The Singing Sword cc-2

by Jack Whyte

  He gulped more wine. "Thank the gods you did, too, otherwise he'd have killed me. I hadn't suspected a thing."

  "I know. I didn't realize until I was in the thick of it that I was a target, too. So it had to be Seneca. He found out you were going to be here today, and that I was joining you. It was a perfect situation, away from the praesidium, and it would have been a perfect revenge — on me, on your father, on you, and on Stilicho. Where's Seneca now?"

  "Gone. He left last night, with Stilicho, and won't be back. Stilicho has demoted him, in effect. He'll retain his rank... still be a legate entitled to command a legion... but he's been assigned to frontier duty in a subservient capacity, up behind the Wall. That should keep him out of mischief. He'll have no more time to be plotting revenge on you or anyone else. He'll ride with Stilicho as far as Pontes, and then Seneca will head north, to the Wall, with the new unit that just arrived from Gaul..." He stopped, thinking deeply. "No, by God, he won't. I'll have the whoreson recalled."

  I held up my hand to give him pause. "Don't bother, Picus. Leave well enough alone. We're alive, he's gone, and with any blessing from Fortune some northern Pict will soon have his head on a spear. Should he survive, on the other hand, and be foolish enough to come back, I'll have his head on a spear. But for now, as I said, there's really nothing we can do, except bring charges against him that we can't substantiate. We can't prove a thing. At least he thinks we're dead."

  Picus looked at me and grinned. "It's good to see you again, Uncle Varrus. I had forgotten how cool-headed you always are."

  "Don't deceive yourself, Picus. Given half a chance, I'd disembowel that man with my bare hands."

  He rose to his feet. "Come on, let's get out of here. How do you feel?"

  "I'm fine, but what about your judiciary?"

  "Postponed. I'm free."

  "Then let's go."

  XVI

  A short time later, we were leaving Londinium, and five short miles after that, we clattered onto the packed earth of the parade ground outside the gates of a large equine camp the likes of which I had never seen. A military camp for horsemen! There were horses everywhere, thousands of them. I gazed avidly around me, making no move to dismount, and seeing my awe, Picus began to lead me through the lines to where a massive standard of black and white cloth marked his quarters, a large and spacious tent.

  I nodded towards the great standard. "That's yours, I take it?"

  "It is. What do you think of it?"

  I grunted. "It's big enough."

  "What is that supposed to mean?" he asked, laughing. "Don't you like it?"

  I tried to bluster, to cover up my discomfort with what seemed to me to be a gratuitous overstatement. "Well, now that you ask me, it seems a bit ostentatious."

  "Of course it is, it's blatantly ostentatious. That's the whole idea of it, Uncle. It's big enough to be seen and identified from a long way off. Look at the base of it."

  I saw that the bottom of the shaft ended in a wide, padded fork. Picus was nodding enthusiastically.

  "That padded fork fits over the horse's neck, so the weight doesn't tire the standard-bearer. Stilicho is half Vandal. These new standards were his idea. He adapted them from the kind used by his own people and by the Goths and the Huns." Something else caught his eye and he nodded to direct my attention towards it. "Look at that."

  "That" was formation drill being practised by massed phalanxes of horsemen. We sat our horses and watched them for a while, and then Picus nudged his mount into motion again and this time, when he spoke, neither his voice nor his words bore any relationship to the conversation that had gone before.

  "My father's getting old, Uncle."

  I looked at him sideways. "Is he? You'd better not tell him that!" I heard surprise and defensiveness in my own tone, and I recognized that I had been lying to myself. I, too, had noticed a change in Britannicus but had chosen to ignore what my eyes were telling me. Caius was no longer young. He had lost weight, muscle, resilience and vitality. All on the physical side, of course. Mentally he was keener than ever. I suddenly felt guilty.

  "Well," I admitted reluctantly, "I suppose, now that you bring it up, he is not as young a man as he was when I first met him. Nor even as he was when you left home. But he's not aged, senile or infirm."

  "No, I know." Picus's headshake was abrupt. "I didn't mean it that way. God knows, he's strong enough — probably more so than he was when we returned from Africa, twenty years ago — but he looks old, Uncle. I've been carrying a picture of him in my mind for years now, and it's an image of a much, much younger man." There was silence between us for a few moments, until he continued. "Is he happy, Uncle Varrus? Does he enjoy his life?"

  I thought for a few seconds before answering that, staring at my horse's ears. "What do you want me to say, Picus? Those are two powerful questions. Can any man be happy in this world? What is happiness, anyway? It's different for everyone. A man grows older every day and watches his friends die off. His illusions dry up and blow away in the wind. And every day, it seems, he develops more ... what's the word I'm looking for? Appreciation? It's as good as any... more appreciation of the weakness and stupidities of his fellow men, who are just ordinary people like himself. No recipe for happiness in that, Picus. I can't tell you your father's happy. He's himself. He's busy all day long, his life is good, and he seems satisfied. But happy? I don't know."

  "Has he no female friends? Companions?"

  I shook my head. "No. None. Except for his sister and the wives of some of his old friends. But those aren't companions. At least, not in the sense I think you mean. If you're asking me if he dallies with women, the answer is no. Never. Your father is the most abstemious man I've ever known, in that regard. He knows no women. I doubt if he even thinks of them. He certainly never speaks of them."

  "Then he's lonely?"

  "Lonely?" For some reason, the word surprised me and brought me up short, so that I had to repeat it and think about it carefully before responding to him. "Lonely... I suppose he is. But then, who isn't?" I laughed aloud. "Picus, we live in a lonely world. Some of us go to great lengths to avoid it, but we can't, because inside his head — inside his soul, if you like — every man is alone. Haven't you ever noticed that? That's why we say 'every single man,' I suppose."

  Picus frowned. "Aye, you're right! It's true. I've never really thought about it before, but you're right. Even in battle, every man's alone."

  I cocked my head, emphasizing my agreement with that sentiment. "Particularly in battle, son. Ask me about that. I'm the expert on it. In the middle of the wildest fighting, I'm so alone it's as though I were outside myself, looking down at what's going on. And when it's all over and the danger's gone, my world comes back together very slowly. But not until I've been sick. I have to vomit up that loneliness, that insularity, every single time."

  Now Picus kneed his big horse closer to me and glanced at me, so that I saw his face, wrinkled with concern. "Are you truly a Christian, Uncle Varrus?"

  I blinked at him, caught off-balance by the unexpected question and its modifier. "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "A great deal, Uncle." He smiled at me. "I could start preaching at you that a man is never alone if he has God in his heart. But that's not what I meant. I meant are you really a Christian?"

  I shrugged, feeling slightly embarrassed by the sudden intimacy of the subject. "I suppose I am." My response was almost sullen, almost an inchoate mumble. "Isn't everybody? I was baptized before I had much time to think about it. I grew up a Christian. I swore my legionary's oath on the Christian cross. Why do you ask me that?"

  He was insistent, his tone almost hectoring. "Do you believe in God? That He exists?"

  "Of course I do ... at least, I think I do." Now I was perplexed. "What are you driving at? Don't you believe in God?"

  He screwed up his face into a portrait of doubt that might have been comic, but I found myself again admiring the hugeness of him and the picture he ma
de in his magnificent uniform, and saw nothing strange in such a big and obviously competent man agonizing over the existence of God.

  "Sometimes I think I do," he said. "Sometimes it's easy. And then there are times when I think I don't. If God were what the priests would have us believe, then this world would have to be a better place to live in. But I have seen things, and have done things as a soldier that God should not allow. Not if He's as good and just and merciful as they say He is."

  I sucked on my teeth. "That's what the priests say, Picus. But they say more than their prayers at times, and I've never yet met one of them, even our holy Bishop Alaric, who can prove that he has spoken directly and personally, face to face with God. Mind you," I hurried on, conscious of a sudden feeling of disloyalty to my old friend, "Alaric would never dream of claiming to have any avenue of privileged communication with the Creator. It is too bad that there are few other priests like him." I shifted the grip of my legs and turned further on my horse's back to look more closely at Picus. "How old are you now, Picus? Thirty-six?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, then, in Christ's name, holy or not, you have better things to be worrying about than that. God is an old man's worry, not a soldier's."

  Picus laughed aloud, and then went on to talk fondly of old Alaric, and I found myself realizing that Alaric was, in the truest sense of the word, quite venerable nowadays. And that, naturally, started me thinking about my own years, something I seldom did. But Picus was talking again.

  "He really is holy, isn't he?"

  "Who? Alaric?" I cleared my throat and thought about that for several heartbeats before answering. "Yes, Picus, I believe he is. He is probably the most saintly, down-to-earth, true Christian I have ever met. I think our good friend Alaric is genuinely a man of God, a godly man, unlike so many of his fellow priests who assume that rank. Alaric is the only priest I know who lives his beliefs according to the teachings of the Christ."

  "Is that your belief?" He was looking at me strangely. "About priests, I mean?"

  "Did I state a belief about priests?"

  "No" — he was grinning now " — but your praise of them was faint."

  Both our horses had stopped moving, and now I kicked mine forward again. "Picus," I said, "I have no time for priests. Never have had." His mount followed mine automatically and we rode knee to knee as I went on. "I've discussed this many times with Alaric, and it is his opinions that have influenced my thoughts, although he would probably die of mortification if he ever thought I could have construed his words the way I have." I spat, for my mouth was suddenly filled with bitterness.

  "Priests are men, Picus," I said. "And the majority of men are feeble things, beneath all their bombast. Since the days of the Christ, men have taken His teachings and warped them to their own ways. The Church has usurped the power of God. Its officers — for what is a bishop but an officer of the Church? — have corrupted the teachings of the gentle Saviour and used them to procure power for themselves on earth. Whenever I hear a priest other than Alaric speak, all he does is rant of sin and damnation. There is no joy in priests. And there is no joy in their teachings. They preach subservience and penitence, and it grows worse each time I hear one of them. Haven't you noticed it? Surely you must have?"

  Picus merely shrugged his shoulders, unwilling, it seemed, to interrupt me, and so I continued. "It has become fashionable among churchmen to decry women nowadays, and to do it openly. All women! Women like your Aunt Luceiia! That was not always so, Picus. Not when I was a boy. It may have been the fashion in Rome, even then, I don't know about that, but it was not so here in Britain. And Alaric tells me that it is growing worse. Have you heard of the monastics?" He nodded, still wordless, and I pressed him on the point. "So? What have you heard?"

  But Picus was not to be drawn out. He shook his head in a negative and asked me, "What do you think of them, Uncle?"

  "Damnation, Picus, I don't know what to think! It reeks of unwholesomeness. From what I know of it, there are whole colonies of men locking themselves away from life in places they call monasteries, denying themselves the slightest pleasure in life, praying all day and all night long, castigating themselves, whipping themselves with flails to purge their minds of any carnal thoughts. They believe women are an abomination. Well, to me, that's abomination! I've talked to Alaric about this many times. He's unwilling to come right out and condemn the movement, for he believes every man must find his own route to the life hereafter, and he would like to think that there are mysterious and divine forces at work in all things, but he doesn't like what's happening. He tells me it all began in Egypt, about a hundred years ago, and that the core of the monastic way is a belief in St. Paul's dictum that if a man cannot abjure his sexual nature, it is better for him to marry than to burn with lust."

  "And what is your response to that?"

  "My response is only my own and I'm no scholar."

  "But?"

  "Yes, but! It seems to my unlettered military simplicity that the blessed Paul much preferred men to women."

  "Sexually, you mean?"

  "Can you name me another way?"

  "So are you suggesting that monastics are homosexual?"

  I laughed, angry though I was. "Of course not, Picus! I'm saying I think they all seem perverted in what appears to be a hatred of women! There is no evidence of misogyny in Jesus' life or teaching, is there? The contrary is true, in fact. But priests today are dealing more and more in hate rather than love. They deal in fear. They deal in damnation and punishment and guilt and sin. There is no talk of love, compassion or forgiveness in their doctrine. They have become bureaucrats, with the pinched and narrow minds and souls of bureaucrats. They are modelling their Church in Rome, and their entire hierarchy, on the Imperial Roman Civil Service, in the Christ's name! They live in palaces and expect their flock to furnish them with everything they require! Let's talk no more of priests, I may be sick!"

  Picus cleared his throat and said nothing more for a few moments, and we rode in silence, looking at the ongoing life of the camp. Then, "Have you ever heard of Pelagius, Uncle?" I knew immediately, from the way the question came so directly out of nowhere, that this casual question was important to Picus.

  "No," I said, keeping my voice deliberately expressionless. "Who is he?"

  "He's a lawyer. From Britain. But he has lived in Rome for many years now. He's very highly thought of there."

  "No lawyer is ever highly thought of by anyone with a brain in his head, Picus," I scoffed, "unless it be another lawyer, and then it's envy."

  He refused to be amused. Not a hint of a smile touched his face as he went on. "What do you know about Original Sin?"

  I hauled on my reins and stopped my horse, controlling it with my knees as I danced it around to follow the progress of a work party that was passing us, loaded down with armloads of weapons, including a number of short, two-edged, wicked-looking spears. I watched them until they vanished around a corner at the crossroads of the camp, and then I returned my attention to Picus, resuming the conversation where I had abandoned it.

  "What do I know of Original Sin? Same as everyone else. Nothing. That's too deep for an old soldier, Picus. I was born with it, they told me, and they baptized me to cure me of it, so I don't have it any more. That's enough for any man to know." I kicked my horse into motion and Picus moved with me, talking again.

  "Pelagius says it's wrong. He says the whole notion stinks. He believes that the Church has invented Original Sin and is promoting the notion to keep men mired in guilt, believing themselves sinners since before they were born."

  I nodded. "Sounds like a clever man. What we used to call a barrack-room lawyer. How old is this fellow?"

  "He's young. And he is very clever."

  We were still riding along the main thoroughfare of the camp, and as we spoke my eyes were ranging the length and breadth of the place, taking everything in and missing nothing. "So what does your friend recommend? That we abolish sin?"

>   "No, Uncle Varrus. It's not as simple as that. It all has to do with grace."

  I looked at him sharply, feeling a stabbing fear that this young man was becoming too deeply embroiled in the deep and spiritual matters of the religious side of life. "Grace?" I asked scornfully. "You mean divine grace? By the Christ!" I threw up my hands in frustration. "What is grace, in God's name, for any man to understand? I gave up on grace when I was a boy. I saw it as an endless stream of rice grains being poured into the cylinder of my soul whenever some angel pulled a string! Don't try to talk about grace, boy, or to understand it! It's what the priests call a divine mystery. In other words, it's none of your damn business."

  Picus seemed to have no trouble with the viewpoint I expounded. "I agree with you, Uncle. But please, will you listen to what I have to say?"

  "I'm listening. What do you want to tell me?"

  "Just that..." He stopped, gathering his thoughts, and then started again. "I spent some days with Pelagius last year and talked with him for hours. He's a fascinating man. But he is a man."

  "So? Should I be surprised?"

  "No, but think of what that says. He is a man, and no more than a man. And so are all the bishops and the priests of the Holy Church. And men can make mistakes. And men can do the most unholy things to gain their own ends, if they are convinced that their own way is right and that it is the only way."

  I looked hard at him, recognizing the authority he brought to that statement and agreeing with him. "Aye, you're right there, Picus, God knows." I spat over my horse's ears. "Heaven defend me from such good men."

  "You and all the rest of us."