The Wanderer and the Way 3
Lord of Iria Flavia and Much Besides
This is Chapter 3 of The Wanderer and the Way
Theodemir was awakened by his body coming into sudden communion with the hard flagstones of the veranda. The blow was taken mostly on the shoulder, which saved him from cracking his skull on the stone, but it sent a jolt through his bones that awakened all the agonies of his long days on the road. It took a moment for him to gather his wits and ascertain how he had landed in this predicament. The sun was stretching long shadows from the pillars of the veranda. The sky was grey and orange behind the shadowed branches of the garden shrubs. The chair in which he had been seated and in which Agnes had tended his wounds lay on its side behind him. And above him, his face made devilish red by the evening light, stood his uncle, Witteric, Lord of Iria Flavia and much else besides.
“You have time to wash before the meal,” Witteric said. He was a tall, lean man with a long, neat beard growing from his chin, its color now somewhat more admixed with grey than when Theodemir had left Iria Flavia for Rome. He was dressed in a long tunic, after the Roman style, dyed deep red. That he was dressed so indicated that he had been about the business of government or the courts, which had probably involved some intercourse with the bishop. Days so spent usually left him in an impatient and irritable mood.
“Your pardon, Uncle,” Theoderic said. It became clear to him now that his uncle had put a boot to the arm of the chair in which he had dozed and had pushed it over, sending him crashing to the flagstones. No prodigal’s welcome this. “I sent Fatima to prepare the lavatorium for me,” he said by way of exculpation. “I must have fallen asleep while I waited, and the stupid girl did not wake me.”
He had, in fact, sent Fatima for a second draft of the lemon and bitter herb infusion that Agnes had offered him but then called her back and ordered her to bring him a bumper of wine instead. The wine had done little to mellow his mood, but it seemed that it had conspired with his weary limbs to plunge him into sleep, robbing him of the prospect of having Fatima massage olive oil into his weary flesh and then scrape him clean while he breathed in the flower scent of her hair. No, he supposed that Fatima would have been glad enough to find him sleeping and to have spared herself that duty.
He hauled himself to his feet, feeling as if his long journey had added ten years to his age, or at least to the age of his limbs.
“Why are you dressed like a tramp?” Witteric asked.
“You could not say, ‘Like a pilgrim?’ Uncle?” he asked.
“Wash, cut your hair, and come properly dressed to dinner,” Witteric replied, then he passed on down the veranda towards the main door of the villa, calling Fatima’s name as he went.
“No ‘Welcome home,’ Uncle?” Theodemir called after his retreating back.
Witteric spun round and looked at him. “You will be fully welcome when you are fully returned,” he said, then turned and disappeared through the doorway. A moment later the small dark figure of Fatima came hurrying from the direction of the kitchen and disappeared through the same door as her master.
Not knowing who else to call to attend him in the lavatorium and not supposing that he could command Agnes to perform the task for him, much as he might desire to feel her hands upon his flesh, he instead walked down to the river, cast off his rough, stained, threadbare tunic, and plunged into the cool water. Perhaps it was as well that Agnes should not attend him in the lavatorium, for judging by the roughness with which she had bathed his feet, she might have scraped his back like a tanner scraping the hair off a cowhide. A plunge into a river was the only lavatorium that a mendicant pilgrim was likely to find most days, so perhaps it was fitting that this, his last day on the road, should end in this manner. He swam out a little, remembering boyhood days spent in the practice of arms upon the banks, with the promised reward of a swim once each movement and strike was learned and performed correctly. What had become of his companions of those days, he wondered, the boys of his youth who had sworn in blood that they would be companions in all things until old age or battle claimed them. A foolish boast and a more foolish oath since it had been restlessness that had been the common defect of character that had made them congenial companions, always showing their backsides and the soles of their feet to peril, propriety, and property. And so with time and the coming of manhood, restlessness had taken them away, to wars, to wives, to wandering, and, in his case, to Rome. Fresh companions he had found in Rome, though of somewhat different character, for it had not been restlessness but the desire for pleasure and for influence that had united them there, though they had found far more of the former than of the latter among its stinking streets and fetid fountains. Yet restlessness and a mendacious monk with false promises of spiritual rewards had separated him from these companions also, and it suddenly came to him to wonder if all his weary weeks afoot had truly been nothing but a flight back to boyhood. And yet, if he were a boy again, the thought of Agnes would not so plague his mind as it had come to do since first he had set eyes on her through the gatehouse grille.
The day was dying in the west, and the night promised moonless. He struck out for the shore and pulled himself onto the bank, wringing the water from his hair and beard. Would that he had the time and means to have both hair and beard trimmed, for the neater his appearance, the less gruff his uncle would be towards him. And perhaps Agnes would have more regard for him as well. But the lamps were lighting at the villa, and the dinner bell would soon be ringing, and he had yet to dress and apply fresh honey to his wounds to avoid a scolding from Agnes. In the darkness he could not see where he had cast off his old tunic, and he was in no mind to don it ever again, so he set off across the grass to the villa naked as a babe. He passed Fatima on the veranda, busy about some errand. She did not seem to notice his nakedness but hurried on with lowered eyes.
Dressed as a Visigothic warrior home to take his ease, in trousers and a short tunic, and with his hair and beard combed, oiled, and fought into some form of discipline, Theodemir joined his uncle in the dining room. He had half expected and fully hoped to find Agnes there, though whether she would be dining or serving, he had found himself unsure. But she was not present. There was only his uncle and himself, and two small brown girls, Fatima standing at his uncle's left hand to wait on him, and at his own left hand, Sakina, whom he had last known as a bright-eyed cheeky girl of twelve, running barefoot through the kitchens, but who now, in womanhood, stood with lowered eyes, attentive and silent.
Witteric had also changed his clothes, adopting the dress of a Visigoth at home. His odd scar gave his face a merry appearance, but Theodemir was not deceived. His uncle was still in a grim and irascible mood.
“I had news of your latest enthusiasm in a letter from Amalgar,” Witteric said. “I expected you weeks ago. Or did you decide to visit Aachen and Paris on your way?”
“It is a long, hard road, Uncle,” he protested. “I suffered much pain on the way.”
“Put up in some hospital being waited on for weeks?” Witteric asked.
“I walked every day, whether in sun or in rain, heat or cold.”
“And has this experience dulled your enthusiasm? Are you on to the next thing now?”
“I came to call on you as a courtesy, Uncle,” Theodemir replied stiffly. “Tomorrow I will go to the bishop’s house and present myself to him.”
“Aye, it is well you should. But will you go as a mendicant or as a lord of this place making himself known upon his return?”
Well, that was the question, and he should have known that Witteric would light upon right away. He was a man with a ruthlessly practical mind. Theodemir searched his thoughts for some face-saving boast but found none. He had never found one as a boy. Any hope that he might be able to find one as a man was here dashed.
“I thought you would show yourself more pleased to see me, Uncle,” he said.
“I am not pleased to see you,” Witteric said. “I should be pleased if I knew that you had returned meaning to be of use. But all I see is a witless tramp who has once again thrown all into his latest enthusiasm with nothing to show for it.”
Theodemir looked at Fatima to see what she might think to witness his scolding. Her eyes were moon-bright upon him, but her face was as immobile as that of a girl in a fresco. When she saw him looking at her, she dropped her eyes but remained otherwise as one made of paint upon plaster, save for the glow of youth that pervaded her.
“In what enterprise would you have me be of use, Uncle?” he asked.
“It is not a matter of any concern to a witless tramp,” Witteric said. “It is a matter for lords and leaders of men.”
“May I not have a few days to rest and to heal my bruised feet,” Theodemir asked.
“For a tramp, you have received extraordinary charity from this house already,” Witteric said. “If you are a mendicant in need of a hostel, there are beds to be had for travelers at the monastery. I am told they make no distinction of rank but welcome all and treat them all the same. First come, first served, so you would do well to make an early start.”
“If I admit that I have been a fool, will you give me a little time and a little charity, Uncle?”
“To set conditions on such a confession would rob it of sincerity, don’t you think?” Witteric said, his scar seeming to make this a jest, though his eyes told a different tale.
Theodemir took a deep breath. He glanced at Fatima, but she was as one with the frescoes on the wall behind her. He glanced at Sakina over his shoulder. She twitched nervously, and he could see that her eyes were on Fatima, seeking her example. Why he cared that either of them should hear the confession he must now make, he was not sure. They were simply fixtures of the villa. One might as well be embarrassed before a sponge in the latrina as before a small brown girl. Such has always been the custom of this house. And yet Agnes had thrown all such distinctions into doubt. And he would be loth to call himself a fool in front of Agnes.
“I have been a fool, Uncle,” he said. “I have been a fool, and I have paid a heavy price for it. I have spent many days in pain and weariness on the road, and I have not found any of the charity that is supposed to be extended to mendicants. God sent the mean and the surly to chide me all along the way. All I can do is offer my sufferings on the road as a penance for my foolishness.”
Witteric laughed, which curiously twisted his scar into a frown. “With so much purgation to your credit, I think you may now despoil a dozen maidens on account and still present yourself to the bishop with a clean slate. I do think it is a dangerous thing for a man to go about with too much penance to his credit. He might kill a man or despoil the daughter of a count and still think to come out even. No, it must be worked off.”
Theodemir glanced at Fatima and Sakina once again. Neither would be a maiden, he supposed. That was not the lot of his uncle’s small brown girls. Might they still be despoiled again if they had not their virginity? Would bedding such as they work off his accumulated penances as his uncle suggested? Or was his uncle’s theology unsound?
“I suppose you will have met the Northman’s wife,” Witteric continued. He was not a man to prolong a jest or gloat at a victory. When a foot of ground was gained, his only thought was how to gain the next foot.
“Not to my knowledge, Uncle,” Theodemir replied.
“Odd. She usually keeps the gate while her husband is at sea.”
“Agnes?” Theodemir asked. “She has a husband?”
“Ah, I see the disappointment in your face. Yes, she is the Northman’s wife.”
“She told me that she is a postulant of the Abbey of St. Hilda in Whitby in Northumbria.”
“That is what she tells people, yes.”
“So she makes game of all your guests, not just me.”
“Oh, it is not a game to her. When the Northman is at home, she dresses in rich clothes and adorns herself with jewels and lets her hair begin to grow out. She attends him in his hall and greets his guests as his lady. She is a wonderful hostess, and you should hear her sing. She is a nightingale. You would be twice in love with her if you once took supper in that hall. But when the Northman goes to sea, she puts on the plain dress you saw her in, cuts off whatever hair has had a chance to grow out, wraps that rag around her head, and comes to me and begs to be my gatekeeper once again. And why would I refuse her? She is a delight to the eye, as you will have observed, and the plain dress and the covered head make little difference to her appeal. She used to wear layers of wool to obscure her shape from the eyes of men, but she is so unused to the heat that she made herself ill and has been forced to dress in simple linen, as you have seen. For which heat we therefore give praise to God daily. Half the lords of the district find cause to visit me while she keeps the gate, and their sons always insist on coming along too. And yet she can put every one of them in his place, as I am sure she did to you.”
“She did indeed, Uncle. I confess she has been in my thoughts since we met. But who is this Northman she is married to?”
“Oh, you would remember him, I’m sure. He used to come here every summer when you were a boy. You remember Harrald, the trader? Thor, his second man. Leif, his son. And then there was Eric, Thor’s son. Though I think he was a son by adoption, so perhaps his true sire was some pirate who left his mother with child. That would suit his character, I think.”
“But which of them is she married to?” Theodemir asked anxiously as if the answer should make any difference to his hopes and imaginings.
“Eric, of course. The rest of them are dead, he tells me. And Eric is no trader. He is a pirate. A vikingr, he calls himself in his own tongue. A man for hire. A useful man, within his limits.”
“I do remember Eric,” Theodemir said ruefully, a hope dying in him that had only just sent up one green shoot and had not even had time to unfurl its two small seed leaves. “I tried to fight him once. I fancied that I would be the better boxer and would overcome his size with my speed. He nearly killed me. I think he would have done had Thor not pulled him off me. But how did a man like that come by an Anglish wife, and one such as she?”
“Did you see that little village starting down by the road? A dozen fresh-picked Anglish roses and their squalling thorns? Eric picked them all in a bunch from the garden of that abbey she speaks of. Wives for his crew. And she was the thirteenth and the fairest.”
“They were nuns then? He raided an abbey and took the nuns for wives?”
“Ten orphans and three postulants. Not one vowed virgin among them. She will tell you that part most insistently. I fancy she had some part in the choosing of them.”
“She was not making game of me then? I spoke quite harshly to her. I must make my apologies for that.”
“Yes,” Witteric said, his eyes flickering up to Fatima as she bent over to fill his cup. “She will be your new enthusiasm, I suppose. Well, better that than religion.”
“She must have been a nobleman’s daughter,” said Theodemir. “The nuns did not teach her that raised chin or disdainful eye.”
“You have not known so many nuns, have you boy? They teach ‘em the disdainful eye in the noviciate. Still, I think you are right. There is something in her carriage that says she is noble born. The servants all treat her like she is. The Northman claims she is too, though that might just be his vanity.”
“He is not a man of honor, then?”
“He is a pirate. He owns no king but his purse.”
“He has sworn no fealty to you?” Theodemir asked.
But to this, his uncle replied only with a slight smile, creasing his scar into a frown. For a while he said no more but attacked his meal with the ferocity of a soldier who expects at any moment to hear the trumpet summon him to war.
“While you were gone,” Witteric said, laying down his knife beside a cleaned plate, “al-Karim took Oviedo in revenge for Lutos.”
“Yet the kingdom stands,” Theodemir said.
“They didn’t like the winters,” Witteric said. “They acted more like pirates than conquerors. And very good pirates they proved to be, for they took many slaves and much gold. Made me think it would be good to have a pirate of my own. But I do not think they will be content to stay pirates forever. Once Hisham’s heirs stop squabbling among themselves, they will be back. But what is this to you if you mean to lay down arms and become a monk?”
“There would be no peace for monks under Moorish rule,” Theodemir said.
“There you have it then,” Witteric replied. “Your duty to the church is to be a soldier.”
Why argue with a man when you can get him to make the argument for himself? Theodemir raised his glass to salute his uncle’s stratagem. He had learned long ago not to play Alquerque with Witteric.
“You must be weary,” Witteric said. “We will talk in the morning when you have your wits more about you. Sakina will see you to bed. She has been well instructed.”
Theodemir knew a dismissal when he received one. He left his plate unfinished but drained his cup and rose. Sakina glided before him through the corridors to his chamber, carrying a lamp. The scent of the burning wick mingled with the perfume of the oil with which her hair was dressed. Entering his chamber, she placed the lamp on a low table beside the bed and turned down the covers. He sat down on the side of the bed, allowing her to undo the thongs of his sandals, to help him draw his tunic over his head and unfasten his trousers. When she had undressed him, she stood back and slowly raised her fingers to the pins that held her dress in place. Her face was empty of expression. There was no fear there, no desire, no willingness, no reluctance. It was her part to warm his bed as it had been her part to fill his cup and fetch his plate. She approached this task as she had approached her other duties, without expression. But then he saw that the fingers that reached to undo the pins were beginning to tremble, and something akin to terror was coming over her face, though she struggled not to show it.
He held up his hand to stop her. She paused, her fingers upon the pin that would release her dress to fall open and show him, as he had anticipated, the part of her that pertained to desire. The part of her that pertained to reason was nowhere on offer. She was a pretty girl, round in her figure, smooth in her cheeks with large, luminous eyes. But she was as nothing beside the memory of Agnes.
“I am too weary for anything but sleep,” he said to her. “Take the lamp and go to your own bed.”
She nodded without expression and did as he had told her. In the darkness he slipped under a sheet and threw the rest of the bed covering aside, for the night was warm. He laid his head on his pillow and stared up at the flickering shadows of leaves cast by the light of the moon reflected from the river. He summoned to himself the ghost of Agnes. But before the spirit came to him, weariness took him, and he drifted into sleep.
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