Roma Mater (5 page)

The surf-roar and clatter of people finding their seats died away. Looks went to the King’s companions. Before anyone touched food here, always a poet spoke.

Laidchenn stood up, rang the chimes on the baton that declared what he was, lifted from its carrying case a harp he had already tuned, and cradled it in his left arm. There had been no question but that he would take the word, among those poets who were present. Not only was he a visitor from afar, he was from the school of Torna Éces. A barrel-chested man with bushy red hair and beard, richly but a little carelessly clad, he did not seem one who could call forth such icy-sweet notes as he did. Power pulsed in his deep voice when he looked straight into the eyes of Niall and chanted:

A happy sigh went over the benches. Listeners knew they were about to hear a grand story.

And Laidchenn told it; and those who had heard it
often, growing year by year, found newness, while others found wonder.

Niall, sang the poet, Niall, descendant of Corbmac maqq Arti, son of Eochaid maqq Muredach who was called Magimedon – Niall was born of dark curly-haired Carenn, a princess whom his father had carried away from Alba. In those days his grandfather still ruled. Eochaid had a wife named Mongfind, daughter of a tuathal king in Mumu, who was a witch and a ruthless woman. She bore him four sons, Brión, Féchra, Alill, and Fergus. Because Niall showed early promise, Mongfind plotted to do away with him, lest he succeed to lordship instead of Brión or a brother of Brión. She had him carried off, a small boy, while his father was gone warring. When Eochaid returned, Mongfind persuaded him that the loss was due to Carenn’s carelessness, and Eochaid let Mongfind make a menial slave of his erstwhile leman.

But Torna, great poet in Mumu, knew by his arts what had happened, and foresaw what was in Niall. He rescued the child and fostered him. When the early signs of manhood were upon Niall, Torna sent him back to reclaim his own. Eochaid, now King, joyously received this son he had thought lost, and Carenn was released from her bondage.

Once Eochaid wished to test the five youths. A blacksmith’s shop caught fire, and he commanded them to save what they could. Brión fetched out the chariots, Alill a shield and sword, Féchra the forge trough, Fergus merely some firewood; but Niall rescued anvil, block, sledges, and bellows, the heart of the smith’s trade.

On another time when they were hunting and had grown sorely thirsty, they came upon a well deep in the forest. However, its guardian was a hideous old hag, who would give a drink to none unless he lie with her. No son of Mongfind could make himself do that; at most, Brión
achieved a hasty kiss. But Niall led her aside and laid her down. Then rags and shrivelled skin fell from her, she came forth radiant in youth and beauty, for this was the Goddess Who bestows sovereignty. Afterwards Niall made his half-brothers pledge fealty to him before he would let them drink. They abided honestly by that, and Brión presently fathered a line of chieftains.

But meanwhile Mongfind lived and schemed. Through her magics – and, no doubt, kinsmen in Mumu of whom Eochaid had need – she kept him from putting her from him. Upon his death, she succeeded in having her brother Craumthan maqq Fidaci chosen as his successor.

He, though, proved to be no clay for her moulding, but instead a man who laid a firm grip on the land and warred both in Ériu and across the waters. After years, despairing of aught else, Mongfind sought to poison him. He required that she drink first of the cup she proffered; and so they both died. Spells were still cast on certain nights to keep quiet the ghost of Mongfind the witch.

Throughout this time, Niall had been at the forefront of battles. In council his words were shrewd, later wise. It was upon a tenant’s daughter, Ethniu, that he begot his eldest child, Breccan; but she was lovely and high-hearted, and everybody mourned when she died in giving birth. Niall soon married well – behold how his sons by the Queen are already shooting up! Thus after the death of Craumthan four years ago, it was no surprise when the Mide men chose him to be their King.

And he has wrought deeds that will live in memory as long as valour is cherished. Besides much else closer to home, he has harried the coasts overseas, bringing back huge booty. When the Cruthini of Alba, Whom the Romans call the Picti of Caledonia, threatened the settlement of Dál Riata, Niall made alliance with its mother kingdom for its rescue; then, having cast the Cruthini
back, he made alliance with them in turn. In Ériu, too, he called warriors to him from far beyond the bounds of Mide. No vaster hosting has been seen since the Cattle Raid of Cóóalnge, than when the men of tribes conjoined roared down to the Wall of Rome.

And this time it was not Cú Culanni who stood alone in defence, it was Cú Culanni reborn at the van of attack. Many a Roman soldier sprawls headless in the heather, many a Britannic estate lies plundered and burnt, many a slave has gone to market and today herds sheep or grinds grain for a worthy master; and if the Wall of Rome still stands, why, the more glory to reap when we return!

The last notes shivered away. Cheers thundered from benches to ridgepole. The King took from his arm a heavy coil of gold. Standing up, he put it in the hands of Laidchenn. ‘Have this of me in token of thanks,’ he said amidst the din, ‘and let me ask of you that you abide with me a long while – for ever, if I may have my wish.’

Flushed, breathing hard, eyes asparkle, Niall sat back down. The druid Nemain stroked his beard and murmured, ‘Your fame grows by leaps, darling.’

Niall tossed his head. ‘What a poet says is true. He may find fresh words for the clothing of truth – but – you would not be denying that I wedded the Goddess of the land, would you?’

‘I would not,’ replied Nemain, ‘nor speak against anything I have heard tonight; for indeed truth is a lady who has many different garments to wear. I would simply lay caution upon you. Not qualm, only caution, for sadly
would we miss our lord should he fall, and worst if it was needlessly.’

Niall did not hear. Again his head was aflame with dreams. Long though the nights still were, he did not look for much sleep in this one, if any; for among the gessa laid on a King of Mide was that sunrise must never find him in bed on Temir. It did not matter. He
was
the King.

As host, he should make a speech of welcome. Rising, he lifted his goblet – Roman glass, loot from Alba. Out of full lungs, he shouted: ‘It’s glad I am to see so great and fair a company here, and glad Herself must be, and every God. If I name not the kings and nobles among us and their honours, it is because dawn would break well before I was done. Let us instead make merry, let us no more grieve over our losses or brood on our wrongs, let us look ahead to a year of revenge and victory!’

His father’s house felt strangely empty to Gratillonius.

Or not so strangely, he thought. When he arrived the evening before, joy was too tumultuous for him to pay close heed to his surroundings. Notified in advance, Marcus had had a feast prepared for his soldier son. The food was local, fish and meat and dried garden truck, but seasoned with such things as pepper and cloves, scarce these days, while the wines were from Burdigala and Narbonensis, not a mediocre Britannic vineyard. If the tableware was of poor quality and the attendant an untrained yokel, talk between the two men made up amply for that. When it turned to Gaius’s older brother it grew evasive – Lucius was ‘studying in Aquae Sulis; you know what a bookish sort he’s always been, not like you, you rascal’ – but then the news quickly came that his youngest sister Camilla had married an able farmer, Antonia and Faustina continued happy in their own homes, and another grandchild was on the way. And his old nurse Docca had earlier hugged him in arms crippled by rheumatism, and he learned that three or four more of those who had been dear to him in boyhood were still above ground.

Soon after supper weariness overwhelmed him and he went to bed. It had not been any route march to get here, only a few miles from Isca to the Sabrina, a ferry ride across the broad rivermouth, and a little way inland beyond that. He had, though, been at work since dawn preparing, as he had been for days previously. It won him an early enough start that he could justify spending two nights at home before he began his journey in earnest.

Thus he awoke ahead of sun and household. When he got up, the air nipped and the floor was cold. He recalled that the place had been chilly yesterday too, nothing but a couple of charcoal braziers for heat; he had avoided asking why. Fumbling his way through murk, he drew aside a curtain that, as spring approached, had supplanted shutters. On the leaded window, bits of leather were glued over three empty panes. The glass must have been broken in some accident or juvenile mischief. Why had his father, who always took pride in keeping things shipshape, not had it replaced?

Sufficient moonlight seeped through for Gratillonius to use flint, steel, and tinder. When he had ignited a tallow candle, he dropped the curtain back to conserve warmth and took care of his necessities. Clad in tunic and sandals, candlestick in hand, he padded forth in search of all he remembered.

The house reached shadowy around him. It had grown, piece by piece, for almost two hundred years as the family prospered; but his grandfather had been the last to make any additions. Doors were closed on this upper storey, though only he and Marcus occupied bedrooms. (Once the hall was a clamour of footfalls and laughter.) Well, no sense in leaving chambers open when servants were too few to keep them dusted.

Gratillonius went downstairs. The atrium was still elegant, peacock mosaic on the floor and Theseus overcoming the Minotaur on a wall. Colours glimmered where the candlelight picked them out of darkness. However, most of the heirloom furniture was gone. Replacements were conscientiously built, but by carpenters, not artists.

An ebony table was among the few ancestral pieces remaining. Upon it lay several books. They were copied on scrolls, not bound into modern codices, because they too had been in the family for generations. Gratillonius’s
left hand partly unrolled one. A smile passed faint over his lips. He recognized
The Aeneid.
That he had enjoyed reading, along with other hero stories, as he did hearing the songs and sagas of the Britons from those backwoods folk who knew them yet – and did emphatically not enjoy Fronto and other bores he was supposed to study so he could become a proper Roman. Learning Greek turned out to be impossible for a boy who could be rambling the woods, riding, swimming, boating, fishing, playing ball or war with his friends, alone in the workshop making something – later, hanging around neighbour Ewein’s daughter Una – Finally his tutor gave up.

Lucius was different, of course. Their mother had been proud of him.

Sadness tugged at Gratillonius. He left the atrium, went down a corridor to the west wing, and opened a door he knew well. Behind it was a room Julia had used for sewing and such-like lady’s work. And for prayer. Her husband let her have a fish and Chi Rho painted on a wall. Before them each day, until a fever took her off, she humbly called on her Christ.

Gratillonius’s free hand stroked the air where her head would have been were she sitting there. ‘I loved you, mother,’ he whispered. ‘If only I’d known how to show it.’

Maybe she had understood anyway. Or maybe she now did in whatever afterworld had received her.

Gratillonius shook himself, scowled, and went out. He wanted to inspect the kitchen and larder. That wasn’t supposed to be any concern of his. But every soldier developed a highly practical interest in grub. Though supper had been fine, what were ordinary meals like, in this house where they couldn’t pay to fuel the furnace? Gratillonius meant to make sure that his father was eating adequately, if perhaps frugally.

He should have looked into that on earlier visits. Even before he enlisted he was aware of a pinch that strengthened year by year. But his awareness was only peripheral, as stoic as his father was and as lost as he himself was in his dreams of Una, the lightfoot and golden-haired – until she perforce married elsewhere, and he flung himself into the army – She no longer haunted him, much. He should have become more thoughtful of his own kindred.

Yet regardless of Isca’s nearness, his appearances here had been infrequent, the last one three years back. And they had been short. He’d spent most of his furlough time ranging the Silurian hills, forests, remote settlements where men were friendly and girls friendlier; or else he’d be off to the baths and frivolities of Aquae Sulis, or as far afield as smoky Londinium. The recollection hurt him, on what might well be his last sight of home and these people, hurt him both with guilt and with a sense of having squandered a treasure.

When he had finished his tour, the sky showed wan through glass. The cook and the housekeeper yawned their way forth, too sleepy to greet him. He could forgive that in the former, who had been here longer than he could recall, but the latter was a young slattern. Gratillonius considered giving her a tongue-lashing for insolence. He decided against it. She would merely be the surlier after he was gone. Besides, maybe she was the best Marcus could find. The older man had bespoken a dearth of good help. Not only was the countryside population dwindling as small farms were swallowed up by plantations or abandoned altogether by owners whom taxes and weak markets had ruined. Those folk who stayed were generally bound by law to the soil, and serfs seldom raised their children to much pride of workmanship.