Moral Disorder - Margaret Atwood [4]
Tig comes in with a scroll. Tig is short for Tigris, a nickname bestowed on him by his erstwhile troops. Only a few intimates call him Tig. He’s frowning.
“Bad news?” I ask.
“The barbarians are invading,” he says. “They’ve crossed the Rhine.”
“Not before breakfast,” I say. He knows I can’t discuss weighty matters right after getting up. But I’ve been too abrupt: I see his stricken look, and I relent. “They’re always crossing the Rhine. You’d think they’d get tired of it. Our legions will defeat them. They always have before.”
“I don’t know,” says Tig. “We shouldn’t have let so many barbarians into the army. You can’t depend on them.” He spent a long time in the army himself, so his worry means something. On the other hand, it’s his general view that Rome is going to hell in a handcart, and I’ve noticed that most retired men feel like that: the world simply cannot function minus their services. It’s not that they feel useless; they feel unused.
“Please, sit down,” I say. “I’ll order you a nice piece of bread and honey, with figs.” Tig sits down. I don’t proffer the mare’s milk, though it would do him good. He knows I know he doesn’t like it. He hates being nagged about his health, which has been giving him some problems lately. Oh, make things stay the way they are, I pray to him silently.
“Did you hear?” I say. “They found a freshly cut-off head, hung up beside the old Celtic votive well.” Some escaped quarry worker who ran off into the woods, which they’ve been warned against, heaven knows. “Do you think they’re reverting to paganism? The Celts?”
“They hate us, really,” says Tig. “That memorial arch doesn’t help. It’s hardly tactful – Celts being defeated, Roman feet on their heads. Haven’t you caught them staring at our necks? They’d love to stick the knife in. But they’re soft now, they’re used to luxuries. Not like the northern barbarians. The Celts know that if we go under, they’ll go under too.”
He takes only one bite of the lovely bread. Then he stands up, paces around. He looks flushed. “I’m going to the baths,” he says. “For the news.”
Gossip and rumour, I think. Portents, forebodings; birds in flight, sheep’s entrails. You never know if the news is true until it pounces. Until it’s right on top of you. Until you reach out in the night and there’s no more breathing. Until you’re howling in darkness, wandering the empty rooms, in your white dress.
“We’ll get through it,” I say. Tig says nothing.
It’s such a beautiful day. The air smells of thyme, the fruit trees are in flower. But this means nothing to the barbarians; in fact, they prefer to invade on beautiful days. It provides more visibility for their lootings and massacres. These are the same barbarians who – I’ve heard – fill wicker cages with victims and set them on fire as a sacrifice to their gods. Still, they’re very far away. Even if they manage to cross the Rhine, even if they aren’t slain in thousands, even if the river fails to run red with their blood, they won’t get here for a long time. Not in our lifetime, perhaps. Glanum is in no danger, not yet.
The Art of Cooking and Serving
The summer I was eleven I spent a lot of time knitting. I knitted doggedly, silently, crouched over the balls of wool and the steel needles and the lengthening swath of knitwear in a posture that was far from easy. I’d learned to knit too early in life to have mastered the trick of twisting the strand around my index finger – the finger had been too short – so I had to jab the right-hand