Roma Mater (17 page)

While the top of the wall was everywhere level, ground dropped sharply beneath the western half of Ys, which was thus overshadowed. Buildings on his right crowded time-worn, mostly bare of decoration; here was Old Town, where industry and poverty intermingled. On his left, the shipyard extended to the harbour. Quinipilis went along its fence until she reached a street which ran beside it in the direction of the water, called the Ropewalk because it doubled as that. This she took. It was not in use today. Looking into the shipyard, Gratillonius spied a single small vessel under construction, albeit there were facilities for several large ones. As the Queen had said, Ys too felt the hard times that afflicted the Empire.

Where a launching ramp went down to the basin, the waterfront began. Its curve paralleled that of the city wall to seaward, a grand sweep two thousand feet in length, set back five hundred feet. Hard against its stone wharf, warehouses belonging to the great traders reared proud.
But their inlaid facades were faded, and for the most part they seemed almost empty of men and goods. A number of hulls rested between the floating piers that reached out from the dock like fingers None at this end were big, mainly fishermen in for unloading or overhaul. Their crews were off on leave, and only a few workers moved among them.

Nevertheless the harbour was a noble sight. Water sparkled as if dusted with crystal, lapped, gurgled. Gulls rode it like white boats or skimmed above in a snowstorm of wings. Some young boys were joyfully swimming, oblivious to the coldness of the water; it was a skill that sailor folk desired. Behind lifted the sheer cliff of the wall, ruddy-dark but its upper battlements brave with flags and the cloaks of watchmen.

Halfway along the waterfront, Quinipilis stopped. Here was a break in the line of buildings, for here began Lir Way. It started off through a triumphal arch, raised by the Roman engineers who built the wall but not to commemorate any victory in war. This was the sign of the saving of Ys, of the Pact between the city and its Gods. Beyond, the square of Skippers’ Market was astir as dealers took seat in their booths.

The priestess, though, gazed outward, to where the western entry stood open. ‘That is the masterwork of all,’ she said low.

‘Aye,’ Gratillonius agreed in awe.

Fifty feet wide, the gap in the wall faced upon illimitable reaches. Ocean itself. The doors on either side were beginning to close as the tide flowed higher – enormous oaken doors, iron-bound and sheathed in copper weathered green, silent and easy on their hinges despite the mass. Hemp and leather sealed their edges. On the bottom, when they shut, they would press against a sill carved out of the rock shelf that upbore Ys.

As yet, ample space remained between them for an
incoming merchantman. Few Romans would willingly put to sea this early in the year, but Ysan mariners were more bold. The craft was leaner and handier than most in the Empire. Gilt trim, horse-headed stempost, red- and blue-striped sails were like a defiance of any dangers. Those sails were being furled, since the wind was not straight from the west and the wall had therefore laid calm on the basin. Towboats darted from their piers on spidery oars. Already their coxswains were shouting bids for the job of bringing the ship in. A customs officer and his amanuensis came out of a door and took expectant stance. Oh, there was still life in Ys!

‘You have been on the gate?’ Quinipilis asked.

‘Yestereven,’ Gratillonius replied. The memory thrilled in him afresh.

2

That was the final rite confirming him as King. Lir Captain and a delegation of sailors, deckhands as well as officers, called on him at the palace when the tide was nearly full. They took him out on the wall to the northern edge of the portal. There he looked downwards, at the sea, and they showed and told him how the gate worked.

It was as simple as a heartbeat, and as vital. High on either side, aslant, jutted a great stone block. The feline heads into which these two were sculptured had blurred in the centuries, but their strength abided. Through each, a chain passed over a sheave within. One end of the chain was fast to its adjacent door. From the other end depended a giant bronze ball, cased in padded leather, hollow so that it floated.

‘Without this, half the city would lie drowned at high
tide,’ Hannon declared gravely. ‘Given a spring tide and a hard storm behind it, neither would the eastern side escape. Look. The doors are shaped so that they continue the curve of the wall. This helps them resist the force of the waves. They angle inwards from bottom to top. This makes them
want
to close.

‘As the water rises, likewise do the floats, giving ever more slack on the chains and thus letting the doors draw ever more near together. When they do shut, water level in the basin is still some three feet below the wharf. The tide outside goes on flowing, of course, until it may crest close under the battlements; but our city rests safe behind its gate.

‘You see the floats are sheathed. This is to keep them from damaging themselves and the wall when storms fling them about. From time to time that protection must be renewed, as must the caulking along the edges and bottoms of the doors. This is done at the lowest tides, on the calmest days. At that, ’tis difficult, dangerous work. The divers who do it are both well paid and honoured. For they keep us alive.

‘Now when the sea ebbs, the floats drop, pulling out their chains by their weight, hence drawing the doors open again.’

‘A marvel!’ Gratillonius exclaimed. ‘Indeed the eighth wonder.’ And even then it: perplexed him that this was all but unknown beyond Ys.

‘The Romans wrought well,’ said Hannon, ‘but only by the leave of Lir; and He set: conditions upon that.’

‘Um-m-m … when the doors do stand wide … could not an enemy fleet enter? Or what if there is violent weather?’

Hannon beckoned. ‘Come.’ He led the way down a stone staircase. Meanwhile, with a huge hissing sound,
the gate closed. Gratillonius heard surf rumble outside; he saw the basin tranquil beneath him.

The stairs ended at a ledge halfway down the wall. There stood a capstan, from which a cable ran through another cat’s head to the inner top of this door. Hannon pointed to corresponding structures on the opposite side. ‘At need,’ he said, ‘we use these to pull the portal shut against the weight of the floats. And we’ve a further security – which is in your hands, O King. Follow me.’

He was rather brusque with his lord, Gratillonius thought. But that was understandable. He spoke for his God and his guild. Besides, like everyone before him in his present office, he was a retired skipper who had dared seas from here to Africa, here to Thule.

The doors, like the wall which they matched, had such a large radius of curvature that the inner surface they presented to the harbour was not far from being flat. A narrow, railed walkway reached across either, each terminating in a platform at the juncture. There Hannon and his party took Gratillonius.

On the southern door, a mighty beam – it must have been hewn from an entire oak tree – stood upright, pivoted above a lead counterweight. A cable ran from its upper end to a block high above, and back down to an equally solid cleat. Hannon stepped to the southern platform, released the cable, lowered the beam. The counterweighting was so well done that he could swing the mass up or down by himself. The beam crossed over both doors and settled into a massive iron U bolted to the northern one.

‘This holds the portal tight against aught that may seek to come through,’ Hannon said. ‘We’ve less dread of pirates than of storms. Even in good weather, you’ve seen, the doors swing slightly to and fro as the floats bob on the waves. In a gale, those floats are mightily stirred.
Descending into the troughs, they’d fain drag the doors wide apart. Did that happen, especially at high tide, the sea would pour in and wreak catastrophe on Ys. But the bar keeps the gate fast.’

Stapled to the northern door beside the U was a chain on which hung a heavy padlock. Solemnly, Hannon passed it through holes in the beam and the iron, tightened it, and put the hasp of the lock through two links. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘bring forth the Key.’

The Key Colconor bore – and Kings before him and before him, back to the time when Ys and Rome and the sea made their treaty – Wordless, Gratillonius drew it from off his bosom and its chain of gold over his head. Hannon had him close and reopen the lock, release the bar and haul it back upright and secure it.

‘That is our final safeguard,’ said the old man. ‘In times of threat, from war or weather, we shut the gate, lower the beam, and by the lock make sure that no evil chance can somehow fling it loose from its holder and free the doors to the waves. Always, save if he must needs leave Ys, the King bears the Key upon his person. It is his sacred duty to make fast the gate like this when danger nears, and unlock it when the threat is past. Thus went the word of Lir, Taranis, and Belisama.’

Half numbed, Gratillonius donned the emblem again. ‘But what if I were elsewhere, leading your men off to battle, perhaps?’ he mumbled.

‘Then the Key awaits your return in the Temple of Lir, and I or another high person uses it. As for its loss, the Gallicenae keep the only duplicate; where, is known but to them.’ Hannon gave him an austere smile. ‘You understand this is all ceremonial, a repeated sealing of the Pact, rather than absolutely necessary. If we must, we can change the lock. Fear not. Our Gods do not forsake us.’

3

Standing beside Quinipilis, Gratillonius recalled those words. Unthinkingly, he murmured them. She gave him a keen look. ‘But someday we may forsake the Gods,’ she said.

Tor which others, do you think?’ he asked very quietly.

Her laugh was bitter. ‘I’ve no fear of Christ. Nay, I feel sorry for the minister the Romans have forced on us. Poor little lonely man.’

‘I must tell you that I serve Mithras.’ In haste: ‘He does not forbid me to honour your Gods, if my acts keep within His law and I hold him in my heart to be supreme.’

‘Hm. That may bring you trouble, lad.’ Quinipilis brooded. ‘But I’ll not fret about your Bullslayer either. Nay, what plagues me is a fear that we of Ys may become Gods unto ourselves.’

She began walking again, he beside her. The northern half of the dock was given over to large ships, civil or naval – a number lay empty, idle – and to office buildings ornate behind colonnades. At the end of the basin, woman and man turned left, back towards pomoerium and wall. Below an ascending staircase stood the temple of Lir. Older than the Roman work, small but thick-built, it was pillared with rough-hewn grey stones akin to the menhirs found throughout Armorica.

The two climbed up past the Gull Tower and continued the circuit of the city bulwark. Quinipilis breathed hard and leaned heavily on her staff. Gratillonius offered his arm. She smiled and let him help her. ‘You should not exhaust yourself for my sake,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘Be not sorry. At home I can rest as long
as I wish. Ere many years have fled, I’ll be resting snug for ever. Let me now enjoy my good-looking young escort.’

‘You have seen much, my lady,’ he said with care. ‘Methinks you’ve thought much too, and won wisdom thereby. Will you share it with me?’

‘Ha! Scarce would I call myself wise, a hard-drinking hag like me. Anyhow, wisdom lies in nobody’s gift. We must each forge it for ourselves, alone, as best we can.’

‘But you have known the life of Ys for over half a century. Will you not tell me of it? I do want to be good for your people, but I am wretchedly ignorant.’

She regarded him for a time. The omens were unclear when we called you hither,’ she said slowly. ‘But I dare think it likely that we did well.’ Her mood lightened. She cackled a laugh. ‘Aye, why should the garrulous crone not gossip as we walk?’

While she narrated, the wall grew straight again beneath their feet and brought them to the higher and newer part of the city, where its powerful families dwelt. At Northbridge Gate the landside length began. They went above the portal. Between those turrets called the Sisters, it gave on a short bridge across waters wild among rocks, to the northern cape. There ran Northbridge Way, along which he had come … The pair continued east and then south.

They passed Star House, a Grecian-like building set in a garden near the wall, next to the Water Tower where astronomical observations took place. Those were essential. Although the secular calendar of Ys had become Julian, the religious calendar remained lunar. The holiest festivals were set by the moon and the planet Venus, which were Belisama’s; the clans of the Suffetes each took name from one of the thirteen lunar months.

‘The learned foregather here,’ Quinipilis remarked.
‘Philosophers, scholars, poets, artists, mystics – ’tis a setting better for their discourse than a tavern. You’ll often find Bodilis amidst them. Belike you’d enjoy it too. You carry yourself soldierly, lad, but I suspect you use that pate for more than a helmet rack.’ In Ys the idea was current that consciousness resided in the head.

Mainly, in slow sentences broken by pauses when she must wheeze for air, she spoke of her men. The talk went on past the Water Tower, down the staircase at the Gaul, back through the streets to her house. There Gratillonius bade her farewell. His mind awhirl but his heart warm with the feeling that he had made a friend, he sought home to the royal palace and Dahilis.

4

Now these were the Kings whom Quinipilis knew.

Redorix.
He was a landholder near Vorgium until a barbarian raid left him widowed and ruined. Unable to mend his fortunes under the laws of Diocletianus, he went to try his luck at Ys, and overcame him who kept the Wood. The reign of Redorix lasted nine years and was fondly remembered, for he was personable and conscientious. On one of his Queens he begot a girl who received the name Gladwy – the name her mother had borne as a maiden, which was the custom for first-borns of a high priestess. A great horseman, Redorix sought to organize a cavalry troop among the Ysans, but this was not very successful and disbanded after his death. That happened when Saxon rovers appeared. There had been no forewarning, either through agents abroad or visions sent the Gallicenae. Folk wondered if this meant the Gods were failing, or if They were angry because too many Ysans
had abandoned strict ancestral ways in favour of pleasure and luxury. The Saxons laid waste the maritime station and neighbouring homesteads. Redorix led his raiders against them and perished in the charge. They assailed the city but could not take it. Archers, slingers, catapults, and boiling kettles wrought: havoc on them from the wall. At length they gave up and departed before navy ships out on patrol at sea should return. The Gallicenae raised a storm to hound them, but never knew if it had destroyed the galleys or not. Already Roman commerce was slumping so badly that no effort occurred to rebuild the station.