It was two years since he had last seen Apuleius Vero, when the tribune came to Ys, and four since he had last been in Aquilo. They had corresponded, but sporadically. Gratillonius was no writer, and besides, language must be guarded, in case a letter fell into certain hands. Entering the small city, he observed new construction, streets fuller and noisier, a pair of coasters at the wharf despite the late season. The hinterland had also looked still more prosperous, better cared for, than formerly. What a shame if this should be lost, he thought.
Dismissing his escort to quarters and giving Adminius charge of Favonius, he went on afoot to the house of the Apuleii. A crowd eadied around, people knew and hailed him, the air of welcome was almost overpowering after his loneliness. Word had flown ahead, and Apuleius waited in person at the door. They clasped arms tightly.
“How good to see you again, friend,” the tribune said with as much warmth as he ever allowed into his tones. He had grown more gray and his hairline had receded further, but the finely chiseled features were free of any slackness. “Come in, do.” He beckoned a slave to take the luggage which an Ysan marine had carried after the King.
They entered the atrium. The same chaste floral patterns as before decorated it, except that one wall panel had been done over; now stems and blossoms entwined a Chi Rho. Gratillonius noticed, too, that while Apuleius’s tunic remained of fine woolen fabric, carefully tailored and meticulously cleaned, it lacked olden touches of color and elegance. “I trust you can stay for several days and get well rested,” the host said. “You look terribly fatigued. Was it a hard journey here?”
“Not at all,” Gratillonius answered. “In fact, refreshing. But you must have seen in my message that I’ve got serious matters to talk over with you, though I didn’t spell them out. We—”
A ten-year old boy erupted from the inner doorway and sped across the mosaic. “Oh, sir, you’re here!” he cried.
Apuleius lifted a hand, smiling. “Hush, Salomon,” he reproved. “Where are your manners?”
Gratillonius grinned. “Warriors will charge forward,” he said, “if you’re still like what your father was telling me in Ys. Caution, however, caution is always in order. We may get in a bit of shieldwork this trip, you and I.” He was fond of the lad. Abruptly, a blow to the throat, he felt how like a son of his own this of Apuleius was, the son that nine times nine Gallicenae could never give him.
Salomon’s blue eyes widened. “You’ve brought me a shield?” he blurted.
“For shame,” his father said. “Greed is a sin, and barbarous as well.”
“I don’t want to undermine your authority,” Gratillonius said, “but it did occur to me that this fellow must have outgrown the sword I gave him last time, and he is about ready to make acquaintance with other gear. Later, Salomon. Uh, how’s the rest of the family?”
“In excellent health, by God’s mercy,” Apuleius replied. “Verania is to market with her mother. They should return soon. Meanwhile, shall we get you settled in? Salomon, go back to your lessons. I will expect better answers this evening than yesterday, when I question you about your Livius, or there will be no excursion to the farm for you tomorrow.” He took Gratillonius’s elbow. “Come. Wine awaits, and first a slave to wash your feet.”
Gratillonius regarded that ceremony as pointless, when he had arrived on horseback wearing boots, but he was long since used to the other man’s antiquarian practices. At that, warm water and toweling hands, followed by slippers, soothed. He would have liked a chair with a back to it and undiluted wine, in the bookful room to which Apuleius conducted him, but such things were ordinary only in Ys.
The tribune signed his beaker before drinking. That had not been his custom earlier. “Do you care to tell me at once, in brief, what brings you?” he asked. “If not, we have enough everyday memories to exchange. But you may find relief in speaking forth.”
“I would,” Gratillonius admitted. “Not but what you can have guessed pretty well. I know how you keep abreast of developments, also beyond Armorica. That’s why I’ve come, for your thoughts and, maybe, your help.”
“Suppose you describe the situation as you see it.”
Gratillonius did, in words he had carefully chosen and condensed on the way here—the situation with respect to the Imperium. Dahut and the rest, no, he could not talk about that. If rumors had drifted this far, Apuleius had the kindness not to mention them. The whole story might shock him, and Gratillonius needed him calm, Euclideanly logical. Besides, what had any of it to do with Rome?
In the end the listener nodded, cupped his chin, gazed out the window at the pale autumn sky, where rooks rode a bucking bluster of wind, and murmured: “Approximately what I expected. I’ve already given the matter thought—since hearing of that scandalous Franldsh affair, in fact—and made various inquiries. We must talk at greater length, of course, but I think I know what I will recommend.”
“Well?” Gratillonius exclaimed. He curbed himself. “I’m sorry.” He tossed off a draught. It was Rhenian, tartly sweet. He was a little surprised that he noticed; he had not done so before.
“Best I speak bluntly,” said Apuleius with some difficulty. “Your prospects of winning a favorable judgement in Lugdunum are poor. Your enemies in Turonum have connections you lack; and, to be sure, they can make a not unpersuasive case for your having allowed Ys to become a subversive influence. You plan to appeal step by step until at last you reach the Augustus—well, between us, as you yourself put it, Stilicho. This would be a mistake. It could cause proceedings to drag on for two or three years, during which you must often go in person to defend yourself, first here, then there. Such absences would weaken your standing in Ys. You could lose what control you have over events, or it could be pried away from you. Or… anything could happen. Stilicho, for example, is not so almighty as he seems. Greater men than he have fallen overnight; or God may call him from this world. Do not delay.”
Gratillonius looked into the hazel eyes. A tingle passed through him. “You do have a recommendation for me.”
“We must explore this,” Apuleius warned. “However, I feel we will reach much the same conclusions. Send a letter directly to Stilicho. I’ll help you compose it and give you one of my own to accompany it, for whatever that may be worth. Far more valuable will be a testimonial from Bishop Martinus, which I believe we can get, and perhaps other prominent Armoricans.
“We do not do this behind Glabrio’s back. You inform him of your action, as soon as it is too late for him to halt it somehow or dispatch a courier who’ll arrive ahead of yours. He then has no grounds for complaint about plots against him, nor any reason to get you summoned to Lugdunum. You may quite likely have to attend a hearing in Treverorum, but that won’t be for months, when Stilicho’s reply has come. God willing, it should dispose of the business.”
“Stilicho may not be easy to reach,” Gratillonius said, mostly because he wanted everything laid out plain to see. “The way he moves around, holding the Empire together.”
Apuleius nodded. “Like the carpenter on a foundering ship, who dashes about as timbers and cordage come apart in the storm,” he answered sadly. Brightening: “But this will be Glabrio’s problem in equal measure. Meanwhile you have time to strengthen your position, marshal your advocates.”
“You think Stilicho will give me a favorable judgment?”
“At least, he ought not to condemn you out of hand. Your reasoning about him appears sound to me. He is a soldier himself, a practical man, experienced in statecraft; and, I hear, being half a barbarian, he nourishes a wistful admiration for everything civilized—as Ys is, in its perverse fashion.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Gratillonius, startled.
Apuleius sighed, leaned forward, laid a hand on the knee of his guest, smiled like a herald offering truce. “No intent to offend you,” he said. “Ys is a wonder of the world. I came back from it so enchanted that it was only after much thought, prayer, austerity I fully understood how it trembles—dances, in its heedlessness—on the brink of hell. And I had been there—” He paused. “You are not corrupted, dear friend. In you the antique virtues survive. But you should realize how Ys appears when seen not by its own many-colored lights but by the Light. Pray God it be redeemed before too late.”
“Meanwhile,” said Gratillonius stiffly, “my job is to keep it on guard duty for Rome.”
“True, good soldier. Come, let us put this aside for now, let us drink together and talk of happier matters. Surely you’ll have time to share a few innocent pleasures with us?”
—As the men returned to the atrium, Rovinda and Verania entered. The woman was still comely, if somewhat faded. At thirteen the girl had lengthened into thinness, with curves of hip and breast shy beneath her plain gown. She could barely whisper greetings to Gratillonius, while staring downward. Afterward, though, from beneath billows of fawn hair, whenever she thought he was not looking, her gaze followed him always.
Wearying of confinement—his work, which had been undemanding in summer, became nil after Mumach traffic shut down—Tommaltach left Ys, as often before, for a ramble in the countryside. Sometimes on these excursions he was days agone, far into Osismia. On his back were sword and bedroll, in his hand was a spear that doubled as a staff, at his belt hung a few necessities including a packet of food and a sling for knocking down small game. Most evenings, though, he could charm a family into giving him supper, a doss, perhaps a companion for the night.
This morning was clear and chill. Outside High Gate there rose a clamor from smithies and carpenter shops, pungency from tanneries, dyeworks, soapworks, all such industries as were banned in the city, bunched along Aquilonian Way. Their buildings were mostly small, many primitive, cob or wattle-and-daub with thatch roofs, but cheerful well-being bustled in and out of them. A number of men recognized Tommaltach and called greetings. He responded affably. Once their long isolation had ended, Ysans soon became apt to make much of any foreigners.
Having traversed the section, Tommaltach had the amphitheater on his left. Just beyond, Aquilonian Way bent south and went up onto the heights. He followed it. That was a stiff climb. At the top he halted, less to catch his breath than for a look around. From here the road would bear him out of sight of Ys and then, turning again east, presently to Audiarna, at the frontier of the Empire.
Gorse grew thickly at his feet, rustly beneath the wind that shrilled off the sea. Below reached the valley, closely hemmed in but nonetheless, in its peace and wealth, radiating a sense of spaciousness. Harvests were gathered, leaves fallen, pastures sallow; the sobriety of the land brought forth its sculpturing and made the homes on the hillsides gleam like jewels. Exquisite, too, at this distance, lay the amphitheater, the canal a silver thread behind it. The wood of the King squatted there, but one could look away from its darkness.
Westward swept Cape Rach, out to a spire that was the pharos. The tombs in front seemed a mere huddle, moldered into meaning-lessness. Closer by, grazing sheep and an occasional wind-gnarled evergreen livened the tawny earth.
Point Vanis was scarcely visible. The towers of Ys crowded it from view. They soared in brilliance, as if cut from crystal, over the city wall, which itself became a ruddy chalice for them. Sea fowl were flocking yonder—drawn by the carts that lumbered out with offal at this time of day, but still a storm of wings which the towers pierced on their way to the sky. Beyond surged Ocean, sapphire, emerald, and leaping ivory, onward to worldedge where holy Sena lay. Sails danced; the sons of Ys were not yet ready to withdraw for the winter from her seas.
“Glorious you are,” Tommaltach said. “Would I were a poet, to chant the praise of Dahut’s home.”
A while later, realizing in surprise how much later, he was pulled from his dreams by a sound of hoofs. The rider approached from the east at a gallop. Sunlight flashed off armor. When he drew close, Tommaltach identified him as a Roman legionary—Guentius, he was. As he came in earshot, the Scotian cried, “What’s the haste this fine day?”
“Gratillonius returns,” called back the newcomer, and went on downhill.
Tommaltach nodded. He should have remembered who had accompanied Dahut’s father to Aquilo. They liked to have a proper reception ready for their King in Ys.
He squinted. Following the horsemen, his gaze had encountered a runner just emerged from the industrial cluster. A woman, young, to judge by speed, grace, and shapeliness. A white gown fluttered loose about her ankles, a blue cloak from her shoulders, as hastily as she went through the wind. Her left hand gathered the mantle at her throat so that the cowl should not fall back, but instead, keep screening. She lowered her head while Guentius neared and went by; his curious glance did not find her face.
Tommaltach ran fingers through his hair, puzzled. The woman stayed on Aquilonian Way. He decided to wait till she reached him. Maybe she had need of male help, and was bonny.
She reached him, stopped, drew away the hood. Sunlight blazed off her braids. The spear dropped from his grasp.
Dahut smiled. A trace of moisture gleamed over a fair skin only slightly flushed. She breathed deeply but easily. “Why, Tommaltach,” she said, “would you have left with never a farewell to your friends?”
“My, my lady—” It was he whose heart and lungs shuddered. “Sure, and I’d not—But I’d no idea…. How may I serve you?”
“Come, let us stroll onward, ere folk below notice us and gawk,” she laughed.
Numbly, he retrieved his spear. She took his free arm. They paced down the middle of the road. Ys sank from sight. It was as if they had the world to themselves, they and the wind and a pair of hawks wheeling high above.
“Did you intend one of your lengthy wanderings?” she asked.
He gulped and nodded.
“I feared that, when I saw you go past outfitted like this,” she said. “’Twas sheer chance I did, unless it be the will of some kindly God. I was off to fetch a horse and make a solitary trek of my own for several hours. But then, instead, I covered me and went on afoot like any nameless girl. Let those who spied her breaking into a dash wonder why.” She squeezed his arm against her side. “Belike they think what a lucky scoundrel yon Tommaltach is, that his women pursue him.”
His countenance burned. He stared directly frontward. “’Tis well I decided to wait, my lady,” he pushed out of his gullet.
“Oh, I think I could have overhauled you, long though those legs be. You see, I was determined. Of a sudden, a half-formed thought that had been in me sprang from my brow full-grown.”
“Wh-what is that?”
“Did you truly mean to be elsewhere at Hunter’s Moon?”
“At—? Oh, Samain. Well, I’d not meant to, my lady. It only happens that in Ys I’ll have no rites to take part in as at home, and this seemed a good time to travel, before the days grow too short and wet. I’d find me somebody’s roof to spend the eve under.”
“Are you ignorant of our celebration that night? ’Tis the maddest, merriest revel of the year.”
Tommaltach frowned. “I have heard tell,” he answered slowly.
“And you’d miss it, a lively young man like you?”
He walked in silence for a while.
“Why this? Why?” Dahut insisted.
Tommaltach summoned resolve. He released himself from her, halted, turned and leaned on his spear, holding it fast with both hands. “’Tis the worst of nights for being abroad,” he stated. “Then the doors between the worlds swing wide. All kinds of beings wander free, sid dwellers, the Sky Horse, the Fire Hounds, bogles, werebeasts, evil witches, vengeful dead. The Law stands down and black sorcery rules over the earth. ’Tis the next day and night are joyous, when the wickedness is gone again and the year passes from the Goddess to the Horned One.”
Dahut raised her brows. “Oh, surely you’ve put spooks behind you,” she said. “You, who’ve traveled, met educated people, lived these past months in Ys, and wintered here ere then. Why, you worship Mithras.”
“That doesn’t mean a man cannot or should not pay respect to the Gods of his fathers and, and the old usages,” he replied unhappily.
The slightest scorn tinged her voice: “I’ve heard that some of the Scotic tribes make a human sacrifice that eventide, to appease the demons. Have you such plans?”
“I have not!” He perceived his own indignation and stood bemused.
Dahut trilled laughter, stepped close, laid hands over his, looked up at him. “Well, set the rest of it aside too. In Ys the time is simply occasion for festival, and has been for centuries. Yet Ys flourishes, Ys is free of ghosts.”
“’Tis less sure I am of that than when I first came here—But I’m sorry, I beg my lady’s pardon, and her pardon for my rash tongue as well.”
She dimpled and beamed. “Ah, you can jest. I forgive you on condition you turn back and keep the night with me.”
He could only gape.
“You are not afraid to, are you?” she challenged.
“I am not!” He shook his head violently.
Dahut grew yearning. “Hear me, Tommaltach. Take pity on me. You know how torn my life has been of late. Nay, you cannot truly know, but mayhap you can guess. I, who was young, glad, hopeful, am as trapped and alone between the worlds as any homeless phantom. What shall I do? What can I do? What will become of me? Or of Ys, whose King defies its Gods?” She let go of him, stood with fists doubled at her bosom, and went on bravely: “But I’ll not bewail myself. Rather, I’d fain be merry once more, though it be for the last time ever. Why should I sit in my empty house and weep while Ys holds revel?”
“Oh, my lady.” Pain made raw his voice.
Dahut blinked her eyes free of tears and smiled anew, a smile that turned mischievous as she spoke. “Going forth to sing, dance, carouse the night away, that will hearten me, will be my message to fate that I am yet unbroken. Who knows? It may turn my fortunes around. The Gods favor the bold. I’ve heard that you Scotic warriors often kiss your spearheads ere a battle, and go into it laughing. Then you must understand me.” (He nodded, stricken mute.) “Now I cannot very well join the frolic openly. Even as a vestal, I was supposed to keep discreet. As one who claims to be a Queen, I should attend the solemn banquet of the Gallicenae, but I can beg myself free of that. My wish is to go out masked, unbeknownst, and mingle with the throng. For both pleasure and safety, I need an escort, a strong young man who’ll afterward keep my secret. I could not trust any of Ys with it, but you, Tommaltach, you I trust utterly.
“Will you be my companion on the eve?”
“My lady,” he croaked, “I would die for you.”
“Oh, that should not be needful. Thank you, dear sweet Tommaltach, thank you!”
“’Tis you I must thank—”
“And you’re handsome and lovable too!” Dahut skipped into a dance, there on the highway, arms raised to the sun. She caroled. He stood in his daze and stared.
She took his arm again at last, and got them walking onward. “We’d best start back home erelong, separately,” she said. “However, this little while is ours, and so will the whole night be, two moonrises hence.” He having partially regained balance, they chattered blithely about plans.
A noise from the rear interrupted them, hoofbeats. They stepped to the roadside and Dahut shadowed her face with the cowl. A woman sped by. She barely glanced at them as she passed, perhaps not recognizing the man either. They knew her, light-brown hair streaming back in disarray from delicate features, tall body that years and two childbirths had matured without causing to grow ungainly—clad in haste, careless of appearance, and her mount doubtless taken from the livery stable among the industries in the same hurry—She thudded on down the road.
“Queen Tambilis,” Tommaltach said in wonderment. “What might she be wanting? Oh, of course. Today the King comes home. She’s off to meet him.”
“I should have known,” Dahut hissed. “When I met Guentius, I should have known. But I did not stop to think.”
Looking sideways, he saw her gone white; the very irises of her eyes seemed to have paled. Abruptly she whirled from him. “I don’t want to see them together,” he heard. “I will not. Not him and her.”
She strode back toward Ys, her pace just short of becoming a run. He followed. “My lady—” he gobbled in his helplessness.
She threw her command behind her: “Abide a while. I must return by myself. Say naught. You will hear later—concerning Hunter’s Moon.” He jerked to a stop and watched her go from him.
Samain Eve was bitterly clear. That was good, for there was much to do. Great folk and their attendants opened the seasonal fairs held for three days all over Ériu. Most tenants could not arrive that early. They must first finish bringing in their flocks for the winter and dig up any root crops still in the ground, lest the terrors of that night wither these. They must douse every hearth and meet on hilltops to take new fire from the blazes freshly kindled, after their chieftains had led them in sacrifice. Meanwhile their wives and children must make houses ready, plaiting together withes of hazel, rowan, and yew to fasten across doorways and windows, setting food outside for the dead who would come wandering by, fetching water from sacred springs or pools, preparing a porridge of certain wild grains and seeds for the family, making sure of enough lamp grease or rushlights to last out the dark.
As the sun lowered, well-nigh everyone hastened indoors. Tomorrow and the day after, they would welcome in the new year. On this night they huddled away from Those who then went abroad. A few of the mightiest druids stayed out to take omens; a few covens met to carry out rites and cast spells handed down from the Firi Bolg and Fomóri; outlaws and gangrels cowered in the bracken; but otherwise the hours of the moon were given over to what was unhuman.
Save for Niall of the Nine Hostages and his charioteer.
Folk at Tallten shivered, muttered, made fending signs. They were not many, mostly warriors on watch in the fortress raths round about. The great fair here took place at Lúgnassat. Samain fair was at Temir itself, and the King should have been there.
Instead he had entered with guardsmen and menials the day before, opened and occupied the royal house, sent messengers to and fro, conferred in secret with those who came; and an eldritch lot they were. His fighting men were picked: tough-hearted old bullies who had followed him for long years, some to the wall of Ys. Likewise the servants were such as recked little of Gods and less of ghosts. The feast had been savage; a quarrel over the hero’s portion led to a slaying, which had not happened in living memory.
Niall denied that that was an evil portent. He gave out that his tanist Nath could well preside over the first day’s sacrifices and games at Temir. He, Niall, would return there at dawn of Samain—the distance was only ten leagues or so—to partake in the Sharpening of the Weapons, the Wedding of the Year-Bride, and whatever else required himself. But this eve he must be at Tallten.
For that was where the Kings and Queens of Temir lay buried.
During the day, his men brought wood to a grave he named. Toward sunset, three women lighted it. Nobody dared watch what more they did. Besides, the mounds hampered sight, though except for the barrow of Lug’s foster-mother at the middle they were not long or high. Unlike the children of Danu at their Brug, these descendants of Ír and Éber rested each in his or her own chamber, alone and prideful.
The sun dropped down to a black wall of forest in the west. It had turned the river fiery. Purple beyond the plain, eastern heaven began to lighten as the moon climbed from below. Bats flitted about. The chill made early dew glimmer on grass and stones.
Through silence came a trampling of hoofs and rumble of wheels. Niall drove forth from the hall. He stood splendidly garbed in a chariot that sheened with bronze. A cloak worked in seven colors rippled from his shoulders. The head of his spear caught the last rays of sun, as did the fading gold of his hair. Also richly attired, Cathual had the reins of two matched gray stallions, animals of Southland breed such as were seldom seen in Ériu and beyond any price.
Ahead of Niall loomed the grave of the Goddess, amidst the ridges that covered his own kin. Shadows blurred them, but wavered as he neared the balefire at the foot of one. There flames roared upward from a white-hot bed. Three black-clad women stared into them.
Cathual drew rein. He must stay where he was, because the horses were uneasy, snorted, nickered, stamped, chafed. Niall descended. He dipped his spear to the women. “Have you made ready?” he hailed them.
“We have that,” said the maiden.
“Herself will listen,” said the wife.
“Ask no more,” said the crone.
“But this I intend.”
“It is for you,” said the maiden.
“Make your bargain yourself,” said the wife.
“You shall not see us again,” said the crone.
They departed, went behind the barrow, were perhaps lost in the nightfall; for just then the sun slipped away. Bleak greenish glow lingered a while. The moon rose monstrous.
“Lord,” said Cathual, and the firelight showed sweat aglitter on his face, “best you be quick. Sure, and I know not how long I can hold these beasts.”
Niall advanced to the head of the grave. He held his spear level above it. “Mongfind, stepmother mine,” he said, “wake.” The fire brawled. “Behold who has dealt with witches such as once you were, he whose death once you sought. I call you back to the world. I give you blood to drink. I make my peace with you, now at last on this night, that you may turn the hatred that was ever in you against my foes.”
He leaned over and thrust the spear downward till it stood at the middle of the mound like a lean menhir deeply implanted. “By this I rouse you, I please you, I compel you!” he cried.
Swiftly, then, he went to stand before the horses. They neighed aloud and snapped at their bits. “Steady, Cathual,” Niall commanded. From his waist he drew a shortsword that he had taken off a slain Roman in the year of the Wall. He stepped in and smote. Blood spurted from the neck of the right-hand stallion. The left-hand animal screamed, reared, lashed his forehoofs. Barely did Niall avoid a blow that would have shattered his skull. He wielded his weapon, there between the huge thrashing bodies, and scrambled clear.
Cathual fought the reins while the horses bucked, lurched, stumbled, shrieked in their death throes. Blood reddened the grave. The noises rattled off into stillness. They struggled a while yet, down on the earth, before they lay quiet. The moon mounted higher. It turned the land ashen.
“Now,” said Niall. He cut the bodies free. Meanwhile Cathual unloaded a wine cask, two beakers of gold, and a battle ax. Racket lifted anew as he hewed the chariot into pieces which he cast on the fire.
Niall butchered the carcasses. He slashed off steaks and chops; the rest he divided roughly, chunks such as a strong man could lift. Blood-besmeared, he stood at the tumulus and said, “Mongfind, wise-woman, take your sacrifice and be slaked. I am Niall whom you hated, and you are she whom the people so fear that at Beltene and Samain a druid has come to do that which will keep you under. But your sons are long since my faithful followers; and at this turning of the year I have sent the druid away, and instead called witches to my aid and yours.
“Mongfind, come! Help me. Tell me how I may destroy Ys, the city that slew my firstborn son, Ethniu’s child. Give me this, and I will unbind you for aye. I will make the law that folk shall offer to you at the turnings of the year, quench your thirst, ease your hunger, and beg your blessing. Mongfind, come to this, the first of your feasts!”
He took back the spear and skewered meat. While he roasted it, Cathual kept the fire fed and broached the wine cask.
Thereafter the two men squatted to eat until they could hold no more and drink until they could barely walk. They said nothing; this meal was not for pleasure.
When at last they were done, and the moon high and small and icy in a frost-ring, they cast the remnants of the horses on the fire. It sparked, sputtered, sank low. Tomorrow the birds of the Mórrigu would gorge. Niall planted the ruined spear in the coals. Flames ran up its shaft like the wreathings of a Beltene pole. “I am going to bed now,” the King said drunkenly. “Mongfind, follow me.”
He and his charioteer helped each other through the moonlight to the hall. Reeling and staggering, all but helpless, they still met no creatures of the night. Guardsmen who sat awake greeted them with shouts of relief, then stepped back, dumbstricken, for these two were entranced. They fell into their beds and toppled into sleep.
In the morning Cathual, hammers and chisels at work in his head, groaned that he had dreamed about a river. There had been woods, and an arrow, and the river flowing forever west into the sea. Everything was confused and senseless, mainly he felt sorrow, grief unbounded, but he did not know why, unless it was that the river flowed always west into the sea. Perhaps he had only had a nightmare. Prophecy was not for the likes of him.
Niall said nothing. Calm though pale, he returned to Temir and carried out his duties. Indeed, he seemed unchanged; men could see that he thought about some great undertaking, but this he had often done.
Only afterward did he reveal that his stepmother had sought him out while he slept. She looked newly dead; a wind he could not feel or hear tossed her gray locks and fluttered her gown; the hands that touched him were cold. Yet she grinned as well as a corpse can and told him, “Seek the Queen who has no King.”
As ever, the first evening of Hunter’s Moon filled Ys with bacchanalia. Then the lowest laborer became equal to the highest-born Suffete, owed no reverence, incurred no blame. Even among temperate families, a gathering in someone’s home could well lead to stealing off with somebody not one’s spouse, or turn into an outright orgy. If weather was at all bearable, the young took to the streets, unless parents were so strict as to forbid a virgin daughter’s going out. Wine, ale, hemp smoke, and giddying mushrooms ruled the night. Lowtown was apt to become dangerous, but violence was rare in the prosperous parts of the city; there were better things to do than fight.
The Fire Fountain played in the Forum. Colored gushes and spurts of burning oil threw uneasy radiance and shadows over the throng that milled about, almost hiding the moon that rose above the hills. Nobody felt the cold. All were too closely together in each other’s perfume and sweat, all were too active. Most wore either finery overdone to the point of gaudiness or fantastical costumes. They capered, danced, hugged, kissed, frequently at random; they laughed, shouted, howled, sang. Instruments rang, brayed, tinkled, clicked, hooted, squealed, throbbed, altogether wild.
A goblin mask leered at a girl who pranced wearing swirls of gold skin paint beneath a couple of flimsy veils. Feathers covered a man from head to foot. A lass and lad had partnered their attire to form a bare-breasted centauress. Two youths, the first outfitted as a satyr, the second with antlers and deerskin cape, wagged phalluses of matching immensity. A hideous old witch revealed well-turned ankles as she danced with a fellow gotten up to resemble, he imagined, a Hun. A girl with the Suffete face giggled as a burly sailor held her by the waist and felt inside her splendid gown. A visiting Osismiic tribesman carried in his arms an Ysan lady who could not walk because her legs were encased in a fish tail; she rewarded him with a cup brought to his lips and ingenious caresses. The tumult seethed on beyond any person’s sight.
One could see what was on the steps of the buildings around the square. Three different groups of musicians played regardless of conflict. Here pipes wailed and drums pulsed frantically in the Phrygian mode, there two kitharas resounded in the Ionian with a drinking song, yonder a trumpet blew a stately Dorian measure—but the words being sung to it were far from stately. Two lithe women in scanty Egyptian garb rattled their sistrums and undulated. A juggler practiced his art. Several couples had spread their cloaks and were in various stages of lovemaking. In the portico of the Christian church, a man stood naked except for a crown of thorns and held his arms straight out to the sides while at his feet three women, wearing exiguous suggestions of Roman legionary gear, shook dice.
Tommaltach frowned when he noticed that. It could be unwise, and was certainly ill-bred, to mock anybody’s God. For his part he wore tunic and trews of good stuff, and a gilt mask over the upper half of his face. He cheered himself with a fresh squirt of wine from the leather bottle slung at his shoulder.
“Yaa! Give me some of that!” cried Dahut. She opened her mouth and cocked her head back. He laughed and obliged her. She was in clothing similar to his, sufficiently loose that she could pass for a boy. A full mask covered her head except for jaw and lips (like rose petals they were, those lips). It was an owl’s-head image, hollowly staring.
She darted from him, up onto the steps where the dancers were. There she skipped, swayed, snapped her fingers, no less fleet or graceful than they. He gaped in his marveling. She had been wildly gleeful from the sundown moment when they met. Each time she had caught his hand, stroked his back, leaped and trilled before his eyes, burned in memory.
“To High Gate!” called a voice through the uproar. More joined in: “To High Gate! To High Gate!” The processional dance along Lir Way was traditional, after the moon had mounted enough to light it.
Dahut bounded back down. “We go, let’s begone,” she sang, and tugged at her escort’s arm, urged it around her waist. For an instant he was alarmed. Folk who saw a man and boy thus together—But nobody would care tonight, and he and she were both nameless, and besides, she had remarked that many women would be in male disguise. And she was Dahut and he held her.
The musicians scampered to take place at the front of the line that was confusedly forming. They composed their differences and began the saucy “She Sat Upon the Dolmen.” Forth they went, and the young of Ys rollicked after. Their dances were manifold. Some sprang or whirled by themselves, some in pairs or rings or intricate interweavings. Dahut and Tommaltach, side by side embraced, kicked their way, with much laughter. When the line had straggled a distance, she signalled to him—somehow he understood—that every few minutes they should link their free hands and gyre around cheek to cheek. He drowned in the warm fragrance of her, spiraled down and down a maelstrom forever.
From its frost-ring the moon silvered towertops, dappled pavement, made the stone chimeras appear to stir as if they too would fain join the lunacy. Echoes boomed. As the avenue climbed, revelers who glanced backward saw past the wall and sea gate to a slowly rolling immensity, obsidian dark but bedazzled by the moon.
Dahut guided Tommaltach. They moved away from the line and into a side street.
“We’re, we’re drifting off,” he faltered.
Her hand in the small of his back, her eager feet bore him onward. “We two,” she said deep in her throat. “Follow, follow.”
Stunned amidst thunder, he danced with her up the winding narrowness. Music and shouts reached him ever fainter, until they were dream-noise beneath moon-hush, where only the tap-tapping of Dahut’s shoes over stone could speak. Houses walled him and her in darknesses broken by glimpses of a pillar or a brass knocker, sometimes a yellow gleam escaping a window shuttered against the cold of Samain Eve.
“Stop,” she said, and was gone from him like mist in a wind. But no, she was at a particular door, she turned its latch and swung it wide, lamp-glow spilled forth amber across her. She beckoned. He stood stupefied. “Come,” she called, “be not afraid, here is my home.”
He stumbled into the red atrium. She slipped off her mask and tossed it onto a chair. The low light died and was reborn in her braids. She smiled at him and returned to take his hands in hers, to look into his eyes. “On this night, aught may happen,” she murmured. “I wearied of that vulgar spectacle. Let us celebrate the moon by ourselves.”
“My lady,” he stammered, “this is—I dare not—I’m but a barbarian, a foreigner, and you a Queen of Ys—”
Her nails bit into him. Lips drew back from teeth, blood drained from cheeks and brow. “Queen,” he heard. “This day Queen Tambilis went out with the King to the Red Lodge, and this night she sleeps at his side. How long till the rest betray me too?”
Then immediately she laughed again, crowed laughter, hugged him and laid her cheek to his for one surge of his heart. Withdrawing, she said, “Nay, forgive me, I’ve no wish to plague you with our politics. Let us merely be gladsome together.” Reaching up, she pulled his mask off. “Be seated. My household has this time free, of course, so let me serve you, friend and guest. Forget whatever else we have ever been.”
There was actually little to do. Wine and goblets waited on a table, with delicate small foods. She ignited a punk stick at a lamp and brought it to an incense burner likewise prepared. Thereafter she held it in a brazen bowl full of leaves parched and crushed, which she must blow into smoldering life. Placing herself on the couch beside him, she said, “This smoke has its virtues, but it does bear a harsh odor which I hope the perfume will soften. Now pour for us, Tommaltach.”
He obeyed. They regarded each other over the rims of the vessels and sipped.
She chatted merrily. After a while he became able to respond.
When she had had him inhale the smoke several times, he felt a boundless, tingling ease and joy. How wonderful the world! He could fling off a whipcrack quip or he could sit and watch her dear lips for a hundred years, just as he chose.
“Wait,” she whispered. “I will be back.”
He gazed at a lamp flame. There was a deep mystery in it, which he almost understood.
Dahut re-entered. Her hair flowed free, down over the lightest and loosest of belted robes. Blue it was, sea color, a hue that lapped beneath the lapis lazuli of her eyes.
Blue also was a pinch of dried blossoms she cupped in her left hand. She raised her goblet in the right. She bent her head and kissed the borage. She licked it up and washed it down with a mouthful of wine. This was another mystery on this night of mysteries.
She coiled herself at his side and laid her head on his shoulder. “Hold me,” she breathed.
He never knew which of them began the kiss, or when.
She took him by the hand and led him to the bedchamber. Moonlight poured through unshuttered glass to mingle with candlelight from a table, quicksilver and gold.
Gravely, now, she guided his fingers to her girdle and thence to the robe.
He knelt before her.
She reached, it was as if she lifted him back to his feet, and that kiss went on and on.
She giggled, though, while they both fumbled with the fastenings of his clothes.
But thereafter she caught him to her, and presently drew him onto the bed, and purred to him, “Yea, oh, yea.”
—He did not know if he had caused her pain. “You are the first, the very first, beloved,” she told him, shivering in his arms; and a dark spot or two said the same; but she drew him onward, and was quick to learn what pleased him most and to do it.
—Dawn grayed the window. Dahut sat straight in the rumpledness and clasped her knees. Above, her breasts were milk and roses, save for a bruise he had made in his ardor and she had simply bidden him kiss for a penance. She looked down on Tommaltach where he sprawled.
Suddenly her gaze and her voice were an oncoming winter. “Done is done,” she said, “and splendid it was, and may we have many more times in the same heaven. But you know—do you not?—that ours was a mortal misdeed, and we must both die, unless you do the single thing that can make the world right again.”
Gratillonius woke slowly. Fragments of dream crisscrossed his awareness, glittery, like spiderwebs in a forest seen bedewed by the earliest sunlight. They faded away after he opened his eyes. He did not know what hour it was, but brightness seeped by the drapes to make a luminous twilight in the room. Well past dayspring, he guessed drowsily.
And the day? Aye—he chuckled within himself that he was thinking in Ysan—Hunter’s Moon ongoing. Tonight it would be completely full. He thought that if this calm weather held, he and Tambilis might walk a ways on the road and enjoy its beauty. That should not count as abandonment of his Watch, provided they return here. Last night they had been too busy.
She slept still, curled toward him, her face dim beneath a tangle of hair. How lovely she was. Most women showed at their homeliest now. He stretched his mouth in a smile while he stretched his muscles—carefully, not to rouse her—and breathed the warmth of her. Let her rest. They had today, tonight, and the following day and night before this retreat ended and he must go back to being King, prefect, centurion. After she met him on Aquilonian Way they had delightedly conspired how he could slough off obligations during this while….
Poor lass, she would have her own troubles to cope with. But together, shield beside shield, they would prevail, make enemies into allies, restore what was lost, and, aye, in the minds of men conquer territory for Dahut, for her to reign happy too.
He slipped out from under the blankets. Air nipped him. He would dress and, after prayers, run around the Wood before they broke their fast.
A sound struck through. He froze in place. It had been faint, muffled, he must have mistaken some clatter from the hall…. It sought him again, and again: the hammer-tolling of challenge.
At first he could not believe who stood there at the oak. Had he fallen back asleep and into nightmare? No, he thought in a remote place, that could not be. He was too clearly conscious of leafless boughs overhead, scratchiness of the woolen tunic he had flung on, the breeze flowing cold around his bare legs and the flagstones cold beneath his bare feet. Next he thought a mistake must have happened. If Tommaltach was drunk, say, one need not take a childish prank seriously. But Tommaltach stood steady before him, arrayed in a Scotic kilt which was neatly wrapped around his otherwise naked lean muscularity, a long sword scabbarded across his back and a small round shield in his left hand; the black hair was combed to his shoulders, the handsome visage newly scrubbed, the gaze fire-blue—
All at once it wavered. Tears glimmered forth. “Will you not say a word to me?” Tommaltach screamed like a man under torture.
“What can I say?” Gratillonius answered woodenly.
“You could ask me why.” Tommaltach sobbed breath after breath into himself. “Or curse me or, or anything.”
“You mean to fight me?”
“I do that.” In tearing haste: “It must be. You will not do what you should. You will not let Dahut be what the Gods have chosen her to be. You must die, Grallon, though my own heart die with you.”
“I, your Father in Mithras.” Immediately Gratillonius regretted his words. He had not imagined they would be so cruel. Tommaltach cowered back from them.
He recovered his courage fast. Gratillonius admired that. “I have eaten your salt too,” Tommaltach blurted. “Mithras witness, this thing is none of my wish. But men have risen against unjust rulers erenow. And you refuse justice to Dahut.”
He loves her, Gratillonius thought. He loves her in the headlong way of young men, the way I loved Dahilis. I knew that already. It was graven on him, as it is on others I could name. But I did not think it would send him crazy like this. Well, he is a barbarian.
Aloud, slowly: “Suppose I agree I’ve been wrong, and wed her. Will you take back your call to battle?”
Tommaltach’s mouth fell open. After a moment he slurred, “Would you be doing that, really?”
“Suppose I do.”
Tommaltach rallied. “I cannot be withdrawing, can I?”
Gratillonius gave him a rueful smile. “Cannot, or will not? Well, it makes no difference. I cannot yield.”
“Then we must fight.” Tommaltach fell on his knees. He covered his face and wept. “Father, forgive me!”
Almost, Gratillonius did. But no, he thought, that would be unwise. Here was an opponent young, skilled, vigorous. Let him at least remain shaken.
“I will dispatch a man to Ys at once,” said the Roman tactician. “Making ready will take an hour or two. Be here in time.” He could not quite bring himself to add, “Traitor.” He turned and went back into the house.
Tambilis waited. Heedless of staring servants, she fell against him. “Oh, Grallon, Grallon!” He embraced her, stroked her hair, murmured that she should not cry because everything was under control.
She drew apart and asked desperately, “Shall I bed with your killer? How could I?”
“Your Gods will strengthen you,” he said.
She blenched, as Tommaltach had blenched; and like the Scotian she recovered, to tell him: “Nay, I misspoke myself. I’d not matter. ’Tis you that would be no more.”
He constructed a laugh and chucked her below the chin. “Why, I’ve every intention of abiding in the world for many another year, annoying the spit out of countless fools.”
Thereafter he issued his orders and commenced his limbering up—no food, no drink except a little water, before combat. His further thoughts he left unvoiced.
The marine guards with their horses and hounds, and those who held off a clamorous populace down the road; Soren in his vestments; the legionaries in their armor and their distress—it had a ghastly familiarity, another turn of a millstone. Tommaltach seemed calm now; he even bore a faint smile on his lips. Gratillonius wondered how Dahut would receive him unto her, should victory be his. Surely she would grieve at losing her Papa…. But she was not going to.
Soren finished the ceremony. He added: “May the will of the Gods be done.” Startled, Gratillonius glanced at the heavy features. Implacability responded. In his eyes, Gratillonius realized, I have become another Colconor. That was a lonely feeling.
He dismissed it and led the way into the Wood.
At the glade, he halted. “This is where we usually work,” he said. Shake the opponent from any Celtic sense of fate, of possession by his people’s female God of war. Remind him that this Roman sword had terminated earlier lives among these huge winter-bare trees. Heaven overhead was nearly white, the sun a frost-wheel casting skeletal shadows. Grass underfoot lay drained of color.
“For Dahut,” Tommaltach crooned. “We both fight for Dahut.” The words were Scotic, but sufficiently akin to Britannic or Gallic that Gratillonius understood.
“Let us begin and be done,” he answered in Latin. He drew his blade, slanted his big Roman shield, shrugged once to make sure his mail was properly settled on him.
Tommaltach’s iron gleamed forth. He still bore a smile, and in his eyes an otherworldly look. It was not the sleepwalker’s look of Chramn the Frank, but a gaiety beyond anything human. Nevertheless he edged about with the sureness and alertness of a wildcat. Clearly, he meant to offset the mobility of his near nakedness and the length of his weapon against this enemy’s armor. Also youth, wind; he could wear Gratillonius down, until the King lacked strength to bring shield up fast enough.
The old badger and the young wolf. How very young a wolf!
Tommaltach kept his sword back, warily, while he circled. Gratillonius turned to face him: smaller radius, easier executed. Clearly, Tommaltach hoped for a chance to strike past the Roman’s guard from a rearward angle, into neck or thigh. Clearly, he understood that as he did, he must have his own shield ready to catch the Roman probe. It was light, quickly maneuverable.
Gratillonius retreated inchmeal. If he could lure Tommaltach under a tree, as he had lured Chramn—
Tommaltach refused the bait. He let the distance between them grow. Finally he stood his ground and waited. After all, the King must fight.
So be it. Gratillonius walked forward.
The Scotic blade whirred, whined, struck, rebounded, hunted. Wear the badger down.
But the badger knew how to gauge every oncoming impact, how to shift his shield about and meet it, oh, such a slight shift, consuming hardly any force, while the body kept itself at rest, conserving breath, endlessly watchful.
Tommaltach backed off, panting. Gratillonius marched in on him.
Their eyes met, again the strange loverlike intimacy. Tommaltach yelled and cast a torrent of blows. He forgot about his shield. Gratillonius saw, made a roof of his own, suddenly advanced—by slacking off one of the knees he had held tense, so that he swung forward as if on a wave—and struck. The sword went in heavily, above the left hip. Gratillonius wormed it around.
Tommaltach sank away from the iron. There was an extravagance of blood; there always was. Gratillonius stood aside. Tommaltach gasped something or other, which might or might not have made sense. He pissed, shit, and died.