Roma Mater (14 page)

Soren shook his head. ‘No, Taranis has a splendid
marble fane in the city, and many lesser shrines. This is the House of the King, also known as the Red Lodge. Once he was required to live here always, with each Queen spending a night in turn. But for centuries, now, it has only been during full moon, and he summons those wives or other persons whom he will.’ He paused before adding, grimly matter-of fact: ‘Of course, wherever he may be, he must come back when a challenger strikes the Shield. The resident staff dispatches a messenger.’

Again a prickling went through Gratillonius’s skin. Colconor could have left at dawn today for the comforts and pleasures of town. In that event, the Romans would have entered Ys directly, and might well have settled matters with the city magistrates before even meeting the King, who would most likely have decided to accept what he could not easily or safely change. Instead, though, three of his – wives? – had kept him carousing, and at the same time piqued him, as subtly and cruelly as a bullfighter, until he stormed forth when he saw the newcomers and, in besotted fury, forced the quarrel that ended in his death.

And just how had he done so? Gratillonius knew himself for a short-tempered man, and the insults he suffered were unforgivable. Yet he was a legionary officer on duty. For the sake of Rome, he should have armoured his pride in dignity and merely returned contempt – not plunged headlong into action of whose consequences he had no idea. What demon had entered him?

A burning log cracked. Flames and sparks leapt high. Shadows moved monstrous in dimly lit corners, and it was as if a rustling went through the blackened banners overhead.

Gratillonius ran tongue over lips. ‘You must understand, Priest Soren –’

‘No, my lord, I am simply the Speaker.’ The interruption was bluff but not discourteous. ‘I serve Taranis by leading certain rites and by helping govern the worldly affairs of His temple. Otherwise I am a Councillor of the Suffetes and the director of a Great House – an industry. You, sir, are the ordained one, high priest and, in a sense, Incarnation.’

‘You must understand,’ Gratillonius persisted, ‘that I am a Roman citizen in the service of the state. I am also a votary of the God Mithras. Never ask me to compromise my conscience about either of these things.’

He could not be sure, in the dusk, whether Soren showed a flicker of unease. The man did reply steadily: ‘I do not believe we need fear that. If I am not mistaken, Mithraists may and do honour other Gods. For the most part, a King does as he will. Apart from meeting his challenges – and I would not expect any to you for a long while, my lord – apart from that, a King’s reign is very much what he himself makes it. Ys is old. Through the hundreds of years it has seen many different kinds of men on its throne, Romans among them. But come, please.’

The second half of the Lodge was divided into smaller rooms. These had been modernized, with glass windows, tile floors, frescoed plaster, hypocaust heating. Furniture was comfortable. It included a remarkable number of chairs, with arms and backs. Gratillonius remarked on that and was told that such seats were common in Ys, and not confined to the rich, either.

There was no space for a full-panoply bath, but a large sunken basin had been filled for him. Servants helped him out of his armour and undergarments. He sank gratefully into hot, scented water. His encounter had strained him more than he realized, and Mithras knew what would come next. He needed a rest.

Emerging, he had his injuries poulticed; just the cut on
his arm received a precautionary bandage. Thereafter he enjoyed a skilled massage, was anointed, was guided to a chamber where new raiment lay. Resembling Soren’s but more sumptuously worked, the robe fitted him well, as did the soft shoes. He supposed the house kept several wardrobes in different sizes. His pectoral was a gold sunburst, hung from a massive chain and set with pearls and rubies. However, instead of a staff he would bear a full-sized sledgehammer, whose oaken haft and rounded iron head were dark with antiquity. True to his religious vows, he declined the laurel wreath offered him.

More men bustled around than before, making preparations. Soren had gone to oversee matters in the city, and no Ysan present had much if any Latin. His halting Osismian won Gratillonius a little information from the chief steward, about what was happening and what to expect.

Trumpeters and criers went through the streets.
‘Allelu, allelu!’
resounded between walls and up into heaven. There followed words in the ancestral language of Ys, which had been Punic. Few other than sacerdotes and scholars knew it today, but it was sanctified. The message then repeated in the vernacular.
‘The King is dead, long live the King! In the names of Belisama, Taranis, Lir, come ye, come ye unto the coronation of your lord!’

The steward’s account continued from the immediate past to the present and immediate future.

From the temples of the Three, Their images rolled forth on wagons never used for aught else, drawn by paired white horses for Belisama, black for Lir, red for Taranis. Folk garlanded themselves and heaped the wains with what greenery and blossoms they could find. Led by drums, horns, harps, they went singing and dancing out of the gates and to the amphitheatre. The clear weather, which gave no cause to unroll the canvas roof, seemed to
them a good omen. Some must stay behind, though, making ready for a night’s revelry.

The royal feast would be more sedate. Huntsmen tracked down a boar, out of the half-wild swine that ranged the Wood. At risk of life, they captured it in nets and hung it above the body of Colconor. There they cut its throat and bled it, down on to the fallen King. Stewed in a sacred cauldron, its flesh would be the centre of a meal here at the Red Lodge.

Taken aback, Gratillonius asked what would become of the human remnant. Ys, he heard, was like Rome in forbidding burials within city bounds; and the cemetery out on Cape Rach, under the pharos, had long since grown to cover as much land as could be allowed. Dead Ysans were taken to sea on a funeral barge and, weighted, sent down to Lir. But a former King lay in state in the temple of Taranis until he was burned, which was too costly for anyone else. A warship took his ashes out near the island Sena. There they were strewn, given to Belisama (Ishtar, Isis, Ashtoreth, Aphrodite, Venus, Nerthus …), the Star of the Sea.

As for his conqueror, following the victory feast, he spent his first night in this house. Thereafter he was free to move to his city palace. If he chose, he could visit his Queens in their separate homes, or call them to him –

‘Queens!’ burst from Gratillonius. ‘Hercules! Who are they? How many?’

The Nine, my lord, the Gallicenae, high priestesses of Belisama. But, um, the King is not compelled – save when ’tis Her will – Forgive me, great sir, a layman should not talk of these matters. They touch the very life of Ys. The Speaker will soon rejoin you and explain what my lord needs to know.’

Dazedly, Gratillonius received a herald, all in green and silver and with a peacock plume on his head, who
announced that the processional was beginning. They must want their new King consecrated immediately, he thought. Well, they believed that somehow he embodied a God, or at least the force of that God, upon earth.

Outside, it was late afternoon, and the air boisterous. Soren waited with several fellow dignitaries of his temple. Nearby stood the legionaries. He had made arrangements for them to march along and have seats, later to be quartered in town: unusual, but then, every King was unique. How many had fought, won, reigned, fought, perished, how many ghosts were in this wind off the sea of Ys? Long hills, stark headlands, glimpsed towers and gleam of waters beyond, seemed remote to Gratillonius, not altogether real; he walked through a dream.

Where Processional Way, which led to the Wood, met Aquilonian Way, which ran out of the city’s eastern gate, the Gods received their King. The idols of Taranis and Belisama were handsome work in marble, twice life size, done by Greek sculptors whom the Romans brought in as a gesture of alliance in earlier times, He the stern man, She a woman beautiful and chastely clad. The emblem of Lir was immensely older, a rough granite slab engraved with Celtic spirals. Later Gratillonius would learn that that God was never given human shape. Sometimes folk described Him as having three legs and single eye, in the middle of His head, but they knew that was only a way of bespeaking something strange and terrible.

A jubilant crowd followed the wagons. Gratillonius had a feeling their joy was not pretended. Colconor appeared to have made himself hated – mostly among the first families of Ys, whom he daily encountered, but their anger would have trickled down to many commoners. And yet there had been no thought of overthrow, assassination, anything but enduring that which the Gods had chosen to inflict.

Unless – Again bewilderment laid hand on Gratillonius.

As the servant in the house had said they would, the throng moved eastward, down on to low ground, and neared the amphitheatre. It was Roman-built, a gracefully elliptical bowl of tiered benches within an outer wall of marble whose sheerness was relieved by columned door-ways and sculptured friezes. Nevertheless Gratillonius confirmed the impression he had got on the promontory, that it was alien. The proportions were not … quite … classic. The portals were pointed. The fluting and capitals of the pillars hinted at kelp swaying upwards from the sea bottom. The friezes mingled seals, whales, Northern fish with fabulous monsters unlike centaurs or gryphons, and with curious Gallic symbols. How much mark had Rome ever really made on Ys?

The people swarmed in right and left while the sacred cortege entered by a centrally southern archway, through a vaulted passage and out on to the arena. This was not sanded, to take up blood, but paved. A spina told Gratillonius that chariot races were held. That low wall ran down the middle of the arena, leaving space clear at either end; there rose posts for the hoisting of scorekeeping markers. In the middle, however, this spina broadened into a cornice, a balustraded stone platform. Stairways led up to it, as they did to the boxes in the stands reserved for magnates. That meant, Gratillonius realized, this place did not see beast combats – nor human, he felt sure.

When benches had filled with brightly clad spectators, the Gods made a circuit of the arena before stopping under the cornice on the south side. Gratillonius noticed that Belisama was in the middle. Soren told him to bow to Them as he, accompanied by the Speaker, went up on to the platform. Acolytes followed, bearing ewers, censers, evergreen boughs. Behind them, a rawboned greybeard
carried a bronze casket. It was a position of honour; his robes were blue and silver, and Soren had introduced him as Hannon Baltisi, Lir Captain.

Standing aloft, these celebrants waited until a hush had fallen. The lowering sun still spilled brilliance down into the bowl, though shadows lengthened and chilled. A trumpet rang, high and icy sweet. From the middle northern archway came a band of girls and young women, gorgeously cloaked above white gowns, bearing tall candles in silver holders. The vestals, virgin daughters and granddaughters of the Queens, those who do not have vigil today,’ Soren murmured to Gratillonius. They moved wavelike to ring and spina while they sang:

And now arrived the Nine. Those whom Gratillonius had met this day were become as strange to him as were the rest, in gowns of blue silk bordered with figures akin to the friezes, white linen wrapped high over their heads and pinned by orichalcum crescents, faces stiff in solemnity. Pace by pace they approached the stairs and ascended one by one. A tall old woman led them … they seemed to be going in order of age … Soren spoke the name as each paused before Gratillonius, bent her head above folded hands, then entered a rank forming on his left hand and stood like soldiers, war captains of the Goddess, nothing further of humility about them … Quinipilis, Fennalis, Lanarvilis, Bodilis, Vindilis, Innilis, Maldunilis, Forsquilis–

Dahilis.

Dahilis
rammed through Gratillonius. He would not confuse that name. O Gods, she was so much like Una the neighbour girl whom he loved when he was fifteen and ever since had sought to find again, for Una must needs marry wealth in Aquae Sulis if she would help her father stave off ruin … Dahilis reached to the base of Gratillonius’s throat. She was slender though full-bosomed, her hue very fair save for the tiniest dusting of freckles over a short, slightly flared nose; her mouth was soft and a little wide, dimples at the corners; her face was heart-shaped, high cheekbones delicately carven, chin small but firm; her dress brought out the changeable blue-green-hazel
of big eyes under blonde brows; her movements kept an endearing trace of coltishness, as young as she was … When she looked at him, her look was not like that of any of the others, proud or rapt or victorious or wary. A blush crept up from her bosom, her lips parted and he heard her catch her breath before she moved on.