Eventually, even Gaius was full to repletion. The young courier swayed in a forgetful attempt to recline on a stool. The bulk of the meal had left Perennius logy. The headache with which he had tramped for a day and a half was gone. Even his wounded thigh could almost be ignored. The agent was wondering whether or not he could bathe
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now. It would make a perfect conclusion to the relaxing meal.
Father Ramphion rose. The building whispered slowly into a hush as before. At the priest’s side stood another villager with a goblet. The vessel was of glass so clear and colorless that it might properly have graced an emperor’s table. The wine within it was of a tawny hue accented by the flaring rush-lights.
Ramphion took the goblet and raised it. “May all those present be turned to the Lord’s service,” he said, “as Dioscholias taught.” He drank noisily from the goblet, then handed it to Sestius. The level of the wine had dropped appreciably.
The centurion had asked for wine twice in the course of the meal. Now he took the goblet in surprise. The priest continued to stand. Sestius obviously wondered if he should stand up also, but Father Ramphion’s eyes held no such encouragement. Sestius drank and passed the cup.
Sabellia’s hesitation had come when the wine was offered to the centurion. When it came her turn, she gripped the slick glass surface without concern. Because the villagers had tacitly barred her from full membership in the circle of their faith, there was a bitter reaction in the Gallic woman to damn them all as heretics themselves. Like the wine, her red hair absorbed highlights from the blazing, grease-soaked rushes. The color was no bad suggestion of the anger within Sabellia. But with her temper came control, and a remembrance of the mission for which she and the others had suffered so much already. Sabellia drank quickly and handed the goblet to Perennius. She wiped her mouth with her shawl.
It was not a particularly good vintage, the agent thought. More tannin, it seemed, than was to be expected from a white wine. Though one got used to the resins and honey added to amphoras to preserve wines for hard travelling. There was none of that in this local vintage. Perennius passed the cup.
Gaius drank with the noisy assurances of a youth whom exhaustion and a full belly had robbed of such sophistication as he might otherwise have displayed. He slurped, belched, and then took another deep draft though the level in the wide-bellied goblet had already sunk near the bottom.
Perennius was trying to decide whether to negotiate for donkeys now or to wait for the morning. It was not a hard decision. He was tired. The feeling of sluggish tranquility that blotted away his aches and pains at the close of the meal would make him a less-effective bargainer. This valley community might well feel it needed its livestock more than it needed gold. Father Ramphion stood, his shaven pate gleaming in the lights above him. He looked as if he were one of the haloed figures painted on the walls. The agent’s eyes focused but his head did not seem to want to turn away from the priest’s fixed smile.
Calvus lowered the cup. The wine had been strained through cloth. Nothing clung to the inside surface of the glass but a film no yellower than the light itself. Fire wavered on the whorls which marked the goblet’s colorless purity. There was a collective babbling from the surrounding tables. Villagers were standing up.
“Aulus Perennius,” the tall woman said. She was speaking Schwabish. Sabellia and Sestius might understand her, but the less stable Gaius would not. “There was an alkaloid in the wine. It should not be fatal, but it will numb you all.”
Perennius clenched his left hand on the table’s edge. He stood up. It was as if he were a squat male caryatid trying to lift the roof of a temple. The agent’s stool crashed to the stone floor behind him.
“Aulus,” the bald woman said, “I don’t think this is a good idea. If they meant to kill us, they would have used something else, surely. …”