“Nearly, sir, Two hundred and twenty, including archers, to each ship. Of those a hundred and fifty will be oarsmen, arranged for seating in twenty five banks of threes. That makes a total of thirteen hundred without reserves. We shall have to allow for sickness, injury and other things.”
“And you’ve had no more recruits?”
Gallus rubbed his nose irritably. “Those are my recruits; the crew out there, splashing away unhappily. Most of them wish they had never joined.”
“A pity we can’t use slaves, isn’t it?”
He looked shocked. “Slaves, sir. We couldn’t do that.”
“I know. I suppose not.”
Quintus said, “But why not? It’s been done before.”
“In the fleet, sir? Only free men are allowed in the imperial navy.”
Quintus picked up a lantern and began to play with it. “Yes, precisely—free men or freedmen.” He put the lantern down onto a pile of planks. “If my memory serves me, I seem to remember reading in one of these tedious books of Appian that Augustus Caesar—but he was Octavius then—enlisted twenty thousand slaves for his campaigns against Pompey’s son.”
I frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes. He freed them first and then asked for volunteers.”
“Well, that’s the answer then.”
He smiled. “It’s a good thing someone reads your books.”
Gallus said, “But could we get enough slaves without running into trouble with their owners. The ones you see in the Treverorum market are poor quality as a rule.”
Quintus said, drily, “We shall need an edict, signed by the Praefectus, of course.”
“I doubt it,” I said to Gallus. “But we could get convicts. Yes, Quintus, the Praefectus Praetorio will have to authorise it. I’ll write to him. They’ll have to be paid though, and fed and clothed.”
“Up go the taxes, sir,” said Gallus with a grin.
“How soon will the ships be ready?”
“In thirty days, sir.”
I swore.
“You wanted them to impress the Alemanni,” said Quintus.
“It would have helped.”
“We can manage without them.” Quintus smiled at Gallus. “They can be a surprise for later. Tell me, have you tried out your liquid fire yet?”
I sent a message to the Bishop’s house but he was not there, and I learned he was on the site of a church in the temple district. I rode out to find him and I noticed that the women, fetching water from the public fountains, paused in their work and drew back as I passed by. It was quiet away from the shops, and grass grew between the cracks in the paving stones that made the road. Everything was shabby, neglected and desolate. When I arrived Mauritius was watching a group of masons at work, fitting chips of coloured glass into a corner of a vast mosaic pattern which had been outlined on the floor in the centre of the nave. As usual he was talking, giving instructions as to the way the patterns must flow one into the other. I had never heard him be so eloquent or so sensible. But then I did not attend his sermons.
He nodded to me as I walked out of the sunlight into the dust. “Have you come to be converted?” There was no sting in his voice and I wondered if he had thought it wise to declare a truce. He had his church and the emperor behind him; but I had Stilicho.
“May I speak to you here or outside?” I asked.
“Why not here? He will hear us just as well as in the open.”
“I have seen Septimus.”
“And?”
“You have a saying, I believe, my lord Bishop, which is of great comfort to those who wish to avoid trouble.”
His eyes narrowed. “To what do you refer?”
I said, “‘If they persecute you in one city, then flee to another.’”
He said, “It is easy to twist words, to distort meanings.”
“It is,” I said. “But, more important than that, is that what you believe?”
“It would depend on the circumstances,” he said cautiously.
“You know very well the circumstances. This city is in no small danger. I need men for the army to avert that danger. If I do not get volunteers then I must use the law to conscript them. Even so, I need some volunteers.”
“And you expect me to help you in this task?”
“Why not? Or do you prefer that those who believe in a heresy should rule your land and celebrate their heresy in your church?”
“I do not say that. You are trying to trap me,” he said in anger.
“If you refuse to help then I may trap you. The bishops in council might not see your refusal to assist as true zeal for the defence of your faith.”
He flushed. He said, “You would pit your influence against mine. How dare you suggest that I do not know my duty.”
I said, “It is not I who will do the suggesting, my lord Bishop. Honorius is a true son of your faith: would he wish to see such heresy spread further? He is also an emperor: would he wish to lose a whole province?”
“Your problems are not mine.” He spoke coldly but there was a note of anxiety in his voice.
“You are quite wrong. In this matter, my lord Bishop, whether we like it or not, we stand or fall together.”
He blinked.
I said, “I need your help and if I do not get it then I shall write to Ravenna and I shall say, in short sentences, exactly what I think.”
“You would not dare.”
“Honorius is a ruler first and a christian second. I think you will find that he prefers a pagan who does his duty to a christian who fails in his.”
He said icily, “You know the laws concerning conscription. Apply those laws if you must. Do not expect me to help. It is not my province.”
“I do not want all conscripts, as I said before.”
“Of course not. You want a willing sacrifice, is that it?”
I nodded. “Yes. Is not that what you want also?”
We measured glances for a moment.
“Are they then so afraid of me?”
“Yes,” he said. “They are; and of what you stand for.”
I said in exasperation, “In the name of—any god you choose, use your influence—tell them not to—it is all too horrible.”
“Horrible—of course. Fear is always horrible.”
“It is also contemptible.”
“To a soldier, perhaps.”
I said, stung by the tone of his voice, “I have enough to bear without that also.”
“Why should you care?” He looked at me keenly and—it was absurd, of course—for a moment it was as though he were reaching into my mind, trying to take hold of the thing I had discussed with no one in all the years that I had lived with it—that fox under my tunic.
I said, “Some of them had done this thing before ever I arrived.” I added harshly, “Not all the wounds were new.”
“No, not all.”
While we were talking we had walked slowly, almost without realising it, to the open space where the doors of the church would be. I looked across the litter of building material to a roofless temple beyond. No one would dare to enter it now, except alone and by night.
