“Christ ha’ mercy, ’tis the bay of Ys,” Catto cried. “We’ve drifted this far and the wind’s blowing us in.”
“What’ll we do?” Esun called back through the roiled gray. Surach clutched an amulet of seal bone hung from his neck and mouthed half-remembered spells.
“Steer on,” Catto answered grimly. “Stand by to fend off, ye twain.”
Both younger men fell to. Soaked and heavy, airs slight to belly it out, the sail gave Tern little more than steerage way, about the same as Esun and Surach had they been at the sweeps. Thus they could wield boathooks when she was about to collide or scrape, while their father kept the helm. Here the rocks were not natural, but remnants of what human hands once wrought. Several years had brought most low and eroded the sandstone of what still reached above water. Nonetheless they could tell what tower yonder snag had been, see a piece of wall below which they used to walk, glimpse a broken pillar drunkenly leaning, stare into a sculptured face trapped in a skerry of tumbled marble blocks. Not labor alone made the breath sob in their throats.
The tide was in flood, close to full, but this evening its violence was at the cliffs and it went up the beach almost gently. Ground grated under forefoot and keel. “Heave anchor!” Catto ordered. His shout was muffled in the emptiness around.
“We’ll camp ashore,” he told his sons. “There’ll be another high in the morning to float her.” They were glad of that. Here a night aboard would have been cheerless indeed. The three waded up through the shallows carrying food, gear, and a line for making their craft doubly secure and aiding them back.
Wind strengthened. It shredded fog and drove clouds over the headlands that gloomed right and left. Westward past the ruins and the rising restlessness beyond, sunset glowered sullen red and went out. Eastward the valley filled with a night which had already engulfed the hills at its end. The wind whined and flung briny cold at the men. “‘Tis swinging north,” Catto said. “If it stays like that, Point Vanis ’ull break it for us tomorrow and we can row till we’re clear and then catch it for a run to our fishing grounds. Thank ye, holy Martinus.”
“If’twas him,” Surach muttered.
They ventured not to whatever shelter the partly demolished amphitheater afforded. Ghosts might house within. However, while some brown light lingered they sought among the grasses and bits of pavement that way, and made a find. Bones of oxen lay strewn about ashes of the fires that had cooked them. The wagons those animals drew had mostly been hacked up for burning, but fragments were left.
“Scotic work,” Catto thought aloud. “I suppose Prince Salomon sent a party to fetch the slain drivers for rightful burial. Well, poor fellows, they’ll nay grudge us what warmth we get from this.” He and his sons filled their arms with the wood and carried it back to the beach, where they had hitched their line to a rock above high-water mark. Such nearness to their boat gave a little comfort. By the last of the dusk, Catto used flint, steel, and tinder on what Esun and Surach split for him. Flames licked up to flap yellow on the wind.
The men spread their bedrolls and hunkered by the fire with hardtack, cheese, dried fish, water jug. Its light brought leathery faces flickery into sight. Night prowled, whistled, mumbled close around. “Aye, an eldritch haven,” Catto said, “but we’ll gi’ thanks for it natheless, and tomorrow ’ull see us where we ought to’ve been.”
Laughter sang in the dark. The food dropped from their hands. They leaped to their feet and stared outward. The high, sweet music jeered:
“Fishers who would fain put forth
As the wind is shifting,
Spindrift-bitter, to the north,
Where will you be drifting?
Low beyond this loom of land,
Rock and reef await you.
Wives at home shall understand
That the congers ate you.”
Catto lifted his arms against the blowing blackness. “Holy Martinus, help us, help us,” he groaned.
The song danced nearer.
“Thunder-heavy in His wrath,
God Whom you’ve forsaken,
Lord Taranis walks your path,
And the seas awaken.
Where His graybeard combers break
While the rigging ices,
As of old, comes Lir to take
Ancient sacrifices.”
They saw her at the edge of sight, the White One risen out of Ys, and whirled and fled inland. The song pursued. It seemed to ring from Cape Rach to Point Vanis and back again, up the valley between the hills under the wrack, it filled the world and their skulls, it echoed within their ribs.
“Belisama leads Her Wild
Hunt of unforgiving
Women once abed with child,
Torn away from living.
Vengeance winds you in your flight.
Hounds of Hers will follow,
Howls resounding through the night,
Hollow, hollow, hollow.”
—They ran until they dropped beneath the weight of dread and their senses whirled from them. So did they lie when day broke. Unbelieving, they blinked at each other, crept painfully to their feet, limped off in search of humanity.
Later they returned with some reckless young companions they had found, they themselves unsure what had happened, save that it had been horror beyond anything the priests had to say of hell. After all, Tern was their livelihood. But she was gone. Nobody who fished those waters ever saw her adrift.
They plodded back to Whalestrands. By that time Catto had a fever. He raved on his bed in their hut till the tide of thick fluid in his lungs drowned him. Esun got work as a deckhand but Surach must become a dock walloper in Audiarna at starvation wages.
Word flew around. After they heard, no more fishers put to sea that season, and many talked of staying ashore next year. It would mean suffering for a land that depended heavily on their catches, and desperation for them, but they feared Dahut more.
2
The storks had long since departed, and now skies were full of other wings trekking south. Through nights when hoarfrost settled on stones and on grass going sallow, cries rang, plover, dunlin, lapwing, swan, wild goose and duck. Birch leaves turned pale gold and drifted to earth. Stags in forests made ready their antlers. Huntsmen’s horns bayed through wet reaches where green had begun to fade. Rowan berries flamed Apples fell with a sound as of someone knocking on the door of the year.
Gratillonius walked with Evirion and Nemeta from their hut in his pastures. It was a cool day, windless, diamond-clear. Down its quietness drifted the call of the geese passing over in their long spearheads. Low above woodlands outside the rail fence, the sun washed with light an eagle at hover. Horses grazed, lifted their heads as the three came near, sometimes broke into a gallop across the broad spaces he had given them, manes and tales flying.
He had found it impossible to say what he must in the smoke and gloom of the shieling. His words were for Evirion, but as close as Nemeta was to them both, she went along. They followed a footpath by the rails. It had width only for him, so Evirion paced on his left and Nemeta beyond, the forage dampening the men’s breeks and the woman’s bare feet and ankles.
“A late time for sailing, I know,” Gratillonius said. “But we’re barely past equinox, and can reasonably hope the autumn will be as mild as spring and summer were. You’re a crack mariner and command a well-found ship. Salomon’s chastened the Scoti for a while; news of what he dealt out will have reached other tribes of theirs. The Saxons have gone home or into winter quarters from which they won’t range far if at all. Besides past experience, I’ve some confirmation of that from the king of those at Corbilo. He’s become fairly friendly to us, but keeps in touch with his kinfolk elsewhere. I wouldn’t ask this of you if I didn’t believe you’ll be safe.” He hesitated. “Or as safe as most men these days, which I admit isn’t saying much.”
Evirion’s blunt features showed still less doubt. “To Britannia, eh?” he replied. “What for?”
“I�
�ve an idea we can reach agreement with several leaders in the West. Think what it’s meant to them, Constantinus pulling out the last legions. Oh, he left skeleton garrisons behind, but from what I’ve learned, they are exactly as useful as any skeleton. Some Britons must be in despair; some may still cling to belief in his promises; but surely some are furious. They’ll feel as betrayed as we in Armorica, and mightily interested in what we’re doing about it. God knows we need every ally we can get.”
“What help can they give us?”
“That, we’ll have to explore. I can imagine things like joint patrols at sea and even joint expeditions to clean out the ugliest barbarian infestations there and here. It will take time to organize, prepare—years, most likely. But the sooner we start, the better. We have the advantage for a while that Rome’s whole attention is off us. That may not last.”
“Well, I have some acquaintance with people in those parts. I can try sounding them out.”
“That’s the purpose of this trip. I’ll give you letters to several leading men who look like good prospects, and you’ll have Riwal and a couple of other reliable natives along to advise and assist.”
“How long will this take?” asked Nemeta. Her voice was small.
“Not too long, I trust,” Gratillonius reassured her. “This isn’t really a diplomatic mission or anything like that. Unless he gets weatherbound, you should have him back well before solstice.”
“I can trade,” said Evirion eagerly. “That’ll give me a cover, and be worthwhile in its own right. Wares have been piling up in our dealers’ storehouses, what with trouble and fear emptying the sea lanes. I’ll bring you home a healthy profit, darling. We’ll build us a proper house.”
“Right,” said Gratillonius. “How soon can you go?”
“A very few days. My men are as impatient as I for a whiff of salt water and a sight of new shores.”
“Dahut.”
The name from Nemeta stopped them in their tracks. They turned to look at her. She stared past them, beyond meadow and horses and forest, to that which distance hid in the west. Fiery hair and jade eyes were like autumn colors above early-fallen snow. The bones in her face stood forth well-nigh as sharp as those in her dead arm.
“You’ll be rounding Sena.” Her whisper trembled in Ysan. “She will know.’
Evirion took her left hand in both his. “Now, beloved, be of brave heart,” he urged loudly in the same tongue. “We’ll stand far out to sea.”
“She can swim wheresoever she lists that the tides flow. Wherever she scents ruin to be wreaked.”
He scowled. “Aye, she has strength, strength enough for dragging men under to their deaths. But ’tis not such as would avail against a ship, nor drive her through the waves swifter than a dolphin.”
“The fishers—”
“They’ve let themselves be terrorized. What really happened that night at Ys? Had yon men stood fast, she’d have slunk back to her eels and sunken wrecks. My crew helped choke her on her malice at Audiarna. We’d welcome a fight against her own self!”
Remembrance came to them both of who stood at their side. The look on Gratillonius struck them mute.
The older man swayed a little on his feet. Fists clamped together as if he would strangle the air. Words grated out of him: “I’ve not forgotten her. Evirion must be right about her powers. Else would she have slain us all when we fought her Niall at Ys, her lair. She does have other might than of the body—”
Evirion drew Nemeta close to him.
“But that too must lie within bounds,” Gratillonius went on. “A certain command of the weather, meseems. Yet if you do indeed steer very wide of Sena, no storm can force you onto the skerries. Can it? Are you of a mind yet to fare, Evirion?”
“I am,” said the captain.
“Good. We will talk … more … later. I leave you now. You twain will have your … farewells to say.”
Gratillonius stumbled off alone, back toward the place where Favonius was tethered. His daughter and her man moved to follow, then stayed where they were, holding each other, watching him leave them. A new flock of wild geese cried overhead on its way south.
3
Salomon dispatched a note to Verania requesting she pay him a discreet visit at his and their mother’s home in Aquilo. She left the children in care of their nurse and walked. That day was cold and gusty after a night of rainshowers. Clouds smoked in haste above tossing, soughing treetops. Wind ruffled the steely-gleaming Odita. Crows in the fields flattened their wings before it like hens before a cock. The first fallen leaves scrittled across the land.
Rovinda was attending Mass, which she did whenever possible. Salomon received his sister at the door, helped her remove her cloak, led her to the room where their father used to read his books and write his letters. The walls bore the same gentle, slightly faded pastoral frescos, but instead of codices and papyrus the table held the sword of mastery in its sheath, while behind it a staff on a pedestal displayed the battle banner.
“Have a seat,” Salomon invited. “What refreshment would you like?”
“Nothing, thank you,” she replied, and remained standing. He did likewise.
Silence fell, except for the wind’s bluster outside, until he said awkwardly, “I want to ask you—about Gradlon.”
“I thought so.” Her look upon him steadied.
“Why is he doing this?” broke from him.
“You should know better than I,” she answered as softly as before. “The newest revolt—”
“Certainly I know!” he snapped. For a moment his weather-darkened countenance flushed red. The thought rang between them: The western Caletes taking fire from us and declaring themselves also free of Rome. Northern Gallia broken out of the Empire between the mouths of the Liger and the Sequana. Salomon checked his temper and said with care, “I realize he must go there and show himself, his best troops, tell them what we’ve done here and that they can do likewise but only if they’ll work with us. Of course. This soon, though?”
“It is a short time. Hardly more than, m-m, ten days since he returned from Turonum.”
“And the news didn’t reach us till after that.”
Verania sighed. “I confess it’s hard to bear. But I must, because he must.”
“What do you mean?” Salomon demanded. “I asked you, This soon? Why? It’s insane. He’s like a whirlwind. Evirion left for Britannia only the other day. Can’t Gradlon be satisfied with that for a while? The men he’s taking—I tell you, they’re not happy at being hauled off again at once from their firesides, for another two or three months on the road.”
Verania’s hazel gaze widened. “Didn’t he explain the reason to you, of all people? Those are Celts too. Even in an important city like Rotomagus, they’re still Celts. If he doesn’t get them bound together—by persuading, wheedling, bargaining, bullying, till he has their sacred oaths—they’ll soon be at each other’s throats. Some will pledge Pseudo-Constantinus allegiance if he’ll help them against their neighbors. There goes any hope of holding him off after he’s through in the South.’
Salomon whistled. “Pseudo-Constantinus! Sister, you do have our old man’s gift for phrases.” It diverted indignation and he continued levelly, “Of course Gradlon’s explained to me. We talked about it already before he went to the Liger Valley, because he thought other secessions were likely. But he never said his part in it would be this urgent. Surely it can wait till, oh, Beltane. The tribes, the clans won’t stir during the Black Months. Why must he?”
“Why are you so concerned?” she responded. “What harm if he does it early rather than late?”
His glance went around, to the window, the wall, the sword, back to her, like a newly caged bird. “It’s … everything.” His tongue moved heavily. “I fear for him. Something’s gone terribly wrong. He arrived home so cheerful. He’d done so much, and talked about our getting a well-earned rest, and—Not that I ever imagined him sitting idle. But he has a pile of matters needing
attention here, and—and his own family!”
She smiled the least bit. “Well, you know him. Old duty horse.”
“This isn’t duty,” Salomon maintained. “He’s driven. Almost since he came back, he’s been caught in a pit of gloom. He tries to hide it, but, well, when he suddenly grows short-spoken, or outright unmannerly—when he goes off on those long gallops—and this, this demonic haste—” Fear shivered. “Could it be a demon?”
“It is,” Verania said low.
“What?” he croaked.
“Oh, not as you suppose. Not possessing him. But it’s why he must go. He hasn’t told me; I don’t believe he can tell anyone. But I know. In work is his hope of healing, work from the moment he wakes till the moment he drops, so he can sleep through some of the night.”
Salomon braced himself. “Tell me.”
She must summon will of her own. “Dahut. This evildoing of hers. He shoved it aside at first, wouldn’t think of it, or anyhow didn’t speak of it, but in the end—he’d just broached his plan to Evirion—she, Dahut, broke through the wall he’d raised. Now he has to escape her.”
“I see … ,” Salomon breathed.
Verania struggled against tears. “His daughter. The child of his Dahilis, whom he never stopped loving.” She seized both her brother’s hands and hurried on: “No, no, he’s happy with me—he has been—and I’m the mother of two children he adores, but there will never be another Dahilis. It’s all right. I am content. I simply pray that someday hell be free of Dahut.”
Salomon stared before him. “He thought after Niall died and … she avenged him … she’d only brood over the sunken ruins of Ys. Instead—”
Vigor came back to Verania’s tone. “Instead, her malignancy hounds us. It’s too much to ask that he face at once. Let him go off and be among men, ride hard, meet challenges, risk his life if need be. A good farewell is the single gift we can give him, you and I.”
“And a glad greeting when he returns.”
“Pray God he does, heartened.”
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