kind of scandal or conspiracy, but still … Even Beric felt uneasy when he thought about what had been happening in Rome lately.
Beric knew most of the other guests already, old friends of the family: a second cousin, Flavius Scaevinus; Aelius Balbus, a cousin on the other side of the family; Junius Gallio, the ex-Proconsul of Achaea: and Gallio’s nephew, young Annaeus Lucan, the poet: also Aelius Candidus, Balbus’s son, who had just exchanged out of one of the less distinguished City Corps and taken a commission in the Praetorians. Hence Ofonius Tigellinus, the Praefect. There was one other guest whom Beric did not know, Erasixenos, an Alexandrian, exceedingly rich; he was to sit next to Tigellinus; they were said to have tastes in common—Crispus coughed a little over this—and Beric was to see, above all, that they were to have everything they wanted in the way of entertainment.
Beric did not always come to the dinner parties, only when he was wanted to make up numbers, and he usually sat at the lowest end of the third couch, where he could supervise the service; often he didn’t get much conversation, and he knew he wouldn’t tonight, as his neighbour would be Lucan, who was sure to be bored anyhow and would probably leave early. He said soothingly to Crispus that he was quite sure the dinner would be a success: the partridges especially were sure to be delicious; he had got hold of the recipe for that new stuffing and had just been down to the kitchen to taste it himself. Crispus began to say something to him about Aelius Candidus and then stopped. He patted Beric on the shoulder. ‘You’re a good boy,’ he said.
Beric found the dinner party as dull as he had expected. There were awkward moments, too; none of the aristocrats liked sitting at the same table as Tigellinus. Flavius Scaevinus was positively rude and left early. That was stupid of him; times had changed and it was no use supposing one was living under Augustus. Even Beric knew that. The partridges, however, were a great success, though Tigellinus had rather a coarse way of biting out the breast and throwing the rest on to the floor. Lucan, who affected plain living and high thinking, and had come in a plain green tunic with darns in several places, talked to Beric for a few minutes. Apparently he had an idea that because Britain was damp, foggy, full of unpleasant wild animals and without central heating, it was also the home of freedom and nobility.
Beric agreed enthusiastically, trying to look the part, but when Lucan began talking across the table to Erasixenos about some new Alexandrian religion, he couldn’t help remembering the way his father, King Caradoc, and his big brothers, Prince Rudri and Prince Clinog, had spoken and thought about the peasants and servants and men at arms: not the tall, fair Britons whom Lucan was thinking of, the conquerors, the sea-goers, the ones that fetched the big prices on the slave market, but the ordinary, middle-height, middle-coloured countrymen who were there all the time, however much their huts were burnt and their beasts stolen, and they themselves kicked and prodded and made to fight behind the palisades, half armed, while the long-haired warriors ramped round and sang war songs. Freedom? That was how King Caradoc had been able to speak up in front of the Divine Claudius; he wasn’t afraid; he was free and noble and all that, just right for the Stoics to make up stories about, and he, Beric, he could look handsome and strong and free. But it wasn’t the whole story about Britain. Well, who cared. Suddenly he began to feel sad and wished it were true, wished Britain had been a kind of Stoic paradise. He wanted something—he didn’t know what—something real.
Erasixenos was talking about Egyptian religions; Lucan apparently had been, or was going to, write one of his poems about Egypt. Beric had an idea that Lucan’s notions about Egypt were as cock-eyed as his ideas about Britain. Probably Egypt was full of ordinary stupid men and women, and the ghosts and devils were a different shape, but you had to get rid of them the same sort of way. For that matter he had seen a crocodile with his own eyes in the arena. Why were the Romans always so interested in new kinds of gods? They had plenty of gods of their own, only they weren’t—what was it?—they weren’t active, not in people’s real lives. Not any longer. So the Romans had to go somewhere else to get rid of the devils and spirits and bits of bad luck that were always floating round. They had to go somewhere else to get that feeling you do get out of the gods when you know they are there, the way they had been when he was a child. But the Romans had killed the Druids; and if he saw a Druid now he wouldn’t look twice.
Beric watched the slaves clearing away the empty sea-urchins, and fish-bones, the half-eaten hams and roast boar and ducks and sucking pig, the pie-crust and broken rolls and blobs of honey—it would all get finished up in the kitchen—the walnut shells and fruit rinds. Everyone had eaten much too much, of course, but what was the use of being rich if you weren’t going to have as much as possible of everything. It was sweaty weather though, even between the water-cooled marble walls. A slave went round to each diner with wet towels, fans, a nice little earthenware pot amusingly and appropriately painted, and fresh cushions to lie on.
Then the two boys began dancing their mime, all dressed up with the new masks and stiff short tunics. The pretty little round bottom of Phaon as a rather frivolous Ulysses flipped up now and then, and once Tigellinus reached over and pinched it. Tigellinus, also, watched with interest the mimed gouging out of the Cyclops’s eye; it seemed to be the kind of thing he knew about. The Stoics, naturally, found it boring, but Aelius Candidus liked it. At the end, the boys pulled their masks off and bowed. Tigellinus clapped and beckoned Phaon to come over. Phaon didn’t want to, but Beric caught his eye and glared at him to do what he was told. Tigellinus wasn’t going to eat him, after all, spoiled little brat!
The garlands were brought round by some of the girls; Tigellinus had a little fun with his, at any rate he went to a party to enjoy himself, which was more than the Stoics did! Lucan insisted on a garland of plain leaves, though he didn’t go quite so far as to ask for poetic bays. Aelius Balbus was appointed toast-master and everybody shifted a bit and settled down to the drinking, beginning with the Emperor of course. Unfortunately this started Tigellinus and Erasixenos off on several new stories about the doings of the Divine Nero, and, as one of them was about a girl who happened to be the niece of Gallio’s sister-in-law, it was all rather a pity. In any case Gallio was in a bad temper; however, he would probably get better when the wine had warmed him up a little. Poor old Crispus really disliked hearing that kind of story about the Emperor; he tried hard to disbelieve them. Aelius Candidus obviously thought them grand, but was a little shy, with his father there, of telling any himself.
After that there were drinks and compliments all round the table, not to Beric, of course, except from his neighbour Lucan, who was really drinking to Freedom, even if she had fled to the barbarians. Beric wasn’t sure if he liked being called a barbarian. He always rather hated it when he was explained away to guests, as that tin soldier Aelius Candidus was doing now at the far side of the table to Tigellinus, who got it a bit wrong and said loudly that it must be awkward having one of these Germans about the place, especially if there was a pretty daughter.
At that Beric shut himself away, closing himself against everything but his own dream. As the toasts went round he drank more deeply than usual. The slaves refilled his cup, but he did not notice their hands on the heavy jugs. It was as though he were back in the room Fla with Flavia. Circles of colour swelled and burst across his mind, golden and rose, golden and hot black. Out of childhood a great blue pond swam up, almost level to the marshes, the high reeds, the very green, slimy marsh plants. Fish rose turning, bursting bubbles, enormous dragonflies planed, touched the surface of the pond to shivers, almost, almost submerging in one long ripple the willing marshes. The Horse-Goddess lifting circles of colour for the delight of warriors, golden and rose, golden and hot black, stepped with one hot hard hoof sizzling into the great pond of childhood, that he knew now as the great reed-blocked Thames, few forded, flooding suddenly, king-river of Britain. He was the king’s son, master of rushes and water and the golden Goddess.
But now Crispus was proposing the health of Aelius Candidus in a long and involved speech, since he had by now got outside a good deal of his own excellent wine, as indeed they all had. ‘Here’s a young fellow,’ he said, beaming round the table, ‘excellent young fellow. Going to have a most distinguished career. Going to start it by marrying my daughter!’
Everyone clapped. And the dream, found out, shrivelled into contemptible childishness. Would never visit Beric again. That had been said. That. Crispus went on, ‘So now