The Dog and the Wolf (52 page)

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You lure commerce and—worse, much worse—men away from us, when they are sorely needed.”

Gratillonius picked his words with care. “Sir, we do not lure. Whoever comes to us does it of his own choice.”

“Not a choice the law always allows.”

“We’re accused of harboring runaways. All I can reply is that we aren’t magicians, to hear men’s inner thoughts. Idlers, thieves, and ruffians don’t get leave to stay. If someone believes he c
an
identify a person among us who belongs elsewhere, he is free to come try.”

“Ha, I know how likely that is. A hard trip, considerable expense, and the man in question will have disappeared … till the searcher leaves, having met a hedge of pretended ignorance and a quagmire of pretended incompetence. You can uphold the law better than that.”

“I have more urgent business than looking into private lives, and damned little staff to handle any of it for me. I admit we are taking in outsiders, refugees.”

Vortivir nodded. “True. That much is well done of you. I’m not seeking a quarrel, Gratillonius. You are my guest, and your letter said you wanted to discuss a matter of public concern.”

“I do. It touches on a big reason why we seem to be lucky in Confluentes, and so draw settlers. That’s not happenstance.”

“Your enlightened administration?” asked Vortivir, not quite sarcastically.

“I make no claims about that. Also, please remember I’ve been the tribune for less than half a year. It’s longer than that since any raiders hit Osismia. Even the plague of them Rome’s now got hasn’t reached us yet.”

Vortivir’s look grew somber. The Veneti had suffered. “Do you think that setback they took at your hands—four years ago, was it?—frightened them off for good? That’s not their way.”

“Of course not. However, it’s given them a healthy respect for us. Saxons too; they heard what happened to the Scoti. Why should they walk into a bear’s den, when the rest of the Empire is easy pickings?”

Vortivir studied Gratillonius for a space before he said,
“They’re bound to test you again. Will the same … spontaneous gathering of wildly diverse groups … meet them?”

“It could,” Gratillonius answered.

“The law keeps the tribes disarmed. It has to, or they’d soon cut the Empire apart, feuding with it and each other.”

“A citizen has a right to defend himself against a robber. I see nothing wrong with encouraging him to learn how to doit.”

“That depends.” Abruptly Vortivir spat off the portico, turned squarely to the other, and snapped, “How long shall we chop words? It’s obvious why you’re here. You’ve sounded me out in the past, and inquired about me, same as you have everybody else you approached or will be approaching.”

“I wouldn’t want … to speak sedition, sir. Nor tempt anyone to.”

“Well, I’m not the kind who’d tempt you! I’ll state the facts myself. You have these irregular reserves, or whatever you call them. It’s debatable whether their existence quite violates the law, and if so, how much. But the question had better not come before the Imperium. Their activities have spread well into the rest of Armorica, mostly the back country but also a number of small coastal settlements. You want to weave men of all the tribes into this loose network of yours. You hope for my sanction, or at least for my blind eye turned your way. Correct?”

“Correct, sir. The aim is purely defensive. That includes suppression of domestic banditry. Together the tribes can do what none can do separately. For instance, you Veneti are a race of seamen.” (As the Ysans were.) “You’ve got boats to keep watch well offshore and carry back warning. You’ve got ships to bring help to where it’s needed. Most of that help could come from inland. For instance, if you were in touch with Redonic members of the association—”

Vortivir lifted a hand. “That’s clear. Let’s spare the time it takes. There will be plenty of details that are not clear. This doesn’t come as any staggering surprise to me, you know. I keep reasonably well informed about events, and
about the men who make them happen. If anything, I’m a little surprised you haven’t seen me earlier.”

“There was a dispute with a couple of Namnetic headmen—”

“Never mind. Tell me about it later. For the moment: Gratillonius, you not only have my sanction. Provided you can settle a few remaining doubts in my mind, and I’m pretty sure you can, you will have my active cooperation.”

Gratillonius’s hard-held breath burst from him. “Sir, this, this is wonderful!”

“I regard it as my duty,” Vortivir said. “That law about armament tamed the old savages. Today it’s letting new savages at the throat of Rome.”

3

A Saxon flotilla forced the passage of the bay where Gesocribate stood. The barbarians overwhelmed the garrison, scaled the walls, looted, raped, killed for two days, finally set fire to the city and vanished back up the Britannic Sea.

There was nothing the Osismii could do except tender help afterward. A seaport populated largely by mariners who came and went, therefore under closer than ordinary official surveillance, Gesocribate had been outside the native defense movement; and it lay alone at the far end of the peninsula. Its example did jolt many Armoricans into joining the brotherhoods, and these grew more openly militant.

In Confluentes, Evirion raged. It was bad enough that he was penned there, his ship idled, himself likewise as well as tortured equally by boredom and by fretting over the future of his business What had now happened was a blow to one of his most important harborages and marts. If the home guard could have been there! If he could have been in the front line, splitting enemy skulls!

Occasional paramilitary drills gave him something to do, but redoubled his frustration. He could find no work unless it be as a common laborer, and he would not stoop
to that. Nor could he, without fatal damage to his authority over his crew, should
Brennilis
ever put to sea again. He drank too much, got into fights, consorted with whores, lay hours in his own bed staring at the ceiling, slouched sullenly around the towns or along the roads. For reasons obscure to himself he shunned the forest. Yet that was at last where he went.

Summer was then well along, a bleak one this year, chill rains and fleeting pale sunshine. However, for a time it grew hot. Through several days the weather smoldered with never a cloud; folk at night tossed sweating under the weight of air, while crickets outside shrilled mockery. Finally thunderheads massed in the south. Their bases were caverns of purple darkness, their heads noonday white until the sky dimmed. Slowly the overcast thickened. As yet no wind stirred on earth. In heat and silence, the land lay waiting.

Four mounted men rode past Aquilo and up the river road to Confluentes. They led one horse whose saddle was empty. Hoofs clattered on the new stone bridge. They did not enter the city, but passed around and took the dirt road along the Stegir.

That drew remark from onlookers. Their hails got no response. The party trotted onward from the northwest tower, by the old manor and its orchard, through the lately cleared fields beyond, until they reached the present edge of the woods in that direction and disappeared within.

A man came into a tavern, excited, and told his friends what he had seen. The place was tiny, a room in the owner’s home; everybody heard. “Two soldiers they were, armored, and two civilians, one of them pretty well dressed, the other a monk or something. Been traveling hard, from the look of them. What could they want?”

“Government business?” wondered a drinker. “But why didn’t they stop off at the hostel in Aquilo? My brother works there, and he was telling me this very morning how they haven’t had anybody except postal couriers for—I forget how long. So those fellows just got here, and if you saw aright, they didn’t even stop to freshen up.”

“Ah, these be strange times,” muttered a third man. “Holy Martinus, watch over us.”

Evirion put down his half-emptied cup, left his bench, and hurried out. “Hoy, what the devil?” sounded at his back, but he simply broke into a run when he reached the door.

At his house he shooed away the servant who was cleaning it. Once alone, he took from a chest a pair of knives, his sword, a crossbow such as mariners favored, and a case of bolts for it. A long cloak concealed them while he thrust his way through traffic. A wake of indignation and profanity roiled behind him.

Outside the east gate clustered a number of shops denied space within because they were noisy or smelly or the owners could not afford it. Among them was a livery stable. Evirion selected what he deemed was the least jaded of its three horses, and did not haggle but paid over at once the asking price of a day’s rent, in coin. “That should make you outfit her fast,” he told the groom. “Failing it, I have the toe of my boot.”

If he pushed the sorry nag hard, she might well founder on him. He made the best speed that prudence, not mercy, allowed. It was some slight help for the seething in him that the Romans wouldn’t expect pursuit. You couldn’t generally gallop along the woodland trails anyway. Their gloom was dense this day., except where the twisting course brought him near the Stegir.

4

Thunder rolled down the sky. Cold gusts went like surf through the treetops. Clouds decked the sun with darkness, but a weird brass-yellow light came through, pervasive as if without any one source, and sheened on the river.

Nemeta stepped from her cabin as the men drew rein. For an instant she surveyed them, and they her. Two were soldiers, cavalry, though not heavy lancers. Helmets and coats of ringmail shone hard above leather breeches and boots. Their swords were long. Axes were sheathed under their saddlebows and shields hung at their horses’ breechings. One led a riderless animal.

On their left a lean man with an undershot jaw sat awkwardly, not used to riding and sore from it. He too was trousered, in cloth, but had sandals on bare feet and a brown robe that must be his only everyday garment, pulled up past his knees. Above a short beard, the front half of his scalp was shaven, the hair making a ruff behind. He pressed a small casket close against his side.

The fourth, on the right and somewhat in the lead, wearing blue linen beneath a fine tunic, unarmed aside from a knife—

“Nagon Demari,” she said. Dismay shook her voice.

The stocky man skewered her with his gaze. “You are Nemeta, daughter of Gratillonius,” he snapped.

“Aye,” she replied unthinkingly in Ysan. “What would you of me?”

“Answer me, in Latin.”

She braced her thin frame. “Why should I?”

“Obduracy will make matters worse for you,” he told her, unrelenting as the thunder. “Name yourself to these men.”

She moistened her lips before she uttered, “I am … Nemeta,” in their language.

“Bear witness,” Nagon ordered his band.

Nemeta half raised her useable hand. The wind tossed stray red locks around the white face. “What is this?” she cried. “How do you know me, Nagon? I was a young girl when—when—” She faltered.

He smiled with compressed lips. “You know
me.
”

“All Ys knew you. And since then—”

“I have gathered information, piece by piece in these past years. I am a patient man when there is need to be.”

“What do you want?”

They stared and stared at her. Nagon squared his shoulders, drew breath, and intoned against the wind: “Nemeta, daughter of Gratillonius, you are a pagan and a witch. Your unholy rites are banned by the law. Your diabolical practices have endangered souls for far too long. Some may already be in hell because of you. By authority of the governor of this province, I arrest you, for conveyance to trial at Caesarodunum Turonum.” Thunder followed, louder and nearer.

She took a step back, halted, stiffened, and stammered, “This, this is … preposterous. I am the daughter of the King—of the tribune.’

A laugh slapped at her. “He has indeed been negligent.” Sternly: “Make no more trouble for him and yourself. Come, Here is a horse for you. Will you need help in mounting?”

“Hard rain any minute now, sir,” a soldier said. “Why don’t we wait it out in the cabin?”

His companion flinched and exclaimed, “Not in a witch’s house!”

“We go straight back,” Nagon commanded. “We are on the Lord’s business. Come, woman.”

“No, I won’t!” Nemeta yelled. She forked the three middle fingers of her hand and thrust it at them. “I
am
a witch! Begone, or I’ll strike you down! Belisama, Lir, and Taranis, hear!”

“Witness,” Nagon told the others. His voice crackled with exultation. The soldiers stirred uneasily in their seats. He turned to the fourth member of the group. “Brother Philippus.”

“I am a priest, my child,” said the tonsured man to Nemeta. It was hard to hear him through the rising storm. “An exorcist.” He opened the casket and took forth a scroll. Without a grasp on its reins, his horse stamped and tossed its head. “Your poor wickedness has no power against the Lord God and this, His holy word. Attempt no spells. They can only bring a punishment more severe.”

Nemeta whirled and sprinted aside. “After her!” Nagon shouted. The soldiers spurred their mounts. Before she reached the brake, they were on either side of her. She was lost between cliffs of height. One man nudged her roughly with his foot. She stumbled back from between them. Nagon and Philippus closed in too.

She slumped. “Again, four of you,” she whispered. Her head sank till they saw just the fiery hair.

“Resist no more,” said the priest, “and none shall harm you.”

“That is for her judge to decide,” Nagon crooned.

Lightning flared. Hoofbeats answered thunder. A horse came around the bend of the trail, lathered and lurching.
When its rider yanked on the reins, it halted at once and stood with head a-droop. Breath wheezed in froth.

“Hold on, there!” bellowed he who sat it.

They gaped. Nemeta raised her eyes and gave a kind of moan. “What is this?” Nagon demanded.

“They’re … taking me away.” Nemeta’s words blew frail on the wind.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” said Evirion. He brought up the crossbow he had had on his left arm, cocked and loaded. “Stop right there.”