Michael Ford - Gods and Legions

May the Lord forgive me for obeying his order. To Julian's great loss, I stayed with him to the end.

The next day witnessed Sapor's treacherous elephant attack, which I have already recounted for you, Brother. As the furious Gauls clambered over the dead and dying animals and raced after the Persians in retaliation, I bent to my task, feverishly extracting the long iron spear tip from where it had embedded itself in Julian's rib, breaking the bone in the process. Hesitating, I held the point of the weapon up before my face, viewing its symmetrical, deadly outline against the pale sky. For a long moment I stared at the tip, at its beautifully cast smoothness and blackness, the carefully balanced barbs, the razor sharpness of its point and edge undulled by its recent impact with hard bone, its effectiveness unimpeded, its deadly potential yet unfulfilled.

Christ on the desert mountaintop was offered the opportunity to change the entire course of history by committing one small, degrading act. The motive for such an act was unworthy and carnal, and He Himself was divine, and He refused. By contrast, my own motive was divine, but it was I who was carnal. I accepted the trade, though at the time no such complicated considerations, such weighing and balancing, passed through my head. Looking down at the unconscious Julian, I saw that he bore the same drawn, anguished expression as he had when I had first found him dreaming of devils and Christians in his tent, and I simply obeyed the Spirit that impelled me to do what had first come to my mind that night. I bent back down, and I fulfilled the bloody potential that had been hammered and filed into that carefully cast spear tip by an anonymous blacksmith who would never know the feat his work had accomplished.

As I stood up, I summoned the squad of horse guards to rush Julian to the cluster of hospital tents that had been set up by the quartermaster. No one had suspected that the fallen would include the Emperor himself. After they left, I groped around in the weeds and ashes of the battlefield, picking up the medical bags and instruments I had dropped when treating him, and then climbed stiffly onto my own horse and galloped behind.

When I arrived a few moments later, filthy and caked with dirt-streaked sweat from the day's riding and fighting, I found that he had already been lifted from the horse and carried inside the tent. Outside, the guards exclaimed loudly in rapid, Gallic-inflected camp Latin that I could barely understand. I shooed away the clamoring knot of men that was beginning to form around the tent door, stooped, and entered. Julian had been laid in a clean camp cot and was being gingerly undressed and washed.

Oribasius looked up briefly as I approached. 'Thank the gods you were with him when he fell, Caesarius,' he said. 'Wash quickly, and come assist me. The spear point has penetrated his liver.'

'I was afraid of that,' I muttered, and stepped away to find a skin of water.

'Were you indeed?' asked a cold voice.

I stopped and turned back. I had not noticed him when I entered, but now he moved forward out of the shadows and advanced to Julian's side, though his eyes did not leave mine.

'Good day, Maximus,' I said evenly. 'I hadn't seen you here.'

He ignored my greeting, and spoke to me in his high-pitched, condescending voice.

'The guards who brought him in said the javelin had been stopped by his ribs. Yet here we find it in his liver.'

I scoffed. 'The guards know nothing of medicine.'

'Ah, but you do. And yet you did not attempt to pull it out?'

I paused. Maximus had still not looked down at Julian, though he was standing next to him. Oribasius was bent over the wound, holding a poultice of dittany, but had stopped his probing, listening to the conversation.

'When I saw that the point had penetrated past the barbs, I felt it would be better to bring him into camp to remove it,' I said cautiously.

'I see,' Maximus replied, and looked down thoughtfully, glancing at Julian's wound for the first time. Only the thin iron shank emerged from his side; the spearhead was completely buried in the flesh, which prevented one from even seeing whether or not it had barbs. I realized my mistake in stating that it did. 'I'm not familiar with this type of spear,' Maximus continued slowly, 'but apparently you are. It's remarkable that you already knew that this spearhead, so deeply embedded in his liver, was barbed rather than smooth-cast.'

I held his gaze steadily and forced myself to remain calm, to speak simply. 'It's a standard-issue infantry javelin, used by both sides. I've seen many such injuries among the men during the march.'

A flicker of disappointment passed across Maximus' face. Still, he was undeterred from his sly questioning. 'And these cuts on his hands — the guard said he had grasped the point so tightly that it sliced his fingers. Yet despite his Herculean efforts, he was unable to extract it, even though it is merely embedded in the soft tissue.'

No matter what Maximus says, even when he is silent, my jaw clenches in anger and the sweat begins trickling down my sides.

'The Emperor must have cut his hands on his own blade when he fell off his horse,' I answered, 'and was too weak from the fall to pull out this shaft himself. As you can see, he is still unconscious.'

Maximus glared, his eyes smoldering, and I stalked out of the tent.

That night Julian distributed his worldly possessions among his friends, pointedly refused to assign a successor to command, and in his last moments sought to engage Maximus and grief-stricken Oribasius in a discussion on the nature of the soul, to pass the time and distract his mind. He talked a great deal, and much rumor has been spread about the wisdom and depth of his dying speech, his alleged acknowledgment of the victory of Christ, his reflections on the curious nature of death and the calmness with which Socrates and Seneca and other heroes of philosophy accepted their own fates. All of those speculations are false, for in truth the man was raving and incoherent, as would be anyone pierced in the liver and surrounded by a hostile army.

Just before dawn, with a tremor and a groan of pain, Julian died. Oribasius was in attendance, Sallustius and Maximus watching silently at the foot of the bed, the deaf-mute boy sitting wide-eyed and silent in the corner. I sat vigil at his side, staring at his drawn face, tormented at both his suffering and the sheer enormity of the act I had committed, until the very moment he was finally taken. It was only a little over three months since the army had departed Antioch on its conquering march.

The five of us gazed at the body in silence. It was a moment of calm before word of his death spread throughout the camp, generating fear and lamentation among the men. Maximus bent his scaly face down to Julian's, his long, wiry beard brushing the motionless chest, his eyes peering deep into the unblinking, stony depths of the dead man's orbs, glassy as beads. We all held our breath, watching, and then with a sigh, Maximus slowly leaned back again.

'His soul has gone to the Underworld,' he pronounced, turning away and beginning to leave the tent. 'It is gone.'

There was silence, and Oribasius looked curiously at me. I hesitated, then said a prayer over the body, commended him to God, and made the sign of the cross. Maximus stood in the door of the tent watching, his lip curling contemptuously. I finished my prayer and shouldered wearily past him to return to my own quarters, but he departed the tent behind me, quickened his step, and sidled up to me.

'I said, his soul is gone,' he muttered to me.

I stopped and looked at him, surprised that he would even bother to address me. 'I believe,' I said, that if he repented before he died, he will rise again. His soul will be in Paradise. For this I prayed.'