Poul Anderson - Star of the Sea

“Yeah. Berserk rage, followed by overwhelming sympathy.”

Floris straightened. Fists doubled, she gazed squarely at Everard and said, “I am explaining, not making excuses. I will take whatever penalty the Patrol gives me, without complaint.”

He stood a few heartbeats unspeaking before he made a crooked smile and answered, “There won’t be any if you carry on honestly and competently. Which I’m sure you will. As an Unattached agent on this case, I can make summary judgments. You are hereby pardoned.”

She blinked hard, rubbed wrist over eyes, and said unevenly, “Sir, you are too kind. Because we have worked together—”

“Hey, give me credit,” he protested. “Yes, you’ve been a grand companion, but I wouldn’t let that influence me . . . much. What counts is that you’ve proved yourself a crack operative, which the outfit is always short of. More important still, this hasn’t actually been your fault.”

Bemusement: “What? I allowed my emotions to take me over—”

“Under the circumstances, that isn’t exactly to your discredit. I’m not at all sure what I’d’ve done myself, though maybe sneakier; and I’m not a woman. It didn’t bother me killing those vermin. I didn’t enjoy it, mind you, especially since they hadn’t a chance against me, but as long as it had to be done, I’ll sleep okay.” Everard paused. “You know, in my salad days, before I joined the Patrol, I favored the death penalty for forcible rape, till a lady pointed out to me that then the bastard would have an incentive to murder his victim and no motive not to. My feelings stayed the same. If I remember right, you twentieth-century Dutch, in your civilized, clinical fashion, treat the problem with castration.”

“Nevertheless, I—”

“Get off that guilt trip. What are you, some kind of a liberal or something? Let’s put sentiment on the shelf and think about the matter from a Patrol point of view. Listen. It seems fairly clear—do you agree?—those were merchant seamen who’d finished whatever business they’d done on Öland, if any, and were bound elsewhere, probably home. They happened to see Edh and Heidhin on that lonely shore and seized an opportunity. That sort of thing is common throughout the ancient world. Maybe they didn’t intend to come back, or maybe it’d be to a different tribe—from the air, I got an impression the island’s divided—or maybe they figured nobody would know. Whichever, they trapped the kids. If we hadn’t interfered, they’d have taken Heidhin off to sell for a slave. Edh too, unless they injured her so badly it was only worthwhile slitting her throat for one last bit of sport. That’s what would have happened. An incident like thousands of others, important to nobody but those who suffer, and they soon dead, forgotten, lost forever.”

Floris crossed fists over breasts. The waning light glimmered in her eyes. “Instead—”

Everard nodded. “Yeah. Instead, we appeared. We’ll want to seek out her home town, a few years after she left it, settle down for a while as visitors, ask discreet questions, get to know her people. Then maybe we’ll have some idea of how poor little Edh became terrible Veleda.”

Floris grimaced. “I think I do. In a, a general way. I can imagine myself into her. I think she was more intelligent and sensitive than most, yes, devout, if we can say that of a heathen. This dreadful thing came upon her, fear, shame, despair, not simply her body but her spirit crushed under those heaving, thrusting weights; and suddenly the veritable goddess arrived, to slay them and embrace her. From the bottom of hell, up to glory. . . . But afterward, afterward! The defilement, the sense of having been made worthless, it will not ever quite leave a woman, Manse. Worse for her, because in Iron Age Germany the blood, the womb, is sacred to the clan and a wife’s adultery is punished by the most brutal death. They would not blame her for what she could not help, I suppose, but she would be contaminated and—and the element of the supernatural would rouse fear, I think, more than reverence. Pagan gods are tricky, often cruel. I wonder if Edh and Heidhin dared say much. Perhaps they said nothing; and that would itself make a tearing conflict in them.”

Everard wished for his pipe but didn’t believe he should go to his hopper’s carrier box for it. Floris had become too vulnerable. She never called me by my first name before, as careful as we’ve been to avoid entanglements. I doubt she’s aware she did. “You’re probably right,” he agreed. “At the same time, there the supernatural occurrence was. It had left them alive and free. If her body was degraded, her soul couldn’t really be. Somehow, she was worthy of the goddess. It must be because she had a destiny, she was chosen for something enormous. Only what? Well, with Heidhin talking to her, over and over, full of male revengefulness—In terms of her culture, it would make sense. She was appointed to bring about the destruction of Rome.”

“She could accomplish nothing on her backwater island,” Floris finished. “Nor could she any longer fit into its life. She would wander west, confident of the goddess’s protection. Heidhin went with her. Between them they scraped together enough goods to buy passage across the sea. What they saw and heard of Roman doings as they traveled fueled their hatred, their sense of her mission. But I think, in spite of everything, and rare though it is in their society, I think he loved her.”

“I suspect he does yet. Remarkable, when it’s pretty plain she never let him into her bed.”

“Understandable.” Floris sighed. “For her, after that experience—and he, if nothing else, he would not force himself on a vessel of the goddess. I heard he has a wife and children among the Bructeri.”

“Uh-huh. Well, what we’ve found is the irony that our investigation of a disturbance to the plenum is what brought it about. To be quite frank, that sort of nexus is by no means unprecedented. Another reason for not condemning you, Janne. Often a causal loop has a powerful and subtle force to it. What we’ve got to do is prevent it from developing into a causal vortex. We have to forestall the events that would lead to Tacitus Two, while not unduly perturbing those that are described in Tacitus One.”

“How?” she asked despairingly. “Dare we meddle more? Should we not appeal for help from . . . the Danellians?”

Everard smiled the least bit. “M-m, the situation doesn’t look that bad to me. We’re expected to handle everything we can, you know, economizing on lifetime of other agents. First, as I remarked, it seems wise to spend a while on Öland, researching background. Then we’ll return to this year, the Batavi, the Romans, and—well, I have some preliminary thoughts, but I want to discuss them with you in depth, and you’ll be vital to whatever we do.”

“I will try.”

They stood silent. The air grew colder. Night rose up the hillside. Sunset colors smoldered to gray. Above them kindled the evening star.

Everard heard a ragged breath. Through the dusk, he saw Floris shudder and hug herself. “Janne, what’s the matter?” he asked, already guessing.

She looked out over the darkness. “All this death and pain, loss and grief.”

“The norm of history.”

“I know, I know, but—And I thought living among the Frisii had hardened me, but today, in this today of mine, I killed men, and, and I will not sleep soundly—”

He stepped close, laid hands on shoulders, murmured. She spun about to throw her arms around him. What could he do but the same? When she raised her face to his, what could he do but kiss her?

She responded wildly. Her lips tasted salt. “Oh, Manse, yes, yes, please, don’t you yourself need to forget for this night?”