Roma Mater (41 page)

He had been thus busied all day, a while after the inland Celts had celebrated their feast of Lug. Evening closed in. Smilng, pleasantly at ease, he put things in their places and left the shop. Outside, the sun was down and
dusk settling in. Swallows darted after mosquitoes, shadows against violet. Most flowers had finished blooming, but trees and hedges made the air sweet, while rose mallow stood pale against walls. Before him, he thought, lay supper with Dahilis, just the two of them, and whatever might follow. He divided half his nights among the other five Gallicenae who expected it, Bodilis, Fors-quilis, Vindilis, Maldunilis, Lanarvilis, when they were not having their courses or he was not elsewhere. It was never tense with them any more, and sometimes it was very good, and they seemed content to let him be with Dahilis otherwise, at least until such time as it would endanger her child. The fullness upon her made her, if anything, more dear to him than ever, if that was possible.

Entering by a back door, he smiled at a servant who saluted and went down a hall lit by wax candles in bronze sconces, to the bedroom and its adjacent bathing basin. There he would cleanse himself and change into fresh clothes, not formal but colourful, cheerful, matching her spirit.

He entered and halted. She was there, dressed for the street. Beside her was Innilis, clad in a gown of sheer silk richly bordered with floral patterns. A star in gemmed silver gathered it low above her breasts, so that the Sign of the Goddess was plain to see. The women stood hand in hand. Lamplight darkened the window but gleamed off the rich brown hair of Innilis, delicate features, teeth white between lips always slightly parted.

‘Uh, greeting,’ Gratillonius said, taken aback.

Dahilis came to him. ‘Darling, I go home this eventide,’ she told him. ‘Today did my Sister here seek me and give me the joyful news that she feels ready to be your true Queen.’

Gratillonius stared across her shoulder at Innilis. ‘What a surprise!’ he blurted, and noticed he was embracing
Dahilis. ‘I had no wish, well, no wish to force aught on anyone.’

‘I know.’ Innilis clasped fingers together. ‘You were kind to wait while I … while I sought the Goddess within myself.’

‘’Twas not easy for her,’ Dahilis murmured against Gratillonius’s collarbone. ‘Help her. I’ll call again tomorrow. But we Nine, we’ve agreed Innilis should have time, days, in your company. Be good to my little Sister. Oh, but I know you will.’

Strange, passed through Gratillonius, strange that Dahilis thinks of Innilis as her little sister, when Innilis is –what? – a decade older, and has borne a child, and – But she does look so vulnerable. No, more than that, she already carries a wound that has never healed. I’m sure of it, though I can’t think what it might be.

‘Well, my lady, you honour me,’ he found his way to saying.

Dahilis drew him forward until the three of them stood with arms entwining bodies. She kissed Gratillonius and Innilis. ‘Goodnight,’ she said between laughter and tears. ‘Have a splendid night.’ She departed.

‘Um, uh –’ Gratillonius searched desperately for words.

Innilis raised eyes that had been downcast. ‘Do as if I were Dahilis,’ she suggested.

‘Why, why –’ The Bull awoke. By Venus, she was beautiful! ‘Aye, indeed,’ Gratillonius exclaimed. ‘First let’s have a bit of wine, and then maybe you’d like to share my bath, and later, we’ll dine and talk –’

– And hours afterwards – he had been as heedful and patient as he was able, until she began astounding him with passion – she whispered through the dark: ‘I was afraid. But now I love you too.’

‘Me
too?’
he asked.

She caught her breath. ‘Have we not all of us … others … we love?’

‘Ah, well.’ He slid a hand down her flank and laid it to rest. ‘I’ll inquire no further if you’d liefer I didn’t.’

‘Oh, dear Grallon.’ She kissed him fleetingly, wearily, happily. For a moment, before sleep overtook her, resolution spoke: ‘No more am I afraid. I will leave the Herb aside, in hope of your child.’

1

Summer welled forth in its final great warmth, light, and greenness. Fields stood ripe, sickles laboured, wagons creaked behind oxen. Osismiic villagers brought in the last sheaf, gave it a name and the place of honour at festival, next day burned it and buried the ashes, that no witch might use them to wreak evil and that the God might come back to life at springtime. Soon asters bloomed defiant purple; but it would not be long before the first tinge of yellow was on the birches, and already the storks were leaving, while other migratory birds gathered to make ready in clangourous flocks on hills and at meres.

There was less observance of the season in Ys, but folk were nonetheless aware that another year was passing away. Though business bustled for a term at Goose Fair and the Cornmarket, where the Osismii brought foodstuffs to trade, and at Epona Square, where the horse dealers came, and in flour mills, breweries, bakeries, smoking and pickling establishments: Skippers’ Market stood empty, windswept, no further merchant ships awaited. Fishermen drew their boats ashore and settled down to caulk, pitch, mend; most also sought odd jobs in town. Housewives polished lamps and saw to oil supplies. Those who could not afford this increasingly expensive commodity dipped wicks into tallow. Husbands stored away firewood bought from lumbermen. Suffetes who were well-to-do, which not all were by any means, pre
pared for a round of social events, now that work in the Great Houses would be damping down. Poor people looked to them and to the temples for help during the cold months, not that many in Ys ever knew dire want. The temples themselves made ready for rites immemorially old.

The full moon before autumnal equinox came early that year, in the middle of these happenings. It was the night when Forsquilis went forth alone, as the vision granted to her Sending had enjoined.

She left Ys by Aurochs Gate on the south. None of the sentries there or in the flanking towers called the Brothers challenged her; portals stood open in times of peace. They recognized her, though, cowl thrown back to bare those sharply pure features to the moon, silver coronet around her brows, hair blowing loose; they dipped their pikes in awed salute, and when she had gone they dared not mutter about her mission, whatever it might be.

Wind prematurely whetted and skirling drove clouds in tatters across the sky. The moon seemed to fly among them. It touched their darknesses with ice. Water swirled and snarled as she crossed the shouldering rock between city wall and headland. Beyond, along Pharos Way, rime glimmered on grass; gravel scrunched underfoot, a sound small and lonely and soon lost in the wind. Forsquilis followed the road west. The gap sundering rampart and promontory grew wider as she fared, until the western arc swung north and waves ran unhindered. Cape Rach reached somewhat farther. At its end, the lighthouse fire flickered and streamed like a candle flame. Ocean rolled beyond, around, out past Sena to the edge of the world. The crash and long-drawn rumble of surf on rocks came faintly.

She stopped short of the pharos. Here the road passed through the necropolis. Long had that stood forsaken.
Headstones leaned crazily or lay hidden in weeds, names and remembrances blurred off them by centuries of weather. Tombs bulked and gaped. Some were made like miniature Roman temples, some like the dolmens and passage graves of the Old Folk. All were lichenous and eroded, grey beneath the hurtling moon. Forsquilis sought among them, stumbling over the gravestones, until she found the one she needed. It was the largest, a small mausoleum, the entrance Grecian-pillared; but no one could now make out what friezes had been carven above.

Forsquilis stopped. She raised her arms. The cloak fluttered at her shoulders as if trying to flee. ‘O Brennilis who sleeps within,’ she called, ‘forgive that I trouble your rest. It is the whisper of the Gods that sent me hither upon this night. No other sign has been granted me, save omens unclear and portents darkling, which say that your Ys is again at the end of an age. The Old is dying. Time travails with the New, and we fear Its face which we have not seen. For Ys, Brennilis, your Ys that you saved when you walked in sunlight, the sunlight you have forgotten – for Ys, Brennilis, I, Forsquilis your successor, beg a bed for the night with your dust, that in dream I may behold what must be done so Ys may live after I too am gone from the sun. Brennilis, receive your Sister.’

She went to the door. If ever it had been locked, the lock was long corroded away. Bronze flaked off beneath her fingers. The door groaned and sagged open. Lightlessness waited. Forsquilis went in to the dead.

2

Rain blew out of hidden heaven and sea. Its noises and its bright grey engulfed the city. Water blinded window-panes, drummed on roofs, swirled and gurgled in streets. No fire seemed able to fend off a raw dankness. It seeped through walls into lungs and marrow.

In what had been the temple of Mars, the Christian pastor Eucherius lay dying. His bed was a straw tick on the floor of the chamber which he had made his cell. A lamp guttered nearby; everywhere else the too-large room was full of the dark. Light touched eyeballs, bridge of nose, grizzled beard stubble. It lost itself in the hollows under his cheekbones. The Chi Rho and fish he had drawn in charcoal on the wall, to see above his feet, were swallowed up in thick, swaying shadow; but they were crude anyhow, barely recognizable. He had been no draughtsman.

He plucked at the blanket. Slime rattled in his lungs and bubbled red on his lips. Bodilis must bring her ear almost to that mouth before she could hear him. ‘My lady Queen –’ He stopped and struggled for air. ‘You are wise.’ Again he must toil to fill what was left of his lungs. ‘You are pagan, but wise and virtuous.’ He coughed and gasped. ‘Aristoteles, Vergilius –

‘Maybe you know –

‘One hears so many … tales of ghosts –

‘Do souls … on their way … to judgement –

‘Ever linger a while –

‘Only a little while?’

She wiped away the sputum and stroked the thin grey hair. ‘I know not,’ she answered in the same Latin. ‘Who
does? But in Ys, many of us believe Gallicenae can be reborn as seals, to lie off Sena waiting for their own dear ones, watching over them. Do you want more water?’

He shook his head, ‘No, thank you … I feel I am drowning … But I … must not … complain.’ Coughing shook him. ‘Gratillonius, … you have seen … enough men die, … worse hurt … than me.’ This time his fight was lengthy. ‘If I am being … contemptible, … please tell me, … and I’ll try … to do better.’

‘No, no.’ The centurion squeezed the minister’s hand, very carefully, so frail it was. ‘You are a man, Eucherius.’

He had come in answer to Bodilis’s summons, after she had heeded the plea of the deacon, who found the chorepiscopus lying swooned, with blood caking down the front of his coarse robe. It was not certain how long Eucherius had been thus alone. She washed him and gave him a fresh gown and tucked him into bed. Presently he regained awareness and courteously refused the healing Touch that Innilis might possess. Most likely Innilis would have failed regardless, as she did oftener than not in desperate cases. Hot infusions gave some brief strength. A courier was on the way to Audiarna. Gratillonius doubted the chorepiscopus would survive a trip over the mired road for Christian last rites. Meanwhile old deacon Prudentius, exhausted, had perforce tottered off to his rest. Bodilis and Gratillonius kept vigil.

Eucherius twitched a smile. ‘You are good too,’ he said. ‘As for me, … it would be very pleasant … to see Neapolis again, … dreaming before the blue bay, … my mother’s house, … the small crooked streets, … a garden where … Claudia and I – But God’s will be done.’

Of course it shall be done, Gratillonius thought. What else? Ahura-Mazda reigns, and beyond Him, inexorable Time. Well, people babble in their death throes.

‘Look after my poor,’ Eucherius begged. ‘Get Prudentius … home to Redonia … to die … with his kin … and in Christ.’

‘We will, we will,’ Bodilis promised, weeping most quietly, keeping sight of it from him.

He scratched at her hand. ‘My congregation, … they who thirst for the Word, … who shall comfort them now?’

Gratillonius recalled his own mother at her prayers. The remembrance overwhelmed him. ‘I’ll bring in a new shepherd for your faithful as soon as possible,’ he heard himself declare.

Eucherius lifted his head an inch off the pillow. ‘Is that a promise?’

‘It is. Before Mithras, it is.’ What else could Gratillonius say, with the deep eyes of Bodilis turned on him?

‘Good. Good … Also for you … Not only your chance of salvation, … my son.’ Eucherius cawed. ‘Could a … totally pagan Ys … hope for much alliance … with Rome?’

Startled, Gratillonius thought: But he is not maundering!

Eucherius sank back. ‘May I … pray for you two … by name, … as I do … for all Ys?’

Bodilis knelt on the stone floor and embraced him. Abruptly a measure of resonance was in his voice: ‘Our Father, Who are in Heaven –’

The cough that seized him shivered every bone. Underneath it was a hideous rattling, gurgling noise. With each convulsion, blood gouted from his mouth. Bodilis ignored it, held him close.

He slumped back. Waxen lids fell half over his eyes. He answered no call or sign; he seemed barely to breathe; to the touch he was clammy and cold. Bodilis cleansed him again as best she could. She and Gratillonius stayed
at their post. Eucherius died shortly before his confessor arrived from Audiarna.

3

‘The military season draws to a close. A winter campaign would be possible
,
of course – you have read your histories – but is not really feasible
,
for either Theodosius or myself. Why dare the unpredictables of weather, supply
,
and sickness? Instead, by tacit consent, we withdraw to our headquarters and govern the territories we hold, pending spring. After all, in this game the prize is the Empire. Neither of us wants to dissipate it.

‘I
could almost wish that Gratianus were not a victim of the war. More than vengeance for his fallen colleague, Theodosius has prestige to consider. Else he might have made agreement already. As matters stand, he has given to his eldest son Arcadius the title of Augustus to which I aspire. We shall have to see what God desires.