Had there been some disaster? I could see no unusual bustle of activity in the city. I waited, frowning, until the man drew up, relying the neckcloth with which he had been wiping his brow. I recognized him as a youngster on Constantius’s staff, and acknowledged his salutation.
“And what has my husband sent you up here in such haste to say? Is there some emergency?”
“Not at all. The Lord Docles has arrived, my lady, and your husband bids me tell you that they will be dining with him here this evening.”
“What, all of them?” I shook my head. “It is an emergency for me! We were planning to spend the day spring cleaning, not preparing a banquet.”
The young man grinned. “That’s right—Maximian will be coming as well! But I have heard about your dinners, lady, and I feel sure you will gain the victory.”
It had not occurred to me to view a dinner as a military engagement, but I laughed as I waved him on his way. Then I hurried inside to consult with Brasilia.
Despite my words, a meal for three men accustomed to the food of army camps would not place any unusual demands upon my kitchen. They might not be so devoted to austerity as Carus had been, but I knew from experience that all three would pay more attention to what they were saying than to what they were eating. It was Drusilla who felt that both the cooking and the service must be, if not elaborate, at least accomplished with restrained perfection.
Fortunately it was a season when fresh food was plentiful. By the time Constantius and our guests came riding up the hill, we were prepared for them with a salad of spring greens dressed in olive oil, hard-boiled eggs and new bread, and a roasted lamb, garnished with herbs and served on a bed of barley.
The evening was mild, and we opened the long doors in the dining chamber so that our guests could enjoy the flowerbeds and the fountain in the atrium. As I moved back and forth between the diners and the kitchen, supervising the service, I could hear the deep rumble of masculine voices growing more mellow as more of the tangy white wine of the countryside was served.
It was clear that this was to be a business dinner, not a social occasion, and I had not sat down with them. Indeed, even though it had been years since I had celebrated the Eve of Beltane, old habit kept me fasting. The men were talking of troop strengths and city loyalties, but as the evening drew on, I felt the energies that flowed through the land increasing in intensity. Drusilla was complaining because some of the kitchen servants had disappeared as soon as the first course was served. I thought I knew where they had gone to, for when I walked in the quiet of the garden, I could feel the throbbing in the earth and hear the drums that echoed it, and a hilltop above the town blazed with Beltane fire.
My blood was warming in answer to the drumming. I smiled, thinking that if our guests did not stay too late, Constantius and I might have time to honour the holiday in the traditional manner ourselves. The laughter in the dining room had deepened. Perhaps the men did not recognize the energy in the evening, but it seemed to me that they were responding to it all the same. As for me, the scent of the night air had made me half-drunk already. When I heard Constantius calling, I draped a palla across my shoulders and went in to them.
My husband moved over on his couch so that I could sit and offered me some of his wine.
“So, gentlemen, have you decided the future of the Empire?”
Maximian grinned, but Docles’s heavy brows, always startling below that high bald brow, drew down.
“For that, Lady, we should need a seeress like Veleda to foretell our destinies.”
I lifted a eyebrow. “Was she an oracle?”
“She was the holy woman of the tribes near the mouth of the Rhenus in the reign of Claudius,” Constantius replied. “A Batavian prince called Civilis, who had been an officer in the auxiliaries, began a rebellion. They say the tribes would make no move without her counsel.”