Read Online Gods and Legions by Michael Curtis Ford - Free Book Online

turned back to my filthy and starving guest.
    He sat motionless, his eyes wide as they took in the platter of artfully arranged food, and a look of calm resignation on his face. A small pool of blood, however, which I had not noticed during his tale, had formed on the floor beneath his couch.
    I rushed forward to help him, almost slipping in the trail of sweat drippings he had made when entering the room, and ripped open his tunic from neck to belly. His ribs were wrapped tightly in filthy linen, stuffed to bursting with blood-soaked dittany leaves. I seized a penknife from a nearby writing desk and cut into the crude wrappings, my task made more difficult by the foul smell that wafted out. The fabric had adhered to the skin as securely as glue, from the combined effect of the dried blood, sweat, and the juices of the crushed plant. Beneath the navel and somewhat to the side, the broken shaft of an arrow protruded just beyond skin level, the puncture wound around it swollen and an angry purple, oozing pus in an advanced stage of infection. The arrowhead itself was lodged deep in the liver. I looked up at his face questioningly, demanding to know why he had not told me earlier that he was wounded, my mind racing to decide what measures could be taken to extract the arrow as quickly as possible.
    It was too late, Brother. The man was dead.
     

V
     
    I had no time to dwell on such matters, however, for the fall of Cologne had thrown Constantius into a flurry of activity. Because he had ordered the soldier's news to be kept secret as long as possible, however, the court staff could only wonder at the unusual shifts in troop deployments the Emperor ordered, the sudden cancellation of social events at the palace, and the constant comings and goings of tight-lipped senior military and diplomatic officials. For several days it was all I could do to keep up with Constantius as he waddled swiftly through the corridors from conference to advisory session to negotiations with foreign emissaries. During that period I had no time to see Julian, nor even to apprise him of the general situation at the palace, though in the past I had visited him at the villa several times a week. No doubt these new distractions would even further delay the Emperor's decision as to my unfortunate friend's fate.
    Strangely enough, I needn't have concerned myself on this account: at the very height of the palace uproar, Julian's presence was suddenly recollected, and a peremptory summons was issued to him for an audience with Constantius in little more than an hour. On horseback, I accompanied the litter-bearers out to the villa to retrieve him, and watched as he prepared himself with resignation, for he was still completely in the dark as to what was to become of him. I myself had overheard fragmented discussions of his fate over the past several days from among the courtiers and eunuchs, hints of argument and dissent, of urgings for him to be eliminated as a possible threat to the throne, countered by equally persuasive arguments that the Emperor was in need of delegating his duties, so as to focus more of his own attention on the Empire's crumbling eastern borders. None of this, however, did I recount to Julian – he had no doubt already heard it all before, through his previous dealings with the palace eunuchs.
    The trip into the city was the first Julian had taken since his arrival many weeks before, and he peered out the curtains of the litter in astonishment at the numbers of people thronging the streets. The occasion might have equally been a market day, or a public execution at the gallows platform in the palace courtyard. In response to Julian's shouted questions directed at the bearers, he received only a stony silence.
    Arriving at the back gates of the palace to avoid the crowds gathering ominously at the front, he was met by a silent, scowling group of eunuchs, who inspected him there on the street. Even from where I stood at the edges of the