Lest Darkness Fall (19 page)

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            LIUDERIS BLEW OUT his snowy
whiskers and explained: "I am sorry you deceived me, Martinus. I never
thought a true Arian would stoop to ... ah ... conniving with these pro-Greek
Italians to let a swarm of Orthodox fanatics into Italy."

            "Who says so?"
asked Padway, more annoyed than apprehensive.

            "No less a person than
the ... ah ... noble Thiudegiskel. He told how when he visited your house, you
not only insulted and reviled him, but boasted of your connections with the
Imperialists. His companions corroborated him. They said you had inside
information about a plan for betraying Rome, and that you were planning to move
your effects elsewhere to escape any disturbances. When my men arrested you,
they found that you were in fact about to move."

            "My dear sir!"
said Padway in exasperation. "Don't you think I have any brains? If I were
in on some plot of some sort, do you think I would go around telling the world
about it?"

            Liuderis shrugged. "I
would not know. I am only doing my duty, which is to hold you for questioning
about this secret plan. Take him away, Sigifrith."

            Padway hid a shudder at the
word "questioning." If this honest blockhead got set on an idea, he'd
have a swell chance of talking him out of it.

            The Goths had set up a
prison camp at the north end of the city, between the Flaminian Way and the
Tiber. Two sides of the camp were formed by a hastily erected fence, and the
remaining two by the Wall of Aurelian. Padway found that two Roman patricians
had preceded him in custody; both said they had been arrested on suspicion of
complicity in an Imperialist plot. Several more Romans arrived within a few
hours.

            The camp was no escape-proof
masterpiece, but the Goths made the best of it. They kept a heavy guard around
the fence and along the wall. They even had a squad camped across the Tiber, in
case a prisoner got over the wall and tried to swim the river.

            For three days Padway
rusticated. He walked from one end of the camp to the other, and back, and
forward, and back, When he got tired of walking he sat. When he got tired of
sitting he walked. He talked a little with his fellow prisoners, but in a moody
and abstracted manner.

            He'd been a fool — well, at
least he'd been badly mistaken — in supposing that he could carry out his plans
with as little difficulty as in Chicago. This was a harsh, convulsive world;
you had to take it into account, or you'd get caught in the gears sooner or
later. Even the experts at political intrigue and uniformed banditry often came
to a bad end. What chance would such a hopelessly unwarlike and unpolitical
alien as himself have?

            Well, what chance did he
have anyway? He'd kept out of public affairs as much as possible, and here he
was in a horrifying predicament as a result of a pretty squabble over a brass
telescope. He might just as well have gone adventuring up to the hilt. If he
ever got out, he
would
go adventuring, He'd show 'em!

            The fourth day failed to
settle Padway's gnawing anxiety about his interrogation. The guards seemed
excited about something. Padway tried to question them, but they rebuffed him,
Listening to their muttering talk, he caught the word folkmote, That meant that
the great meeting was about to be held near Terracina, at which the Goths would
consider what to do about the loss of Naples.

            Padway got into talk with
one of the patrician prisoners, "Bet you a solidus," he said,
"that they depose Thiudahad and elect Wittigis king in his place."

            The patrician, poor man,
took him on.

            Thomasus the Syrian arrived.
He explained: "Nerva tried to get in to see you, but he couldn't afford a
high enough bribe. How do they treat you?"

            "Not badly. The food's
not exactly good, but they give us plenty of it. What worries me is that
Liuderis thinks I know all about some alleged conspiracy to betray Rome, and he
may use drastic methods to try to get information out of me."

            "Oh, that. There's a
conspiracy afoot, all right. But I think you'll be safe for a few days anyway.
Liuderis has gone off to a convention, and the Goths' affairs are all in
confusion." He went on to report on the state of Padway's business. "We
got the last case off this morning. Ebenezer the Jew is going up to Florence in
a couple of weeks. He'll look in and see that your foremen haven't run off with
all your property."

            "You mean to see
whether
they've run off with it. Any war news?"

            "None, except that
Naples suffered pretty badly. Belisarius' Huns got out of hand when the town
was captured. But I suppose you know that. You can't tell me that you haven't
some magical knowledge of the future."

            "Maybe. Which side do
you favor, Thomasus?"

            "Me? Why — I haven't
thought about it much, but I suppose I favor the Goths. These Italians haven't
any more fight than a lot of rabbits, so the country can't be really
independent. And if we have to be ruled by outsiders, the Goths have been a lot
easier on us than Justinian's tax gatherers would be. Only my Orthodox friends
can't be made to see it that way. Like my cousin, Antiochus, for instance. They
become completely irrational when they get off on the subject of Arian
heretics."

            When Thomasus was ready to
go, he asked Padway: "Is there anything I can bring you? I don't know what
the guards will allow, but if there's something —"

            Padway thought.
"Yes," he said. "I'd like some painting equipment."

            "Painting? You mean
you're going to whitewash the Wall of Aurelian?"

            "No; stuff for painting
pictures. You know." Padway made motions.

            "Oh,
that
kind
of painting. Sure. It'll pass the time."

-

            Padway wanted to get on top
of the wall, to give the camp a proper looking-over for ways of escape. So when
Thomasus brought his painting supplies he applied to the commander of the
guards, a surly fellow named Hrotheigs, for permission. Hrotheigs took one
look, and spoke one word: "Ni!"

            Padway masked his annoyance
and retired to ponder on How to Win Friends. He spent the better part of the
day experimenting with his equipment, which was a bit puzzling to one
unaccustomed to it. A fellow prisoner explained that you coated one of the thin
boards with wax, painted in water color on this surface, and then warmed the
board until the wax became soft enough to absorb the pigment. It was ticklish
business; if you overheated the board, the wax melted and the colors ran.

            Padway was not a
professional artist by any means. But an archaeologist has to know something
about drawing and painting in the exercise of his profession. So the next day
Padway felt confident enough to ask Hrotheigs if he would like his portrait
painted.

            The Goth for the first time
looked almost pleased. "Could you make a picture of me? I mean, one for me
to keep?"

            "Try to, excellent
captain. I don't know how good it'll be. You may end up looking like Satanas
with a gutache."

            "Huh? Like Whom? Oh, I
see! Haw! Haw! Haw! You are a funny fellow."

            So Padway painted a picture.
As far as he could see, it looked as much like any black-bearded ruffian as it
did like Hrotheigs. But the Goth was delighted, asserting that it was his spit
and image. The second time he made no objections to Padway's climbing the wall
to paint landscapes from the top, merely detailing a guard to keep close to him
at all times.

            Saying that he had to pick
the best vantage point for painting, Padway walked up and down the wall the
length of the camp. At the north end, where the wall turned east toward the
Flaminian Gate, the ground outside sloped down for a few yards to a recess in
the river bank — a small pool full of water lilies.

            He was digesting this
information when his attention was attracted to the camp. A couple of guards
were bringing in a prisoner in rich Gothic clothes who was not co-operating.
Padway recognized Thiudegiskel, the king's precious son. This was too
interesting. Padway went down the ladder.

            "
Hails
," he
said. "Hello."

            Thiudegiskel was squatting
disconsolately by himself. He was somewhat disheveled, and his face had been
badly bruised. Both eyes would soon be swollen shut. The Roman patricians were
grinning unsympathetically at him.

            He looked up. "Oh, it's
you," he said. Most of the arrogance seemed to have been let out of him,
like air out of a punctured balloon.

            "I didn't expect to run
into you here," said Padway. "You look like you had a hard time of
it."

            "
Unh
."
Thiudegiskel moved his joints painfully. "A couple of those soldiers we
had flogged for arresting us got hold of me." Surprisingly, he grinned,
showing a broken front tooth. "Can't say I blame them much. That's one
thing about me; I can always see the other fellow's point of view."

            "What are you in
for?"

            "Hadn't you heard? I'm
not the king's son any more. Or rather my old man isn't king. The convention
deposed him and elected that fathead Wittigis. So Fathead has me locked up so I
can't make trouble."

            "
Tsk, tsk
. Too
bad."

            Thiudegiskel grinned
painfully again. "Don't try to tell me
you're
sorry for me. I'm not
that stupid. But say, maybe you can tell me what sort of treatment to expect,
and whom to bribe, and so on."

            Padway gave the young man a
few pointers on getting on with the guards, then asked: "Where's Thiudahad
now?"

            "I don't know. The last
I'd heard he'd gone up to Tivoli to get away from the heat. But he was supposed
to come back down here this week. Some piece of literary research he's working
on." Between what Padway remembered of the history of the time and the
information he had recently picked up, he had a good picture of the course of
events. Thiudahad had been kicked out. The new king, Wittigis, would put up a
loyal and determined resistance. The result would be worse than no resistance
at all as far as Italy was concerned. He could not beat the Imperialists,
having no brains to speak of. He would begin his campaign with the fatal
mistake of marching off to Ravenna, leaving Rome with only its normal garrison.

            Neither could the
Imperialists beat him with their slender forces except by years of destructive
campaigning. Anything, from Padway's point of view, was preferable to a long
war. If the Imperialists did win, their conquest would prove ephemeral.
Justinian should not be blamed too much; he would require supernatural
foresight to foresee all this. That was the point: Padway
did
have such
foresight. So wasn't it up to him to do something about it?

            Padway had no violent
prejudices in favor either of Gothic or of Imperial rule. Neither side had a
political set-up for which he could feel enthusiasm. Liberal capitalism and
socialist democracy both had good points, but he did not think there was the
remotest chance of establishing either one definitively in the sixth-century
world.

            If the Goths were lazy and
ignorant, the Greeks were rapacious and venal. Yet these two were the best
rulers available. The sixth-century Italian was too hopelessly unmilitary to
stand on his own feet, and he was supinely aware of the fact.

            On the whole the Gothic
regime had not had an ill effect, The Goths enforced tolerance on a people
whose idea of religious liberty was freedom to hang, drown, or burn all members
of sects other than their own. And the Goths looked on the peninsula as a
pleasant home to be protected and preserved. This was a more benign attitude
than could be expected of a savage like the Meroving monarch. Theudebert of
Austrasia, or an insatiable grafter like Justinian's quartermaster-general,
John of Cappadocia.