Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [186]
“We’ll be ready when they come,” Petrus assured his mother. And to himself he promised: “We’ll not only smash the Saxons; we’ll restore Britannia to grandeur, given time.”
Placidia watched these developments calmly; but she was worried.
Constantius had not changed. He took a nominal interest in the running of the estate and none at all in its defence – both of which in reality were in the hands of the loyal steward. For Placidia now knew only too well that Petrus, apart from his spasmodic bursts of enthusiasm, did little that was practical either. He rode his horses, supervised the work on the dune and occasionally, with obvious impatience, joined her when she went through the estate accounts with Numincus. When I am gone, she had to confess to herself sadly, he’ll be little better than Constantius. His only hope was if she could find him a wife to strengthen him.
And here there was another problem. For ever since the skirmish with the Saxons, Petrus had been keeping a concubine: Sulicena, the cowherd’s niece. It was a relationship which worried her.
It was not that the girl was a nuisance at the villa, since Petrus kept her in a small house two miles away; nor did Sulicena do anything she could complain about. On the few occasions when they had met the girl had been polite and respectful. It was more something that Placidia sensed, a hidden scorn and contempt behind the pale girl’s deference that concerned her and she felt instinctively that she was an evil influence on her son. Worse, the girl distracted him from the more important business of finding a suitable wife. Each time Placidia raised this vital subject, Petrus brushed the matter aside, and on one occasion said to her bluntly:
“If I do take a wife, I shall still keep Sulicena as my concubine.”
Placidia shrugged wearily.
“It is not necessary to tell me that, Petrus.” She supposed some compromise would be reached in time, but his attitude was discouraging.
Petrus was content with things as they were. His relationship with the girl was entirely physical – her lithe, hard body and her eager sexual demands exactly satisfied his needs. Frequently he visited her and they would make love until they were spent. It made him feel a man and since he made it clear to the girl that the affair would have to end one day, it left him free.
And yet, he was conscious of a sense of dissatisfaction with his life. The worship of the pagan gods began to seem flat, when he had no one to share his belief with, except the grim old peasant Tarquinus. True, he would spend hours studying Roman history for heroes to his taste; he even read the works of the great pagan philosophers. But on the windswept ridges around Sarum, the classical world he admired seemed too far away. He felt a growing sense of emptiness. There was no outlet here for his need to dramatise himself.
Perhaps he would enter the taurobolium again.
“What you need,” Placidia told him again, “is an intelligent woman to keep you company as a wife.”
It was not until the spring of 432 that Placidia had at last persuaded him to take some positive action.
A kinswoman – recently widowed – had written to say that she had a daughter of marriageable age: that the girl would inherit a large estate to the west, near the Severn estuary: and that, though only nineteen, she ran the place with the steward as if it were her own already.
Even Petrus had to agree with his mother that