Cast Not the Day (30 page)

‘Of course not. How would they trust me otherwise?’

He laughed and threw some speck of nothing at me. ‘Then you are better than most of the officers here, and Trebius has seen it. Come, you know you can do it; and besides, you owe it to the city.’

It is by our tasks that we come to know our powers. Trebius was right: I worked well with the men, and they with me. I began to notice, after that, the senseless punishments, the feuds, the overdone severity when leniency would have won the man. Once, when at the mess-table a tribune was complaining about his sullen company and asked my advice, I reminded him how, the day before, he had flogged a trooper with no cause. I got a short reply, and afterwards kept my own counsel. But I learned, and grew by learning.

That summer, Constantius moved westwards into the plains of Pannonia; and Magnentius, with the proud legions of Gaul and Spain, marched east through the passes to meet him.

We waited for news of the battle; but instead came word that Constantius had declined to meet Magnentius in the field.

No one could make sense of it; and it began to be said that Constantius had lost his nerve and knew he could not win. Then, when the barley was tall and golden, a trader put in from Gaul and hurried to the forum, bringing the news that Constantius had sued for peace.

We could scarcely believe it. He had offered to concede all the western provinces, and to accept Magnentius as fellow emperor. In return he required only that Magnentius should withdraw behind the Alps, which would stand thereafter as the border between them – the very terms Magnentius had sought only months before.

There was joy in the city. Magnentius, during his first months, had shown himself a moderate and effective ruler, free from the extremes and excesses of Constans. Now, without a fight, it seemed he had secured peace.

But it is a law of nature, or a law of man’s nature, that hubris comes before nemesis. And so it was. I do not know what madness seized Magnentius then. To some men, success is as sure a poison as hemlock. Why, he demanded, should he be content with half, when he could have all? Ignoring the advice of his generals he despatched a haughty reply to Constantius, taunting him for his weakness, and offering him pardon if he would abdicate the purple.

People shook their heads and waited. As for me, I fought my own small battle at about this time. It seemed a victory of sorts. But it took me somewhere I did not want to go.

I had been out on manoeuvres with my men, and was returning through the city when I heard angry cries echoing down the street. Moments later, a group of aged men dressed formally in white togas came hurrying round the bend, their long unwieldy mantles hitched up and their headgear askew.

Seeing me with my troop they stumbled to a halt, and began to shout and point the way they had come. I recognized Gennadius the chief magistrate among them, and, quieting the others, asked him what was the matter.

He stepped forward, hitching his cloak back up on his shoulders, and, with it, trying to regain a little of his gravity. They had been offering at the temple of Concord, he said, and had just begun the libations and the sprinkling of incense, when a band of ruffians had come surging from the side-street and fell upon them. ‘They were hiding, lying in wait. It was all planned.’

I knew the temple: it was a fine sand-coloured building that stood on a rise between the forum and the Walbrook. Like all the city temples it had fallen into decay, from neglect and lack of funds; but recently the Council, exercising its renewed power, and freed of the ruinous taxes to the imperial treasury, had moved to restore it.

I said, ‘Calm yourself, sir. Where are they now?’

He pointed up the street, to where a plume of smoke was rising over the roofs.

‘Stay back,’ I said, and then to my men I gave the order to advance at the double.

The mob was still there, clustered around the temple like crows around carrion. Some heard us coming and ran; but most were too busy to notice. They were huddled within the temple porch, where they were trying to set light to a pile of timber stacked against the door. My men were in high spirits after the manoeuvres, and eager for a fight; they needed no encouragement from me. I let them loose, remembering the day I had stood with Ambitus and watched helpless as just such a mob had torn down the temple of Mercury.

Nor shall I pretend I was not pleased to see them get a beating. It was a taste of what, for too long, they had meted out to others with impunity.

The pleasure, such as it was, did not last. Next day, Gennadius, the chief magistrate, asked me to call at his offices. I found him with a small group of officials from the Council, sitting grim-faced on their heavy wooden chairs.

‘Ah, Drusus, thank you for coming. And we must thank you for your help. If you had not arrived when you did, I fear we should have been done to death, and the temple burned. But please sit. Will you take a cup of wine?’

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.’