Patrick

C
ONCESSA
L
AVINIA LIVED
in fear of thieves carrying off her spoons. They were fine spoons. Each teardrop-shaped bowl was a masterpiece of smithery balanced on a long, elegant handle capped by a tiny Corinthian finial: eight in all, and older than Elijah. Our silver—the spoons and matching plate, an enormous bowl, and two large ewers—was old and costly; it had come from Rome sometime in the dusty past, handed mother to daughter longer than anyone could remember.

My mother's treasured silver held pride of place on the black walnut table in the banqueting hall: a large, handsome room with a vaulted ceiling and a floor that featured a mosaic depicting Bellerophon riding the winged horse Pegasus and killing the Chimera with a flaming spear. This scene occupied the center of the room and was surrounded by a circular braidwork border picked out in red, black, white, and brown tesserae and, in each corner of the room, a likeness of one of the Four Seasons.

On frigid winter evenings I would lie on my stomach on that wonderful mosaic and feel the delicious warmth seeping up from the hypocaust beneath. The floor above the hall was given to sleeping rooms for ourselves and those few servants my mother would suffer to abide in the house.

Our villa was called Favere Mundi, an apt name for one of the most pleasant places in the whole of our island realm. It was built in the traditional manner: a low, hollow square
with a red-tiled roof surrounding a central courtyard that contained a pear tree, a fountain, and a statue of Jupiter in repose. As a child I thought the statue bore the likeness of my grandfather. Scarcely a day went by that I did not run to greet the image. “Hail, Potitus!” I would cry and smack the carved marble limbs with my hands to make him take note of me. But the frozen, sightless gaze remained fixed on higher things, perpetually beyond heed of the merely mortal and mundane.

Two long wings on either side of the enclosed square contained the workrooms: one each for wood, leather, and cloth and one where our candles, lamps, and rushlights were made. Between the wings rose the main section of the house, comprising two floors; the lower floor was given almost entirely to the great hall, and the upper opened onto a roofed gallery which overlooked the court.

Like my father before me, I was born in my grandfather's house. We were wealthy people, noble Britons, and our villa near Bannavem Taburniae lacked for nothing. Sixty families lived on our estate and worked our lands. We grew grain to sell in the markets of Maridunum, Corinium, and Londinium; we raised cattle and sold to the northern garrisons—Eboracum and beyond; we bred horses for the
ala
, the mounted auxiliary of the legions. Harvests were bountiful; the land prospered; our labor was rewarded a hundredfold.

Wine from Aquitania, woven cloth from Thracia, Neapolitan glass, Macedonian olives, pepper, oil—all these things and very much more were ours. We lived well. No senator born in sight of the Palatine Hill lived better. It is but one of the many follies of luxury which lead men to believe that plenty now is abundance always and fortune is everlasting. Pure folly.

My grandfather was still alive when I was born. I remember white-haired Potitus, tall and straight, towering in his dark robes, striding with a face like thunder down the oak-lined avenue leading from our gate. He was a presbyter, a priest of the church—not well liked, it must be said, for his
stern demeanor frightened far more than it comforted, and he was not above smiting obstinate members of his flock with his silver-topped staff.

That aside, he was not overstrict in his observances, and no one ever complained about the length of his services. Unlike the tedious priests of Mithras and Minerva—so careful, so exact, so smug in the enactment of their obscure rituals—old Potitus saw no need to weary heaven with ceaseless ceremony or meaningless repetition. “God knows the cry of our hearts,” he would say, “before it ever reaches our lips. So speak it out and have done with it. Then get about your business.”

My father, Calpurnius, did just that. He got on with business. In this he displayed the remarkable good sense of his British mother and refused to follow his father into the priesthood. Industrious, ambitious, aggressive, and determined—a man of little tolerance and less patience—hard-charging Calpurnius would have made a miserable cleric. Instead he married a highborn woman named Concessa Lavinia and enlarged our holdings exceedingly. Owing to his diligence and tireless labor, the increase in our family fortunes year by year was little short of miraculous. With wealth came responsibility, as he never ceased reminding me. He became a decurion, one of the chief councilmen for our little town—a position which only served to increase his fortunes all the more, and this despite the taxes which rose higher and ever higher.

Invariably, after depositing his taxes in the town treasury, he would come home complaining. “Do we need so many servants?” he would say. “They eat more than cattle. What do they do all day?”

“Certainly we need them, you silly man,” my mother would chide. “Since you insist on spending dawn to dusk with your blessed council, who else does any work around here?”

There were perhaps only a dozen servants in all, but it was my mother's entire occupation to protect them from the sin
of idleness. In this she excelled. Lavinia had all the natural gifts of a military commander, save gender alone. Had she been born a man, she might have conquered Africa.

Her sole weakness was myself. No doubt because I was the third of three infants and the only one to survive beyond the first year, she found it impossible to deny me anything. With her, to ask was to have. And I never tired of asking. I beseeched her day and night for one favor, one trinket, one pleasure after another. My days as a child were a veritable shower of indulgence. It never ceased.

Of course, Calpurnius did not approve. As I grew older, he insisted I should apply myself to books and such in order to improve my mind and build a steady character. But inasmuch as my father was ever only seen through a blurred haze of busyness, it fell to my doting mother to arrange for my education.

Here, if only here, little Bannavem showed its provincial meanness. The mild green hills, fertile fields, and sweet-flowing rivers of my homeland might have been blessed with nine separate aspects of paradise, but a decent school was not one of them. The nearest of any repute was at Guentonia Urbs, and it was a pitiful thing—full of horny-handed farmers' sons and mewling merchant boys united in the singular misfortune of being taught by witless drudges too indolent to secure better employment elsewhere.

Be that as it may, the fault lay not in Guentonia's deficiency but in my own. I was never destined to wear a scholar's cope. Difficult to say in those early years just
what
my destiny might be. Nor, as I came of age, did the augury improve. Old Potitus ceaselessly assured me I was going straight to hell by the swiftest means available. My father despaired of making his spendthrift son a prudent man of business. My own dear mother could only cluck and shake her head and gaze at me with her large, doleful eyes. “Succat, there is more to life than revel and games,” she would say, sighing. “One day you will wish you had made some account of your lessons.”

“Fair Lavinia,” I would reply, taking her hands and spinning her around, “the sun is high, the breeze is warm, and the birds sing sweetly in the trees. Who but a dullard would spend such a day scratching chicken tracks in wax when there are cups to be drunk, girls to be kissed, and silver to be wagered?”

With a carefree peck of her matronly cheek, I would be off to the village, where I would meet Julian, Rufus, and Scipio. Together we would ride to Lycanum, a market town and the nearest proper
civitas
with a garrison. Wherever there were troops, there was gambling and drinking and whoring aplenty.

My friends, like myself, were sons of noblemen. Julian's father was a magistrate, and Scipio's family owned the tax-gathering warrant for the town and outlying region. It was, of course, a source of deep embarrassment to my grandfather the priest that I should be openly consorting with tax collectors.

But what could he say? “One of our blessed Lord Jesu's best friends was a tax collector,” I would tell him, “and
he
became an apostle. Who knows? Maybe I shall become an apostle, too!” Then off I would go to some fresh excess, some greater, more debauched dissipation, as fast as my feet could carry me.

Usually we would hie to the Old Black Wolf, a public house serving indifferent meals and rude lodging to unwary travelers, but also beer to the local population of sots and soldiers—marvelous beer which they cellared in oaken casks in underground vaults so it became cool and dark and frothy and vastly superior to the thin, tepid brew made at home. Like the town and the garrison it served, the poor decrepit Wolf was now much reduced from its former glory. It was ill thatched and filthy with smoke from the half-collapsed chimney, and the floorboards sagged and creaked; the perpetually muddy yard stank of stale beer and urine, and the presence of soldiers meant it was always hot and crowded, reeking of sweat and garlic, and deafeningly loud.

To us it was a palace.

Many a night we plumbed the depths of youthful bacchanalia—nights of roister and revel which will forever live in my memory. It was there I lost my virginity—the same night I lost my purse in my first game of dice. It was there I discovered the ways of the world and men in the talk around the Wolf's bare boards. It was a haven, a sanctuary. We were there on the night I was taken, and even now I cannot help but wonder what might have happened if I had stayed.

H
AIL
, S
UCCAT!” CALLED
Rufus as I came into sight. He and Scipio were waiting for me in the shadow of the column beside the well in the center of the village square. Rufus was sitting on the edge of the well, kicking his heels against the moss-covered stone; Scipio was leaning against the column, flicking the reins of their horses back and forth against the side of his leg.

The two were near enough in appearance to be brothers—both slim, dark, and fine-featured; Rufus was slightly older and taller, more gregarious and daring, while Scipio cultivated that air of wry detachment much admired by the aristocratic and intellectual elite. Their clothes, like mine—long, loose linen tunics over short
bracae
, or riding trousers, good leather belts and high riding boots—resembled those favored by the legionaries in appearance but were of the finest cloth bought from merchants who traded in Gaul, where the best quality was to be obtained. In fact, we all prided ourselves on our exquisite taste in clothing. No one ever saw more preening, self-congratulatory peacocks.

It was past midday in high summer; the sun was beginning its long, slow, sinking decline into the west, and Bannavem's little square was empty save for the mangy, half-blind dog that lived in a hole behind Hywel the butcher's stall.

“Does your father know you've taken his best horse?” inquired Scipio, regarding the fine black with languid envy.

“Calpurnius, as we all know, is generous to a fault,” I replied, reining up before the well. “When he learned we were to go a-roistering, why, the man insisted I take Boreas here. I tried my best to talk him out of it. ‘No, father,' I said, ‘I will not hear of it. Just let me take old, lame Hecuba and I shall be perfectly happy.' And do you know what the man said?”

“No,” sniffed Scipio, feigning disinterest. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘No son of mine will be seen riding a broken-down plow pony. It is Boreas for you, my boy, or I shall never be able to hold my head up in the council again.'” I reached down and patted the proud black's shapely neck. “So, here we are. But where”—I glanced around—“is Julian?”

“He should be here,” agreed Rufus. “We have waited long enough. I say we go.”

“Leave without him?” said Scipio. “We can't do that. Besides, we'll need his luck if we are to win back our losses from last time.”

“It is
because
of his inscrutable luck that we lost so much
last time
,” answered Rufus. Snatching the reins from Scipio, he made to mount his horse.

“Here!” shouted a voice from across the square. “You there!”

I turned to see Hywel the butcher charging out into the square. He was a squat, bull-necked Briton, as wide as he was tall. “Greetings, my good man,” I called, adopting my father's tone of breezy condescension, “I trust that the gods of commerce have blessed your tireless industry with the wealth you deserve.”

He glared at me dismissively and shook his fist at us. “You know you cannot bring horses into the square! Clear out!”

Little Bannavem Taburniae entertained ideas far above its humble station. It seemed someone had heard that a few of the great market towns had, for purposes of cleanliness and decorum, banned horses from their squares and market
places, and so the practice was instituted for our village, too. We, of course, happily ignored the prohibition.

“Just look at that!” shouted Hywel, pointing at the pile of fresh dung Scipio's brown mare had dropped onto the dusty flagstones. “Just look!”

“What, have you never seen horse shit before?” inquired Scipio idly.

“You are going to clean that up!” cried the butcher, growing red in the face. “We keep an orderly square in this town. You are going to clean it up now.”

“Since you put it that way…” said Rufus. He glanced at me, and I recognized the wicked glint in his eye. Stooping to the green clods of manure, he took a soft, ripe ball into each hand, then straightened, and, with a quick flick of his wrist, lobbed one right for the butcher's head.

“Here, now!” squawked Hywel, ducking as the first missile sailed past his ear. The second struck him on the chest just beneath his chin. “Here!”

“Stand still, rogue,” said Rufus, stooping for more dung. He sent two more handfalls whizzing straight to their target. Each left a satisfying green splat on the butcher's round chest.

Hywel back-stepped quickly, hands waving before him. “Here! Stop that, you!”

Scipio quickly joined in. The dung flew, and the little butcher could not elude the stinking clods swiftly enough. He dodged one missile, only to have another strike him full on the face. “Now! Now!” he spluttered, wiping muck from his cheek. “I warn you, I am telling the council about this!”

“My father
is
the council,” I replied. “Tell him whatever you like. I am certain you will find a sympathetic ear for your complaint despite a distinct lack of witnesses.”

Another clod splatted onto his mantle. Realizing he was beaten, the butcher beat a graceless retreat under a heavy hail of horse manure. He disappeared into his stall, cursing us and shouting for someone—anyone—to witness the outrage against his honest and upright person.

“Let's leave,” said Scipio, glancing guiltily around the square.

“
You
can go around smelling like a stable hand if you like,” replied Rufus coolly. “
I
am going to wash.” He pulled up the leather bucket from the well and proceeded to wash his hands in it. When he finished, he dumped the water into the street, then mounted his horse and, with a snap of the reins, cried, “Last one to Lycanum buys the beer!”

“Wait!” shouted Scipio. Caught flat-footed with the leather bucket halfway down the well, he dropped the rope, vaulted into the saddle, and pounded after us. Rufus reached the archway first and galloped through. I followed, emerging from the square and onto the track just as Julian came ambling up on his brown mare. “After us!” I shouted. “We're for Lycanum. Scipio's buying the beer!”

Julian slapped life into his mount and fell in behind me, ignoring Scipio's cries to wait and allow him to catch up. We struck the single track leading out from the village and flew toward the high bluff on the edge of the town where it joined the coast road. Upon gaining the top of the hill, we came in sight of the sea, gleaming like beaten brass beneath the clear, cloudless sky.

The day was warm, and it was good to let the horses run and feel the wind on our faces. Rufus led a spirited race all the way to Lycanum, stopping only when he reached the town gates. Unaccountably, one of the doors was closed, and there were soldiers from the garrison standing in front of the other.

“What goes here?” called Rufus to one of the legionaries.

“There is report of a raid last night near Guentonia,” replied the soldier.

“Guentonia?” wondered Rufus. “That is miles away.”

The soldier shrugged. “The magistrate has warned everyone to be on guard.”

“Well, we saw nothing on the way just now,” put in Julian. “Guentonia is full of old women.”

“Just so,” replied the soldier, waving us through.

“Come to the Wolf later,” called Rufus, moving on. “We will give you a chance to win back your losses.”

The soldier laughed. “If your purse is that heavy, friend, you can count on me to help lighten the load, never fear.”

We clattered through the gate and into the town. Because it was market day, the streets were thronged with buyers, sellers, and their various wares. We moved through a herd of sheep being led by an old man and a ragged boy. Oblivious to what was going on around him, the toothless yokel stepped right into the path of Julian's horse and was knocked down. He rolled on his backside and came up shouting unintelligibly and waving his stick.

“Imbecile,” scoffed Julian. He wheeled his horse and scattered the sheep, which sent the old rustic into a paroxysm of rage. His boy darted after the panicked beasts, and we rode on deaf to the shepherd's ranting.

The market square swarmed with cattle and pigs making a foul stench in the hot sun, so we did not linger but went straight to the Old Black Wolf for the first of many good pots of beer that day. The revered institution was owned by a Briton named Owain, a jovial fellow who knew neither stranger nor enemy in all the world. Possessed of a naturally tolerant and magnanimous nature, his fat, round face beamed with good pleasure on all that passed beneath his serene, slightly nearsighted gaze. Fond of barking halfhearted orders and threats to his hirelings, he governed his tumbledown empire with all the bluff and bite of a hound grown comfortable and complacent in its warm place by the hearth.

His wife, a sturdy matron of indeterminate years, wielded the real power behind the throne. She clumped around the Old Wolf in wooden shoes, her long gray hair bound in a dirty white cloth, deploying her sloven brigade of gap-toothed handmaids. With a word or a wink, cups and bowls were swiftly filled and loose order maintained within the rowdy precinct of the inn. Her name might have been Bucia, or perhaps Becca—I never knew which—and though she
had a face like a ripe prune, she also brewed the incomparable black beer, which made her a goddess in our eyes.

We arrived, as was our custom, clamoring for drink and sausages. “Good lads!” cried Owain, wiping his hands on the damp, greasy scrap of apron hanging from his broad belt. “Splendid to see you again. There is beer aplenty, of course, but sausages we have none.”

“No sausages?” wondered Rufus in feigned anguish. “Man, what are you saying? We have ridden all the way from Bannavem on the mere promise of one of your incomparable sausages. What are we to do?”

“What am
I
to do?” countered Owain genially. “They come from Guentonia, you know. And there has been no sign of a delivery today.”

“But it is market day,” offered Julian, as if trying to help the misguided fellow see the error of his ways.

“My point exactly, sir,” replied the innkeeper. For some reason, even though we were all of an age together, Owain always regarded Julian as the elder and more sensible of the four. In truth, he was neither. This disguise of respectability masked a dissident spirit; it was one of Julian's best deceits. Nevertheless, Julian was “sir” while the rest of us were “lads.”

“They come from Guentonia, as you—”

“As
you
never tire of telling us,” said Rufus.

“Right you are! They are saying the fortress there was attacked last night,” continued Owain.

“We saw no sign of any trouble along the way,” Scipio informed him. “No doubt the gatemen saw their own shadows and pissed themselves with fright.”

“No doubt you are right.” The innkeeper sighed. “As for the sausages…well, the little darlings were to have been here this morning, and I am still waiting.”

“A sorry state of affairs,” agreed Rufus.

“There will be chops later, if you like,” said Owain, moving to the back of the inn. “But now I will send the beer.”

He disappeared into the fuggy darkness of the kitchen, and we heard him calling for someone to come and serve his
thirsty guests. A few moments later a round-hipped young woman appeared with a pottery jug and a stack of wooden cups. She dropped the jug onto the board with a thump and clacked down the cups, eyeing Julian with a peculiar warmth in her cowlike gaze.

“Why, hello, Magrid,” Julian said. “And how is my buxom, broad-beamed beauty?”

She smiled with dumb modesty. “Hello, Julian,” she said, pouring a cup and pushing it toward him. “I've missed you these past days.”

“For me the absence has been torture beyond enduring. But pine no more, my dainty flower, for the love of your life is here.”

His flattery was as thick as it was insincere. Nevertheless her smile broadened, and the light came up in her eyes. She glanced around furtively and bent nearer; her bosom threatened to spill from the top of her dress. “Will you come to me later?”

Julian reached out and took the top of her low-cut bodice and pulled her toward him; one overample breast bobbed free for all to see. “Not even wild animals could keep me away, heart of my heart,” said Julian, cupping the wayward breast.

She slapped at his hand and straightened, rearranging her clothing. “Wait until tonight.” She gave him a seductive smile and moved off.

“Would you bed that blowzy cow?” wondered Scipio incredulously.

“Life is short and youth shorter still. Take your pleasures where you find them,” replied Julian with a superior shrug.

“The trouble with Scipio is he finds no pleasure in anything but his own company,” said Rufus. “Not so, my virgin son?” He ruffled Scipio's hair.

“Better a crust in humble solitude than a banquet with barbarians,” muttered Scipio. Reaching for the jar, he filled his cup and one other, which he shoved across to me. “Succat understands, if you do not.”

“Of course,” I said, raising the overflowing cup. “I have
been known to utter the same sentiment myself from time to time. But tonight, my friends, it looks like a banquet with barbarians. So fill the jars, I say! And let the doxies beware!”

Rufus laughed and raised his cup to mine, adding, “Let chaos reign!”

“To chaos!” shouted Scipio.

“Chaos and rebellion!” cried Julian, lofting his cup.

We drank until the beer flowed down our chins, and smacked the empty cups on the board with a solid thump. Then we filled the cups and drank again. After a fair time Owain returned with a pile of chops on a wooden plate. We sent Magrid for two more jars and set about working our way through the chops, tossing the bones to the dogs as we went along.

We were just finishing when the first of the legionaries came into the place. There were three of them: Darius, a tall, rangy fellow with short curly hair and a scar that puckered the side of his face; Fillipio, a squat, square-headed, bluntly good-natured trooper; and Audager, a large brooding lump of a man, a Saecsen and member of one of the many auxiliary cohorts which now supplied the British legions.