London - Edward Rutherfurd [53]
His business with the mariner prospered. Better yet, satisfied that he had dealt with his wife’s lover, the mariner never had the least suspicion of the affair that began between Julius and Martina the following spring. And when the mariner was lost at sea a year later, Julius not only took over his business but married his widow too.
On the birth of their second son, to the great delight of his father Julius became a full member of the Temple of Mithras.
It was also at about this time that strong rulers emerged once more in Rome, and both in the empire and in Londinium it seemed, for the time being, that things were returning to normal.
Yet one thing continued to trouble Julius. Again and again, since the day of the games, he had returned to the place, searching high and low, by day and night. When the centurion was suddenly sent away, he was sure he could not have taken the heavy treasure with him. Somewhere, therefore, within a short distance of the spot where he had last seen the donkey cart, there might still be hidden a cache of coins whose value it was hard even to calculate. Months went by, years, and still he searched. On long summer evenings, he would stand by the quay or on the ramparts of the great wall of Londinium, watching the departing sun, and wonder.
Where, by all the gods, was that gold?
THE ROOD
604
The woman stared at the sea. Her long hair fell loosely over her hunting dress, which flapped in the wind. The bright autumn sun was still in the east.
Her last moment of freedom. For three days she had delayed in this wild place that was her refuge, but now she must return. And decide. What answer would she give her husband?
It was Haligmonath – holy month – as they called the old Roman month of September in the pagan countries of the north.
The place where she was standing lay on the huge, curving coastline beyond the Thames Estuary where England bulges out some seventy miles eastwards into the waters of the cold North Sea. Before her, the great, grey sea. Behind her, huge, flat tracts of fen and heath, wood and field stretching to the horizon. And to her right, the long, desolate beaches that continued southwards for fifty miles before they curved into the wide entrance to the Thames.
Her name was Elfgiva – “The faeries’ gift” in the Anglo-Saxon tongue. Her richly embroidered dress proclaimed her a noblewoman. She was thirty-seven, with four grown sons. Her complexion was fair, her face handsome, her eyes bright blue. Although strands of silver had stolen into her golden hair, she knew she was still a fine-looking woman. I could still have another child, she thought. Even the daughter she had longed for. But what was the use of that if this terrible business remained unresolved?
Though the two servants waiting with the horses could not see the anguish on her face, they could guess her feelings. They felt sorry for her. The whole household knew how, after a quarter-century of happy marriage, the master and mistress had suddenly fallen out.
“She’s brave,” one groom whispered to the other. “But can she hold out?”
“Not against the master,” the other replied. “He always gets his way.”
“True,” the groom agreed. And then, with admiration: “But she’s proud.”
It was not easy for a woman to be too proud amongst the Anglo-Saxons of England.
Profound changes had taken place in the northern island of Britain during the last two centuries. The first was that, since the empire of Rome had effectively collapsed, Britain had ceased to be a Roman province. The second was that, like most of the empire, it had been invaded.
There had always been barbarians at the empire’s gates, but Rome had either repelled them or absorbed them as mercenaries and immigrant settlers. From about 260, however, as the sprawling empire fragmented into regions, the incursions grew harder to control. And around the year 400, the many tribes of eastern Europe, stirred up by the appearance