As for this temple, how could it be expected to impress me, now that I had seen the great shrines of the Empire? And how could the Goddess speak to me, now that I had lost my soul?
But I had brought a garland of spring flowers to lay before her, and when I had done so I stood with head bowed, and despite my depression, the peace of the place began to seep into my soul.
The temple was quiet, but not entirely silent. Somewhere in the eaves sparrows were nesting, their cheeps and twittering the grace-notes to a deeper murmuring which I eventually identified as the sound of the spring. And suddenly I had no need to descend to those waters, for the sound of them was all around me, an overwhelming sense of Presence that told me the Goddess had entered into her temple and I stood on holy ground.
“Where have you been?” I whispered, tears smarting beneath my closed eyelids. “Why did you abandon me?”
And after a while, as I waited, I sensed an answer. The Goddess was here, as She had always been here, and in the running water, and upon the roads of the world, for those who were willing to be still and listen with their souls. Hylas had poked his head above the rim of the basket and was staring at a spot near the statue with the look usually reserved for me when I came home after a journey. I thought the place was just above the hidden spring.
I turned, lifting my hands in salutation. “Elen of the Ways, hear my vow. I am a wife no longer, and I have been cast out of Avalon, but I will be Your priestess if you will show me what you wish me to do…”
I closed my eyes, and perhaps the sun, descending, chose that moment to shine through the high windows, or perhaps one of the temple servants had brought a lamp into the room, but suddenly I sensed a blaze of light. And though my eyes were still shut, that glow shone into the darknesff that had engulfed my spirit when Constantius left me, and I knew that I would survive.
Londinium was the largest of Britannia’s cities, larger than Sirmium or Treveri, if not so great as Rome. I was able to purchase a comfortable house in the northeastern part of the city, near the main road that led out towards Camulodunum. It had belonged to a silk merchant before his trade was disrupted by Carausius’s wars, and in this part of the city, there was still enough open land for vegetable gardens and pasture, so that it was almost like being in the countryside.
I settled into the quiet life suited to the widow most of my neighbours believed me to be. I did not trouble to correct them, but made a regular circuit to the baths, the theatre, and the markets. And little my little, my inner turmoil eased. Like a legionary who has lost a limb in battle, I learned to compensate, and even at times to enjoy the things I had without immediately remembering those I would never have again.
From time to time, news would reach us from Rome. Constantius had taken Flavia Maximiana Theodora in marriage at the ides of Maia, a month which was said to be unlucky for marriages. I could not help hoping that in this case the tradition would prove to be true. But if Constantius still mourned for me, it did not prevent him from doing his husbandly duty, for at the end of the year we heard that Theodora had borne him a son, whom they called Dalmatius.
Theodora was not only younger than I, but she appeared to be the kind of woman who gets pregnant as soon as her husband hangs his belt on the bedpost, for after Dalmatius, another son, Julius Constantius, and two daughters, Constantia and Anastasia, were born in quick succession. I never saw Theodora, so I do not know whether she was, as the panegyrists were bound to say, beautiful.
I was now cut off from army gossip, but I could not help hearing talk in the market-place, and the political situation was degenerating. After getting Theodora pregnant, Constantius had returned to the army, and used his new authority as Caesar to mount an attack on Gesoriacum, the port from which Carausius had maintained his foothold in northern Gallia. The naval fortress was impregnable, but by building a mole across the entrance to the harbour, Constantius was able to cut the place off from support by sea, and shortly after mid-summer the garrison surrendered.