Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [148]
Tosutigus was getting up, and the men were calling: “Fetch the bride.”
It was then that Porteus experienced panic. As he looked round at the men with their big moustaches, at Numex and Balba sitting together on a bench, their solemn round faces swollen and scarlet with food and drink, at the mixture of bull’s blood he had just swallowed – as he heard again the voice of Tosutigus saying “you’re one of us now,” – his own inner voice seemed to shout at him: Caius Porteus – is this your wedding? Are these British peasants now your people and will you never escape from this place? What have you done? Yet this was his wedding: nothing like the one he had always imagined with Lydia. And his bride was coming! I am committing myself to be part of this, he realised suddenly. My children will call these people their own. For a moment he wanted to cry out: No! Never! But Tosutigus and the mummers were already coming towards him, leading his bride. It was too late. He had committed himself for a red-haired girl, a grey horse and a single chest of gold coins. He was lost.
She was dressed in a white robe; her hair was swept back and held by a single golden clasp. She wore gold bracelets and gold anklets.
As her father led her to the place where Porteus was standing, the men all fell silent and the young man knew every one of them was gazing at his bride and thinking: if I could have her tonight . . . And in the horror of what he was doing as he stretched out his hand to take hers from her father, he comforted himself with the thought: tonight she will be mine.
Later that evening, the whole party prepared to ride down the valley to Sorviodunum; but before they did so, a servant led out the grey stallion and solemnly handed the reins to Porteus.
Then with torches blazing, they made their way down through the darkness and entered the little settlement below the empty dune just as the moon was rising. At his modest quarters, Porteus carried his bride over the threshold.
And so Porteus the Roman came to live at Sarum.
The early days of his marriage brought him several surprises. The first was Maeve. From their first night he discovered that his young wife’s appetites were nearly insatiable. When they were alone together for the first time, Porteus smiled at her tenderly, anxious to reassure her; but to his astonishment the girl threw herself upon him with a happy cry; she was like a wild animal. She wound herself round him, pulled him down on to the mattress, and laughing, sat astride him while she tore at his toga with her hands. In the coming months, her behaviour did not change. She would appear suddenly when he was working and lead him back to their house; or she would ride out to where he was supervising the men in the fields and make him canter after her to some deserted spot where, without waiting for him to undress, she would again throw herself on him with a little cry of delight.
It was all so new to her – this handsome young man with his Roman ways; the excitement of her first passion. She was rich; she had not a care in the world. It seemed to Maeve that suddenly the familiar scenes at Sarum had all been recreated, in brighter colours and that each new day brought a fresh adventure. The gods had given her a husband for her pleasure; she meant to enjoy him. As to what went on in his heart, or what might lie in the future – these were areas of darkness, sealed behind doors in her mind that she never thought of opening.
Another thing Porteus discovered was that in taking Maeve as his wife, he was also marrying her father.
On the first morning after the wedding, when the sun was still hardly up, he looked out to see the chief waiting patiently outside the house. He had brought a present of sweetmeats for Maeve. Thinking that it might be a local custom, the young Roman politely ushered him in, expecting him to leave soon afterwards; but several hours passed