Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [154]
“The Roman is a fine farmer,” they said.
Not only did Porteus improve the stock, but he also changed the way in which the wool was gathered.
“You pluck the sheep when their new wool grows in the spring,” he told Tosutigus. “But then the sheep moult again in the autumn and much of that wool is lost. Plucking is slow and inefficient.” He showed the chief some metal shears. “In future we’ll use these and we can double what we collect.” He also made the men comb the wool with iron combs to separate the long fibres from the short.
Before long, Porteus’s flocks of white sheep were to be seen all over the high ground beside the brown soay stock. They were hardy, agile, and wore no pellita. But they were producing huge quantities of high grade white wool which sold well, and Tosutigus was able to say to his daughter:
“Our Roman has not only brought us his customs – he is even making us rich.”
By the time that he had been married five years, Porteus could look around him with some satisfaction and feel that perhaps after all, he had made something of his life. Maeve had given him three children: two boys and a baby girl. The two boys would be given a Roman education: when they were a little older he would engage a tutor for them. The estate was flourishing. Indeed he had been so busy with his improvements that he had not even mentioned the subject of a move from Sorviodunum to the procurator’s office; and though his parents had now lost almost all the estates in South Gaul as a result of the lawsuit, he had been able to send them sufficient money to keep them in modest comfort. Life, all things considered, had treated him well.
One change in his daily routine he had not foreseen. This was the change in Maeve.
She had been surprised herself. When her first pregnancy had begun she had lain beside him at night while waves of nausea swept over her. She longed for the business of childbearing to be completed so that she could return to her free and easy life with her lover. But when the nausea left her and she became conscious of the warm little ball of life growing inside her, she became fascinated by it. This was a new adventure: it was taking place within herself. It was, she thought, even more exciting than the arrival of Porteus had been.
The business became even more absorbing; when the child was born, she could not take her eyes off it. She would sit for hours, staring at it in wonder; and in the months that followed her whole attention became focused on her baby to the exclusion of almost everything else. She never rode now. When she made love to her husband, it was no longer with passionate abandon, but with a warm contentment; and not many months had passed before, to her surprise, she began to look forward to having another child.
At first Porteus was pleased with this change. “My wife is growing into a woman,” he thought with pride. But as two more children followed, he found that Maeve’s attention had turned from him almost completely. There was always a child to attend to when he was in the house; his wife’s smile for him was warm, but her eyes were focused elsewhere.
Indeed, although she never formulated the thought, it sometimes seemed to Maeve that the strange young Roman who had given her her children and who still spoke of going to Rome, was almost an intrusion into her new life. How could he fail to see the absorbing wonder of their children? Why did he sometimes turn away from her impatiently? And yet she loved him: she was sure she did: for was he not building up a fine estate for their family? Of course she loved him. She needed him.
If at times Porteus felt angry that his wife’s passion for him had disappeared, he told himself that it was for the best. He had no time for it, now that he had so much he wished to do.
And when, on those occasions that she