The Boat of Fate (44 page)

The swellings reduced themselves. They were succeeded by an infection of my mouth and throat. The new pain was intense. Eating was out of the question; it was all I could do to sip a little wine. I sat muffled in my chair, sometimes awake, sometimes nodding into a doze. Each day was like the next. No message came; and the first doubts began to assail me, gnawing insidiously. She had found other things to occupy her mind; whatever I had thought we owned was gone.

With the realisation came a new and unpleasant awareness. I saw my involvement now not as the stuff of epics but as a blind farce, a senseless groping for what I would never own. I had maybe thought to emancipate myself, move into an adult, significant world. I had not merely failed; I was lower, in my esteem and the esteem of others, than I had been before.

It seemed my mind was infested by adders or worms. The newness and glamour of sensation faded; I saw, not for the first time, how neatly she had engineered the thing, how with every later move she had turned her own strength to account. In her security, her responsibility, she was unassailable and knew it; I was a safe toy, to be played with or discarded as she chose. I heard her voice again, sharp with anger and pride.

‘If you had children of your own, you'd understand.’

‘There's nothing wrong with my husband's manners!’

‘Oh, believe what you like. Forget it, I don't care. Just go ‘

‘My father didn't need the money! He was King of all the Isles!'

Yes, and mine had been an inspector of drains.

I muttered and tossed, hating and needing by turns. I composed the speeches with which I would rid myself of her, finally and completely; honed glittering and unrecorded barbs of rhetoric, knowing all the time I lacked the strength, that this final cage I had built for myself was too strong to break. I couldn’t go from her, and couldn’t stay. I couldn’t live, and lacked the will to die. I saw now why the Gods, if they existed, were sparing with their thunderbolts. There is a greater punishment; and it goes on for ever. I raged against her, wanting her. My thoughts became even more confused. I realised just what manner of thing had destroyed the poet Catullus. The notion brought a fresh welling of contempt; for no great verses would spout from my dissolution. I writhed in self-disgust; yet when I finally slept I perforce must dream it was with her. Later another memory came back to plague me. It was the deer again, that triple-damned creature that had somehow burned itself permanently into my brain. I saw the stone fall on its skull, the bright, sudden blood; and it was sliding, sliding back to its pit of earth. Its eyes were fixed on my face; but now, of course, they were the eyes of Crearwy.

It was too much. Anything was preferable to that. I had no right over her life, no right to wound her, no right to go or stay. And also--here again, warm and weary, the rushing resurgence--had she not proved her love? What sort of sense would it make, to risk what she had risked for a passing whim? I needed to keep faith, with her if with nobody else; for faith was all I owned. I would never, I realised, know more of her than I knew now; or she of me. This perhaps was an inner meaning of love; why men and women strive so hard to join. Physically, they achieve their aim; but their souls, by the nature of things, remain their own, unknowable. Before the One, endlessly, we are each of us alone. Bedding together doesn’t change a thing.

Later this hectic inner activity paled to one comfortless thought. Faithful or faithless, courtesan or saint, what difference did it make? We had both been lunatics together; the course we had embarked on could only end in pain. As for Censorinus, how could he not be aware? What servants existed who didn’t prattle or couldn’t be induced to speak? Between Crearwy and his wrath I had interposed one strapping young man with a sword; but he could afford to wait. Right was on his side; he could crush me, as and when he chose, with the movement of a finger.

In March, with the brightening of the days, the wolves came closer. The Scoti followed them; and Riconus moved in strength. It was a well-planned operation. There was a battle, or so I heard. Many barbarians fell. I was unmoved. I felt defeated, drained. I lay in my own private Hell. It was a strictly individual place; the Hell of insignificance, and foolishness, and failure.

A letter came. I broke the seals, without surprise. It was from Valerius.

We've had a quiet winter,
he wrote.
Not much to report on at all. I watched things pretty closely at first, as you wished. He's a queer bird all right, but there’s one thing I'm certain of: he doesn't mean her harm. It's not his way.

He left again today, for the north. I couldn't find out where. The Domina has been ill; but it's all a bit queer. She kept to her room for a fortnight; the servants weren't admitted, and Pelgea won't talk. She's about again now, but she looks like a ghost.

You must remember Pelgea. I spent most of the winter learning to speak her language; and that wasn't the only thing I learned, I don't mind admitting! I won't give you a blow by blow account, I don't suppose you'd be interested; but I hope you're not considering recalling me, I'd hate to have my head lopped off for mutiny. I don't want to be cut off in my prime . . .

There was more, in the same cheerful vein. I set the thing aside. Other despatches were arriving now. The Wall had been breached. Magnis and Luguvalium had had to fight for their lives. In the east the British Fleet had established a powerful base; elsewhere the story was wearily the same. Refugees by the score, the hundred; burned villages, burned farms, burned towns. Siluria had been devastated, from Segontium to the Deva gap. Segontium itself had fallen.

I rubbed my face. A brazier glowed in the room; as usual, my eyes were smarting. I turned to the report from Hnaufridus. No great defeats, no real victories; just the slow spread of desolation, senseless as a plague. Nothing from Mediolanum, nothing from Gaul. I put the letters down. So much for Stilicho, Master of the West.

There was a meeting, in the Curia. I attended it, dragged my shaky limbs on to the dais. The Praeses was there, with a camp-following of clerks; and the Bishop of the town, the quinquennales, duovirs and aediles. An armed guard, the guard I had helped train, surrounded the platform. Corinium, I heard, would carry on the fight; the Dobunni at least were loyal to the Emperor and to Roman ideals.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very good.’

The buds were swelling on the trees. I couldn’t think of it as spring. There was another letter, from Censorina. I opened it at once, saw Crearwy’s sloping, unfeminine hand. The next day I rode to the villa. I felt like a puppet, acting without volition.

Valerius met me. I wondered, vaguely, how he could have matured so fast. Or maybe the change was in my sight. Crearwy was waiting in the triclinium. The children were with her. Melinda ran to me. She had lost another tooth. She was keeping it as an amulet.

I stared at her when they had gone. She was still pale and her eyes looked shadowed. She broke the silence first. She said, ‘Have you been ill? You’ve lost a lot of weight.’

‘A little, yes.’ I didn’t know what else to say.

‘Aren’t I to be kissed?’

I rose. She said, ‘Don’t make it a duty.’

I kissed her. She held me, and she was shaking. I said, ‘Have you been well?’

‘Quite well. Sergius, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I did think you might be dead.’

‘But I’m not.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re not.’

This wasn’t the woman I’d lived with at the temple. She was very far away.

‘Crearwy ...’

‘Yes?’

I stopped. It was useless. How explain the waiting, and the greyness? The anger, quenched and re-sparked, hopings against hope, self-hatings, bright hot shafts of memory? Useless. Unless she understood. None of it could be told. ‘How has Valerius been?’

‘The children adore him. Sergius . . .’

‘What?’

‘I know why you sent him,’ she said. ‘It was sweet. But there was no need.’

I said, ‘You think you know why I sent him.’

These were our voices, certainly, acting out stilted lines.

Our voices; but I was as far away as she. I said irritably, ‘It’s ridiculous.’

‘What is?’

‘Us. Talking like this. Why didn’t you write?’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘What’s been wrong with you?’

‘Nothing. Who said there had been?’

‘Valerius wrote to me.’

‘It wasn’t important. Forget it.’

‘It was important to me.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘You doubt it! For God’s sake!’

‘There had to be a row, of course,’ she said. ‘As soon as you came.’

‘There isn’t any row. I was worried, that was all. How can I help if you won’t tell me what’s wrong?’

‘You! Help!’

‘Yes, me. But I was forgetting. It wasn’t my business, was it?’

‘If you put it that way, no it wasn’t!’

I said, ‘Here we go again.’

‘You only came here to hurt me. I think you hate me.’

‘It seems all we can do is hurt each other.’

‘I pity the woman who falls in love with you!’

‘I thought you had.’

‘Yes. So did I.’

‘Meaning you’ve decided differently.’

‘Oh,
bugger you! Bugger you!
’

I stopped. ‘What did you say?’

She was weeping. I gripped her shoulders. I said, ‘This is absurd.’

‘I didn’t start it!’

‘Oh yes you did. I’m not taking the blame for that.’

‘You started shouting . . .’

‘You started making love.’

‘Oh Christ,’ she said. ‘Won’t you ever let it rest?’

‘Why should I?’

She blazed at me. ‘If you want to know, I had a miscarriage. Now are you satisfied?’

I sat down. I said, ‘What?’

‘You heard me.’ She was snuffling, choking back tears. ‘Was it ...?’

‘Who else?’

‘You do have a husband.’

She stamped her foot. ‘I stopped sleeping with him. Because I wanted you. Oh …’ She shook her head, like a pony in a cloud of flies. ‘I waited and waited,’ she said. ‘I so much wanted you to come. And now ... this ... oh God ...’

I said dully, ‘Were you very ill?’

‘I filled the room with blood. I nearly died. It didn’t matter. It’s all right. Just go.’

I sat where I was. I wasn’t really thinking about anything. ‘I should have died,’ she said. ‘Then I’d have been out of the way. I tried to. But why should I? I don’t want to die ...’

I took her in my arms, made her face me. Her eyes were reddened and salty, not Crearwy’s eyes. Her breasts shook; wet tracks were on her cheeks, her hair was lank. She stared at me; then she wept a storm. I sat with her till she had finished.

Later she said, ‘We must help each other, you see. There’s nobody else.’

I said, ‘I tried to give you up. I couldn’t.’

She said, ‘I tried to reach you. When you were ill. I couldn’t. It was funny. Like a wall.’

‘It was the same with me.’

‘Sergius ...’

‘Yes?’

‘I love you. You know that, don’t you?’

I said, ‘It was the others.’

‘Which others?’

‘When I was sick. It was like a crowd. All shouting.’

‘Who were they?’

‘I don’t know. Just people. Everybody. All the ones who haven’t done what we’ve done.’

She said, ‘They don’t matter. We mustn’t let them.’

‘No. It’s our own Hell.’

‘Strictly private.’

‘Of course.’

She smiled. She said, ‘I’m better now. I’m sorry I was so queer. I’m always like this. Either up, or down.’

‘Crearwy ...’

‘Yes?’

‘I won’t make love to you again,’

‘What?'

‘Because of what happened.’

She said, ‘I never heard anything so absurd,’

‘But ...’

‘But what?’

‘What happened!’

‘Blow to what happened. I’ll take precautions,’

‘What precautions?’

‘That’s my affair. Don’t worry,’

The new campaigning season started hectically.

Tammonius wrote to tell me the Wall had been consolidated. Hard on the heels of the report news came from the south-west, the great peninsula of the Dumnonii. Beacon fires were alight; a battle fleet, the biggest seen in years, was making its way round the toe of the country, headed for Portus Adurni and the Sea of Vectis. King Niall had made his move at last, striking miles from where I had expected him at the heart of southern Britannia. I alerted Riconus, mobilised the town garrison. Corinium sprang into scurrying activity. I sent messengers north and west, into Siluria, ordering the mobilisation of all available men. I saw to my uniform, weapons and armour, spent three hours drafting a letter to Crearwy. After that there was nothing to do except wait.

That night, and the nights that followed, were the longest of my life. I had reported my readiness to Hnaufridus; soon, inevitably, a summons must come. I reflected, sardonically, that my mental turmoil had been pointless; my problems would shortly be resolved by something as rational and decisive as a sword-cut or an arrow. I had never before feared death in battle, mainly because I had never thought of it. I needed peace now, urgently, when no peace was to be had. There was nothing in sight, for Britannia or the world, but suffering and endless war.

The days dragged out, became a week. Still there was nothing. Then, at last, there was a messenger. He came at wild speed, galloping his horse through the streets. The noise he made alarmed the town as effectively as the irruption of a cohort. Before I had finished reading the despatch the Forum was crammed with an anxious mob, all clamouring to know the worst.

I read the words again. At first I hadn’t taken them in. For the first time, it seemed, God had seen fit personally to intervene in Britannia’s affairs. The messenger, a Tribune from the Count’s headquarters, jerked out a confirmation. There had been a great storm. For miles the southern beaches were strewn with corpses. The battle fleet was scattered; Niall of the Nine Hostages, paramount King of Hivernia, was dead.

I grabbed Petronius. ‘You. Quick. Out the back way. Take this to the Praeses.’ I scribbled on a pad. ‘No, first. Get this man something to drink. Have you seen the Praefect Riconus?’