Dahut Read online

  “Indeed, I’d not really take it amiss if you and he—”

  Horror snatched her. She clapped a palm across his mouth. “Quiet! You’re about to utter blasphemy!”

  To that he felt wholly indifferent. He grew conscious of how tired he was. “Well, we need never speak of this again.”

  “Best not.” She lay down. “Best we try to sleep. Soren and I—we’ve left any such danger behind. It is too late for us.”

  2

  “Nay,” Keban said. “Don’t.”

  “What?” Budic dropped his arms from her waist and stepped back. “Again?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said miserably. “I feel unwell.”

  The soldier stared at his wife. Several days of field exercises had sent him home ardent, the moment Adminius gave furlough. “What’s the matter? A fever, a bellyache, what?”

  Keban drooped her head. “I feel poorly.”

  He regarded her for a space. She stood slumped, her paunch protruding; jowls hung sallow down to the double chin; but that was no change from what she had become during the past four or five years. Nor was her hair, unkempt and greasy, or the sour smell of an unwashed body, or the soiled gown in need of mending. Yet the bones beneath, the eyes, the lips, remained comely; and he remembered.

  “You are never quite sick,” he mumbled, “and never quite in health…. Well, come on to bed, then. ’Twill not take long, and you can rest there afterward.”

  “Nay, please,” she whimpered. “I would if I could, but not today, I beg you.”

  “Why not?”

  She rallied spirit enough to retort: “Shall I puke while you’re banging away in me? I am sorry, but I do feel queasy, and the smells—your breath, your cheese—Mayhap tomorrow, dear.”

  “Always tomorrow!” he shouted. “Can you no longer even spread your legs for me? You did for every lout in Ys when you were a whore!”

  She shrank against the wall. He waved around at the room. Dust grayed heaped objects, strewn clothes, unscoured kitchenware. “May I at least have a clean house, that I needn’t be ashamed to invite my friends to?” he cried on. “Nay. Well, be it as you will.”

  She began to weep. “Budic, I love you.” He would not let himself listen, but stalked out the door and slammed it behind him.

  The street bustled beneath a heartlessly bright sun. He thrust along its serpentine narrowness, through the shabby district it served. When acquaintances hailed him, he gave curt response. There were temptations to stop and chat, for several were female, wives or daughters of neighbors…. But that could lead to sin, and trouble, and possibly deadly quarrels. Let him just find a cheap harlot in Tomcat Alley or the Fishtail or walking these lanes.

  Keban would understand. She’d better. She oughtn’t to inquire where he’d been. Still, her sobs might keep him awake tonight—

  Budic halted. “Christ have mercy,” he choked in Latin. “What am I doing?”

  It throbbed in his loins. Relief would allow him to repent. But the Church taught that God did not bargain. The pagans of Ys bought off their Taranis, Lir, lustful Belisama with sacrifices; but only offerings made with a contrite heart were acceptable to the Lord God of Israel.

  Budic turned on his heel and strode, almost running, to the Forum.

  How wickedly merry and colorful the throng was that eddied and swirled over its mosaic pavement, around the basins of the Fire Fountain, between the colonnades of the public buildings! A merchant passed by in sumptuous tunic, a marine soldier in metal and pride. A maiden with a well-laden market basket on her head had stopped to trade jokes with a burly young artisan on his way to a job. A Suffete lady, followed by a servant, wore a cloak of the finest blue wool, worked with white gold emblems of moon and stars; her thin face was bent over a pet ferret she carried in her arms. Silken-clad and Venus-beautiful, a meretrix lured a visiting Osismian who looked moneyed as well as wonder-smitten. An old scholar came down the steps of the library bearing scrolls that must be full of arcane lore. A vendor offered smoked oysters, garlicky snails, spiced fruits, honeycakes. A shaggy Saxon and a kilted Scotian, off ships in trade, weaved drunkenly along, arm in arm. Music lilted through babble and clatter. It came from a troupe of performers, their garb as gaudy as their bearing, on the stairs to the fane of Taranis; flute and syrinx piped, harp twanged, drum thuttered, a girl sang sultry verses while another—shamelessly half-clad in what might be a remotely Egyptian style—rattled her sistrum and undulated through a dance. Young men stood beneath, stared, whooped, threw coins, burned.

  The Christian forced his way forward. At the church he was alone.

  That former temple of Mars had changed its nature more than once. Entering by the western door, Budic found the marble of the vestibule not only clean but polished. The wooden wall that partitioned off the sanctum in Eucherius’s day had been replaced by stone, dry-laid as Ysan law required but elegantly shaped and fitted. Inset murals displayed the Chi Rho, Fish, and Good Shepherd. Corentinus had left the sanctum austerely furnished, which he felt was becoming. However, the cross now on the altar had been intricately carved, with skill and love, by a Celtic believer, and was trimmed with beaten gold. An organ had been installed. It was not that the present chorepiscopus had made many converts in Ys, though he had done much better than his predecessor; and those he had drawn to Christ—like Keban—were generally poor. But the resurgence of trade brought a substantial number of believers to the city each year; and there were some who took up residence as representatives of mercantile interests; and Corentinus was not a man whom one could fob off when he suggested making a donation.

  The deacon who greeted Budic was a strong young Turonian whose call sent echoes ringing. “Hail, brother!” He used Latin. “May I help you?”

  Budic wet his lips. “Can I see… the pastor?”

  “You’re in luck. In weather like this he’s apt to go for a twenty-mile ramble, if he isn’t ministering to the needy or whatever. But he has Church business to handle today, letters and accounts and such.” The deacon laughed. “If he minds being interrupted, I’ve guessed wrong. Hold, brother, while I go ask.”

  Left by himself, Budic shifted from foot to foot, wondered how to say what he wanted to and whether he wanted to, tried to pray and found the words sticking in his throat.

  The deacon returned. “Go, with God’s blessing,” he said.

  Budic knew the way through corridors to the room where Corentinus worked, studied, cooked his frugal meals, slept on his straw pallet, practiced his private devotions. This likewise had seen improvement since Eucherius; it was equally humble, but shipshape. The door stood open. Budic entered timidly. Corentinus swiveled about on his stool, away from a table littered with papyrus and writing-shingles. “Welcome, my son,” he said. “Be seated.”

  “Father—” Budic coughed. “Father, c-could we talk in private?”

  “Close the door if you like. God will hear. What is your wish?”

  Instead of taking another stool, Corentinus went on his knees before the big gray man. “Father, help me!” he begged. “Satan has me snared.”

  Corentinus’s mouth twitched slightly upward, though his tone soothed. “Oh, now, it may not be quite that bad. I know you rather well, I think.” He laid a hand on the blond head. “If you have strayed, I doubt it’s been very far. Let us pray together.”

  They stood up. His voice lifted. Budic wavered through responses.

  It was immensely heartening. Afterward he could speak, though he must pace to and fro, striking fist in palm, looking away from him who sat and listened.

  “—we were happy once, she new in the Faith, we both new in our marriage—

  “—since she lost our baby five years ago, and would have died herself, if you hadn’t fetched Queen Innilis—

  “—denies me. She pleads poor health… says that’s why she’s such a slattern—

  “—lust like a beast’s. Sometimes I’ve just forced her—

  “—God forgive me if He can. I’ve thought how mu
ch easier it would be if she had died then—

  “—today I set off in search of a whore—”

  He wept. Corentinus comforted him. “You are sorely tried, my son. Satan does beset your soul. But you have not surrendered to him, not yet, nor shall you. Heaven stands always ready to send reinforcements.”

  —In the end, Corentinus said: “The harder the battle, the more splendid the victory. Many a man, and woman also, has suffered like you. But in trouble lies opportunity. Marriage was instituted by God not for pleasure but for the propagation of mortal mankind. Sacrifice of the pleasure is pleasing to Him. No few Christian couples, man and wife, have made this offering. They give up carnal relationships and live as brother and sister, that He be glorified. Can you do that, Budic? Certainly a childless marriage—and it’s clear that poor Keban has gone barren—such a marriage thwarts—no, I won’t say it thwarts the divine purpose, but it is… immaterial to salvation at best, self-indulgence at worst. If you and she, instead, unite in the pure love of God—it won’t be easy, Budic. Well do I know it won’t be easy. I cannot command you in this, I can only counsel you. But I beg you to think. Think how little you have now, how impoverished and sordid it is; then think how infinitely much you might have, and how wonderful, forever.”

  —Budic left the church. The sun had moved well down the sky since he entered. Corentinus’s benediction tolled in his head.

  Blindly, he walked up Lir Way and out High Gate. Twice he almost collided with a wagon. The drivers swore at him.

  He had made no vow. He believed he hoped he would grow able to, but first the turmoil in him must somehow come to rest. A dirt road, scarcely more than a track, went from Aquilonian Way on the right, toward heights above the valley. He turned off onto it, wanting a place where he could be alone with God.

  Everywhere around him swelled the young summer. Air lay at rest, its warmth full of odors: earth, greenery, flowers. A cuckoo called, over and over, like the sound of a mother laughing with her newborn. Trees enclosed the path, yew, chestnut, elm, their leaves overarching it in gold-green; sunlight spattered the shade they cast. Between them he had an ever wider view across Ys of the towers, Cape Rach with its sternness softened by verdancy, tumultuous salt blue beyond. Birds skimmed, butterflies danced. Distantly, from one of the estates that nestled on the hillside, he heard a cow bellow; she was love-sick.

  Hoofs thudded. Around a bend came a party of riders.

  Budic stepped aside. They trotted near, half a dozen young men on spirited horses, their faces wind-flushed—Suffete faces, mostly, but Budic recognized Carsa’s among them, the Roman youth who was spending another season here, studying under learned men of the city while he worked to get a commercial outpost well established. They were all lightly and brightly clad. Mirthfulness sparkled from them.

  In the van was a horse that Budic also recognized: Favonius, the King’s most splendid stallion, already the champion of races in the amphitheater and overland. He whickered and curvetted. The star on his head blazed snowy against the sorrel sheen of his coat.

  Upon his back sat Princess Dahut. A woman should not ride an entire, Budic thought confusedly; it was especially dangerous at the wrong time of the month. Gratillonius should not have allowed this. But who could refuse Dahut? She might have been a centauress, as fluidly as she and the animal moved together. Her clothes were a boy’s, loose tunic and tight breeches, daring if not forbidden for a girl on an exiguous saddle whose knees guided as much as her hands did. Oh, blue-streaked alabaster tapering down to rosy nails… heavy amber braids, lapis lazuli eyes…

  She reined in. Her followers did the same. “Why, Budic,” she called. At fourteen and a half years of age, she had lost the lark sweetness of voice that had been hers as a child; the tones came husky, but sang true. “’Tis gladsome to see you. Had you not enough tramping about on maneuvers? What beckoned you hither?”

  He stood dumb. An Ysan youth said glibly, “What but the chance of encountering you, my lady?”

  She laughed and dismissed the flattery with a flick of fingers. “How went the practicing?” she asked. Looking closer: “You’ve a sadness on you, Budic. That should not be, on so beautiful a day.”

  “’Tis naught,” he said. “Do not trouble yourself, my lady.”

  “Oh, but I do. Am I not the Luck of the legionaries?” Dahut’s smile grew tender. “’Twould be wrong to query you further, here. May Belisama be kind to you, brave man of my father’s, friend of mine…. Forward!” And that was a trumpet cry. The party went on, recklessly fast, back toward Ys.

  Budic stared their way a long while after they had vanished from his sight. It was as if a new fragrance lingered in the air.

  When Innilis saved Keban’s life, I swore I would always be at the beck of the Gallicenae, he thought slowly. Pastor Corentinus didn’t like that. Could it be that God has punished me for it? But why? What can be wrong about serving you, Dahut, daughter of my centurion, Dahut, Dahut?

  3

  At last all was ready. On the mound of the Goddess Medb at Temir, Niall of the Nine Hostages held a mighty slaughter. Smoke rose to heaven from the fires where the beasts cooked, and folk gorged themselves on the meat until many had prophetic dreams. In the morning the host assembled and went north.

  Glorious was that sight. In the van rolled the chariots of Niall and his three oldest living sons, Conual Gulban, Éndae, and Éogan. Their horses neighed and pranced, lovely to behold, each team perfectly matched in color of white, black, roan, or dapple gray, plumes on their heads above the flowing manes, bronze hangings ajingle and aflash. The cars gleamed with gold, silver, brass, polished iron. The drivers were only less brilliantly garbed than the riders, who stood tall beside their spar-high spears, cloaks blowing back from their finery like rainbow wings. Behind came the chariots of the nobles, and then on foot the giant warriors of the guard, whose helmets, axheads, spearheads shone sun-bright and rippled to their gait as a grainfield ripples under the summer wind. The tenant levies followed, tumultuous, and the lumbering oxcarts and lowing, bleating herds of the supply train. On the flanks, to and fro, galloped wild young outriders. Clamor rang from horizon to horizon, horns, rattle and clank, shouts, footfalls, hoofbeats, wheel-groan, and overhead the hoarse ravens who sensed that war was again on its way.

  At Mag Slecht, Niall paused for another sacrifice. It depleted his cattle and sheep, but he would soon be in Qóiqet nUlat and living off the country. The campaign should not take many days, if all went well, though afterward he and his sons would be long occupied in bringing their sword-land to heel. Meanwhile Cromb Cróche got His blood-feast.

  Summoned beforehand, the Aregésla joined him there in numbers greater than he had brought himself. Their chieftains were eager for a share in the fighting, glory, and spoils. Niall warned them sternly to keep obedient to him and make no important move without his leave. Maybe they would heed.

  First the warriors traveled west, to bypass a huge stockpen at the Doors of Emain Macha, for it was a strongpoint that would have cost them precious time. A courier brought word that allies were on the move, kinsmen of Niall’s in Condacht who had pledged him help. He hastened his pace as much as could be. It was well and good for the Firi Chondachtae to subdue the Ulatach hinterlands, taking their reward in booty, but he wanted to be in possession of the royal seat and its halidoms—the power—before they got there.

  After he turned north and later east, sharp fights began, as tuaths rallied against the invaders. He went through them, over them, scarcely checked. More difficult were the many earthworks, the Walls of the Ulati. Garrisons sallied from the hill forts or sent arrows and slingstones in murderous flocks from the tops of earthen ramparts. Most lords would have squandered men trying to take each of these, while Fergus Fogae gathered force to himself at Emain Macha from his entire realm. Niall, who had learned from his battles with the Romans, simply bypassed them. Nowhere stood a cliff of stone from sea to sea, such as had balked him in Britannia. At worst, it was easier to s
truggle through woods and bogs than to overrun well-entrenched defenders. They could be left for later attention.

  In the end, after pushing across the gently rolling countryside, leaving havoc behind, Niall reached the outer guardian of Emain Macha itself. A few miles short of his goal, this wall reared high and green to right and left, as far as eye could see. Where the road made a break, fortifications hulked on either side, aswarm with armed men. They howled and jeered at the oncoming enemy.

  Niall called a halt some distance off. As camp was being pitched, he summoned three of the Aregéslach leaders. “Now you shall prove your worthiness,” he told them. “After dark, take a number of your followers aside—quietly, now. Go well off to north or south; we will decide which. At first light, storm the wall. Agile men can climb the embankment, and the seeing will be poor for Ulatach archers. With such a surprise, you can get across at not too great a cost. You will have a running fight, but hasten back to this road and attack at the rear.”

  It seemed a risky venture, but they could not show doubt before the tall, golden man. Their plans being laid, they in their turn egged on their folk until brawls broke out over who should have the right to go.

  Before dawn, wind was driving rain in gray spear-flights. Niall had foreseen this by the clouds and made it part of his scheme. When scouts dashed back to tell of combat noises, he had the horns blown, and his host advanced. Unsure how big the troop was that had assailed them from behind, the Ulati gave it more heed than was necessary. While they were thus bewildered, Niall smote them head-on.

  Terrible was the struggle in that strait passage, but also brief it was. With axes and swords athunder at the flanks of their horses, the chariots rolled through and, once in the open again, began harvesting. Romans would not have boiled from their stronghold, desperate, but Niall knew his Gaels. His men seized the chance, forced their way into the works, and laid about them. After some unmeasured time of uproar, he held the guardpoint. Rain ceased, clouds parted, sunbeams struck, carrion birds feasted.