Gods and Legions

II

As Julian had said, his goal was not merely to foster peaceful existence, but to restore Gaul to the prosperity it had enjoyed as the jewel of Rome's Western Empire. I mentioned to you that upon his arrival, he had found a state bureaucracy in shambles, bloated by nepotism and incompetence, yet fragmented by the attacks of the barbarian invaders. As a new Caesar, of course, he had as little experience in civil matters as he did in military ones, but once he had consolidated his army's victories and had given himself some breathing room, he was bound to become just as capable an administrator as he had been a general. In fact, merely 'capable' is not the best description of his performance. Under the initial tutelage of Sallustius, and then with his own innate ingenuity and determination, he soon became the most brilliant governor Gaul had seen in generations.

Just as four years earlier he had spent the winter interviewing and strategizing with each of the garrison commanders under his control throughout Gaul, so now did Julian call in all the city prefects and tax supervisors, reorganizing the collection and expenditure system from top to bottom, stemming the sources of fiscal evaporation along all the numerous conduits by which revenues were conveyed to state coffers. Many longtime tax collectors quit their positions in protest at his heavy-handed approach, and he promptly replaced them with new ones, appointed not on the basis of blood relations or bribes, but rather on administrative competence and loyalty to himself and Rome. With Sallustius and other trusted officials, he undertook a personal audit of the province's finances, a task to which he dedicated two entire winters to poring over accounts and assessment minutiae for nights on end. The fairness and ability he demonstrated in tax matters, Brother, has been noted by authorities far and wide, both secular and religious, as you yourself have pointed out and as even the sainted Ambrose of Milan, despite his abiding hatred for the Caesar, has grudgingly admitted. For it was to the benefit of both the Roman state as well as to the common people that such fiscal matters be regularized. He diligently ensured that no one should be overburdened by more than their share of taxes; that the wealthy not seize the property of the poor; that no one should be in a position of authority by which he could profit by public disasters; and that no public official could break the law with impunity.

Most important of all was his elimination of two exceedingly harmful practices by which the prefect, Florentius, had negligently succeeded in bringing the province of Gaul almost to its knees. The first was the arbitrary awarding of 'indulgences,' which is to say, the cancellation of taxes in arrears, which in the sight of all fair men might be considered beneficial. This was not the case under Florentius, however, for such a practice was to the advantage only of the rich, who by various methods involving gifts, bribes, and threats were best able to convince the tax collectors to waive the amounts due on their estates and income, at least until such time as a new indulgence was granted. As for the poor, as is generally the case, they were constrained to pay all the taxes they owed, without exception or deferral, immediately upon the tax collectors' arrival. Needless to say, such a practice resulted in tremendous losses to the treasury, and great harm to the people's well-being.

Florentius' other technique, which was quite the obverse of the indulgence, consisted of the augmentum, the supplementary tax, which a decree by Constantius several years earlier had allowed to be applied at the discretion of the prefect. This highly irregular tax provided that any amount owed by those unable or unwilling to make payment would fall upon those who had already paid their own taxes, as an additional payment. When Julian heard of such effrontery his eyes flashed and he muttered 'Tyranny!' before declaring that so long as he ruled Gaul, no such tax would be permitted in his province. He had only to point to the regions where augmenta had been imposed in the past — Illyria, for example — to show how the population had been reduced to misery and poverty because of it. Only the rich, of course, were sufficiently influential as to be able to declare themselves 'insolvent'; consequently, the burden again fell upon the poor.

Furious at the challenges thrown at him by Julian, whom he considered a rank amateur in matters of civil administration, Florentius stormed back and forth between Julian's palace and his own opulent headquarters for the entire winter, bearing figures, log books, and tax registries in hand. Julian deigned not even to read them, and on one occasion when I was present he even threw the books to the ground and ordered Florentius out of his sight. The prefect fired off a series of angry missives to Constantius, complaining of the impertinence and ignorance of his young ward, but the Emperor, unwilling to pick this issue as a battle, merely attempted to amicably reconcile the two, privately entreating Julian to be more trustful and yielding with his prefect.

In the end, Julian's obstinacy held, and Florentius was forced to give in, much to the benefit of the province. For by eliminating exemptions and strictly enforcing assessments on all amounts owed, Julian was able to swell the state coffers to a degree unprecedented during Constantius' entire reign. Indeed, during the course of Julian's administration, he even succeeded in reducing the capitatio, the assessment per head, from twenty-five aurei to only seven, an amount which nevertheless, after the efficiency measures he implemented, still allowed ample budget for the functioning of the state. The key was that the funds were not only assessed on taxpayers, but actually paid, for the first time in perhaps centuries. Such measures as these were almost unheard of, not only in Gaul but throughout the entire Empire, and due notice of his methods was beginning to be taken in the capital.

Just as significant, perhaps, were his legal reforms, which were in sharp contrast to accepted practice. Exasperated in his attempts to find a sufficient quantity of judges and local governors whose abilities conformed to his standards of education and fairness of mind, he finally resorted to trying cases himself. This began to be a burden, however, for his time during the winter months began to be increasingly taken up with the settlement of minor property disputes and dowry claims. Toward springtime, when it was known that he would be departing on a certain date for a season of campaigning against the barbarians, individuals seeking redress would throng to the palace, imploring him to hear their case before he left, lining up in the corridors and down the steps into the street. They left him no peace even by night, when particularly brash or desperate claimants would sometimes station themselves close to his windows, and shout or sing their pleas and defense in carefully crafted verse, in an effort to attract his attention to their cause.

Since he clearly had no time to make personal investigations of each matter, he would often refer cases to the provincial prefects and governors, and then upon his return follow up on the outcome of the various suits. It did not help his privacy when it became known that he would often mitigate the penalties that had been handed down by his appointees through sheer kindliness.

Finally, out of pure desperation to regain a bit of his former privacy and time, he limited himself to hearing only cases that were of extreme importance or prominence, and since these cases were naturally the most widely followed, his reputation for personalized sentences became even more widespread. I recall specifically the case of Numerius who had recently been the appointed governor of Gallia Narbonensis, on the southern littoral. He had been accused by his enemies of embezzlement, and Julian determined to hear the case himself, which he allowed to be open to all. In an effort to set an example, he conducted the hearings and testimony with unusual severity, often grilling the witnesses himself. Numerius put up an airtight defense, however, and was ultimately acquitted, to much rejoicing among his supporters. The sharp-tongued prosecutor Delphidius, who had traveled all the way from Rome for the chance to participate in such a famous case, became exasperated at the lack of evidence in his favor, and at one point of the trial addressed the bench with a bitter question. 'Mighty Caesar,' he said, 'how can anyone be found guilty if it is sufficient for him merely to deny the charges?' A hush fell over the crowded courtroom as Julian flushed red in anger at the man's impertinence. He stood up and stared imperiously at Delphidius, who for a moment stood his ground and then began to shrink back against the wall behind him. 'And how,' Julian thundered, 'can anyone be acquitted if a mere accusation is all that is required to convict him?'

It was about this time, when his involvement in the functioning of the courts was at its height, that old Eutherius the eunuch made a remark that, as much as any, may have contributed to the subsequent unfolding of events. He had returned from Italy after spending much time quietly absorbing all the palace gossip and intrigue surrounding Constantius' court, and had resumed his position as Julian's chief steward.

'My lord,' he noted casually, as if it had just occurred to him, and indeed it very well may have, 'forgive me for raising an unpleasant subject, but one unfinished affair remains to be completed.'

Julian looked up, startled at first, but with a hint of amusement in his eyes. 'Eutherius, you old dog, what are you talking about?'

Eutherius maintained his customary grave demeanor. 'Again, forgive my presumptuousness, sir. But the woman Flaminia, the… er… midwife, had a daughter who still lives. She has languished in a solitary cell these past four years without trial. You have had other governors and judges demoted for treating their prisoners so harshly. She is said to be half mad, but perhaps you should put the matter to rest. Hostile tongues have been raising the subject of her imprisonment — Florentius in particular has been talking about it rather liberally — and such gossip could cast doubt on the impartiality of your judicial reforms.'

Julian stared at the old man in confusion for a moment, hardly remembering even the existence of the girl, and then looked inquiringly over at Sallustius, who avoided his gaze as he absentmindedly shuffled papers at the worktable.

'Several times I have tried to assign the case to an appropriate judge,' Sallustius said quietly. 'All of them recuse, however. They fear your wrath were they to find her innocent, and they fear your accusations of cowardice and sycophancy if they were to find her guilty. Most of all, they fear having to call Lady Helena and yourself to testify. It is an extremely awkward situation, and I would urge you to settle the case privately and quietly, perhaps simply by sending a trusted centurion to her cell with a sharp blade.'

Julian exploded. 'A trusted centurion! And what's to stop that centurion from discussing the matter with another trusted centurion, and another? Have I studied philosophy all these years to so flee my own responsibilities? Is it so difficult, then, both to afford the girl a fair trial and to seek the truth in the matter? By no means. I shall conduct the trial myself, as the greatest test of my objectivity and self-control. Let it be done.'

Dear God, what a nasty affair that was. I still shudder at the recollection. He had the foresight to first send me quietly to Sens, accompanied only by a single guard, with instructions to visit Matilda in her prison and determine whether she was fit to travel to Paris for the trial, and if so, to make arrangements for her transport forthwith. In the meantime, Eutherius, in hurried counsel taken with Sallustius and myself, pointed out the scandal that would ensue from a public trial of the girl, presided over by Julian himself as chief judge. The harm that would be caused to the Caesar's reputation for fairness, by trying a defendant while serving as both judge and plaintiff, would be incalculable. Not to mention the fact that the appearance of the dreaded midwife's daughter in Helena's presence would most likely only further unbalance the Princess's fragile state of mind. We resolved that I should delay as long as I reasonably could in fetching Matilda up to Paris, to allow them sufficient time to convince Julian that the notion of a public trial was folly, and that it was a matter to be settled privately.

Their efforts were in vain, though not for the reasons one might at first think. In accordance with the eunuch's and Sallustius' instructions, I tarried five days in arriving at Sens, on what would normally be an energetic two-day trip, first by feigning illness, then by slipping my horse a pinch of arsenic with his grain to render him colicky, and finally by pausing in one of the villages through which we were passing to surreptitiously inquire as to whether anyone in the vicinity might need medical assistance. I then arranged to treat a needy family on an urgent basis, which, as events would have it, involved nothing more than a case of childhood scabies and pinkeye. This treatment I was unable to stretch out for more than two hours, but by that time it was too late to take to the road again that evening. My guard and I were therefore forced to sojourn the night in the house of the sick child, where my own guard, rather fortuitously, as it turned out, managed to contract pinkeye, delaying our arrival yet another day. So much for these things.

Upon finally arriving in Sens, I repaired straight to the remote prison on the outskirts where the girl was being held, reluctant to delay in the city itself because of the number of people who knew me there and who might ask inconvenient questions. Upon arriving at the entrance to the cell, a windowless stone hut, really, hard by the city walls near the municipal rubbish heap, I was surprised to see that although it was locked, it was completely unguarded.

Peering inside past the two iron bars that almost completely obscured the high, narrow air slit in the side of the wall, I was unable to see anything, though when I called inside I thought I heard some faint rustling, perhaps of rats. Furious not only at this dereliction of duty on the part of the guards, but also at this ill-treatment of a prisoner, I sent my own guard galloping back to the city garrison to make inquiries, while I settled myself down by the cell door to wait.

It was not long, less than a half hour, perhaps, when a decidedly ill-looking soldier, an ancient Gallic auxiliary, shambled out from the vicinity of the rubbish heap, pale, unshaven, and tottering slightly on his feet like a sailor just landed after a three-week voyage. He stared at me with slightly unfocused eyes, and asked me in broken Latin what I wanted.

I stared down my nose at him haughtily. 'What do I want? You drunken ape. I am a physician, sent by the authorities to check on the status of your prisoner. Is this how you maintain the guard?'

The man stared at me insolently for a moment, sizing me up to determine whether I might truly have some authority over him, before he looked away and shrugged his shoulders in resignation.

'Were that it were only drunkenness, sir. It's the cholera, sure as can be, spread through the fetid parts like this dump, and sure to move on next to the city proper. I've been back of the latrines, pukin' and shittin' my guts out, sir, and I'd be happy to give you a sample of the results here and now if you like, for there's plenty more where that came from. You'd be better off saving your treatment for the likes of me than for the bitch what's inside the cell, for if she's not dead of the sickness already she will be in a day or two.' And leaning against the wall weakly, he managed to elicit a trickle of bile out of the corner of his mouth, and a mocking grin.

I stared at him in horror. In my wanderings of the past few days I had heard nothing, no reports of plague, and was unsure whether to give credence to the man. But if what he said was true, that Matilda was on her deathbed, then I had very little time. I backed away cautiously from the man as he watched me curiously, still smiling, then tossed him a gold piece, which landed on the ground at his feet.

'Let me in to see the prisoner. I have my orders.'

He kept his eyes on me, not even glancing down at the coin. 'I have my orders too, which is to let no man see her, and for four years that's the way it's been. Only way I know she's still alive is that each day the bread disappears and the slop is flung out that window above you.'

I glanced warily at the air slit just over my head, and sidled a few steps away. I tossed him another coin.

'Treatment for the cholera's expensive, my lord,' the man said quietly, almost threateningly.

Exasperated, I untied the small coin pouch from my belt and flung the entire parcel at him, which landed with a satisfying thud against the wall at his feet. He nodded silently, and without deigning even to pick it up, he brushed past me roughly, drawing a large, rusted key from a ring at his belt. He fumbled for a moment at the lock before it clicked and the door swung inward on rusty, long-unused hinges. I entered and heard the metal shriek in protest as the door swung back and closed behind me.

I stood still for a moment, adjusting my eyes to the darkness, which was broken only by the narrow beam of daylight streaming down at a steep angle through the barred and cobwebbed slit above. Thousands of tiny dust motes floated lazily and aimlessly through the bridge of light, as if undecided whether to stay in the known environment of the cell or to make their way up the shaft to the freedom beyond, the only beings herein allowed such a choice. On the far wall where the narrow beam fell, a tiny lizard sat motionless, bathing itself in a brightness that to it must have felt the ultimate luxury. Before my eyes had entirely focused, however, and while still unwilling to tear my gaze from the familiarity and safety of the floating particles, I felt a hand on my ankle, and a wheezing voice floated up to me from the ground.

'So, the great physician Caesarius stoops to visit his colleague and accompany her in her death sentence.'

I paused. The voice in the dark was expected, though the words were not. There was no need to enter into a debate with this madwoman, for she had been unable to keep to a thought even when in her right mind four years before. My orders were clear, to ascertain her physical condition and ability to travel.

'I am not your colleague, and I am not under a death sentence. Nor are you for that matter, yet. I'm here to examine you.'

At this there was a weak sigh. 'You are a trained physician, though in your career you have had perhaps three patients. I was merely a midwife's apprentice, but have delivered thrice that number in a single day. You bring life, and you bury it as well. So too did I, though among the humble and unwashed rather than among caesars and emperors, and in exchange for a basket of eggs rather than a palace sinecure. Who are you to deny your affinity to me — colleague?' And she drew a deep, rattling breath that broke in midgasp into a racked series of coughing and retching.

I listened silently to her gagging, gauging the depth from within her chest that the phlegm was rising, judging by the bitter, ironlike smell the quantity of blood and sloughed-off lung tissue she was spitting up with each hacking bark. Cholera, hell. She had pneumonia. And it would be a miracle if she lasted the night.

I knelt on the ground beside her in the darkness, and with dismay felt my knee sink into a soft, moist substance, and I reached out my hand to palpate her chest. There have been very few times when I have actually felt utter repugnance for a patient or a medical procedure, even during the autopsies of my most heavily fermented research subjects, though on this occasion it was difficult to feel anything but revulsion. I grasped her thin shoulder, the dry, scaly skin barely covering the birdlike bones, and I could feel death resting upon her like a shroud.

'I have buried no emperors,' I muttered absentmindedly, 'except for the future one your mother killed, and there is no sentence of death hanging over me.'

Another spasm of breathing broke down to a fit of sobs and coughs. I rested my palm lightly on her emaciated chest, feeling the spasmodic gasping and heaving of her fluid-filled lungs as she struggled to regain her breath.

'You're still… young,' she retorted with great effort, gasping with every word, 'like me. We have our entire lives before us, do we not? There is ample time… to bury emperors aplenty. As… as for the one you say Mother killed — you are mistaken, dear colleague. You are blaming the knife… for the deed of the butcher.'

Plague or no plague, the woman was disgusting to the extreme, but she was my patient nonetheless, and I had sworn an oath, both on the spirit of Hippocrates after my studies, and on that of Christ during my baptism, to do everything in my power to help unfortunates such as her. I opened my kit, which I had inadvertently set down into another suspiciously odoriferous substance, and began rummaging in it with one hand for something that might relieve the pain of her congestion during her last few hours. More with a view to making idle conversation to soothe her than to performing any serious inquiries, I pursued her last remark.

'And who might the butcher be?' I asked, instantly regretting the question for fear that it might provoke in her unhinged mind another lengthy coughing attack, this time fatal. I would be forced to live with the sin of killing a woman by having engaged her in small talk.

But the coughing, this time, did not come. Instead, she lay in silence for a moment, grasping my hand, which still lay on her heaving chest, in her own thin fingers, with a strength surprising for one so fragile. So long did she lie there clutching my hand that I thought perhaps she had drifted into unconsciousness before I was even able to slip her the draught, and I was about to stand up and step away when the rate of her breathing changed, and I could feel her clearing her throat to say something. I paused where I was.

'Better to have examined the coins than the body,' she said simply, and fell silent but for her wheezing breath. I was puzzled. The coins? The only coins I could think of were the gold pieces in the pouch Flaminia was carrying when she had been captured fleeing the city. I had had only a fleeting glimpse of them in the soldier's hands before Paul had confiscated them to the treasury. The girl was raving.

'What are you talking about?' I asked softly, all my senses on edge now. 'What coins?'

'The blood money,' she whispered back. 'The Julians… the bloody Julians.'

I strained to recall the events of that horrible night; a glimmer of understanding was beginning to form. The 'Julians' — this was the term used to describe the gold coins minted by Constantius to honor Julian's crowning as Caesar of the Western Empire. But I was not a numismatist — what did they have to do…?

Suddenly it all became clear. The coins had been minted almost five years ago in Milan. Julian had received a proof set inlaid in a special box shortly afterwards as a gift from the Empress Eusebia. But due to the normal slow pace of production and the gradual spread of currency throughout the Empire from its original place of minting, the coins had only recently begun to show up in general circulation in northern Gaul — within this past year. This was a fact I had noticed because of the remarkably good likeness of the Caesar on the obverse of the coin. But where had Flaminia obtained an entire pouch of the new coins almost four years ago, and why had Paul not noticed or investigated their origin, unless…

A searing pain shot through my head as I seized Matilda's face between my two hands. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

'Matilda — where did your mother get those coins? Who sent them to her? Tell me, girl, you're dying, you know that, you must tell me who sent those coins…' But my words were drowned out again by her moan of despair, and a fit of harsh, gurgling coughing from which I knew, this time, she would not recover. For long moments she hacked and choked until she could breathe no more and then, wheezing, gradually sucked in sufficient air to begin another round of spitting and croaking. Great globs of fluid and tissue bubbled from her mouth and down the side of her face as I stared at her dark form in the shifting shadows. The fading shaft of light still made its way through the high slit, its angle flattening as it climbed inexorably up the side of the inner wall, the lizard following it imperceptibly like a lost woodsman following a trail home, like a released soul following the path of light to its reward.

Matilda's coughing finally subsided to a harsh wheeze, a belabored breathing that brooked no attempt at voice, so she whispered the final words she would ever communicate to a colleague: 'The arms of Eusebia are long.'

When I left the cell in the late-spring twilight, the lightness and effervescence of the air, compared with the fetid heaviness in the cell, almost overwhelmed me, and for a moment I felt dizzy and bewildered, my eyes dazzled by the colors and the clarity of things, and I thought perhaps all I had just heard had been a dream, a terrible dream. If only, I thought, if only I had been born at Mount Atlas of ancient legend, where dreams are said to be unknown. Then I looked to the side, where again I saw the grizzled old Gaul slowly limping toward me from behind the rubbish pit. I stared at him, more in my own inner confusion and shock than at anything specific about him. He stopped at a distance when he saw me, then slowly raised an earthen jug from behind his back in a kind of salute, and grinned at me with rotting, blackened teeth.