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  Dahut

  The King of Ys

  Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson

  Contents

  Maps

  Index to the Maps

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Afterword

  Preview: The Dog and the Wolf

  Notes

  Geographical Glossary

  Dramatis Personae

  About the Authors

  INDEX TO THE MAPS

  Numbers refer to the first map on which the name is identified or shown.

  Abonae VIII

  Africa I

  Alba IV

  Albis I

  Anderida III

  Aquae Sulis III

  Aquileia I

  Aquilo V

  Aquincum I

  Aquitanicus, Sinus I

  Arar II

  Arausio II

  Arelate II

  Armorica I

  Athenae I

  Audiama V

  Augusta Treverorum I

  Augusta Vindelicum I

  Augustodurum Baiocassium II

  Augustoritum Lemovicium II

  Avela I

  Boand’s River IV

  Borcovicum III

  Britannia I

  Britannicus, Oceanus II

  Burdigala I

  Caesaraugusta I

  Caesarodunum Turonum I

  Caledonia I

  Calleva Atrebatum III

  Camulodunum III

  Carantonus II

  Carcaso II

  Carthago I

  Carthago Nova I

  Cassel IV

  Cassiterides Ins. III

  Castra Regina I

  Cenabum Aurelianum II

  Clón Tarui IV

  Colonia Agrippinensis I

  Condacht IV

  Condate Redonum II

  Confluentes Rheni I

  Confluentes Oditae VIII

  Conbilo II

  Corstopitum III

  Corvorum Insulae II

  Cosedia II

  Dacia I

  Dalmatia I

  Dál Riata in Alba IV

  Dál Riata in Ériu IV

  Danuvius I

  Darioritum Venetorum II

  Deva (river) III

  Deva (town) III

  Druentia II

  Dubris II

  Dun Alinni IV

  Duranius II

  Dumovaria III

  Durocortorum Remorum II

  Eboracum I

  Emain Macha IV

  Ériu IV

  Fanum Martis II

  Gades I

  Gallia I

  Garomagus V

  Garumna I

  Genava II

  Germanicum, Mare I

  Gesocribate II

  Gesoriacum I

  Goana VI

  Goat Foreland V

  Glevum III

  Gobaeum, Prom. VI

  Hippo Regius I

  Hispania I

  Hivemia I

  Iberus I

  Ingena Abrincatuorum II

  Isca (r., Siluria) III

  Isca (r., Dumnonia) III

  Isca Dumnoniorum III

  Isca Silurum III

  Isurium Bngantium III

  Jecta VIII Juliomagus Andecavorum V

  Lemanus Lacus II

  Libyca Palus I

  Liger I

  Liguria I

  Limonum Pictavum I

  Lindum III

  Londinium Augusta I

  Lucus Augusti I

  Lugdunum I

  Lugovallium III

  Lutetia Parisiorum I

  Maedraeacum V

  Mag Slecht IV

  Maia IV

  Massilia I

  Mauretania I

  Matrona II

  Mediolanum I

  Meduana V

  Mide IV

  Moguntiacum I

  Mona (1 and 2) III

  Mons Ferruginus VIII

  Mosa I

  Mosella I

  Mumu IV

  Narbo Martins I

  Nemausus II

  Nemetacum Atrebatum II

  Noviodunum Diablintum V

  Odita VI

  Oiarso II

  Olisipo I

  Orcades Insulae III

  Ossonoba I

  Palus I

  Pallas Palus I

  Pannonia I

  Portus Cale I

  Portus Namnetum II

  Qóiqet Lagini IV

  Qóiqet nUlat IV

  Rach, Cape VI

  Raetia I

  Rhenus I

  Rhodanus I

  Roscida Vallis II

  Rotomagus II

  Ruirthech IV

  Salamantica I

  Samara II

  Samarobriva Ambianorum II

  Scandia I

  Scot’s Landing VI

  Sena VI

  Sequana I

  Sinand IV

  Siuir IV

  Stagna I

  Stegir VIII

  Suebicum, Mare I

  Tallten IV

  Tamesis I

  Tarraco I

  Temir IV

  Tingis I

  Tolosa II

  Tritonis I acus I

  Tumacum II

  Vienna II

  Villa Pulchra VIII

  Vindobona I

  Vorgium II

  Ys I

  Although this novel is fantasy, its surroundings are real. The places and peoples of history shaped the setting in which it occurs. To cite only one example: Ys would lack many important cultural traits without the Phoenician mercantile expansion that built Carthage and Cartagena. These maps would be much emptier if they omitted matters not mentioned in the story.

  I

  1

  Day came to birth above eastern hills and streamed down the valley. It flamed off the towers of Ys, making them stand like candles against what deepness lingered in western blue. Air lay cool, still, little hazed. The world beneath it was full of dew and long shadows.

  This was the feast of Lug. Here they also kept the old holy times, but the great ones of the city called then on its own Gods. A male procession, red-robed, the leader bearing a hammer, mounted the wall at High Gate. They lifted their hands and sang.

  “Your sun ascends in splendor

  The brilliance of Your sky

  To light the harvest landscape

  Your rains did fructify.

  These riches and this respite

  From winter, war, and night,

  Taranis of the Thunders,

  Were won us through Your might!

  “You guard the walls of heaven,

  Earth’s Lover, Father, King.

  You are the sacrificer,

  You are the offering.

  The years wheel ever onward

  Beyond our human ken.

  Bestow Your strength upon us

  That we may die like men.”

  Behind them, where the Temple of Belisama shone on its height, female voices soared from Elven Gardens.

  “Lady of love and life,

  Lady of death and strife,

  Maiden and wedded wife,

  And old in sorrow,

  Turn unto us Your face,

  Grant us a dwelling place

  In Your ab
iding grace,

  Now and tomorrow!

  “You are the Unity:

  Girl running wild and free,

  Hag brooding mystery,

  And the All-Mother.

  Evermore born again,

  You, Belisama, reign,

  Over our joy and pain

  As does no other.

  “You by Whom all things live,

  Though they be fugitive,

  Thank You for that You give

  Years to us mortals.

  Goddess of womankind,

  Guide us until we find

  Shelter and peace behind

  Darkness’s portals.”

  Ebb had barely begun and the sea gate of Ys remained shut. Nevertheless a ship was outward bound. Eager to be off while good weather held, her captain had had her towed forth by moonlight and had lain at anchor waiting for dawn. Mainsail and artemon unfurled, her forefoot hissed through the waves. He went into the bows, killed a black cock, sprinkled blood on the stempost, cast the victim overboard, held out his arms, and chanted.

  “Tide and wind stand fair for our course, but we remember that the set of them is often to a lee shore;

  “We remember that gales whelm proud fleets and reefs wait always to rip them asunder;

  “We remember how men have gone down to the eels or have strewn their bones white on the skerries;

  “We remember weariness, hunger, thirst, the rotting of live flesh and teeth loosened from jaws;

  “We remember the shark and the ice, and the albatross lonely above desolation;

  “We remember the blinding fog and the terrible sea-blink in dead calm:

  “For these too are of Lir. His will be done.”

  The King of Ys, Incarnation and high priest of Taranis, was not in the city, for this was not so momentous a day as to release him from the Watch he must keep when the moon was full. With a handful of fellow worshippers he stood in the courtyard of the Sacred Precinct, by the Challenge Oak, looking toward the sun and calling, “Hail, Mithras Unconquered, Savior, Warrior, Lord, born unto us anew and forever—” The silence in the Wood muffled it.

  At the Forum, the heart of Ys, in the church that had once been a fane of Mars, Christians almost as few held a service. Nobody outside heard their song, tiny and triumphant.

  2

  Rain slashed from the west. Wind hooted. Autumn was closing in, with storms and long nights. If men did not soon take ship for Ériu, they would risk being weatherbound in Britannia until—Manandan maqq Leri knew when.

  Two men sat in a tavern in Maia. That was a Roman settlement just south and west of the Wall, on the firth. Roughly clad, the pair drew scant heed from others at drink, albeit one was uncommonly large and handsome, his fair hair and beard not much silvered. Plain to see, they were Scotic. However, they kept to themselves and this was not an inn where people asked questions. Besides, the tiny garrison was in quarters; and barbarians went freely about, Scoti, Picti, occasional Saxons. Some were mercenaries recruited by Rome, or scouts or spies or informers. Some were traders, who doubtless did more smuggling than open exchange. It mattered not, provided they got into nothing worse than brawls. The Imperial expeditionary force had enough to do without patrolling every impoverished huddling place.

  A tallow candle guttered and stank on the table between the two Scoti. Its light and the light of its kind elsewhere were forlorn, sundered by glooms like stars on a cloudy night. Niall of the Nine Hostages gripped a cup of ale such as he would not have ordered pigs swilled with at home, were a king allowed to own them. Leaning forward, elbows on the greasy, splintery wood, he asked low, “You are quite sure of this, are you, now?”

  Uail maqq Carbri nodded. “I am that, my lord,” he answered in the same undertone. Most likely none else would have understood their language, but no sense in taking needless chances. “I’ll be telling the whole tale later, my wanderings and all, first in this guise, next in that, ever the amusing newcomer who commanded a rustic sort of Latin—”

  “You will, when we’ve time and safety,” Niall interrupted. “Tonight be short about it. Here is a damnable spot to be meeting.”

  It had been the best they could do. Niall, waging war, landing where he saw it would be possible and striking inland as far and savagely as would leave him a line of retreat, Niall could no more foresee where he would camp than could peacefully, inquisitively ranging Uail. Maia was a fixed point, not closely under the Roman eye; men of Condacht and Mide had bespoken this tavern in the past; they could agree to be there at the half moon after equinox. Nonetheless Uail had had to abide two evenings until Niall, delayed by weather, arrived.

  Uail shrugged. “As my lord wills. No men I sounded out, officers or common soldiers, none of them had any word from on high. We wouldn’t await that, would we, now? But somehow they were all sure. The word has seeped through. Rome will fight one more season, hoping to have Britannia cleared of the likes of us by then. But no longer. Nor is there any thought of striking at Ériu. They will be needing the troops too badly across the Channel.”

  Niall nodded. “Thank you, my dear,” he said. “I looked for the same. It sings together with what I learned myself, raiding them this year. They were never determined in pursuit when we withdrew. They’ve not moved against Dál Riata, nest of hawks though it is. We took in deserters, who told us they had no wish to fare off to an unknown battle away in Europe. Oh, it’s clear, it’s clear, we have nothing to fret about in our homeland from Rome.”

  “That is good to know, well worth the trouble of finding out.”

  Niall’s fist thudded down on the board. His voice roughened. “I should have been aware already. I should never have havered like this, letting years slip by—” Abruptly he rose. His mane brushed the ceiling. “Come, Uail. Toss off that horse piss if you must and let’s begone.”

  The mariner gaped. “What? It’s a wild night out.”

  “And I’m wild to be off. The fleet lies on the north side of the firth, in a eove where no Roman comes any longer, two days’ walk for us from here. If we start at once, we can pass Luguvallium in the dark.”

  “That would be wise,” Uail agreed. Yonder city was the western strongpoint of the Wall. Both men took their cloaks and trod forth.

  The rain was not too cold nor the night too black for such as they. Kilts wrapped them from shoulder to knee; at their belts hung dirks, and pouches with a bit of dried meat and cheese; once they were beyond the Roman outposts, no one would venture to question them.

  They had walked a while when Niall said in a burst: “I have need of haste, Uail maqq Carbri. I hear time baying behind me, a pack of hounds that has winded the wolf. Too long have I waited. There is Emain Macha to bring down, and afterward Ys.”

  3

  Among Celts, the first evening of Hunter’s Moon awakened madness. In Ys, folk no longer believed that the doors between worlds stood open then—if only because in Ys, they were never quite shut—but farmers and gardeners made sure their last harvests had been gathered, while herdsmen brought their beasts under roofs and seamen lashed a besom to every craft not in a boathouse. Within the city, it was an occasion for unbridled revel.

  Weather permitting, the Fire Fountain played. Masked, grotesquely costumed—stag, horse, goat, goblin, leather phallus wagging gigantic; nymph, witch, mermaid, hair flying loose, breasts bared and painted—the young cavorted drunken through the streets. Workers of every kind were off duty, and none need do reverence to lord or lady. The older and higher-born watched the spectacle for a time, perhaps, before withdrawing to entertainments they had prepared for themselves behind their own walls. Those might or might not be decorous. Drink flowed, music taunted, and no encounter between man and woman, whomever they might be wedded to, was reckoned entirely real.

  Certain classes observed restraint. The King kept Watch in the Wood as usual. Such of the Gallicenae ashore as were not with him held a banquet, and gave a prayer for the ninth out on Sena. Down in Scot’s Landing, the Ferriers of the
Dead bolted their cottage doors and their families practiced rites that were austere; these were too close to the unknown for aught else.

  Yet all, all was pagan.

  Corentinus left the torchlight and tumult behind him. He had offered a Mass and sent his congregation to bed. Now he was alone.

  Out Northbridge Gate he went, and up Redonian Way across Point Vanis. His long legs crunched the distance. Save for him, road and headland reached empty. This night was clear, quiet, and cold. Stars glimmered manifold before him, Hercules, the Dragon, Cassiopeia, at the end of the Lesser Bear the Lodestar. The Milky Way was dimmed by the high-riding moon and its frost halo. His breath gusted white. Grass, brush, stones lay hoar.

  Where the road bent east above the former maritime station, Corentinus left it and made his way west. Soon he came to an outlook over the sea, vast and dark and slowly breathing. A grave was at his feet. He knew the headstone. The one who rested here was no Christian, but had been an honest soldier. This did not seem the worst possible place to stop.

  Corentinus lifted his arms and his gray head skyward. “O God,” he called in anguish, “Maker and Master of the Universe; Christ Jesus, only begotten Son, God and man together, Who died for us and rose again that we might live; Holy Spirit—have mercy on poor Ys. Leave it not in its midnight. Leave it not with its demons that it worships. They mean well, God. They are not evil. They are only blind, and in the power of Satan. My dearest wish is to help them. Help me, God!”

  After a silence, he bent his neck and bit his lip. “But if they are not worthy of a miracle,” he groaned, “if there can be no redemption, and the abomination must be cleansed as it was in Babylon—let it be quickly, God, let it be final, and the well-meaning people and the little children not be enslaved or burnt alive, but go down at once to whatever awaits them.

  “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”

  II

  1

  The declaration of King Gratillonius hit the vernal Council of Suffetes like a stone from a siege engine. As prefect of Rome, he told them, he had lately received official word of that which he had been awaiting. The augmented legions in Britannia would take the field again this year, but only for a month or two. Thereafter they would return to the Continent and march south. Anticipating renewed barbarian incursions, mounting in scope and ferocity as time went on, Gratillonius wanted the shipyard of Ys to produce more naval vessels. Yet those would not become Ysan. That would be too provocative. Instead, he would offer them to the Duke of the Armorican Tract, to go under the command of the latter. Their crews would train Roman recruits to man them.