B007IIXYQY EBOK (50 page)

For certain this thing cast some baleful shadow over the future.

“My palace for the people!” the Emperor said with the mellow smile of a parent pleased with his progeny. “But I did not call you here to boast of this.” He signaled for his Egyptian secretary to depart so they would be left in privacy.

“I called you here to aid me in staving off catastrophe—the fruit of Domitian’s latest spree of high-spirited villainy, which, Hades take that young hellion, will be his
last.”
Vespasian reached among the clutter of military dispatches on an adjacent worktable and smoothed out a parchment map depicting the lands of Upper Germania and northern Gaul. Then he added with a casualness that made the words the more startling, “I have removed Domitian from public life.”

Julianus carefully refrained from registering approval; to do so seemed a breach of manners, and he had no reason to give offense to this man.

“Ah, polite silence is what
I
get!” Vespasian remarked, smiling. “A signal honor, coming from the Bane of Rulers himself, who had the temerity to hang Nero by his heels in front of the whole Senate. By the way, you alone outside the family know of this, and I expect my confidences to be strictly kept.”

“Of course.”

“There’s no need for the common populace to know of this. One day Domitian must rule, and Minerva knows it becomes daily more difficult not to have him made into a laughingstock. You are the most knowledgeable man living concerning the ways and customs of the savage Germanic tribes. I need counsel on ways to blunt the effects of this latest act of mischief on Domitian’s part.”

“He’s overstepped himself in the north.”

“To put it gently.”

Julianus knew Domitian had been using his newly acquired influence in civil and military matters to provoke the Chattians across the frontier, using threats and bribes to encourage the Governors posted in Germania to launch punitive attacks against native villages, in order to incite the barbarians into retaliation so that a major campaign against them would seem necessary—a campaign Domitian intended to lead himself. For Domitian was intensely—murderously, some said—jealous of the triumphal procession awarded to his elder brother, Titus, on his victorious return from Jerusalem after the Jewish War.

“We know these five Chattian villages were razed, and all their inhabitants slaughtered like sheep…here, right in a line, northwest of the Taunus Mount. We cannot afford a skirmish, mind you, much less to finish what my fool son started, thanks to those extortionists at the marble quarries,” Vespasian went on with a brief nod toward the elevation drawing of the Colosseum, the greatest drain on the imperial treasury at the moment. Julianus thought it ironic that this theater of blood was actually, for a time at least, preventing violence. That
will not last, he mused; once it’s built and paid for, a war will be needed in order to provide victims.

“…and I know of no better man to advise me on ways of disarming these savages through clever diplomacy.”

“I guarantee nothing,” Julianus replied quietly. “To these people, blood vengeance is the most sacred of all rites. But there
are
measures that could be taken that would weaken or remove centers of influence, and perhaps undermine their hostility.”

“Excellent!” The Emperor struck a bell to summon a scribe to take down Julianus’ replies; then he began asking swift, precise questions about tribal alliances, the methods of supply used by the barbarian armies, the shifting relative importance of various chiefs. When once he paused to order water and wine, Julianus smiled at the dented, tarnished silver wine cups that were brought—they came no doubt from Vespasian’s rural family estate. Julianus often entirely forgot he advised an emperor, so familiar and forthright in speech, so devoid of all pompousness, was this man; once a map fell to the floor, and moving more swiftly than the scribe, Vespasian actually retrieved it himself.

They talked on, and as the hours passed, Julianus found he disliked this task more and more—from his long study of them the Chattians had acquired a share of divine essence, even a shadowy, disarming face—that of the gallant maid of his father’s records; he began to feel like an accomplice in some obscure betrayal. “Here then is my final determination,” he was saying as ruddy late-afternoon light ebbed from the room. “I would begin by paying reparation money directly to their elders, to be distributed among the kinspeople of the families Domitian caused to be slaughtered in the villages—”

“Why do you not just take all the funds I fought so hard to raise and dump them in the Tiber!”

“You scoff, but this is not so costly as war. There is a better than even chance they will accept this wergild for the deaths of clan members and forgo blood vengeance. In addition, I would return the Chattian hostages we’re holding.”

“We have hostages?”

“Yes, they’re at the fortress of Argentoratum. My father long ago secured the three elder daughters of Baldemar’s sister, as well as the infant nieces of two lesser chiefs.”

“It seems a curious choice of hostages.”

“That is the way to get the firmest hold on these people—they calculate lineage through the female line. My father’s purpose was to instigate small land wars through removing rightful heirs. And when that is done, I would make a new pact with Baldemar: The Rhine is only to be crossed at points where Roman troops are present, and our signal towers will extend no farther into the territory of the Wetterau. Halt the policy of forcing their young men into the army, and
make certain this is enforced.
Lastly, I would send a force to the sanctuary on the River Lippe—this is deep within hostile territory; I would dispatch no fewer than two legions—and have them seize that tower-dwelling prophetess called the Veleda and bring her as hostage to Rome. By this, you might avoid war.”

“Well enough then…but never mind the pact with Baldemar. We’ve other plans for him,”
Vespasian said meditatively, and Julianus at first did not pay these words much mind. So many had tried and failed to entrap Baldemar that he dismissed this as mere wishful thinking. “You truly think the removal of this Veleda creature will have such marvelous effect?”

“Yes—to the tribes she is a living goddess. She has for years been telling them the lands of Gaul are theirs by divine right, and exhorting them to follow Baldemar. Unfortunately, ‘Veleda’ is not her name but a title of her holy office, a word related to the Gaulish word meaning ‘to see.’ She is the One Who Sees the true nature of material life—but I won’t bother you with that. What I mean to say is that when she is taken, a new candidate will be chosen to fill her place.”

“A risk worth taking—the replacement might not be so charismatic. And once spring is come and Baldemar is gone—”

“Begging your pardon, but I cannot help but question your easy certainty that a man my father could not catch in ten years will suddenly fall
now
into one of our traps.”

“Ah, I neglected to tell you—a collaborator has come forward, a man Baldemar ill-used in the past, apparently. He claims he is the son of Wido—a claim made by many—and he has some savage name I cannot pronounce. Odb-Od something—”

“Odberht, and he is truly Wido’s son. And we never had reports of his death.” Julianus felt a touch of cold. The Emperor speaks truthfully, he thought—this time
is
different; in days past, no one had been willing to betray Baldemar openly.

“Good, then,” Vespasian continued. “Doubtless you know the tale your father first reported that Baldemar goes unarmed and alone each year to a hidden grove to make his own sacrifice during their great drunken spring orgy called—” He held a military report close to the lamp and squinted. “Ast…Est…”

“Astura,
some of the tribes call it—others,
Eostre
or
Eastre.
It’s the native dawn festival, the holiest day of their year, oddly similar in some respects to our own rites of Hilaria. My father despaired of ever discovering its location.”

“Well, this son of Wido learned of it somehow and made haste to the fortress at Mogontiacum to tell our new Governor there. Baldemar will not be alone when he sacrifices this year—a cohort of cavalry will celebrate with him.”

Why does this so transfix me with sadness? Julianus wondered then. Has this amulet undermined me, infusing me with their blood and breath?

“I do not like this,” Julianus said suddenly, with more forcefulness than he intended. “Baldemar is a good and fair enemy who always kept to his treaties, who returned many prisoners unharmed, and who fought only to keep his people’s lands. He deserves a nobler end than to be dragged off to die slowly in captivity.”

For an unsettling moment the Emperor imagined his own soul was being weighed before the gods. Something in Julianus’ cold, clear eyes stripped away every trapping of society; they were not Emperor and subject but two men equal before the Fates in every way but one: Julianus had the more impassioned will. “This is a foul plan, hateful to Nemesis, and utterly beneath our dignity,” Julianus said with soft finality. “Undo this, and let him live on in freedom.”

He noticed the jolt of affront in the Emperor’s eyes, and it broke the spell.

I
am
a reckless fool. But Endymion will be silenced when he is laid out on the pyre.

For a long, uncomfortable moment Vespasian met his eyes in silence; then the Emperor broke suddenly into an affable grin, deciding to treat this as good-natured contentiousness. “If I could afford it, I
would
grant him death in battle,” he said at last, but the words were spoken with too much deliberation, as if to say, “I will let you take such liberties just this once.”

Slowly Vespasian poured wine, then water into the battered silver cup, then continued on.

“There is another matter, something more than odd, that I omitted to mention before.” The Emperor seemed to have entirely forgotten the brief moment of tension. “This month’s report from the fortress at Vetera describes a band of Chattian savages, an offshoot of Baldemar’s Companions, led by a
ganna
—some
sort of holy woman—but unlike most of these prophetesses, this one carries arms. They have been burning every fort and signal tower along the River Main—the forts do not last a season. Even in winter they strike. What is particularly disturbing is that they seized three small catapults, the ones called scorpions. And we have not recovered them from the holy groves.”

“Then they must search further. What you imply is unthinkable. Our weapons are tainted and unholy to them. Never would they actually employ them in battle.”

“We’ve also evidence from spies that a captured legionary soldier has turned the worst sort of traitor and is versing them in our tactics and weaponry. What is to stop this wretch from instructing them in the use of those catapults?”

“They’ve changed their very nature, then…or this
ganna
is a singular madwoman.”

“As you’ve noted before, their fanaticism is greater, not less, when led by a woman—and this one’s extraordinarily effective because the men of the Fourteenth take her for a witch. This dispatch claims the men will not enter a part of the forest where they think she’s likely been. They say she has the power to transform herself at will to a raven, a doe….”

This jolted him to attention. A raven, a doe?
She must be the very maid he read of in his father’s records, whose name brought to mind the tangle of the wild vine.
Auriane.
She still lived.

Who are
you, wild and brazen spirit not even fearful of your own gods? How came you to have the mettle to take up our weapons against us when none of your people have ever done so?

He realized then he was not going to reveal that this was Baldemar’s daughter, that he was withholding information from the Emperor in order to protect her.
Have I taken leave of my senses?

“My advice is to leave the matter strictly alone,” he replied emphatically. “The scorpions, doubtless, have been sunk into the deepest bog as an offering to their god Wodan. We’ll never recover them. And the maid’s power resides in her people’s grief—once these other measures are carried out, it will cool her fire.”

“Well enough. then, all this gives us some place to begin.” Vespasian then added in an offhand tone that obviously masked a grave concern: “Oh, yes, there is
one
last little matter, before I dismiss you.” He pulled a bookroll from a wall niche.

“This
was published under your name.”

Julianus took the bookroll by its gilded
umbilicus,
saw the imprint of Tryphon’s bookshop on its parchment label and himself listed as author, then unrolled it just enough to read its opening columns. It was a clumsily vicious, mocking diatribe against the imperial government that mentioned Vespasian by name.

“I did not write this, nor did anyone under my instruction, I swear to you by my father’s ghost. Were I to attack you, which I would not, for truly I hold you the wisest ruler since the god Augustus, I would not do it with such…crudeness and lack of all common wit.” He felt a sickness within.