Roma Mater (47 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I’d not cause you distress for the world and Heaven.’

She embraced him, carefully chaste but altogether forgiving. Her spirits soon lifted afresh. His did too, somewhat.

2

The barge came in with difficulty through the wild water. Watching on deck, Gratillonius admired the skill of captain and crew. Rowers strained: the master gauged wind and waves, gave hand signals; a stentor bellowed the orders. They caught a billow and rode it. As it crested, the steersman put his helm hard over; larboard oars snapped up out of harm’s way while starboard oars brought the hull about; the steersman’s partner disengaged the left rudder oar and hauled it free; strokes boomed against rope bumpers suspended from bollards. Immediately sailors leapt off on to the wharf, lines in hand, and made fast. Two aboard ran out a gangplank which their fellows ashore secured.

The captain gave Dahilis the salute of deference. ‘Thanks be to Lir that He brought us here in safety, and to Belisama that She gave us you, O Queen, to convey hither,’ he said formally. The wind tattered his words.

She inclined her head to him. ‘And I thank you on behalf of the Gallicenae and Ys,’ she replied likewise, then could not resist laughing: ‘’Twas a pretty show!’

Gravity returned: ‘The hour is late, on this shortest day
of the year. I must commence at once. Farewell.’

Gratillonius escorted her to the wharf. Small and alone she looked against the grey-green tumult that battered the island, the dreariness of rock, scrub, and sere grass beyond. Sacral gown and headdress were woollen for winter, as was the cloak she hugged to her, but cold sought inwards. A moment her gaze dwelt on him. Fare
you
well,’ she said, ‘for ever well.’

Turning, she walked off, over the planks and along a short path to the House of the Goddess. From her left hand dangled a bedroll, from her right a bag of other necessities. Despite the burden and even through the garments, he was aware of how dancingly she moved. Her unborn had never dragged her down much. She had often, delightedly, said what a quick and easy delivery should be hers, and what a fine, healthy babe –’Come, Gratillonius, put your hand here, feel her kick, already she wants out. Oh, she’ll make the world remember her!’ And only a few days ago, Dahilis had felt the lightening.

She glanced back and waved, as she had promised, before she disappeared in the sombre bulk of the House. Rushing rags of cloud brushed past its towertop. The western half of heaven had become a cavern.

Someone diffidently touched Gratillonius’s arm. ‘Your pardon, my lord.’ The King glanced around and recognized a young man named Herun. ‘We have to set up your camp without delay.’

‘Oh … oh, indeed,’ said Gratillonius. ‘So you can start back. Trying that after dark would be deadly in this weather, I’m sure.’

‘In truth, lord. As ’tis, likeliest the gate will be shut, or too narrowly open to attempt. But given such a tide, we can make Ghost Quay if we’ve light to see by. It happens often enough.’

Gratillonius must oversee the work and take a hand of
his own, as newly invented as it was. None less than Bomatin Kusuri, Mariner Councillor, had helped him devise his shelter yesterday, and got craftsmen to prepare what extra parts were required. In effect, a Roman army tent went up on the wharf, tethered to bollards and piles. Meant for eight men, it would be less warm for one, though roomier. However, its leather would fend off any blast that did not tear everything loose; a rug would lie beneath; he was well clad, in fisherman’s tunic, trousers, boots, with jacket and gloves and ample changes in reserve; he had candles, lantern, oil, tinder, punkwood, flint, steel.

Nevertheless it was a swine of a job to erect the tent. Leather flapped into faces, cords flew abut like slave-drivers’ whips. Men said no profane word, but obscenities were plentiful. Afterwards, watching for Dahilis, Gratilonius realized she must have gone out again, inland, while he was thus engaged. He had not seen her greeting to him.

Finally the task was over. He said his appreciative goodbye. The crew embarked, cast loose, fended off, departed. He stood watching the galley dwindle: a brave sight, but how fragile amidst the surges and surfs, like Dahilis beneath the sky.

Having sadly given up on seeing her again for hours, he busied himself settling in. There were things to stow, food such as didn’t need cooking, water, wine, bedroll, towels, washbasin, comb, teeth cleansers – the list went on, ending with what he had brought to pass the time. A book could have been too easily blotted, ruined; and he possessed no musical gift whatsoever. He did, though, have waxed tablets and a stylus, for noting down any thoughts that occurred to him about Ys and Armorica. Mainly he had brought pieces of wood, and tools to carve them into ornaments for furniture and toys for his step-
daughters. And why not for his own daughter as well, his and Dahilis’s? She’d not appreciate more than a rag doll at first, but later she would enjoy, say, a tiny wagon …

Gratillonius smiled as he crossed his legs on the rug. He reached for a whetstone. Several of his blades needed sharpening, and no servant of his had quite the right final feather-touch.

Wind gusted, screeched, noisily flapped the doorfolds, which had been tied back to admit light. His pleasure drained from him. He should not be doing work as mechanical as this. It freed his mind to wonder how Dahilis was, alone with her Gods at Midwinter.

3

Gratillonius did not notice her. He and the sailors were struggling to put up his tent. Dahilis wished she could linger till his glance wandered her way. But already she had had to be hasty in the first communion rite. More than half the short day was gone, while clouds drew downward, ever darker, and wind grew still more fierce. She must be back before nightfall was complete, so she could see to kindle fire – on the hearth for herself, in lamps for herself and the Goddess.

‘Belisama, Queen and Mother, watch over him,’ she whispered, and started forth.

For a space the footpath followed the shoreline. Cast-offs of the tide lay strewn, kelp, shells, dead fish, pieces from the many wrecks that these waters had claimed over the years. Beyond churned and foamed the sea itself, nearly black save where it burst in gigantic whiteness. Growl and roar were like drums beneath the war horn of the wind. Seals swam in the turmoil, They kept turning
their heads inland – towards her? The path bent that way, then west again; she lost sight of them.

It hurt to turn her back on the Kindly Ones. It hurt to leave Gratillonius behind. It hurt!

Dahilis halted with a gasp. The pain started at the small of her back and came around to grip her in the belly. It was like the pangs of lightening, but those had been brief and mild. This laid hold of her inmost depths. She barred a cry behind her teeth. Dear Isis, had the birth begun so early?

The cramp passed. A while she stood shivering. Best return, start the fire, wait. If this went on, seek Gratillonius.

Nay. Dead Brennilis, speaking through the mouth of Forsquilis, had warned that the trial would be severe. This was not worse than she, Dahilis, could endure. The pains might well be false. In any event, likelihood was that she could move about freely, most of the time, for hours and hours yet. Let her do so, and win her man forgiveness.

And the Sisterhood and Ys, of course.

She strode on. The wind was now straight in her face. She tasted the salt spray that it flung the length of Sena. It sought to tear the cloak from her shoulders. She could barely hold the garment together; it fluttered and snapped frantically. The cold probed through every opening. Her gown made valiant defence, but the wind flattened it against her and her babe, jeered as it lifted the hem, swirled up from underneath. The low, scudding clouds had given way to a roiling leadenness above, a monstrous gloom ahead. Leafless bushes flicked their twigs above stones and patches of withered grass. Hoot and howl streamed around her.

But there were the two menhirs, where she had helped bring Gratillonius and, later, bring him the aid he needed
against the reavers out at sea – A second spasm coiled through her. She waited it out.

Shakily, she approached the Bird and the Beast. She said the words, she danced the sunwise dance, she ate the salt and gave the drop of blood, she asked leave to depart and peace on the Old Folk. It seemed a good omen that the next attack held off until this was all done.

After that, though, she lost count of how many stops she must make on her way west. Belike the wind slowed her, she thought: thrusting, battering, chilling, as if Lir had sent it to keep her away from Him. The flat landscape seemed everywhere the same. As she went on, it grew vague in her sight. The wind was lashing such tears from her eyes. Spray flew ever thicker. Its bitterness caked on her lips. Snow that was half sleet began drifting against her. Horizon and sky were lost.

‘Lir,’ she appealed, ‘Lir, are You really angered that he buried his friend, in the name of their God, above Your sea? You can’t be. You are Captain and Helmsman. You understand what manhood is.’

But Lir had nothing of humanity about Him. He was the storm that whelmed ships, the lightless depths that drowned men, the waves that flung them on to rocks for gulls to eat what the eels had not. Well did He nourish great whales, and dolphins to frolic about sailors and seals to watch over them. Well did He raise great shoals of fish and the winds that bore rich cargoes homeward. But He was Ocean, the Son of Chaos, and Ys lived only on sufferance of His, only because it had made itself forever a hostage to His wrath.

Let her appeal and appease – She sank to knees, to all fours, and could not quite hold back a cry. Some births came fast. This, her first, too early at that, this birth ought not to, but, ‘Belisama, Mother, help me.’

Dahilis lurched back to her feet. The drift around her
grew more white as everything else grew blacker.

Then ahead, at endless last, she spied the tip of the island. Surf ramped beyond it; she heard the boom and long, withdrawing snarl, she could well-nigh feel them through her bones. That was farther out than she must go. She need only descend a few tiers of rock to one that jutted out above high-water mark. Upon it stood an altar, a block of stone, sea-worn until ledges and carven symbols were nearly gone. There she must give Lir His honour. Afterwards she could return to the House of the Goddess.

She picked her way down carefully, half blinded as she was. Wind raved, snow and spindrift flew. Her womb contracted. She bent herself around the anguish. Her heel slipped on wetness. She felt herself toppling, helpless. It seemed to go on and on, while she stood aside and watched. Shock, pain, those too struck somebody remote.

– They waited patiently until she crawled back from wherever she had been. That was a slow battle. Often she slid back downwards. A birth pang would drag her up again. The agony in her right leg resisted this, as the wind had resisted her walking. But when she did break free, it became her friend. It was something other than a confusion of wind, snow, water, darkness, and noise. Her mind clung to it. Don’t let go, she begged. If you do, I’ll slip away from this, and I mustn’t.

Scrabbling, her fingers hoisted her gown. The right foot was bent awry. Fractured ankle. She would dance no more, not soon. How long had she lain unaware? Not long; her head was unhurt, mayhap saved by the cloth wrapped around it, though that had come loose. Nonetheless, thought fumbled through drift of snow and scud. Her garments were drenched, weighting her when she tried to raise herself on her hands. Water sheeted. The tide was coming in swiftly. With the wind behind it, surf would
reach around the altar of Lir. It might pull her off to Him, or it might simply kill her and the child.

She must find shelter before the chill reached her womb. Already she felt numbness stealing inwards. She tried to get up on the sound foot and hop. That knee buckled. She fell on the broken ankle. Bright lightnings cast her back into the dark.

It was closing in on the world when she next regained herself. Another cramp pulsed through her. She felt it more keenly than she now felt the broken bones. ‘Hold,’ she muttered. ‘Abide. We’ll go to him.’ His right name eluded her. It was lengthy, Latin, unmusical. Her tongue remembered how Ysans sometimes rendered it. ‘Grallon. Oh, Grallon.’

Dahilis began to crawl.

When she had hitched her way over the terraces, on to the flatland, she could not find the path. Whiteness lay thin upon rock and soil. It flowed along in the air, on the wind, through the deepening dusk. The crash and rush of the sea behind her filled her skull. She must get away from the sea. Somewhere yonder were Grallon and Beli-sama. ‘Be not hasty,’ she told her daughter. ‘Wait till he can help us.’ She knew little else, but she did know that she must creep onwards, each time that the pains allowed.

4

As twilight fell, Gratillonius grew more and more uneasy. Ignoring cold, he sat in the entrance of his tent. It opened towards the building. He did not see her, he did not see her. By every hell of every faith, she ought to be back. Ought she not? The island was small. Any healthy person could walk it from end to end in an hour or so. Allow as
much for the return. She did have her duties along the way, but they couldn’t be too elaborate, could they? A slight snow had begun, dry flakes borne nearly level out of the west. It hindered vision. He might miss sight of her. He didn’t want that.

His woodcarving forgotten, he waited. Thoughts tumbled through him, memories, mother, father, the farm, camp, girls who seemed to have gone unreal, the Wall, Parnesius, combats that no longer mattered – where
was
Dahilis? – Maximus’s will to power, the march to Ys, Dahilis, Dahilis, things he needed to do, also among her Sisters – what in Ahriman’s name was keeping her? – how he might disengage himself from Ys after his work in Armorica was done, but not from Dahilis, no, he must win her over to Rome, and where
was
she, what was keeping her? The snow streaked denser than before.

Finally he realized he’d better start fire while he could still see. That meant closing the tent against the gusts that had been whirling about in it. The consequent gloom, and his own impatience, cost him several failures before he had ignited the tinder, blown it to life, kindled a punk-stick, and brought that to a candle. Then it took a while more to get his lantern going. It was a fine big one, bronze with glass panes, but awkward in the ignition. He’d be stupid not to use it, however, for a naked flame might well die when he reopened the tent flaps.