Tabula Rasa

Chapter 7

The meal had ended. People were moving about the house: men going out to fetch firewood and check the animals; women throwing down bedrolls in the shadows beyond the partitions and urging children to have one last drink, one last wee, and be sure to wash dirty hands and feet. At last Virana had the chance to get up and help, and had come back with the news that these people knew Cata, who was lucky her jaw was not broken, and that another girl had run away some time ago and nobody knew where she had gone.

“That is what happens when you choose the wrong man,” Tilla told her. From behind one of the partitions she could hear the repeated whuf of someone punching a feather pillow into shape. The evening had gone better than she had feared. Her husband was on the far side of the fire listening to Senecio with the slightly cross look on his face that meant he was tired and having to concentrate to understand.

Then Senecio was beckoning her over to join them, and that was when she spotted the Thing for the first time, and forgot all about long-suffering girlfriends.

“I have been speaking with your man,” Senecio told her.

“I am glad of it.” Tilla tried to not to stare at the Thing. It was stark and obvious now that it had slipped outside the cream wool of her husband’s best tunic.

“He tells me you have not had your marriage blessed after the custom of our people.”

“We were married in Gaul,” she explained. Perhaps the old man’s sky-blue eyes were dim. Perhaps he would think it was a bird. Then she remembered that he had recognized her across a crowded market.

“And so far,” he was saying, “you have no children.”

“There is plenty of time,” put in her husband. As if either of them believed that time would make a difference.

She caught his eye and glanced down at the Thing, then back up again. A faint expression of puzzlement flitted across his face, but Senecio was speaking again and he turned back to pay attention.

“I have been thinking,” Senecio continued, “that as an old friend of your mother and one who can remember your family, it would be a duty and an honor to offer that blessing.”

Her husband took her hand and bowed. The wretched Thing dangled forward as if it were in flight, then landed back against his chest. “We are the ones who are honored, sir. Thank you.”

If her hand had not been trapped in his, she might have reached up and dropped the Thing back inside his tunic. He could have worn something like that around the army base, but what sort of man arrived to meet his wife’s family friends for the first time with a model of a flying penis strung around his neck? She could imagine what fun Enica and the one with the lisp would have passing that on. She tried squeezing his hand, but he merely squeezed it back, his warm grip showing how pleased he was with the way he thought things were going.

Senecio was speaking again. Something about the Samain festival and how many guests would be there to share the feast and the bonfires. “And there will be a full moon, which will bring you good fortune.”

Her husband seemed confused. She explained again in slower British, hoping she had got it right. “He is offering to give us the blessing at the Samain feast, on the fourth night after this one.”

Only afterward, when Senecio had limped off to his bed, did she find out why her husband had said, “Ah!” as if this was a surprise, and not an entirely pleasant one.

“I thought that was it,” he said. “I thought that was the blessing. I didn’t realize he meant a whole ceremony.”

How could he have imagined that was it? His understanding must be worse than she thought. “There will be singing and dancing and lots of food, and if we are lucky Senecio will make us a special poem, and there will be big bonfires because it is Samain.”

“I’m not sure I want our marriage blessed on the night when the dead walk.”

“When the walls between the living and the dead melt away,” she corrected him. “And you will enjoy it when you get there. Now, tell me. Where did you get that?”

He glanced down in the direction of her accusing stare. “Oh, that! Somebody lent it to me.”

He was wearing it specially. A winged penis. To meet his wife’s people.

She would never understand Romans.

“It’s supposed to bring good luck,” he said, as if that excused it. “That reminds me. There’s bad news about Valens’s father-in-law.”