"This is insane! I've heard enough. Thank you for your attempt to salvage my mother's worthlessness, although I know not what you hoped to achieve."
"No, damnation! Listen to me, for this is as new to me as to you and L don't know, either, what it means, but it seems reasonable to me. Ask yourself what I have to gain from this. Your mother means nothing and less than nothing to me. Why should I try to improve your memories of her?"
"Aye, there's the truth!" His voice was grating. "The woman you are trying to describe would have been capable of great love, is that not so? Great enough to abandon a baby? The fruit of her perfidy and infidelity!"
"Or the reminder of her failure!" His face froze. "Can't you see it?" I asked. "Can't you see what it would have meant to her? Think, man! The woman seeks to impregnate herself, using an available source that offers no threat. And she does it from a deep and selfless love...otherwise she would not be able to do as she did and retain any claim to humanity. She knows that her pregnancy will exalt her husband, who knows how much she loves him, and trusts her implicitly. And then something goes wrong. Her husband finds out what she is about, but not the reason for it...not the truth. He suspects the worst—conspiracy and seduction within his own household. In his agony, and sense of betrayal, he seeks to destroy the wrongdoer...but in his eyes, Ambrose, the wrongdoer is not his wife! He could have killed her with impunity for adultery, had he so wished, under Roman law. He chose not to. Unstable as he evidently was to attempt a murder in his own home, he did not try to kill his wife. He chose the innocent party, instead, not realizing that there was no guilt other than that born of his wife's love for him. And in the attempt, he died, leaving his pregnant' grieving wife to bear both her guilt and the child who had brought about his death. You. Remember, she fled the household directly upon his death. My father never saw her, did not know her..." I allowed that thought to hang there, between us, and then I closed my argument.
"So she abandoned you, but not completely...not completely, Ambrose. She did not drop you to die by the roadside somewhere, as she might have. She left you with her sister. With her own family, knowing they would accept you as part of their family. And she allowed them to believe her husband had fathered you. Only then did she disappear, probably in despair and with no wish to continue living. And has never been seen since... Now can you tell me why she might have done such a thing as to abandon you like that, rather than simply leaving you to die elsewhere?"
He shook his head, silent now, his face almost in repose, and I finished what I had to say, knowing in my heart that what I had said—this explanation that had come to me from the depths of my mind—was correct.
"Simply because she could not bear to live with you, even though you were innocent of any wrong. This was a wondrous woman, Ambrose, if my reasoning is sound, and I believe it is. Think of her with pity, if you can, and with' affection. Out of love for an aged man, and driven by well- intentioned desperation, she might have undertaken a course fraught with great risk, one that could have given her little pleasure. And out of all these benevolent efforts came tragedy. Her husband, for love of whom she had done all this, was ignominiously killed, believing her treacherous and breaking his own sacrosanct Roman law of hospitality. And she was left with you, the daily reminder of her culpability. Marcus Aurelius Ambrosianus was your mother's husband, Ambrose, but he was not your father. And every time she looked at you she would have seen that, along with the fact that your true father—no more than an instrument to her—meant less than nothing to her and did not even know she, or you, existed. You and he were merely the progenitors of her guilt, the tools she had foolishly used to procure the unlooked-for death of her husband. Thank God she let you live. Many another would have killed you in the womb."
In silence, bereft of words, he turned away from me again, back to his perusal of the darkness beyond the rocks, but not before I had seen the glint of moonlight on the tears that spilled down his cheeks. I waited, but I knew he had no more to say, and after a time I stepped forward and laid my hand gently on his shoulder, feeling the tension in him.
"Listen," I told him. "It is late, and you have no need of company, so I will leave you now. Think of what I have said. You are my brother, my father's son, and you have a home in my home in Camulod should you choose to accept it. We will speak more tomorrow, but I'll make no move to impose upon you. Seek me out when you are ready. Good night."
I left him there alone, standing among the boulders, and made my way to my own tent where I lay awake for a long time.
XXXVI
By mid-morning I had heard nothing from Ambrose, although I had stayed close to my tent since rising, delegating my normal duties to Cyrus Appius. I had said nothing to Donuil or to anyone else about my encounter with my brother the previous night, and I could feel Donuil watching me solicitously whenever he felt I was unaware of him. In the meantime, I was content to wait. Ambrose might come looking for me at any time. I felt sure he would have passed a sleepless night with so much on his mind and had probably remained abed this morning.
It was a fine, early autumn morning, the air snapping for the first time with a hint of the winter lying in wait not far away, and the camp was almost deserted, one-third of our number on patrol duty within the town and most of the remainder at the debate itself. As I sat idly by the fire listening to the sharp, abrasive sound of the whetstone Donuil was using on the edge of my sword, a shadow fell across me and I turned to see Lucanus looking down at me, his back against the sun.
"Good day to you," he greeted me. "What's wrong?"
"Wrong? Nothing in the world that I know of." I beckoned him to join me. He approached, but remained standing. "Where have you been all morning?"
He shrugged. "Walking, and working. One of our troopers fell and broke a leg last night, badly. I set and splinted it last night, but had to set it again this morning."
"What happened? Was he drunk?"
"No, he fell down some stairs, but he was sober." He dismissed that with a wave of his hand and went on, "I'm more concerned with you. What's wrong with you? You have done nothing today but hang around here. That's not like you".
"Isn't it?" I smiled. "I'm thinking, that's all, and waiting."
"Waiting for what? Caius Merlyn Britannicus waits for nothing and no man...at least, the one I know does not. So what's afoot?"
I laughed. "Nothing's afoot, at least nothing to concern anyone. I looked for you last night. I had some news to tell you about Uther, after I had been speaking to Bishop Patricius."
"You mean about the priest, Remus?" He nodded. "I heard. I spoke to Patricius, too, after you. He told me what you had discussed." He paused, his eyes searching mine. "It must have been a great relief to know that your suspicions were unfounded." His tone made a question of the statement.
"It was. I slept well, last night. I have more news for you, too, on another matter, but it will have to wait for a while. Where are you going now?"
"To the debate. I hoped you might come with me. The formal commencement was this morning and I missed it, as did you. We did, after all, travel a long way to be here and to witness the proceedings."
I nodded. "Yes, we..." My voice died away as I saw him look beyond me and I knew, from the way his eyes widened and his jaw fell agape, what he had seen. I turned in my seat to see Ambrose standing by the side of my tent and could sympathize with Luke's shock. In darkness, Ambrose had resembled me amazingly. In broad daylight the effect was emphasized. He could have been my twin.