Read Online After Rome by Morgan Llywelyn - Free Book Online Page A

had come to an abrupt end when Vintrex shouted at his son, “While you are under my roof you will do what I say, when I say, exactly as I say, and nothing else! You are my son !”
    â€œI am not your property !” Cadogan had shouted back at him. “Not anymore!”
    After giving the matter deep thought for several days, one night Cadogan waited until everyone was asleep, then padded silently through the house. Collecting his personal belongings, including the things he had inherited from his mother and a list of household items he thought he might need. Before dawn he had loaded everything onto two packhorses and commandeered a porter to take charge of them. Before he rode out of the stable yard he had snatched up Kikero, bound his legs together and carried the surprised rooster with him on the bay mare.
    Cadogan was drunk with a sense of freedom.
    He had wandered the forested hills northeast of Viroconium until he came upon a sloping meadow skirted by oak and ash and alder. The land was unoccupied. There was adequate grass for his mare and a sparkling stream at the foot of the hill, and it was only a few miles to a small village. The first time he visited the village for supplies he could purchase some hens for Kikero.
    Cadogan knew at once that he had found his sanctuary. A place where he could read, and dream, and commune with God, without being criticized.
    When the packhorses were unloaded he had sent them back to his father with the porter. His final instruction to the weary servant was, “Tell Vintrex he will never see my mare on his property again. Nor me either.”
    Then he set to work.
    Creating a home for himself proved harder than he anticipated.
    At first he had envisioned a country estate in the Roman style. Like his parents’ property in Viroconium, his house would be built around a courtyard open to the sky. The floors would be decorated with mosaic tiles. Cadogan planned to outfit a separate room for every household function, including a chamber for Christian worship, following the custom introduced under Emperor Constantine. In 313 Constantine had made Christianity the official religion and its Roman version the official version throughout the empire.
    Cadogan’s new home would have light and comfort and a place for God. In the quicksilver air of a forest clearing he almost sensed a Presence; in the shadowed silence of the trees he almost heard a Voice. Away from the bustle and distractions of the city he was certain he could find the tranquility he longed for.
    The residence in Cadogan’s imagination was very beautiful. Before he fell asleep lying on a blanket on the ground he talked in his head to Viola, telling her about the home he would build for the two of them. When she saw what he had accomplished, she would relent and return to him. In his dreams it seemed possible.
    Reality did not conform to dreams. The stream that was to supply his water abandoned him. One morning it sparkled and sang. The following morning it was dry; the very stones in the streambed were dry. After some searching he found a trickle of water meandering off in another direction entirely. To his consternation, even that meager supply disappeared two days later.
    When he went searching for an alternate water source he discovered that the nearest river was more than a mile away. He had no idea how to construct a viaduct. It was the sort of thing the Romans had known. In the end he had been forced to dig a well; three wells, in fact, before he finally struck water.
    Nothing had worked out as Cadogan expected. Adapting to the materials at hand was only the first in a long chain of compromises that gave Cadogan a sneaking satisfaction.
    Vintrex would not have approved. He considered compromise a sin.
    The elegant multiroomed stone-walled villa became a timber cabin with no inner courtyard, no reflecting pool, and no tiles on the roof. Only sod and thatch to keep out the rain. At night Cadogan had to