A hand was shaking me insistently. "Wake my Lord. Wake. You're to leave soon." My head was splitting; I wanted to go on sleeping. Cunomorus would have none of that. "Wake. You must leave."
"Leave? Why? Where am I going?"
"To Arthur. To Camulos. I'll bring your baggage when I follow."
No need to call my followers. They were already up and Tangwyn laughed to see my sudden happiness. Outside horns were blowing, dogs barking, horses neighing. All was bustle, shouts and orders. I threw on a cloak and went to the door, then climbed the tower to see the dawn. Down below, the warriors, some twenty of them, were getting ready to leave; the horses were being fed and groomed and the long spears that stood in a rack were gay with pennants stretched out stiffly in the high wind. Above, the clouds raced madly eastward across the sky as though the whole world was speeding to Camulos.
Like a leaf in the wind, I became part of the movement. I must have said goodbye to my generous hosts but I can only remember the elation in my heart as I galloped beside Cato over the moorland which we came to once we had splashed across the River Fau. The track was abominable; no well made road thrust into these rough districts. Now and again we came across a farmstead protected by a circular earthwork and in one secluded valley terraced fields but elsewhere little sign of cultivation for the people were largely graziers, tending many sheep and a few cattle. These country folk were not scraggy and cowed like the wretches beside the Nile, but then they did not have the inestimable advantage of Roman tax collectors taking most of what they had raised to cram the maws of the vile mobs of Alexandria and Constantinople free of charge. At mid-day, we halted at a village of round huts where the people were obliged to feed us; they did not seem to resent it, spitted meat over a fire and boiled up some pork and vegetables in a cauldron, joining in the feast themselves almost as equals.
Talking to such folk was difficult; their dialect was unlike the refined old British which aristocrats like Clodius in the east of the country had striven to keep alive in a sea of Latin. In the mouths of the vulgar herd, of course, speech degenerates rapidly, yet even in Cunomorus' hall, comprehension was not easy; for instance, the bard's song I have quoted required Cato's assistance before I could fully grasp it. However, as I cannot imagine anyone ever being interested in the mutations of the British tongue, I shall say no more on the subject.
On we rode with the sky darkening. By late afternoon we were pressing on through that fine rain which is such a feature of Britain and is probably why such good cloaks, of both wool and skins, are made there. But dry or not there was nowhere to shelter except under wildly swaying tress. After miles of soggy discomfort we began to descend into a wooded valley, rich land no doubt but lashed by wind and rain and gloomy, for the long evening was now in its death throes. Living in Britain was going to be a damp and chilling experience perhaps more dangerous to life than Saxon swords. Cato told me we would soon be at Caellwic. "You'll be comfortable there," he said grinning maliciously at my bedraggled appearance. "It's more to your taste than Lanteirn, I'd say. Arthur often goes there with his wife Gwenhwyvar. Why, Conyn can lustrate you in her magic cauldron if you like." Cato then brayed like an ass.
My bath in that lead tank, ripped, no doubt, from some villa, was not the last, nor the least ironic occasion on which I was grateful to Gwenhwyvar for making life in Britain more pleasant. Still, in the gloom of the bath house as Conyn silently washed and kneaded my limbs, sedulously and endlessly it seemed, I thought it odd that not until then had I conjured up a wife for Arthur. Yet only fitfully, for gradually the massaging fingers exploring my body had grown playful, then all at once bold, then caressing, and at length were abetted by errant lips so passionate that all thought of women quit my head and I decided to repay Conyn with far more than he had spent. What a pleasure it was to subdue the cheeky devil once and for all; it took a real tussle but at long last he was deflowered. Later however, in the hall, when the memory of his brief hurt was no doubt engendering thoughts of renewed pleasure, he winked up at me roguishly as we embarked on yet another bout of feasting. Wine flowed, joints followed in endless succession, the bard chanted and there was much brawling. I drank deeply with Cato at the high table as I felt obliged to him for accidentally emboldening Conyn to reveal his desires. Only dimly can I remember the boy helping me to bed and vainly importuning me for more.
We set out at sunrise for Isca. Gods, how my head ached. Were we to ride for ever across this desolate moor? The light was grey and watery yet despite that there was an endless array of changing colour, not our Egyptian desert's brilliant colours, but low colours, darkly multifarious and enriched by the innocence of tiny flowers. Nothing drew one outward here through that mottled confusion of earth and sky, enclosing all things in an underworld of scurrying secrets.
On that day's ride there was little sign of human life save in one place where was reared a gaunt pillar of stone, rough hewn and stark. All talk came to an end and the men would have gone nowhere near it left to themselves, but no one dared do other than keep close to the guide for hereabouts were dangerous bogs which sucked you down so that neither man nor beast left a trace. My companions looked away as we went by but I saw people, scarcely distinguishable from the rocks, crouched around the pillar. There was a fire on a stone altar and the stench of burning flesh. Most horrid to see, slotted in a rack was a row of heads, mummified things with sightless eyes.
As there were no country folk willing to cook for us we made do with cold meat. However, the men produced some mead and we were off again drinking. The fiery liquid rekindled us in body and mind so that when we moved on we took to shouting and whooping as though charging to battle and perhaps we were - at the dark forces the pillar had called down on us. We rushed over the moor so quickly that I no longer felt the horse's hot flanks between my thighs but thought I was flying, wild as the eagles that swoop over that desolate region. If it was so untamed here in Britain, what must it be like in ultimate Thule where, men say, the sky is lower? Was it possible in the polar regions to touch the sky or would one's hand go straight through it - to touch what? "Dried heads," I shouted and dug my boots into my horse's ribs. He whinnied and dashed on and I was terrified, not at his speed but because I was sure that heads with bat wings instead of ears were after me snapping with sharp fangs. At length I noticed that no one was beside me; in my drunken frenzy I had left them all behind. I reined in my horse and turned to look for others. There they were charging down on me like a wild enemy. I yelled, "Nike, nike - victory, victory," and galloped on again letting my horse go whichever way he wanted. Then, quite abruptly there was a familiar sensation. What was it? My horse had started to trot. That clip clop, clip clop sound? I looked down and was delighted to see a well made stone road, the hand of Rome stretching out to me even in this wilderness, taking me in its palm to Isca of the Dumnonians.
The sight of the city brought me to my senses. Here was sad testimony to the ruination of Britain. The guards swung open one of the gates for us when they recognised Cato's pennant but once inside no one else was to be seen; shells of buildings gaped at us with open windows through which, in the gathering darkness, I could see trees growing and walls dark with clinging ivy. The paving stones muffled our horses' feet rather than echoing them for years of falling dust and dirt had covered them with a layer of earth carpeted with grass and insistent weeds. In places walls had collapsed, blocking the street with rubble so that we had to wend our way single file. Side roads were thronged with bushes where once they gave easy access. It was enough to make one weep though there was no need to do so; the rain had deluged the creepers and the trees so that their leaves hung listless with the grief of this wrecked city, the capital of Dumnonia.
We came to a forum surrounded by silent buildings. On the facade of a temple, the architrave was pockmarked with holes where some bronze inscription had been ripped off. An ambulatory was open to the sky against the law court while opposite rose the bulk of the baths. On one of the plinths before it stood the headless statue of an emperor still making the customary sublime gesture - at emptiness. I tried to make out the lettering but could only read 'Divo Tito Ves-'; that was enough to tell me its great age. Cato said bitterly, "Well then, Envoy of Rome, what would your Augustus say to all this? Do you think he'd be so proud of us?"
Cato then had an inkling of what was passing through my mind. But had he guessed at my concerns? Arthur was but two days away. I had to find out what he had achieved before I knew how to forward my master's mission. However, I remained the diplomat and answered, "What men have destroyed, men can rebuild."
Just as delphically he replied, "Aye. But in what form Envoy? In what form?" With that, he led us all to an area behind the baths; there it became apparent that Isca was not entirely dead.
Bishop Theophilus, around whose tiny stone church several score of people lived in huts or odd parts of buildings, was well over eighty I would say. We dined with him, just Cato and I, in his white walled cell on a magnificent salmon and barley bread and drank only water. Our men had disappeared into the houses of the townsfolk and we could hear the distant sound of drunken singing. It was a relief to have such a meal and that alone made me think well of our host, though I would have thought well of him in any case. Remembering him conjures up an image of whiteness; not only was the room white but Theophilus' hair and his clothes were as white as snow and, I am sure, so was his heart. How gentle his words were and kindly. Never did he condemn anyone. Even when I asked him about the severed heads he only smiled sadly as though chiding me for thinking ill of the worshippers by the gaunt stone. "They seek God but they don't understand Him properly yet. The important thing, Lord Catumandus, is that they seek Him. And in due course they will find Him. That has been promised to us. Didn't Abraham show his love of God by offering to sacrifice Isaac? Like those people you saw, Abraham was only making his journey towards God. He saw that all of us can win through to God's grace by our own actions. See, the Britons no longer take the heads of their enemies for idolatrous purposes. Those were ancient heads you saw. Think about it and you will discover the meaning. Hasn't the wise Pelagius taught us that since we were made by God in His image we must be fundamentally good by nature? It is an error to say that we are born in sin. Now the seat of the intellect that He has given us in the image of His own intellect lies in our heads. So those pagans you saw were on the right path. They were showing their recognition of the divinity in man." Theophilus smiled at me, a smile of love and said, "Always remember the words of the Lord, His most important words: 'Do not judge, lest you are judged.'" Yet how could I not both judge and condemn the destruction the Christians had wrought against so many of the things I cherished. If only their faith had been like that of Theophilus.
In other respects his mind was not so clear. He talked of his predecessor, his uncle Docco, as though he were still alive and when I told him that the Patriarch of Constantinople was called Euphemius, he quickly forgot the fact and kept referring to Anatolius, since whom there had in fact been four other Patriarchs. What was more he talked of the public buildings of Isca as though they were still whole. I asked abruptly how long it was since the baths had closed down. He gestured to some shelves on which there were documents. "The city records will tell you. Sometimes I browse through them. They make me see the past so clearly. Ah, what is time? From the creation to the day of judgment in the eye of God is but a second. If we think about it, we shall more easily see where we fit in." I had the uneasy feeling that we must fit in almost nowhere.
However that might be, it did not stop Theophilus from taking the greatest interest in the things immediately around him, or rather which he thought were around him. Leaving me to meditate on the supertemporality of the Almighty, he turned to Cato and asked, "Have you seen little Gwen?" She must be here somewhere - getting into mischief as usual. Do you know, she let all Collen's pigs escape after he'd rounded them up for the market. Said she couldn't stand seeing them in prison. All the Lord's creation should be free, she told Collen. Oh we both laughed. How can you scold such a pretty little thing? So clever at her books." Theophilus added sternly to Cato, "She studies much harder than you and she's learnt how to think clearly."
As Theophilus rambled on, it struck me that he had somehow winnowed from the past all that was pleasant and now saw it as omnipresent. Little Gwenhwyvar co-existed with Gwenhwyvar the student. Maybe too the joy of Abraham, released from sacrificing his son was also about us. It made me wonder whether the gods, besides comprehending eternity in an instant may also see the totality of non-eternal creation as omnipresent. Theophilus was not quite up to that thought; to him the recent past was apparently a void.
Cato sat like a child listening to his old teacher. I suspected that under the influence of that sweet voice, he too had all but forgotten the passage of time. In fact, limited though my days in Britain had been, I had already begun to see that when a bard was singing or almost any Briton was telling a tale, his reality was never clear cut. In this land Theophilus was not alone in failing to erect a barrier between what was present and what, to my poor rational mind, was not.
"How rude we are, ignoring our guest," Theophilus said, smiling at me. "Come to Isca all the way from Rome - Rome, New Rome. How can there be two Romes? It's very confusing. But why shouldn't there be two Romes? Or two hundred Romes. Let's see: if there are two Romes every thousand years, it will take one hundred thousand years for there to be two hundred Romes. Yes, it's quite possible." He must have caught my surprised expression and misinterpreted it. "You mustn't worry young man. I can see you're a worrier." Next, to my much greater surprise he said, "I know you think our city's finished. But it isn't. One day you won't be able to move in Isca for people. And later again it will be a place for wolves. And again later- You see. It doesn't matter. Only the eternal love of God matters."
I stared at Theophilus' white hair and his garment and at the blank walls that made the light from the oil lamps still brighter and felt that I was at the centre of nowhere. Yet I had noticed, as we had entered this cell, that the next room was a school room. Here Theophilus' and his helpers were educating young Britons. How dangerous was his doctrine; what would be the point of Arthur and Cato and the rest fighting if behind them an army of priests was teaching those who should be preparing to revive the arts and skills of Rome, that nothing of this earth was of any significance. At that moment all I could clutch at for solace was the general ineffectiveness of popular education the world over. I asked loudly, "Tell me Father about Lady Gwenhwyvar. It seems you know her very well."
"Know her well! Indeed I do. She's my niece. My brother's daughter. Now I'm not one to boast but my brother and I are the grandsons of Constans, son of Constantine the Emperor. Not the Constantine who founded your New Rome. So confusing. So many Emperors with the same name. Perhaps we should give them numbers." Theophilus laughed, the innocent laugh of a child. He went on, "You'll meet a lot of blown up tyrants in Britain who claim to be descended from Emperors but we really are, my family; we weren't petty frontier chiefs given a chain and a rank to make us feel important. My brother went to Gaul where he was killed God rest his soul. So little Gwen became my responsibility. But how can a man of God look after a child all on his own? She had to be brought up by Lord Gerontius' family. Cato and Gwenhwyvar, like brother and sister they are. And both of them come to my school. Gwen's my best scholar." Theophilus' burst of energy subsided, his eyes closed and he was silent, coming to terms maybe with facts. Then he asked, "And is she happy? She was such a happy child. Is she happy?" Cato did not reply.