by Paul Waters
‘By God!’ whispered Marcellus, shaking his head.
‘Yes, indeed. And what does our poor bishop know of God? He is shining on his outward side, but within is all corruption.’ She gave a brief laugh. ‘But now’ – turning to her wide-eyed students – ‘let us resume our study of Plato, who has something to say about such cases as this, I believe.’
It was, by all accounts, the last class she gave. That evening, when darkness had fallen, a band of monks paid her a visit and carried her off to a nearby church. What happened next we only discovered long after. For a while they questioned her in some sort of parody of a trial. Then they condemned her for being unnatural – a favourite accusation of the bishop’s – and demanded that she recant the heresy of her teaching, though what that heresy was they could not say. In the end they stripped her and burned her with hot oil and cut her with knives, and when they were done with that they bore her almost lifeless body back to the school, set light to the building, and cast her into the flames.
No one witnessed it, or so they claimed. Even the old silversmith, who had seen the monks arrive as he was closing his shop, said, when we asked him, that he would not testify, for there was no point in bringing certain death down upon his own head too. As for the authorities, they said it was an accident – no doubt a spilled lamp, or a stray spark of an untended fire.
But everyone knew – everyone knew, and those who thought it was unjust merely shook their heads and said nothing.
‘Do you think she expected it?’ I asked Marcellus, when we had gone to inspect the ruins. ‘Did she know they would come?’
‘I believe so,’ he said. ‘She could have run; that was what they wanted. But she would not.’ He looked away, and rubbed his face with his hand, and trudged off alone through the charred and smoking embers.
Something caught at my foot and I glanced down. It was the blackened remains of a lyre. Gently I picked it up. The strings were gone; the carved wood was crisped to charcoal; the tortoiseshell box was cracked and black with soot.
For a moment I stared at it; then I cast it down in disgust and grief and anger. For it seemed, that day, there would never again be a place for music, or beauty, in the world.
The Council met at last. I put on my tribune’s uniform and took my old position at the back of the chamber. On the front bench, at one end, was the place where Gennadius always sat. No one had taken it. In the rows behind, the ranks of decurions were much thinned. I wondered how many had stayed away, and how many were dead.
The notary entered, moving in his odd, fastidious way, drably dressed as if he were just another minor official, his pale, long face cold and immobile. At his side, like a preening peacock beside a raven, walked the bishop.
They paused. The bishop said something, and as he spoke he glanced behind him. We soon saw why. From outside came the sound of military boots on stone. The decurions turned and stared as a troop of about twenty guards marched in, armed with swords. At a sign from the notary they fanned out, taking up positions at the foot of each of the stairways that led up between the seats. A murmur rustled along the benches. I looked across to where Aquinus was sitting at the front. He had paused from talking to the man beside him and was frowning with disapproval. Further up, from his place high up on the tiered seats, Marcellus caught my eye and nodded grimly, as if to say, ‘Are you surprised?’
The velvet glove was off the iron fist: this was tyranny pure and simple. Up on the benches I could see the minds of the decurions working in their faces, and as they digested what they saw, their outrage turned to fear.
I had almost forgotten the governor himself; but now Martinus entered. His old patrician poise had deserted him. His face looked flushed and anxious. Rather than take the floor, he moved off to one side and sat on a chair. It was the notary who stepped forward.
I had never heard him speak before, but now his voice cut through the fearful silence. It was thin and sharp and precise, like a surgeon’s tool, or an instrument of torture. He repeated the same absurd charges concerning the harvest: that the decurions and their rich friends had caused it to fail; that they were storing grain secretly, to keep food from the people. It was, he said, a deliberate attempt to undermine the imperial authority. He could conclude only one thing: that another Magnentius was in their midst, fomenting rebellion. He suspected the traitors were in this very room; but wherever they were he would uncover them, even if every man in Britain had to be put to the rack.
The horrified decurions gaped down at him. I glanced across the chamber at Martinus. He was looking directly ahead, with a distracted, empty look on his face. I remembered what Trebius had said, that the real power lay with the notary. He had seen it well enough: had it only now dawned upon the governor himself?
My eyes passed to the slab-faced guards. I wondered what order they had been given. Whatever it was, we should find out soon enough. Even Aquinus could not speak now, at the point of a sword. This was not a debate or a consultation; it was a trial; and, perhaps, an execution too. I thought of Martinus and his bland complacent inaction, and my heart filled with contempt. And then I thought of myself. Was I not also worthy of contempt? What else had I done but submit? And this, I reflected, was indeed the nature of tyranny, that even the tyrannized become complicit in the end, robbed of their humanity, sick of soul, party to their own enslavement.
The notary was talking on – carefully, smoothly, seemingly reasonable, and yet the whole content of his speech was insane. And then suddenly, in the midst of this, a loud thumping sound began.
The notary’s head snapped up. His speech faltered. I had not imagined anything could have shocked him, who had presided over so much torture and death; but now his cold black eyes widened, and for a moment, before his pale face jerked round, I caught a glimpse of the hideous fury that burned condensed and controlled within, like the fire that rages behind a furnace door. In the midst of his address, without leave, without heed for the guards, and without any sign that an interruption would be permitted, Aquinus had risen to his feet, taken the rod of office from the magistrate, and was beating it loudly on the marble floor – thud! thud! thud! – reverberating about the high chamber in the signal that demanded silence.
Everyone stared appalled. Even the guards, who up to now had stood rigid, turned their heads and gaped. I heard an echoing in my ears, and realized it was my own heart straining in my breast. Then, in the dreadful silence, Aquinus spoke.
‘I have heard enough of this madness,’ he said, in a steady, thundering voice. ‘Everyone knows who is the criminal here. He stands before us, the creature who has dragged innocent men to be tortured and murdered on no more evidence than the vague say-so of anonymous informers, men who are rewarded for their lies . . . And you!’ he cried, rounding on the bishop, ‘you dare to come among us and countenance this absurd tirade, when it is you, above all, who are the agent of this ruin.’
The bishop looked nervously about him, the rictus of a smile frozen on his lips.
‘You are the guilty men!’ cried Aquinus. ‘You have reduced this province from plenty to want, so that men sit hungry beside burnt fields, and children die in their mothers’ arms. Is this your imperial authority? A corrupt hypocritical bishop, an insane murderer of a notary, and an ineffectual governor. Shame on you all! Get out! We do not need you here.’
I think my mouth had fallen open. I wonder that I managed even to breathe. When at last I became aware of myself, my first thought was of Marcellus. I looked up. He was staring horror-struck from his place high on the benches. But Aquinus had not finished. He drew his breath and spoke on, his accusations crashing down on the heads of the notary and bishop and governor like storm-waves on the shore, beating and hammering, detailing each contravention of the law committed by the notary, demanding to know when the governor would take responsibility for the disaster his lackey had caused. ‘Or perhaps,’ he declared, turning suddenly to Martinus, ‘you were not aware? Perhaps no one told you, though all the city and
all the province has spoken of nothing else, when they dared to speak at all. It is hard to credit that a man at the centre of affairs, entrusted with the care of the province, could know nothing of the crimes he presided over. But better by far to believe in your ignorance, than to think a man who was once considered noble and good might countenance such evil and fail to act.’
He reached behind him and took up a scroll, and pulling it open began to read out, one by one, like the tolling of a bell, the list of men who had disappeared, or had been arrested, or put to the question, or knowing what was coming had chosen to open their veins in the comfort of their homes. I do not think anyone had heard them all before, or known there were so many. And when at last he finished he cast the document down, sending it clattering and unfurling on the floor, so that the rolling spindle came to rest at the governor’s feet.
‘Read it!’ Aquinus cried, ‘when next you are at leisure. Is this what your ancient lineage and long schooling in virtue have taught you? To stand by while a madman and a charlatan tear apart this province like jackals over a carcass? Remember your ancestors, Flavius Martinus! And, by all the gods, remember yourself!’
And then, at last, he sat down.
There was silence. It rang in my ears. The guards stood blinking, knowing that something terrible had occurred, but unable to fathom quite what it meant. On the front bench Aquinus sat with one leg crossed easily over the other, gazing up at the coffered ceiling with its filigree and gilding and high clerestory windows, seemingly calm, as if he had been doing no more than address a motion on the public works.
I became aware of a choking sound. It was the notary. His coolness had deserted him. For a moment he stared, his mouth struggling to form the words. Then he jerked round and screamed at the guards, ‘Arrest him! Arrest this man! Take him away!’
The guards looked at one another. No one moved. And then every head turned, for Martinus had risen from his chair.
‘No!’ he said. ‘There will be no more arrests.’
The notary whipped round and glared at him, his eyes like points of fire. ‘What?’ he said, in a low, dangerous voice.
But Martinus continued. ‘You, Paulus, were charged by the emperor to search out conspirators and bring them to justice. That was your commission. You have arrested many men, but I have seen no evidence which would convince an honest judge. You have done enough. I relieve you of your duties, and I shall answer for it.’
From the benches came a low timid rumble of assent, cut short when the notary cried out, ‘Oh no, Martinus! You are mistaken. My investigations are only just beginning, for I see now that it is you who stand at the head of this great conspiracy . . . Guards, I order you to arrest the governor.’
The guards looked from the notary to Martinus and stayed where they were. For a moment nothing happened. Then the notary swung round and pointing his arm at me shouted, ‘Tribune, arrest this traitor. Do it now!’
Our eyes locked. His slack hair had fallen over his brow. There were flecks of spittle on his chin. It seemed everything good that had ever touched me converged on this moment, so that I did not for one instant need to consider my answer.
I said, ‘I will not.’
He looked at me, unable to believe what he had heard. Then, with a shout of rage, he ran to where the guards stood huddled about the stairway. ‘You!’ he cried, grabbing the first he came to by the sleeve of his red military tunic. ‘Arrest him, or you will spend a week dying! The governor is a traitor. Do you hear me? In the name of the divine Constantius I dismiss him. I have the authority. Do as I tell you!’
The guard leapt as if bitten, startled into action by the sound of the emperor’s name, and because he had been singled out. Uncertainly he advanced, and behind him the others began to follow.
Then I stepped forward.
‘Halt!’ I shouted in my loudest parade-ground voice. ‘To attention, men!’
In moments of confusion, troopers, being what they are, will always follow a familiar order. They hesitated, then shuffled into line, and looked at me as a parched man looks at water, waiting for instructions. The tactic would have worked; but Martinus, after so many months of inaction, had determined he was going to finish what he had begun. Drawing his little ceremonial dagger he rushed flailing across the floor and lunged at the notary. There was a shout, and a confusion of clothing, and then the notary fell sprawling backwards.
I ran up. Being closest, I was first there. The notary was clutching his side, gasping. Blood showed red between his thin, white fingers. But Martinus was a civilian; whatever else he had learned, he had no skill in killing, and I could see at once that the wound was not fatal.
Often since, I have reflected on this moment. I ought to have drawn my dagger and finished him. The deed would have been done, the governor safe, and much evil averted.
But I hesitated at killing a man who lay helpless on the ground; and in that instant the notary sprang up with sudden force. He flew past me; a knife flashed. It must have been hidden within his cloak. I cried out and the governor turned. But it was too late.
He fell, and I caught him. The ivory haft lay buried in his chest, moving with his laboured breaths. Blood pulsed around the wound; he tried to speak; but instead he coughed and choked, and hot blood splashed over his white senator’s robes and onto my hand.
Then he was still.
I became aware of a great roar rising all around me. I looked up. The decurions were on their feet, shouting. At first I thought they were calling out in righteous anger, asserting at last their ancient liberty which had been taken from them. But then I saw what they were at: they were scrambling in panic for the aisles, grappling and stumbling and falling over one another in their haste to reach the door. And at the next moment Marcellus was at my side, pulling me to my feet, shouting in my ear over the noise that we must get his grandfather away.
Somehow, amid the chaos, we reached Aquinus’s townhouse, through streets that had erupted into confusion and petty looting. I do not know what the notary and the bishop had intended that day; but whatever it was had been in some way thwarted, and everywhere sullen gangs were milling around the streets, like men waiting for an order.
Aquinus said little. He seemed dazed and troubled. He was mumbling over and over that we must find the good men of the city. But it was too late for that. The good men were scattered, or dead.
As soon as we reached the house, Clemens came running. Seeing his stricken master he gasped and clutched his hand to his mouth.
‘Fetch the horses!’ cried Marcellus. ‘You must leave at once. Get the servants out too.’
‘And you, sir?’
‘I’ll follow when I can. Now go, Clemens! There is no time. Set a guard at the farm. Close the gates. Admit no one you do not know.’
When they had hurried away and we were standing alone in the garden court, I said, ‘Is your grandfather fit for such a journey?’
‘He can ride in his sleep, he rides better than anyone I know—’ He broke off as running footsteps echoed in the street beyond the wall. I held my breath, waiting for the sound of hammering at the door. But they ran on.
‘We cannot stay here,’ I said.
‘I know. Where is your horse?’
‘I have none. It went with the army.’
He pushed his hand through his hair and cursed up at the sky. Then he said, ‘I know where we can find one.’
We waited for the cover of darkness, then left by the back gate, making our way along the narrow cobbled alley behind the house.
Somewhere, behind one of the high walls, an abandoned dog was howling. Elsewhere we heard the sound of drunken revelling, house-slaves who had broken open their master’s wine cellar.
Marcellus knew this warren of backstreets from childhood; he darted this way and that through the narrow lightless alleys, and presently we stopped at a heavy, black-painted door set into a wall. On the far side were trees and dense overhanging shrubs.
He tried the latch. The door w
as bolted.
‘Here, help me up,’ he said. ‘I can open it from within.’
I crouched down, locking my fingers together to make a step; he gripped my shoulder and pulled himself up onto the ledge, then dropped down on the other side. The bolts grated and the door opened.
Within was a paved yard with a row of stables, and, some distance beyond, half hidden by an expanse of shrubs and cypress trees, a rich man’s mansion shuttered and in darkness.
I was just about to ask whose house it was, when memory stirred and I looked again. I had been here before. The house was Scapula’s.
‘Great God, Marcellus!’ I whispered, ‘why here?’
His eyes flashed in the darkness. ‘He has horses. He can spare us one for a while, don’t you think? Come on.’
And indeed there were many more horses in the stable than any household could need. We selected a black mare and a young chestnut. Marcellus went off to the tack room. I waited at the door.
The clouds had parted; the freshening breeze rustled and stirred in the tall conifers, casting patterns of moonlight on the paving. Then, coming from the alley beyond the wall, I heard the approach of raucous drunken voices, bawling out to one another, laughing and joking.
I strained to listen, remembering the slaves we had heard, waiting for them to pass.
But instead the voices fell suddenly silent. A gust stirred the cypress branches. Then, with a sudden noise that made me start, the bolt rattled angrily and the door sounded on its hinges.
‘Marcellus!’ I whispered out, calling behind me as loud as I dared into the darkness of the stable.
The door in the wall half opened. Flickering torchlight showed behind it. I heard muted voices, talking urgently.
I called again.
‘I’m here,’ said Marcellus at my shoulder. ‘What is it?’
Then he saw, and cursed under his breath. It was Scapula, with a crowd of his friends. Minutes later and we should have been gone; but they had chosen this moment to return, and had found the gate unbolted.
