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  Yet after the feverish chatter beforehand had stopped and men entered this sanctuary, solemnity brooded over it. The lesser members took stance behind the cord and made reverence as the higher—two Lions, two Persians (Gratillonius the second), the Runner of the Sun, and the Father, all in minimal vestments—passed by. The offering was simply wine raised before the Tauroctony. The re-enactment by the two seniors—of Mithras overcoming the Sun, then crowning Him to be forever after the Unconquered—was bare-bones simple. The liturgy was brief. Subsequently those forward reclined on the benches while Ravens, Occults, and Soldiers brought the sacred meal and served them. That food, at least, was of the best, within the limits of prescribed austerity. Gratillonius savored it, as being like a sign unto him of the soul’s ascent Heavenward… when he had tasted nothing holy but prayers for nigh on three years.

  Thoughts tumbled through him. Why was he doing this, why was he feeling this? He knew he was not a deeply religious person—no spiritual kin to, say, Martinus of Turonum. Well, but what else had he to cleave to? The Gods of Achilles, Aeneas, Vercingetorix were dead: phantoms at most, haunting glens and graveyards and the dusty pages of books. The Gods of Ys were inhuman. Christ was a pallid stranger. Rome the Mother was a widow, her husband the Republic and their tall sons long since dead in battle, herself the booty of every bandit who came by. Mithras alone stood fast, Mithras all alone.

  2

  When they consecrated Gratillonius a Father, he felt weariness drop off him like a cloak of lead unclasped, and himself momentarily victorious.

  There had been too much he must learn, in too brief a span. He had no gift for acquiring doctrine, words, gestures, arcana; he must hammer them into his head, toiling till dawn grizzled his window and he fell into a few hours of sleep wherein his dreams gibbered. Meanwhile he must ever strive to keep chaste and pious. That was not hard for the body, requiring little more than exercise, cleanliness, and temperance. But his mind was a maniple of barbarian recruits, raw, rebellious, slouching off every which way the instant that the drillmaster’s glance strayed off them. He should have had years for his undertaking and done it openly, while the rest of his life went on in everyday wise. Instead, he rammed his way through the teachings, hoped for godliness, and took precautions against the authorities.

  Probably no one would ever denounce him. He had entered Vienna quietly, stayed inconspicuous, responded to questions with evasive phrases about a confidential assignment. His men knew nothing and were content to enjoy themselves—aside from Maclavius, Verica, and Cynan, his fellow Mithraists, and Adminius. Those would not give him away. Syrus’s congregation had learned silence. However, somebody else might notice how often Gratillonius visited that particular house.

  No matter! he told himself. By the time such gossip reached Treverorum, if it did, he’d be back in Ys. Maximus would look upon his establishment of a Mithraeum there as an act of rebellion, which it was, but could scarcely do anything about it for another two or three years, during which anything might happen. Live each day as it comes, like a soldier in the field.

  They raised him to Runner of the Sun and he concelebrated the Mystery with Syrus. In his exhaustion, he felt only that he had passed a mark on an endless uphill road.

  But when Syrus and Cotta together had finished the rite that made him Father, and for the first time he—with his own hands, farmer’s, soldier’s, woodworker’s hands—lifted the chalice before the Tauroctony, and drank the blessed wine—then abruptly, blindingly, the sacredness of it came upon him. Did the Sun lift out of the night in his spirit, to blaze in terrible majesty from his heart? He knew not. As he spoke the words, he wept.

  Everyone embraced him. “The grace of Mithras be with you always, beloved brother,” Syrus wished.

  That was impossible, of course. After he left the sanctum, he was merely Gratillonius. What had happened within, he could barely remember.

  Maybe You will reveal Yourself to me again, God of my fathers, he thought. Or maybe not. I am unworthy of this much. But I will serve You as steadfastly as lies in the power of mortal flesh and grimy soul.

  —The Birthday was not far off. Syrus asked Gratillonius to join him in honoring it. The old man cried a little when he heard that that would be unwise. The legionaries had lingered suspiciously long as it was and must be off straightaway. Gratillonius gave him the kiss of peace, and received it.

  In the morning the squadron started west toward Burdigala. Gratillonius had another promise to redeem.

  3

  Decimus Magnus Ausonius smiled. “You show me the lady Bodilis as still more fascinating in person than in correspondence,” he said. “You see, she’s had so many questions for me that I failed to question my own assumptions. Thus I came to regard her as a brilliant human being, but one condemned to existence in a stagnant backwater. My mistake. What you have had to tell makes me wonder if Ys may not hold the world’s highest civilization. Were I capable of the journey, I would accompany you there, Gratillonius, and explore it. ‘Oh, that Jupiter might restore to me the years that are fled!’” His quotation and the sigh that followed were rueful, though quite without self-pity.

  “But I talk too much,” he went on. “Better to listen. In a sense, Ys is more distant than the farthest land we know of. That mysterious force which has worked for centuries to erase its name from our chronicles—You can remain a while, can’t you? Please.”

  “I should be returning soon, sir,” Gratillonius answered.

  “You are restless. You hunger for achievement. Well, let us work some energy off you before we dine.” Ausonius guided his guest to the door.

  Gratillonius went along gladly. Inclement weather had kept people indoors these past two days, during which he—after getting his men barracked in the city—had stayed with the poet. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed himself. Ausonius was delightful company. Still erect and lively in his mid-seventies, he had been more than a famous teacher of rhetoric; he had been tutor to ill-fated Emperor-to-be Gratianus in Treverorum, afterward prefect of Gallia, Libya, and Italy, eventually consul. In retirement since Maximus took the throne, he remained active among colleagues, students, civic leaders, a large household and its neighborhood, while from his pen streamed verses and epistles to friends throughout the Empire.

  Nevertheless it was a special pleasure to step forth on the portico of the rural mansion, flush lungs with fresh air, and look widely around. Rain and sleet had yielded to sunshine which, although slanted from the south, gave January a pledge of springtime. Grounds swept darkling with moisture down to the bank of the Garumna; mist smoked off the river, roiled by a breeze, half obscuring the vineyards beyond. On a paved path that the men took, doves moved aside from the sapphire arrogance of a peacock.

  “A slave told me you have several scrolls in your baggage,” Ausonius said. “May I ask what the texts are?”

  Gratillonius hesitated. They were from Syrus, aids to his memory of doctrine and rites that a Father must know, and none of lesser rank. When he had no more need of them in Ys, he was to destroy them by fire, with certain prayers. “I’m sorry. It’s forbidden me to tell.”

  Ausonius gave him a close regard before murmuring, “You’re not a Christian, are you?”

  “I follow the Lord Mithras.”

  “I suspected as much. Well, I’m Christian myself, but hold that to be no grounds for scorning the ancients or any upright contemporaries who believe otherwise. Surely God is too great to be comprehended in a single creed, and we mortals do best simply to pay our due respects and cultivate our gardens.”

  Gratillonius recalled poems of Ausonius that Bodilis had shown him. They were concerned with everyday matters, sometimes humorous, sometimes grave, sometimes—as when he mourned the death of his wife or a child—moving, in a stoic fashion. “Gather you roses, girl, whilst they and you are in flower, remembering how meanwhile time flies from you…”

  Hoofbeats drummed. The men turned to look. Up from the riverside galloped a mud-splashed horse, upo
n it a boy of eight or nine years. “Why, yonder comes Paulinus,” the rhetor exclaimed happily.

  Gratillonius had met the lad, Ausonius’s grandson, born in Macedonia but now here to get the finest possible education. Being shut in by the rain had made him miserable, despite the elder’s unfailing kindliness. The ride had evidently refreshed him, for he drew rein at his grandfather’s hail and greeted the men in seemly wise. “Are you ready to go back to your books?” Ausonius asked, smiling.

  “Please, can’t I ride some more first?” Paulinus begged. His Latin was heavily Greek-accented. “Bucephalus, he’s just getting his second wind.”

  “Discipline, discipline, you must break yourself to harness before you dare call yourself a man…. But in indulging you I indulge myself. Go as you will. ‘Good speed to your young valor, boy! So shall you mount to the stars!’” Ausonius quoted with a chuckle. “Meditate upon that line. It should make Vergilius more interesting to you.”

  “Thanks!” Paulinus cried, and was off in a spatter of wet earth.

  Ausonius clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I really must become stricter with him,” he said. “Else a rhetorician of considerable potential could go to waste. But it isn’t easy when I remember his father at that age.”

  Gratillonius thought of Dahilis and Dahut. “No, it isn’t easy,” he said through sudden, unexpected pain. Hastily: “Still, he ought to keep in shape. He may well find need for a set of muscles.”

  “Oh? Why? We moderns don’t revere athletes like the Greeks in their glory. His career should resemble mine, writing, teaching, public office.”

  Gratillonius’s gaze went eastward, toward the Duranius valley through which he had come on his way to Burdigala. Those thickly wooded steeps and hollows lay no great distance hence. Yet little traffic moved there anymore, for fear of the robbers who haunted them. “How long do you suppose that sort of life will stay possible?” he asked harshly. “Why, already—when was it?—about twenty-five years ago, the barbarians cut the aqueducts of Lugdunum itself”

  Ausonius nodded. “I remember. It caused the taxes to fail that year.”

  “Didn’t it mean any more to you than that?”

  “Oh, these are troublous times, admittedly.” The furrows of the old countenance turned downward in sorrow. “My friend Delphinus was fortunate in passing away before his wife and daughter met their fate at the hands of the tyrant Maximus.” Ausonius gripped the arm of Gratillonius. “You’ve intimated that you were a witness to the evil done in Augusta. If you’ve spoken no more about it, I can understand. But the martyrs are safe in heaven—we must believe—and a measure of justice has since prevailed.”

  “Really?” asked the centurion, surprised. “How?”

  “You have not heard?… Well, I suppose you scarcely could have, on the road as you were.” (Or immured in Vienna, Gratillonius did not add.) “I have received letters, including one from a colleague who is in correspondence with Martinus, the bishop of Caesarodunum.”

  Gratillonius’s pulse quickened. “I’ve met that man. Tell me what happened.”

  “Why, Martinus was on his way home when he learned of the executions of the Priscillianists, a breach of Maximus’s promise to show them mercy. He burned up the road back to Augusta and demanded to see the Emperor. That was denied him. But Maximus’s wife, a pious lady, grew terrified, begged Martinus to dine alone with her and discuss it. They say he had never done that with a woman, but consented, and she laved his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. The upshot was that Maximus did hear Martinus out, a thunderous denunciation, and agreed not to send inquisitors to Hispania, heretic-hunting, as he had planned. In exchange, Martinus celebrated Communion with the bishops who had been active in the prosecution. So you see, civilization, tolerance, common decency won in the end.”

  A glow awoke in Gratillonius. “By Hercules,” he exclaimed, “that Martinus is a soldier yet!”

  At the back of his mind went the thought that this boded better for Ys, and for the hopes he cherished, than hitherto.

  “Be less pessimistic,” Ausonius urged. He gestured. “Look about you. The foundations hold firm. Broad, fertile, well-cultivated acres; flourishing cities; law and order, which reach into the very palace of the usurper. True, the Empire has its difficulties. But the life of the mind goes on, and that is what matters. That is what is eternal.”

  The mood of the younger man changed as he listened. He wanted to be away, immediately, back into action. He curbed himself. Best he abide a few days more, for his own sake as well as Bodilis’s, maybe also for the sake of Ys and Dahut. Let him gather what roses he could and bring them home. If ever he returned here, the flowerbeds might well lie trampled by the hoofs of warriors’ horses.

  V

  1

  Ever was there something strange about Mumu, something apart from the rest of Eriu. To this southernmost of the Fifths, it was said, the Children of Danu withdrew after their defeat by the Children of Ir and fiber; now their King dwelt within the Mountain of Fair Women, the sid beyond the plain of Femen. Folk gave more sacrifices to Goddesses than to Gods, and believed that by mortal men certain of These had become ancestresses of their royal houses. Female druids, poets, and witches practiced their arts as often as did males, or oftener. Here above all it was terrible to be out after dark on the eves of Beltene and Samain, when the doors between the worlds stood open—so swarmed the dead and every other kind of uncanny being.

  Highlands walled Mumu off. Traffic did go back and forth, but less than elsewhere, and war with men of Condacht, Qoiqet Lagini, or Mide seldom became more than a season of skirmishes. The Ulati were far in the north; one scarcely even heard of them. The men of Mumu bore ample spears against each other. At the same time, safe harbors brought about overseas trade in a measure unknown to the neighbor realms. Roman goods arrived from as far away as Egypt: wine, oil, glass, earthenware, in exchange for gold, honey, beeswax, furs, hides. Likewise did the sumptuous fabrics of Ys. Scot’s Landing, below that city, took it name not from pirates out of Eriu but from the frequent, peaceful visits of Mumach fishers. The Christian faith got its first foothold on the island among their kinfolk, who claimed that some of the Lord’s own apostles had been there.

  Missionaries had not yet reached the rugged country about the Mountain of Fair Women when Lugthach maqq Aillelo was king over its allied tuaths. Afterward poets told how Fedelmm, daughter of Moethaire of the Corco Ochae, fought him. Not only did she have warriors at her beck, she was a mighty witch. The story went that she had a friend in the female warrior Bolce Ben-bretnach from Alba. Perhaps as a way to making peace, Bolce sought out Lugthach and laid upon him the demand that he bed her. He could not refuse one with her powers, and thus Conual maqq Lugthaci was begotten. At the birth, the father was away but Fedelmm was present, and to her the mother gave Conual for fostering.

  Fedelmm took the infant home. The next night a coven was to meet in her house. Lest harm befall him, she hid Conual in a hole beneath the hearthstone. One of the witches sniffed him and said, “I do not destroy anything save what is under the cauldron.” At that, the fire flashed downward and burned the ear of the boy.

  From this, some say, came his nickname Corcc, the Red; but others say that was the color of his hair. He also became known as Conual maqq Larech, because his mother bore the nickname Lair Derg, the Red Mare.

  To her came a seer, who read the child’s hand and told him: “Always set free any captives you meet, if you are able. Do this and your race will grow great and your fame endure.” Conual could scarcely have understood, then, but throughout his life he strove to obey the commandment.

  So went the stories. They did not say why Fedelmm soon gave the fostering over to Torna Eces. She may have wished the lad to be free of the dark forces around herself.

  Torna was the foremost poet of his day, a man who saw deeply into things and knew promise when he found it. Already he was raising Niall maqq Echach, son of the King of Mide. He had rescued the child
from the murderous spite of the King’s new wife, Mongfind, the witch-queen out of Mumu.

  Conual was only three or four years old when Torna deemed Niall of an age to return to Temir, show that he was not dead as everybody there believed, and claim his rights. Mongfind could wreak no further harm upon him. However, after his father died, she succeeded in having her brother Craumthan maqq Fidaci hailed King.

  A better person than his sister, on the whole he reigned well. His grief was that he was childless. When he heard about Conual, who was his cousin, he sent for the boy, meaning to make him an adoptive son. Torna let Conual go, counselling him to remember the kindly duty given him.

  The newcomer was soon a worshipful friend of the older Niall and, when big enough, accompanied him to war. Fighting in Qoiqet Lagini, they took a prisoner who proved to be a learned man. On that ground, Conual persuaded Niall he should be released without ransom.

  The closeness between the princes aroused all of Mongfind’s malignancy. Niall was by then too strong, with too many handfast men, for her to seek his overthrow. It would take very little to break the uneasy peace and let him avenge the wrongs she had done him and his mother Carenn. But she could poison Craumthan’s mind against Conual, word by sly word. At last, sick of soul, the king decided he must be rid of the youth.

  He could not well have his fosterling slain at home. Instead, Mongfind whispered, he should entrust Conual with a message for a Pictish chieftain in Alba who was tributary to him. As a leavetaking gift, Craumthan gave Conual a shield whereon stood words engraved in ogamm. Conual took them for a good luck charm.

  Having crossed the North Channel and being wearied, he made camp on the beach. Who should chance by but the scholar he had set freer Conual welcomed him, and presently fell asleep. The guest read what was on the shield, as the Pictish lord would also be able to do. The bearer was to be killed. The scholar changed the inscription. Hence, when Conual reached his destination, he was lavishly received, and soon got a daughter of the chieftain in marriage.