Lest Darkness Fall (26 page)

            The bishop looked bleakly at
Padway, and called a sexton, who led Padway to a room off the vestibule. Here
he sat down and wrote:

-

            Martinus
Paduei to Thomasus the Syrian. Greetings:

            My
dear Thomasus: I am sending you with this letter the person of Wittigis, former
King of the Goths and Italians. His escort has orders to deliver him to your
house secretly, so forgive me for any alarm they cause you if they get you out
of bed.

            As
I remember, we have a telegraph tower under construction on the Flaminian Way
near Helvillum. Please arrange to have a chamber constructed in the earth
underneath this tower and fitted up as an apartment forthwith. Incarcerate
Wittigis therein with an adequate guard. Have him made as comfortable as
possible, as I judge him a man of moody temperament, and I do not wish him to
harm himself.

            The
utmost secrecy is to be observed at all times. That should not be too
difficult, as this tower is in a wild stretch of country. It would be advisable
to have Wittigis delivered to the tower by guards other than those who take him
to Rome, and to have him guarded by men who speak neither Latin nor Gothic.
They shall release their prisoner only on my order, delivered either in person
or via the telegraph, or without orders in the event of my imprisonment or
death.

With best regards,

                        MARTINUS PADUEI.

-

            Padway said to Wittigis:
"I'm sorry to have to treat you so roughly, my lord. I would not have
interfered if I hadn't known it was necessary to save Italy."

            Wittigis had relapsed into
morose taciturnity. He glared silently.

            Padway continued: "I'm
really doing you a favor, you know. If Thiudahad got hold of you, you would die
— slowly."

            There was still no reply.

            "Oh, well, take him
away boys. Wrap him up so the people won't recognize him, and use the back
streets."

-

            Thiudahad peered moistly at
Padway. "Marvelous, marvelous, my dear Martinus. The Royal Council
accepted the inevitable. The only trouble is that the evil usurper had my crown
altered to fit his big head; I'll have to alter it back. Now I can devote my
time to some real scholarly research. Let's see — there was something else I
wanted to ask you. Oh, yes, what did you do with Wittigis?"

            Padway put on a benign
smile. "He's out of your reach, my lord king."

            "You mean you killed
him? Now, that's too bad! Most inconsiderate of you, Martinus. I told you I'd
promised myself a nice long session with him in the torture chambers —"

            "No, he's alive. Very
much so."

            "What? What? Then
produce him, at once!"

            Padway shook his head.
"He's where you'll never find him. You see, I figured it would be foolish
to waste a good spare king. If anything happened to you, I might need one in a
hurry."

            "You're insubordinate,
young man! I won't stand for it! You'll do as your king orders you, or else
—"

            Padway grinned, shaking his
head. "No, my lord. Nobody shall hurt Wittigis. And you'd better not get
rough with me, either. His guards have orders to release him if anything
happens to me. He doesn't like you any better than you like him. You can figure
the rest out for yourself."

            "You devil!" spat
the king venomously. "Why, oh, why did I ever let you save my life? I
haven't had a moment's peace since. You might have a little consideration for
an old man," he whined. "Let's see, what was I talking about?"

            "Perhaps," said
Padway, "about the new book we're going to get out in our joint names. It
has a perfectly splendid theory, about the mutual attraction of masses.
Accounts for the movements of the heavenly bodies, and all sorts of things.
It's called the law of gravitation."

            "Really? Now, that's
most interesting, Martinus, most interesting. It would spread my fame as a
philosopher to the ends of the earth, wouldn't it?"

            Padway asked Unilas if
Wittigis' nephew Urias was in Ravenna. Unilas said yes, and sent a man to hunt
him up.

            Urias was big and dark like
his uncle. He arrived scowling defiance. "Well, Mysterious Martinus, now
that you've overthrown my uncle by trickery, what are you going to do with
me?"

            "Not a thing,"
said Padway. "Unless you force me to."

            "Aren't you having a
purge of my uncle's family?"

            "No. I'm not even
purging your uncle. In strict confidence, I'm hiding Wittigis to keep Thiudahad
from harming him."

            "Really? Can I believe
that?"

            "Sure. I'll even get a
letter from him, testifying to the good treatment he's getting."

            "Letters can be
produced by torture."

            "Not with Wittigis. For
all your uncle's faults, I think you will agree that he's a stubborn
chap."

            Urias relaxed visibly.
"That's something. Yes, if that's true, perhaps you have some decency,
after all."

            "Now to get down to
business. How do you feel about working for us — that is, nominally for
Thiudahad but actually for me?"

            Urias stiffened. "Out
of the question. I'm resigning my commission, of course. I won't take any
action disloyal to my uncle."

            "I'm sorry to hear
that. I need a good man to command the reoccupation of Dalmatia."

            Urias shook his head
stubbornly. "It's a question of loyalty. I've never gone back on my plighted
word yet."

            Padway sighed. "You're
as bad as Belisarius. The few trustworthy and able men in this world won't work
with me because of previous obligations. So I have to struggle along with
crooks and dimwits."

            Darkness seemed to want to
fall by mere inertia —

-

            LITTLE BY LITTLE Ravenna's
nonce population flowed away, like trickles of water from a wet sponge on a
tile floor. A big trickle flowed north, as fifty thousand Goths marched back
toward Dalmatia. Padway prayed that Asinar, who seemed to have little more
glimmering of intelligence than Grippas, would not have another brainstorm and
come rushing back to Italy before he'd accomplished anything.

            Padway did not dare leave
Italy long enough to take command of the campaign himself. He did what he could
by sending some of his personal guard along to teach the Goths horse-archery
tactics. Asinar might decide to ignore this newfangled nonsense as soon as he
was out of sight. Or the cuirassiers might desert to Count Constantianus. Or — but
there was no point in anticipating calamities.

            Padway finally found time to
pay his respects to Mathaswentha. He told himself that he was merely being
polite and making a useful contact. But he knew that actually he didn't want to
leave Ravenna without another look at the luscious wench.

            The Gothic princess received
him graciously. She spoke excellent Latin, in a rich contralto vibrant with
good health. "I thank you, excellent Martinus, for saving me from that
beast. I shall never be able to repay you properly."

            They walked into her living
room. Padway found that it was no effort at all to keep in step with her. But
then; she was almost as tall as he was.

            "It was very little, my
lady," he said. "We just happened to arrive at an opportune time."

            "Don't deprecate
yourself, Martinus. I know a lot about you. It takes a real man to accomplish
all you have. Especially when one considers that you arrived in Italy, a
stranger, only a little over a year ago."

            "I do what I must,
princess. It may seem impressive to others, but to me it's more as if I had
been forced into each action by circumstances, regardless of my
intentions."

            '"A fatalistic
doctrine, Martinus. I could almost believe that you're a pagan. Not that I'd
mind."

            Padway laughed.
"Hardly. I understand that you can still find pagans if you hunt around
the Italian hills."

            "No doubt. I should
like to visit some of the little villages some day. With a good guide, of
course."

            "I ought to be a pretty
good guide, after the amount of running around I've done in the last couple of
months."

            "Would you take me? Be
careful; I'll hold you to it, you know."

            "That doesn't worry me
any, princess. But it would have to be some day. At the present rate, God knows
when I'll get time for anything but war and politics, neither of which is my
proper trade."

            "What is, then?"

            "I was a gatherer of
facts; a kind of historian of periods that had no history. I suppose you could
call me a historical philosopher."

            "You're a fascinating
person, Martinus. I can see why they call you Mysterious. But if you don't like
war and politics, why do you engage in them?"

            "That would be hard to
explain, my lady. In the course of my work in my own country, I had occasion to
study the rise and fall of many civilizations. In looking around me here, I see
many symptoms of a fall."

            "Really? That's a
strange thing to say. Of course, my own people, and barbarians like the Franks,
have occupied most of the Western Empire. But they're not a danger to civilization.
They protect it from the real wild men like the Bulgarian Huns and the Slavs. I
can't think of a time when our western culture was more secure."

            "You're entitled to
your opinion, my lady," said Padway. "I merely put together such
facts as I have, and draw what conclusions I can. Facts such as the decline in
the population of Italy, despite the Gothic immigrations. And such things as
the volume of shipping."

            "Shipping? I never
thought of measuring civilization that way. But in any event, that doesn't
answer my question."

            "
Triggws
, to use
one of your own Gothic words. Well, I want to prevent the darkness of barbarism
from falling over western Europe. It sounds conceited, the idea that one man
could do anything like that. But I can try. One of the weaknesses of our
present set-up is slow communication. So I promote the telegraph company. And
because my backers are Roman patricians suspected of Graecophile leanings, I
find myself in politics up to my neck. One thing leads to another, until today I'm
practically running Italy."

            Mathaswentha looked
thoughtful. "I suppose the trouble with slow communication is that a
general can revolt or an invader overrun the border weeks before the central
government hears about it."

            "Right. I can see
you're your mother's daughter. If I wanted to patronize you, I should say that
you had a man's mind."

            She smiled. "On the
contrary, I should be very much pleased. At least, if you mean a man like
yourself. Most of the men around here —
bah!
Squalling infants, without
one idea among them. When I marry, it must be to a man — shall we say both of
thought and action?"