Aurelius (to be called) Magnus Page 2

  “They are not retired to peace and prosperity,” Aurelius said. “I want this for my empire, sir. I will fight my father’s wars, my grandfather’s wars; I will hold the empire they gave to me. But I am not only my father’s son, and my mother’s last words to me were a plea that I remember that life is more than war.”

  2

  Winfer did not answer him immediately. He sat there, looking out over his villa’s lands. Everywhere Aurelius looked he could see more of the same: no signs of war, and many signs of growth.

  There were calves nuzzling at the cows in the field across a small lane. There were small buildings, thatched with golden straw, their walls a clean limed white. There were geese somewhere, honking pleasantly, and the sun poured down over all.

  Aurelius sat there, feeling the light as almost a physical thing, more than warmth, as if it were puddling in his left hand as it lay cupped on his knee.

  He felt as if he had been so long in shadows all this winter, in that foggy, smokey, cloud-capped camp. The sky over the valley had been flat grey, and the mud a paler grey, sticky and drying to chalk-like powder, gritty in his hair, his eyes, his nose, his mouth, even his ears. He had never been able to see the sea that was supposed to be on the other side of the cape.

  It was good to be clean and safe, in the sunlight and fresh air.

  “You are tired of war?” Winfer asked.

  Aurelius had closed his eyes so he could tip his head to the sun, and he lowered his head now, blushing for his discourtesy. “The people are tired,” he said. “The land is tired. I have hopes that there is another way.”

  “There will always be enemies.”

  “Then let me fight them, and not those who offer me no insult.”

  Winfer smiled at him. “I see why you brought no armies with you.”

  “I did not think they would serve a purpose, and I was taught to act with purpose, Winfer.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” the old general said softly. “And your purpose in coming to see me was to find what secret I have, that I could leave behind war and find peace?”

  “That you could build peace,” Aurelius said, looking sharply at him.

  “It is much the same thing.”

  Aurelius wanted to protest that statement, which seemed to him a false and fawning triteness, but he remembered that he had come to learn from this old man, who had been a great general before his parents had ever seen each other, and so he bit his tongue and held his peace.

  Such as it was; he could not help the bitter reflection that his peace was all borrowed from this man, too.

  “Let us walk amongst the green and growing things,” Winfer said, standing up from his chair. He had a stick to his hand, a smoothly polished staff, but otherwise he stood tall and strong. He must have been a formidable warrior in his day, Aurelius thought, standing to follow.

  They walked off the terrace and down a path, first gravelled and then earth beaten smooth, towards the orchard. “Almonds,” the old general said, as they passed under the froth of blossom. The trees were full of bees, their song softer, gentler, than the buzzing of flies with which Aurelius was far more familiar.

  The orchard formed a kind of square; on the farther side was a gate in a laid hedge, and on the other side a green lane angled down between fields and pastures.

  Aurelius cast a swift glance around, assessing potential ambush sites, pitfalls, and lines of escape and defence. He was pleasantly impressed to see that Winfer had clearly designed many elements of his landscape to be defensible. Aurelius could see at least three rings of potential earthworks and moats, perfect for a defence in depth should the villa be attacked.

  Winfer watched him, smiling wryly, and continued down the lane towards the series of ponds that curved around this side of the hill and formed a partial moat for the more vulnerable barns and outbuildings. Aurelius matched his pace to the old man’s, his hands swinging at his sides. He wished he had his sword; he was not accustomed to being abroad without it.

  There was a bench on the inner side of the ponds, near a narrow causeway running between the two larger one. Several white geese were swimming on one of the ponds, and a handful of black-and-grey ducks on the other. Winfer sat down on the bench and folded his hands across the top of his walking stick.

  Aurelius stood a few feet away, looking up at the outbuildings on the hill above them and admiring how they were sheer, unwindowed walls, stout and strong. A pulley hung out, with a winch, no doubt so water could be lifted from the ponds if necessary.

  The view here was of more undulating hills and valleys. The more distant ones were thickly forested, with clearings suggesting the farmlands around other villas and towns. Nearer to hand were more fields, some bare and some with the bright green of new growth, and many pastures of animals: sheep, cattle, horses, more white geese.

  The sky was clear blue, the sun bright, white clouds puffing serenely by. Aurelius stepped carefully to the bank and looked down into the pond. Below the orange feet of the paddling geese were great dark shapes of fish.

  “Carp,” Winfer said. “Excellent eating in their season. And good, too, for fortune-telling.”

  Aurelius turned to look at him. “Are you a sooth-sayer, then, sir?”

  One called upon the soothsayers before any grand undertaking, whether battle or building. Aurelius had been watching them cast lots or read the entrails since he was a boy, and had mostly been unimpressed by their accuracy. He could do better listening to the wind and the weight of the sunlight, the depth of the shadows, before a battle.

  “At times, when the magic seems to want to flow. It is not my calling.” The old man regarded him with intent eyes. “What of you?”

  “I consult the soothsayers as is appropriate,” he said evenly.

  Winfer appeared surprised. He seemed to wish to say something, but frowned and looked away instead.

  “Is that not what you meant?” Aurelius asked curiously.

  “I meant your own magic.”

  Aurelius laughed. “Mine? I have none, or none beyond what is given me by virtue of my position. I can open the gates between worlds my forefathers made, and close them again, and say the prayers and so on, but the priests, the magicians, the soothsayers, they all say there’s no other magic in me.”

  Winfer leaned forward over his staff. “That’s what the priests say. What do you say? You, with those golden eyes—”

  “They say that comes down my father’s line. The pictures, the writings, of the earliest emperors show them with golden eyes. Children of the Sun, they say.”

  “And great magic-workers were they, too. You are Berwalla’s golden son, yes. She saw magic in you, I’m told.”

  Aurelius felt a shiver run down the back of his neck. “Told by whom?”

  “My good wife went to visit her once, when she fell ill. She wanted a familiar face, Berwalla did, in that strange house your father took her to.”

  The palace in Astandalas was a strange house, Aurelius granted. He did not like it very much; it felt soaked with blood and grief, and he always felt heavy and downhearted when he was there, as if the stones were piled on top of his head.

  But that was not magic, surely? None of the magicians and priests ever mentioned such a feeling. They spoke of the voices of the gods whispering in their ears, or the way they could turn words and salt and stones and blood into power.

  Aurelius could turn words and salt and stones and blood into power, too. He could not call down the winds or raise up a fog, but he could call up an army or persuade a city to surrender. Everyone fought for salt; for words; for stones; for blood.

  “My good wife said there was sunlight in the room when you were born, for all that it was night.”

  Aurelius was silent.

  “It is said by the priests,” he said finally, “that I have the gods’ luck on me, for I am so often victorious in battle; because I so often know where to go, before any scouts or scryings can give hint of danger or opportunity.”

  “And what do you say?” Winfer asked. “No—do not rush to answer, young man. Let us continue our walk. Think, if you will, that some magics cannot be taught; only found.”

  Aurelius remembered what his mother had said, that Winfer was the sort of man who saw deeply, and he said, “Is peace one such magic?”

  “It may be for you,” said the old man.

  Winfer asked after Berwalla’s life and Aurelius’s childhood, and in return told stories of Berwalla’s childhood and his own life. Aurelius listened, pleased to hear of his mother and her people, though one eye was always on his surroundings, and part of his mind was worrying over the old man’s question.

  They returned at last to the villa, through a small village where the tenant farmers lived, through the stables where he could assure himself his horse was being well tended, and finally into the main building. There they ate a splendid, simple meal, as good as any Aurelius had ever eaten, and afterwards, with the evening drawing on, Winfer offered him more wine.

  Aurelius took the goblet to be polite. His father had drunk too much, by the end; that had felled him in his prime, or what ought to have been his prime, when he rode drunk to battle and never returned.

  He could understand the lure, the way the wine softened the edges, blunted the pain. Some nights, after battle, he wanted nothing more than to forget what his hands had done. But there was always the next morning …

  Most often, after his councillors and generals had dispersed to their own evening pursuits, he sat in his tent thinking over the results of the day’s work, the men lost, the land won, the weaponry or food or other supplies gained or needed, the maps of his empire spread about him as he drank hot water adulterated with nothing but a little honey, if they had any, or broth.

  This wine
was watered, as he found when he sipped it, and he relaxed again.

  “I have thought on your request,” Winfer said as they sat beside each other on the terrace once more. A few birds were singing their evening songs; Aurelius wished he knew what they were called. That had never been a necessary thing to know.

  He turned his attention to the old general, forcing his eyes down, away from the sky. The evening was as beautiful as the day had been. The sky was fading from blue through green to deeper blue, the first stars already faintly appearing.

  “You seek peace. When did you start training for war?” Winfer asked.

  “I cannot remember a time when I was not given a weapon and taught how to wield it,” he replied honestly. “I cut my teeth on a wooden dagger. I was taught to read young, so that I might read the words of the ancients writing of their wars, the founding of the empire. I was taught numbers with games of strategy and tactics, or by counting stores of food and armour. My father took me hunting as soon as I could sit a horse over a jump, so that I could learn to kill cleanly.”

  “And when was your first battle?”

  Aurelius remembered it well, for all he had been kept close to the standard-bearer, defending and defended in turn by the men of his father’s household, the nucleus of his own. It had been noisy and bloody and dusty and terrifying and exciting all at once.

  Battles were still noisy and bloody and terrifying, and either dusty or muddy; that was the only thing that changed. He still stood beside the standard-bearer, with his household around him, defending and defended in turn.

  He felt little excitement now, it was true.

  “It was the year my mother died,” he said. “My eleventh year, or perhaps the beginning of my twelfth.”

  Winfer poured himself from the pitcher of watered wine. Only one bird was still singing, liquid cascades. Aurelius wondered if it was a nightingale such as the poets mentioned. There had been several poems about them in the book he had read in the ironworks camp.

  “Two winters later you were leading men in battle,” Winfer said. “Five winters later you were crowned Emperor of two worlds, which you have held. More than held: ruled.”

  “Yes.”

  “And another five winters on from then you have swept all who oppose you before you, winning your crown again in battle after battle, conquering lands, building a reputation so that all who hear of your coming tremble; so that towns, cities, whole peoples falter and surrender without a blow.”

  Aurelius bowed his head. The shadows were thick here as the night drew down. They were comforting, nearly as warm as his borrowed woollen tunic.

  “And this great warrior, this great general, this golden emperor—oh, we have heard of you even here, Berwalla’s son!—comes alone to my door, greeting me with respect, accepting my poor hospitality … asking me how he might come to peace.”

  Aurelius swallowed. “Yes.”

  Winfer laughed softly, with little humour. “And you say you have no magic in you.”

  “What do you mean?” Aurelius asked. But the old man shook his head.

  Before they parted that evening, Winfer said, “Berwalla’s son, to create peace without you must have peace within.”

  Aurelius considered this. “To create war,” he observed, “one need not be angry; merely stubborn.”

  Winfer laughed, more genuinely than he had earlier. “You are not wrong, as well you know. You have come to me for my advice, my assistance, my aid. Will you take it?”

  Aurelius had spent much of his life being offered advice and assistance. He said, as he always said—inwardly if not aloud—“If it seems good to me.”

  “One cannot ask for more,” Winfer said, though now his voice was shaded with sorrow. Aurelius wondered if the old man worried he would not take his advice—or if he could not.

  “Have you ever learned meditation?” the old general continued.

  “Not by that name.”

  “It is a discipline of the mind. Do you have a way to settle yourself before battle? To ready your mind and spirit for the demands to be placed upon it?”

  Aurelius nodded slowly. His father had told him in vague terms to clear his mind and fire his heart, but always in context of the speech before battle he would give his troops. Aurelius gave the speeches—it was something he was particularly lauded for—but he also spent time alone in his tent before the engagement, readying himself.

  “Do that,” Winfer said. “Prepare yourself as if for battle, but instead of engaging with the world outside you, turn within.”

  “And battle myself?” Aurelius asked, a little amused at the idea. He did not find himself at war with himself often: that was the sure way to defeat, to enter a battle conflicted in his own mind.

  “If you find you must. See what there is first—scout out the territory, as it were, first. Perhaps it will be friendly country.”

  “I understand more than metaphors of war,” Aurelius returned, but Winfer said nothing further beyond bidding him a good night.

  3

  Aurelius went to his room and, being an experienced soldier, went easily to sleep.

  He woke at the earliest light of dawn, as was his habit, and rose to wash his face in the basin. His room had a large window with wooden shutters. He undid the latch and pushed open the leaves, enjoying the wash of cool, dewy air.

  The birds were singing again, and two roosters were crowing not far away. Aurelius leaned on the window, his face turned to the soft grey sky, the last few stars, the cool air, and then he remembered Winfer’s instruction.

  Command.

  Instruction.

  That was why he’d come alone, wasn’t it? If one wished to learn from another, one had to listen; one had to be instructed. Even an emperor who ruled two worlds.

  There was a reed mat on the floor, swept clean of any dust he’d brought in the day before. Aurelius sat down on it cross-legged. He could still see out the window, though from this angle only the slowly lightening sky.

  A better view than he usually had before a battle, that was certain.

  He placed his hands together in his lap, his back straight but relaxed, and he closed his eyes.

  Before a battle he would breathe deeply, emptying his mind of fear and concern and worry and excitement alike. There was only the greater plan, the purpose for the operation, the strategies of the particular encounter, the tactics that would emerge once the armies engaged. Those were planned, set into place, and he let them settle into place, the guide for his actions and decisions in the moments to come.

  He breathed, in, out, listening to his body, the sound of his breath, the feel of the air around him. It was not true he had no operational purpose here. He did: to build a peace that would hold, a peace that would let the land recover, the people thrive.

  He had fought an uncountable number of times. He was well-practiced in settling himself.

  He sank into the moment, that point where he had found the inner composure, that perfect balance within his heart that would let him stand and sweep forth, to speak and command and fight with a brilliance his men whispered was god-touched.

  Perhaps it was the gods, or perhaps it was this magic of which Winfer spoke.

  Aurelius came to that moment, that point of balance, and instead of standing up, taking his sword in hand, sweeping out to the fight, he turned—inwards.

  At first he was certain he was only imagining it, the same way he imagined how a skirmish, a battle, a war could go, going over the possibilities in his mind, spinning out ideas. He was spinning out ideas here, imagining what there might be inside his heart.

  And then there was a kind of—twist—as if something came undone, and he dropped into a place he had never before been.

  Never before been, but nevertheless … knew.

  It was a grey fog, filling the valley of his heart.

  Aurelius stood there, his feet bare on the grass. He could not see the verdure but he could feel it, the soft, dewy blades faintly tickling, the scent of crushed leaves. He looked down, but he could only see himself as a darker shadow in the swirling grey fog; when he lifted his hands before his face he could make out no details bar the polished gleam of his fingernails. They were lacquered gold, as sometimes at court, when he sat on the golden throne of his forefathers in the gilded armour he had had made for himself to celebrate the third anniversary of his rule.