Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [141]
But on the eve of the great festival of Samain, the Celtic name for Hallowe’en, Tosutigus invited the young Roman to a feast at his house; and not wishing to offend the native chief, Porteus went.
It was already dark when he entered the wattle enclosure round Tosutigus’s house, and as he did so he realised that he had been so busy and so starved of company that this was the first time he had paused to relax in several months. As he walked past the spits in the enclosure and the charcoal hearth where the women were preparing the meal, and entered the large thatched hall in the centre of which another fire was burning, he realised how much he had missed warmth and comfort in his cold, bare quarters in Sorviodunum.
To his surprise, the house was not full of local men; Tosutigus greeted him alone. Once again, he was wearing a toga and he led the young Roman to a couch near the fire.
“Let us show you that even a Celt can give you a Roman meal,” he cried. “And that my daughter knows how to prepare one.”
The meal that followed was better than anything Porteus had enjoyed since he left the governor’s quarters, and it did indeed conform to the Roman pattern. First came the gustatio: oysters, brought up from the south in barrels of salted water, a salad prepared with pepper and olive oil imported from the Mediterranean, and a delicate preparation of eggs. Next came the main courses: venison, and a local dish of mutton, cooked with rosemary and thyme. There were lampreys, trout and veal. And to accompany this, the women brought in huge, square, sweet-smelling loaves of unleavened bread and the rich butter of the area. Finally, for the mensae secundae there were puddings made by Maeve, apples and pears. It was a magnificent meal, and accompanied not by the ale and mead that Porteus had expected, but by excellent wines from Gaul. So well did he eat and drink that he even began to enjoy Tosutigus’s ponderous jokes, and to take no more notice of the endless hints that some favourable mention should be made of him to the governor.
During the meal he saw that each course was brought in by the red-haired girl and her serving women. She seemed to take no special notice of him on this occasion, but several times he found his eyes following her back and forth across the room, and he became aware of the proud carriage of her young head with its magnificent tresses shining in the firelight, and of the lilting rhythm of her walk. She wore a simple green robe that was slit up one side almost to the waist so that he caught tempting glimpses of her leg.
“A magnificent meal,” he complimented the chief when they were done.
“It is my daughter you should thank,” the Celt replied, and called the girl forward.
While Porteus thanked her as courtesy demanded, she stood before him with her eyes this time modestly downcast, her hair falling forward so that it covered her cheeks. Despite his love for Lydia, the young Roman felt a sudden urge to take this marvellous girl in his arms. He laughed to himself. No doubt it was the meal.
What he did not know was that with each successive course, Maeve had sprinkled his food with a mixture of herbs which she had carefully prepared that afternoon, and which the older women had promised her was a powerful love potion. Whether the herbs were aphrodisiac or whether Porteus was simply flushed with food and wine, she observed with a surreptitious glance that the handsome young Roman’s eyes were glowing – she hoped with lust. She kept her eyes on the ground, but inside she felt for the first time the exhilaration of sexual triumph.
“I will have him,” she thought.
Tosutigus did not know about the aphrodisiac herbs, nor that Maeve had been counting horses; but as he watched through half-closed eyelids the effect his daughter was having on Porteus, he smiled quietly to himself.
The Celtic chief was less naïve than the young Roman supposed. A month before, Tosutigus had ridden into Calleva and made discreet enquiries about him; he had met a clerk from the governor’s staff and from him he had discovered the