Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [120]
Thereafter life became easier. Suetonius, who had completely ignored him while they settled into their temporary quarters in the windy eastern colony at Camulodunum, now saw that the young officers were going about with him and started to give him small tasks to perform. Short as his temper was, he found nothing to complain of in the young man: he was industrious, eager to learn and not particularly stupid.
“He needs to be tested in battle,” he remarked to the legates one night as they chatted over their meal, “but he could be worse.” And the legates knew that, from the governor, this was as near to a compliment as anyone was likely to get.
“How did he come to be here?” one of them dared to ask him.
“I had to please his father-in-law, Graccus the Senator you know,” Suetonius candidly admitted. “Foolish to refuse a favour to a man like that who can always do you some good in Rome. His daughter’s going to marry young Porteus – I can’t think why.”
Lydia! As he stared at the shadows on the side of his tent, Porteus let his thoughts wander to his future bride. The picture that immediately arose was the same one that always did: it was a vision that was imprinted forever on his memory, that first magic time that he had seen her. The girl had been walking across the small garden in her father’s house in Rome and she had not realised that anyone else was there. It was her thirteenth birthday: her long brown hair was braided and wound round her head in the fashion of that year, and she was wearing a simple white linen dress, gathered at the waist. As she passed the small fountain in the centre of the little court, the sunlight caught her so that her naked form was perfectly silhouetted through the thin material, and he saw, with a gasp of wonder, the firm lines of her body and the soft young breasts newly swollen to their first perfect fullness. It was a sight he should never have been permitted to see, for high born girls like Lydia were kept in modest seclusion until they were married, but once seen he would never forget the girl’s artless grace. Porteus had fallen in love at once. At thirteen she was already of marriageable age, and he soon discovered to his delight that she was not yet betrothed. She had a perfect oval face, large brown eyes and that clear pale olive complexion that can last, almost flawlessly, for a lifetime. She was perfection. It was not long before the two young people discovered that they delighted in each other’s company. Lydia was young, innocent, and self-willed. He came to look forward to her sudden flashes of childish temper, followed by laughter and brilliant smiles. And the girl thought that her eager young lover was the most brilliant young man in the world. It was flattering.
Porteus sighed. His favourite day-dream, in which he had often indulged during the lonely months in the cold northern province, was of their wedding. It was due to take place in two years and by then, he knew, Lydia would have developed into a beautiful young woman. He could see it so clearly: the torchlight procession waiting outside Graccus’s house and singing the marriage hymn: “Hymen, O Hymenae, Hymen”, while inside, hidden from view in the family shrine Lydia would dedicate her child’s toys to the household gods, the Lares; then, following the Roman custom, she would step for the last time out of her child’s clothes, and her mother’s women would dress her in the long white wedding gown and the bright saffron veil in which every Roman girl of family was married. He could see it all. They would arrange her long hair in the style of the vestal virgins so that three perfect curls fell down each cheek. Ah, how he longed to run his fingers through her hair and bury his face in those long, sweet smelling tresses!
And then the torchlight procession would make its way through the streets to the bridegroom’s house where the bride would place wooden fillets on the door posts and anoint