Massimo, Deirdre & Pombal. The buddies encounter Wulf

La Venus del espejo (Toilet of Venus) by the Spanish Golden-Age painter Diego Velázquez (1599–1660). Was she a real redhead? Click the link (Wikipedia) for attribution

Massimo [read the original in Italian] checked the GPS tracking software. “4 minutes and Deirdre would reach home” he thought.

Attribution

Pure or impure goddess?

How would the mystery of the beautiful Irish girl be solved?

Massimo was extremely tense. He needed the Hermetics (whose profound words usually brought him peace) but reading them would require time. And God knows where his Alhambra was. He loved to caress its strings, its rich textured sound so well suiting the temperament of a dreamer.

That damn Russian Ukrainian, Pombal, - in honour of whose genius he had given away a room of his apartment for a ridiculously low rent - must have taken it to the Piazzetta with him or put it back in the late 18th century wardrobe that uncle Carlo had left him before he died.

Fortunately long-time meditation on ancient texts allowed him to improvise and vibrate with words now dead.

Classical Guitar. Click for attribution

Deirdre, Deirdre,
num nec tecum
possum vivere
nec sine te?


[Deirdre, Deirdre,
perhaps can I live
neither with you
nor without you?]

Eyes of a thoughtful green blue, long and perfect legs, sensual hips ... and what about her pale skin? Oh that face, her thriving breasts, and whitest arms and hands that, he sensed, knew how to give happiness in silence clinging …

Deirdre, splendid and crimson-haired creature, who seemed as if carved first and then polished for years by an ancient sculptor gone mad ...

He felt a pang. Weren't the rosci cursed by the gods?? ['roscio is red-headed in Roman'; note by 'he who is writing']. 

Goddess & mother of all dreams - or filthy whore with a deceitful heart? 

Since - Massimo thought not without anguish - some of her statements during their last date could not be uttered but by those who ... 

He drove his mind ghosts away with anger. The matter could be very serious and demanded lucid force. 

He doubled his speed of reading, which is normally between 250 and 350 words per minute in Italian. 

Italian ex soccer player Stefano Bettarini. Attribution

Giorgio many years earlier, in order to help his pupil with school work, had taught Massimo various speed-reading techniques. And Massimo, once a successful soccer player then badly injured and turned into a flop, was now accustomed to make use of ALL of them alternatively, ie according to texts, to the environment (or to his own whim). Only two of them increased reading speed enormously but greatly reduced text comprehension.

ψ

The sentences were now taking shape out of the screen fonts (just Pythagorean combinations he reflected). Concepts and images began to flow more rapidly into his mind.

Helmet found in Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, England (6th cent. CE)

Giorgio so continued:

“At some point a giant with noble eagle eyes appeared in the doorway of the taberna.

Long blondish hair coarsely ringed, beard and moustache, muscular body clad in wolf and deer skin, metal plates that protected his broad chest, the Germanus wore a long sword hanging from a wide belt made of badger's (or boar's) fur.
A true colossus, Massimo, and showing that pride which in those days was (and still is) a mark of command.

His appearance raised murmurs of approval, respect (and fear).

Some Angles began to clamour by hitting their weapons unto their shields and shouting "Wulf! Wulf! Wulf."

Others gathering to the left of the giant, a powerful figure at their centre, looked at him with rancour. The members of a rival clan?

Wulf checked the room and quickly identified the foreigners, they standing out against the mass of the locals as the most beautiful golden ears stand out against a field of wheat shaken by the evening wind.

The Roman men were playing dice and discussing Qwil’s bizarre disappearance a few hours earlier (“Absolutely typical of him” Philippus and Chaerie had commented but Jenny had rebuked their Germanic friend from Vindobona in absentia by saying: “What an IDIOTIC thing to get lost in such a dangerous environment!”).

They all also debated a painful encounter that had occurred in the nearby village prior to their decision to reach the taberna and forget their woes for a bit.

The women, laughing while betting on dice combinations, their voices so silvery, dear Massimo, as if Beauty, Soul's Nobility & Eros had incarnated in their joyful personae; the Syrian ladies hiding naughtily behind their embroidered veils and at the same time trying to evaluate the wealth of potential customers; and Pavlos, our resourceful Greek merchant, enwrapped in dreams before a mysterious a wax tablet: the figures of his commerce or winged words that made him fly elsewhere?

Two Roman women reading their favourite poet as they were imagined in 1888 by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912). Detail. Click for attribution and to enlarge

You gotta know Massimo that – but don't feel like telling ya why ok? I know I'm getting neurotic ok? - a Romano-British slave, a certain Coalan, square-faced and rodent grey eyed, had noticed the presence of the weird group in the taberna (or longhus, as the Angles call it) and had rushed to inform Ogden and Kaelan, Wulf's sworn friends from the day when the three of them, as children, had drunk their respective blood.
Coalan was the property of the warriors’ clan and part of Wulf's personal network of informers. His father had implored the Germans for mercy in the course of a raid and had obtained life for him and his family (but not freedom).

A mid-20th century reconstruction of a Danish long house in Hobro, Denmark. Click for attribution

"They are mostly Romano-British in the old way - he had told them - who, in addition to the British language still speak Latin together with an absolutely incomprehensible tongue, and who dance and sing in so unusual a manner that our longhus risked turning into a place of, ehm, absolute revelry.

To these words a brief description of the group had followed, as a result of which the two friends had looked at each other with a gleam in their eyes (did it correspond to Manius' stories on his far-away friends?) and had quickly sent a fast horseman in the forest where Wulf was hunting.

This is why Massimo, dear friend and former pupil, such a colossus had rushed into the taberna.

[“Dear Master - Massimo, this dark-haired and dark-eyed real Roman from Rome, had thought ('what a black-haired clone of A.S. Roma's player Francesco Tutti you are' Pombal often kidded him), - I know I must be strong also for you now that you've become unsure, and, well, an old fart - let me call a spade a spade.”]

The Roma soccer team logo. Attribution

The friends immersed in their dice game & conversation realized only at the last moment that an immense blonde tower had appeared less than a yard from their noses and that, terrifying in its mass, was shouting with a thundering voice incomprehensible words:

"Ic freond, IC FREOOOOND, ond ...”

The reaction of the men in the group was fast - in those times even a second of distraction could mean death.

Six Romano-Britons, their gladii already in their hands, turned the massive table upside down against the giant (gladii are lethal when used by trained Romans). Pavlos pulled out an inlaid-with-gold throwing dagger he always carried with him (even in bed?). He had already shown his ability to use it with deadly precision. The women were looking at the giant with contempt and challenge. The courtesans were instead screeching like scared gulls, although one of them concealed a stone in her delicate, ringed hand.

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Such Fun!

The sudden action of the Romans was followed by a reaction from the Angles who were in the immediate vicinity. Easy to anger, some began to hurl themselves against the group of strangers.  The men would pay with their lives (and the women with a humiliating slavery) for the unspeakable offence to their leader.

The buddies saw themselves surrounded by some dozens of furious men. Arrows, lances and swords were pointed towards them. Ready to sell their lives dearly they knew that their death was near since the fighters' ratio was of one to four.

ψ

At that moment a roar rent the air.

The heavy table flew away as if it were made of paper.

The gigantic man emerged from the floor.

Looming over the bunch of buddies he unsheathed his huge sword with flashing blue eyes ...