Dahut

by Poul Anderson

  Suddenly her gaze and her voice were an oncoming winter. “Done is done,” she said, “and splendid it was, and may we have many more times in the same heaven. But you know—do you not?—that ours was a mortal misdeed, and we must both die, unless you do the single thing that can make the world right again.”

  5

  Gratillonius woke slowly. Fragments of dream crisscrossed his awareness, glittery, like spiderwebs in a forest seen bedewed by the earliest sunlight. They faded away after he opened his eyes. He did not know what hour it was, but brightness seeped by the drapes to make a luminous twilight in the room. Well past dayspring, he guessed drowsily.

  And the day? Aye—he chuckled within himself that he was thinking in Ysan—Hunter’s Moon ongoing. Tonight it would be completely full. He thought that if this calm weather held, he and Tambilis might walk a ways on the road and enjoy its beauty. That should not count as abandonment of his Watch, provided they return here. Last night they had been too busy.

  She slept still, curled toward him, her face dim beneath a tangle of hair. How lovely she was. Most women showed at their homeliest now. He stretched his mouth in a smile while he stretched his muscles—carefully, not to rouse her—and breathed the warmth of her. Let her rest. They had today, tonight, and the following day and night before this retreat ended and he must go back to being King, prefect, centurion. After she met him on Aquilonian Way they had delightedly conspired how he could slough off obligations during this while….

  Poor lass, she would have her own troubles to cope with. But together, shield beside shield, they would prevail, make enemies into allies, restore what was lost, and, aye, in the minds of men conquer territory for Dahut, for her to reign happy too.

  He slipped out from under the blankets. Air nipped him. He would dress and, after prayers, run around the Wood before they broke their fast.

  A sound struck through. He froze in place. It had been faint, muffled, he must have mistaken some clatter from the hall…. It sought him again, and again: the hammer-tolling of challenge.

  6

  At first he could not believe who stood there at the oak. Had he fallen back asleep and into nightmare? No, he thought in a remote place, that could not be. He was too clearly conscious of leafless boughs overhead, scratchiness of the woolen tunic he had flung on, the breeze flowing cold around his bare legs and the flagstones cold beneath his bare feet. Next he thought a mistake must have happened. If Tommaltach was drunk, say, one need not take a childish prank seriously. But Tommaltach stood steady before him, arrayed in a Scotic kilt which was neatly wrapped around his otherwise naked lean muscularity, a long sword scabbarded across his back and a small round shield in his left hand; the black hair was combed to his shoulders, the handsome visage newly scrubbed, the gaze fire-blue—

  All at once it wavered. Tears glimmered forth. “Will you not say a word to me?” Tommaltach screamed like a man under torture.

  “What can I say?” Gratillonius answered woodenly.

  “You could ask me why.” Tommaltach sobbed breath after breath into himself. “Or curse me or, or anything.”

  “You mean to fight me?”

  “I do that.” In tearing haste: “It must be. You will not do what you should. You will not let Dahut be what the Gods have chosen her to be. You must die, Grallon, though my own heart die with you.”

  “I, your Father in Mithras.” Immediately Gratillonius regretted his words. He had not imagined they would be so cruel. Tommaltach cowered back from them.

  He recovered his courage fast. Gratillonius admired that. “I have eaten your salt too,” Tommaltach blurted. “Mithras witness, this thing is none of my wish. But men have risen against unjust rulers erenow. And you refuse justice to Dahut.”

  He loves her, Gratillonius thought. He loves her in the headlong way of young men, the way I loved Dahilis. I knew that already. It was graven on him, as it is on others I could name. But I did not think it would send him crazy like this. Well, he is a barbarian.

  Aloud, slowly: “Suppose I agree I’ve been wrong, and wed her. Will you take back your call to battle?”

  Tommaltach’s mouth fell open. After a moment he slurred, “Would you be doing that, really?”

  “Suppose I do.”

  Tommaltach rallied. “I cannot be withdrawing, can I?”

  Gratillonius gave him a rueful smile. “Cannot, or will not? Well, it makes no difference. I cannot yield.”

  “Then we must fight.” Tommaltach fell on his knees. He covered his face and wept. “Father, forgive me!”

  Almost, Gratillonius did. But no, he thought, that would be unwise. Here was an opponent young, skilled, vigorous. Let him at least remain shaken.

  “I will dispatch a man to Ys at once,” said the Roman tactician. “Making ready will take an hour or two. Be here in time.” He could not quite bring himself to add, “Traitor.” He turned and went back into the house.

  Tambilis waited. Heedless of staring servants, she fell against him. “Oh, Grallon, Grallon!” He embraced her, stroked her hair, murmured that she should not cry because everything was under control.

  She drew apart and asked desperately, “Shall I bed with your killer? How could I?”

  “Your Gods will strengthen you,” he said.

  She blenched, as Tommaltach had blenched; and like the Scotian she recovered, to tell him: “Nay, I misspoke myself. I’d not matter. ’Tis you that would be no more.”

  He constructed a laugh and chucked her below the chin. “Why, I’ve every intention of abiding in the world for many another year, annoying the spit out of countless fools.”

  Thereafter he issued his orders and commenced his limbering up—no food, no drink except a little water, before combat. His further thoughts he left unvoiced.

  The marine guards with their horses and hounds, and those who held off a clamorous populace down the road; Soren in his vestments; the legionaries in their armor and their distress—it had a ghastly familiarity, another turn of a millstone. Tommaltach seemed calm now; he even bore a faint smile on his lips. Gratillonius wondered how Dahut would receive him unto her, should victory be his. Surely she would grieve at losing her Papa…. But she was not going to.

  Soren finished the ceremony. He added: “May the will of the Gods be done.” Startled, Gratillonius glanced at the heavy features. Implacability responded. In his eyes, Gratillonius realized, I have become another Colconor. That was a lonely feeling.

  He dismissed it and led the way into the Wood.

  At the glade, he halted. “This is where we usually work,” he said. Shake the opponent from any Celtic sense of fate, of possession by his people’s female God of war. Remind him that this Roman sword had terminated earlier lives among these huge winter-bare trees. Heaven overhead was nearly white, the sun a frost-wheel casting skeletal shadows. Grass underfoot lay drained of color.

  “For Dahut,” Tommaltach crooned. “We both fight for Dahut.” The words were Scotic, but sufficiently akin to Britannic or Gallic that Gratillonius understood.

  “Let us begin and be done,” he answered in Latin. He drew his blade, slanted his big Roman shield, shrugged once to make sure his mail was properly settled on him.

  Tommaltach’s iron gleamed forth. He still bore a smile, and in his eyes an otherworldly look. It was not the sleepwalker’s look of Chramn the Frank, but a gaiety beyond anything human. Nevertheless he edged about with the sureness and alertness of a wildcat. Clearly, he meant to offset the mobility of his near nakedness and the length of his weapon against this enemy’s armor. Also youth, wind; he could wear Gratillonius down, until the King lacked strength to bring shield up fast enough.

  The old badger and the young wolf. How very young a wolf!

  Tommaltach kept his sword back, warily, while he circled. Gratillonius turned to face him: smaller radius, easier executed. Clearly, Tommaltach hoped for a chance to strike past the Roman’s guard from a rearward angle, into neck or thigh. Clearly, he understood that as he did, he must hav
e his own shield ready to catch the Roman probe. It was light, quickly maneuverable.

  Gratillonius retreated inchmeal. If he could lure Tommaltach under a tree, as he had lured Chramn—

  Tommaltach refused the bait. He let the distance between them grow. Finally he stood his ground and waited. After all, the King must fight.

  So be it. Gratillonius walked forward.

  The Scotic blade whirred, whined, struck, rebounded, hunted. Wear the badger down.

  But the badger knew how to gauge every oncoming impact, how to shift his shield about and meet it, oh, such a slight shift, consuming hardly any force, while the body kept itself at rest, conserving breath, endlessly watchful.

  Tommaltach backed off, panting. Gratillonius marched in on him.

  Their eyes met, again the strange loverlike intimacy. Tommaltach yelled and cast a torrent of blows. He forgot about his shield. Gratillonius saw, made a roof of his own, suddenly advanced—by slacking off one of the knees he had held tense, so that he swung forward as if on a wave—and struck. The sword went in heavily, above the left hip. Gratillonius wormed it around.

  Tommaltach sank away from the iron. There was an extravagance of blood; there always was. Gratillonius stood aside. Tommaltach gasped something or other, which might or might not have made sense. He pissed, shit, and died.

  XII

  1

  A maidservant admitted Bodilis. Dahut heard and came forth into her atrium. “Welcome,” she said tonelessly. The Queen had sent word ahead, and the younger woman had decided to receive her.

  Bodilis hurried across the floor and embraced the other. “Oh, my dear, my dear,” she said low.

  Dahut stood unresponding and asked, “What do you want?”

  “Can we talk alone?”

  “Come.” Dahut led the way to her private room. Bodilis had hitherto only heard tell of it. She looked around at the clutter of opulence and suppressed a sigh.

  Dahut flung herself into a chair. She was ill-kempt, in a rich but rumpled green dress. Her eyes were reddened and dark-rimmed. “Be seated,” she said, her tone as brusque as the hand-wave that accompanied it. She had made no mention of refreshment.

  Bodilis gathered her gray skirt and settled onto a couch opposite, sitting especially straight. “I feared I’d find you like this,” she began. “Child, can I help? May I? A friend to listen to you, if naught else.”

  Dahut stared past her. “Why think you I need help?”

  “The terrible thing that happened this morning. Tell me not ’tis left you untouched. The marks are branded on you.”

  Dahut slumped silent. Outside, wind shrilled through fitful evening light. The room was overheated.

  “Your father came so near death,” Bodilis said after a while, “and at the hands of your young friend, who did die, at your father’s. You must be torn between joy and grief. Worse—let me be frank—you surely understand the Scotian challenged for love of you, in hopes of winning you. Naught else can explain his action.”

  Still Dahut withheld any answer.

  “Beloved, put away guilt,” Bodilis urged. “How could you be at fault that he went mad? As well blame the reef where a ship strikes, driven by storm and tide. I do hope you can be—nay, not more careful in future—that you can keep this from happening again. Of course, you could not foresee what he would do. But if you make clear ’twas never your desire, nor ever could be—” Her voice faded out.

  Yet she refused to admit defeat. Presently she went on: “Meanwhile, and always, know you have our love, the love of your Sisters. I speak first for myself and Tambilis—”

  Dahut stirred. Her look speared at the visitor. “You’ve seen Tambilis?” she demanded.

  “Aye. After the news reached me, I went out to the Sacred Precinct. We talked long together, she and Gratillonius and I. Most of what we said concerned you. Our foremost wish is for your happiness. It truly is. Will you speak with him after he returns? You know not how your coldness pains him.”

  Dahut turned sullen. “He can end that whenever he chooses. Until then, nay, I will not see him.”

  “Think further. You’ll have time ere he comes back.”

  “Why, ’tis only tomorrow that his Watch ends.”

  “But immediately afterward, he intends a Mithraic funeral for the fallen man.”

  Dahut leaped to her feet. “He dares?” she shrilled.

  Bodilis rose too. “’Tis not the custom, but he forced assent, pointing out that the required rites are separate from the burial. Tommaltach’s will be well away from the city, in earth whose owner gives permission.”

  “Where will the King find such a farmer?” Dahut asked, calming a little.

  “In Osismia. His man Rufinus knows several who’d be glad, thinking that they gain a guardian spirit. He’ll guide the party. They’ll be gone three or four days—Child, what’s wrong?” Bodilis reached to clasp Dahut’s shoulders. “You seemed about to swoon.”

  The young woman sat back down and stared at the floor. “’Tis naught,” she mumbled. “You reminded me—But no matter. I am indeed weary. This has been a… trying day for me.” She forced herself to smile upward. “You’re kind to come and offer comfort. ’Tis like you. But I’d liefest be alone.”

  “Let me brew you a sleeping potion. Then tomorrow when you have rested, remember your father loves you.”

  Dahut made fending gestures. “Aye, aye, aye. But if now you’d be helpful, Bodilis, go and let me deal with myself.”

  The Queen bade a sad goodbye and trudged off.

  Dahut paced the house, twisted her fingers together or struck fist in palm, snarled at any servant who passed close. Finally she snatched a cloak off its peg, drew it about her, and went out.

  The sun had just set. Sea and western sky glimmered yellow. Overhead and eastward the sky was already as dark as a bruise. Tattered clouds smoked before the wind. They filled Ys with dusk. No other people were in sight, but somebody’s pet ferret scuttered across Dahut’s path.

  The way was short to the home of Vindilis. An amazed attendant let Dahut into its austerity. The Queen entered the atrium from within, saw who this was, and said, “Give the maid your wrap. You will stay for supper, no? But we’ll talk at once.”

  She had been busy in her scriptorium. Candlelight fell on Temple accounts and writing materials. The air was cold; she had her hypocaust fired up only in the bitterest weather. She took Dahut’s elbow, guided her to a seat, and brought another around for herself. Face-to-face, knees nearly touching, they leaned forward.

  “Why have you sought me?” Vindilis inquired. Her tone was impersonal.

  Dahut ran tongue over lips. “I need… counsel, help.”

  “That’s plain. But why me?”

  “You are—I think in many ways you’re the strongest of the Nine. Certes you’re the most—the most devoted. To the Gods, I mean.”

  “Hm, that’s a matter of judgment. I’d call Lanarvilis, at least, more pious than myself. Also, she’s ever been the readiest to act in the world as it is, best equipped by temper and experience. She’s on Sena, you know, but tomorrow—”

  Dahut shook her head. “Please, nay. Mayhap I should confide in her too. But she has ties that I think you’re free of.”

  “True, she sometimes puts political considerations above what I might deem to be more important,” Vindilis agreed. “Well, say on, dear, and be quite sure I can keep a secret. ’Tis about the combat today, I suppose.”

  Dahut nodded.

  Vindilis studied her before continuing: “You wish the outcome had been different.” Dahut caught her breath. Vindilis raised a palm. “You need not reply to that. Grallon is your father, who bore you in his arms when you were little, made you toys and told you stories and showed you the stars.”

  “But he’s wrong now,” Dahut cried, “wrong, wrong!”

  “I myself wish Tommaltach had won,” said Vindilis. “The will of the Gods is working more strangely than I can fathom.” Her words softened. “Oh, understand m
e, I do not hate Grallon. I am angry with him beyond measure, but when he does fall I will mourn him in my heart ere I brace myself to endure whatever evils he spared me and the new King does not. Yet he was never a friend of the Gods, and he has become Their avowed enemy. Dahut, you will be far from the only Queen whose King slew her father. Think of him, if you will, as having gone off to dwell with his Mithras.”

  Dahut had regained composure. “Some of the Gallicenae believe we need him still, against Rome.” Her voice was harsh. “Do you?”

  “Lanarvilis maintains that,” Vindilis answered obliquely. “She is reluctant about it, though. Certain among us are wholehearted; they’d fain he never die. And certain others—As for myself, I see the reasoning; but the Gods are not bound by reason.”

  “And you own that you wanted Tommaltach’s victory! I knew you would. ’Tis why I came to you.”

  “Have a care,” Vindilis warned. “You were ever reckless. This is perilous ground we walk.”

  “That’s what I most need counsel and help about.” Dahut went on in a rush: “I fear Rufinus. Tommaltach did what he did for love of me, desire of me. Rufinus knows that. He’ll wonder if more young men may go the same way. He’s threatened me already. He drew knife and vowed to kill me if I plotted against his King. Will he believe I have not? Or will he suppose my mere presence is a mortal danger to Grallon? I fear that smiling man of the woods, Vindilis. Oh, I fear him. Help me!”

  The Queen brought fingers to chin and narrowed her eyes. “Rufinus is no fool,” she murmured. “Nor is he rash. However, he is very observant… and, aye, very much devoted to Grallon.”

  “What shall I do?” Dahut pleaded.

  Vindilis took both her hands. “Be of good heart, beloved child. Your Sisters will keep you safe. I hear Rufinus will be going off with the King to bury Tommaltach. Those few days’ absence should dampen any… impulses. Meanwhile, and afterward, you must cease either brooding alone in your house or haring forth alone into the countryside. Resume your duties as a high priestess. Twill be healthful for your spirits. Twill also keep you surrounded by people, and in the favor of the Gods. Then in Their chosen time, They will see to your destiny.”