Patrick (45 page)

She made of the carriage her dwelling, emerging only infrequently. Nevertheless over the next few days I learned a fair number of her manifold dislikes—most of which clustered around her keen aversion to travel and its attendant discomforts: The road was too lumpy, the carriage too cramped and stifling, the weather too hot or too cold, the sun too bright, the clouds too dark, the food fit only for making swill for swine. The soldiers were dull, coarse, and contentious minions. Gaius was a very plague and Pylades
a tiresome bore. Soldiering was the most tedious and uninteresting occupation ever imagined. The dust would certainly kill her if the monotony failed to do so…and on and on.

“Do you think Gaius is especially intelligent?” she asked me one evening. The sun had gone down, and the heat of the day was beginning to abate; this had drawn her from her stuffy carriage. She strolled around like a queen reviewing her troops as they made camp. She stopped to watch me preparing the picket for the horses.

“Gaius?” I wondered. “You brother seems clever enough to me.”

“He is not my brother. He is my cousin.”

“Indeed?” I turned to observe her; trying to read her expression so that I might guess what lay behind her question. “Then your mother must—”

“Helena is not my mother,” she corrected airily. “My mother was Lucina; she died when I was six. Helena is my aunt; I call her ‘mother' because it pleases me.”

“Your father married your mother's sister?”

“It is a common enough practice among Roman aristocracy,” Oriana informed me, “which, if you knew anything at all, you would recognize.”

“As you say.”

She frowned with impatience. “Well?”

“Forgive my lack of prescience, Lady Columella, but what has any of this to do with young Gaius' intelligence?”

She rolled her eyes. “I should have thought that was obvious,” she replied, strolling off.

I turned to see Julian watching me. He had the reins of his mount and another, and he was waiting for me to take them from him. “She's a conceited one.” He grinned, holding out the reins. “High tempered.”

“Yes?”

“I brought the bishop's horse, too.”

“So I see.” I finished securing the picket line and proceeded to tie my own mount to it.

When I made no move to help him, he said, “I thought you would take care of it for him.”

“Oh.” I stroked Boreas' head. “Is that because I took care of it last night, and the night before that, and the night before that?”

Perplexity squirmed across Julian's fleshy features. “Are you implying something?”

“Not at all.” I gave Boreas a pat on the neck and walked away.

Taking the hint, Julian quickly tied the bishop's mount to the picket line and hurried after me. “Have I done something to offend you?”

“Why would you think that?”

“You have hardly spoken to me since we left Turonum,” he said.

“What is there to say, Julian? You are a busy priest, and I am a soldier. We each have our duties.”

He halted and watched me as I walked on. That night, as the priests and the Columella family sat at one campfire and the soldiers sat at another, I thought I saw Julian staring at me from the shadows. I know he felt my displeasure, and I know I should have been more grateful for all he had done for me.

In truth I no longer felt anything at all. I rose each day and went about my chores, I ate and slept and awoke to another day exactly like the one that went before—all without thinking much or feeling anything. I was an empty, hollow vessel; my life had been poured out in the forest. Since the massacre I had been little more than a ghost, even to myself.

What of that? It was not as if I had held any great prospects or ambitions before that day. I was lucky, to be alive. Beyond that? Nothing. I saw only emptiness stretching before me, endless and complete.

The days passed. We moved into southern Gaul, and the mountains in the distance grew imperceptibly larger day by day. We passed through scores of nameless hamlets, holdings, settlements, and market towns; sometimes we were
joined by other travelers—merchants and itinerant traders mostly—who wished to take advantage of the soldiers to journey with protection. But the only hardships were heat, dust, and the occasional thunderstorm that filled the half-dry streams through the dry uplands of southern Gaul.

As the road rose to meet the mountains, our journey slowed and stops became more frequent. I had ample time to observe my fellow travelers and overhear their conversations. Thus I eventually learned why Bishop Cornelius was so anxious to reach Rome before winter: the British heretic, Pelagius, had been found and was living on an island off the coast of Tuscia. Cornelius and his fellow bishops were eager that the documents—so painstakingly prepared—should be delivered to the pope while the priest remained within easy reach of the ecclesiastical authorities.

D
ESPITE
O
RIANA'S ABHORRENCE
of soldiers, on those rare occasions she ventured from the carriage it was to the soldiers she was drawn. She watched them at their chores or engaged them in discussions of questions she had thought up during the day. All treated her respectfully, of course, since to do otherwise with the vicarius' daughter would have brought swift, long-lasting, and painful retribution.

“You are not at all like the others,” she informed me one evening. We had stopped for the night in the middle of a high mountain pass, and I was filling the horse trough with buckets of water from a nearby spring while she strolled the hillside above. The air was clean and crisp, the shadows deepening to blue even as the sky glowed like burnished copper.

“They are real soldiers, but I think you are more…” Oriana paused, biting her lip as her brow wrinkled in thought.

“More what?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Maybe it is less.”

“That would be me,” I replied. “People often say I am more or less one thing or another.”

“Less soldierly,” she decided firmly.

“You know a lot of soldiers, I suppose.”

“Enough to know that you are
not
like any of them.”

“Perhaps not,” I conceded. “I try, of course, but conformity often eludes me.”

“Real soldiers do not speak the way you do. You speak like…” Again she paused, frowning, and then brightened.

“Like a
magistrate
.”

“Your estimation overwhelms me.”

“You see!” she cried. “You just proved it.”

“Maybe magistrates talk like soldiers,” I suggested.

“Oh, no,” she countered knowingly. “They do not. Soldiers are coarse and vulgar. All the fighting makes them callous and indifferent. They think of nothing but drinking and gambling.”

“That's true.”

“They are but a short throw from the very barbarians they fight,” she declared. “It is not their fault.”

“No?”

“They have no time for pleasantries,” she continued, pacing back and forth on the hillside, hands clasped behind her. “And they possess none of the finer things, for the life of a soldier is cruel and harsh.”

“We may not have Greek tutors and carriages,” I allowed, “but we have a bathhouse.”

“That is why it is the duty of every noble citizen to offer aid and comfort to the soldiers who protect us from the brutal savagery of the wild barbarians.”

“And the soldiers respect you for it, too. I know I do.”

“There. You see? A real soldier would not have had the least idea what I was talking about.”

“Well, I am not at all certain I understand either.”

“Oh yes you do,” she proclaimed triumphantly. “You're more like a magistrate.” The delight she took in having correctly defined me was a pleasure to behold. Her long slender body seemed to tremble from head to toe, and her countenance lit with a sudden and winsome splendor. “You understand me perfectly.”

“That I truly doubt.”

“You do!” Oriana insisted. She flitted down the hillside and perched on the edge of the stone trough. “Now, let me see…” Chin on fist, she narrowed her dark eyes as she stud
ied me. “Your father was a legate or a procurator or something, and he was killed in battle leading the militia against the invaders who attacked your city. You were just a small child but grew up swearing vengeance against those who killed him. When you grew old enough to enlist, you joined the legion, and you've been fighting barbarians on the frontier ever since. One day,” she confided in a low voice, “you will return to your estate to take control of your lands and raise a family of sons who will also become great soldiers.”

I regarded her closely. She had struck nearer the truth than she could possibly have guessed.

“Well?” she demanded.

“You are right, of course,” I answered. “But then you knew that already.”

She regarded me skeptically. “Truly?”

“You are indeed a wonderful soothsayer.”

“You don't really think so,” she said, growing petulant. “You think I'm just a foolish girl.”

“Well, since you know what I think, is there any reason to deny it?”

Instantly angry, she jumped up from the edge of the trough. “Hmph!” she snorted as she flounced away. “You're just like all the others!”

I watched her go, vastly enjoying the sight and wondering: How did she know about me? Her speculation was extremely close to the mark. I pondered this as I resumed filling the trough—until I remembered that the family often took meals with the priests. She had probably got most of what she had guessed about me from Julian.

This was the first of a lengthy series of sparring matches between Oriana and myself. Why she picked on me, I cannot say. Perhaps, as she had suggested, she found me different from the other soldiers and determined to make of me a pet she might groom and primp. I found her curiously amusing: charming and flattering one moment, outraged the next—there was no possibility of predicting what she might say or do. Pampered from infancy and indulged by a blindly
doting father who obliged every whim, her life a daily round of privilege, comfort, and ease—she knew nothing of want, adversity, or distress. Oriana was a flower raised in a walled garden, protected from every errant wind, grown to grace the palace of some rich and powerful Roman aristocrat.

As the long journey proceeded, the stringent barriers between the soldier escort and the rest of the traveling party gradually broke down. I often rode with the vicarius, the bishop, or one of the priests. With nothing else to do, we talked—often about nothing in particular. Occasionally, however, something of larger import surfaced.

One day I found myself riding behind Bishop Cornelius and Lady Helena, who had exchanged her place in the carriage for Julian's saddle; they were deep into a discussion which I overheard in snips and snatches—nothing that interested me, but apparently it exercised them greatly. All at once the bishop turned in the saddle, saw me, and said, “Look, here is Succat. Let us see what he thinks.”

“Very well,” replied Helena, glancing over her shoulder, “ask him.”

“Succat,” called the bishop, “come up and join us. I want to talk to you.”

I obeyed, reining in beside him. “I am at your service, Bishop.”

“The question is this: Do you think it advisable for priests to marry?”

“Why ask me?”

“Your grandfather was a priest.”

“He was, yes.”

“So you must have an opinion on the matter.”

“It is my opinion that if priests were not allowed to marry, I would not be here. Therefore I am inclined to regard priestly marriage in a favorable light.”

“Well said,” replied Helena with a nod. “I have been telling this puffed-up priest much the same thing myself. It is not for priests to play God when they know so little about being men.”

“‘Puffed-up?'” wondered Cornelius. “I hope you don't mean that. I simply put forward the observation that unmarried priests may devote the greater portion of their earthly allotted time to the pursuit of higher things.”

“Come now, dear Cornelius,” protested Helena lightly. “Priests are mortal men, are they not? Without the abiding presence of a good woman to help and guide, men quickly descend to the unfettered indulgence of their baser ambitions.” Her lips curved in a sweet smile as she delivered her killing stroke. “The only things I see pursued by priests are wealth and power. I strongly suspect that the reason for the church's present aversion to marriage is so that you priests are free to do as you please without having to explain yourselves to anyone.”

Turning to me, she said, “Tell me, Magonus, what sort of priest was your grandfather?”

“I honestly have no idea,” I told her. “I remember him as a stern man much given to clouting people with his stick when they transgressed.”

“Good!” She laughed. “I would have liked to have seen that. It makes a change from the usual sanctimony and simpering.”

Cornelius grimaced but held his tongue.

“My grandfather thought his flock weak-willed and largely unworthy of the honor God had paid them in dying for their sins. He always said that men loved sinning more than they loved virtue; otherwise we would have seen the Heavenly Kingdom established long since.”

“He sounds like a man who knew a thing or two.”

“He sounds, my dear friends,” huffed the bishop, “like a true Pelagian.”

“Oh, Pelagius again!” scoffed Helena. “You think everyone who disagrees with you is a Pelagian. Tell me, if you can, what you find so repugnant about this poor man that you should persecute him so.”

“No,” replied Cornelius crisply. “No, I will not be drawn into
that
discussion with you. These are weighty matters and not to be bandied about for the sake of idle amusement.”

Helena refused to be put off. “You don't like Pelagius,” she declared, “because he dares to question the practices of a priesthood grown too fat and lazy for its own good.”

The bishop frowned. “Lady Columella,” he said, “one would almost think you a follower of the noxious monk yourself.”

“And what if I were?”

“I would pray for you, of course—that you would soon realize the error of your ways and renounce his infernal teaching.”

“It is true I have heard him speak,” confessed Helena. “His greatest concern was that the high and mighty who came to him should daily practice the faith they professed in their assemblies, lest the name of Christ become an emblem of shame and derision. I found him refreshing—inspiring. A more intelligent and humble priest I am certain I have never met.”

“The devil himself has the power to beguile, Lady Columella.”

“You condemn him, Bishop. Yet you have not elucidated what you find so offensive in his teaching.”

“I do condemn him. For a start he advocates preaching the Gospel of Christ to barbarians—an enterprise fraught with danger to all concerned. As we know—and as our Holy Father the pope has decreed—to enlighten barbarians to salvation merely makes them ripe for damnation.”

“Indeed, Bishop?” I countered. “How so?”

“My son, it is obvious, is it not? The barbarian mind is not sufficiently developed to appreciate, much less understand, the loftier concepts that faith naturally entails. Lacking the humanizing influences of civilization, barbarians are foredoomed to remain savages. Introducing them to a faith they can neither comprehend nor honor is cruelty itself, for once the Gospel has been heard, men come under its judgment. The judgment for all who fall short is eternal damnation.”

“Suppose they heard and understood,” I said, “repented and went away rejoicing. What then?”

“No better,” sniffed the bishop. “They have no cities, no
government, and thus no way of ensuring a dependable propagation of correct doctrine.” He shook his head gravely. “Even if it were somehow possible that they might be persuaded of the truth of the faith, they would soon be floundering in error of every kind and wholly unable to extricate themselves.”

“Better they should die in ignorance,” I replied, taking up the thread of his argument, “than grasp at a salvation they can never possess.”

“Precisely!” said the churchman. “Some vessels, as we know, are made for destruction.”

“I beg your pardon, Bishop,” I said, “but you know precisely nothing about the barbarian mind. You have no idea what they may be capable of comprehending.”

“I can see where you might hold such beliefs,” he said, taking on an air of superiority. To Helena he said, “Our friend Succat spent some time among barbarians. Such close familiarity has addled his perceptions.”

“If you mean I know how they think and what they might be able to understand, I do freely confess it. You will find among them men as intelligent and discerning as any to be found in the more civilized nations.”

“You hold a most passionate view,” remarked Lady Columella. “How long did you live among the barbarians?”

“Seven years,” I told her. “I was taken captive in a raid and made a slave to an Irish king.”

“Seven years is a long time, Bishop. It would seem our friend had ample opportunity to observe them in all their ways. Have
you
ever lived among barbarians, Bishop Cornelius?”

“Indeed no. I did, however, serve for many years in the north of Britain, where barbarians were not unknown.”

“I see,” replied Helena. “So it would seem that Centurion Succat's convictions have a sound basis in experience, while yours are mere conjecture.”

“I protest,” the bishop spluttered. “I do think your assessment harsh and simplistic.”

“Be that as it may,” continued Lady Columella, blithely impervious to his objection, “it seems to me that you would do well to listen to this man and heed him.”

“I am happy to consider your views, of course, but you must admit—” began the bishop.

“Further, from what I have seen, the Christian priests of Rome are interested in nothing so much as protecting their lofty and influential position and fomenting nonsensical feuds with anyone bold enough to oppose them. I think they would be far better employed preaching the good news to the barbarians. They might even learn a useful thing or two.”

“You are entitled to your opinion,” declared the bishop stiffly, adding, “an opinion shaped by the rebellious Pelagius himself, no doubt.”

“You see?” crowed Helena. “I offer a contrary opinion and you instantly condemn the same as heretical simply because it differs from your own. That is hardly fair, I must say.” She turned to smile at me before directing a last blow to the bishop. “Perhaps you might cultivate some of the tolerance shown by our dear friend Succat. Of any of us, he alone would have ample justification and knowledge to judge the barbarians, yet he does not. I think that indicates an admirable fortitude of character.”