The Philosopher Prince

by Paul Waters

  ‘You have heard, I take it?’ he said.

  ‘We were there,’ answered Marcellus.

  ‘You were there?’ He looked at us, impressed; for a moment his fine-boned, solemn, almost feminine features moved in a half-smile. ‘Well, Julian warned them. Even so, it is he who will be blamed. He is with them now in his study. He asked for you.’

  I heard raised voices even from the stairway. As we entered, a row of grim faces snapped round and stared, as if at any moment they expected a band of mutinous soldiers to burst in and butcher them – Decentius the notary, his air of self-consequence gone, replaced by a tense, hunted look; Pentadius, looking shocked; and with him another of Florentius’s people, the quaestor Nebridius, whom they had co-opted for their work.

  Seeing who it was, they returned their attention to where Sintula stood by the window, looking ashen-faced, still dressed in his riding-cloak. He must have abandoned the men and hurried straight back.

  ‘It seems,’ said Julian, catching my eye and for an instant allowing his amusement to show, ‘that our friends have a problem. Perhaps, Drusus, you will give them your opinion of what can be done – for my own opinion, it seems, does not suit them.’

  So I repeated what had been said many times already: that the men’s loyalty was to Gaul, where they had been born, and where their families were; that over the past years, with Julian’s help, they had fought against all odds to protect what was theirs; that they were loath to leave it.

  ‘Their loyalty,’ snapped Decentius, raising his voice to silence me, ‘is to the emperor.’

  ‘And what of military discipline?’ added Sintula.

  ‘They feel betrayed. They were given a promise.’

  Decentius snorted. ‘That promise should never have been given. I will hear no more of promises.’ Suddenly he rounded on Sintula. ‘Why did you not proceed? Do you expect me to believe you were unable to face down a clutch of women?’

  Sintula’s face reddened. ‘But sir! It was not like that. The men would have mutinied!’

  ‘He is right,’ I said. ‘There would have been a rebellion.’ I did not care for Sintula: he sacrificed too much to ambition. But he was soldier enough to know what would have ensued if he had marched on. Decentius, on the other hand, had all the courage of a man who has never seen a battlefield.

  The quaestor Nebridius, who so far had not spoken, said in a calmer voice, ‘What now?’

  A silence fell. Eyes turned to Julian. Decentius, seeing this, cried, ‘Surely you cannot expect an answer from him!’

  ‘Have you a better idea?’ Nebridius asked him.

  Decentius gave him a furious glare. One did not answer back to one of the emperor’s personal agents, unless one loved death. But Marcellus, who loathed such men and did not care, said, ‘Julian knows the men. You, sir, do not.’

  Like a vicious, cornered dog, Decentius’s face snapped round. Marcellus looked blandly back at him. Then Julian said, ‘Here is what you must do, Notary: you must allow the men to take their wives and children. That is the only way.’

  ‘Why, that is absurd!’

  ‘Then do as you please. The difficulty is of your own making. Have you any idea what nearly happened today? I suggest you think on it.’

  Julian turned to Nebridius, who had more sense.

  ‘The quartermaster,’ he said, ‘will give you wagons for the women. You had better get them away from Paris, before the other units arrive.’

  Two days later the troops of the palace guard finally departed from the citadel, a sullen band of demoralized soldiers followed by carts of ragged womenfolk wrapped against the cold, led by a hangdog tribune.

  While the arrangements were being made, Decentius had kept to his rooms in the citadel; but now, with the troops departed, he emerged once more, wholly undaunted, full of foolish confidence, strutting about with Pentadius as though he had won some sort of victory. He complained to Julian that still there had been no word from Lupicinus in Britain, whose legions – the Herulians and the Batavians – he required. And why, he demanded, had the prefect Florentius not come? The remaining troops were still in their outlying winter quarters; he could wait no longer; Julian himself must issue the order for them to assemble in Paris.

  No one but Julian was present at this exchange. When later he recounted it to Oribasius and me, he said, ‘He complains I am not cooperating; he blames me for the trouble with the women, and says it will be better for me if I show the emperor my good faith. He does not even trouble to conceal the threat.’

  He let out his breath, and made a small, hopeless gesture. He looked suddenly very young, I thought, like an unhappy boy. ‘It was just the same,’ he said, ‘with Gallus.’

  Gallus was his elder brother. He too had grown up in isolation, kept on the same remote estate in Asia – until Constantius decided he had need of him. Then, though he had no education in ruling, the emperor had promoted him to the rank of Caesar, just as he had later done with Julian. But that was where the similarity between the two brothers ended. Gallus’s character was not honed and tempered by learning, as Julian’s was. Having been taught nothing of moderation, he had grown drunk on power, until in the end Constantius had removed him, first of all summoning away his troops, then ordering him to court for ‘consultations’. The consultations were a lie. On the way he was arrested, summarily condemned without a trial, and beheaded.

  Julian seldom mentioned him. I suppose he was ashamed. But they were brothers, all the same – and Gallus, for all his faults, had been the last of his family.

  Switching from Latin to Greek, he said quietly, ‘And purple death and mighty fate overwhelmed him.’

  ‘So Homer says,’ said Oribasius. ‘But that is not your destiny, unless you choose it.’

  Julian heard him, but did not speak. He stood for a long time silent, looking out at the courtyard with its row of leafless fruit trees. Beyond, from the west, from the direction of the boundless ocean, the air was stirring, driving off the rain. Spreading bands of golden light were shafting across the land.

  He watched for a while; but his mind was elsewhere, deep in his thoughts. Then, with an almost imperceptible nod, he turned back to the room and glanced down at the table. The map of the Rhine frontier lay there, forgotten. He regarded it for a moment, with the expression of an old man who recalls his youth.

  ‘It will soon be spring,’ he said. ‘I had great plans.’

  Oribasius made to speak; but Julian raised his hand.

  ‘No, my friend; I know what you think. Let it not be spoken. We have acted as we must; and we both know that to refuse the emperor will be treason. Better to suffer wrong than to do it.’

  Not long after this, returning from some business of my own, I saw Marcellus in the citadel yard. Rufus was with him.

  I had scarcely set eyes on Rufus since he joined Nevitta’s company; now I was struck by the change in him. Nevitta’s set were loud and swaggering, and he had picked up their brash manner. It ill suited him. And from his face, which was pale and unslept, I guessed he had been drawn into their habit of all-night drinking too. His bloom was gone. His curling black hair had lost its sheen.

  Marcellus had his back to me. It was Rufus who saw me first.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Drusus,’ he called out across the yard. ‘Have you heard? I was just telling Marcellus. Julian has summoned the men from winter quarters.’

  ‘Is that so?’ I answered cautiously.

  ‘Yes indeed; and there’s more too. Listen to this: that stupid notary – what’s his name? Decentius? – has told Julian the troops must assemble at Paris. There will be trouble. That’s what Nevitta thinks.’ He laughed out loud, as if this were some barrack-room joke; then went on, ‘Nevitta says Julian is opposed to it, but the notary will not listen to him. Is it true?’

  Across the yard some passing clerk had paused to look. I frowned, wishing Rufus would think to lower his voice. Did he not know what a nest of intrigue the citadel had become? Anyone might be listening
, concealing themselves behind the columns or the shuttered windows. I caught Marcellus’s eye. Even to name these agents of the emperor in such a tone was dangerous. Did the boy not realize?

  I gave him some vague answer, and told him not to listen to rumours. Then, to change the subject, I quickly asked him about his new silver mare. Nevitta liked all his troop to ride horses of the same colour – it seemed to me a showy affectation typical of Nevitta – but I wanted to get Rufus onto safer ground. In the far colonnade, the clerk had paused again, and was pretending to inspect the bundle of papers he was carrying.

  There was a time when Rufus’s eyes would have shone with joy and love at the mention of his horse. But now he merely shrugged, and commented without interest that the creature was skittish and ill-behaved. His eyes wandered, and soon he made an excuse and hurried off, more concerned, it seemed, with spreading his dangerous gossip.

  Marcellus, who had understood my mind, watched him go, and turned to me with a shake of his head.

  ‘Let’s walk,’ I said.

  We did not speak again until we had passed under the arch and through to the plum-tree garden, where we should not be overheard.

  ‘Has Decentius lost his mind?’ he said. ‘He knows what happened with the palace guard. Does he see nothing?’

  Julian had spent the past two days trying to persuade Decentius to bring the men together elsewhere, in smaller, scattered groups, where their discontent would be less likely to spread. The last I had heard was that Decentius had finally seen the sense in it. He must have changed his mind; and Nevitta, hearing of it, had shared it with his drinking friends.

  ‘Decentius does not like to take advice from anyone,’ I said. ‘He thinks Julian is merely trying to thwart him.’

  ‘A fool could see it is the wrong thing to do.’

  ‘But not Decentius. He suspects Julian is up to something. He thinks he has outwitted him.’

  Marcellus tapped his fist slowly against the dark bark of the fruit tree beside him, and muttered a curse.

  ‘I know,’ I said, meeting his eye. ‘He is casting fire into tinder.’

  Soon the units of the army began to arrive; the Petulantes first; then the Keltic auxiliaries and the cohorts from the other legions. All except the Herulians and Batavians, who were still in Britain with Lupicinus.

  Being too many for the military fort on the hill, they bivouacked outside the walls, on the low slopes beyond the river. Julian greeted old comrades; he remembered with the men their brave deeds; and, when they complained at being ordered east, he reminded them that there were many victories to be won, and that they were sure to meet with success and riches. To this the men listened in respectful silence, because they liked him. But their faces told they were not persuaded.

  Decentius protested to Julian that he was making an exhibition of himself. But I was there. If he had broken with custom and not shown himself, the men would at once have grown suspicious. Already they had heard dark rumours; they were ready to believe any bad news they heard.

  Then, one bleak winter morning, when all the troops were assembled and ready to depart, I was on my way to Julian when I passed Decentius strutting angrily through the inner court from the direction of his study. Pentadius and the quaestor Nebridius were with him. When I saw Julian he said, ‘Decentius has just been here. He has decided to bring forward the day of departure.’ He took up a sheet from his table and said, ‘Look at this. He says he found it circulating among the Petulantes.’

  I read. Upon the sheet, written in a rough unschooled hand, were the same familiar complaints: that the men were being driven from their homes; that promises were being broken; that as soon as they were gone the barbarians would return.

  ‘Do you know who wrote it?’ I asked, passing it back. ‘Decentius accuses me.’

  Our eyes met. After a moment Julian shrugged and looked away. ‘I am blamed even when I do nothing. Now he is demanding that I sound out the officers myself, to find out how far this has spread. No one will speak to him, of course… So I have asked all the officers to dinner tonight. You come too, and tell Marcellus.’

  The Petulantes and the Kelts were regiments of men recruited from Gaul, mixed with an assortment of barbarian volunteers. Some were accustomed to Roman ways; others, especially the Petulantes, were less so, and they kept to their own traditions. To please them, Julian assembled a feast worthy of any barbarian chieftain: great dishes of roasted meats with heavy spiced sauces; and strong red Gallic wine, served from a massive silver krater – a fine piece embossed with prancing stags – which was large enough to contain a crouching man.

  I daresay the piles of rich food appalled his austere palate. But he knew how to entertain when he had to, and he cleared his bowl, with the help of the grateful bright-eyed dogs that sat around in the long shadows beneath the couches.

  After the heavy platters had been carried off, he called for the wine-cups to be filled once more and sent the servants off to bed. Only then did he ask about the morale of the men.

  As fast as lead through water, the laughter and noise fell away. Each officer glanced at his neighbour, not wishing to be the first to speak.

  ‘There is a rumour,’ said Julian, ‘that the men are unhappy.’

  At this, Dagalaif, the burly German-born commander of the Petulantes, let out a harsh laugh and slapped his thigh. He was one of Nevitta’s friends. Like Nevitta beside him, he had drunk a good deal that night.

  ‘Unhappy!’ he cried, surveying the rest of us with an ironic look. He was about to go on; but then, last of all, his gaze fell on Nevitta and he closed his mouth on his words. I glanced at Nevitta. His shrewd, weaselish face had assumed a look of bland vacancy. Nevitta may have been gross, but he was calculating with it. He was not a man who steps out first onto uncertain ice.

  How much of this occurred to Dagalaif I could not tell. I guessed that some, at least, must have penetrated; for then, in a quieter, uneasy voice he went on, ‘But I can speak only for my own men.’

  ‘Then speak,’ said Julian.

  Dagalaif frowned and looked about, and was met with closed faces and averted eyes. He set down his heavy silver wine-cup, and slowly wiped his mouth with the back of his hairy forearm. ‘Morale is low. If you want the truth of it, I have never seen it lower. Not even after Mount Seleucus, and that was the worst I have known – before this.’

  From among the shadowy couches there arose murmurs of agreement. Encouraged by this, Dagalaif went on, ‘They are good honest men, sir; salt of the earth and not afraid of a fight. You know that. But they do not like it that they are called away. A promise is a promise.’

  There was a pause. Then the floodgates opened and suddenly everyone was calling out. All the regiments were complaining, they cried; the men were saying they were being treated like criminals, taken far from their native land to the very ends of the earth; and was it for this that they had risked their lives in battle? Julian was their commander, not Constantius. The men wanted to stay with him. Let Constantius fight his own wars with his own armies.

  I glanced across at Marcellus. Like me, he had been sparing with the potent, dark wine, knowing what was coming. I thought to myself, ‘It is as well he sent the servants out.’ This was not something for the emperor’s ears.

  The complaining and lamenting went on for some time. Julian listened without comment, turning his head this way and that as the men called out, his eyes shining in the lamplight.

  Eventually, when all had been said and repeated, the voices died away, and the officers waited with parted lips for him to speak.

  He wanted them to know, he said carefully, measuring each word, that the order to march east had not been his wish. Like them, he had to obey orders. He told them of Constantius’s demands. He could only suppose, he said, that the emperor had genuine need of the Gallic army. He wanted the troops to know he was powerless to intervene. They had served him well; but now they must do their duty.

  It was a simple speech, full of emotio
n, seemingly without rhetoric. But I found myself thinking that it was not for nothing that he had studied with the finest minds of Athens.

  Afterwards there were glistening eyes and wet cheeks everywhere; and soon after, the officers went off, embracing one another, lit by torches into the dark night.

  When they were gone, and Marcellus and I were alone with him, Julian surveyed the empty krater and scattered cups and chewed-over bones and said, ‘I have done nothing I am ashamed of. Yet there is something I overlooked.’

  Marcellus asked him what he meant.

  ‘I called them together,’ he said, ‘to learn the feelings of each one of them.’ He paused, trying to think. He was no drinker, and had drunk more than he was used to. ‘I asked them, and they have told me. But, more than that, they have told one another too.’

  Marcellus looked at him, frowning.

  ‘Do you not see?’ said Julian. ‘Before tonight each could only guess at what the others thought. Now they know for certain. The knowledge has united them.’

  Later, back in our room, Marcellus and I lay in bed, talking over what had passed. The palace was quiet; yet we both felt new dangers, unforeseen until that night.

  I had been saying something about Nevitta. My dislike of him had increased, after what I had seen that evening. But now we had both fallen silent, and I was watching the lamp-shadows on the ceiling as my mind turned with my thoughts. I yawned and shifted. Suddenly Marcellus leaped up and went to the window.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Hush,’ he said, ‘listen!’

  But already I was on my feet, for by now I too had heard. It was the roar of onset, like a charge in battle, a sea of angry men, approaching at the double, chanting and yelling.

  Marcellus had opened the window. A cold gust blew in, extinguishing the lamp flame. I heard a shout. From somewhere below came the sound of running footsteps. ‘Come on,’ he said, pulling on his clothes and throwing mine to me.