Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [170]
To be more precise, he was not simply a Christian but, like many others on the island, a follower of the British-born monk Pelagius, who had in recent years made a great stir in the Roman world. The Pelagians proudly distinguished themselves from other believers by declaring that each individual Christian must earn his way to heaven not only by faith but by his actions.
“God gives each man free will,” he explained it to Petrus. “And God watches our actions – for which we must answer. That’s what counts.”
Technically this was a heresy, but in Pelagius’s native land it was a popular one, and Constantius believed in it firmly.
And so when, that day, young Petrus had come out with his outrageous demand that, like some of the local towns, they should employ German heathens to defend this, a Christian villa, from attack, he had been deeply offended. Still more offensive were the taunts with which, in front of Placidia, the boy had accompanied his suggestions.
“You speak of Roman aid: but the legions have gone: the empire has deserted the island and they’ll never come back.” This was something Constantius could never bring himself to accept. “As for your solutions, follower of Pelagius, where is your God-given free will? Gone in drink. And what are your actions? There haven’t been any.” No son should speak to his father in such a way, he thought. Worst of all, in his heart of hearts, he knew the boy was right.
But now, as he made his way despondently through the quiet rooms of the house, Constantius still muttered defiantly:
“I’ll save my villa. My way.”
The villa of Constantius Porteus, though it was built on the same site, was a far more imposing structure than the one built by his ancestor Caius nearly four centuries before. There were eight large day rooms now, arranged around three sides of a square courtyard, with further wings to which a second storey had been added. There were extensive out-buildings behind the house which formed the home farm. Outside, the building was similarly constructed to the original – a stone base, wattled walls daubed with plaster on the upper storey, and a tiled roof; to one side the old walled garden had been kept; now it boasted beds of irises, poppies and sumptuous lilies, and – its greatest glory – a double line of rose trees down the centre. But inside, the building far surpassed the first and would have gratified every wish of old Tosutigus had he been able to see it. All traces of the original rustic farm were gone. Large, light and airy rooms led one into another. The floor of the entrance hall was made of a soft, pink marble imported from Italy two hundred years before and handsome pilasters of the same material with graceful ionic capitals framed each of the doorways leading out of it. All the main rooms had finely painted frescoes on their walls, some depicting Roman men and women in solemn, graceful attitudes, others with lively hunting scenes.
But the finest features of all were the magnificent mosaic floors, of which the family was rightly proud.
Constantius stood in the doorway of the largest room. The villa seemed very quiet. Placidia had retired with her maid to her room, and his son and the steward had disappeared. As he stood there, gazing into the room, his face softened.
On the floor, stretching for thirty feet, lay one of the villa’s two greatest tieasures. It was a mosaic depicting Orpheus in the happy days before his descent into the underworld to find his love Eurydice. He was picked out in brilliant reds, rich browns and seated in a graceful, somewhat wistful attitude, with his lyre resting on his knee. Around the figure of Orpheus, arranged in concentric circles, were panels of animals, trees and birds, especially featuring the handsome pheasants with their trailing feathers for which the first Porteus