Roma Mater

by Poul Anderson

  Sunset cast scarlet and gold over the half of heaven that reached above Ocean. Water glimmered and glowed beneath the cliffs. Sounds of surf came muted. A breeze ruffled the grass on Point Vanis. It came from the north, cooling the day’s warmth, bearing a smell of salt and maybe, maybe, of fields in Britannia.

  Six legionaries bore the freshly made coffin of Eppillus to the grave that had been dug and lowered it down. Then they saluted, wheeled, and marched back to the city in formation. As Christians, they could give no more honours to their officer. Four stayed behind: Gratillonius, Maclavius, and Verica, the Mithraists in their vexillation, together with Cynan, who had offered his help. Funerals were not forbidden to noninitiates; after all, wives, daughters, mothers, young sons, companions had farewells to make.

  Not before had the believers held a service. That might have been disruptive, on the march and during the settling in and the preparations for war. They had contented themselves with private prayers. This evening they stood together in the presence of eternity.

  The three rankers took the spades they had carried and filled the hole. At first clods fell on wood with a sound like footfalls; afterwards the noise was muffled, until the low mound had been patted down to await wildflowers. A headstone would come later. Gratillonius had not yet decided what the epitaph should be. Name, position, unit, of course – and, perhaps, the old Roman ‘STTL … Sit tibi terra levis – May the earth lie light upon you.’

  Meanwhile he spoke the sacred words. Holding the grade of Persian within the faith, he could do that, though best would have been if Eppillus could have had his valediction from a Father. ‘ – Since this man our comrade has fared from among us –’

  The soul was surely bound for Paradise. How long its trek would be, no mortal could tell. Eppillus had talked of feasting with Mithras; the God must set a grand table! But seven gates stood on the road to the stars, each guarded by an angel who would only let the soul pass when it had undergone a further purification. To the Moon it would leave its vitality, to Mercurius its voracity, to Venus its carnality, to the Sun its intellectuality, to Mars its militancy, to Jupiter its pride, to Saturnus the last of its selfhood; thus would it attain the eighth heaven and the Light, to be forever One with Ahura-Mazda. Gratillonius found the thought of Eppillus trudging on that pilgrimage peculiarly lonely.

  But farewell, farewell.

  Colours died in the sky. It shaded from silvery in the west to royal blue in the east. The earliest stars trembled forth.

  ‘Let us go back,’ said Gratillonius.

  Cynan plucked at his sleeve. ‘Sir,’ he murmured, ‘may I have a word with you, apart?’

  Surprised, the centurion looked into the sombre young visage a heartbeat or two before he nodded. They went off to the trailhead above the cliff, up which the enemy had stormed. Peace breathed around them.

  ‘What do you want, Cynan?’ Gratillonius asked.

  The Demetan stared outward. His hands wrestled each other. ‘Sir,’ he forced from himself, ‘would it be … possible … for me … to join in your rites … hereafter?’

  ‘What? But you’re a Christian.’

  ‘It means nothing to me,’ Cynan said hurriedly. ‘The centurion knows that. Else why would I be here? I offered to my tribal Gods, they seemed more real, but – I always wondered, and then the other day –’ His tongue faltered.

  ‘What happened?’ Gratillonius prompted.

  ‘You know!’ Cynan exclaimed. ‘That ghastly giantess who entered the battle.’

  A prickling went through Gratillonius’s skin. ‘What? Did you too have that, that delusion?’

  ‘Not me alone. I’ve talked with others.’

  ‘Well,’ said Gratillonius carefully, ‘I suppose the Scoti may by some kind of magic have called in some kind of creature to help them at the last. Little good did it do them.’

  Cynan clenched his fists and twisted about to face his leader. ‘Sir, that isn’t it! I’m not afraid of Halfworld beings. But I saw … I saw an old, animal horror, and it lives inside me, inside everybody, and … and nothing can keep it from us but a God Who is not mad. Will you teach me about yours?’

  Gratillonius forgot military discipline and hugged him.

  Stepping back, his wits restored, the centurion said, ‘You’ll certainly be welcome to worship with us if you’ll accept the discipline. But just as a postulant, a Raven. If you do well, I have the power to raise you to an Occult. No more. Initiation into the true Mystery needs a Father.’

  ‘Someday I’ll find one,’ Cynan replied ardently.

  It burst upon Gratillonius like sunlight through clouds: Why not?

  Votaries of Mithras were scattered through the Empire, their congregations isolated, often persecuted. There must be some in the cities and barracks of Armorica, not to speak of Britannia and the rest of Gallia. In Ys they could find tolerance, the Brotherhood free and open. Not that they could settle here as a general thing, but they could come for prayer, elevation, heartening upon earth, strength for the wayfaring afterwards. Moreover, most being soldiers, such ties with them would help him draw together a defensive webwork for the whole province.

  He could not found or lead a Mithraeum. That required a Father. But he could cherish the dream and work for its attainment.

  4

  With the round of the Vigils broken, Bodilis volunteered to be the first who started afresh. The order of rotation was not important. What mattered was to have a Sister on Sena – always, apart from special circumstances – in communion with Our Lady of the Sea and the souls whom She had taken unto Herself.

  Bodilis thought she might be the best of the Nine to go forth after the gale, simply because of having both strength of body and an orientation towards natural philosophy: for she did not expect that the cycle could in fact be immediately resumed. She proved right.

  Though morning seas rolled as gentle as rocks and riptides allowed, the barge of state that bore her could not make land. The wharf was gone, except for a few splintered bollards. It would have been dangerous for a vessel of any size to approach. Instead, a jollyboat carried the high priestess to shore. Its oarsmen waited while she walked to the building and, afterwards, around the entire island.

  That took a pair of hours, during which the sailors kept reverent silence. From time to time they glimpsed her, in a cloak of the blue that was Belisama’s colour, moving over rocks and treeless flats. Before them was the sight of the building and the damage it had suffered. It was a small, squared-off structure of dry-laid granite from which a tower jutted, on the east end of Sena. Billows dashing over the low ground had displaced several blocks at the bottom, visibly though not enough to cause collapse. On the frontal western side, window glass was shattered, shutters torn off, the oaken door a-sag on its hinges.

  The calm of this day became a chilling reminder of what had passed. Waves lapped, chuckled, glittered green, azure, white, streaked with dark tangles of kelp. A few seals cruised to and fro, close in to shore; it was as if their gazes too followed Bodilis. Gulls, guillemots, puffins, cormorants winged beneath cloudlessness. Through the air went a current of summer’s oncoming warmth.

  She returned and had the men bring her back to the barge. There she nimbly climbed the rope ladder to the deck and sought the captain. ‘We go home at once,’ she told him. ‘The place is unfit. It needs restoration.’

  The officer was bemused, a little shocked. ‘How, my lady?’

  Bodilis smiled. ‘Be at ease. This is not the first time over the centuries that that has happened. The worst was in the era of Brennilis, when Ocean destroyed everything. It was among the warnings by the Gods against making the wall around Ys otherwise than according to Their will. These repairs ought take no more than some days. Furnishings and holy objects shall be replaced as well, likewise stocks of food and water – aye, in particular the cistern must be emptied, cleansed of salt, supplied with fresh sand and charcoal. The Stones abide as always. However, the hearthsite there would benefit from attentio
n.’

  The captain tugged his beard. ‘But what of the House itself, my lady? Restoring yon blocks will be hard labour, impossible for women to do, if the Queen will pardon my saying so.’ A thought struck him. ‘Could the King’s soldiers lend their skills? The Romans are the greatest engineers in the world.’

  ‘Nay. Even Brennilis’s Romans were only permitted to draw up plans and give advice. Among men, none but husbands or sons of former vestals may ever betread this island above high-water mark, and then only when the necessity is beyond doubt and after they’ve been blessed in certain ancient rites. At that, once they are done, all we Nine must come out and reconsecrate everything. Gratillonius is a good man, but he would never be able to understand –’ Bodilis broke off. ‘Come, unship the sweeps, let us begone.’

  XVII

  1

  After the victory celebrations, Ys settled back down into the ways of peace. Those did not mean idleness. Besides workaday tasks and repair of storm damage, there were preparations for the great midsummer festival. However, folk no longer tensed themselves against the morrow. The Scoti were broken, the Saxons would surely heed that lesson, the Romans of Armorica stayed quiescent, and –word trickled from the palace, to which couriers brought letters – Maximus was campaigning, successfully, in the South. A person dared again take a certain amount of ease.

  Even Gratillonius did. Most of the time he kept busy. He must confer with the individual Suffetes, try to win their confidence, wrangle over ends and means, defence, outside relations, how to refill city coffers that Colconor had emptied, what reforms were desirable in a civil service ossified with age, countless petty details. Without compromising the status of King or prefect, he also tried to make the acquaintance of ordinary people, their needs and wants, strengths and failings.

  Still, he could now take some recreation, set up a woodworking shop for himself, go riding, hunting, sailing. He could devote more attention than erstwhile to Dahilis. (As yet, aware that he had blunderingly given umbrage to his other wives, but unsure how to make amends, he met them only publicly, when at all. Dahilis too kept silence about the matter. He knew, and knew that she knew, that to some extent they were selfishly grasping what time remained to them before her fruitfulness was so far along that they had better sleep apart.) He and his soldiers, Mithraist and Christian, could properly observe that Sunday whose holiness they shared.

  He could instruct Cynan in the Faith.

  He received the Demetan in a room of the palace meant for private talks. On the upper floor, it was small and plain save for frescos of pastoral scenes, narrow-windowed, sparsely furnished. The first day when Cynan came happened to be rainy, which cast a dimness as if this were indeed a crypt of the Mystery. A servant showed the visitor in, closing the door after him. Cynan snapped a salute. In Roman tunic and sandals, painstakingly bar-bered and scrubbed, he could not altogether hide surprise at sight of his chief.

  ‘Greeting,’ said Gratillonius from his chair. ‘At ease. What’s the matter?’

  ‘The centurion is … very kind,’ replied the newcomer huskily.

  Gratillonius studied the darkly handsome face, the muscular body, the hillman beneath the civilized shell, before he murmured, ‘At ease, I said. Outside this room we are legionary and officer. But here – the first thing for you to learn is that in Mithras are no worldly ranks. No high or low, rich or poor, free or slave.’ He smiled. ‘So what’s bothering you?’

  Trembling, Cynan blurted: ‘You aren’t like before, sir! I didn’t really see it till now, but you aren’t.’

  Gratillonius considered. He wore Ysan shirt, jacket, and breeches, as he usually did except when overseeing his troops. Though close-cropped, auburn moustache and beard had reached their full growth. As yet his hair was too short to draw into a horsetail, but it fell beneath his earlobes and was confined by a fillet. Aye, he found himself thinking in Ysan, the lad may well wonder what sorcery beyond the sea gate has flowed its tide over me.

  ‘I have to be King oftener than prefect, remember,’ he said in his plainest Latin. ‘Remember also, Mithras doesn’t care about your outside. Only your inside, your spirit, counts. Do sit down.’ When his guest had obeyed, he himself poured wine for them both. ‘Let’s talk.’

  He couldn’t lighten the mood. Cynan wasn’t that sort; and, of course, this wasn’t that kind of occasion. Gratillonius could, though, seek to penetrate the bashfulness – and the fierce pridefulness – that stood between them. ‘Before we start,’ he went on, ‘we should know each other better. I picked you to come along, back in Isca, because I’d seen you fight like a demon beyond the Wall. But why did you volunteer?’

  Cynan stiffened. ‘It was an adventure, sir.’

  ‘Can you look me in the eye and smile when you say that? Listen, son, if you’re afraid to be honest, Mithras will not make you welcome. And if I punished you for your honesty, He would disown me.’

  Blood pulsed up into the young countenance. A fist clenched. ‘Very well, sir!’ the Demetan cried. ‘I wanted to travel and fight, not do drill at headquarters. But I did not want to travel with Maximus and fight Romans. My home village was near the coast. I came back from hunting in the glens and found the Scoti had been there. What they hadn’t plundered, they’d burnt. They killed the men, my father, my older brother. They gang-raped my mother. They bore off my young brother and two sisters for slaves. I swore I’d live for revenge. I lied about my age and my Gods, to join the army. I gloried when we cut down the vermin in the North, and again here – oh, sir, you were Vengeance itself! Then that troll-thing on the battlefield – and afterwards, when you gave Eppillus his honour – That’s why I’ve come to your God!’ He covered his face and wept, long, coughing sobs: no Roman now, a Celt.

  Gratillonius let him have it out, and comforted and calmed him, and could finally begin:

  ‘I’m not the best by a long shot to explain the Faith. A lot I don’t understand myself. I only rate as Persian, the fourth grade. But maybe it’s good for you to hear about it first in simple soldier lingo.

  ‘Persian … The Faith came from Persia, Rome’s old enemy, but a worthy foe. Often a man learns more from an enemy than a friend. And, of course, it wasn’t always war; and others than Persians were believers; and as the ideas moved into the Empire, Greek thinking, and later on Roman, worked them over.

  ‘Before and above all, for ever, the One from Which Everything comes –’ He checked himself. The concept of Time – Aeon, Chronos, Saturnus, the Source, the Fountainhead – was for the higher ranks, those allowed into the sanctuary. You didn’t pray to the Ultimate anyway.

  ‘Above all Gods,’ Gratillonius said, is Ahura-Mazda. He’s also called Ormazd, Jupiter, Zeus, many names. Those don’t mean much; He Is, the High, the Ever-Good.’ He found himself slipping into the words of the Lion from whom he had received instruction. Well, they were doubtless better than any he could put together. ‘Below all Gods is Ahriman, Evil, Chaos, maker of hell and devils and misery. The story of the world is the story of the war between Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman. So is the story of your soul, lad. They war for it the same as they do for the whole of Creation. But you don’t have to stand by helpless. You can be a soldier yourself.

  ‘Then your Commander is Unconquered Mithras.

  ‘He is the God of light, truth, justice, virtue. Because these come into being, suffer, and die – like mortals, or like the sun that rises and sets and rises again – you’ll see Mithras shown with two torchbearers, the Dadophori. One torch is upright and burning, the other is turned down and going out.

  ‘Our Lord Mithras was born from rock, which some say was a cosmic egg. It was on the banks of a river, underneath a sacred tree. Only shepherds witnessed this, and came to adore Him and bring offerings. But Mithras was naked and hungry in the cold winds. From the fig tree He plucked fruit and from its leaves He made Himself garments. Then His strength came to Him.’

  Gratillonius paused before saying slowly: ‘This happened before there was life on
earth. I don’t understand that myself. But why should a man be able to understand the Eternal?

  ‘The first battle of Mithras was against the Sun. He overcame His noble foe, and received the crown of glory from Him. Thereafter He raised up the Sun again, and They swore friendship.

  ‘His second battle was against the Bull, the first of living creatures that Ahura-Mazda made. He seized It by the horns and rode It, no matter how much He was hurt, till It was worn out and He could drag It to his cave. It escaped, and the Sun sent the Raven as a messenger, bidding Mithras kill the Bull. Against His will, He did this. He and His dog tracked It back to the cave where It had returned, and He took It by the nostrils with one hand while with the other hand He plunged His knife into Its throat.

  ‘Then from Its body sprang life upon earth, from Its blood the wine of the Mystery. Ahriman sent his evil creatures to destroy this life, but in vain. A great flood covered the world. One man, out of the humans alive in those days – one man foresaw it in a vision, and built an ark that saved his family and some of every kind of being. Afterwards Ahriman set the world afire, but this too it survived, thanks to the labours of the Lord Mithras.

  ‘Now His work on earth was done. With the Sun and His other companions, He celebrated a last supper before He ascended to Heaven. Ocean tried to drown Him on His way, in vain. He is among the immortals.

  ‘But He’s still our Commander in the war against evil, that shall end on the Final Day when Ahriman is destroyed, and the righteous are resurrected, and peace reigns eternal.’

  For a while was silence. Unaccustomed to speaking at such length, Gratillonius had gone hoarse. He didn’t think it would be impious to take a long drink of wine, not much watered.

  ‘I have heard a little of this before,’ Cynan said low. ‘But you make it … real.’

  ‘If so, I’m glad,’ Gratillonius answered, ‘though it’s no credit to me. Thank the Spirit. You think about this. Ask questions. I’ll have more to tell, the next few times we meet. After that, if you still feel you want to join – and mind you, if you don’t, I won’t hold that against you, because every man has to find his own way – if you still do, I’ll initiate you as best I can.’