Dahut

by Poul Anderson

  Rivelin appeared, saluted her and the King, made his own examination. “I fear we have no clean break, but a splintering,” he said. “She’ll be slow to heal, at best, and mayhap crippled. The sooner we put traction on it, the better. I’ve need of a colleague to help, a man with strong hands.”

  “Here I am,” said Gratillonius.

  “What?” The physician mastered his surprise. Whispers had long gone about concerning surgery the King performed once on Sena; and many had seen him competently treat injuries due battle or accident. “Well, my lord, let me describe for you what force must be applied, and put you through the motions, while we send after the necessary materials.”

  —When Gratillonius emerged, he found six women gathered in the corridor. His shoulders sagged and he had begun to tremble a bit. Sweat made blots on his tunic below the arms and reeked around him. “It went well,” he told his wives and daughter, dull-voiced. “Rivelin is finishing now, with Innilis’s help.”

  “Would you give her naught for the pain? Would you not allow that?” Vindilis snapped.

  “Nay, Sister,” Tambilis protested.

  “Innilis dared not drug her when she had gone so cold,” Gratillonius said. “Besides, when we began the work she swooned. Later she’ll get something so she can rest quietly. I did not… enjoy myself.” His glance sought Dahut. “It must needs be done.”

  The maiden made no response. “Oh, Grallon,” Tambilis whispered, and moved toward him, her hands outheld. Lanarvilis pulled at her sleeve and hissed in her ear. Tambilis halted. Tears in her lashes caught what light there was.

  Dahut stirred. “Let me go in to her,” she said. “I will give her the Touch. Shell suffer less and heal properly.”

  Forsquilis frowned. “Nay, best not. Not now, not here. The house of the Goddess, and you unconsecrated—Mayhap later, when Rivelin’s let her go home.”

  “I may not help my sister, I may not keep Vigil—I may not be Queen, thanks to you!” Dahut shrilled at her father.

  “I’m leaving,” he said. “Have someone keep me informed and tell me when I can call on her.”

  He walked off. Tambilis half moved to follow, but checked herself. “Patience, my dear,” Lanarvilis admonished after the man was gone.

  “But he is so alone, so unhappy,” Tambilis pleaded. “You act as if this were his fault.”

  “Was it not?”

  “Let that be. Unwise it is to talk about such things,” warned Forsquilis. She went to embrace Tambilis. “I understand. All that you are cries out to go to him. I miss him too, the big sad sobersided lost soul. But this is the sacrifice we must make.”

  “Punish him,” Vindilis said, “starve his lust, punish him until he gives in. Not that he will ever again have me. But you others, make him pay. You are the instruments of the Gods.”

  “He may force himself on us, now that he can’t have Guilvilis,” said Maldunilis, not altogether fearfully.

  Lanarvilis shook her head. “Nay. Give him his due. He is no Colconor. He will not squander the respect we still have for him, nor antagonize us worse at a time when he needs every ally he can find.”

  “But what shall we do?” asked Tambilis miserably.

  “What we have been doing since he spurned his bride—naught. Give him no invitations. Decline any he gives us. Be coldly polite in conference. When at last he seeks us out, receive him likewise. When he speaks of bed, tell him calmly that he has broken the sacred marriage, not we, and we think the Gods have made an example of Guilvilis. That should deter him—that, and his injured male pride. If not, if he does press suit, well, ’tis for each of us to decide, but if outright refusal fails, then I think we should lie down and send our minds away. He is not such a blockhead that he will not know it.”

  “If I can do that,” Tambilis whispered.

  Forsquilis bit her lip. “Twill not be easy,” she said. “Remember, though, we do it for him too, that he be brought to make his peace with the Gods.”

  “How long must we?”

  Forsquilis spread her hands. “As long as necessary—or as possible. Meanwhile hope, pray, seek what small spells we might cast. Who knows what can happen?… Dahut, what’s wrong?”

  The princess had started. She recovered herself. “Nothing,” she said. Acridly: “Nothing and everything. A thought passed through me.”

  “What was it?” Vindilis asked.

  Dahut looked away. “A fleeting thing. Let me pursue it further.”

  “Have a care, child. Take counsel with your Sisters. Ever were you prone to recklessness.”

  Dahut flushed. “The Gods will watch over me,” she said, and stalked off.

  2

  Weather continued windy, cloudy, raw. The sun blinked in and out of sight while shadows swept a darkling sea where white horses went at gallop until they reared up against the reefs. The noise pervaded Ys, a murmur in Hightown, a rumble and boom and monstrous sighing where the wall stood off the waters. The gate was open, but pilots gave its floats a wide berth.

  Tommaltach and Carsa paced the top between Northbridge and the Gull Tower. They had been drinking in Carsa’s apartment and decided some sharp air was in order before they supped. Save for the posted guards, nobody else was there. Surf roiled among the rocks below, burst, recoiled in swirls and smothers of foam.

  “I wonder that the people take not this as a sign their Gods are angry,” said the Roman. His gesture encompassed the bleakness and the time through which it had prevailed. He spoke in Ysan, the language the two young men had in common; as yet, Tommaltach’s Latin was halting.

  “Why, ’tis naught unusual,” the Scotian replied. “You’ve not dwelt here long enough. At home we’d call it an autumn mild and dry.”

  Carsa brightened. “Then you think ’twill not make things harder for Gratillonius?”

  “Ah, is that what gnaws at you? Well, me too, me too.”

  “No offense meant, my friend, but you are a pagan, albeit not of the Ysan kind. You understand these folk better than a Christian from the South can.”

  “I am an initiate of Mithras,” said Tommaltach stiffly.

  “I know.” Carsa laid a hand on the other’s arm. “Would that you had taken the true Faith! But what I meant was that you, hailing from among heathens, you can see how the evil works within the souls of men. And you’ve relieved me. Thank you.”

  Tommaltach regarded him a while as they walked before he said slowly, “You hope Grallon will—be able to—hold out against marrying his daughter.”

  “Hope?” Carsa exclaimed. “I pray! Daily, more than daily, prostrate, I implore God to keep her pure.” He snapped after breath. “Do you not?”

  Tommaltach searched for words, which was unlike him. “Well, if Dahut becomes truly a high priestess of Ys, there goes many a dream. I’ve never heard that any of them ever took a lover. And if her father says Mithras forbids it, I believe him, though I’m still ignorant of most of the Mysteries. Yet what’s to become of the poor darling? How can she ever be free to make her own life? Wonderful beyond wonder, could she become the sort of Queen we have at home. How likely, though, is that? First and foremost comes her welfare.”

  “Mean you,” asked Carsa harshly, “that if her father yields and—the defilement—happens—you would let it go unavenged?”

  “He is my Father in Mithras,” Tommaltach said with difficulty.

  “I have sworn before God,” stated Carsa, “that if he does it to her, I will kill him.”

  3

  The full moon fled through clouds. They were silver where it touched them, elsewhere smoke and swiftness. The light shuddered over earth. Wind blew icy down the valley, a hollow whistling. It ripped dead leaves off trees and scourged them along the road where Dahut ran.

  She turned in at the Sacred Precinct and stopped. Breath gusted in and out of her. A cloak flapped about her shoulders. Its cowl had fallen back and stray locks fluttered from hastily woven braids. The paving of the yard flickered wan as light came and went, between three h
ulks of blackness. The Challenge Oak and the Wood behind groaned. Now and then the Hammer swung against the Shield and a faint ringing thrilled forth.

  Dahut raised her arms. The Red Lodge lay darkened, King and attendants were asleep, but somebody might easily awaken. She began to chant. “Ya Am-Ishtar, ya Baalim, ga’a vi khuwa—”

  The spell cast, she moved forward soft-footed. A moonbeam showed her lips drawn back, teeth bared, the grin of a warrior in battle.

  Nonetheless she paused whenever the old wooden stairs creaked beneath her weight; and she moved the doorlatch with utmost caution, and opened the door an inch at a time. As soon as the gap was wide enough she slipped through and at once closed it, as quietly as might be.

  A while she listened. Through night sounds muffled by walls, she heard a couple of snores from the benches where men lay. At first the hall was tomb-dark, then she gained sufficient vision to make them out, barely. The pillar idols loomed clearer, more real than they. “Taranis, lover of Belisama, be with me, the beloved of Lir,” she whispered.

  Cat-careful, she made her way over the floor. A banked fire in a trench warned her off with a few blood-colored stars. At the interior door, she must feel about until she found its latch. The passage beyond was less murky, for windows had been let into this rebuilt half and the weather was not so tumultuous as to require that they be shuttered. Their glass shifted between moonlight milkiness and gaping black, but always blind, nothing truly seeable through them, as if she had gone outside the world.

  The door to the royal bedroom stood ajar. She shut it after she had passed through and, again, poised wary for several score heartbeats. The single window here was on the west, and the moon had not yet reached the zenith; thus the brightest that entered was an uneasy gray. She could just see Gratillonius. He lay on his side. An arm and shoulder above the blanket were bare. In the middle of the huge bed, he seemed very alone.

  Dahut sat down on the floor to take off her sandals, lest she make a noise. Rising, she unfastened the fibula that held her cloak and lowered that garment, likewise her belt. There remained a gown, which she pulled over her head.

  For a moment she looked at her body, ran hands across the smooth curves, smiled. Thereafter she spent minutes studying how the chamber was arranged, estimating distances and directions, planning each movement. Finally she padded to the window. When she had drawn the drape that hung beside it, sightlessness engulfed her.

  She glided to the bedside, found the top edge of the sheet, pulled it back, slipped onto the mattress, lay until she was sure Gratillonius had not moved, then pulled the covers over her and edged across to him. He breathed slowly, deeply. The slumber spell held, and for hours it would take more than a touch to awaken him.

  His back was to her. She brought her belly close against the warm solidity. A shiver passed through her. She writhed. Her hips thrust. He stirred a little. She drew slightly back and waited for him to sink anew.

  Thereupon she raised herself to an elbow and brought her mouth down to his ear. A male odor entered her nostrils. His hair and the regrowing beard brushed her lips.

  “Gratillonius,” she whispered, “I am here. I could no longer keep from you, Grallon, my darling, take me now.” Her free hand slid by his waist, across the ridges of muscle, to the loins. She closed fingers on what she found and moved them. The flesh stirred, thickened, lifted. Heat pulsed. “Grallon, King, lord, lover, here is your Queen.”

  “Wh-what?” His voice rumbled unsteadily, dazed. “Who? Tambilis?” He rolled around groped, cupped a breast. “You?” Joy throbbed.

  She flung herself at him, stopped his tongue with hers, cast a thigh over his. Her hand quivered and tugged, urging the bigness whither she wanted it.

  He got to his knees and one palm. “Quickly, mount me quickly,” she said in an undertone that could be any woman’s.

  His other hand stroked. Abruptly it halted. “But you, you’re not Tarn—Fors—who?” he stuttered. It ripped from him: “Dahilis!”

  He pulled out of her clasp. His trembling shook the mattress. “Aye, this is Dahilis come back to you,” Dahut keened and sought after him. He scrambled, thudded to the floor and across it. Dahut yowled.

  Gratillonius hauled the drape downward. The heavy fabric ripped free of its rings. Clouds had briefly parted around the moon. Light cast its patina over Dahut where she crouched on the bed.

  Whoo-oo, said the wind.

  Dahut clambered to her own feet. Tears torrented, agleam in the night. “I would save you,” she implored, “I would have you do the will of the Gods. ’Tis not too late.”

  She stumbled toward him. He lifted crooked-fingered hands. “To this have your Gods brought you, child of mine?” His tone was dead.

  “Oh, father, I’m afraid for you, and I love you so.”

  “You know not what love is, you who… who supposed a man would not know his dear one in the dark. Go. Depart. Now.”

  “Father, comfort me, hold me—”

  She had come nigh enough to see his face turn into a Gorgon mask. “Go!” he roared. “Ere I kill you!”

  Like a bear enraged, he advanced on her. She whirled and fled. Behind her she heard him cry out, “Dahilis, Dahilis!” and began to weep, with the racking sobs of a man unpracticed in it.

  Naked, Dahut ran down the road to Ys. She wept also.

  More and more, the clouds were swallowing the moon. She should be able to pass unseen through High Gate always open in peacetime, as she had left.

  The wind whipped her with cold. Dead leaves tumbled and rattled before her feet. Wings passed overhead, an eagle owl. It vanished with the moon.

  4

  Vindilis called on Lanarvilis at the home of the latter. They sought the private room. Lamps burned to offset the dullness of a rainy noontide. Their glow brought out the blue and vermilion of lush fabrics, ivory and wood grain of fine furniture, sheen of silver and gleam of glass. Vindilis’s gaunt figure, black-clad, was like a denial of it. She sat rigid in a chair facing the couch on which Lanarvilis half slumped.

  Vindilis went straight to the attack: “Already the time is overpast for decision. Those of us who honor the Gods and fear Their wrath must close ranks.”

  “That is… all of us… though we may disagree on what course is wisest,” Lanarvilis said.

  “There can be no question of wisdom. Prudence is madness. Better Ys defy the whole might of Rome than forsake her Gods.”

  “What would you have us do?”

  Vindilis sighed, while her gaze smoldered the fiercer. “Pray for a sign; but meanwhile make ready for it. I’ve sought you first because you are pious, my Sister, far more than some among us. Yet you support Grallon.”

  Lanarvilis straightened. “In his capacity as intercessor for us with Rome. That requires upholding his authority in other respects too. I need not like this nor intend to continue it forever.”

  Vindilis nodded. “I do not say we should denounce him immediately and call for his overthrow. Nor should we suffer his desecrations much longer. Unless he repent and make Dahut, the Chosen one, the mother of the new Age—make her Queen, and do it soon, then somehow he must be broken. Otherwise Rome will have conquered Ys without drawing one sword.”

  Lanarvilis frowned. “Go on.”

  “Let us begin by rallying those of the Nine whom we can. It is bitter to say, but he has deluded certain of us. Poor, stupid Guilvilis; well, the Gods have taken her out of the game for a while. Bodilis—Bodilis wants to believe, with him, that the new Age will be altogether different from the past. Those two we dare not confide in.”

  Lanarvilis bit her lip. “Shall we plot against Sisters of ours? Nay!”

  “I did not call for that. To go on, Innilis is devout, obedient, but she is such a tender and loving person, she hopes this will somehow end happily. We can count on her loyalty, but we must spare her as much pain and anxiety as we can.”

  Lanarvilis smiled wistfully.

  “Maldunilis too wants an easy way out,” Vindilis w
ent on, “though in her ’tis due sluggishness and a sort of lazy lust for him. Another King would serve her as well.”

  “You speak ill of your Sister,” Lanarvilis reproached.

  “I speak truth.”

  “Are you quite sure you do?”

  “Well, we lack time for pussyfooting. Come a crisis, Maldunilis will stand with us, but not firmly. At best, we can reckon she will not take sides against us, now or later.

  “Tambilis is shattered. I fear she loves Grallon more than she adores the Gods. She’s young, healthy, will recover and ask herself if she should go on denying him. We must try to make her find the right answer. She feels closest to Forsquilis, unless it be to Dahut. I think you and I, Lanarvilis, should seek the aid of Forsquilis in rallying Tambilis to us.”

  The other Queen looked uneasy. “But what of Forsquilis herself?”

  “Aye, there’s ever been an enigma there. We can only appeal to her, in whatever way we deem likeliest to succeed.”

  “And afterward?”

  “The Gods will grant a sign in Their time. We who are entirely true to Them should prepare ourselves; then when we know what must be done, do it.”

  5

  Toward evening of the second day after full moon, Dahut appeared at the home of Bodilis. Hitherto she had kept within her own house and bidden her servants turn visitors away.

  Weather had abated, going colder but calm, clear in the east and overhead. Westward, though, cloud masses piled blue-black and the sky around the sun was a bleak green. Shadow was beginning to fill the bowl of Ys.

  Dahut knocked. Bodilis opened the door. “Welcome,” said the woman low. “Oh, thrice welcome, child. I’m so glad you heeded my message. Come in.”

  Dahut entered. Her stance, face, entire body bespoke resentment. “What do you want?” she demanded.

  “That we talk, of course. I’ve dismissed the staff. Here, give me your cloak, let’s seek the scriptorium.”