The Secret Book of Paradys (53 page)

On his hard bed in the officers’ block, Vusca asleep was walking through a long narrow corridor whose ceiling almost brushed his head. The walls were whitewashed, but took no light until the way opened into a courtyard. In the dream, Vusca glanced about ironically, responding as he tended to, to foreign things. The walls of the court, like the corridor, were whitewashed and painted over, with lions and chariots. The other end of the court gave on a flight of white steps going down to dark water under a tight drum-skin of heat-drained sky. Palms grew against the steps, and in the water pale cupped lilies and purple-coloured lotuses.

An overblown altar stood in the court near the water-steps and a man was making an offering there. He was naked but for a kilt of dressed skins. His body glimmered like metal from sweat or from oil; his hair and beard were curled. The incense steamed on the altar, it had an overpowering smell, almost kitcheny, like something cooked or fried, like offal, and like musky sweet things, too.

The altar was carved with creatures that had male bodies, wings, the heads of lions, rams, birds.

Sun hammered out the river. The man’s flesh and hair shone. The streamer of incense rose.

Nothing else happened.

When Vusca woke, the trumpets were sounding the third watch. Here, it was night. Known, every angle and shadow of the cell, its two chests, the lamp, the chair which had once been uncle’s at the villa, the weapons on the wall and the bearskin he had bought from Barbarus one bitter winter. Beyond the door, left open, the mathematical Roman yard, with a ray of light playing down from the torch on the Praetorium wall.

Vusca heard the trumpets out. Then turning on his side, returned into sleep, and did not dream again.

On the evening of the Wall Walk, the Commander elected to lead the squadron. Formerly, there had been a manned sentry-post for every half mile of town wall. In the lax climate that now prevailed, only ten posts were kept up, besides the south, west and river gates.

Every month, at the Calends Moon, one of the ranking centurions took the Walk, a tour of the entire wall, which lasted upwards of four hours. The Fort mason was supposed to accompany the presiding centurion, but normally contented himself with a question or two the following day. Otherwise, the Walker was supported by his adjutant and a block of ten of his men who
would have been happier in the Fort. For the Pilum Commander, he seldom if ever took the Walk, as he seldom bothered now with the Night Inspection, delegating this also to his Centurion Secundo or whatever officer was most handy.

Vusca had overseen Nights more times than he could count, and the Wall Walk nearly as often. He learned that he was not to escape on this occasion either. The Old Man wanted both the mason and Vusca for escort, with ten Velites (who as usual would fret and feel insulted, since for the Walk even the cavalry went on foot. In the old days a skirmisher division would never had been put on such a duty. But then.)

Dianus spoke scathingly of the Commander. “What’s stirred him up? Afraid the Emperor’s watching from afar?”

Vusca shrugged. He despised the Pilum Commander, who liked wine too much and spoke Greek like a pimp and Latin like the fishmongers’ descendant he was. Long ago, Vusca had partly hated the man. Yet even in those days Vusca served him impeccably. A soldier must honour the command, if not the dross which might fill it. One did not tarnish one’s own vow because of a fool, a stroke of rotten luck. Nor did one, like Dianus, yap about his faults. It was part of the great pretence that every commander be sufficient.

They started out just after
gates
. There was still a flush of light in the west, mauvish (like that other night). It was autumn weather now, and the remainder of the sky swagged low with cloud. They would probably get a wetting before the Walk was done, which made it stranger still their comfort-loving Pilum had decided on it.

He strutted ahead, like a barrel on legs, in that dress armour of his with the inlay of silver, iron cap plumed with its white coxcomb, and the Tyrian cloak swaggering, full of wind. He was jovial too, and cracked the odd joke with the mason. Centurion Velitis Vusca kept the proper number of paces to the rear, his Velites marching with a dull clink and clash behind him. At the manned posts, the Commander received the salute with theatrical earnestness. He spoke to the handful of sentries, encouraging them in the wind and light spat of rain that was beginning, as if enormous enemy battalions lay below on the garnering night. A couple of times, he called Vusca up. The second time it was: “That man to be disciplined. Sloppy. Probably drunk.” Vusca accepted the criticism on the man’s behalf. His name was Quintus. He had bad teeth and sometimes dosed himself with poppy. It was irregular but understandable. And was the drug more distracting than constant pain? The Commander, of course, knew nothing of any of this.

They got down to the river gate inside the first hour, the tour had gone briskly thus far.

The Pilum paused for a drink with the sentry captain, complained about Quintus, had another cup against the dank evening.

Out on the wall again, behind the Commander’s cocksure, rolling advance, Vusca heard one of his men mutter, “He thinks he’s going to his Triumph.”

Vusca, for once, saw fit to be deaf.

In the second hour, marching over against the north-west hills, the rain began to come from Jupiter’s slingers. It lashed the right cheek, whistled into the right ear, blinkered the right eye. They tramped on, shimmering iron men with seaweed cloaks. That clown, with his damned plumes, carved through the rain, wine-insured against the weather.

They reached the west gate. This time Vusca was invited to join the drinking. He touched the flagon with his lips.

The core of the storm came when they were on the western stretch, with the rain striking their backs.

For some reason, Vusca thought of a minor engagement in hill country, all of thirteen years ago. The downpour had started in the hour before battle, slanting on the ranks, and up had gone the shields, to make a tortoise against the rain. He was reminded of the sound of it now, a barrage like nails, hitting those hundred or so crossed lightnings, torches, the Medusa faces and snake hair washed and slapped. They had fought in the rain too, skidding and sinking in the mud, while the sky flickered with levin-bolts. They won, that went without saying. When the tempest lessened, the barbarians lay everywhere, while the rain gently cleansed their wounds. His infantry shield remained with him to this day. It had a hole through one of the Medusa eyes where someone had almost finished his unpromising career.

A white crack suddenly wrecked the sky. Everything leapt out stark and dead, a place with no dimensions, colours or shadows. Lightning was here, too.

Then came the boom and shock of heavenly ballistas.

One of the Velites shook himself as he marched, with a rattle. Water down the neck.

Not alone in that, thought Vusca. He watched the Commander rolling on ahead, impervious it seemed. Even the mason had dropped back. The next manned sentry-post was visible, ten minutes away, and below, the town, wild on this side, bothies and brothels, though along the slope the ruined circus stood up like a raised scar.

Vusca turned his head and saw, across the streaming night, the dim glows of the easterly town, the spark of Dis Light on the Light Tower. He felt together a dismal sense of futility and a raw pride. He had come to care for it, this outcast place. Perhaps, when Rome was only a pile of rubble, Par Dis in exile might survive.

More rain went down his neck like a cold lesson.
Remember you are mortal
.

So much for the whore’s amulet. Even now, like a dolt, he had it in a pouch round his neck. It surely failed to keep him dry.

And then the world blew up.

There was just a dot of white and then a drench like fire. As he flew, turning, falling, he thought, quite distinctly, he had known something like it before, but he did not know where or when – an earthquake maybe, or a nightmare.

He landed hard, bruised on the metal of his armour. He lay and thought about this, and then he found a heap of armoured men tumbling over him like clanking puppies.

He pulled himself out and to his knees, and saw the mason running in a circle screaming. He was naked, and his body smoked.

“By the bowels of the Bull,” said Vusca, standing up.

He seemed to be lightheaded. Drunk after all? He fought the urge to laugh. He lifted his hands. They were scalded. He put up these scalded hands, and touched his singed hair and brows.

The mason fell down.

Beyond, three sentries were pelting up the wall towards them.

The terrible rumbling was only thunder.

Something was on fire.

Something was burning there, just past the mason, between him and the running soldiers.

It was all that was left of the Pilum Commander.

“Jupiter, Father Jupiter,” moaned one of the Velites.

Vusca had the urge to laugh again. He held it down.

“It will be yours,” said the Centurion Secundo. “Not a man here doubts it.”

Vusca did not want to seem like some blushing virgin. But he was afraid too of what had always happened in the past.

“It may be you,” he said.

“You’ve seen more service than I. I’m content.”

The authority would not come from Rome. There was, at the moment, power enough in Gallia to settle this. A few more days, and he would know.

The Velites carried on as if they already did know. How not, when Father Jupiter himself had made the choice? He had struck down the Pilum with his own divine thunderbolt, and left Retullus Vusca and his men unscathed but for a memento of crisped hair. (The mason, though he lived, did not count.)

The authority came at the end of the month, slipshod as things always were now, all language. But the seal was the correct one.

Vusca went out to look at his troops.

They cheered their new Pilum with willing lungs.

He was surprised. He had never thought himself popular, had been sure he was not.

His heart was in his mouth. That moment, perhaps, was the apex of his life.

Lavinia wrote him a letter, and for days he put off reading it, for she seemed only able to say, think, accomplish one thing: misery, complaints, and tears on paper were little improvement on the personal hand-to-hand variety.

Eventually he did read the letter. It was very simple.

She had been a poor wife to him. She regretted this. She wanted to go and live in the villa. If he preferred to divorce her, she acceded. On his advancement she praised him. It was only as he deserved.

He had come to realise there would be monetary complications if they divorced. Besides, he had no plan to remarry. He doubted that Lavinia had. She did not mention it.

He pondered his answer. At last, he preferred not to put anything into writing. He would go to visit her instead, at the Insula Juna. If she really was contrite, she might be quiet. Perhaps she would not cry. He could tell her she could live at the villa, he made no demands. He was sorry for her, and did not want her always on his conscience. He had not seen her for months.

In the dream, he recognised the bearded man, his kilt and oiled muscular body. They walked as if physically together along a white platform, under the leaning wall of a white building. The sky was the drum-skin sky Vusca had seen before, but smooring into darkness. Stars came out. The white glazing caught the starlight, and Vusca saw three shadows falling before them. He was astonished to cast a shadow himself, more curious as to the third. He turned to see who made the third shadow, which was of an odd shape.

No one was there.

She had done something different to the room. It looked brighter, even in that dull daylight. A bowl of purple grapes had white flowers wreathed among them; a local shawl he had never seen before was draped prettily across a couch.

Lavinia came to greet him. For a minute, he did not know her.

“How well you’re looking,” he said lamely, staring.

She had gained weight. Her skin was fresh, her forearms, her throat, were rounded as they had not been since she was sixteen. The linear cuts in her face had filled out and were gone. She wore her hair a new way, not Roman, more Greek, with a ribbon across her forehead. She was not old, ten years his junior. Suddenly he remembered.

She waited on him as she had been used to do when they were first together, sending the slave away. She was very soft. She said very little. She left it all to him.

In the end he was lost for words.

Then she said, “Do you think I’ve changed?”

He looked. He said, “Yes.”

She told him why.

“I’m not a Christian any more.”

She said she had failed all the Christian precepts, although she had tried so hard. She went around with her heart withering, blaming him, blaming God. Then, on the forum, she saw a procession from the Isis Temple. That afternoon she went there. It was not, she assured him, a hive of orgiastic rites. The religion had altered. It had to do with Woman. Lavinia had found herself at the cool feet of the statue. She said that suddenly the terrible gnawing, which had been feeding on her for years, was lifted out of her. She made an offering and joined the prayers. After this, she went regularly to the temple. She had not forgotten the Christos, she said, but it was a religion she was too weak to follow. Isis, who understood, had redeemed her. She could be at peace, now.

She could let him go, now.

Vusca hesitated. Then he said, “It isn’t necessary. A divorce.”

“But Retullus,” she said, “you have an important command. You’ll want to marry again. Get children. Your name can become illustrious.”

“Who should I marry here?” he said. “Some native girl, or a harlot?” Lavinia lowered her eyes. “Let’s leave things as they are,” he said. “We needn’t bother each other.”

“My dear,” she said, “I’ll always love you. But let me go to the villa. Then I won’t be in your way.”

He was embarrassed, but not displeased.

“Of course,” he said, “except – why not keep here until spring? The winter’s nearly on us, snow, wolves – you’ll winter better in the town.”