The Dog and the Wolf (28 page)

There Gratillonius drew rein. Apuleius and Rovinda came forth. Gratillonius waved. “It’s done,” he called. “We made an end of the manslayer.” When had such joy last fountained in him? At the overcoming of the Franks? No, that had already lain beneath the shadow of strife in Ys. This was wholly clean and brave.

Apuleius barely curbed a whoop. Wrapping himself in Roman gravity, he walked down the stairs. “A marvelous deed,” he said through the din. “Yet we of this household will give the most thanks that you have returned unharmed. Enter, you and your band.”

Such of the woodsmen as understood looked abashed, except for Rufinus. They were strangers to life among the prosperous. Their chief grinned, though, and licked his lips. “They set a grand table,” he said in Gallic.

“Thanks, but we’re dirty and sweaty from traveling,” Gratillonius replied. “We wanted to relieve any anxiety, but what say we go on to Confluentes—tell the people there, make ourselves presentable, and then come back?”

His glance fell on Verania. “Ho, little lady,” he called on impulse. “What are you weeping about?”

“I am, am, am so happy,” she stammered.

The brightness waxed within him. “Salomon,” he shouted across the hubbub to her brother, “you’ll get the tail I promised you. Verania, how’d you like the skin for a rug when it’s cured?”

Apuleius reached his foot and looked upward. The countenance, lined and graying but still handsome, had gone grave. “No, best give that to the church in thanks for God’s help and mercy,” he said. Before Gratillonius could protest: “As for Confluentes, I’ll send word. Please don’t spoil your well-earned pleasure at once, but wash and borrow clean garments from us, enjoy the best meal Rovinda can provide on short notice, tell us your tale over wine, and take a good night’s rest. Trouble can wait.”

It was as if a knife stabbed. Gratillonius felt muscles grow taut. At the abrupt pressure of his knees, Favonius whickered and curvetted. He needed a moment to quiet the stallion. The people jamming the street seemed also
touched by sudden unease. The chatter ebbed from them and they stood staring.

“What’s this?” Gratillonius barked. An inward groan: What now?

“No immediate business,” Apuleius said. “It can wait.” Distress flitted over his features. “I should have kept silent till tomorrow. Truly, your safety, what you’ve done, overweighs entirely this other thing. It was inevitable, anyhow.”

Gratillonius bit back a curse. “Will you kindly tell me what the devil it is, or must I go ask them yonder?”

Apuleius sighed. “Very well. The procurator has appointed a new agent for this region. He came while you were gone. A former Ysan himself—one Nagon Demari—ah, you remember?—become a Roman citizen. He went about looking at all persons and property, and estimating assessments. We can pay what we must in Aquilo; I’ve always been careful about keeping reserves and persuading my populace to do likewise. But Confluentes and its dwellers have never been on the tax rolls, of course—”

A surf roared through Gratillonius. He seemed to swim in it, barely keeping above, while it whelmed everything else. Whenever he broke above a wave, his mouth full of its bitterness, he would hear amidst the noise:

“—land tax—” How many husbandmen had it dragged from their homes, down into serfdom? “—quinquennial—” The levy each five years., less in amount but in its workings worse yet, for it emptied the coffers of artisan and merchant alike, crippling where it did not bankrupt. “—indiction next year—” The Imperial decree every fifteen years which set the rates on property and polls; and Confluentes had no record of past payments from which to argue for moderation. “—naming of your curials—” His father had been made into such a beast of burden.

“—irregularities and outright illegalities—” They had no designated overlords in Confluentes. There had been exemptions for Maximus’s old soldiers, because they were veterans, but abruptly their right to have land in freehold or to engage in trade was questioned, in view of the fact that it was a usurper under whom they last served. The folk from Ys were not even citizens.

“—fines and other penalties—” Ruin; bondage.

“—compounding—” Besides overt payment to the state, bribes with no limit other than what the officials decided was obtainable, nor any warranty that in after years someone else would not smell out the transactions and demand his own price, unless in zeal he denounced the whole thing to the Imperium itself.

“—suggestion that children have market value—” Gratillonius remembered a young girl who reached between bars to lay her hands in his and ask if he could take her home.

He grew aware that Apuleius was tugging at his ankle. From the portico above, Rovinda and her children watched with horror on them. People began to slip out of the crowd and go elsewhere. The huntsmen glared around. “Gratillonius,” the senator called across the surf. “In God’s name, man! You look like a Saxon about to start off on a killing spree. Calm down!”

Gratillonius stared at the sword he had drawn. Its blade gleamed dully through evening shades. The tide within him ebbed away. What it left was as cold and sharp as the steel.

“Dismount, come inside, have a beaker, calm down,” Apuleius pleaded. “He’s gone, I tell you. Nothing has happened yet. I interposed my authority—kept a few armed men at his side to forestall violence; that would have been disastrous—bad enough, the taunts your Ysans flung at him—But he was not actually here to collect anything. Corentinus and I sent him off with a flea in his ear. He’ll be back, we can’t stop that, but we do have time for appeals to higher authority, time we can stretch into months, I think, if need be. Come, old friend, let’s consider how we can work together.”

Gratillonius looked toward Rufinus. “Ride ahead, you and the boys,” he ordered. “Tell them in Confluentes to meet outside the basilica—the manor house, you know. I’ll be there shortly and speak to them.”

His henchman dipped the shafted skull and raised it again, as a cavalry trooper might salute with a battle standard. “Aye, my lord,” he answered in Ysan. The lean
visage had gone wolflike. “After me!” he shouted in Gallic, and clattered away at the head of his hunters.

“I’ve done what I can to reassure them,” Apuleius said. “They’re still terrified; no, I believe some are furious, though they don’t confide in me, the Roman. You can do better. But plan what you’ll say. This was by no means unanticipated, you recall. We knew there would be problems with the government.”

Gratillonius remembered vaguely. Later he could summon up those talks between him and the Aquilonian tribune. They might be less than clear to him. He hadn’t given them the attention they rated, with everything else he had on his mind. Well, Apuleius could repeat, add detail, stand true as Apuleius had done throughout the years. First, though—“I didn’t expect it would be this bad,” Gratillonius retorted.

Apuleius shook his head. “We are not alone. I fear it will be difficult for all Armorica.”

“Well, … we’ll get together later. Tomorrow?” Gratillonius breathed deeply. “I must go and meet with them. It can’t wait. They are my people.”

He touched heels to Favonius. The horse stamped eagerly, wheeled, and broke into a trot. Gratillonius glanced back. Dismay was gone. His will had hardened and he was off again to battle, for the family at his back as much as for anyone. He waved. “Goodnight!” he called. When he smiled, he was looking at Verania. She straightened and waved too.

He forced himself to keep an easy pace, also after he had passed through the east gate and was bound up the river road. The sun stood on the horizon. Fields reached dim, but water and the crowns of trees glowed golden beneath a sky where light would prevail for an hour. Birds flocked homeward. The stream made a cool music around hoofbeats. Leather creaked. The odor of the stallion was warm and sweet. He touched the sheathed sword. This was his land. He lived to nurture and defend it, that his blood might have it in heritage.

Give Rufinus’s crew time to halloo around in the colony and the dwellers time to assemble. Meanwhile he would seek his house—care for Favonius, of course—scrub and
groom himself—aye, put on the armor Apuleius had had made for him, because tonight he must be warmaster of this tribe.

5

Twilight deepened, the same dusk as at his victory over the lion. Westward a planet shone like a lamp against royal blue. Beyond the manor and off to the east, forest raised a battlemented wall. Stars glimmered there, and a curve of moon aloft. From the steps of the house, Gratillonius saw his Ysans in a mass, shadowed, become one great expectant animal; but above them a few rushlights lashed to poles flamed defiance. He would have been well-nigh invisible, save that Runa had set lanterns on stools right and left of him. Their luminance sheened off his coat of mail, helmet with centurion’s crest, sword once more in his hand. He caught the hot scent of their burning. She stood in the gloom behind.

“—hold fast.” His voice rolled out and out across the darkening world. “To those who would break us, we answer Nay. We bid them be off and let us get on with our lives. Best for them if they heed!

“I promise no swift end of troubles. Surely we shall have to make accommodation with the Roman law; and it is proper that we pay our fair share of costs for the state, Rome who is now your mother also. It will not be easy, getting our rights. But we shall, and while the fight is fought, your best service is to go on about your daily business, unafraid.

“Unafraid. Hearken. You’ve heard talk of men and women made chattels, aye, parents forced to sell their children into hopeless toil or what is worse. I’ve seen it happen. But I say to you, it shall not happen again … while we stand fast. Those things are limited by Roman law.

“Now we may or may not be wise to seek citizenship for ourselves. As foederates, clearly recognized by treaty, we would be better protected in some ways. On the other hand, we have little to bargain with. I will get counsel
about this. But while these questions are before the Imperium, we can hold all else in abeyance. That, and everything that follows, needs the guidance of men wise and strong. Else it will fail. But we have such men on our side: Apuleius, senator and tribune; Bishop Corentinus, prince of the Church. Trust them.”

“You too, Grallon!” rang from the gathering.

He chuckled. “Nay, I’m naught but an old soldier.” His tone deepened as the sword rose. “But I do myself still hold tribune’s rank. Mine is the right to speak directly for you—to the praetorian perfect Ardens in Augusta Trever-orum, who is friendly toward me and surely toward you; above him, to the Imperial counselor, consul and Master of Soldiers, Stilicho, who must know what it means to Rome, a strong folk bulwarking this far end of her realm. I stand to ward you.

“For I am the King of Ys.”

Tumult hailed him, cheers, laughter, and tears.

—The tall torches swayed away through night. Stillness descended. There were many stars.

Runa came to him. She had thrown aside the black cloak that hid her. A silken gown flowed close about her stride, like the hair down past her shoulders, and shone in the lantern light, like her eyes. She reached forth both hands. He took them before he thought. Thinking was beyond him anyhow. The power of what he had done throbbed through his body and radiated into the air around.

“You
are
the King,” she said. Her voice shook.

The narrow face seemed to float before him, a cameo. How fair was her skin. “Once Id have told myself, aye, he is Taranis on earth,” he heard. “That’s forbidden, and you’d deny. But you were more than mortal this evening, Gratillonius.”

He shook his head, blindly. “I did but hearten them.”

“Such power comes from outside the world. You cannot at once return to mortality. ’Tis too far below. You are a God … a demigod, a hero. Your will be done. Abide the night.”

She pressed close, she was in his arms, their mouths strained together. The high tide roared back, but upbearing him on its arrogance.

For an instant, a freezing current passed. “The Queens,” he mumbled into the fragrance of her locks.

“You’ve left the Gods of Ys. They’ve lost all hold on you. Come.”

The surge carried him forward.

—In her bedroom, she barely set aside the lantern she had carried along before he seized her. “Nay, wait,” she began. He bore her down onto the blankets and hauled up her skirts. The light slipped smoothly over slender legs, rounded thighs and haunches, till it dived into the sable between. She smiled. “I said, your will be done, King.”

Almost, he cast himself on her then and there. His mail rustled. Fleetingly he remembered how she had caught her breath as he drew her against it. That must have hurt. He unbuckled his helmet and threw it clanging to the floor. His sword belt dropped on top. The coif came off with the chain links he pulled over his head. Breeches next! She spread her legs and reached to embrace him.

—Afterward he said, “That was too hasty. I’m sorry.”

She ruffled his hair. “’Twas a long time alone for both of us. We have the night.”

“Aye.” He roused from the peacefulness of release and they undressed entirely, helping each other. Her breasts were small but firm, with brown nipples already again rising. “What pleasures you?” she asked.

“Whatever you like.” As yet he felt shy about telling her what he had enjoyed with—Forsquilis, and Tambilis, and—the manifold ways of his Gallicenae. Nor did he dare call them back to him.

She kissed him savoringly. “Well, let’s seek the bed and—You’ve had no supper. Are you hungry?”

“Not for food,” he laughed.

“We’ll wake Cata later and have her feed us. She can scarcely be more shocked than she already is. It does the complacent old biddy good. But this hour belongs to us and none else.”

6

They went afoot to Aquilo. Noontide brimmed with sun, warmth, and harvest odors. Bees buzzed in clover. The view over the Odita was of men, women, and animals busy across the fields, children following to glean. “They gather more briskly than they did yesterday,” Runa said.

“They’ve hope ’tis for themselves they do, Ysans and Gauls alike,” Gratillonius answered.