A stone-carver had his workshop between the Isaeum and the Temple of Diana, and I conceived the idea of commissioning from him a relief of the matronae, the trio of ancestral mothers who were honoured all over the Empire. But it had come to me that my carving should be different, and so in addition to the usual three figures, two of them holding baskets of fruit and the third a child, I asked the sculptor to carve a fourth Mother, this one holding in her lap a dog.
Perhaps the Mothers were grateful, for within a moon, I met three people who were to make a profound difference in my life during the remaining years I spent in Londinium.
I encountered the first immediately after finishing negotiations over the carving. I had set out in search of a cookshop where I could have a bit of bread and sausage before starting home. But as I turned the comer, I nearly tripped over something furry, and looking down, found myself surrounded by cats. If this was an omen, I did not understand it. There must have been two dozen, of all shapes and colours, waiting impatiently in front of a rather ramshackle building that had been added on to the back of the Temple of Isis.
I heard a ripple of words in some foreign tongue, turned and saw a small, round woman draped in several tunicas and a palla of brightly clashing colours, and leaning on a cane. Dark hair was partly covered by windings of purple, and she was carrying a basket that smelled strongly of fish even from here.
She looked up and saw me. “Oh I am sorry,” she said in Latin. “They get very insistent, the greedy pusses, but I am the only one who will feed them, you see.”
As she opened the bag and began to dole out fish heads I could see that her dark eyes had been elongated with kohl, and her skin had a warm glow that had never come from a British sun. Around her neck hung a pendant of a cat in the Egyptian style.
“Are you a priestess?” I asked.
“I am Katiya, and I serve the Lady Bast—” She started to touch one hand to her forehead in homage, realized that she was holding a piece of fish, laughed, and cast it to a big orange tomcat who waited to one side.
“Eastward we gaze upon Bast, the Queen-Cat,” she chanted softly. “In the east we seek for the soul of Isis, Light-bearer, Moon-mother, gentle protectress. To the shrine of Per-Bast we direct our prayers… But I am the only one in Londinium who does so,” she added, shaking her head. “In Egypt all people know that the cat is sacred to the Goddess, but merchants bring cats to Britannia and leave them, and no one seems to care. Only the priests of Isis let me stay here because they know that Bast and Isis are sisters. I do what I can.”
“My goddess favours dogs,” I told her, “but I suppose that Bast is her sister as well. Will you accept an offering?”
“In my Lady’s name,” she answered, and from amongst her draperies fetched out a net bag, somewhat less redolent of fish than the basket, into which I could drop a few coins. “I feed my little ones, and I make songs. Come to me when you are sad, noble lady, and I will cheer you.”
“I think it very likely you will!” I answered, laughing in spite of myself. And thereafter, for as long as I lived in Londinium, I would visit Katiya every week or so and make my offering. Just to keep the scales balanced, however, I made a donation to the Temple of Diana, who loves hounds, for the care of the city’s stray dogs. From time to time I would take one of these foundlings home with me, but though I enjoyed the patter of paws about the house, with none of them did I find the bond I had had with Hylas and Eldri.
The second meeting occurred one day when I noticed the name “Corinthius” on a sign above a door and paused, remembering the old Greek who had been my tutor when I was a child. From inside I could hear the sound of young voices declining Greek verbs. Corinthius had told me he intended to set up a school. I asked Philip, who was with me, to knock and enquire, and soon I was taking wine with a young man who told me he was the son of my old tutor, who had married when he got to Londinium, and begotten this son to eventually inherit his school.