Cast Not The Day Page 19

  There is always chatter among soldiers on the road. But on this mission I was quiet. At one point, on the Dover road, Leontius pulled his horse up beside me and asked if I was ailing for something.

  ‘No, nothing,’ I answered, and said no more. He looked at me, then gave a shrug and urged his horse away, leaving me to brood in peace.

  I was angry with myself for having let Scapula bait me. I had known what he was about; I told myself I should have steeled myself against his taunting. It had been a brief moment of pleasure to hit him and see him sprawling among the bushes, humiliated in front of his fashionable friends. But that pleasure had passed with the night. Now I felt foolish, and wretched. He had wanted to drive a wedge between me and Marcellus; and I had let him succeed.

  Yet the voice of my injured pride spoke too, telling me to start anew and make the best of my soldier’s life, relying on no one but myself, where no hurt could touch me but the sword of the enemy, which was as nothing.

  That night, at Dover, in a tavern on the waterfront, we fell in with a group of Gallic sailors. They were rough men who, like all sailors, took the uncertain world as they found it, and snatched pleasure where they could. I envied them their unreflecting simplicity; there seemed sense in such a life.

  When, later, the girls appeared from the back, I overcame my reluctance and beckoned one to sit with me, a pretty dark-skinned Italian with a bright smile and laughing eyes. Next morning she sang my compliments and waited for her money. I paid her, wanting her gone; and when I was alone I buried my head beneath the pillow.

  But my troubled thoughts would not leave me. Soon I threw the pillow aside and got up. It was early still. Outside, the traders’ wagons were rattling over the cobbles on their way to market. Through the thin wall I could hear a man snoring, and somewhere downstairs a woman’s laughter. My body smelled of the girl’s scented hair, and of sex. I splashed my face with water, pulled on my clothes, and went out.

  Overnight the wind had strengthened. Flecks of spindrift gusted over the breakwater, and in the harbour the painted fishing boats, moored up one to another, bobbed and swayed, their rigging whistling and clattering in the gale. I stood for a while and watched the sea; then headed off to the bath-house.

  The baths were closed. I walked on, coming presently to the steps that led up to the cliffs. I climbed. At the top a chalk path led across the green slopes towards the lighthouse. Up here, beyond the shelter of the town, the wind blew in strong sudden gusts, buffeting me and snapping at my tunic.

  I noticed, as I drew close, that built up beside the lighthouse tower there was a small rectangular temple, half in ruins. I paused to look. The Christians had carved their crude defacing symbols on the walls under the porch. Within, a colony of pigeons had taken up residence; they cooed and fluttered in the rafters. The place was damp and lifeless, a corpse from which the soul had gone. I left and walked on, following the path along the curve of the cliff top.

  I halted where the track jutted out in a grassy headland. The wind surged and eddied, buffeting in my ears and snatching at my hair and clothes, urging me forward into the empty air two paces ahead. And a voice within me spoke, saying, ‘Step forward now, what could be easier? Or do you lack the courage even for this? Your name will be forgotten, and so will your father’s, and your bloodline with it. What of it? All else is lost.’

  I knew the voice: it bore the insinuating tones of Scapula. With whatever bleak skill he possessed, he had managed to prise open the dark place in my soul and lay it bare, and all I saw was ugliness, terror, jealousy and anger; and beyond that nothing. Virtue and goodness were vanity; only this was my true self: a naked, fear-filled, solitary creature, always alone, always afraid. It filled my being, and my instinct recoiled.

  Yet still I stared, lashed by the wind, suspended between the sea and sky, transfixed by the lure of the vision. The scudding clouds fissured and parted; far above, in a gully of clear blue sky, the daytime moon appeared like a disc of silver. ‘Still I am here,’ she seemed to say. ‘I too was real. But the choice is yours. Nothing is had for nothing.’

  And suddenly my mind was clear, and I knew my pride and anger for what it was, and what the god required. I watched with my mind’s eye as the child in me bled away, and in its place stood the man. And then I thought of Marcellus, with whom I had not spoken since the night at Scapula’s. It was in my power to give him something, if I chose it.

  It seemed I stood a long time still. I bled. Yet now, at last, I knew I should heal.

  I was shaken from my thoughts by the sound of distant cries carried on the wind. I looked round. From the lighthouse tower a man was waving his arms and pointing out to sea. The westward-driven clouds coiled across the sky; the sun broke suddenly through, slanting across the water; and in the midst of this path of light, far out beyond the sea wall, I saw movement, a sail taut in the wind, black on ochre, and beneath it a sleek ship, its prow rising and falling in the swell.

  I ran back along the path. When I was close enough I cupped my hands and called up to the watchman.

  ‘It’s an imperial cutter,’ he shouted back. ‘Are they mad?’

  The ship was closer now, and on the sail I could make out the insignia, the black rampant eagle of the imperial fleet, and, behind the mast, two men clutching at the great stern-oar, fighting to hold their course.

  By the time I had descended to the port a crowd was waiting on the quay. I saw Leontius and the others, standing at the front. I pushed through.

  ‘Where were you?’ he said. ‘I came to wake you, but when no one answered I thought you were still busy.’ He nudged me and winked, adding, ‘And there was I thinking you weren’t one for the girls.’

  ‘I was out,’ I said. I turned and looked across the harbour to the breakwater. ‘I was up at the lighthouse. It’s a naval cutter; I saw it.’

  He whistled slowly through his broad farm-boy teeth. ‘In such a blow? Then it won’t be a pleasure cruise, that’s for sure. Did you see the mark?’

  ‘An eagle; black on red on gold.’

  ‘Then,’ he said, ‘it’s from the emperor.’

  Someone cried, ‘Look there!’ All along the front, heads turned as the vessel rounded the sea-wall. On the deck the master was running to and fro, seizing ropes and barking orders as the sail came down. And in the bow, rigid and ashen-faced, stood an imperial legate, his eyes fixed ahead of him at the point where they were to make landfall.

  ‘Come on,’ cried Leontius, tugging me. ‘We had better find the captain of the fort.’

  Gratian swept into the hall of the governor’s palace. He mounted the step beneath the window, surveyed our faces, then paused. I could see a new calculation in his sharp hawk eyes.

  ‘Protectors,’ he began, ‘you do not share the lot of the common soldier. You have been singled out for preferment, and so it is fitting that you should hear first what will soon be in everyone’s mouths. You will understand, when you have heard, the dangers that we face. I trust we shall be able to face them together.’

  He paused. There were murmurs of assent. Outside in the yard I could hear a groom calling and laughing, oblivious of the tension within. Gratian frowned at the sound, then continued.

  ‘Yesterday an imperial legate arrived at Dover. Leontius and others of your comrades have ridden through the night to bring his news to me. I must tell you that the divine emperor Constans has been murdered, treacherously killed by an officer of his own household. That officer – that traitor – is called Magnentius – a name that will surely remain forever cursed. He has seized the purple, and already he is illegally styling himself emperor of the West.’

  There were cries of anger and outrage. Someone, one of the Pannonians who was standing beside Leontius, called out that surely Constantius would march from the East and depose the traitor. Others assented to this, adding their own calls of warlike bravado. But Bretius, who was one of the three who shared my quarters, turned and answered that Constantius already had his hands full with th
e war against the Persians, and was many months’ march away.

  He had spoken no more than the truth, articulating the kind of lesson in strategy we had all been taught. But heads snapped round and glared at him as if he himself were part of the rebellion. He had been about to speak again; but seeing what he was confronted with he pressed his lips closed and said no more. I think it was then that I began to realize what was coming in the weeks ahead.

  I had heard the news already, during the headlong ride from Dover. I knew what my own first thought had been: that my father’s death had been avenged and at last his murderer had come to justice. I remembered what Marcellus’s grandfather had said about Constans, that he was a drunkard and a fool, and it seemed to me no great loss that he was gone. I hoped, if the dead know anything, that my father’s shade would know he was avenged, and would be glad.

  For the rest of the day the barracks was like an upturned hive, all vaunting talk and pointless tense activity. But I had another task which pressed on my mind, and that evening, as soon as I could get away, I walked out through the palace gate and took the street that led up beside the Walbrook, to the suburb where Aquinus’s town-house lay.

  The doorman admitted me, and I stood waiting in the entrance hall. The first cold of autumn had come on. In the corner a brazier embossed with prancing horses glowed. Soon Clemens the steward appeared from within; he greeted me kindly, for he liked me, but when I asked for Marcellus he said that he was sorry, the young master was away in the country.

  I nodded and frowned. I was about to take my leave when he coughed and went on, ‘But Quintus Aquinus is at home. He asks if you can spare a moment with him.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Aquinus, when I was admitted to his study, ‘you have heard the news?’

  I answered that I had been in Dover when it came, and had been among the first.

  ‘Magnentius has a British mother; did you know? It would be better for Gratian if it were not so.’

  Not having slept, my mind was slow. I asked him why.

  ‘The people did not care for Constans, and they do not care for his Eastern brother either; there has been too much rotten fruit from that tree. But Magnentius is from the West; his home is here; people believe he will fight off the barbarians, instead of carrying the legions away to distant wars that mean nothing to them.’

  He saw my eyes move to the closed door.

  ‘You need not fear; Constans had no friends in this house. Besides, he is dead. The question is: who is emperor now? Constantius, because he is his brother? Or Magnentius, by force of arms? We all know Gratian owes his loyalty to the House of Constantine: for him the choice is clear. But he will be hard pressed to carry the province with him.’

  I looked at him. It seemed a whole new world of doubt was opening up beneath my feet. ‘But sir—’ I began; but before I could continue there was a tap on the door. It was Clemens, come to say that a deputation of city councillors had arrived.

  ‘Tell them to wait,’ said Aquinus. And, to me, ‘They have heard; and now they have come to ask me what they should do.’

  ‘And what will you tell them, sir?’

  His eyes met mine, and I saw the glint of humour there. ‘I shall tell them,’ he said, ‘that they must decide for themselves. That will stir them up. But if you ask my own view, then I choose the path of stability; for without that we shall have the barbarians once again at our gates, and no one to protect us.’ He paused, then added, ‘But which path is that? Which charioteer do we back? That, at the moment, I cannot tell you. Be prepared, young man. You are going to have to make hard choices. We all are . . . But come, let us see what these councillors have to say.’

  He stood, and we made our way towards the inner courtyard, where they would be waiting. As we walked I asked after Marcellus.

  ‘He has gone to the villa. He said there was estate business he wanted to attend to – though I cannot think what was so urgent – and that he had had enough of the city for a while. I think he missed you, while you were away. He has been sullen as a Pictish slave these past days, which is not like him at all.’

  At dawn next day the palace courtyard rang with the hooves of horses – of couriers bearing urgent dispatches from Gratian to the captains of the outlying forts, from Brancaster and Richborough in the east to Pevensey in the west. He ordered the stable-master to lead out his fine grey mare, and wearing his finest dress armour with its gold-embossed cuirass and helmet of white and scarlet plumes, he rode in procession from the palace, through the streets and up the hill to the city fort.

  Overnight a dense autumn mist had come rolling up the river from the sea. It lay over the city like a mantle, obscuring our view and muffling our marching footfalls. Within the wide square parade-ground of the fort the troops of the garrison stood waiting, line after line, standing to attention, their ranks receding into the mist.

  Already, in one night, rumour had spread like a heath-fire in a gale. The centurions had reported that the men were nervous. They did not like political upheaval. One sensed unease everywhere.

  I saw Gratian look about and scowl at the weather. He knew the power of a fine entrance and saw the day could not have been worse. But it could not wait. He said something to Leontius, then mounted the dais.

  He liked to think he had the common touch, having come from peasant stock and risen through the ranks. When he was before the troops he adopted an easy bluff, swaggering manner. Many men do it, and it can be carried off well or badly: either way it is an art, a deception, a rhetoric; an attempt to convey what is not; or, at best, to create the illusion of what once was. I do not know what went wrong on this day – the weather, or his own mood, or something in the men – but from the start his address to the troops was ill-starred and faltering. His words, which he had intended to be booming and uplifting, were engulfed in the damp haze like pebbles tossed in mud. He recounted Constans’s murder, going on at length about the foul injustice of it. Even as he spoke, as if to mock him, the mist swirled and thickened round the dais, and the men, whom he had intended to fire to anger, stared at him in stolid silence.

  Not far from where I was standing, I saw a trooper lean over and whisper something to his neighbour. His neighbour smiled and nodded and whispered back. It was an unacceptable lapse in military discipline; but the centurion at the end of the line, though he must have noticed, looked resolutely ahead. They talked on, and discreetly I turned my head to hear. Their conversation was not in Latin, but British, and though I could not hear all their words, I could tell enough. What did they care for Antioch and the Persians, and for remote divine Constantius in his perfumed Eastern palaces? Magnentius would see them right; he was one of their own. Their words were close to treason; but even as I thought this, I recalled what Aquinus had told me.

  In front, Gratian was talking on, indistinct, irrelevant. I glanced once more at the centurion. He was dark-haired and olive-skinned: no Kelt then; he would not understand the troopers’ words; and, judging from the look on his face, he did not wish to. Just as well, I thought. He knew enough of army discipline to know that it was not the time to haul the men out of line, with the mist descending and the troops unsettled.

  I gave a loud cough into my fist. At this, one of the whispering men glanced up and met my eyes through the haze. I glared at him, and made a gesture at my ear to show he could be heard. He closed his mouth and jabbed his neighbour in the ribs; and after that they stayed silent.

  Meanwhile, Gratian was losing his stride, hesitating, departing from what he had planned to say. He was losing the men, and he was too old a hand not to sense it. He hurried on, bringing the address to a swift end. Then the tribunes raised their batons and called for an acclamation. I waited, scarcely daring to breathe, for silence then would have been open mutiny. But eventually a weak cheer rumbled along the line, dying to nothing even before Gratian was off the dais.

  Back in the mess hall there was uproar. As soon as I walked in, Leontius called me over. ‘Did you see Grati
an’s face? Whoever told him the garrison is loyal is in for a drubbing.’

  The cadet beside him, a broad youth with lank brown hair who was in with the wrestling set, chimed in with, ‘They may as well have had “Magnentius” written on their shields, the dogs. I say Gratian should ship them all off to the Persian frontier to teach them a lesson.’

  Leontius gave him a shove and said, ‘Shut up, Marius.’ But I saw a fleeting veiled look pass between them – a look that was new to me, but which I should soon come to know.

  I sat down with them on the bench. That morning, while we were up at the fort, another messenger had arrived from Gaul. I asked what news there was.

  ‘Only this,’ said Leontius frowning; and he went on to tell me what had happened the night Constans was deposed.

  Magnentius, he said, had waited till his tour of duty brought him to Autun, where that year Constans was wintering. On an appointed night, he invited the foremost men of the court to a banquet; they feasted late, and Magnentius made sure the wine flowed freely. When the party was at its height, he withdrew on some pretext, changed his clothes, and returned clad in imperial purple and wearing the diadem.

  ‘He must have had supporters there, waiting for the moment. It was all rehearsed. As soon as he appeared they all cried out, hailing him as Augustus and emperor.’ The other guests, drunk, and bewildered at this spectacle, had gone along with the prevailing mood and added their own voices. Then the guards beyond the door were called in, and were asked to take the oath of loyalty; after that the city gates were sealed, and Magnentius spent the rest of the night securing the garrison, the treasury, and the imperial palace.

  ‘But where was Constans all this while?’ I asked.

  ‘Away; out of the city, hunting.’

  ‘Ah, hunting.’ I raised my brow and nodded; and this was enough to draw down on me a grim line of Pannonian faces, glaring from along the length of the mess table.

  After that, I returned my attention to my food and said no more. It was later, from Catius the Spaniard, that I heard how Constans had met his end.