The Dog and the Wolf (55 page)

A handsome graybeard with a scholarly manner of speech, he reminded Gratillonius of Apuleius, or of Ausonius. (Christ have mercy, how many years was it since Gratillonius met the poet?) Breath puffed white in the gloom as he said, “This
is
a poor welcome for you.”

“Who can offer more than the best he has?” replied Gratillonius. It had been a saying of his father’s.

“Well, you of all men must realize what it means to come down in the world. It was rather different for us, of course. This city flourished when I was a boy. But trade shriveled year by year—-revived for a while, then Ys fell—and so our catastrophe has cost humanity less than yours.”

“Do you think you can rebuild?”

“Not as it was. Under certain unlikely conditions, we could resurrect something. But only Our Lord had power to bring Lazarus entirely back to life.”

“What do you need?’

“Basically, a measure of assurance that it wont be for nothing. Thus, a defense we can rely on.”

“That’s what I’ve come about.”

Rullus studied the shadows and highlights of his guest’s face. “I thought so. One hears, shall we say, rumors.”

“They may have been misleading. I do not propose breaking laws.” The hell I don’t, Gratillonius thought. The risk be damned. We’ve got to take it. Gesocribate be my witness. “Men of the city and its environs can be taught to defend themselves until… military reinforcements arrive.”

Rullus lifted his brows. “Suppose they don’t.”

“Well, given a proper understanding between you people and the rest of us, we can jointly set up a line of communications—beacons, runners—so men from farther inland can arrive in time to help.”

“In a strictly civilian capacity, of course.”

“Of course.” Gratillonius’s tone was equally dry.

Rullus sighed. “A beautiful fantasy.”

“It’s become real.”

“I know. The deadly surprise the Scoti got at the Gobaean Promontory. Other incidents subsequently.” Rullus shook his head. “But you see, Gesocribate can’t meet the conditions. You presuppose a viable city, worth saving, able to take a share in the common defense.”

“It can be built. Meanwhile, for the sake of the future, we’ll mount guard over it. You can have a going concern again in a year or two, I’d guess. I can find some of the necessary manpower for you.”

Rullus lifted a finger. “Ah, but the defense you are thinking of will be insufficient.”

“I tell you, we can hold off the barbarians.”

“I mean the tax collector.” Rullus’s voice became bleak. “There is no prospect of remission, merely because we’ve had a disaster. The government is insensately desperate for resources, like a starving man who eats the seed corn. When payment falls due next year, I shall be wiped out, together with every so-called free man down to the lowliest fisher.”

“Appeal to Arelate. If need be, to Rome—Ravenna. I can help. I’ve gotten a few influential associates.”

Rullus remained skeptical. “I fear the chance of success is negligible. And imagining we do get a little leniency, why should we rebuild? As soon as we have anything again, we’ll be wrung dry of it. Better to seek some great landholder’s protection. Not that I’d make a serf he’d want; but the monks at Turonum may take me in.… No matter. These are not times when we should pity the aged. It’s the young we must weep for.”

“Hold on!” exclaimed Gratillonius. “I’ve considered this too. If nothing else works, well, Confluentes can spare Gesocribate enough out of its treasury to keep you afloat till you’re back on your feet.” And what would Ausonius have thought of that figure of speech? flickered through him.

Rullus was silent a minute before he said slowly, “This—is a rather overwhelming charitableness.”

Gratillonius smiled. “We have our selfish reasons. Armorica, which includes Confluentes, needs your port. It’s been a main link with Britannia.”

“Would that be of any use any more?” asked Rullus, puzzled.

“What do you mean? Of course it would. Trade, mutual defense—”

“You haven’t heard?”

Dread struck deep, as if the cold around had turned into a single knife, “I’ve been … on the road a spell. Tribal chiefs to see along the way.”

“Ah.” Rullus nodded. “We got the news three days ago, from yet another boatload of people hoping for a better life in Armorica. The pirates have gone home or into winter quarters, and—These waifs put in here because they knew it was the nearest safe anchorage, if no longer a real harbor.”

“Hercules, man! Don’t torture me. What’d they have to tell?”

“I’m sorry. It’s so painful. The legions in Britannia, what’s left of them, have risen. They’ve deposed the diocesan government and proclaimed a man of theirs, one Marcus, Emperor.”

“Marcus,” Gratillonius whispered. In that stunned moment he could only think: The name of my father, the name of my son.

“So the immigrants may discover they were unwise,” Rullus continued. “When Marcus crosses over to Gallia, we’ll have a new civil war.”

4

As the year spun down to solstice, cold deepened. The Odita and Stegir lay frozen between banks where the snow glittered rock-hard. Icicles hung from naked boughs, eaves, battlements, like spears turned downward. When a man had been outdoors a while, his mustache was rimed. Skies were cloudless, the sun a wan disc briefly seen low in the south, the nights bitterly brilliant. The occasional traveler from the east related that it was thus over the whole breadth of northern Gallia, and beyond.

After the meager harvest, midwinter festivities were lean.
In Confluentes and its region they had, though, a hectic exuberance, as bright and loud and dancing as the bonfires lit to call the sun back home. Folk had outlived that spring, summer, autumn. They had enough to see them through the winter if they husbanded it. The Saxons had steered wide of them and ought not to be a danger again till after the thaws. They and those they loved could draw into their snug little dens and be at ease, at peace.

Gratillonius and his family had moved back to the house in Aquilo, and meant to abide there till about equinox. It had a hypocaust, whereas they feared what their own place, ill heated by open fires, might do to Marcus,
their
Marcus. Rovinda and Salomon received them happily. They had a bedroom to themselves; the child slept with his nurse.

One evening about a score of days after the solstice, father and son were romping as usual, until Verania said, also as usual, that that was ample ride-horsey and a certain young man was much overdue for his rest. Gratillonius went along and sang over the crib, which had become another of his customs. This time it was the three or four decent stanzas in an old legionary marching song. He had explained that all too soon small children developed a sense for music and, like their elders, requested him to stop.

He returned laughing to the atrium. “That boy’s going to be a great cavalryman!” he said. “Did you see how he sits? Might almost have grown out of my back. Any time, now, I expect hell reach down and make reins of my ears.”

Verania smiled at him from the stool where she sat embroidering. A five-branched brass candelabrum, on a table beside her, gave adequate light. Tapers elsewhere keep the rest of the room bright and brought out the soft hues of its murals. The household could afford clean-burning wax; this area was rich in honeybees. The light caressed her as Jupiter had caressed Danaë, golden in hair and on cheeks and along the slight fullness that had begun proclaiming to the world that she was with child anew. The air was warm, but because he liked it she had had a small amount of charcoal kindled in a brazier and laid a pine cone there. Its smoke was like vanished summers.

Rovinda was the sole other person present, seated nearby with distaff and spindle. Apuleius had taught that work with the hands beseemed patricians—Ulysses, Cincinnatus, not to mention the Saviour—though he himself was manually awkward. Salomon was out carousing. At his age you couldn’t be forever serious, and he never let it get the better of him. The slaves had been dismissed for the night.

Trouble touched the older woman’s face. She was, still, often hard put to maintain serenity. “Must he become a soldier?” she asked mutedly.

“Oh, perhaps a merchant or landholder,” Verania said.

Gratillonius didn’t feel like sitting down yet. He stood before them, several feet off so they needn’t crane their necks up, folded his arms, and replied, “I’m afraid he’ll have to know his weapons whatever he becomes.”

“Not if it’s a churchman,” Rovinda pointed out. She sounded wistful. Since her husband’s death she had turned extremely pious, as if to make amends for past religious lapses and earn hope of rejoining him in Paradise.

The idea quenched Gratillonius’s already dampened mirth. Nothing really wrong with the clergy, no, no; in fect, Corentinus was a fine fellow, and Martinus had been admirable in his odd fashion; an able man could rise to bishop, even Pope, and make his mark on history; nevertheless, his first-born son—

Verania read the distaste on him and told her mother, “No, I don’t think that’s in Marcus’s blood. He’s such a lively little scamp. Maybe our next will be more the sort.”

“Then the future is his,” Rovinda said.

“M-m, it could as well be a girl, you know.”

“And as welcome,” said Gratillonius. He wanted strong sons, but a couple of new Veranias would certainly lend sparkle to his days. She cast him a fond look, which he sent back.

Rovinda’s spindle twirled to a stop. She stared away, as if through the wall into the darkness outside. “God forgive me, I almost hope not,” she murmured. “Women are too weak.”

“I wouldn’t say that,’ Verania answered. “Each time we go in childbed, we do battle.”

Across the years, his Queens and their daughters in Ys rose before Gratillonius; and Julia; and Nemeta, Nemeta. How fared Nemeta this cruel night?

“We haven’t the strength to wield swords nor the right to be priests,” Rovinda said.

Gratillonius cleared his throat. “Any girl of ours will marry a man who can protect her,” he declared loudly.

Verania smiled. “I did.”

Gratillonius felt soothed. “I try.”

That quick fierceness which she mostly kept asleep flashed through Verania. “Well hold what is ours.”

“God has been good to us,” Rovinda said, “but by the same token, we have much to lose. Be not proud. In Heaven alone is sureness.”

Gratillonius could not let that go by. “Therefore, here on earth we need cavalrymen.”

Rovinda shook her graying head. “If only we didn’t. These are terrible times we live in.”

Verania turned grave. “The hour between dog and wolf,” she said low.

“What?” asked Gratillonius. Recollection came; it was a Gallic phrase for the twilight. “Oh. Right. They are wolves, the barbarians, two-legged wolves. I could have put it that what we need is watchdogs. Hounds for hunting, too.”

“It isn’t that simple, dear,” Verania told him with her father’s earnestness and love of discourse.

“Why not?” He spread his hands. “Look, I don’t want to spoil the evening. We’ve gotten way too serious all of a sudden. But I’ve seen the work of the barbarians, and the single thing to do with them is kill them, hunt them down, till the last few skulk back to the wilderness that bred them. Stilicho thought he could tame them. I pray he’s finally learned better, because Mother Rome has!”

“They are human beings,” Verania argued. Not for the first time, it crossed his mind how bored he would be with a wife who never did. “Each king of theirs is a hero to his people. He surely thinks of himself as responsible for their well-being, their lives.”

“Ha! He thinks of his own glory and how much he can rob.”

Verania took her man aback: “Are civilized rulers different? In any event, our ancestors were wild Celts. Or Homer’s Achaeans—how did the Trojans see them?”

“Are you telling me we’re all the same?”

“We are all of us sinners,” Rovinda said.

“No, there is a difference, a very real difference,” Verania granted. “But it’s not in the blood. It is—hard to put into words. I tied, four years ago when you went off to war against the Scoti, and in the end found I’d only made a verse.”

“Let’s hear it,” Gratillonius said, interested.

A certain shyness brought Verania’s lashes fluttering downward. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a few lines. You see, I was trying to understand
why
you were out there, you, the one I loved, setting your life at stake.”

“Let’s hear it,” Gratillonius repeated. “Please.”

“Well, it’s—If you insist. Let me think. …
Would you know the dog from the wolf? You
—”

A banging resounded. “Hold,” Gratillonius said. “Somebody at our knocker.” He strode across the room to the entry and the front door. Unease prickled his skin. Who could this be? It wasn’t barred till the last person went to bed. If Salomon for some reason came home earlier, he’d simply walk in. If later, as was likely, he’d thunder the porter awake, unless it was when the house was again astir before dawn. The aged slave was yawning and creaking out of the alcove where he slept.

Gratillonius opened the door. Keen air flowed in across him. A full moon had cleared rooftops and made the snow on them gleam, more radiance than what trickled into the entry from the atrium. A man wearing breeches, boots, heavy tunic, cowled cloak stood in the portico. He was short, with bow legs bespeaking a life on horseback. “Imperial courier,” he said wearily. “I have a dispatch for the tribune Gratillonius. They told me at the hostel he’s here.”

“Come in,” Gratillonius invited, and led the way back to the atrium. The porter closed the door behind them. “I am the tribune. You’ve ridden hard.”

“We all did, sir. Epona be thanked for the clear nights. I understand this message is from the frontier.”

It would have gone first to Turonum, while other copies were galloped in relays to Arelate, Ravenna, wherever they must get the bad news as fast as possible. It could only be bad news. At Turonum, more copies were made ana directed to regional authorities. It could only be bad news that concerned all Armorica, urgently.

“Can you get this man something hot to drink, or at least
a cup of wine?” Gratillonius asked the women. They had risen and stood stricken, waiting. “Let’s have the letter, fellow.”