by Paul Waters
He looked so grave and concerned that one might have supposed he had confessed his mother was hawking herself at the local tavern, and in spite of my heavy mood I could not help but laugh.
‘Don’t worry, Leontius,’ I said smiling. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’
He nodded grimly, and waited while I finished dressing. Then together we made our way to the mess, where the others were already celebrating my victory.
After that day, no one treated me as the baby of the corps. For some time, Meta the Illyrian avoided me. When, eventually, he realized I did not revel in his humiliation, he even managed to be civil. I doubt we should ever have been friends, even without the fight. But at least we had not become enemies.
I think, in the end, what shamed him most was not his defeat, but not having conceded honourably. He knew, in his own dull way, that the others thought less of him for it. I was never asked to fight him again.
As Marcellus had predicted, I found my horse-riding came back to me. Of course, I had never learned cavalry skills, and these my comrades taught me – how to wheel in close formation, or throw the lance at a gallop, or stay mounted when struck. I kept myself lean and fast and strong, and grew used to my new life.
I even supposed, with the ignorance of youth, that it would go on forever.
‘I have received a letter from my friend Flavius Martinus,’ said Aquinus, setting down his wine-cup.
‘Oh?’ said Marcellus. ‘Is he in Italy still?’
‘No; he has been summoned to Gaul by Constans. He is at Autun, with the rest of the court.’
‘I thought he kept his distance from the imperial house.’
‘So did I. But Martinus has always stayed close to power, and sailed with the prevailing wind where politics is concerned. And besides, Constans is not a man to be crossed or refused, by all accounts.’
It was the evening of my first day with Marcellus and his grandfather. It was high summer, and, having been granted a few days’ leave, I had ridden out to visit them in the country. We were seated in the great summer dining-room, which opened out onto the loggia and the inner gardens. The lamps had just been kindled. Outside, through a row of columns, the last glow of daylight showed over the flowering shrubs.
‘What does he say?’ said Marcellus. ‘Has Constans changed, now he has the whole of the West to govern?’
Aquinus delayed his answer while the servants took away the last of the dinner things. When they had gone and the door was closed he said, ‘It takes great self-mastery to rule, and Constans came to power too young. His father Constantine would have served Rome better if he had passed the imperium to the man best able to wield it, rather than to his sons. But still. He placed ties of family above the advice of reason, and we must make the best of it. Since the victory over his foolish brother, the sycophants that surround our young emperor have been flattering him that he is master of the world, a man invincible, who may take what he wishes. That is strong wine for such an unformed mind. Power such as his needs restraint sitting at its right hand, not licence.’
He paused, frowning under his white beard. ‘He lives for pleasure, and like all men who live for pleasure, he has become its slave. His self-seeking courtiers know this, and ensure his every whim is pandered to, thinking thereby to control him. He has conceived a passion for hunting, a pastime for which his advisers assure him he has great ability. He spends each day chasing deer and boar in the hills around Autun, and every night celebrating his good fortune with his friends, often until dawn. It is said the grooms take bets on whether he will be sober enough next morning to mount his horse.’
Marcellus laughed. ‘Well it’s no secret he is governed by his desires.’
‘No, it is not. Yet I fear we underestimate them. There are some German princes at the court. They are “guests” of the emperor, as it is called, kept there to ensure the loyalty of their warlike barbarian fathers. It seems there has been an incident.’
‘Oh? What happened? Has he insulted them?’
‘Worse, both for them and for Constans’s hard-won and delicate relationship with their royal fathers. He ravished them.’
I had been reaching forward for my wine-cup; but now I paused and looked first at Marcellus and then at Aquinus, thinking I had misheard.
Marcellus said, ‘What, all of them?’
‘Do not joke, Marcellus; it has caused a scandal such as you would not believe. No one dare say anything to Constans, of course; but behind his back the court is in uproar. Even the Bishop of Autun will scarcely speak to him, and he is a man who seldom scruples about morality. One dreads to think what the boys’ fathers will do when they hear.’
‘Perhaps Constans was drunk.’
‘Let us hope he was not sober, or what can we expect when he loses his self-control?’ He brushed a crumb from his fine woollen tunic, sighed, and glanced at the door to make sure the waiting slave had not returned. ‘The truth is that the whole imperial family are nothing but ruffians and yokels; I wonder they do not just elevate some illiterate barbarian to the purple and have done with it. Arrogance coupled with ignorance; over-indulgence, sexual excess: hardly the virtues one looks for in a prince. How does Martinus put up with it all?’
That day, riding in from the east, I had properly seen the great house for the first time. The long approach was flanked by stately poplars, at the end of which a pillared gateway opened to the large enclosed demesne.
Within, there was an orchard, and elsewhere fishponds and well-tended lawns divided by paths edged with low box hedges. Further off, still inside the walls – for indeed the enclosure might have contained a small town – were barns and granaries, and a row of neat whitewashed houses where the farm-hands and servants lived.
The house itself was two and three storeys high, with vaulting arches, tall shuttered windows, and fluted pilasters, with a fountain of leaping bronze dolphins cascading water into a circular pool.
Marcellus had been waiting on the steps when I arrived, dressed simply in his working clothes and looking as fine as ever. The farm-hands had seen my approach, and had called him. We embraced, and then I turned and gazed in wonder at the marble columns and carved pediments, and the summer-ripe gardens that stretched out before me.
‘What do you think?’ said Marcellus, smiling.
‘It’s – well, it’s beautiful.’ And, strange as it sounded, that was the word that came to me, for the house and grounds seemed the very embodiment of harmony and order, an image of perfection, fashioned by man’s patient attention, year upon year.
Marcellus laughed, and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Yes, and it’s a lot of work as well. Come on, let’s go inside.’
The atrium within was the height of two houses, a great oblong space of inlaid marble panels and rose-pink columns, with sunlight shafting from high windows across a polished floor of dark-green serpentine. The warm summer air smelt of jasmine and resined wood, and through an arch on the far side, from a shaded inner court, came the sound of a trickling fountain.
A well-dressed elderly steward approached. ‘I have had a room in the west wing made up, sir, if you will come this way.’
‘Don’t worry, Clemens,’ said Marcellus. ‘I’ll take him.’ And then to me, ‘Come on, I’ll show you round.’
Later, when I had washed and changed, and was lying on my bed, the steward came tapping at the door. He enquired if all was to my liking, then said that Quintus Aquinus was waiting in his library, if I would care to see him.
He led me back to the atrium, and through an inner garden court to a long room lined with books. The room was cool and still; the sharp fresh scent of cedar oil hung in the air. Under a sunlit window, Aquinus was seated on a fine carved chair beside a table.
He stood and greeted me, and asked after my journey. Then, seeing me glance at the rows of stacked scrolls and books of bound parchment, he said, ‘My library; I doubt there is a better one in the province.’
He took an open scroll from his desk, fine cal
ligraphy held with a polished wood binding and a tie of scarlet ribbon. ‘This,’ he said, ‘was sent to me recently by a friend in Constantinople. It is a copy of Aristotle on comedy. You would have to travel a long way before you found another.’
For a moment he gazed at it with absent affection, adding, half to himself, ‘There is no education without Aristotle.’ He set the book gently down. ‘To build such a collection has taken years – generations even. Many of these volumes I got from my father, and he from his. I have friends who scout for books I do not have, and trained men whose only occupation is to copy and preserve. It is an endless task . . . But come,’ he said, taking my arm, ‘I am being tedious, talking on of my great passion so soon after you have arrived. Has Clemens seen to your room? Good. Then let us get some air, and sit for a while in the sunshine. I wanted to see you before Marcellus takes you off; he has been talking of nothing else for days.’
We passed through a door to a small courtyard garden. On a stone patio under the mottled shade of a lilac tree there were two chairs and a trestle table, and upon it a flask of chilled wine and a dish of sweet-cakes and fruit. We sat, and when he had poured the wine and invited me to eat he continued, ‘All my life I have worked with one purpose, to see to it that good men rule in the province. Your father was such a man. It is a sign of the age that he was taken from us in the manner that he was. We used to lend each other books. He too had a library, I believe.’
‘Yes sir,’ I said, ‘and now the bishop has it, I expect.’
He turned to me with raised brows. ‘The bishop? Surely not.’
I explained how our estate had been confiscated, and who had benefited. He listened without comment. When I had finished he sat gazing across the garden at the trellis of climbing roses on the far wall, with his face set stern under his white beard.
I began to wonder if I had spoken out of turn, and was about to say I was sorry for bothering him with my own business, when he turned and spoke.
‘That I had not known,’ he said, his voice hardening. ‘Then of course the library will have been destroyed – sold off for what it could fetch, if I know the bishop, though I doubt he would have been aware of its value.’
‘You know him, sir?’ I said, surprised. It seemed somehow contrary to nature that this austere, noble man could be acquainted with a creature like the bishop.
He sighed.
‘Regretfully, yes. There is no one in the government who does not. Indeed it was only a few weeks ago that I myself had an unfortunate exchange with him. It appears he has run out of money to build that wretched cathedral of his, and so he came to the magistrates demanding a subvention. They told him to speak to the emperor, who has already seized the temple revenues and debauched the city finances. It was the emperor, after all, who provided him with the funds, and the bishop seems unable, or unwilling, to give a proper account of them. At any rate,’ he went on, ‘the city does not have the money for such a project. But then, the following day, if you can believe it, he came beating on the door of my London house to protest at the way he was treated, blaming me for it all.’
‘What did you do, sir?’
‘I had the slaves throw him out – him and that odious death’s-head assistant of his, the deacon. Really, he is a charlatan of the worst kind, a false pretender to knowledge. He preys on the poor, and on the lazy of mind, and offers them the prospect of truth without thought, and the grossest kind of mindless intolerance, which he calls piety.’
He paused and looked at me. ‘It is rare that I call a man my enemy, Drusus; surely such an extreme is not the way of philosophy. But I struggle to find any good in that man. Tell me, is it true, as I have heard, that your uncle Balbus is a friend of his?’
‘He knows him, sir; and it is true my aunt Lucretia is a friend. But I am not.’
‘No; of course. How could you be? Let us not dwell on it – and we are forgetting our refreshments.’
And after that we spoke of other things.
He was an imposing severe man, and though he was quiet, and listened far more than he spoke, his presence always dominated those around him. Nothing he said was pat or second-hand, and he was impatient of imprecision and laziness in others.
At first he made me nervous; but there was nothing harsh or cruel in him. He seldom smiled, and his manner was old-fashioned and exact. And yet, as I came to know him, I was sure I detected humour too beneath that white beard and in those old grey eyes. He took for granted those things which are the ends to most men’s striving – money, status, even power. For Balbus and Lucretia, wealth had been a thing to be coveted, hoarded, displayed, cooed over and nurtured. Aquinus, on the other hand, whose fortune was immeasurably greater, scarcely acknowledged it. He dressed simply; he ate without excess or greed; the house, large as it was, was sparely furnished with a few pieces in understated good taste.
At first I thought this mere affectation; but I came to see that for him wealth was but a tool, which allowed him to pursue those things he considered valuable in life: learning, the cultivation of friends, the good management of his estate, and the well-being of the province. These were his concerns; they represented for him the pillars of civilized life within which good men found their place.
What he made of me I could not tell. He could hardly have failed to perceive my ignorance. But I think he hoped to share a little of his wisdom, if only I cared to listen.
Marcellus I found attractive in ways I understood more easily.
Each day we rode, or walked, or swam, or basked beside the pool under the summer sun.
Mostly we were alone, but on the last evening of my leave we ate dinner with Aquinus in the walled inner-court with its fragrant trellises and gentle burbling fountain. The slaves had taken away the tables and left us with the wine, and we were quietly talking under a twilight sky streaked with pink and magenta. I glanced across at Marcellus. We had ridden that day to the ruined circular temple where we had met, and gone on after to look at Balbus’s villa beyond the brook. The villa stood empty once again, and I had taken Marcellus up the hillside behind, showing him the clearing under the yew tree, and the pool in the dip below; though I did not say what had happened there.
In the flickering lamplight his face looked happy and peaceful. His hair fell curling on his brow; his tanned arm hung lazily over the end of the couch; and with his fingers he was idly touching at the lilies in the fountain basin. He looked, I thought, like some god at rest.
He must have sensed my eyes on him, for he looked round and smiled. I smiled back, wondering if my thoughts showed in my face. Suddenly, in the midst of this, I realized that Aquinus was talking to me.
He had been speaking, when I had last attended, of the city, and justice. Now he said, ‘But tell me, Drusus, how do you suppose a man learns to know the Good?’
If I had answered at that moment truthfully from my heart, I should have said, ‘By being with your grandson, who to me is beautiful and perfect.’ But that would not do, and so I stirred my wine-clouded mind and answered, ‘Why, I suppose, sir, by seeking out good men and trying to be as they are.’
‘That is a beginning,’ he said, fixing me with his eye. ‘And yet, if one is to learn from good men, one must first recognize good when one sees it, don’t you think?’
‘Yes sir,’ I answered, knitting my brow and trying to think.
‘So which, then, would you say, comes first?’
‘Grandfather!’ cried Marcellus laughing. ‘Will you give poor Drusus no rest at all? We have been out riding all day, and he is half asleep with tiredness.’
But I had been thinking, and now I set down my cup and said, ‘I cannot answer, sir, with a theory or a formula; but I believe one knows goodness when one sees it, as a budding shoot knows the light. The words come later, but the knowledge – well, the knowledge comes first.’
‘A fine answer,’ he said, giving me one of his rare smiles. ‘You see, Marcellus, he is more awake than you think. A man must be what he wishes to seem, an
d in time the man becomes the mask. But Marcellus is right, and I have talked enough for one evening. I shall leave you in peace.’
Presently, when we were alone, Marcellus said, ‘Don’t mind Grandfather. He wouldn’t quiz you like that unless he liked you.’
We were lying side by side on the couch, our bodies touching, looking up at the great sweep of the Milky Way. The day had been hot and close; but now a night breeze was rustling the poplars beyond the wall, bringing a welcome freshness to the air.
I said, ‘I’m glad he asks. He makes me think. He makes me yearn to be more than I am.’ I shook my head, thinking I was making no sense. ‘For instance, yesterday, when you were with your mother, he said that good and beauty and truth are one, to be found in the same place, and that love and reason guide us there . . . He says such things so easily you would think he was making some observation about the weather. But, you know, I can’t get it out of my head.’
He was so long silent that I turned. He was staring up at the dome of stars, his brow furrowed. I propped myself on my elbow and looked down into his face.
‘Yes,’ he said smiling, ‘he always manages to say the right thing. I used to believe it was some kind of magic. Now I think it comes from hard work, and learning to see clearly. That is the hardest magic of all.’
He reached up, and rested his hand on my arm, at the place above my elbow where the muscles tightened. His touch ran through me like fire, and in the silent pause it seemed my mind was aware of every tiny thing – the nightjar chirping in the shrubs, the sound of the fountain, the stirring of the trees. I saw the contours of his face, his nose and lips and sun-bleached brow, and the gentle movement of his chest beneath his tunic. And suddenly there came over me a great wave of longing and love such as I had not known before. I gazed at him, feeling naked, unable to divine what thoughts lay behind the grey eyes that looked up into mine. And so I hesitated; and after a long moment I let out my pent-up breath, and lay back once more beside him, and stared up at the silent sky.