The Downfall Of Budic

At last Dahut succeeds with Budic. Her lies become even more depraved:

that she loves Budic;
that Gunnung raped her;
that it will be impossible to keep it a secret that she and Budic have now made love.

She has kept it a secret that she made love with Tommaltach, Carsa and Gunnung.

Budic intends not, like Carsa, to become a Christian King of Ys but instead to embrace the Ysan Gods. Something has been happening inside Budic in any case. When Maeloch told him to ask himself what Christ had done for him, he:

"...leaned for a minute, agape, as if the unspeakable had at last found words."
-Dahut, Chapter XIII, section 1, p. 282.

And he tells Dahut that he has wrestled with this question. (p. 346) We must credit Budic with having a mind of his own and thinking for himself, not merely being misled by Dahut. But he says that he will be damned so he is still thinking in Christian terms. Ideas contend inside our heads. One way to cope with great stress is to break from the past and to a make a sudden reversal in personal belief. People are converted in prison. St Paul switched from persecuting to propagating Christianity. Budic will fall fighting Gratillonius and thus will have no further time to reconsider his position.