welled up from the ship's hold, fed by the naphtha-impregnated sawdust inside. It engulfed what had been the ice vessel, and expanded to swallow everything around it for a hundred feet, a hundred and fifty feet, more. I scrambled up again and began running, and this time I found purchase on the solid ground and sprinted headlong through the paralyzed crowds of men, who stared as the fireball swelled, grew, and then rose upwards, and we were hit by the heat as if from the open door of a blast furnace, a heat that blinded and toppled men not even touched by the direct impact of the flames.
I continued running until I reached the street and was able to pause behind the solid wall of a long building, and found myself praising God for the shelter of those overhanging eaves. The air was thick with a rain of flaming planks and shards of wood, support beams and molten nails, in such density that it appeared solid with steel and flame. These were followed by grislier objects — arms and feet, open-mouthed heads with hair aflame like screaming Gorgons, torsos and entire, intact bodies. Moments after these had landed, the air thickened again with flaming pellets and droplets of pitch, a fiery, hellish rain that stuck to the skin and burned like branding irons, impossible to shake off, or to be plucked without sticking to the sensitive tips of one's fingers — an excruciating pain impossible to remedy short of scuffing dirt onto the droplets to extinguish their flame. Finally, a sound as if of hail — the light sprinkling of six months' supply of grain for five Roman legions, raining out of the sky whence it had been blown in the destruction of the warehouse.
I stepped cautiously around the corner where I had taken refuge to survey what was left of the bridge, and was faced with an unspeakable sight. The warehouse had been obliterated, as had been the bridge for a quarter of its distance into the river. The span beyond that, which had not yet been connected to the missing center section, had come unfastened from its moorings in the blast, and now drifted slowly down the river, spinning lazily in the current like a piece of driftwood tossed into a stream by an idle boy. Charred bodies lay everywhere amidst smoldering stacks of timbers and overturned oxcarts. Several of the hospital barracks and houses nearest the foot of the bridge had collapsed in the blast and were now burning fiercely, and invalid men crawled slowly out of the wreckage, moaning in pain, some with their clothing and hair aflame. Even my physician's instincts had deserted me for the moment, and I stood frozen at the sight.
From far across the river, where the still-intact bridge of the left bank stood, faint shouts came drifting over the nearby groans, and fearing the impact of another fire ship, I clambered atop a pile of smoldering wreckage to better see across the dark expanse of water. There, too, were fires, though no explosion, and no ship. The shouts grew louder and more distinct, however, and as the flames rose higher I could see that the entire far end of the bridge was now engulfed, and that men were leaping over the side of the structure into the dark waters to escape. How did the flames from the blast reach even that far? And then after a moment, I saw the answer.
At that end of the bridge, a full five hundred yards across, a small sister encampment had been constructed to feed and house the soldiers building the bridge from that end. There, I saw new flames shoot up, and in front of them the silhouettes of horses and riders — only a few at first, then dozens, then hundreds, lances raised, riding and shouting shrilly in triumph. Racing back and forth, they clubbed and struck down the unarmed men on foot whom I could see attempting to race into the darkness or leap into the water, until all the screams from the far side of the river had been silenced. An enormous steed then trotted calmly into the water by the light of the flaming barracks on the far side of the river, ridden by a man whose tremendous breadth of shoulder and waist-length hair tossing loosely in the fire-whipped breeze was visible even from where I stood. He raised his gigantic harpoon far above his head and slammed it point first into the surf beside him, where it stuck, its haft quivering like an arrow that has just found its bloody mark. His shrill, mocking cry came drifting over the groans of the dying: 'Death to the Romans! Death to Rome!'
The river continued its slow, implacable journey to the sea, washing clean its bloody banks, carrying away the detritus of men's vanity, its immortal movements unstilled and unaffected by the actions of the puny beings along its shores.
II
Here, Your Holiness, I might interject my own brief observation, as my brother's isolation in Gaul rendered him fairly ignorant as to events much beyond his immediate circle. Since I myself had some contact with Constantius' court at that time, I might more easily enlighten you as to General Barbatio's fate. For as Roman armies are undaunted by defeat, so too are their generals undeterred in their opinions of their own greatness. Barbatio did as his instincts led him, for reasons of both expediency and blindness as to the true situation — he declared a great victory and retreated his army to winter quarters, while announcing his own glorious retirement.
Soon afterwards, as hapless as he ever had been when building his bridges across the Rhine, General Barbatio died in a fitting manner. It appears that just before he had departed on the Rhine campaign, his house had been visited by an enormous swarm of bees, which caused him great anxiety. He consulted experts in the interpretation of omens, who warned him that the swarm foreshadowed great danger in war. This unfortunate event, and its foolish interpretation, somehow led Barbatio's wife, Assyria, whose ambition was exceeded only by her stupidity, to become mentally unhinged. After her husband left on campaign, she labored under the illusion that Constantius was about to die, and that her husband was destined to succeed him as Emperor, but she worried that Barbatio might cast her off in favor of a marriage with the beautiful Empress Eusebia. Assyria's fears were so great that she wrote an exceedingly ill-advised letter to her husband pleading with him not to do such a thing after he assumed power.
Thus God makes all things to be as they should, though it need cause no surprise that men, whose minds we sometimes believe to be near to the Divine, distort God's intent. Man confounds and confuses place, time, and nature. He destroys and disfigures everything and loves all that is deformed and monstrous. He will have nothing as God has made it, but insists on shaping the world and his destiny to his own taste. In this regard, Assyria would have been much wiser to trust in the benevolence of God and to remain silent. As it happened, her tearful letter was intercepted by Constantius' spies and brought to his hands, and in retribution the Emperor caused both Barbatio and his wife to be decapitated.
So much, then, for these things.
On another topic, I offer belated apologies, Your Holiness, for my brother's rather florid writing. Many times in the past I attempted to instill in him a joy in the purity of God's creation and an optimistic hope in the future through simpler verbiage. How difficult can it be for him to forgo his overwrought descriptions of sunrises, for example, and simply note that another day had dawned? In this I may have failed, though whether it was due to a defect in his faith or to his persisting rebellion against his older brother's authority, I leave to your superior insight.
Let us return to Caesarius.
BOOK FIVE
Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant.
When they have wrought desolation, they call it peace.
