Roma Mater

by Poul Anderson

  “I’d liefer not brag, but this and more we have done under my guidance. And I have been not only your King, but also the prefect of Rome.

  ‘Then be glad if we can renew our ties to Rome the Mother!”

  There was some discreet applause, some reservation, several faces that stayed troubled. Hannon Baltisi scowled, cleared his throat, and rasped:

  “Well and good, O King, save for this, that Rome has long since become whore to Christ. Need I recall to you how they mock the Gods there, violate temples, smash images, hound worshippers? Will Christ dwell in peace with the Gods of Ys, those Gods who alone hold Ocean at bay?”

  Mumbles and whispers passed among the forty-two. The legionaries who formed Gratillonius’s honor guard kept still, but he could virtually feel resentment radiate from most of them at such a denunciation of their faith. He weighed his reply carefully. The old man’s travels, in his days as a sea captain, had if anything reinforced his fanatical hatred of the Church; but persons more moderate were uneasy, and for cause.

  “This is a question among many that I hope to take up with the Augustus,” Gratillonius said. “It touches me too, not only in my royal office but in my heart.” He congratulated himself on the subtlety of this reminder that he was a Mithraist. Before ground could be broken for the temple of his dreams, foundations must be laid in the minds of men. “But I’m unafraid. The fact is that the Empire continues full of people who are not Christians, a number of them in high positions. Maximus knew my beliefs when he appointed me your prefect.

  “Clergy are few and far between in these parts. The Augustus should be satisfied with a new minister here for the Christians among us, just as we had before. That was a harmless man. Fate willing, I’ll have a voice in choosing his successor. Rest assured, ’twill be no Ambrosius!”

  Bodilis and three or four others recognized the name of the forceful bishop of Italian Mediolanum, and smiled. Relief spread visibly through the rest.

  Gratillonius pursued his advantage. “To that end, I may have to search a while,” he warned. “Also, ’Twould be well that I make myself familiar with conditions throughout Lugdunensis, aye, and in Aquitania—” he saw Bodilis kindle, and tipped her a wink—“so that we’ll be ready to cope. This will keep me away for a period of months. I’ll be absent at the equinox and mayhap at the winter solstice, as well as other occasions. Yet I’ll leave the city in order, fully able to steer itself that long. Surely the Gods will take no offense, when this is for the well-being of Their people.”

  He knew himself for a hypocrite. But his ultimate purpose was honest, and as a soldier he had never objected to ruses. He sat down on the throne, resigned to a theological dispute. Bodilis and Lanarvilis were primed to conduct it for him. Afterward would come practical topics. What should he say and seek in Treverorum? He sincerely wanted suggestions. If need be, let discussion go on for a few days.

  Only a few, however. He must not keep the Emperor waiting.

  4

  It chanced that this was his night to spend with Innilis. Knowing how he felt, and remembering the mother, his wives tried to shift custody of Dahut so that he could see her when he visited each of them. The effort failed more often than not, since strict rotation was impossible. He might be preoccupied, perhaps out of the city altogether, in the hinterland or on the water or standing his monthly Watch at the Wood. He might have been working hard or late, and in sheer weariness bedded down alone at the royal palace. For her part, a Queen might likewise be overbusied, or having her courses or sick. Pregnancies and childbirth had been intervening too, and bade fair to increase. Forsquilis was now fruitful, Guilvilis was again, and Maldunilis had finally decided to trouble herself about it. Moreover, the two Gallicenae with whom he did not sleep, aged Quinipilis and aging Fennalis, claimed a share in the upbringing of Dahilis’s daughter, which for the sake of harmony could not be denied them.

  Fortune did have Dahut at Innilis’s house when King and Queen arrived on that evening. “Oh, my lord, my lady, how good you’re back!” exclaimed the maidservant Evar as they entered. “The little one’s been that fretful. She threw such a tantrum I feared she’d hurt herself, I did, and restrained her.”

  Dread struck. “Is she ill?” Gratillonius demanded.

  “Nay, lord, I think not. Like a crazed ferret she’s been, for dashing about and throwing things—oh, my, ferrets don’t throw things, but my lord knows what I mean—’Tis but that kids are troublous in their third year. Well, she’s not quite in that yet, is she? But ever so far ahead of her age, already speaking, and so much alive. With my lady gone all day—Does my lord want to see her?”

  “I do.” He brushed past the woman and strode to the room that had been designated a nursery.

  When he opened the door, he saw the debris of small destructions strewn about, a broken toy chariot, stuffing ripped out of a rag doll, general chaos. The chamber pot stayed upright; in certain things, Dahut had a feline neatness. The child was curled on the bed, brooding over her wrongs. She had stripped off her clothes. Sunset light, striking through a windowpane, turned her skin to ivory, hair to gold, eyes to lapis lazuli. O Mithras, how she recalled Dahilis!

  She gathered her limbs beneath her, again like a cat. “Father,” she hissed.

  “Ah,” he blustered, “we’ve been having a mutiny, have we? What for? Why have you been such a bad girl?”

  She struggled for words. “I wos… wos… me.”

  Did she mean “all alone”? How could he tell? He hunkered down and spread his arms. “Well, well, little rebel, let’s make it right again, hey?”

  She uncoiled and sped to him. He hugged her withy-slimness. How sweet she smelled! “You mustn’t do this, you know,” he said into the warmth between her throat and shoulder. “It’s not kind to your Mamas, or their poor servants who have to look after you.”

  “You di’n’ come,” she gasped; but she shed no tears, she hardly ever did.

  “Oh, you were awaiting me? I’m sorry. Your Papa had work to do. Let’s get you nicely dressed, and then before Evar brings you dinner we’ll play horse and I’ll sing you a song—because you’re the single human being who does not flinch when I sing, and too soon will that end.”

  —Innilis ate lightly and simply. Gratillonius liked the fare her kitchen offered, after the frequently elaborate meals he got in Ys. She had learned to give him portions of adequate size. Ordinarily they made small talk over the table and retired early, for although she often showed him affection, they had few interests in common. This evening she spoke earnestly. The glow of beeswax candles lay over the delicate features and in the big eyes.

  “Sometimes I fear for Dahut,” she said. He could barely hear. “There is something about her.”

  He harked back to a night on Sena, and a day when a seal had saved the child from drowning, and incidents more fugitive. It took courage to reply. “Mayhap we see the beginnings of a destiny. Or mayhap not. Who can say? I’ve scant faith in astrologers or fortune-tellers. Let’s take each day as it comes. We must anyhow.”

  “Oh, I thought not of the occult. I meant only—well, I’ve fretted about this, and talked with Vindilis—Vindilis and others—Do we do right, shunting her from household to household, with never a den where she can snuggle down? Is this why she’s wild?”

  He frowned. “I know not. How could I? She’s my firstborn.” Unless he was the casual begetter of a brat or two in Britannia, of which transgression he hoped Mithras had absolved him. “And the King of Ys can’t be a real paterfamilias. Has not the Sisterhood always shared in the raising of a princess whose mother died?”

  “Aye, but I think never like this. You are different. And Dahut is. I cannot put it in words, I’m too weak and stupid to understand it, but Vindilis says—You are the bringer of a new Age, and you did father Dahut.”

  Different, he thought, indeed different. The daughter of Dahilis is so spirited, so intelligent and beautiful.

  —After Innilis miscarried, he had agreed with Vindili
s that henceforward she should use the Herb. The next stillbirth could kill her, or the next live birth give another pitiful Audris. Six fertile Queens were ample.

  She had not asked him to refrain from making love to her. He had found his way to what was best; much kissing and caressing, then much gentleness, for a single time. About half such joinings seemed to give her pleasure, and the rest no distress. At least, she cuddled close afterward.

  This night she stayed awake a while, which was unusual. He could feel how she tensed and faintly shivered against him. “What vexes you?” he asked. When she grew evasive, he pressed the query. In the end she confessed:

  “Oh, you, Grallon, fear about you.” She seldom gave him his proper name anymore but, like an increasing number of Ysans and Osismii, softened it. “You’re bound away.”

  “I’ll return,” he said.

  She drew a ragged breath. “Aye, since you’ve promised it. But how long will you stay? You surely yearn back to your homeland.”

  He lay for a spell, unspeaking. The question haunted him too, but nobody else had raised it. He was astounded that this meek person should. And what in Ahriman’s name was the answer?

  Of course there was a great deal yet to do in Ys, and he hated leaving a task unfinished. The challenge here called him beyond himself. The making of a useful thing in statecraft was muddled and never really complete, unlike the making of a thing in woodcraft. Just the same, the satisfactions bore no comparison to each other. He had shaped history and law, he had raised bulwarks for the lives of people…. What would come of it all? A barbarian wave had broken itself against Ys, but the tide of barbarism was still at the flow, over land as well as sea. Could he abandon the defenses he had been building?

  And yet, never to have a son, if it was true what chronicles and belief said. To abide among aliens until the last death-fight in the Wood made an end of him—

  And meanwhile, would those duties truly have been so important? Once the rule of Maximus was firm, his peace would soon reach this far. Likewise, in due course, would his law. What then would be left for the King of Ys? Ceremonies; routines; judgments that made a difference to the parties concerned but were yawnfully tedious for the judge, and as readily rendered by somebody else.

  Even now, calm was descending. Though northern Britannia seemed again troubled, the rest of that diocese lay secure. Communications had redeveloped to the point where Gratillonius had had three letters from his father, and sent back replies. To visit the villa once more! Not that he’d accept the wretched curial existence of his free will; but he shouldn’t have to. Given the tiniest hint, Maximus Augustus ought to confer senatorial rank on a man who had served him well. And mighty work remained to do in the outer world, reform of the state, subjugation of the barbarians, binding of wounds upon Mother Rome, winning of fame immortal.

  Was that his wish?

  If not, why not? Ys would never consentingly let its King depart for good. In the past he had wondered about cutting his way free, he and his legionaries or a rescue expedition from outside. But that thought was obsolete—which gladdened him, because he recoiled from any idea of killing his subjects. Come the time, he need merely make a pretext for another journey, and fail to return. It wouldn’t hurt the city’s institutions too badly. Precedents existed; not every king had died in the Wood. The Suffetes would get somebody—until, no doubt, the Christians came to power here also, and made an end of those bloody successions.

  Three years hence, let us say, what reason would Gratillonius have to dwell in Ys?

  Well, status, friends, his wives, or certain among them, and Dahut, whom he could smuggle out but would that be the best thing for her?

  Innilis nestled against him, weeping most quietly. “Nay, I will abide,” he said, and wondered how much of a liar he was, “as long as the Gods allow.”

  II

  1

  “Again the tuba, the tuba calling:

  ‘Come, Legionary, get off your duff!’

  The hobnails rising, the hobnails falling,

  We’re bound for glory, or some such stuff.

  Farewell, dear wenches! There’s time to kiss you

  And gulp a beaker before we go.

  The Lord on high knows how we will miss you,

  So give us memories that will glow.”

  It was one of the old, interminable, nonsensical songs that men had sung as they marched from Pontus to Hispania, from Egypt to Caledonia, and beyond, in the service of Rome. Footfalls crashed rhythmically beneath its beat. Words rang into the woodlands bordering the highway, until they lost themselves among trees and shadows. This was mostly second-growth forest, beech, elm, hornbeam, though here and there gloomed a huge oak, hallowed perhaps since before the first Caesar, until cultivation died away a hundred or more years ago. Leaves were still thick, full of greenish-gold light, but some had begun to turn color. The air below was windless, cool, scented by damp earth. Overhead were fewer wings than last month; many birds had, by now, departed south.

  Riding at the front of his two dozen infantrymen and their pack animals, Gratillonius saw stone pavement run straight before him until, at a dim distance, it went from sight in one of those curves that had been the engineers’ reluctant concession to terrain. Behind him lay turbulent Condate Redonum, where soldiers of his had nearly gotten into a fight with members of the Frankish garrison. Ahead, he had been informed, was the Liger valley, rich and well populated as of yore. At Juliomagus he would swing east and follow the great river for a while. His route was not the shortest possible, but almost entirely, it followed roads like this. Spared slogging through mud in the wet season, and most often spared the toil of preparing a walled and ditched camp—because well-secured official hostels stood along the way, near which they could simply pitch their tents—the men should make their best time to Augusta Treverorum.

  They were eager too. While they had all become fond of Ys, and several had formed strong ties, the hankering to be back among things Roman was only natural. That had been a large part of his reason for taking the whole twenty-four as his escort, and nobody else. As for the rest of his reason, he wasn’t quite sure, but he had a notion that Magnus Maximus would not take kindly to a spokesman native to witchy Ys.

  Otherwise his feelings were happy. He also was bound home to his people.

  “I’m getting old and my joints are creaky,

  The lentils grumble within my gut,

  My tentmates snore and the tent is leaky,

  And come a combat, I might get cut.

  But never mind, we have got our orders.

  So cheer up, fellows, for I do think

  When we have crossed over foreign borders

  There will be wenches, and lots to drink!”

  ‘“O-old!” Adminius cried. The deputy could bring a surprising volume out of his narrow chest. “Battle ranks!”

  Gratillonius heard clatter and scramble. He drew rein. Gravel scrunched to silence on the shoulder where he rode. Glancing back, he saw the vexillation quickly bring the animals together and themselves in position either to protect or attack. He’d kept them in crack training.

  Adminius trotted over to him. “Being cautious, sir,” he said. “Wot does the centurion want we should do?”

  Gratillonius peered ahead. No danger was obvious in the mounted man who had come around the curve and was galloping their way. As he spied them, he waved and shouted frantically, and kicked his horse to go faster. The beast was sweaty but not yet lathered; it hadn’t carried him far. The man was portly, with black hair cut short and a close-cropped fringe of beard in the Roman style, but tunic and trousers showed him to be a Gaul. Soon Gratillonius made out a dull-red splotch on his left thigh, from which edges of cloth flapped back. A flesh wound. That went with the condition of the horse.

  “No pursuit,” Adminius deemed. “’E’s escaped. Didn’t seem worth chasing, I s’pose.” He squirted a gob of spit from a gap between teeth. His thin, sandy-stubbled face crinkled in a grin. “Well, t
hey didn’t know anybody like us was anywhere near, eh, sir?”

  Beneath Gratillonius’s calm went an ugly thrill. “We’ll wait and hear what he’s got to say.”

  The Gaul halted in front of them. For a moment the only sounds were the whickering breath of the horse and the man’s gasps. His eyes rolled. At length he got out, “Romans! Legionaries! God be praised! Quick, and you may yet save us!”

  The Latin was fairly good, with an accent that Gratillonius recognized as that of the Namnetes. He had come as far south as their seaport two years ago, when he was trying to link the cities of the littoral in cooperation against barbarians and neutrality in the civil war. “The sooner you make sense and tell me what the matter is, the sooner we may be able to do something about it,” he snapped.

  “Bacaudae—” the man groaned.

  “That’s no news. Let’s have facts.”

  The stranger gulped, shuddered, mastered himself in some degree. “My wagon train… goods out of Armorica and Britannia… left Redonum…. Bishop Arator and his attendants joined us there, bound for a conference in Portus Namnetum. We’d been told the route was safe. I b-b-brought guards anyway, of course. But now, in th-th-this forsaken stretch… suddenly, there they were, scores of the vilest robbers springing out of the woods and—” He plucked at Gratillonius’s wrist. “God aided me to flee, because I found you. Don’t delay! It’s only two or three leagues. The guards will fight. You can get there in time. God calls you!”

  The centurion spent a flash considering. His mission took primacy. However, his squadron should be a match for any plausible number of outlaws; banditry required suppression; and if word got about that he had been less than zealous in the cause of a prelate, he might as well turn land pirate himself. Worse could be the consequences to Ys.