by Jack Whyte
"Hmmm," I said. "Sounds like you want a short spear."
"I don't know what I want. But you may be right. A short spear with a two-edged blade. Something that will cut as well as thrust. Something that will let our horsemen fight from horseback without having to dismount. That's what we need, and that's your department. See to it, please, and let me know as soon as you have solved the problem." The bridge from infantry to cavalry had already been built in the mind of Caius Britannicus.
"Let me think about it," I told him. "I'll talk to Equus, too. Perhaps between us we can come up with something."
"Good." He was standing close, leaning over me, his hands clasped in front of his chest, making little explosive noises as he brought the hollows of his palms together unconsciously again and again. "Excellent, excellent. Now let's go and find some more food. That pear was excellent, but I want meat. Thinking makes me hungry. In the meantime, I want you to think about that spear."
I laughed and stood up, stretching. "I will. I don't know what I might be able to come up with, but I'll think about it. You just reminded me of something else, though."
"What's that?"
"I'm due to meet that merchant again, Statius, the one who's collecting iron for me in the north-east. I arranged to meet him again in Noviomagus next month. I'd forgotten. You reminded me of it when you made me think of the Glevum trips we used to make."
"Is that important?"
"Very important." I grinned at the memory of the merchant's expression when he had seen my bag of gold auri. "You should have seen his face when I pulled out the money to pay him! Now that he knows how mad I am to exchange gold for iron, he'll probably have ten wagons loaded to overflowing. I hope he has, I'll gladly take them off his hands."
Cay frowned. "That much? Do we need that much?" His tone made me smile again, but I wiped the smile off my face as I answered him.
"As much as I can get, Cay, and then ten times as much again. You were the one who made me worry in the first place about what's going to happen in the future. Now I am convinced that your prophecies were short of the mark. If things keep deteriorating the way they have been, iron is going to be worth a hundred times its real weight in gold, and there's going to be little time or opportunity to mine it, smelt it and carry it here from wherever we might find it. A storeroom full of gold ingots will give you no more than indigestion when you have to grow and make your own food because there's no one left to buy from, Cay. But with a storeroom full of iron ingots, I can make all the tools we'll need to grow and harvest our own food and fight off anyone who tries to steal it from us."
He was nodding in agreement as I spoke. "You are correct, as usual, Publius. I can be very dense at times."
"No, not dense, brother. You were simply not brought up to see that iron might someday be worth more than gold, that's all."
"God! Was anyone?"
"Of course, I was."
"Oh. Silly of me, I should have known. So when will you leave?"
"In about three weeks."
"Just in time to take Lignus with you."
I shook my head in disgust. "By the Christus, I hope not! But you are probably right, and if I have to, then I will. But he had better behave himself until he gets out of my sight."
"He will, my friend, he will." Caius yawned and stretched. "Aye! I think I shall forgo that food after all. I am ready to sleep. I had no more than three hours last night and I'm too old for that. Good night to you, and don't forget to think about my two-edged spear."
VIII
Well, I thought about that spear. I thought of little else for a long time. I worked on it and worried over it day and night for months after that evening, not knowing it was to be another ten years before the discovery was made that would revolutionize our way of waging war, and even longer before we would recognize what we really had.
Victorex, the bailiff from Terra's estate, took to Caius's ideas before he had even finished outlining them, for horses were this man's life. He even looked like one. He was tall and bald except for a thick corona of stiff, straight, dun-coloured hair that encircled his head above his ears like a cropped mane. He had long, pointed ears, large, pale eyes that were slightly too close together and a face that seemed to fill up his whole head. His nose was long and flat and his big, oblong teeth seemed squeezed together at the front of his mouth. And he had no chin. A strange-looking character, altogether. The first time Equus saw him he said, "My God! And they call me Equus!"
Victorex was the perfect man to put in charge of Caius's new project, and he could not wait to get started. The first thing he did, after he had moved his belongings from Terra's villa to ours, was to examine every head of stock we had. Within a week he had divided them all up by sex, weight and colour and begun to devise complicated plans and charts for his "bloodlines," as he called them, and for his breeding stables. All told, including the horses from the other villas in the Colony, we had twenty-seven stallions, about fifty mares and a number of geldings, mules and horses too old to be useful. Victorex selected the three finest stallions and the ten biggest, strongest mares as breeding stock, to be kept at the villa. The rest he allocated to the various farms that made up the Colony. Caius had informed all of our people of his plans, and if there were any ill feelings over this relocation of stock, they went unvoiced. The word went out, too, that every expedition that left the Colony had to keep constant look-out for new stock. No plugs or swaybacks were wanted, but all horses judged to be suitable for breeding purposes were to be bought at a fair price and brought back to the Colony.
The first opportunity came on my next excursion to Noviomagus to meet with Statius, but we found no horses on that journey other than the nine pairs we bought from him, complete with wagons loaded with iron ingots. Caius had been correct, in his usual manner, about our timing on that trip. The twenty-one days of grace accorded to Lignus the carpenter expired as we were preparing to leave the Colony, and he was granted another two days in custody so that we could escort him safely off the Colony's lands. His son Simeon was recovering slowly, and there was now every reason to expect that the boy would grow healthy again, although his leg was broken and twisted beyond even Cletus's ability to repair. Lignus's burns, on the other hand, had been largely superficial and were healing quickly, except for the oil burn on his left ear, and hair had already begun to grow on the rest of his head, leaving him with a mangy, scabby look that I thought well suited to him. He still stank like a goat, too, and I ordered him forcibly washed before I would allow him to approach my train.
We were taking only two wagons with us on the outward journey, to carry the salt and provisions we intended to pick up along our route, and Lignus sat chained in the bottom of one of them as we marched away. No one came to see him off or to wish him well. We took him far beyond the boundaries of the Colony and left him, free of his chains at last, just outside the small town of Sorviodunum, where four main roads intersect.
From there onward, relieved of his company, our journey to and from Noviomagus was direct and uncomplicated, and we avoided being seen from any of the towns we passed by. We concluded our business with Statius quickly and to his immense satisfaction, and contracted to meet with him again just prior to the start of the new year. With the proof of our madness and riches, this second exorbitant payment of gold safe in his hands, Statius would have been happy to bring his next shipment of iron all the way to our Colony, but I balked at the thought of him knowing where to find us and our gold. I told him that I had to come back to Noviomagus then anyway on other business.
Five days after leaving Statius in Noviomagus, we were back on our own lands, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that my old friend Bishop Alaric had been installed as a house guest during my absence. He was the first person I saw among the small group waiting to welcome me home, standing straight, tall and white-haired beside Caius. He had brought joyous tidings with him on this visit, but no mention was made of them to me at that time. Luceiia had missed my arrival,
being away from the villa on some business connected with her emerging Council of Women, but Caius assured me that she would be home presently, and I went about the business of overseeing the unloading of my wagons and the disposal of the goods they held before making my way to the bath house to wash the stains of the road from my pores.
When I entered the house again, I found Caius seated by the window in his study, poring over one of a pile of tightly rolled parchments, all sealed with wax, that lay on the table in front of him. Curious, I asked him what he was reading and he reacted with the euphoria of a man who has just found buried treasure. The parchments were all letters from his son Picus, written over a period of years and dispatched by a variety of military couriers from all parts of the Empire, in care of Plautus at the garrison in Colchester. Plautus had been transferred to Londinium since Picus left Britain, and the postmasters at Colchester had taken very little interest in forwarding letters to him. Eventually, however, a large number of letters had been delivered to Plautus in bulk, and he had duly forwarded them to Alaric, knowing they would come, in time, to Cay. Having waited years to receive them without even knowing of their existence, Cay had now determined, he told me, to wait a little longer before permitting himself the pleasure of reading them, teasing himself with the self-discipline of not yielding to his impulse to rip them open and wallow in them. Now, however, he yielded slightly, permitting himself to read one. I grinned and left him to his pleasure, knowing he would give them to me to read later.
After dinner that evening, when Luceiia and the two women who would be staying at the villa that night had retired to Luceiia's new cubiculum to discuss their Council business, Caius, Alaric and I sat alone in Cay's study, and I caught up on everything that had happened while I was away. Cay was not ready yet to discuss Picus's letters. The pleasure of them was still too new, too solitary, too precious to share, and Alaric and I understood how he felt. Neither of us pressed him, and our talk was desultory as a result.
"Philip Ascanus was here, right in the Colony," Caius said, suddenly, during a lull in the conversation. "Arrived the day after you left."
"Who?" I had heard him perfectly well, but the impact of his words was so outlandish that I had to ask him to repeat the name.
"Philip Ascanus. You remember him?"
"Remember him? Of course I remember him. How could I forget? What was he doing here?"
"He came to claim his patrimony." Caius's voice was dry as a desert wind and I was floundering for a foothold among my swirling thoughts.
"Patrimony? What patrimony? Have you spoken with him? I am amazed that he would even dare come near you, after the way you dealt with him when you last saw him. How long ago was that? My God, Cay, that's twenty years ago — more, closer to thirty."
Caius grunted. "You are growing old, my friend, and like an old man, you are starting to exaggerate.
Unfortunately, what you say is not far off the mark, but it's not quite twenty years." He paused and cleared his throat, managing to inject disgust and distaste into the sound. "The man has improved none in the interim, however — nor would he, I fear, given another ten years. He is still a charlatan and a blusterer, though more daring and more insolent than he would have presumed to be with me twenty years ago. But then, I never found him guilty of a lack of daring."
Alaric was looking from one to the other of us, curiosity stamped on his face, and I explained to him, "Philip Ascanus served with us for a short time before the Invasion, back in '67. He was a bad officer, the worst kind. A brutal bully and a homosexual torturer. Starved his men and spent the money for their rations. Caius straightened him out the only way possible — had him court-martialled, stripped of his rank and expelled from the Legion."
"I should have had him hanged," Caius drawled, his voice bitter.
"I don't understand," I said, turning back to face him. "What in the name of all the ancient gods was he doing here? What's his business?"
His eyebrow went up in surprise that I should ask the question. "What does he want? Why, his own good, of course. Apparently, he thought to be our neighbour."
I was astounded. "Are you serious? How?"
This brought a wordless grunt from Caius, who sniffed and replied, "Apparently, one of the villas to the north of here was acquired by an uncle of his, who promptly died, leaving the place to his favourite nephew."
"Good God! And now Philip Ascanus is here?"
"Was here. He didn't stay."
"Which villa? Is it one of the ones close to us?"
"Close enough," Cay said. "I thought of disputing his claim in the courts, when he told me why he was here. But then I reasoned that I was merely being petty. The uncle never took possession, formally, but he paid the purchase, nonetheless, so the villa and its lands go to his only heir."
"Philip Ascanus!"
"Philip Ascanus. Apparently he lives close to Glevum. Received the news of his uncle's death from your friend the tribune there."
"Scala?" I had met Tribune Marius Scala during one of my trips to Glevum some years earlier. He was a pleasant fellow and our friendship, though brief, had been a delightful one.
"That's the one."
"Good God." Another thought occurred to me. "How did you find out all this? Are you telling me he actually came here, knowing this was your house?"
A chilly little smile flickered across Cay's mouth and his aristocratic drawl became more pronounced. "No, not quite. He seemed quite genuinely surprised to see me here. Quite severely disconcerted, as a matter of fact. Bereft of words. Looked as though I had caught him in the act of buggery again. It would have been quite laughable except for the fact that nothing the fellow did could ever amuse me. I was the last person on earth he could ever have dreamed of seeing here, and he was most upset to find himself a supplicant on my doorstep. He thought he had come to deal with you, you see. Your friend Scala left him with the impression that this was your estate."
"With me? My estate? Why would Scala do that?" I stopped and thought about it. Scala could easily have taken the wrong impression from me; after all, I had spent less than a week in his company and there had been a lot of things going on, including some sustained drinking. I shrugged the thought off and continued. "Even so, I'm surprised Ascanus would have the gall to face me, knowing that I know what I know about him. What did he want to see me about?"
Caius shook his head, his little smile spreading wider. "I've no idea. He was probably looking for information about the area and the district. Yours was the only name he knew, and he had that from your friend Scala. But there's no question of him having the gall to face you. It would never have occurred to him that he might know you, and he would probably not have recognized you had he met you face to face. Bear in mind what you just now said, Ascanus was a bad officer, the worst kind. Such men do not recognize, or even think of, the soldiers under them as living, human beings of import. He was told to look for the villa-owner Publius Varrus. If he remembered anyone of that name at all from his past and long-forgotten army days, it would only be a lowly centurion. Centurions do not own villa estates, Publius. You forget that his time with our unit was before you won promotion in the field and before you came into your own wealth from your grandfather. Philip Ascanus would never have made the association between a common soldier of twenty years ago — a mere subaltern risen from the ranks — and a man of wealth and power today.
"Anyway," he continued, grinning, "he knows who you are now. I told him all about you and warned him that you would not be pleased to see his face again. He knows that he is not welcome on these lands and he will not return uninvited. Believe me."
I attempted to erase the frown from my forehead. "You don't mean you're prepared to accept him as a colonist, do you?"
Caius smiled again. "No, not at all. I think the possibility of that is very slight. In fact, I no longer think it is a possibility. I believe his vision of a life in the country began to dwindle the moment he found himself face to face with me, and died altog
ether when he learned you were here with me. The thought of propinquity to two people who know the truth about him — and who would have no compunction in condemning him — would be unbearable to the man."
"So you don't think he'll be moving to the Colony?" I was grinning now, too.
"I do not. But I do think my agents should be able to buy his villa for a reasonable price, now that he no longer has dreams for it."
I shook my head. "He'll never sell to you, Cay."
"He'll never know I'm involved. He will take the cash and forget about the place."
"Hmmm!" I mulled that one over, trying unsuccessfully to focus my mind on my twenty-year-old memories of Philip Ascanus, but I could only recall a faintly paunchy, dissolute body and a weak, pasty face with an incipient double chin and a pouty mouth. No eyes and nothing definite to fasten on, not even hair colour. I realized that Cay was correct. Ascanus would sell, and we would acquire more land.
"What's the place like, his villa?"
"Excellent. Not as large as some, but very well staffed and well run. I went and looked as soon as I found out Philip had returned to Glevum." Caius stood up. "No, stay where you are, I'm only stretching my legs," he said to Alaric, who had moved to stand up with him. Alaric subsided and Caius crossed to the big hearth, where he threw a new log on the fire before turning to look back at me.
I was frowning again. "And that was all? He gave no reason for coming here to our villa?"
"Only that he came looking for Publius Varrus, and that Scala had given him your name."
Caius left the fire and came back to sit again at the table, resting his hand on Alaric's shoulder as he passed. He moistened the tip of one finger and dipped it gently into the small pot of salt that still sat in the centre of the table, then transferred the finger to his mouth, licking the salt off absent-mindedly. He glanced over to where Alaric sat watching and listening.