After Rome Read Free Page B

cooking utensils and everyday plates and cups cast in pewter. The shelf above this boasted a complete set of glazed red tableware, plus a single, exquisite glass bottle the color of emeralds. The top shelf was fitted with cubbyholes designed to hold Cadogan’s cherished collection of manuscripts. Scrolls of Athenian poetry, Alexandrian maps, books of Latin history and theology. The books had been written on thin sheets formed by pounding together crisscross slices of the pith of a sedge called papyrus.
    At the opposite end of the room was a wooden bedstead, held high off the floor by oak stumps. The bed was equipped with a horsehair mattress, a rather grimy sleeping pad stuffed with goose down, an equally grimy linen sheet and three woolen blankets. Near the bed a naturally formed stone basin was set atop another broad stump. Cadogan had found the object in the river the preceding autumn, when the water was low enough to allow for easy fording. Over many centuries the river had shaped and polished the stones in its bed as it slowly changed its course. Following the way of least resistance.
    The remainder of Cadogan’s furniture consisted of a brass-bound chest inlaid with silver and copper, two brightly painted wooden stools, a battered campaign table with folding legs, and a larger oak table. The lamp on that table had been one of his mother’s treasures. When he was a child she had guided his chubby fingers around the swirling acanthus leaves engraved on the bronze surface. “See how beautiful, Cadogan?” He had loved beauty ever since.
    The woman followed the direction of his eyes. Where he saw achievement she saw failure. Crude construction and a dirt floor covered with chicken scratches. Most of the furniture looked as if it had been hacked out with an axe. Sacks of grain and dried meat were hanging from ropes slung over the rafters to protect the food from rats. Although she could not see them in the dim light, she knew there were spiderwebs in the corners. Worst of all, the place had a damp, musty smell, as if moisture were seeping up from the earth below. She had wasted the last of her tiny vial of perfume trying to sweeten the air.
    â€œIt’s cold in here,” she complained.
    â€œThere’s no fire on the hearth,” he pointed out.
    â€œYou’re out of firewood.”
    â€œThere’s plenty stacked behind the house, didn’t you look back there?”
    She said indignantly, “I’m not accustomed to bringing in firewood. Why are you hiding in this miserable hovel anyway?”
    â€œThis isn’t a miserable hovel, it’s my home. And I’m not hiding.” Cadogan wanted to close his eyes but he couldn’t, not with her staring at him. “I live alone out here because a solitary life appeals to me.”
    â€œYou want to make this pitiful hut a hermitage ?”
    â€œThat’s not what I said. I said the life appeals to me, I didn’t say I wanted to be a hermit. There’s a difference.” He was too weary to explain the difference to her, even if he could. His need for isolation had come on him gradually and would, he suspected, fade in time. Of one thing he was certain: he had not wanted it interrupted by a crazy woman. “Put out the lamp,” he said. “It will be dawn soon anyway.”
    â€œI’m not going to sit here in the dark. You might abuse me.”
    He almost laughed. “Abuse you? No fear of that … What’s your name? I don’t even know your name.”
    â€œDon’t know my name !” She sounded as if it were the ultimate insult.
    He tried to be patient. “You may recall that I left here shortly after you and Dinas appeared at my door. The brief conversation I had with my cousin was not about you, but something much more urgent. He never even mentioned your…”
    â€œHis horse is dangerous, you know,” she interrupted. “It’s killed people. I myself am