Roma Mater (39 page)

‘How? I cannot tell. In matters like this, I’m a simpleton: too much earth in me, too little fire, air, or seawater. Let me ask of Forsquilis. Young though she be, that
grandchild of mine is deep into strange things. Well do we know.’

Dahilis and Innilis shivered.

‘’Twill take time, doubtless,’ Quinipilis went on. ‘Meanwhile, we’ll do what we can to make amends and fend off divine anger. First, I’d say, Gratillonius
must
rightfully honour and make fruitful those of the Gallicenae who are able. If he’ll not take the first step towards that, they – we –shall have to.’

Dahilis bowed her head. ‘I’ve tried,’ she mumbled. ‘And, and Bodilis says she did reproach him, and afterwards he and she – How glad I was. He keeps telling me, though, he keeps telling me he’ll … see to the matter … when I’ve grown heavier. What else can I do?’

Quinipilis rasped a chuckle. ‘What, need the Crone instruct the Wench? Your blood knows the answer.’ She sighed. ‘You’ve been too proud, all you lasses. You’ve concealed your hurt. Have you thought that that might have overawed him? Belike he’s unaware of this, he tells himself he only want Dahilis, with whom he’s in love. But underneath – he knows you have powers – and … every man dreads failing with a woman. Which he never will with any of you; but does he truly realize that?’

She laid a knotted hand on the head of Innilis. ‘Seek him out,’ she urged. ‘Set fear aside. Open yourself to joy. Ah, I remember.’

‘I w-w-will do my best.’ The words came high and thin.

Quinipilis stood a while looking down at Innilis. It was as if that look went past clothes and the skin beneath, to flesh which had been torn and knitted poorly, to frail ribs and narrow hips. Whatever of the restorative Touch that had once belonged to every Queen lingered in Innilis, it sufficed not for the healing of herself.

Finally the old woman said low: ‘I was forgetting. The birth of your child by Hoel nearly killed you; and Audris
is sickly and not quite right in the wits. Aye, a strong reason for you to seek where you did.’ Stooping, though the motion wrenched a groan from her, she hugged the other. Take what time you need, girl. Nerve yourself. Let others go before you. Dahilis will be your ally. And there is the Herb. If the Gods did not smite the Nine for bearing Colconor no child, why, surely they’ll condone you safeguarding your health, mayhap your very life. But when you feel ready, go to him. Never be afraid of loving him.’

1

Festivals surrounded Midsummer. In part they were religious. On the Eve, bonfires blazed around the countryside after dark, while folk danced, sang, coupled in the fields, cast spells, asked welfare for kith and kine, house and harvest – across Armorica, across Europe. In Ys, day after day processions went chanting to rites at every fane of the Three. Most were parades as well, where the Great Houses, the Brotherhoods, the Guilds turned out in their best, where the marines marched smartly and, this year, the King’s legionaries outdid them. There were traditional ceremonies: the weavers presented Belisama with a brocaded robe, the horsebreeders gave Taranis a new team for His wagon, the mariners sailed forth and cut the throat of a captured seal that Lir might have the blood – the single seal that Ysans were allowed to kill throughout the year. There were other offerings to other Gods, deeds ancient, secret, and dark.

Midsummer was likewise a season of secular celebration. It was a lucky time to get married in. It was a time for family reunions, grandiose feasts, youthful flings that elders winked at. The short, light nights were full of song, flutes, drums, dancing feet, laughter. Green boughs hung above every door. People forgave wrongs, paid debts, gave largesse to the needy. Few slept much.

Yet Midsummer was also worldly, political. The day after solstice was among the four in the year when the Council Suffetes always met.

Often this had been scarcely more than an observance, soon completed. Behind its strong wall and, belief went, the subtle Veil of Brennilis, Ys had been free of many things that aggrieved the earth. But nothing is for ever.

On the dais of the basilica chamber, Gratillonius raised the Hammer and said: ‘In the name of Taranis, peace. May His protection be upon us.’

Lanarvilis rose to say: ‘In the name of Belisama, peace. May Her blessing be upon us.’ So the Nine have chosen her for their principal speaker at this session, Gratillonius thought. Why? Because she’s a good friend of Soren Cartagi, who generally opposes my policies?

Hannon Baltisi stood. ‘In the name of Lir, peace. May His wrath not be upon us.’ The trident butt crashed on the floor.

Gratillonius gave Adminius the Hammer to hold. A while he stood watching the faces before him – long, narrow Suffete faces for the most part, but not altogether, certainly not on stout Soren or craggy Hannon or, except for traces, any of the Gallicenae. They returned his reconnaissance. Stillness deepened. Best get started, he thought.

‘Let me begin by thanking you for your patience and support in these past difficult months,’ he said. Flashing a grin: ‘Today we can talk Ysan.’ A few lips flickered upwards, not many. ‘We’ve weathered a mighty storm. The seas still run high, but I know we can reach safe harbour if we continue pulling together.’ Don’t remind them how they quibbled and bickered and sometimes came near rebellion. They never quite went over the brink. That’s what counts.

‘We broke the Scoti. They’ll not come again soon, if ever! We kept ourselves from embroilment in the Roman civil war, and kept Armorica out of it too, by our direct influence on our near neighbours and theirs on people
farther east. For this, Magnus Maximus is grateful. I have letters from him, which some of you have read and all are welcome to. Having served under him, I can tell you that he rewards service; and he is not far now from winning his Imperium.

‘But we have work yet undone, we in Ys. I think the Gods have laid a destiny upon us. We have become the outer guard of civilization itself. We must not fail in our duty.’

Hannon barely signalled for recognition before he stood up, greybearded patriarch, and snapped: ‘Aye, we know what you want, you. To keep our whole strength marshalled, however the cost may bleed us. For what? For Rome. King, ’twas I who showed you the mystery of the Key, and loth I am to clash with you – for you are at least an honest man – but why should Ys serve Rome, Christian Rome who’d forbid us to worship our Gods – and yours, Grallon, yours?’

Adruval Tyri, Sea Lord, heaved his burly form erect. As head of the navy, and a former marine, he could say: ‘Hannon, with due respect, what you speak is walrus puckey. A grandmother of mine was Scotic, my mother was half Frankish, I’ve travelled about both trading and fighting. I
know
the barbarians. What d’you want? That we haul in our warships, keep none in commission save the usual coast guard, and thereby avoid offending the Saxons? I tell you, if you buy the wolf off with a lamb, next twilight he’ll be back wanting the ewe. The Gods have given us a King who understands this.’ He ran fingers through thinning red hair. ‘Heed him, for Their sake!’

Hannon glowered and growled, ‘What do you wish in truth, lord?’

They returned to their benches. Gratillonius cleared his throat. ‘This,’ he said. ‘We’ve a Heaven-sent opportunity.
Armorica has been spared war, thanks largely to Ys. ’Twill accept our leadership, eagerly, at least until such time as the Imperial issue is decided. I’d have us work with the Roman authorities throughout the peninsula. We can help them rebuild signal towers and establish a line of beacon fires ready for ignition. We can keep our fleet on standby for them, who have almost none – for, if the Scoti are no longer a menace, the Saxons remain, and are worse. In exchange, the Romans can defend our landward frontiers.’

Soren stirred. ‘What need have we of that?’ rumbled the Speaker for Taranis. ‘What on land endangers Ys?’

‘The threat to Rome, if naught else,’ Gratillonius replied: ‘which is the threat to civilization, I tell you. Sirs and ladies, Ys cannot feed herself. Trade is her life. Let Rome fall, and this your city will starve.’

Lanarvilis rose. Grace had never imbued her long body or heavy haunches; but the blonde hair lifted on high like a helmet as she said quietly: ‘I would not gainsay the King – not at once, on a single point of issue – but mothers must needs look further ahead than fathers. So I ask this assembly, although we may indeed find some cooperation expedient – ultimately, does Ys the free want to rejoin that Rome which has become a slave state? Had we not better keep our distance and trust in our Gods? Bethink you.’

She sat down. Gratillonius swallowed hard. The worst was, he couldn’t deny to himself that her question was quite reasonable. If it had not happened that his own Mother was Rome – Clearly, his rampart for her would be years a-building. Well, a mason necessarily went brick by brick. Today he might lay two or three. He cleared his throat for a response.

2

In ancient times the King had stayed always at the Sacred Wood, whither the high priestesses sought by turns, and whatever men he invited. Gradually it came to be that he visited the city to preside over various ceremonies; and these visits lengthened. When Julius Caesar’s man won the crown and refused to sit yawning in the primitive House, he merely confirmed and completed what had been the case for several reigns before his. Thereafter the Kings moved freely about and inhabited a proper palace in Ys.

Yet while Taranis thus allowed His law to be lightened, it could not be abolished. The King must return to meet every challenger, slay or be slain. Moreover, save in war or essential travel or when a major ritual coincided, he must spend the three days and nights around each full moon out in the Wood. His presence there being the sole requirement, most sovereigns had taken a wife or two along, and sent for friends, and passed the time in recreations which ranged from decorous to debauched.

Dahilis felt horror of the place. Beneath those shadowing oaks Colconor had killed her father and might have killed Gratillonius, whose blood would also someday nourish their roots. After she confessed this, just before his initial Watch, he had kissed her and gone off to sleep alone.

The duty was otherwise not irksome. Free of distractions, he studied material from the archives, practised the language, conferred at length with magnates he summoned, pondered the tasks before him, and maintained his regular exercises to keep fit. About the underlying
finality he was unconcerned. He awaited no rival soon. Such advents were, in fact, generally years apart. Any fighters who did come, he felt confident he could handle. Eventually his strength and speed must begin failing; but he did not mean to be here that long, although at the present stage of things he saw no sense in planning his departure.

The morning of this third moon dawned already hot. Clouds banked murky in the east and rose higher hour by hour, while a forerunner haze dulled the dwindling western blue; but no breeze relieved the wet air or freshened its musky odours. Soren and the priests who officially escorted Gratillonius sweated beneath their robes so that they stank. They were as grateful as dignity permitted when he offered them beer at the House. He, who had tramped and fought in armour, suffered less, but was glad to strip down to a tunic after they were gone.

Servants had carried along pens, ink, parchment. That last was costly stuff for the letters he meant to write to various Imperial officers of the region, but papyrus was not to be had, as disrupted as trade routes were on both land and sea, while wood was simply too plebeian. Well, he thought, this material should be impressive, emphasizing the capabilities latent in Ys and, by the bye, offsetting his awkward style and vagrant spelling. Only afterwards was it to occur to him that Bodilis could have corrected those.

The hall was the most nearly cool place to be. He ordered a table and chair brought in and settled himself down to work. It went slower and harder than he had expected. After a while his jaw and back ached from tension. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe a ramble in the grove would help. He set off. That was about noon.

At once he was alone. Utterly alone. Around him the trees brooded, huge boles, twist-thewed branches, claw
twigs. Their leaves made a gloom through which a weird brass-yellow light struck here and there, out of a sky gone sooty and steadily darkening further. Silence weighed down the world, fallen leaves too sodden to rustle underfoot, brush stiff as though straining after any sound, never a bird call or squirrel chatter or grunt from a wild boar whose blood was to wash the corpse of a King, nothing astir save himself; but fungi glimmered like eyes. Even the canal, when he reached it, seemed to flow listless, tepid, forbidden to quench his thirst.

Gratillonius scowled. What was the matter with him? He was no superstitious barbarian, he was a Roman … But Romans disliked wilderness. It was beyond their law. In its depths you might meet Pan, and the dread of Him come upon you so that you ran screaming, blind, a mindless animal, while His laughter bayed at your heels … A Presence was here. He felt It as heavily as he felt the slugging of his heart. It might be of Ahriman. Best he return.

As he did, he heard the first muttering of thunder.

He breathed easier after he got back to the Sacred Precinct, its courtyard flagged and swept, open to heaven and on to Processional Way, with a view beyond of the heights, garden-garnished homes, pastureland above the cliffs of Point Vanis where Eppillus kept his long watch. Yet he was still beset by portents he could not read. As he stood there, clouds covered the last western clarity, grey yonder, blue-black where they mounted out of the east. Summer’s verdancies were discoloured, bruised. Dominant in the courtyard reared and sprawled the Challenge Oak, shield hanging from it dully agleam with brass that the hammer had smitten over and over. Between its outbuildings loomed the House, crimson hue somehow bringing forth the brutal mass of timbers, grotesqueness of images that formed its colonnade. When
Gratillonius looked away towards Ys, the city at its distance appeared tiny, fragile, a fantasy blown in glass.

Suddenly as a meteor flash, he became aware of the three on the road. How had he overlooked them? They were almost here. He forced steadiness upon himself. A wind sprang up, soughing in the treetops and tossing them about. The hammer swung on its chain, hit the shield, belled in a mumble. Lightning flickered afar. Thunder rolled more loud.