She gave him a heavy-lidded glance. “Speed the day.”
They kissed, less strongly or lingeringly than they desired. She was warm and supple against him. Memories of a skerry glimmered away for this while. “I’ll leave a light burning, of course,” she said. “Enjoy your walk. It is a beautiful evening.”
He stooped above the tiny, homely miracle in the crib. “Goodnight, Marcus.” He looked over his shoulder. “Ungracious rascal. I do believe he snored at me.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Takes after his father, he does.” In haste: “Not really. Not in that way. You don’t often.”
His son, he thought. Bearer of the name. Her parents had supposed he chose “Marcus” for the Evangelist, and were pleased. Except for Verania, who went cheerfully along with the conspiracy, he wouldn’t disenchant them. His father in Britannia had been Marcus. Strange how this new life strengthened its own wellsprings, even those that had long since flowed into quietness.
He took his cloak and went from the bedroom, down the corridor, out the atrium and front door of Apuleius’s house. A few months hence, he and Verania would have their own home; and it wouldn’t be a cob-and-turf hovel. In the meantime, the older couple couldn’t be kinder. Salomon sometimes got brash, but the boy meant well and … already, as easily and naturally as a seed becomes a sapling, was the leader of his age contingent in Aquilo.
May the sapling grow to a mighty oak.
Not far past fall, the moon lifted above Mons Ferruginus. Light speckled streets and frosted roofs. Air was still warm and fall of earth odors, once Gratillonius had left the city behind. He found a path leading to the heights. Along it he was frequently in darkness cast by trees or by the hill itself, but his feet knew the way.
Years ago, he thought as his tread whispered upward, a few days after the whelming of Ys, he had climbed this same track, in flight from emptiness. It ran him down and brought him to the ground. Or, rather, he had borne it with him while he fled it. Why was tonight otherwise? Why should he dare be happy?
The last of his people were striking new roots, but Rome could well rip them out again. The East might stand firm—he couldn’t tell from what confused and fragmentary accounts reached this far—but the walls of the West crumbled before the wild men. Christ was strong; Christy was strange. Nemeta dwelt alone and crippled. What loneliness was Dahut’s?
Verania had given him a son.
He reached the top, near the iron smelter where wood had been cleared away, and looked across the land. Fields were hoar, forest crowns dappled, rivers atremble with moonlight. Stars glinted in violet-blue.
Gratillonius raised his hand. This will be yours, Marcus, he vowed. Nobody shall take it from you, ever.
Aloud into the huge silence: “For your sake also, I am going to make Niall dead. Christ be my witness.”
XVII
1
—duly noted.
“Your interest, if sincere, is commendable. However, the value of your report is questionable at best. Your alleged agent in Hivernia has provided nothing more than his own word about what rumors and boasts he heard. The fickleness of barbarian will is notorious. This story of a seaborne raid on the scale of an invasion is in all likelihood some petty chieftains fantasy.
“Defense is adequate around the Liger estuary. Your recommendation that the Saxon laeti there be reinforced, implying as it does that Christian soldiers go under pagan command, approaches profanation. To strengthen the garrisons upstream, as you also propose, shows you are quite ignorant of the peril at the Germanic frontier, not to mention policy considerations that require maximum troop strength in the South and East.
“Your scheme of raising native forces is totally unacceptable. Law forbids, and this office is not so foolish as to request an exception be made. We have received accounts of such activities on your part, and hereby warn you in the strongest terms that they must stop at once. Otherwise the consequences will be grave for everyone concerned in any violations. Most certainly, the appearance of armed and organized civilians in the Liger Valley will constitute insurrection. Claims of emergency will not excuse it, and punishment will be condign.
“Your obedience to the Imperial decree and your cooperation in suppressing rash attempts at action are required. Copies of this letter are being sent to—”
Gratillonius tossed it down. He had been reading it aloud. “Never mind,” he said dully. “There’s more, but I’m about to gag.”
“What can Apuleius do?” asked Rufinus.
“Nothing. Understand, this is directly from the Duke of the Armorican Tract,”
“The man in command of all our defenses. So Glabrio’s finally gotten to him. And he in his turn to whoever’s in charge among the Namnetes and Turones.” Rufinus tugged his beard. “M-m, it’s not quite that simple, I suppose.’ A grin flickered over the vulpine face. “Rome has reasons to keep weapons from its citizens.”
“In God’s name!” groaned Gratillonius. “What do they imagine we’re plotting? We only want to help.”
Winter’s rain brawled on the roof and sluiced down window glass. For all its newness and bright paint, the atrium of his house was full of the day’s gloom and chill. One could barely see a wall panel that Verania was decorating in her scant spare time. It would show sprays of tall flowers. At first she had intended a picture of Ys, but he replied that the city should rest in its grave, after which she sought to kiss away the pain she heard.
“Well, they distrust us, and we’ll have to lie low,” Rufinus said. “Maybe after the Scoti have struck—because they will, as surely as fire will burn you—then the lords of state will listen.”
“I wonder about that. And anyway—the whole valley sacked? Dead men in windrows, cities torched, Gallia slashed open right through its heart. How long can we survive that?”
“I know, master. Your hands are tied.” Rufinus straightened. “But mine aren’t.”
Gratillonius stared at the lean, leather-clad form. “What do you mean?”
“Give me a ship and crew in early spring. Niall won’t leave till after Beltene. I’ll have time to brew up something.”
Gratillonius’s heart slugged. “By yourself? Are you out of your head?”
“No more than usual,” laughed Rufinus. Soberly: “I can’t promise a thing, of course, except that I’ll try. I’ve been half expecting something like this letter, and thinking, but it’s vague in my mind. Has to be, what with every single piece in the game a shadow—a shadow thrown by a guttering lamp. … No, I shouldn’t say more, even to you. Please don’t ask me. Just let me try.”
Gratillonius reached an unsteady hand toward him. “By Hercules, old friend, you are a man.”
Rufinis barely clasped the arm. He turned on his heel. “I have to go now,” he said to the one at his back.
“No, wait, stay for dinner, at least.”
“Sorry, but I have—things to do—out in the woods. Ill likely be gone several days. Have it well, master.” Rufinus strode from the room.
2
Eochaid maqq Éndae held an islet in a narrow bay of the Alban Dál Riata coast Skies were low when the galley from Armorica arrived; underneath their gray, mists held the tops of the mainland mountains. A cold breeze ruffled the water. Its murkiness made rock, sand, and gnarly dwarf trees on the holm doubly drear. Smoke blew ragged from hearthfires inside a rath. A shed ashore, near a wooden dock, must hold a small ship, and several currachs lay above high-tide mark.
Warriors had hastened out of the stronghold and formed a line before it. Rufinus’s rowers brought his vessel to the pier without showing any weapons, and he himself sprang forth, his hands lifted empty. He had donned fine clothes, red cloak above saffron-dyed wool tunic, breeches of blue linen, kid boots. An ornate baldric held his longsword, a belt studded with amber and garnets his knife and pouch. “Peace!” he cried in the tongue of Ériu. “A friend of your chieftain seeks him.”
Eochaid stepped from the rank, his own blade lowered. He was coarsely clad.
Winter indoors had paled him, so that the three blotchy scars marring his face stood forth in full ugliness. “Who is this?” he asked; and then, looking closer: “Is it you, truly you?” He dropped his sword and ran to embrace the newcomer. “A thousand welcomes, my heart, a thousand thousand!”
Rufinus returned the gesture. Eochaid released him and called to his men, “Here is himself who got me free of Niall’s bonds—six years ago, has it been? Were it six hundred, I’d remember him. All that I have is yours, Rufinus.”
“I thank you,” said the Gaul, “my crew thanks you, my King afar thanks you.”
“Come, disembark, come inside. What God has brought you to me, darling?”
“Whichever deals in vengeance,” Rufinus answered low. “We’ve much to talk about alone, you and I.”
—Within the earthen wall were houses, byres, cribs, pens, everything meager and crowded together. It was no great estate that King Aryagalatis had bestowed on the fugitive prince. He and his followers might have done better inland; but that, he explained, would mean endless trouble with the displaced Cruthini, and keep him from the sea. “Here we fish, trade, sometimes make a raid southward, otherwise keep our bit of livestock, and always bide our chance,” he said. “The day will come for us. It must.”
His dwelling was the largest, of the same turf and dry-laid raw stone as the rest but fitted inside with things of gold, silver, and glass. Like most of his men, he had acquired a staff of workers, male and female, generally slaves though a couple of them hirelings from poor families of the nearest tuath. The showpiece was a woman captured from the Brigantes; she knew Latin and was still comely in spite of the hard life and bearing him two children thus far, neither of whom lived long. He offered Rufinus the use of her, or any other of his household.
The guest declined gracefully. “This voyage of mine, seeking you out, my dear, is so important that I took a gess as part of the price for its good outcome. While the feast is being made ready and my men settling in amongst yours, could we go off by ourselves?”
“We can that, if it be your wish.” Eagerness quivered in Eochaid’s voice. “The boatshed is at least shelter from the wind, and I’ll have a cask of mead brought us. I’ve slept in there twice, when I sought presaging dreams; and they came to me, though double-tongued as sendings from the Gods so often are.”
Within were dank dimness and a smell of tar from the galley filling most of the space. The two men sat down with cloaks between them and the ground. They broached the cask and drank from Roman goblets.
“I have heard tales of you,” said Rufinus: “how, after you got away from Niall, misfortune still dogged you—”
“It has that,” Eochaid declared grimly.
“—but you won through to this.”
“Little enough for a son of King Endae.”
“Great enough for me to hear about, and ask my way till I found it.”
“Even here, Niall reaches.” Eochaid tossed off his cupful and dipped another.
Rufinus nodded. “I know. He readies for a mighty faring south, and calls on every king who is under him or allied to him. But how does he command Aryagalatis?”
“Through the motherland, Dál Riata in Ériu. A son of his has wrung tribute, obedience, from that far corner of Qóiqet nUlat. Agreement was better than invasion.”
“M-m-m … I’ve heard tell that Aryagalatis is by no means unwilling.”
Eochaid bared teeth. “He is not. The loot and glory bedazzle him as they do everybody.”
“Other than yourself.”
“What do you think I am?” Eochaid flared. “Never would I follow Niall maqq Echach! May pigs devour my corpse if ever I do!” He drank again and calmed a little. “Aryagalatis understands. I am free to stay behind.”
“You chafe, though.”
Eochaid sighed. “This is a cheerless place.”
“I’ve come to tell you,” said Rufinus weightily, “that you can indeed follow Niall to his war.”
The marks stood lurid on Eochaid’s skin. “You are my guest, but have a care.”
Rufinus smiled. “Sure and you don’t think Id be insulting of you, my heart, do you?” he purred. “A hunter follows an elk that he may bring it down.”
Eochaid’s hand jerked. Mead slopped from his goblet. “What’s this?”
“Listen, please. It’s what I’ve sought you out for, and a weary voyage that was.” Rufinus waited until the Scotian was thrummingly still, then said:
“If you tell King Aryagalatis you would like to come along after all, as it might be out of loyalty to him your befriender—as well as for a share in the gains—it’s glad he’ll be, I’ll wager. You and your men are proven warriors. At the same time, he should heed your wish that he say nothing about it to Niall. That could only bring trouble.”
“How shall Niall stay unaware?”
“Why, if Aryagalatis makes no mention of it—and Aryagalatis will see very little of him—then talk between crews will scarcely come to the ears of the great King. He’ll have so much else to think about and do. I daresay he’s well-nigh forgotten you. True, you plundered about in his country once, and later killed the son of his chief poet, but both were avenged in dreadful ways, and—saving your honor—you will be just one small skipper in a fleet from much of Ériu.”
Eochaid gripped his dagger. Knuckles stood white above the hilt. “I am no more than that,” he said hoarsely, “I, a son of the Laginach King, because of Niall maqq Echach.”
“Then make his sons grieve for it.”
“How?”
“We shall see. I will travel with you.” Rufinus paused and drank before he locked eyes with his host and said: “This is needful. It’s why I’ve sought you out. Going by my own ship, I’d be a marked man. Everybody would ask who I was and where I hailed from. In your crew I’ll be hidden. As far as they know, I’m simply your outland friend who’s joined you for the adventure. There must be many such in so big a band. Word of me will be lost in the racket of weapons.”
Eochaid gave him stare for stare. “Why do you do this?” he asked, deep in his throat.
“I am a man of King Grallon’s,” Rufinus answered, “and he too has much to avenge on Niall. Oh, endlessly much.”
“The King of Ys.” Awe shook the words. “What is your plan, man of his?”
“I told you, none. We must wait for our chance. In the welter of such an expedition, it’s bound to come, the more so when there are two of us to watch for it and seize it.”
Eochaid looked away, into darkness. “This is no real home for me,” rustled from him, like dead leaves blowing. “If I must become a roofless wanderer again, or die, after striking Niall down, why, it’s joyous I’d go to my doom.” He shook himself. “But the hope is so far-fetched. We could die for naught, we two.”
Rufinus reached in his pouch. “At the feast this evening we’ll exchange such gifts as befits our honor,” he said; “but here is one I’ve brought to give you in secret, and the most precious of the lot.”
He undid protective wrappings and held out his hand. Eochaid took the thing he offered and brought it close, the better to see in the cold dimness. It was the skull of a falcon, held together by sinew cords. Graven in the bone was an arrow.
“This winter past, I went to a witch who dwells in the forest,” Rufinus told him. “I asked her help. She cast what spells she was able, and made this, though she has the use of but one arm. She said it ought to bring you luck.”
Uneasily, Eochaid turned the charm over and over. “What did you give her?”
“Nothing,” Rufinus answered, forgetting his tale of the gess. “She thanked me. She also has Ys to avenge and … and Grallon to love.”
3
That year Beltene in Mide was the greatest and most magnificent ever heard of since the Children of Danu held Ériu. To Temir swarmed men who would fare south with Niall after the rites and the three days of celebration that were to follow. Their tents and booths overran the land round about, a sudden bloom
of colors and banners and blinking metal. Their tuathal kings and the wives of these packed the houses on the sacred hill.
Guests were all the more crowded because they must yield place to the mightiest yet seen here, other than Niall himself—Conual Corcc, up from Mumu to keep the feast with his foster-kinsman. Beautiful and terrible were the warriors who accompanied their lord. Chariots rumbled, riders galloped and reared their horses, spears rippled to the march like grain ripe beneath the wind, shields flashed, horns roared when that company appeared; and most wonderful was that it came in peace.
Disquieting to thoughtful folk was that it would depart in peace likewise. King Conual had no wish to sail against the Romans. Rather, he had come in hopes of stopping the venture, the tale of which rang from shore to shore of Ériu.
In this he foiled. “I feared my words would be useless,” he admitted at the end. “But for the sake of the old bonds between us, I must in honor speak them.”
“I thank you for your care of me,” said Niall; “but better would be if you laid your strength to mine.”
They were side by side in the Feasting Hall on the last night before men went home or went to war. The meat was eaten, the tables cleared away, now servers flitted about refilling cups. A savor lingered in the smoke which firepit and lamps tinged pale red. Elsewhere throughout that cavernous space it gleamed off hanging shields and the gold, silver, bronze, amber, gems upon the men benched around the walls. Talk and laughter boomed between. There was an edge to its roughness, for omens had been unclear and word of that had gotten about. Everyone worked hard to keep good cheer alive. Close by the two great Kings they sat quiet, listening.
“I have my own land to think of,” said Conual. “We prosper by trade with the Romans.”
“As you did with the Ysans—” Niall stopped short. “I would never be calling you afraid, darling.”
Conual lifted his head. The locks were still flame-hued. “I try to be wise,” he said. “Why should I offend the Romans and their God? He has ever more followers in Mumu.”
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