They stood a long while under the climbing sun. Finally he muttered, “I pray your pardon.”
She smiled in her prim fashion. “I grant it. You were overwrought. Come, shall we seek the house, look it over, mayhap take an early stoup of wine? You’ll require a span of ease ere you can realize your happiness is coming home.”
He stared at her. How stately she stood. Beneath that gown was a body lithe and strengthful—
No! he cried at the sudden tide of lust. My Queens not a year dead, and she the daughter of one of them!
But likewise was Tambilis, for whom I put her mother Bodilis aside.
But that was at the behest of the Gods of Ys, Whom I have disowned.
But the law I think of is the law of Mithras. But it was never clear about this matter. Besides, I have disowned Mithras too.
But I was bound for life to my Queens alone.
The chill in that thought helped him master himself. “Aye, let’s do so,” he said. “And thank you.”
3
Where the River Vienna joined the Liger they made a broad stretch of water always peaceful. Forest enfolded it and a small human settlement. To this place came Bishop Martinus at the beginning of winter’s pastoral rounds.
He loved these journeys. They were not long and arduous, with strangers at the far end, like many farings he perforce made, as far as the praetorian seat at Augusta Treverorum; then old bones ached and thin flesh shivered for weariness. They took him from the cares of his episcopate both in the city and the monastery. Those were heavy of late. Bricius, his disciple whom he had named to be his successor, now looked on him as a crazy dotard clinging to notions of poverty which might once have brought men nearer God but surely no longer served the needs of Mother Church and her princes. In the countryside harvest was ended, weather still mild, ordinary folk and the little children had leisure to meet him on his way, listen to him talk in language they understood, receive his blessing and mutely give him theirs.
But this year trouble pursued him even there. Word had come of a vicious quarrel in the presbytery where the rivers met. He would compose it if he could. With a few companions he set off down the Liger in his barge.
They arrived beneath a low gray sky. Trees raised bare arms from the banks. Water sheened dully. Fisher birds dived and bobbed back into sight. Their cries rang loud in the stillness. Martinus pointed. “Behold,” he said. “The demons are like that, ravenous, never sated.” He lifted his voice. “Begone!” Feeble though the shout was, they immediately took off, a racket of wings through the wet air. Once up they made a military-like formation and flew out of the watchers’ ken.
“A holy omen,” breathed young Sucat.
The elders received the bishop with full reverence and took him uphill to lodge at the church. His attendants found pallets in their quarters or among humble families nearby. In the next pair of days, Martinus brought the factions to amity. “Put down your pride,” he told them. “For your sake, Christ let Himself be mocked and scourged and nailed to the Cross between two thieves. The least you can do is humble yourselves before one another.”
Even as he labored, fever was in him. When time came to go on, he could not He lay burning hot, lips cracked, eyes stabbed by what faint light entered the room. He allowed none to touch him, and refused straw to lie on; he would keep with his wonted sackcloth, and ashes thereto.
It was not that he wished to die. Too much remained to do. Once those who held watch on him heard the quavered prayer: “Lord, if my people still have need of me, I am ready to go to work again. But Your will be done.”
In the days that followed, as word got about, a swarm arrived, monks, nuns, grief-stricken common folk. Nearly all must needs do without a roof, bleak though the season was, and live on whatever crusts they had brought along. Yet they were determined they would follow their shepherd to his last resting place.
When the presbyters saw death nigh, they asked Martinus if he would like to be shifted to a more comfortable position. “No,” he whispered. “Leave me looking toward Heaven.”
Then his tone strengthened. Wrath called out: “Why are you standing there, you bloody fiend? You’ll get nothing from me. I’m bound for Abraham’s bosom. Go!”
He sank back. Breath rattled into silence. God’s soldier departed, obedient to orders.
VIII
1
Axes rang in the forest, picks and spades grubbed at stumps, oxen hauled logs and bundles of brushwood south to Confluentes. Some land had been cleared during the summer, but that was for timber to make houses. Now men were readying a much wider ground to cultivate.
When nothing else claimed his attention, Gratillonius was there. In hard labor and rough comradeship lay healing of a sort. He did not lose prestige—Kings of Ys had been more like Ulysses or Romulus than today’s Emperors—but rather gained admiration by strength, skill, and helpfulness. Besides, the faster the colony grew and began to export such things as lumber, the sooner his own position would be secure. At present he had scarcely a solidus to his name, nor any revenues to support himself in office and whatever public works might need undertaking. He could not continue much longer living on Apuleius’s kindness. Indeed, the senator might find himself in trouble were it known that he put funds at the disposal of a man who had no clear Imperial standing.
Gratillonius cared little about that on his own account. The brash young centurion who had dreamed of becoming mighty and famous seemed altogether a stranger. What counted was his duty toward people who trusted him.
One day he happened to be the last homebound as the short period of winter light drew to an end. The gangs plodded quietly off, exhausted. Even Ysan commoners had never been accustomed to this kind of work; their country was nearly treeless, open to the winds. Some among the loggers were of Suffete birth, too; there was scant other livelihood for them if they refused to become hirelings on established farms. Gauls bore the toil more easily, though it told on them also. Small groups of them had been arriving lately., piecemeal, not only Osismii but a few Veneti and Redones. They had heard tales of opportunities for a fresh start under leadership that bade fair to keep off the barbarian raids that Armorica once again dreaded.
Today, as Gratillonius was hewing, a man had appeared and asked that he come with him. Gratillonius recognized Vindolenus, a former Bacauda. Those who had followed Rufinus west and settled down as more or less law-abiding were generally still shy of the Roman authorities. They were apt to make their homesteads deep in the woods and well apart. There they worked tiny plots, hunted, fished, trapped, burned charcoal, to scratch out a living for themselves and whatever families they acquired. Despite their isolation, they formed a widely flung net which as King of Ys he had found invaluable for gathering information, transmitting messages he did not want to risk being intercepted, and keeping down banditry.
Thus he felt he could not deny this man’s plea. “My oldest son, lord, he’s deathly sick. If you’d bless him with your hands, he might live, you, the King.”
“I wish that were so,” Gratillonius sighed. “But whatever power of that kind ever was in Ys lay with its Queens. They re gone, the city is, and my Kingship with them.”
“No, my lord, begging your pardon, but I can’t believe all the magic’s left you, King Gradlon that drove off the Franks.” Like most Gauls, Vindolenus softened Gratillonius’s name differently from Ysans.
“Well, if it’ll make you happier, I’ll come, but I can promise nothing—unless, if I think a physician may help, to bring one tomorrow.” At least the woodsrunners did not blame Gratillonius for the whelming of Ys and hold him accursed. That was doubtless thanks largely to Rufinus.
It was more than an hour’s walk along twisted game trails to the hut. The woman and the rest of her brood greeted him with pitiful joy. He needed patience, but at last got from her an account of what she had tried, treatments and simples. They seemed as likely to avail as anything that anybody knew about in Aquilo. The boy lay twitching and muttering
, eyes full of blankness. Gratillonius covered the burning forehead with his palm. “May health return here” was all he could think of to say.
“Won’t you call on Belisama, lord?” asked Vindolenus. “She was the great Goddess of Ys, wasn’t She?’”
A nasty sensation passed through Gratillonius. “It was … not mine to serve Her, so I ought not invoke Her.” These folk must have offered to Cernunnos, Banba, whatever ancient deities they knew; they might well have added Christ for good measure. “Mithras, God of men, grant that this youth grow to manhood in Your sight.” That hurt him to say, as hollow as it sounded within his skull.
Afterward he must take a little refreshment, else he would hurt feelings and give a bad omen. By the time Vindolenus had guided him back and said farewell, the sun was down.
A streak of cloud glowed furnace red to southwest. It was the single sign of warmth. Elsewhere the sky ranged from ice-green to bruise-purple. The Stegir gleamed steely through naked fields. Confluentes ahead, Aquilo more distant, Mons Ferruginus beyond the Odita were hunchings of darkness touched by fugitive light-glimmers. Nearer was a yellow hint of comfort from the windows of the former manor house, but it too seemed to huddle under the vacant sky. A low chill gnawed in the quiet.
Gratillonius shifted his ax from right to left shoulder and started across the plowland toward the path that ran along the lesser river past the house and thence to the colony and his dwelling there. A flock of rooks passed overhead; their calls were peculiarly lonesome. Abruptly he stopped and peered.
Vague in the dusk, a horseman came from the northern verge of forest, off one of the tracks that snaked among its trees and brush, out into the open. He drew rein and appeared to look around, as if to get his bearings. Alone, though that seemed like an excellent mount he had—He wasn’t far. Gratillonius broke into a trot. “Hail!” he called, first in Latin, then in Osismiic. “Wait for me. I’m friendly.”
Whoever this was, he’d need a roof tonight, at least. It behooved the headman of Confluentes to offer it. And a newcomer with new tales to tell should be welcome in a season when few people traveled. Through Gratillonius’s mind passed a line from the Christian scriptures he had several times heard Bishop Martinus use. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Odd how those words stayed with him. Well, they were solid counsel, like much else he’d heard from the same lips. Where now did old Martinus lodge?
As he drew close, he thought the rider tensed. It was hard to be sure. A voluminous cloak with the hood drawn up muffled what looked like a small, slender frame. Though a wan blur in vision, the face showed fine-boned and smooth. Was this a boy? Gratillonius put down his ax and advanced with hands widespread. Any traveler might well be skittish these days, meeting an armed man by twilight. Gratillonius himself was prepared to spring aside at the first hint of treachery.
He heard a broken scream, and halted. “Father!” wailed through the shadowiness, in Ysan. “Is that truly you?”
Lightning rived. Amidst the thunder that followed, Gratillonius called, “Aye. W-welcome, Nemeta. Welcome home.”
He stumbled closer. She urged the horse aside. Something like choked sobs jerked from under the cowl. “Be not afraid,” he begged. “I gave my promise. Why did the messenger, whoever that was—did he really take so long to reach you? Or did you linger? Why? I’ll keep faith. You shouldn’t have fared without an escort. But welcome.”
Control regained, she lifted a hand. How frail it was. “Hold,” she said unevenly. “I pray you, stand where you are. You’ve … surprised me. I was bound for the big house yonder. Runa is there, nay? She—she and I—I hoped she’d meet with you ere—I did.”
He obeyed. His own hands dangled helpless. “I know Runa’s been the go-between,” he said dully. “But what have you to fear from me? I’ll give you all you asked for. If I can’t talk better sense into you. Do let me try, Nemeta. For your own sake. I plight you there’ll be no scolding. Follow me to my house in Confluentes. We’ll talk, unless you’d liefer go to bed when you’ve eaten. I’ve been in such a nightmare about you, but now you’re home again. Naught else matters.”
Starkness replied: “Your fears were well founded. Behold.” She drew the cloak back. Enough hueless light was left for him to see the swelling under her tunic.
“Yea,” she said, “thus it is. I fled in quest of freedom. Along the way I was caught and violated. I escaped, and in another place had a protector. He’s an honorable man who never touched me save as brother might sister. After your answer to my message came, ’twas a while ere I could bring myself to leave, for by then I could no longer lie to myself about the state I was in. But at last ’twas clear that to bide where I was would be worse than my life here had been. I used some money given me to buy this horse, boy’s guise, bedroll, provisions. Along byways, sleeping in thickets at night, I returned. Ask me no more—you promised—for this is everything I will ever tell.”
Gratillonius had met the same glacial resolve in her mother Forsquilis. “I won’t,” he pledged, flat-voiced. “Of course I’m bound to wonder.”
What had her hope been, the wild fancy of a girl in whom ran witch blood and soldier blood? Where had she gone? Who had forced her, and what had become of the creature? (Oh, to catch him, beat him flat, cut off his parts, gouge out his eyes, and—the Osismii knew what to do with their foulest criminals—set the hounds on him!) Where afterward had she wandered? Who was her benefactor—a Christian, maybe a cleric, hoping to win a convert or simply acting in the charity his faith enjoined? Had she any other friends?
“Seek not to find out!” she shrilled. “Leave what’s happened in its grave!”
“If that be your wish.” Gratillonius drew breath. “But come. All the more have we need to talk, to reason out how best we can provide for you and—” his throat thickened—“the child.” My first grandchild, he thought. This.
He could barely see her head shake. “Nay. Let me go to Runa as I’d meant. Leave me a while in peace.” She struck heels to the horse and cantered off. Night quickly reclaimed sight of her. Hie stood where he was a long time before he went onward.
—In Confluentes next day was much excitement. Evirion Baltisi came back. He was well outfitted and mounted, as were the several men hired to accompany him. In Gesocribate, he said, waited a ship he owned. Thence he had traveled around Armorica, assessing conditions and prospects. Here he would spend the winter, engaging and instructing crewmen. In spring they would go to the ship and take her on the first of many merchant ventures. Little more would he tell; but youth and eagerness blazed from him.
2
The new year might be more hopeful than the last. Weather grew springlike well before the vernal equinox. Corentinus took advantage of it, holding meetings outdoors whenever possible, beyond the colony wall. There he exorcised evil spirits, taught the Faith, and answered questions before large groups. Otherwise, lacking any building of size, he must needs see one or a few persons at a time, whenever it could be arranged—oftenest in their homes. He got little rest.
Rufinus perched himself atop the breastwork and observed such a gathering from that distance. When it ended and folk straggled back toward their occupations, he bounded down, across the ditch, over the field till he drew alongside Evirion. “Hail,” he said in Latin, with his warmest smile. “How are you?”
The young man squinted at him. Their acquaintance was slight. “Why do you care?” he replied curtly, using the same tongue. Among the Romans he had gained full command of it.
“Oh, it’s polite,” said Rufinus. “However, I really would like to hear. I’ve been gone for some time.”
Off on what errands? Maybe Gratillonius knew. “There are enough people to give you the gossip,” Evirion snapped. “I’m healthy, thank you. I’m also busy.”
Rufinus matched his stride. “Bear with me, please. I approached you for a reason. If you can spare an hour, I’d like to bring you to my house and pour you a cup of
wine. It’s decent stuff.”
Evirion scowled. “You’re Grallon’s man.”
“What, are you his enemy?”
“Well—” Evirion seized on an Ysan saying. “He and I are not surf and seal.”
“Nor keel and reef,” answered Rufinus likewise. Again in Latin: “Do come. You needn’t respond to any questions you don’t want to. And you could learn something.”
Evirion considered, shrugged, nodded. Together they walked across the earthen way and through the portal. Evirion glanced at a sentry. “Why does Grallon insist on that absurd watch?” he grumbled. “If a foe was coming, we’d know in plenty of time to man the defenses.”
“Not necessarily,” Rufinus maintained. “Anyhow, it helps keep the men in training.” They continued along the street. “I wish you’d put your hostility to him aside,” he added. “What happened was not his fault.”
“Whose, then?’ Evirion’s tone became less aggressive, as if he truly wanted to know.
“The Gods’? I want no part of beings that would destroy a city, Their worshippers, just because of some dispute over morals. It’s worse than atrocious, it’s stupid—or insane.”
“I’ll agree to that,” said Evirion slowly.
“Me, though,” Rufinus went on, “I’ll put the blame where it belongs, on a ruthless man, a greedy little slut, and sheer bad luck. I notice you’re turning from the Gods of Ys, like nearly everyone else. In other words, you’re ranging yourself with Gratillonius, where he always stood.”
“No! I only—” Evirion’s words turned into a grinding noise.
“You find it expedient to join the Christians. No offense.” Rufinus squeezed the shoulder beside his. “I would too, if I had a reason like yours. What difference? We may as well bow down to one nothing as to another.”
“Are you calling me a hypocrite?”
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