“This’ll be yer day, sir,” Adminius said. “Go get ’em.”
Gratillonius aimed a grin down at the snag-toothed face and jerked his thumb before he turned away. It was the least he could do, after his deputy had flouted both rules and Roman imperturbability to trudge from barracks to government hostel, ask how things went, and wish him well on behalf of all the men. Himself, Gratillonius had lower expectations than he arrived with.
Drawing his mantle together against chill, he sought the streets. As yet they were dusky between high walls, and scant traffic stirred. What wheels and hoofs went by seemed to make more than their share of noise, booming off the bricks. In a clear sky of early morning, the moon sank gnawed behind roofs. Entering Treverorum’s massive west gate, he found little change after fifteen years. Or so it appeared at first; but then he had waited for several days until he got his summons. Now he thought the city was less busy and populous, more shabby and disorderly, than before. The countryside through which he traveled had also often looked poor, ill-tended, though that was harder to judge at this niggardly time of year.
The basilica was still enormous, of course, and it had pleased him to see how smart the guards were. Today he couldn’t keep from wondering if they’d conduct him back to torture. When an underling took his cloak, he grew conscious that his tunic was old, in good repair but visibly old. He had given it no thought before, for he hardly ever wore Roman-style civil garb any longer. Well, Ysan array would have been impolitic. He’d gotten his hair cut short, too.
Activity made whispers along the corridors. Men passed by, officials, assistants, scribes, agents, flunkies. Retainers of the state, they were generally better nourished and clad than the ordinary person outside. But they were fewer than Gratillonius remembered; and a considerable part of them were weakly muscled, beardless, with high voices and powdery fine-wrinkled skins. Two such served as amanuenses for the hearing. Theodosius and, after him, Honorius had restored to the civil service those eunuchs imported from Persia whom Maximus had dismissed. Gratillonius understood the principle; without prospect of sons, such people ought not to harbor seditious dreams. He understood likewise that their condition was not of their own choosing. Nonetheless his guts squirmed at sight of them.
It was almost a relief to enter the chamber, salute the praetorian prefect, and stand attentive under the eyes of his enemies. He was over the slight shock of seeing who those were, and it no longer felt illogically strange that someone else should be on the throne where once Maximus sat.
“My regrets if you were kept waiting, sir,” Gratillonius said. “This is the hour when I was told to report.”
Septimus Cornelius Ardens nodded. “Correct,” he replied. “I chose to start beforehand, with certain questions that occurred to me.”
Questions put to Gratillonius’s accusers, in his absence, the newcomer realized. Maybe now he would be allowed to respond. Or maybe not. He had reached Treverorum confident, but at yesterday’s arraignment there had been no ghost of friendliness.
Quintus Domitius Bacca didn’t seem pleased either. After coming the whole way from Turonum with his staff to prosecute in person the charges levied by his superior Glabrio, the procurator of Lugdunensis Tertia had been hauled out of bed this dawn and, apparently, suffered interrogation on a stomach that was still empty.
“May it please the praetorian prefect,” he intoned from his seat, “I believe everything has been satisfactorily answered.” He touched the papyruses before him. “It is documented here, in detail, that Gratillonius is a recalcitrant infidel who has made no effort whatsoever to bring his charges to the Faith. Rather, he has encouraged them to establish close relations with other, dangerous pagans beyond the frontiers; and this in turn has caused the Ysans to engage increasingly in illicit commerce, defiant of Imperial law and subversive of Imperial order. He organized and led an unprovoked attack on laeti, defenders of the Empire, which resulted in the deaths of many, the demoralization of the survivors, and thus a sharply decreased value of their services.”
“Have done,” Ardens commanded. “We’ve been through all that before. I told you I do not propose to squander time.”
He was a lean man whose long skull, grizzled red hair, and pale eyes declared that any Roman blood of his ancestors had dissolved and been lost in the Germanic. Yet he sat in his antiquated purple-bordered senatorial toga with the straightness of a career soldier; his Latin was flawless; and without ever raising his voice, he conducted proceedings as if he were drilling recruits.
“With due respect, sir,” Bacca persisted, “these are matters of law, basic matters. If he cannot even claim a mandate—”
Again Ardens cut him off. The wintry gaze swung to Gratillonius. “I do not propose to be chivvied into a hasty judgment either, like Pontius Pilatus,” the praetorian prefect said. “There has been a number of letters and other documents to study. I adjourned the hearing yesterday in part because of wanting to weigh the evidence presented thus far.” Harshly: “As well as because other affairs required attention, when the barbarians threaten Rome on every front. We shall not dawdle, cross-questioning each other. However, today Procurator Bacca brought forth an additional allegation. It develops that we do have a significant irregularity.
“Governor Glabrio’s office made inquiries of Second Augusta headquarters in Britannia. Gratillonius, you would normally have received your discharge after twenty-five years of service. That period terminated for you last year. Procurator Bacca maintains that your commission as a centurion expired then, automatically; that you had no right thereafter to lead Roman soldiers; that you therefore stand self-condemned as a rebel and a bandit. You have made no mention of this, nor offered any indication that you tried to regularize your position, either as a military officer or as an appointee of the usurper Maximus. What have you to say?”
It was like a hammerblow. Suddenly the world was unreal. So much time since he enlisted? Why, they were mouthing gibberish at him. No, wait, he could count, season by season. The springtime was unreasonably, unmercifully beautiful when Una told him she must marry a toad—“a toad,” she sobbed, before overcoming her tears—to save her family; and he, Gratillonius, whirled off to join the army. The year after that they’d been on joint maneuvers with the Twentieth across the mildly rolling Dobunnic country—it rained a lot—and the year after that the ominous news came through that down on the Continent the Visigoths had crossed the Danuvius—or was it the year following? Everything lay tangled together, also the years in Ys. Bodilis kept annals, she could sort his memories out for him, but she was unreasonably afar. Where had his life gone?
He could not tell.
Bacca smirked. “Obviously the accused has no answer,” the scrawny man declared. “Since he has shown such complete absence of regard for law and regulations—”
Rage came awake. It ripped the dismay across. Gratillonius lifted a fist against him. “Be still before I stamp you under my foot, you cockroach!” Gratillonius yelled. A crushed face rose into his awareness. Well, Carsa had backed his words with his body, the way a man ought. Gratillonius gulped air and confronted Ardens again. “I’m sorry, sir,” he mumbled.
Louder and clearer: “I lost my temper there. What this… person … spews was too much for me. Oh, doubtless I did lose track. I forgot to write and ask. But nobody reminded me. And I was always too busy, trying to do my best for—Rome.” He had almost said “for Ys.” He folded his arms. “I thought I’d explained. I thought the facts would speak for me. What more can I add? Here I am.”
“Silence,” Ardens rapped.
They waited. Sunlight strengthened in the windows.
Ardens lifted his hand. “Hear the decision,” he said. “Dispute it at your peril. I repeat, the Imperium has business more urgent than any one man’s ambition, or his vanity.”
If only that were true! rushed through Gratillonius.
“I find that the charges brought are essentially without merit,” Ardens went on. “The accused has loyally carried out an assignment which was legitimate when given him and was never revoked. What errors he has made are small compared to the difficulties he must cope with, as well as his actual accomplishments. His conduct with regard to the Franks is not among the errors. Those men were attempting the life of the prefect of Rome. I would order punishment of them myself, had he not already inflicted it in full measure.
“Bacca, you will convey to Turonum a letter for Governor Glabrio. Know that it will require his cooperation with the King of Ys.
“As for the technicality advanced this day, it is ridiculous. I will instruct my own procurator to settle it. Meanwhile, by virtue of the authority vested in me, I will appoint you, Gaius Valerius Gratillonius, tribune, and return you to your duties in Ys.”
For a bare moment, the armor came down. German and Briton looked at one another, antique Romans; and Ardens whispered, “It may be the last wise thing I ever can do.”
“I love you,” Dahut said. “Oh, I am drunk with love of you.”
Seated on the pallet, arms wrapped around drawn-up knees, Niall regarded her but made no reply. Wind blustered outside. Cloud shadows came and went; the window cloth flickered between dimness and gloom. The brazier kept the room warm, though at cost of closeness and stench.
She knelt before him, her own arms wide, hands outheld open. Sweat from their latest encounter shimmered on her nakedness and made the unbound locks cling close, as if she were a nymph newly risen from the sea, seal-fluid, tinged with gold and azure and rose upon the white.
Tears glistened forth. “Do you believe this?” she asked. Her husky voice went thin with anxiety. “You must. Please, you must believe.”
He bestowed a smile on her. “You have been eager enough,” he drawled.
“Because of you. The men earlier—I pretended. They thought I found them wonderful. But only you, Niall, only you have awakened me.”
He raised his brows. “Is that so, now? This is the first time you’ve been after telling me about them.”
She lowered arms and head. “Surely you knew from the beginning I was no maiden,” she said with difficulty. “How I wish I had been, for you.”
His tone gentled. “That makes no matter to me, darling.”
When he reached forth and stroked her hair, she moaned for joy and drew close. He shifted position until she leaned against him, weight supported on his right hand, his left arm around her.
She giggled and felt past his thigh. “How soon will you be ready again?”
“Have mercy, girl!” he laughed. “’Tis an old man you’re asking.”
“Old, foo!” Seriously: “What you are is a man. The rest were boys, or one was an animal. They did not know, they never understood.”
“Why then did you take them?”
She flinched and glanced away. “Tell me,” he persisted. “I know how dangerous a game it was for you. Why did you play it?”
Still she kept mute. He withdrew his embrace. “If you’ll not be trusting me—” he said coldly.
Dahut’s resistance broke. “Nay, please, please! ’Tis but that—I feared—I feared you’d be angry with me. That you’d leave me.”
Niall embraced her anew, eased position onto buttocks, freed a hand to rove across her. Fingers played with her nipples. He had quickly discovered how much she enjoyed that. “I would never willingly do so, my dear,” he murmured. “But you must see I need the whole truth. This Ys of yours is quite foreign to me. Would you be letting me blunder into my death?”
“Never. Liefer would I myself die.”
Resolution hardened. She looked straight before her and spoke in rapid words, broken only by a slight writhing or purr when he sent a tingle through her:
“’Tis a story long and long, it goes back in time beyond my birth or my begetting. How I want to share it with you—my mother, my childhood, my loneliness and hoping—and we will share it, we will, because the rest of my life is yours, Niall. But for this day, when soon I shall have to go back to the prison where my father keeps me—
“Well, you’ve heard. Here between my breasts is the very Sign. I am Chosen but I am not taken. I am hallowed but I am not consecrated. I am the Queen who has no King.
“Niall, ’tis not ambition that drives me—that drove me; not vainglory; not even revengefulness. ’Tis that I know, I have known my whole life: The Gods have singled me out. I am the new Brennilis. As she saved Ys from the Romans and the sea, I am to save Ys from the Romans and Christ. I am the destined mother of the coming Age. But how shall I fulfill my fate without a husband, without a King? This my father denies me.
“He denies the Gods. Therefore he must die. Only by his death can Ys live. That I his daughter will weep for him, that is a small thing. Is it not?
“I caused those youths to go up against him for my sake. And he slew them.
“I had the same wish for you, Niall. That you would prevail and make me foremost among your Queens. See how much I love you, that I confess now it was not so from the beginning.
“It has become so. Niall, if you choose, I will flee with you to your homeland. We can escape ere anyone knows I am gone. Better your woman, among your tribespeople but in your hut, better that than Queen of Ys without you.” She lifted her head. Her voice rang. “And let the Gods do Their worst!”
He was long quiet. His caresses went on, but softly, unprovocatively, almost as if he soothed a child. The wind yowled.
At last he said low, “Thank you, Dahut, darling. Your trust in me is a greater gift than gold or pearls or the lordship of all Ériu.”
“I’m glad,” she gulped.
“But what you offer me, dear, that I cannot take of you,” he went on. “You are too fine a flower. You’d wither and die in our wild land. Besides, I fear those Gods of yours. Out at sea, I too have known the Dread of Lir. If you fail Them, Their vengeance will pursue you.”
She shuddered. “And you. Nay, it mustn’t be.” Anguish: “Go, then. Go alone. I will live on my memories.”
He kissed her bowed head. “There also you ask the impossible,” he told her. “How could I forsake you—you—and ever again be more than the dry husk of a man? We are together, Dahut, till death, and mayhap beyond. Never leave me.”
“Never.” She lifted her lips. The kiss burned a long time.
Finally, calmly for a moment, Niall said: “Bear with an old warrior, sweetling. Over the years I’ve come into the way of thinking ahead. ’Tis the young who plunge forward unthinking, and too often fall. I owe you my old man’s wisdom.”
“You are not old—”
“Hark’ee. The course is clear before us, on to your destiny and my joy. I shall challenge Grallon when he returns and fell him.” He grinned. “Indeed then you’ll be Queen, true ruler of Ys, with a simple-witted barbarian like me for consort.”
“Nay, we’ll reign together!”
Her shout cracked apart. Terror snaked through. “Oh, but, Niall, he is younger, and he’ll have his full strength back, and—and—Nay, of course you’re the better man, I never doubt that, but he’s a schooled soldier of Rome, and—without mercy—”
His composure was unshaken. “I told you I am forethoughtful. Sure, and that’s half the Roman secret, as I learned in many a fight. I’ll have time for thinking, learning, asking—asking, too, of the Gods Themselves, in ways we know at home—for how can They want anything other than your welfare, dearest Queen? Never fear; I’ll find how to take Grallon.”
“You will, you will!” she screamed, and swarmed into his arms. “You’ll be King of Ys!”
—Twilight stole seaward. They lay side by side happily weary.
“You shall come live at my house,” she said into his ear.
“What?” he asked, startled despite himself. “But that’s recklessness, girl. You’ll set the whole city against you.”
“I think not.” She nibbled his lobe. “Oh, well call you my guest. But ’tis wrong, wrong, that we must sneak into this kennel. Your own inn is wrong for you, you who belong in the palace. We’ll be brave and proud. If the Gods are with us, who can be against us?”
A gale from the west drove an onslaught of rain before it. Never before had Gratillonius traveled in so much rain—since he left Trever-orum, at a season which folk of northern Gallia reckoned as their driest—and this new attack, spears flung straight into eyes, was bringing his beasts to the end of their endurance. The men weren’t far from that, either. Feet slipped and stumbled as badly as hoofs, on pavement unseen beneath inches of swirling brown water. He barely made out the wall ahead of him.
Formation was forgotten. The legionaries plodded however they were able, hunched down into garb as sodden as the earth. They had loaded onto the pack mules the armor they were too exhausted to wear. Gratillonius had finally done likewise. That was after he dismounted, less to spare Favonius, for the stallion alone seemed indefatigable, than to show his soldiers he was one of them, with them. Cynan led the horse on his left, Adminius walked on his right.
“Shelter, sir,” the deputy said through the howl and roar. “’Bout time. Any’ow, there better be shelter.”
“There will be,” Cynan grumbled, “if we have to pitch people out of their beds.”
Adminius leered through the bristles that had sprouted on his hollow countenance. “Right. All I’ll want of any woman is the use of ’er bed, for about ten solid days and nights.”
“None of that,” Gratillonius ordered. “Get back and shape the troops up. We’ll march in like Romans.”
It behooved them on entering Cenabum. This was a place of importance, commanding as it did the routes between the valleys of the Sequana and the Liger. Now it seemed a necropolis, streets empty of everything but rain-streams, buildings crouched close within the fortifications. A man detached from gate guard led the newcomers to the principia. Gratillonius squelched into the presence of the military tribune and made himself stand erect.
“Well, we’ll find space for you,” the officer promised. “Rations may get short. Nothing’s come in—no traffic’s moved—for several days, and I don’t expect it to for several more, at best. Amazing that you slogged on this far. You must be in one Satanic hurry.”
“I’ve a commission to carry out,” Gratillonius answered.
“Hm. The Imperial spirit, eh? Hold on, I’m not making fun of it, the way too many do. But resign yourself, centurion. You’ll be here for a while.”
“Why?”
“I lately got word. The river’s overflowed its banks farther down the valley. Roads are impassable. You’re bound for Armorica, you said? Well, you could swing north, nearly to the coast, and then west, but you’d add so many leagues I doubt you’d save any time—if your squadron could do it without a good rest beforehand, which I doubt just as much.”
Gratillonius nodded heavily. He was not unprepared for that. When he crossed at Lutetia Parisiorum, the river there was lapping close under the bridges. He’d counted on making swift progress along the level highway by the Liger—maybe fast enough that he’d feel free to stop at Turonum, call on old Martinus and thank the bishop for his support—but evidently that was denied him. Any thought of traveling off the main roads, on unpaved secondaries, was merely ridiculous until they had dried somewhat.
“The weather may be as bad to north, or worse, anyway,” he said. “It’s been vile throughout, this year.”
Arrangements completed, he went back into it, to his men where they waited in a portico, and led them to barracks. Afterward he could seek the hostel. Maybe tomorrow everyone could enjoy a hot bath, if the city baths had fuel.
“A shame, sir,” Adminius said. “I know you wanted ter be back in Ys for the spring Council. Well, they’ll manage, if I knows the Lady Bodilis.”
Cynan gnawed his lip, said nothing, squinted into the blindness and chaos that lashed from the west. Gratillonius knew he thought of the Gods yonder, Who in his mind were creatures of Ahriman.
Suddenly came a quiet spell among the storms ramping over Armorica at that winter’s close. Clouds still massed on the western horizon, but heaven above stood brilliant and the hinterland rolled flame-green. Ys gleamed as if stone, glass, metal were newly polished. Though breezes blew chill, migratory birds coming home filled them with wings and clamor.
As the sun drew downward behind Sena, the palace gates were opened. A few early guests, of the many bidden, had arrived. They were young, in garments and jewelry that flared like a promise of blossoms. Their chatter and laughter were just a little too loud. They avoided meeting the eyes of the marines who stood guard.
Those men snapped salute when a tall woman in a black mantle strode nigh. Vindilis nodded to them and passed on through, up the path and the stairs, between sculptures of boar and bear, to the portico and thus the main entrance.
In the atrium, candles glowed multitudinous from stands of fantastic shapes between the columns. Musicians on their dais played a lively drinking song in the Ionian mode. Thus far nobody danced. Winecups in hand, now and then a titbit picked off a tray which a servant proffered, the Suffete lads and lasses clustered before Dahut and the man at her side. Vindilis approached. They noticed. Their flatteries and fascinated questions stuttered to silence.
Dahut was quick to recover poise. She had outfitted herself with demure sumptuousness: samite gown, amber necklace, hair piled high within a silver coronet. Advancing, hand outheld, she smiled hard and exclaimed, “Why, what a surprise! I had not thought our revelry would be to your taste. But welcome, thrice welcome, dear Sister.”
Vindilis ignored the hand. With eyes that seemed enormous in the gauntness of her face, she stared at the big man in tunic and kilt. “Since you would fain have your friends meet your guest, and commandeered your father’s dwelling for this, it is right that at least one of the Nine greet him too,” she said, calmly enough.
“Oh, but of course each of you shall—more privately, I expected,” replied Dahut fast. “Niall, ’tis Queen Vindilis who honors us. But Niall does us honor of his own, Sister. He is a King in his homeland. He can become our, our ally. ’Twas but seemly that we show him respect, and… my royal father remains absent.”
Niall’s blue gaze never wavered from the darkness of Vindilis’s. Smiling, he touched first his brow, then his breast: reverence for what she was, assertion that he was no less. “’Tis delighted I am, my lady,” he said. “The fame of the Gallicenae lives Ériu too. ’Tis a large part of what called me hither.”
Vindilis astonished the others by returning the smile. “Word of you has gone about in Ys, of course,” she said. “You’re the cynosure of the hour: the more so because, I hear, you bear it with dignity.”
“Thank you, my lady. Forgive me if ever I do show ill manners. Never willingly would I offend my gracious hosts.”
Vindilis lowered her voice. “Your hostess. Unheard of that a Queen have a male guest in her house—save for the King of Ys.”
The persons around struggled to appear at ease. Dahut whitened. “I do what I choose in my own home,” she clipped. “Show me the law that forbids.”
Niall made an almost imperceptible negative motion at her. To Vindilis he said, “Sure, and I fretted about my lady’s good name, but she would have her own way. In Ériu there would be no shame, and if any man spoke ill of her, he would soon be speaking never again.”
Vindilis nodded. “Aye. No affront intended, King Niall. It must be weighty matters that brought you to us.”
“I have more than trade in mind,” he answered, “but that is best talked of elsewhere.”
“True. I’ve no wish to mar your festivities, Dahut. Indulge me, though, for a few moments. I make no doubt these young people are as ardent as the Nine to know everything that our visitor cares to tell about himself.”
The tension lightened. Perhaps only Dahut was aware of the undercurrent between priestess and seafarer. Niall’s laugh seemed quite unforced.
“Now that would be a long tale, and not all of it fit for the hearing,” he said. “We are barbarians in my country.”
“Where in the Hivernian island does it lie?” Vindilis inquired.
He hesitated the barest bit. “Mide, if that conveys aught to you. Understand, I am indeed royal, but among us that has another meaning from here. You would call… most of our kings… mere war-chiefs of their tribes.”
“And yet, I believe, sacral, as is the King of Ys,” Vindilis murmured.
His tone stiffened. “We too uphold what is holy. We too give the wronged man justice and the murdered man vengeance.”
“I see… How long will you favor us with your company?”
“As long as need be, my lady.”
“We must talk further.”
“Indeed we should. I am at my lady’s service.”
“But not at once,” Vindilis decided. Again she smiled, this time at Dahut. “’Twould spoil your merriment to have an old raven croaking away at your friend. Goodnight, sea-child. Belisama watch over you.”
She turned and departed. More people arrived. The celebration grew hectic. Throughout it, Niall stayed affable but ever inwardly aloof.
—Vindilis followed the crooked streets of Hightown down to Taranis Way. Little traffic was on it at this hour, and the city wall enveloped it in dusk. When she came out Aurochs Gate there was more light across headland and waters, but it too was fading. The sun was a flattened coal among purple-black cloud banks. Out on the end of Cape Rach, beyond the ancient graves, the pharos flame had been kindled; as yet it was nearly invisible against the greenish sky. Wind whined over grass and boulders. Vindilis sought the side road down the southern edge of land. Mired and gouged though it was, she never stumbled.
At the foot of the cliff, it gave on Ghost Quay. Two craft lay moored there. The rest awaited launching when it would be safe to make for the fishing grounds. This pair were kept against the next summons to the Ferriers of the Dead. She recognized Osprey, newly refurbished, replacing another vessel now in drydock. The tide was out, the rocks of the strands shone wet and kelp-strewn. Ocean growled. It was cold down here, rank with salty odors, windy, shadowy.
Vindilis picked her way along the trail to the row of rammed-earth cottages. While she had not visited them for many years, since girlhood, she knew which one she wanted. She made it her business to know things. Her knuckles rapped the door. In the chill, that barked them. She paid no heed.
The door opened. Maeloch’s burliness filled its frame. He gaped. “My lady—my lady Vindilis! Be that truly ye? What’s happened?”
She gestured. He stood quickly aside. She entered. He closed the door. The single room was lighted by a blubber lamp and the hearthfire over which his wife squatted, cooking the eventide’s pottage. She gasped. Two young boys stared; two smaller children shrank back, obscurely frightened; an infant in a rude crib slept on. The place was warm, smoky, full of smells, cluttered with gear and the family’s meager belongings.
“Let me take your cloak, Queen,” Maeloch said. Vindilis nodded and he fumbled it off after she unfastened the brooch. Meanwhile self-possession returned to him. He was a free man, owner and captain of a taut little ship, and himself a familiar of certain beings and mysteries. “Be seated, pray.” He indicated a stool. “I fear our wine’s thin and sour till we can lay in more, and the ale not much better, but ye’re very welcome; or my Betha brews a strong herbal cup.”
“I will take that,” Vindilis said, also accepting the seat. “But do not let your supper scorch.” She beckoned. “Come and hearken. I’ll be brief. Daylight is failing fast.”
“Oh, I’ll bring ye home, Queen, with a lantern—”
“No need, if you’re as quick of understanding as repute has it.”
Maeloch sat down on the clay floor at her feet. Betha whispered cookery instructions to the boys and started heating water.
“Have you heard of the Scotic stranger, Niall?” Vindilis asked.
Maeloch frowned. “Who has nay?”
“Have you seen him yourself?”
“From afar when I was up in town.”
“Was Queen Dahut with him?”
Maeloch nodded reluctantly. “Methought it best nay to hail her.”
“Then you must know he’s now a guest in her house. ’Tis a byword through all Ys.”
“Nay in my mouth. Yestre’en in a tavern, I loosened the teeth of a lout who dared snigger about her.”
Vindilis gave the man a long look before saying, “Well, she is… defiant. Recklessly so. Would you wish a daughter of yours behaving thus?”
Maeloch sighed. “Our older girl be long since wedded. But—’tis nay for the likes of me to speak, but, aye, had the maiden asked me, my rede would ha’ been dead against this.”
“When her father comes back, he cannot shut his eyes to it, much though he might wish to.”
“What’s this to do with me, Queen?” Maeloch grated.
“You folk of Scot’s Landing have dealt with those tribes for as long as history remembers. Often ’twas without knowledge of us in the city, who might have forbidden it.”
“We’ve fought them when we had to.”
“Granted. Today trade goes peacefully, for the most part. Conual Corcc in Mumu is amicable. Still, visiting Scoti usually mingle with ordinary Ysans like you. And sometimes, whether on purpose or because of being blown off course, you fishers call on them. So you know somewhat about them—it may well be, more than we disdainful Suffetes and royalty imagine.”
Maeloch hunched his shoulders. “Ye want to hear what I can say about this Niall.”
Vindilis nodded.
Maeloch tugged his beard. “’Tis scant, I fear. And I did ask around as well as ransacking my own mind, soon’s the tales started flying about him and, and her. Niall be a common name amongst the Scoti. Mide be one of their kingdoms, tribes banded together. Its top King has made himself as mighty in the north of the island as Conual be in the south—nay, mightier yet, I hear. His name be Niall too. Niall of the Nine Hostages, they call him. He be so hostile to civilized folk that hardly a keel of ours has ventured nigh, and we have only third-hand yarns—My lady?”
Vindilis looked beyond him. “Niall of the Nine Hostages,” she whispered. “Yea, we have heard. Gratillonius’s man Rufmus could tell us more, for he fared into those parts…. Niall.” She shook her head. “Nay, scarcely possible.”
“Mean ye we might have yon devil in our midst, seeking to snatch off yet another kingdom?” A laugh clanked from Maeloch.
Vindilis quirked a smile with still less mirth in it. “Scarcely possible, I said. A successful warlord like that must needs be mad to abandon his gains and come risk death in order to win, at best, exile among aliens. The King of Ys is the prisoner of Ys. This must be a lone adventurer, with his few followers left behind in Roman territory.” She frowned. “Yet somehow that cannot be quite true either. He is more.”
Maeloch pondered. “They’ve a strong pride and honor, the Scoti. They reckon it unmanly to lie. If Niall says that’s his name—common enough, remember—and Mide’s his home, I’d lay to it.”
“But what has he left unsaid? What questions will he evade if they be put to him directly? He can always claim gess.”
“Hoy?” Startled, Maeloch raised his head.
“Come, now.” Vindilis’s tone was impatient. “Because he is unlettered and has a stern code of behavior, a barbarian is not necessarily stupid, nor without wiliness. Too often have civilized people made that mistake.”
She leaned forward. Her voice intensified. “This day I encountered Niall,” she declared. “’Twas at a celebration Dahut gives for him, brazenly, in the very palace. She’s lost in love. There’s no missing it. Nor is the reason far to seek. He’s handsome, virile, commanding, intelligent, and… utterly charming. I could count on my fingers the women of Ys who’d refuse him if he moved in on them.”
“The Nine,” Maeloch said, almost desperately.
“Of course. But Dahut is not—yet—in truth—one of the Gallicenae. Well! I sensed his pleasure as we exchanged our few words. We were sparring, and he had at once recognized a worthy opponent.
“He’s fearless. Else he would never dare to do what he has already done. Yet he is no rash youth who does not comprehend his own mortality. He is a seasoned warrior and leader of men, coolly staking his life in a game whose rules are ice-clear to him.
“They are not to me. Why is he playing? How? And for what?”
“The Kingship of Ys,” rumbled from deep in Maeloch’s throat.
“Mayhap. I do wonder how he can escape a death-fight with Grallon. Yet he has not gone to the Wood and smitten the Shield. There is something else in his intent, something—even if he does win, even if he makes himself our new Lord—” Aghast, Maeloch saw her shiver. “Our magics fail us. Our Gods brood angry. What shall become of Ys?”
“If good King Grallon falls at his hands—” Maeloch sagged. “We’d be forbidden to avenge him, nay?”
“Someday he must fall,” Vindilis reminded. “So is the law we live by. Let us be frank. Niall would do for Dahut what her father will not. It may be he would do for Ys what Grallon cannot. We are unknowing of what to await, what to hope for or to fear.”
Maeloch sat a while in the flickery gloom. It was as if he saw through the wall, out to the sea whose noise forever enclosed him. Finally he said, “Ye’d have me fare to firiu—Hivernia—without telling anybody besides my crew. Ye’ll keep it secret also. In Ériu I’m to ask around about this Niall. Be that right, my lady?”
“It is,” Vindilis replied. “If you dare. For the sake of your family here, and Ys, and yea, Dahut whom we love.”
“In the name of Taranis, peace,” chanted Soren Cartagi. “May His protection be upon us.”
Lanarvilis, who this day led her colleagues, rose from among them. “In the name of Belisama, peace,” she said. “May Her blessing be upon us.”
She sat down again. Adruval Tyri, Sea Lord, helped Hannon Baltisi, Lir Captain, rise and stand. The aged man stared out of eyes going blind and quavered, “In the name of Lir, peace. May His wrath not be upon us,” before crumpling back onto his bench.
Soren passed the Hammer to the leader of the marines who formed his honor guard. For a silent minute, he looked from the dais across the chamber, the high priestesses in their blue and white, the thirty-two officials and heads of Suffete clans in their variously colored robes—not a toga in sight anymore, when Ys lay wary and resentful of Rome.
He cleared his throat. “In the absence of the King, I, as speaker for Taranis, hereby open this Council of the vernal equinox,” he began. “We have, as ever, numerous matters of public concern to deal with, some of long standing, some arisen during the past quarter year. However, I propose that we postpone consideration of them until tomorrow or the day after. None is vital, as are the questions I wish to raise first, questions of the terms on which Ys shall endure. Does this assembly concur?”
“The Gallicenae concur,” Lanarvilis responded. Their glances crossed and she threw him a tiny smile. They had threshed this out beforehand, he and she and a few reliable councillors.
A sound of assent went along the tiers. Cothortin Rosmertai, Lord of Works, had a word of his own: “I trust those questions can be formulated with sufficient exactitude that we will have a solid basis for discussion.” The plump little man was apt to pounce forth with shrewdness like that.
“I take it you mean we should eschew generalities,” Soren said.
“And platitudes, sir.”
Despite the weight on his spirit, Soren must chuckle. Then, grave again, he said slowly, “Were the issues clear-cut, we could indeed put them in plain language and examine the alternatives. However, as we are each aware, they are not. At best we can, and should, utter what has been skulking about in our minds; we should acknowledge the truth.”
Well-nigh physically, he projected his massiveness over them. “We have lived with our succession crisis so long that ’tis come to seem well-nigh natural. But it is not. If the Gods have been forbearing, how terrible will the wrath be when at last Their patience comes to an end?” (Sight flickered over the tall images behind the dais and the guards, Man, Woman, Kraken.) “And what of lawfulness among mortals, what of rights denied and grief inflicted?” (Dahut’s countenance flushed in twin flames across bloodlessness; the fists clenched in her lap; she sat spear-straight, head high.) “Yet the person of the King is inviolable to all save his challengers. And Grallon has prevailed against every one of those.” He paused. “Thus far.”
Tambilis broke procedure to cry, “Never did Ys have a better King! And now he’s off to keep for us our freedom!” Bodilis, at her side, took her by the hand.
Surprisingly, Maldunilis added, “His Mithras is surely a strong God, when Grallon always wins.” Guilvilis nodded with more vigor than might have been awaited from her wasted body.
Forsquilis stirred. “That may be,” she said, “though I think His twilight is upon Him. But He is not our God. Nor is Christ.” She returned to the withdrawal in which she had wrapped herself of late.
“Continue, Speaker,” said Lanarvilis sharply.
“King Grallon has in truth been a strong and able leader,” Soren said without warmth. “Whether he has always led us aright is—perchance not something for us to argue. Most Kings aforetime were content to leave the governance of Ys in hands that would abide after them.” He lifted a finger. “This is what we have shied from voicing, lest we seem to wish evil on him. He is mortal. Late or early, the time will come when we lose him.
“We may already have lost him. He should have been back erenow. Granted, he may simply be delayed, from what we hear of storms and floods. But no messenger has gone ahead of him. He may have died—let’s say in some meaningless misfortune. Or the Romans may have refused his petition, detained him, even struck off his head. At this hour, a legion may be hitherbound to impose a Roman governor on Ys.”
Unease and anger rustled along the benches. Innilis took an unexpected initiative: “Nay. He told me the day ere he left, whatever else they might do, they lack manpower for that, when the Goths are so troublous down south.” Vindilis cast her an inquiring glance. “’Twas at our Temple,” she said. “He came in to pay the Goddess his brief respects, as the King should prior to departure. I chanced to have presiding duty. We talked a little.”
“What I wish us to do is probe the contingencies,” Soren resumed. “What if Grallon does not return? Or if he does, which seems the likelier event, what then?” He avoided looking at Dahut. “Because of the succession crisis, situations have arisen which he cannot ignore, as he has ignored so much else. Let us be silent about them here. The truth will come forth in its own time. But we might well think upon certain matters that go far deeper… such as what share the Queens—and the Suffetes, the Lords, the Great Houses—what their claims are as against the King. Then mayhap he will at last acknowledge what he has been doing unto Ys, and set it aright.”
Dahut sprang up, parted her lips, caught her breath, lowered herself in the same haste.
“Did… the Queen… wish to speak?” Soren inquired.
Beneath all their eyes, she shook her head. It was plain to see that she could barely keep still.
He sighed. “Very well, let us get on with our thinking,” he urged. “My lord Cothortin, behold how twisted and ambiguous are the questions before us. Yet confront them we must, somehow. Else it could be that this is the last Council of Suffetes ever to be held in Ys.”
The night when Gratillonius and his men camped at Maedraeacum was the first clear one of their homeward journey.
After the stoppage they had suffered, they were pushing their hardest. If a town or hostel chanced to be at the end of a day’s march, well and good; but if they could make a few more miles, they left it behind and pitched camp at sunset, tents only. When their fire had heated their rations, everybody but a pair of sentries went straight to sleep.
The road bringing them into the Armorican peninsula was unpaved but Roman made, well graded and drained. Gratillonius had chosen it in preference to a more direct route through Condate Redonum because he had heard of flood damage there. Here the gradual rise of land toward the central plateau made for less mud than the squadron had struggled through earlier. Springtime burst forth in wildflowers, primrose, daisy, hyacinth, speedwell, borage, and more. Willows had leafed, buds were unfolding on oak and chestnut, blossoms whitened orchards. He remembered his first faring toward Ys.
That had been a lovely season, though, while this was raw. When clouds parted and the sun shone through, his troop raised a cheer. “Bloody near forgotten wot that looked like,” Adminius muttered.
As it sank, they found themselves at a cluster of huts in the middle of plowland and pastures, with a shaw standing dark above tender green. Folk went coarsely clad, in and out of their thatch-roofed wattle-and-daub dwellings. Adults were deformed by toil. They watched the soldiers with dull wonder. Only their small children scampered up and shouted for joy at this break in dailiness. It was a village of serfs, such as could be found throughout the Empire.
Gratillonius formally requested what would not be denied, leave to stay in a meadow. When he thereafter asked the name of the community, the headman grunted, “Maedraeacum.”
Memory jarred Gratillonius. Why, this must be—must have been—the latifundium that vengeful Rufinus and his Bacaudae destroyed… thirteen years ago, was it? He inquired about the family of—Sicorus, had that been the patrician’s name?—but learned little. These people were too isolated. Their crops harvested, they brought to Redonum that large portion which was rent and taxes. From time to time bailiffs came to inspect the property. Occasionally men were conscripted for work on the roads or whatever else the masters they never saw wanted done. That was what they knew of the outside universe.
Obviously there had been no attempt to rebuild the manor house. Gratillonius wasn’t sure whether that was because of fear, because it wouldn’t have paid in these times of dwindled commerce and population, or because the heirs of Sicorus didn’t care for rural life. A senator wasn’t bound hand and foot to a trade or a place.
The headman pointed at a long, low mound in the offing. “Where the big house was,” he said. Gratillonius went over but found no lesser trace. Tiles, glass, undestroyed goods and tools, everything of any use had been taken away. Doubtless the Duke’s soldiers helped themselves first out of the ruins, then the new owner’s agents removed whatever they wanted, then the serfs picked over the remnants, year after year. Even damaged furniture or scorched books would do for fuel.
The sun was on the horizon when Gratillonius got back to camp. A half moon stood wan overhead. Heaven was clear, air quiet and cold. He led his Mithraists in prayer. Those rejoined their fellows, who, with tents erected, stood around the fire waiting for the lentils and bacon to cook. Weary but cheerful, they cracked jokes which they had made a hundred times already. Gratillonius could have been there too. After close to twenty years, he could unbend among these men without undermining discipline. He found he wasn’t in the mood, and wandered off.
Twilight deepened. The moon was barely enough to make the land ashy-dark; woods and hills were masses of blackness. Stars began to twinkle forth. Again he remembered his first journey toward Ys, when he was young and Dahilis awaited him, both of them unknowing. An eagle owl had passed above….
Forsquilis said the witchcraft had left her, the magical power was gone from all the Nine. Could that be true? Was the world itself growing old?
No, surely life remained, and would come winging to him out of the sky. He saw it yonder, low in the north, pale but brightening against the violet dusk.
He stopped.
The vision grew more clear minute by minute, as other light died away. It was a star in a silvery haze of its own glow. Easterly upward from it across a wide arc streamed a tail, vaporous white fire which at the end clove into three tongues.
The cries of his men reached Gratillonius as if from a vast distance, as if they were as far behind him as the comet was ahead, he alone in hollow space. He laid hold on his fear before it could take him. Better run back and calm the soldiers. Somebody among the serfs must have seen too and called the rest out, for he heard them howl in terror.
“You’ve spied a comet or two before,” he’d tell his followers. “Didn’t hurt you, did it? Brace up and carry on!” They would. But what prophecy was in those three tongues?
Foul weather returned, and worsened. Wind came mightily out of the west, scourging a ragged wrack of clouds before it, brawling and shrilling. Waves ran high. Spume blew bitter off their crests. Where they shocked upon rocks and reefs, fountains spouted.
Osprey plowed forward under oars, wallowed, shuddered, groaned in her timbers. Often a sheet of water burst over the prow, blinding the eyes painted there. They rose anew, streaming tears, and stared toward the streak that was Sena. Mainland lay as murky and vague aft; the towers of Ys had vanished into cloud and spindrift.
Bodilis huddled on a bench fixed below the mast, for what slight shelter it afforded. “Nay,” she said, “the Council reached no decision, though it met a full four days, longer than ever in living memory. How could it—we—as divided as we are against ourselves? In the end, all we could do was swear together that we will die ere we yield our freedom up to Rome.” The wind tattered her words.
“And meanwhile this storm got under way,” Maeloch growled beside her. He had, in reverent wise, thrown a blanket over them both. They sat close, sharing warmth. “Why do ye go out? When the crossing be too dangerous for your barge of state, surely the Gods don’t mean for ye to. That hairy star could be Their very warning.”
“So my Sisters urged. But I think ’tis a last hope,” Bodilis sighed. “I had a feeling, rightly or wrongly, there in the Council chamber when we took our oath—it felt to me as if They paid us no heed. Almost as if They had disowned us.”
Maeloch tensed. “I’m sorry,” Bodilis said, catching his glance and offering him a smile. “I spoke badly.” She paused. “Yet truthfully. Well, mayhap if one of the Gallicenae goes forth to serve Them as of old, They will listen to her.”
The skipper cast dread from him. “They’ll have time enough,” he said grimly. “Ye’ll be weatherbound for days, unless I’ve mislaid my knowledge. By tomorrow I myself wouldn’t dare try to fetch ye. How long? Who can foresee? Could be as much as a sennight. Lir brews a terrible brew this now, off in mid-Ocean.”
Her calm was unbroken. “I can abide. You saw how I brought ample supplies.” She smiled. “And writing materials, and my best loved books.”
The lookout in the bows yelled. Maeloch excused himself, left her the blanket, went forward to peer. Water churned and roared. “Aye, Grampus Rock,” he said. “We’ve drifted south off course.” He hastened aft and took the steering oar from Usun.
Time passed. Rowing into the heavy seas, men were exhausted when they reached Sena, slipped in through the last treacheries, and made fast at the dock. Nonetheless they unloaded Queen Bodilis’s baggage for her.
“I wish I could carry it up to the house, my lady,” Maeloch said.
“You’re sweet,” she replied. “But ’tis only permitted me.” Neither spoke of the night when Gratillonius went ashore in search of Dahilis, and cut Dahut free of her dead mother.
“Well, have a care,” he rumbled awkwardly. His look sought the small, foursquare building of dry-laid stone, and its turret. “Stay inside if the wind rises much more. Remember, gales ha’ been known to drive waves clear across this isle.”
Anxiety touched her. “’Tis you and your friends who’ll be imperilled. Should you really not go home at once, and wait till ’tis safe to leave for Hivernia?” She was among the few to whom Vindilis had confided the plan.
He shook his wool-draped head. “Nay. After this blows itself out, belike the waters ’ull be too roiled for days, amongst our reefs, for setting forth from Ys. I’ll give the lads an hour or two of rest here, then well snake free of the skerry ground and hoist sail. Once weVe proper sea room, we can ride out whatever Lir may whistle up, and be on our way as soon as we can make any northing at all.”
“You speak overboldly.”
“No disrespect. Lir be Lir. But I be a man. He knows it.”
“You are very brave, though, to hasten thus on your mission.” He seemed abashed. “’Tis important,” he mumbled. “For Ys and, and your Sister, little Dahut.”
“Go you, then, to learn what you can, for her sake,” Bodilis said as quietly as the noise allowed. “And I will be praying for her.”
He looked beyond, to the desolation of stone, harsh grass, distorted bushes, flung coils of kelp that stretched away at her back. “’Tis ye be the brave one,” he said, “alone in the sea with the hairy star.” Bodilis gave him her hand. “Farewell, Maeloch.”
“Fare ye ever well, my lady.” He turned and stumped back to his vessel. Bodilis carried her things piecemeal to the house and unpacked them. By the time she was through, Osprey had cast off. She stood watching the hull toil away northward until it was lost to sight.