TWENTY-FOUR

When we had finished our earnest private talk, I looked up to realize that the gig had stopped outside my house – instead of proceeding to the villa, as before. A measure of my patron’s sympathy, today. Junio, Tenuis and Kurso were standing by, politely at a distance, but ready at any time to assist me from the gig. I realized all three were dressed in sober clothes. My heart gave an uncomfortable lurch. They were in mourning, and I – as yet – was not.

My patron extended his own ringed hand to help me down. ‘Farewell, old friend. I will leave you to your household and your grief. I will draw a contract up, and send a message if Druscilla will agree to sign. Meantime, let me know at once if there is anything at all that you require.’

‘I hope she will agree,’ I murmured. ‘You haven’t met her yet!’ I paused in the act of scrambling to the ground. ‘Excellence, there’s one more thing, perhaps. I should be glad to have a cart. I shall have need of one – perhaps for quite a time – and I know that you have several working your estate.’

‘But I thought you spoke of travelling by …?’ He saw me shake a warning head, and stopped. ‘Ah, misdirection?’ He tapped a conspiratorial finger to his lips. ‘Have one, with my blessing. I’ll have my servants bring one round this afternoon, and you can have an ox to pull it if you wish?’

‘Thank you, but I prefer to use my own. I am more accustomed to his ways.’

‘Very well. Take your time to do whatever you require. If you need me, you know where I shall be. Otherwise, I will see you at the feast. Until then, farewell.’ He tapped the driver’s shoulder, and I watched him drive away.

With a sigh, I turned towards the gate, but I did not go immediately inside. I stood for a long moment gazing at my home, where I had been so happy and content. It did not seem appropriate that it should look exactly as I’d left it – so lightly and so very recently. Every part of it spoke of Gwellia.

There was the dye-house, in which she’d spent so many hours of steamy industry; the kitchen garden, where she’d waged a ceaseless war with weeds and pigs; even the ducks and chickens reminded me of her – grumbling that they mobbed her when she went to feed them scraps or pecked her when she attempted to collect their eggs.

And most of all, there was the house itself, the centre of her life. Our life, together. Smoke was still curling through the chimney-space – making my heart stop, momentarily, as though she might after all be there awaiting me. But of course it was the slaves who’d kept the fire alight. Gwellia was absent, and was never coming back. I was aware of an unmanly pricking in my eyes.

‘Father?’ Junio was murmuring urgently. ‘Don’t go in just yet, if you would rather not. There is nothing you can do here, anyway. Come to us tonight. Cilla has cut extra reeds to make a bed and is expecting you. Then perhaps tomorrow – if we’ve all recovered at least a little from the shock – we’ll work out what to do.’

There was genuine emotion in his voice, as well, though Gwellia was not his mother, naturally – or only in the sense that she was my wife and I’d adopted him. In fact, when she and I were first reunited, there’d been some jealousy, Junio having been my only slave for years. (Gwellia and I were married when we were young and free, but the slavers who seized and dragged us off had sold us separately, so it was twenty years before I found – and formally remarried – her again.) But a genuine affection had since grown between the two, and Gwellia was devoted to Junio’s little ones. Or ‘had been devoted’ I corrected mentally, and felt the tears again.

‘This will get no easier for postponing it,’ I said. ‘And it is not true that there is nothing we can do. Kurso, run and ask Cilla to meet us in the house. We should perform a ritual for Gwellia. We do not have her body – and the burial that she had is of a dreadful kind. But we can honour her by making her a talisman – and pyre.’

Junio had been raised in Roman households till he came to me so he did not understand at once. ‘A talisman? A pyre? Without the …’ He choked upon the word. ‘Without the person?’

‘First a talisman to set her free, then a pyre to send her grave-goods after her,’ I said. ‘And celebrate her soul. An opportunity to praise her life in song – not simply to lament.’

‘Then, better after dark, perhaps?’ he asked respectfully.

‘Better now, while the sun is making its journey down into the west – that is the direction of the islands of the dead. And the wind is taking the chimney-smoke that way. A good omen.’ The old traditions rose unbidden to my tongue, and brought strange comfort with them. ‘The sky gods will understand the sacrifice. The earth and fire gods too – with every mention of her name. But first the water gods. So, let us make a start.’

I began to walk, now with a firmer tread, through the three-fold palisade and up the path. Gwellia’s ducks and chickens flocked around my feet, which almost broke my heart. ‘Drive those into your enclosure, Junio.’

‘I will tend them for you, naturally. But do you wish to wring the neck of one, for offering? And should we kill the pig?’ (At a Roman funeral a pig is always sacrificed, and part of it is buried in the ground.)

‘We are not performing that kind of ritual,’ I said gently, as we walked into the smoky interior of the dear, familiar house. ‘Where Gwellia is sleeping, she has no need of propitiating blood. Only the talisman. I must be a Celt for this.’ I took off my curial toga as I spoke and pulled on a homespun tunic and cloak my wife had made. ‘Tenuis, pass me those willow-twigs that she laid by to make a basket with.’

‘Can I assist you, Father?’ That was Cilla, coming up behind me. The thought was kind but I resisted it.

‘This is something that I must do myself.’ I took some of the osiers and while the household watched in silence I wove and plaited them into the general semblance of a boat. Then from the bedding-pillows and her combs, I found four strands of her long silvering hair, which I reverently placed in the symbolic craft.

With violent hands I twisted another pair of twigs, this time into a rough figure of a man, to which I tied my heavy fishing-weight. I gave that to Kurso, while I took the boat and led the way towards the little stream that trickled from the spring. The others followed me. Nobody spoke a word.

Then very gently I leaned forward and set the wicker ship afloat, whispering the name of my beloved wife, and calling on the ancient gods of water, wood and wind to accompany her spirit to the afterlife. The little craft bobbed and lurched alarmingly, but suddenly – as though it were a sign – it set itself upright and bore its burden swiftly out of sight towards the sea.

When it was safely gone, I seized the image of the man. ‘I name you Hortius Valens. May you be cursed,’ I cried, then dropped it in the rapid stream and watched it sink.

I turned to see my family watching me. I had been speaking Celtic – which they did not understand – but the meaning of the ritual was clear.

‘Hortius?’ Junio ventured.

‘He killed your mother, and ensured that she was thrown into the pit. I cannot prove it, and I dare not try. But this’ – I gestured at the bubbling water at our feet – ‘is cleansing. We have set her spirit free.’ It was true, I did feel better for the simple rite. ‘Now we must offer grave-goods, things that will serve her in the afterlife. Her shoes and some dye-stuffs and the finest homemade plaid that she possessed. Our homely hearth will be her offering pyre. Kurso, run ahead and collect things for the fire.’

‘Should we add her distaff, Father, too?’ Cilla murmured, as we walked back to the house.

I nodded. ‘I should have thought of it. And anything else you think appropriate.’ I watched, approving, as she unhooked the drying herbs and simples from the rack, and took them in to add them to the sacrifice.

‘Kurso, fetch me oil, and Tenuis, bring some mead,’ I said, but even as I spoke there was a noise outside and Minimus came in, dusty and apologetic and rather out of breath. An army mule is not the fastest mount.

‘Master there is an ox-cart at the gate, the driver says you are expecting it. I’ve left him hitching—’ He broke off and looked around, sensing that something sacred was afoot. ‘This is for the mistress? Then I must do my part.’

He slipped off his cloak and went to help Kurso fill a little jug with oil, while Tenuis fetched my remaining stock of mead. Then, beckoning everyone around the fire again, I murmured a solemn invocation to the gods, and – each in turn – we placed onto the burning wood the tokens of my wife, while murmuring her name with love and urging her spirit to pass onward to the west.

I poured on oil and mead until the flames licked up, devouring the grave-goods with their crimson tongues. Then – with sudden passion, and not waiting for assistance from my slaves – I seized the bedding rake and pulled into the fire the reeds and straw, where we had lain together in such love and never would again. They crackled as they burned.

I felt a hand upon my shoulder. It was Cilla’s and I covered it – in silence – with my own. ‘Oh Father!’ She broke down completely, and took me in her arms. It was not her custom and it undid me totally. For several moments I clung to her and sobbed. Then I found my voice and dignity again, and – using an old tune I heard my mother sing, and thought I had forgotten long ago – I began my elegy.

‘Praise to the lady Gwellia, whose fingers never tired …’ One by one my household took their cue from me, singing their love and admiration for my wife. Gwellia was honoured. No woman could ever have been offered more respect.

The fire was burning low by now and it was time to act. ‘It’s done,’ I said. ‘Cilla, take the loom, the table, and the stools and cooking pots – anything at all that might be of use to you. Equipment is expensive and you have young mouths to feed.’

My daughter-in-law looked doubtfully at me. ‘But you will need them, Father. Not the loom perhaps – but—’

I shook my head. ‘I shall not be coming here again. I could not bear it. There is nothing for me here – except yourselves, of course – but if I visit, it will be at your roundhouse now. I will take my clothes, my cloaks and tunics and perhaps my hunting knife. Otherwise my town apartment holds all that I require.’

‘But Father, the apartment is only yours on loan. You will need things, afterwards. And you would be sorry to have nothing about you that was hers.’

I looked at Junio dully. ‘You are right, of course. So, I will take the combs I carved for her. And perhaps, the potions that she made. There are things among them I may need … to help me sleep. I will see to that, myself. Meanwhile, Tenuis, put the other things out onto the cart and see they are secure.’

‘And you’ll want a cup and bowl and spoon for you, and one each for the slaves. And perhaps a cooking pot, and tinderbox.’ Cilla was collecting items as I came in again. ‘And the fur coverings and blankets from the bed …’ She handed them to Minimus who trotted off to add them to the cart.

‘Cilla,’ I said. ‘Please do as I require. Don’t worry about me. Take away the things that you could use yourself. But do it speedily. The light is fading and I want to pull down the centre of the thatch, and put it on the pyre – along with anything remaining which it’s possible to burn.’

‘Father, you can’t mean it!’ Cilla’s face was white. ‘This roundhouse is your home!’

‘From henceforward it is no one’s home,’ I said. ‘I thought I had explained. I invite you to take anything you wish, but what has not been otherwise accounted for tonight, I’ll offer on the pyre.’

‘But—’

I held up an interrupting hand. ‘I assure you, this is for the best. This is the way my tribe has always marked the passing of a chief. Besides, I am about to make a powerful enemy – and I would prefer to burn this down myself than have a bunch of ruffian soldiers come and fire the place. Take everything you can, and seal up the connecting gate between our properties. Clear out the grain-store, too. We’ll leave them the dye-house and the slave-hut to destroy, otherwise they might turn their wrath on you.’

Cilla looked startled. ‘What is it you propose?’

I shook my head. ‘Better that you remain in ignorance of that. That way no one can suppose you were involved. That’s one reason why I’m anxious to return to town tonight – I’ll make sure that I’m seen. I have to wait for a signal from Marcus, first, that is all.’

‘Your patron knows? So it’s not illegal, whatever it might be!’ Cilla looked relieved and began to gather up the stools. ‘Then we shall take these, in memory of you. They will be awaiting your first visit. And, since you wish it, I will have the loom.’ She gave instructions to the slaves to take it down, and carry it away, calling as they did so, ‘Be very careful as you move those stones – don’t let them swing and dangle or they will break the wool.’ She turned to me again. ‘You’ll come and see the children once more, before you leave. I didn’t bring them – they are too young to understand – but obviously they will want to say their own goodbyes …’ She broke off with a sob and returned to taking down the cooking items from the shelf.

With all of us assisting, it did not take long to carry the remaining movables across to Junio’s. There were too many items for his roundhouse, really, which made it very crammed, and the excited grandchildren began to talk of putting up another, larger one.

‘Your grandfather could help me, when he next comes to stay,’ my son replied. ‘You are quite certain, Father, that you will not sleep here tonight?’ He broke off as there was a tapping at the door, and little Freckle-face appeared, a message in his hand.

‘Oh, thank Jupiter, I wondered where you were. There was not anyone next door.’ He seemed to recall his mission, and added formally, ‘For the citizen Libertus, from His Excellence.’

I put down, untouched, the bowl of soup which had been pressed on me, struggled to my feet and took the little twist of bark-paper. As I undid the scroll, and held it to the fading light, I read the scribbled words: Not easy, but Druscilla has reluctantly agreed. Had to threaten. Quite a handful. Shall be glad to see her gone. Due with Tertillius tomorrow afternoon.

‘No answer, except thank him,’ I said to Freckle-face, and watched him hurry off. I turned back to my little family. ‘And now I must get back to the house before the embers die and do what I propose. The children can sleep on the new bed you made for me.’ I ruffled their hair, as they shrieked and squabbled. ‘I had not intended to be as late as this.’

‘I will come with you,’ Junio said. ‘I’ll bring a lighted torch, and extra oil to feed the flames.’

‘I still have half a jugful,’ I replied. But I was grateful for his company. I sent the slaves to tie the last things on the cart and re-hitch the ox. Then, while Junio’s strong arms helped me pull down the thatch, I gave him a private, hasty outline of my plans.

He stopped in the act of thrusting a lighted torch into the pile. ‘Father! You cannot! Not even to save that wretched woman from his grasp. Think of the consequences! Hortius has influence and powerful friends. They will hunt you down – and do not think your rank would save you from their wrath.’

I gave him a slow smile. ‘As I said to Marcus, they would have to find me first. And as for living with the consequences – that need not be for long. I doubt that otherwise the lady would agree. This is for your mother; my mind is quite made up. So, will you make sure you are not present at the feast? Marcus may invite you – but much better not to go.’

He shook his slowly. ‘Well – if you are determined …’

‘Then it is agreed. Now, here come the slave-boys, put that brand into the thatch. They must not overhear.’

Reeds are quick to catch, but fairly slow to burn and we watched for a moment before I turned away. ‘Minimus and Kurso, come with me,’ I said, allowing them to help me with my cloak. ‘You’re good with animals. You can take turns to lead the ox. Tenuis, you stay here with my son. He will be glad of an extra pair of hands. Won’t you, Junio?’ I gave his arm a squeeze. ‘I’ll send word when I can.’

‘But master, when shall I …?’ Tenuis began, but I waved his words away. Then before I, too, began to weep, I urged the ox forward and we lumbered off.