The Dog and the Wolf (10 page)

Rufinus’s glance went fondly over him, from chestnut hair and tender countenance to the lissomeness of the sixteen-year-old body. “Be careful about wishes, dear. Sometimes they’re granted. I’ve lived in forests, remember.”

“Oh, but you were an outlaw then. You’ve been everything, haven’t you? Naturally, I meant—”

“I know. You meant the Empire would bring us our wine and delicacies and fresh clothes, and keep bad men away, and be there for us to visit whenever the idyll grew a bit monotonous. Don’t scoff at civilization. It’s not just more safe and comfortable than barbarism, it’s much more interesting.”

“It did not do well by you when you were young. I hope those people who were cruel to you are burning in hell.”

The scar that seamed Rufinus’s right cheek turned his smile into a sneer. “I doubt it. Why should the Gods trouble Themselves about us?”

Dion’s smooth cheeks flushed. “The true God cares.”

“Maybe. I don’t say that whatever Powers there are can never be bribed or flattered. Heaven knows you Christians try. I do ask whether it’s worthwhile. All history shows Them to be incompetent at best, bloodthirsty and dishonest at worst. Supposing They exist, that is.”

The Gaul saw distress rise in his servant. He made his smile warm, leaned over, squeezed the youth’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was nothing but an opinion. Don’t let it spoil things for you. I’m not bitter, truly I’m not. Since I became the sworn man of the King of Ys, my fate has generally been good. At last it brought me to you. That’s why I praise civilization and call it worth defending as long as possible.”

Large brown eyes searched the green of his. “As long as possible, did you say?” Dion’s words wavered.

He was so vulnerable. But he needed to learn. His life had been sheltered: son of a Greek factor in Neapolis by a concubine native to that anciently Greek city, taught arts
and graces as well as letters, apprenticed in the household of an Imperial courtier two years ago, assigned to Rufinus as a courtesy after the Gaul became a man whose goodwill was desirable, and by this new master initiated in the mysteries of Eros. “I do not want to make you unhappy, my sweet,” Rufinus emphasized. “You have heard about the dangers afoot, both inside and outside the Empire. We needn’t feel sorry for ourselves on their account. Coping with them is the grandest game in the world.”

“You
find it so,” Dion breathed worshipfully. White with dread, he had watched Rufinus’s hell-for-leather chariot racing and other such sports. The first time, Rufinus could only sooth him afterward by tuning a harp and singing him the gentlest of the songs that the envoy of Ys had brought from the North.

Rufinus blew a kiss. “Well, maybe the second grandest,” he laughed.

His own happiness bubbled. Of course he longed for everything he had had to leave, but that was months agone and forebodings had faded. Here the newnesses, adventures, challenges, accomplishments—real victories won for Gratillonius and Ys—were endless, and now Dion had come to him. Oh, true, they must be discreet. However, that did not mean they must be furtive; those at court who guessed found it politic to keep winks and sniggers private, if indeed anyone especially cared. And this was no bestial grappling among the Bacaudae nor hurried encounter with a near stranger, it was an exploration day by day and night by night shared with beauty’s self.

They left their horses at a livery stable and passed on foot through the city gate to a majestic street. Seat of the Emperors of the West for nearly a hundred years, Mediolanum had accumulated splendors and squalors which perhaps only Constantinople surpassed. Often Rufinus found the architecture heavy, even oppressive, when he thought of the slimnesses in Ys; sometimes the vulgarity ceased for a while to excite, the shrill contentions of the Christian sects to amuse, and he remembered a people who bore the pridefulness of cats; but this place was at the core of things, while Ys merely sought to hold herself aloof. This
was where men laid snares for men, and his heart beat the higher for it.

Through workers, carters, vendors, beggars, housewives, whores, holy men, soldiers, slaves, thieves, mountebanks, provincials from end to end of the Empire, barbarians from beyond, through racket and chatter and fragrance and stench, he led the way to the home granted him. It was a small apartment, but in a respectable tenement and on the first floor. (In Ys he lived, by choice, up among winds and wings.) Dion would choose clean clothes for them both, they would seek the baths and luxuriate until they came back for a light supper the boy would prepare, and then—whatever they liked. Perhaps simply a little talk before sleep. Rufinus would do most of the conversing. He enjoyed the role of teacher.

A eunuch in palace livery sat on the hallway floor at the apartment entrance. He jumped to his feet when he saw them. “At last, sir!” he piped. “Quickly! I am bidden to bring you before Master of Soldiers Flavius Stilicho.”

“What?” exclaimed Rufinus. He heard Dion gasp. “But nobody knew where I was or when I’d return.”

“So I informed his gloriousness after I learned.” The messenger’s hairless, somehow powdery face drew into a web of lines. “He was most kind; he bade me go back and wait for you. Come, sir, let us make haste.”

Rufinus nodded. “At once.” With a grin: “He’s an old campaigner, he won’t mind dust and sweat on me.”

“Oh, he has much else to occupy his attention, you know, sir. Doubtless you’ll make an appointment with a deputy for tomorrow. But
come.”

“Seek the baths yourself,” Rufinus suggested to Dion.

“I’ll wash here and have a meal ready for you,” his companion answered, and gazed after him till he was gone from sight.

Hurrying along thoroughfares where traffic was diminishing, Rufinus tugged the short black forks of his beard and scowled in thought. What in the name of crazy Cernunnos might this be? Why should he be summoned by the dictator of the West? And of the East, too, they said, now that the Gothic general Gainas was in charge there; Gainas was Stilicho’s creature, and Emperor Arcadius
a weakling a few years older than his brother and colleague Honorius, who in turn was one year older than Dion. … Rufinus had conveyed letters from the King of Ys, Bishop Martinus of Turonum, and others in the North. He had contrived excuses to linger while he made himself interesting or entertaining or useful in this way and that way to men of secondary importance at court, until by their favor his status was quasi-official. He could doubtless continue the balancing act till his term of exile ended and he went home. But how did he suddenly come to be of any fresh concern to Stilicho, so much that the great man wanted to see him in person?

Rufinus sketched a grin and swayed his head about snakewise. It might not be on its neck this time tomorrow.

Sunset flared off glass in upper stories of the palace compound. The eunuch’s garb and password gave quick admittance through a succession of doors and guards. He left the Gaul in an anteroom while he went off to find the deputy he had mentioned. Rufinus sat down and tried to count the blessings of the day that had just ended. The garishness of the religious figures on the walls kept intruding.

The eunuch returned. Three more followed him. “You are honored, sir,” he twittered. “The consul will see you at once.”

Aye, thought Rufinus in Ysan, this year did also that title, of much pomp and scant meaning, come to the mighty Stilicho. Well, he had forced peacefulness on the Visigoths in the East (though ’twas strange that King Alaric received an actual Roman governorship in Illyricum) and had put down rebellion in Africa and two years agone had married his daughter to the Emperor Honorius. … Precautions and deference were passed. The two men were alone.

Twilight was stealing into the austere room where Stilicho sat in a chair behind a table. Before him was a litter of papyruses he must have been going through, documents or dispatches or whatever they were, together with some joined thin slabs of wood whereon were inked words that Rufinus suspected meant vastly more. The general showed the Vandal side of his descent in height and the time-dulled blondness of hair and short beard. He wore a robe
plain, rumpled, not overly clean, the sleeves drawn back from his hairy forearms.

Never himself a soldier, Rufinus had watched legionaries come to attention. He tried for a civilian version of it. Momentarily, Stilicho’s lips quirked.

The smile blinked out, the look became somber. “You should have left word where you would be today,” Stilicho rumbled.

“I’m sorry, uh, sir. I had no idea my presence would be wanted.”

“Hm. Why not? You’ve been buzzing enough about the court and … elsewhere.”

“The Master knows everything.”

Stilicho’s fist thudded on the table. “Stow that grease. By the end of each day, it drips off me. Speak plain. You’re no straightforward courier for the King of Ys. You’re at work on his behalf, aren’t you?”

Rufinus answered with the promptitude he saw would be best for him. “I am that, sir. It’s no secret. The Master knows Ys and its King—the tribune of Rome—are loyal. More than loyal; vital. But we have our enemies. We need a spokesman at the Imperium.” He paused for three pulse-beats. “Rome needs one.”

Stilicho nodded. “At ease. I don’t question your motives. Your judgment—that may be another matter. Though you’ve shown a good deal of mother wit, from what I hear. As in finding that ring stolen from the lady Lavinia.”

Without relaxing alertness, Rufinus let some of the tension out of his muscles. “That was nothing, sir. When I compared the stories told by members of the household, it was clear who the thief must be.”

“Still, I don’t know who else would have thought to go about it that way, and save a lot of time and torture.” The general brooded for a moment. “You call Ys vital. So did the letters you brought, and the arguments were not badly deployed. But it’s a slippery word. How vital was, say, the Teutoburg Forest? We don’t know yet, four hundred years later. Sit down.” He pointed at a stool. “I want to ask a few questions about Ys.”

—Beeswax candles had the main room of the apartment aglow. Dion woke at Rufinus’s footsteps and was on his
own feet before the door had opened. “Oh, welcome!” he cried; and then, seeing the visage: “What’s happened, my soul, what is it?”

Rufinus lurched across the floor. Dion hastened to close the door and meet him by the couch. “Stilicho told me at last,” Rufinus mumbled. “He drew me out first, but he told me at last.”

Dion caught the other’s hands. “What is it?” he quavered.

“Oh, I can’t blame Stilicho. I’d have done the same in his place. He needed my information calmly given, because he will never get it elsewhere, not ever again. Nobody will.” Rufinus’s long legs folded under him. He sank onto the seat and gaped at emptiness.

Dion sat down at his side and caressed him. “T-t-tell me when you w-want to. I can wait.”

“A dispatch came today,” said Rufinus. His words fell like stones, one by one. “Ys died last month. The sea came in and drowned it.”

Dion wailed.

Rufinus rattled a laugh. “Be the first of the general public to know,” he said. “Tomorrow the news will be all over town. It’ll be a sensation for at least three days, if nothing juicier happens meanwhile.”

Dion laid his head in Rufinus’s lap and sobbed.

Presently Rufinus was able to stroke the curly hair and mutter, “There, now; good boy; you cry for me, of course, not for a city you never knew, but that’s natural; you care.”

Dion clung. “You are not forsaken!”

“No, not entirely. The King escaped, says the dispatch. Gratillonius lives. You’ve heard me speak of him aplenty. I’m going to him in the morning. Stilicho gave me leave. He’s by no means an unkindly man, Stilicho.”

Dion raised his face. “I am with you, Rufinus. Always.”

The Gaul shook his head. “I’m afraid not, my dear,’ he replied almost absently, still staring before him. “I shall have to send you back to Quintilius. With a letter of praise for your service. I can do that much for you before I go—”

“No!” screamed Dion. He slipped from the couch and went on his knees, embracing the knees of Rufinus. “Don’t leave me!”

“I must.”

“You said—you said you love me.”

“And you called yourself the Antinöus to my Hadrianus.” Rufinus looked downward. “Well, you were young. You are yet, while I have suddenly become old. I could never have taken you along anyhow, much though I’ve wanted to. It would make an impossible situation.”

“We can keep it secret,” Dion implored.

Again Rufinus shook his head. “Too dangerous for you, lad, in the narrow-minded North. But worse than that, by itself it would destroy you. Because you see—” he searched for words, and when he had found them must force them forth—“my heart lies yonder. It’s only the ghost of my heart that came down here. Now the ghost has to return from Heaven to earth, and endure.”

“Someday you’ll understand, Dion,” he said against the tears. “Someday when you too are old.”

3

Osprey
came to rest on a day of mist-fine rain, full of odors sweet and pungent from an awakening land. Maeloch had inquired along the way and learned that this was where the River Ruirthech met the sea, the country of the Lagini on its right and Mide, where Niall of the Nine Hostages was foremost among kings, to the left. He steered along the north side of the bay looking for a place to stop, and eventually found it. Through the gray loomed a great oblong house, white against brilliant grass. It stood a short distance from the water, at the meeting of two roads unpaved but well-kept, one following the shore, one vanishing northwesterly. “Belike we can get hospitality here,” he said. His voice boomed through the quiet. “Watch your tongues, the lot o’ ye.” Several of his men knew a Hivernian dialect or two, some of them better than he.

They made fast at a rude dock. By that time they had been seen, and folk had come from the house or its outbuildings. They were both men and women, without weapons other than their knives and a couple of spears. The compound was not enclosed by an earthen wall as
most were. A portly red-bearded fellow trod forward. “Welcome to you, travelers, so be it you come in peace,” he called. “This is the hostel of Cellach maqq Blathmaqqi. Fire is on the hearth, meat on the spit, and beds laid clean for the weary.”