Gallicenae by Poul Anderson Page A

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