Caius stretched and yawned as though I had reminded him. "You're right, my friend, " he muttered. "It's too late to be solving the problems of Empire. Far too late, in every way. Let's get to bed. " We rose and took a lamp each, and I blew out the one remaining. I undressed slowly, savouring the remembered sensations of Luceiia's kisses. I knew I could go to her now, but the mere fact of Caius's presence in the house deterred me. That would be disloyalty to him, although perhaps in my mind only. Still, that was reason enough.
Thank all the ancient gods that Luceiia could read me like a book. She scurried into my bed before I was undressed.
XXII
Caius had been home for a full two weeks before I came to realize that he was a fraud. In truth, he was a harmless fraud, deluding himself more than anyone else, but an undoubted fraud he was, and I loved him the more for it. I realized long afterwards that I had been aware of his false pretences for years, but they were so much a part of the man that I had accepted them without question and almost without recognition. His falseness lay in that he called himself a Roman and he liked to think of himself as embodying all of the virtues of Rome in the days of its true greatness. To tell the truth; he did embody those virtues, but Caius Britannicus was also a Briton, both by birth and by conviction. He was born in Britain as the culmination of a chain of events that began with the first of his ancestors to be named Britannicus, and he was the first-born of the third generation of his family to be born and bred here. In all his wanderings as a soldier of the Empire, he liked to say, he had seen no place, no country, that could be compared to this land for beauty or pleasantness of climate, or for the stability, strength and simplicity of its people.
It was growing dark outside on the night I made my discovery, and Diomede's people had lit the lamps and piled the braziers high against the winter chill, even though the day had been unseasonably beautiful. Caius was in a restless mood that evening, and he was prowling around, looking for something to distract him. He found it in the shape of a codex that lay on one of my tables. It was a simple enough book, roughly bound, but it was something new. I watched him as he picked it up and examined it closely. The front surface bore an intricate rendering of complex Celtic scrollwork, and I watched him open the book at random and find more of the same. No words at all, just a collection of drawings, all obviously done by the same hand.
"Well, what do you think?" I asked him.
"This is marvellous!" he said, examining the way the individual sheets were fastened together. "Did the priest do this? Andros?"
"Yes, " I told him. "He did. Told me he got tired of carrying awkward bundles of parchment all over the place. He saw you carrying a codex one day, asked me to show him some more, and then he began to make his own. Not bad, eh? He cut all his parchments to the same size, and now he says his life is ten times more simple. "
Andros was a wandering priest who had turned up on Caius's doorstep one day and never left. He was a very simple man, true to his name, "the man, " and he had the most amazing gift I had ever seen for rendering likenesses of things with a stick of charcoal. His drawings were magnificent, and yet he could neither read nor write.
"But this is marvellous! Look!" Caius was shaking his head in admiration. "Who else in this country today would have thought of using a strip of wood, front and back like this, and tying the whole thing together with thongs? This thing is easy to add to, one page at a time, in any order one pleases! And the wood gives it rigidity and makes it easy to carry. This really is astonishing, Varrus. " His admiration was immense and sincere.
"And this parchment is superlative. Where did Andros find it?"
"He made it. "
He blinked at me. "He makes parchment? Andros? Himself?"
"Himself. " I shrugged. "Himself and his two brothers, to be accurate. But I find it more exciting that they know how to make excellent papyrus."
"Where in God's name did they learn to do that?"
"Their father taught them. He learned in Rome — or in Constantinople. Maybe both places. He was a craftsman there for years. Came back here with his master before the sons were born. Taught them his trade as they grew up. He was North African, I think, from Egypt. They lived on one of the big villas out by Aquae Sulis. Andros tells me they used to supply this stuff to clerks all over the country. "
"Why did they stop?"
I shrugged. "Who knows? Anyway, Andros became a priest, but he never did learn to read or write. He only wanted to draw. Have you ever seen such skill?"
"No. These drawings are not exactly classical, but they are superb. "
"Classical?" I was astounded. "Not classical? General, you amaze me!" He looked at me oddly, and I went on. "If you look closely, and I mean really look, you'll see that those drawings are classical in every sense but the Roman. They're perfect — exact transcriptions of pure Celtic design. Ancient. Not the worthless rubbish that the pedlars are hawking all over the Empire. That is the history of your beloved Britain you're looking at. I thought you would be ecstatic about them, once you saw what they are. " He looked more carefully then, and I saw him realize that the codex that he had at first glance categorized as simple and crude was anything but that.
"You are right, of course, Varrus. I should be admiring them. They are magnificent. "
"Caius, you and I have both seen murals and mosaics in some of the finest houses in the Empire, created by celebrated artists who have no grasp of what this man does without thinking. I swear he can draw a perfect circle with one sweep of his hand. "
Caius was musing, obviously thinking about something that this codex had suggested to him. "You are right, my friend. You are absolutely correct. Ask him to visit me, next time you see him, will you?"
"Why?" I asked him, immediately defensive. "You wouldn't be thinking of depriving me of his services, would you? I find his drawings very helpful in my work. "
He smiled at me. "No, Varrus, I would not, so you may relax. I need his parchment and his papyrus, not his pen. I have a feeling that time might lie heavily on my hands now that I am no longer on active duty, and I have often thought of writing down my own theories on military tactics. It has been a dream of mine for years, but no more than a dream, due mainly to the fact that the materials for writing in bulk are not readily at hand, and I have never had either the patience or the time one needs to assemble spindle books. But this talent Andros has could give me access to a source of parchment and to a simple means of binding sheets together to protect them against loss and damage. "
I demurred, I believe, for the first time ever in my personal dealings with him.
"Why, Caius? I mean, why write military memoirs? To emulate Caesar?
To leave Rome the benefit of your experience? Why would you not write of your villa here, and of your life in Britain?"
He threw me a glance of pure surprise, thinking I was belittling him. His answer was slow and measured.
"I would write a history of my military service to the Empire because I am a soldier. It is what I know best. It has been my life. Do you find that surprising or distasteful?"
I shook my head. "No. Not at all. But it seems to me it could be a waste of time, if what you have been hinting at is true and the Empire is about to fall. "
His frown was impatient. "Come, Publius! Time spent constructively cannot be wasted. I would be writing for the benefit of those who follow me. Someone is sure to. no matter how bad things are. "
"Oh, " I said. "Well, that makes a difference. "
"But?"
"What do you mean, 'But?'" I asked innocently.