Raptor (144 page)

“You are probably right.”

“What is worse, he has set the churchmen back in one area where they thought they were advancing.”

“Eh? He has done nothing to any churchmen.”

“Again, by ignoring them. Look here. When Anastasius took the imperial crown and the purple robe and all the other regalia of the Eastern Empire, he was given them from the hands of the Patriarch Bishop of Constantinople. And Anastasius was lying prone at the bishop’s feet, in the demeaning position of proskynésis. But what did Theodoric do? He took his throne by conquest, by popular acclaim, by vote of the Roman Senate. Unlike Anastasius, he did not once pause to ask the blessing of God or of any church whatever. He was not crowned by a bishop of his own Arian creed, much less by the so-called Papa. That sets back all the bishops in Christendom, and it must gall the very soul of the one at Rome.”

Later, at the lupanar, the girl of the Seres proved such a delicious experience that I was half tempted to leave an order with the local slave dealers to procure one for me. She was exotic of color and features, and as soft, smooth, sleek as the silk that also comes hither from her homeland. She spoke no human language, only twittered like a bird, but she made up for that deficiency with her venereal talent. She was a veritable gymnast and contortionist—and tight, as of course I had expected on first seeing her budlike little mouth. As I was leaving the house, I asked its leno, Apostolides, whether the girl was also shrewish of temper, as a small-mouthed western woman would be.

“Not in the least, Saio Thorn. I am told that
all
Seres are narrowly pursed of mouth, above and below. This one, I am given to understand, has a larger mouth than most, so it follows that she is of sweet and amiable humor. Perhaps her even more puckered sisters may be mean-tempered in the western womanly way. Who can say? But ah! just imagine how tight
they
must be in their nether apertures.”

Anyway, I refrained from ordering the procurement of one for myself. I decided my money would be better spent on less frivolous indulgences. So, when I left Noviodunum again, my barge was heavy-laden with boys and girls of more familiar aspect, mostly Khazars, a few Greeks and Cherkesses. On the long, slow haul upriver, I had time to begin their education—teaching them some rudiments of the Latin tongue—before I delivered them into the care and tutelage of my Novae academicians.

When I returned to Ravenna, along the now level and smooth Via Popilia, that city was already a much more gracious place. Its workers’ suburb of Caesarea, formerly squalid and noisome, had been cleaned up considerably. The aqueduct was bringing drinkable water to the spouts and fountains that had for so long been dry, and, as if that new flow had irrigated a new growth of stone and brick and tile in the city, some impressive new buildings were under construction. Most notable of those were Theodoric’s palace and the Arian cathedral he had promised Bishop Neon, though that worthy man had been dead for some time.

The high central portion of Theodoric’s palace was, in imitation of the Golden Gate of the city in which he had passed his childhood, fronted with three soaring arches. In the triangular tympanum between the arches’ tops and the slanting roof was carved a figure of the king on horseback. From either flank of the central building extended a slightly less high loggia of two stories, the lower having three arches, the upper having five. And in those ten upper arches would stand statues representing Victories. Sculptors imported from Greece were already at work on those, and others were just beginning the more colossal group of figures that was to stand atop the roof. It would consist of Theodoric on his horse, holding shield and spear, attended by female figures representing Rome and Ravenna, the whole assemblage to be gold-leafed. When complete, the sculpture was to be so huge and high that the gleam of its gilding would guide mariners coming from the Hadriatic into the Classis harbor.

The cathedral Church of St. Apollinaris, named for a distinguished early bishop of Arian Christianity, was the biggest Arian church anywhere in the world; to my knowledge, it still is. It also contains a tasteful feature that I have seen in no other church. Down either side wall of its vast, twenty-four-columned chamber stretch panels of rich mosaic, of brilliant figures on a dark blue background. Along the right wall, on the side where the men of a congregation stand to worship, the mosaic figures are of Christ, the apostles and other saints, all the usual biblical males. But the panel along the left wall, where the women stand, shows all female figures: the Virgin, the Magdalen and other biblical women. I have never known any other Christian church to make such a nice gesture of recognition of its female parishioners.

Also underway, all about Ravenna, was the staggeringly ambitious and laborious work intended to make the city really livable. That was the draining of the miasmic, stinking, vermin-ridden marshes. Thousands of men and hundreds of oxen were plowing the flat, wet land into ridges and furrows—the water to run off the former into the latter, thence into deeper ditches and still deeper trenches, thence into permanent canals of stone and ironstone that would convey the effluent out to the seashore. That was no work of just a few years. It is still going on, and may have to go on for decades more. But even when I first saw the dredgers at work, Ravenna’s many street canals were carrying water almost as clear and odorless as that coming from the spouts and fountains.

It was young Boethius, magister officiorum, who was guiding me about the city and showing me all these things. One of his duties as Master of the Offices was the finding and collecting of special workers like architects and artificers and sculptors, sometimes having to fetch them from distant places.

“And this,” he said proudly, indicating another grand edifice under construction, “will be Theodoric’s mausoleum. May Fortune grant that it will be many years before he shall have use for it.”

The solid and tranquil-looking building was all of marble blocks. Its two-story exterior was ten-sided, but the lofty interior was round and would be capped with a dome.

“Not the usual kind of dome, however,” said Boethius. “A single massive piece of marble, to be smoothly rounded off by the sculptors. Yonder it lies. That enormous monolith came from the quarries of Istria—a formidable undertaking, to bring it here—and, if it could be weighed, would weigh more than six hundred libramenta.”

“Theodoric should sleep comfortably under it,” I said. “He will certainly have plenty of room in there to stretch and thrash in his sleep.”

“Eheu, he did not plan to sleep alone,” said Boethius, a little sadly. “He planned for this to be the resting place of all his descendants as well. However, his Queen Audefleda has just been delivered of their first child. You had heard? Yes, another daughter. Unless the queen soon produces some sons for Theodoric, he will have only matrilineal and collateral descendants lying beside him in that tomb.”

That did not yet seem to be worrying Theodoric. He was in fine spirits when I dined with him and recounted to him my latest travels and doings.

“And you are now headed back to Rome again, Thorn? Then you can deliver a mandatum for me. Did you know? I made my own first visit there while you were away.”

Boethius had told me about that. Theodoric had been welcomed with an imperial triumph, a splendid procession, and had been extravagantly entertained during his stay—chariot races at the circus, men-versus-beasts fights at the Colosseum, plays at the Marcellian Theater, feasts and convivia in all the finest homes. He had been invited to address the Senate, and his oration had brought all the senators up standing and cheering.

“Mainly, though,” he said, “I got to see with my own eyes the piecemeal ruination of the city that you have so much deplored. I ordered that every possible measure be taken to stop that desecration of artistic and architectural treasures. And, to that end, I am going to pay to Rome an annual grant of two hundred librae of gold, strictly to be spent on the restoration and preservation of buildings, monuments, walls and such.”

“I applaud you,” I said. “But can the treasury afford such beneficence?”

“Well, the frugal Comes Cassiodorus grumbled a bit. But he has levied a new duty on imported wines. That will provide the money.”

“Then I applaud him too. You mentioned a mandatum. Something to do with this matter?”

“Ja, I must correct an oversight of my own. When I spoke to the Senate, and announced this grant, I specified
only
buildings and monuments and such. I neglected to mention the city’s statues. As you know, they are likewise being nibbled away. So I wish to make clear that they are also to be repaired and preserved with this money. The quaestor and exceptor Cassiodorus Filius is preparing the mandatum. Get it from him, Thorn, and please see that it is read in the Senate, posted in the
Diurnal
and cried in the streets.”

So I sought out the younger Cassiodorus, who smiled and said, “You may wish to read this before I seal it,” and slid a stack of papyri across his table to me.

“Which one is the mandatum I am to carry?” I asked, riffling through the sheets.

“What?” He looked surprised. “Why, all of those are the mandatum.”

“This entire sheaf? This is Theodoric’s order to stop the destruction of things in Rome?”

“Yes, of course.” He looked perplexed. “Is that not what you came for?”

“Cassiodorus, good Cassiodorus,” I said. “A mandatum is only to make the order official. All I really have to do is go to Rome and utter two words. ‘Stop this.’ Two words.”

“Well?” He looked slightly hurt. “That is what this says. Read it.”

“Read it? I can barely lift it.” I was exaggerating, of course, but not much. The top papyrus, addressed “to the Senate and People of Rome,” began:

“The noble and praiseworthy art of statuary is said to have been first practiced in Italia by the Etruscans. Posterity has embraced it, and given to the city of Rome an artificial population almost equal to its natural one. I refer to the abundance of statues of gods and heroes and distinguished Romans of the past, and to the mighty herd of horses of stone and metal adorning our streets and squares and fora. If there were any reverence in human nature, it, and not the cohortes vigilum, ought to be a sufficient guardian of the statuary treasures of Rome. But what shall we say of the costly marbles, the expensive bronzes, precious both in material and workmanship, which too many a hand yearns, if it has opportunity, to pluck from their settings?… As well as to Rome’s forest of walls, it is desirable that the necessary repairs be made to its population of statues. And meanwhile, all upstanding citizens must be on guard that this artificial population is no further molested and mutilated and carried off in pieces. Oh, honest citizens, we ask you, who, when entrusted with such a charge, can be negligent? Who can be venal? You must watch for such pilfering scoundrels as we have described. Then, when the villain is taken, rightly will the grieving public punish him who has marred the beauty of the ancients with amputation of limbs, by inflicting on him that which he had made our monuments to suffer…”

I stopped, shuffled the pages together, cleared my throat and said, “You were right, Cassiodorus, it
does
say ‘stop this.’ Only much more… much more…”

“Much more unmistakably,” he offered. “Much more fully.”

“Fully. That was the word I wanted.”

“If you will read on, Saio Thorn, you will like it even better. Where I have King Theodoric expatiate on the need for—”

“No, no, Cassiodorus,” I said, shoving the pages back to him. “I think I will save the rest. I do not wish to spoil the pleasure of getting its impact. Fully. When its ringing sounds are given forth in the hall of the Curia.”

“Declaimed in the Senate!” he said joyfully as he rolled the papyri into a tube shape, dripped melted lead to hold them scrolled, and stamped that with Theodoric’s seal. “In the Senate!”

“Yes,” I said. “And I would wager everything I own that it will be received there with cries of ‘Vere diserte! Nove diserte!’ “

During most of the years of Theodoric’s reign, I was chiefly occupied in doing what I had been doing practically all my life—traveling, observing, learning, experiencing. Every other one of the king’s marshals was glad to be given a settled, secure position, but I was much more glad to be the king’s wandering emissary, his far-reaching arm and far-seeing eye. Theodoric might sometimes require me to spend some while in attendance at his court, or I might choose to stay for a while in one of my residences in Rome or Novae, but I was oftenest to be found somewhere else within Theodoric’s realm, or beyond it, or on my way to or fro.

Sometimes at the express command of Theodoric, sometimes of my own accord, I went everywhere from the luxurious Baiae seaside resort of the Roman nobility to the remotest outlands of alien tribes. Sometimes I went in the boar-ornamented armor and other insignia of my marshalcy, sometimes in the elegant raiment that a herizogo or dux is entitled to flaunt, but most often I went in the anonymous dress of a simple country wayfarer. Sometimes I took along a troop of soldiers, sometimes just a few serving men so that I would have messengers available to carry dispatches, but most often I went alone and brought back my reports in person.

I might return to say, “Theodoric, in yonder place your subjects are commendably obeying your laws and orders.”

Or: “In another place, Theodoric, your subjects require governors more strict than those now in office.”

Or: “In a certain land beyond your borders I detected smoldering envy of your rich realm, and those people may attempt a plundering incursion.”

Or: “In another land beyond your borders, the envy is so wistful that those people might welcome your annexing them to your domain.”

Or I might report on the progress of one or another of Theodoric’s many projects intended to better the life of his subjects. Under his direction, the old Roman roads and aqueducts and bridges and cloacae were put in good repair, and new ones constructed where needed. As was being done with the marshes of Ravenna, he set additional swarms of men and oxen to work at draining the Pomptine Marshes around Rome, and similar swampy areas around Spoletium and the pretty promontory of Anxur.