London - Edward Rutherfurd [66]
“But where’s that gold?” he demanded aloud, as though the empty city might tell him.
He had investigated the puzzling remains of the Temple of Mithras, returned to the forum, and then taken the upper of the two great thoroughfares across the city towards the western hill. He had walked along ruined colonnades, gazed at tumble-down houses with trees growing through where windows had once been, poked his head into alleys filled with bushes as though the disposition of these relics might give him a clue as to where the treasure lay. Several times he had closed his eyes, muttered a prayer to Woden, and turned in a circle, hoping the god might point him in the right direction.
Men use divining rods to find water, he said to himself now. Perhaps you can divine gold underground the same way. But what kind of rods would do it? For an hour and more he tramped around before the light began to fade. “But I’ll come back another day,” he muttered. And another. After all, it was something to do. Besides, he never gave up. He decided, however, to say nothing about his quest, even to Ricola.
And so, at Lundenwic, they came towards the end of Haligmonath, the holy month.
Another reason why Ricola was unwilling to leave was that she was becoming attached to her mistress.
Perhaps it was because the girl was a new face, or because she had suffered misfortune, or because Elfgiva had always wanted a daughter, but whatever the reason, the older woman took a liking to Ricola. She would often summon her on some pretext, sometimes only to sit with her, but often to braid her hair or brush it, for which the girl had a talent. And Ricola was glad to do so.
Since Elfgiva was the first woman of the noble class the girl had met, she observed her closely. Not only was her dress different – a long girdled gown instead of the ordinary woman’s modest tunic – but her whole manner subtly marked her out. What was it? “She gets cross just like I do. She laughs. She may be a bit quieter than me, but so are lots of women I know,” the girl explained to Offa. “Yet she is different. She’s a lady.” Gradually Ricola began to reach a conclusion. “You know what it is. It’s as if she is being watched all the time.”
“I suppose she is. By all the people who work for the master.”
“I know. And I dare say she knows it. But,” Ricola’s brow furrowed, “there’s something else. Even when I’m alone with her. She doesn’t care a rap what I think of her. I’m just a slave. She’s too proud for that. But even then she thinks she’s being watched. I can feel it.”
“By the gods, I dare say.”
“Maybe. Actually, I think it’s her own family. Her dead father, his father, the whole lot of them, generations back. She has to behave because she thinks they’re watching her. That’s what I reckon it is.” She nodded with satisfaction. “And all the time, just walking around like you and me, that’s not just the Lady Elfgiva you’re looking at. You’re looking at the whole bunch of them, all the way back to the god Woden himself, I dare say. They’re all there in her mind, you see, whatever she’s doing. That’s what it’s like being a lady.”
Offa looked at his wife wonderingly. He could see what she meant. “So would you like to be her?” he asked.
Ricola gave an earthy laugh. “What, and have that lot to carry around on my back all the time? I’d sooner get in that sack with the snake! It’s too much trouble.”
But while Offa chuckled at her common sense, she remarked more seriously: “It’s