‘And so when you marched out of Isca, on imperial orders to return to Italy, to defend Rome at all costs, you left a wife behind?’
‘Yes, sir. And two children.’
‘And two children,’ Stilicho repeated. ‘Tough order. Miss them?’
‘Like hell, sir. I… ’ He hesitated. ‘I hope one day to go back there, sir. When all this is done.’
‘Britain is now beyond the frontier, soldier. You do understand that?’
‘I do, sir. But it’s not yet finished.’
‘Hm.’ Stilicho stroked the thinning grey stubble on the top of his head. ‘But your lot had plenty of desertions?’
The lieutenant looked shamefaced. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Hm. So you joined at – eighteen?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you’ve got another thirteen years to serve before you get pensioned off. That’s a long time to go without seeing your wife and kids. And a long time for a wife to go without seeing her husband. If you know what I mean.’
‘I’m not complacent, sir.’
‘Remember Emperor Claudius. He only had to go down to the port of Ostia for a few days, and his wife went and married Gaius Silvus.’
‘My wife is no Messalina, sir.’
‘No, no,’ said the general with some haste. ‘And you’re no Claudius, I’m sure, but only a mere mortal like the rest of us.’ He grinned. ‘You know what the Divine Claudius’ last words were, according to Seneca?’
The lieutenant shook his head.
‘ “Oh dear, I think I’ve shat myself!”
The lieutenant smiled. Then Stilicho resumed more seriously, ‘And when you get pensioned off, you won’t get a farm in Britain for your service, not any more. You’ll maybe get something in Gaul. And maybe not.’
The lieutenant said nothing.
The general sighed and felt a great weight on his shoulders. It was the weight of responsibility, plus the weight of this good lieutenant’s tragic loyalty. And there were thousands more like him, who would not desert their last post.
‘OK, soldier. Now give me a game of draughts before you go. You play draughts?’
‘Badly, sir.’
‘Me too. Excellent. Means the game won’t last long and we can soon go to bed.’
The game lasted, as the general had predicted, only a few minutes. The lieutenant won.
‘Badly indeed,’ said Stilicho grudgingly. He sat back and stretched. ‘OK, soldier, you can go. Reveille at first light.’
‘Sir.’
Stilicho sat for a long time on his own, gazing at the scattered draughts before him by the light of the guttering candle. He heard the howl of the wolves at the river’s edge, eerily nearby, come down from the hills above to drink, or to lie in wait for their prey, when they came to drink likewise. And he heard the answering howl of the camp dogs calling to their cousins beyond, in the wilderness. Like men, penned in the safety of their cities, longing for the ungoverned wilderness in their turn. Bored with civilisation and its heavy demands, its frustrating interdictions, and longing for the old forest ways, and the new dark age.
Stilicho reached out for more wine, and then stopped himself. Freedom comes when you learn to say no. He slept at his desk.
Over the next few days of the march to Pavia, the general came to like his new aide-de-camp, the British lieutenant, more and more as they rode alongside each other. Lucius was his name.
‘And my horse,’ said the lieutenant, leaning forward and patting the long, grey, powerful neck, ‘is called Tugha Ban.’
The general eyed him a little sardonically. ‘You have a name for your horse?’
Lucius nodded. ‘The finest grey mare from the stock of the wide horse-country of the Iceni. And where I go, she goes.’
The general shook his head. Horse-lovers.
‘What do you think of the Palatine Guard, soldier?’ he asked. ‘As a Frontier Guard yourself?’
‘Begging your pardon, sir, but in all honesty I’d rather not say.’
‘Hm,’ murmured Stilicho. ‘I think they’re a bunch of posturing nancy-boys myself.’
The lieutenant grinned and said nothing.
‘You’ll dine with me tonight, soldier. Just the two of us. I’ve things I want to discuss with you.’
‘Sir?’
‘Tonight, soldier. At the twelfth hour.’
They dined well, and Stilicho insisted the lieutenant took at least a cup of wine.
‘I’m no wine expert,’ he said, ‘but this Opimian is pretty good, don’t you think? The vines grow overlooking the bay, and it’s supposed to have the taste of the salt sea in it.’ The general took a glug, rolled it round his mouth and swallowed. ‘Actually, I can’t taste anything of the sort, it’s just what the wine snobs back in Rome claim.’
The lieutenant liked this Stilicho.
They talked of the army, the barbarian invasions, the state of Rome. The vulnerability of Africa, and its vast grain-fields; and the inscrutable nature of the Huns.
‘They could yet be our salvation,’ said Stilicho.
‘Or… ’ said Lucius, and left it hanging in the air.
‘Hm,’ said the general. ‘It’ll pay to keep cosy with them, certainly. And take care of our Hun hostages, too.’
He poured them each a fresh cup of wine, Lucius not refusing. A moment later, he said, ‘You believe in prophecies, lieutenant?’
‘Well,’ said the lieutenant slowly, ‘I’m no philosopher, but I think I do. Like most people, I suppose.’
‘Exactly!’ The general banged his fist on the table and his eyes gleamed.
‘In my part of Britain, sir… I don’t know if I should say, as we’re all Christian now, I know, and they weren’t exactly popular with Julius Caesar… ’
Stilicho frowned. ‘Who, the Christians?’
‘No, sir, the druithynn and the bandruithynn – the holy men and women of Britain, the priests of our native religion.’
‘Ah yes, the druids. Caesar detested them, and the power they wielded. Which was why he pretty much wiped them out, I thought, on the Isle of Mon?’
‘He killed a lot of them, sir. But some escaped, to their cousins, over the water in Hibernia.’
‘Ah yes, Hibernia. Never could get the hang of Hibernia. They’re all mad there, aren’t they?’
Lucius smiled, and then said enigmatically, ‘Well, they don’t build straight roads over there, let’s say. But after the massacre on Mon, it was the home of the druithynn for the next four hundred years.’
‘And now…?’
‘Now they’re returning to Britain. Even though we’re all Christians now, even in Hibernia, the druithynn are returning. And many of the people, especially the country people, are still faithful to the old religion.’
Stilicho nodded. ‘Don’t tell me. The things that still go on in the hills and the villages – even in civilised Italy. I tell you, soldier, your average village Saturnalia still makes a night in a Suburran brothel look like dinner with the Vestal Virgins.’
‘In Dumnonia, sir, in my village, the marriage bond is held as sacred as it is among the strictest Christians of the East. But that’s not the case everywhere in Britain, especially on the great feast days of our Celtic year – like with your Saturnalia. In Dumnonia we still have the midwinter festival of Samhain, and then Beltane-’
‘And that’s when men really have to watch their wives, huh?’
Lucius grimaced. ‘And as for the young people not yet married.. . ’
The two men brooded for a while on the thought of young Celtic girls with no clothes on, and then harrumphed simultaneously and came back to reality.
‘How did we get onto this subject?’ growled the general.
‘Prophecy, sir.’
‘Ah yes.’ He poured more wine.
‘And I meant to say,’ said Lucius, ‘that prophecy is very strong among the druithynn – except that nothing is ever written down. Prophecies are considered to possess too much mana – that is, sacred power. Once they’re written down, anyone can read them.’
Stilicho nodded, his burning brown eyes in his long, lugubrious face fixed on the lieutenant. And then, without changing his gaze, he reached down and picked up a scroll from the table, upended it and shook. Another tattered scrap of a scroll fell out, and Stilicho unrolled it and pressed it out flat upon the table. It was brown with age, and blackened with burns round its edges.