Sailing Into The Wind

Roma Mater, IV.

Gratillonius crosses the English channel:

"The wind skirled and flung briny spatters across his lips." (1, p. 60)

I have got into the habit of seeking out references to the wind. But the wind is not alone in this account. Seas run heavy. The ship rolls and bounds. Waters rush, boom and clash. Timbers and rigging creak. So, on this occasion at least, the wind is just one part of the scenery.

Gratillonius enjoys the voyage, then laughs at himself for imagining that:

"...the Gods really carved out a strait at the Creation in order that Gaius Valerius Gratillonius could have a day's worth of feeling like the boy he once was..." (pp. 60-61)

The Channel is geologically recent but, of course, Gratillonius envisages an Earth unchanged in every detail since its beginning.

When the ship's captain realizes that Gratillonius is a Mithraist, he fulminates that:

it is unlucky even to have a pagan on board, let alone to sit and drink with him;

he would have had Gratillonius thrown overboard if the latter were not an officer;

he will report him on arrival;

Gratillonius must leave the captain's cabin immediately.

The punchline of this chapter section is:

"The centurion did not argue, but rose and went forth on to the deck, into the wind." (p. 66)

As we might have expected, the wind has the last word.