“Sir—sir—”
“Think about it. You have until tomorrow.”
Justina’s expression was entirely unreadable as Antipater finished telling the tale. Whatever was going on behind those dark glistening eyes was something he could not guess at all.
“It surprised me more than I can tell you,” he said, “to find out how much deeper a man Germanicus is than anybody knew. How strong he really is, despite that foppish attitude he found it useful to affect. How truly Roman, at the core.”
“Yes,” she said. “It must have been quite a surprise.”
“It’s a noble romantic idea, I have to admit, this business of proclaiming himself Emperor-in-exile and leading a resistance movement from Gallia. And his invitation to be part of his government, I confess, was very flattering.—But of course I couldn’t possibly go with him.” He would not go, Antipater knew, because Justina surely would not; and if one thing was clear in his mind just now amidst all the chaos of the suddenly whirling world, it was that wherever Justina wanted to go, that was where they would go. She was more important to him than politics, than empires, than all such abstract things. He understood that now as never before: for him it all came down to Justina and Lucius, Lucius and Justina, and let other men fret over the burdens of empire.
“Will he succeed, do you think, in overthrowing the Greeks?” she asked.
“He stands a good chance,” said Antipater. “Everyone knows that the Empire’s too big to be governed from one capital off in the East, and appointing a Greek Emperor for the West won’t work for long either. The West is Roman. It thinks Roman. For the time being the Greeks have the advantage over us, because we weakened ourselves so much through our own imbecility in the past fifty years that they were able to come in and take us over, but it won’t last. We’ll recover from what’s just happened to us, and we’ll return to being what we once were.” He had a sudden vivid sense of the river of time flowing in two directions at once, the past returning even as it departed. “The gods intended that Roma should govern the world. We did for a thousand years or more, and did it damned well. We will again. Destiny’s on Germanicus’s side. Mark my words, there’ll be Latin-speaking Emperors in this city again in our lifetime.”
It was a long speech. Justina greeted it with a spell of silence that lasted almost as long.
Then she said, “It gets very cold in Gallia in the winter, does it not?”
“Rather cold, yes, so I’m told. Colder than here, certainly.”
Too cold for her, that much he knew. Why would she even ask? It was unthinkable that she would want to go there. She would hate it there.
“It’s very strange,” he said, since she was saying nothing. “The Emperor is worthless and the brother that I thought was worthless turns out actually to be a bold and courageous man. If there’s such a thing as a Roman soul, and I think there is, it goes westward with Germanicus tomorrow.”
“And you, Lucius? Which way do you go?”
“We’re Greeks, you and I. We’ll be going the other way, Justina. Toward the East. Toward the sun. To Dalmatia, with Caesar.”
“You’re a Roman, Lucius.”
“More or less, yes. What of it?”
“Roma goes west. The coward Maximilianus goes east. Do you truly want to go with the coward, Lucius?”
Antipater gaped at her, stunned, unable to speak.
“Tell me, Lucius, how cold does it really get in Gallia in the winter? Is there very much snow?”
He found his voice, finally. “What are you trying to say, Justina?”
“What are you trying to say? Suppose I didn’t exist. Which way would you go tomorrow, east or west?”
He paused only an instant. “West.”
“To follow the Emperor’s brother into the snow.”
“Yes.”
“The brother that you thought was worthless.”
“The Emperor is worthless. Not so the brother, I begin to think. If you weren’t in the equation, I’d probably go with him.” Was it so, he wondered? Yes. Yes. It was so. “I’m a Roman. I’d want to act like a Roman, for once.”
“Then go. Go!”
He felt the room rocking, as if in an earthquake. “And you, Justina?”
“I don’t have to act like a Roman, do I? I could stay here, and continue to be a Greek—”
“No, Justina!”
“Or I could follow you and your new Emperor into the snow, I suppose.” She wrapped her arms around her body and shivered, as though white flakes were already falling, here in their snug room. “Or, on the other hand, we still have the option, both of us, of going east with the other Emperor. The cowardly one who gave his throne away to be safe.”
“I’m not very brave myself, you know.”
“I know that. Yet you would go with Germanicus, if I were not here. So you just said. There’s a difference between not being very brave and being a coward. Which is worse, I wonder, to walk through the snow once in a while, or to live in warmth among cowards? How can you live among cowards, unless you’re a coward yourself?”
He had no answer. His head was throbbing. She had him outflanked on every front. He understood only that he loved her, he needed her, he would make whatever choice she wanted him to make.
From outside came shouting again, raucous, jubilant. He could hear what sounded like screams, also. Antipater glanced toward the window and saw new fires burning on the hills. The conquest was beginning in earnest, now. The victors were raking in their spoils.
Well, that was only to be expected, Antipater thought. It made no difference to him. The one question that mattered was which way to go: eastward with the fallen Emperor, westward with his brother.
He looked to Justina. Waited for her to speak.
She was still holding herself against the imagined cold of an imagined winter, but she was smiling now. The cold was imaginary; the smile was real. “And so,” she said. “A Roman, I will be. With you, in the snow, in Gallia. Is that a crazy thing, Lucius? Well, then. We can be crazy together. And try to keep each other warm wherever we go.—We should start packing, love. Your new Emperor is sailing for Massalia tomorrow, is that not what you said?”