Eagle in the Snow: A Novel of General Maximus and Rome's Last Stand

“That summer when I was stronger, we had news that Constantinus had crossed to Gaul. He came to Treverorum, and I watched him ride through the streets with his men—the sweepings of the old Sixth and Second—on his way to the south. His son, Constans, was at his side. He had not changed. He rode with a swagger and his chin up, and I remembered there had been a time when he had offered his sword to another man. His father, plump and smiling, made promises, and the people shouted for him. But one man cried out, ‘You should have come before and helped Maximus who is dead.’ I shrank back against the wall when I heard that name, and pulled my hood about my face. Maximus had been a general, Dux Moguntiacensis, and Legate of the Twentieth. What was Maximus to me, who did not even own the cloak upon my back?

“I watched the young Constans ride out in the summer sun to his great adventure. And I wished him luck. He would need all the favours that the Gods could bestow, and even then he would still end as Maximus had ended.

“In the late autumn I borrowed a horse and I rode out through the great gate that ghosts had once named Romulus, and down the road to Moguntiacum—that road to nowhere. I stopped at the thirtieth milestone, where the road forked right and left, and looked at the ruins of my past. The bleached bones of my dead lay where they had fallen, but there was no message for me there, in that long grass among the broken spears, the rusted sword hilts and the smashed helms. I saw crows perched on a fragment of splintered paling, while a field mouse ran up and down the scorched pole of a burnt-out waggon. I poked at an overturned brazier, but it had been used as a nest and was full of dried grass. It meant nothing to me now. The ditches had been carelessly filled in, and the raw earth was covered with green weeds. A light wind ruffled the long grass, but that was all.

“No voices spoke; no-one cried out and reproached me for what I had done, nor for what I had failed to do. I looked at the sun, warm and friendly in a blue sky, and I prayed that Quintus’ dream had come true, and that he now drove the horses he had so long desired.

“They say that if you listen long enough, and have the gift, you may hear the sounds of the past, which never die. I do not know if that is so, but as I left that desolate and ghastly place, it seemed to me that I heard the faint sound of voices that cried, ‘Maximus, Maximus,’ as though in acclamation. Yet when I looked behind me, I could see nothing but the bowed grass, and hear nothing but the plaintive cry of a kestrel, gliding before the wind.

“I returned to the city, and I was empty with pain. I went up the stairs in Romulus to that room where I had once stood and made plans, and held false dreams of the Purple. I remember that I sat beside the window, and I put my head in my hands; and I wept. And then the Bishop came and touched my shoulder. He did not know what to say.

“I cried out then: ‘I do not know what to do? I should have died out there with my men. Oh, Mithras, God of the Sun, why did you not let me die?’

“The Bishop held out his hand, and in it was a sword that I recognised.

“‘It is yours.’ he said. ‘It was left for you by the man who brought you to my house. Do what you wish, Maximus. Stay here; I shall not ask questions. I have neither thanked you nor cursed you for what you did. It is not for me to judge, and I shall not do so.’

“I looked at him in despair; but even I could see that he looked ill. He, too, had suffered through my failure.

“I stayed. What else was there to do?

“He was more sick than I realised and, before the winter came, Mauritius, Bishop of Treverorum was dead; and I was more lonely than ever.

“In the spring, a new Praefectus Praetorio arrived, sent by Honorius to investigate the damage that had been done. It was a difficult time. There was war in the south; Constantinus was manœuvering against the imperial troops; and the land was still full of plundering bands who had deserted the main body of their tribe.” Maximus paused. He said, contemptuously, “But the first thing they asked the council for—was chariot races to amuse the people. Nothing had changed, you see.

“Later, I heard that Stilicho had fallen. The intrigues of a court eunuch succeeded where barbarian soldiers had failed. He could have fought back, but he did not wish for civil war. Unjustly condemned by the emperor he had served so faithfully, he walked to his execution with free hands.

“Then I grew restless, and I thought, why not? I have nothing to lose? I will go to Rome. I am an old man. No-one will harm me. That, at least, is one ambition I can fulfil without hurt to any man. I took a little of the money that the Bishop had left me, and I went; but I was too late. The country-side was filled with waggons and people, fleeing as though before an invading army. I knew the signs so well.”