by Paul Waters
‘It does.’
‘I know it does. But as usual Julian accepts Nevitta’s excuses.’
I was about to go on, but a sound made me turn.
In the half-open door a slave was standing, holding a tray with a bowl of broth and a loaf. I had sent for it myself; but now I gave a small inward curse that I had not checked the door before speaking. It was not wise to talk of Nevitta where others could overhear, even a servant from the kitchens.
I took the tray of food and sent the man off; and afterwards I talked of other things.
Days passed. The wound in Marcellus’s side turned from purple to blue and grey; another grim trophy of war, along with the white seam on his forearm, the old cut on his calf just below the knee, and the mark from a spent arrow beneath his left ear. These were my reminders that he was mortal, if ever I could forget. One evening, in secret, I climbed for a second time the path behind the theatre, to the old citadel on the hill with its ancient neglected temples, and thanked the gods that he lived.
I had seen him grow from boy to man. His muscles had knit strong and hard on his shoulders, firm to the touch; his arms with their blond feather-soft down had broadened from wielding the sword and javelin. In battle, he had learned to be tough, as we all had; sometimes, in small things he did, I saw his grandfather’s sternness in him – in the way he grew chill and distant with those he disliked, or his impatience with baseness and dishonour. This I understood, for we had seen too much of both.
But towards me he had not changed. There was a gentleness to him, and a need for love. Just as when I first knew him, he would furrow his brow and rake his hand through his hair when he was troubled or deep in thought. And now, with the onset of spring, the sun was working its yearly magic, turning his curling winter-bronze to gold. He had lost none of his grace, none of his powerful beauty; he was still the youth I had always known; bright, generous and perfect.
Nor was I the only one who saw it. He was well liked among his troop and had many friends. He had admirers too; and I knew, as one does, that there had been times when both men and women had tried their luck. What came of it I never asked. But in what mattered I never doubted him, or the friendship that was the bedrock of my life. He had brought to me riches beyond my dreams. In such ways do the gods touch men’s lives, and show their presence.
After ten days of laying up, the doctor pronounced him safe. Soon after he was back on his horse; and we rode out together to the upland meadows above the city, where the air was fresh and clean, and for a while forgot the clouds of war gathering beyond the barrier of the Alps.
The blow had caught him in the weak place in his side, where he had been wounded before. If the blade had struck an inch higher, the doctor told me in his matter-of-fact way, he would have died in the hills of Raetia. It was, I knew, no more than the risk we all took, and I kept my deepest thoughts to myself, lest speaking them should give them power.
I needed that time alone with him. I took him for granted. How could I not? Yet it was as if Death with his cold hand had touched me on the shoulder and said, ‘Remember me, Drusus, that I am close; each day is in my gift, and I am unforgiving.’
Julian returned from Raetia saying he had dreamed of Hermes telling him that when Jupiter enters Aquarius, and Saturn touches the Virgin, then Constantius would meet his end in Asia. He had written it all down not to forget it, and as soon as he was back in Vienne he referred the details to the city astrologers, who told him it was indeed a portent, signifying that Constantius would die before the year was out. Julian was pleased; but Eutherius reminded me that just then the astrologers were well disposed, having been freed of the restrictions Constantius had placed on their art.
But whatever Eutherius said, the portent had set Julian thinking. Soon after, he paid a visit to the temple of Cybele, for which Vienne had once been famous. Returning he announced, ‘I have been talking to the priests. It is time I purified myself and made a fresh beginning. There is an ancient ceremony they told me of. It is necessary; I feel it. I shall arrange it before I go to war.’
I asked Eutherius about Cybele. ‘The Gauls call her the Mother,’ he said, ‘she is daughter of Heaven and Earth, and as old as time itself. You will find her everywhere, though she goes by different names. Even the Christians cannot ignore her, and have given her a name of their own, calling her Mother of God. But her first home is Ephesus – that is where you will find her great temple.’
‘I should like to go there one day,’ I said.
‘And perhaps you will – and,’ he added with a smile, ‘perhaps I may be your guide, if our young warrior Julian does not first rouse the bishops against him, or tumble into a ravine on his way to Illyricum.’
On the day the stargazers had deemed auspicious we went with Julian to Cybele’s temple in Vienne. The garlanded priests intoned their prayers. In the precinct, standing on the steps in the sharp morning sunlight, a choir of boys sang an ancient hymn; and attendants scattered lily flowers across the marble floor. Later Julian emerged from the inner shrine clad in a robe of brilliant white, his hair damp with the water of the holy fountain. Even Eutherius, who did not much like temple ceremonies, commented to me as we walked across the petal-strewn court, ‘It seems the goddess favours her new acolyte.’ And it was true there was a new lightness in Julian’s step.
I said, ‘The priests told him he was reborn.’
Eutherius sniffed. ‘Is that what they said? Well at any rate he no longer has to dissemble, which is never good for the soul. Maybe one can call that a kind of rebirth.’
‘But you do not care for it?’
‘I do not care for priests. It is said that the gods choose their own; I can only suppose they have not chosen me.’
He gave me one of his sidelong looks and then he left me, for he wanted to compliment the little group of bright-faced singers waiting beside the fountain, whom everyone else had forgotten.
Soon after, our scouts reported that the high passes were clear of snow. We made ready to march, and Julian summoned the troops to assembly, to tell them of his plans. He had another purpose too, of which Nevitta privately warned us beforehand, coming to each in turn with the self-important, confidential air of a man dispensing secrets. Julian, he said, intended to ask those present to take the formal oath of allegiance; and we should be prepared.
The oath is sworn only to emperors. It would be a final, public break with Constantius. How Nebridius came to be omitted from Nevitta’s warning I do not know. An accident perhaps; though it was no secret that Nevitta disliked the prefect’s old-world Italian propriety, and had been trying for some time to persuade Julian to dismiss him.
On the appointed day I walked out beyond the city walls with Marcellus and the cavalryman Jovinus, to the open ground where the army was gathering. Marcellus went off to take his place near Nevitta and the other cavalry officers; I remained with Jovinus, talking of this and that as we watched the last of the troops fall into line.
Soon Nebridius arrived. He paused to greet me in his usual courteous rather formal way; then went to join the deputies from the prefecture, who were standing nearby in a small group under the tribunal. I suppose, after that, I carried on chatting to Jovinus, not knowing what was coming. It was a fine spring morning. The city showed pink and white in the slanting sun. Light shone on the still waters of the Rhone, and glinted on the military standards with their brazen wreaths and rampant eagles. An expectant hum rose up from the ranks. They had not yet heard the detail of Julian’s plans; but they knew that the moment of decision had arrived.
The tribune gave the signal; the trumpets blared. And then Julian mounted the wooden steps, resplendent in his new diadem, his shining dress armour, and his heavy cloak of imperial purple. For a few moments he paused, gathering the men’s attention; then he spoke out, reminding them of when he had first come to Gaul, young and inexperienced; of how together they had driven out the barbarians; of how, though they were few against many, and against the predictions of
their enemies at court, they had never been defeated. But now, he declared, Constantius was preparing to make war on them, and the time had come to raise their eyes to the east. They must leave their homes, hard though it was: they must strike first, or lose everything.
As his words rang out, the silence in the pauses was so deep that I could hear the birds calling, and the distant noises from the city harbour. He held them in his hand, that close-knit band of fighting men, whose faith in themselves he had restored. All his time in Athens, among the old tomes of Plato and the orators, which his enemies had mocked him for, had not been wasted. He had learned the magic of well-honed words. He had woven his spell around them, not to deceive or beguile, but to hold before each man the promise of his potential. And the mystery was not found in smoke and potions, or incantations and poppy seed, but in the clarity of hard-won knowledge.
‘Here then,’ he said, speaking to them as a friend and as a comrade-in-arms, ‘is what we will do.’ And he outlined his plan.
When he had finished he spread his arms and asked, ‘And are you with me?’ And all together the men broke into a great echoing roar of support, chanting his name and clashing their swords on their shields.
And then, when silence at last returned, he asked them to swear the oath.
Immediately the centurions called out the order. Then, in one disciplined movement, each man raised his sword, holding the long blade to his throat, and in the ancient formula swore to follow to the death. The dark ominous words, chanted like a prayer, or a curse, made the hairs tingle on my neck and arms; and my heart quickened with its power.
Then our turn came. From his place on the wooden platform, Julian glanced at us, giving a slight nod and a trusting smile. Nevitta, taking the lead, drew his sword and brought it up to the exposed flesh above his gilded breastplate; then we followed, pledging ourselves in unison.
Even before I had finished I became aware of hushed muttering and a shuffling of feet. Opposite me, the men behind Nevitta were slewing their eyes, trying to see what the fuss was. But it was no time to turn and stare. Then, through a parting in the crowd, I saw Nebridius. His lips were pressed closed; his proud aristocratic face was rigid with anger and humiliation.
He had refused the pledge.
I lowered my sword, returning it to its sheath. Julian, up on the tribunal, must have heard the disturbance, but had not deigned to look. Indeed I think he would have let it pass if Nevitta had not cried out, ‘See! The prefect refuses to swear!’
After that, whatever his private intention had been, Julian could not ignore it. He glared down, more angry, as I believe, with Nevitta than Nebridius. But it was too late now. Nebridius, suddenly the focus of attention, foolishly declared in a clear angry voice that carried far in the silence, ‘I cannot bind myself in an oath against Constantius, to whose kindness I am indebted.’
There was an outraged cry from the front ranks. Men rushed forward, pushing past the bewildered centurions and surging round Nebridius. He was not a young man, and he was not a soldier; but he held himself tall, until he vanished within the crowd of shouting men. I did not see him fall; but I saw the swing of boots as they kicked him. Word of what had happened was spreading back along the ranks. More men, encouraged by the first, and taking the passivity of the centurions for consent, broke formation and ran forward. There was a flash of steel in the sunlight. Someone had drawn his sword.
I began to run forward then; but next to me Jovinus’s hand locked around my arm. ‘No, Drusus. It must not come from us.’
I stared at him in disbelief. Out of all of us he had been the closest friend of Nebridius. I saw his eyes were raised, fixed on the tribunal. And then I understood. At that moment Julian leaped down the wooden steps, taking them two at a time. He rushed to where the circle of men had closed around Nebridius, thrusting his way in, shoving the men aside. They were common soldiers; in the blood-crazed mood they were in, any one of them might have run him through before they realized who he was.
Immediately I raced forward, and Jovinus beside me. Yet even as I ran, I noticed with some other part of my mind that Nevitta, who was closest, had not stirred at all. Within moments it was over. The men stood about blinking; the centurions, remembering themselves, yelled at them to fall into line.
And in the centre, Julian stood with his feet planted each side of Nebridius’s body. He had thrown his cloak over him as a sign of his protection. The purple wool was fouled with blood and dust.
I glanced about for Marcellus. Turning, my eyes passed over Nevitta, and something in his face made me pause. I had caught him in a private instant when he had supposed he was unobserved. His expression did not wear the shocked surprise of the rest of us. There was something else – disappointment; anger… even pleasure. I could not tell for sure.
Then he turned, and perceiving my eyes upon him he composed his face, as if there had been something written there he did not wish me to see.
But it was no time to reflect, and I thought no more of it. Julian was helping the shaken prefect to his feet. All around, the men were glaring like dogs held back from the kill. They would have torn him to pieces if they could.
We sent Nebridius back to the city with an escort. Nevitta would have gone with them, except Marcellus interposed himself saying, ‘I will see to it, sir.’ He must have guessed that the prefect would not have completed the short journey back to the city alive if Nevitta had been accompanying him.
Thereafter, Julian completed the ceremony. Later, when I returned to the palace with him and the other officers, Nebridius was waiting in the courtyard, sitting on the steps with his head in his bloody hands.
‘Traitor!’ cried Nevitta.
But Julian silenced him, saying, ‘You will not be harmed, Nebridius. Get up, and let the physician see to your wounds.’
Nebridius, shaken as he was, and moved by the gentleness of Julian’s words, stepped forward, extending his hand. Julian would have taken it, I believe, but for the audience that had gathered.
‘No,’ he said, a little awkwardly, ‘I will not take your hand. What, otherwise, should I have left to offer my friends?’
And then, frowning, he walked on past.
I daresay, if he had been warned beforehand that Nebridius would refuse the oath, he would have excused him from the ceremony and then quietly replaced him. But it was too late now. It would not do, at such a time, to give a public sign of forgiveness. It would have been taken as weakness.
Soon after, we marched to war.
Near Augst, on the Rhine, Julian divided the army as he had planned, sending half across the Alps through northern Italy, under the command of Jovinus, and ten thousand through Raetia, led by Nevitta, with orders to close on the city of Sirmium. Julian himself took a force of three thousand light-armed men into the untamed region that the Germans call the Black Forest. All were volunteers; Marcellus and I were among them.
We ascended foothills dense with fir and pine, up and up, along steep bluffs and past rocky gorges. We forded streams, some only ankle deep; others surging torrents that roared down from the snow-capped mountains, wading through the chill clear water with our teeth chattering and our packs and swords held over our heads.
At one point we passed a flat boundary-stone, white with lichen and etched with old carved lettering.
‘What is that?’ asked one of the men, pointing.
‘Don’t you know?’ answered a grizzled centurion. ‘That stone once marked the end of Roman territory, in the days before we ran scared of the barbarians.’
Men looked about, and frowned. But, stone or no stone, the truth was that these ever-higher slopes and ancient forests belonged to no man, for no man could have held them.
Sometimes, far below, in small green valleys that were little more than crevices between the mountains, we spied signs of life: hamlets and paddocks and smoke from cooking-fires. But Julian kept away from these. We were not here to fight a skirmish war with mountain peasants.
We cli
mbed. The air grew colder. Lacking a mule-train, we slept in the open in what we wore, posting guards at night against wolves and bears, sleeping on a bed of pine-needles, with our kit-bags for pillows.
But our guides knew their work. They led us along the high wooded tracks, and soon the pines and teetering ashes gave way to denser forest again. The mountain streams converged into wider, slower-moving water, meandering through green pastureland. We made our way down, and followed the line of the river; and on the tenth day came at last to a timber-and-brick frontier town, which had grown up at the furthest reach of the river traffic.
Warily we drew near, unsure of our reception, for we were entering Constantius’s territory now.
As we approached, the gates swung open. There was a pause; and then the city elders emerged, smiling and making signs of peace and welcome. They gave us the news that, at Rome, the consuls had fled in panic as soon as they heard that Jovinus was crossing the Alps.
Julian nodded gravely, and thanked them, assuring them that their city had nothing to fear from him.
Only when the elders had gone did he say with a smile, ‘Remember our old friend Florentius? He holds the consulship this year. It seems that running is in his nature. I wonder if he left his wife and children behind, this time.’
There was laughter.
‘Where will he have gone?’ I asked.
‘To his master Constantius, where else? He has abandoned Italy to its fate.’ He shrugged and glanced at the shining water – the upper reaches of the Danube – brilliant in the morning sun. ‘Italy has nothing to fear from us; and Florentius knows that. It is his own fate he is worried about.’
Though the mountain crossing had been hard, we did not delay. We proceeded by river in a fleet of small boats, borne swiftly onwards by the east-flowing current. We passed frontier watchtowers, built of stone and black wood, with roofs of thatch. From the high walkways the border troops stared curiously down at us. Some even waved in greeting. We waved back. But, in spite of these friendly signs, we did not forget we were in enemy territory. We put in to shore only at night; and bivouacked beside our boats.
