“Just one moment, your Respectability,” begged an intense young man with the broad stripe of Senate membership along the hem of his tunic. The Senate itself was a debating club rather than the governing council of the Empire, but those who debated there tended to be rich and powerful men in their own right. The young Senator
reached out with a scrolled petition in his right hand, while his left hand tried to clutch at the Director’s sleeve.
The usher thrust out his ivory baton. The broad stripe saved the man who wore it from rapped knuckles, but it did not bring him any nearer to the response he sought. “Later, Felix, later,” Navigatus grumbled over his shoulder. “My goodness, Aulus, you’re looking so fit that it makes a used-up old man like me jealous. And how’s that boy of yours, Docleus? Pleased with his appointment, I trust? You know, we sent him to bring you the recall orders because we weren’t sure you’d accept them from anybody else.”
Perennius looked sharply at his superior. The guards in the passage were pushing the civilians among them back into the peristyle court. Navigatus had a bland expression as he stepped out of the drawing room and led the agent away from the confusion. “Gaius is well, thank you,” Perennius said cautiously. “He does indeed appreciate the favor you’ve shown him; and of course, I appreciate it as well. His father was a friend of mine until I enlisted. When he drowned, I sort of – tried to look after the boy, you know.”
“Of course I know,” agreed Navigatus as he stepped out into the sunbright garden. “No children of your own – just like me. Though of course I married, at least. Would you like some wine, Aulus? I’ll admit we didn’t expect you for another several days at best.”
Perennius ran an index finger down the side of a young fig tree. The bark was as gray and dry as the skin of the lizard that scuttled around the trunk to where it could no longer see him. “Why did you recall me, Marcus?” the agent asked softly. “I was perfectly placed, perfectly.” He looked up at the older man. “Marcus, I was helping plan the attack. Personal representative of the Emperor Postumus of Gaul – oh, they were very pleased, they’d been planning an embassage themselves but it had been let slip in the press of other business.”
The Director sighed as he bent over a bed of russet gladiolas. “It’s come to that, then?” he said. He clipped a stalk beneath its spray of blooms, parting the pithy stem with his long thumbnail. “The Autarch of Palmyra is
disloyal to the Emperor after all?” He lifted the regal blooms to his nose and sniffed.
“Marcus,” Perennius pleaded, “Odenath was never loyal. He’s a jumped-up princeling who fought the Persians because they wouldn’t accept his surrender. He won because he knew his deserts and because he’s a sharp bastard, a really sharp one, I give him that. But he didn’t save the Empire; he saved his ass … and now he figures that fits him to rule the whole business in place of his Majesty, the Emperor.”
“Well, we can use him, I’m sure,” said Navigatus. “Such lovely flowers as these, you’d expect them to have a marvelous odor also.” He laid the spray against the hem of his toga. The russet blossoms were almost identical to the pair of narrow stripes that marked the Director as a Knight. “But instead there’s nothing, only the color.”
“Damn it, Marcus!” the agent cried. He slammed the heel of his hand against the fig. The lizard catapulted through the air, twisting madly until it hit the ground and scurried off. “Can we use Postumus too? Is it to the Empire’s benefit that Gaul, Britain, Spain all claim they’re independent now? Can we make clever policy out of the fact that every field commander with a thousand men thinks he ought to be on the throne instead of Gallienus?”
A large carpenter bee with a black abdomen lighted on the gladiola spray in Navigatus’ hand. The Director’s attention appeared to be concentrated on the bee as he said, “Aulus, we can’t worry about every little thing that goes wrong. We have to carry out our assigned duties as best we can, and we have to trust that other people do the same.” He sighed again. “Now if all my personnel were like you .. . are you sure I can’t convince you to join me here in Rome? There’s so many things …”