Nearing, the travellers saw the limestone mass lift ruggedly, an island in a green sea, its clifftops three hundred feet above. Buildings clustered at its base and strewed themselves out across the plain. Many were larger and better made than Rufinus had seen until now on his expedition. On the heights frowned a fortress. It was the Roman kind, foursquare, turreted, built of mortared stone, a thing that had never before been in Ériu.
Therefore it was twice important to impress the King. “Hoy-ah!” Rufinus cried. “Smartly, on the double!” The horses trotted forward.
Warriors hastened from the dwellings and along the trail up the Rock. They were outfitted like other Scoti. Tommaltach galloped ahead to meet them. They cheered and formed a primitive honor guard.
—Inside the castle, barbarian ways remained strong. The feasting hall was long and lofty. Smoke from a pair of firepits did not escape out the high-set small windows as readily as through thatch. Benches lined the walls. Above them hung painted shields, while skulls grinned from the many niches. Yet there were also finely woven hangings, intricately carved panels on the seats, imaginatively wrought tableware of wood, bronze, silver, gold, a general rude magnificence in which Rufinus found more subtleties the more he looked.
Conual Corcc, a tall man with flame-red hair, was gracious rather than boisterous as he received the Ysans. They distributed gifts from off their pack beasts, things as good as Ys could offer, and got thanks from the King’s poet in intricate stanzas. Eventually, at their departure, he made them presents of value exceeding theirs. First they were his guests for over a month, and nothing was refused them.
During that time, Conual and his councillors made numerous occasions for private talk; and their queries were shrewd. “I am an envoy of my lord, the King of Ys,” Rufinus said early on. “He has heard of your rise to mightiness. He hopes for friendship, oaths exchanged, benefits shared.”
“He is afar,” answered Conual. “True, I’ve no wish to make war on him or on the Romans like Niall of Temir. But what is to bind our two lands together?”
“Trade.”
“You’ve come too soon for that, my dear. The great fairs do not open before Lúgnassat.”
“I know. Granted your leave, we would like to take our ship’s cargo round about and see what bargains folk wish to strike. But that is not why I am here, the voice of King Grallon. He in his wisdom looks beyond the gains that some Ysan merchants have made at your fairs. He hopes to arrange that many more will want to go, and many of your traders seek to us. We have much to give each other. Ys offers the harvest of the sea; amber from the Northeast, Roman wares transshipped from the South; the products of her own weaveries and workshops. Ériu has the yields of her fertile land, pearls, and also gold, which has long been draining out of the Empire. Surely, as traffic quickens, men will think of more than this.”
“Hm. What might hinder?”
“War, pirates, the rapacity of overlords, ignorance and distrust. You, who I hear have spent years in Britannia, you will understand. Consider, King. Think of an alliance between yourself and King Grallon. Imagine missions going to and fro, men becoming well acquainted, making agreements and planning joint ventures. Meanwhile, with help from Ys, your people build stout ships like ours, to trade farther than ever erstwhile and to patrol your home seas.”
“It’s like a Roman that you are speaking. I follow you, but there are not many in Mumu who could. Just the same—Do let me think. Let us talk more in days to come. Already I know that the message I will be sending back with you will be a kindly one. May you come here again, Rufinus.”
3
Apuleius Vero and his wife Rovinda stared enraptured at the presents Gratillonius had brought them. For her there was a woolen cloak from the foremost webster in Ys, warm but light and soft as thistledown, in dusk-blue worked with silvery figures of dolphins and terns. For him there were the poems of Ausonius, done onto parchment by a calligrapher who had access to Bodilis’s collection, bound into a codex whose cover was tooled leather with gilt trim.
“Oh,” the woman breathed. “It’s gorgeous. How can I thank you?”
Apuleius gave his friend a long look. “You thought about this, did you not?” he said quietly. “You’re less blunt than you let on.”
Gratillonius smiled. “I’ve things for the children too, of course,” he told them. “How are they?”
“Very well.” A cloud passed over Rovinda’s face. She and her husband had lost all but two. She dismissed memories in favor of pleasure. “They’ll be overjoyed to know their honorary uncle is back. Their tutor is sick abed, so we’ve allowed them to stay on the farm. They love the countryside so.”
“And they deserve a reward,” the father added. “You know Verania is quite the little scholar, when she isn’t outdoors. Well, now, Salomon has begun taking a real interest in his own studies. That doesn’t come easily to a headlong boy like him. Rovinda, dear, dispatch a slave to fetch them before you turn the kitchen inside out preparing the feast I’m sure you want to welcome our guest with.”
“Hold on,” Gratillonius suggested. “Why don’t you and I walk there? We can easily return with them before dinnertime.”
“Aren’t you tired after your journey?”
“No, it went smoothly. And from my arriving this early in the day, you know darkness caught us quite nearby. We camped on Drusus’s property. He took me into the house and poured with a free hand. A walk will clear my head, if you care to come along.”
Apuleius grew pensive. “Hm-m…. Very well. I’ll let that replace my regular exercises for today. It will be much less tedious.” His smile was a trifle forced. “Besides, I planned to take you there when we got an opportunity. I have something for you.”
Gratillonius took the package he had not unwrapped. Donning outer garments, the men went forth. Aquilo was abustle. The approximately annual visits from Ys were always occasions in such a small city. The escort were already mingling with the people. He recognized a few former legionaries. Drusus had told him that after six years the resettlement was still working well. The veterans were gradually making the civilian reservists militarily effective—more than Imperial law envisioned. Most of them had married Osismiic women and become farmers, artisans, tradesmen. They had a stake in Armorica. No hostile barbarians would get close to Aquilo, unless as prisoners bound for the slave markets.
Apuleius conducted Gratillonius out the east gate and north on the river road. The day was clear, chill, a wan-bright sun above the heights whose steepness hemmed in this bank. Across the stream, the land rolled away, its northern horizon forested. Scattered farmsteads stood among dun plowfields, sallow meadows, orchards gone yellow and brown. Wind boomed from that direction. A buzzard rode watchful upon its torrent.
Apuleius must raise his voice against the noise. Indoors he would have spoken softly: “You’ve more than a walk in mind.”
Gratillonius nodded. “Privacy.”
“Nobody eavesdrops at the house.”
“I know. But—your letter urging me to come said only that you’ve news for me. Now, I’ve learned your style. You have to be thinking of something unwelcome. I’d have trouble sitting still while we discussed it. This wind ought to flush the fret and anger out of me, so we can have a pleasant evening together.”
“I see.” Apuleius’s Hellenic-like features showed the distress he had been holding back. “The truth is, I have little in the way of news. Mainly it’s an accumulation of hints, overtones, mentions, incidents, the sort of word that the tribune at Aquilo, who sees higher authorities now and then and who maintains a rather extensive correspondence—the sort of word he gets, while the prefect in Ys, who is also the King of that nest of pagans, does not.”
The wind slipped fingers under Gratillonius’s cloak. “I have been notified that Ludgunensis Tertia has a new governor.”
“You’ve probably not heard yet that the Duke of the Armorican Tract is also being replaced.”
Gratillonius half stumbled. “What? But he’s don
e well. He and I have kept the peninsula at peace.”
“Precisely. He and you. Oh, I’m sure it will be an honorable retirement. No sense in provoking the many who feel grateful. But Honorius—Stilicho, rather—intends that his will, and none other, shall prevail everywhere in the West.”
Gratillonius’s gullet tightened. “If he means to recall me—Can you make them realize what insanity that would be?”
“My direct influence is slight. I do have communication with some men who are powerful. I will try. Just what I should write in my letters is one of the things we must discuss.
“Your policies were too successful, my friend. The Imperium has had unhappy experiences with such officers. Think back over the course of events since Maximus fell.” Apuleius chuckled dryly. “If nothing else, those seven years were seldom dull.”
Gratillonius grunted response and fell silent, trying to recall and order them for himself.
—Following his victory, Theodosius reinstated Valentinianus as Emperor of the West, but remained two years more in Italy, organizing its shaken government, destroying every relic of the usurper he could find, before he returned to Constantinople. As chief minister to Valentinianus, he left his general Arbogast.
This man had been the real director of the battle. A Frank and an avowed heathen, he favored barbarians over Romans for high office, pagans over Christians. On both counts, he was soon at odds with Valentinianus, and after a while he got the ineffectual Augustus murdered. Thereupon he proclaimed as Emperor a rhetorician named Eugenius. The real power was his. When Bishop Ambrosius appealed to him to desist from encouraging the cults of the old Gods, he threatened to stable his horses in the cathedral of Mediolanum and draft monks into his army.
After two years that army met the host of Theodosius, bound from the East to regain the West. For two days they fought, until Eugenius was killed and his cause lost. Arbogast fled, but committed suicide soon afterward.
Theodosius marched on to Rome. He was smitten with dropsy and knew he had not much time left on earth. The Empire he redivided, the East going to his son Arcadius, the West to his son Honorius. Thereupon he retired to Mediolanum, made his peace with God as best he could, and expired in the winter that was past, some nine months ago.
Arcadius was an indolent youth of seventeen, under the thumb of his praetorian prefect Rufinus. (Recalling that name, Gratillonius smiled wryly.) Honorius was a boy of eleven, said to be a weakling also. His father had made Flavius Stilicho and Stilicho’s wife Serena joint guardians of him. They betrothed him to their daughter Maria.
Further strife was ineluctable. Stilicho had begun this season’s warring on the Rhenus, where German tribes had gotten troublesome. But after quelling them, he marched to Thracia. There he still was.
—“It’s given out that he aims to expel the Goths and Huns from that province,” Apuleius said when Gratillonius inquired. “And no doubt he is working toward it. However, I’ve excellent reason to believe that his real objective is the destruction of the praetorian prefect Rufinus. If he can accomplish that, he will be the master of the whole Empire, both East and West.”
“And then—?”
“The event is in the hands of God. But men can take measures.”
Beyond the inflow of the Stegir they crossed a bridge over the Odita and followed a road that went north along the tributary stream. An oxcart lumbered far ahead, distance-dwindled; a tenant forked hay into a wooden trough for the cattle in a paddock; at the house behind, his wife strewed grain for free-running chickens: a peacefulness at which the wind gibed.
“I wouldn’t look for immediate woe,” Apuleius said after a time. “Stilicho will be busy. Even here in the Northwest, surely his first concern must be the Scoti. You know how they took advantage of his departure from Britannia to ravage it, two years ago, and have since been re-establishing their enclaves there.”
Gratillonius scowled. His father’s home had been spared, but barely. “That was the work of Niall. I hear he’s now preoccupied inside Hivernia. Some good luck does drift our way sometimes.”
“Who?… No matter. You’re in touch with the Scoti as I am not, as I suppose no Roman—no other Roman is. That’s one thing against you.”
Gratillonius bridled. “See here, I broke the fleet that would have raided up the Liger a dozen years back. True, I’m cultivating relationships with Scoti, but friendly Scoti.”
Apuleius sighed. “I don’t doubt you. But they see it otherwise in Turonum, Treverorum, Lugdunum, Mediolanum—wherever it comes to mind that the man sent to be Rome’s prefect in Ys has become its independent sovereign. For that you are, no matter if you continue piously calling yourself a centurion on special duty.”
“How have I subverted any interest of Rome? By the Bull, I’ve strengthened us!”
“And strengthened Ys. The city that once lay veiled is today chiefest in Armorica, its brilliance and prosperity outshining any of the Western Empire. Nonetheless it remains as alien, as un-Christian, as the seat of the Sassanian King.”
“Rome’s made peace with the Persians.”
“How long can that last? How long will Ys choose to be our ally? You will not reign forever, Gratillonius. You will not reach old age, unless you can end that barbarous law of succession. Ys would be a most dangerous enemy. Already the grievances are building up.”
Gratillonius shook his head. “You’re wrong. I know.”
“You know what they think in Ys. I know what they think who govern Rome. When those men clamp down on the trade you have caused to flourish, how then will Ys feel?”
“Ha? But that’s ridiculous! Why in the name of moonstruck Cernunnos should they do any such thing? We gave Armorica peace; we’re drawing it out of poverty.”
“By means that are… unsettling. The merchants and shippers of Ys, being free agents, undermine the authority of Roman officials, guilds, laws. Men disappear from the stations of life to which they were born. They reappear in traffic that goes unregulated, untaxed, yet scarcely troubles itself to be clandestine. This year Ysans began acquiring substantial amounts of Hivernian gold. It flows about, uncoined, driving the Emperor’s money into total worthlessness, thereby making people mutter that perhaps they have no need of an Emperor at all. No, I tell you the authorities cannot indefinitely permit the life of the region to go outside their control. They dare not.”
Gratillonius decided to make no mention of his own irregularities. Some Roman officials must have some peripheral awareness of them; but to investigate would take those persons out of comfortable routine, into forests, heaths, slums, barbarian camps. Why force them to that? It could only make difficulties for all concerned—most of all for Rome, because the damned stupid government was not itself doing what was plainly necessary for survival.
“They certainly hold religion against us,” he growled. “But we have a church and pastor. We persecute nobody.”
“I hear that Honorius is devout,” Apuleius said. “When he grows up, he may transform weakness into zeal.”
“Maximus once threatened to invade Ys.”
“He fell. Stilicho is more formidable.”
Apuleius took his friend by the arm. “I don’t mean to perturb you,” he went on. “I only give you an early warning. You have time to prepare and take preventive steps. I’ve promised you to serve as your advocate with influential men. I believe we can forestall an order for your recall, because that would risk Armorica falling into chaos, a crisis which Stilicho surely regards as unnecessary at this juncture. But you must do your part. You must be more circumspect. You must forbid smuggling, and curb the most blatant of it. You—” Apuleius stopped.
“What?” asked Gratillonius.
“It would help mightily if you accepted the Faith and worked for the conversion of Ys.”
“I’m sorry. That’s impossible.”
“I know. How often I’ve prayed to God that He lift the scales from your eyes. It’s heretical of me, but I suspect that the knowledge you were burni
ng in hell would diminish my joy in Heaven, should I be found worthy of going there.”
Gratillonius reined in a reply. As he had told Corentinus in their generally amicable arguments, he didn’t think an eternity of torment was the proper punishment for an incorrect opinion, and saw no righteousness in a God Who did. Corentinus retorted that mere mortals had no business passing judgment on the Almighty; what did they understand?
Apuleius brightened. “Enough,” he said. “You have the gist of what I wanted to tell you. Think it over, sleep on it, and tomorrow we’ll talk further. Let’s simply be ourselves until then. Look, there’s the villa ahead.”
They walked on. Security from attack and revival of trade had drawn workers out of inland refuges. Maximus’s veterans had additionally eased the labor shortage. Agriculture was again thriving around Aquilo, not in the form of latifundia but as sharecropping and even some freeholds. No longer neglected, the land surrounding the Apuleian manor house, which stood near the northwest corner of the cleared section with the forest at its back—this land showed neat fields, sleek livestock, buildings refurbished and permanently in use. At the house itself, whitewashed walls, glazed windows, red tile roof called back to Gratillonius his father’s. But here the owner was no curial between the millstones, he was a senator, the closest thing to a free man that Roman law recognized.
The children saw who approached and burst from within, to dash down the garden path and be hugged. Only six, Salomon outpaced his sister regardless. Big for his age, he was coming to resemble his father, though Apuleius must have been a quieter boy. The parents had explained to Gratillonius that they named him after a king of the ancient Jews in hopes that this would cause God to let him live. That had happened, but thereafter Rovinda continued to suffer stillbirths and infant deaths.
Verania followed. At ten she was well made if rather small. She had her father’s hazel eyes, her mother’s light-brown hair, and a countenance blending the comelinesses in both. Near to Gratillonius, she abruptly blushed and became very polite, her greeting barely audible through the wind.
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