Gallicenae (28 page)

Festivity outside continued a while. Twilight deepened, stars blinked into view, moon-glow silvered heaven above high eastern darknesses. First the oldest and the youngest yawned goodnight, then presently all revelers departed to their rest.

—Budic awoke. He could not have been long asleep. The barrack was pitchy black and steamy hot. He felt bodies pressed close to his, and for a moment a surging took him; but they were merely two road-pounders like himself, and snored. He rolled over, hoping to regain oblivion. The straw of his pallet rustled. He remembered youths in Britannia, when he was a boy, boasting of what they had done with girls in the hay. He remembered that he had not really been down in
peaceful nothingness. Slim forms with voices like the chiming of brooks ad undulated through his dreams.

Sweat prickled and reeked in his armpits. His member swelled and strained. Almost, he groaned.
Christ guard me from the demons in this haunt of heathendom!
Useless to lie here. He would only toss about till he roused his mates, who’d swear at him. Maybe some fresh air would soothe. He groped his way to the door, and out.

How solid, how soft the earth was beneath his feet. The night laved his nakedness; he felt every smallest cool ripple in it. The forest smelled of damp and musk. He heard rustlings, chirrings, a hoot, a wing-beat. They seemed to call him. Moonlight dappled leaves and ground. As his night vision strengthened, he saw the path winding off to the holy grounds. Yonder was water. Thirst smoldered in the thuttery thickness that held him by the gullet. He thought confusedly that he would not drink from the pond, for it was given over to the lustful she-devil; but the stream that ran from it, off to the canal and thus the city, ah, he could fling himself belly down, grip the moss in both hands, and bury his mouth in that chilly kiss.

He moved ahead. Twigs fingered him. A moonbeam touched a great fungus growing on a log. It stood forth like a phallus or the flame of the lamp in a bridal chamber. Was it a nightingale that trilled, or a girl’s laugh?

The woods opened on the lawn. Budic slammed to a halt.

The full moon hid most stars behind a veil of brilliance. Trees, hedges, grass reached asheen. Above the spring, below the linden, the idol stood livid against shadow. Darkness limned the rich curves of breasts and hips. Argency glimmered and sparkled over the pond. Around it, upon it, out from within it, the nymphs were dancing.

They were not vestals, innocently asleep, they were mist and moonlight made female, shapes that flitted, wove, flickered, soared, twined, caressed, parted to tremble on the edge of flight, came back together to embrace, one with one another and the night and the burgeoning summer. Not with his ears but with his soul, he heard them sing and cry and yowl desire. He knew not whether they were aware of him or cared; but he was about to plunge forth and lose himself in them.

Out of the gloom that bulked against the northern sky trod a man. He was huge, naked, stallion-erected. Each fist held a writhing snake. It was as if stars glittered trapped in his unbound hair. From his temples sprang a mighty rack of antlers. Slowly he paced from the wood toward the nymphs, and their movements turned in his direction.

Budic huddled behind a tree. He could not help himself, he must peer around its trunk.

Moonlight flooded her who came down off the portico and across the lawn. White, white, blue-white was her skin, also nude except for the tresses streaming loose. She held out her arms to the man-shape.
Distant though she was in this dimness, Budic knew that Athene countenance.

The male wheeled and strode to meet her. She ran. When she reached them, they halted and he took both her hands in his. The serpents wrapped around their wrists, moonlight icy along scales. For an endless while, male and woman stood unmoving. Then at last they went side by side into the forest. The nymphs took up their frolic anew.

Lightning through the thunder that filled Budic’s skull: Everybody knew Forsquilis was deepest versed in sorcery of the Nine witches, and gossip muttered how she bore the air of a passionate woman and how hard it must be for her to share a single man. None, even Christians, ever dared hint that any among the Gallicenae might betray the King. But what about a God—a demon?

A nymph-shape left the dance and swayed across the dew toward Budic.

He shrieked and fled. Yet he did not re-enter the guards’s house when he got there, but spent the rest of the night outside, shuddering, groveling, weeping, and praying.

3

“Have you told anyone else?” asked Corentinus.

Astounded, Budic gaped at him. Dusk gathered around the minister of Christ where he sat on his stool, in the room of his church that he had designated private, like a black-feathered bird of prey on its perch.

“N-no, Father,” the Coritanean stammered after a moment. “I p-pretended I’d had nightmares, that was why I was so numb and weak this morning.”

“Good.” The knaggy head nodded. “No sense in letting rumors get started. They’ll force people to take firm stances, which is the last thing we want the pagans to do. Of course, you realize what you saw may well have been just a dream.”

“What? No, Father, that can’t be. I mean, I beg your pardon, but I do know the difference—”

Corentinus raised a palm to cut off the words. “Peace. Don’t fret yourself. It matters little. The forces of Satan prowl always around us. Whether they work as mirage or material, their purpose is the same, to lure us from our salvation. If what you saw really happened, I’ll feel sad for that poor benighted woman. But you, my son, you may thank God that He strengthened you to resist.”

Budic wailed and covered his face. “No, Father. Th-th-that’s why I came—not even to warn you, but, but the vision won’t leave me, the lust is fiercer than fire, what shall I do, Father?”

“Ah. Hm.” Corentinus rose, bent over the hunched figure, briefly hugged the bright head to his bosom. “Don’t be afraid. You have wisdom beyond your years, that you seek help here instead of in a brothel.”

“I have sinned that way before. But this, this
called
me.”

“I know. I too have heard.” Corentinus began pacing back and forth. He made his voice dry:

“Listen, Budic. You’ve been a pretty good catechumen, and this isn’t the first time I’ve given you some thought. Now, I can’t compel your spirit. Only God can do that. But I can, in my left-handed mortal fashion, advise you. So listen, and think.

“Your trouble is that you’re devout, but you haven’t got the makings of a monk. No disgrace in that. The Lord bade Adam and Eve be fruitful and multiply. What’re you waiting for?”

Budic gave him a dazed look. “Where’ll I find a Christian wife? I knew I did wrong, going to that pagan wedding. Isn’t this my punishment?”

Corentinus smiled. “I’m not sure you did do wrong. I’ve never reproached any of my flock who married unbelievers. It can’t be helped, and grace may come on the spouses. I only require that they allow their children to hear the truth. You, though—you’re not the sort who could live with an infidel woman. But you need a woman, in the worst way.”

He took stance before he went on, almost sternly: “I have one, if you’re Christian enough, man enough, to take her for your wife.”

Budic stared up at him. The chorepiscopus seemed to tower as if he spoke from the peak of Sinai. “Who?” Budic whispered.

“You know her well. Keban, the harlot from the Fishtail.”

Budic sat dumb-stricken.

“She has repented,” Corentinus went on relentlessly, “and she has washed herself clean with her tears, she acknowledges Christ her Lord and Savior. But who among the haughty goodfolk of Ys will have her, even as a scullion? I give her shelter and employment here, but it’s made work, as well we both know, and her days are empty, and Satan understands very well how to fill that emptiness with old carnal cravings. I’ve dreaded that she may fall by the wayside. But if not—what an example to shine before every wretch forsaken in this city of sin!

“Budic, she’s still fairly young, healthy, a fit mother of sturdy sons, and reborn in Christ. What she was before is nothing in the sight of God. But is everything in the sight of man.

“Who will have courage to take her under his protection, for the salvation of both, and shield her, and turn his back on the sly, unspoken mockery, till at last it is outlived, forgotten, and an honorable old pair go hand in hand toward Heaven? Might you be, Budic?”

Silence lengthened, underneath harsh breath.

Corentinus eased. “Ah, well, I know better than to force things,” he said. “Come, lad, let’s share a stoup and talk a bit. I can always use barrack-room gossip. As for any sins of yours, consider them forgiven.”

—But later that evening, summoned, Keban entered. In wimple and full, coarse gown, timidly smiling, by lamplight she seemed twice comely. All she did was prepare and set forth a frugal meal, and answer a few inconsequential questions. Yet the glance of Budic followed her everywhere she went.

4

Often around the autumnal equinox, storms caused Ys to lock its sea gate, lest waves force an opening and rush through the harbor into the city. When calm was restored, the King freed the portal. It was his sacral duty. Only if he was absent or disabled did Lir Captain take it in his stead.

As usual, he performed the task at high tide, which this day happened to come in the afternoon. “You see,” he explained to Dahut, “the doors are hung in such a way that they always want to be shut. As the water falls, the floats that hang from them do too, and draw the doors open. At low water, they would pull so hard that I couldn’t get the bar out of its holder.”

“But what if you
had
to close the gate then?” she asked.

Gratillonius smiled. “Sharp question!” There was quite a mind below those golden curls, behind those big eyes. “Well, we have machinery, so gangs of men can haul the doors shut against the weight of the balls. Just the same, it’s hard work.”

Lanarvilis had told him he should let Dahut witness the rite. All the Queens were touchingly concerned about the upbringing of Dahilis’s daughter. Delighted, he had sent a messenger to temple school. She came from there in company of Guilvilis, whose turn it was to foster her. He was twice happy that that turn coincided with his night at Guilvilis’s house.

Woman and child followed him from the palace. Guilvilis had donned finery, a silken gown that showed to disadvantage her tall, awkward, heavy-haunched figure. The thin dull-brown hair would not stay properly in its elaborate coiffure, but did call attention to small eyes, long nose, undershot chin. In a schoolgirl’s brief white dress, Dahut went like wind and waterfall. Gratillonius wore a ceremonial robe of blue-gray wool embroidered in gold and silver thread with sea beasts. In full view on his breast hung the iron Key.

A squad of marines waited in their conical helmets and shoulder-flared loricae. Pike butts crashed a salute on the stones. They took formation behind the King. Traffic on Lir Way was thick and bustle was loud, but a path opened immediately before the procession. Many folk cheered, some signed themselves, a number of youngsters trailed after to watch from the wharf.

The Temple of Lir stood under the Gull Tower, just before the pomoerium. Ancient, it lacked the Grecian exquisiteness of Belisama’s, the Roman stateliness of Taranis’s. Despite small size, here was brutal strength, menhirlike pillars and rough stone walls upholding a roof of slate slabs. The interior was dark, revealing little more than an altar block within an arch formed of the jawbones of a whale.

Gratillonius entered. The man on watch today greeted him. Every ship’s captain in Ys was ordained a priest of Lir; Hannon Baltisi simply presided over meetings of the guild and spoke for it and its cult in
Council. Gratillonius knelt to receive on his tongue the ritual pinch of salt and voice the ritual plea that the God withhold His wrath. Emergence was like release from captivity.

It was a bright, bracing day. When he had climbed the stairs to the rampart heights, he looked out across utter openness. Waters shone blue, green, purple, white-capped, save where they burst on rocks and reefs, brawled against wall and cliffs; there fountains leaped. In this clarity he could see the house on Sena, miles away. Only wings beclouded the sky, hundreds of them soaring and circling on the breeze whose tang washed his face.

He looked inland, across the broad arc of the basin. How still it lay, nine or ten feet beneath the tide, lower yet whenever the combers climbed and broke. Ships and boats crowded the piers. Men were busy with cargo. Mariners of Ys would venture another voyage or two before winter closed in. The knowledge that he had put life back into that trade made a glow in Gratillonius.

And the city behind shone in roofs, towers, on its higher eastern half gardens, temples, mansions. Hinterland stretched beyond, valley and hills where homes nestled, the gaudiness of leaves muted by distance to a tapestry laid over the earth, a sign of ingathered bounty. God Mithras, said Gratillonius, watch over all this, stand guard upon its peace.

Dahut tugged at his hand. “Won’t you start?” she piped.

Hauled from his reverie, he laughed and tousled her hair. “Ever are you the impatient one, eh, sweetling? Aye, let’s…. Have a care! Lean not so far over the parapet. I know you love the sea, but remember, ’tis forever hungry.”

He led her past the Gull Tower and the sheltered war engines to that fifty-foot gap in the wall which was the portal. Dahut, who had been here before, cried greeting to the block that jutted from the wall below the battlements. It had the time-blurred form of a cat’s head. A chain ran from the inner top corner of the adjacent door, into the block, over the sheave within, and down out of its mouth. Most of the chain hung submerged, for the leather-clad bronze ball at its end floated not far beneath, idly swinging in the waves. Gratillonius heard the thuds when that great weight rolled against the wall. Those dry-laid blocks were well fitted indeed, to have withstood centuries of such battering. And even the doors, oaken though copper-sheathed and iron-bound, had only required replacement twice.