Return to Me

chapter 11


Barcelona, Spain

Placidia waited with Athaulf in the cloister of the Basilica of the Holy Cross and St. Eulalia. They wore their wedding attire: she her imperial raiment of purple robes, he a Roman general’s uniform with a fine crimson cloak. She thought back to the day of their formal wedding ceremony, which had taken place at the richly appointed house of one of Narbonne’s leading citizens, Ingenuus. How joyful the ceremony had been! How wonderful the banquet! In those days, the world seemed so full of promise.

She looked up at Athaulf and fought tears. Little Theo continued to haunt her waking moments and her every dream. They were here to honor him and the saint with whom he now dwelt, in sight of God’s Holy Throne.

“St. Eulalia, please accept these gifts. In your memory, we pray. Amen.”

Bishop Sigesar’s voice brought Placidia back around. She looked out at the crowd, then down at the stone pavement before her. Two large dishes rested there, one heaped with gold, the other precious gems. Athaulf’s wedding gifts to her. They would be used to house and care for her gift to this church, a gift which would last for all time.

Honks echoed from beyond the cloister walls. A man with a crook appeared, herding in thirteen white geese. The herdsman was young and handsome, not the old man Placidia had seen in her vision.

She smiled inwardly as the geese scurried in to take up residence. Thirteen geese to represent each year of St. Eulalia’s life. In the future, as each passed from this mortal world, they would be replaced with other perfect white specimens, to honor St. Eulalia’s brief life and holy martyrdom.

May she be remembered for eternity! Placidia prayed and crossed herself.

Athaulf took her hand and gently squeezed it. She turned and looked into his beautiful hazel eyes. They flickered in the sunlight, jewel-like, flashing green and golden brown.

Her heart lifted and tears welled again. But her grief had been supplanted by a new hope: that they would someday reunite with their beloved son, and live together in the sight of God, at His right hand.

• • •

No one would witness this, not even Honorius. As with her true name, Dipsas chose not to share her secrets with anyone else, for they were hers to keep and guard, taught to her long ago by another of the Gifted Ones, her sister Randegund.

She wiped a tear. The night breeze rose, and the trees whispered to her. The stars sparkled overhead, raining down a soft, pure light.

They whispered, too. The blood moon is rising, it is rising. The moment has come, and he shall be cursed in his blood and bone, cursed back to dust.

Dipsas waited as the moon rose in the eastern sky. She knew the emperor and his advisors were watching it, too, from the balconies of the palace. Dipsas had prevailed upon Honorius to allow her this time alone, so that the cursing could be done in private and, thereby, be assured of success.

She took a rock from her bag and placed it in the niche behind Venus’s statue. It was an ancient cursing stone, worn smooth from use and rounded by countless hands. She looked up at the moon, round, too, ancient, too, and waited for the eclipse to commence. She saw it then, the sign: a smoky red shadow that appeared on its edge. Slowly, it spread, until half the orb was covered.

The moment had come.

“I, Amalaswintha,” she intoned, “do beseech the gods to curse Athaulf, King of the Visigoths!”

The stars and trees whispered back as she reached down and turned the sacred stone, rotating it in a circle going right to left, toward the sinister side, the left-hand path. Darkness swathed the garden, the moon now fully engulfed in its blood shadow. She did not relent, continuing to chant as she turned the stone ’round and ’round. “I, Amalaswintha, do beseech the gods to curse Athaulf, King of the Visigoths! I, Amalaswintha, do beseech the gods to curse Athaulf, King of the Visigoths! Mother-killer!”

Finally, the moon threw off its curse. At last, the trees and stars fell quiet, to sleep through the deepest part of night. The deed was done.

Exhausted, cradling her sacred stone against her body, Dipsas shuffled from the garden. There were two more curses to make, two more people who must suffer for the death of Randegund, but they could wait until the next blood moon appeared in September.