Ian Miller - Legatus Legionis

"I'm afraid you're wrong there," Gaius gave a harsh laugh. "My reward for bringing peace and stopping unlimited bloodshed was. ."

"Your reverse will be temporary," Rebecca interrupted.

"You seem certain?"

"I am certain," she said. "If you keep listening to where your idea came from, you will do much good."

"I am a soldier," Gaius said in a slightly bemused tone. "A soldier's job involves killing."

"Yes, but what happens when you have won?" Rebecca asked.

"I see where you are going," Gaius nodded. "What I don't understand, though, is why you came to me?"

"You have done a good deed," Rebecca replied, "so I prayed for your soul."

"And?" Gaius asked impulsively.

"I received an answer," Rebecca said. "I was instructed to tell you that to find your own way, you must keep listening to the goodness in your heart and open your eyes so you will see all that is around you, open your mind so you can do something with what your eyes and ears provide, and when things seem to go bad, and they most definitely will, you must do what your heart tells you is right."

"I see," Gaius said, without any particular conviction.

"I was also told that you would doubt this," Rebecca continued, "but eventually you will see. In the meantime, you must listen. You should also do one more thing that the Master taught."

"Which is?"

"The Master taught that we should do unto others as we would wish them to do unto us. When you conquer, think about the conquered. Put yourself in their place, just for a moment."

"They would want us to leave," Gaius smiled, "and we're not going to do that."

"Yes, but if they accept that they are conquered, there are different ways of being treated."

"Yes, there are," Gaius nodded. A strange feeling came over him, as he realized that Athene had said almost the same thing. "I shall remember what you say."

"And now we must leave," James said, "for we have taken too much of your time. Again, thank you for the money, and may the Lord be with you, now and for ever more."

"And with you two," Gaius replied.

As he watched them walk away, he later told Timothy, for the first time since he had received his orders dismissing him from the legion, he felt at peace with himself. With the peace came realization: another part of the prophecy had been fulfilled. Perhaps his career was not yet over.

It was only later that another thought occurred to him: was Rebecca's answer from the same source as his prophecy?

When Gaius reached Caesarea, he reported to Marullus, Prefect of Judea. His instructions from Caesar had included continuing with his non-military career, and to assist the Prefect with administrative tasks, which might provide useful experience and might also benefit Judea. As it happened, Marullus was elsewhere, and it was unclear when he would return.

There was some news from Rome awaiting him. Lucilla had married Quintus. Strictly speaking, as eldest living male within the family, he, Gaius, should have arranged the marriage and given Lucilla away. Knowing his sister, the first part would have been impossible. As it was, there was no immediate male relation available and apparently this lack of available males made this the wedding of the year in Rome, for Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus announced that he had been instructed by the divine Tiberius to look after Lucilla, and he would honour that responsibility by giving Lucilla away, and by ensuring that Quintus would answer to the Princeps of Rome if he did not treat Lucilla properly. After considerable religious procedures, and considerable feasting, the spelt bread was duly eaten and Lucilla was taken into Quintus' house.

Quintus then decided that he would make himself responsible for the running of the family estate. His argument was there was nobody else to do it, given that the eldest son was absent. Even if his younger brother could have run the business, he too appeared to have died with the rest of his family in the cave-in. Gaius snorted at this news, and sent a message back that the Steward was doing a fine job, and while he, Gaius, appreciated Quintus' offer of help, the Steward would make the final decision. The Steward, after all, was answerable to the Head of the family.

He so wanted to return to Rome, but after much agonizing he accepted Claudius' advice. He could do nothing for the dead, but Little Boots could ruin his career. Without doubt, he thought bitterly, Little Boots considered this a sort of test. There was nothing for it, short of inciting a revolt, to sit back and await the pleasure of Little Boots.

Such was life. But however bad Little Boots might seem, at least it was not as bad as the last days of the Republic; when Caesar bribed his way to the Senate with Crassus' money and supported Crassus in his search for military glory, to the cost of how many Roman lives? When Caesar used legions to conquer and loot Gaul for no better reason than that he had to pay off the debts incurred while bribing his way to influence. When Caesar invaded Britain, then left largely because the tributes he got were as much as he felt he could milk easily from that wet and dismal land. Ironically, that gave Little Boots an out for his disastrous attempt to invade Britain for when the first Gaius Julius Caesar could not conquer Britain, somehow it did not seem as bad when the second one did not.

Not that that was much of a consolation. His immediate problem was Little Boots, and there seemed to be nothing he could do about such a problem.

His thoughts returned to his engine. The only time he ever thought about his engine, he noted to himself wryly, was when things were going badly for him in every other way. Right now, they could hardly be worse, so he was back to it, perhaps on the basis that it was the only problem he had where he thought he could make any progress at all. The trouble was, he was not exactly making progress on it either. He needed inspiration, and moods like this were not the place to find it.

Until this point, he had really been playing with this concept of an engine. The engine had been a distraction, and a reasonably successful one for it had given him sufficient challenge during dark times that he never resorted to despair. However, now his general thinking was beginning to crystallize onto a final object, which meant that the time was approaching when he had to test his theories. To do that, he had to get things made so that he could assemble it, but before he started making things, he needed to make some decisions. The first decision was whether he would really commit to it. This was going to take a lot of time, and a lot of money. Did he really want to spend that time and money? But for Athene and her prophecy, the answer most certainly would have been, "No!" Now he almost felt he had to. From her tone, and her body language, it had seemed very important to her, but why?

Then, if he decided to proceed, he needed to know how big the final engine was going to be. There were two questions here: how big could it be, and how big did it have to be to demonstrate the principle. The smaller it was, the easier and cheaper it was to make changes if something went wrong. On the other hand, it had to be big enough to demonstrate that it could do something meaningful, and it should be designed in such a way that a larger version could easily be made, essentially as a scaled copy. He would have to think about this.

Meanwhile, if steam was going to drive this piston, he needed to get lots of steam in very quickly, which meant he needed big enough pipes. How big was 'big enough'? The issue really was, though, how big should, or perhaps it was could, he cast his cylinder? And his piston? Once he decided that, the valve had to be made so that steam could be driven in and out of the system, and fixed to the cylinder so that it would stay there.