Quintilius, before drinking, tilted his cup a little and spilled a few drops, a libation to the gods.
“Good fortune, Vatinius! Now, let me look at you. You have worn very well. Very well. I swear that had I met you in Sabatra, I should have recognised you. You could hardly say, I fear, the same of me.”
“I might have blinked twice. But I should have known you. Inside every fat, middle-aged man, if you look close enough, you can see the young man he once was.”
“You never learned, did you? That blunt tongue of yours! Fat, middle-aged. True, most regrettably true; but such things should not have been said. You should have remarked that my hair has not receded, and my teeth are sound.”
The words, though a rebuke, were spoken with such charm, such good nature, that something in Vatinius wished to respond and say that indeed the hair, the teeth were as beautiful as they ever had been; but he stiffened himself and said: Tm too old to learn such civilities now.”
“You were always,” Quintilius said, ‘the most honest man I ever met. I fear you always will be.” His bright glance cast about the bare rooms and made a silent comment—This is where an honest man lands!
“Yes,” Vatinius said, ‘you are right. Not about the honesty; if I’m honest it’s no more to my credit than the length of my foot. I have, all along, tripped over my tongue.”
“Not for lack of warning.”
That was dangerously close to harking back; so Vatinius said, again gruffly and bluntly:
“What exactly are you doing here? You spoke of Caesar’s friendship—but even that would not empower you to commandeer barracks, unless you had some special errand.”
“How very indiscreet of me to have said that! The sight of you, after all these years, and wearing such an unwelcoming look, must have disarmed me. Still, between old friends … Or is that harking back? … here and there along my route I have paid more attention to Caesar’s business than to my own. Gout, oddly enough, is a most useful travelling companion; it comes and goes. There are days when even the jolting of my litter would be intolerable. So I can always halt when I’m interested and move on when I’m bored.”
Vatinius was on the point of asking what there was of interest in a subsidiary barracks just outside Bethlehem, but that might be twisted by Quintilius into sounding self-important. He’d find out in another way, if he could, if there was anything to find out. Quintilius as he remembered him had a better appetite than head for wine; and he had already emptied his cup and refilled it.
“Let me not be egotistic,” Quintilius said.
“Tell me something about yourself. You were at Colenus, were you not?”
Nobody ever spoke of that engagement as a battle; rightly so; it had been a bloody massacre of trained Roman soldiers by ill-armed barbarian Germans.
“I was there. Of our maniple fourteen survived, all wounded. And of that fourteen I am the only one still serving.”
“I heard of it, and wondered about you. It was quite a time before I learned that you had been fortunate and that I had wasted my grief.”
Vatinius remembered the nightfall on that green meadow, where the grass had slowly shed its round flowers of blood; and how, as they counted their dead and did what they could for the wounded, he had wished Quintilius among the dead, a friend who could be rightly mourned and remembered with respect. A curious thing to remember now, with the man, so sleek and prosperous, here in his room. He made no comment upon Quintilius’ mention of having grieved for him, though he believed it. He sat looking at the grain in the scrubbed table top. The silence grew.
“I went to Alexandria, and to Corinth, to Rhodes, Crete and Cyprus. Marius died there, poor man, at Pathos Apart from a tactful, token legacy to Caesar, he left me all he had; he was richer than anyone guessed. But, as I explained to you at the time, mere money was never
my objective.“That was true, Quintilius had said at the time—I’m not doing it for money; I’m doing it to escape, to have some pleasure and comfort and status. What have we to hope for if we aren’t killed? To reach centurion’s rank, and be honourably retired and granted a few acres of land to grub a living out of, like a peasant. Straighten out your ideas, Vatinius, and as soon as I am established I’ll find you a rich gentleman friend in Marius’ circle, who’ll do as much for you. And to that Vatinius had replied—I can tell you where you’ll end, with a painted face, soliciting outside the baths I He now said, “Did you break your journey here for the purpose of showing me how well things had gone with you?”
Quintilius said pleasantly, “Well, I thought that if the years had brought you tolerance you might like to know that your direst predictions had not been fulfilled. And if they haven’t you might be interested to hear that I have rehabilitated myself.
The means was to hand. A widow, very well connected. Her husband—as I have reason to know-was impotent; can you imagine a woman married for twelve years and still a virgin?
There’s not the slightest doubt in my mind that, tiring of her state, she poisoned him. She was not young, and she died in childbed. No condolences are necessary, she was not of an amiable nature. The boy is all I could wish, almost thirteen years old. Handsome and intelligent. And though his father was merely rich, his mother was a Flavian, so he’ll never have the troubles we did.”
“Upon him,” Vatinius said, “I congratulate you.” He was not—or at least not consciously—envious of this success story; but as Quintilius told it he seemed to realise something that had hitherto escaped him. The job in which he had been so happy and satisfied was virtually a sinecure; he was nothing but a figurehead. Each century that marched down the road brought its own centurion with it; every duty was known and assigned; he was treated with respect, he was in charge but he was nothing but a caretaker, a stock-keeper. There wasn’t, for example, a single thing which he could at this moment claim called for his attention so that he could get away from this man, out of this room. If fire broke out, or a wall fell down, or twenty men fell sick at the same moment Caepio would deal with the crisis and report it in the morning. By this time everybody in the place would know that he had a guest: they’d say-A Roman, for a change and respect his privacy all the more for that. So here he was, stuck with Quintilius, and the endless evening stretched ahead.
“I had a very interesting stay in Jerusalem,” Quintilius said, moving to another subject with the skill of a socially expert man.
“Herod has made vast improvements. The Hippodrome is one of the best I have seen. Well patronised, too. A surprising number of Jews seem to have come round to the idea. Of course, at the gateways an even greater number were expressing disapproval, groaning and making peculiar hissing noises. Strange people, don’t you think? Or are you, like most Romans, oblivious to them so long as they behave?”
“I know several Jews. The ones in this district are simple people, inclined to credit me with powers I don’t possess, so they come with complaints and pleas. If I can deal with the matter I do so, if not I explain, or advise, and I must say I’ve always found them very reasonable and responsive.”
“You have friends amongst them?”
“So that’s it!” Vatinius set down his cup with a jolt which slopped the wine.
“That’s why you came. To spy on me. By the blood of the bull, who’d have dreamed that I warranted so much attention? Very well then! Ebenezer’s cabbage field was ruined and I said so in my report; and that lout Crassus did attempt to rape Caleb’s daughter, and I punished him to the utmost, not for the attempt, which could never be proved, but for being late back, for being improperly clad, for dumb insolence and everything else I could find against him. I know what stories get back to Jerusalem, but I don’t care. We’re supposed to be an occupying army, not an invading rabble.”
“You sound very heated,” Quintilius said. He leaned over and filled Vatinius’ cup.
“As for spying upon you, my dear man you must know there is no need. A hundred men and a centurion go back to Jerusalem six times a year. Clever as I am, could I learn in an evening what they had failed to see