Gallicenae Read online

  Crossing a bridge from the military highway to the left bank, his party passed through the gate of Turonum and found quarters. He was both relieved and perturbed to discover that the civil governor was absent, summoned to the Emperor along with his counterparts throughout Gallia. At least now he could confer straightforwardly with the Duke.

  They got along well at their first meeting. It was privately agreed that neither would send forces to any internecine conflict. They would explain that defense against the barbarians must take precedence. It was true.

  As for Gratillonius’s need of a clergyman, the Duke recommended him to Bishop Martinus. “He comes into town once a week, usually, from that monastery of his, to lead services at the main church. M-m-m, I know what you are, but it’d be wise of you to attend them then.”

  Always scout ahead if you can. Gratillonius went for a preliminary look, and was shocked. The church was larger than most, and rather handsome for a building erected in recent decades. However, it was filled with madmen—the sick of mind and feeble of mind, ragged, filthy, some roaring, some shivering, some posturing, some taking attitudes absurd or obscene, while mutters went through the dimness. “San, san, san… I am Jupiter, but they have me locked in hell…. Fintharingly and no, no…”

  A deacon explained upon being asked that this was at the order of the bishop. Elsewhere energumens, as such persons were called, wandered starveling, shunned for fear of the demons supposed to possess them, when they were not whipped off with curses, beaten, tormented, sometimes raped or killed. Martinus decreed that they be fed and sheltered in the house of God. Each Sunday he came in among them, clad in sackcloth and smeared with ashes; he lay full length on the floor in their midst, and hour after hour implored mercy for them or wrestled with the Fiend who afflicted them. His touch and his prayers had seemingly freed a number to return to the human world. The rest adored him in their various weird fashions.

  Gratillonius thought of his Gallicenae. They too, Innilis especially, had had a measure of luck in coping with insanity. But when they failed, the law of Ys was that the sufferers must be expelled. “It’s well done of the bishop,” he said.

  “Oh, his is a loving soul, sir, underneath the strictness,” replied the deacon. “He served in the army, did you know? Conscripted, and spent twenty-five years before he could have the baptism he longed for, but never did his charity falter. When he was stationed at Samarobriva, I’ve heard—not from him—how one freezing day he saw a near-naked beggar. He’d already given away most of what clothes he had, but he drew sword, cut his cloak across, and let this man have half. No wonder he has power to heal. Of course, he had been a military physician.”

  Gratillonius decided it would be politic to absent himself until Sunday. Besides, the idea of a man groveling among the crazy repelled him. He hired a boat and went fishing.

  On the Lord’s day, after sunrise prayers to his own Lord, he was early at the church. This would be far from the first Christian ceremony he had watched, but he wanted to observe everything he could. The energumens were gently but firmly guided out onto the porch, where a couple of priests with the rank of exorcist took them in charge. Trained by now, they gave no trouble. Meanwhile the interior was cleaned and made ready. The congregation arrived piecemeal. A comparative few went inside, most of them middle-aged or elderly, the baptized. Catechumens occupied the porch; of these, a majority were women. There was no objection to those excommunicated for sin or to unbelievers like Gratillonius, if they behaved themselves. Who knew but what the scales might fall from their eyes?

  Solemnly, the bishop led his priests and deacons in. Martinus had changed little in a year and a half, save that he was freshly barbered, his sallow face smooth aside from the many furrows, his hair standing white—unkempt still—behind the ear-to-ear frontal tonsure which made his brow seem cliff-high. He wore the same slavelike garb, and went barefoot. His attendants were as humbly clad, and for the most part equally gaunt.

  Folk knelt while the ordained led a prayer. There followed a reading from the Prophets. “—Shall not the land tremble for this, and those who dwell in it mourn, while it rises up like a flood of Egypt and is cast back and drowned?—” The people joined in singing a short response: “—Glory unto God omnipotent—” Standing, they heard the bishop read from an Epistle: “—The natural man does not receive what the, Spirit of God teaches; to him this is foolishness; he cannot know it, because it is only knowable by the spirit—” A choir sang a psalm. Martinus preached the Gospel. He was no orator. In terse soldierly words, he discoursed on the centurion whose servant Jesus had healed. “—Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof—” Gratillonius wondered about that text. For all his devotions and meditations, yonder fellow kept uncommonly aware of what went on around him.

  “Silence,” enjoined a deacon. While bishop and priests prayed, the offerings of the faithful were brought forth in processional, goods and money. Some were earmarked—for the poor, the ill, a family member in need—and the deacon read aloud the names of those beneficiaries, and Martinus included them in his prayer.

  It was the dismissal. Those in the porch left at its end. The doors behind them drew shut. What came next was the Communion service, for the baptized only. Well, Gratillonius thought, we bar our lower ranks from the highest Mysteries of Mithras.

  He sought an exorcist, who was helping shepherd the energumens. “I have to see the bishop,” he said, and gave his name. “Will you tell him? I’ll be at the Imperial hostel.”

  “He receives supplicants—”

  “No, this has to be a private talk. Tell him it’s with the King of Ys.”

  The priest gaped and gulped. However, the man before him, big, healthy, well clad, was not obviously a lunatic. To be sure, standing aside as a spectator, he had revealed himself a pagan. But Martinus dealt with many a heathen chieftain in the hinterland. “I can’t approach him for some hours yet, sir, not till he’s finished his church business, and afterward his charities and austerities. Expect word about sunset.”

  Briefly, Gratillonius bristled; then he eased off and laughed. Maybe Martinus washed the feet of the poor, but be damned if he toadied to the mighty!

  The message that evening, carried by an awestruck boy who had memorized it, was: “The bishop will return to the monastery immediately after worship tomorrow sunrise. He will be glad to meet you at the western city gate and have you accompany him. It will be afoot.”

  —On this side of the river, the road was unpaved. Rain had fallen during the night, and morning was cold and damp, though warming as the sun climbed. Mist smoked above the water. Dew glittered on grass and young leaves. The hills reached silvery with it. Birds twittered; high and high, a lark chanted its “bi-bi-bi” Few people were abroad. While Martinus needed a staff, he strode along without asking Gratillonius to slow down. A few monks who had come with him followed at a respectful distance.

  For a time conversation went lively between the leaders. Martinus was ardent to learn everything Gratillonius had done, seen, heard, planned, since their last encounter. But when talk turned to the future, his mood darkened.

  “—And so I’ve got to have a minister of your faith for Ys, soon,” Gratillonius finished. “Please don’t look on it as a political move. I am what I am. From your viewpoint, too, wouldn’t it be best we get a reasonable man like old Eucherius?”

  Martinus peered afar. Somehow his thin, snubnosed countenance came to resemble a Caesar’s. “God rest Eucherius.” His tone was steely. “From what I’ve heard, he did his pious best. He was weak, though. We require an evangelist there, who will take up arms against Satan.”

  “But not one who’ll, well, antagonize the city. How would that help your cause? Give me somebody I can work with.”

  “Despite your own paganism.” Martinus gentled. “Oh I understand. Yours is a sore dilemma.”

  “Never mind me. I’m thinking of Ys. And Rome. What good will it do Rome if your man provokes the people into throwing him
out? Maximus would—Well, remember what the Priscillianus business cost.”

  Martinus’s knuckles whitened above his staff. “I can never forget,” he said low.

  Presently: “Let me confess to you.” He wrenched the words out. “For we must indeed try to understand each other, you and I, for the sake of the souls in your worldly care, and—and Rome.

  “Maximus did agree to call off his inquisitors, and to give the surviving Priscillianists in his dungeons light sentences. However, on this he put a price. As a sign of blessing, I must help celebrate the consecration of Felix as bishop of Treverorum.

  “Now Felix was, is, a fine man.” Martinus caught his breath. “But to share the Eucharist with Ithacius, the persecutor—Well, in the end, perforce, I did.

  “On the way home, I walked through midnight of the soul. It seemed to me that whatever powers of well-doing had been granted me by God must be gone, because of this covenant with evil. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to me and said that I had done what I must and was forgiven.” He said that almost matter-of-factly, before he grew stark again: “Nevertheless, I have seen Satan at work within the Church itself. I will never attend another synod of bishops.”

  They trudged on in silence until Gratillonius had marshalled words: “So you realize how careful we need to be, choosing… a trustworthy servant of God for Ys.”

  Martinus had recovered calm. “I do. A man devout, learned, civilized, but also virile, familiar with the common folk yet wise enough to cooperate with you for the general welfare and… resistance to tyranny.” He gusted a sigh. “Do you know any such paragon? I wish I did!”

  Gratillonius’s heart leaped. He had spent a great many hours thinking about this. “Maybe I do.”

  By then they had nearly reached their goal, about three miles downstream from Turonum. Sheer hillsides, honeycombed with caves and burrows, curved backward to wall in a broad, grassy flatland. Primitive huts covered the low area, wattle-fenced gardens among them. Although the community was said to number well over a thousand, most dwelling in caves, few were in sight, nor did smoke rise from any but two or three shacks.

  This was the Greater Monastery that Martinus had founded, to which men flocked who had despaired of the world and would seek salvation beyond it. Women came too, but were housed in the city; the bishop clove husband from wife as ruthlessly as he split away fleshliness from himself. Mostly the monks subsisted on donations, or on the proceeds of possessions they had turned entirely over to the Church when they enrolled. What food they grew, what fish they caught, were mere concessions to the body’s need of some recreation. They shared a single meal a day, of the simplest kind. Nearly all their waking hours they passed in prayer, contemplation, mortification, reading of Scripture, attendance on the preaching of their master.

  Gratillonius could not comprehend how any human being would seek such an existence. Yet as he beheld it, the power of it sent a chill through him.

  “Whom have you in mind?” Martinus asked.

  The centurion hauled his mind back to realities. “You know him. One Corentinus. We met last year, he and I, when I blundered onto his hermitage, and hit it off. On this trip, I stopped at Aquilo mainly so I could go back there and talk with him again. It went even better. I think he’s right for Ys—since we must have somebody—and I hope you’ll agree.”

  “Corentinus… Hm-m.” The bishop pondered, while his feet and staff ate the distance to sanctuary. “It may be. It may be. An old seaman, posted to a seafaring folk… I must think. It’s clear God has marked Corentinus for some high mission. You know about the miracle of the fish, don’t you? Well, then—” More silence, apart from the scrunch of sandals, the song of birds. “I must think, and pray for guidance. But it does seem as though—He’ll have to return here, get instructed, be consecrated chorepiscopus. That may take months. However, I could write to Maximus that it’s in train.”

  “I’m afraid he won’t be willing, Corentinus,” Gratillonius warned. “What he wants to do is sit in the woods and beg forgiveness.”

  Also, those woods had been full of flowers, fragrances, peace.

  Martinus laughed. “He’ll take his marching orders if they’re issued him. Stay a while, you. Let’s talk this over at length. You’re a soldier; you can survive our hospitality. If my decision is positive—and I suspect it will be—I’ll give you a letter you’ll convey to Corentinus on your way back.”

  Gratillonius bridled. “Sir, I am the prefect of Rome and the King of Ys.”

  Martinus laughed louder. “Why should you not also be God’s messenger boy?”

  2

  Early summer brought a spell of calm, light, warmth. It had prevailed for days when Quinipilis’s turn to have Dahut came, and she took the girl out on the water.

  “I promised her this, the first chance we’d get,” she snapped when her manservant expressed qualms. “Would you have a high priestess break her word? A promise to a little kid is the most sacred kind there is. And nay, we’ll not want the royal yacht or any such cluttered-up thing. What you can do is carry my word to Scot’s Landing. So get off your arse!”

  As he left, the man grinned to himself. The old lady had a rasp for a tongue and a lump of butter for a heart.

  Maeloch was quick to arrive from the fisher hamlet under Cape Rach. His Osprey was under repair after storm damage. Meanwhile he welcomed extra earnings, and this would be a pleasant job. When he entered the Queen’s house he found woman and child on the floor playing with little animals that King Grallon had carved in wood. “Here he is, sweetling,” Quinipilis said to her charge. “We can go now.”

  “Oh, go, go, go!” sang Dahut, and soared to her feet. She was taller than most three-year-olds, wand-slim, wind-swift. Beneath flaxen billows of hair, her eyes were huge, deep blue, in an exquisitely sculptured face. “We go sail!”

  “The airs willing, Princess,” Maeloch said. “Else must I row.” His coarsely clad, burly form, black mane and beard, rumbling voice, caused her no alarm. It did not seem that anything had ever frightened Dahut.

  “Well, help me up, oaf,” Quinipilis ordered with a nearly toothless smile. As he did, she caught a sharp breath.

  “Does something hurt, my lady?” he asked.

  “Of course something does. What d’you think ’twould do, in this wreck of a body? Like always having feet in a boiling kettle, if you must know. Let’s begone.”

  “Uh, better if my lady stays home. I’ll take good care of the princess, believe me. How I do remember her mother.”

  “Nonsense! Should I deny me a pleasure because of some verminous twinges? Fetch me my staff. ’Tis in yon corner; are you blind or only drunk? Give me your arm.” Quinipilis leered. “I want all Ys to see I can yet snare a lusty young man for escort.”

  Dahut skipped with them down the winding street. Folk they met, mostly servants in livery, gave deferential salutation. Many recognized Maeloch as well as the Queen. He was not only a fisher captain, frequenter of taverns and sometimes joyhouses like most sailors; he was a Ferrier of the Dead.

  “Why d’ye go in this wise?” he wondered.

  “On Dahut’s account,” Quinipilis explained. “She’s ever been wild about the sea. Can’t get close to it, or out on it, enough.”

  A grimness crossed Maeloch’s weathered countenance. He knew where and how the child had been born. Should that not have left a dread of the realm of Lir within her? Instead, it was as if He had touched her then, and was forever after calling her.

  “Her dad takes her when he can,” Quinipilis went on, “but he has scant free time, poor fellow. And then ’tis in his yacht. The notion came to me ’twould pleasure her to fare in a small boat.”

  Maeloch could not keep his forebodings while the bright small presence who already looked so much like Dahilis skipped beside him. “We could land on a skerry I know and spend a while,” he suggested. “Might get hungry, though.”

  “I’m not quite in my dotage! We’ll have provisions aboard.”


  Thereafter Quinipilis must save her breath for walking. “Wan’ a’ hear a song?” Dahut asked the man. Her hand lay tiny in his. She pointed at the woman, who smiled as if receiving an honor. “Ol’ Mama taught me.” She lifted a voice clear and true:

  “Starfish, starfish, what have you seen

  Deep in the water, deep in the green?

  I saw the darkness, far from the day,

  Where the seals go to hunt and play.”

  From the Forum, broad and busy Lir Way brought them through Lowtown to Skippers’ Market and the triumphal arch. Beyond was the harbor. At early ebb, tide had drawn the sea gate open; but on this mild day, the basin curved almost waveless beneath the city wall. Shallops cruised back and forth, a merchant ship was standing out, more vessels lay docked, bustle went over the stone arc of the quay. Trade was reviving under the reign of Grallon.

  A well-stocked boat waited at a slip as Quinipilis had ordered. They went aboard. Maeloch cast off, put oars in tholes, rowed powerfully. They passed between the awesome doors of the gate. He found sufficient breeze that he could step and stay the mast, set sail, pole it out for a broad reach, and merely steer.

  It whispered, the breeze, cooling the brilliance that flooded from above and dusted diamond-sparkle across the sea. It stirred, the sea, in low waves that somehow moved as one, like a single huge being gently breathing in its sleep. Today whiteness did not shatter on the cliffs or on the strewn reefs, only swirled and murmured. Otherwise Ocean was a million shifting shades of blue, save where a kelp bed rocked, or a swimming gull or cormorant. Such birds wheeled aloft in the multitudes, seldom crying. Dahut’s gaze winged out among them, on past the dim streak that was Sena, to the line where vision met worldedge and lost itself in sky.

  Her heed returned when a seal drew near. There were always many of the beasts around Ys, they being protected. Most were plunging through the water or basking on rocks. This one met the boat and swam alongside, a few feet away. Often it looked at Dahut, and she looked back, losing her earlier excitement, becoming mute and motionless though appearing very happy.