Roma Mater (28 page)

Her face screwed up. ‘But my feast!’ she wailed.

‘Eat it in health. Invite somebody else. Do what you will. I must away.’ He scrambled into his clothes.

She blubbered a bit. However, she made no effort to keep him, just sat in bed watching while her hand travelled absently between bowl and mouth.

He strode out into the street. A clean wind blew off the sea. He would go to his palace, he decided, take a hot bath, don fresh raiment. Only there in Ys was it permissible to keep horses. He would have one saddled and gallop off across the hinterland, alone.

His Queens – Nobody remained but Fennalis, and she was the mother of Lanarvilis. Flat-out against the Law of Mithras, to lie with both daughter and mother. He would explain that to Fennalis sometime soon as kindly as he was able. They said she was a friendly sort, usually cheerful, bustling about upon charitable works. Besides, with seven living children by Wulfgar, Lugaid, Gaetulius, and Hoel, she might well be past the rule of the moon. Dismiss Fennalis. He had carried out his duty by the lot of them.

It didn’t matter which had known beforehand of that whore-hearted conspiracy to entrap a man. Dahilis had not. She had merely appealed to her Gods for deliverance.

Ignoring persons who hailed him, Gratillonius stalked through Ys. He would ride the roads above the sea until his horse could go no more. Then he would return, bathe anew, dress well, and seek the house of Dahilis.

With her he would abide as long as the Gods allowed. Let people say whatever they chose. Was he not the prefect of Rome?

The word had gone forth around Mide: again this year would the King at Temir carry a spear abroad. Let ships and currachs gather at the mouth of Boand’s River. Let those noble landowners who owed him warlike service make ready themselves and their men, to meet well-provisioned once seed was in the ground and cattle on their way to upland pastures. Let any other man who was free to do so and wished for adventure, glory, and plunder come too. Niall maqq Echach would await them and lead them – this time not to Alba, where fighting and loot had been splendid but where the Wall of Rome still stood – this time south to golden Gallia!

First there must be the rites of Beltene, welcoming in the summer and striving to make it fruitful. Throughout Ériu, folk would rise before dawn to gather the dew for its powers of cure. Women washed their faces in it to make themselves fair, men their hands to make themselves skilful. Women then drew the magical first water from the well and left flowers behind; men set up a bush before the house, and prepared to defend it against whoever might steal it and the luck it carried; youngsters plucked healing herbs, together with blossoms for shrines, horse bridles, every place that might please the Goddess. Later in the day came exchange of gifts, balls bearing the signs of sun and moon, followed by hurling-games played with these, which could well lead to brawls and bloodshed. Youths and maidens went in procession around the countryside, singing, acting out Her coming, celebrating Her gifts of life and light. Families made no marriage pacts, because that would have been as ill-fated as it was
to be born this day. However, many couples plighted troth of their own for the year to come or renewed it, and made love upon the earth.

Food was cold, for all household fires had been put out the evening before. At sunset the dwellers in each neighbourhood left their revels and solemnly gathered on the highest ground nearby. While bards or poets sang and druids watched for portents, a chosen man kindled new flame with flint and steel, to make twinned bonfires. Into these folk cast their festival bushes and whatever they had that seemed unlucky, so that fortune might consume misfortune. Farmers drove their cattle between the blazes, for protection against murrains. Those who thereafter went home carried along some of the needfire to relight their hearths. The hardier stayed on till sunrise, for doings that left them weary and a little dazed the next day.

In these observances, every king of a tuath and his queen took a leading part. The King and Queen on Temir must do so on behalf of the whole land. Niall had foreknown he would have no time to himself on the day and night of Beltene; and immediately afterwards would come the whirlwind of busking for his expedition. Yet he had felt the need of some calm counsel.

Therefore he had walked out upon the eve preceding the holy dawn. He went in company with his druid Nemain maqq Aedo and with Laidchenn maqq Barchedo, who had become chief among his poets.

As busy as he had been, this was late in the day. Weather had brought rainshowers, though free of the cold east wind or frost that would have boded ill for the coming season. Now clouds drifted low and leaden beneath an overcast that quite hid the sun and laid an early twilight in the valley. Breezes plucked fitfully at grass and leaves. Odours of growth had given way to
dankness. Homebound rooks cawed afar, otherwise silence abided the night.

Niall took the northward road, between the Rath of Gráinne and the Sloping Trenches, thence downhill. Well-kept, it was not unduly muddy or rutted; but at this hour it stretched empty, nothing bordered it save meadow and coppices, no firelight gleamed from houses in view. The sole brightness, and it wan, came off the spearheads of Niall’s four guards, who encompassed the three great ones at a respectful distance, and off a golden torc around the neck of the King. Although he was still magnificently clad, after receiving guests who arrived during the day, dusk was fading all colours.

‘Best we not linger outside overly long,’ counselled Nemain. ‘The síd will soon be opening and letting their dwellers loose.’ The eve of Beltene was second only to that of Samain as a time when unhuman beings went abroad through the dark.

Niall tossed his bright head. ‘We can turn our cloaks inside out and bewilder them,’ he said.

‘So do people suppose,’ Laidchenn answered; yet I could tell you many a story, my dear, about those who put overmuch faith in that trick. Even washing in one’s own piss is often not shield enough. For Those Beyond may have deeper ends than leading us astray or altogether out of the world.’

‘Well, what I have to say is quickly said,’ Niall snapped.

‘Then say it,’ murmured the druid.

The King’s mood gentled. He stared before him, down into the gloom towards which he walked. Trouble freighted his tone: ‘This I could not utter in the hearing of others, lest they think I was afraid and so, themselves, falter. But to you two, my hearts, I can speak without misunderstanding. And what I have to ask of you is whether you can read any warning signs, in this night
before us when sorcery reigns, or whether you can cast any guardian spells – for my warfare after I am off upon it.’

‘Have you cause for dread?’

‘I have not. Would I of my free will take men who trust me on a venture I deemed unwise?’

‘Nevertheless you are uneasy,’ said Laidchenn.

‘It is about my son, my son Breccan. He burns to prove himself. A while ago, in a gladsome moment, he lured me into a promise that he could come along on this voyage.’

‘Surely you, of all men, will not begrudge your boy his chance to win fame.’

‘But he is so young – ’

‘No younger than yourself, when you returned from Torna’s house to claim your birthright.’

‘I was stronger than he is. Och, he will grow to be a goodly fighter if he lives. But at present he has still his mother’s slimness.’ Niall’s voice wavered, seemed to speak of itself, as if he could not stop it. ‘And, O Ethniu, your face – ’

‘You loved her.’

‘As Diarmait loved Gráinne. I do yet, though she be fourteen years in her grave. Breccan is all that remains of her.’ Niall’s hand slashed swordlike through the air. ‘Enough!’ he barked. ‘This grows unmanly. I, your King, am calling on you two for your counsel and help.’

‘Is that right for Breccan’s own honour?’

‘Hold!’ said the druid. ‘Our lord simply asks, Laidchenn – asks what may be done to stave off needless woe. Had King Conaire been better advised, he would not have broken the gessa upon him and thereby come to perish in Dá Derga’s hostel. Let us take snares from the path of the young stag; wolves he can battle himself.’

His staff thumped the ground as they trudged on mute. Ahead of them an oakenshaw enclosed the road. Its outer
trees stood limned against heaven, branches reaching like the arms of gnarled giants, while between them gaped darkness. Wings ghosted overhead and vanished among those shadows. Somewhere a belated cuckoo called.

Laidchenn started. That cry! An evil sign at just this time.’

‘It is not evil for us,’ Niall replied, ‘for it came from the right, which means luck.’

‘Before we can take thought and cast the yew chips for divining,’ said Nemain, ‘we must know more of what you intend. You have not given out much.’

‘Lest word somehow reach the Romans and warn them,’ Niall explained.

The druid nodded his white head. ‘That is clear. However, with us two you can feel safe, darling, else why have you sought us? Now tell us where in Gallia you mean to raid.’

‘From the supplying you have ordered,’ observed the poet shrewdly, ‘I doubt you plan on the north coasts.’

‘You are right,’ Niall answered. ‘They have been well picked over. Besides, I seek no clash with Saxons, like two flocks of carrion crows quarrelling over some bones.’

‘Have a care,’ warned Laidchenn. ‘Those are birds of the Mórrigu that you bespeak.’

Niall laughed, which shocked his friend afresh, before he asked, ‘Sure, and may not a man jape a little within his own family?’

The druid nodded, though his demeanour had turned solemn. Niall’s claim to lordship rested on more than his having often fed the flocks of the Triple Goddess of war. Many men believed that the hag with whom he had lain as a youth had not only been the Sovereignty of Mide, but Herself.

‘Well,’ said the King, ‘it’s of more than Saxons I am thinking. Foremost, there is Ys.’

They went under the oaks. It was not quite so dark there as it looked from outside, but murky enough, the sky a blue-grey glimmer behind barricading leaves, boles and boughs heavy in shadow. ‘Ys!’ exclaimed Nemain. The name cracked through stillness. ‘Heart of mine, you are not thinking of attacking Ys, are you, now?’

‘I am not,’ Niall declared. ‘That would be madness. That wall and those guardian witches – Indeed I have no wish to fall on Armorica at all, at all. Ys is a Roman ally. War among the Romans should cause it to reach a protecting hand over its whole end of the peninsula. We will steer wide of Ys. And this is one thing I am hoping you can help me do, keep the favour of Manandan while we are that far out at sea.’

‘Where do you mean to go?’ Laidchenn asked.

‘Around and southwards, to the mouth of the Liger and up that river. There lie rich farmlands, towns, a city. With strife drawing men away, they should be thinly defended – worse off than Alba, where last year’s fighting will have left the Romans wary and prepared.’ Despite that which gnawed in his breast, exultation made Niall laugh. ‘Oh, fine shall our harvest be!’

The trees thinned out. Not much more light straggled through, when dusk had been deepening. Sufficient remained for the men to glimpse an eagle owl depart from the shaw: sufficient to flicker across great wings and glisten on great eyes before the bird disappeared from sight, southbound.

Nemain halted and stood staring at it. Uneasily, his companions drew close to him. ‘What is the matter, wise one?’ breathed Niall at last.

The druid bent his thin shoulders. ‘I do not know. I felt something uncanny there. Come, best we turn about at once and get into shelter before full night has fallen. It will be very dark.’

– Obedient to his gess, Niall rose at the dawn. Fireless, the hall was dolmen-black. Straw rustled dryly under his feet. He groped at a bolt and pushed the shutters from a window. The sky had cleared; the first silver flashed through drifting mists and back off dew; though chill, the air already smelled green. He took a long draught of it.

Suddenly he stiffened. From a beech tree nearby he heard the melodious cry of a cuckoo – too early, too early in the morning, and a harbinger of death if heard from within a house at Beltene.

Yesterday the cuckoo had promised better. Well, signs were often unsure. Niall turned from the window. Nemain would be taking omens and Laidchenn making a powerful song, for the sake of Breccan. The King must remain undaunted.

1

From the harbour and the markets, through the Forum and over the high ground where the wealthy dwelt – from the philosophers at Star House to the marines in Warriors’ House – from Scot’s Landing under the cliffs to the noisy workshops outside High Gate – from mansions on the heights above the canal to the hamlets of the valley floor–the whisper flew around Ys and its hinterland. Something tremendous was afoot. This morning the state barge bringing a Queen back from her Vigil on Sena had not, first, taken another out to replace her. All the Nine were gathered together in the temple of Belisama.

In various ways, a few men knew that this was at the behest of the King. None but he knew why.

When Gratillonius left the palace he went alone. A King here could do that if he chose, could walk about or ride abroad, be a man among men. It was the Emperors who sat in a shell of splendour, god-kings with humanity under their feet, those who were not merely gloves on the hands of ruthless real men. Through Maximus, when his victory was complete, Rome would gain back her soldier-Emperors of old.

In a plain, hooded cloak, Gratillonius followed the streets as they wound down to Lir Way and upwards on the other side. Traffic had begun to bustle along the thoroughfare. Some persons recognized him and touched fingers to brow; when he noticed, he acknowledged with a nod and passed on. Two or three approached, clearly
hoping to ask favours. His dismissing gesture sent them off. The King might be on sacred business.

It was not the practice for him to hear petitioners or give alms, anyhow. Such things were handled by the Suffetes, Great Houses, guilds, temples. Occasional rulers in the past had distributed largesse or heard complaints … occasionally. Thus far, Gratillonius had not, if only for lack of time. Besides, it was not what a centurion did. Lately, at odd moments, he had wondered if he should institute a regular court – twice a month, perhaps – open to whoever had found no better recourse. But he would be unwise to rush into that, without more knowledge of the city and its customs than he yet possessed. Magnates might resent what they felt as an intrusion on their ancient functions. His mission required that he keep them cooperative, and already there was friction aplenty.