Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [187]
“After all,” Placidia said, “you don’t have to do anything about her if you don’t like each other.”
The visit became more attractive to Petrus when he remembered something else.
“I have always meant to visit the shrine to the god Nodens across the Severn,” he said. “It’s supposed to be magnificent. I can see that and then visit the girl.” And as he considered this he became almost keen to make the journey.
Placidia could only pray it might come to something.
From all the reports received at Sarum it seemed unlikely that the Saxons would come before midsummer that year, and so in early spring having said goodbye to his parents, given Sulicena a gold solidus, and taking one spare horse, he set out on the road west. His way lay through Aquae Sulis.
The roads, though overgrown with weeds in places, were still good, and he reached Aquae Sulis early the next day. It was a sad sight.
For though the town was still inhabited, it was only a ghost of its former self. The spa’s problem had not been raiders, but a change in the water level in the previous century that had caused the ducts leading to the baths to silt up; and although they had been cleaned out, they soon clogged up again. As the years went by the costs of repair had grown too high. The resort had almost closed down long before Petrus was born.
As he rode through the deserted streets, gazing at the splendid but empty buildings, Petrus felt a sense of melancholy. When he inspected the shrine of Sulis Minerva, and looked at the fine gorgon’s head that now gazed over the dry and empty pool, he shook his head and murmured:
“Aquae Sulis, too, must one day be restored to glory.”
But how he did not know.
That afternoon, when he rode on to the town of Corinium, he found it in a better state. Its defences were strong, like the ones at Venta, and as a further precaution, the amphitheatre whose round walls stood proudly in the centre of the town had been fortified as a last place of defence. Its high, strong walls would be impossible for anyone to breach without large siege engines. He found a small inn near the town gates and spent the night there.
Soon after dawn, he rode on. As he left the town, he noticed a small building outside the walls. It was an ecclesia, a Christian church: a small, poor building made of wood, obviously badly attended. Some useless attempts had been made to fortify the little structure too, and Petrus could not help smiling. These poor Christians, he thought: it’s the pagan gods who will save this place.
Later that day he reached the broad estuary of the Severn and took the ferryboat across to the western side. From there he rode south towards the shrine. It was a remarkable region. Ever since the conquest, coal and iron had been mined and worked in the area, and several times he passed small settlements where slag heaps rose darkly out of the thick forest on his right. On his left he could see the sparkling waters of the great river. And then, as the sun was sinking, he saw his objective ahead.
The shrine of the god Nodens the Cloudmaker was a fine sight – a cluster of temple buildings with handsome, heavy-pillared porticoes set on a promontory overlooking the broadening estuary. Smoke was rising gently from two altars in the clear spring sky. There was a pleasant scent from the surrounding woods and the wind just disturbed the sparkling surface of the river and rustled the trees below the little acropolis.
Petrus smiled. It was everything a temple should be.
Indeed, the entire place was in perfect order. By the entrance was a long wooden building that served as a lodging house, simple but comfortable, and there he found a dozen pilgrims like himself. There were eight temple priests and numerous acolytes, and they lived in handsome houses built, he learned, with money from two large bequests that had been made recently.
Since Nodens had been the traditional patron god of his family, he went at once to the two altars and left one