Roma Mater (20 page)

The other stopped, blinked, and shuffled forward. ‘What would ye?’ he asked. His Latin had a heavy Redonic accent. ‘Be ye a believer?’

‘I am, sir, though only a catechumen.’

‘Well, ye’re young yet. Can I help ye, brother in Christ? I be Prudentius the deacon.’

Budic declared his name and origin. Too bashful to seek higher, he asked, ‘C-could I see a priest?’

‘Priest?’ The old man blinked. ‘Haven’t got any priest. What for? How big d’ye think our congregation be? I only get the name of deacon because I’m baptized and have time to help out with the chores. All the rest of the believers are busy making their livings.’

‘Oh. Then the bishop? If I may?’

‘Haven’t got a bishop either, not here in this nest of heathens. Eucherius is the chorepiscopus. I’ll go ask if he can see ye just now. Wait.’ The man went off. Budic shifted from foot to foot, gnawed his thumbnail, stared into the sacred room he must not enter before he himself had received baptism. That wouldn’t likely be for years and years –

The oldster reappeared. ‘Come,’ he said, and led the way through a door in the original transverse, marble wall on the left. Having followed a corridor past an unused space, they reached another door. The deacon signalled the soldier to go in.

Beyond was poverty huddled in what had been opulence. The chamber where the pastor made his home, once the temple treasury, was too big for him. However, decent if modest furniture occupied a part, and a threadbare carpet warded off some of the chill. Windows were glazed. At the north end, where a smokehole had been knocked through the ceiling, was a kitchen, crude but sufficient for cooking. Soot from it had obliterated ancient decorations above and had greyed murals. Several books rested on a table, together with writing materials: pens, inkwell, thin slabs of wood, a piece of vellum off which earlier notations were scraped.

Budic halted and made awkward salute. Two people
sat on tall stools at the table. That must be why the deacon had questioned whether the chorepiscopus would receive a new visitor. One person was a short, frail-looking man, grey, Italianate of features, stoop-shouldered in a robe much darned and patched. He blinked nearsightedly and smiled uncertainly. ‘Welcome,’ he said in Latin.

‘Father –’ Budic’s voice entangled itself.

‘I stand in for the bishop, your proper father in Christ. But let me call you “son” if you wish. My name is Eucherius. Where are you from?’

‘I am … I am a legionary … of those who follow Gratillonius, he who is your King. My name is Budic.’

The pastor winced and signed himself, as many Christians had taken to doing. The woman across from him turned and asked in a husky, excited tone: ‘A man of Gratillonius? Do you have a message from him?’ Her Latin was excellent.

‘No, honourable lady,’ faltered Budic, unsure how to address her. ‘I came on my own account. Father, having leave today, I inquired my way here. We were long on the march. We got no time for anything but hasty private prayers. I’ve much on my soul, to confess and repent.’

‘Why, of course I’ll hear you.’ Eucherius smiled. ‘You come like the flowers of the very Paschal season. But you have no more need to hurry. Join us. I imagine you too, Lady Bodilis, would like to know this young man better. Eh?’

‘I would that,’ said the woman.

‘Budic,’ said Eucherius, ‘pay respect – not religious, but civil – to Queen Bodilis of Ys.’

Queen! A woman of the infamous Nine? Yet … a woman of the centurion’s? Dazedly, Budic saluted her.

She was a handsome woman, at least: tall, well-formed, singularly graceful in her movements. Dark-brown, wavy
hair lay braided around features blunt-nosed, wide in the cheekbones, full in the mouth. Her eyes were large and blue under arching brows. The gown she wore was of rich material, soft green in colour, sleeves worked with gold thread, its leather belt chased in undulant patterns. A silver pendant in the form of an owl hung on her bosom.

‘You can take a goblet from yonder shelf.’ Eucherius pointed. ‘Come share this mead that my lady was so generous as to bring for the warming of these creaky bones. Don’t be surprised. She and I have been friends since first I came here, and that was ten years ago, was it not, Bodilis?’

A fit of coughing seized him. She frowned in concern, reached over to clasp his hand. Budic fetched a wooden vessel for himself and diffidently took a third stool, one of the ordinary low sort from which he would have to look up at the others. Bodilis gestured at the flagon. Well, a queen – whether or not she was a heathen priestess – wouldn’t pour for a common soldier, would she? Budic mustered courage and filled his cup.

Bodilis smiled at him. This close, he saw fine lines crinkle at the corners of eyes and lips. ‘We share no faith, the pastor and I,’ she explained, ‘but we share love of books, art, the wonders of earth and sea and heaven.’

‘Queen Bodilis has been more than a companion in my isolation,’ Eucherius wheezed when he was able. ‘She saw to it that I got proper furnishings and enough to eat. The pagan Kings had done nothing about that, and – and there are no more than a score of Christians in Ys. Otherwise this church serves what transient Gauls and sailors are believers. My predecessors dwelt in wretchedness. I trust that speeded their salvation, but – but – Hers is a noble soul, my son. Pray that she someday see the light, or that God will reveal it to her after she dies.’

Sardonicism tinged Bodilis’s smile. ‘Beware,’ she said. ‘Do you not skirt heresy?’

‘The Lord forgive me. I must remember – ’ Eucherius gave Budic his full attention. ‘When I can, I travel to Audiarna – Roman-held town, the closest, on the west bank of a river that otherwise marks the frontier – You’d not know the geography, would you? … There I make my own confessions, and obtain the consecrated bread and wine. But I cannot travel often. My health – ’

He straightened as best he could, with an apologetic look. ‘Now it’s you who must forgive, my son,’ he finished. ‘I didn’t mean to appear unmanly and chattery, before a soldier at that. It’s only, oh, to see a
Roman
again – Are there Christians among your fellows?’

Budic nodded. Eucherius beamed.

‘Drink, lad, and let us talk,’ Bodilis counselled. ‘We’ve each a bundle of news to exchange, I’m sure.’

Budic sipped. The mead was dry, delicately flavoured with blackberry. ‘I’m just a rustic from eastern Britannia,’ he demurred. ‘This journey has been my first. Well, my vexillation was on the Wall last year, but that was fighting, and garrison duty in between. Nobody told us anything.’

‘The Wall last year! Where Magnus Maximus rolled back a barbarian midnight.’ Her tone sank. ‘Although – What do you know about him? What sort of man is he?’

‘I
am
only a roadpounder – a common legionary, honourable lady,’ Budic faltered. ‘I know nothing about great matters. It is enough to follow my centurion.’

‘But you heard talk,’ she said fiercely. ‘You are not deaf.’

‘Well, camp and barracks are always full of rumours.’ Budic attempted evasion. ‘The lady is very well informed about Rome.’

Bodilis laughed. ‘I try. Like a snail reaching horns out of the shell into which it has drawn itself. Word does
come in. I’m here today to share with Eucherius a letter lately arrived from Ausonius. He too hears talk.’

‘Let us get acquainted,’ the chorepiscopus urged.

His story soon emerged, as glad as he was of fresh company. He was a Neapolitan who, after attaining the priesthood, had been sent to the school of rhetoric which Ausonius then maintained in Burdigala, for he showed promise. Exposure to ancient philosophers and to the attitudes of his teacher bred in him a doubt that man since Adam is innately depraved – especially new-born children. When he expressed such ideas on his return home, he was quickly charged with heresy, and had no influential clergyman to argue on his behalf. Though he recanted, his bishop afterwards trusted him with no more than the work of a lowly copyist.

Then it chanced that that bishop received a letter from his colleague and correspondent in Gesocribate. Among other things, the writer lamented that the ministry at Ys had fallen vacant some time ago and there seemed to be no man both competent and willing to take it over. Thus the Church had lost even this tenuous contact with the city – the comings and goings of its traders were altogether unmonitored – and there was no guessing what the powers of darkness wrought around the Gobaean Promontory.

The Italian bishop wrote back proposing Eucherius, and this was agreed to. The feeling among Eucherius’s superiors was that in the midst of such obstinate pagans any errors into which he might again stray would make small difference, while he ought to administer the sacraments sufficiently well to whatever few Christians came by. Also, serving in yonder post would be an additional penance, good for his own soul.

Hence he was elevated to chorepiscopus –’country bishop’, as slang put it – with authority to govern a church, teach, lead services, give Communion and last
rites, but not to baptize or consecrate the Bread and Wine.

Reaching the city, he learned the language, but remained lonesome, not so much scorned as ignored, until Bodilis’s desire for knowledge brought him and her together. She tried to get him membership in the Symposium, the gathering of thinkers at Star House, but the vote failed. For his part, he put her in touch with Ausonius, and those two exchanged letters even though the poet had since joined the Imperial court and attained to a consulship.

Eucherius’s own correpondence was perfunctory, confined to his ecclesiastical masters. Beguiling his empty hours was the labour of a treatise on the history and customs of Ys. These had come to fascinate him as greatly as they appalled him; and – who knew? – one day the information might help a stronger man guide this poor benighted people back from the abyss.

Tears stung Budic’s eyes. ‘Father,’ he blurted, ‘you are a soldier too, a legionary of Christ!’

Eucherius sighed. ‘No, hardly.’ He shaped a wan smile. ‘At best, a camp follower, stumblefooted and starveling, always homesick.’

‘I hear it is lovely at Neapolis,’ Bodilis said low to Budic. ‘Hills behind and a bay before, utterly blue; the old Grecian city nestled between; and that Italian light and air about which we can only dream here in our grey North.’

‘We must forsake this world and seek our true home, which is Heaven,’ Eucherius reproached. Another spell of coughing racked him, more cruel than the first. He put a cloth to his mouth. When he laid it down, the phlegm on it was streaked red.

3

Eppillus having given them leave, Cynan and Adminius set off to see a little of Ys and sample its pleasures. For guide they had Herun, a young deckhand in the navy. They had made his acquaintance at Warriors’ House, where the legionaries were quartered together with men of the professional armed service. Those of the latter who were not on duty or standby generally stayed at home, but for the present the Romans had no place else to sleep than the barrack.

While at liberty one wore civil garb, and no steel save a knife whose blade length could not exceed four inches. Adminius thoughtfully tucked a cosh under the tunic he hung on his wiry frame. Cynan was gaudier in the clothes of his native Demetae, fur-trimmed coat, cross-gartered breeches, saffron cloak flapping in the gusty air; from his left shoulder a small harp hung in its carrying case. Herun was attired in Ysan male wise, linen shirt, embroidered jacket open to display a pendant on his breast, snug trousers. The predominant Celtic strain in him showed on big body and freckled face; the beard trimmed close to his jaws and the hair drawn into a horsetail down his neck were coppery.

‘Methought we’d go around by Aurochs Gate and Goose Fair, thence wend north for the Fishtail,’ he said, slowly and carefully so as to be understood. Thus will you pass some things worthy of a look ere we settle down to carouse.’

That sounds well.’ Adminius turned to Cynan and translated into Latin. Meanwhile the three dodged through the traffic on Lir Way and took a street quiet and
narrow which wound among the abodes of the wealthy.

‘You’ve seized on to a mickle of our language in the short span you’ve had,’ observed Herun.

Adminius grinned his snaggle-toothed grin. ‘A cockroach scuttling about the docksides of Londinium ‘ad better be quick, if ‘e’d not get stepped on,’ he replied.

‘Mean you that yours was a hard life?’

‘Well, my father’s a ferryman on the River Tamesis. Early on, the count of ‘is brats began to outnumber the count of ‘is earnings. From the time I could walk, I scrabbled for whatever I wanted, over and above my mother’s boiled cabbage. That was a lawless as well as a poor quarter, but on the same account, chances would come now and then. To snatch them, I ‘ad ter be able ter understand men from around ‘alf the world, it seemed. So I got a sharp ear and tongue.’

Herun frowned, labouring to follow. As yet, Adminius perforce spoke haltingly, with a thick and unique accent, using many words that might be common elsewhere in Armorica but were strangers here. It helped that the mariner had encountered some of them on his travels. Patrolling widely around the peninsula, sailing convoy in periods of special danger, Ysan warcraft often put in to rest or resupply. They usually chose small harbours where there were no Imperial officials to encumber transactions.

‘At length you enlisted?’ Herun guessed.

Adminius nodded. ‘I’d made enemies in Londinium. Besides, the legionary’s life is no bad one, ‘speci’lly when you’re good at scrounging and at slipping through cracks in the rules.’

‘What are you gabbling about?’ demanded Cynan.

Adminius returned to his kind of Latin: ‘Aow, nothing but my biography. Don’t fret. You’ll soon be slinging the lingo too.’

Cynan’s dark features stayed fixed in a scowl. ‘Maybe
then those warlocks won’t strip my purse – when I’ve learned how to counter their spells.’

‘Now, now, don’t sulk. It was an honest game. The dice just weren’t friendly ter yer. I took my share.’ Adminius jingled his own pouch. Like Rome’s, the Ysan armed services were paid in coin as well as in kind. Most of what he had were sesterces, of depleted worth but preferable to bagsful of nummi. They would serve for such minor dealings as an evening on the town. ‘And I’m not the chap that won’t stand a chum a treat.’