He nodded. “These are chilly waters for learning how.”
“I was born to them.”
He sensed that this was no matter to pursue and fell silent, content to have her in his sight.
She said hardly anything more herself. Instead, she fell to staring outward, sometimes into the distances, sometimes into the deeps. Her vivacity had left her. He could not tell what was rising in its place.
Time streamed past on the wind. The racers laid Ysan land abaft and entered Roman Bay.
Though Carsa used every trick of seamanship that was his, it became clear this craft would not arrive first at the goal. He nerved himself to say it. “I’m sorry, my lady. We should be among the earlier ones.” Dahut shrugged. Her gaze stayed remote.
Now he made out the remnant of Garomagus. An islet guarded the mouth of a stream emptying into the bight. Behind it were roofless walls and gaping doorways. The view east, dead ahead, was more comforting, buildings strewn toylike. He could not be sure, though, which were inhabited, and certainly the signs of civilization were few; woods had overrun much of the land. It came to him that most of the clearing and plowing must be reclamation after King Gratillonius had given peace to these parts.
He pointed. “Look!” he cried. “The beach we want. The smoke of the coolcfires.”
Dahut threw back her cowl—light flared over braided hair—and cocked her head. Was she listening to the waves?
“The wind’s fallen,” Carsa went on after a while, in search of talk. “That northern headland blocks it. However, well have enough to make our goal.” Several craft were already clustered there. The larger had dropped anchor and employed tenders to bring their people ashore, the smaller were aground.
Dahut shook herself. She regarded him where he stood in the stern, as if across miles or through sea depths. “Don’t.” Her voice was faint, but he heard her clearly.
Startled, he let his hand slip on the tiller. The boat yawed, the sail slatted. “What?”
Dahut turned from his to peer starboard. Her finger lifted. “Go yonder,” she said.
“To Garomagus?” He was appalled. “No, that’s ruins. I can’t take you there.”
She rose, felinely balanced. While she lacked her full growth, the cloak flapped about her shoulders as if she would take wing, and command flared forth cold as northern lights, in the language of Ys: “Obey! Lir speaks!”
He looked around. No help was in sight. The racers were veering away from him, ardent for landing. Laggards toiled too far aft. Nobody heeded this low little vessel. The King doubtless would have, but his yacht was at the destination.
“Christ help me,” he pleaded, “I must not bring you into d-danger, Princess.”
She scorned the Name. “I have heard Lir in the wind,” she told him. “There is no danger. There is someone I must meet. Steer, or be forever my enemy.”
He surrendered, inwardly cursing his weakness. “If you will have it thus,” he said in her speech. “We cannot stay long. They’ll wonder what’s happened to you and come searching.”
Her slight smile laved his spirit. “We’ll join them in good time. And I’ll remember your service, Carsa.” Then he shuddered a bit, for she added, “The Gods will remember.”
Lest he grow afraid, he devoted himself to sailing. The change of course astounded him, so easily it went; he could not account for it. And how peculiar also, he thought, that nobody whatsoever noticed the currach go astray.
To slip in past the isle looked too risky. Besides, he couldn’t expect to find a useable wharf. He grounded on the beach just east. Its shoreline turned north, an outthrust of land hiding it from the Ysans beyond. Having struck the sail he sprang forward, down onto the sand, and dragged the boat higher. Thereupon he gave Dahut his arm for her disembarkation. She had no real need of that.
Her visage was white, her eyes enormous, she shivered and spoke unevenly: “Wait here. I’ll soon be back.”
“No,” he protested, falling unawares into Latin, “I can’t let you go alone. I won’t. What is it you’re after?”
“I know not,” she whispered. “I have been called.” Her utterance rose to a yell. She stabbed two fingers at him. “Abide! Let me go by myself! I lay on you the gess that you not follow, by the power of Belisama, Taranis, and almighty Lir!”
Whirling about, she ran off, over the dunes, through the harsh grass that bordered them, past the snags of a defensive wall, in among the houses. She was gone. A cormorant flew black overhead.
Mechanically, Carsa reached for the anchor rode and made the currach secure. What else could he do?
What else? It struck him in a hammerblow. She had forgotten that he was no pagan, to cower before the demons she called Gods or heed a word she had merely, childishly laid on him. He was a Roman. Anybody might skulk hereabouts. He would follow, and be ready to defend her. He wished he had brought his sling. However, a knife was at his belt, and he got the boathook.
Of course, chances were that this place was quite deserted, apart from ghosts and devils. Best would be that she never know of his disobedience. He’d stay cautious…. A haze had begun to dim the day. Wind had swung west and blew louder, colder. He summoned up courage to move forward.
Her trail was clear. Dust and sand had drifted into the streets to take footprints; plants grew to be bruised; her tread had splintered potsherds and displaced brickbats, as his did. He was vaguely glad that tracking kept his mind off what surrounded him. Weather had long since bleached the stains of fire and blood, but likewise colors, every human trace. Lichen was patiently gnawing walls which enclosed vacancy.
He found her at the mouth of the stream. It was an abrupt sight, as he came around a building, A few yards away, she knelt on a patch of silver-gray grass, limned athwart the islet beyond. He crammed himself back against the gritty wall and peered with a single eye. Sounds reached him above the shrilling of the wind, mutter of brook and bay, half-heard rolling of Ocean.
She knelt before a seal that had crawled out of the water. Its coat shimmered golden-dark. Her arms were around its neck, her face pressed to its head, hidden from him. He heard her weep. He heard the seal hum, a deep plangency he had not known such a creature could make. A flipper reached to stroke Dahut’s locks.
Christ have mercy, to this had the dream-voice called her, she who began the day so blithe. Carsa’s knuckles whitened on the boathook shaft. Almost, he dashed to attack the soulless thing and save Dahut.
But she began to sing too. Her tone came thin and small; he was not sure how he made it out through wind and tide and the mewing of the kittiwakes. Somehow he knew that she was turning into Ysan words, for her own understanding, as well as she could in the middle of grief, the song that the seal sang.
“Harken, my darling. Hear me through.
Little I have to tell.
Now at the last I come to you,
To bid you for aye farewell.
“Here what I say ere I depart,
That which I think you ween.
You were the child beneath my heart
When I was your father’s Queen.
“Torn from my side one winter night
Out in a wrathful sea,
You are the child whose fate takes flight
Beyond what is given me.
“Kiss me, my sea-child, ere we part
As it was long foreseen.
He that shall rip away my heart
Came down from the North yestre’en.”
Carsa stole off. At the boat, he prayed to Christ. Presently, Dahut returned. Beneath the cowl, her face was blank, a visor. As empty was the voice wherein she told him to launch her craft and bring them to the feast.
4
Osprey had fared under oars to the nets placed out the day before. Those having been tended, the smack sailed back, trawling. Her course brought her past Goat Foreland and across the mouth of Roman Bay. Heaven had drawn a veil across earlier brightness, the sun had gone wan and the air mordant. Then wind, stiffening, swu
ng around until it blew almost straight out of the west.
Maeloch swore. Water chopped gray-green. Whitecaps began to star it. Land lay shadowy at the eastern horizon but rose and grew closer as it bent west; even across five or so leagues he made out the cliffs of Point Vanis, which he must round. Spraddle-legged against the rolling of his deck, he growled, “Well nay be free of another haul at the sweeps, seems.” A fisher captain took his turn on the benches.
A crewman laughed. “Well, nor will yon fine yachtsmen.”
“Ah, they’ve hirelings to sweat for ’em,” said another.
“Belay that,” Maeloch ordered. “Be ye rabble for Nagon Demari to rant at? The Queens, the King, the Suffetes, they’re as much Ys as ye and me…. We’ll try how far we can beat upwind ere we run out of sea room.”
The men moved toward the sheets to haul the sail around. He lifted a hand. “Nay, hold a moment.” He went to the port rail and squinted. A swimmer had come in sight, outbound from the bay.
“Seal,” declared a sailor. “Ill fetch my sling and give him a taste.” The animals were sacred, but they had to be discouraged from raiding fishnets.
“Not that ’un,” Maeloch answered. “I know her. D’ye see the golden sheen in her pelt? She’s the pet of Princess Dahut.” Recalling certain things he had witnessed, he drew the Hammer sign of protection with his forefinger, furtively, lest others notice and go uneasy. He himself did not feel threatened, but this was an uncanny beast.
The seal came alongside. She lifted her upper body out of the waves. Her gaze met Maeloch’s and lingered for heartbeats. How soft those eyes were.
She swarn onward, falling aft of the boat, heading into the boundlessness of Ocean.
“Fin ho!” bawled a man.
Maeloch ran to the starboard side and leaned out. Breath whistled in between his teeth. He knew that high black triangle, seldom though its bearers came this far south. “Orca,” he muttered.
The killer whale veered. Maeloch realized where it was aimed. Did the seal? She swam on as if blind. Not that she could escape that rush—“To oars!” Maeloch shouted. “Bring us around! Ye, Donan, get my harpoon!”
Water foamed with speed. The black shape broke surface. Flukes drove it forward faster than Maeloch knew his craft could ever move. He glimpsed its belly, white as snow, white as death.
It struck. He seemed to feel the shock in his own guts. The mighty jaws sheered and closed. Hunger and prey plunged under.
“Belay,” Maeloch said dully. “We’ll nay see either of them again.”
Blood colored the waves, so broad a stain that he could hope the seal had died instantly.
“Stand by to come about,” Maeloch said. “We’re going home.”
It tore from him a croak: “How shall I tell the little princess?”
5
“Follow her,” Bodilis urged.
Gratillonius hesitated. “She’d fain be alone. I’ve seen her thus erenow.”
Forsquilis shook her head. “Something terrible happened this day. I know not what, but I heard ghosts wailing in the wind.”
“Never mind that,” said Fennalis. “I can tell when a girl needs her daddy. Go, you lout!”
Gratillonius reached decision, nodded, and hastened down the gangplank. Dahut had already passed between two warehouses and disappeared.
The Roman youth Carsa stood forlorn on the dock, staring in that direction. His throat worked. He had debarked at her heels, obviously offering—begging—to accompany her. She dismissed him with a chopping gesture and some or other word that crushed him. Earlier, she had quite neglected him, first at the beach when they joined the rest, afterward aboard the royal yacht when her currach was towed. But then, she had shunned everybody, giving the shortest answers if directly spoken to, sitting at the trestle table with food untasted before her or wandering off by herself down the strand. The change from her cheeriness of the morning was like a fall into an abyss. It had spoiled the revel for Gratillonius; he must force himself to be jovial.
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 h
and. 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.”
Gallicenae Page 33