by Paul Waters
I sat, declined the wine, and waited. For it was clear from their faces that they had not summoned me only to give their thanks.
Shifting in his chair one said, ‘It is striking, don’t you think, that the bishop opposes Christians serving in the army, yet feels no compunction at having them make war upon unarmed men and women in the city streets, who are doing no more than mind their own business?’
‘It is, sir,’ I said, ‘and I hope I have given them pause.’
Beside him Gennadius shook his head. ‘Perhaps, for a time, you have. But I ask myself where it will all end.’ He looked close to despair.
‘Do not worry, sir,’ I said, thinking to cheer him. ‘They are nothing but an untrained rabble. We can stand up to them.’
He looked at me with a bleak, stricken face, as if I had said something that was not obvious. After a pause he went on, ‘Tell me, Drusus, how many Christians are there among the troops of the garrison?’
‘Christians, sir?’ I frowned. I had never given the question any thought. I cast my mind over the men in my company, and those I had led on manoeuvres, whom by now I had come to know quite well. Not one of them was Christian, and I told him so, adding, ‘It is not a cult that appeals to soldiers, sir. But why do you ask?’
‘Since the time when Constantius’s father was emperor, the Christian bishops have received a subsidy from the state. Recently Magnentius issued a proclamation putting an end to these payments.’
‘Then good,’ I said. ‘Let them find their own money.’
‘Quite. That is the view of us all. But a few days ago Bishop Pulcher came to us demanding money from the city treasury, which he required, he said, in order to make up the shortfall. We told him the city had no funds to finance his grandiose projects. We told him to make petition to Magnentius, who after all is emperor – at least for now. At that he flew into the most unseemly rage. He threatened, in his usual insinuating way, that if he did not get what he wanted he would unleash his mob of ruffians and spread chaos through the city. Since then, as you have seen yourself, the trouble has started. Really, he is a most vulgar, unpleasant man. But what can one expect? His father was a tanner.’
The magistrate beside him said, ‘I heard he was a bath attendant, somewhere in Gaul.’
‘What matters,’ said Gennadius, dismissing this with a wave of his hand, ‘is that he threatens us. It is clear he directs these wretched mobs, though he denies it, claiming the attacks are nothing but popular anger. His thugs are everywhere. It is extortion of the worst kind!’
‘Then, sir,’ I said, ‘let me put your mind at rest. You need not doubt the garrison; and besides, if I am any judge, the bishop is not the sort of man any soldier would follow, Christian or not.’ I paused and looked at their worried faces. ‘But you are the government here. Why do you not have him arrested?’
‘Indeed, and nothing would please me more. But these crimes can never be traced to him – not quite, not directly. And anyway the decurions and the committee will not have it.’
‘But surely they don’t support him!’
‘A few do. Others he has bought. But most say Constantius may yet win the war – and Constantius is a Christian almost to the point of insanity, worse even than his late brother, who was bad enough. In short, they are afraid; there is no unity for action – of any sort. The Council governs only so long as it does nothing; the decurions set their gaze on the war in Pannonia, consult their soothsayers, and bury their silver plate in the garden.’ He sighed. Then, fixing me with his old weathered farmer’s face, he said, ‘But we cannot permit this anarchy to continue, and you may be able to help us . . . I believe you are acquainted with the bishop?’
‘Why scarcely, sir!’ I cried, appalled that this information had spread even to the chief magistrate. ‘And I have no liking for him at all, nor he for me—’
‘Naturally not. But you can carry a message – which we, officially, cannot.’
I went, obedient to their bidding, alone and reluctant, to the bishop’s sprawling residence on the hill.
Pausing in the scarred open space that had been the precinct of the temple of Diana, I felt the memory of my last visit like an icy gust on a warm day. The honey-coloured walls and roofless standing columns of the old temple were gone; in their place the frame of the new cathedral surged upwards, raw brick not yet faced, so that one could still make out the whorls and curves of pillaged stones and broken lintels. Scaffolding clung to the walls; buckets and builders’ rubble lay on the ground beneath. But the site was deserted of workmen.
I was admitted to the long high-vaulted reception room. The bishop was waiting at the far end, behind his desk, beneath the embroidered tapestry. As I strode towards him – past sideboards of carved olivewood, gilt lampstands, and bronze statuettes on onyx plinths – he affected not to notice. But when the gaunt-faced deacon announced me, he turned in overplayed surprise and cried, ‘Ah! The emissary from the Council. Have you come to arrest me?’
The air around him reeked of the same expensive Asiatic scent I had smelled long before. The memory of it took me back to the child I had once been, whom he had wanted to deceive and use. I dispelled the first glimmerings of anger from my mind. I was not here on my own behalf. ‘No, sir,’ I replied, ‘I have not come to arrest you.’ To my relief he did not seem to remember me.
‘Then why are you here?’ he demanded.
I told him – following my instructions – that I had come merely to convey the personal request of the magistrates. They wished it to be known that they desired peace in the city and the province, which was threatened on all sides and needed least of all internal strife. ‘They beg you to call off your supporters – for the common good.’
His small, suspicious eyes had been on my face. Now he relaxed, and took on an air of amused complacency. He strolled across to the ebony sideboard and filled a large silver goblet from a matching wine-flask. Though there were two cups, he poured only one. Then he raised it to his mouth and slowly drank, pausing between sips and considering the great tapestry on the wall – it was a river scene, with vineyards and meadows, and a rich embroidered border of Keltic spirals and dragons.
‘Why ask me?’ he said turning. ‘I cannot control the acts of free men. It is the Council that causes offence.’
‘Offence, sir?’
‘They restore the temples; they permit the people to worship devils. They thwart me in everything.’
‘But sir, these are matters that can be resolved with goodwill. They are nothing against the threats we all face. We have only a few troops left to defend ourselves; the empire is torn by civil strife and Gaul has been stripped of its legions. We must stand together, for surely, if we do not, our enemies will enslave us all.’
‘But,’ he said, raising a small fat quibbling forefinger, ‘who are our enemies? Is the Council not my enemy? Are not you?’
Yes, I thought, I am your enemy, and you are just a fool who holds forth from this pirates’ den of treasures because better men keep the borders safe. But I said, ‘You know what the Saxons can do; compared with that, our differences are of little account. No Christian is prevented from worshipping as he chooses; yet you are not content to let others also choose for themselves. Why try to force men to believe what they will not? When the temples are all burned, what then? Will you burn the people too?’
‘Force,’ he said, ‘is like medicine to the unwilling child. It is unwelcome, but necessary. It cures, though the taste is bitter. It is the true work of love.’
I stared at him; but he went on, like a man reading words from a book, ‘Honest men will rejoice in the Lord. The Saviour says, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” Do not think that I am come to bring peace on Earth; I come not to bring peace, but the sword; I come to set the son at odds with his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s foes shall be the members of his own household, until
His will be done.’
Suddenly he ceased and he peered at me, narrowing his eyes. ‘But wait, do I not know you? . . . Ah, yes! You are Appius’s son, who treated our dear sister Lucretia with such disrespect. You joined the army. Ha! What a fool you are, when you could have performed God’s work. Christian prayers do more than soldiers’ swords. You will find no salvation there.’
In a steady voice I said, ‘I do not understand this salvation of yours, sir. But I understand knowledge and ignorance, and I believe I can tell a good man from a bad one. As for the rest, why did God give men reason, if not to discover the truth, and own it, each for himself? I do not know what salvation is without that, and I do not know how a man knows truth without hard mastery of the error in his soul.’
‘Words!’ he cried, with a sweep of his arm so close to my face that I thought at first he was about to strike me. ‘The time for such questioning is past. Let me tell you something, my clever young friend, that once long ago I told your friend Aquinus. The people have no care for your reason and your complicated truths. They want certainty – simple, easy certainty – and I give it to them. That is why I shall triumph in the end, and that is why you and your chattering philosopher friends will fail. You can go and tell Aquinus and the magistrates this: their star is waning, their power is spent, along with the usurper Magnentius. I am the future now, and if Aquinus sets himself against me he will be swept away.’
He turned and strode to the carved sideboard, where the silver wine-flask stood. He did not hear me till the metal of my boot sounded on the floor behind him. He swung round startled, and for a moment, before his flushed round face set firm, I saw fear in his eyes. It was small consolation for the message I had been ordered to give.
‘The magistrates instruct me, sir, to tell you this. In the interests of harmony they will leave the temples unrepaired. They request, in return, that you use your influence to restore calm to the streets. Peace among the citizens, they say, must come first. All else, they hope, may be resolved in time.’
‘Well, well,’ he said with a smile. He turned back to the wine-flask, slowly refilled the goblet, and raised it in his hand, fingering the delicate relief work of grapes and vine leaves and twisting tendrils.
I stood where I was, saying nothing, waiting while he savoured the moment. But my mind had been working; and now, as I watched him, it came to me with sudden clarity what he had become. He had toppled the old gods, and in their place he had set nothing but himself. He was a deceiver who had come eventually to believe his own lies, not seeing that what he served was nothing but his own vanity.
When at last he spoke he did not trouble to look at me. Even in victory there was no greatness of soul in him. ‘Everything that happens is the will of God,’ he declared. ‘But perhaps we might have some little influence with the citizens, after all. You may tell your friends at the Council that we require funds. Then, perhaps, something can be done. And now, goodbye. I am a busy man.’
‘I see from your face,’ said Aquinus, ‘that you have come to know the man.’
I nodded, and stared out across the summer garden. Wallflower and roses grew in a small raised bed under the wall. The air smelled of rosemary and lavender. It was later the same day, and I had gone to Aquinus and told him all that had been said, feeling he was the only one who would understand.
‘There are depths of corruption,’ he said, after a short pause, ‘that it takes experience to perceive.’
‘It is the unreason of it,’ I said. ‘It was like listening to a madman. What I can’t understand is that people are taken in.’
‘Well, Drusus, it is not so difficult, if one is dishonest enough. He uses an old sophistical trick, and his innocent followers are too simple to know what he is doing. What you said to him is true: there is no freedom without knowledge, nor is there what he likes to call salvation. But such questions are beyond him; he is no doctor of the soul. In place of what is true he purveys sugared sweets, casting them about like a confectioner at a carnival – the promise of eternal life, an end to doubt, and other pleasing stories. But there is no truth that does not begin with mastery of self, and that, most of all, he does not know.’
He sighed and looked out at the urns and flowers in the dappled sunlight.
Shaking my head I said, ‘Yet he seems so sure; nothing shakes him.’
‘It is an aspect of ignorance. But there is a certain structure to the world, whether he knows it or not, and he defies it at his peril, as all men do . . . Ah now, here is Clemens with some cakes and wine. Come and sit down, Drusus, and take some refreshment. You look as if you could do with it.’
The magistrates, when I reported what the bishop had said, thanked me with glum, unhappy faces and shook their heads. They did not tell me what they intended to do about his demands, and it was not my place to question them.
The whole business sickened me, and I was glad to return to my own duties, and my troop of men. But whatever transpired between the magistrates and the bishop, there followed a stillness in the city in the weeks afterwards, which those who knew no better called peace. No more temples were set upon, and the bishop’s mobs melted away.
‘He despises the city government,’ I said to Marcellus, one day when we were discussing it, ‘ – the magistrates, the decurions; all of them. He knew they would not dare oppose him, and he was right. He is shrewd as a stoat, but why do they fear him? He is not strong. I have seen the weakness in his eyes.’
We were walking along the street beside the theatre, with our cloaks pulled up. Autumn had arrived, blowy and unsettled and suddenly grey. From under the arches, the gamblers and hawkers eyed my uniform as we passed. Some of their faces I recognized; but none of them spoke to me, or gave any sign of knowing me. They saw the clothes, not the man; and, I reflected, the man too was different now.
We passed through the theatre entrance with its pediment of stone-carved masks and garlands. Inside we paused under the lee of the orchestra wall, where it was sheltered. Marcellus leant beside me, folded his arms and considered the high stage with its backdrop of arches and tiered red-granite columns.
‘In truth,’ he said, ‘I despise them too. They have gone soft, like animals kept too long in a cage. They no longer believe in anything but their comforts. Once, long ago, there was nothing but marsh and scrub where this theatre and this city stand. But men came here with a vision of what could be, and made it real. They adorned the city out of pride, and love of honour, and because they saw that it was good. But our noble councillors are not such men. They have forgotten what it was that made us great.’
He kicked a pebble, and watched as it danced across the marble-tiled floor. It had rained that morning – a sharp cold squall – and the marble shone like glass. ‘Have you seen Grandfather lately? He is starting to look old.’
I nodded. I too had noticed a change in him, a well-hidden weariness.
‘He drives himself too hard,’ I said.
‘Little wonder, when the magistrates run to him for everything. They are supposed to govern, but cannot even decide what lamp-oil to buy unless someone tells them. But it is not only that. It is the simple people too. It breaks his heart to see them deceived, and incited to tear the city apart. They don’t know what they are destroying, or what they would set in its place.’
Bitterly I said, ‘The bishop knows well enough.’
‘So he likes to think. But he is as much a part of the city as anyone. Grandfather says he is like a man who keeps a cub-wolf for a house-pet, believing he has tamed it. Then one day the beast grows powerful and turns on him.’
Across the theatre, halfway up the ascending rows of seats, an old attendant was sweeping leaves. I knew him from my life before, when the empty theatre had been one of my solitary haunts. He looked, then looked again, and raised a hand. I returned his greeting. I found I was thinking of Lucretia, and Albinus, and, for the first time in many months, of my father.
‘I sometimes wonder,’ I said presently, ‘wheth
er the bishop is right when he says that people prefer the lie. Does a dog dwell upon the nature of truth? No, he thinks only of his belly, and when he has eaten he sleeps.’
I felt Marcellus’s hand on my arm. I had been looking elsewhere. But now I turned.
‘He has affected you more than you know,’ he said. ‘Don’t let him. It is a sickness of the soul. If you fix your eyes on the gutter, do not be surprised if you see only filth. Just because some men look wrongly, and see the good less clearly than others, does not mean the good is not. And even a dog can love, after his fashion.’
I frowned at the grey, cold sky.
‘Yes, Marcellus,’ I said eventually, ‘I suppose you are right.’
I felt his hand seek mine, and close around it. ‘Come, now. It is written all over you, it always has been. You are your own evidence that the bishop is wrong. He kills more than he knows, when he speaks thus.’
I nodded, and gave him a smile, and thought of his body beside me. The wind gusted. The leaves stirred and scattered.
Marcellus released my hand and walked a few paces off, and looked up at the shining red column, streaked with black. There was a small statue of Apollo in the niche beside it, naked, holding a lyre. I had not noticed it before.
‘Soon,’ he said turning, ‘it will be the solstice. Come out to the country with me, and clear your head. There is little more you can do here.’
We rode out west over frost-hard paths under a sharp clear sky.
The farm-hands had hung the great stone entrance-gate with mistletoe and clusters of red-berried holly, and put candles in their windows to the gods of the night – observances that were as old as the land, and as integral as the sowing and the harvesting and the cycle of the seasons. For a time we forgot the city, and spent the days taken up with one another. We hunted deer and hare, riding out with our nets and spears, our breath steaming in the frozen dawn, and Ufa prancing along beside us.
On the morning of the solstice, when the sun was no more than a cold silver disc low in the sky, we gathered with the servants at the little carved shrine. Aquinus, his head covered like a priest’s with the folds of his mantle, lit the flame and sprinkled incense, and whispered the ancient words.
