Gallicenae (43 page)

True, Dahut had always been a being as moody as Armorican weather. The small girl would flare into furies, the maiden would descend into gloom, suddenly, without any cause comprehensible by him. Her mirth and charm returned equally fast. Yet he had never hitherto watched anything like this. He thought that under a rawhide-tight self-control, anguish devoured her. Why?

Such of the Gallicenae as were in the party had withdrawn to the cabin on the way back and conferred. When the ship came to rest in the harbor basin, they had given him their counsel.

He brushed past Carsa—might have to interrogate that boy, but later, later—and those persons ashore who hailed him. Few tried. Ys had learned to let King Grallon be when he strode along iron-faced. Emerging on the street, he looked left and right. Which way? At eventide, folk off to their homes or their pleasures, the quarter was nearly vacant. He couldn’t ask if anyone had seen a desolate lass in outdoor garb go by.

Wait. He did not really know his eldest daughter. No one did. She mingled easily when she chose, but always remained private to the point of secretiveness. However… she would not have headed left to Skippers’ Market and Lir Way, nor struck off into the maze of old streets ahead. Wounded, she would seek solitude. Gratillonius turned right.

Dusk welled up inside the city wall. Foul wind and heavy seas had slowed the passage home. Hurrying along the Ropewalk, Gratillonius glimpsed vessels under construction in the now silent shipyard. Their
unplanked ribs might have been the skeletons of whales. At the end he swung right again, to the stairs leading onto the top of the rampart, and mounted them.

His heart stumbled. He had guessed truly. Yonder she was.

She seemed tiny below the Raven Tower. Fragments of mist blew above, blurring sight of its battlements. The lower stones glowed with sunset light. Wind had dropped to a whisper, still sharply cold. Ocean ran strong, bursting and booming where it struck, purple-dark in its outer reaches. There fog banks roiled and moved landward. Sometimes they hid the sinking sun, sometimes its rays struck level through a rift. They turned the vapors gold, amber, sulfur, and cast long unrestful shadows over the waves.

Dahut leaned forth between two merlons, clutching them, to gaze down at furious surf and minute beach between the wall and the upthrust of Cape Rach. The noise rolled hollowly around her.

She heard Gratillonius approach and looked to see who did. Her eyes appeared to fill the countenance that was, O Mithras, like Dahilis’s. He halted before her. Words were difficult to find. “I want to help you. Please let me try.”

Her lips moved once or twice before she got out: “You can’t. Nobody can.” He could barely hear her through the sea-thunder.

“Oh, now, be not so sure of that.” He smiled, put arms akimbo, rocked on his heels, anything that might make his talk more reassuring. “I’m your old Papa, remember? Your first friend, who—” his voice cracked—“who loves you.”

Her glance drifted from him, back to the violence below.

Anger stirred. He knew it was at his own powerlessness, and allowed it only to put metal into his tone, as when he the centurion wanted to know about some trouble among the soldiers. “Dahut. Hear me. You must answer. What happened? Your companion missed his proper landing and the two of you came belated to the feast. They were teasing him about it, and he took it glumly. Did he do aught untoward while you were alone?”

When she made no response, Gratillonius added: “If I must brace him to get the truth, so be it. I’ll do whatever proves necessary. For I am the King of Ys.”

Then she whirled to confront him. He saw horror on her. “Nay, oh, nay, father! Carsa’s been—courteous, helpful—He knows naught, I swear, naught!”

“I wonder about that. I wonder greatly. He’s a sailor boy. He should not have made a stupid mistake in steering. He should not have been shaken to his roots merely because you fell into a bad mood. Aye, best that Carsa and I have a little talk.”

“Father—” He saw her fight not to weep. “S-stay your hand. I swear to you—by my mother—nothing unlawful happened. I swear it.”

He softened his words again: “I’ll believe you, sweetling. Yet something has shattered you today. You cannot leave me in the dark. I
am
the King of Ys; and they say you bear our destiny; but ’tis enough that you are my child by Dahilis, Dahilis that I loved beyond all the world, and still love.”

He held out his arms. Blindly, she came into them. He hugged her close. Her cheek lay against his breast. His hand stroked her slimness, over and over. He murmured, and slowly her shuddering eased.

“Come,” he said at last, “let’s go out where we can be by ourselves.”

A few others had been astroll on the wall, and there were the marines at the tower. None had ventured nigh, and Gratillonius and Dahut had ignored them, but he knew what probing pierced the misty glow. He took her hand—it nestled in his like a weary bird—and led her by the guards, on past the war engines in their kennels, to the sea gate.

There they must stop, unless they would descend to the warder’s walk. Fog smoked in, ever thicker, hooding them from view beyond a few paces. Its yellow grew furnace-hot to westward, where an unseen sun poured forth a final extravagance of light; but the breeze nipped keenly. Below them, at their backs, the harbor glimmered out of murk. At their feet, surf smashed in a smother of white. To the side, surges went to and fro between the doors, sucking and sobbing.

Dahut stared outward. “We can’t see Sena,” she said raggedly.

“Nay, of course not.” He picked his way forward word by word. “Would you fain?”

She nodded. “That… is where I was born—and mother—”

“I’ve told you before, and I will again, never blame yourself, darling. She died blessing you. I’m sure she did, blessing you as ever I’ve since done myself.”

“I know. I knew. Until today—”

He waited.

She looked up at him. “Where do the dead go after they must leave us?”

“What?” He was surprised. “Oh, folk have many different beliefs. You, a vestal, you must be more learned than I am about what the wisest in Ys think.”

She shook her head. “They only say the Gods apportion our dooms. ’Tis not what I meant. Father, sometimes the dead come back. They are born anew so they can—watch over us—But what happens to them when they die again?”

He called to mind eerie rumors that had reached him over the years. Chill shot along his back and out to his fingertips. “That seal who comes to you—”

“She died. A beast killed her.”

“How do you know?” he mumbled.

“She
knew. She told me. I think the Gods saw that—if she stayed—she’d keep me from—from—I know not what, from something They may want of me—Oh, father, where is she now?”

Dahut cast herself back into the arms of Gratillonius. The tears broke loose. She clawed against him and screamed.

He gripped her and endured.

At length, still an animal hurt and terrified, gone to earth in his bosom, at length she could plead, “Help me, father. Leave me not. Be with me always.”

“I will,… daughter of Dahilis.” He dared inquire no further. Belike he never would, nor she say any more. Yet he felt within himself the strength he had reached for.

“Promise!”

“I do.” Gratillonius looked above her tousled head. The sun must have gone under, for hues had drained from the fog and twilight was rapidly thickening. Wind cut through, though, and he spied the battlements of the Raven Tower clear against uneasy heaven, afire with the last radiance of the Unconquered. In a crypt beneath lay his holy of holies. The strength rose higher, defiant of the cruel Gods of Ys.

“I promise,” he said. “I will never forsake you, Dahut, beloved, never deny you. By Mithras I swear.”

They sought home together.

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1

Day came to birth above eastern hills and streamed down the valley. It flamed off the towers of Ys, making them stand like candles against what deepness lingered in western blue. Air lay cool, still, little hazed. The world beneath it was full of dew and long shadows.

This was the feast of Lug. Here they also kept the old holy times, but the great ones of the city called then on its own Gods. A male procession, red-robed, the leader bearing a hammer, mounted the wall at High Gate. They lifted their hands and sang.

“Your sun ascends in splendor

The brilliance of Your sky

To light the harvest landscape

Your rains did fructify.

These riches and this respite

From winter, war, and night,

Taranis of the Thunders,

Were won us through Your might!

“You guard the walls of heaven,

Earth’s Lover, Father, King.

You are the sacrificer,

You are the offering.

The years wheel ever onward

Beyond our human ken.

Bestow Your strength upon us

That we may die like men.”

Behind them, where the Temple of Belisama shone on its height, female voices soared from Elven Gardens.

“Lady of love and life,

Lady of death and strife,

Maiden and wedded wife,

And old in sorrow,

Turn unto us Your face,

Grant us a dwelling place

In Your abiding grace,

Now and tomorrow!

“You are the Unity:

Girl running wild and free,

Hag brooding mystery,

And the All-Mother.

Evermore born again,

You, Belisama, reign,

Over our joy and pain

As does no other.

“You by Whom all things live,

Though they be fugitive,

Thank You for that You give

Years to us mortals.

Goddess of womankind,

Guide us until we find

Shelter and peace behind

Darkness’s portals.”

Ebb had barely begun and the sea gate of Ys remained shut. Nevertheless a ship was outward bound. Eager to be off while good weather held, her captain had had her towed forth by moonlight and had lain at anchor waiting for dawn. Mainsail and artemon unfurled, her forefoot hissed through the waves. He went into the bows, killed a black cock, sprinkled blood on the stempost, cast the victim overboard, held out his arms, and chanted.

“Tide and wind stand fair for our course, but we remember that the set of them is often to a lee shore;

“We remember that gales whelm proud fleets and reefs wait always to rip them asunder;

“We remember how men have gone down to the eels or have strewn their bones white on the skerries;

“We remember weariness, hunger, thirst, the rotting of live flesh and teeth loosened from jaws;

“We remember the shark and the ice, and the albatross lonely above desolation;

“We remember the blinding fog and the terrible sea-blink in dead calm:

“For these too are of Lir. His will be done.”

The King of Ys, Incarnation and high priest of Taranis, was not in the city, for this was not so momentous a day as to release him from the Watch he must keep when the moon was full. With a handful of fellow worshippers he stood in the courtyard of the Sacred Precinct, by the Challenge Oak, looking toward the sun and calling, “Hail, Mithras Unconquered, Savior, Warrior, Lord, born unto us anew and forever—
”
The silence in the Wood muffled it.

At the Forum, the heart of Ys, in the church that had once been a fane of Mars, Christians almost as few held a service. Nobody outside heard their song, tiny and triumphant.

2

Rain slashed from the west. Wind hooted. Autumn was closing in, with storms and long nights. If men did not soon take ship for Ériu, they would risk being weatherbound in Britannia until—Manandan maqq Leri knew when.

Two men sat in a tavern in Maia. That was a Roman settlement just south and west of the Wall, on the firth. Roughly clad, the pair drew scant heed from others at drink, albeit one was uncommonly large and handsome, his fair hair and beard not much silvered. Plain to see, they were Scotic. However, they kept to themselves and this was not an inn where people asked questions. Besides, the tiny garrison was in quarters; and barbarians went freely about, Scoti, Picti, occasional Saxons. Some were mercenaries recruited by Rome, or scouts or spies or informers. Some were traders, who doubtless did more smuggling than open exchange. It mattered not, provided they got into nothing worse than brawls. The Imperial expeditionary force had enough to do without patrolling every impoverished huddling place.

A tallow candle guttered and stank on the table between the two Scoti. Its light and the light of its kind elsewhere were forlorn, sundered by glooms like stars on a cloudy night. Niall of the Nine Hostages gripped a cup of ale such as he would not have ordered pigs swilled with at home, were a king allowed to own them. Leaning forward, elbows on the greasy, splintery wood, he asked low, “You are quite sure of this, are you, now?”

Uail maqq Carbri nodded. “I am that, my lord,” he answered in the same undertone. Most likely none else would have understood their language, but no sense in taking needless chances. “I’ll be telling the whole tale later, my wanderings and all, first in this guise, next in that, ever the amusing newcomer who commanded a rustic sort of Latin—”