The Forest House (58 page)

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Suddenly the sunlight was blotted out. Senara looked up to behold the Roman she had met at the house of the hermit the year before. Later it seemed altogether symbolic to her that he should stand between her and the sun; but she did not think of that then.

"I have seen you before, haven't I?" he asked.

"At Father Petros's hut," she said, blushing. One of the children awakened and stared at him with owlish eyes. She had not seen him at any gathering of the small group of local Nazarenes; but then, living as she did actually within the Forest House, she was not able to go there very often. She had gone the first time from curiosity, and later because the Roman tongue seemed somehow a link with her dead mother, and finally, because she found comfort there.

The handsome Roman was still regarding her. He was younger than she had thought at first, and she liked his smile. "Where are you bound, maiden?"

"To the house of Macellius Severus, sir; these girls are to be given into his care -"

"Ah, so these are the children." For a moment he frowned, then the quick smile once more lit his eyes.

"We are well met, then. I am myself bound there; may I be your guide?"

He reached out one hand, and the older girl placed her small one within it, smiling up at him.

She looked at him a little dubiously, but he swung the child up to his shoulder, and hearing the little girl's laughter, Senara decided that he must be of a kindly nature after all.

"You hold her as one well used to children, sir," she-said, and though she asked no further, he replied, "I have three daughters of my own; I am well accustomed to little ones."

So, she thought,
he is married. Is he one of us?
After a moment she said, "Tell me, sir, are you then a member of Father Petros's flock?"

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"I am not," he replied, "but my wife is."

"Then, sir, your wife is my sister in Jesus, and thus kin to me."

His lips twisted rather sardonically at this, and she thought,
He is too young to smile so bitterly. Who
has hurt him so?

"You are very kind to escort me," she said aloud.

"It is no trouble. Macellius is my father, you see —"

They were approaching a fine-looking house near the walls of the fortress, white-washed and tiled in the Roman style. The Roman knocked on the gate, and after a moment a slave pulled it open and they passed through a long hallway into an enclosed garden.

The Roman asked, "Is my father within?"

"He is with the Legate," the man replied. "Go in and wait for him, if you will; he should be getting back just about now."

It was in actual fact only four or five minutes till Macellius arrived. Senara was not sorry to see him, for the younger of the children had wakened and begun to fret. Macellius turned them both over to a buxom and kindly slave woman who would look after them until the foster parents he had chosen for them came.

He thanked Senara, and asked her politely if she needed an escort to return.

Senara shook her head quickly. At the Forest House they thought she had taken the girls to relatives of their mother in the town. Returning with an escort of Roman soldiers would have put the fat in the fire for certain. It would have been nice, though, if the younger Severus could have escorted her home - she thrust the thought away.

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"Will I see you again?" he asked, and a little tremor of excitement ran through her.

"Perhaps at one of the services." Then, before she could make a fool of herself entirely, she slipped away through the door.

Julia Licinia never did anything by halves. One night in April she asked Gaius to accompany her to an evening service in the Nazarene temple in Deva. Though their marriage had become a polite fiction, she was still the mistress of his household, and Gaius felt bound to support her. He had considered divorce, but could see no point in hurting Licinius and his children in order to marry some other Roman girl.

He was not in sufficient favor with the Emperor to make an alliance with a family of his party, and to ally himself with the opposition could have been dangerous. Though the elder Macellius said little, Gaius knew that the conspiracy was growing. If the Emperor fell, all would be changed. It seemed to Gaius better to put off worrying about his personal future until he knew whether he had one.

Since the Nazarene temple had been, in part, purchased with the proceeds of the jewels Julia no longer seemed to wear, Gaius was curious to see what sort of value she had got for her money. By the time they set out they were quite a large party; not only Gaius and Julia, but the little girls and their nurses, and what seemed like half the household. "Why do we have to have all these people with us?" Gaius demanded, not altogether good-naturedly. He and his family would sleep that night at the house of Macellius, but his father did not have room for their whole staff.

"Because they are all members of the congregation," Julia said more pleasantly. Gaius blinked. It would never have occurred to him to question how she managed her household, but he had not realized that her zeal had led her quite so far. She added, "They will return to the villa when this is over. I cannot deny them the chance to worship."

Gaius thought it was, rather, that she would not, but he thought it wiser to say no more. The new Christian church was a largish old building near the river that had belonged originally to an importer of wine. The reek of old wine was overlaid by the fragrance of wax candles and early flowers were heaped on the altar. Rather crudely painted pictures — a shepherd carrying a lamb, a fish, some men in a boat, adorned the white-washed walls.

As they entered Julia made a cryptic sign; he was displeased to see that Cella, Tertia and Quartilla all tried to imitate her. Had Julia converted not only her servants but her daughters as well? He wondered if these Christians were in the business of undermining the authority of the home.

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Julia found a seat on a hard bench not too far from the door, and sat down, surrounded by her waiting-women and her daughters. Gaius, standing behind her, looked round to see if anyone else in the congregation was known to him. Most of the assembled worshippers seemed to be working people of the poorer kind, and he wondered how the snobbish Julia liked finding herself among such folk. Then he recognized a face: the girl who had brought Brigitta's daughters to the town. She had told him she came to the meetings when she could get away, and he realized now that one reason he had given in to Julia's request that he accompany her was a faint hope of seeing her.

A priest, closely shaven and wearing a long dalmatica, entered with two boys, one of whom carried a large wooden cross and the other a candle, and a couple of older men whom Julia had told him were deacons, one of whom carried a heavy leather-bound book in his hand. This one was a rather sober-looking man of middle years. As he laid the book on the immense lectern, he stumbled over a four-year-old child in the aisle; but rather than fleeing in terror, the child laughed up at him, and the deacon bent down and hugged the toddler with a smile that transformed his face, then handed it back to its father, a rough-handed grimy man with a blacksmith's brawny arms.

There were prayers and invocations; the congregation was purified with incense and water, all of it similar enough to a Roman ceremony that Gaius did not feel too uncomfortable, though the Latin was rather less pure. Then the priests and deacons were seated and there was a little stir of excitement as another man came forward.

Gaius was not surprised to recognize Father Petros, looking frowsy and bearded next to the others. He gazed at the collected worshippers with such intensity that Gaius wondered uncharitably if the hermit suffered from poor eyesight.

"Our Master once said,
"Suffer the little children to come to me and forbid them not; for of such is
the Kingdom of Heaven."
Many of you here tonight have lost a child and you grieve; but your children, I tell you, are safe with Jesus in Heaven, and you parents who grieve are happier than those parents who have given their children over, living, to the service of idols. I tell you that it would be better for these children to be safely dead, having sinned not, than living to serve false gods!" He paused for breath and the people sighed.

They have come here to be frightened!thought Gaius cynically.
They are enjoying the thought of their
own virtuous superiority!

"For the first of the great commandments is this: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and
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all thy soul; and the second of the great commandments is this: that thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother," Father Petros boomed. "The question arises, then: how far can a young person be held responsible if his guardians place him in the service of a heathen idol? There are Fathers in our Church who have said that all, even infants in arms, are guilty if they are present during the worship of an idol; but there others who hold that if a child's guardians commit him to serve an idol before he shall have arrived at an age of reason, then he should be held guiltless. My own feeling is —"

But Gaius did not really care what the Father's own feeling was. By this time his gaze had fixed on the far more pleasing spectacle of the girl, Senara, who was leaning forward, absorbed in the hermit's words. He had hopelessly lost the thread of the Father's discourse, but he had already decided that these Christian ceremonies were too dull for his taste; no sacrifices, no roaring exhortations, not even the drama the rites of Isis or Mithras could sometimes provide. In fact these Christian ceremonies, all told, were duller than anything he had ever heard except some of the Druidic philosophies.

Even with the girl's bright face to look at it seemed a long time before Father Petros's discourse finally rambled to its end. Gaius was looking forward to leaving, and it was with consternation that he heard that he and the other unbaptized members of the congregation were now expected to wait outside while the initiates participated in some kind of love-feast. His complaints were so loud that Julia finally agreed to leave, although she promised the nurses and serving women they might remain.

He picked up the sleeping Quartilla, and they set out for Macellius's home. But they had hardly started when Tertia began to complain that she wanted to be carried too. Gaius told her brusquely to behave like a big girl and walk; her mother's health had improved but she was not yet strong enough to carry the child, and Cella was still too small. As Tertia began to whimper, someone moved behind them and he heard a sweet voice saying, "I will carry your little girl."

Gaius would have refused, but the British girl had already picked up the drowsy child, who almost instantly fell asleep in her arms.

"Indeed, she is no weight at all," said the girl, "and I am used to harder work than this!"

"You are a true sister in Christ," exclaimed Julia. Gaius could find nothing to add to this, and so they walked along. The women exchanged a few low-voiced commonplaces, and Gaius found himself obscurely relieved that they clearly did not really know each other that well. The moon, just a few nights after full, gave them just enough light to illuminate their path. They could see the street underfoot clearly, and many of the trees were bright with clouds of misty white blossom.

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As they pushed open the gate Macellius's steward came out to meet them with a lamp. When Tertia began to stir, the British girl set her down and they stood staring at one another in the sudden brilliance.

"You must stay and join us for something to eat, since you too missed the agape," Julia declared.

"Oh, no, I cannot," the girl said shyly. "It is most kind of you, lady, but I had not leave to come; I must get home at once, or I will be missed, and then, even if I am not punished, I might not be able to come again."

"I will not keep you, then; that would be a poor return for your kindness," Julia said quickly. "Gaius will go with you. This part of the city is quiet, but before you get out of the gates, there might be some people it would not be safe for an honest and proper young girl to meet."

"That will not be necessary, Domina —" she began but Gaius interrupted, "I'll go gladly; I wanted to walk a while before I go to bed, and I can return you safely to your home."

At least he could ask her what a girl from the Forest House was doing among Christians. The answer, he decided, might be revealing. When she pulled her cloak — a dark plain one such as a servant girl in a respectable home would wear - about her closely he wondered if it was because under it she wore the dress of a priestess. Gaius took a torch; even with a moon, he knew better than to brave the streets without one, and he felt that a good light might reassure the girl. She kissed all of the little girls, including the drowsy toddler in Julia's arms, and went down the steps at his side. They passed through the silent streets without attracting any notice, but even when the last houses were behind them his companion made no attempt to put back her hood, even though the night was warm.

The silence seemed oppressive. "How long have you been coming to services at the new temple?" Gaius asked finally. n, •

"Since it was built."

"And before that?"

"When I was a little girl, my mother used to take me to meetings in the servants' quarters in the house of
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one of the city fathers whose steward was a Christian."

"But you dwell in the Forest House," he said, frowning.

"It is true," she replied quietly. "Their Priestess has given me shelter there - I am an orphan. But no oaths bind me. My father is British, exiled now, but my mother was a Roman. She had me baptized, and when I found that Father Petros was living near I wanted to learn more of her faith."

Gaius smiled. "And your name is Valeria!"

She blinked. It had been a long time since she had heard that name.

"That is the name my mother called me, but I have been Senara so long I had almost forgotten it. Father Petros says it is my duty to obey my guardians, even if they are pagans. At least in the Forest House no harm will come to me. He says that the Druids are among the good pagans who will some day be offered salvation; but I must not take oath to them. And the Apostle Paul commanded slaves to obey their masters. Freedom is of the soul, but the legal status of the body cannot be set aside, and neither can lawful oaths."