by M. K. Hume
‘Father is determined that I should be married as soon as is practicable,’ Gallia translated laconically. ‘Once again, he has found the perfect son-in-law, so I’ll hate the poor man at first sight. So far, I’ve been very fortunate to remain free of his male acquaintances, but life will become difficult once a dowry is offered.’
‘Surely, marriage wouldn’t be so very bad?’ Julanna replied soothingly.
Caius had made every indication of a change in character, having become an amenable husband since the death of his mother and his flirtation with disaster. But Julanna’s slight frown was at odds with her encouraging words, for even after the passage of five months, she couldn’t bring herself to trust the young master.
‘That seems to depend on the nature of the person one marries. Believe me, dearest Julanna, my father’s choice will look like a cod.’
Both pairs of female eyes turned to follow the tall figure of Artorex as he strode down the colonnade towards the baths.
Both ladies sighed - and then burst into rueful laughter.
‘Perhaps your father could be convinced that Artorex is a coming man,’ Julanna exclaimed innocently. ‘Everybody says so.’
‘Believe me, my father wouldn’t be swayed. He is far more interested in gold coin, settled wealth and good family connections than marrying me off to a steward.’ She sighed. ‘But marriage to Artorex could never happen anyway because he doesn’t even realize that I’m alive,’ Gallia pouted.
‘I’m certain that Artorex is very much aware of you,’ Julanna assured her friend with a knowing grin.
For once, Julanna was correct. At the advanced age of twenty, Artorex was experiencing all the pangs of calf love. From the day he returned to the villa after fulfilling his duties with the missing children, the sight of Gallia’s short and curling hair had inflamed Artorex. He had admired the girl’s forward tongue and quick grasp of affairs long before Livinia’s death, but now the sight of that small head atop her narrow, delicately sloping shoulders filled Artorex with an unfamiliar hot tide of lust and, perhaps, developing love.
Thoughts of her breasts consumed him night and day, and he could visualize the rosy thighs beneath her gown. Even the briefest of conversations with her became a contest between his growing desire and an unanticipated shyness that overcame him when he was in her presence.
To ease his pain, he sought out compliant servant girls and rutted with them in the stables, but no amount of sex dismissed the hot and erotic thoughts of Gallia that ate into him by night as he lay in his spartan bed.
Of course, the whole household was aware of his plight. General opinion among the servants was that Gallia was a flighty young woman, but strong and brave, and these factors overcame the disadvantages of her birth as the daughter of a fish merchant. And so the strange prejudices of family seethed around Gallia and Artorex, while they resisted the hungers of physical attraction that were driving them together.
Artorex was not alone in his yearning. Gallia’s eyes followed his tall form wherever he went, and she dreamed of his bronzed arms embracing her and his body enfolding and dominating hers. Without the physical outlets available to Artorex, perhaps Gallia’s fires burned the hotter, for they must be hidden under the smile of a well-bred maiden. But she knew in her heart that her father would never permit her to marry a fatherless steward.
Initially, it was fortunate for the two lovesick young people that Gallicus caught a chill a bare week before his daughter was due to return to her home. The chill proved to be a fever that ran like fire through his body, burning the ample meat away from his bones and filling his lungs with fluid.
Gallia was packing, in floods of very unvirginal tears, when a courier arrived from Aquae Sulis to deliver a letter penned by her eldest brother announcing that a deadly fever had taken the city in its grip, and that Gallia should remain at the Villa Poppinidii until all danger of infection had passed. The letter stressed the seriousness of her father’s condition. In fact, she would have been on the road to Aquae Sulis, prohibited or not, had her brother not added that the house of the Gallica, as well as all other houses of infection, were locked to all newcomers by orders of the Town Council.
‘The pestilence!’ Ector intoned solemnly at supper that evening, once Gallia’s plight had been explained to him. ‘This curse has come before, usually through the ports, and over half those poor souls infected will die of it. Yet, I remember that some people are immune to its symptoms and suffer no ill effects. They remain healthy throughout its worst contagions.’
As the master spoke, the winter wind soughed outside the walls of the villa with a mournful sigh. Ector scratched his chin where his beard was whitening, a habit that warned he was about to make an announcement of some seriousness.
‘I’ve seen the fortunate survivors as they pass through the villages, continuing their trades or their business as if death had not consumed their homes. And I believe that these souls who seem so hale and healthy often bring their contagion with them, perhaps in their clothes, or even on their skins. But how can we be sure, for we can’t tell the sick man from the healthy? And we don’t know where they rest their heads or sell their wares, and so the illness spreads.’
He paused, scratched at his beard once more, and then continued as the wind rattled the heavy wooden door on its hinges.
‘The gates to the Villa Poppinidii will be closed to all visitors,’ Lord Ector decided, just a little pompously. ‘As of now, no servant may give even a dry crust to a wanderer, no matter how sad his story. No tinkers may set foot upon my lands and all contact with the village is forbidden.’
‘Artorex!’ He turned to his steward. ‘Tell Targo to warn the village headman of the dangers of the pest, and what I’ve decided. A little prevention, as your mistress used to say, is worth a mountain of cure. Targo may stay with his widow in the village or remain here, as he chooses, as may all our servants. But once they have decided where they’ll lay their heads, there they will remain until after the contagion has passed.’
No one in the villa even considered arguing with the master.
In the opinion of Artorex, the greatest advantage of old age was the accompanying experiences that came from a long life. Once Frith confirmed Ector’s explanation of the spread of deadly fevers in past years, the folk of Villa Poppinidii considered they were fortunate to have such a wise master.
Julanna survived the weeks that followed in an agony of fear. For her, the villa must be kept in a state of constant cleanliness, for the courier from Aquae Sulis might have brought the pestilence with him, and even now death might lurk in some dusty corner, waiting to kill her daughter. For once, the servants implicitly obeyed the young mistress, not because they gave any credence to Julanna’s fears but because Frith confirmed that where dirt and filth clustered, there the pestilence flourished.
Other than an orgy of cleaning, little disturbance marred the peace of the villa. But Gallia fretted and blamed her selfishness for her absence from the home of her family. In vain did Julanna assure her friend that Gallicus must be relieved that Gallia was safe outside the walls of Aquae Sulis. As an only daughter, Gallia accepted that her place was with her family and that it was her responsibility to tend to her father’s needs during his illness.
To pass time, she began to take long, solitary rambles around the fringes of the farmlands and, during her daily explorations, she found herself wandering ever closer to the edges of the Old Forest. At Julanna’s urging, Gallia’s maidservant was hard at work scrubbing every dusty corner of the villa while her manservant was assisting with the storage of autumn grain. Few at the villa observed Gallia during her walks, while even the early winter landscape, delicate with a faint rime frost, failed to assuage her oppressive feelings of guilt.
Inevitably, Gallia’s inquisitive spirit led her to enter the wood. Its impenetrable silence and brooding shadows so perfectly matched her mood that many hours would pass while she sat on a fallen tree trunk, oblivious to the mossy slimes that st
ained her skirts. The stillness was an anodyne to the bustle of the villa so that, enclosed by the lichen-draped trunks, Gallia discovered that she could think clearly in this sanctuary, free of domestic distraction.
Each day, she ventured further afield during her forays, for the frenetic labour of the villa, as it prepared for the quiet, fallow months, meant that neither masters nor servants thought to wonder where she took herself in the shortening daylight hours.
Inevitably, she stumbled upon the glade that Artorex had frequented during his youth, and she, too, sat on the ancient stone and traced the worn pattern of spirals and whorls with fingers that profoundly understood the spirit of this place better than her conscious thoughts ever could. While death seemed to live in the glade in the dying of leaves and the small things that dwelt in tree and grass, it was a death that was kindly.
‘All things must die,’ the Goddess of Death seemed to be whispering to Gallia, ‘but the sun rises, the grass grows tall again and life goes on. Season follows season, and men are like flowers who bud, bloom and fade before the earth even recognizes that they live. Stone, trees and water go on and on.’
Gallia allowed her hand to trail over the cup that had been carved into the stone. A memory of warmth from direct sunlight soothed her fingers, while her mind was lulled by the deep, restful silence of the glade.
The face of Gallicus smiled at her with kind, brown eyes, and gesticulated with a wholly Latin flamboyance as he begged her to marry someone - anyone - before she was past marriageable age.
‘I’ll marry whoever you want, Papa, if you’ll only be better soon,’ Gallia told the trees and his remembered face.
She imagined the faces of her five brothers, all of whom were older and sterner than she was, with their tribe of wives, children and grandchildren at their flanks.
‘I’ll even try to be polite to the wives of my brothers. Please, be well when I return.’
Gallia was still daydreaming in the glade when another courier arrived at the Villa Poppinidii with word from her family.
Artorex met the rider at the gates to the farm.
‘Stop, sir! This villa is closed to all visitors until Aquae Sulis is freed of the pestilence,’ he ordered grimly, but kindly, for bad times cause decisions to be made which are not within the natural patterns of courtesy. The villa had always welcomed the poorest and meanest of visitors in the past.
The courier remained on his horse and wiped his chilled face with a muffler of greasy wool.
‘The pestilence is dead, as are over half the citizens of Aquae Sulis,’ the courier reported grimly. ‘The city still reeks of funeral pyres, but no one has taken ill during the last ten days.’
Artorex shook his head in disbelief, for his ordered mind could not imagine such carnage.
‘You may well speak the truth, my friend, but I must obey my master’s orders. I regret the discourtesy of these days, which must send you back to your city without food or shelter.’
‘In truth, steward, I’d as lief be at home with my wife and children, but Gallinus, son of Gallicus, has charged me to bring a message to his sister, Lady Gallia.’
‘I will ensure that the message is passed to Lady Gallia if you read it to me,’ Artorex told the courier.
‘I cannot read, steward, but my master expected your caution, so my message has been learned.’
‘Then you may inform me of the message, good sir, and I will faithfully deliver it to the Lady Gallia.’
‘This is the message that Master Gallinus entrusted to me,’ the courier intoned formally, and closed his eyes to ensure that none of the precious words were forgotten.
‘Greetings to Gallia, sister of Gallinus, who is now the Master of the House of the Gallus. Our father has departed this world to join his ancestors, as have my son, and one daughter, four of my brothers and many other members of my family. Their shades have been honoured in the ancient ways, although in great haste as inhumation was not possible. Your absence at the funeral feasts and the cremations is forgiven. I will come to escort you to the House of Gallus as soon as I may be spared, for our affairs have been sorely struck by the displeasure of the gods. Lay these words to your heart - and farewell.’
After several repetitions, Artorex had mastered the message, so the courier departed on his return journey. Artorex sighed, for he now had another unpleasant task to perform.
He was no fool. The master of the house and four of his heirs were dead, including grandchildren and wives. Gallia had lost almost all of her family and much of her wealth. Although Artorex could scarcely imagine being part of a family of such size, either living or dead, he accepted that Gallia would be distraught at the loss of her father and brothers.
He dreaded the prospect of breaking such bad news. He would have preferred to pass on this onerous task to almost anyone else, but Artorex was no coward and Gallia deserved an accurate accounting of the tragic deaths of her kin.
The steward searched for Gallia for many hours, but no one in the villa had seen her. Tense with the first stirrings of serious alarm, Artorex took Coal out into the fields but, yet again, there was no sign of the wayward young woman.
‘Not even Gallia can disappear off the face of the earth,’ he muttered to himself, as he stifled a flash of mounting irritation.
But after a fruitless search of the farm and all the outbuildings, Artorex was considering mounting a major search using the field workers when, by a fortuitous stroke of luck, his sharp eyes spotted a small red ribbon on an overgrown path close to where the Old Forest merged with the farm cultivation. The path itself was ill-defined, but the tiny sliver of fabric twined, serpent-like, around a clump of dying thistles, and Artorex knew that the impetuous Gallia had wandered into the woods.
‘You’re a devil of a child,’ Artorex muttered to himself. ‘You should know the dangers of these places - especially for a woman. Why can’t you weave, or sew or even clean, like every other female in the villa?’
Ducking and weaving on Coal’s back as he avoided low-hanging branches, he rode Coal deeper into the woods.
Perhaps it’s because she’s not like any other woman, an internal voice warned him.
The trees had no interest in either Artorex or Gallia, so he received no answer to his questions except for the rustling of small, unseen things that had been disturbed by the passage of his horse.
‘Gallia!’ he roared at the top of his lungs, once he was deep within the woods, knowing that he could search these wild places for weeks and still not find her.
‘Where are you? Shout if you hear me.’
Coal picked his way daintily over the uneven ground while Artorex strained to hear an answer to his calls. When a response came, it was unexpectedly clear - and very close. Artorex leapt off Coal’s back and led the stallion through the treacherous tangle of tree roots and fallen logs, and into the silence of his long-unseen glade.
Gallia was seated on his stone, her head lifted and her eyes already flaring with panic. Instinctively, she knew that only a matter of great urgency would cause the steward to seek her out when, under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t expect to see him till the evening meal.
‘What is amiss, Artorex? Is it Julanna? Or little Livinia?’
Artorex gazed down at his sandalled foot and fiddled with the reins of his horse.
‘I . . .’ he began, but Gallia leapt to her feet impetuously.
‘News has come from Aquae Sulis, hasn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Is it Father?’
Artorex nodded. ‘Yes, Gallia, I have news from Aquae Sulis . . . and it’s bad tidings, I’m afraid.’
He paused but could find no platitudes to ease the pain he was about to inflict. Gallia’s eyes were wide and frightened, and the half-light that filtered through the tall trees cast a greenish light over her features. Artorex was stricken, but he knew that only the blunt truth would serve him now.
‘Your father has died from the pestilence. A courier has just arrived with news from your brother, Gallinus,
who is now the new master of your father’s house. Several of your brothers, the son of Gallinus and one of his daughters have also gone to meet their ancestors. Other members of your family have also perished. Gallinus sent few details, except to warn us that it might be some time before he can fetch you home. I regret that I must bear these sad tidings and I wish I could say something to console you in your grief. ’
Gallia stared at Artorex blankly.
‘But Gallinus is my third brother. What of Gallicus Minor and Gallius? They must be dead as well - and Gallinus has lacked the heart to send word to me directly. Help me, Mother, help me!’
Horrified, Artorex saw that Gallia’s eyes had rolled back in her head and she was falling sideways in a dead faint towards the depression in the rock with its strange and disturbing design. Even as he sprang forward and caught her, he could picture her blood filling that cup and escaping along the spirals in a thin ribbon of crimson.
‘Gallia!’ he whispered in her ear as he effortlessly lifted her slender body. Her face was only inches away from his lips.
‘Wake up, Gallia! Wake up!’ he said urgently into her ear.
Gallia’s eyelids fluttered but she made no sound. Artorex swung her soft, pliant body up into his arms and, whistling for Coal to follow him, he began to pick his way back through the tangle of trees to where the forest met the fields of the farm.
Gallia lay limply in his arms. It was almost as if she, too, were dead, like so many of her kin, and Artorex wondered how it would feel to lose someone who was so close in blood and affection. Try as he might, he couldn’t imagine such a loss. He would mourn for Targo, Frith or Ector if they should die, for he had known them all his short life. He had mourned the loss of Mistress Livinia, and whenever he heard the swing and beat of the shuttle and the loom, his throat constricted with an emotion that was surely grief. But, with no blood ties to a family, he could never fully understand Gallia’s loss.