The Boat of Fate (18 page)
He was a bachelor and lived simply, attended by a minimum of servants. His house adjoined the library building itself; I arrived punctually on the afternoon named, to be met by Patermuthis himself. He ushered me to the baths, where several slaves waited my appearance. I took my time; a couple of hours later my clothes were returned to me and I made my way back, refreshed and relaxed, to the peristyle.
The house was very much bigger than it had appeared from the street, and furnished with a taste and elegance seldom encountered outside Rome. Fountains played softly; I was reminded once more, forcibly, of my father’s home. The dining room itself was the biggest chamber in the place. It served double duty as a study; three walls were lined with books, while to one side stood a massive writing desk, its top littered with scrolls and stacks of paper. Once over the threshold I paused involuntarily. The whole floor was taken up by a mosaic, worked in a simple, powerful style I had not seen before. Heads of the Seasons stared from the comers; I saw Spring with her chaplet of green leaves, Winter hooded and stem, clutching the bare branch of a tree. Between were patterns of flowers and birds, while in the centre was a scene from mythology; Venus, attended by handmaidens, rising from the sea. Here the artists had exercised their greatest skill. The hair of the Goddess, corn-coloured and long, flew in a non-existent breeze; her eyes, delicately tilted beneath arching brows, watched up at me coolly. She wore a cloak, fastened at the neck; but it too flowed up and away behind her, leaving her naked. Her body, slender and delicately modelled, glowed against a background of blue-grey and green. One slim foot was poised, in the act of stepping from the water; beside her a girl stretched out her hand, ready to assist her to the shore.
I became belatedly aware of Patermuthis waiting by my side. I apologised, awkwardly, for my rudeness, but he merely laughed, steering me towards the eating alcove. ‘It is in fact a most delightful work,’ he said. ‘The main charm of the house, to my eyes. The Bishop, I’m afraid, scarcely shares my enthusiasm; he has gone so far as to suggest that strategically placed matting might be an asset to the room, but on that point I’ve so far remained obdurate. Please be seated, Tribune, and make yourself at home.’ He took the couch opposite me, and clapped his hands for wine.
I was more than a little surprised to find myself the only guest. Patermuthis understood my look, and hastened to explain. ‘I’ve always been averse to crowds,’ he said. ‘And a man sitting at meat is, after all, at his most primitive; he craves, and deserves, a certain decent solitude. Had I nine heads, and as many tongues and ears, I would cheerfully fill my couches every night; as it is, I believe if a man is worth inviting to one’s home he’s worth listening to, and the least one can give him is undivided attention.’
‘I think,’ I said, ‘my father would have agreed with you there, sir.’
He signalled to the wine servant to refill my cup. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘your father. I’d like to hear more of him, and of you. I must confess to a certain curiosity. You’ve obviously had an excellent upbringing and education; how on earth did you come to finish up, of all things, in the Army?’
The meal was wholesome: meat dishes and fresh-caught sea fish, served with simple, effective sauces. Under the influence of that excellent board I spoke freely, for the first time in years; I described my life in Italica and the events that had taken me to Rome, omitting only the still-painful details of my abortive love affair. Patermuthis heard me out thoughtfully, nodding his head from time to time. ‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘that certainly explains your interest in Britannia; and you appear to have inherited your father’s enquiring mind. But if you’ll forgive a somewhat personal remark, you seem to have made a grave error somewhere along the line.’
I took a sip of wine. ‘How do you mean, sir?’ I asked him. He smiled faintly, and let his eyes drift back to the Venus before answering, ‘Let me express myself in a different way,’ he said. ‘Here you are, your ambition achieved, a Tribune on active service stationed in Burdigala. Are you happy?’
I was quiet for a moment, considering. ‘I don’t know,’ I said finally. ‘Define happiness and perhaps I could answer you.’
He laughed at that, not unkindly. ‘Don’t split hairs, young man,’ he said, ‘or chop your Greek logic quite so fine. I asked you a simple question, which seems to me to have an equally simple answer; no. Let’s see, to begin with, what Burdigala has to offer in entertainment for a fellow of your type. The wineshops, of course, where I’m sure that rather unsavoury little fellow officer of yours would be delighted to keep you company; the brothels . . . though it seems to me you’re not exactly the sort of man to find forgetfulness in the comforting arms of a whore. Is there anything else?’
‘Very little,’ I admitted.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Very little, for a soldier.’ He looked at me intently, frowning. ‘Sergius,’ he said, ‘it’s not too late, if you’ll take counsel from an older and perhaps a little wiser man. You have some money of your own, as I know perfectly well; not a great fortune, but more than enough to buy you a release. I hope I haven’t offended you by saying you’ve made a mistake; you see it’s a mistake that can be very soon remedied.’ He waved a hand in a vague gesture at the shelves of books behind him. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that you were destined for something much better than an army career. You’ve had a good education, as I said; and you’ve a better brain than many it’s been my misfortune to instruct over the years. If you wished to take up your studies again, here, you’d find I could be of considerable help to you. You could read law; or perhaps a position could be found for you within the University itself. In time you could even become a tutor; I feel you might make a good one. While as far as the present is concerned, as you’ve already seen this house is really much too big for one. You could live here, if you so desired; at least until you became established. In a curious way I’ve come to feel a certain responsibility for you; I urge you at least to think over what I’ve said, and not give too hasty an answer.’
I sat quiet, frowning down at my wine-cup. Many things passed through my mind. The offer was as generous as it was unexpected; certainly I would never be given a better chance to start again. And much of what Patermuthis had said was uncomfortably accurate. I had seen now, at first hand, just what modem army service was like; and I knew in my heart I could never give myself wholly to my chosen career. But ... I found myself unconsciously rubbing the new scar in my palm. I thought of what my commission had already cost me in mental suffering and pain. It wasn’t a thing to be lightly put away. Maybe, too, those distant childhood trumpets rang in my mind again. One day, I knew, the Arcadians would ride out from Burdigala, to battle and glory, maybe death. Could I stand to watch them, one of a faceless crowd again?
I looked down at the Venus. Her eyes still seemed to seek me out where I lay; and I experienced the oddest sensation of confusion and uncertainty. I saw, in a moment of time, that my fate was not yet accomplished. What was it Marcus had said, all those years ago? ‘It’s as if we were launched on a sea and must sail on till we reach land, wherever it might be ….’I had felt myself beyond all love for woman; now I knew with curious sureness that this was not so. In the face of the Anadyomene, human yet divine, I saw perfection. Maybe her counterpart existed, on the broad earth, and breathed at this instant and talked; maybe I just pursued an ideal. Either way I must continue to search, perhaps across the ocean.
I came round with a start. My host was watching me half-humorously. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry my suggestion came as such an unwelcome shock; for a moment you looked positively appalled.’ I hurriedly apologised, but he clapped his hands again, and laughed. ‘At any rate,’ he said, ‘let’s drink to your future, whatever it might be. And for the present please consider this house as your home. I’ll have Hoenus make up a bed in one of the spare rooms; you can use it whenever you choose, or whenever you feel the exigencies of military life about to overcome the scholar in you.’
I drank to that, in gratitude; and when I think back over my time in Burdigala it is always the house of Patermuthis, and the hospitality I found there, that come first to mind. The possibility of my leaving the Army was never discussed again, but his interest in me was unflagging. Through him I met many of the leading citizens of the town. As he had pointed out, he entertained sparingly; but when he did give a dinner I was always assured of a place. He would introduce me, smilingly, as a military historian, and would often attempt to draw me out in discussion with my elders. I committed myself as little as possible on these occasions; for to tell the truth I found I had little more in common with the intelligentsia of the town than with the Arcadians. Authors abounded in Burdigala, but to me each seemed as impossibly tedious as the last. They would entertain the table in turn with their latest odes, applauding each other vigorously; at the end of each rendition Patermuthis would incline his head gravely, murmuring this or that compliment to the reader’s style or diction, while I came near to bursting. To me their efforts seemed devoid alike of interest and originality; none of these literary Tribunes, curiales and priests seemed to have the slightest real appreciation of the structure of language, the golden ring of finely chosen words. I mentioned the matter once to Patermuthis. We had been discussing the work of Cicero, of whose writings he possessed a remarkably fine collection; he laid down the book from which he had been reading, shook his head and smiled. ‘You’ve chosen a hard course, I’m afraid, my friend,’ he said. ‘The way of the poet. You’ll find few enough to agree with you, even in Burdigala. Folk flock from half across the Empire to sit here at the feet of masters; and what do they learn? How to cram their work fuller with Classical allusions than a beggar’s dog is full of fleas, but precious little else. So that Gallia abounds from end to end with pompous little orators shedding panegyrics like trees shed autumn leaves; each one a Cicero, mark you, in his own estimation. And, alas, in the eyes of the bedazzled population.’
He was even more scathing about the attitude of the Gallic nobility to events within the Empire. ‘Within living memory,’ he said once, ‘this Province has been swept by war after disastrous war. We’ve seen not merely tribes but entire barbarian nations admitted, with their Kings, their customs and their unrest, into the Empire itself. We’ve seen a complete Roman field army routed at Hadrianopolis by these self-same savages, and an Augustus killed. We’ve seen another of these harmless buffoons proclaim his own State, set up his own Emperor and make idiots of the entire administration of the West. Right now there are more barbarians under arms inside our borders than at any time in history; men like your Vidimerius, bound by the most tenuous loyalties to a culture that at best they barely comprehend, each ready, were conditions to alter, to carve out little principalities for themselves and hold them against all comers. You see soldiers, Sergius, and you may well be right; I see the very instruments of chaos.’
I was amazed that Patermuthis, the mildest of men and the last, one might have thought, to concern himself with military affairs, should show passion in such an unlikely cause. I said as much; and he smiled, a little bitterly.
‘I’m not so readily moved to anger as I was,’ he said, ‘but this infuriates me. When Rome made these lands into a Province, four hundred years and more ago, she took over a mass of peasants and warring, petty chieftains; and that, despite our fine clothes and finer words, is just what we’ve remained. But we look to Rome now for our protection, as if there was some magic in the very name; we forget how she herself was founded, or how she grew. We build no walls; we send her no men; when the enlistment orders go out we whine to the Praefecture that our estates will fall into ruin, and commute levies for gold. While the literary among us, in between playing with our books and dinner parties, bemoan the decay of virtues that were never ours in the first place and blame the results of indolence, greed and blindness on the wrath of the Gods. Right now, as we sit and talk, the northern frontiers are menaced from end to end, by peoples united, for the very first time, by a common terror as well as a common lust for plunder. It’s a pressure I can feel, as a nearly physical thing; I feel it with my bones. It appals me, even if it doesn’t frighten you. What do these people see, beyond the towers and walls, when they look down to the south? An entire world, vaster than their minds can grasp, richer than all their imaginings, lying like a great plum ripe for picking. And what do we do in the meantime? Put our fingers in our ears, turn our cloaks over our eyes, our arses to the north and pretend we never heard of Germania. Here, I’ll show you something. . .’
He rose, stamped to his desk and unlocked a drawer. From it he took a book that he slung across the room to me. I slipped it from its bright-dyed jacket, wondering. It was entitled
A Treatise on War
, but there was no author’s name. I began to read, and was soon engrossed. Here, clearly and concisely, were set our reforms that touched on every aspect of the Empire. Firstly the monarchy was attacked for its lavishness and abuse of public funds. There followed detailed plans for financial reform that included a new and flexible tax structure; levies were to be made in strict accordance with the means of the individual, and major landowners, who at present escaped virtually unscathed, compelled to bear their full share of the burden. These landowners, too, were to be made responsible for the maintenance of a system of frontier forts, and the entire Army reorganised on rational and sensible lines, new regiments replacing; the hotch-potch of auxiliary units raised by this Emperor or that and as often as not left to disintegrate slowly in whatever outlandish spot their service had chanced to leave them. I skipped hastily from paragraph to paragraph. Here were no woolly declamations on the virtue of our ancestors, but common-sense, hard-headed solutions to the immediate problems of the day. I saw new war machines described; armoured vehicles in which small detachments of men could successfully engage much greater concentrations of enemy troops; pontoons that could be flung instantly across the deepest river, from which bridgeheads could be established in the face of entrenched opposition; even a warship powered by oxen, which could manoeuvre independently of the wind and yet leave its entire crew free to engage the enemy. This last in particular intrigued me. I pored over the illustration of the craft. The animals, I saw, worked a treadmill on the upper deck; from it shafts led to twin wheels projecting over the bulwarks. Oar blades were attached to their rims; it was a simple enough device, but I wondered at the power it might develop. Such a vessel, properly armoured and equipped with a heavy ram, could prove invincible.