Roma Mater (48 page)

It did. He blinked at night. Not dark already! He should stand outside and let his eyes adapt. The wind savaged his face. Waves bawled unseen; he felt the wharf tremble to their blows. With the slowness of a torturer, some vision came to him. He discerned the House not as a mass but as an abyss, blacker than black. If Dahilis had entered it while he wasn’t looking, she must be asleep in there.

The knowledge struck into him like a swordthrust.
‘Asleep?’ he yelled. ‘Can’t be!’ Not as early as Midwinter nightfall was. She had spoken of an evensong; surely that required lamps. And she would have lighted a hearthfire. But never a glimmer –

He fought himself till the breath sobbed in his gullet. He’d missed sight of her. Shutters and door blocked light. If he went there, she would be aghast. She was supposed to seek him, should necessity come upon her. Stand fast, Gratillonius, stand your watch, keep your post.

Snow hissed. Blindness deepened. He raised his hands. ‘Mithras, God of the Law, what shall I do?’

A still small voice replied: Look for the smoke.

Gratillonius’s heart stumbled. The smoke of sacrifice, the smoke of the hearth, it rose. However swiftly wind snatched it away from its outlet, firelight from beneath should glimmer on it … and on the flying snow … but there was no light. None whatsoever.

A faraway part of him recalled moments of commitment to battle. In them had been a certain eerie bliss. You had no more thinking to do, nor hoping nor praying. You only drew sword.

He fetched the lantern and carried it by the lug, as low down as might readily be so that he could pick his way up the path. Wind, snow, night had receded to remoteness; he barely heard the sea. The door of the House bore a knocker formed like a triskele. He thudded it as hard as he was able. ‘Dahilis, Dahilis, are you within?’ The noise disappeared.

‘The sacrilege is mine,’ he said, mainly for her sake, and opened the door.

Shadows wavered misshapen around a single room. From the Roman-tiled floor a wooden staircase led up into the tower. But that was for refuge. Here he saw a hearth, an oven, utensils, chair, stool, table, cabinet … rug on the floor, lamps and candlesticks on a shelf,
hangings to relieve the bleakness of stone walls … at the far end, what might be an altar … closer by, a single bed, and tossed on to it the rolled sheets and blankets he knew.

‘Dahilis!’ he roared. Echoes laughed.

So, he thought.

She would need a fire, but he didn’t know when he would come back with her. He laid out the nicely stacked kindling and sticks. From a jug he drenched them with lamp oil. Let that soak in, that he might be able to start a blaze immediately when he had brought her here to shelter.

Fire … He could be a long while searching. Best that he take several tallow candles to recharge the lantern. He snatched them off their shelf and stuffed them into the pouch at the belt of his Ysan garb. Down with them he put flint, steel, tinder, and punk, just in case – though he’d need some kind of windbreak before trying to start anything burning. Across his left arm he slung a wool blanket, while he took a firm grip on the lantern, ready to keep it level should he trip. Then he set forth.

‘Dahilis!’ he cried. ‘Dahilis!’

The wind whistled, the waves resounded, his voice was lost. As he left the House behind, he glimpsed a seal that had come ashore to lie on the strand. Its gaze followed him till he was gone into his darkness.

He didn’t know this damned island at all. There should be a footpath of some kind, but where? Snow had laid enough of a veil over the ground that he couldn’t tell by looking. He only knew that it wasn’t under the hummocks and tufts of winter grass or the bare, snickering bushes; but those grew sparsely. Besides, she might be anywhere.

It would do no good to run around yelling like a scared pup. Best he weave his way to and fro across the narrow land, guiding himself as best he was able by whatever
clues there might be, such as the noise of the waters north and south. At that, he could easily miss her, if she didn’t hear him and call an answer. Well, if so, he would work back again. Come daylight he could see farther than by the feeble glow he carried.

But it would be a long night.

– Dahilis, Dahilis!’

–He came upon a pair of menhirs. Much taller than he, close together, one bluntly pointed and one with a beaklike projection near the top, they must be the Stones about which he had heard words let slip. They might be something towards which she would seek. At least they were things, here in the middle of nothingness. He cast around and around. She was not there. His voice was giving out.

–The snowfall ended in a last, spiteful sleet.

–He could only croak, like a crow with a bad cold.

–When he replaced the candle, fatigue made his hand shake so that he nearly dropped it.

–The wind slackened, but chill strengthened. Heaven was lightless. Gratillonius began to hear surf at the western end of Sena.

–He came upon her quite suddenly. Another shadow he wasn’t sure of; a turn for a closer look; he stubbed his toe on a rock; and there she lay. Ice had formed in crackly little patches on her drenched garments. She was huddled around her unborn. Her face was bloodless and peaceful. The lids were not entirely shut, lantern light flicked off eyeballs. As he stooped above, he saw the wrecked ankle. O Mithras! Belisama, why did You let this happen?

He knelt beside her. His hand sought beneath her gown, his ear to her nostrils. Faint, faint … but she lived, the weather had not yet killed her … Almost as faint was the throb farther down. What, was her daughter trying to be born?

You will have to wait your turn, child.

It was less that strength came back to Gratillonius than that he ceased to feel weariness. He got the blanket around Dahilis, both arms under her, thumb and forefinger crooked again at the handle of his lantern. Rising, he began to walk. Meanwhile he, or someone inside him, laid plans. He must know his every move beforehand, for time would be short. His father, in mariner days, had instructed him about death from cold, what the danger signs were, what to do for a victim. An army surgeon on the Wall had similarly lectured to young officers from the South, as winter approached. Dahilis was far gone.

Belisama, Belisama, help her. Surely you love her too.

Did an owl swoop overhead? The merest glimpse –

The House loomed forth. He supported part of her weight on a thigh while he got the door open. As he entered, his light sent shadows bounding hunchbacked around the room. He kicked her stuff off the bed and laid her on the mattress. Wind whined outside, found the door ajar and skirled through. Water dripped from Dahilis’s cloak and hair. He had set the lantern on the floor. To start a fire, oil or no, would take longer than he could afford. She must have warmth at once. His fingers flew, stripping the wet garments from her. Dahilis flopped like a jointed doll.

Now, off with his own clothes. The bed was as narrow as a grave, but that was all right; she needed him, the heat of his body, close against her. He grabbed a couple of dry blankets and threw them over both while he found a place for himself. He must cling, and the frame dug painfully into his hip, but no matter, no matter in the least.

His lips touched her cheek. It was like kissing ice.

A change went through her, a shivering, a dewiness on the skin. The breath he could barely sense turned irregu
lar and faintly, faintly, infinitely remotely, laboured. He stamped on the horror that wailed within him and reached under her jaw, seeking the pulse. The jaw fell. He heard sounds and caught smells that were much too familiar.

It was so weak a death struggle that it was almost a surrender. (Belisama, Your will be done.) Gratillonius rolled from the bed, found the floor, bent over her. Again his fingers searched for the pulse in her throat. He couldn’t find it. Eyes rolled back and half shut, blank, her face gaped slackly at him. He laid a palm over a breast and caught the slightest of motions. She was still breathing just a little.

The hand went down to her swollen belly. Did he feel a beating, as if against a door? He wasn’t sure. He was no physician. Yet he remembered slaughtered beasts and slain barbarians. Caesar himself had made Roman law of what was olden practice: in cases like this, one must try to save the child.

Maybe she wouldn’t have wished it, had she known what it was going to cost him. He couldn’t ask her.

Time hounded him, closer even than before. The unborn were quick to follow their mothers into death. He had heard of some that were delivered but became defectives, worse than poor Audris. He could stay here and fight for Dahilis’s life and almost certainly lose; and then her daughter was best left at peace in the dark. Or he could try for the rescue of her blood, not herself. The odds against that looked long also, but not hopeless. As fast as she was going, he must make his decision
now.

He took the lantern again and went out, down to his tent, unaware of the wind and the cold.

When he came back, he used the flame to start candles, and thereafter kindled fire. Often he interrupted himself to attend Dahilis. His ministrations had no effect. When he ceased to feel her breathe, he used a bronze mirror he
had found in her kit. Of course she had a mirror along, like any woman who wants to please her man.

At first it misted over. Soon that was so little that he crouched holding it in place below her nostrils. When it dried, he flung it clanging across the room.

He would have liked to kiss her farewell, but this was not Dahilis. He dropped a towel over the face. As for that which lay naked, he would not think about what it had been. He hoped he would not think about it. He hoped his farmer and craftsman skills, his rough knowledge of anatomy, would serve. A man could only try.

He had – how long? Three minutes, four, five? No more. Arrayed on the table, which he had dragged to the bedside, lay his small sharp knives.

5

Seas ran high on the morning after solstice, but wind had fallen off and skies were clearing. Dawn was barely a promise when Forsquilis and her companion came down the cliff trail to Ghost Quay and along the path to Scot’s Landing. At Maeloch’s door she smote the wood with her staff, whose iron finial was in the shape of an owl. The knock, knock, knock sounded loud amidst the clash of waves on rocks.

The door opened. The fisherman stood unclad, battle axe at the ready. ‘What the squid-futter –’ he growled, and then saw. The lantern that the other woman bore cast glow across the austere features of the high priestess, hooded in her cloak. Behind them, water gleamed under the first thin light in heaven.

‘Oh! My, my lady Queen!’ He shifted the axe blade to
cover his loins. ‘I thought … ’twasn’t the Summons – pirates? My lady Forsquilis!’

‘We have not met,’ she said levelly, ‘but you know me by sight and I you by repute. They call you both the boldest and the most knowing among the fishers. I command you to a faring as momentous as any of yours with the dead – or more, because on this hinges the morrow of Ys.’

‘What?’ Behind his shaggy beard, he gulped. ‘My lady, that’s plain recklessness. Look.’ His free hand gestured at the chopping and leaping.

The eyes beneath the cowl would not let him go. He saw how haggard she was, as if she had been awake this whole night. ‘Go we shall, Maeloch,’ she said, and faster than ever you travelled erenow.’

He thought before he answered: ‘I’ve heard as how Queen Dahilis went out to Vigil yesterday, like none ever did before. And the King at her side. Will you relieve her?’

‘One might say that.’

‘Why … why, I’ll go, be sure I will, if little Queen Dahilis needs help. But the others may balk.’

‘Are they Ferriers or not?’

Maeloch squinted past the lantern at her who bore it. ‘This is Briga, of my household,’ Forsquilis explained. ‘She goes too.’

She was a sturdy, blonde young woman, clearly an Osismian. Such often came to the city and worked a few years, earning dowries for themselves. Sometimes they got married there, or seduced. Briga’s free arm nestled a very new babe against her large bosom. Her countenance declared both fear and a doglike trust in her mistress the witch.

‘Make haste!’ said Forsquilis’s whipcrack voice.

Maeloch mumbled excuses, retreated to get dressed,
came forth again to beat on neighbouring doors and bawl men off their pallets. When they saw the Queen, their grumbles quickly ceased, though she stood in place like an eidolon. Enough of them heeded the call to make a crew for
Osprey
, as they did at a Summons. Most of the regular deckhands lived elsewhere.

The smack lay beached under a roof for the winter; but the Ferriers of the Dead kept gear and supplies always aboard their boats, and were swift to fetch rollers and launch this one. She was off soon after the sun had cleared the Bay of Aquitania. The passage went better than the sailors had feared, though amply difficult. The tide was with them and the wind cold but easy, swinging around widdershins until after a while they could raise the sail to help them at their oars. Sundogs danced in a crystalline heaven. Given such brightness, the helmsman readily kept off reefs.

Briga huddled under the bows, miserably seasick, caring for her infant between trips to the rail. Forsquilis sat nearby, impassive. None ventured to address her. A sailor even forgot her when he pissed over the leeward side a short distance off. His ritual apology to Lir reminded him. ‘Hoy, my lady, I’m sorry!’

She gave him the phantom of a smile. ‘Think you me a vestal?’

He wrung his calloused paws. ‘I should’ve taken the slop bucket aft. But this crossing, we know not why, ’tis got me all muddled … We do head straight back home, don’t we, my lady?’

Forsquilis nodded. ‘I shall abide. The rest of you will return.’

‘Ye – ?’ He looked down at his feet, braced wide upon the pitching deck. ‘But ’tis festival time.’

Her own look went beyond the horizon. ‘There are
signs to seek, rites to begin. In another day or two the barge can safely come fetch me.’

He saw that she wanted to be by herself, saluted awkwardly, and went about his duties.