As chance would have it, Tarascon lay just around a long bend in the river from their island camp, and they passed below its low, unimpressive walls close to the west bank, rowing briskly. Pierrette kept an eye on the vagrant priest Gregorius the while, observing the wistful look on his face, the way his eyes seemed to measure the wide brown expanse of river between him and the town, and the tiny shake of his head when he at last decided he had no hope of jumping from the galley rail and wading ashore.
"We must keep an eye on him," she told ibn Saul later. "Letter or no letter, I think he'll debark at the first stop where he thinks there may be a welcome for him."
Ibn Saul agreed. "I'll have the galleymaster keep to the west bank—for some reason, most towns and villages are on the east, along this stretch."
"The west has always been less tame—and was never rebuilt after the Saracen conquests. A vagrant priest will find no hospitable, comfortable abbey refuge there."
That day Lovi again stretched out on the warm deck, shirtless, and Pierrette again admired his lithe, golden form. Strangely (she only noticed it because she kept a wary eye on the priest most of the time) Gregorius also seemed entranced by the sight, and during the hour Lovi lay in the sun, his eyes did not stray once, longingly, to the tree-shrouded east bank.
They made good time, and camped late, and there was no opportunity for Pierrette to tell a second tale. Next day they passed the mouth of the Druentia River, and knew that Avennio was just ahead. It was the most important town on the river save Lugdunum itself, which lay many days north. Because, like Nemausus further to the west, the city had willingly joined with the Saracens—who, though not Christian, were at least civilized—against the Franks, the Frankish ruler Charles the Hammer had allowed Avennio to be most cruelly sacked. Its key position at the confluence of two great rivers had aided its recovery but, like Arelate, it was said to be a shadow of its former self.
Much to Gregorius's disappointment, just as the city's walls came into view on the right, the galley slipped behind an island into the left, or western, channel. Lovi, who had been spending much time with the priest, put a sympathetic hand on his knee. "Perhaps at Lugdunum, near where we must leave this galley and proceed overland, you will have your chance," he said. The stories Gregorius had told the Frankish boy of his life among the Norsemen were not much like those he had told to entertain Bishop Arrianus and his household. In truth, he had been a slave, treated cruelly, and had not converted one Norseman to the Christian faith. Lovi completely sympathized with his need to escape, to avoid being taken back into a land they controlled. Lovi alone had seen the scars on Gregorius's neck and shoulders, from the iron collar the Vikings had put on him. They were usually hidden beneath his clerical robes.
Gregorius put his own hands over Lovi's. "Without your sympathy, I should go mad," he murmured. "You are my one bright candle on this dark voyage."
That night, when the galley's complement settled by a cheery fire, and Pierrette prepared to tell her second tale, the two of them sat at some distance from the fire, and warded off the damp chill by huddling together under the priest's warm sagus, his woolen greatcloak.
"This is the story of Saint Martha," said Pierrette, "who came ashore with Magdalen, Lazarus, and the elder Marys, having been put to sea by the Jews of Palestine in a ship without oars or sail.
"When the Saints parted, there by the sea, Jesus' elder aunties remained, too old for the hardships of the road. Their servant Sarah, whom some say was Egyptian, remained with them. Magdalen went to Lugdunum, where she converted many in that city to the new religion, which as yet had no name. Lazarus became episkopos, overseer, to the believers in Massalia, and survived the purges of the emperor Nero, but was beheaded during the persecutions of Domitian. Maximinus went to Aquae Sextiae, and some say Cedonius accompanied him.
"When the sisters Magdalen and Martha neared Tarascon, they heard of a river-monster, a tarasque, which overturned every boat that tried to pass the town. 'Wait here,' said Martha, ever the practical one. 'I'll take the shore road ahead, and make sure it is safe for you.'
"She arrived at nightfall outside the gates of Tarascon, and the watchman bade her hurry inside, because the night belonged to the monster. 'The night, like the day, belongs only to God,' said Martha, 'just as do all creatures that walk, crawl, or fly beneath the sun and moon.'
" 'Which god is that?' asked the townsfolk. 'We have prayed to all of them—to Roman Jupiter—Deus Pater, the Father—and to Gaulish Belisama, the Mother, and still the tarasque consumes us at will. If your god is able to help us, we will build him a temple greater than any others in the city.'
" 'My God is the only God,' said Martha, and at that moment understood why she had been driven here, by contrary winds, in a boat without oar or sail. 'He can tame the tarasque, just as he made a lion lie down with a lamb without consuming it. But because he is the only God, you must tear down all other temples, and build from their stones and timbers a single church, consecrated to him alone.
"The maior of Tarascon and his counselors agree that if Martha brought the tarasque to the town gate with a chain about its neck, they would do as she bade them, and would henceforth worship only her God and his Son, and his Spirit—which appealed to their Gaulish natures, for which all things came in threes.
"Saint Martha asked for an axe, and a woodsman to wield it for her. She asked for a smith with a small forge, an anvil, and tongs and hammer as well. The maior sent both men forth, though they were reluctant, because they were very afraid.
"Nearby was a great oak tree which had so many nails in its trunk that the bark was entirely hidden. It was a tradition that every carpenter who passed that tree, sacred to Esus, their patron god, should sacrifice a nail to him, or themselves be hanged from the tree. She ordered the woodsman to cut down the great oak, and to split from its trunk two beams, and to fashion from them a cross. Because the town gate was shut, and because it was night, and the woodsman was more afraid of the tarasque than of Esus, he obeyed. When that task was done, Martha allowed him to scurry back to the gate, and to safety.
"She commanded the smith to gather all the nails that had fallen from the tree, and to pull those that remained in the wood, and to forge from them a great iron collar and a length of chain. That he did, and quickly, so that he also might be allowed to return to the safety of the town walls.
"Martha stayed outside, and picked up the cross and the chain. She carried them down to the river, and there began to sing. Far out in the dark water, something heard her singing, and it came to investigate. It was the tarasque. It came, but it did not slay her. Her song captivated it, because she sang of how all things on earth, beneath it, and in its waters, were God's creatures: even tarasques.
"The creature (for she had convinced it that it was so, a creation of God) allowed her to place the collar about its neck, and permitted her to lead it to the gate of the town. When the townsfolk looked down from their wall, they saw the wooden cross, and beneath it the tarasque, enchained, and the saint standing with her hand on the beast's head.
"They opened the gate, although it was night, and the people came forth, and danced around the long, scaly beast. When dawn's first glow appeared in the east, they picked up the chain, and led the monster through all the streets, even the narrowest ones, and Saint Martha went with them, carrying the wooden cross, thus consecrating all the streets and alleys to God, to Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit.
"Then Martha went back down the river to where her sister awaited her, and sent Magdalen on her way, to her own mission in Lugdunum, and her own fate. Martha stayed in Tarascon, and oversaw the destruction of all the pagan temples and shrines, and the building of God's church. Perhaps she stayed on there, or perhaps when she had taught the folk all she knew of God and Jesus, she went on, for there are other stories, in other towns."
Pierrette sighed and stretched, because it had been a long tale. The fire had died to embers, because no one had wanted to disturb her while she spoke. Then everyone rose, one by one, and made their beds for the night. Only two remained where they were, already far from the fire, already wrapped in a single cloak as if they had slept through her telling . . .
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 had generated 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 ship's master. On plowed that immaterial galley through the black, shining, rolling seas behind Lovi's tight-closed eyes, until the darkness gave way to a great shining, 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 passed, and another. They progressed upstream past the mouths of several influent streams, which had heretofore contributed to Rhodanus'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 shore whenever they passed 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 Norsemen'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 relationship, 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 Rhodanus 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 and bracae, 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 circumstances 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 Massalia, 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.