The Singing Sword

XXIV

I was late for the Council meeting the following day, in spite of all my good intentions, so I don't really know how the argument started. All I do know is that by the time I arrived, the session was about half an hour old and a great storm had blown in during the first fifteen minutes. I heard the hullabaloo as I approached the doors of the chamber, and the volume amazed me. I stopped outside for a few seconds and remembered Vegetius and his whistling stone, and then, on an impulse, I went looking for a trumpeter, or a trumpet. Typically, there was not a soldier to be seen anywhere, so I ended up getting a brass horn from my armoury.

Back once again at the doors of the Council chamber, where the racket was still going on, I tucked the horn under my arm, pulled the door open and stepped inside. The noise in the great room was unbelievable — complete pandemonium, with everybody shouting and screaming at the same time. I scanned the room looking for Caius and quickly located him at the front. He stood erect, watching the scene going on around him, and at his side stood Bishop Alaric. They were the only two people in the room, apart from myself, who were not making a sound.

I had served with Caius Britannicus for a very long time and thought I had seen all of his moods. On occasion, I had seen him angry, and on a very few memorable occasions I had seen him furious. I took one look at him that morning and I knew that I had never seen him this angry before. His face was pallid and the skin was drawn tight over his cheekbones, and his lips were so compressed that he seemed to have no mouth at all. But it was his eyes that gave me pause. They were like stones: hard, cold, unyielding and pitiless. I whipped the horn up to my lips and let its brazen scream smash everyone into silence.

They all turned to face me, stunned a little by the suddenness of the interruption. Then somebody said my name, and from the tone of the voice I could guess that its owner was about to try to solicit my support. I silenced him with another blast, holding this one until I ran out of breath. Nobody moved until I did, but then, as I started to walk, they began to talk again, and I silenced them again with a third blast. This time, as I removed the mouthpiece from my lips, I pointed to the front of the room and said, "Caius Britannicus!"

All eyes went to him. He remained rigid for a few seconds and then he said, "Let us be seated."

Again a voice was raised, and in an instant, Caius had drawn his sword from its scabbard and smashed the flat of it on the table in front of him with a clang. "SILENCE!" he roared. The silence he received was absolute and awestruck. Utter stillness.

"I said, let us be seated." This was almost a whisper. Now all the anger in the room had turned into embarrassment in the face of his wrath, and everyone sat down.

Caius picked up his sword again from the table, reversed his grip on it and hammered the point deep into the wood, so that the sword stood erect in front of him. When he spoke again, his voice was low, intense and sibilant with disgust.

"I have never in my life, never, been subjected to such a disgraceful display of spleen! How dare you subject me — and yourselves — to such debased behaviour! You people are the Council of this Colony. The elders! Collectively, yours is supposed to be the voice of wisdom!" His eyes raked every man in the room, and there were many who squirmed. Finally, after what seemed like an age, he spoke again.

"Now. I want you all to listen very carefully to what I have to say. I want each of you to make a supreme effort to forget about your own personal demands, or requirements, or interpretations of what you may or may not have heard before coming here." He bit his upper lip and glowered at them, commanding their attention, stretching the silence he had achieved. "Listen for your lives. It is I, Caius Britannicus, who speak to you!" His eyes moved from face to face and again he stretched the pause, making them wait for his next words.

"This is my house. You are here at my invitation. I brought this Council into being!" An expectant hush stilled the room. Finally, when he was convinced that no one was going to break the silence in defiance of him, he continued, and the clarity and conviction in his voice rang throughout the room, even though he spoke with no great volume. No one doubted by this time that they had given grave offence to the presence, the power, that was Caius Britannicus, and his gaze moved from face to face, singling no one out but leaving no one exempt from the import of his words.

"I will tolerate no more outrages of this kind in my house! Is that clear? If you want to behave like animals, or like hucksters in the street, then go and fight among yourselves in the stables or in the marketplace! Not here!" He was overwrought, brittle, and therefore fragile, in his anger. Struggling to calm himself, he lowered his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between the thumb and fingers of his right hand.

I began to move towards the front of the room just as Lars Nepos, a skilled leather-craftsman who was standing in front of me and to my right, leaned over to make a comment to his neighbour.

"Nepos!" I roared, slapping him hard on the shoulder. "Hold your peace! The man hasn't finished yet."

He subsided immediately, looking abashed, and I continued my walk to the front, coming to a stop just behind and to the right of Caius, where I turned and faced the Council, looking at their faces, searching for anger, resentment, hubris. All I saw was shame, mingled with concern for Caius.

He raised his head and squared his shoulders, and when he spoke again his voice had returned to its normal pitch though it was oratorical in its cadences.

"When we founded this Colony, we dedicated it to the cause of survival in the face of Armageddon, and we dedicated it to the preservation of all that was originally great in Rome.

"When we formed this Council, for the governance of the Colony, we spoke with pride of solving our problems nobly, in regulated session dedicated to the common good, as did our republican forefathers in the Senate. This Council is our Senate!" He stopped again, to allow that comment to penetrate the minds of his listeners, and again his gaze swept the assembly, missing no one.

"This Council is our Senate. That is the truth, but it has never been stated before, because it sounds overly grand and intimidating, and it reeks of affectation and unearned and inappropriate powers." Another all-encompassing, ranging look around, without breaking his tempo. "Nevertheless, it is the truth." His audience was spellbound.

"You men are this Colony's senators. We have not used the term, as such, until this time and this regrettable circumstance, but that is what you are, and this is the perfect time to point it out and engrave it in your minds and your souls...You are this Colony's senators."

He drew a deep, shuddering breath.

"Here, in this Council chamber, every man is equal. Each has his part to play. Each has his value, which is his alone and never better used than when it is dedicated to the solving of our common problems. No man's voice should be more important here than any other's, including my own. My function is that of moderator only, or has been until today. Now, like Julius Caesar, I stand here as dictator, laying down the law, because you have forced me to speak thus! I am not grateful for this distinction." He stopped yet again, deliberately moving his eyes from man to man in sequence, missing none in his scrutiny.

"I will not accept this role you thrust upon me." There was utter stillness in the room. "I will not play the father to your childishness." He drew a long breath. "My son Picus is much concerned these days with personal responsibility. Each one among you should seek him out when next he visits us and spend some time talking with him about it, because like it or not, each one of you has accepted personal responsibility for the welfare of this Colony.

"This debacle today has absolved me of a responsibility I never really had... yet thought was my duty... a personal responsibility for you, for your actions and behaviour, and for the Colony. From this time forth, I will no longer stand as moderator of this Council." He raised his hand quickly, trying to forestall the spontaneous murmur that these words caused, and to which I myself contributed an involuntary grunt of surprise and apprehension..

"Hear me! I am not being dramatic. I mean this. I am growing too old for this and have been thinking for some time now that my task is done. Today I see that I was wrong. My task is far from complete. But it will be completed now, finally, for better or for worse.

"In spite of the way you have behaved this morning, you are all grown men. It is time that you took responsibility for your own course. This session will be my last as moderator. The Senate of Republican Rome had no permanent moderator, nor will this Council.

"I have suspected for several sessions now the emergence of a spirit of elitism among us. I had accused myself of being cynical and suspicious, but I can see now that this was not so. This morning's fiasco has, at its roots, exactly the spirit I have feared: elitism! It must not be allowed to grow, to continue, for if it does then this Council, and this Colony, are doomed." He paused again, and once again no one sought to interrupt him.

"We have newly lost our first Council member in war. We have gained our first martyr. Vegetius Sulla held his place among us with honour. Now he is dead, and he must be replaced. I find it tragic that it should be the question of replacing such a man, the occasion of his death, that should precipitate such a pitiful scene as the one we have just witnessed here." His voice soared again to a shout, booming in the stillness of the room.

"How dare any man here seek to advance himself in such circumstances! How can any among you be so petty as to squabble over who should sit where?

"What does it matter if you are young or old? Why does it matter whether you sit at the rear of this assembly or at the front? Shame be on any man who thinks it does! Are there those among you who think that by sitting close to me you might gain import? Well, if so, that has been taken care of. I shall be here at the front no more!

"Or are there those among you who think that you will not be listened to if your voice comes from the rear? Such thoughts impugn the honour of this body! They are unworthy! In this assembly, all voices are equal and every man among us is assured his right to speak and vote! This is a Council chamber!" His voice fell again, almost to a whisper. "Not, as I have said, a marketplace."

He stopped again, always mindful of the need to permit enough time for his words to register in the minds of his listeners; then he raised his right hand, his index finger extended.

"We have had only one rule governing our sessions in this room in all the years we have been meeting here. Now, I believe, the time has come to initiate more rules, not for governance, but for simple, honest guidance, to serve as a reminder of who we are and what our true function must remain. We are the members of a Council appointed to serve the best interests of the people we represent: the Colonists who share our lives and our destiny. With only two exceptions, myself and Publius Varrus, each man among you is here because all the others feel that man has a contribution to make. Vegetius Sulla was a prime example. In our time of utmost need, it was his insight that enabled us to take the only steps that could have protected us, steps that no man among us but he would ever have dreamed of. And when he spoke that time, as those of you who were here might remember, he did so from the far corner of this room, before moving forward!"

He raised his hand to the hilt of his sword, still imbedded in the table-top, and worked the blade from side to side until it came free. Then he slipped it quietly back into its scabbard.

"I have been railing at you. I have accused some of you of wanting to advance your own designs by taking prominent places in the Council here. It occurs to me now that this can be simply circumvented." He stopped abruptly, obviously waiting for a response this time, and someone, I didn't see who it was, asked the question in everyone's mind.

"How, Caius?"

"How? By our adoption of a rule, here, at this time, that all future Councils will be seated in a circle. Let us place all of our chairs in a ring around the room, and let the rule entail that no man shall sit beside the same person twice within seven meetings." This time he made no move to quell the outburst of speculation that his words gave rise to. Instead, he raised his voice and spoke into the noise.

"Think of it, my friends! Think what that would mean! Each time this Council gathered we would have cause to recall the reasons for this rule!" The voices died away and the room was silent again, listening as he went on. "We could go even further. Inside the door of the chamber could be a bag of stones, with twenty white stones and one black. As each man entered, he would draw a stone, and he who drew the black would moderate the day's proceedings. Thus, a single man might draw the black stone more regularly than his fellows, but each time it would be by random chance only, and by no other means."

Again the swelling murmur of comment, but this time a hand was raised and waved in the air by Quintus Seco.

"Yes, Seco?"

Seco rose to his feet and looked around him, his face flushing red. He coughed and cleared his throat and then spoke out.

"Caius Britannicus, you have given us — deservedly — the rough edge of your tongue and more than good reason to feel shame. I have listened closely to your words and I believe all you have said is true." He cleared his throat again. "But I believe that what I liked least is the truest part of all. We have begun to forget why we are here. We do feel self-important. I am proud to be a member of this Council. But you have made me think that I might be too proud. This notion of a circular Council makes much sense to me. So does the notion of a randomly chosen moderator for every session, although I have no wish to offend you by seeming to suggest that we are ungrateful for your past contributions."

Caius dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "You do not offend me, Quintus. Go on."

"Well, I think we should adopt the suggestions you have made. I think we should do it now. I think we should vote on both together, without debate."

Seco sat down, still red in the face, and for several seconds no one responded. Then Varo, Caius's brother-in-law, raised his voice.

"By God's blood, Quintus, I'm with you! I say let's vote on it, right now!"

Caius once again took the floor. "Before you put it to the vote, is there anyone here who wishes to speak against the idea?"

Everyone began to look around, and at the back of the room a solitary hand was raised. Caius looked at the man, his face expressionless. "Totius, you wish to speak against it?"

Totius got to his feet, red-faced and almost surly-looking. "No, Caius, I don't, but it seems to me that the room is too small for a circle of twenty-two chairs."

Caius smiled. "I think not, Totius. When we have cleared the floor there should be room enough. But you are right, in one sense. The chamber could be larger."

Totius seemed to be the only one with any comment to add to what had gone before, and so the vote was taken and the changes approved unanimously, Caius alone abstaining, as moderator.

Immediately, Varo was back on his feet again. "I say let's change the seating now!" There was a spontaneous cheer, and then for the next few minutes the scene degenerated again into chaos as people wrestled with their chairs until they had formed a circle in the centre of the room and order was gradually restored. Caius's chair rested haphazardly on the circumference of the circle, as did my own. No man moved to be seated, for there was an air of momentousness about this occasion.

Caius looked all around the circle and smiled. "As moderator of the Council for the last time, I declare this first session of the Round Council to be officially open."

Everyone sat then, amidst a great shout of approval. I sucked in a great breath and got back onto my feet at once, to be recognized immediately by Caius. I looked to my left and then to my right, and out across the body of the circle, surprised to see how easy it was to address everyone in this format.

"My friends," I began, "this is good. When it comes your turn to stand and speak, you will see how good it is. I came here today to speak to you about the events that have happened over the past two days, and of the effect I see them having on all of our lives from this time on. I came late and was prepared to offer my apologies for that, but no one seemed to notice." There was a burst of laughter at that. I waited for it to die down and continued. "I came late for several reasons, the first of which is that I was awaiting a report from the group we dispatched in pursuit of the horsemen who escaped from Sulla's farm. There is no report. It hasn't arrived, yet. The second reason for my late arrival was that I had a long talk with Legate Picus who, as most of you know, returned to his affairs this morning. We had said our farewells last night, but he decided he had more to say to me before he left, in order that I could pass his words on to you."

I stopped and fumbled in my scrip for the notes I had scribbled on a piece of papyrus, and the Council waited in silence for me to continue. I glanced at what I had written and, my memory refreshed, I resumed speaking.

"The gist of them is this. The Legate believes, and I do, too, that our Colony is no longer as safe as we once thought it to be. Sulla's villa fell to a surprise attack from an unexpected direction. But from any direction, Sulla's villa would have been indefensible against the attack it suffered. And we suspect that the same would be the case with all the other villas we own, including this one where we are now. These villas are farms only. They were never intended to be strongholds against the kind of attacks we are undergoing nowadays. That is Picus's opinion, and it is also my own, and it is the opinion of Caius Britannicus. All of us are soldiers and all of us are charged, in differing degrees, with the safety of this Colony. Times have changed more quickly than we thought they would. Our entire system of defences is now inadequate." I paused for a moment to let them digest that and then I continued.

"If we hope to offer safety to all our people, we have to do one of two things: we either have to turn each villa into a permanent armed camp, which is impossible, or we have to finish our fortifications on the hill behind us here to such an extent that every person in the Colony can shelter there in reasonable comfort if and when the threat of direct attack ever comes to be." There was a buzz of comment and I spoke over it. "Another thing: the Franks who raided Sulla's farm had horses."

That brought silence again. Every eye was on me. I waited three heartbeats before continuing.

"Yes, you heard correctly. They had horses, and that gave them a speed and a mobility that we can only match, not better, since we cannot know where they will come from next. They had only a small band of horsemen, but those were able to escort a large band of raiders. And we did not even know they were in Britain.

"So there you have it. Faced with mounted enemies, we have to defend ourselves more thoroughly, and that means finishing the fort at the greatest possible speed. We have the manpower, and the harvest is almost in, which means we have the time if we do it now, before winter comes."

I sat down amid a rumble of comments and listened carefully to the tenor of what I could pick out. Men talked among themselves. There was no one man who rose to make an individual comment. I looked at Caius, who was also listening to the talk around him. He turned to me at length and raised the old sardonic eyebrow, and I got to my feet again.

"My friends!" I waited until every eye in the room was on me. "We need agreement on this matter now. Tomorrow will not do. There is too much planning to be done, too many details to be resolved, for us to run the risk of wasting one day. The most important element is time. Time is the one thing we have little of." I waited for a count of ten, forcing my voice and posture to reveal no hint of my impatience. "Let me suggest this to you. Since we have made a new beginning here today, I propose that we continue with the same intent. We have our walls, up there on the hill. They're still unfinished, but they are high enough to give us shelter now, should need arise. I propose that we erect a building there, within the walls, to house our Council sessions. It would give us a focus for our efforts, and could have many other functions when not in use as a Council Hall."

This was well received; I could tell by the buzz of comment. And then Bishop Alaric rose to his feet and all noise stopped as the Council members became aware of his presence. The bishop was a guest without official status here, not a member of the Council. Caius, however, masked any surprise he might have felt and nodded courteously to the old man, who looked around the circle and began to speak.

"Caius Britannicus, and members of this Council: I have no right, I know, to raise my voice here in this session, but I have felt for many years now that I belong in my heart within your Colony. I was here at its founding and I knew its founders before its conception. It pleases me profoundly that you have acted as you have in the course of the past few minutes." He paused, seeking the right words. "It is that pleasure that makes me bold enough to speak out now." He indicated me with a nod of his head. "Publius Varrus has made a fine suggestion. The building that he suggests would indeed give focus to your work and to your lives. If you adopt his notion, and I pray you will, then I hope you will adopt this one of mine. Let this building be erected with all speed — a Council chamber and a centre for your lives. But let it also be a home to the Christ, a focus for your spiritual needs as well. Let the Christ Himself live among you."

There was a different quality to the silence this brought — almost a hostility. I sensed it in the posture of his listeners. Alaric himself, however, seemed unaware of it as he continued with a gentle smile, "I know that there are those among you who are thinking that you could not talk and act as freely in your chamber if that chamber were also a temple to the Christ, but you are wrong, my friends. I am not speaking of a temple, nor even an ecclesia. I have no wish to turn your hall into a permanent place of worship. My suggestion is that the place would be a place of worship only at the times set apart for worship. At other times it would be as it had to be: secular. Not consecrated to God's use alone." He nodded to himself, as though acknowledging some secret, inner thought.

"I am an old man now, and I must die soon. Before I do, I would like to consecrate a special altar-stone for you and for your Colony. A stone that could remain here to be used by any bishop who may have need of it. It is not the altar that is sacred, friends. It is the altar-stone — the stone that sits upon the altar-table — that is sanctified with the blessing of God and houses the sacred relics of His saints and martyrs. It is the altar-stone that, brought into a room and laid upon a table, converts that room into a house of God. It is the altar stone I wish to give you, to keep in a place of safety and to use, whenever need arises, to dedicate your Council Hall to God's holy use." The tension in the room had now dissipated.

"If you will honour me, an aged man, by permitting me to make this contribution to your lives, I will travel from wherever I might be to sanctify your new home and to celebrate the first service to the Christ in your new building." He bowed, moved his hand in a slight benediction and resumed his seat.

Caius rose and thanked him on behalf of all of us and of the Colony, continuing, with a smile, "Forgive me, Bishop Alaric, for labouring the point, but did I hear you right? That the Council chamber will become a House of God only when this altar-stone you speak of is brought into it? And when the stone has been removed again, back to its place of safety, the chamber will revert to being what it was before?"

Alaric stood up again, nodding solemnly as he reiterated this all-important point. "That is correct, Caius Britannicus. That is the way of the Church. Graced by the presence of the altar-stone, the meanest slave's hut becomes an ecclesia for as long as the stone remains there. When the stone is removed, the hut is but a hut again."

"And men can shout therein?"

"Shout, and rant and even blaspheme, as all men do from time to time, being men."

Caius sighed aloud, dramatically, and turned to face the circle. "So be it. Councillors, how do you vote on this? Shall we take up the Bishop's offer?"

"Aye!" Unanimous.

"Then, Publius, you have your answer, too." He cocked his head, smiling still, towards the centre of the ring. "Is that not so?"

"Aye!" Unanimous again.

I was on my feet in an instant. "Then I need only two more mandates. I need your permission to conscript Tigellinus Corax here, our famous architect, to set about the planning of the fort's interior and the construction of its main building."

"Aye!" There was much laughter in that shout, for Tigellinus was not noted for his tendency to volunteer anything, ever.

"And I need your approval to have Marcus Leo and his engineers make a start on building a road up from the plains to our new gates. We have no need of a fully engineered highway, but we will very soon need a practicable road. Leo's men are capable of building one and he himself is a full-fledged engineer. Have I your blessing?"

"Aye!" The enthusiasm of this day would brook no objections.

I was more than satisfied. I turned and nodded to Caius. "Caius Britannicus, I ask permission to leave this Council and initiate the work immediately."

Caius smiled at me. "Thank you, Publius. We will continue without you."

It was an hour before noon, and the courtyard was deserted. I started to walk across the yard in the direction of the stables, and then I heard a shout and the clatter of hooves from beyond the main gates. I stopped where I was and watched Bassus and his men ride in. They looked discouraged.

Bassus saw me immediately and rode his horse over to where I stood, saluting and then slipping wearily from the animal's back to stand looking at me.

"Well?" I asked him.

He shook his head slightly. "We lost them. I am sorry, Commander."

I restrained an impulse to shout at him. Instead, I kept my voice low. "Explain that. How could you lose ten mounted, galloping men?"

Bassus shrugged. "Hard ground, Commander. They rode into a stream to cover their tracks, and stayed in it for a long time. I had to split my squadron to go both ways. Then they crossed about a mile of open fields and found the main road running north and south to the east of here. By the time we reached the road, there was no way of telling which way the raiders had gone."

"Did you try to follow them?"

"Yes, Commander, and found their sign. They headed up into the hills. The Mendips. That's where we finally lost them. There were just no tracks to follow on the stones."

"Damnation!" I swallowed my frustration and accepted the unacceptable. "Very well, Bassus. You did all that you could do, I suppose. Get your horses stabled and dismiss your men."

He saluted me and walked away. I cursed.