Night filled the window. A brazier had added its warmth and closeness to the rank animal smell of the candles. “The hour is late,” she replied demurely. “The girls downstairs are most likely taken by now. Do you want to go stumble around the streets?”
“Do I got to?”
For answer, she dropped glance and hands to her belt and slowly unfastened it. He whooped, rose, snatched her to him. She reached and felt with the same frankness.
His first lovemaking was neither exuberant and inventive like Tommaltach’s nor half reverential like Carsa’s. When he had the clothes off her he bore her down onto the bed and himself between her thighs and made her teeth clatter. He was not brutish, though, and the following times, which with her encouragement came soon after each other, were steady gallopings. She cried and moaned and told him he was superb.
Finally they slept. As the first gray appeared in the window, he roused, sought the chamber pot, came back and began to fondle her. She sat up. “Now, beloved, you shall know who I am,” she said.
He blinked. “You are Galith—”
She shook her head and drew tangled tresses back from the red crescent. “Have you noticed this?”
“Yah, a scar, it don’t make you not fair.”
“It is the mark of the Goddess, Gunnung. This night She chose you to be the next King of Ys.”
2
Snow fell in small dry flakes. Walking, Corentinus saw walls and roofs fade within a few yards, lost in the overall silvery-grayness. Air was almost warm and utterly silent, apart from the sound of his sandals on paving and a dream-faint pulse of sea.
Budic was among the guards at the palace gate. He lost his military bearing when the pastor loomed into sight. Corentinus halted before him and peered from beneath shaggy brows. Budic’s eyes flicked to and fro like snared creatures. “We have not seen you lately at worship,” Corentinus said.
“I have had… troubles,” Budic muttered.
“Can you confide in me?”
“Not—not now. I pray. Believe me, I pray.”
“Never cease that. My son, you are in worse danger than ever on the battlefield.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong!” Budic said frantically. “I’ve not even seen—well, I haven’t come near any temptation for days and days. And I didn’t fall to it.”
“Broody, he’s been,” said Guentius, the other legionary present.
“Let me alone!” Budic yelled.
Corentinus’s shoulders sagged a little. Weariness dragged in his words. “Enough. I must see the King.”
“How do you know he’s here?” Guentius wondered. “He goes about so much, building back his strength now that his bones have knit.”
“I know,” replied Corentinus. “Pass me through.”
One of the Ysan marines, who knew Latin, said with a touch of awe, “You are right. Surely he will receive you.”
The tall man strode up the path and the stairs. A servant admitted him and took his snow-dusted paenula. He kept his staff, as if it were a badge of authority. A second attendant sped off to inform Gratillonius, who arrived at once and said, “Welcome. Good to see you,” then paused, looked, and added, “Maybe not.”
“We must speak alone,” the chorepiscopus declared.
Gratillonius nodded and led the way to his second-floor conference room. A servant carried a lamp to lighten its gloom and departed, shutting the door. “Be seated,” Gratillonius invited.
“I’ll stand,” Corentinus answered. His host did likewise.
“What have you to say?” Gratillonius asked.
“Bad things, my son. I have heard certain rumors.” (Gratillonius nodded again. Despite his calling and his ascetic ways, Corentinus learned more than most about what went on in Ys, and often earlier.) “I reproved those who whispered them, I told them to stop spreading malicious tattle that must be false. Nevertheless, when I inquired further I found that it has a basis of fact—nothing that proves wrongdoing, but a great deal that is unknown and unexplainable. So I prayed for a sign, not out of curiosity but out of fear for our beloved Ys. This past night it came to me in a dream.”
“What faith can a man put in dreams?” Gratillonius challenged.
“Usually none. However, I know truth when it seeks me out; and you must admit that it has now and then. Nor is this anything I tell my old friend lightly or willingly.”
Gratillonius girded himself. “Well?”
“Your daughter Dahut plots against you. She incited those two young men you fought. She will continue till you’re killed.”
Corentinus lurched. The lamplight showed him white to the lips. “No!”
“If you will not believe me, at least verify the facts that have brought the whispers on,” said Corentinus with surgical relentlessness. “She disappears for hours on end, sometimes overnight. Less and less has she been telling the truth when she’s claimed this was for a ride or a ramble. With passion she imagines her Gods have picked her to be the new Brennilis; but she skims over her religious duties or ignores them, as if there is something far more important for her. What can that be except becoming fully one of the Nine? Since you will not make her that, she must needs get another man to be her King.”
Gratillonius shuddered. “Stop,” he panted. “Be still.”
“In the last ten days or so, she has been seen less than ever,” Corentinus went on. “Nor has the giant Northman who led his crew here, exactly that long ago. They grumble that the proceeds of their trading are caroused away by now and he should take them back to Britannia. Why doesn’t he? Were your man Rufinus on hand, he’d soon have tracked down what is going on. Set spies on those two yourself, King, before it’s too late.”
“You slander Dahilis’s child?” Gratillonius shouted. “You foul-mouthed old swine! Out!”
“For your sake, for Ys,” Corentinus beseeched. “If you discover I’m mistaken, what harm’s been done? I’ll abase myself before you. But you must open your eyes.”
Gratillonius’s fist shot forward. With the alertness of his roaming days, Corentinus swayed aside. The blow only took him on the left cheekbone. It was enough to resound. Blood welled from split flesh. Corentinus staggered. He recovered, brought his staff to battle position, lowered it. “Christ strengthen me to keep peace,” he groaned.
“Spy on my daughter?” Gratillonius raged. “Oh, I’ll have spies out, I will—watching you—and if you shit forth any more of your lies, if you look like you’re doing any tiny thing that might be against her, I’ll have your head rotting on a stake in a pigpen. Now go before I fetch my sword!”
“You’re raving,” Corentinus said. “Rome—”
Gratillonius had recovered himself. “I’ll plan what to tell Rome,” he replied. “If you behave, you can live. You aren’t really worth the trouble that killing you would cause. But that’s only if you keep your mouth shut. Get out. Don’t come back.”
“I spoke as a friend.”
“You’re not anymore. I’ll talk with you again when you’ve come on your belly and admitted that that angel, or whatever it was your Christ sent you, is a liar. Now will you leave on your own feet or be tossed out like other rubbish?”
“You shall not keep me from praying for you, and for Dahut and Ys,” Corentinus said. He turned, shuffled to the door, opened it, went out.
Gratillonius stayed behind. He paced, cast himself into a chair, sprang up to pace anew. His fist hammered the walls till cracks appeared in the Arcadian frescoes.
Eventually a servant appeared and dared announce, “Queen Tambilis has arrived, my lord.”
“What? Oh, aye.” Gratillonius stood a moment tensed, like a pugilist preparing against attack. He had expected her about this hour, after she had seen a female physician for something she had not identified to him. “Send her to me,” he decided.
She entered radiant, saw him, and carefully closed the door. “What’s happened, my darling?” she whispered.
Standing where he was, he gave her the story in a fe
w jagged sentences.
“But that’s horrible.” She came to him. They held each other close.
“What can we do?” he asked in his despair.
Tambilis stepped back. “Can you talk with Dahut?”
“Nay. I think not. But she told me she… cares for me still.”
“Of course she does. Well, I’ll draw her aside and, as Sister to Sister, warn her to be more careful.” Tambilis gathered courage. “Is it unthinkable that you mount an investigation? That should establish her innocence beyond question.”
“It is beyond question,” he rapped. “I’ll not send dirty-minded little sneaks peering after her. They’d suppose I do have doubts, and they’d snigger and mutter and it would all be a worse besmirchment than a few idle speculations and the visions of a doddering crackpot.”
“You may be unwise,” she said low, “but I can see ’tis best to pursue this no further today.”
“Aye.” He cleared his throat. “What did the physician find?”
Happiness peeped through her distress like the first anemone through the last snow of springtime. “What I had hoped,” she answered. “I am with child again, your new daughter, Grallon.”
“What? I never knew—”
“Nay, not until I could be sure, lest I dash our hopes. For this is our sign of hope, our battle banner, which I raise for him who is the dearest of my whole world.”
3
Weather turned bitingly cold and clear. When Dahut let herself into the widower’s house, the murkiness almost blinded her. Vision returned as she made her way up the stairs.
A door stood open next to hers. A blowzy woman in a soiled gown, neckline down to her nipples, stepped out. “Hail, sweetling,” she said with a leer.
Dahut barely knew her name and station: Mochta, an Osismian who had become a cheap whore. “I am no lover of yours,” she responded coldly.
“Ah, the Scotic speech slipped there,” laughed the woman.
Dahut stiffened and bit her lip. She had been preoccupied. “I learn,” she said with the right intonation. “What would you of me?”
“Oh, naught, naught. For a surety, you’re not about to hire me. Yet you might be thankful for my help.”
Dahut dropped hand to knife. “What mean you?”
“Why, when you’re too haughty to chat with the likes o’ your fellow dwellers, you hear not what they say about you. That big man who’s with you so much—they dislike boy-lovers in Ys. There was complaints to the landlord, there was. He’d’ve thrown you out, and asked for yon barbarians to be sent straightway from the city. But Mochta can see what’s underneath clothes, or catch noises through a door to know what’s going on. I told ’em you’re no lad. Now they only laugh.”
Dahut quivered where she stood.
“Why’d you go to such trouble?” the harlot gibed, grinning. “A fine lady, I’ll be bound, a Suffete lady who wants to keep it quiet about her lovers. Handsome men too, both that I’ve watched. They could pleasure me aplenty, and I need the pay. Still, though you cut into my trade, I’m kind-hearted and done you this favor. Surely you’ll be thankful to me?” she whined.
Dahut dug into her purse, flung a gold coin on the floor, and turned her back while she put key in lock. “Ah, good,” Mochta exulted. “A very, very fine lady you must be. Who? ’Tis not for me to say your name, whatever ’tis, but a girl can’t help wondering, can she? If ever you need more help, here I am.”
Dahut entered and crashed her door shut.
Alone in the dimness, she yowled for fury and ripped at the fastenings of her garments. When they were off, she had regained self-possession.
Piecemeal she had smuggled luxurious female clothes to this place and stowed them in a chest. She chose a thick robe of tapestried silk and fur slippers, against the chill. Her hair she unbraided and shook down across her shoulders in glowing waves.
A knock thudded. She let Gunnung in. He reached to seize her, but she evaded him and glided back. “Not such haste,” she said.
“Vy not?” he growled. “For two days I cool my heels and yawn, till you send me vord ve can meet.” That had been by her principal male servitor, to whom the code phrase she used was meaningless. He had acted as her messenger on a number of occasions. She forbade him to talk about what she called secret and sacred business. At Gunnung’s suggestion, she later hinted that it concerned the seals. Northmen knew more about those creatures than Ysans did, because Northmen hunted them—but could perhaps be induced to desist. “Veil, tomorrow you valk bowlegged!”
“That may be one thing Mochta noticed,” Dahut murmured.
“Vat are this?” The Dane moved in on her.
She lifted a fending palm. “Hold.” Such command rang in her voice that he halted and stared. “I waited because of caution. A Sister of mine warned me. Talk is going about. Even in this hovel, I’ve learned. You’ve dawdled too long, a fortnight or worse. No more.”
He glowered. “You mean you vant I kill your father? Vat for a she-troll are you?”
“You vowed you would, that first morning.”
“Yah, yah, but—”
Her eyes narrowed to blue ice-glints. “Gunnung,” she said, “you have lain with a Queen of Ys. If word of that escapes, then hope the people tear you in shreds before my father’s men take you, for he will put you to death in every slow way the Romans know.”
He flushed and bristled. “You threaten? By Thor—”
“Lay violent hand on me, and I will cause it that you can never again in your life have a woman. I am of the Gallicenae.”
Gunnung retreated a step. “Ve are lovers,” he said hastily. “I did promise you.”
Her smile thawed the entire chilly room. “Then make yourself King, my lover,” she crooned. “Once you are King, you are safe; Ys is yours.”
“More yours, I think,” he answered, his tone going dry. “Vell, I vould yust remind you, first, it vere unvise to shallenge ven he is still mending. He can tell me to vait, and meanvile—”
“He has mended. Now he works to regain the strength he lost when he could do so little. Call him out before he finishes. He cannot refuse any longer. In good condition, he’s a terrible foe.” Dahut’s speech softened. “I do not want you dead, Gunnung. I want you by my side, for many years to come.”
“He might vin anyhow. And if he does not, there vill be others—” The Dane lifted his head. “But I am not afraid. I told you vy I vaited. A spae-voman told me vunce my luck vill alvays be best in fair veather. We have had snow and fog and high winds—”
“Until today. Tomorrow will likely be the same. Go to the Wood. I tell you, waiting longer is more dangerous than any fight.”
He was quiet for a space, until: “I go tomorrow.”
“Now!”
He shook his head. “Tomorrow morning early. Could be I fall.”
“You won’t.” She undulated toward him.
“That lies vith the Norns,” he answered. A smile eased the ruggedness of his countenance. “Vat I have here is hand-grippable—you, my strange lovely Norn. Give me heart for my battle.”
“So be it,” she yielded, and slid into his arms.
—She woke when a sunbeam struggled through the window cloth and touched her. That was well into the next day. She caught her breath. Gunnung was gone.
“Oo,” she said when she tried to rise, and followed it with some of the curses she had overheard Maeloch use in her girlhood. Bruises were beginning to flower here and there on her. Straw stuck out from rips in the tick. Wincing, she got up and hobbled to the water jug. After she had filled and drained a cup, poured a basinful, swabbed herself, she could roughly secure her hair. Cian’s garb lay on the floor. The costly robe she had dropped did not. With a cry, she opened her clothes chest. It was empty of fabrics, furs, and jewels.
She dressed herself and stumbled out into the street. Folk went about their business in ordinary wise. There should have been tumult. Gnawing her lip, Dahut made her painful way to the harbor.
&n
bsp; The slip where the Danic vessel had lain was vacant. Half shut, the sea gate mocked her with a glimpse of unrestful brightness.
A patroller passed close. Dahut wailed at him: “Where are the Northmen?”
He stopped, gave her a stare, and asked, “Why d’you care, boy?”
“I do! Where?”
He shrugged. “Wherever they had in mind, I suppose. They left in almightly haste, before first light, when the doors were barely open. My mates and I thought perchance they’d gotten into an ill affair. But we’d received no orders to hold them, nor did they look like having been in a fight or carrying loot—only their baggage—save that the captain was as weary-acting a man as I’ve seen in years. I climbed the wall for a look as soon as there was light, and they were rowing like racers. They must be leagues off by now. What’s your concern?”
Dahut screeched and turned from him.
—Astonished, Forsquilis regarded the unkempt figure that had hirpled to her door. Recognition came. “Follow me,” she said. They went to her secretorium.
There she demanded sharply, “What mischief have you been in this time?”
“You must help me,” Dahut said, hoarse-voiced. “You and I can raise a storm, can we not? Or a sea monster, or anything that will sink a shipful of treacherous wretches.”
“Who? Why?”
“Those Scandians who’ve been in port.”
“What have they done?”
“I want them dead,” Dahut told her. “I want them down among the eels. May their souls drift naked in the depths forever.”
“Why?”
Dahut stamped her foot. “I have been cruelly wronged. I, your Sister. Is that not enough?”
“It is not,” Forsquilis replied, “all the more when ’tis unsure whether we can even command a breeze any longer. What happened?”
Tears of anger started forth. “Why should I tell you?” Dahut shouted. “I’ll care for myself!”
She started to go. “Wait,” Forsquilis urged. “Sit down, rest, take refreshment, and we’ll talk.”
“Nay. Never. Not ever again.” Dahut went out. Forsquilis gazed after her for minutes.
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