Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [16]
' My own dear brother,' Basellas said, staring so closely at Simeon that he could see his own reflection in his brother's eyes. Ì remember the dying words of our father even if you have forgotten. "We fight and we fight until we die and then others will fight after us." That is how it is. That is how it always has been. And that is how it shall be hereafter.'
Simeon turned away, aghast, and ignored the gloating looks on the faces of Benjamin and Yewhe. `Then we have nothing left to say to each other, my brother,' he said.
He and Rebecca began to walk slowly out of the room.
Behind him, BaseIlas shouted at the departing figure, his voice rising in manic tones. 'The gutters of Byzantium shall overflow with the blood of every last Roman within the city.
Blessed be the men that ease our suffering and use their swords diligently and with no mercy, for they shall have a place in heaven awaiting them.
'Byzantium shall be ours once more,' Yewhe added, his fist raised to the roof. Others joined his salute to Basellas who sat, smug, in victory.
Chapter Six
The People Who Grinned Themselves
to Death
Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!
Good were it for that man if he had never been born.
Mark 14:21
The praefectus, the governor protector of the coloniae civiura Rontanorum Byzantium, Thalius Maximus, strode into the domed vault of the atrium of his villa.
Ì beseech the God Janus to stand watch at this door and protect the humble wretches that dwell within. And the virgin Goddess Minerva to grant wisdom to all of those who seek its pure embrace,' he muttered and he tugged at the fastening of his soiled and filthy purple-trimmed toga. He was tired and weary and his temper was frayed at the edges. `Drusus,’ he bellowed as three slaves approached to help him remove his clothing. A tall and imposing man with a bald head and piercing brown eyes strode from the direction of the kitchens.
Despite his subservient position to the praefectus within the household, there was nothing remotely fawning or weak about the way in which this freedman carried himself or went about his, and his master's, business.
`Forgive me, master,' he said with complete sincerity and regret and yet also dignity `We did not expect you to return to this place until some days hence.’
"My bowels did give me a sudden desire to leave Rome far sooner than anticipated. I am weary and require that my bath be filled for me and fresh garments made ready. My head aches from the lack of food, so prepare a meal, which I shall take in the peristyle after I have bathed and rested. I should like Gemellus to join me there, also.'
Drusus ran the household of the praefectus, ruling it and those within it with a rod of iron. He bowed and within the space of no more than a dozen words, had effectively conveyed a series of sharp commands which made certain that everything that Thalius had asked for would be done.
Quickly.
As the praefectus retired to his bath and sank deeply and gratefully into the soothing hot spa waters, he was thankful that he was surrounded by men like Drusus and Gemellus, and others within his house who did what they were told and also, frequently, what they were not, but should have been.
And who protected him from his enemies and, more often than he would have liked, from himself.
Other praefecti, he reflected, were not so fortunate.
The governor was just finishing the first of several courses of dinner, vegetables and shellfish with black olives, when Gemelius Parthenor arrived. Thalius's advisor, Gemellus was a wise and clever little man, with piercing eyes. Studious, and with a sparkling infectious enthusiasm