"Hmm. You know he is dead?"
I nodded, saying nothing.
Germanus rose to his feet. "Merlyn, I could respond to what you have said, but I will not, not now. Your words, and the simplicity with which you state them, seem irrefutable, I know, and I will not condemn your evident faith in the truth of them." Again he sighed, a gusty, heaving sound of breath drawn, it appeared to me, from the soles of his feet. "But there is more to it than you can know. Which is, of course, why I am sent here."
He smiled at me and held out his hand. "Again, Caius Merlyn, let me thank you for your assistance today. Without it, we might never have seen Verulamium, and there would be no debate for several more years. I must go now and become the bishop again, discarding arms and armour and praying for humility to arm me in grace against the task ahead." He hesitated for an instant. "We will talk more on this, I promise you."
I stood by the fire and watched him enter the tent that was obviously his, and from that moment on I saw no more of Germanus the Legate. We rode thereafter in escort of Germanus the Cleric.
XXXIV
The experience of being in Verulamium disturbed me deeply. I had the same feeling of alien wonder and dread I experienced much later in my life, at my first Celtic funeral gathering in Hibernia, surrounded by masses of people making merry, eating and drinking and celebrating the humanity of the deceased, while the corpse lay stark and grim-faced among them. In a gruesome parody of life in death, Verulamium was a town whose passing was being celebrated—largely unconsciously, I was quite sure, by the majority of the celebrants. It was a ghostly, moribund place, dilapidated and run-down, experiencing one last glimpse of bustling, urban life, thanks to the crowds that had descended upon it and around it, attracted by Germanus and his visiting bishops and the importance of the occasion.
The first incongruity I noticed lay in the buildings. Some were inhabited, but most were no more than shells, looking fine enough on the outside, but empty, gutted and ravaged within, offering no spark of warmth or comfort. I had thought I knew this town well from my readings, and I had visualized it all my life as the home of Bishop Alaric. In my mind, I had always seen Verulamium as a lovely, stately place, wealthy, yet bucolic and well tended, with a healthy, prosperous populace. In reality, it was a ruined wasteland, and I met very few who lived there. Only within the original Roman walls, a tiny enclave the size of a fortified encampment—which it had originally been—were there any signs of permanent, ongoing habitation.
The throngs of people who jammed the streets by day camped by night, for the most part, in the fields surrounding the town. The public basilica and baths had been hastily renovated to accommodate the influx of delegates to the debate, but they were woefully inadequate to serve the multitude that materialized, drawn by the promise of momentous developments, and the empty buildings quickly became public latrines, the stench of which did not take long to permeate the air in all directions.
The Great Debate itself was to be held in the large amphitheatre outside the town, which, as I knew from Uncle Varrus's tales, could house upward of seven thousand seated people, but by the time our party arrived, three days in advance of the opening of the proceedings, there were already more than twice that number of people in and around the town. There were clerics in abundance, of course. Every bishop in Britain who could attend was there in person, and more than a few of them had brought staff with them. At first it amused me—later it upset me—to see how widely the various groups and sub-groups of clerics varied in their appearance. Some were dressed plainly and with dignity, as befitted their calling, but many more—far more—deported themselves as men of wealth and substance, wearing rich robes arid bearing jewelled crosses and gold vessels.
And then there were the crowds. Many were sober, decent folk, the people of Britain come, as had we, to hear and see their destiny debated and decided. Others, however, and there seemed more of these than any other kind, were the type that are always attracted to large gatherings, looking to fatten themselves off the gullibility of fools. There were hawkers and peddlars and thieves and cutpurses, harlots and harpies and whores, musicians and tellers of tales, actors and singers and tellers of fortune. There were sellers of wines and beer and mead and food of all descriptions.
Nowhere were there any keepers of order. And the result was chaos.
I had hardly spoken ten words to Bishop Germanus since the day of our first meeting. For the duration of our journey northward together, he had kept to himself, a bishop again, spending his time in prayer and contemplation, preparing his mind for the debate that lay ahead. We had parted company on the outskirts of the town on the morning we arrived, he and his companions heading inward to meet with the rest of his retinue while my party swung eastward in search of a space large enough to allow us to encamp and still be within easy reach of the town and the amphitheatre.
That evening, however, a short time after sunset, as our encampment was settling down after the evening meal and I was enjoying a flask of mead by my own fireside with Lucanus, Germanus came to visit us, in his capacity as bishop, complete with long robe and pastoral shepherd's staff, accompanied by another.
Greatly surprised, for I had not really expected to meet with him again, let alone speak with him, I made him and his companion welcome and called for Donuil to serve them some mead. Lucanus made to excuse himself immediately, but Germanus invited him to remain, apologizing for the interruption. He turned then to me, indicating the man he had brought with him.
"Caius Merlyn, you have not met Bishop Patricius of Verulamium, although he knows your aunt, the Lady Luceiia."
I remembered immediately. This was the bishop who had first brought the mad priest Remus to Camulod, although he could hardly be held to blame for Remus's madness. I shook his hand and told him I had heard my aunt speak of him, though I refrained from telling him she thought him not half the man his predecessor had been. He was a big, old man, self-satisfied and well-fed in appearance, but gentle-voiced and inoffensive of manner. I introduced them to Lucanus, who had met Germanus before but had never spoken with him, and asked them to be seated on the two extra folding stools Donuil had placed between ours. When they were comfortable by the fire and we had shared a friendly toast to the forthcoming event, I asked the purpose of their visit.
I had been aware since their arrival that Germanus looked ill at ease, but I had no means of divining the reason. Now he frowned and sucked in his lips as though clearing his mouth of an unpleasant taste, and when he spoke, his words were unequivocal.
"Our purpose here, Caius Merlyn," he said, "is both presumptuous and indefensible."
I flicked a glance at Lucanus who was already looking at me, an expression of quizzical surprise in his eyes. I looked back to Germanus.
"Well, Bishop, that assures you, at least, of my complete attention."
"Hmm! Have you been in the town?"
I shook my head. "No, not yet. We've been setting up camp since we arrived."
"Any of your men there?"
"No, not until tomorrow. Why? What's wrong?"
He jerked his head, a gesture of disgust. "The place is in a state of anarchy...chaos... Thousands of people, of all descriptions, many of them lawless, and no means of maintaining order, no means at all."
I stared at him in surprise. "Is there that much need of it?"
He blinked at me in incredulity. "Need of it? Of order? How can you even ask such a question? There are thousands more people here than anyone had dreamed might come, and they lack both accommodation and latrines. Latrines, Merlyn, the bane of all commanders in the field. The filth has already started to pile up everywhere, and filth breeds pestilence, as you well know. Far worse than that, however, for the moment, is the lack of food. There have been no arrangements made by anyone to feed these thousands of people, who have been arriving here in multitudes for days. Some have been here for weeks. Most brought some provisions with them, but those have already been consumed, since most people also thought to buy food here, and there is none, or very little. What little there is has been appropriated by a group of brigands—"