Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS) (62 page)

We paddled ever south-west on the lead-dull waters. We heard the cries of the gulls and the slap of the water against the paddles and against the side of the boat, and we panted in our haste to drive the craft with the current and against the tide. I thought of Phryne, now dead, and I wept till fresh Sabrina merged into the sea. Perhaps she was no Helen, no Juno, but she was – I found it impossible to be coherent. Flung innocent into marriage with a man who knew worlds, who knew Hells she could not imagine, a man who at first had thought of nothing but his dead love in the North, she had been quiet and peaceful and forgiving and tolerant, and obedient, not as a slave, but as a partner. And she had always been there. There had never been a moment while I was in Britain when I had not known that Phryne would be still there waiting for me. I knew all the time that the moment I walked up the quay from the ship and came into my house she would be offering me her bread and oil. Nobody baked bread like Phryne, she always baked her own bread; she even ground the meal herself if it was for me. She said slave girls never would, no not could, would, grind the wheat flour fine enough for me. And it would be ready when I came home, however long I was away, a month, three months, two years … Now it would never be ready again.

And what of my children? My sister Xanthippe – my grandfather had won there – would take little Euphrosyne fiercely, proudly, to her own house, defying any claim by Phryne’s parents:
Xanthippe had five sons. But the baby – how could he survive? My grandmother would scour through the houses of all our friends and through the markets to find a newly delivered slave who could suckle him, even if her own child died: they would try to make him suck goat’s milk on the end of a rag. But there was little hope. I am cursed in my children. I have two sons, and a daughter in the North whom I will never see again: and no son in my own home.

And no wife. There was no one now to wait for my return. I need never return. Only as long as the Gold came back, I might stay here for ever, or go where I pleased, might live or die. Now, I might please myself.

The grey waters, the grey sky, the colourless gulls that swooped and passed, all made my mood. I dug my paddle with fury into the swirling tide, keeping her steady in the wilderness of currents. I cursed the useless birds that jeered at us. Now I was at the deep point of the mood that had possessed me all through the grey and misty land of Britain, the land of twilight and soft shadows, the land of deception and melting form, the land where nothing is what it seems to be or claims to be. Now it had struck me down when I seemed to be most successful, most secure. The Army was at my disposal, I could dismiss a Legate who was more powerful than any Barbarian king, and I would soon bring down not one but four Barbarian kings. I had a ship that would live on that stormy sea even in the spring when no skin boat, no galley, could keep it, or carry an army. And my enemy, Gwawl, was defeated, dismissed, made harmless as he had been on the night of the thorn. All the Gold in Ireland was in my hands. There was nothing more I need do. I could rest here, or wherever I liked, and wait for the treasure to come to me, and I could do what I wished with what I had.

In the grey dark that succeeded the grey day we came to a landing place in the reeds, and climbed a gentle slope to a hut. It was not empty. Three men sat there, waiting for the hard dawn that should come, men that came from the confines of Hell. They had fire for us, and food. We ate and ate in silence. At last Grathach asked:

‘Will they come, my Lord?’

‘Some,’ answered Pryderi. ‘Not many. Enough.’

‘Silurians?’ I asked. I did not know how far I might go, I was overbold, I thought.

‘They are beginning to see now,’ Pryderi told me, ‘how they have been cheated. They submitted, and that not after a hard fight, on a promise. The Romans said they would protect them from the Irish. And that they have not done. The Irish still raid. Last year they came under the walls of Venta itself. All along the coasts of the Severn Sea they come, except in the Mere. They do not come along the shores of the Irish Sea, either. We Dematae are not disarmed, and north of us, in the Rainy Hills, they dare not face Howell. But the other coasts – they raid as they please, and the Romans can’t stop them. Now, Mannanan, see if you are more powerful than a legion. They are yours, now.’

‘Who?’

‘The Leinster men who raid, from the south-east of the island, they are the men you want. It is in their country, in Wicklow, that the Gold was found. They have the streams rich in metal. Turn them back to mining Gold, and they will be too busy to bother us.’

‘And then, Pryderi, you will submit, and go to live in Venta, or build a city just like it far in the West, or in the Mere?’

‘I will never submit to the Romans.’

‘The future lies in the towns, Pryderi. It is the Guild of Shoemakers and the men who peddle earth coal who will rule this land in the end. Submit, Pryderi. There is no other way to power.’

‘I will never submit. I am a king.’

‘I know what it is. You are jealous of the Irishman, the King’s nephew, the Setanta. You want to be like him, to lead a fianna, to ride into great battles, to topple monarchs and empty thrones. It is too late, Pryderi. Submit and be rich and happy and have power.’

‘I might be richer than I am, and have more power, but I would not be happy.’

‘Is it only the luxury of your pride, then, Pryderi, that keeps you in rebellion? Is it the mere pleasure of knowing that you are doing what you like?’

‘Here my Gesa, Mannanan, to which I have been obedient since I was a child. It is this: it is never to forsake a friend, or forget a wrong, or forgive a Roman.’

He said no more: he rolled himself in his cloak and lay on his bed of dry bracken. There was no more to be said. I too slept.

They woke me a little before dawn. Grathach brought me hot mutton soup and bread, and as I scoured my bowl he said.

‘Up the slope straight, and there is a path. Follow it to the end, not turning to the left nor to the right—’

‘Will you now forsake me?’ I asked.

‘No, you cannot be forsaken here.’ Pryderi on his bed was calm, not offended. ‘Do you not know where you are? You are at the south end of the Apple Country. When you reach the north end of the ridge, turn to the west, and in the reeds by the huts at the end of the path, you will find boats moored. Then you can cross the marsh to Caw’s house. As for us, we have no time to take you, and we trust you enough to let you go alone wherever you wish. We have other business that will not wait.’

I made west along the path, among the orchards of cider apples. And now I knew why the Apple ridge was sacred, for though every tree was bare of leaf, yet each in the winter dark shone golden green and silver dotted. On every tree the mistletoe hung down.

I came in mid-afternoon to the edge of the ridge, where the Mere in winter flooded round on all sides. There I did find a boat, though I had to look for it, and in the end pick the smallest and lightest from a cluster cleverly hidden under a willow. The rain came down on me, and splashed in great circles into the marsh, as I pointed the bows up stream and paddled hard against the current in order only to make track straight across it. I waded to push the boat through shallows and lay flat to creep under low branches Where we had walked in the summer the flood would now drown a man. At last, I came to the edge of the main stream, rushing down from the hills inland with the force of a herd of frightened cattle, roaring and tossing. I struggled to hold her head, I saw lost all the way I had so painfully made north along the ridge. All the knowledge I had ever had of the sea, all the skills I had learnt in ships, all were useless against this sweet fresh water, whirling me back to the sea. I strained down to my heart, my back cracked, handsbreadth by handsbreadth I moved towards the opposite bank, taking first one mark to head for, and
then losing it far up stream, and then another, and losing that too. And suddenly, as I thrust away a log that playfully butted me and almost turned me over, I was in calm water, and close under the opposite shore, under the west bank, on the surface of a calm black pool, a backwater where the water did not stir. I had lost my paddle in that last struggle with the ash tree. Now I splashed with my hands till I came near, and grounded on the mud beach. I did not think, I just pulled the boat up far from the water, as one always does. Once a sailor, you never forget. Then I climbed, foot by foot, ledge by ledge, up the bluff till I came where Rhiannon’s hut had been, where she had sat for so long fasting and gazing out over the marsh. I sloshed soaking down the hill and by the last path to Caw’s house.

Later, fed and warm and full of cider in the lamplight, I said to Caw:

‘But would not cider pay you better than silver? There is no cider even in Britain like the cider of the Summer Country. You could sell it from here to Londinium, to Rome itself. I could arrange it all, act as your agent, and once it came into fashion at the Imperial Court, it is Gold you would be handling and not silver, and it would not take too much influence then to free you from the wheat tax. And it would be safer, too.’

‘Attractive you make it sound, don’t you?’ He laughed. ‘No wonder it is rich you do get by buying and selling. No, boy, it’s the sea that is my real love.’

I changed my tack.

‘How many of those great ships have you left now, Caw?’

‘Well, there was another, but that one you stole from me. Now – to tell the truth, we only have the one.’

‘After this one voyage for which you have promised her to me?’

‘Back to the silver.’

‘Why don’t you build another?’

‘It takes time to build a ship, time and space and skill. We could never do it, even in the Mere, with no one knowing. And what would we use another one for now? We cannot trade except as I do.’

‘But if I were to trade with Ireland, then would you not think of building more? And then, you would not be a hunted pirate in
the Mere, but you would have a style and a title and a place in the Empire, and under the Emperor it is you only would be the Master of the Western Sea.’

Caw sat silent, cracking walnuts with his teeth – fancy, a man at his age with his own teeth! Finally he said:

‘I’ll think about it.’

We went to bed. I was almost there, I thought, almost there. Soon I would be able to trade across the Irish Sea in all weathers and all the year, with an Ireland peaceful and settled and pouring Gold, rich Gold into my hands.

All I wanted in the Mere, almost all I wanted, was in my hands. Now there was no thought of home, no obligation, no loyalty, no promise to keep me back. I was free to take what I wanted out of all the island, to take what was mine, what had been given me and what had been promised me.

I walked along the edge of the Mere in the grey morning. I came to Pryderi’s house, where Cicva sat grinding at her door, grinding flour fine enough for Pryderi, and Rhiannon with her.

‘Where is Taliesin?’ I asked.

‘Gone,’ replied Cicva. ‘He is walking back alone through the land as he came, from nation to nation, judging the people and telling them what is right and just to do, whether it please the oil-eaters or not. Why should you want him now?’

‘I wanted a witness,’ I told her. ‘I have come to claim what is mine.’

‘And what is yours?’ asked Rhiannon. ‘I too may claim what is mine, what I too have been given.’

‘You are mine, Rhiannon. I will take you now. You can plead neither sanctity nor weakness nor strength. I will take you with me back, through Rome and through Ostia, past Brundisium and Athens, through Alexandria and Byblos to my own home in the Old City. Come, Rhiannon, I have children there who need a mother, and I have slaves who need a mistress. I have a great house in the town, Rhiannon, with a hundred rooms, tables of ivory and beds of ebony, laid with all the silks of India and scented with the strange woods the Arabs bring out of the Desert. There we eat well, Rhiannon, of bread and meat, and fruits and nuts you have never seen and have never heard of, and that not at feasts
but every day. And wine, Rhiannon – we can drink a different wine every day for a year, and not exhaust my cellar. I have the wealth of ten kings in the Isle of the Mighty, Rhiannon, and in my own town I have the honour of a king. Roman Governors treat me as a man of importance, and merchants from all over the world bow low to me. And they will all bow low to you, Rhiannon, and bring you presents, because you are mine. I have an empty house that waits for you, Rhiannon, and an empty bed that waits for you. I will take you now, Rhiannon, back out of this land of mists and shadows into the real world.’

‘And would that honour me, that am a princess already?’ she asked. ‘Mannanan, you are mine, given to me. Now I will take what is mine. Come with me to the North, Mannanan, to my own people of the Brigantes. Come and live there with me, and all will honour you as a king, because I bring you. You will have mutton to eat all the days of your life, and oat bread, the fine fruits of the forest, blackberries and elderberries, cobnuts and blewits. You will have wool to wear and to sleep on, pure clean wool, through the hot summer days up on the heather hills, through the long winters in the dry cold air.’

‘I have a farm also,’ I told her, ‘up in the hot dry hills. I too have my herds of sheep, and I wear wool of my own breeding, that my own husbandmen have sheared, that the women of my own household have combed and spun and woven and sewn into cloaks and tunics, and into blankets for the winter nights when we shall lie warm together and listen to the wolves outside. There we shall smell the wood smoke, and drink the resined wine that we ourselves have trodden out, and on the bread baked of our own wheat we shall sprinkle oil we have pressed from our own olives. If you wish, Rhiannon, you shall never see a town again.’