Dahut

by Poul Anderson

  “Ah, uh, scarcely here.”

  “Nay. Tell me when you’ll next be at liberty, and well meet in Ys as erstwhile.”

  They set a time and place. “Best we start back, my lady,” Budic said. “Sundown comes apace.”

  “Wisest would be that we not enter the city together,” she answered. “Go first. I—I’d fain be alone here a short while, here in this place where you’ve been so kind. ’Tis as if you’ve left flowers.” She lowered her lashes. “I’ll think on what you’ve counselled, and… whisper to your Christ, if I dare.”

  “Dahut!” he cried in a rush of joy.

  She watched him bound off down the road. When he was well away, she snarled and spat. Reflecting further on what had occurred, she began to smile a bit, and when at length she too headed west, she strode with determination.

  3

  Tide was inbound, but the flow was still easy and the gate open when Forsquilis came home from Vigil. The winter sun was barely aloft. As she descended the gangplank from barge to wharf, another female ran out of a warehouse doorway. The Queen peered through the shadows that filled the basin. “Dahut,” she said. “What fetches you?”

  The young woman stopped before her. Eyes that seemed enormous caught what light there was. “Please, could we have speech? Alone?”

  Forsquilis hesitated before replying, “When?”

  “Now. You are too seldom in Ys anymore. I must seize what chance I can.”

  Forsquilis’s tone remained as hard as the air. “Very well. Follow me.”

  She led the way around the shipyard and up the stair to the Raven Tower. Awed guards let them past. Forsquilis stopped several hundred feet beyond, at the housing of a catapult. She rested her hands atop a merlon, regardless of its chill, and stared out to sea. The waters heaved darkling. Birds filled the pallor overhead with wings and thin screams.

  “Say on,” she directed.

  Dahut’s voice grieved. “Why are you so cold to me, Forsquilis? What became of our thaumaturgic studies?”

  “I will give you no more arts while you act as you do. Harm enough are you wreaking already, and worse lies ahead.”

  Dahut caught at the other’s sleeve. “What mean you?” she wailed. “What am I save the victim of, of this that’s happened?”

  “You know full well.”

  “Think you I willed those horrible battles?” A sob barked in the girl’s throat. “Nay, I swear by—by—Oh, I was foolish, heedless. You Sisters have warned me. I’m mending my ways. But I n-never dreamed you would believe the falsehoods about me!”

  “I have dreams of my own. They make me glad Nemeta is my sole child.” Forsquilis turned and looked, straight at Dahut. “Always in them, you are the key that unlocks the doom. It is never clear how, everything is murky and wild, but always you are there at the heart of it. We may not yet be foredone. If you will make your peace with the Gods, They may stay Their hands. But the hope of that seems small.”

  Dahut stepped back. “I have offended Them? I, who wish and pray for naught than that Their will prevail? What of the King?”

  “Your father. He who brought you forth when your mother had perished, and nurtured you and to this day loves you. You hate him. You want his destruction. Evil feeds upon evil, till at last it breaks loose and overwhelms all.”

  “You deny him, you, his wife,” Dahut counterattacked.

  “Not in hatred.” Forsquilis’s words softened. “In loving chastisement. In penance for his sin, so the entire wrath not fall on him but some of it be shared. In sorrow and longing. For the sake of Ys.”

  “Ys, which you forsake yourself. Where do you pass most of your days—and your nights?”

  Anger flickered beneath the level response. “I have taken leave of absence from my lesser duties, that by what skills I hold I may seek a resolution of our trouble. None have I found. In the hills, the forests, the deeps, the air, few are my companions, and they are not human. Keep silence about betrayals, you.” Surf rumbled against the wall. “And make an end of yours, ere you be betrayed to your own ruin.”

  Forsquilis walked off to the tower and the stairs. She never looked back. Dahut stayed a long while, first gazing after her, then alone.

  4

  Rain and sleet scourged the streets. Within a certain mean tavern in the Fishtail, it was night-gloomy, little relieved by a few rank-smelling tallow candles. Hunched over a table opposite Budic, Dahut was herself a shadow. Nonetheless she had dressed as if in poverty, retained a stola over her hair, and smeared herself with cosmetics. A couple of harlots threw resentful glances her way—no other customers were about—but did not interfere.

  “This is utterly wrong,” Budic remonstrated. “You should never come near a den like this, and outfitted like, like that.”

  “Quiet.” Dahut’s reply was just to be heard by him under the muffled storm-racket. “True. A foul place. But we had to meet somewhere, and—’Twill be brief. I’ve a boon to ask of you—beg of you, dear trusty friend.”

  “’Tis yours, if I am able.”

  Anguish made her smile grotesque, but he remembered. “Not hard for you, a man; unthinkable for me. I want a place where I can retire, unbeknownst. A single room will serve, if it have simple furnishings, table, stool, basin, pallet; you know what. Best will be if it also have a separate entrance, or at least a side door onto its hallway. It should be clean, and in a safe neighborhood, but one where folk do not look too closely at their neighbors. Can you find me such a refuge?”

  He gaped. “What of your house?”

  “I’ve told you, I’m never by myself there, unless the servants have holiday, and that’s only a few nights a year. Even my private room or bedchamber, why, they come in to scrub and dust; they’ll notice traces, and certainly be aware whom I receive.” Dahut’s voice trembled. “You know not how ’tis to be in everybody’s eyes. And I above all, I the undesired Queen. Old Fennalis could safely read Christian gospel on her deathbed. But I? Imagine.”

  He sat upright. “My lady,” gusted from him, “do you mean—”

  Dahut shook her head slightly. “Forgive me. Bear with me. I’m only a maiden, brought up to worship the Gods of Ys. I’d fain learn more about your Christ. Does He truly call me to Him? How can I tell, unless I can study and, and pray? Things I dare never do at home. You could meet me there too, answer my questions and help me.” She wiped at tears. That left pathetic streaks in malachite and rouge. “Or I can be solitary, at peace, free to think. Can you do this for me, Budic? I’m sure your God will love you.”

  “Why, well, I—”

  “You’re not rich.” She reached under the overgown that helped make her shape unrecognizable, freed a purse, and slipped it across the board. “Here’s coin. It should be ample for months, but tell me if you need more. Say you want lodging for a friend—I’d best dress as a boy, ’tis no sin among us in Ys—a lad from afar who speaks our language poorly. He’s in the service of somebody else, so he won’t use this room often. You can help me devise the full story. You’re clever, you’ve traveled widely, you know the world.”

  “This is unheard of,” he mumbled.

  “But not in any way unlawful. I promise you that. Find me my nest, Budic, and if later you can borrow Christian works for me—Say you will, my soldier! Do it for your Luck!”

  Resolve grew firm. “Of course I will, my lady.”

  5

  In red robe with the Wheel on its breast and Key laid over that, Hammer to hand, Gratillonius stood before the winter Council of Suffetes and said:

  “Hear me out ere you cry havoc. The divisions between us are bad enough. I would not widen them, I would heal them, if I had my way. But what they arise from is conflict between Gods, the commandments of Gods, and I think there is where we must first seek reconciliation.

  “I follow Mithras, like my fathers before me. As your King, I have given the Gods of Ys Their honors and dues. I have asked no more in return than that I and my fellows be free in our own worship, like everybody el
se.” He lifted his palm against a murmur. “Aye, even so there have been clashes in the past. Some of you have been outraged. Did you ever stop to think that Mithras may have suffered outrages too? Still, we made peace, and naught that was terrible happened. Rather, Ys has flourished.

  “Now we are in a new conflict, the gravest of all. Somehow we must end it, ere it tears the city asunder. I know not how. Nor do you. It is a matter for the Gods.

  “Therefore I say, let us give Mithras His full honor. Thereafter we can pray together for harmony in Heaven and a sign unto us.

  “Hitherto I have carried out my sacral duties as King without regard to the times that are holy to Mithras. He’s a soldier; He understands how men in the field can’t always observe the pieties.

  “But this year His birthday falls on the full moon.

  “May I interrupt my Watch to celebrate it as it should be celebrated, in the Mithraeum here? If this assembly disallows that, I will not. My last desire is to provoke more trouble.

  “However, think. Think how empty that rite of the Watch is, especially now, when I have not regained strength to answer a challenge. Think what it may mean—to the Gods, Whom we do not really know, and to our souls—if the Incarnation of Taranis takes one day out of three days and nights to do service to Mithras, Who is also a warrior. How can it harm? How might it help?

  “I ask your leave to try.”

  Debate began. Gratillonius was surprised at its quietness. Most of the Suffetes thought the request reasonable. Of his chief opponents among them, Soren spoke against it, but briefly, in a tone of somber resignation, while Hannon sat huddled in eld. The Gallicenae had chosen no speaker—unprecedented—and Lanarvilis merely echoed Soren; Bodilis praised what might indeed be a seed of peace; the rest kept mute—Vindilis showed scorn, her remaining Sisters varying degrees of hope—until Dahut sprang to her feet and cried:

  “Hear me! Who has a better right to choose? I say my father heard a voice from Beyond, and had the wisdom and courage to listen. Open your hearts. Grant him his wish.” Tears gleamed across the waves of blood that made her flame with beauty. “After everything he’s wrought for Ys, ’t-t-tis little enough reward!”

  The vote of agreement was close to unanimous.

  —Gratillonius and Dahut had a moment by themselves, in the portico, as the adjourned meeting spilled forth into the early night. “Mithras forgive me,” he blurted, “but today you’ve made me happier than ever He could in His Paradise.”

  “We’ve a long road before us,” she replied. Her earnestness wavered between a child’s and a woman’s. “You’re in the wrong, father, and I can but pray you’ll make your way to the light. Best we not see each other, be together, as in olden days.” Her voice caught. “’Twould hurt too much. For know, I love you still, my big, strong, lonely Grallon.”

  “Abide, darling.” His words stumbled. “I’ll yet find how to give you—not what you believe you want—but what you truly deserve.”

  She clutched his hand in both hers. The touch burned. “Meanwhile, father, you’ll know those horrible whispers about me are false. You will?”

  He could only hug her to him for an instant before they parted.

  6

  “Now say we our farewells,” intoned Gratillonius. He lifted his arms. To the handful of worshippers whose feast had ended: “May the light of Ahura-Mazda, which is Truth, shine upon you. May the messing of Mithras, which is Troth, descend upon you. May strength and purity dwell within you, and bring your souls at last to their home. Go in peace.”

  Thereafter he led them from the sanctuary. Sea-thunder growled faintly through the stonework, once they had climbed higher up onto the gloom. Torches guttered and smoked. It was like a liberation to come forth on top of the Raven Tower, though the chill cut and sundown was a sullen red streak above ocean.

  Waves crashed on the wall below, an undertone to evening orisons. Gratillonius said his without quite hearing them. It was not that he had lost reverence. His mind was still in the crypt. How majestically had the service resounded, but how hollowly the echoes of it. There had been a sadness about it, a sense of goodbye, as if this were the last Birthday he would ever celebrate.

  But that was nonsense, he told himself. The God upheld him. He was healing rapidly and entirely. Soon he would be able to cope with any new challenger—who was most unlikely to appear, given what had become of the others. While it might not be easy, he thought he could win the support of Stilicho, which meant the acquiescence of Rome. His opponents within the city were well-nigh powerless. More and more of them were coming back to his side, where the people of Ys had always been. The rift between him and the Gallicenae—some of the Gallicenae—must close in time, if only he was patient; for had not Dahut said she loved him? That alone kindled summer in his heart.

  Then why this foreboding? Why had the noonday sun looked pale and shrunken? The blasphemy had crossed his mind that Mithras was defeated and in retreat. Gratillonius had stamped on it, as he had stamped on the face of Carsa, but it would no more go altogether away than would those memories.

  The prayers ended. “Goodnight, men,” he said in Latin. Replies muttered back. He tossed his ceremonial torch over the battlements. It streamed fire on the way to its drowning. From a guard he took the lantern he had left and used it to help him down the stairway and through the blindness that had fallen upon Ys.

  Most of such folk as were yet in the streets recognized him, but few offered greetings, for he wore the vestments of his alien God. The guards at High Gate did salute him. Some of the workshops beyond were lighted and busy, but the clangor from them soon faded as he went on beyond, to Processional Way. Crossing the canal by the tiny bridge, he saw the water frozen over. Stars began to crowd heaven. Moon-glow above the hills was as cold as they and the ice were. He hastened his steps in spite of its making his ribs ache; footfalls rang loud through stillness. If he could reach the Wood before the moon rose into view, maybe he would not really have been absent on this midmost day of his Watch. But that idea was ridiculous, he told himself.

  The grove loomed before him, blackness out of which fingers reached. Gleams from the house did not touch it, nor did he find much warmth of welcome when he entered. The strife between King and Gods naturally perturbed the staff more than it did an ordinary Ysan. Tambilis was on Sena.

  Well, a man should be able to stand a little isolation. Gratillonius withdrew to the Roman-like part of the building. By lamplight he changed his sacred garments for a robe and settled down to read for a while. Good old Vergilius.

  Wind woke him, a breath under the eaves. His candles burned low. Drowsily, he went to a window and looked out, blocking reflections off the panes with his body. Nothing but murk met his eyes. So clouds had blown up anew, had they? He stripped, killed the flamelets, crawled into bed and fell back into sleep.

  —“Out with you! To your homes! You’ll be told when you’re wanted again. Out!”

  Gratillonius sat up. For a moment he wondered what this dream was. Bedding bulged soft around him; air sheathed his torso in cold. He could just see the uncovered window, slightly less dark than the room. He had barely heard the voice through closed doors. Scurrying feet sounded louder and must have been what roused him. Oh, this was real. His scalp prickled. Should he take something that could serve as a weapon? The imperious tones had been a woman’s. The heart jumped in his breast.

  He groped about till he had come upon his robe and drawn it on. Then he advanced boldly enough. The years had made him familiar with the passage. When he flung open the door to the hall, coals glowed in the firepits and a few candles had been lighted from them. Through shadows he saw the attendants, hastily dressed, going elsewhere. Tall in a black cloak stood Forsquilis.

  He halted. She heard his amazed oath. Her hair shimmered wild amidst the dark. “Hold,” she commanded with the quietness that expects obedience.

  When the last servant had gone, she beckoned. “Now we can talk,” she said.

  He appr
oached her. The Athene face had turned gaunt in the past months; highlights wavered over arches of bone and lost themselves beneath. Somehow that made her twice beautiful, a night-nymph. “What brings you here?” he asked with deference.

  “I went afar in my Sending,” she answered. Her gaze smoldered upon him. “You cannot see through the clouds—Ys cannot, which is well for it—but the eagle owl flew above. The moon whitened her wings. That brightness dimmed, reddened, was nearly lost. The moon was in eclipse, Grallon.”

  “Nobody foresaw,” he said numbly.

  “Aye, nobody did, in Star House or wherever else my searching took me. I think Belisama withdraws the last of Her light from you, Grallon, for that you again affronted the Three on this day that is past.”

  He knotted his fists. “Then why did They hide the vision?” he snapped.

  “You would deride it.”

  “At least I would say the eclipse would soon end, when the moon moves out from behind the earth. If the philosophers failed to predict this, ’tis hardly the first time they have.”

  Sorrow muted her words. “Aye, so you’d claim; and some in Ys would accept it and some would not, ana thus the wounds in us would deepen. Better you hear from me. Mayhap you’ll listen.”

  “Of course I will! But… I might not believe.”

  “You might not understand,” she sighed. “You will not. You refuse.”

  “What is there for me to heed? That your Gods are angry with me?” He grinned. “That’s no news.”

  She surprised him. “I came to warn you,” she said, “not because They told me to. They did not. The sign was meant for me, to give to my Sisters, that unless we return to the Gods you make us forsake, They will forsake us. But I had to tell you first.”

  “Why?”

  She leaned forward. “Because I love you, Grallon.”

  He gathered her to him.

  —Sunrise was dull in the window when she rose from the bed and sought her clothes. “You are not going, are you?” he asked.

  Fire had died away; her voice was ashen with weariness. “I must. Never tell anyone what happened between us.”