The Shadow of Ararat

by Thomas Harlan

  "What are you going to do?"

  The Briton snorted, putting his cup down. "Leave. Go back to Britain and dig in the fields, I suppose. Fight with my father and my half brothers. The city has a cold feeling to it now, more so that I've told you. No good will come of this, I fear. Thank you for the wine." The gangly foreigner stood up, bending his head to avoid the low timbers of the ceiling.

  "Thank you for telling me this," Maxian said, standing up straight. He dug in his purse and brought out two solidi, which he pressed into the Briton's hand. Mordius raised an eyebrow at the weight of the coins, then bowed. "My lord." Then he was gone, out into the sunshine in the street. Maxian stood by the table for a long time, looking down at the little lead slug. Finally, he picked it up and put it in his purse before going out himself.

  —|—

  As Maxian entered the great suite of rooms that formed the office of the Emperor of the West, an unaccustomed sound echoed over his head. The courtiers and supplicants who crowded the chambers arranged in front of the octagonal chamber that housed the secretary were nervous, shuffling their feet and talking in low tones. Passing by the pair of Praetorians at the doors of the octagonal room, he was startled to realize that one of the voices, raised in anger, was that of his brother, the Emperor. In the octagon, the Secretary was absent and all of the scribes were warily watching the half-open set of double doors that led into the inner chambers.

  Maxian stopped and made a half turn. The nearest of the Praetorians turned his head a fraction, his eyes questioning. Maxian nodded at the doors to the waiting rooms. The two guards immediately closed them with a heavy thud. At this the scribes looked up, then hurried to resume work. Maxian walked among them, idly looking over the papers and scrolls that littered their desks. After a moment he found the senior man. Dredging at his memory, he recovered the man's name.

  "Prixus, everyone here can take a break to the triniculum and get a late meal. Go on."

  Prixus bobbed his head and began putting away his pens, ink stone and other assorted items. The other scribes, seeing him, began to do likewise. Maxian continued to the double doors, quietly closing them behind him after he had entered. Within, a cluster of men blocked his view of the apartment that Galen used as his office, but another voice, strong and clear, had joined the argument.

  "Caesar, I disagree. This policy of recruitment is open to abuse at all levels. Here before you stand loyal men who can raise as many legionnaires as this levy at half the cost, and these men are already trained in war."

  Maxian edged around the back of the room. At least twenty men, all senators or knights crowded the chamber, and many were officers in the Legions. This was unexpected—after seven centuries the ban remained, barring the Legions from the precincts of the capital. In the middle of the room stood an elderly figure: Gregorious Auricus, the man known as "the Great." Garbed in a clean white toga of fine wool, the magnate looked every inch the Senator that he was by right of birth. A mane of fine white hair was combed behind his head, and his craggy face was calm and composed. Across the green Tarpetian marble desk from him, Galen stood as well, his face clouded with anger. The Emperor had chosen to wear the light garb of a Legion commander, a deep-maroon tunic with gold edging, laced-up boots, and a worn leather belt. The gladius that usually hung from that belt was on the desk, pushed to one side by a great collection of scrolls, counting tokens, and pens.

  "What you propose, Gregorius, is against the laws of the Empire, the Senate, and the people." Galen's words were clipped and short—a sure sign of anger. "The relation of the Empire to feodoratii is well defined, and they are used only as auxillia, not as Legion-strength units. It has never been the practice of the Empire, nor will it be mine, to bring foreign armies, whole, into the service of the state. Further, you have stated, here and on the floor of the Senate, your opposition to the levy. I respect your position, but it is the will of the Empire to proceed in this manner."

  Gregorious shook his head, turning to declaim to the nobles and officers who looked on from the edges of the room. "My friends, colleagues. This levy is a dangerous act. Its offer of manumission to any able-bodied slave or foreigner in the Empire in exchange for a mere ten years of service is a blow to the very foundations of the state. There are other ways to provide for the defense of the Empire in this dangerous time. I urge you to support me in pursuing these other means."

  Galen stepped around the desk, and Gregorious stepped back, halting his incipient oration. The Emperor slowly surveyed the faces of all those assembled in the room. If he spied Maxian at the back of the room, he made no sign of it. At last, he turned back to the magnate, who had been a firm supporter of his rule since that blustery day in Saguntum nine years before. The two men locked gazes, and the tension in the room built a little higher.

  Maxian continued to work his way around the periphery, for he had finally made out his brother Aurelian standing in a doorway on the far side. Galen began speaking again; "We are here, Senators and officers, to discuss an expedition that has already been set in motion, to plan, to prepare for victory. The Senate has already voted to allocate funds for the relief of the Eastern Empire. This expedition is crucial, not only to the beleaguered East, but to ourselves as well."

  A mutter went up in the back of the room, though Maxian only caught a fragment: "...the East rot!"

  Galen heard the whole statement, and his face darkened further.

  "We speak of a Roman East, fool. Half the extent of our great Empire, the half that holds nearly two-thirds of the citizens of our realm. It is easy for us in the West to forget the long watch the East has kept, holding back the Persians and their allies, providing grain to the great cities of Italia. While we struggled in the West to drive back the Franks and the Germans, the East stood by us. Gold, men, and arms came to us. Now they are at the precipice. Persia seeks not just tribute but conquest, to drive their frontier to the Mare Internum, to seize Egypt itself."

  Another murmur rose, this one at the edge of laughter. Galen slapped his hand on the green tabletop, the sound echoing like a slingshot.

  "Do you venerate the memories of your fathers? Do you sacrifice to the gods of your household?" He turned, his gaze baleful and filled with venom. "You dismiss the Persians as 'trouser-wearing sybarites,' unfit to take the field of honor against a Roman army. You do not think they threaten us. You are twice the fools to count a man a coward and a weakling because he wears pants of silk. The Persian has smashed four Roman armies in the past three years. He stands at the brink of success, all brought by his strength of arms.

  "But I think he has heard your insults. Yes, even in the East, the nonsensical maundering of the Senate is dissected and considered. Our enemy has found new friends to help him against us. The King of Persia accounts necromancers, sorcerers, dead-talkers, and alchemists among the tools that he raises against us."

  The room suddenly grew very quiet. Maxian paused. He had never heard this before.

  "Yes," Galen said, a grim smile on his face. "This time, when the Persian comes, he will come with dark powers at his command. Ever before the Persian Kings acted with honor, eschewing the malignant tools of the magi. Now he cares only for one thing—victory and the defeat of Rome. The tombs of your fathers will be despoiled and broken open. You will fight against your dead brothers, and their cold hands will clutch at your throat..."

  Maxian tuned out the polemic of his brother, finally shouldering his way past two pasty-faced regional governors to reach Aurelian's side. His brother clapped him fondly on the shoulder and nodded toward the closed door that stood behind him. Maxian nodded in agreement and the two slipped through into the private chamber. The door, a heavy oak panel carved with a two-part scene of the victory of Septimus Severus over the Arabs, closed with a muffled thud. Blessedly, it cut off the angry rhetoric from the council room.

  "Ah!" Aurelian sighed in delight, collapsing into a pile of cushions and pillows on the couch against the opposite wall of the little room. "Is there any
wine left in that basket?" he asked. Maxian poked through the wicker basket set on the little marble ledge inside the door. Afternoon light slanted through the triangular panes of the high window set into the wall to the right.

  "No, only some bread, cheese, and a sausage." While he talked, Maxian's nimble fingers had found a knife and were cutting a circular hole in the end of the loaf. Cheese followed, and chunks of sausage, to fill up the cavity he gouged out. When he was done, he cut the loaf in half and tossed the lesser piece to his brother on the couch.

  "Piglet!" Aurelian laughed. "You've taken the larger."

  Maxian nodded, though his mouth was too busy biting the end off of the loaf to speak. He felt exhausted and hungry, though he had eaten several hours before, when he had left his apartment in the palace on the southern side of the hill. Despite this, Aurelian was licking crumbs off his fingers before Maxian was even half done. Finished at last and thirsty, Maxian stood up and walked to a bronze flute that stood up from the floor near the door. He uncapped the end and shouted down it, "Wine!" When the flute-pipe made an unintelligible muttering back at him, he recapped it. Then he took up the other couch, opposite Aurelian.

  "So," Aurelian said, with a knowing look on his face, "I hear from reliable sources that you spent the night, not so long ago, with a certain raven-haired Duchess. Was she as magnificent as all reports indicate?"

  Maxian stared at his brother for a moment, digesting this statement, then he laughed.

  "After the party at de'Orelio's? She was quite entertaining that night, true, but I did not sample her myself. The wine was of exceptional quality and I arrived tired, so a slave helped me to bed and to sleep. The Duchess and I have gone over that ground before—though I mean no disrespect to the Lady, she is really too old for my taste."

  "You slept?" Aurelian asked in disgust. "The reports in the Forum are far more entertaining than you, piglet. By the account of reliable, sober and upstanding Senators, you were engaged in an orgiastic celebration with no less than the Duchess, her ward, and a tangle of every other lad, lass, and goat in the villa. Why, old Stefronius assured me that the decadence of the notorious Elagabalgus was as nothing compared to your soldiering among the youth of the city..."

  Aurelian was laughing so hard that he could not even dodge the heavy pillow that Maxian threw at him. Maxian sighed and leaned back on the couch.

  "What is Galen arguing with Gregorius about?" he asked, hoping to divert the gossip-hungry Aurelian from the subject at hand.

  "Oh, the levy, the supplies for the expedition to Constantinople, the weather, everything. They've been at it for three hours now. Neither is willing to budge a finger's worth—and worse, each is absolutely sure that he is in the right."

  "Why not just issue the edicts and be done with it? The Emperor has proposed, the Senate has voted..."

  Aurelian threw the pillow back, though Maxian neatly caught it with one hand and tucked it behind his head. His brother fluffed his beard with one hand, thinking a moment. Then:

  "Galen, despite the good state of the fisc, does not want to bear the cost of the expedition solely from the coffers of the state. He summoned all those 'well-respected' men out there to extort from them the coin, the bread, the arms, the armor, and most important, the ships to carry his sixty thousand veterans to the East. Gregorious knows that, and knows that as he is the richest man in Rome, if he refuses to pay then Galen is in a tight spot. He wants an arrangement, but it is not one that Galen will give."

  Maxian looked perplexed, saying "Gregorious has always supported us, he was a friend of father's, for Apollo's sake. What would he want that Galen cannot give?"

  "Not 'cannot,' piglet, but 'will not.' Gregorious wants to arrange grants of citizenship for some of his clients—the ones who have made him so rich. He also wants to 'help' out with the expedition by mustering his own Legions, six of them to be exact, from those same clients. He is even, in his graciousness, willing to arm, equip, and train the lot of them."

  Now Maxian was even more amazed than he had been earlier in the afternoon.

  "Gregorious has enough money to field almost fifty thousand legionnaires?" He sputtered. "Where in Hades did he find that many able men in the Empire? Galen has had to hatch this dubious levy to get that many in arms!"

  Aurelian nodded slowly then said, "Gregorious is not considering just men in the Empire."

  Maxian's head snapped up, a look of suspicion on his face. "And where does he intend to get these men?"

  Aurelian nodded to the north, past the pale-green reeds and marsh-doves painted on the walls. "From the tribes still beyond the border, those that have not settled in their own principates, towns, cities, and duchies. To join their fellows who live among us now."

  "The Goths!" Maxian found himself on his feet, shouting. Aurelian remained recumbent on the sofa, nodding. "And the Lombards, and Franks, and a bevy of other footless bands, all looking for a slice off of the big wheel of cheese. Gregorious argues, and here it is hard to fault him, that the Goths are staunch friends and allies of the state. They have fought at our side for almost a hundred years, but by the same treaties that bind them to us, and we to them, they are not Roman citizens. They hold lands in the name of the Emperor, but they are a subject state. Many of the Gothic Princes are welcomed at Gregorious' house and they repay him, and his patronage in the city, with an easy way beyond the frontier. Gregorious Magnus did not become as rich as he is by ignoring opportunities, but I think, as does Galen, that he is beginning to run out of favors to pay them off with. Now they want to become citizens, and this is one way for them to get that."

  "They could serve, individually, in the Legions and gain the same status," out Maxian pointed.

  "Many do, but more want to serve together, which has been against the law for over eight hundred years. And if fifty thousand of them showed up at once, we wouldn't be recruiting them, we'd be fighting them and Gregorious would be Emperor instead of our beloved brother. Gregorious thinks that together they are invincible in battle."

  Maxian sniffed at that, but Aurelian held up an admonishing finger. "Check the rolls of the Legion sometime, piglet. Almost half of our current soldiers are German or Gothic. They are fierce fighters and they can be very loyal."

  "The Legions have always been loyal to the state," Maxian shot back.

  "True. But Galen does not want to test that proverb. That is another reason why he wants to install the levy—to gain more legionnaires who are not German."

  Maxian's retort was lost in the oak door opening and a slave entering with the wine. A pretty brunette in a short tunic, she placed the amphora on the marble ledge and took the wicker basket away. After she was gone, Maxian realized that his brother was laughing again.

  "You need a wife, or better, a bevy of concubines, piglet. I'd swear that you didn't hear a single word I said while she was in this room."

  Maxian blushed and snarled something unintelligible at his brother. He got up and poured two goblets of wine, this a dusky red Neapolitan by the smell. He swirled the grape in the goblet and tasted it—excellent! He passed the other glass to Aurelian, who drank it straight off. Maxian sighed at the indifference of his brother to the subtlety of the vintage. The door opened again, and this time Galen entered, slamming the heavy panel behind him. The two younger brothers watched in silence as the Emperor paced icily from one end of the little room to the other. Finally, after almost ten minutes, he looked up and seemed surprised to find the two of them in the chamber with him.

  "Oh. I wondered where the two of you had gotten to. My apologies. Is there any wine?"

  Maxian poured another glass and handed it over to his brother. Galen's high temper was visibly ebbing as he finally sat down and drank the wine in two short swallows. Maxian and Aurelian both continued to sit, their faces impassive as the Emperor sorted through his thoughts in the quiet.

  Galen put the glass back on the ledge, turning to Aurelian. "Aurelian, as we had discussed before, the Senate is voting you t
o hold the office of Consul while I am gone. Nerva Licius Commodus, who is holding the other consular office, will be going with me, so we shall fill the other with Maxian here. I trust both of you, though not necessarily anyone else in the city, so be careful. The Senators are a little restless over this campaign in the East and will doubtless bend the ears of both of you while I am gone."

  Aurelian nodded in agreement, though his open face showed how pleased he was at the prospect.

  Galen smiled, a little tight smile, and ran a hand through his short hair. "Maxian, you are the linchpin of this whole effort in the East. I had considered taking you with me—a campaign would be beneficial to your education—but someone has to maintain the telecast here so that I can be informed of any developments in the West. The device will be brought up from the Summer House within the next week, in secret, and installed in the library. Aurelian will handle the day-to-day business, but you need to keep an eye on the men who were in that room with me."

  Maxian rubbed his face, feeling the beard stubble. He did not like his brother's emphasis on the word education, for it implied that his long period of freedom was at an end. For the last six years, since they had come to the city in triumph, his brothers had carefully excluded him from the business of the state. This had been the wish of both their mother and their father, who saw for him a different path, that of the healer-priest. With Galen in the East, such liberty was at an end. Oddly, he did not feel outraged or angry at the presumption of his brother, but rather more comfortable, like a familiar cloak had been draped, at last, around his shoulders.

  "Brother, if I do not mistake you, you want me to take over the network of informers and spies maintained by the Offices? Is this not the domain of the Duchess de'Orelio?"

  Galen looked at his younger brother for a moment, his face pensive. "De'Orelio has always supported us, little brother, as has Gregorious and the other nobles. But in times such as these, when great events are in motion, the solid earth may be sand, the old friend an enemy. Given these things, I desire that you should begin assembling a separate set of informers and spies loyal to us."