Just three weeks before the arrival of Porteus, when her monthly time was ending, she had gone alone to a little clearing in the woods where there was a spring sacred to Sulis, and there she had stripped naked and carefully washed herself in the spring. The water was cold and she shivered. But as she looked at her long strands of hair and inspected the taut, white lines of her body, she was pleased.
“Good enough for any man,” she said softly. And now, she sensed, it was time to look for her husband.
She had not told anyone about this little private rite, but when she came out of the woods she immediately began to count horses. For she had known ever since she was a child, that if a maiden counts horses at the start of her month, then the first man she sees after counting a hundred, will be her bridegroom.
Three weeks went by. There were not many horses in Sarum, but from time to time they passed on the road. The evening before Porteus’s arrival, she had reached ninety-nine, and at the settlement she caught sight of his horse just before he walked round the corner of the stables to greet them.
So he was the one! This was Maeve’s secret, and the reason why she stared at him so boldly and intently.
“He is handsome,” she thought. “And young.” She could see herself on his arm.
But now that the gods had given her a sign, what came next? How would the courtship take place? About this the fifteen-year-old girl was less sure.
In the months that followed, Porteus buried himself in his work. The news from Londinium was conflicting. A commission of enquiry had arrived to investigate the conduct of the governor, and it seemed to be siding with the procurator; but then it departed and nothing more was heard.
He wrote three times to Lydia and once more to Marcus, but received no reply. To his father he wrote:
Sorviodunum is a quiet place. There is no one here except a chief who speaks a little Latin, and his daughter who speaks less. The imperial estate however is large and needs organising. It should keep me busy for several months.
The estate had been neglected. The assistant to the procurator who was supposed to supervise it was busily engaged further west near the colony of Glevum, and apart from sporadic visits, had done nothing to improve the place in years. Porteus could see at once that, with a little effort, the revenue from the estate could be doubled; and he set to work to do so. If he could impress the procurator and increase the emperor’s wealth, then perhaps he could win his way back into favour.
He worked hard and systematically, inspecting every field, ordering the repair of ditches, restoring cattle pens, rebuilding grain stores. He worked from first light until the ridges darkened, when he returned to Sorviodunum, ate a light meal and fell instantly asleep.
Each night, as he lay on the simple horsehair bed on the floor of the bleak little house, he dreamed of his return to Rome, restored to honour, and he dreamed of Lydia.
After the first month, he sent a brief report to Classicianus, outlining what he was doing. It was acknowledged politely by a clerk in the procurator’s office. That was all.
Several times he saw the red-headed girl walking by the settlement or riding on a fine, high-stepping horse over the ridges with her loose hair flowing behind her. On several occasions the chief sent presents of game, and once a fine blanket, to his spartan quarters. But he was too preoccupied with his own plans to think much about either the girl or her father.
But on the eve of the great festival of Samain, the Celtic name for Hallowe’en, Tosutigus invited the young Roman to a feast at his house; and not wishing to offend the native chief, Porteus went.
It was already dark when he entered the wattle enclosure round Tosutigus’s house, and as he did so he realised that he had been so busy and so starved of company that this was the first time he had paused to relax in several months. As he walked past the spits in the enclosure and the charcoal hearth where the women were preparing the meal, and entered the large thatched hall in the centre of which another fire was burning, he realised how much he had missed warmth and comfort in his cold, bare quarters in Sorviodunum.
To his surprise, the house was not full of local men; Tosutigus greeted him alone. Once again, he was wearing a toga and he led the young Roman to a couch near the fire.
“Let us show you that even a Celt can give you a Roman meal,” he cried. “And that my daughter knows how to prepare one.”
The meal that followed was better than anything Porteus had enjoyed since he left the governor’s quarters, and it did indeed conform to the Roman pattern. First came the
gustatio
: oysters, brought up from the south in barrels of salted water, a salad prepared with pepper and olive oil imported from the Mediterranean, and a delicate preparation of eggs. Next came the main courses: venison, and a local dish of mutton, cooked with rosemary and thyme. There were lampreys, trout and veal. And to accompany this, the women brought in huge, square, sweet-smelling loaves of unleavened bread and the rich butter of the area. Finally, for the
mensae secundae
there were puddings made by Maeve, apples and pears. It was a magnificent meal, and accompanied not by the ale and mead that Porteus had expected, but by excellent wines from Gaul. So well did he eat and drink that he even began to enjoy Tosutigus’s ponderous jokes, and to take no more notice of the endless hints that some favourable mention should be made of him to the governor.
During the meal he saw that each course was brought in by the red-haired girl and her serving women. She seemed to take no special notice of him on this occasion, but several times he found his eyes following her back and forth across the room, and he became aware of the proud carriage of her young head with its magnificent tresses shining in the firelight, and of the lilting rhythm of her walk. She wore a simple green robe that was slit up one side almost to the waist so that he caught tempting glimpses of her leg.
“A magnificent meal,” he complimented the chief when they were done.
“It is my daughter you should thank,” the Celt replied, and called the girl forward.
While Porteus thanked her as courtesy demanded, she stood before him with her eyes this time modestly downcast, her hair falling forward so that it covered her cheeks. Despite his love for Lydia, the young Roman felt a sudden urge to take this marvellous girl in his arms. He laughed to himself. No doubt it was the meal.
What he did not know was that with each successive course, Maeve had sprinkled his food with a mixture of herbs which she had carefully prepared that afternoon, and which the older women had promised her was a powerful love potion. Whether the herbs were aphrodisiac or whether Porteus was simply flushed with food and wine, she observed with a surreptitious glance that the handsome young Roman’s eyes were glowing – she hoped with lust. She kept her eyes on the ground, but inside she felt for the first time the exhilaration of sexual triumph.
“I will have him,” she thought.
Tosutigus did not know about the aphrodisiac herbs, nor that Maeve had been counting horses; but as he watched through half-closed eyelids the effect his daughter was having on Porteus, he smiled quietly to himself.
The Celtic chief was less naïve than the young Roman supposed. A month before, Tosutigus had ridden into Calleva and made discreet enquiries about him; he had met a clerk from the governor’s staff and from him he had discovered the full story of Porteus’s prospective marriage, his quarrel with Suetonius and his fall; and from this information he had drawn his own conclusions. He had also watched the vigorous way in which the young Roman had gone about his work on the imperial estate.
His assessment was, for once, realistic.
“He’s still a good catch for my daughter,” he considered.
Indeed, even in disgrace, Porteus was certainly as good a match as Maeve was likely to encounter in the backwater of Sorviodunum.
“With a different governor, or with the procurator’s help, he could still go far,” the Celt deduced. “And in any case, my grandchildren would be born Roman citizens. Then who knows what they might achieve!”
“I think that young Roman could be a good match for you,” he had told Maeve two days before the feast, and she had smiled quietly and replied: “I think so too.”
During the winter months, Porteus himself made two journeys to Calleva and one to Londinium in the hope that he might see Classicianus; but again the procurator had been absent and his hope of improving his position had to be shelved. It was on the day before he left Londinium that he had a painful experience. As he came out of a small inn, he heard the crash of horses’ hoofs on the cobblestones, and looking up, he saw Suetonius and a cavalcade of twenty staff officers trotting straight towards him. He was standing alone. Neither the governor, nor the riders, many of whom he knew, could fail to see him, and a moment later he found himself staring straight into the angry eyes of the governor himself.
Suetonius did not pause, did not avert his gaze, or even scowl: he looked straight into the eyes of the young man as he passed, and gave no sign of recognition at all. His face was as blank as if Porteus had not been there. The officers following, observing the governor’s behaviour, were careful not to look at him at all.
The next day, Porteus returned to Sorviodunum.
By the spring, he could already predict a modest increase in the output from the estate, and by the following year he was sure the yields would improve enormously.
“But by then, if the gods favour me, I shall no longer be here,” he thought.
Several times during the long, cold months, Tosutigus took him hunting in the woods. They hunted both deer and the boar. And on each occasion their hunting brought them to a point near the chiefs farm where Maeve would be waiting with a meal, accompanied by mulled ale and the heady island mead.
On these occasions, the older man would gently draw the young Roman out on the subject of his plans for the future, and from the little that Porteus let fall, it was clear to the chief that his position had not changed.
Soon after midwinter, a letter came from Marcus.
I am afraid, my dear Porteus; that things in Rome are not going well for you at present. Graccus as you may suppose, was furious that you fell out with Suetonius. The rumour here is that after the commission of enquiry, the governor will be retired from Britannia at a convenient time, but that he will leave with honour. The emperor is in no mood to disgrace him, and will do nothing for his enemies. Frankly, you are well out of things here.
The letter gave no news of Lydia; but Porteus told himself that since Graccus was furious, she had probably been forbidden to write to him herself, and that Marcus was probably being tactful by making no mention of her.
He did not despair. He redoubled his efforts.
“By the end of summer,” he vowed, “I’ll return to Rome with honour.”
Marcus’s information was accurate. Soon after his letter arrived, news came to Sorviodunum that Suetonius had returned to Rome with honour and that he had been replaced by a new governor – Publius Petronius Turpilianus – who was reputed to be a milder man. He hoped to hear some word from the new governor, and sent him a respectful letter of welcome to remind him of his existence. But no word came.
The summer was fine and a bumper crop was expected. He felt some pride, at least, in his achievement on the estate.
Then, just before midsummer, a message came that the procurator himself was coming to inspect the place; and at this he rejoiced. At last: his opportunity had come.
Classicianus was just as he remembered seeing him – a quiet man of medium height, with a forehead over which his thinning brown hair made a tired display, and thoughtful blue eyes. He might have been a scholar rather than an administrator. Despite his high rank, he came with only three clerks and a junior procurator for escort. With the help of the legionaries Porteus had put up a large tent for him beside the little orchard, and although it was a primitive affair, Classicianus seemed quite satisfied with the arrangement. He spent an entire day touring the estate, studied every aspect of the progress in person, and inspected the accounts with his clerks. He made no comment, but Porteus could not believe that he had failed to be impressed.
It was in the evening that Tosutigus arrived at the settlement without warning. He had come to pay his respects to the procurator. On this occasion, Porteus noticed, he was perfectly dressed: his toga was a dazzling white; he wore elegant sandals; and the young Roman was astonished to see that he had even shaved off his moustache. Classicianus, appreciating at a glance the effort that must have been made by this native chief, welcomed him with every mark of respect, and invited him into the tent.
But after the initial courtesies, to Porteus’s surprise, the chief gravely requested a private audience with the procurator; and Classicianus, not wishing to offend him, immediately granted it, obliging Porteus and the other officials to withdraw.
It was now, for the first time in his life, that Tosutigus conducted a successful piece of diplomacy. Standing before the procurator, the perfect picture of provincial pride, he made a short but well-calculated speech.