by Paul Waters
I hesitated. I knew my own mind well enough; but I remembered that for all his friendliness Julian was still the cousin of Constantius, who had closed the temples and forbidden sacrifice on pain of death. Nowadays, even a tripod was suspect. In Britain, under the notary Paulus, men had been dragged to their deaths for less. I asked myself again why we were here. Was this a test?
Carefully I answered, ‘I have heard it said.’
He gave me a searching look; and I looked back at him.
But then, from behind, Oribasius spoke out. ‘Julian, you are being unjust to keep them waiting. You brought them here. You must tell them, or stay silent.’
Julian frowned and nodded. ‘I knew,’ he said, ‘from the first day that you were one of us, when I saw you pray to the god in the temple. I was ashamed to watch you when you did not know I was there; but perhaps the god intended it, for it showed me who you truly were. Such things are rarer than you might suppose.’
He stooped down and plucked a sprig of heather, and began twisting it between his fingers. ‘At first, Oribasius advised caution. Eutherius had spoken well of you; but we needed to know for ourselves that we could trust you.’
I said, ‘You can trust me.’
‘I know; I know. And that is why I brought you here. I suppose you have been wondering. Though you did not mean to, you let me see the truth in your heart. It is time that I did the same.’
He turned and swept his outstretched arm about him, encompassing the circle of pines that stood around us like sentinels.
‘I saw this place when we passed with the army, and vowed then to return. These trees were planted by men, long ago; see how they stand, just so? Whoever planted them knew it was holy ground; there are men who can sense such things, like people who divine hidden water below the earth. But first one must be open to what is there.’
He crossed to his horse, and took up a small leather pouch. Then he went to where Oribasius was standing beside the tripod. He unstrung the pouch and from it sprinkled tiny grains of myrrh over the burning tinder. They spluttered and hissed, and a line of purple smoke curled upwards, diffusing against the cobalt sky.
‘For Apollo Helios,’ he said. ‘Small return for a great gift.’ He met my eye and nodded. ‘So now you know. The emperor would kill me if he found out. He is a Christian beyond all reason.’ He fell silent, and stared out east across the plain towards the pale sun. Then, turning, he scattered the last of the myrrh.
‘The sun is a fitting image, don’t you think? For what is God if not the light that throws everything else into its proper relief? When I was a boy the priests and bishops told me the old gods were lies and foolish myth. They mocked them, asking, “Do the gods smell the flowers we offer them in springtime? Is High-Thundering Zeus pleased with his hecatomb, and does Helios smell the sweet smell of frankincense?” I do not know the answer to those questions; but this I know: by honouring something greater than ourselves, we tread the high path that leads to the Good.’
He paused, then turning to me said, ‘Constantius murdered my father. Did you know?’
I nodded and said I had heard. I had also heard how, all through his childhood, the emperor had kept him exiled on a remote estate in Asia, cut off from the world. Now he told us the rest.
‘I was raised as a Christian, on Constantius’s orders. I believed everything my priest-teachers told me, drinking it in like a child at its mother’s breast. How could I not? I knew nothing other. But then, as I grew older and read a little, I began to question. I asked them why it was that if a man is jealous they think him blameworthy, but if their God is jealous they call it divine. I asked why He looked on for myriads in silence while men served false idols, save only for that little tribe in Palestine. And if it is their God’s will that none other shall be worshipped, why do they worship his son also?’ He gave a laugh, remembering. ‘A child’s questions, of course; but because they could not answer, or perhaps because I dared to ask at all, they beat me, and threatened to report my disobedience to the emperor. So I ceased to ask. But I did not cease to think. I kept my own counsel. I told them “yes” when they wanted yes, and “no” when they wanted no, like the slave of some cruel master.’
He paused, and looked up at the soaring pines. The pain of memory was etched on his face. I wondered how many others he had told, and remembered what Marcellus had said: that Julian was like a man who has kept a secret for too long, and needed it out.
He drew his breath and continued.
‘One day, long after, I was permitted to go to the city – closely guarded by one of my pedagogues. But when he went to relieve himself I slipped away, and went off wandering among the columned streets and porticoes. By chance I came upon a group of men, sitting under an olive tree, talking. They were philosophers, though in those days I scarcely knew what a philosopher was. But to hear their words was like water after long drought. I knew at once that I had found what my soul yearned for, and in the years that followed I began to understand what the priests had tried to keep from me. For them philosophy is the enemy, because it sets men free. But there is no freedom without knowledge, only slavery and the endless cycle of unknowing… And so,’ he said, ‘I ceased to be a Christian.’
He fell silent. After a short pause Marcellus said, ‘Yet you attended the Christian church with the bishop of Paris.’
‘Do you suppose I am my own man? All this fawning, all this “Yes, lord Caesar” and “No, lord Caesar” counts for nothing. I went because I must. Everything is reported to Constantius. Even my friends are looked into and examined.’
He tossed the sprig of heather into the dying fire and stared at it as it crisped and burned. ‘Did you know, after I defeated the German high-king at Strasburg, Constantius sent out laurel-wreathed letters to the provinces praising his victory, declaring that he himself had fought in the front rank, had draw up the battle order and had routed the barbarians? There was not one mention of me, who was there, when he was forty days’ march away. The victories are all his; but the defeats are mine alone. And so, you see, I can only ever fail; that is their scheme; that is what my enemies at court are waiting for… and then they will destroy me.’
In the days that followed, the wind turned to the north, bringing first rain, then bitter cold. I woke one morning to the sound of hacking at the ice on the water urn outside. It was Marcellus. He had gone out to wash.
‘It’s no good,’ he said, putting his head in at the tent flap, ‘it’s frozen through. I’m going down to the river.’
I groaned and buried my head in the blankets. Then suddenly he was back, calling, ‘Get up quickly, Drusus! There’s something happening at the fort.’
I pulled on my clothes and hurried out. A covering of heavy frost lay over the camp. It was early still. The first glimmer of dawn showed as a blood-red strip on the horizon. But at the river the fort was silent. The gate was still barricaded shut with whatever rubble the Franks had been able to find. The sappers’ earthworks lay about. No faces showed from the ramparts.
‘What are you talking about?’ I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and peering up at the walls. ‘Everything is quiet here.’
‘Listen!’ he said. He took my arm and drew me down the slope to the river. The long frozen grass crunched and snapped underfoot. I was about to accuse him of playing the fool, but then I heard it, the far-off sound of scraping, and the muffled tap of brick being placed upon brick.
‘But what are they doing? Raising the walls?’
‘No, not raising them; breaking them down. Come here, you’ll see what I mean.’
We edged down to where the side of the fort dropped sheer to the water, keeping a careful eye on the battlements. From where we were, a well-hurled stone would break a man’s head. Close up, the sound was clearer. Marcellus placed his hand on my shoulder and directed my eyes along the line of the river. And then at last I saw. The Franks were breaking open the sealed-up riverside postern, scratching out the old mortar and lifting away the bricks, c
arefully, one by one. The postern opened onto the river, and nowhere else.
I turned to Marcellus. ‘But where will they go? They have no boats.’
‘You are still asleep, Drusus! Look! They have no need for boats.’
I looked, and then I stared. The surface of the river was motionless, like dull grey glass, frozen hard.
‘You see?’ said Marcellus, crouching down and tapping the ice. ‘They’re going to walk across.’
‘So that’s it,’ said Julian. He was standing with us on the bank shortly afterwards. Severus was beside him, and as we waited, Arintheus and Victor came hurrying from the camp.
‘Are we going to let them escape?’ asked Victor angrily. ‘They will return as soon as we are gone. I’ll go and rouse the men. We can cut them off before they reach the forest.’
Julian, who had been frowning to himself, said, ‘No, wait.’ He stooped down, and picked up a heavy terracotta roof-tile that lay at his feet. For a moment he turned it in his hand, gauging its weight; then, with a swing of his arm, he cast it out like a discus into the river.
It soared, landed with a dull thud, and glided over the frozen surface, finally coming to rest in midstream.
We watched in silence, our breath steaming from us in the bitter cold. Severus began to speak; but Julian raised his hand, silencing him.
At first there was nothing. Then came a sound like the snap of a falling branch. The river-ice groaned, the slab of tile shifted. It tilted, and then with a gentle splash it vanished beneath the surface.
Julian brushed the snow from his palms and turned to us. ‘It seems,’ he said smiling, ‘that they have shown their hand too soon. Victor, send word for the boats.’
All morning we worked with axes and pikes, breaking up the frozen surface from our few flat-bottomed river-boats. The Franks crowded along the rampart, staring grimly down at us; and for once they were silent. Before sundown they had asked to parley. They were warriors, they said. They would not be slaves. If the Caesar treated them with honour they would surrender. If not, then they would die fighting, to the last man.
Julian, who would have done no less anyway, agreed. They would be treated as befitted fighting men; he would send them east, to serve in the army of the emperor, where other Frankish tribes had already enlisted. This satisfied them, and shortly after they filed out, clad in their rancid furs, tall men, with long yellow hair tied up like twine behind their shoulders.
Afterwards we restored the fort, and manned it with Romans. From the opposite bank of the Meuse, among the shadows of the dense forest, we saw fair-haired men observing us. Whatever they had planned, they now abandoned. They remained half a day, silently watching as their comrades were led away; then they vanished again into the boundless forest.
But while they were there, Florentius came to look from the rampart.
‘This time,’ he observed loudly to his servant, ‘the Caesar has been fortunate.’
Julian was elsewhere. Perhaps I should have held my tongue. But his words seemed so mean and carping that I could not hold back from calling out in answer, ‘I suppose, sir, it is beginner’s luck again.’ And at this a chuckle sounded from the men around me who were working on the fort.
Florentius looked sharply round, then stepped up close, and in a low voice muttered, ‘Save your wit, Drusus. New wood makes a hot fire. He has had a small success against a band of raiders. He is reckless, and he will stumble yet.’
Eutherius returned to Paris from his mission to the emperor. I was with Julian when it was announced.
We were in Julian’s study. He had been showing me his books. It was not a great library such as Marcellus’s grandfather had owned in Britain, but favourites he would not be parted from – the Life of Alexander, which he read, he said, to remind him of greatness; Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul, for tactics; Plato on law and love of wisdom; and a well-worn copy of Homer he had bought in Athens during his student days, which he kept in a brown leather scroll-case so he could always have it with him, even on campaign.
Now he set the books aside, called for warmed wine and honey-cakes, and sent the steward to find Oribasius. He was eager as a boy, fidgeting and pacing about. I told him I would leave him to his business; but he said, ‘No, stay. There is nothing you cannot hear.’
Eutherius arrived fresh from his bath, looking as bright as flowers after rain, and smelling of scent of lilies.
He greeted Julian, then turning to me he spread his hands in a theatrical gesture and cried, ‘Drusus! It is a joy to see you here.’ He took my arm and enquired after Marcellus – he knew what mattered most to a man, and for all my reticence in such matters I believe he read me like an open book. The cakes and wine arrived; and then Julian asked, ‘But what news?’
Eutherius eased himself down onto the couch and arranged his robe of jade-green silk about him. He reached for a honey-cake, dipped it into his wine, tasted it with evident pleasure, and then began.
When he arrived at the court at Sirmium, he said, after a most tedious journey, the grand chamberlain Eusebius had contrived to deny him an audience for a week. ‘You know how it is, the usual petty spite concealed beneath a shallow patina of civility. No doubt he wanted to remind me of my place. But on the eighth day, after the intervention of certain of my old friends, I was finally admitted into the Presence and permitted to kiss the purple.’
After what Eutherius described as the ritual insincerities, the chamberlain had examined him with a barrage of questions about Barbatio – the Master of Infantry whom Julian had dismissed for incompetence – while Constantius sat motionless and silent, like a statue on a jewelled throne. Barbatio had accused Julian of exceeding his authority in Gaul. What, the chamberlain wanted to know, was Eutherius’s answer to such a grave charge?
‘What did you tell him?’ asked Julian.
‘I told him it was nonsense. Furthermore, since the range of your authority had not been defined, it was not possible for Barbatio or anyone else to know you were exceeding it. I said that in my view you were doing what was necessary to bring about the emperor’s policy of restoring Gaul to order.’
‘And was he satisfied?’
Eutherius rolled his eyes at the painted ceiling with its carved wood beams and old, faded gilding. ‘Have you ever known the emperor say what he thinks? One struggles to know what passes through his mind. He listened with a face like alabaster. In the end, when there was really nothing more to say, he fluttered his finger for silence and declared in that odd voice he uses on such occasions: “Barbatio’s dismissal is acceptable.” So there it is. One must suppose he meant it, since no one from the court came to me afterwards, as is usually the case when the emperor has deliberately said what he did not mean.’
Julian shook his head, then paced across the room and gazed out at the plum-tree court.
‘It is just as well, then,’ he said, after a pause. ‘Good men died because of Barbatio. I would not take him back. I owe the men more than that.’
Oribasius said, ‘You have what you wanted, Julian. You are free of Barbatio.’
Julian nodded. ‘Yes… thank you, Eutherius. Constantius would not have listened to anyone else.’ But then he said, ‘There was something more, wasn’t there? I can see it in your face. What else did he say?’
Eutherius gave a resigned sigh. ‘Only that there had been “adverse reports” …’
‘“Adverse reports”!’ cried Julian, snorting in derision at the phrase. ‘Adverse reports from Barbatio, no doubt. What do they expect? Don’t they see he is protecting himself?’
‘The emperor is guided by his chamberlain in all things. Naturally he did not say where these reports came from, and, well, one does not question the emperor. But he did ask about the prefect, and said he wished you to take proper note of his advice.’
‘So Florentius has been running to him too! Well, I should have guessed. I wonder I manage to fight the German tribes at all, with such enemies at my back. Tell me, has Constantius received the pri
soners I sent from Strasburg? Did he find time, in all these complaints, to notice my victories?’ He sounded hurt, even wounded.
‘The matter came up – but do sit, my dear Julian; you are exhausting me with all this marching to and fro.’
Julian planted himself reluctantly on the far edge of the couch, sitting like a cat about to spring.
‘Well? What did he say?’
Eutherius hesitated; then, with a weary motion of his large hand, he said, ‘The emperor remarked that he was growing tired of the subject.’
Julian stared at him. It was seldom he showed anger – it was something he worked to control, thinking it unbecoming in a man whose goal was virtue. But now he cried, ‘What! I have delivered Gaul from the barbarians; I have sent Constantius the German high-king in chains; I have dispatched hordes of recruits for his armies; and he tires of my victories?’ He sprang to his feet once more. ‘By the gods, Eutherius, you know I did not ask him to appoint me Caesar! But what choice did he give me? He sent me here without enough men, and with incompetent generals, and when I succeed in spite of that he “tires of my victories”.’
Eutherius watched him with his dark, patient eyes; and when Julian had finished he said gently, ‘Come now, why be surprised? You know the man as well as anyone. I considered not telling you at all; but it is surely better to have the knowledge and use it to your advantage, than to dwell in ignorance. That, at any rate, is what I should prefer.’
He reached out, took Julian’s hand as he passed, and sat him down. ‘And what does the safety of the frontiers matter to the chamberlain and his army of clerks? Each is full of his own ambition – a move to improved quarters; a requisition for new tapestries and furniture; the provision of an extra house-boy, or a mistress, or a doe-eyed Ganymede. Such are the concerns of the court. What are the frontiers compared with that?’
Julian swallowed, shook his head, and, in spite of himself, smiled at Eutherius’s words. I had been starting to wonder if he regretted asking me to stay. But now he turned to me.