by Paul Waters
‘He will not,’ said Eutherius. ‘Whatever Constantius decides, it will not be due to trust; the word means nothing to him. No, our only hope is that with the Persians already gathering on the eastern frontier he will see the wisdom of leaving Julian alone, and permit him to keep what he holds… That will do for now, Sophron.’
He extended his hand; the slave took it and pulled him up.
‘Ah, much better,’ he said, stretching. ‘Now tell me, Drusus, what do your army friends say?’
I shrugged. ‘They expect war. Some of them want it.’ I had run into a crowd of Nevitta’s friends shortly before. They were talking of nothing else.
‘Well, the road to Hades is easy to travel,’ said Eutherius with a sigh. ‘It is the old men like me who choose peace.’ ‘Must we not fight then?’
‘German barbarians are one thing; Constantius’s ironclad cavalrymen and the arrayed armies of the east are quite another.’ His eyes passed over my naked body, resting on the scar on my thigh. ‘Does it trouble you?’ he asked.
I shrugged and took my hand away, suddenly self-conscious. ‘Sometimes it itches… But the wound was light. There are many men with worse.’
‘And tell me, do you hold back in battle because of it?’
I looked quickly up, about to tell him that such a thing would be disgraceful. But then I saw from his face that he had only meant me to think.
I nodded, then said, ‘The centurions say: it is the timid that die soonest.’
‘And so too,’ he said, ‘do the reckless.’ He smiled. ‘And which, do you suppose, are we? Or is there yet a third? That is what we must decide. After all, it is the wise man that does not deceive himself.’
Seeing my look of confusion he laughed gently, and easing himself off the wet slab said, ‘But come, my dear Drusus, and walk with me to the pool. And together we shall consider the timid and the reckless and the brave, and then you can tell me all about your embassy to the noble Lupicinus.’
At the beginning of May, when the first buds were showing on the vines, Constantius sent his formal answer. The messenger was a quaestor from the court. His name was Leonas.
Julian ordered that he was to be treated with respect, whatever message he carried. He wished to show, he said, that he knew the honour due to envoys, even if Constantius had forgotten.
Now, standing in the long audience chamber with its squat stone pillars and old tapestries, we listened as he intoned in a booming wooden voice, like a man reading a proclamation before a crowd, ‘The divine emperor accepts nothing of what you propose. I am instructed to inform you that if you care for your safety and the safety of your friends, you must abandon this foolish course.’
He looked up. Julian said, ‘Is there more?’
‘Yes Caesar,’ he said, drawing out the final word and pausing deliberately, slewing his eyes around to make sure we had understood the pointless slight. He looked pleased with himself. ‘Yes, indeed there is more.’
He had taken Julian’s mildness and courtesy for fear, and was growing haughty. I glanced across at Eutherius. He met my eye, but he had his court face on, a mask betraying nothing.
The messenger returned to the scroll he was brandishing in his hands. ‘The emperor,’ he declared, ‘hereby appoints the following men to your staff. Nebridius is promoted to prefect in place of Florentius; the notary Felix is made Master of the Offices, replacing Pentadius; the general Gomoarius is to replace Lupicinus as Master of Cavalry… And Lupicinus,’ he said, looking up, ‘whom you have under arrest, is to be given safe passage.’
I found, as I stood listening, that my eyes had settled on the threadbare cinnamon-red hangings that hung between the pillars, with their Gallic country scenes of leaping deer, trees in summer leaf, prancing dogs and men in hunting tunics. Behind them, hidden from view in the long aisle, men would be listening, as always. Everything Constantius’s envoy said would soon be round the palace and beyond.
Julian knew it too. When at last Leonas had finished he said, ‘We shall summon Nebridius and inform him of his good fortune. But for the rest, I will make my own appointments, as I have already said.’
Leonas’s eyes widened. He was the kind who reads the surface and thinks he has read the man. I think he had expected Julian meekly to accept what he was told. Now, in a sudden flush of anger, he jutted his head forward and cried, ‘Is this how you repay the man who preserved your life and elevated you, a penniless orphan, to the highest rank?’
Everyone stared. By now, even the lowliest clerk knew of Julian’s past, and what Constantius had done to his family.
Julian had leaped to his feet with a cry as if he had been struck. ‘What?’ he demanded. ‘Does my father’s murderer now reproach me with being an orphan?’
Leonas bit his lip and did not answer. After a pause, Julian, in a quieter voice, went on, ‘You wish me to resign – is that it? Very well. I will do so.’
Somewhere behind the hangings a voice gasped. Julian ignored it. ‘But,’ he said, ‘there is one condition: that first you address the troops and persuade them.’
And so, next morning the legions assembled in the open fields beyond the city. It was a day of fraying shifting clouds interspersed with limpid blue; the damp meadows were bright with spring flowers, violets and narcissus and golden crocus, trampled by the men as they gathered. I stood with Marcellus and the other officers, at the base of the wooden tribunal.
Oribasius had argued with Julian, telling him it was madness to place so much in the balance. But Julian answered that he knew his men. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘without their support I am finished. Better to find out now, don’t you think?’
Now, before us, the army waited, cohort by cohort. Sun glinted on the polished standards; the red and gold ensigns swayed in the breeze. Further off, beyond the place where the archers were gathered, I could see Nevitta’s troop, with young Rufus in the thick of them, seated on his silver mare and laughing at some joke. Lately, if I happened to pass him in the colonnade, he would deliberately look away, as if he had not seen me. I understood, and took no great offence. He did not want to be reminded of what I knew. It did not square with the new brash self he had become, or tried to become.
Yet even now, below the mask, one could still read the hurt in his eyes. Nevitta’s friends were not the type who would notice. Perhaps he knew that too.
Around the tribunal there was a stirring. Briskly, Julian mounted the steps and beckoned Leonas to follow. The envoy, I could see, had lost a good deal of his swagger; but Julian was as he always was: gathered to himself, serious and thoughtful. The vague murmur of the troops fell away; and in the expectant silence Julian spoke, asking the men to listen to what Constantius’s messenger wished to tell them.
Then he stepped back. The envoy looked nervously about, surveying the grim immobile faces staring back at him. For a moment, until he grew conscious of it, his left hand clutched at the rail of the wooden platform. He released it as if it were hot and dangerous, and forced his hands to his sides.
Then he began to speak.
The men heard him without a sound. Only when he reached the part in Constantius’s harangue where he demanded that Julian should resign did they break silence. Then a great roar of anger rose from them, scattering the birds in the nearby oak grove, drowning out his words, forcing him to stop. On the hillside, beyond the lines, the citizens of Paris had gathered to watch, standing in their coloured cloaks and homespun tunics. Hearing what had been said, they too added their shouts to those of the men, raising their arms and gesturing.
Leonas waited, looking pale and ill at the sight of so much anger directed at him alone. I saw him turn and, over the din, shout something to Julian. For a moment Julian waited; then he stepped forward and raised his hand, and silence returned.
‘You have spoken,’ he declared. ‘You have given your answer and the envoy has heard you. So now permit him to leave in peace, and let him take our answer to Constantius.’
He turned and descended
the steps, while all about him the men cheered and surged forward. Leonas, with one last, appalled look at the advancing tide of soldiers, hurried down after him, and stood among us, keeping close in case the men snatched him as he left.
He departed next day with the dawn, taking the troops’ message back to the emperor. Julian meanwhile accepted Constantius’s nomination of the quaestor Nebridius as the new prefect. For the rest, he made his own appointments. He brought Dagalaif, the German-born commander of the Petulantes, onto his staff; he set Lupicinus free and sent him back to the court, replacing him with Nevitta as Master of Cavalry; he made Marcellus one of Nevitta’s lieutenants, and also promoted good-natured, mild-mannered Jovinus alongside him, who had served well during the fighting beyond the Rhine.
Then, campaign weather being upon us, we set out for Lower Germany, crossed the river near the fortified settlement of Xanten, and made war on the Frankish tribes of that region who, thinking in our troubles that they would be unopposed, had decided to come raiding across the frontier.
That autumn we moved south along the Rhone valley to the fine city of Vienne, and there Julian held games to celebrate five years in Gaul. As for me, just then my mind was on Nevitta.
Power reveals the man, as Marcellus’s grandfather had once said. Now that Marcellus was his lieutenant, and we were both more in Nevitta’s company than we wished, I found that the words came back to me. Since his promotion, Nevitta had become harder to stomach than usual. He seemed to take his elevation to Master of Cavalry not as recognition of his virtues, but as licence for his vices.
During that summer’s campaigning his air of aggressive self-confidence grew; and so did that of his favourites. Moreover, he and Marcellus were natural opposites. Marcellus, like his grandfather before him, thought that a man should strive to be the master of his passions; Nevitta, however, regarded self-control as affectation, and a slight against himself.
All this I observed, but it did not touch me directly. Then, at Vienne, Julian decided to open the games with a torchlit parade, which would give a fine spectacle for the men, and for the citizens. It was a tiny matter; but it happened that he asked Marcellus to lead it – and this Nevitta took exception to… though, as usual, he made sure that Julian saw nothing of his true feelings.
Marcellus had the well-bred trait of not noticing what was sordid or mean, and he despised pettiness. I believe he would not have mentioned Nevitta’s underhand carping to me, if I myself had not become caught up in it.
I had volunteered for the armoured foot-race, at the light-hearted urging of some of my men. I was, in truth, no great runner; as a youth I had learned to wrestle and fight – Durano and his friends had taught me – and I had gained a name for being a skilful fighter when I had served in the army in London. But at Vienne I took one look at the ox-like lumpish boxers with their cauliflower ears and swollen faces and decided I had rather lose in the footrace than win in such a contest between brutes.
Nevitta, however, adored the boxing. He associated with such men, out of Julian’s sight; and when it comes to love of violence, a man does not have to seek far to find like minds. One warm afternoon, when I had been out practising on the track and was making my way to the bath-house, I noticed him ahead of me on the path, surrounded by a group of his friends. He was got up in one of his overdone ornate tunics – all gemstones and woven gold. They all looked as if they had been to a party.
‘See who it is!’ cried Nevitta, and there was an unpleasant edge to his voice beneath the superficial humour.
I had only just left the track. I had been running in armour, pushing myself hard. I was out of breath, and sweating.
‘Greetings, Nevitta,’ I said without expression.
Usually he had little to say to me, and I could think of no good reason why he should single me out now. Besides, I had not liked his tone. I walked on, stepping with my bare feet onto the grass beside the path to avoid his clutch of friends. But as I passed he moved deliberately into my way.
Speaking loud, as much to his entourage as to me, he declared mockingly, ‘But I thought you were a fighter. That, anyway, is what Rufus here told me, didn’t you Rufus? Yet you volunteer for the armoured foot-race.’
I paused, and wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, and looked at him. Whatever I did, it was no concern of his, who was not competing at all.
‘What you heard was true,’ I replied. ‘I learned to wrestle when I was young. But I find I do not care for it.’
He pulled an amused, doubting face.
‘Men wrestle,’ he said with a snide leer, ‘… proper men, anyway. Some might say you were afraid.’
This was going too far, even for Nevitta and what passed for his wit. Ever since I was a boy, certain things have fired my anger, and this was one of them. Before I could stay my tongue, I shot back, ‘A fool might say that, Nevitta. My friends, however, know me better.’
His weasel face flinched. One of his hangers-on, a brash youth who had not seen the look in his eyes, snorted with amusement. Nevitta swung round, and the laughter ceased, as swiftly as if the youth’s throat had been cut. Even I could have told him that Nevitta, for all his quickness at mocking others, was not a man who could bear to be laughed at himself.
I felt a sudden chill, as if a shadow had touched my soul. Nevitta was not a man to be crossed lightly. The thought quenched my anger. Before he could speak again I said, ‘But I am detaining you and your friends, and I could do with a bath; so excuse me.’ And with that I stepped firmly on, parting his little band of supporters, who drew back hurriedly to keep my sweat from their expensive clothes.
Marcellus frowned when I told him.
‘He had it coming,’ I protested. ‘If he doesn’t like it, he should watch his mouth – and his drinking too. Besides, I don’t see what I have done to give him cause. These games are no more than some fun for the men and the populace, and what is it to him which race I run?’
‘I don’t think this is about you,’ he said.
And then he told me what up till then he had held back: that Nevitta was put out because he himself had not been asked to lead the torch-parade.
My first reaction was to laugh in disbelief. ‘So that’s what all this is about,’ I cried.
‘That and too much wine, I expect.’
‘But the man has just been made Master of Cavalry. He is one of the most powerful generals in the West, and no one else has been promoted so fast. What has he to complain about?’
Marcellus shrugged. ‘He likes complaining. He looks for slights.’
We were walking along one of the great curved aisles of the empty theatre behind the forum. I had arranged to meet him there, after my training. He sat down on the stone bench, looking serious. I sat down beside him.
‘You should have told me,’ I said. ‘I was wondering why you had been quiet these last days.’
‘Have I? Well, it’s nothing; just foolishness. Really it’s not worth dwelling on.’
He paused, gazing out across the blood-red pantile roofs of Vienne, to where a boat was gliding down the still water of the Rhone, under oars, making for the docks. The sun of the long summer had turned the fine hairs on his legs and forearms the colour of burnished gold. He sat at ease, trusting and close, unconscious as always of his own beauty.
‘Did you say Rufus was there too?’ he asked presently. ‘Yes; he’s always around Nevitta lately. If you ask me, he was drunk. They all were.’
He shrugged.
‘Why do you ask?’ I said.
‘Oh, nothing. He was meant to be practising with the rest of us for the torch-parade, that’s all. I suppose he found something better to do.’
I ran my armoured foot-race. I came second, a spear-length behind the leader. As for the boxing, I did not stay to watch. I heard later that the winner was a thickset infantryman from the Batavian legion.
For the rest of those bright autumn days of the games, Marcellus and I relaxed and enjoyed ourselves, which ha
d been Julian’s intention. There were acrobats and jugglers to watch, a concert at the theatre, glass-ball games and cock-fights, a troop of dancing dogs with bells around their collars; singers and pipe-players; and among them all, stalls selling food and wine and Gallic beer, and all the gewgaws and trinkets one finds at any festival.
On the final day, at the hippodrome in the valley between the wooded hills and the river, came the chariot race, where Julian was to make his formal appearance before the crowd.
He stood waiting in the anteroom while the slave tiptoed around him, fussing and preening. It was a perfect day, calm and cloudless; beams of sun shone down the stairwell from the terraces, casting brilliant fingers of light over the rose-coloured marble. Beyond, I could hear the buzz of the crowd, tense before the start of the first race, their voices rising and falling as the different factions called out their team’s colours.
Nevitta was in the anteroom, talking army business, on and on in his dull toneless voice, all matters that could have waited, none of it urgent. But Nevitta liked to promote himself, and was always telling Julian what he was doing. I could see from Julian’s polite, preoccupied, slightly vacant expression that he was not attending; his mind was on the terraces where the crowd was waiting.
The slave sucked the air through his teeth and tutted, and began once more to dab and tug at Julian’s collar. ‘Haven’t you finished yet?’
‘But Augustus, it must be perfect. Think of all those eyes on you.’
Julian frowned to himself. The staring eyes of the people was the last thing he wished to be reminded of.
A side-door opened and Oribasius entered. ‘Well?’ said Julian, turning. He was robed in all the formal symbols of imperium: a white tunic with an embroidered collar; a purple cloak clasped with gold; and on his head a diadem of worked silver inlaid with rubies, newly acquired from the engravers’ workshops of Vienne.