signs were, what to do for a victim. An army surgeon on the Wall had similarly lectured to young officers from the South, as winter approached. Dahilis was far gone.

  Belisama, Belisama, help her. Surely you love her too.

  Did an owl swoop overhead? The merest glimpse –

  The House loomed forth. He supported part of her weight on a thigh while he got the door open. As he entered, his light sent shadows bounding hunchbacked around the room. He kicked her stuff off the bed and laid her on the mattress. Wind whined outside, found the door ajar and skirled through. Water dripped from Dahilis’s cloak and hair. He had set the lantern on the floor. To start a fire, oil or no, would take longer than he could afford. She must have warmth at once. His fingers flew, stripping the wet garments from her. Dahilis flopped like a jointed doll.

  Now, off with his own clothes. The bed was as narrow as a grave, but that was all right; she needed him, the heat of his body, close against her. He grabbed a couple of dry blankets and threw them over both while he found a place for himself. He must cling, and the frame dug painfully into his hip, but no matter, no matter in the least.

  His lips touched her cheek. It was like kissing ice.

  A change went through her, a shivering, a dewiness on the skin. The breath he could barely sense turned irregular and faintly, faintly, infinitely remotely, laboured. He stamped on the horror that wailed within him and reached under her jaw, seeking the pulse. The jaw fell. He heard sounds and caught smells that were much too familiar.