The Druid King (3 page)

“What do you think of
Gaius Julius Caesar, Conqueror of Gaul
as a title?” he asked.

“Too cumbersome,” said Gisstus. “Why don’t you just call it
The
Conquest of Gaul
?”

“You may be right,” Caesar said dryly. “People do favor a certain modesty in their heroes.”

As Gisstus laughed, Calpurnia entered to inform Caesar that the Eduen envoy, Diviacx, was arriving.

“Remind the slaves not to water his wine,” Caesar told her as he rose to greet his guest at the gate like a proper host.

“Of course,” said Calpurnia. “After all, water rusts out iron. Imagine what it would do to a Gaul’s insides. Whereas wine may preserve them by pickling.”

“The more the better,” Caesar said, giving his third wife a wink as he departed.

Calpurnia might not have quite the beauty of Cornelia or the sexual hunger of Pompeia, but she was the only one of the three with the intellect and instincts to become his confidante.

Caesar had never before met the leader of the Eduen delegation, but he knew that the Edui were perhaps the most powerful and civilized of the Gallic tribes, and he had been informed that Diviacx was a member of their grandiloquently self-styled “Senate.” The man he greeted at his portal was tall and robust, with near-shoulder-length iron-gray hair, big matching mustache, and a saturnine visage—your typical Gaul, from all he had been told. But his cowled white robe trimmed in blue was something of a shock, and Caesar had to exercise his thespian skills to avoid showing it. The leader of the Eduen trade delegation was a druid!

Little was known about these Gallic priests, if that was indeed what they were. There seemed to be many more of them than were needed to leech off an equivalent population of Romans. It was said that they were also magistrates. And perhaps tax collectors. It was also said that none of them paid taxes, an advantage, alas, that Caesar had not enjoyed during his brief stint as pontifex.

Priest? Senator? Merchant? Some bizarre combination? This might complicate things. Best be wary.

It seemed prudent to greet him with a simple “Hail, Diviacx.” “Hail, Caesar,” Diviacx replied, and they left to join Calpurnia, Gisstus, and Brutus at the banquet table.

Though styling the repast a “banquet” would have been hyperbole—there were only five diners clustered on couches toward one end of the table, and not so much as a single musician to distract from the conversation. Caesar had, however, laid on an impressive display of Roman cuisine. Impressing the Eduen with the civilized luxuries of Rome was certainly called for, never mind the expense.

The first courses were brought out with the wine as soon as Diviacx was seated—honeyed dormice, figs poached in wine and cinnamon, assorted smoked songbirds, grilled langoustine served in warm saffroned olive oil, red peppers stuffed with whole sardines, a paste of spiced mashed eggplant served with four kinds of bread for dipping, plates of both vinegar- and oil-cured olives, nuts, fruits, small pies of pheasant and lamb forcemeats, pickled octopus, fried squid.

Diviacx went at it like a good diplomat, trying everything, visibly turning up his nose at nothing—an impressive feat, as Caesar knew from his travels, since one people’s delicacies might very well be another’s abominations. While it was obvious to the careful observer that he regarded the squid, langoustine, and octopus as species of loathsome sea monsters by the way he picked listlessly at them, and though he turned a bit green around the edges when constrained by politesse to sample the dormice and songbirds, Caesar had the feeling that Diviacx had steeled himself to at least nibble gingerly at a turd should one be placed before him. The rest of the appetizers he wolfed down as if they were the only course, displaying an impressive barbarian appetite, and equally barbaric table manners.

During all this, Gisstus, not much for small talk, and Brutus, somewhat overawed by the company, said little, as Caesar and Calpurnia kept the conversation light—the nature of the cuisine, the relative merits and flaws of Gallic and Roman climates and of beer versus the wine that the slaves poured so freely, and which Diviacx seemed to favor, judging by the diligence with which he sampled it.

Caesar did not venture into deeper waters until the slaves began clearing the detritus from the table in preparation for the main course.

“If I understand correctly, Diviacx, your robe indicates that you are a druid. . . .”

“This is so,” said Diviacx, reclining torpidly, but nevertheless sipping at his wine goblet.

“And yet here you are, a priest, at the head of a trade mission.”

Diviacx carefully placed his goblet on the table, as if now sensing it would not do to befuddle his brain further. “Not all druids are priests,” he said.

“My husband was a priest for a time, you know,” said Calpurnia.

“But, like myself, more a man of this world than the other?” said Diviacx.

“Like yourself?” blurted Brutus. “I had heard you were all magicians.”

“In our tongue, ‘druid’ means not ‘priest’ but ‘man of knowledge.’ And as there are different kinds of knowledge, so are there different kinds of druids. Magistrates.
Teachers. Many bear the knowledge of this realm, a few bear the knowledge of the other.”

“The other realm?” said Brutus.

“The Land of Legend.”

Diviacx turned from Brutus to lock eyes with Caesar, and though his eyes were rheumed and bloodshot with wine, they had the power to hold Caesar’s own.

“
You
know whereof I speak, do you not, Caesar?”

“Do I?” said Caesar, staring back unwaveringly, for he had learned this trick too, not as a pontifex, but from his studies of oratory on Rhodes under the master of the art, Molon.

“I have heard it said you consider yourself a man of destiny. . . .”

“Guilty as charged,” said Caesar.

“And the spirit of Great Alexander reborn.”

“That, my friend, is metaphor,” said Caesar, dismissing the notion with a laugh, albeit one that sounded hollow to his own ears. This druid had seen more deeply into his soul than he found comfortable. For, although he had had difficulty taking the gods and their otherworldly realm seriously even when elected to perform their rites, he did feel a lineal connection between his own spirit and that of the long-dead Alexander.

Not that he believed he was Alexander reborn; on the contrary, he believed that Alexander had been his primitive forerunner, as Alexander’s own father, King Philip, had been a more modest version of the great man himself. Caesar believed that his destiny was to succeed where the Macedonian had failed.

Alexander had conquered the largest empire the world had yet seen, and it was said he had wept for lack of more to conquer. This Caesar doubted, since all he would have had to do was turn his attention westward—toward Gaul, for example. If he had wept at all, it was probably because, being a great general but no genius as a political craftsman, he had no notion of how to turn his conquests into a nation that would long survive him. He started as a king and died as an emperor, leaving the posterity of what he had built to be inherited and squabbled over by the usual royal mediocrities.

Caesar would start with a republic and build upon that not an empire but something yet nameless, ruled not by his heirs but by a political system of his creation. This would be his monument, greater than the Pyramids or the Colossus of Rhodes or the Library of Alexandria. Greater because it would be built not of the stone and cement of the material world but of the immaterial stuff of the world inside his own cranium. Caesar shuddered. How deeply did this druid see? For that realm of future destiny was indeed his Land of Legend.

“Are you all right?” asked Calpurnia, leaning closer to whisper in his ear in some agitation. “Not the falling sickness?”

“Perhaps he has had a vision?” suggested Diviacx, a shade too knowingly for Caesar’s equilibrium.

“Perhaps,” said Caesar, shaking his head, both to return his focus to the here and now and to reassure Calpurnia with the same gesture. “In a metaphorical manner of speaking.”

Fortunately, a moment later four slaves carried in a huge bronze platter bearing the main course, and it was Diviacx’s turn to be discombobulated. Caesar had ordered up one of those layered mixed roasts designed to impress dignitaries at state banquets or, as in this case, to impress a foreigner with the wealth and lavish style of his host, and hence his economic power. At large banquets, the outer layer was usually a whole ox or stag, though Caesar had heard stories of elephants, but for such a small dinner a boar sufficed, glazed with honey, holding an apple in its mouth, and wearing a crown of laurel. Inside this was a whole lamb roasted over rosemary branches, mouthing an orange. Inside the lamb was a peacock with a plum in its beak, inside the peacock a pheasant with a grape, inside the pheasant a pigeon with a wild raspberry, inside the pigeon a tiny thrush with a single currant impaled on its beak.

Caesar watched in amusement as Diviacx’s eyes fairly bugged out while the slaves sliced this nested confection of beasts and birds open with swords and ceremony, stepwise revealing what was hidden within, extracting it, and laying it out upon the table.

“Fortunately, Diviacx,” said Caesar, when this had been completed, “you had the foresight to pick delicately at the appetizers.”

Diviacx made a heroic effort at least to sample everything, washing it all down with more wine, and by the time he had consumed what politesse required, his face was sheened with sweat, his eyes were glazing over, and it was time to negotiate.

“As you know,” Caesar told him, “I’ve been elected proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul, and am therefore in a position to greatly enhance trade relations between your people and Rome.”

Diviacx managed to perk up at this, though it obviously took quite some effort. “It is no secret that that is indeed the purpose of my mission.”

“Well, consider it a success, my friend!” Caesar exclaimed. “You will return home a rich man!”

“I am here to enrich my people, not myself,” Diviacx replied huffily.

“Of course, of course. Still, there’s no reason why a man should not do well by doing good. It is what makes Rome great and makes its friends prosper.”

Diviacx levered himself into an upright position, a magical feat in itself, considering how much food and wine he had consumed. “What are you proposing, Caesar?” he asked.

“My intent is to shift the route of exports of dyes, chariots, horses, metalwork, and so forth from the lands of the Edui south through my territories to my Mediterranean ports and thence to Rome by sea rather than overland—”

“A rather circuitous route—”

“But a more secure one, passing as it does only through the lands of the Gauls and my own and then via sea-lanes pacified by Roman galleys. And since it will be more secure, it seems to me only just to levy taxes on their passage—say, the tenth part of their value for passage through the territories of the Gauls, and the tenth part for passage through mine. I have heard that the writ of the druids crosses tribal boundaries. . . .”

“This is true,” said Diviacx.

“I have also heard that there are circumstances under which druids collect such levies. . . .”

Diviacx’s eyes lit up with a greed that seemed very much of this world and not some other. “This too is true,” he said.

“May I thus presume that I can leave it to you to find administrators to take care of the collection on the Gallic end . . . ?”

“That should prove no problem.”

“Likewise, the same taxes will be collected on the Roman wine, furniture, foodstuffs, arts, marble, instruments, and tools of architecture, medicines, and everything else moving in the other direction by the same route. . . .”

“As is only just,” agreed Diviacx.

“Moreover,” said Caesar, “the flow of trade will increase from the present trickle to a mighty torrent, for I will send Roman engineers to build roads to speed this commerce. Why, we will—”

“You’re forgetting a few things, Caesar,” Gisstus interrupted, as had been previously arranged. And Caesar gave him a prearranged scowl of annoyance.

“What, Gisstus?” he demanded harshly.

“In the first place, there are other tribes between the lands of the Edui and Gallia Narbonensis, who may not appreciate—”

“Why not allow them the benefit of the same arrangement?” Diviacx interrupted hastily.

“He’s right, Gisstus,” Caesar said. “You just heard our friend say that the law of the druids crosses tribal boundaries.”

“Well, what about Ariovistus and the Teutons?” said Gisstus. “We can hardly send engineers to build roads through territory overrun by savage marauders.”

“There
is
that . . .” mused Caesar.

“The threat is highly exaggerated,” Diviacx said. Unconvincingly. “Our warriors will protect them.”

“They haven’t been doing that well protecting your own people lately, now, have they?” Gisstus said dryly.

Diviacx had no answer to that, and Caesar let the ensuing unhappy silence go on a while before he deemed it appropriate to display his spontaneous inspiration.

“I have an idea!” he exclaimed.

“You do?” said Gisstus.

“I’ll dispatch a Roman legion or two to rid your lands of the Teutons once and for all, Diviacx! I’ll lead it myself! I personally guarantee that Roman troops will make short work of such marauding horse barbarians! And since it won’t take long, the cost to you will be modest.”

“The cost. . . ?”

“The Senate of Rome can hardly be expected to finance an expedition to rescue a foreign land from rapine and plunder.
Someone
has to pay for it.”

“I don’t know about this, Caesar . . .” Diviacx said unhappily.

“Believe me, Diviacx, getting the money out of the Senate is a political impossibility,” Caesar said, quite truthfully. Having gotten him safely out of Rome, the last thing his enemies were about to do was finance his raising of an army at whose head he could return in triumph.

Once more, Caesar let a silence go on for a long moment, then brought the drama to its happy climax.

“Of course!” he cried, whacking his forehead with the heel of his hand as if angered at his own stupidity. “We’ll do it at a
profit
! To both of us!”