Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

“I can’t,” he replied sadly. “You mustn’t ask me that. You know you shouldn’t.”

“I must have him,” Marcel continued. “It’s a matter of life and death, don’t you see? I cannot allow twenty-six innocent people to die if there is anything I can do to stop it. Don’t think I’m doing this lightly. I know full well that if you give him to me, I’ll be signing my own death warrant. I know what will happen to me the moment the Germans go and the Resistance move in. “

Julien shook his head. “No. Arrest me if you must. But the answer is no.”

And Marcel, still undecided, broke the moment of friendship, got up and walked to the window, stared out over the place so he would not have to meet Julien’s eye.

“I have telephoned the police in Vaison,” he said softly. “I have told them to go to Roaix and arrest Julia Bronsen and take her into custody. You can have her back if you give me Bernard.”

And Julien stood up and screamed, for the first time since the woods near Verdun, when he thrust his bayonet time and again into a German soldier. “No!” he shouted, and rushed forward and started hitting Marcel with his hands and his fists. Marcel was no match for him; he had not spent much of the past couple of years walking and cutting wood. All he had was what remained of his authority. He held up his arms to fend off the blows, bent down to avoid hurt, and waited until Julien’s despair brought him to a halt.

Marcel seemed to draw strength from the reaction; it removed his last vestiges of doubt. He sat down at his desk once more, the bureaucrat again, commanding through his calm. “What did you think, Julien? That you could take her to live with you in a small village without anyone noticing? That no one would figure out who she was or what she was? She was denounced weeks ago, my friend. The wife of a blacksmith, I recall, reported her. I knew who it was the moment I saw those new pictures on your wall. Why do you think she hasn’t been questioned, taken in as a Jew living under a false identity? Hmm? Because I have protected her. Me, Julien, because I knew who she was, and I am your friend. But I cannot afford friendship anymore, if it is not reciprocated. Twenty-six innocent people will lose their lives.”

“She is innocent as well. She’s done nothing.”

Marcel brushed it away. “I’m not arguing, Julien. It’s too late for that,” he said wearily. “Give me Bernard. Tell me where I can find him. If you don’t, I won’t protect her anymore. I have to supply Jews. She will be one of them.”

Julien bowed his head, crushed by the words, all the arguments he might have summoned, all the reasoning like so much dust before the enormity of what Marcel had done.

He didn’t even think. He simply agreed.

MANLIUS HAD anticipated that some form of trouble would erupt during his absence. He was aware that he had not won the love and obedience of his flock, and that many people of influence actively resented him. He had not, however, foreseen anything quite so severe. When he heard the news he returned as quickly as he could, accompanied by a hundred of Gundobad’s best troops, pressed on him to demonstrate the new friendship between bishop and king. He accepted the offer, knowing they might become more than a useful symbol of amity. Then, at the head of these—an aristocrat again, no longer a bishop—he marched back to Vaison, leaving his small force a few kilometers out of the town while he approached with a few dozen of his own men.

Like all of his class, Manlius had received a military training in his youth. Unlike Felix, he had never fought, but the basics of war were ingrained into him so deeply that he could assess any situation instinctively. He pulled up his horse outside the main gate and sat looking, the beast whinnying and tossing its head as he stared. A dreadful silence covered his followers like a blanket, and on the walls a single townsman stared back. Manlius looked at him. He was old, unfit to fight, afraid already.

What did they think they were doing? he wondered. Did they really think that people like that could withstand Gundobad or Euric? Did they not see that they were committing suicide?

Slowly Manlius wheeled his horse to the left and walked it around the outside of the town. He went alone, making himself a target, knowing that they would not dare attack him when he was so exposed. He was their bishop. They would not go that far. Something else must be in store for him. He could imagine it all too easily. The horse walked along, Manlius thought and considered, but as he did so he carefully examined the walls and his contempt grew. Why was he even bothering trying to save these people? They were like children, even worse, like people in their dotage, capable of unreasoning anger but incapable of rational thought or action. The walls, built a hundred years before and then allowed to fall into semi-ruin, had been patched and repaired, but could be overcome by half the soldiers he had with him. In places they were scarcely eight feet high, with wickerwork stuffed in the gaps to make them seem stronger than they were. Elsewhere it had fallen down already, the work was so badly done.

Did they think he would not use force against people who had excluded him from his own city? For Manlius now considered himself the ruler, the owner of the town. It was his, to do with as he liked just as he exercised total authority over his villas and their inhabitants. They were not excluding a bishop they disliked. They were in active rebellion. And he knew he was not going to make the same mistake his father had made. He had hoped to avoid having to choose, but he had no option.

He could call in the Burgundian soldiers and they would take this place within an hour. But that would make him dependent on Gundobad, a pensioner to his power. This, he knew, he would have to solve himself. So he thought, and while he pondered, the gate opened enough to let out one person before shutting again.

It was Syagrius. To Manlius, the shock was almost palpable; of all the people who might desert him, he never thought that Syagrius, who had so much to lose, would throw in his lot with his enemies. He had always considered him too stupid, too malleable, to cross him in any way. That must have been his error.

Why had he been chosen now? To show how little support Manlius had? To make him realize that even those closest to him would abandon him? All of Manlius’s training came into play, to ensure that not one jot of emotion passed over his face as the young man approached.

“My lord,” Syagrius said. “I have come to tell you that it would be unwise to try to enter this town as bishop. If you do, I fear the Lady Sophia may come to harm. They want you to submit yourself to arrest and prepare to answer charges of gross peculation and abuse of the office and trust placed in you by the diocese. This is the message I have been told to give you. I dare say no more, though I would gladly do so. When this is concluded, I will explain what has been happening.”

No dramatic words met this pronouncement. Manlius did not turn black with anger, or rail against the ingratitude of the messenger, or the temerity of the message. He could easily have made Syagrius tremble with fear, for their relative positions were such that his anger would have been formidable.

But he controlled himself, as the Roman of old, and sat impassively and detached on his horse. On the other hand, now was not the time for subterfuge, or for bargaining. He could not show hesitation, or any hint that he was prepared to compromise on his rights.

“Report back this reply: that I was elected by acclamation and that I have the power of God and of the law on my side. That I will brook no opposition. That I will enter this town as bishop within the hour.”