Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

He scooped the child out of the cot and kissed him, held the little flowerlike face against his own scratchy one, then lifted a small hand to kiss its dimpled knuckles. "He knew me despite the beard." "I think he'd know you if you turned a different color." "My daughter and my mother are dead." "Yes. Trebonius told me." "We won't discuss it." "Trebonius said he thought you'd stay here for the winter." "Would you prefer to go back to the Province? I can send you, though I won't take you." "No." "We'll build a better house before the snow comes." "I'd like that." As they continued to talk quietly, he walked up and down the room holding the child in the crook of his arm, stroking the red-gold curls, the flawless skin, the fan of lashes drooping on a rosy cheek. "He's asleep, Caesar." "Then I suppose I must put him down." Into the cot well wrapped in soft purple wool, head upon a purple pillow; Caesar remained gazing for a moment, then put his arm about Rhiannon and walked with her from the room. "It's late, but I have dinner ready if you're hungry." He lifted a tress of hair. "Always, when I see you." "Dinner first. You're not very enthusiastic about food, so I have to get as much of it into you as I can. Roast venison and roast pork with bubbled skin. Crusty bread still hot from the oven, and six different vegetables from my garden." She was a wonderful housekeeper in a way very different from a Roman woman; of the blood royal, yet down on her knees in her vegetable garden, or making the cheese herself, or turning the mattress on her bed, which always came with her, as did her table and her chair. The room was warm from several braziers glowing amid the shadows, and the walls were hung with bear skins and wolf pelts wherever the boards had shrunk and the wind whistled through, and it was, besides, not yet winter. They ate entwined on the same couch, a contact more friendly than fleshly, and then she took her harp, put it upon her knee and played. Perhaps, he thought, that was another reason why she still delighted him. They made such wonderful music, the long-haired Gauls, fingers plucking at many more strings than a lyre possessed, music at once wild and delicate, passionate and stirring. And oh, how they could sing! As she began to sing now, some soft and plaintive air as much sound as words, sheer emotion. Italian music was more melodic, yet lacked the untamed improvisation; Greek music was more mathematically perfect, yet lacked the power and the tears. This was music in which words didn't matter but the voice did. And Caesar, who loved music even more than literature or the visual arts, listened rapt. After which making love to her was like an extension of the music. He was the wind roaring through the sky, he was the voyager on an ocean of stars and found his healing in the song of her body.

3

At first it looked as if the breaking Gallic storm would be Celtic after all. Caesar had been snugly ensconced in his new stone house for a month when word came that the Carnute elders, egged on by the Druids, had killed Tasgetius, their king. Not usually something of concern, but in this case very worrying; it had been Caesar's influence had elevated Tasgetius to the kingship. The Carnutes were peculiarly important over and above their numbers and their wealth, for the center of the Druidic web spread throughout Gaul of the Long-hairs was located in the lands of the Carnutes at a place called Carnutum, the navel of the Druidic earth. It was neither oppidum nor town, more a carefully oriented collection of oak, rowan and hazel groves interspersed with small villages of Druid dwellings. Druidic opposition to Rome was implacable. Rome represented a new, different, alluring apostasy bound to collide with and destroy the Druidic ethos. Not because of the coming of Caesar. The feeling and the attitude were well entrenched by this time, the result of almost two hundred years of watching the Gallic tribes of the south succumb to Romanization. The Greeks had been in the Province far longer, but had remained in the hinterland around Massilia and preferred to be indifferent to barbarians. Whereas the Romans were incurably busy people, had the knack of setting the standard and style of living wherever they settled, and had the habit of extending their highly prized citizenship to those who co-operated with them and rendered good service. They fought crisp wars to eliminate undesirable characteristics like taking heads a favorite pastime among the Salluvii, who lived between Massilia and Liguria and would always be back to fight another war if they hadn't done too well in the last one. It had been the Greeks who brought the vine and the olive to the south, but the Romans who had transformed the native peoples of the Province into Roman thinkers: people who no longer honored the Druids, who sent their wellborn sons to study in Rome instead of in Carnutum. Thus Caesar's advent was a culmination rather than a root cause. Because he was Pontifex Maximus and therefore head of the Roman religion, the Chief Druid had asked for an interview with him during his visit to the lands of the Carnutes in that first year Rhiannon had journeyed with him. "If Arvernian is acceptable you can send the interpreter away," said Caesar. "I had heard that you speak several of our tongues, but why Arvernian?" the Chief Druid asked. "My mother had a servant, Cardixa, from the Arverni." A faint anger showed. "A slave." "Originally, but not for many years." Caesar looked the Chief Druid up and down: a handsome, yellow-haired man in his late forties, dressed simply in a long white linen tunic; he was clean-shaven and devoid of ornament. "Do you have a name, Chief Druid?" "Cathbad." "I expected you to be older, Cathbad." "I might say the same, Caesar." It was Caesar's turn to be looked up and down. "You're Gallic fair. Is that unusual?" "Not very. It's actually more unusual to be very dark. You can tell from our third names, which often refer to some physical characteristic. Rufus, which indicates red hair, is a common cognomen. Flavus and Albinus indicate blond hair. A man with truly black hair and eyes is Niger." "And you are the high priest." "Yes." "You inherited the position?" "No, I was elected Pontifex Maximus. The tenure is for life, as with all our priests and augurs, who are all elected. Whereas our magistrates are elected for the term of one year only." Cathbad blinked, slowly. "So was I elected. Do you really conduct the rituals of your people?" "When I'm in Rome." "Which puzzles me. You've been the chief magistrate of your people and now you lead armies. Yet you are the high priest. To us, a contradiction." "The two are not irreconcilable to the Senate and People of Rome," said Caesar genially. "On the other hand, I gather that the Druids constitute an exclusive group within the tribe. What one might call the intellectuals." "We're the priests, the doctors, the lawyers and the poets," said Cathbad, striving to be genial. "Ah, the professionals! Do you specialize?" "A little, particularly those who love to doctor. But all of us know the law, the rituals, the history and the lays of our people. Otherwise we are not Druids. It takes twenty years to make one." They were talking in the main hall of the public building in Cenabum, and quite alone now that the interpreter had been sent away. Caesar had chosen to wear the toga and tunic of the Pontifex Maximus, magnificent-looking garments broadly striped in scarlet and purple. "I hear," said Caesar, "that you write nothing down that if all the Druids in Gaul were to be killed on the same day, knowledge would also die. But surely you've preserved your lore on bronze or stone or paper! Writing isn't unknown here." "Among the Druids it is, though we can all read and write. But we do not write down anything which pertains to our calling. That we memorize. It takes twenty years." "Very clever!" said Caesar appreciatively. Cathbad frowned. "Clever?" "It's an excellent way to preserve life and limb. No one would dare to harm you. Little wonder a Druid can walk fearlessly onto a field of battle and stop the fighting." "That is not why we do it!" Cathbad cried. "I realize that. But it's still clever." Caesar switched to another touchy subject. "Druids pay no taxes of any kind, is that right?" "We pay no taxes, it is true," said Cathbad, pose subtly stiffer, face stubbornly impassive. "Nor serve in the army?" "Nor serve as warriors." "Nor put your hands to any menial task." "It's you who are clever, Caesar. Your words put us in the wrong. We serve, we earn our rewards. I've already told you, we are the priests, the doctors, the lawyers and the poets." "You marry?" "Yes, we marry." "And are supported by the working people." Cathbad hung on to his temper. "In return for our services, which are irreplaceable." "Yes, I understand that. Very clever!" "I had assumed you would be more tactful, Caesar. Why should you go out of your way to insult us?" "I don't insult you, Cathbad. I'm after the facts. We of Rome know very little of the living structure within the Gallic tribes who have not come in contact with us until now. Polybius has written a little about you Druids, and some other lesser men of history mention you. But it is my duty to report on these things to the Senate, and the best way to find out is to ask," said Caesar, smiling, but not with charm. Cathbad was impervious to it. "Tell me about women." "Women?" "Yes. I note that women, like slaves, can be tortured. Whereas no free man, however low his status, can be tortured. I also note that polygamy is permitted." Cathbad drew himself up. "We have ten different degrees of marriage, Caesar," he said with dignity. "This permits a certain latitude about the number of wives a man may acquire. We Gauls are warlike. Men die in battle. In turn, this means that there are more women among our people than men. Our laws and customs were designed for us, not for Romans." "Quite so." Cathbad drew a breath audibly. "Women have their place. Like men, they have souls, they change places between this world and the other world. And there are priestesses." "Druids?" "No, not Druids." "For every difference, there is a similarity," said Caesar, the smile reaching his eyes. "We elect our priests, a similarity. We do not permit women to hold priesthoods which are important to men, a similarity. The differences are in our status as men military service, public office, the payment of taxes." The smile disappeared. "Cathbad, it isn't Roman policy to disturb the Gods and worshiping practices of other peoples. You and yours stand in no danger from me or from Rome. Except in one single respect. Human sacrifice must cease. Men kill each other everywhere and in every people. But no people around the margins of Our Sea kills men or women to please the Gods. The Gods do not demand human sacrifice, and the priests who believe they do are deluded." "The men we sacrifice are either prisoners of war or slaves bought for the specific purpose!" Cathbad snapped. "Nevertheless it must stop." "You lie, Caesar! You and Rome do threaten the Gallic way of life! You threaten the souls of our people!" "No human sacrifice," said Caesar, unmoved and immovable. Thus it went for several hours more, each man learning about the mind of the other. But when the meeting ended, Cathbad left a worried man. If Rome continued to infiltrate Gaul of the Long-hairs, everything would change; Druidism would dwindle and vanish. Therefore Rome must be driven out.