That night, as usual, he lay with the girl and experienced an ecstasy of passion. Afterwards they had slept, while a single taper flickered in the room.
It was in the middle of the night that he woke to find he was both sweating and shaking. It seemed to him that he had been having a terrible nightmare but he could not remember what it was. He felt for the girl and found that she, too, was lying in a cold sweat, trembling violently.
“It must have been the food,” he said, and the next morning, after an uncomfortable night, he spoke to the cook and warned her to take care how she prepared the meal.
The next day, he thought he saw Numex hanging about the kitchen again at dusk, but this time he could not be sure. The meal seemed to be prepared as usual. But once again, in the middle of the night, he woke and found that his body was awash in sweat, far worse than the night before; and the girl’s teeth were chattering.
This time he warned the cook that the food was certainly bad and that if he had food-poisoning again, he would dismiss her.
It was on the third night that the dreams began.
At first he was aware only of a general feeling of dread, as though he were a criminal, awaiting some terrible judgement. He still recalled this sensation afterwards; but it was following his first premonition that the dream itself began. He could remember every detail.
He had found himself on the high ground at Sarum, riding on his grey stallion behind Maeve, just as he had before, all those long years ago. The whole landscape was completely silent: there was no sound even of the horse’s hoofs: yet he could see her long red hair flying in the wind. She turned to look at him – but instead of smiling now, he saw with dismay that her eyes looked sad and she seemed to be urging her horse away from him, so that try as he might, the distance between them was growing greater with every pace. Again she looked back. This time her eyes were sunken and her skin was white as though she were on the point of death. It seemed to him that he must do something; he wanted to help her, to comfort her, but still she was drawing further away from him. Suddenly she vanished. He was standing alone on the empty plateau. He looked about him, wondering what had become of her. But there was no sign. And then the strange figure appeared, wearing a
paenulla
, with the hood drawn over its head; it was striding towards him rapidly across the empty ground. With relief he realised that it was Tosutigus. He called to the chief in welcome; but the figure did not answer. It drew closer. Only when it reached him did the figure remove its hood.
The chief’s familiar face was white with anger. His eyes were blazing. He began to raise one arm to point in accusation, but as he did so his face was transformed into a skull, whose jaws were slowly opening and closing. As he watched in surprise, Porteus saw the skull begin to grow. Within moments it filled half the sky. Its jaws were open, moving closer. He saw that they were going to devour him. And once again he was gripped by the sense of horror he had experienced before. As the jaws closed over him, he woke shaking.
If his dream frightened him, it was as nothing to the terror he saw in the face of the girl as he started into consciousness. She was sitting up, her arms wrapped around her knees, her eyes staring straight ahead. She was trembling.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” she replied, her voice strangely flat. “A dream.”
He tried to comfort her; putting his arm around her shoulders, but still she continued to tremble.
“What did you dream?” he asked.
But she only shook her head sadly and would not tell him.
And so it continued, night after night. Porteus could find nothing wrong with the food, nothing for which he could blame the cook. But each night the terrible dreams came, and each night, it seemed to him, they grew worse. Sometimes he was attacked by snakes, at other times he was being drowned; once Tosutigus had cut off his head to use it as a drinking bowl; and on each occasion Maeve was there, with her sad eyes, moving steadily away from him.
After seven nights, Porteus found that he was almost unable to sleep; but the effect on the girl was worse. Her eyes became haggard; she would sit in a corner and moan; and by the fourth night she begged him not to lie with her. He did not know what to do.
It was the girl who finally brought matters to a head.
“You must sell me,” she said simply.
“Why?”
“The dreams. Jahveh is angry because I have broken the law: it is a great sin to lie with a man who is already married. It breaks the law of Moses. And amongst my people it is a greater sin still to lie with a married man who is not a Jew, for it brings anger upon them.” And she broke down and wept bitterly.
Was it guilt that was causing his own nightmares too?
“I do not want to lose you,” he told her. “The nightmares will pass. Trust me.” But she shook her head and repeated: “I have sinned. Send me away or I shall not know any peace.”
For three days he hesitated. He was selfish. If she stayed, he told her, in time he would manumit her and she could become a free woman again. “Perhaps,” he suggested cleverly, “you will then be able to return to Judaea.” But the girl was past aid; she was no longer eating, and by the third day her condition had become so mournful, her weeping both day and night so pitiable, and her pleas to him so desperate that finally, in a fit of exasperation, he shouted:
“Very well, you shall be sold as a slave, if that is what your God demands! But your God is cruel.”
She shook her small head sadly once more and murmured: “He is just.”
The next day watched by Porteus with tears in his eyes, Numex led the girl down to the muddy forum and found a trader who was prepared to take her for a fair price; and whether it was because of the God Jahveh, or the spells of Maeve and her women, something that Numex and the cook had placed in the food, or simply the force of conscience, the affair of Porteus and the Hebrew girl was over. He did not see her again.
A few days later, Porteus returned to Sorviodunum. He was greeted warmly by his wife; he was relieved also that early that evening chief Tosutigus paid a visit to the villa to welcome his son-in-law home. The following morning, as he stood on the high wall of the dune beside the chief and gazed over the familiar rolling landscape where he had accomplished so much, Porteus realised somewhat to his own surprise that he had almost forgotten Marcus and Lydia, that he would soon forget the Hebrew girl and her demanding God, and that he was glad to be back at Sarum.
TWILIGHT
A.D
. 427
Placidia said nothing. She felt tired and sad, but she knew she must not show it as she gazed at the angry scene before her. With such dangers on every side, must her little family still tear itself apart?
Her son Petrus had turned and was looking into her eyes for a sign of approval. She gave him none.
Her eyes: they at least were still beautiful: age did not change that. Fine, dark, they had been full of humour once; but now they were thoughtful, a little ironic, and resigned.
She was getting old – her husband often told her so; but still she moved with a stately grace, and the lines on her finely drawn face only added to its look of nobility. She wondered if they knew what strength was needed to keep up that graceful façade – of course not. It was the strength of a woman who knows her worth and who knows, also, that she is not appreciated by the only people she might have hoped would love her.
Yet she loved them. Petrus, her intense son, with her wonderful dark eyes but too little of her commonsense; Petrus, who thought that his quarrels with his father were for her sake, and who truly believed, in his self-centred way, that he loved her. Poor Constantius, her husband. He had already been waxing and polishing his horse’s leather harness for hours, just as he did nearly every day – as if it were important. He respected her – and hated her, because he could not respect himself. And faithful Numincus. The stocky steward with his big head and short fingered hands – he loved her, admired her; he would probably have laid down his life for her. She sighed. But what was the use of that?
These three were all she had. And now they were quarrelling again . . .
It was mid-afternoon and Constantius Porteus was drunk: not very drunk, but as drunk as he usually was by that time of the day.
He was also roaring: not because he was drunk – that usually made him subside into silence – but because he was angry. And did he not have reason to be?
In his hand he still held the leather harness he had been cleaning.
Through the mists caused by alcohol and rage that obscured his vision, he could still see the group in front of him well enough: Placidia, his stately, grey-haired wife who despised him; the squat, square form of Numincus his steward, who was now standing respectfully but protectively in front of her: the fool! And lastly his twenty-year-old brat of a son, who had just finished speaking.
It was on his son that his angry eyes were trying to focus. He would teach the boy a lesson.
“You whelp!” he bellowed.
The young man was looking at him steadily: Constantius was not certain what the expression was in his son’s large brown eyes – was it anger, contempt, fear? It did not matter.
“I’m master in this house,” he roared. “Paterfamilias. Not you.” Defiance. That was it. The short, intense young man with his dark curly hair and shining eyes was defying him. “I’ll have no Germans here,” he shouted. “This is a Christian house.”
“Then what will you do?” the young man hurled back at him instantly: “Nothing, as usual, I suppose – except get drunk and watch my mother being killed?”
Contempt was in every word. Constantius felt his face flush with rage. The mist in front of his eyes seemed to thicken into a red fog.
He opened his mouth to shout, but his brain refused to supply the right word. Then he remembered the harness. With a huge effort, he lunged towards his son, and swung it at him with all his force . . .
There was a loud crack as the leather made contact, followed by a gasp; at the same time he stumbled, almost falling on his knees. His face broke into a foolish grin. That had taught the boy a lesson!
His eyes were clearing. He stared at them in triumph.
Then he frowned.
Something was wrong. The boy was hurling himself towards him – but not from where he should have been – and his eyes were blazing not with hurt but with anger. Numincus’s face was red, his body was shaking, and his stubby hands were clenching and unclenching with fury; and Placidia his grey-haired wife was standing quite still with a huge red mark across her face. There was blood already starting to drip from her mouth.
How had he missed?
Petrus was almost upon him, fists raised to strike. Automatically he raised his arm to shield himself. His face winced, anticipating the falling blows.
“Stop!” Her voice was firm and commanding. Despite the searing pain, she felt a little flush of pride at her self-control.
There was a second’s pause. Constantius was still braced to receive the blows. He heard a cry of anguish from his son. What was happening?
Placidia’s voice again cut through the silence.
“Petrus. Leave us.”
“But look what he has done . . .” the young man protested furiously.
Mother and son faced each other. As Petrus looked at his mother’s face, all the rage and frustration of the last few months seemed to come together in his mind. Was his drunken father going to destroy her too? He felt a wave of compassion for her; he wanted to strike his father down.
Placidia saw it all, and knew that now, more than ever, she must uphold the last shreds of Constantius’s authority.
“Your father and I wish to be alone. Leave, Petrus.” He did not move. “At once.”
At moments of crisis her authority was still complete. Unwillingly, Petrus started to go.
“Numincus, tell my maid I need warm water. Go,” she added sharply, as the steward, too, seemed to hesitate.
They were alone. The shock of seeing his wife’s bleeding face had abruptly sobered Constantius. He felt his body sag with shame. He opened his mouth to speak, trying in his confused state to formulate some apology, but she cut him short.
“Your son is right,” she said quietly. “You must do something. Now leave me.”
He tried to make out the expression in her eyes. Did she feel nothing but contempt for him now? Was she rejecting him? He could not tell. She was staring past him, her face as rigid as a statue.
Humiliated, he moved slowly away through the house.
Yes, he thought, he must do something.
Left by herself, Placidia still did not give in to tears, she longed to weep. But she wondered for how long this situation could go on.
Petrus, meanwhile, was preparing to leave the house.
The situation at Sarum was grave: there had been nothing like it in four centuries: forif the latest reports were right, the threatened invasion of barbarians might come at any time and destroy Sarum, the villa and the family. If the invaders came now there would be no Roman troops to oppose them, not even a local militia; and, worse for his conscience, Constantius had made no preparations to defend the place.