He did not answer.
I said, “Your family bears a great name. You are the owner of fertile lands, rich treasures and a beautiful house. You have all that most men would welcome; nothing that they would refuse.”
“Stop it,” he cried. “How dare you?”
“Dare,” I said. “I am only a poor man. I am rich in nothing except courage and even that I must earn. Each day I have to win it afresh as a peasant sweats to earn his food. It is not easy to earn what I need that I may do what I have to do. I am only a soldier. But you—you have everything, save only one thing.” I turned my back on him and walked to the open door. “You lack only the Huns as your guests.”
I rode back to the city and all the while I shivered as though with a fever. It was as though the heat had gone out of the sun and the golden brightness of the day was but an illusion.
Outside Romulus a sweating horse stood tethered in the courtyard between the double gates, and a messenger awaited me in my room with a sealed scroll, penned two days before at Moguntiacum. Quintus’ eyebrows were raised, framing an unspoken question.
“The family of Septimus have joined the thumbless ones,” I said.
He said scornfully, “Thus avoiding military service like all the others. You should fine them as Augustus did.”
I broke the seals and read the message through twice to make certain that I understood it properly. “The Alemanni have sent an ambassador across the river. Their king, Rando, wishes a meeting to discuss certain matters.”
“On the east bank, I suppose, preceded by a feast and with girls of his tribe to entertain us,” said Quintus, sardonically.
“I wonder what he wants. It is curious that. The Alemanni must have moved north.”
“You are not going to see him, surely? It may be a trap.”
“I must. I want to know his intentions.”
“Those. I thought they were obvious enough.”
“Too obvious, perhaps. I shall arrange a meeting on one of the islands off Moguntiacum.”
“That should be interesting. My cavalry will then be of great help to you if we are attacked.”
“I am glad you said we.”
He laughed and began to unlace his riding boots. “I have never seen a king of the Germans. I am curious to know what he will be like.”
That afternoon I went down to the dockyard to see Gallus. Our converted ship was out in mid-stream and, judging by the oar splashes, was being used for training new rowers. Quintus remarked, sadly, that they were only good for frightening swans, and I was inclined to agree with him. On the hard, men were at work building the new warships. The keels of three ships had been laid and carpenters were busy fitting the stern posts onto one, the ribs onto another and the planking onto a third. The fourth ship was near completion. The air reeked as the craftsmen caulked its planks with tarred rope, while a group of half-naked men, who only a month before had been jobless, wrestled to fit the two rudders into position. One group were sawing poles into oar lengths while another planed the surface of the blades; after which they were carefully oiled by a boy and an old man and then leaned against a shed to dry in the sun.
Gallus said cheerfully, “I think it will be all right this time, sir. We are working to the original plans of the old Rhenus fleet. I sent a man down to Colonia and the Curator there found them for me in the naval records section.”
“What’s this?” Quintus asked, pointing at a huge block of oak that was being rubbed down by two boys.
“That’s to set the mast in, sir. It’s a good thing we were able to get plenty of seasoned timber. We’re short of decent rope though, but they’ve promised to send some up from Colonia. It should arrive by the end of the week.”
“What about armaments?” I asked.
“She’ll have one light ballista in the bows that will fire up to three hundred yards, and one small carroballista in the stem. But oarsmen are the real trouble.”
“What crew do you need? I told the Curator twelve hundred. Was that correct?”
“Nearly, sir, Two hundred and twenty, including archers, to each ship. Of those a hundred and fifty will be oarsmen, arranged for seating in twenty five banks of threes. That makes a total of thirteen hundred without reserves. We shall have to allow for sickness, injury and other things.”
“And you’ve had no more recruits?”
Gallus rubbed his nose irritably. “Those are my recruits; the crew out there, splashing away unhappily. Most of them wish they had never joined.”
“A pity we can’t use slaves, isn’t it?”
He looked shocked. “Slaves, sir. We couldn’t do that.”
“I know. I suppose not.”
Quintus said, “But why not? It’s been done before.”
“In the fleet, sir? Only free men are allowed in the imperial navy.”
Quintus picked up a lantern and began to play with it. “Yes, precisely—free men or freedmen.” He put the lantern down onto a pile of planks. “If my memory serves me, I seem to remember reading in one of these tedious books of Appian that Augustus Caesar—but he was Octavius then—enlisted twenty thousand slaves for his campaigns against Pompey’s son.”
I frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes. He freed them first and then asked for volunteers.”
“Well, that’s the answer then.”
He smiled. “It’s a good thing someone reads your books.”
Gallus said, “But could we get enough slaves without running into trouble with their owners. The ones you see in the Treverorum market are poor quality as a rule.”
Quintus said, drily, “We shall need an edict, signed by the Praefectus, of course.”
“I doubt it,” I said to Gallus. “But we could get convicts. Yes, Quintus, the Praefectus Praetorio will have to authorise it. I’ll write to him. They’ll have to be paid though, and fed and clothed.”
“Up go the taxes, sir,” said Gallus with a grin.
“How soon will the ships be ready?”
“In thirty days, sir.”
I swore.
“You wanted them to impress the Alemanni,” said Quintus.
“It would have helped.”
“We can manage without them.” Quintus smiled at Gallus. “They can be a surprise for later. Tell me, have you tried out your liquid fire yet?”
I sent a message to the Bishop’s house but he was not there, and I learned he was on the site of a church in the temple district. I rode out to find him and I noticed that the women, fetching water from the public fountains, paused in their work and drew back as I passed by. It was quiet away from the shops, and grass grew between the cracks in the paving stones that made the road. Everything was shabby, neglected and desolate. When I arrived Mauritius was watching a group of masons at work, fitting chips of coloured glass into a corner of a vast mosaic pattern which had been outlined on the floor in the centre of the nave. As usual he was talking, giving instructions as to the way the patterns must flow one into the other. I had never heard him be so eloquent or so sensible. But then I did not attend his sermons.
He nodded to me as I walked out of the sunlight into the dust. “Have you come to be converted?” There was no sting in his voice and I wondered if he had thought it wise to declare a truce. He had his church and the emperor behind him; but I had Stilicho.
“May I speak to you here or outside?” I asked.
“Why not here? He will hear us just as well as in the open.”