Julian (37 page)

But I pushed him to one side and hurried to one of the rooms which look out on the square. I peered through a crack in the shutter. The square was filled with troops and they were by no means all drunk, as I had first suspected. This was indeed rebellion. In front of the palace, my personal guard stood with drawn swords and levelled spears, but the mob seemed in no mood to do violence. Instead, they shouted my name, demanded my presence, declared their loyalty. Then, as if by signal—who knows how these things suddenly start? I suspect Hermes—they began to chant, first one group, then another, then the entire crowd: "Augustus! Augustus! Julian Augustus!"I turned from the window.

"Attack them!" said Decentius. "Show them the Emperor's image. They won't dare defy that."

"We have four hundred troops in the palace," I said. "There are some twenty thousand men out there. Even an inexperienced soldier like myself avoids such odds. As for the imperial image, I'm afraid they will hack it to bits."

"Treason!" was all Decentius could say.

"Treason," I replied reasonably, as though identifying a particular star for one who wishes to know the nature of the heavens. Decentius rushed from the room. We looked at one another, the word "Augustus" falling regularly on our ears like surf upon the beach.

"You will have to accept," said Eutherius.

"You who always preach caution tell me this?"

Eutherius nodded. Oribasius was even more emphatic. "Go on. You have nothing to lose now."

Priscus was cautious. "My interest, Caesar, is philosophy, not politics. If I were you, I would wait."

"For what?" Oribasius turned on him indignantly.

"To see what happens," said Priscus ambiguously. "To wait for a sign."

I accepted this in the spirit Priscus meant it. He understood me. He knew that unless I believed I had heaven's revealed blessing, I could not act with full force.

"Very well," I motioned to the door. "Oribasius, see to the guard. Make sure no one is admitted to the palace. Eutherius, keep an eye on our friend the Tribune. Don't let him out of your sight. Priscus, pray for me." On that we parted.

In the main corridor, one of my wife's ladies was waiting for me. She was close to hysteria. "Caesar, they're going to kill us, all of us!" I took her by the shoulders and shook her till her teeth chattered; in fact, she bit her lower lip, which had a most calming effect. She then told me that my wife was asking for me.

Helena's bedroom was dimly lit and unbearably warm. Her illness made her crave heat. A heavy odour of incense and musk filled the room, yet it could not disguise the sweet-sharp odour of the dissolution of the flesh. I hated visiting Helena, and thought myself contemptible for this aversion.

Helena lay in bed, a prayer book on the coverlet. Beside her stood the bishop of Paris, a solemn charlatan who was her closest friend and adviser. He saluted me. "I dare say that the Caesar will want to speak to the Queen alone…"

"You have dared say it, Bishop. And it is true." The bishop withdrew in a swirl of splendid robes, chanting loudly, as though we were a congregation.

I sat beside the bed. Helena was pale and she had lost much weight. Her eyes had grown large, as eyes appear to do when the face thins. She was a sickly yellow in the lamplight, and yet in a way she looked more appealing in her illness than ever she did in health. She no longer resembled the vigorous, hard-iawed Constantine. She was a woman now, delicate and melancholy, and I felt a sudden surge of feeling as I took her hand, hot with fever and delicate as a dead bird's wing.

"I am sorry I was too ill for the reception…" she began. I cut her off. "It was of no importance. How is the pain?"

Her free hand touched her stomach reflexively. "Better," she said, and lied. "Oribasius finds me a new herb every day. And I take whatever he finds. I tell him he must make me his collaborator when he writes his encyclopedia." I tried not to look at her stomach, which curved large beneath the coverlet as though she were in the last month of pregnancy. For a moment neither of us spoke; then the silence was broken by the rhythmic chanting:

"Augustus!" She turned towards me.

"They have been shouting that for hours."

I nodded. "They are angry because the Emperor wants them to fight in Persia."

"They call you Augustus." She looked at me very hard.

"They don't mean it."

"They do," she said flatly. "They want you for Emperor."

"I've refused to show myself to them. Anyway, now it's dark, they'll soon get cold and bored and go away, and tomorrow they will do as they're told. Sintula has already gone, you know. He left yesterday with two legions." I talked fast, but she would not be put off.

"Will you take what they have offered?"

I paused, uncertain what to say. Finally, neutrally, "It would be treason."

"Traitors who prevail are patriots. Usurpers who succeed are divine emperors."

I still could not tell what she wanted me to do. "Emperors are not made," I said at last, "by a few thousand troops in a small provincial city."

"Why not? After all, it is God's will that raises us up, as it is God's will that… throws us down." She looked away and again her hand strayed to the seat of her mortality. "Those few soldiers are enough,
if
it is meant to be."

"What do you want me to do?" For the first and only time I asked her a direct question, as one person to another; and I did wish to know her answer.

"Tonight? I don't know. This may not be the moment. You must judge that. But I do know that you are meant to be Emperor of Rome."

Our eyes met and we studied one another as though the face of each was new and unexplored. I responded with equal candour, "I know it, too," I said. "I have had dreams. There have been signs."

"Then
take
it!" She said this with unexpected force.

"Now? An act of treason? Against your brother?"

"My brother and his wife killed our two children. My loyalty has… shifted to my cousin, who is my husband." She smiled on the word "shifted" but her great eyes were solemn.

"Curious," I said finally. "I always thought you preferred him to me."

"I did, I did. Until that last visit to Rome. You know, he tried to keep me there after the baby died. He said that there might be difficulties for you in Gaul."

"But you came back."

"I came back."

"Leaving your beloved villa?"

"Leaving that was hardest of all!" She smiled, Then she indicated the window and the city beyond. "Now the difficulties he promised have begun. You must decide very soon."

"Yes." I rose.

"Decentius was here," she said suddenly.

I was startled. "When?"

"Just before the reception for your officers. He wanted to know if I would like to return to Rome. He said the Gallic legions would escort me as far as Milan."

"He is sly."

"Yes. I told him I chose to stay. He was disappointed." She laughed softly. "Of course even if I wanted to go, I cannot travel… again."

"Don't say that. One day we shall go to Rome together."

"I want that more than an)rthing," she said. "But be quick about it…"

"I will be quick," I said. "I swear it."

I kissed her brow, holding my breath so as not to catch the scent of death. She clutched at me suddenly with all her strength, as though she were suffering a sharp spasm of pain. Then she let me go. "What a pity I was so much older than you."

I did not answer. I grasped her hands in silence. Then I left. The Bishop was in the anteroom with the ladies. "The Queen is improved, don't you think, Caesar?"

"Yes, I do." I was curt. I tried to get past him. But the Bishop had more to say.

"She is of course concerned by that mob outside. We all are. Most frightening. A terrible lapse of discipline. One hopes that the Caesar will dismiss this rabble with stern words."

"The Caesar will do what the Caesar must." I pushed past him into the main gallery. Servants rushed here and there, as though on urgent business. The ushers kept to their posts, but even they had lost their usual aplomb. All eyes were on me, wondering what I would do. As I crossed to the room which overlooks the square, I nearly stumbled over Gaudentius, lurking in the shadows. I was pleased to see that he was frightened.

"Caesar! The Tribune Decentius asks for audience. He is in the council chamber. They are all there. They want to know what you intend to do. We are completely surrounded. No one can escape…"

"Tell the Tribune I am going to bed. I shall be happy to see him in the morning." Before the agent could recover himself, I was halfway down the gallery to my own room. Outside my door stood the chief usher. I told him I was not to be disturbed unless there was an attack on the palace. I then went to my room and bolted the door after me.

It was a long night. I read. I prayed. I thought. I have never before nor since been so undecided. Everything seemed to me to be premature; events were pushing me faster than I chose to go. Yet would a moment like this come again? How often is an emperor spontaneously made? We all know of ambitious generals who have staged "popular" coronations for themselves; yet these seldom occur without the general's active collusion. I am sure that Julius Caesar very carefully instructed his friend to offer him the crown in punic, simply to see what the reaction might be. Now that same crown had come to me, without my asking.

Still undecided, I slept. I dreamed and, as often happens, I found in dreaming what I must do awake. I was seated in my consular chair, quite alone, when a figure appeared to me, dressed as the guardian spirit of the state, so often depicted in the old Republic.

He spoke to me. "I have watched you for a long time, Julian. And for a long time I have wished to raise you even higher than you are now. But each time I have tried, I have been rebuffed. Now I must warn you. If you turn me away again, when so many men's voices are raised in agreement with me, I shall leave you as you are. But remember this:
if I go now, I shall never return.
"

I awakened in a cold sweat and leapt from my bed; my own room was suddenly strange and menacing, as sometimes happens when we have dreamed deeply. Was I awake or not? I opened the window; icy air restored me. The stars were fading. The east was pale.

The mob was still gathered in the square. They had built bonfires. From time to time they chanted "Augustus!" I made up my mind. I summoned my body-servant. He dressed me in the purple. Then I went out into the gallery.

Apparently I was the only one who had slept that night. Men and women still scurried through rooms and corridors, like mice seeking holes. In the council chamber I found Decentius and most of my advisers. As I entered, Eutherius was saying in his most calming voice, "Everything rests now with the will of Caesar. There is nothing we can do to affect that…"

"Precisely," I said. The room came to attention. Decentius, haggard, needing a shave, crossed to me and declared: "Only you can stop them! You must tell them to obey the Emperor. They will listen to you."

"I intend to speak to them now." I smiled at Eutherius. "You may all attend me on the tribunal… if you like."

Decentius seemed not to want this honour. But my friends did. Together we went to the main door of the palace.

"Be prepared," I said, "for anything. And don't be startled by anything I say." Then I motioned to the frightened guards to slip the bolt and open the gate.

With a deep breath, I stepped out into the square. When the mob saw me, they began to cheer. Quickly I climbed the steps to the tribunal, my companions close behind me. Then my personal guard, swords drawn, surrounded the tribunal. The mob drew back. I waved for silence; it was a long time coming. When at last I spoke, I was temperate.

"You are angry. You have reason to be. And I take your side in this matter. What you want, I promise to get for you. But without revolution. You prefer service in your native land to the dangers of a foreign country and a distant war. So be it. Go each of you to his home and take with you my promise that none of you shall serve beyond the Alps. I assume full responsibility for this decision. I shall explain it to the Augustus, and I know that he will listen to me, for he is reasonable and just."

With this speech, I dispatched my duty to Constantius. Honour was satisfied. Now what would happen? There was an instant of silence, and then shouts of "Augustus!" began again; also, insults to Constantius—and a few to me for weakness. The mob pushed closer and closer to the platform. I remained absolutely still, looking across the square to the place where day was coming, grey and cold above the houses of the town.

Eutherius whispered in my ear. "You must accept. They'll kill you if you don't." I made no answer. I waited. I knew what was to come. I saw what was about to happen as clearly as I had seen the spirit of Rome in my dream. In fact, that whole morning was like a continuation of the night's dream.

First, my guards broke and scattered as the mob pushed against the tribunal. One soldier climbed on to the back of another and seized me by the arm. I made no effort to resist. Then—again as in a dream but that pleasant sort of dream where one knows one is dreaming and has no fear—I fell into the mob. Hands, arms, shoulders broke my fall. All around me the deafening cry

"Augustus!" sounded; strong in my nostrils was the smell of sweat and of garlic, as hard bodies forced me up from the ground where I lay, lifted me up high above them all like a sacrifice to the sun.

In full view of the mob, the fiercest of the men seized me. "Accept!" he shouted, sword's point held to my heart. I looked him in the face, saw red broken veins on the nose, smelled wine on his breath; that one glance was like a lifetime's acquaintance. Then in a matter-of-fact voice I said, "I accept."

The roar was tremendous. An infantryman's shield was placed under me and I was borne around the square like a Gallic or a German king. Thus was I made Augustus not by Romans nor according to Roman custom, but by barbarians, and according to their ritual.

I was returned to the tribunal. Then someone shouted that I must wear the diadem. Now I did not possess a crown of any sort. It would have been worth my life to have owned one. I told the mob this.