“Half a moon?” Meradoc queried.
Dinas said, “About half a month in the Roman calendar. Time here is still measured in the old way.”
“Like the animals and plants that sustain us,” Saba elaborated, “we live according to the sun and moon. A year has two seasons decided by the sun: winter and summer. The moon divides those seasons into sections for shearing and for weaving, for planting and for harvesting, for work and for rest. Because those things never change we need no calendars.”
“Some things change,” Dinas remarked.
“Apparently they do, or you wouldn’t be wanting to spend the winter with me.”
“I have to think through a problem, and this is a good place for it.”
“I’ve never heard you admit you have any problems.”
“Things change,” he repeated.
Her eyes searched his face, flicked a glance at the other two men and returned to Dinas. “I think I have enough fodder put by for your horses; ponies don’t eat much anyway.” She seemed to accept without complaint his disruption of her life.
Meradoc leaned over and whispered to Pelemos, “Are they married? Or what?”
Pelemos squinted at the couple in the firelight. “What, I’d say. But it’s none of our business.”
When the three men could eat no more, the bowls were wiped clean and the fire banked while Meradoc went out to the shed to make certain the horses were bedded down for the night. He broke the ice in the stone cistern and refilled their water buckets. He rubbed down the stallion and the ponies as well, paying particular attention to each animal’s itchy places. The dark horse loved to be scratched behind his ears.
Upon his return to the cabin Saba directed him and Pelemos to a sleeping loft opposite the fireplace. It was accessed by means of a wooden ladder. Meradoc scrambled up first. The loft was surprisingly roomy; he could stand upright below the ridge of the roof. The goat shed in Deva where he usually slept was not nearly as dry, nor as pleasant. It had smelled of goat and other, less pleasant things.
The sleeping loft smelled of the armloads of clean straw thickly piled on the floor. Meradoc took a deep breath. And smiled.
As Pelemos started—with some trepidation—to follow Meradoc up the ladder, Dinas told him, “There’s enough blankets up there to keep an army warm. If you want any more, just sing out. Saba comes from a long line of slaters, but she supports herself with her sheep and there’s nothing she can’t make out of wool. She even wove my saddlebags for me. This woman does all the shearing and washes the fleeces and spins the wool herself. Cross her at your peril, friends; she could break you over her knee.”
Saba laughed.
Pelemos paused halfway up the ladder. Hoping to hear her laugh again.
While the other two made themselves comfortable in the loft and settled down for the night, Dinas and Saba took seats by the fire. They placed their stools in the way they always placed them; close enough for their knees to touch. The two dogs stretched out on the hearth beside them.
Meradoc tried not to overhear their conversation but sound carried upward.
He heard Dinas say, “When I leave this time I’ll be taking my treasure with me, Saba.”
“And here was me,” she teased, “thinking you’d made the journey just to see my dimples.”
“That too. But dimples won’t buy horses and weapons.”
Thick lashes curtained her eyes. Her thoughts hid behind those curtains, peeping out. “Your friends don’t look like warriors to me.”
“They aren’t. But the fifty men I’m going to recruit will be.”
“Fifty men,” she said calmly. “As many as that. Quite a crowd for a man who boasts of being a lone wolf.”
“I’ll need at least that many if I hope to get my share.”
Responding to a change in the tone of his voice, one of the dogs stood up and laid a shaggy head on his thigh. Dinas absentmindedly fondled the silky ears.
Saba said nothing. That was one of the things Dinas liked about her. Other women would pluck and prod at a man in an effort to plunder his thoughts, but Saba simply waited. She waited as Dinas would wait with a skittish horse and let it come to him.
“I intend to get my share, Saba,” he repeated. “Why not? Isn’t that what the strong always do? You may not realize this up here in the mountains, but Britannia is falling apart. We’re almost entirely cut off from the continent now. Britons won’t be paying taxes to Rome anymore but they will still pay taxes to someone. And the cleverest among us will find treasure amidst the wreckage.
“New kings are sprouting up like weeds, among Britons and foreigners alike. And what are kings—or emperors, for that matter—but scoundrels who stole and murdered their way to the top? ‘Nobility’ is a cloak their descendants put on to enforce their claim to privileges they deny to everyone else. I can be as big a scoundrel as any other man, and just as worthy a king. All that’s required is to gather enough followers and seize enough land to provide for them. That’s how the Romans came to rule the world, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Saba murmured.
“The good farmland is already claimed, so I can’t offer my supporters a fat living from grain and cattle. But there are other routes to prosperity. I know of several wild and empty places where I could carve out a kingdom for myself, and there are some abandoned watchtowers along the coast that would be useful in a pirate operation.”
Saba had heard his flights of fancy before; heard them and often entered into them, responding to the boy still alive within the man. At the mention of pirates she cautioned, “There are pirates in the Oceanus Hibernicus already.”
“Hibernian slave-catchers in skin-covered boats,” he sneered. “The piracy I have in mind will be land-based. No matter how bad times are there will always be merchants who buy and sell, and considerable cargo is still being shipped through the western seaways. Much of it these days is tin; what the foreigners call ‘the British metal.’ The Syrians and Egyptians are buying large quantities of tin from the Dumnonian mines and sending it south to the Mediterranean, or shipping it north through the Oceanus Hibernicus to avoid the Saxon pirates. I’m told there’s a great demand for tin in Germania.”
“Strong as you are,” Saba said, “you could never carry enough tin on your back to make the effort worthwhile.”
Dinas raised a sardonic eyebrow. “I’m surprised at your lack of faith, woman! I don’t want tin; I want the merchandise foreign traders bring to exchange for tin. Fragrant, full-bodied red wine from Gaul and sweet golden wine from Iberia. The only good wine to be found in Britannia these days is served in the halls of the Dumnonii. And whatever I may think about religion, Christianity is expanding since the Romans left and wine is an essential element of the Christian mass, which makes it even more valuable. But it’s not just wine I’m after. Traders also bring Byzantine jewelry from Constantinople, or furs and amber from the Baltic … I could dress you in furs and jewels, Saba.”
“And pretend that I’m a queen?” She threw back her head and laughed.
“I’ve even found the perfect setting for you,” he said earnestly. “A fortress at the edge of the sea.”
“Why the sea?” she asked. Playing along. “I’m a mountain woman; could we not build a palace in the mountains?”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand how this will work. I’ll station observers with fast horses along the coast. Cargo vessels have to put ashore to take on fresh water. When one of my men sees a likely vessel approaching, he’ll light a signal fire and we’ll all ride to meet the landing party. Seize the boat’s crew, use their boat to board the ship, take what we want and then let the sailors go. Or we might hold the captain for ransom if that offers a better chance for profit.”
From the hard glint in his eyes, Saba realized Dinas was serious. The boy in him had vanished entirely.
Dinas was saying, “Now you know why I need that treasure. It may not cover the entire cost of equipping my men, but I have
something which might make up the difference. A couple of items I acquired in Deva recently. They may be very valuable or worth nothing at all, but … wait, I’ll show you.”
In one long stride he retrieved his saddlebags from the place where he always dropped them: on the floor beside Saba’s loom. From one he extracted a leather bundle. The leather was lambskin, old and worn and as soft as silk. The bundle was tied with strips of wool that might once have been blue.
Dinas set the bundle on the table beside Saba. “See what you make of these.”
She carefully untied the woolen strips and unfolded the bundle. Looked back at him with a puzzled expression.
“Take them out,” he said.
The first object was an ordinary plate carved from olivewood. The wood had faded with time and was cracked down the middle. Saba ran her fingers over the damaged surface, shook her head, and set the plate on the table. Reaching into the bag again, she took out a bowl—or perhaps it was a cup—carved from a common variety of agate. She held the object closer to the firelight to examine it. Agates were lustrous when polished, but this stone was dull. A faint, dark stain remained in the bottom of the bowl. There was a jagged patch on the under side where something had been broken off. A foot, perhaps; a small pedestal.
The dog lying on the hearth lifted its head and whined.
Saba set the stone bowl beside the wooden plate. Opened the bundle flat. Held it upside down, shook it to make sure it was empty, then turned to Dinas. “Is this one of your jokes?”
“It’s no joke, Saba. The men who were had these items were mightily determined to keep them a secret. At the time I assumed they were hiding a valuable gold chalice and paten—I’d heard some interesting tales about Deva. So I waited until everyone was asleep and helped myself. I didn’t look into the bag until later, when I was safely away from the town.”
“You must have been disappointed,” she said drily.
“At first I was angry that I’d wasted my time. But then…” He did not finish the thought.
“You say these came from Deva.”
“A shrine in Deva, yes.”
“A Christian shrine, I assume.” Watching his eyes, she added, “Surely not pagan.”
“Does it make any difference?”
Some of the color drained from Saba’s face. “If you stole from any sort of sacred place there could be terrible consequences for you. I thought you had better sense, Dinas.”
“Being in a shrine didn’t make those things holy,” he argued. “Just look at them. Ordinary everyday tableware, and badly damaged at that. Would you offer such objects to a god? I saw possibilities in them, that’s all. Remember the fellow who sold you the yearling ram with no balls?”
She was used to his sudden change of subjects. “Of course I remember him, Dinas, and I’m sure he’ll never forget you. On the day we met I was trying to buy sheep from a man I thought I could trust. I was wrong. You appeared out of nowhere and rescued a gullible and inexperienced woman. I can still see the look on his face when you threatened to rip off his balls and put them on the ram.”
Dinas grinned. “I was sorry he backed down and gave you a good breeding ram for next to nothing. I would have enjoyed putting action to words.”
“Really?”
The grin widened. “We’ll never know.”
“I think better of you than you think of yourself.”
“The more fool you,” Dinas replied.
She knitted her fingers together in her lap. “That old cup and plate…”
He put his hand over hers and tightened the grip. “Do you know how many Christians claim to have a fragment of a martyr’s robe, or a saint’s finger, or tail hair from the donkey that carried Jesus into Jerusalem? There’s a thriving trade in ‘holy relics,’ Saba. That’s what we have here. A sophisticated fraud.”
“It’s not…”
“Of course not; don’t be fooled. One of those men in Deva had a slithery quality about him. I know his type, he’d steal the feathers off a bird in flight. He wanted to charge me an outrageous price to spend the night in his leaky-roofed inn. He had these things hidden ‘in a holy place’ so he could produce them with great fanfare and sell them to some prosperous but credulous Christian. I didn’t look prosperous and I’m certainly not credulous, so he didn’t bother to show them to me. I know a thief when I see one, though, and I have no compunction about stealing from thieves…”
“… and selling the stolen merchandise to someone else,” she concluded.
This time when Dinas grinned he looked like a wolf baring its teeth. “Yes, if they’ll pay enough for it.”
Saba eyed the battered plate and lusterless cup. “I seriously doubt if anyone will.”
In the loft above their heads Meradoc snuggled deeper into the straw and pulled his blankets around his shoulders. When he was warm and well fed it was easy to imagine himself having adventures. A tall watchtower, the windswept sea, brave men riding out on splendid horses … being with Dinas had opened doors in his mind he never knew were there. His last thought before he fell asleep was, What and where is Constantinople?
* * *
Long after his collected treasure was counted and assessed and Saba had fallen asleep, Dinas lay open-eyed in the dark, trying to reach out with his special senses. Listening for instinct and intuition. Seeking the nameless wisdom deep in his bones that had warned him of danger in the past. Something was happening; a coming together of forces he could not yet identify. Meradoc and Pelemos were part of it. But what part?
In the Cymric language the word “hiraeth” was applied to yearning for the indefinable, an amorphous longing for beginnings and conclusions. Dinas had an almost physical ache to discover landmarks in a shapeless life; to discover something he could hang on to when confronted by the terrible inner darkness that recently threatened to overwhelm him. Was he going about it the right way? Or had he already doomed himself to failure?
There were times when he felt an inchoate longing for the pagan religion the Romans had destroyed. The old ones knew things. Perhaps it was their voices that spoke to him in the night.
Gods; that was where the problem began. People needed to believe in deities wiser and more powerful than themselves. Yet the figures he had been taught to revere as a child had failed him. Christianity was a sham perpetrated by men who used it to their own advantage. Of that much he was certain.
As for the gods of the Romans, they were cast in human form with human vices. In the animal kingdom Dinas could name many noble creatures more worthy of godhood. Petty, greedy mankind could not be the pinnacle of being, any more than a world limited to five human senses could be the sum of all things. That would be illogical, and his education had taught him to be logical. But would a logical man steal from a holy shrine and expect to profit by it?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Quartilla had ignored Cadogan’s orders to avoid the family’s private apartments. Whenever the opportunity presented itself she surreptitiously searched his late mother’s chambers. Domitia’s broken furniture was piled in the atrium, but some small accoutrements of a fashionable woman’s life had been overlooked and left behind. Half a stick of black kohl for lining the eyes. A tiny pot of lip stain. A few thin silk ribbons; an ivory comb.
Quartilla confiscated everything she found.
On the morning Vintrex returned she had spent a happy hour applying the dead woman’s makeup. Peering at herself in a shard of broken mirror, wiping away mistakes and starting over. The room Cadogan had assigned to her was singularly lacking in a woman’s necessities, so she set off in search of a decent mirror in good light. When she heard an unfamiliar male voice she followed the sound out of curiosity—forgetting about the cosmetics still smeared across her face.
When she entered the hall she saw an old man lying on one of the couches. His face was distorted with what might be pain. The grimace revealed long yellow teeth. She hated him on sight.
Raising himself on one elbow, he pointed a stick
like finger at her and demanded hoarsely, “Just what is that?”
Quartilla froze in her tracks.
The old man continued, “Surely it is the most extraordinary sight seen in Britannia since Emperor Claudius entered Camulodunum riding on an elephant. If that is an example of what you are buying to replace our servants, Esoros, you must return her to the slave dealer at once. You know I will not have an ugly woman in my service.”
His words broke the spell.
“How dare you call me ugly, you scrawny old bear-bait!” Quartilla cried. She elbowed Esoros aside and bent over the figure on the couch. “This isn’t your house, it’s Cadogan’s, and you can’t give me orders. I’m nobody’s slave, I’m as free as you are and a lot better looking!”
Her spittle sprayed his face. Vintrex shrank back against the cushions and rolled his eyes toward Cadogan. “You had better have a good explanation for this,” he rasped.
“Father, this is Quartilla. She is … an acquaintance of mine.”
“Someone you know socially?” Vintrex asked in disbelief.
“Not exactly. She … I mean Dinas…”
“Dinas again!” Vintrex was livid.
“The situation is complicated,” Esoros said in a mollifying tone as he reached to place a cushion under his master’s neck. “When you understand everything you will realize your son has acted out of compassion. He brought this poor woman here because she has no other home.”
“This certainly isn’t going to be her home!”
“Of course not, Father,” said Cadogan. “It’s only a temporary arrangement.”
Vintrex became aware of a buzzing in his ears. It had happened before; had been happening with increasing frequency since he was captured by the Saxons. Or perhaps even before. Perhaps it began when she died …
The walls faded and disappeared into a mist.
* * *
“Your father has only fainted,” Esoros assured Cadogan. “He is exhausted and hungry; I can take care of him.”
“I’m sure you can, but I’m here now.”
After Rome Page 13