The Boat of Fate (43 page)

‘Don’t misunderstand me. This is a matter between friends.’

‘That’s all right, sir,’ he said. ‘You’ve been good to me since you came to the Province. You can count on me.’

‘I shall have to,’ I said. ‘By the Gods, I certainly shall.’ I outlined my requirement; a quiet place, preferably near the sea, to which I could retreat for a few days at a time. When I’d finished he said briskly, ‘I think that can be arranged, sir. When were you thinking of leaving?’

I stared at him. ‘Valerius,’ I said, ‘does nothing ever surprise you?’

‘Frequently, sir,’ he said. ‘But not this.’

‘Why not this?’

He hesitated, and took the plunge.

‘She’s a very lovely lady, sir,’ he said. ‘I think you’re most fortunate.’

‘Fortunate? That’s a strange way to look at it.’

He said, ‘Maybe so.’

I shrugged. ‘It seems we understand each other better than I realised.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Had you anything specific in mind?’

‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ he said. ‘I shall need a couple of day’s leave though. I shall have to cross the Sabrina.’

‘You come and go as you please. You know that already. Where is this place, in Siluria?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not. It’s down south. Bit of a ride, I’m afraid. But as it happens, it’s slap on the coast. I think you’ll find it quiet.’

‘What is it, a farmhouse?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘A temple.’

‘A what?’

He laughed. ‘A temple. To my God. Nuada the Hunter. They built it a few years ago. It’s very small. There’s a priest’s house but no priest. He hasn’t much of a following in those parts. They’ll be glad of somebody to look after it for a bit.’

I said, ‘I think I’ve heard everything now. What will my duties be?’

‘I shouldn’t think there’d be any. If anybody came it would only be to make a sacrifice. You’d have to receive them; but they wouldn’t stay. There’s no accommodation for pilgrims.’ ‘Would not the God object?’

‘No, sir,’ he said firmly. ‘Not if you’re sincere. He’s a Hunter; but he’s also a Physician. He sees into people’s hearts.’

I said gravely, ‘I’ll make him an offering.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I’d appreciate it if you would. Flesh and fruit are acceptable to him, or any produce of the fields.’

‘I’ll see it’s done. Valerius …’

‘Sir?’

Was it so very plain?’

He said, ‘If you looked.’

‘And you don’t condemn me?’

‘It’s against our faith,’ he said. ‘The Hunter will do the judging, in his good time. It would be premature for us to start now. That’s what we’re taught, who follow him.’

So it came about, a few days later, that a young Celtic prince left Censorina for the south. He travelled, dramatically enough, at dead of night. He wore a heavy hooded cloak; his hair, escaping from the cowl, flapped long and pale in the moonlight. His saddle trappings were rich; at his side hung a dagger and a short sword. The sheaths clinked musically as he rode.

I hadn’t imagined her in tunic and trews. At first I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She said, ‘Don’t look like that or I shall have to stop right now. We’ve got an awful way to go.’

It was late the following day before we reached our destination. I enquired for the temple at Vindoclavia, turned west along the coast. Folk glanced curiously at the muffled figure beside me but no comment was made. We finally came in sight of the place an hour later. The track we had been following had swung inland; now it angled back southward, towards the sea. The building, white and four-square, crowned a tall headland. Next to it was the priest’s cell. I rode towards it, across smoothly sloping grass. Beyond the temple the land broke away in a crumbling sweep to a ragged half-moon of beach. A keen wind blew from the sea, lifting our hair. The place was deserted; there were no sounds except the roll and wash of the waves, the high solitary crying of a bird.

Crearwy said, ‘It’s beautiful.’

The sleeping quarters were simple and bare. I had brought bedding on a pack animal. I unstrapped the bundles, carried them inside. She said, ‘I can’t believe it. Are we really here?’ I said, ‘We are.’ I took her in my arms; a moment later she pushed away. ‘See to the animals,’ she said, ‘or we shall never get done.’

A shallow gully, grass-grown, led down to the beach. I unsaddled the horses and picketed them, walked .back to the temple. I stepped inside. I had expected an image of the God. There was nothing; just a little altar, inscribed with his name, and two earthenware bowls. In one of them was some withered fruit. I carried them outside and scoured them with sand. We had brought food with us; the pack still lay on the grass. I took some apples, and a slice of venison. I put the bowls back where I had found them and knelt in front of the altar. Nodens, I thought. If you are truly a Physician, grant me understanding. I opened my eyes. Nothing had changed. The sun slanted through the doorway of the shrine; the sea moved gently on the beach. A bird skimmed past, mewing.

She called to me. ‘What are you doing?’

I said, ‘Asking the God’s blessing.’

‘Did he give it?’

She came and knelt beside me. She was quiet for a moment; then she looked up. She said, ‘He welcomes us.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘He’s a God of my people.’

That is one of the memories of her I love best. Her hair unbound, her eyes big and dark and happy; the bowls beside her, and the simple altar.

She said, ‘It’s time to eat.’

The place fulfilled all our needs. A spring ran from the cliffs. I brought back a flask of water. It was clear and sweet. Beside the venison there were partridges and a hare, cheese, wine; and a flagon of what she called metheglin, a drink made from herbs and honey. Later we climbed down to the beach. She wore the tunic in which she had travelled, but her feet and legs were bare. I took her, as she had intended, out among the weed and tangled rocks. I have heard men claim the earth can be made to sway. I found this to be true. Afterwards we watched the sunset turn the sea to gold. We loved again, in the dark. It seemed the sweetness of the honey she had drunk was still inside her. I fought to reach it, with my prick. I could think in such terms now, and glory in her still. The other times had been good, but they were nothing to this. She was inventive, well versed in Roman methods. Twice she cried out, her voice not muted; then she cried again. When we had finished she lay and stroked me. ‘I love him,’ she said. ‘Feel, he’s still like a rock. I could eat him.’

If my soul was with the Devil, then the bargain was triplesealed.

Sleep was like the dropping of a black cloth. I woke sometime before dawn. She was fuzzy and warm, and we joined again. Later I said, ‘Come down to the beach.’

‘Mmm .. . what for?’

‘I want to fish.’

‘I want to bathe.’

‘You’ll frighten the fish.’

‘Blow your old fish!’

I had brought a net. I cast it from a jutting spur of rock. It seemed the Hunter had been pleased with our prayers. At the second try I landed a fine silver fish. She squeaked with excitement. I grabbed the creature as it flopped and leaped, stunned it and cast again.

She sat beside me, curled in her cloak. The tide surged and sucked, boiling back from the rocks. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘another. Aren’t they beauties?’

She sighed. ‘I want to show you Dalriada. Dalriada’s beautiful.’

‘I’m sorry this place isn’t.’

‘Oh it is, Sergius, it is! But Dalriada’s . . . different.’

‘You should never have left.’

‘If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met you.’

‘You didn’t have a choice.’

‘I did really.’

‘You said your father sold you.’

‘In a way. He wouldn’t have made me go. Not if I didn’t want to. He was too proud.’

‘Perhaps he needed the money.’

She lifted her chin. ‘He didn’t,’ she said. ‘He was King of all the Isles.’

I drew the net. ‘We’ll go up now,’ I said. ‘You’ll get cold.’ We cleaned the fish and cooked them over a driftwood fire. Afterwards we walked a little, and talked. In the afternoon we rested and made love; in the evening we talked again. It was the pattern of our days.

When I think back to that time it’s the small things I remember most. I see her one morning, sitting dressing her hair. She is still naked from the sea. Sunlight from the doorway lies across her arm, the long curve of her back. The light is trapped, glowingly, by the texture of her skin. She bends her head to the pull of the comb; and the shadow of her breast, with its thrusting nipple, shakes against the stonework of the wall. Other times I hear the seethe of the wind through wiry grass, the endless slow mutter of the waves. I see the bright, surprising rise of a white cloud over the hill. I walk the rocks with their fringes of glistening weed; I smell the smoke of our fire, hear her call to me across the beach. Her voice wakes a momentary echo; the echo itself fades into the shouting of a bird.

Three days we passed, four; then it seemed we both knew, without words, that we had come to the end of our time. Her room at the villa lay empty; there was danger there, a tragedy in the making. That she had dared to come at all appalled me now. In the morning we rode back. Our lives were not our own.

I turned to stare up at the headland as we left. She reined beside me. She said, ‘You’re thinking it’s another Last Time.’

‘Yes.’

‘It won’t be. Sergius, let’s go now.’

I had been away from Corinium nearly a week. It seemed impossible that the time could have gone so quickly. I settled back into some sort of routine, not thinking too much. I spent a few days in Isca of the Silures, listening to routine complaints. Scoti were firmly established at several points on the mainland; nothing short of a full-scale expedition seemed likely to dislodge them. When, I was asked, would Britannia’s troops be returned to her? My answer to that was routine as well. I didn’t know.

In September we rode to the coast again. A year had gone by, flown; autumn was on the Province once more, that unmistakable tang of burning in the air. I was conscious of a heightened and morbid awareness. The spring behind us seemed far-off as the primal Dawn; the winter to come bulked in my mind like the death of light itself. We stayed two days. By then we were both ready to leave. The little sleeping chamber was chill and dank. Its walls streamed with water; mists hung round the headlands, seeming to magnify the fret and whisper of the waves. It was as if in some way the place had withdrawn itself; it belonged now not to us, but to the sea.

She wrote to me, briefly, in October.

C. is home. I can’t say much. I think he’s suspicious. He asked a lot of questions about you.

Lately he’s been strange. He talks to the children but not to me. If I’d given him a son things might have been different. That was all he wanted from me. . . .

Don’t write to me. I’ll write again when it’s safe. Think of me, Sergius. My thoughts are always with you. . . .

I worried over the thing. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. What that Alpine glacier of a man might do I couldn’t imagine. In the end, unwillingly, I sent for Valerius again. I’d already written a letter for him to carry. I hedged for a while before I handed it to him. He read swiftly and I watched the frown start to form. Then he set his mouth. He said, ‘Is this an order, sir?’

‘You know it’s not.’

He said tonelessly, ‘I’d prefer you to make it official.’

I said, ‘I can’t do that. Valerius, I’m worried for her. There isn’t anybody else.’

He rose, stood staring through the window. He said, ‘How long will it be?’

‘I don’t know. I hope . . . not long.’

He squared his shoulders. He said, ‘Very well. I’ll report to you before I leave.’ The door closed behind him, silently. I sat and looked at it and swore. I’d pressed him too hard, and we both knew it. But I had had no choice. For friendship’s sake he had chosen to make my affairs his own; now he was caught, as I was caught, in a web of circumstance.

I turned bitterly to the report I was trying to compile. The price was mounting. She had already cost me my peace of mind and a goodly slab of dignity. Now I had lost Valerius.

The days shortened. November brought freezing fogs, December heavy snow. It fell steadily, swathing the town, choking the roads with drifts. Waggons skidded and jammed in the streets; all traffic ground to a halt. It was the worst winter I had known since coming to the Province. Road after road became impassable, blocked by drifts. The snow still fell. The wind skirled endlessly; and the first wolves came down, howling within earshot of the walls.

Some days I spent in my room. Other times I walked to where the towers and battlements of the town glared against the yellow-grey sky. I would climb the rampart, stand staring into the murk. Somewhere out there lay Censorina, blind as Corinium was blind, and dumb. I found it hard to believe the place even existed. It belonged to summer and the light, things half a lifetime away.

I became ill. At first I thought I’d merely taken a cold. Later my face and neck swelled to absurd proportions. I burned and shivered by turns; when I tried to rise I found I could barely stand. I lay staring at the ceiling, hearing the muffled noises from the street. I had a brazier brought in. The fumes half-choked me, but I needed the warmth. I asked Petronius to try to find a doctor. He came back shaking his head. This was Corinium; there was no doctor to be had.

He had been loaned me by the office of the Praeses. He was a freedman, fat, wheedling and unreliable. I bribed him to send his wife in with some meals. The price was high, the food invariably poor. It didn’t matter much. I seldom ate it.

I waited for word from Crearwy. At first, obviously, conditions were too bad; she wouldn’t risk a courier on the trip, short though the journey was. Later the weather cleared a little. The snow, still hardpacked, froze over, making movement possible. No letter came.

The fever mounted. As always at such times, I was troubled by waking dreams. It became difficult to trust the evidence of my senses. Once Riconus’ face swam over me in the gloom. He told me beacons were alight on the roads to the south; the beacons I myself had ordered to be laid. I gave him the acting rank of Praefect, put the town’s defences into his hands. His visit, at least, was real; but at other times I spoke to Valerius and Crearwy, who were certainly not in the room. Later it seemed I was back at the temple on the shore. A white gull hung above it. I floated with the bird, tasting the cold freshness of the wind. Cloud shadows slid by on the grass; below me, sharply detailed, were the green-white draperies of the tide. I experienced again the sense of oneness, the mystic unity of all Being; in my exalted state the rubbing of each grass blade, the movement of each grain of sand, seemed invested with a significance at once cosmic and comprehensible. Later the nature of the visions changed. Once I saw Crearwy by the bank of a stream. She was naked, and stepped into the water. It rose slowly to her belly, very cold and clear. Behind her was the black bole of a tree. I glanced up, and woke with a jolt. Its arms were enormous, filling the entire sky.