"You have a reservation. " His tone was cool. "I can hear it in your voice."
I held up a disclaiming hand. "No, Caius, you are mistaken. I think you should write. But you should write for Britain. For your son Picus, and for my sons, too. You will be their uncle. It would be good for them to know their antecedents were more than just names. "
He smiled, mollified. "That is an amusing but worthwhile thought, Publius. Very well then, I shall write for future citizens of Britain. You are a facile persuader. "
I grinned at him. "You needed no persuasion. Would you not like to return home to Rome again, now that you have the time?" His face underwent a transformation from humour to disgust. "No, I would not. The place is a cesspool!"
I was enjoying myself, for I had finally made the realization I have spoken of.
"A cesspool?" I said. "Rome?"
He looked at me warily, sensing that he was being teased. "Publius, you are baiting me. Why? You have never been this way before. " I laughed, "No, Caius, I have not. I've been in awe of you, I suppose. But now that we are to be brothers, I feel less reluctant to discuss things openly with you. "
"What kind of things?"
"Things like this — your self-delusion. "
"My what?" His voice was bristling with affront.
"Your self-delusion. You talk of your Romanism, but you are really no more Roman than Meric. Your loyalty is to this place, this land, these people you call the Pendragon. This is your home, Caius. The very thought of going to Rome is repugnant to you. You've just admitted it. "
"Perhaps I have. " His brow was creased now in perplexity. "Perhaps I have. But that in no way alters my obligations to the Empire. " I threw down the book I had been holding. "What obligations, Caius?
You have fulfilled them all and done it honestly and openly and with good will, in spite of all your reservations. But you pay only lip-service to what you have done. You haven't yet accepted that your debts are all paid in full. "
His face cleared. "That's true, isn't it? I have. That is the truth, Publius. I have fulfilled each and every one of my obligations to the Empire. "
"Yes, Caius, " I said emphatically. "You have. Now take the time to consider your obligations to yourself. Write down your life's story, by all means, but write for your own people, your family, not for the sybarites in Rome. "
He snapped his fingers. "That reminds me! I have a letter I meant to tell you about. It arrived earlier today, by courier. It seems your friend in Rome has fallen foul of Theodosius. "
I frowned. "What friend in Rome? I have none. "
"Quite. I was being facetious. I meant young Seneca. "
"Seneca?" He nodded. "I thought he was in Constantinople. When did he move to Rome, and how has he offended Theodosius? And how did you find out?"
He shook his head, smiling. "I have my sources. You forget, I made some inquiries. This one has been answered already through a fortunate combination of military emissaries to and from Rome. Its source is an old friend whom I have known for years. He has little good to say of Caesarius Claudius Seneca. Apparently the man's excesses are become so bad, even for a Seneca, that they offend the nostrils of Theodosius. Our Emperor is abstemious and really quite a devout Christian, for all that his ambition led him to the throne. "
I dismissed that as irrelevant. "So did Constantine's. What happened between Seneca and Theodosius?"
Caius shook his head. "No one really knows, it seems, but Seneca was close to Valentinian, and that would not endear him to Theodosius in any way. " He was interrupted by the clamour of a flurry of crows that came swooping down over the rooftop, haggling viciously over some morsel of carrion that one of them clutched in its beak. We watched them until they swirled away, neither of us making any effort to compete with their raucous uproar.
"In any event, " he continued eventually, "the Emperor handed down an ultimatum that I find interesting. He made it known that Seneca, and several others like him, were doing little for the common good. How did he phrase it? 'They are depriving the Empire of the benefits of their station, experience and breeding. ' That was it. The upshot of it was that Seneca should undertake a period of public service, under implicit threat of forfeiture of all his worldly goods. I thought it quite ingenious. "
"How? What do you mean, 'ingenious'?"
His eyebrow went up. "Think about it. Seneca could refuse an imperial edict only under penalty of forfeiture of all his wealth. The alternative —
acceptance — also puts his wealth at the Emperor's disposal for all intents and purposes. You may be sure Theodosius will find a post for Seneca that will make optimum use of his financial capabilities, and that Seneca will bestir himself to enlarge his wealth while in the imperial service. But no matter what Seneca does — short of absolute, treasonous theft on a vast scale — Theodosius will benefit by it and from it. Rest assured that the Empire will be keeping a very close and meticulous watch on its richest citizen and servant. "
"And Seneca accepted that?"
"How could he do otherwise? He has not the heart to live as a pauper, and were he to attempt it, my friend in Rome swears he would not survive the first day. "
I whistled in wonder as the implications of what I had been told began to hit home to me. "Then he will be at the Emperor's bidding for a while. I wonder how he will come out of it?"
Caius cleared his throat in disgust. "Probably very well. He is still a Seneca. But he will be under some restraint. Theodosius will watch him closely, as I said, but I have no doubt that Caesarius Claudius Seneca will contrive somehow to continue to enlarge his fortune. " He was to be proven prophetic within the month.
Shortly after our conversation, Caius invited Andros's two brothers to come live at the villa in return for their parchment-making services. They accepted his invitation and began making parchment specially for us, and Caius began to write. He did not find it easy at first. He had the discipline to marshal his time but not, as he soon discovered, his thoughts. There were too many things that he wanted to write about, and he quickly found that the greatest danger lay in writing too much about too little. Eventually, however, he fell into a way of writing about whatever caught his interest at that particular time. And eventually, too, it became a habit to discuss his ideas with me.
He wrote down his thoughts and theories on life in general, and on the life and past times of Britain. We talked of the kings of Rome, and of how Rome had foresworn such men. We talked of the Republic that was born, and had lived in glory until the advent of the Caesars — Julius and his cousin Octavius, who became Caesar Augustus.
From that moment on, for all intents and purposes, the kings had returned. They called themselves emperors, but they were kings, with all the powers of despots. And they had killed Rome.
We talked also, at great length, of Britain and her future, for Caius honestly believed in God's great plans for this green land. On most of these occasions, Luceiia was with us, and her contributions to our discussions were insightful and refreshing. During those long winter nights I learned fully to appreciate the keen intellect that underlay her beauty. She astonished me most particularly one night by proposing the thought that Rome had starved to death, and she went on to support her thesis. The mother country, she pointed out, is largely infertile. It could never produce enough food for its citizens, so they turned to conquer fertile lands. And, of course, the fertile lands they conquered were never rich enough to feed their own people and Rome, too, and so it went on, to embrace the whole world.
Britain, my love believes, will never starve. The soil is rich and fruitful. As the people grow, she says, they will clear the forests and till the soil. I believe she is correct in this, for the people here are strong. The local Celts are a noble people — industrious for the most part, proud, certainly quick to anger but equally quick to forgive — and great lovers of music and the arts. The quality she finds most admirable among them, however, and I agree with her in this, is their mutual respect. The Celtic wife and mother is no chattel. She fights as well as her man, making the Celtic family a unit to be dealt with respectfully. No domestic decisions are made without her advice and concurrence. She has dignity and pride of place, as did the Republican women of Rome, and she is skilled, like the Roman matrons of old, in the arts of weaving, pottery and the rearing of children to respect all that a child should respect. When Luceiia talked of all of this the first time, I earned myself a savage clout on the head by remarking with a smile that four hundred years of Roman occupation had bred much Romanism into these Celts.