Cities and Thrones and Powers
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die.
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
The Cities rise again.
This season's Daffodil,
She never hears
What change, what chance, what chill,
Cut down last year's:
But with bold countenance,
And knowledge small,
Esteems her seven days' continuance
To be perpetual.
So Time that is o'er-kind
To all that be,
Ordains us e'en as blind,
As bold as she:
That in our very death,
And burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
'See how our works endure!'
Dan had come to grief over his Latin, and was kept in; so Una went
alone to Far Wood. Dan's big catapult and the lead bullets that Hobden
had made for him were hidden in an old hollow beech-stub on the west of
the wood. They had named the place out of the verse in Lays of Ancient
Rome:
From lordly Volaterrae,
Where scowls the far-famed hold
Piled by the hands of giants
For Godlike Kings of old.
They were the 'Godlike Kings', and when old Hobden piled some
comfortable brushwood between the big wooden knees of Volaterrae, they
called him 'Hands of Giants'.
Una slipped through their private gap in the fence, and sat still
awhile, scowling as scowlily and lordlily as she knew how; for
Volaterrae is an important watch-tower that juts out of Far Wood just
as Far Wood juts out of the hillside. Pook's Hill lay below her and
all the turns of the brook as it wanders out of the Willingford Woods,
between hop-gardens, to old Hobden's cottage at the Forge. The
sou'-west wind (there is always a wind by Volaterrae) blew from the
bare ridge where Cherry Clack Windmill stands.
Now wind prowling through woods sounds like exciting things going to
happen, and that is why on blowy days you stand up in Volaterrae and
shout bits of the Lays to suit its noises.
Una took Dan's catapult from its secret place, and made ready to meet
Lars Porsena's army stealing through the wind-whitened aspens by the
brook. A gust boomed up the valley, and Una chanted sorrowfully:
'Verbenna down to Ostia
Hath wasted all the plain:
Astur hath stormed Janiculum,
And the stout guards are slain.'
But the wind, not charging fair to the wood, started aside and shook a
single oak in Gleason's pasture. Here it made itself all small and
crouched among the grasses, waving the tips of them as a cat waves the
tip of her tail before she springs.
'Now welcome--welcome, Sextus,' sang Una, loading the catapult--
'Now welcome to thy home!
Why dost thou stay, and turn away?
Here lies the road to Rome.'
She fired into the face of the lull, to wake up the cowardly wind, and
heard a grunt from behind a thorn in the pasture.
'Oh, my Winkie!' she said aloud, and that was something she had picked
up from Dan. 'I b'lieve I've tickled up a Gleason cow.'
'You little painted beast!' a voice cried. 'I'll teach you to sling
your masters!'
She looked down most cautiously, and saw a young man covered with hoopy
bronze armour all glowing among the late broom. But what Una admired
beyond all was his great bronze helmet with a red horse-tail that
flicked in the wind. She could hear the long hairs rasp on his
shimmery shoulder-plates.
'What does the Faun mean,' he said, half aloud to himself, 'by telling
me that the Painted People have changed?' He caught sight of Una's
yellow head. 'Have you seen a painted lead-slinger?' he called.
'No-o,' said Una. 'But if you've seen a bullet--'
'Seen?' cried the man. 'It passed within a hair's--breadth of my ear.'
'Well, that was me. I'm most awfully sorry.'
'Didn't the Faun tell you I was coming?' He smiled.
'Not if you mean Puck. I thought you were a Gleason cow. I--I didn't
know you were a--a--What are you?'
He laughed outright, showing a set of splendid teeth. His face and eyes
were dark, and his eyebrows met above his big nose in one bushy black
bar.
'They call me Parnesius. I have been a Centurion of the Seventh Cohort
of the Thirtieth Legion--the Ulpia Victrix. Did you sling that bullet?'
'I did. I was using Dan's catapult,' said Una.
'Catapults!' said he. 'I ought to know something about them. Show me!'
He leaped the rough fence with a rattle of spear, shield, and armour,
and hoisted himself into Volaterrae as quickly as a shadow.
'A sling on a forked stick. I understand!' he cried, and pulled at the
elastic. 'But what wonderful beast yields this stretching leather?'
'It's laccy--elastic. You put the bullet into that loop, and then you
pull hard.'
The man pulled, and hit himself square on his thumbnail.
'Each to his own weapon,' he said gravely, handing it back. 'I am
better with the bigger machine, little maiden. But it's a pretty toy.
A wolf would laugh at it. Aren't you afraid of wolves?'
'There aren't any,' said Una.
'Never believe it! A wolf's like a Winged Hat. He comes when he isn't
expected. Don't they hunt wolves here?'
'We don't hunt,'said Una, remembering what she had heard from
grown-ups. 'We preserve--pheasants. Do you know them?'
'I ought to,' said the young man, smiling again, and he imitated the
cry of the cock-pheasant so perfectly that a bird answered out of the
wood.
'What a big painted clucking fool is a pheasant!' he said. 'Just like
some Romans.'
'But you're a Roman yourself, aren't you?' said Una.
'Ye-es and no. I'm one of a good few thousands who have never seen
Rome except in a picture. My people have lived at Vectis for
generations. Vectis--that island West yonder that you can see from so
far in clear weather.'
'Do you mean the Isle of Wight? It lifts up just before rain, and you
see it from the Downs.'
'Very likely. Our villa's on the south edge of the Island, by the
Broken Cliffs. Most of it is three hundred years old, but the
cow-stables, where our first ancestor lived, must be a hundred years
older. Oh, quite that, because the founder of our family had his land
given him by Agricola at the Settlement. It's not a bad little place
for its size. In springtime violets grow down to the very beach. I've
gathered sea-weeds for myself and violets for my Mother many a time
with our old nurse.'
'Was your nurse a--a Romaness too?'
'No, a Numidian. Gods be good to her! A dear, fat, brown thing with a
tongue like a cowbell. She was a free woman. By the way, are you
free, maiden?'
'Oh, quite,' said Una. 'At least, till tea-time; and in summer our
governess doesn't say much if we're late.'
The young man laughed again--a proper understanding laugh.
'I see,' said he. 'That accounts for your being in the wood. We hid
among the cliffs.'
'Did you have a governess, then?'
'Did we not? A Greek, too. She had a way of clutching her dress when
she hunted us among the gorse-bushes that made us laugh. Then she'd
say she'd get us whipped. She never did, though, bless her! Aglaia
was a thorough sportswoman, for all her learning.'
'But what lessons did you do--when--when you were little?' 'Ancient
history, the Classics, arithmetic and so on,'he answered. 'My sister
and I were thickheads, but my two brothers (I'm the middle one) liked
those things, and, of course, Mother was clever enough for any six.
She was nearly as tall as I am, and she looked like the new statue on
the Western Road--the Demeter of the Baskets, you know. And funny!
Roma Dea! How Mother could make us laugh!'
'What at?'
'Little jokes and sayings that every family has. Don't you know?'
'I know we have, but I didn't know other people had them too,' said
Una. 'Tell me about all your family, please.'
'Good families are very much alike. Mother would sit spinning of
evenings while Aglaia read in her corner, and Father did accounts, and
we four romped about the passages. When our noise grew too loud the
Pater would say, "Less tumult! Less tumult! Have you never heard of a
Father's right over his children? He can slay them, my loves--slay
them dead, and the Gods highly approve of the action!" Then Mother
would prim up her dear mouth over the wheel and answer: "H'm! I'm
afraid there can't be much of the Roman Father about you!" Then the
Pater would roll up his accounts, and say, "I'll show you!" and
then--then, he'd be worse than any of us!'
'Fathers can--if they like,' said Una, her eyes dancing.
'Didn't I say all good families are very much the same?'
'What did you do in summer?' said Una. 'Play about, like us?'
'Yes, and we visited our friends. There are no wolves in Vectis. We
had many friends, and as many ponies as we wished.'
'It must have been lovely,' said Una. 'I hope it lasted for ever.'
'Not quite, little maid. When I was about sixteen or seventeen, the
Father felt gouty, and we all went to the Waters.'
'What waters?'
'At Aquae Sulis. Every one goes there. You ought to get your Father
to take you some day.'
'But where? I don't know,' said Una.
The young man looked astonished for a moment. 'Aquae Sulis,' he
repeated. 'The best baths in Britain. Just as good, I'm told, as
Rome. All the old gluttons sit in hot water, and talk scandal and
politics. And the Generals come through the streets with their guards
behind them; and the magistrates come in their chairs with their stiff
guards behind them; and you meet fortune-tellers, and goldsmiths, and
merchants, and philosophers, and feather-sellers, and ultra-Roman
Britons, and ultra-British Romans, and tame tribesmen pretending to be
civilised, and Jew lecturers, and--oh, everybody interesting. We young
people, of course, took no interest in politics. We had not the gout.
There were many of our age like us. We did not find life sad.
'But while we were enjoying ourselves without thinking, my sister met
the son of a magistrate in the West--and a year afterwards she was
married to him. My young brother, who was always interested in plants
and roots, met the First Doctor of a Legion from the City of the
Legions, and he decided that he would be an Army doctor. I do not
think it is a profession for a well-born man, but then--I'm not my
brother. He went to Rome to study medicine, and now he's First Doctor
of a Legion in Egypt--at Antinoe, I think, but I have not heard from
him for some time.
'My eldest brother came across a Greek philosopher, and told my Father
that he intended to settle down on the estate as a farmer and a
philosopher. You see,'--the young man's eyes twinkled--'his
philosopher was a long-haired one!'
'I thought philosophers were bald,' said Una.
'Not all. She was very pretty. I don't blame him. Nothing could have
suited me better than my eldest brother's doing this, for I was only
too keen to join the Army. I had always feared I should have to stay
at home and look after the estate while my brother took this.'
He rapped on his great glistening shield that never seemed to be in his
way.
'So we were well contented--we young people--and we rode back to
Clausentum along the Wood Road very quietly. But when we reached home,
Aglaia, our governess, saw what had come to us. I remember her at the
door, the torch over her head, watching us climb the cliff-path from
the boat. "Aie! Aie!" she said. "Children you went away. Men and a
woman you return!" Then she kissed Mother, and Mother wept. Thus our
visit to the Waters settled our fates for each of us, maiden.' He rose
to his feet and listened, leaning on the shield-rim.
'I think that's Dan--my brother,' said Una.
'Yes; and the Faun is with him,'he replied, as Dan with Puck stumbled
through the copse.
'We should have come sooner,' Puck called, 'but the beauties of your
native tongue, O Parnesius, have enthralled this young citizen.'
Parnesius looked bewildered, even when Una explained.
'Dan said the plural of "dominus" was "dominoes", and when Miss Blake
said it wasn't he said he supposed it was "backgammon", and so he had
to write it out twice--for cheek, you know.' Dan had climbed into
Volaterrae, hot and panting.
'I've run nearly all the way,'he gasped, 'and then Puck met me. How do
you do, sir?'
'I am in good health,' Parnesius answered. 'See! I have tried to bend
the bow of Ulysses, but--' He held up his thumb.
'I'm sorry. You must have pulled off too soon,' said Dan. 'But Puck
said you were telling Una a story.'
'Continue, O Parnesius,' said Puck, who had perched himself on a dead
branch above them. 'I will be chorus. Has he puzzled you much, Una?'
'Not a bit, except--I didn't know where Ak--Ak something was,' she
answered.
'Oh, Aquae Sulis. That's Bath, where the buns come from. Let the hero
tell his own tale.'
Parnesius pretended to thrust his spear at Puck's legs, but Puck
reached down, caught at the horse-tail plume, and pulled off the tall
helmet.
'Thanks, jester,' said Parnesius, shaking his curly dark head. 'That
is cooler. Now hang it up for me.
'I was telling your sister how I joined the Army,' he said to Dan.
'Did you have to pass an Exam?' Dan asked eagerly.
'No. I went to my Father, and said I should like to enter the Dacian
Horse (I had seen some at Aquae Sulis); but he said I had better begin
service in a regular Legion from Rome. Now, like many of our
youngsters, I was not too fond of anything Roman. The Roman-born
officers and magistrates looked down on us British-born as though we
were barbarians. I told my Father so.
"'I know they do," he said; "but remember, after all, we are the people
of the Old Stock, and our duty is to the Empire."
"'To which Empire?" I asked. "We split the Eagle before I was born."
"'What thieves' talk is that?" said my Father. He hated slang.
"'Well, sir," I said, "we've one Emperor in Rome, and I don't know how
many Emperors the outlying Provinces have set up from time to time.
Which am I to follow?"
"'Gratian," said he. "At least he's a sportsman."
"'He's all that," I said. "Hasn't he turned himself into a
raw-beef-eating Scythian?"
"'Where did you hear of it?" said the Pater.
"'At Aquae Sulis," I said. It was perfectly true. This precious
Emperor Gratian of ours had a bodyguard of fur-cloaked Scythians, and
he was so crazy about them that he dressed like them. In Rome of all
places in the world! It was as bad as if my own Father had painted
himself blue!
"'No matter for the clothes," said the Pater. "They are only the
fringe of the trouble. It began before your time or mine. Rome has
forsaken her Gods, and must be punished. The great war with the
Painted People broke out in the very year the temples of our Gods were
destroyed. We beat the Painted People in the very year our temples
were rebuilt. Go back further still." He went back to the time of
Diocletian; and to listen to him you would have thought Eternal Rome
herself was on the edge of destruction, just because a few people had
become a little large-minded.
'I knew nothing about it. Aglaia never taught us the history of our
own country. She was so full of her ancient Greeks.
"'There is no hope for Rome," said the Pater, at last. "She has
forsaken her Gods, but if the Gods forgive us here, we may save
Britain. To do that, we must keep the Painted People back. Therefore,
I tell you, Parnesius, as a Father, that if your heart is set on
service, your place is among men on the Wall--and not with women among
the cities."'
'What Wall?' asked Dan and Una at once.
'Father meant the one we call Hadrian's Wall. I'll tell you about it
later. It was built long ago, across North Britain, to keep out the
Painted People--Picts, you call them. Father had fought in the great
Pict War that lasted more than twenty years, and he knew what fighting
meant. Theodosius, one of our great Generals, had chased the little
beasts back far into the North before I was born. Down at Vectis, of
course, we never troubled our heads about them. But when my Father
spoke as he did, I kissed his hand, and waited for orders. We
British-born Romans know what is due to our parents.'
'If I kissed my Father's hand, he'd laugh,' said Dan.
'Customs change; but if you do not obey your Father, the Gods remember
it. You may be quite sure of that.
'After our talk, seeing I was in earnest, the Pater sent me over to
Clausentum to learn my foot-drill in a barrack full of foreign
Auxiliaries--as unwashed and unshaved a mob of mixed barbarians as ever
scrubbed a breastplate. It was your stick in their stomachs and your
shield in their faces to push them into any sort of formation. When I
had learned my work the Instructor gave me a handful--and they were a
handful!---of Gauls and Iberians to polish up till they were sent to
their stations up-country. I did my best, and one night a villa in the
suburbs caught fire, and I had my handful out and at work before any of
the other troops. I noticed a quiet-looking man on the lawn, leaning
on a stick. He watched us passing buckets from the pond, and at last
he said to me: "Who are you?"
"'A probationer, waiting for a command," I answered. I didn't know who
he was from Deucalion!
"'Born in Britain?" he said.
"'Yes, if you were born in Spain," I said, for he neighed his words
like an Iberian mule.
"'And what might you call yourself when you are at home?" he said,
laughing.
"'That depends," I answered; "sometimes one thing and sometimes
another. But now I'm busy."
'He said no more till we had saved the family Gods (they were
respectable householders), and then he grunted across the laurels:
"Listen, young sometimes-one-thing-and-sometimes-another. In future
call yourself Centurion of the Seventh Cohort of the Thirtieth, the
Ulpia Victrix. That will help me to remember you. Your Father and a
few other people call me Maximus."
'He tossed me the polished stick he was leaning on, and went away. You
might have knocked me down with it!' 'Who was he?' said Dan.
'Maximus himself, our great General! The General of Britain who had
been Theodosius's right hand in the Pict War! Not only had he given me
my Centurion's stick direct, but three steps in a good Legion as well!
A new man generally begins in the Tenth Cohort of his Legion, and works
up.'
'And were you pleased?' said Una.
'Very. I thought Maximus had chosen me for my good looks and fine
style in marching, but, when I went home, the Pater told me he had
served under Maximus in the great Pict War, and had asked him to
befriend me.'
'A child you were!' said Puck, from above.
'I was,' said Parnesius. 'Don't begrudge it me, Faun. Afterwards--the
Gods know I put aside the games!' And Puck nodded, brown chin on brown
hand, his big eyes still.
'The night before I left we sacrificed to our ancestors--the usual
little Home Sacrifice--but I never prayed so earnestly to all the Good
Shades, and then I went with my Father by boat to Regnum, and across
the chalk eastwards to Anderida yonder.'
'Regnum? Anderida?' The children turned their faces to Puck.
'Regnum's Chichester,' he said, pointing towards Cherry Clack,
'and'--he threw his arm South behind him--'Anderida's Pevensey.'
'Pevensey again!' said Dan. 'Where Weland landed?'
'Weland and a few others,' said Puck. 'Pevensey isn't young--even
compared to me!'
'The headquarters of the Thirtieth lay at Anderida in summer, but my
own Cohort, the Seventh, was on the Wall up North. Maximus was
inspecting Auxiliaries--the Abulci, I think--at Anderida, and we stayed
with him, for he and my Father were very old friends. I was only there
ten days when I was ordered to go up with thirty men to my Cohort.' He
laughed merrily. 'A man never forgets his first march. I was happier
than any Emperor when I led my handful through the North Gate of the
Camp, and we saluted the guard and the Altar of Victory there.'
'How? How?' said Dan and Una.
Parnesius smiled, and stood up, flashing in his armour.
'So!' said he; and he moved slowly through the beautiful movements of
the Roman Salute, that ends with a hollow clang of the shield coming
into its place between the shoulders.
'Hai!' said Puck. 'That sets one thinking!'
'We went out fully armed,' said Parnesius, sitting down; 'but as soon
as the road entered the Great Forest, my men expected the pack-horses
to hang their shields on. "No!" I said; "you can dress like women in
Anderida, but while you're with me you will carry your own weapons and
armour."
"'But it's hot," said one of them, "and we haven't a doctor. Suppose
we get sunstroke, or a fever?"
"'Then die," I said, "and a good riddance to Rome! Up shield--up
spears, and tighten your foot-wear!"
"'Don't think yourself Emperor of Britain already," a fellow shouted.
I knocked him over with the butt of my spear, and explained to these
Roman-born Romans that, if there were any further trouble, we should go
on with one man short. And, by the Light of the Sun, I meant it too!
My raw Gauls at Clausentum had never treated me so.
'Then, quietly as a cloud, Maximus rode out of the fern (my Father
behind him), and reined up across the road. He wore the Purple, as
though he were already Emperor; his leggings were of white buckskin
laced with gold.
'My men dropped like--like partridges.
'He said nothing for some time, only looked, with his eyes puckered.
Then he crooked his forefinger, and my men walked--crawled, I mean--to
one side.
"'Stand in the sun, children," he said, and they formed up on the hard
road.
"'What would you have done," he said to me, "if I had not been here?"
"'I should have killed that man," I answered.
"'Kill him now," he said. "He will not move a limb."
"'No," I said. "You've taken my men out of my command. I should only
be your butcher if I killed him now." Do you see what I meant?'
Parnesius turned to Dan. 'Yes,'said Dan. 'It wouldn't have been fair,
somehow.'
'That was what I thought,' said Parnesius. 'But Maximus frowned.
"You'll never be an Emperor," he said. "Not even a General will you
be."
'I was silent, but my Father seemed pleased. "'I came here to see the
last of you," he said.
"'You have seen it," said Maximus. "I shall never need your son any
more. He will live and he will die an officer of a Legion--and he
might have been Prefect of one of my Provinces. Now eat and drink with
us," he said. "Your men will wait till you have finished."
'My miserable thirty stood like wine-skins glistening in the hot sun,
and Maximus led us to where his people had set a meal. Himself he
mixed the wine.
"'A year from now," he said, "you will remember that you have sat with
the Emperor of Britain--and Gaul."
"'Yes," said the Pater, "you can drive two mules--Gaul and Britain."
"'Five years hence you will remember that you have drunk"--he passed me
the cup and there was blue borage in it--"with the Emperor of Rome!"
"'No; you can't drive three mules. They will tear YOU in pieces," said
my Father.
"'And you on the Wall, among the heather, will weep because your notion
of justice was more to you than the favour of the Emperor of Rome."
'I sat quite still. One does not answer a General who wears the Purple.
"'I am not angry with you," he went on; "I owe too much to your
Father--"
"'You owe me nothing but advice that you never took," said the Pater.
"'--to be unjust to any of your family. Indeed, I say you may make a
good Tribune, but, so far as I am concerned, on the Wall you will live,
and on the Wall you will die," said Maximus.
"'Very like," said my Father. "But we shall have the Picts and their
friends breaking through before long. You cannot move all troops out of
Britain to make you Emperor, and expect the North to sit quiet." "'I
follow my destiny," said Maximus.
"'Follow it, then," said my Father, pulling up a fern root; "and die as
Theodosius died."
"'Ah!" said Maximus. "My old General was killed because he served the
Empire too well. I may be killed, but not for that reason," and he
smiled a little pale grey smile that made my blood run cold.
"'Then I had better follow my destiny," I said, "and take my men to the
Wall."
'He looked at me a long time, and bowed his head slanting like a
Spaniard. "Follow it, boy," he said. That was all. I was only too
glad to get away, though I had many messages for home. I found my men
standing as they had been put--they had not even shifted their feet in
the dust, and off I marched, still feeling that terrific smile like an
east wind up my back. I never halted them till sunset, and'--he turned
about and looked at Pook's Hill below him--'then I halted yonder.' He
pointed to the broken, bracken-covered shoulder of the Forge Hill
behind old Hobden's cottage.
'There? Why, that's only the old Forge--where they made iron once,'
said Dan.
'Very good stuff it was too,' said Parnesius calmly. 'We mended three
shoulder-straps here and had a spear-head riveted. The Forge was
rented from the Government by a one-eyed smith from Carthage. I
remember we called him Cyclops. He sold me a beaver-skin rug for my
sister's room.'
'But it couldn't have been here,' Dan insisted.
'But it was! From the Altar of Victory at Anderida to the First Forge
in the Forest here is twelve miles seven hundred paces. It is all in
the Road Book. A man doesn't forget his first march. I think I could
tell you every station between this and--! He leaned forward, but his
eye was caught by the setting sun.
It had come down to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, and the light poured
in between the tree trunks so that you could see red and gold and black
deep into the heart of Far Wood; and Parnesius in his armour shone as
though he had been afire.
'Wait!' he said, lifting a hand, and the sunlight jinked on his glass
bracelet. 'Wait! I pray to Mithras!'
He rose and stretched his arms westward, with deep, splendid-sounding
words. Then Puck began to sing too, in a voice like bells tolling, and
as he sang he slipped from Volaterrae to the ground, and beckoned the
children to follow. They obeyed; it seemed as though the voices were
pushing them along; and through the goldy-brown light on the beech
leaves they walked, while Puck between them chanted something like this:
'Cur mundus militat sub vana gloria
Cujus prosperitas est transitoria?
Tam cito labitur ejus potentia
Quam vasa figuli quae sunt fragilia.'
They found themselves at the little locked gates of the wood.
'Quo Caesar abiit celsus imperio?
Vel Dives splendidus totus in prandio?
Dic ubi Tullius--'
Still singing, he took Dan's hand and wheeled him round to face Una as
she came out of the gate. It shut behind her, at the same time as Puck
threw the memory-magicking Oak, Ash and Thorn leaves over their heads.
'Well, you are jolly late,' said Una. 'Couldn't you get away before?'
'I did,' said Dan. 'I got away in lots of time, but--but I didn't know
it was so late. Where've you been?'
'In Volaterrae--waiting for you.'
'Sorry,' said Dan. 'It was all that beastly Latin.'