Ashes Under Uricon

Chapter 19. Decisions (370)

By Mihangel

Est ignota procul nostraeque impervia menti,
Vix adeunda deis, annorum squalida mater,
Immensis spelunca aevi, quae tempora vasto
Suppeditat revocatque sinu. Complectitur antrum,
Omnia qui placido consumit numine, serpens
Perpetuumque viret squamis, caudamque reductam
Ore vorat tacito relegens exordia lapsu.
Vestibuli custos vultu longaeva decoro
Ante fores Natura sedet, cunctisque volantes
Dependent membris animae.

Far away, all unknown, beyond the range of mortal minds and scarce to be approached by the gods, is a cavern of immense age, hoary mother of the years, her vast bosom at once the cradle and the tomb of time. A serpent surrounds this cave, his slow majesty engulfing all things. The glint of his green scales never ceases and he swallows his upturned tail, silently writhing as he explores his own beginning. Before the entrance sits Nature, guardian of the threshold, ancient yet ever lovely, and flitting spirits hang from every limb.

Claudian, On Stilicho's Consulship

The Vogius ferry delayed me and my horse was tiring badly. By the time I reached Nemetobala it was virtually dark. The precinct gate was shut, but the same priest answered my knock. He took one look at me by the light of his lantern and ordered me straight to bed. Having been in the saddle since before sunrise I was, like my horse, all in.

"Bran is mending well, and you need not worry about him. I'll tell him you've arrived safely. And I will stable your horse. But first let me give you the holy sleep."

He installed me in the same bed in the temple and told me to wait. It was pitch dark in here and totally silent; except that, as my ears acclimatised, I became aware of a rushing whisper, faint and distant, as of wavelets on the shore. Strange, I thought. The Sabrina is miles away. But the priest's return with his lantern and a cup temporarily dispelled the dark and the sound. The concoction was sweet and at the same time bitter, and no sooner had I downed it than I felt myself sliding headlong into a realm of louder whisperings.

At some point I dreamed. It was vivid at the time but, as so often, the waking memory was vague. All that remained was the powerful sense of an unfathomable immensity in the world of the spirit, of a venerable kindliness in the world of nature, of a profound eroticism in the world of the body.

I woke late, my weariness gone. Bran's dog -- no, perhaps a different dog -- was beside me. The temple was full of light and the priest was standing over me.

"Did you dream?"

I told him what little I could. "What does it mean?" I asked.

He pondered. "Your yearning, I think, for continuity and stability and love. The love of all that is good in gods and men. Every love that should steer your life. Every love that should be fostered." He smiled. "Which reminds me that Bran wants you. He looked in at the crack of dawn to make sure I was telling the truth when I told him you were safe. You'll find him in the sanatorium."

Bran was sitting at a table, with his own dog's head on his lap and a large and thick book open in front of him. We inspected each other. He was clearly very much better, less pale, less pinched, less lethargic, and we hugged and kissed as if we had not met for months. Our minds indeed, so preoccupied had we been, had not properly met for months.

Satisfied, we grinned.

"Raring to go?" I asked.

"Not sure about raring. This is a place of peace, which I've needed. But ready."

"Bitucus is picking us up this afternoon, so we'd better be ready. You've found something to pass the time, then? What is this?" I leafed through the book. "Gods above! It's an illustrated Vergil!"

It was written in large capital letters, with every few pages a painting in bright colours. Tityrus playing his pipe under a tree and Meliboeus holding a goat, from the first Eclogue . . . A herdsman surrounded by horses, cows and a dog, from the third Georgic . . . Dido and Aeneas sheltering from the rain in the cave, from Aeneid Book IV, while outside a Trojan used his shield as an umbrella . . .

"Where on earth did you find this?"

"In your saddlebag. Where on earth did you find it?"

"Good grief, is it that? I hadn't opened it. It was given to me . . . no, given to both of us. By Sanctus."

"Sanctus? Does he think that highly of us?"

"Yes," I said, sobering. "He does. And he sends you his good wishes. He . . . But that can wait. We'll have plenty of time to catch up on the boat." Reluctantly I tore my eyes away from the book. "Two essential things first. One is food. Is that your breakfast?"

There was a tray with a half-empty plate of bread and cheese, a bowl of dried fruit, and a jug of milk.

"Yes. I've had all I want. Help yourself."

"You're on to solids, then?" I asked, my mouth already full.

"Yes. In moderation." He smiled at me. "And I can guess the other thing you need. A bath."

"That's right. Can't remember when I last had one."

"I could do with one too. Let's scrape each other."

"You're up to that?"

"I think so. I need to get my muscles working again."

So we scraped each other, gently, in love and friendship. Although he was still as thin as a rake, tone was already returning to his body. That done, we went to the temple shop, not unlike the one at Fanum Maponi, where we bought little gifts for the family. And there we found a bronze figure of a dog, a young Irish wolfhound, lying down, front paws extended, looking back over its shoulder, the typical swirls of hair on its haunches. It was beautiful, it was right, and with it we paid our debt to Nodens.

In the early afternoon we said our farewells and made our way down to the creek. Bran might not be capable of long distances, but a couple of miles in the saddle would not hurt him. I rode pillion, holding him with one arm as Maqqos-colini had held me all those years before, but with, I hope, greater tenderness. I returned the horse and paid for its hire, and we sat hand in hand watching the Sabrina lap against the timbers of the little jetty. I told Bran of my dream, and he told me of his. Its memory too was vague, but its drift had been fighting: fighting his illness, fighting intolerance and narrow-mindedness, fighting arrogance and corruption, fighting our enemies.

"It worried me, rather. I'm no warrior, and never will be." He smiled ruefully. "Flumina amem silvasque inglorius. Give me the brooks and the woodlands, and let the glory go. But the priest pointed out that one doesn't fight only with the sword and spear. One can oppose in a peaceful way. And he told me I'd already won the first fight, against the fever. That was a good omen, he said, for the rest."

It was. And I would not, I reflected, like to be on the other side when Bran was in fighting mood.

A distant speck had been growing slowly into the Fortuna as she bowled upriver before the south-westerly breeze. She moored neatly at the jetty. On board was a return cargo of fish sauce in amphorae, and over it Bitucus and Lurio had installed the planks and mattress of our bed.

"Told you so," they said, looking critically at Bran. "Nodens never fails. We'll soon have you bow-hauling us single-handed, and it's damned hard work, we can tell you."

In fact wind and wave together whisked us up to Glevum in a single tide, and thereafter the wind saw us to beyond Vertis. For the time being there was little work to do other than trimming the sail. Bran and I sat together, watching the scenery as it slid peacefully by, and talking gently. He was still far from strong and, the river being cold, he did not take a daily dip as I did, but the boatmen pampered him with food, and mentally he was fully back to normal. The second evening, Lurio was lighting a fire, having trapped another rabbit and gathered wild garlic and chervil for the pot. I was sitting cross-legged, crushing the herbs in a little mortar held in my lap, when Bran suddenly laughed, a great rumble of belly-laughter such as I had not heard from him for months.

"What's so funny?"

"You," he said.

"Et laeva vestem saetosa sub inguina fulcit:
Dextera pistillo primum fragrantia mollit
Alia.

His left hand tucks his garment under his hairy groin, his right with the pestle gives a first softening to the reeking garlic."

I looked down. Yes, highly apt. After my dip I had put on my tunic but not bothered with my drawers. I laughed too, from relief as well as amusement. It was too long since we had joked like this.

"Where's that from?"

"Vergil. Or so they say. Sanctus' book hasn't only got the standard works. It's got the minor poems too. The ones Donatus ascribes to him but we'd never seen. That's almost the only bit I've memorised so far. It's from the Moretum, about an old peasant making his meal."

"Old peasant, am I? Then you're an even older peasant. And your groin's hairier than mine. You haven't got your drawers on either."

We also had time to talk properly. I relayed everything I had seen and heard while Bran was in the hands of Nodens. He was intrigued by the Ogam, and by the painted boats, and especially by Sanctus' desire for an Irish presence on the Deva Sea.

"It would make sense, I agree," he said thoughtfully, "so long as the Irish aren't messed about with as the Attacotti have been. So long as there's trust on both sides. But what we can do about it is beyond me. It calls for high-level diplomats, surely, from Corinium or London or even Treveri, not for a pair of young nobodies from the middle of nowhere."

"That's exactly what I said. And Sanctus' answer was that while we may be young, we aren't nobodies. He said" -- and I reported this with some awe -- "that the fate of Britain will rest in the hands of people like us. He called us the promising leaders of the community. The leaders of tomorrow."

"Leaders?" Bran was incredulous.

"Leaders."

He sat gazing at the dark peaks of Mailobrunnia off to our left, but probably without seeing them. It was a long time before his eyes swung back to me.

"Is that what we are, then, Docco my love?" he asked softly, no longer incredulous. "Or what we're going to be? Not yet, maybe -- after all, we're only twenty-one and twenty-four. But if that's how Sanctus sees us, is that what we ought to be aiming for? Not just doing our little best with the mines and the water supply, but our big best, trying to steer the Cornovii in the right direction?"

It was a daunting prospect, but yet an enticing challenge.

"It'd take time," I said broodingly. "It'd mean widening our approach. More of the big picture, less of the smaller. That's the trouble, isn't it, as things stand? Sanctus was full of praise for the Cornovii for getting on with things, without the need for a government-appointed Guardian to chivvy us along. But nobody -- not even the council -- bothers with anything beyond our current little crises. Nobody takes responsibilities on of their own free will. Nobody has any vision for the future. Nobody's steering us. I mean, who are the leaders of Viroconium now? Who can speak for the town and the civitas?"

"You're right. Nobody, really. The nearest thing's the chairmen of the council for the time being. But they only serve for one year, and they're always looking forward to the end of it. Otherwise the best we've got are the respected elder statesmen like your Tad. And he's . . . well, he's not going to last for ever."

It did not seem likely, I reflected mournfully, that he would last for long at all.

"Bran, if that's what we're going to do, we can't do it on top of our current work-load. Mines. Water. Keeping an eye on Volusius and the Pulcher estate. Keeping an eye on Tad and the farm. Trying to be parents to Maglocunus. We don't give Tad or Maglocunus the time they deserve. We don't even give each other the time we deserve. What about employing someone else to handle the day-to-day stuff? The time-consuming things like accounts? We can easily afford it."

We agreed, there and then, to delegate, and spent the rest of the day discussing the details. That night, as we lay together after too long an absence, our love-making was close and gentle. It marked, it seemed, the turning over of a new leaf. We woke, however, to an acrid shock. One of the amphorae underneath our bed had sprung a leak, and fish sauce is not the most soothing of smells. It took me all morning and countless bucketfuls of water, laboriously emptied into the bilges and then pumped out, before the bows were habitable again.

From then on, too, it was largely a matter of bow-hauling. At first the boatmen pulled while I steered, but Bran's physical improvement was impressive and soon he felt strong enough to take the steering oar, while I helped pull. It was hard work indeed, but work that required little thought. When we finally reached the gorge only a dozen miles short of Viroconium, we stopped to engage a couple of extra men to haul us up the rapids. There we bumped into a friend who ran the stone-coal pits, and he offered, being on horseback and heading back to the town, to give advance warning to Tad that we were well and almost home.

At last, in the evening, we arrived. The Sabrina reflected the deep shadows of the bankside trees and the blood-red of the sunset sky above them. On the wharf, empty by now of bathers, was Maglocunus, capering and shrieking with excitement. Tad was there to look after him, and Tigernac was there to look after Tad, who was more breathless than ever. There were hugs all round. Our little gifts were handed over. Bran and I took Maglocunus on board and sat him in the stern. He was solemnly pretending to steer when Tigernac called out urgently.

Tad was slumped on a bollard, face grimacing and grey, hand clutched to his heart. I leapt ashore, and by the time we had eased him to the ground he was unconscious. I felt for his pulse as I had seen the doctor do. It was wildly irregular. And then, under my fingers, it stopped and did not re-start. On my knees I looked up at Tigernac, aghast. He read my face, and silently we bowed our heads. From the barge came a whimper, which turned into a wail of desolation as Maglocunus' young soul was brushed by the passage of death.

Grief wears many faces. My own grief for Tad, I found after the immediate shock had worn off, was different from my grief for Mamma and my grief for Lucius. My love for Tad had been different, I was older now and maybe wiser. Above all I had foreseen his end. My mind was dominated by gratitude for a good, good man and his good, good life. Beyond that lay relief that his end had been quick and reasonably painless. He had indeed chafed at his growing immobility, but it could have been much worse. Beyond that again lay a sense of guilt that I was not grieving more; but it was not a strong sense.

Maglocunus' grief was wild but, with his infant resilience, relatively short-lived. The hardest hit were Bran, Roveta and Tigernac; Tigernac most of all, who had known Tad longer than any of us and had grown up with him as I had grown up with Bran.

That night, once we had carried Tad home and laid him on his bed, the four of us went in sad togetherness to the kitchen. We took the tearful Maglocunus with us, for he needed company as he went to sleep. And except when entertaining guests we never ate in the dining room again, but fed communally in the kitchen, sitting on stools rather than reclining on couches. Togetherness seemed right. At the snap of a finger the family had taken on a new structure.

If Mamma's funeral had been well attended, Tad's was more so. It held fewer terrors than I feared, and this time I could better appreciate the kindness of friends and neighbours. We made our farewells with the usual rites, not because I believed they did any good but because they were expected.

As people dispersed, I aired my thoughts to Bran. "What I'm most glad about is that Tad was spared the worst indignities of age.

Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi
Prima fugit; subeunt morbi tristisque senectus
Et labor, et durae rapit inclementia mortis.

The best days of life are the first to slip away from us poor mortals; then illness and pain and dreary old age sneak up, and pitiless death rudely snatches away.

At least his illness and pain and old age didn't last long. And his unhappiness was lightened by Maglocunus."

Maglocunus, who had been very quiet throughout, was between us, holding our hands. On hearing his name he looked up.

"Docco, is he unhappy now?"

Trust a bright child to ask difficult questions.

"No. I think that if anything he's happy."

"But where's he gone? Apart from there?" He nodded at the grave.

Good grief. Not yet three, he already distinguished between soul and body. But this was not a debate to be conducted from on high, and Bran and I squatted down beside him.

"I don't know, Maglocunus. Honestly I don't know. Some people say there's an otherworld where we go when we die. A good place, where everybody's happy. But nobody has ever come back to tell us, so we can't be sure. Maybe there's nothing. But that wouldn't be bad. It would be like sleeping without dreams."

Maglocunus nodded, satisfied. "Then he isn't unhappy. Good."

He bent down and carefully placed on the grave a single poppy, shapeless and bruised from the clutch of his paw.

"He'll like that, won't he?"

"Yes. He'll like that."

"If he can see it."

Hand in hand again we walked home, slowly, without Tad.