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Page 44
'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.
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