Given that the original reason for this blog thing was to blow my own horn with regard to the book I wrote and self published on Smashwords – and yes, it is still available on Amazon but I have no idea where that money goes as I seem to have failed to set up a banking account with them. Anyway, never mind, live and learn. So, to return to origins – this blog thingy was meant to be about my book Raiding Cooley (or Cúailnge, if you prefer) in particular and other writings that I come across, do myself, admire and so on. In that vein, here is a scene I have been working on recently. It is going to be part of something much larger and this scene takes place fairly near the start of a much longer story. Anyway, comments, likes, dislikes, objections, that sort of thing – basically any feedback at all would be most gratefully accepted. I can’t really give you any more as this is very much part of a work in progress and I might never actually use this scene. Wonderful, ain’t it!
The Argument
” You ungrateful whelp, you will do as I say,” Calpurnius crashed his gnarled fist down on the polished table, making the goblets jump. “Don’t you understand what this means to us all? Do you think I want to give up all of this?” he shouted, gesturing at the tilled fields stretching from the walls around the villa down the hillside bounded by the blue line of the sea below them.
Maewyn stood up abruptly, pushing his stool back roughly so that it crashed on the mosaic floor. “You can’t make me do this. I don’t care, it’s your job – not mine,” but even as his stomach roiled in fear at this rebellion, he could hear the petulance in his own voice and was ashamed of himself.
Ignoring his mother reproachful looks, he brushed past his father and rushed out of the villa, past the fountain in the vestibule.
His parents’ Pelagian Christianity meant nothing to him and Maewyn looked with youthful scorn upon his father’s attempt to evade his duties as a tax collector and councillor by taking shelter in his relaxed form of religious orders. Certainly he had no intention of assuming his father’s harsh and ruthless role exacting taxes from the local Ordovices people rather than making up the deficit from his own land and slave holdings. Nevertheless, he had to admit that his family’s way of life was comfortable and he enjoyed the respect his father and his father, Potitus, before him had garnered over the years, landowners who had long accepted Roman ways and customs. Their cultured way of life was in sharp contrast to the local Brythonic tribes from whom they exacted the heavy tax that Rome demanded from its provinces and localities. The whole idea of collecting taxes for the Romans was pointless now that the empire was collapsing, Maewyn told himself. Even the legate, Stilicho would be recalled to Rome shortly despite what he had overheard the previous night.
“You know the law” Stilicho had insisted, enjoying the power his position afforded him in Britannia Prima. The Roman was powerfully built with blunt, heavy features, thick dark hair swept back from a broad forehead above a long bulbous nose creased heavily at the bridge. His thin mouth was accentuated by the persistent shadow on his square jaw, despite the ministrations with an obsidian blade. Hard, grey eyes had assessed, understood and despised the fawning attempts of Calpurnius and Conchessa to distract him with a beaker of the dark yellow wine he favoured.
“But you know these raids on the coastal districts make collecting the taxes difficult,” Calpurnius had pleaded. It was true, Goidelic raids were becoming more frequent as Roman power declined in the west and although the last stronghold of the Celts on the island of Mona had been replaced almost three and a half centuries before with a permanently garrisoned fort at Seguntium, the raids had increased in frequency and daring recently. Stilicho, as the newly appointed legate to the western province of Britannia Prima, was keen to lead a retaliatory raid on Hibernia. Broad, muscular shoulders and pale scars on his thick forearms were proof of his military bearing and experience.
“You know the law,” he repeated implacably. “What is not collected must be made up from your own pocket. You can always sell your slaves to raise the necessary portion.”
Red Branch Chronicles 