The Roman (19 page)

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centurion, which caused more amusement than ever. Finally Vespasian made ritual offerings at the garrison altar with such dignity and piety that there was no more laughter. He sacrificed so many calves, sheep and pigs that everyone knew that for once they could eat their fill of free roast meat, and we all marveled at the favorable omens. After the inspection, he sent me to buy a live hare from a veteran who was breeding hares, as the Britons did, in cages for amusement. Vespasian thrust the hare under his arm. We three� he, Lugunda and I�left the camp grounds and walked far into the forest. He took no guard with him, for he was a fearless man and both of us were armed, as we had just come from the inspection. In the forest he seized the hare by the ears and handed it to Lugunda, who put it under her cloak with a practiced hand and began to look around for a suitable place. For no apparent reason she led us through the forest so far that I began to suspect an ambush. A crow flew up in front of us, but fortunately veered off to the right. Lugunda stopped at last by an enormous oak tree, looked around once more, marked out the points of the compass in the air with one hand, flung up a handful of rotten acorns, looked to see where they fell and then began to intone an incantation for so long that I began to grow sleepy. Suddenly she snatched the hare from under her clothes and threw it up into the air, and stood leaning forward, her eyes black with excitement as she stared after it. The hare darted away with great leaps in a northwesterly direction and vanished into the forest. Lugunda burst into tears, flung her arms around my neck and pressed herself to me, shaking with sobs. �You chose the hare yourself, Minutus,� said Vespasian apologetically. �This has nothing to do with me whatsoever. If I�ve got it right, the hare says she must go home to her tribe immediately. If it had stayed and hidden in a bush, it would have been a bad omen and stopped her going. I think I understand that much of the Britons� art of predicting by hares.� He patted Lugunda kindly on the shoulder and spoke to her in the Iceni language. Lugunda calmed down, smiled a little and then seized my hand, kissing it several times. �I only promised that you would see her safely to the Iceni

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country,� Vespasian explained, unmoved. �Let us now consult several other omens so that you need not go straightaway before you�ve had time to get to know my Druid prisoner. I�ve a feeling that you�re a mad enough young man to be able to appear as an itinerant Sophist collecting wisdom from different countries for your own sake. I suggest that you dress in goatskins. The girl will bear witness that you are a holy man and the Druid will protect you. They keep their promises if they�ve made them in a certain way in the name of their own gods of the underworld. If they don�t keep them, we�ll have to think of another way of securing peaceful cooperation.� In this way Lugunda and I went with Vespasian to the main legion camp when he returned from his tour of inspection. When we left, I realized to my surprise that many of the men in the garrison had become quite attached to me during the winter. They gave me small parting gifts, told me never to bite the legion�s hand that had fed me, and assured me that genuine wolf blood flowed in my veins, even if I did speak Greek. I was sorry to leave them. When we arrived at the main camp, I forgot to salute the legion�s Eagle in the proper manner. Vespasian snarled with rage, ordered my weapons to be removed from me with ignominy and had me thrown into a dark cell. I was completely mystified by this strictness until I realized that in the cell I was to be given the opportunity of meeting the captured Druid. He was not yet thirty, but nevertheless was a remarkable man in every way. He spoke quite good Latin and was dressed like a Roman. He made no secret of the fact that he had been captured on his way home from western Gaul when his ship had been driven inland by a storm on a coast guarded by the Romans. �Your commander Vespasian is a clever man,� he said smiling. �Practically no one else among you would have noticed that I was a Druid, or even taken me for a Briton, because I don�t paint my face blue. He has promised to save me from a painful death in the amphitheater in Rome, but that alone won�t make me do as he asks. I do only what my own true dreams and omens tell me. He is unconsciously fulfilling a greater wish than his own by saving my life. I am not afraid of a painful death even, for I am an initiate.�

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I had a splinter in my thumb and my hand became very badly swollen in the cell. The Druid took out the splinter without even hurting me, by pinching my wrist with his other hand. When he had poked out the splinter with a pin, he held my hot and aching hand for a long time between his own. The following morning all the pus had gone and my hand showed no sign whatsoever of the splinter. �Your commander,� he said, �probably understands better than most Romans that the war is now a war between the gods of Rome and the gods of Britain. So he is trying to bring about a truce between the gods and in this way is acting in a much wiser way than if he tried politically to unite all our different tribes in a treaty with the Romans. Our gods can afford a truce, for they never die. Reliable omens tell us, however, that the gods of Home soon die. So Britain will never be completely under the power of Rome, however clever Vespasian thinks he is. But everyone must of course believe in his own gods.� He also tried to defend the horrible human sacrifices which were part of his belief. �A life must be paid for by a life,� he explained. �If an important man becomes ill, to be cured he sacrifices a criminal or a slave. Death does not mean the same thing to us as it does to you Romans, for we know that we shall be reborn on earth sooner or later. So death is just a change of time and place and no more remarkable than that. I would not say that every person is reborn, but an initiate knows for certain he will be reborn into a rank that is worthy of him. So death is for him nothing but a deep sleep from which he knows he will awaken.� Later, Vespasian officially freed the Druid, whom he had taken as his slave, paid the necessary tax into the legion fund and gave him permission to use his other family name, Petro, sternly pointing out to him his duties to his former master according to Roman law. Then he gave us three mules and sent us across the river to the Iceni country. In the cell I had allowed my hair and fair beard to grow, and when we left the camp I was dressed in goatskins, although Petro laughed at all these precautionary measures. As soon as we reached the protection of the forest, he threw his freedman�s stave into the bushes and let out a bloodcurdling British war cry. In a moment we were surrounded by a crowd of

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armed blue-painted Icenis. But they did no harm to either Lugunda or me. Together with Petro and Lugunda I was taken by mule from early spring until the depths of winter among the different tribes of Britain, as far away as the country of the Brigantes. To the best of his ability, Petro taught me all the British customs and beliefs except the secrets of the initiates. It is unnecessary for me to describe my journey here, for I have put it all in my book on Britain. I must admit that I did not realize until several years later that I had traveled around in a kind of haze of enchantment during the whole of this time. Whether this was because of some kind of secret influence from Petro or Lugunda or simply my youth, I cannot say. But I think I saw everything as more wonderful than it was in reality and I was pleased by the people and their customs, which later I did not like as well as I had done then. Nevertheless, I developed and learned so much, that six months later I was considerably older than my years. Lugunda stayed with her tribe in the Iceni country to breed hares while I returned for the darkest months to London, in the Roman part of the country, to write an account of my journey. Lugunda had of course wanted to come with me, but Petro hoped I would return to the Iceni country and succeeded in persuading her that this would be much more likely to happen if she stayed with her own family, which by British standards was a noble one. Vespasian did not recognize me when I reported to him with blue stripes on my face, dressed in valuable furs and with gold rings in my ears. I addressed him formally in the Iceni language and made with my hand the simplest of the Druid signs which Petro allowed me to use so that I should not be in danger on my return journey. �I am Ituna,� I said, �from the Brigantes� country, blood brother to the Roman, Minutus Lausus Manilianus. I have a message for you from him. He allowed himself to be sent down to the dead to acquire for you a favorable omen. Now he cannot return to earth in his original form, but I have promised to pay for a memorial tablet in Roman script. Can you recommend me a good stonemason?�

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�By all the gods of the underworld and Hecate too,� swore Vespasian in amazement. �Is Minutus Manilianus dead? Whatever shall I tell his father now?� �When my wise and gifted blood brother died for you, he saw IL hippopotamus in the river,� I continued. �That means an everlasting kingdom which no earthly power can hinder. Flavius Vespasian, the gods of Briton bear witness that you, before your death, will cure the sick by the touch of your hands and be exalted to a god in the country of Egypt.� Not until then did Vespasian recognize me, and he burst out laughing when he remembered the Egyptian-Chaldaean book of dreams. �I nearly had a stroke,� he cried. �But what�s all this nonsense You�re talking?� I told him I had in fact had a dream of that kind about him, after allowing a Druid High Priest to put me into a deathlike trance in the Brigantes� country. �But whether it means anything or not, I don�t know,� I admitted sensibly. �Perhaps I was so frightened that time you surprised me when I was reading about a hippopotamus in the hook of dreams with Lugunda that the hippopotamus returned to me in my sleep just as I was dreaming about Egypt. It was such a clear dream that I could describe it and the temple in front of which it all took place. You were sitting, fat and bald, on a judge�s throne. There were many people around you. A blind man and a ripple were begging you to cure them. At first you did not want to, but finally you agreed to spit in the blind man�s eyes and kick the lame man�s leg with your heel. The blind man soon received back his sight and the lame man�s leg healed. When the crowd saw this, they came with sacrificial cakes and named you a god.� Vespasian�s laughter was hearty but rather forced, �Whatever you do, don�t tell other people that kind of dream, even in jest,� he warned me. �I promise to remember the remedies you mention, should I find myself in such a dilemma. But it is more likely that as a toothless old man I shall be, in the interests of Rome, a simple legion commander in Britain.� He was not entirely serious when he said this, for I saw that he was wearing a triumph ornament on his tunic. I congratulated

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him, but Vespasian looked gloomy and told me that the latest news from Rome was that Emperor Claudius had had his young wife Messalina murdered, and weeping bitterly, had sworn before the Praetorian Guard that he would never marry again. �From a reliable source, I have heard that Messalina had separated from Claudius in order to marry Consul Silius, with whom she already had spent a great deal of time;� Vespasian told me. �They married once when Claudius was out of the city. The idea was either to bring back the republic or make Silius Emperor with the approval of the Senate. It is difficult to know what really happened, but Claudius� freedmen, Narcissus, Pallas and the other parasites, deserted Messalina and made Claudius believe his life was in danger. During the wedding feast, however, the conspirators made the mistake of getting drunk to celebrate their victory. Claudius returned to the city and got the Praetorian Guard on his side. Then large numbers of senators and knights were executed and only a few were allowed to commit suicide. So the conspiracy was widespread and evidently carefully prepared.� �What a terrible story� I exclaimed. �I had heard before I left Rome that the Emperor�s freedmen were terrified when their colleague Polybius was executed on Messalina�s orders. But I could never quite believe all the dreadful things that were said about Messalina. I even had a feeling the gossip was deliberately spread about to blacken her reputation.� Vespasian scratched his big head and glanced slyly at me. �I�m not really competent to speak,� he said, �as I�m only a simple legion commander and live over here as if in a leather sack, without knowing what is really happening. It is said that fifty senators and about two hundred knights were executed because of the conspiracy. I am most concerned about my son Titus, who was left in Messalina�s care to be brought up with Britannicus. If Claudius believed so ill of his child�s mother, then such a capricious old man might equally well turn against the children.� After that we talked about nothing but the British tribes and kings whom I had got to know, thanks to Petro. Vespasian ordered me to write a careful account of my journeys, but by no means paid for my Egyptian paper, ink and pens, not to speak of my keep in London. In fact I received no pay whatsoever and I was

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no longer included in the rolls of my own legion, so I felt very lonely and outcast that icy cold and foggy winter. I rented a room at a Gallic corn merchant�s and began to write, only to find that it was not nearly so easy as I had thought. It was Hot now a matter of commenting or revising earlier works, but of describing my own experiences. I spoiled a great deal of expensive paper and paced anxiously up and down the banks of the mighty river Thames, protected by furs and woolen clothes against the icy wind. When Vespasian returned from a tour of inspection, he summoned me to him and began to read what I had written. When he had finished he looked confused. �I haven�t the ability to judge literature,� he said, �and, in fact, respect learned men much too much even to try. But this gives me the impression that you�ve bitten off more than you can chew. You write very beautifully, but I should have thought that you must first decide whether you are writing a poem or a factual account of Britain�s configuration, religions and tribes. Of course, it�s pleasant to read about how green the fields you have seen in J3ritain are, how the ash trees bloom and the little birds sing in the early summer, but for soldiers or merchants, this is not very useful information. Also, you rely much too much on the Druids� and noble Britons� accounts of their tribes� descent and the kings� divine origins. You describe their merits and noble virtues so well that one might think you had forgotten you were a Roman. If I were you, I wouldn�t blame the god Julius Caesar and say that he never succeeded in conquering Britain but was forced to flee her coasts without ever accomplishing his task. Naturally, what you say, which in itself is not without foundation, enhances Emperor Claudius� honor, when he, thanks to the British tribal wars, has succeeded in making such a large part of the country peaceful. But it is not a good thing to insult the god Julius Caesar publically. You ought to know that.� When he talked to me in this fatherly way, my heart began to thump, and I realized that while writing I had fled from the dark winter and my own loneliness into a dreamlike summer in which I forgot the trials I had suffered and remembered only the beautiful things. I had missed Lugunda as I had been writing, and because of the brotherhood in which I joined with the Brigantes, I felt myself more of a Briton than a Roman. And in the way of