Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [181]
None of this satisfied poor Constantius.
“You seem to me to condone the boy,” he said angrily.
“We must be wise, Constantius. He is headstrong. There are many pagans in Sarum – you know that. Why even Numincus . . .”
At the mention of the steward’s name Constantius stiffened. Only that afternoon, Numincus had disobeyed his orders; he knew very well that, because of his neglect, it was the steward who ran the estate and he was jealous of the hardworking, solemn little fellow who was always, it seemed to him, closeted with his wife.
“Numincus has nothing to do with this,” he flared. “But in the morning he will acknowledge the Christian faith to me: and if he does not, I shall dismiss him.”
Placidia shrugged.
“That would be foolish.”
His wife despised him. It made him furious.
“No doubt it would be a blow to you,” he replied with a bitter anger. “I have no doubt he is your lover.”
Placidia did not reply for a moment. Then she said quietly:
“Please leave me.”
Constantius, feeling once again a sense of defeat descending upon him, and too weary and angry to protest any more, walked out of the room, banging the door behind him.
Placidia closed her eyes. Before her rose the vision of Numincus: his large balding head, his red, pointed nose, his solemn eyes, and his curious, stubby little hands. She knew that the steward was devoted to her; but a lover? She could not restrain a smile.
Two events of significance took place in the next two years. The first was the coming of the Saxons.
They came in the spring: not, as had been expected, a vast horde, but a small advance party. Thirty landed in two boats on the coast of the Solent estuary, twenty miles to the south east. The main contingent travelled towards Venta, looting the farms as they passed; but they did not attack the town, whose strong walls they could not hope to breach. Despite the fact that they came near the town, the force of German mercenaries there, which could easily have sallied out of the gates and wiped them out, remained inside; for the people of Venta had decided that the mercenaries were for the protection of the town itself and refused to let them leave to save the nearby farmsteads.
A smaller contingent of ten men, meanwhile, had moved north west across the rich farmlands towards the little settlement of Sorviodunum.
Petrus had been warned of their approach the day before, and he had prepared with care.
On his orders, the families living in Sorviodunum had evacuated the place and retreated inside the dune; but he had cleverly left fires burning and the gate of the wooden palisade open, so that the Saxons would be encouraged to approach. Inside, Numincus, Tarquinus and half a dozen men were concealed by the gate. Petrus himself, dressed in the armour of Numincus’s centurion father, waited with the six Germans on the little platform of land immediately in front of the entrance to the dune.
In the early afternoon, they came. The ten Saxons approached along the track beside the river; they were large men, though not as large as the German mercenaries. They were fair-haired and had long beards; and they approached Sorviodunum at a lesiurely pace. They had taken several horses along the way, and two of these were pulling a farm cart which was piled high with the goods they had looted. They rode their captured horses carelessly; four of them were singing; and seeing the apparently undefended settlement, they walked their horses confidently towards the gate. Petrus grinned. At a nod from him, the Germans began to move quietly forward down the slope.
Just before the Saxons reached the gate, the men inside slammed it shut and barred it. Taken by surprise, the Saxons paused, wondering whether to fire it or break it down some other way; and it was while their attention was fixed on the gate that Petrus and the mercenaries came out of a clump of trees on the slopes above.
“The gods are with us,” Petrus whispered to himself.
The victory was total. Trapped between the gate, the slope and the river, the Saxons were taken by surprise and hardly had time