The Veil Of Years - Isle Beyond Time Part 5

Lovi in truth had not heard much of the story. At first, he had listened because he was entranced by the boy Piers's sweet voice, which moved him in a way he could not explain, but that generated uncomfortable feelings. From the first time he had met Piers, he had felt that attraction, and it hadgenerated an anguish of self-doubt, because he should not have felt such things about another boy.

Because he did feel them, he had treated Piers with disdain, short of outright insult but calculated to maintain a safe barrier between himself and the necessity of admitting his unnatural attraction.

But now he sat warm beneath Father Gregorius's cloak, and the priest's strong, heavy arm lay over his shoulders, and he felt an entirely different, but equally discomfiting emotion. That arm now pulled him close against the warmth of Gregorius's ribs and thigh, and did so with a force not of physical strength, but of unquestionable authority, as if Lovi were not himself a thinking being, a person, but an object that Gregorius owned, as he owned the cloak itself. Lovi, rather than resisting as was his first impulse, allowed himself to be held. At that moment, that crux, that surrender of autonomy, he felt a great sense of well-being, as if a decision had been made that greatly simplified his complex feelings about himself, and filled him at the same time with anxious excitement. . . .

As Piers's sweet voice murmured on, Lovi lost track of the story, because Father Gregorius's other hand was moving beneath their shared cloak, in a manner that implied not an intrusion, but an exploration of that domain Lovi had ceded to him. Lovi himself felt as if he were made of soft wax, that Gregorius might move and shape as he willed.

As if they were still on the galley, moving to the surge of waves beneath its hull, Lovi rocked to the insistent rhythm of his own need, the beat of his own drumming heart, the commands of his s.h.i.+p's master.

On plowed that immaterial galley through the black, s.h.i.+ning, rolling seas behind Lovi's tight-closed eyes, until the darkness gave way to a great s.h.i.+ning, as if the moon had risen from horizon to zenith in one great bound, and now covered him in its silvery light. In that eternal moment of rolling waves he sank, broached by the seas and overwhelmed, into the darkness of the deep-into exhausted sleep. When Pierrette had finished her tale, when the others arose to make their beds, Lovi slept on.

Another day pa.s.sed, and another. They progressed upstream past the mouths of several influent streams, which had heretofore contributed to Rhoda.n.u.s's breadth and flow. Their own path of water became correspondingly narrower, its current swifter, and their pace slower, even though the rowers' efforts were undiminished.

On several occasions, Pierrette observed brief interchanges between father Gregorius and Lovi, when Lovi's eyes seemed to follow the priest's movement. Each time, Gregorius seemed to sense that gaze, and he turned, smiling, then wagged a finger from side to side as if enjoining the boy to patience-to what end she did not know. She also observed that Father Gregorius's own eyes no longer strayed to the sh.o.r.e whenever they pa.s.sed a village or town, and one day she mentioned both things to ibn Saul, who chuckled indulgently, and explained.

"They have become lovers," the scholar said, "though I would never have thought it, because the Franks abhor such affairs between men. It does not displease me-though I admit to some small jealousy, having admired Lovi myself-because now our guide through the Nors.e.m.e.n's territory is bound to us in a way no iron chain around his neck could do." Pierrette knew of such things, but had never observed such a relations.h.i.+p, and for many days she was unable to explain why ibn Saul's revelation distressed her. Not until the day before they were to leave River Rhoda.n.u.s and journey overland to the westward-flowing Liger did she understand.

It was a lovely day, weeks since she had told her second tale. She had not yet told the third one as promised because, with the increased current, the oarsmen were too tired to stay awake once they had eaten. For the first time in all those weeks, Lovi cast off his tunic andbracae, and clad only in a cloth about his loins, sunned himself on the warm deck. She observed Gregorius's expression of smug possessiveness, and how Lovi stretched and preened for him-and also saw that Gregorius was not the only one watching. For a long moment, the helmsman's eyes drifted from his course, and several oarsmen missed their strokes. The vessel was only bought back on course with much effort and cursing by overseer and galleymaster.

The master approached ibn Saul shortly later, and extracted a promise that the scholar would no longer allow his apprentice to flaunt himself so, in circ.u.mstances where even men who preferred women had been deprived long enough to find him attractive, pale and golden as he was. Then Pierrette realized that her distress was simple to explain: it was jealousy. It was not fair that the lovely Lovi, whom she had coveted almost since they were both children, should be possessed and enjoyed by the sneaky, unscrupulous Gregorius, and not by her.

It was resentment, too, that her chosen course had forced her to deny her desire for him because she had been afraid she could not have resisted, had he urged her with all the intensity of his youth and vigor, to surrender herself completely.

It was anger, because she had allowed Lovi to see the pain in her eyes when she looked at him, and he had smiled as prettily as any tart in the amphitheater in Ma.s.salia, and shook his head as if to say, "You had your chance, and you didn't take it. Too bad. Too late."

It was sadness and loss, because she sensed that, by becoming Gregorius's lover, Lovi had crossed some great divide, placing himself beyond her reach forever, and though she had not wanted to surrender to her own desire, she did not want to accept that such fulfillment was no longer considerable at all.

Chapter 9 - The Last Tale.

Just below Lugdunum they disembarked at a wharf half stone, half rotted timbers, on the western bank.

Had they entered the city itself, on the east bank, said the galleymaster, there would have been tolls to be paid on vessel, crew, and pa.s.sengers. By taking the west sh.o.r.e road north to the portage, only the scholar's party and its goods would be so taxed.

Because many other boatmen routinely evaded the city tolls in like manner, there were ox-drawn wagons for hire at the wharf. Ibn Saul paid off the galleymaster and immediately began haggling with the wagoneers. Because a nasty, northerly wind had sprung up, a precursor of the mad Mistral that drove men insane in winter, few more laden boats would put in until springtime. That, and their relatively scant luggage, resulted in an almost immediate bargain. Within hours, everything was loaded, and they were under way.

What, Pierrette wondered, had become of Yan Oors? He had not visited her for several nights. Was he following them, afoot? Many local people trudged the portage road, some with great sacks or bundles, others with staffs not unlike Yan's in appearance. Was he one of them, in sight, but unseen? She hoped so.

The road followed the river for several miles, during which Lugdunum was visible on the far side. Red tile roofs jutted above its cream-and-yellow walls, and Pierrette caught tantalizing glimpses of columned temples or public buildings of the Roman age-Lugdunum, where emperors had resided at times, whereMagdalen had preached. But her path lay elsewhere. Regretfully, Pierrette tugged Gustave along, and turned her head away from the city.

Already, a certain awkwardness had arisen in their small company. Before, there had been others with them, oarsmen, s.h.i.+pmaster, and overseer, to fill out sociable moments, but now there were only four-the scholar, Lovi, Pierrette, and the hedge-priest Gregorius. Ibn Saul rode with the caravan owner on the first wagon, Lovi and the priest followed in the second, and Pierrette, by her own choice, strode well ahead of them and their dust, with Gustave. The road, though rough in spots, was deeply rutted and easy to follow. Later, when bones and b.u.t.tocks had endured all they could of the jolting ox-drawn wagons, ibn Saul joined her.

That night, and the two that followed, all four of them fell onto their makes.h.i.+ft bedding as soon as they had eaten. On the fourth night-their last before they reached the Liger, and hopefully found a boat for hire-they were becoming enured to land travel, and after they had supped, ibn Saul reminded Pierrette that there was yet one tale untold.

Tarascon seemed far away, and events pertaining to it hardly relevant now. Even the countryside was different, foreign, and strange. Fields were green, not yellow or brown. The colors of stone were more intense, as if less bleached by the sun. Trees and brush were less dark, as if the land enjoyed a perennial springtime. Even the lilt of nearby voices was different, quicker, as if everyone were impatient all the time.

When someone agree with you, they said "Oy" instead of "Oc."

For want of other ways to pa.s.s the time between supper and sleep that night, she agreed to tell the tale.

"This third story about the monster of Tarascon," she began, "commences much as did the second. The saints arrived at Saintes-Marie-by-the-Sea, and there parted from one another. Martha and Magdalen followed River Rhoda.n.u.s northward, and in time arrived at Tarascon, which was not a happy place.

"Remember that much of Gaul had at that time been subject to Roma for only a century or so, and had never been completely pacified. From time to time the threat of rebellion arose, which the Romans dealt with in four ways. First, they maintained a garrison at Arelate, a full legion, and stationed cohorts in other towns. Second, they reorganized key towns like Tarascon, on the river, ascoloniae , with streets laid out like Egyptian chessboards, with arenas and amphitheaters, hippodromes,fora , and temples for the Roman G.o.ds. Thirdly, because there were not enough men in Roma to man all the garrisons in all the lands the empire governed, Roma recruited Numidians in Africa, and sent them to the eastern cities. They recruited Gauls in these parts, and s.h.i.+pped them to Africa, Egypt, or Greece. That way, legionaries were never sympathetic to local causes, and did not ally themselves with conquered peoples against the interests of Roma.

"Thus the legion at Arelate was comprised of Egyptians-officers who spoke Greek, and common men who spoke a dialect related to that of the Jews of Palestine. Now Greek, Latin, and Gaulish are similar tongues, and it is not difficult for a speaker of one to learn the others. But the Egyptian commoners could not easily learn any of them. When an Egyptian legionary shopped in the forum at Arelate, he could only point and shout for what he wanted. Thus there was little communication between legionaries and the people they controlled, and there were many misunderstandings. No love was lost between them.

"Remember, Rome maintained her dominion in four ways. This is the fourth: legionaries, from the time of Marius on, served twenty years, and when their time was done, they were promised ten or twenty acres of farmland, and a mule of their own. Many such retired soldiers were given land nearcoloniaelike Tarascon, but such land did not appear like magic, nor was it hewn from virgin forest. When Rome conquered, she divided the estates of n.o.ble Gauls, taking a portion for herself. Such state lands were often left in Gaulish hands for a generation or more, and when the time came for them to give it up, theydid not do so with good grace. They resented the Egyptian legionaries, and because they had no common language, they could not discover that, as farmers, they had more in common with each other than either did with Roman officials and tax collectors.

"Thus when Gaul and Egyptian met at a crossroads or a well-both sacred places to Gauls-there were often fights, because the Egyptians did not know how to behave there. And when Egyptians averted their eyes in pa.s.sing, it was a mark of respect, but Gauls considered them sneaky, because they would not look a man in the eye. Because the legionaries had no wives, they looked covetously at Gaulish women, not knowing which ones were married, and which not. Gaulish fathers and husbands took offense, and sometimes sneaked up on Egyptian farms by night, and killed the farmers.

"That was the situation Saint Martha found when she arrived. 'You go on to Lugdunum,' she told Magdalen. 'I see that my mission is to be here.'

"Now Martha spoke with the Gauls of Tarascon in Latin, because most educated people knew a bit of the Roman language. She told them of her G.o.d, and his Son, and said that those who believed and wors.h.i.+pped them were like brothers and sisters who sometimes quarreled, but in the end were reconciled, and shared the house and land of the Father in peace.

" 'Go tell that to the legionaries,' said the Gauls. 'It is they who covet our women and defile our sacred places.'

" 'To the one G.o.d and his Son, the whole world is a sacred place,' said Martha, 'but I will speak with them also, and tell them the Word.'

"So she trudged the roads from one farm to the next, Gaulish and Egyptian alike, and gave the farmers the same message: that in the House of the one true G.o.d, they were all one family. To the Gauls she said, 'Come to the basilica in Arelate, where the bankers, scribes, and moneylenders preside, and I will tell you more.' To the Egyptians she said the same, for the basilica was neutral ground for both peoples."

"Wait!" objected Gregorius loudly, breaking everyone's rapture. "If Gauls and the Egyptians had no common speech, how did the Saint address both of them?"

"Did I not say that the Jews of Palestine spoke a language much like Egyptian, and was not Martha a Jew? And was not Sarah, left behind by the sea, also Egyptian? Had not Martha spoken with her often enough, during those long weeks at sea, to learn where Jewish Aramaic and Egyptian were different, and where they were the same? Saint Martha stayed in Tarascon because she knew she was the bridge between the Gauls and the colonists, or rather, the Christian faith was."

Gregorius snorted. "You led us into your trap, didn't you?" Ibn Saul, annoyed that the mood of the tale was now broken, scowled at the priest. Lovi put a restraining hand on his lover's knee.

"We are all tired," said Pierrette. "If you wish, we can continue this another night. Now I'm going to lay my bed." She stood, then made her way from the fire to the place she had tethered Gustave, beneath a pine tree where the ground was cus.h.i.+oned with fallen needles.

At the far end of the portage was a village, a cl.u.s.ter of stone-and-timber houses without walls or a gate.

The Liger was narrow there, and ibn Saul was concerned that it might not be navigable. "Those long, narrow boats seem just right for such a stream," said Pierrette who, a fisherman's daughter, knew more of boats then the others did. "I suspect they drift with the current, which is quite fast, and use those longpoles to fend from the banks."

So it was. A single boat could not bear the four of them, their baggage, and Gustave the donkey, so ibn Saul was forced to hire two. The scholar and his treasured instruments, Pierrette, and the donkey went in the first boat, and the others in the second, with the rest of their goods. One poleman on the trailing boat was very tall. He seemed to wield his long, heavy pole with great ease, as if it weighed nothing at all. Was that Yan Oors? If it were, how had he managed to get his position there? The boatmen were clannish, and Pierrette thought they were all from the same village. How could a stranger fit in among them?

The valley through which they threaded that first day, and several that followed, was heavily forested.

Willows, elders, and cedars crowded the banks and leaned out over the water. If there were villages or tilled fields beyond, they could not be seen from the water or the occasional beaches that formed on the insides of bends in the stream.

To Pierrette, it seemed as though every bend they rounded took them deeper into a darkening land.

Strangely, it was not exactly unfamiliar. Ordinarily, within the limited scope of most people's travel, someone might observe changes in the life surrounding himself as he climbed from deep, watered valley to wind-swept plain, and to scoured ridge-top. Rich greens gave way to dark shades, broad leaves to narrow, then to hard, p.r.i.c.kly vegetation that even goats spurned. Now Pierrette observed such changes on a grander scale, because the entire northern country was as moist as a sheltered Provencal valley, and the trees and bushes were everywhere those she had seen only in two places-the sheltering northern face of the Sainte Baume range, and the tiny vale that concealed that pool sacred toMa, the ancient G.o.ddess who had sent her on this voyage. Great beeches stood like gray, smooth sentinels where springs splashed down the banks, and delicate maples cloaked the hills. Oaks with leaves as large as her hand grew tall as pines, and spread their heavy branches wide.

But she was not comfortable with the familiarity. Here, though everything was lush, there was no sense of refuge in the verdure. Instead, with every footstep she took ash.o.r.e, she felt as though the detritus beneath her soles was soft and rotten, and if she kicked over a clod it would smell not of rich humus, but of something dead and corrupt. But she kept such impressions to herself, and even though she felt uneasy, when night fell she still made her bed at some distance from the others.

"h.e.l.lo, little witch," said the deep, soft voice.

"Yan! I thought it was you, wielding that pole. But how . . ."

"Such a stick weighs nothing at all," he said. "It was no trouble for me to demonstrate my ability to wield it-and besides, I am related on my mother's side to one of the boatman's G.o.dfathers."

"You are?"

"Well . . . Everyone has an uncle who married someone from the next village, or went off to seek his fortune in the city, or . . ."

"Whatever ruses you used, I'm glad you're still with us. I have been worried. There is something dark, something ugly, about this land. Have you felt it?"

"I have. Sleeping in the woods at night, away from the rest of you, I have . . . seen things."

"What?" "Dark things, mostly quite small, hiding when the moon is out, then scurrying westward when clouds cover it, as if its meager light is more than they can bear."

"But what do they look like? Are they beasts? Do they scurry on four legs, or six, or two? Have they fur, or scales?"

"I see only shadows, not what makes them, and shadows are distorted shapes without either fur or scales. I know only that the sight of them makes my blood clot in my veins."

"You said they were going westward. Is it always so? How can that be?"

"Whatever their goal, it is the same direction we will be taking once this river completes its great bend to the west. I hope it's not the same place we're going."

How could it be so? mused Pierrette. Her own path led beyond the furthest point of land, beyond the last known island. Could the shadowy things cross over water? And why? When Minho had voiced the great spell that saved his kingdom from fiery destruction, he had left behind everything that was not sweet and good. If the shadows were ugly or evil, what would they want there?

But Yan Oors knew no more than she did. Perhaps as time and miles pa.s.sed, things would become clearer.

When the Liger began its long turn from north to west at last, Pierrette's discomfort lessened for a while-or perhaps she only became enured to it. Other streams joined the river, and where one broad tributary entered it, the combined flows widened it considerably. "The next town is Noviodonnum," said the owner of their boats. "That is as far as I will go. I can pick up a cargo of wool, and perhaps a chest or two of tin from the mines across the sea. You'll travel more comfortably, anyway, on the broad-bottomed craft that ply these slow waters."

"We are in the heart of the Franks' domain now," ibn Saul told his companions privately. "I think it wise to continue our policy of avoiding all encounters of an official nature. I have thus far not taken advantage of any of the names good Bishop Arria.n.u.s gave me, and I do not intend to do otherwise now, though there is an abbey in Noviodonnum. Just a mile beyond that town, I have been told, at the confluence with a minor river, is a traders' entrepot. We will go ash.o.r.e there."

The entrepot, above a bank where haphazard planks and pilings const.i.tuted a wharf, was a collection of staved hovels roofed with bark. There they ran into a snag: a Viking s.h.i.+p had been seen at Fleury only a fortnight before, and no boatmen would fare downstream. Several broad boats were drawn entirely up on sh.o.r.e, as if for a long wait.

At a loss how to proceed, they made camp in a sheltered spot well away from the muddy, stinking streets and midden heap. For the first time since their portage, the donkey Gustave earned his oats, dragging their luggage thence on a rudely made sledge.

After a frugal meal, a gruel of greens and grain flavored with the last of the salted fish, ibn Saul suggested that Pierrette finish the third tale of Saint Martha.

"There isn't much to tell," she said. "Martha brought Gauls and Egyptian legionnaires together in thebasilica, and taught them what she knew, repeating everything she said in both Latin and Aramaic, or perhaps Egyptian. The basilica was home to administrative offices and a trading floor. It was technically the emperor's personal property, but Martha told them that while they occupied it together for a purpose not the emperor's, but G.o.d's, it was His house, and His peace was upon it. Seeing how easy it was to rub shoulders with those they had hitherto considered enemies, both Gauls and legionaries paid close attention to her words, and some were even converted right on the spot.

"As time went on, weeks and then months, others joined them, impressed how well the new Christians got along with each other, despite their barriers of language and customs. Also, once they had agreed to coexist peacefully with the Gauls, many of the legionaries revealed just how much Latin they actually knew, after twenty years in Roman service. Now that they no longer felt clannish and excluded, they were willing to use it more, to speak with their neighbors."

Then Pierrette fell silent. When Gregorius realized she was finished, he protested. "That's all? But what of thetarasque, the river monster?"

"Oh, that. Did I forget to say? When the Legion had first come to Egypt, it was as conquerors, under the emperor Augustus, who gave them a new emblem to commemorate their victory-one of the great crocodiles of the Nile, with an iron collar and chain at its neck. The 'monster' Martha 'subdued' was not the beast itself, but the legion whose emblem it was."

"So the third tale is really the second one, and vice versa," reflected ibn Saul. "Or rather, the pagan tale and the historic one combined in the memories of people to become the middle tale, the one that they 'remember' today."

"You could say that," Pierrette replied equitably, "but I'm not sure of it. Perhaps each story is true, in its own fas.h.i.+on."

"Perhaps so. There may be historic and etymological fragments in the earliest one, and this last one is reasonable enough, as an explanation-but the second tale? It is an allegory, as you have shown."

Pierrette knew she was not going to get the scholar to see what she saw: that the first two tales reflected the realities of their respective times, and carried underlying lessons or meanings that shaped the perceptions of teller and listener alike, while the third was flat and without value except for men like ibn Saul, for whom a loose end was an irritant, not an invitation.

Chapter 10 - An Anomalous.

Vision "I wonder how much one of those boats would cost?" Pierrette mused. The riverboats were heavy and broad of beam, with great log keels. Each had stations for four oars or six, a long steering oar aft, and carried two poles forward that could be used to fend off or propel or, lashed, would form a kind of bipedal mast to carry a triangular sail. Of course, such a sail would be of little use going downstream, shereflected, because it could not be set to catch winds from abeam, only following breezes, and there would be few easterly winds on the Liger once its course turned westward toward the sea.

"Could the four of us manage one, without a skilled master and extra hands?" asked ibn Saul.

As Pierrette pondered that, she saw, standing in the shadow of a large oak tree, a tall figure in a broad hat, leaning on a dark, thick staff-and she modified the words she had been about to say. "With two oars in the water, and two men ahead to watch for rocks and snags and to wield poles to fend us off them, and with a fourth man at the steering oar, it should be possible," she said. "We would need only to propel our craft a bit faster than the river current when we needed steering way. Most of that time, we could just drift."

"That is one more person than we now have," said ibn Saul, "but I will see what can be arranged." He got to his feet, and strode purposefully to where the boatmen lazed by their craft. The negotiations were heated-Pierrette could hear them from their camp-but the riverboat owners were backcountry people with few of the negotiating skills that the scholar had mastered in his dealings with Greeks, Moslems, Byzantines, and the barbarians of Raetia and Pannonia, on the fringes of the Frankish domain.

"It was not the cheapest of the boats," he said later, showing it to Pierrette, "but it shows signs of recent repairs, and perhaps it will not fall apart beneath our feet. And, too, I have found a stout fellow, braver than the rest, who will wield a pole for us. He is some distant relation to our former boatman, but he's not a regular crewman, and has business of his own downriver.

Pierrette was glad she had specified their needs just as she had, when she had spotted Yan Oors beneath the oak tree's shadow. But it was dangerous for the gaunt one to be there, even in disguise. She almost hoped the one ibn Saul had hired would be someone else, but there, beside the boat, leaning on his staff, was Yan Oors.

By noon, their dunnage was stored amids.h.i.+ps, and they pushed off. They were able to keep to the midriver channel with little effort, and to ease their heavy craft into the swiftest flow at the outside of each bend, avoiding the sandy shallows that formed at the tightest parts of the turns. Yan Oors and the husky priest worked the bow poles, and because the gaunt fellow responded only with grunts and monosyllables, Gregorius soon tired of trying to draw him out. Lovi and ibn Saul each stood at an oar, and Pierrette at the helm. There was not much work for any of them, because the current bore them swiftly, but once in a while Pierrette called for oars, so she could steer them into the proper channel to avoid some impediment in the stream ahead.

"Tomorrow," ibn Saul grumbled, "I will stand forward and lean on a pole. You, priest, can row."

Fleury Abbey, famed as the seat of Theodulf, a Visigothic bishop, lay in ash and ruin, but it was not empty. The Vikings had leveled the town that had grown up around it, and had put Theodulf's villa, a few miles distant, to the torch, but now walls rose where none had been before. They were of wood, not stone, and they enclosed only a fraction of the original town, but they had twice withstood the Northmen's a.s.saults.

"If this place is to your liking," Lovi whispered to his paramour, "you must part from this company."

"And will you also?" replied Gregorius, shaking his head. "Even were this place not a ruin, I would not leave you. I have told your master the true nature of my sojourn among the Nors.e.m.e.n, which he accepted most philosophically. Now, having seen the evidence before us of their true nature, he may beless eager to try to bargain with them, and I may be allowed to remain safely obscure."

"You could go back the way we came."