Ashes Under Uricon
Chapter 6. Shame (364)
By Mihangel
Circumstrepebat me undique sartago flagitiosorum amorum. Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, et secretiore indigentia oderam me minus indigentem. Quaerebam quid amarem.
A whole frying-pan full of outrageous loves crackled all around me. I was not yet in love, yet I loved the idea of being in love. I felt that, deep inside, something was missing, and despised myself for my slowness in satisfying the need. I began to look around for someone to love.
St Augustine, Confession
I followed Tad's advice too, and sowed my wild oats early. As it happened, I got them out of my system surprisingly fast.
Amminus and I were so fired by our first encounter that we repeated it next day, and the two following days, in his house or in mine. Then he somehow persuaded Senovara to come along, and she turned out to be, by now, neither a virgin nor, after all, so prim and proper. She taught us much, and we had her at the same time, one in front and one behind. Then word of our doings got out to other youngsters, and they joined the fun. On one occasion no fewer that seven of us, three girls and four boys, were at it together in someone's outhouse, in all manner of unlikely combinations. From that point, recalling Tad's warning about sleeping three nights with the same girl, I gave my favours more exclusively to boys, and usually to only one boy at a time. That way, I found, was more rewarding; but it was none the less untrammelled lust on every side, rampant adolescent animal rutting rampant animal, with never a smidgen of love. None of us pretended otherwise. It was a game, and the most enjoyable of games. "I'm going to break down the back gate of your fortress with my battering ram," someone might belligerently declare, and no beleaguered city ever surrendered more readily.
Tad knew what I was up to. Bran was back at home now, the cattle-buying completed, and he knew what I was up to. Given the company I was keeping, given my irregular comings and goings, and my friends' comings and goings, and my returning home exhausted from my labours, he could hardly not have known. But he never said a word. Sometimes I was grateful, when I set my liaisons -- which I knew were ephemeral -- against the permanence of his presence. Sometimes I was slightly resentful because I assumed that, in his own way, he was doing much the same himself, and I wished that we could compare notes. The gulf between us remained, although 'gulf' is probably the wrong word. Perhaps 'veil' is better, something that interrupted the closeness of our friendship but did not wholly block it off.
This pattern continued for a month or so. Then, one afternoon in February, when lunch was over, I went to pay my respects to Mamma. More poorly than ever, she was spending most of her time in bed, cosseted by Roveta, and I was worried for her.
"We must get you better, Mamma. Why don't you ask Roveta to wrap you up and take you outside for some fresh air? That brazier makes the room stuffy, and it's quite mild out today. I'd take you myself, but Amminus'll be here any moment. He's picking me up when he's let out of school."
"Thank you, Docco. But before you go, there's something I'd like to say to you."
"What's that, Mamma?"
But as she began to answer I heard Amminus' voice in the hall, and I interrupted her.
"He's here! I'll drop in when I get back, Mamma, before dinner. Have a good afternoon!"
And out I ran. We went to the baths, and from there to Amminus' bedroom. Two hours later, because Amminus wanted a threesome, we decided to see if another friend was in. We were on our way to his house when Bran suddenly appeared beside me.
"Thank goodness I've found you," he panted. "Your father sent me. Your mother's been taken ill. Please would you come home at once."
I stared at him resentfully and stupidly.
"At once," he repeated sharply, on edge and out of patience. At that I abandoned Amminus, and we rushed home.
"She's had a big haemorrhage," Bran explained as we ran. "She's very ill. My father's gone for the doctor."
Mamma was lying in bed, her eyes closed, but visibly alive. Roveta was standing by, silently weeping, and Tigernac was holding her. Tad was on one side of Mamma, his arm around her. The doctor was on the other, his fingers on her pulse.
"I cannot deny," he was declaring as we came in, "that her condition is grave, very grave. Yet nature has wonderfully curative powers."
My heart sank. It was a medical man's way of saying that, short of divine intervention, we might as well order the coffin.
I went to the bed, the doctor made way for me, and I put my arm around Mamma. As I did so she opened her eyes. She looked at Tad with a gentle smile. She turned to me and her lips quivered. Her eyes finally moved to Bran. And then she died. It was obvious that she had died. Her light had gone out, like a lamp extinguished. The doctor, feeling again for her pulse, nodded solemnly in confirmation, and with his thumb he pulled her eyelids down.
At first it only partially sank into my head. I was confused. I had no tears; not yet. Almost automatically I kissed Mamma, let go of her, and went to put my arm round Tad instead. He seemed equally confused, and we clung together, giving and drawing comfort in our bewilderment. The doctor quietly left, but our three slaves stayed with us. No, I thought with a great welling of warmth, not slaves, but friends, the dearest of friends, and they were grieving too. I stood up and embraced Roveta, tight and long, and she embraced me back. The same with Tigernac. The same with Bran . . . but with him it seemed different. His parents' embraces had conveyed desolation and sympathy and affection. So did his. But it also conveyed strength, and something more than affection.
It was in his arms that the full force of it hit me. She would never speak to me again, nor I to her. I would never hear what she had been going to tell me that afternoon. I wished I had spent more time with her then. I wished I had spent more time with her in recent years. Never again would I hear her laughter and her teasing and her gentle advice. Never again would I feel that flood of love which comes only from a mother. For years I had been closer to Tad simply because, with Mamma so often ill, we saw each other more. He was a fountain of love as well. Of course he was. But it was a different love, fatherly not motherly. I buried my head in Bran's shoulder, and wept.
But as he held me I felt a flood of love flowing from him too, harder to identify. The love of a friend? It must be. It could be nothing else. Wishing that that veil had not come down between us, I gratefully tried to send a friend's love back.
Then Bran pushed me gently away. Tad was standing up, painfully like an old man, and I went to embrace him again. Weeping together, we poured out our floods of love for one another, father for son, son for father. And yet another flood was pouring from him, of heart-broken love for Mamma, who was dead.
It seemed, two days later, that half the town followed us out to the cemetery between the Deva and London roads. Mamma, with her frailty, had not been so well known, but the support for Tad was impressive. The bishop of course was absent, on the excuse that he could not partake in pagan rites. But all the councillors were present, and many of the Town Hall staff. Ulcagnus and Tappo had come in for the occasion. There were Tad's professional acquaintances, and tradesmen galore headed by the Bronzesmiths' Association and the Guild of Pewterers with their banners. There were neighbours, and more friends than I knew we had. Heart-warming it would have been, had our hearts been able to be warmed. As the flutes wailed, we went through the formalities of the simple rites: laid her in the grave, poured wine and scented oil over it, sprinkled herbs, and burned locks of our hair. Bran came close and whispered in my ear,
"Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi;
Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.
Here too merit has its proper reward. There are tears for human fortune, and mortality touches the heart."
It touched mine; and so did he.
Finally, and worst of all, we went home without her.
A priest came to purify the house of the taint of death. Was death a taint? I wondered. Limitless grief for the survivors, to be sure; but could something natural be tainted? Well, we had burned the tainted ragwort which killed our cattle. Perhaps this rite was similar. That evening, as we picked at our meal, Tad and I were silent, and sympathy wafted from Tigernac as he waited on us. Eventually Tad spoke.
"We're going to miss her, Docco. Miss her dreadfully. But it's one of those things. Death is one of the facts of life, and we can't do anything about it." He heaved a big sigh. "And life has to go on. There's a boatload of lead almost ready to go down the Sabrina. I've got to spend tomorrow catching up on the accounts, but I'll be back for dinner. What have you got in mind?"
"For tomorrow? Thinking. I'm still muddled in my head."
I hugged Tad again, and went to bed in the hope of catching up on sleep.
In the event, sleep again eluded me, and much of my thinking was done that night. By the time Bran came in to get me up I was beginning to see a way forward.
"Bran, I'm going to ride out to Vindolocum."
In his surprise he revealed what was in his mind. "You're not seeing Amminus, then?"
"No!" I was so emphatic that, though he tried to hide it, his surprise showed again.
"Oh! Well . . . I'll put some food together for you. But it's cold today, and windy. Very windy. Wrap up warm."
"Good. It'll help blow the cobwebs away. And Bran. Would you come with me? Please. I want to think, and probably I'll want to talk."
A curious expression crossed his face. "Of course. I'll saddle up and get the food while you're having breakfast."
We rode off, clad in vests and extra tunics, heavy cloaks and breeches, and leather boots. There were few people about in town, and at every intersection our cloaks billowed in the wind that whistled out from the side streets. Legs up, we ploughed carefully through the ford which was almost too deep for safety, and then followed the main road to Cunetio. There we turned on to a by-road, narrow but stone-surfaced, and we galloped. For a while it cheered me up. There is little so exhilarating as galloping on a winter's day, cheeks and forehead stinging with cold, hair anywhere, cloak sailing out behind, knees tight to save a throw if the horse should stumble, hooves pounding rhythmically beneath.
"Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum." In time with the rhythm, I shouted the classic line at Bran, "Four-footed thunder of hooves agitates the reverberant pasture," and he laughed back.
After a few miles we slowed to a walk. Even a vest and two tunics could not keep out the wind, and the hard road was tough for unshod hooves. Finally we dismounted to climb the steep scarp of the Vindolocum ridge. At the top was a gap in the woodland where we hobbled the horses and let them graze, while we sat down in the lee of the trees.
Laid out in front of us was our own little patch. We could not distinguish our farm, but ahead, far off, we picked out the naked white vaults of the town baths. From beside them the Sabrina, glinting at intervals in the pale sunshine, snaked towards us and off to our right. Behind it rose Virocodunum, brown-clad with leafless trees. The plain was more farmland than woodland, but towards its edges the uncleared forest held sway. To our left the peaks of Cordocum stood up in different shapes from those we usually saw, and behind them, bluing into the distance, was range upon range of mountains. To the north-west we saw the hill of Onna, and beyond it the tump of Brigodunum with its hill-fort, and even further, maybe thirty miles away, we could just make out Croucodunum in the haze. The whole vista held a stark and startling beauty.
And this was our territory, the home of our hopes and fears. I had never set foot beyond it. I suddenly longed to break out, but as my father's son, earmarked for my father's job, I was not allowed to escape. It was here that chance had placed me; not fate, in which I did not believe, but chance. It was here that my life had so far run its course, here that it would surely continue. What had that life held? And what had it in store, apart from managing the mines and the farm, until I died? I had realised last night, as I tossed and turned, that I was lonely, that I had been lonely even before Mamma died, that I had been lonely ever since I began to bloom and Bran became more distant. Despite Tad, I was lonely. Despite my sowing of wild oats, I was lonely. Or was it because of my sowing of wild oats? That had been self-indulgence, no more than a diverting substitute for what I really needed. I saw that now.
On either side of us the ridge stretched away, straight almost as a ruler and thickly forested, for miles on end. Except in our own patch of shelter the south-westerly blast was heaving the bare branches, breaking off twigs, bending the saplings. A similar gale was shaking my soul. Bran was sitting beside me, arms round bent-up knees, enveloped in his cloak, gazing into infinity.
"Bran," I said suddenly. "What I've been up to this last month or so. It's offended you, hasn't it?"
He turned to look at me, his blue eyes bright under his hood.
"Trahit sua quemque voluptas," he replied noncommittally, "Everyone is dragged on by their favourite pleasure."
"It's not my favourite pleasure," I said humbly. "I thought it was. But it's . . . superficial."
I was apologetic, because superficiality and Bran did not seem to go together. Beside us, a stray gust found its way into the wood and lifted the dry carpet of last year's beech leaves. A cloud of them was blown out, and we watched it wheeling like a flight of starlings towards the river.
"Do you remember," I went on, "years ago, you told me that shagging is ecstasy?"
Bran nodded.
"Well, you were right. It is . . ." I was thinking out loud. "But it's only part of it . . . It's not complete by itself . . . It's gross and brief . . . It's not complete without love . . . Two-way love . . . Do you know what I mean?"
"I know what you mean. But I don't know it myself. I'm not fulfilled either."
"I'm only beginning to realise . . . The day Mamma died . . . We all hugged each other, remember? . . . And love was flowing everywhere . . . love of all sorts . . . of a father, of a son, of friends . . . But the love that I felt was the deepest was Tad's love for Mamma ... his love for his wife . . . did you know that once they'd married he was wholly faithful to her? . . . his love for his other half . . ."
I was still groping my way through my darkness. Bran was watching intently but making no attempt to help out.
"And she loved him back, in just the same way . . . Well, she's gone, and Tad's going to be very lonely without her . . . But that's the sort of love I want . . . I've only just realised that I'm lonely too . . . I don't mean lonely without Mamma, though I am . . . I mean lonely without love of that sort . . . That's what I need."
"Yes," said Bran at last. "I do understand. I want love of that sort too. I'm hoping for it."
I gave him a watery smile, squeezed his shoulder, and went back to my thoughts. None of my friends was lovable, not in that sense. None of them, probably, would have any idea of what I was talking about. But Bran the thoughtful, Bran the considerate . . . he understood, and that was reassuring. It was reassuring too, in a way, that he needed someone as well. I could love Bran. I sneaked a sideways look. He was gazing across the plain again, hood thrown back now, hair buffeted, his vital and heroic face profiled against the barren trees. There was beauty not only in the distant panorama ahead, but close beside me, beauty of body and soul. I could easily love Bran. But it was not on. We were not equals. I could not impose on him, or take advantage. We were two parallel lines -- the image came back from school -- which could never possibly meet. I must look elsewhere. Good luck to him in his quest. Good luck to me in mine.
Then three nights' shortage of sleep took their toll. I was woken by the horses whinnying, and found myself leaning against Bran's firm body. His cloak was over both of us and his arm around me.
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