Everything’s scheduled hours and hours in advance, because whenever some backlog of state business can get handled, there’s so much of it. Enjoy while you’ve got the chance. I’ll go change clothes and be right with you.”
Gratillonius sat worrying till his friend returned, and asked as they went forth: “What’s happened? Maximus didn’t allow this kind of shillyshallying in Britannia.”
“Not entirely his fault,” Drusus replied. “You remember how he always oversaw as much as possible personally. Well, he’s the same now that he wears the purple. And it worked for a while. Name ofChrist, how we sliced through Gratianus’s ranks! But being Emperor is different, I guess. He keeps getting interrupted by new problems.”
“Why does he want a direct account of a border clash?” Gratillonius wondered.
“M-mm, don’t quote me. I could get in trouble.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you, Drusus. D’you imagine I’ve forgotten that day in the rain? All the puddles were red.”
Hand squeezed shoulder. “I remember too. Well, nobody’s told me anything officially, understand, but when a smell comes downwind I can usually tell whether it’s from a rose or a fart. After Gratianus died—and he was murdered, make no doubt of that, murdered when he’d been promised safety at a feast with an oath on the Gospels—” Drusus glanced about. They were anonymous in a throng of people intent on their own lives. “Maximus put the blame on his cavalry commander, but never punished the man…. Anyway. While negotiations were going on afterward, Maximus got the Juthungi to invade Raetia. He had connections to them. Pressure on Theodosius to make a settlement. Valentinianus is only a kid, under the thumb of his mother. But her Frankish general in his turn got the Huns and Alani to harry the Alemanni so close to the Rhenus that Maximus had to move troops to that frontier.
“Which is why I’m still posted yonder, and the Augustus is anxious about whatever the barbarians may be up to, and why. They’ve gotten a taste of playing us Romans off against each other.”
Gratillonius raised a dam against the words that rose in his throat. What was this fellow saying about their Duke, the man who rolled midnight back from the Wall?
Gratillonius told himself that a commander could not always control what his subordinates did, and statecraft unavoidably had its dirty side, and Drusus was a solid sort who might be misled but who should be heard out before any arguments began. “Well, however that is,” he said, “why aren’t things better organized here? It doesn’t sound a bit like Maximus. Can’t he get competent officers any longer?”
“It’s the Priscillianus mess,” Drusus answered. “Before then, we had a pretty smooth mill running. But since that rift spread this far—”
He paused before he sighed and added, “I don’t understand any miserable part of it. This town’s full of jabber about the First Cause, the Sons of God and the Sons of Darkness, Spiritual Man, mystical numbers, and I don’t know what else, except I was there when a man got knifed in a tavern ruckus that started over whether or not the age of prophecy is over. I think Priscillianus has to be wrong when he says men and women should stay apart, never get together. If that is what he says. I don’t know. But why all these fights about it? I wonder if Christ in Heaven isn’t weeping at what they’re doing in His name. Sometimes I almost envy infidels like you.”
They had wandered down toward the river. Through an open portal they saw the bridge across it, and vineyards and villas beyond. A fresh dampness blew off it. Leaves blazed with autumn. Gratillonius remembered Bodilis reading to him a poem Ausonius had written in praise of this stream; the author had sent her a copy.
Like a girl-child playing with her hair before a mirror, fisher lads sport with shadowy shapes underwater.
Suddenly laughter welled up in him and he pitched away
Gratillonius sat worrying till his friend returned, and asked as they went forth: “What’s happened? Maximus didn’t allow this kind of shillyshallying in Britannia.”
“Not entirely his fault,” Drusus replied. “You remember how he always oversaw as much as possible personally. Well, he’s the same now that he wears the purple. And it worked for a while. Name ofChrist, how we sliced through Gratianus’s ranks! But being Emperor is different, I guess. He keeps getting interrupted by new problems.”
“Why does he want a direct account of a border clash?” Gratillonius wondered.
“M-mm, don’t quote me. I could get in trouble.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you, Drusus. D’you imagine I’ve forgotten that day in the rain? All the puddles were red.”
Hand squeezed shoulder. “I remember too. Well, nobody’s told me anything officially, understand, but when a smell comes downwind I can usually tell whether it’s from a rose or a fart. After Gratianus died—and he was murdered, make no doubt of that, murdered when he’d been promised safety at a feast with an oath on the Gospels—” Drusus glanced about. They were anonymous in a throng of people intent on their own lives. “Maximus put the blame on his cavalry commander, but never punished the man…. Anyway. While negotiations were going on afterward, Maximus got the Juthungi to invade Raetia. He had connections to them. Pressure on Theodosius to make a settlement. Valentinianus is only a kid, under the thumb of his mother. But her Frankish general in his turn got the Huns and Alani to harry the Alemanni so close to the Rhenus that Maximus had to move troops to that frontier.
“Which is why I’m still posted yonder, and the Augustus is anxious about whatever the barbarians may be up to, and why. They’ve gotten a taste of playing us Romans off against each other.”
Gratillonius raised a dam against the words that rose in his throat. What was this fellow saying about their Duke, the man who rolled midnight back from the Wall?
Gratillonius told himself that a commander could not always control what his subordinates did, and statecraft unavoidably had its dirty side, and Drusus was a solid sort who might be misled but who should be heard out before any arguments began. “Well, however that is,” he said, “why aren’t things better organized here? It doesn’t sound a bit like Maximus. Can’t he get competent officers any longer?”
“It’s the Priscillianus mess,” Drusus answered. “Before then, we had a pretty smooth mill running. But since that rift spread this far—”
He paused before he sighed and added, “I don’t understand any miserable part of it. This town’s full of jabber about the First Cause, the Sons of God and the Sons of Darkness, Spiritual Man, mystical numbers, and I don’t know what else, except I was there when a man got knifed in a tavern ruckus that started over whether or not the age of prophecy is over. I think Priscillianus has to be wrong when he says men and women should stay apart, never get together. If that is what he says. I don’t know. But why all these fights about it? I wonder if Christ in Heaven isn’t weeping at what they’re doing in His name. Sometimes I almost envy infidels like you.”
They had wandered down toward the river. Through an open portal they saw the bridge across it, and vineyards and villas beyond. A fresh dampness blew off it. Leaves blazed with autumn. Gratillonius remembered Bodilis reading to him a poem Ausonius had written in praise of this stream; the author had sent her a copy.
Like a girl-child playing with her hair before a mirror, fisher lads sport with shadowy shapes underwater.
Suddenly laughter welled up in him and he pitched away
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