Dahut

by Poul Anderson

  The girl bit her lip; blood trickled. She blinked and blinked her eyes. He longed, as he had rarely longed in his life, to hug her to him and comfort her, the pair of them alone. “Dahut,” he said, “hear me. I w-w-want your well-being. This thing would, would not be right. Nay, you’ll be the first princess, the first Queen, who was free to, well, to let her own prince find her.”

  At the edge of attention, he saw Lanarvilis wince. Dahut shook her head and cried raggedly, “My King is the King of the Wood!”

  Bodilis spoke, flat-voiced. “The wedding should be this day. Go through with it. That will calm the city. Afterward we—you will have time to decide.”

  He felt heat in his brows, chill in his belly. “I know better than that. We twain would be led to the bridal chamber, and once there I would be helpless. First will I fall on my sword. Bodilis, I looked not for you to try and trick me.”

  She shrank back into herself.

  Tambilis stirred. “But is it so dreadful?” she pleaded. “You and I—we grew happy. ’Twas at my mother’s cost, but—why, Grallon? Why should we not welcome Dahut, whom we love, into our Sisterhood?”

  “The law of Mithras forbids,” he answered with a surge of anger. “A man without law is a beast. Enough. I told you, this stands not to be altered. Shall we go on making noise, or shall we plan what to do for Ys?”

  Vindilis bared teeth. “Because of your sacrilege on Point Vanis, I have denied my body to you,” she flung. “What if all we Nine do likewise? You can have no other woman.”

  “And you, you would not be like Colconor, you would not,” Innilis quavered.

  Gratillonius was mainly conscious of his sadness for Dahut. He made a one-sided smile. “Nay,” he said, “but I told you, a man ought to be more than a beast. I’ll have my duties to occupy me.”

  “I’ll never forsake you!” Guilvilis half screamed.

  Before anyone could reprove her, Forsquilis leaned forward. It was like a cat uncoiling. “Grallon, you have right, as far as you’ve bespoken it,” she said. “We do not know what this portends. I fear ’tis a war between Gods, but we do not know. King and Queens, Sisters, night is upon us, the stars have withdrawn and the moon has not risen. We must tread warily, warily.

  “Grallon speaks truth. He cannot wed Dahut, not while he abides with Mithras. We may in time persuade him otherwise; or we may learn that his insight, into the Gods Who are not his, was better than ours. Neither outcome is possible for enemies. We can only find our way, whatever our way is, we can only find it together.

  “I have no new omens. Mayhap none of us will be vouchsafed any. But this much 1 feel.”

  “’Tis plain good sense,” Bodilis murmured.

  “What should we do, then?” Maldunilis ventured, pitiably hopefully of an answer.

  Forsquilis gave it: “Since this is a thing that never erstwhile came upon Ys, we have a right to be slow and careful. We must be honest before the people; I think then they will accept, although—” she actually flashed a grin—“The words we use to tell them, the show we put on for them, those must be artistry. Give Dahut her honors and dues as a Queen, of course; but let the wedding be postponed until the will of the Gods is more clear. Meanwhile, let us not weaken the sacred marriage by an open quarrel.

  “I feel that thus we may win through to a resolving, to the new Age itself. But—”

  Suddenly Forsquilis rose. Her skirts rustled with her haste as she went to Dahut. The girl got up, bewildered, to meet her. Forsquilis clasped Dahut close. “Oh, darling child,” she said, “yours will be the most hurtful part. I sense, it whispers in me, all that is to come will spring from you, how you bear your burdens and, and what road you choose to fare.”

  Gratillonius saw his daughter cling hard to his wife, then step back with strength. His spirit went aloft, more than was really reasonable. “Gallicenae,” he said, “soon I must meet with spokesmen of the Suffetes. Can we decide what I shall tell them?”

  3

  In the event it was Soren whom he first saw, the two men by themselves in the private room of the palace.

  “Nay,” Gratillonius declared, “I will not call another Council.”

  “Why not?” Soren fairly snarled. They stood within fist range of each other and glared. Evening made dim the chamber, which brought forth the whiteness of Soren’s eyeballs, streaks in his beard, bald pate. “Dare you not go before us?”

  “I’ll do that regardless later this month, at equinox. By then we’ll know better what’s to come of this, and we’ll have been thinking. I hope you and your kind will have been thinking. If we gathered earlier, ’twould be a shouting match, not only futile but dangerous.”

  “You speak of danger, you who’d bring the curse of the Gods down on Ys?”

  “Ah, do you sit among Them, that you are sure what They will do—what They can do? Have the Turones fallen to famine or plague since Bishop Martinus tore down their old halidoms and made Christians of them? Here I am, a mortal man; and I go daily out beneath the sky. Let the Gods strike at me if They choose. My business is with my fellow men.”

  “Those may well become the instruments of the Gods, lest the whole nation suffer.”

  Gratillonius shook his head and smiled without merriment. “Beware, Soren Cartagi. You think of the worst sacrilege, the murder of the blood-anointed King. I do not believe any Ysan would raise hand against me. That would destroy the very thing you’d fain preserve. Nay, I expect instead the people will rally behind me once they’ve heard my case and thought on it. For I am their leader, and I am their mediator with Taranis.”

  “I’ve something else in mind,” Soren rasped.

  Gratillonius nodded. “Aye. Another sequence of challenges from outside. Sooner or later I must fall. ’Tis been done in the past, when a King grew intolerable. But you will not do it; you will seek out your colleagues and make them refrain too, as the Gallicenae have already decided to refrain.”

  Soren folded arms across his massive chest and compressed his lips before he said, “Explain why.”

  “You know why, if you’ll stop to think. Ys is in peril from worse than Gods. I cannot provoke Governor Glabrio further by accusing him of connivance at the Frankish invasion, but there is no doubt. When I sent him a complaint against them, the reply was days late in coming, surly in tone, and dictated by Procurator Bacca—a studied insult. It berated me for attacking and killing subjects of the Emperor, rather than negotiating any differences between us. It said my ‘murderous blunder’ is being reported to the vicarius in Lugdunum, together with a list of my other malfeasances.”

  Soren stood quiet while dusk deepened, until he said low: “Aye, we know somewhat of this.”

  “You’d have seen the letter for yourselves as soon as my Watch in the Wood was up.”

  “What do you propose to do?”

  “Send a letter of my own to Lugdunum, by the fastest courier Ys can supply. I may well have to go in person later and defend myself. That will be tricky, mayhap impossible. The Franks were unruly, but as laeti they provided Redonia its strongest defense. Now the flowers of them are reaped, the spirit of the rest broken. Ys remains obstinately pagan, its traders cause folk to desire more than the Empire provides, its freedom undermines subservience.

  “Nevertheless, I am a Roman officer. Let Rome’s prefect here be slain, and that will be the very pretext Glabrio longs for. He could well persuade the Duke to order an invasion. At worst they’d be reprimanded afterward for exceeding their authority, and their part of the booty would doubtless be ample compensation for that.

  “If you are wise, you will do whatever you can to keep challengers out of the Wood!”

  “Can you win your case before the vicarius?” Soren asked slowly.

  “I said ’twill belike prove harder than any combat for the Key. I am no diplomat, no courtier. But I do somewhat know my way through that labyrinth the government. And I do have influential friends, Bishop Martinus the nearest. It all makes me the sole man who has any hope o
f keeping Rome off.”

  “Suppose you fail with the vicarius.”

  “Well, I’ll not tamely let him revoke my commission. Above him is the praetorian prefect in Treverorum, to whom I’ll appeal,” Gratillonius reminded. “And beyond him is Flavius Stilicho, ruler of the West in all but name. He’s a soldier himself. I think likely he can be made to agree that Ys is worth more as an ally against the barbarians, however annoying to the state, than as a ruin. But he will want a fellow legionary overseeing it. And I am the only prefect who, as King, would command the support and obedience of the Ysan folk—and, at the same time, try to preserve the rights, the soul, of the city. Ys needs me.”

  Soren brooded for a long spell. Gratillonius waited.

  Finally the Speaker for Taranis said, “I fear you are right. I must get to work on your behalf, and afterward with you.”

  “Good!” Gratillonius moved to give him the clasp of friendship.

  Soren drew back. Sick hatred stared from the heavy visage. “Need drives me, naked need,” he said. “Perforce, in public I shall hold back the words about you that are in my heart. But know, beyond your damnable usefulness against your Romans, you have my curse, my wish for every grief in the world upon your head, blasphemer, traitor, wrecker of lives.”

  He turned and departed.

  4

  The funeral barge stood out the sea gate on a morning ebb, bearing death’s newest harvest in Ys. Weather had turned gray and windy. Whitecaps on olive-hued waves rocked the broad hull and cast spindrift stinging across its deck. The evergreen wreath on the staff amidships dashed about at the end of its tether. Under the spiral-terminated sternpost, two steersmen had the helm and the coxswain tolled his gong, setting rhythm for the oarsmen below. By its copy forward, the captain kept lookout. Somberly clad deckhands went about their tasks. The dead lay shrouded on litters, a stone lashed to each pair of ankles, along the starboard rail. Elsewhere their mourners sat on benches or gathered in small groups, saying little. Among them on this trip were the King and the Gallicenae, who would be the priestesses because a Sister of theirs was going away.

  Gratillonius stood apart, looking off to the dim streak that was Sena. Thus had he often traveled over the years, when someone fallen required special honor, since the day they buried Dahilis. Always at least one Queen had been at his side. Today none of them had spoken a word to him.

  When out on deep water, the captain signalled halt. The gongbeat ceased, the rowers simply holding the vessel steady. A trumpeter blew a call that the wind flung away. The captain approached the Gallicenae and bowed to Lanarvilis, who was now the senior among them. Ritually, he requested that she officiate. She walked into the bows, raised her hands, and chanted, “Gods of mystery, Gods of life and death, sea that nourishes Ys, take these our beloved—”

  When the invocation was done, she unrolled a scroll and from it read the names, in order of death. Each time, sailors brought that litter to a chute, Lanarvilis said, “Farewell,” the men tilted their burden and the body slid down over the side, into the receiving waves.

  How small was Fennalis’s. Gratillonius had never thought of her like that.

  At the end, the trumpet sounded again, a drum beneath. There was then a silence, for remembrance or prayer, until the captain cried, “About and home!” Oars threshed to the renewed gongbeat, the barge wallowed around, it crawled back toward the wall and towers of Ys.

  Gratillonius felt he must pace. As he commenced, he saw that the Nine had partly dispersed. Dahut was alone at the starboard rail. His heart thuttered. Quickly, before he could lose courage, he went to her. “My dearest—” he began.

  She swung avidly about. “Aye?” she exclaimed. “You’ve seen what’s rightful? Oh, Fennalis, may the Gods bear you straightway to my mother!”

  Gratillonius retreated, appalled. “Nay,” he stammered, “you, you misunderstand, I only wanted to talk between us—when we land, a chance to explain—”

  Her face whitened. So did her knuckles where they gripped the rail after she turned her back on him.

  He left her and trudged, round and round, round and round.

  A hand touched his. He grew aware that Guilvilis had joined him. Slow tears coursed over her cheeks. “You are so unhappy,” she said. The tip of her long nose wiggled. “Can I help? Is there aught I can do for you, lord, aught at all?”

  He choked back wild laughter. She meant well. And this could be the start of healing the wound. Whether or no, at least with her he would not fail or flag, he could lose himself in the Bull—even closing his eyes and pretending, maybe—until he lost himself in sleep. “Aye,” he muttered. “Excuse yourself from any duties that wait and come to me at the palace.” It was where his armed men were. He did not require protection anymore, if ever he had, and soon he would dismiss them, but meanwhile their presence enabled him to overawe some of his angry visitors. “Be prepared to stay a goodly time.”

  She sobbed for joy. That was the most sorrowful thing he had seen this day.

  5

  The marines and navy men returned, full of stories about their experiences. Their friends met them with tales to overwhelm those.

  Herun Taniti came upon Maeloch and Cynan, among others, in a tavern. This was not their disreputable old haunt in the Fishtail, but the Green Whale. The skipper had prospered over the years, like most working men of Ys, while the naval officer and legionary had pay saved, together with proceeds from modest businesses they and their families conducted on the side.

  After cheery greetings and a round of drink—

  “Do folk truly, by and large, feel the King does right?” Herun asked. “I should think many would be cowering in fear. How shall the world now be renewed?”

  “Well, the fish ha’ been running as plentiful as ever I saw, and no storms spoiled the crops, nor did rot strike once they were in, nor a murrain fall on the kine,” grunted Maeloch. “I’d say nature steers a straight course yet.”

  “Such as I’ve talked with, whether Suffete or commoner, and they’re not few in my line of work, they’re becoming content again,” added Zeugit the landlord. This being a slack time of day, he could sit a while and gossip with these customers. “Many were alarmed at first, but when naught untoward happened, well, they’re apt to reckon that dealings with the Gods are for the King, and surely this King, before all Ys has had, knows what he does.”

  “Young men sometimes get downright eager,” put in the courtesan Taltha. She was there as much for her learning and conversational abilities as for beauty and lovemaking. “They talk of a new Age, when Ys shall become glorious, aye, mayhap succeed Rome as mistress of the world.”

  Zeugit glanced around. The room was spacious, clean, sunny, muraled with fanciful nautical images. Only one other of the tables had men benched at it, intent on their wine and a dice game. Nevertheless he dropped his voice.

  “Truth is, few will avow it, but I think the faith of most has been shaken by what’s happened; and it could not be shaken so much had its roots not grown shallow. Well, this is a seaport. Under Grallon, ’tis become a busy seaport, strangers arriving from everywhere, with ways and Gods that are not those of our fathers, back when Ys lay for hundreds of years drawn into its shell. More and more of us fare abroad, and carry home not just goods but ideas. Aye, change is in the air, you can smell it like the sharpness before a lightning storm.”

  “Men who’ve come to think ’twas not Taranis but Mithras Who appeared on Point Vanis, they’re starting to seek initiation into that cult,” Taltha said. “Myself, I’ll stay with Banba, Epona—They are female. They will hear me.” She signed herself. “And Belisama, of course. But it may well be that She has a unique destiny in mind for Princess Dahut.”

  “Well, between us, I might seek out Mithras too,” Zeugit confessed, “save that ’twould harm my business. Also, I’m a bit old for learning new mysteries, or for that little branding iron. No disrespect, sir,” he said to Mithraist Cynan.

  “No offense taken,” replied
the soldier in his solemn fashion. “We seek no converts like the Christians, who’d conscript them. The legionaries of Mithras are all volunteers.” He paused. “Indeed, lately the King sent a man back who’d fain enlist.”

  “What, was he unworthy?” asked Herun. “I’ve heard the cult will take none who’re guilty of certain crimes and vices.”

  Cynan smiled a bit. “We’re not prigs. You ken me. Nay, this is an old comrade of mine from Britannia, Nodens, we’ve marched and messed and worked and fought and talked and gotten drunk together for twenty years or more! I’ll name no names. But he is a Christian, like most in our unit. After the battle, he having seen the vision, he went and sought acceptance by Mithras. Gratillonius—I was there, as it happened—he told this man nay. He was very kind, the way our centurion can be when ’tis called for. But he said, first, this man has a wife and children to think about, here in Ys. If he should travel into Roman country, or the Romans come hither, and they learned he was apostate, it might go hard with his family as well as himself. Second, said Gratillonius, this man is sworn to Christ, and on the whole has had a good life. A man should stand by his master or his God, as long as that One stands him true.”

  “Well spoken,” murmured Herun. He stared into his cup. “Although I must think, I must think deeper—” Raising his glance: “What say you, Maeloch?”

  The fisher shrugged. “Let each do what he deems right, whatever it be, and we need think no less of him,” he answered. “Me, I’ll abide with the old Gods. To do else would be to break faith with the dead.”

  6

  Dahut inherited the house that had been Fennalis’s, and immediately set about having it made over. For any purpose she chose, she could draw upon the Temple treasury without limit—she, a Queen. Those of her Sisters who saw the accounts thought her extravagant, but forbore to protest at once and commanded that minor priestesses keep silence likewise. Let Dahut indulge herself this much; she had enough difficulties.