her and made the same sacrifice.
They joined hands around the blaze. It roared, streaming and sparkling on the wind. Red and yellow unease below, icy white above, were all the light there was; everywhere else reached blindness. Sang the Nine:
‘Winter wolf and sheering shark,
Whip and tautened traces,
Shame by day and fear by dark,
Hobnails down on faces,
Worms at feast in living hearts,
Dulled and rusted honour –
From his spirit, let these parts
Rise to curse Colconor!
‘May he fall as falls a tree
When its roots are rotten
And a wind whirls off the sea,
Angry, Lir-begotten.
Lord Taranis, in Your sky
Hear the tempest clamour.
Long those poisoned boughs reached high.
Smite them with Your hammer!
‘Belisama, may our spell
Make You come and take him
Down to doom, and there in hell
Evermore forsake him.
Hitherward his bane we draw
In this vengeful springtime.
Stranger, heed the holy Law
All throughout your King time.’
Aboard their boat at the dock, looking beyond the House, the fishermen who had brought the Nine hithersaw the fire. They did not know what it portended, they had only obeyed when called upon, but they shivered, muttered charms, clutched lucky pieces and made for-fending signs; and they were Ferriers of the Dead.
VI
1
West of Vorgium the hills became long and steep. Forest thinned out until there were only isolated stands of trees, and none wherever heath prevailed over pastureland. The soldiers were rarely out of sight of one or more megaliths, brooding grey amidst emptiness. Winds blew shrill and cold, drove clouds across heaven and their shadows across earth, often cast rainshowers. Yet here too it was the season of rebirth. Grass rippled like green flame, mustard and gorse flaunted gold, flowers were everywhere – tiny daisies, blue borage, violets, hyacinths, cuckoopint, speedwell, primrose, strewn through filigree of wild carrot and prickle of blackberry. Only willows had thus far come to full leaf, but oak and chestnut were beginning, while plum blossoms whitened their own boughs. Bumblebees droned, amber aflight. Blackbirds, starlings, sparrows, doves, gulls filled the sky with wings and calls.
Farmsteads were apt to be far apart, tucked into sheltering dells: a thatch-roofed wattle-and-daub house for people and animals together, perhaps a shed, a pigpen, a vegetable garden, an apple tree or so. Mainly folk in these parts lived by grazing sheep and, to a lesser degree, cattle. They were all Osismii, and Gratillonius would not have been able to speak with them had he not picked up some of their language as a boy. It used many words unique to itself, words he thought must trace back to the Old Folk. Invading Celts, centuries ago, had made themselves the leading families of the tribe and mingledtheir blood with that of the natives, but more thinly, this far out on the peninsula, than elsewhere in Gallia.
Some words, he thought with an eerie thrill, must stem from another source, from Ys. They resembled none he had heard before, but stirred vague memories in him of names he had met when studying the history of the Punic Wars.
Although folk were friendly, much excited to see legionaries, he didn’t stop for talk except one evening when he chanced to camp near a dwelling. There he learned that the neighbourhood had suffered little from raiders, being too poor to draw them, but the western shore was an utter wreck apart from Gesocribate and Ys. The former was tucked well into a narrow bay and Roman-defended. The latter fronted on Ocean, but – The farmer signed himself to his Gods in awe of the power protecting that city. He would be glad to come under its guardianship. Unfortunately, Ys claimed only a few eastward miles of hinterland.
Disturbance crept about within Gratillonius. What forces indeed did such a minikin state command, that it endured while Rome crumbled?
He found himself thinking about that again when his squadron reached the coast and spent a night at
They joined hands around the blaze. It roared, streaming and sparkling on the wind. Red and yellow unease below, icy white above, were all the light there was; everywhere else reached blindness. Sang the Nine:
‘Winter wolf and sheering shark,
Whip and tautened traces,
Shame by day and fear by dark,
Hobnails down on faces,
Worms at feast in living hearts,
Dulled and rusted honour –
From his spirit, let these parts
Rise to curse Colconor!
‘May he fall as falls a tree
When its roots are rotten
And a wind whirls off the sea,
Angry, Lir-begotten.
Lord Taranis, in Your sky
Hear the tempest clamour.
Long those poisoned boughs reached high.
Smite them with Your hammer!
‘Belisama, may our spell
Make You come and take him
Down to doom, and there in hell
Evermore forsake him.
Hitherward his bane we draw
In this vengeful springtime.
Stranger, heed the holy Law
All throughout your King time.’
Aboard their boat at the dock, looking beyond the House, the fishermen who had brought the Nine hithersaw the fire. They did not know what it portended, they had only obeyed when called upon, but they shivered, muttered charms, clutched lucky pieces and made for-fending signs; and they were Ferriers of the Dead.
VI
1
West of Vorgium the hills became long and steep. Forest thinned out until there were only isolated stands of trees, and none wherever heath prevailed over pastureland. The soldiers were rarely out of sight of one or more megaliths, brooding grey amidst emptiness. Winds blew shrill and cold, drove clouds across heaven and their shadows across earth, often cast rainshowers. Yet here too it was the season of rebirth. Grass rippled like green flame, mustard and gorse flaunted gold, flowers were everywhere – tiny daisies, blue borage, violets, hyacinths, cuckoopint, speedwell, primrose, strewn through filigree of wild carrot and prickle of blackberry. Only willows had thus far come to full leaf, but oak and chestnut were beginning, while plum blossoms whitened their own boughs. Bumblebees droned, amber aflight. Blackbirds, starlings, sparrows, doves, gulls filled the sky with wings and calls.
Farmsteads were apt to be far apart, tucked into sheltering dells: a thatch-roofed wattle-and-daub house for people and animals together, perhaps a shed, a pigpen, a vegetable garden, an apple tree or so. Mainly folk in these parts lived by grazing sheep and, to a lesser degree, cattle. They were all Osismii, and Gratillonius would not have been able to speak with them had he not picked up some of their language as a boy. It used many words unique to itself, words he thought must trace back to the Old Folk. Invading Celts, centuries ago, had made themselves the leading families of the tribe and mingledtheir blood with that of the natives, but more thinly, this far out on the peninsula, than elsewhere in Gallia.
Some words, he thought with an eerie thrill, must stem from another source, from Ys. They resembled none he had heard before, but stirred vague memories in him of names he had met when studying the history of the Punic Wars.
Although folk were friendly, much excited to see legionaries, he didn’t stop for talk except one evening when he chanced to camp near a dwelling. There he learned that the neighbourhood had suffered little from raiders, being too poor to draw them, but the western shore was an utter wreck apart from Gesocribate and Ys. The former was tucked well into a narrow bay and Roman-defended. The latter fronted on Ocean, but – The farmer signed himself to his Gods in awe of the power protecting that city. He would be glad to come under its guardianship. Unfortunately, Ys claimed only a few eastward miles of hinterland.
Disturbance crept about within Gratillonius. What forces indeed did such a minikin state command, that it endured while Rome crumbled?
He found himself thinking about that again when his squadron reached the coast and spent a night at
Similar Books
