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

I said patiently, “I bear no arms. I use no force. I wish merely to talk to one Vibius, a legionary, who has abandoned his duty. Would you not wish to do the same to one who has wandered from his faith?”

He hesitated.

I said, “I will leave my force of strong and brutal men outside; both of them. Do not be alarmed. I shall not destroy your sanctuaries as you have destroyed mine.”

He said, “I do not trust you.”

“But you do. You trust me so much that you leave me and six thousand men to stand between you and your enemies. You trust me so much that you give me no help of your own free will. Not once since I arrived have you offered assistance of any kind. You ignore me and by doing so you trust me.”

He said, “It is not right that a christian world should be defended by a pagan such as yourself. It is a mockery of our faith, a scandal in the eyes of Our Lord.”

“You are quick to pass judgement.”

“It is my duty to speak as my conscience dictates.”

“And let who will, cast the first stone.” I touched my cheek with the tip of my finger.

“You blaspheme.”

“Will you stand in my way all day?”

He said, “I shall stand like that rock upon which our church was built. It is you who are in the way, not I.”

“My lord Bishop.”

“No.”

I said in a whisper, “No-one has made me so angry as you. If you do not let me in to talk to this breaker of oaths, this deserter of his comrades, this perjurer of his soul, I shall do that for which we may both be sorry.”

He smiled. “You do not have authority in this city.”

I shook my head to get rid of the dripping blood. I said, “If I want this man I can take him by force and not even you can stop me. The Praefectus Praetorio of Gaul, even, will back me in this matter.”

He glanced sideways at the Curator. “You would do that?” he asked.

“If you refuse this request, yes.”

He said, “I thought you had come here to defend the state and to uphold its laws.”

“I have.”

He said, gently, “But you cannot do so. You cannot abolish laws in a state; for without laws there is no state.”

I said, impatiently, “You play at words, my lord Bishop.”

“And you threaten me.”

“I threaten no-one. I wish merely to speak to a man who has lost his faith.”

“And who will give it back to him?” he asked contemptuously. “You, with your floggings and your executions?”

“Of course not. Only he can recover for himself what he has lost. Shall I tell you about him? His name is Vibius. His father was a poor shop-keeper in a small town called Canovium in the mountains in the west of Britannia. He had two brothers and three sisters. They were always hungry; the town was dying as towns do, and he could not get work. He took to thieving because it was the only way he could live. He would have ended as a convict in the mines, most likely. But when I formed my legion he joined it. It offered him food and shelter and clothes and money, and the promise of a pension at the end. He had security. He sent half his pay home to his family to help keep them alive.

“I turned him into a soldier—a good one—and he gained a self-respect he never had before. He can neither read nor write, but he is clever with his hands and makes leather harness for the horses when he is not fighting. He can build a bridge or make a road, mend a leaking roof or repair a broken wall. You would find him useful in this crumbling city, my lord Bishop. All these things he learned as a soldier.”

I paused. I said, “He served with me in Italia. Then we came here. He met a girl in the city; she is the daughter of a man who makes glass ornaments to sell to people of your faith; and he wanted to marry her. The girl’s father said no, he was a legionary. He would be here to-day and gone to-morrow. He was not to be trusted. This made him miserable. He was homesick, too. He had learned that his mother had died. So he deserted. He had some idea of leaving the city, sending for the girl and taking her home. He is not very clever at thinking. He did not think much about what would happen afterwards.

“But what will happen if he does go home? The district he lives in is full of people whose sons have joined my legion. Many of them have since died. Will he be happy with his shame? Will they let him be happy? Will his girl be proud of him when he returns to thieving? Will she grow to despise him as a man who ran away? How much of their time will they spend in a sweat of fear, waiting for the authorities to catch up with them? You are the expert on souls and a man’s conscience. Not I.”

He said, “Is this true, what you have told me?”

“I may be a pagan, but I am also a soldier. I know my men.”

He frowned and his hands played with the cross about his neck.

I said, “We have, both of us, laws to obey. Let me render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar’s, and I will let you render unto God those things which axe His.”

He stood aside and I walked alone into the church.