Patrick (54 page)

“Greetings, my lord,” he said courteously. “I bring a message from Rome.”

He opened the dispatch box at his belt and drew out a small scroll. Thanking him, I accepted it and set it aside. “You must be tired from your journey. Stay here tonight if you like; I will have the housekeeper prepare a meal for you.”

I dismissed him then, but he did not move.

“Was there something else?”

“Sir, if you please, I am to watch you read the message and return at once with your answer.”

“Of course,” I said. “Then we had both better sit down. Dea, bring us some wine and give this hungry soldier some of your good cakes.”

Taking up the scroll again, I looked at the seal. It was a
senatorial insignia, but I did not recognize the emblem. I broke the seal and unwrapped the tightly rolled parchment. “This is from Senator Graccus,” I said. “Did you know that?”

“Yes, my lord. The senator himself gave it to me.”

While the housekeeper scurried around preparing supper, I read the message from my friend and guide. His salutation was warm but subdued, and the reason became quickly evident: Word had come from Gaul that Vicarius Columella had been slain in an attack on Augusta Treverorum; the garrison itself had been lost. The senator apologized for having to break the news this way, but inasmuch as he had been reliably informed that Lady Columella and her son, Gaius, had died in the plague it was his duty to inform me that Oriana had inherited the family property. He was certain we would want to make arrangements to return to the city in due course to register our legal claim. Further, owing to the severity of the plague and the concomitant loss of seats in the Curia, he had been empowered to offer me a praetorship—the next office higher than a quaestor—effective immediately.

So there it was. Heir to a fortune and an eventual senatorship as good as secured. A glorious future beckoned, and all it had cost me was everything.

I read the words again, and they turned to ashes in my mouth. The futility! The insane futility of it all struck me as ludicrous and obscene. What was the use of striving, of trying to make a life, when death rendered every circumstance meaningless? Whether success or failure, happiness or sorrow—all was swallowed in the grave. In light of that, nothing mattered. Death claimed everything, the world moved on, and in time, whether good or ill, all was forgotten.

I sat staring at the scroll and felt the soldier's eyes on me. I glanced up at him. “My lord?” he said. “What answer will you give?”

“Tell the good senator that Lady Oriana and her infant child have succumbed to the plague. Inform him that I also
was taken ill but am now much recovered. Tell him that I am grateful for all he has done on my behalf, but that I am better occupied here, and therefore I regret to say that I will not be returning to Rome to take up the praetorship so kindly and thoughtfully offered.”

He rose at once. “I will tell him, my lord.”

“Sit down, friend. You will eat something before you go. The fate of Rome can wait until you've finished your supper.”

The soldier thanked me and resumed his place. Dea brought out bowls of fish stew and placed them before us. There was bread and goat cheese, along with some green onions fresh from her garden. I let the young man eat a moment, then asked, “Where is your home?”

“My family is from Lusitania, my lord.”

“How long have you been in Rome?”

“Two years.”

“Before that?”

“I was at Aeminium, not far from where I grew up.”

“Have you served long?”

“Four years,” he replied, adding quickly, “It will be five in three months.”

I shook my head. Less than five years and already a member of the scholae. But what of that? I myself had become both centurion and a quaestor in less than half the time he had served. The empire rested on such young and inexperienced shoulders. I wondered how long it could last.

We talked a little more, and when he finished, he rose and took his leave. “Stay here tonight,” I offered. “It is no trouble. The house is nearly empty. You can be on your way first thing in the morning. Senator Graccus will not mind, I assure you.”

“I thank you, sir, but I must return to the port. There is a boat waiting.”

“I commend you, soldier,” I said. “May your sense of duty serve you well.”

He departed then. I walked with him a short way down the
path to see him off, then stood for a time looking at the evening sky and listening to the crickets in the tall grass. Rust-tinted clouds sailed low across the dusky horizon. The dark branches of the cypress trees above me were alive with the twitter of tiny birds fidgeting and fussing as they settled for the night. The peace of the place was a balm to me, and I needed it. Let the world go its way, I wanted nothing more to do with it. Let it go—the rank, the wealth, the much-vaunted glory, and all the vain striving that went with it…let it all go. I wanted none of it.

Until I read Graccus' message, I had not known what I would do. His question forced a decision, and as I read those efficient and well-ordered words, I knew that there was nothing for me in Rome that I desired. I did not want to be a senator. I did not want property and position. I did not want wealth, or power, or anything else that death would steal in a few years' time.

What, then,
did
I want?

A
UTUMN CAME EARLY
to the island. I watched as the harvest proceeded. Grain was reaped, threshed, and stored; fish and vegetables were dried and livestock fattened for butchering. The days drew in slowly, and more often than not, cold winds brought rain off the sea. Most days I sat in a chair beside the brazier in my room feeding twigs to the fire—much to the consternation of Dea, who brought meals only to take them away again cold and uneaten.

Graccus did not let his offer end with a single refusal. He sent two more couriers, each with slightly more urgent messages imploring me to return to Rome and take up my praetorship at once. Plague had devastated much of the city, the senator wrote, and there was a great deal to be done. A good man could advance himself with unprecedented swiftness. Come to Rome, he said, and on my return we would talk about my future, in which, apparently, the rank of vicarius was a juicy plum ripe for the plucking.

This last message was delivered in person. Senator Graccus, on his way to the emperor's winter palace on the island of Capri, stopped by to persuade me to heed the voice of reason.

“I do not wish to be a vicarius,” I told him. “I do not wish to be anything—save, perhaps, left alone.”

“But you cannot remain here forever.”

“Why not?” I countered. “I have all I need—and more besides.”

“A very great deal more besides,” he declared. “Aulus left everything to you. What about the house in Rome?”

“What about it? Sell it. Give it away. I don't care.”

“It is worth a fortune.”

“Then it will make some undeserving dog very rich.”

“And Columella's fortune—you'd give that away, too, I suppose?”

I shrugged. “Why not? I have more than I can spend now.”

“But you don't spend anything at all that I can see,” argued the senator. “You live here like a ghost, haunting the groves and shore. It is not healthy. You need to get back to work. Great things are happening in the city; opportunities abound. Now is the time to make something of yourself, and unless you seize the day, it will pass you by.”

“Good.”

“Come back to Rome,” he said, his voice and manner softening. “If you don't want to live in Domus Columella, I understand. You can stay with me until you find a place you like better.”

“I like living here, Graccus,” I told him.

“But you are
not
living here,” he said, “you are wasting away. You are dying.”

“Then why can't you just let me die in peace?”

“You cannot mean that. You are distraught.” He frowned, puffing out his cheeks in exasperation. “Well, who can blame you? It has been a dreadful ordeal, after all. Perhaps you need a little time to get over it.” He seemed to be talking to himself; he sighed, regrouped, and started again. “I am sorry. You are right. Winter here, gather your strength, and we'll talk again in the spring. There is no hurry. No hurry at all.” He rose and prepared to leave. “No hurry for you, but quite the opposite for me. I must go.”

“So soon?”

“The emperor is expecting me. We are to sail to Crete for some reason. I will call on you again in the spring.”

I saw no one else that winter and received no further communications from Graccus. The rain lashed the old tile roof,
and the wind drove the pigeons to hide up under the eaves, but in all it was a mild and fairly short season, and it was not long before the days began to lengthen once more. When it grew warm enough, I went to the graves to sit and watch the grass grow on the bare mounds. Dea gave me some wildflower seeds to plant, which I did—not because I cared one way or the other about dressing the graves but because it was the kind of thing Oriana would have done, and I wanted to please her.

For the rest, Graccus was right. I haunted the villa like a wraith: aimless, wandering, drifting here and there without purpose, without volition, stalking the grounds in a gloom of my own making and slowly succumbing to a sick and debilitating melancholy.

I saw this myself but did nothing about it. I spent whole days strolling along the seaside, listening to the waves, watching the tides sweep endlessly back and forth across the strand. What, I asked myself, was the use? Life was without meaning, and a meaningless life was mere existence—no better than that enjoyed by the snails and mussels in the tide pools, creatures that lived and died by the whims of wind and wave.

All was meaningless. Rank futility wrapped me in its bleak embrace and fed my ever-increasing pessimism on hopelessness. Despair, dark and potent, found in me a fertile field and spread its noxious spores. They festered and grew. As spring drew on, there ripened a black, cankerous fruit in my heart.

Soul-sick and inconsolable, I roamed the grounds, indifferent to all that happened around me. Whether I rose in the morning or failed to rise, bathed or did not bathe, dressed or went about in filthy rags—it was all one to me. I ceased shaving, and my beard and hair became long, tangled, and unkempt—which made Dea cluck and fret like a mother hen over a worrisome chick. She strove with me to eat and drink, but to no avail. Food had lost its savor, and the smell of it turned my stomach. I consumed enough to keep myself
alive, but little more, and I watched the bones sharpen beneath my pallid skin.

Sometimes I lay in my room for whole days without stirring, only to emerge at sundown to wander the grove and shoreline the entire evening and far into the night—sometimes failing to come in at all and sleeping under the olive trees or in the grass above the strand.

On one such night I lay awake watching the stars spin slowly, slowly in the heavens until the rising sun leached the starlight from the sky. I stared into that fiery golden disk and felt the warmth on my face as it began to pour heat and light onto the waking world. The brilliant light scorched my eyes, yet still I gazed into the burning whiteness, and into my mind floated the memory of a vow I had made in my former life.

“Three kinds of light obtain,” declared Datho on the night I stood before him: “that of the sun and, hence, fire; that of the knowledge obtained from the instruction of wise teachers; and that which is possessed in the understanding of God, which illuminates the heart, and is the true light of the soul.

“Therefore, my son, seek the True Light in all your ways; search diligently and with tireless perseverance. Take the Light as your law, your love, and your guide, now and henceforth, forever. If you would do this, answer now upon your life.”

I had stood before him and answered, “Upon my life I make this vow.”

It was a lie then, and I felt its wicked sting now. I had gone my own way, and that way had led me to this barren place: alone, miserable, heartsick, and grief-stricken, death hovering at my shoulder. It occurred to me as I lay with the sun searing into my eyes that the lie had triumphed and it was killing me.

“If there is a God in heaven,” I muttered, my voice raw with thirst and exhaustion, “hear me now: I am finished. If you want this life, you can have it. Otherwise today I die.”

I waited awhile to see if anything would happen. There came no answer—but then, I did not expect one. So it was death for me, too.

Still I endured the fiery light a little longer. At the moment when I knew I must look away or be forever blind, I turned my eyes toward the sea and, in my sun-dazzled sight, saw a tall man walking along the strand: a shadow shape only, a quavering dullness in the radiance.

I blinked and looked away. When I looked back, he was still there, and nearer. As he came closer, his form took on solidity and substance. He was dressed in a green-and-blue-striped cloak, with a red mantle and trousers of black and yellow. Around his neck he wore a torc of red gold as thick as a ship's chain; silver bracelets gleamed on his arms, and rings adorned every finger.

Under his arm he carried a leather bag, and as he strode swiftly nearer, I saw that the bag was full of parchment scrolls—innumerable letters, tightly wound and sealed. He came to where I lay and stood over me, looking down, his face lost in the radiance of the sun. I shielded my eyes from his blazing countenance.

“Who are you, lord?” I asked.

“I am Victoricus,” he answered, and, withdrawing one of the letters, he placed it in my hand. Receiving the scroll from him, I unrolled it and read out the heading of the letter. The words shimmered as if made of fire. They said:
THE VOICE OF THE IRISH
.

Even as I read out those words, I heard a cry falling from the clear, empty sky—a voice I recognized, but who? Before I could discern who it might be, the voice was suddenly joined by others, all of them calling out as one, saying, “Noble boy, noble boy! Come walk among us again!”

It was the folk of Sliabh Mis and Focluit Wood—it was Miliucc's people—calling out to me, begging me to come to them once more. That they should beseech me so pierced me to the quick.

In that instant something broke inside me. It was as if
somewhere deep within, a wall that had stood strong and tall and straight for so long suddenly cracked, and great chunks began falling from it, allowing the pent-up waters of a raging flood to surge through and into the void that was my soul.

Overcome by this flood tide of strong emotion swirling through me, I struggled to my feet. I swayed for a moment but, unable to stand, sank to my knees once more, gasping and gulping as my stony heart rent in two. Great tears welled up in my eyes; I lowered my face to my hands and wept—how long, I cannot say, but when I finally raised my head to look around, the man was gone, nor could I find any sign of the scroll—but the sound of the voices still echoed in my ears.

“Noble boy, come walk among us again!”

The tears flowed down my cheeks and neck, and I raised my face to the sun and let them flow. I wept for my poor dead Oriana and little Concessa, and for the sad ruined waste of my life. In my shame and contrition, I wept for all those I had deceived and betrayed—all the empty promises and the vows so blithely ignored. I wept for the easy deceits I used and the love I had thrown away and for the stubborn, willful blindness that forever kept me from seeing the truth.

“Truth against the world,” Pelagius had said—the axiom of the Ceile De—and I, who had never sought the truth in any way, sought it now with a broken and contrite heart. “Lord and God,” I cried, “be my Vision and my True Word. Let me walk in the Land of the Living again.”

As if in answer to my plea, the voices echoed once more in my heart:
“Come noble boy, walk among us again.”
And, oh! The sound of those Irish voices, at once so plaintive and appealing, so full of yearning, resonated deep within me. That selfsame longing struck down into my hollow, empty heart, took hold and filled it. I lay on the strand and felt it grow in me until it inhabited all my being and there was room for nothing else.

Inert, unmoving, I felt the sun soaking into my flesh, into
my very soul, restoring me with its warmth and light. I lay on the beach clinging to the slender hope that perhaps I might actually do as the voices suggested. As the sun mounted higher, this hope grew into a fragile desire. Still I held to it, refusing to let it go, and desire broadened and deepened into a swiftly solidifying determination: I
would
return to Ireland.

This is what the voices were calling me to do, and this I would do.

Up I rose, turned my back on the sea, and walked toward the house, volition returning, gaining strength with every step. By the time I reached the house, I was all purpose and conviction.

Hungry, thirsty, and full of sorrow at how I had allowed myself to sink so far, I washed myself and then bade Decimus to cut my hair and shave me; he happily obliged, while Dea flitted around the kitchen preparing a meal which she laid before me with manifest pleasure. While I ate, I thought about my decision and wondered if the Irish would truly receive me.

But, I thought, even if they did welcome me, what would I do there?

The question had only to be asked, when like a resounding echo the answer came winging back: become a filidh again.

Mystified by the obvious simplicity of the solution, I could not quite take it in. I walked around the rest of the day turning the thought over in my mind—tenderly, gingerly, like a beggar holding a rare and extremely delicate treasure he has found—unwilling to entrust much hope or confidence in it, lest I deceive myself. Even so, I could not resist fingering it, touching it, examining it from every direction. Could I? Could I really return to the life I had begun there?

Was there anything to prevent me? Nothing that I could discover. Money? I was heir to the Columella fortune. Distance? Danger? With my fortune I could travel the world in comfort and security, if not absolute safety.

Over the next few days, the determination hardened in me to return to Ireland. I would go back and take up my long-vacant place as filidh and complete my training to become a bard.