Rufinus seized Eochaid’s arm again and yanked the man around. “Quick!” he said through the sudden uproar. “Go how I tell you! Else we’re dead—” and, unless they were lucky, not soon dead.
You couldn’t run through these thickets. At first Eochaid lurched ahead like a sleepwalker. Rufinus followed, giving orders that got awkward obedience, covering the trail as best he was able. It would have been much easier and safer to make off by himself. If necessary, he would. Cratillonius needed him, and this tool had served its Purpose. Yet he’d rather not toss Eochaid aside and forget him.
Whatever pursuit there was came to naught. The Scoti could not tell just where the shot had come from; they were witless with grief and rage; Eochaid regained his share of the woodcraft of which Rufinus was a master. Dusk veiled them.
—Eochaid sank to the ground. It was chill and wet beneath him, the verge of marshland. Rufinus remained standing. Trees gloomed around them; they could barely see one another. Between the leaves above, blue deepened slowly toward black. A star or two shivered forth.
“Well, this will be a comfortless camp,” said Rufinus, “but we should be in the way of getting a little rest before morning.”
“What then?” asked Eochaid.
“Why, I’ll be off home, reporting to my lord, and I counsel you do the same. Sure and it’s a grand welcome your father ought to give the man who rid the world of that old bucko.”
Eochaid shook his head, which hung heavy as a stone. “I cannot be forsaking my men. Nor is it to my honor that I sneak from my deeds like a thief.”
Rufinus sighed. “I was afraid of this. You’re a mortal danger to those men, once word gets about—and it will, whether or not you speak, because people know you were Niall’s foe and out of sight when he fell. Of course, you are free to blame me. I’ll not mind that.”
“Never, and I wish you had not said it.”
“Well, steal back there if you must, then flee before dawn with such of them as may still call themselves yours. Niall’s sons will be scouring the seas and every land they can reach, in quest of revenge. I forbid myself the risk of being your guide, but if you can get to Confluentes I’ll find a place for you among my foresters.”
“Nor that, though I suppose I should be thankful to you,” said Eochaid dully. “I won’t be calling you a man without honor, but whatever you have of it is something unknowable to me. This that you’ve brought about—I thought my vengeance would be a flame of glory, but I shot him unseen and they will only remember me as his murderer. Go away, Rufinus. You freed me once, but now leave me alone.”
The Gaul was silent a while before he murmured, “I freed you because it was wrong to keep a proud and splendid animal caged. Afterward I took you hunting with me. Well, things change, and this is the hour between dog and wolf. Goodbye.” He slipped off into the twilight.
6
There was not enough dry wood in these parts for a balefire worthy of Niall of the Nine Hostages. Those of his sons who had come along ordered his ship dragged fully ashore and set alight. He lay before it on a heap of green boughs. They had taken the arrow from his breast, washed him, dressed him in his finest, combed his hair, closed his eyes, folded his hands over a drawn sword.
High roared the flames, white where they devoured, blue and red and yellow above, streaming away starward in sparks. The water seemed ablaze too. Night leaped in and out but never quite reached to the King. The steel in his clasp outshone the gold on his arms, at his throat, around his brows. Spears fenced him in flashing fire, held by the tuathal kings of Ériu who stood around garbed for a battle they could never fight. Beyond them, the length of the beach, darkness prowled between torches lifted throughout the host of warriors. Ocean whispered underneath their weeping.
Eógan maqq Néill, eldest of the sons who were there, trod forth. He carried the arrow. So close he came to the burning ship that it scorched his hair while he cast the shaft in and cursed him who had sent it.
He withdrew, and Uail maqq Carbri left the ranks and went to stand by the King. He was no poet—there would be many of them to make laments, the foremost Torna Éces himself—but this gray man had been handfast to Niall since they both were boys, and the sons gave him the right to speak for all.
“Ochón,” he wailed, “Niall is gone! The stag whose antlers touched heaven, the salmon whose leap was silver in the cataract, the child whose laughter filled earth with music, has left hollowness in our hearts.
“Ochón, Niall is fallen! The hazel whose boughs were a snare for sunlight, the rowan whose berries were fiery as love, the yew whose wood was strong for bows and spearshafts, has left emptiness on our horizon.
“Ochón, Niall is dead! The warrior whose blade sang terror, the King whose judgments were just, the friend whose hand was open, has left ashes on our hearths.
“Niall, you were our strength. Niall, you were our hope. Niall, you were our soul. Farewell forever. Ochón for Mother Ériu, ochón for—”
He faltered, stared down and then around, stammered, “For-forgive me, I can’t go on,” and stumbled off with head in hands and shoulders shaking.
The host howled their sorrow to the fire and the stars. From the sea beyond the light rose a sound more shrill, as of a winter wind although the air lay moveless. Someone out yonder was keening too.
—In the morning, the chieftains held council, soon ended. None cared to go on. After what had happened, and upon remembrance of warnings over the months, it seemed clear that this faring was doomed. Craftsmen made a long box for the body of Niall and put it aboard Eogan’s ship. The fleet set homeward.
Weather stayed gentle. Breezes from the south kept sails filled. Strangest, maybe, was how no stench rose from the coffin. Sometimes at night men glimpsed a whiteness alongside. It seemed to be showing them the way.
Their grief remained boundless. When they came back at last, they buried their King not where lesser ones rested, but in earth of his own. They called it Ochain, the Place of Mourning.
7
Rufinus could not sleep.
Hour by hour his bed had narrowed, like the soil of a grave settling inward. When he twisted about, the sheet tightened around him. Windowpanes were blank with moonlight. It hazed the blackness and dappled the floor. The air hung dead. He heard a faint sharp singing at the middle of its silence and knew this was from himself, a night-wasp he had hatched. Pieces of dream drifted by. They were gone before he saw their faces.
He should be at ease. The Lord, or the Gods, or Whoever, knew he’d drunk enough. Gratillonius had been in such a gusty mood. He often was, ever since Rufinus brought the news. “Not that everything’s over with,” he said, a little slurrily, when the candles were burning short. “The Scoti’ll be back. You’ve bought us some years, though, some years, at least. We’ll make ready. And now Ys can rest. Can’t it? And Dahut, if that wasn’t an evil spirit in her shape haunting the rocks, surely now Dahut too—I’ll ask Corentinus. When he returns. He’s off in Turonum, arguing with Bishop Bricius. Swears, if need be, he’ll carry the matter as far as Rome. Our right here to grant asylum—Oh, I’ve told you before, haven’t I? Well, here’s to you, old buddy. Best investment I ever made, leaving you your life there in the Wood. Paid me a hundred times over, you have. A thousand, if Dahut’s free. Here’s to you.”
His beaker clashed against Rufinus’s. How those gray eyes shone! The drinkers had gotten merry and bawled out a couple of songs and at last hugged each other goodnight.
Rufinus remembered the arms, beard rough against his cheek, wine-breath and also the sweat-smell, which had the cleanness of a man’s who is much outdoors.
Moonlight inched across the floor.
“Oh, hell take this,” ripped through him. He sat up and swung his legs out of bed in a single sweep. Tiles were hard and cool underfoot. He rose, stretched, shook nightmare off.
No reason to fumble with striking fire for a candle. He knew his way around this room as well as did the house cat, and it was her favorite
in the house. He spoiled her rotten, as he doubtless would young Marcus. His hands knew how to fetch ranger’s garb from the chest and slip it over his body. Weapons, bedroll, pack of provisions he always kept ready. He made them fast and opened the door.
The corridor beyond was a tunnel where he was blind. Fingertips brushed a wall which by day would look pretty; Verania was well along with decorating it. Rufinus missed the freedom and casual clutter of his own house, but he’d been too much gone, and too indolent in town, to see about replacing it; you couldn’t put up another wattle-and-daub shack in phoenix Confluentes. Someday he’d take care of the matter. Meanwhile it was kind of Gratillonius and Verania to give him a room in their home.
And they didn’t meddle. When they found him missing, they’d simply smile. “Off on another of his rambles, is he?”
He passed through the atrium and entry and out the unbarred front door. It gave directly on the street; luxuries like a portico were for years to come, if ever. The wall reared sheer at his back, white with moonlight. How the moon shone, and it still a day short of being full. He wished he could have bidden Gratillonius—and Verania—farewell, with thanks; but of course they were asleep.
His sandals padded over cobblestones. Confluentes might never boast Roman paving blocks. Well, only cities old and rich had ever had them, and this was certainly better than dirt lanes. Rufinus dodged around horse dung and offal heaps. Though Gratillonius fumed about it, there was likely no hope of enforcing such cleanliness as had been on the streets of Ys.
Nor would such towers again soar above the sea. Rufinus hastened on between shadowing houses.
The pomoerium opened before him. It was unpaved, hard-packed, its dustiness pale beneath the moon. He had followed Principal Way and ahead of him lifted the earthen wall, moss upon it full of dew, wooden towers squat above the south gate. It stood ajar; he saw the bridge and river beyond. The moon sailed high. To him the markings upon it had always looked like an old woman who grieved. But elsewhere stars glinted, and a breeze wandered through the gate bearing a scent of wild thyme.
Rufinus drank it. He would go hence into that land from which it blew.
He started across the open space. “Hold!” cried a sentry on the north tower. “Who’s there?” The sound was lonesome in the night.
“Friend,” gibed Rufinus. “Enemies come the other way, have you heard?”
“Ha, you,” laughed the man aloft. “The moon-cat. Well, go with God, wherever you’re bound.”
I’d liefer not, thought Rufinus as he passed between the massive iron-bound timbers of the doors. Or He’d liefer not. Shall we agree on it, You and I?
Moonlight flowed with the river. Past the bridge, plowland stretched dim toward the sea. On the left, though, a ribbon of road followed the stream, toward the highway to Venetorum. Striding along it, gravel acrunch, he would soon find woodland; and soon after that, a trail which most travelers never noticed led into its depths.
He started across the bridge. The planks felt somehow soft. Perhaps that was because on his right was the new one, half-finished masonry, and behind it a sprawl of docks still under construction. The night blurred shapes. Water clucked and purled, sliding past stone.
In the forest lived one who loved him—too humbly, maybe, but Rufinus hoped to teach him pride. His hut lay within a sunrise’s reach. Afterward they could sleep late, and then range the woods for days.
And I will raise your image before me, Grallon, thought Rufinus. He smiled with half his mouth. Poor old fellow, you’d be so shocked if you knew, wouldn’t you?
She came from downstream up a pier onto the bridge. Small and cold on high, the moon made shimmer the water that ran off her nakedness.
Rufinus halted. He stood wholly alone with her. The shout of the guard, who saw, might have been in a dream or from the Otherworld.
She grinned. Her teeth were shark-white. Did you think I would let you go free? he heard.
She glided close. He drew his Roman sword and stabbed. It would not bite, it slid off and fell from his hand. She laid arms around him. They were freezingly cold.
“Oh, Dahut—” Rufinus had no strength to break loose. Locked together, he and she toppled into the river. He caught a taste of the incoming tide. Her lips and her tongue forced him open to her kiss.
XVIII
1
Clouds drifted low, heavy with rain. The breeze rustled leaves. They cast no shadows today, but dimness under their arches grew purple-black as vision ranged into the forest. No birds were calling. The Stegir mumbled lusterless.
Gratillonius halted at the oak and dismounted. Favonius nickered. He secured the stallion. Nemeta must have heard, for she came out of her dwelling. Her hair bore the only bright color in the landscape. She stopped before Gratillonius and regarded him silently. It was as if neither quite dared speak.
“How are you?” he asked at last in Ysan. They had not met for months. Summer freckles spread healthily over her arched nose, but she seemed thinner than ever. The sleeves of her plain gray shift were a trifle short; he saw that her right arm had shriveled nearly to the bone.
Her brusqueness told him that she remained herself: “I know why you’ve come.”
It boded ill, though. “I thought you would,” he replied. “But how?”
She chuckled without mirth. “Not by any spell. I do get news here.” The frigidity broke open. She blinked against tears, shivered, abruptly cast herself against him. “Oh, father!”
He held her close, stroked her mane, let her burrow into his bosom. Her breath rattled. “You liked Rufinus too, did you not?” he murmured.
“Aye, he w-was kind and jolly—when I was a little girl—and—and he was good to you, when all the rest of us had turned on you—” She wrenched free. Her left hand swiped angrily at her eyes.
He could no longer hold his question inside him; yet it resisted coming forth. “Was it, then—The sentry isn’t clear about what he saw. It seemed him ’twas a woman, moon-white, but—We know not. We’ve searched the shores and dragged the river, but haven’t found the body.”
Nemeta had mastered herself. “You never will,” she said in a cold small voice. “’Twas borne to the sea.”
“You’ve gone into these matters. Can you tell what—what was that thing?”
“Dahut.”
“A demon in her shape?”
“Herself. She drowned with Ys, but They would not let her stay dead.”
He had awaited this, and prayed it not be, and now that it was he must fight it still. “Who are They?” he challenged.
“The Three. She is Their vengeance on the city.”
“You can’t be sure! How do you know?”
“By my dreams. By the wands I have cast. By things half seen in a pool and in the smoke of a sacrificial fire.”
“You could be mistaken. You could be crazed, huddling alone for years.”
Pain shook her tones. “Would you have sought me if you didn’t believe I could tell you the truth? Father, I know those Gods. I am the last of Their worshippers.”
His throat thickened and burned. “Gods like that—you serve, you whose mother They killed—why?”
She made a faint, one-sided shrug. They had been over this ground before. “There are none other for me. Epona and the rest are shrunk to sprites, phantoms; nor do I think they would heed me if I called, as far as I have gone from Their ways. Wotan and His war-band are aliens. I must have some few powers if I am to live as anything better than a slave. From Lir, Taranis, and Belisama I have them.”
“Christ has more.”
She stiffened. “He’d deny me my freedom.”
Hatred sank within him. In its place came sorrow for her, and a weariness he could feel to his marrow. “I’ve heard this too often,” he said. “For the dozenth time I beg, bethink you. Is Verania a slave? Come back with me. She’ll be like a sister to you, and I—while I live, you’ll be your own woman. And afterward too, if God lets me build what I’m trying to build. Come
home, Nemeta, daughter of my Forsquilis whom I loved.”
The sudden fear he saw on her slashed through him. Her eyes widened till white ringed the green. Her left hand made a fending gesture. “Nay,” she whispered. “Dahut would find me.”
“What, you?”
“I counselled and helped Rufinus on his mission to get Niall killed.”
For my sake, he understood, and wanted to hold her again but seemed unable to stir.
“’Tis become Niall that she chiefly exists to avenge. And she knows where they are who were his bane.” Nemeta clutched at her breast. She turned her head to and fro, looking. The violence of the motion made her useless arm swing. “I don’t think she can swim this far up the Stegir. No tidewater here. She’s wholly of the sea now. I dare never go near the sea again. But she can follow the tide through the Odita to Confluentes.”
She steadied. He groped in the dark after common sense. “Rufinus was a pagan; nay, he held by no Gods whatsoever. You—Christ will protect you.”
“If I accept Him.” The red head shook. “That’s not in my heart.”
Somewhere at the back of his soul, he wondered about his own faith. Why had he sought Christ? Was it merely for power against evil—at best, because He stood between the world and chaos, like a centurion between Rome and the barbarians? Gratillonius knew Christ lived, but in the same way that he knew the Emperor did. He had never met either. He admired Christ; but did he love Him?
“He will accept you if you ask,” Gratillonius said.
The brief pridefulness crumbled. Nemeta looked away, into the dusk of the forest. “Will He ever?” he barely heard. “Can He? Father, you know not the things I have done.”
The grimness that that awakened was somehow strengthening. “I may know more than you think,” Gratillonius told her. “His waters wash every sin from us.” And that is why I haven’t yet dared be baptized.
“Well, talk to your bishop—about Dahut,” she said in forlorn defiance, “I’ve told you all I’ve learned.”
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