The Boat of a Million Years

1

A ship was loading at the Claudian dock. She was big for an ocean-goer, two-masted, her round black belly taking perhaps five hundred tons. The gilt sternpost, curved high over the steering oar fixtures in the form of a swan’s neck and head, also bespoke wealth. Lugo went over to inquire about her. Bound more or less this way, he had turned aside with the idea of seeing what went on at the waterfront. He made it his business to keep fully aware of the world around him.

The stevedores were slaves. Though the morning was cool, their bodies gleamed and reeked with sweat as they carried amphoras across the dock and up the gangplank, two men to each great jug. A breeze off the river mingled whiffs of fresh pitch from the ship with their odors. The foreman stood by, and him Lugo could approach.

“The Nereid,” he replied, “with wine, glassware, silks, and I don’t know what else, for Britannia. Her skipper wants to catch tomorrow’s early tide. Hoy, you!” His whip licked across a bare back. It was single-stranded and unloaded, but left a mark between shoulder blade and loincloth. “Move along, there!” The slave gave him a hopeless glower and trudged a little faster to his next burden at the warehouse. “Got to freshen ‘em pretty often,” the foreman explained. “They get out of shape and lazy, sitting around idle. Not enough to do any more.” He sighed. “Free men, you could lay off in these wretched times, and call back when you needed them. But if everybody’s in his station for life—”

“It’s a wonder this vessel is going,” Lugo said. “Won’t she draw pirates like flies to a carcass? I hear the Saxons and Scoti are turning the shores of Armorica into a blackened desert.”

“The House of the Caelii always was venturesome, and I guess there’s a big profit to be made when so few dare sail,” the foreman answered.

Lugo nodded, stroked his chin, and murmured, “M-m, sea rovers usually do seek their plunder on land. No doubt Nereid will carry guards as well as her crew being armed. If several barbarian craft came in sight, Scoti probably couldn’t climb that tall freeboard out of their currachs, and given any kind of wind, she can show her heels to Saxon galleys.”

“You talk like a mariner yourself. But you don’t look like one.” The foreman’s glance sharpened. Suspicion was the order of the day. He saw a medium-sized, wiry man of youthful appearance; face narrow and high in the cheekbones, curved nose, slightly oblique brown eyes; black hair and a neatly trimmed beard such as was coming into fashion; clean white tunic, blue raincloak with a cowl shoved back; stout sandals; staff in hand, though he walked lithely.

Lugo shrugged. “I’ve been around. And I enjoy talking to people. You, for instance.” He smiled. “Thanks for satisfying my curiosity, and a good day to you.”

“Go with God,” said the foreman, disarmed, and turned his attention back to the longshoremen.

Lugo sauntered on. When he came opposite the next gate, he stopped to admire the view eastward. His lashes snared sunlight and made bits of rainbow.

Before him flowed the Garumna, on its way to its confluence with the Duranius, their shared estuary, and the sea. Some two thousand shimmering feet across, the water bore several rowboats, a fishing smack bound upstream on oars with its catch, a gaudy spitsail above a slim yacht. Land on the far side reached low, intensely green; he saw the tawny walls and rosy tiles of two manor houses amidst their vineyards, while smoke blew in tatters from humbler roofs of thatch. Birds winged everywhere, robin, sparrow, crane, duck, a hawk on high, the startling blue of a kingfisher. He heard their calls as an overtone that skipped through the lapping and rustling of the river. It was hard to imagine that heathen Germani raged at the gates of Lugdunum, that the chief city of central Gallia might even now have fallen to diem, less than three hundred miles from here.

Or else it was all too easy to imagine. Lugo’s mouth tightened. Come along, he told himself. He was more prone to reverie than other men, with less excuse nowadays. This vicinity had been spared so far, but the handwriting on the wall grew plainer for him to read every year, as certain Jews he had known would have phrased it. He turned and re-entered the city.

The gate was minor, a sally port in the bulwarks whose towers and battlements stood foursquare around Burdigala. Beside his spear, a sentry leaned half asleep against the sun-warmed stones. He was an auxiliary, a German himself. The legions were in Italy or out toward the frontiers, and mere skeletons of what they had once been. Meanwhile barbarians like this wrung leave from the Emperors to settle in Roman lands. In return, they were supposed to obey the laws and furnish troops; but in Lugdunensis, for example, they had revolted.

Lugo passed through, across the open pomoerium, into a street that he recognized as Vindomarian Way. It twisted among buildings whose flat sides crowded out all but a strip of sky, the lumpiness of its cobblestones slickened by stinking offal, an obscure lane quite likely going back to ages .when only the Bituriges squatted here. However, Lugo had m the course of time taken care to learn the entire city, old as well as new quarters.

Not many people jostled him, and they for the most part Shabbily clad. Housewives chattered together while they reamed laundry to the river, pails of water from the nearest aqueduct outlet, baskets of vegetables gotten at a local mar-. A porter came by under a load well-nigh as heavy what was in the donkey cart he met; he and the driver, trying to get past each other. An apprentice fetching Wool for his master had stopped to jape with a girl. Two Countrymen in ancient-style coats and breeches, probably cattle drovers, made remarks so accented and full of Gallic words that Lugo could hardly understand what he overheard. A drunken man—a laborer to judge by his hands, out of work to judge by his condition—lurched along in search of a frolic or a fight; unemployment had become rife as die upheavals of the past decade cowed an already decaying commerce. A meretrix in pathetic, bedraggled finery, seeking customers even this early, brushed against Lugo. Except for laying a hand over the purse at his waist he ignored her. A hunchbacked beggar whined for alms in the name of Christ and then, when likewise ignored, tried Jupiter, Mithras, Isis, the Great Mother, and Celtic Epona; finally he screamed maledictions at Lugo’s back. Shockheaded children in grimy smocks ran their little errands or played their little games. For them he felt a tug of compassion.

His Levantine features marked him out among them all. Burdigala was cosmopolitan; Italy, Greece, Africa, Asia had poured blood into it. Yet most dwellers remained what then- forebears must always have been, strongly built, roundheaded, dark of hair but fair of skin. They spoke Latin with a nasal intonation he had never quite mastered.

A potter’s shop, its front open on the wares and whirr of roe wheel, showed him where he must turn onto broader Teutatis Street—which, lately, the bishop was trying to make its residents call after St. Johannes. It was his quickest route through this maze toward Mother Thornbesom’s Lane, where lived the one he sought. Rufus might not be at home, but was certainly not at work. The shipyard had had no orders for well over a year, and its men were now dependent on the state for their bread; circuses amounted to an occasional bear-baiting or the like. If Rufus was out, Lugo was prepared to stroll around inconspicuously till he came back. Lugo had learned patience.

He had gone a hundred yards farther when the new noise reached him. Others heard it too, halted, stiffened, listened with heads cocked and eyes slitted. The majority began retreating. Shopkeepers and apprentices made ready to close doors and shutters. A few men licked their chops and drifted in the direction of the sound. Turmoil called their kind to itself. The racket loudened, muffled by houses and contorted alleys but unmistakable. Lugo knew it of old, the deep, racking growl, the yelps and hoots. A crowd was hounding somebody.

He realized with a chill who the quarry must be. For a moment he paused. Was it worth the risk? Cordelia, the children, he and his family might have thirty or forty years ahead of them.

Resolution came. He should at least go see whether the situation was hopeless or not. He pulled the hood of his paenula over his head. Sewn to the edge was a veil, which he drew down. He saw reasonably well through the gauze, but it hid his face. Lugo had learned preparedness.

A military patrol might wonder at the sight and stop him for questioning. However, were a patrol in the neighborhood, that pack would not be after Rufus. Instead— Lugo’s mouth twisted briefly upward—Rufus might well be under arrest.

Lugo moved to intercept the oncoming tumult, as closely as he could judge. He went a trifle more quickly than the trouble seekers, not quickly enough to draw any special heed. The hood overshadowed the veil and blinkered sight of it; perhaps nobody noticed. Within himself he spoke ancient incantations against danger. Give fear no hold upon you, keep sinews loose and senses open, ready at every instant to flow with the rush of action. Calm, alert, supple; calm, alert, supple—

He came out on Hercules Place just as the hunted man did. A corroded bronze statue of die hero gave the small square its name. Several streets radiated thence. He who burst forth was stocky, his coarse features freckled, his thin hair and unkempt beard an unusual orange-red. The tunic that flapped around stout limbs was drenched and a-reek with sweat. Indeed this must be Rufus, Lugo saw, and “Rufus” must be a nickname.

The fugitive was built for strength, not speed. His pursuers swarmed close behind. They numbered about fifty, proletarians like him hi drab, oft-mended garments. Quite a few were women, locks gone Medusa wild around maenad faces. Most bore what weapons they could snatch, knife, hammer, stick, loose cobblestone. Through their baying tore words: “Sorcerer! ... Heathen! .... Satan—kill—“ A flung rock struck Rufus between the shoulders. He staggered and pounded on. His mouth stretched wide, his chest heaved, his eyes stared as if blinded.

Lugo’s gaze flickered. Sometimes he could not wait and see how things went, he must make an instant decision. He gauged the layout, distances, speeds, nature of the throng. Terror thrilled through the hatred they howled. The chance of rescue looked worth taking. If he failed, he might escape with injuries less than fatal; and those would soon heal.

“To me, Rufus!” he shouted. To the pack: “Halt! Hold off, you lawless dogs!”

The man in the lead snarled at him. Lugo brought hands near the middle of his staff. It was oak. He had drilled holes in the ends and filled them with lead. It whirred and smacked. The man screamed. He reeled aside. A broken rib, likely. Lugo’s weapon punched the next under the breastbone. Air whoofed from lungs. Lugo caught a third man across a kneecap. He shrieked his pain and flailed against two at his back. A woman swung a mop. Lugo fended it off and rapped her knuckles. Maybe he cracked a bone or two.

The crowd recoiled on itself, milled, moaned, gibbered. From behind his whirling, half invisible staff, Lugo grinned at them and at the rowdies who had appeared. “Go home,” he called. “Dare you take Caesar’s law in your own hands? Be off!”

Somebody threw a stone. It missed. Lugo laid a blow on the nearest scalp. He controlled its force. Matters were amply bad without producing corpses; those would provoke immediate official action. Nevertheless the wound bled spectacularly, sudden red brilliance over skin and pavement, a shock to behold.

Rufus’ gasps rattled. “Come along,” Lugo muttered. “Slow and steady. If we run, they’ll be after us again.” He backed off, still twirling the staff, still grinning his most wolfish. At the comer of vision, he saw Rufus sidle on his right. Good. The fellow had kept that much wit.

The hunters mumbled and gaped. The hurt among them ululated. Lugo entered the narrow street he had chosen. It bent around a tenement, and he had no more sight of Hercules. “Now we move,” he clipped, and turned around. “No, you fool.” He caught Rufus’ sleeve. “Don’t run. Walk.”

Such people as were present looked warily at them but didn’t interfere. Lugo ducked into the first alley he knew connected with a different street. When they were alone at the noisome middle of it, he said, “Stop.” He put his staff beneath an arm and reached for the fibula that held his cloak. “We’ll drape this over you.” He tucked the veil back inside the cowl before he covered his companion’s distinctive hair. “Very well. We are two peaceful men going about our business. Can you remember that?”

The artisan blinked from the hood. Sweat glistened in what light there was. “Who, who be you?” His voice quavered deep. “What you want?”

“I would like to save your life,” Lugo said coldly, “but I don’t propose to risk mine any further. Do as I say and we may yet make it to shelter.” When the other began in a dazed fashion to seem doubtful, Lugo added, “Go to the authorities if you wish. Go at once, before your dear neighbors pluck up courage and come in search. Tell the prefect you’re accused of sorcery. He’ll find out anyway. While you’re being interrogated under torture, you might think how you can prove your innocence. Sorcery is a capital offense, you know.”

“But you—”

“I am no more guilty of it than you are. I have a notion we can help each other. If you disagree, farewell. If not, come with me, and keep your mouth shut.”

Breath shuddered into the burly frame. Rufus drew the cloak close about him and shambled along.

His gait grew easier as they proceeded, for nothing untoward happened. They simply mingled with traffic. “You may think the world is ending,” Lugo remarked low, “but it was a purely local fuss. Nobody elsewhere has heard of it, or if anyone has, he doesn’t care. I’ve seen people go on with their everyday lives while the enemy was breaking down the gates.”

Rufus glanced at him, gulped, but preserved silence.

2

Lugo’s home was in the northwest quadrant, on the Street of the Sandalmakers, a quiet area. The house was unostentatious, rather old, stucco peeling off the concrete here and there. Lugo knocked. His majordomo opened the door; he kept only a few slaves, carefully chosen and winnowed over the years. “This man and I have confidential matters to discuss, Perseus,” he said. “He may be staying with us a while. I do not wish him disturbed in any way.”

The Cretan nodded and smiled his bland smile, “Understood, master,” he replied. “I will inform the rest.”

“We can trust them,” Lugo said aside to Rufus. “They know they have soft berths.” To Perseus: “As you can see— and smell—my friend has had a strenuous time. We’ll lodge him in the Low Room. Bring refreshments immediately; water as soon as you can heat a decent amount, with washcloth and towel; clean garb. Is the bed made up?”

“It always is, master.” The slave sounded a bit hurt. He considered. “As for raiment, yours will not fit. I’ll borrow from Durig. Shall I then purchase some?”

“Hold off on that,” Lugo decided. He might need all the cash he could scrape together in a hurry. Though not the debased small stuff. That was too bulky; one gold solidus equalled about fourteen thousand nummi. “Dung’s our handyman,” he explained to Rufus. “Otherwise we boast a gifted cook and a couple of maids. A modest household.” Homely details might soothe. He wanted Rufus fit to answer questions as soon as might be.

From the atrium they passed into a pleasant room, equally unpretentious, lighted by sunshine that leaded clerestory windows turned greenish. A mosaic at the center of the floor tiles depicted a panther surrounded by peacocks. Wooden panels set into the walls bore motifs more current, the Fish and Chi Rho among flowers, a large-eyed Good Shepherd. Since the reign of Constantine the Great it had been increasingly expedient to profess Christianity, which hereabouts had better be of the Catholic sort. Lugo remained a catechumen; baptism would have laid inconvenient obligations on him. Most believers put it off till late in life.

His wife had heard and come to meet him. “Welcome, dear,” she said happily. “You’re back fast.” Her gaze fell on Rufus and grew troubled.

“This man and I have urgent business,” Lugo told her. “It is highly confidential. Do you understand?”

She swallowed but nodded. “Hail and welcome,” she greeted in a subdued voice.

Brave girl, Lugo thought. It was hard to look away from her. Cordelia was nineteen, short but deliciously rounded, her features delicate and tips always slightly parted below a lustrous mass of brown hair. They had been married four years and she bad borne him two children thus far, both still alive. The marriage brought him certain useful connections, her father being a curial, though no dowry worth mentioning, the curial class being crushed between taxes and civic duties. More important to the couple, they had been drawn to each other, and wedlock became an ever higher delight.

“Marcus, meet Cordelia, my wife,” Lugo said. “Marcus” was a safely frequent name. Rufus bobbed his head and grunted. To her: “We must get busy at once. Perseus will see to the necessities. I’ll join you when I can.”

She stared after them as he guided his companion off. Did he hear her sigh? Abrupt fear stabbed. He had gone forth with hope aflutter in him, a hope so wild that he must keep denying it, scolding himself for it. Now he saw what the reality might lead to.

No, he would not think about that. Not immediately. One step, two steps, left foot, right foot, that was how to march through time.

The Low Room was downstairs, a part of the cellar that Lugo had had bricked off after he acquired this house. Such hideaways were common enough to draw scant attention. Often they were for prayer or private austerities. In Lugo’s tine of work, it was clear that he could have use for a place secure from eavesdroppers. The cell was about ten feet square and six high. Three tiny windows just under the ceiling gave on the peristyle garden at ground level. The glass in them was so thick and wavy as to block vision, but the tight that seeped through met whitewashed walls, making the gloom not too dense at this moment. Tallow candles lay on a shelf beside flint, steel, and tinder. Furnishings were a angle bed, a stool, and a chamber pot on the dirt floor.

“Sit down,” Lugo invited. “Rest. You’re safe, my friend, safe.”

Rufus hunched on the stool. He threw back the cowl but clutched the paenula around his tunic; the place was chilly. His red head lifted with a forlorn defiance. “Who the muck be you, anyhow?” he growled.

His host lounged back against the wall and smiled. “Flavius Lugo,” he said. “And you, I believe, are a shipyard carpenter, unemployed, generally called Rufus. What’s your real name?”

An obscenity was followed by: “What’s it matter to you?”

Lugo shrugged. “Little or nothing, I suppose. You could be more gracious toward me. That rabble would have had the life out of you.”

“And what’s that to you?” The retort was harsh. “Why’d you step in? Look here, I be no sorcerer. I want naught to do with magic or heathendom, me, a good Christian, a free Roman citizen.”

Lugo lifted a brow. “Have you absolutely never made an offering elsewhere than in church?” he murmured.

“Well, uh, well—Epona, when my wife was dying—“ Rufus half-rose. He bristled. “Dung o’ Cemunnos! Be you a sorcerer?”

Lugo raised a palm. His left hand moved the staff, slightly but meaningfully. “I am not. Nor can I read your mind. However, old ways die hard, even in the cities, and the countryside is mostly pagan and from your looks and speech I’d guess your family were Cadurci a generation or two ago, back in the hills above the Duranius Valley.”

Rufus lowered himself. For a minute he breathed hard. Then, piece by piece, he began to relax. A smile of sorts responded to Lugo’s. “My parents come o’ that tribe,” he rumbled. “My right name, uh, Cotuadun. Nobody calls me aught but Rufus any more. You be a sharp ‘un.”

“I make my living at it.”

“No Gaul you. Anybody might be a Flavius, but what’s ‘Lugo’? Where you from?”

“I’ve been settled hi Burdigala a fair number of years.” A knock on the plank door was handily timed. “Ah, here comes the excellent Perseus with those refreshments I ordered. I daresay you’ve slightly more need of them than I do.”

The majordomo brought a tray of wine and water flagons, cups, bread, cheese, olives in a bowl. He put it on the ground and, at Lugo’s wave, departed, closing the door behind him. Lugo sat down on the bed, reached, poured, offered Rufus a drink not much diluted. His own he watered well.

“Your health,” he proposed. “You pretty near lost it today.”

Rufus took a long swallow. “Ahhh! Bugger me if that don’t go good.” He squinted through the dusk at his rescuer. “Why’d you do it? What be I to you?”

“Well, if nothing else, those proles had no right to kill you. That’s the job of the state, after you’ve duly been found guilty—which I am sure you are not. It behooved me to enforce the law,”

“You knew me.”

Lugo sipped. The wine was Falernian, sweet on his tongue. “I knew of you,” he said. “Rumors had reached me. That’s natural. I keep track of what’s going on. I have my agents. Nothing to frighten you, no secret informers. But street urchins, for example, who earn a coin by bringing me word of anything interesting. I determined to seek you out and learn more. It’s lucky for you that that chanced to be exactly when and where I could snatch you from your fellow sons of toil.”

The question soughed through him: How many chances had he missed, by what slender margins, throughout all the years? He did not share the widespread present-day faith in astrology. It seemed likeliest to him that sheer accident ruled the world. Perhaps today the dice had been due to roll in his favor.

//the game was real, //anyone like him existed, had ever existed, anywhere under the sky.

Rufus’ head thrust forward from the heavy shoulders. “Why did you?” he grated. “What the dung be you after?”

He needed calming down. Lugo check-reined the eagerness within himself, that was half fear. “Drink your wine,” he said. “Listen, and I’ll explain.

“This house may have led you to think I’m a curial, or a mildly prosperous shopkeeper, or something of that kind. I’m not.” Had not been for a long while. Diocletian’s decree had supposedly frozen everybody into the status to which they were born, including the middle classes. But rather than be crushed, grain by grain, between the stones of taxation, regulation, worthless currency, moribund trade, more and more were fleeing. They slipped off, changed their names, became serfs or outright slaves, illegal itinerant la- borers and mountebanks; some joined the Bacaudae whose bandit gangs terrorized the rural outback, some actually sought to the barbarians. Lugo had made better arrangements for himself, well in advance of need. He was accustomed to looking ahead.

“Fm currently in the pay of one Aurelian, a senator in this city,” he went on.

Hostility sparked. “I heard about him.”

Lugo shrugged again. “So he bribed his way into that rank, and even among his colleagues is monumentally corrupt. What of it? He’s an able man and understands that it’s wise to be loyal to those who serve him. Senators aren’t allowed to engage in commerce, you may know, but he has varied interests. That calls for intermediaries who are not mere figureheads. I come and go for him, to and fro, sniffing out dangers and possibilities, bearing messages, executing tasks that require discretion, giving advice when appropriate. There are worse stations in life. In fact, there are less honorable ones.”

“What’s Aurelian want with me?” Rufus asked uneasily.

“Nothing. He’s never heard of you. Fate willing, he never shall. I sought you out on my own account. We may be of very great value to each other.” Lugo sharpened his tone. “I make no threats. If we cannot work together but you have done your best to cooperate with me, I can at least get you smuggled out of Burdigala to someplace where you can start over. Remember, you owe me your life. If I abandon you, you’re a dead man.”

Sullenness and the gesture of the fig: “They’ll know you hid me here.”

“Why, I’ll tell them myself,” Lugo declared coolly. “As a solid citizen, I did not want you unlawfully slaughtered, but I did feel it incumbent on me to interview you in private, draw you out—Hold!” He had set his cup on the ground as he talked, expecting Rufus might lunge. Now he gripped the staff in both hands. “Stay right on that stool, boy. You’re sturdy, but you’ve seen what I can do with this.”

Rufus crouched back.

Lugo laughed. “That’s better. Don’t be so damned edgy. I really don’t want to cause you any harm. Let me repeat, if you’ll be honest with me and do as I say, the worst that will happen to you is that you leave Burdigala in disguise. Aurelian owns a huge latifundium; it can doubtless use an extra workman, if I put in a good word, and the senator will cover up any little irregularities for me. At best—well, I don’t yet know, and therefore won’t make any promises, but it could be glorious beyond your highest-flying childhood dreams, Rufus.”

His words and the lulling tone worked. Also, the wine had begun to. Rufus sat quiet a moment, nodded, beamed, tossed off his drink, held out a band. “By the Three, right!” he cried.

Lugo clasped the hard palm. The gesture was fairly new in Gallia, maybe learned from Germanic immigrants. “Splendid,” he said. “Just speak fully and frankly. I know that won’t be easy, but remember, I have my reasons. I mean to do well by you, as well as God allows.”

He refilled the emptied cup. Behind his jovial facade, tension gathered and gathered.

Rufus drank. His vessel wobbled. “What d’you want to know?” he asked.

“First, why you got into grief.”

Rufus’ pleasure faded. He scowled beyond his questioner. “Because my wife died,” he mumbled. “That’s what broke the crock.”

“Many men are widowed,” Lugo said, while memory twisted a sword inside him.

The big hand tightened around the cup till knuckles stood white. “My Livia was old. White hair, wrinkles, no teeth. We’d two kids what grew up, boy and girl. They be married, kids o’ their own. And they’ve gone gray.”

“I thought this might be,” Lugo whispered, not in Latin. “O Ashtoreth—”

Aloud, using today’s language: “The rumors that reached me suggested as much. That’s why I came after you. When were you born, Rufus?”

“How the muck should I know?” The response was surly. “Balls! Poor folk don’t keep count like you rich ‘uns. I couldn’t tell you who be consul this year, let alone then was. But my Livia was young like me when we got hitched— fourteen, fifteen, whatever. She was a strong mare, she was, popped her young out like melon seeds, though only the two o’ them got to grow up. She didn’t break down fast like some mares.”

“You may well have reached your threescore and ten, then, or gone beyond,” Lugo said most softly. “You don’t look a day over twenty-five. Were you ever sick?”

“No, ‘less you count a couple times I got hurt. Bad hurts, but they healed right up in a few days, not so much as a scar. No toothaches ever. I got three teeth knocked out in a fight once, and they grew back.” The arrogance shriveled. “People looked at me more and more slanty. When Livia died, that broke the crock.” Rufus groaned. “They’d been saying I must’ve made a deal with the Devil. She told me what she heard. But what the muck could I do? God give me a strong body, that’s all. She believed.”

“I do too, Rufus.”

“When she fell bad sick at last, not many ‘ud speak to me any more. They’d shy from me in the street, make signs, spit on their breasts. I went to a priest. He was scared of me too, I could see it. Said I ought to go to the bishop, but the bastard stalled about taking me to him. Then Livia died.”

“A release,” Lugo could not help venturing.

“Well, I’d gone to a whorehouse for a long time,” Rufus answered matter-of-factly. Fury flared. “Now they, them bitches, they told me go away and don’t come back. I got mad, raised a ruckus. People heard and gathered around outside. When I came out, the scumswine yelled at me. I decked the loudest mouthed o’ them. Next thing I knew, they were on me. I barely fought free and ran. They came after me, more and more o’ them.”

“And you’d have died under their feet,” Lugo said. “Or else presently the rumors would have reached the prefect. The tale of a man who never grew old and was dearly no saint, therefore must be in league with the diabolical. You’d have been arrested, interrogated under torture, doubtless beheaded. These are bad times. Nobody knows what to expect. Will the barbarians prevail? Will we have another civil war? Will plague or famine or a total collapse of trade destroy us? Heretics and sorcerers are objects to take fear out on.”

“I be none!”

“I didn’t say you were. I accept you’re a common man, as common as I’ve ever met, aside from— Tell me, have you known or heard of anyone else like you, whom time doesn’t appear to touch? Kinfolk, perhaps?”

Rufus shook his head.

Lugo sighed. “Neither have I.” He mustered resolve and plunged forward. “And I have waited and tried, searched and endured, since first I came to understand.”

“Uh?” The wine splashed from Rufus’ cup.

Lugo sipped out of his own, for what comfort it could give. “How old do you think I am?” he asked.

Rufus peered before he said at the bottom of his throat: “You look maybe twenty-five.”

A smile quirked on the left side of Lugo’s mouth. “Like you, I don’t know my age for certain,” he answered slowly. “But Hiram was king in Tyre when I was born there. What chronicles I have since been able to study and figure from show me that that was about twelve centuries ago.”

Rufus gaped. The freckles stood lurid on a skin gone white. His free hand made a sign.

“Don’t be afraid,” Lugo urged. “I’m in no pact with darkness. Or with Heaven, for that matter, or any power, any soul. I am your kind of flesh, whatever that means. I have simply been longer on earth. It is lonely. You have had the barest foretaste of how lonely it is.”

He rose, leaving staff and cup, to pace the cramped floor, hands behind back. “I was not born Flavius Lugo, of course,” he said. “That is only the latest name I have taken out of—I’ve lost count of how many. The earliest was— never mind. A Phoenician name. I was a merchant until the years brought me to trouble much like yours today. Then for a long time I was a sailor, a caravan guard, a mercenary soldier, a wandering bard, any number of trades in which a man may come and go little noticed. That was a hard school I went through. Often I came near dying from wounds, shipwreck, hunger, thirst, a dozen different perils. Sometimes I would have died, were it not for the strange vigor of this body. A slower danger, more frightening as I began to perceive it, was that of drowning, losing my reason, in sheer memories. For a while I did have scant use of my wits. In a way that was a mercy; it blunted the pain of losing everyone I came to care for, losing him and losing her and losing, oh, the children. ... Bit by bit I worked out the art of memory. I now have clear recall, I am like a walking library of Alexandria—no, that burned, didn’t it?” He chuckled at himself. “I do make slips. But I have the art of storing what I know until it’s wanted, then calling it forth. I have the art of controlling sorrow. I have—”

He observed Rufus’ awed regard and broke off. “Twelve hundred years?” the artisan breathed. “You seen the Savior?”

Lugo forced a smile. “Sorry, I have not. If he was born in the reign of Augustus, as they say—that would have been, m-m, between three and four hundred years ago—then I was in Britannia at the time. Rome hadn’t conquered it yet, but trade was brisk and the southern tribes were cultured in their fashion. And much less meddlesome. That’s always a highly desirable feature in a place. Damnably hard to find these days, short of running off to the wild German or Scoti or whatever. And even they—

“Another art I’ve developed is that of aging my appearance. Hair powder, dyes, such things are cumbersome, unreliable. I let everybody talk about how young I continue to look. Some people do, after all. But meanwhile gradually I begin to stoop a little, shuffle a little, cough, pretend to be hard of hearing, complain of aches and pains and the insolence of modern youth. It only works up to a point, of course. Finally I must vanish and start a new life elsewhere under a new name. I try to arrange things so it will be reasonable to suppose I wandered off and met with misfortune, perhaps because I’d grown old and absent-minded. And as a rule I’ve been able to prepare for the move. Accumulate a hoard of gold, learn about the home to be, perhaps visit it and establish my fresh identity—”

Some of the weariness of the centuries fell over him. “Details, details.” He stopped and looked into one of the blind windows. “Am I going senile? I don’t usually gabble this way. Well, you’re the first like me I’ve found, Rufus, the very first. Let’s hope you won’t be the last.”

“Did you, uh, know about others?” groped the voice at his back.

Lugo shook his head. “I told you I never did. How could I? A few times I thought I saw a trace, but it gave out or it proved false. Once I may have. I’m not sure.”

“What was that ... master? You want to tell me?”

“I may as well. It was in Syracuse, where I based myself for a good many years because of its ties with Carthage. Lovely, lively city. A woman, Althea was her name, fine to look on and bright in the way women sometimes got to be in the later days of the Greek colonies—I knew her and her husband. He was a shipping magnate and I skippered a tramp freighter. They’d been married for over three decades, he’d gone bald and pot-bellied, she’d borne him a dozen children and the oldest of them was gray, but she might have been a maiden in springtime.”

Lugo fell silent a while before finishing, flat-voiced: “The Romans captured the city. Sacked it: I was absent. Always make an excuse to clear out when you see that kind of thing coming. When I returned, I inquired. She could have been taken for a slave. I could have tried to find her and buy her free. But no, when I’d tracked down somebody who knew, insignificant enough to’ve been left unhurt, I learned she was dead. Raped and stabbed, I heard. Don’t know if that’s true or not. Stories grow in the telling. No matter. It was long ago.”

“Too bad. You should’a got in there first.” Lugo tautened. “Uh, sorry, master,” Rufus said. “You don’t, uh, don’t seem to hate Rome.”

“Why should I? It’s eternally the same tale, war, tyranny, massacre, slavery. I’ve been party to it myself. Now Rome is on the receiving end.”

“What?” Rufus sounded aghast. “Can’t be! Rome is forever!”

“As you like.” Lugo turned back to him. “Apparently I have, at last, found a fellow immortal. At least, here is someone I can safeguard, watch, make certain of. Two or three decades should suffice. Though already I have no real doubt.”

He drew breath. “Do you see what this means? No, you scarcely can. You’ve had no time to think about it.” He surveyed heavy visage, low forehead, dismay yielding to a loose-lipped glee. I don’t expect you ever will, he thought. You are a moderately competent woodworker, nothing else. And I’m lucky to have found this much. Unless Althea—but she slipped through my fingers, away into death.

“It means I am not unique,” Lugo said. “If there are two of us, there must be more. Very few, very seldom born. It isn’t in the bloodlines, like height or coloring or those deformities I’ve seen run in families. Whatever the cause is, it happens by accident. Or by God’s will, if you prefer, though I’d think that makes God out to be sheerly capricious. And surely senseless mischance takes off many immortals young, as it takes off ordinary men and women and children. Sickness we may escape, but not the sword or the runaway horse or the flood or the fire or the famine or whatever. Possibly more die at the hands of neighbors who think this must be a demon, magician, monster.”

Rufus cowered. “My head’s all a-spin,” he whimpered.

“Well, you’ve had a bad time. Immortals need rest too. Sleep if you wish.”

Rufus’ expression was glazing over. “Why couldn’t we say we was, uh, saints? Angels?”

“How far would you have gotten?” Lugo gibed. “Conceivably a man born into royalty— But I don’t suppose that’s ever happened, as rare as our kind must be. No, if we survive, we learn early on to keep our heads low.”

“Then how shall we find each other?”

Rufus hiccoughed and farted.

3

“Come our with me into the peristyle,” said Lugo.

“Oh, gladly,” Cordelia sang. Almost, she danced at his side.

It was an evening mild and clear. The moon stood over the eastern roof, close to full, in a sky still violet-blue. Westward, heaven darkened and stars trembled forth. City sounds had mostly died out; crickets chirred. Moonlight dappled the flowerbeds, shivered on the water of a pool, brought Cordelia’s young face and breast out of shadow into argency.

She and he stood hand in hand a few minutes. “You were so busy today,” she said at length. “When you came back early, I hoped— Of course, you had your work to do.”

“I did that, unfortunately,” he replied. “But these next hours belong to us.”

She leaned against him. Her hair carried a remnant fragrance of sunlight. “Christians should give thanks for what they get.” She giggled. “How easy to be a Christian, tonight.”

“How have the children done today?” he asked—his son Julius, no longer stumping about but leaping adventurously everywhere, starting to talk; little, little Dora asleep in her crib, starfish hands curled tight.

“Why, very well,” said Cordelia, a bit surprised.

“I see them too seldom.”

“And you care. Not many fathers do. Not that much.” She squeezed his hand. “I want to give you lots of children.” Impishly: “We can begin at once.”

“I have ... tried to be kind.”

She heard how the words dragged, let go of him, widened her eyes in alarm. “What’s wrong, beloved?”

He made himself take hold of her shoulders, look into her face—the moonlight made her searingly beautiful—and answer: “Between us, nothing at all.” Only the fact that you will grow old and die. And that has happened so often, so often. I cannot count the deaths. There is no measure for tile pain, but I think it has not grown any less; I think I have merely learned to live with it, as a mortal can learn to live an unbeatable wound. I thought we could have, oh, thirty, perhaps forty years together before I must leave. That would have been wonderful.

“But I have an unexpected journey to make,” he said.

“Something that man—Marcus—something he’s told you?”

Lugo nodded.

Cordelia grimaced. “I don’t like him. Forgive me, but I don’t. He’s coarse and stupid.”

“He is that,” Lugo agreed. It had seemed wise to him they let Rufus share their supper. Confinement in the room with nothing but his dreads and animal hopes company had been breaking what self-control was left him, and he needed it for the time ahead. “Nevertheless, I got important information from him.”

“Can you tell me what it is?” He heard how hard she tried not to make it a plea.

“I’m sorry, no. Nor can I say where I’m bound or how long I’ll be gone.”

She caught both his hands. Her fingers had turned cold. “The barbarians. Pirates. Bacaudae.”

“Travel has its dangers,” he admitted. “I’ve spent a lot of this day making arrangements for you. Just in case, darling, just in case.” He kissed her. The lips that shivered beneath his bore a thin taste of salt. “You should know this is a matter that may or may not concern Aurelian, but if it does, it must be investigated at once, and he’s in Italy. I’ve told his amanuensis Corbilo as much, and you can collect my pay for your needs from him. I’ve also left a substantial sum in trust for you at the church. The priest Antoninus took it and gave me a receipt that I’ll give you. And you are heir to this property. You’ll be all right, you and the children.” If Rome hangs together.

She threw herself against him and dung. He stroked her hair, her back, ruffling the gown, making the caress an embrace. “There, there,” he crooned, “this is just in case. Don’t be afraid. I’m not running any great risk.” He believed that was true. “I’ll be back.” That was not true, and hurt like fire to utter. Well, no doubt she’d marry again, after he was given up for dead. Last heard of on the Ordovician coast, about when a Scotic raid occurred ...

She stood back, hugged herself, swallowed, smiled unsteadily. “Of course you w-w-will,” she avowed. “I’ll p-pray for you the whole while. And we have this night.”

Until shortly after dawn, when Nereid cast off. He’d obtained passage for himself and Rufus. Most of Britannia continued secure, but the barbarians ravaged enough of it that nobody would question a couple of men who appeared -in, say, Aquae Sulis or Augusta Londinium with a story of having fled. Given money in hand, they could start afresh; and Lugo had buried a fair supply of honest corns in the island, several generations back.

“If only you could remain,” escaped from Cordelia.

“If only I could.” But Rufus was marked in Burdigala.

Rufus, the male, the oaf, the immortal, who would surely perish miserably without an intelligent man in charge of him. And he must not. However awkward, his was the only help Lugo had toward the ultimate coming together of their kind.

Cordelia heard how the words wrenched themselves from her husband’s mouth. “I will not whine,” she declared. “We do have this night. And many, many more on the far side of your journey. I’ll wait for you, I’ll always wait.”

No, Lugo thought, you won’t. That wouldn’t make sense, once you’ve decided you’re a widow, still young but with time at your heels.

Nor could you ever have waited for me always.

I seek for her who shall never have to leave me.