18 The Ruined VillaHalf a day’s march from the fortress of Glevum lay a ruined Roman villa. The cypress trees still swayed with the morning and evening breezes, as though they noticed no change, or as though they were self-sufficient in their beauty, their grace, whatever happened in the world about them. The grey-breasted doves still purred to each other, perched on the crumbling white walls that overlooked the shady garden, where the fish-ponds were.
The fish had long since gone, and now the pools were cloaked by water-lily and pond-weed. The sly, quicksilver-moving little newts slid in and out of the water. Gnarled brown frogs sat on the marble balustrades at evening and croaked at the ivy-festooned statues of Priapus and Pen which overlooked the ponds.
Where once the magnate who owne
