Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [182]
The mercenaries obviously enjoyed their work. Though their camp in the dune was comfortable, and they had been well fed, they had been getting bored and restless. Now however, they were smiling contentedly.
It was when the skirmish was over and the bodies of the Saxons had been stripped and tossed into a shallow pit by the river that Petrus found himself faced with a new and awkward situation, that he had not forseen. For now the leader of the mercenaries approached him.
“The cart,” he pointed to the Saxons’ loot, “is ours.”
Petrus frowned and shook his head. Some of the contents doubtless came from local farmsteads. “It will be restored to the owners,” he replied.
The German’s eyes were expressionless.
“Ours.”
“You have been paid.”
“We killed the Saxons. The cart is ours or we go.”
Petrus considered. If the Germans left, they would easily find employment with one of the other settlements; he had no doubt that the Saxons they had just encountered were nothing more than an advance party and that they would be back before long, in greater numbers. It would be foolish to let the mercenaries go.
“Very well,” he said irritably.
But the German had not finished.
“We have fought. Now we need women,” he stated. “A woman each.”
There were a few slave girls in Sarum of course, which Numincus had already supplied, but not enough for all the Germans. Something in the fellow’s manner told him that it might be dangerous to argue.
“Numincus will find you women.” Perhaps some slaves could be found in Venta or Durnovaria. Angry with himself for giving in, he turned towards the gates from which Numincus was now emerging.
The day before, in one of his more lucid moments, Constantius had warned him: “Your Germans will give you more trouble than you think. Take care.” It irked him to think that his father could be right.
But later that day, as he was riding slowly back towards the villa, and remembering the details of the battle and his part in it, a flush of elation came over him. Whatever his father’s weakness, he had proved that he at least was a good Roman and a man.
And it was then, when he was half way to the villa, that the figure of the girl, Tarquinus’s niece, stepped out onto the track in front of him.
He stopped, surprised. Since the episode of the taurobolium he had almost forgotten her; but as he gazed down at her now, he remembered her slim, pale body.
She was looking straight into his eyes.
“You fought today.”
He nodded.
“You beat them.”
He grinned. “We did.”
“They say you fought as well as the Germans.”
“Perhaps.” He was glad to hear it.
She continued to stare up at him, saying nothing else, but now there could be no mistaking her purpose.
He thought of the words of the German, and nodded to himself. How simple it was, and how right: when a man has fought, he should have a woman.
He dismounted and followed the girl as she led the way to the place she had prepared.
The second event took place the next summer, in the year 429.
It concerned Constantius.
For some time now, the Christians of Rome and Gaul had been disturbed by the large number of followers that the Pelagian heresy had attracted in the island of Britain. It was late in the previous century that the British monk Pelagius had begun to live and teach in Rome. At first his teachings had met with only mild disapproval or even tolerance from such church leaders as Ambrose of Milan or even the great St Augustine of Hippo himself. The well-meaning monk