Nobody Loves a Centurion(64)

“The smell must be appalling,” I said. “You have seen these things with your own eyes?”

“No, of course not. The only Gauls who see their rites are the ones who get sacrificed. But I have heard of this. Everyone has.”

“I see.” More reliance on rumor. But this probably had a greater core of truth than the hearsay of soldiers in a strange country. “Have you any idea what these strange events might portend?”

He shook his head dejectedly. “None, save that things like this should not happen. Is this a war of men or of gods?”

“The two do seem to be getting confused,” I told him. “But I feel that all this mystical confusion is nothing but concealment for depressingly human evils.”

“What do you mean?” he asked earnestly.

How to explain the way my mind worked to a group of Gauls, half-civilized though they were. It was hard enough to explain myself to my fellow Romans, steeped as they were in traditions of Greek logic and native commonsense. I had a try at it. The Gauls paid my words close attention, with serious expressions on their faces. They wanted answers as badly as I did.

“Lovernius, men explain their actions with a great many words, imputing all sorts of noble motives to themselves. They may say they are driven by patriotism, or by devotion to the gods, or by the interests of the people, or loyalty to a king, or any number of other great things. Usually, they are lying. Far more often, their motives are base. They are after power, or wealth, or some other man’s woman.”

“This I understand,” Lovernius said, “but these are religious matters.”

I held up a pedantic finger, the wine lending eloquence to my teeming mind. “Always, Lovernius, when men perform ignoble deeds and seek to justify themselves with high-flown words and portentous actions, I look for the shoddy, base element that ties everything together. A few days ago I discovered that Titus Vinius had amassed a great deal of gold from no obvious source. Forget about gods and priests and dreadful sacrifices. The gold is the thing. When I find out where it came from and where it was destined, I feel sure that I will have all parties involved in this matter tied together as with a chain. A chain of gold.” I was absurdly pleased with the conceit, then reminded myself to go easy on the wine so early in the day.

The Gauls, with their love of flowery rhetoric, did not consider my speech excessive, and Lovernius seemed relieved to have the matter out in the open. He was loyal to Rome, but superstitious dread had caused him to hold his silence about the triple slaying. The triple hanging, on the other hand, had been too much. He now felt that I would be able to set these matters to rest with dispatch. I hoped that his faith in me was not entirely without justification.





11


WE RODE BACK INTO THE CAMP AT midday, when the trumpets were sounding cheerily and the men were assembling by messes for their noon meal. It says much for our soldiers that they can anticipate even such Spartan fare with pleasure. I left my horse with the ala and went to my tent, where I found Hermes laying out my lunch. He had managed to scrounge a pot of fruit preserved in honey and a roast duck. I was not about to ask him how he had accomplished this minor miracle.

“Keep this up and I might just manumit you when you’re too old to be useful,” I told him as I sat down and launched into the food. He poured me a cup of watered wine, which I hardly needed. “Where are Molon and Freda?”

“I haven’t seen them all day,” he said. “I thought maybe you’d sent them off on some errand.”

The news stole some of the pleasure from my lunch. Slaves are not supposed to roam around at will, even such eccentric specimens as those two. More and more, they were behaving like free persons and would have to be disabused of that notion.

“When did you last see them?”

“Molon was drunk behind the tent last night and I didn’t look in on him. I didn’t see either of them when your Gauls came for you last night, and when I got up this morning I didn’t see them, either, not that I was looking for them. They have to be around here somewhere. They wouldn’t dare set foot outside the camp.”

“That would be foolish,” I agreed, but I was not happy about this. One more concern when I already had far too many.

With lunch finished, I was temporarily at loose ends. I rose to go look for my errant slaves with Hermes dogging my steps. I badly wanted some sleep, but I knew that it would not come if I lay down in my tent. I had too much to think about. As we traversed the camp, I told Hermes the latest developments. He was far from a brilliant conversationalist, but I had long ago learned that talking to someone helped to sort out confusing matters.