“So it’s the man in the field who does the real work, as always,” Saul pointed out. “What do they need to be in touch with the bureaucrats at headquarters for?”
The pope’s eyes narrowed. “I do not think I like you, Wizard Saul.”
“Join the club,” Saul said with a sardonic smile. “You’ve got plenty of company. But I notice you haven’t answered the question.”
“The valiant clergy must be in contact with us for the same reason that a body needs a head!” the pope snapped. “Without our direction, without our inspiration, their faith would falter, they would succumb to fear and to temptations of the flesh! Most serious of all, the usurper has set up a puppet pope in the north, at that little town just below the Alps. The imposter claims to be the true pope!”
“Which you are, of course,” Saul said, poker-faced.
“Of course I am! The cardinals elected me, and stayed here with me, save for the handful who fled to do Boncorro’s bidding! Oh, the people cry that it is a sign of his tolerance, of his allowing the faithful to practice their Faith again-but we know better, for we have heard this puppet pope’s edicts! He teaches that each bishop can interpret the Scriptures for himself without the restriction of the papacy! He teaches that adultery is permissible, if it is done far from home! He teaches that the people need only heed the law of the king, but never the law of the Church!”
“He does kind of sound like a paid voice,” Matt said to Saul.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t quite that clear back home,” Saul growled. “And we haven’t heard his side of the story.”
The pope turned a black gaze on the Wizard of Sarcasm. “Must you question everything that is said? Have you no faith of any kind?”
“Yes!” Saul snapped. “I have faith in the ideas that have withstood every test I could put them to! I question everything, and only accept the ideas that have sound answers!”
“Even then, you’re ready to revise your opinion on new evidence,” Matt pointed out.
“Yeah, well, I admitted that the atrocity stories about the Phoenician religion were true, didn’t I?”
“Only when the archaeologists dug up that graveyard of incinerated bodies,” Matt retorted. “Indeed!” The pope looked interested. “You will hearken to Truth, then!”
“Why, yes,” Saul shot back. “Do you have any to tell me?”
The pope’s face darkened again, and Arouetto interrupted quickly. “The condottieri have sealed off the Vatican. That, at least, is true.”
The pope nodded. “And the Church needs the Holy See, just as the Empire of Reme needed its emperor.”
“Whoa!” Matt held up a hand. “I thought it had turned into a real republic, with the Etruscans, the Latini, and the Carthaginians all equal partners.”
Saul looked up with keen interest. “You know something I don’t know?”
“Yes, and I’ll fill you in later. When did they hire an emperor, your Holiness?”
“Why, when they had conquered so much territory, and so many peoples, that the senate could not wait for the tedious exchange of messages with the provinces that would decide their policies,” the pope answered, frowning. “When decisions needed to be made more quickly than debate would allow. Do you not know of this?”
“We haven’t had access to the books.”
“Lamentable!” The pope shook his head. “Know, then, that it was Julius Caesar who was first able to find common ground between the views of all three powers, and who was able to make policies that satisfied them all-or persuade them to be satisfied.”
“Here, too, huh?” Saul nodded. “He always was as much a politician as a general.”
“Or just as good a politician,” Matt qualified.
“He also had an excellent sense for commerce,” the pope told them. “His trade policies ruled the empire till its closing days.”
“Well, that’s new,” Saul admitted. “Did the Praetorian Guard still get so much of the real power?”
“The… Guard?” The pope frowned. “What were they?”
“Caesar’s bodyguard,” Matt explained. “Actually, it was Augustus who really built them up, after what had happened to his uncle.”
“What did happen to his uncle?”
Matt stared, then said carefully, “The way I heard it, Caesar was assassinated.”
“Assassinated? Never! He died in bed, aged but still keen of mind, and honored by all!”
Matt stared, and Saul muttered, “Et tu, Brute.”
“Brutus?” The pope looked up. “Aye, he led the Latini in acclaiming Augustus the legitimate heir-who proved just as adroit a diplomat as his uncle. What need would he have had for a bodyguard? The people loved him, the patricians loved him! Oh, there are tales of madmen striking at him in the streets-but the mob bore them down ere they could come near him! The whole city was his bodyguard!”
Saul turned to Matt. “You mind explaining?”
“Change the foundation, you get a different shape of house,” Matt explained. “Details at eleven.” He turned back to the pope. “So the senate really did choose the emperor, right down to the last days of the empire?”
“They did indeed, and there were always many Caesars to choose from.”
“Real Caesars?” Saul demanded. “Not just adopted Claudians? He didn’t divorce his first wife and marry Livia?”
“Never! He maintained staunchly that divorce was the bane of the patricians, and did all he could to discourage it!”
“So his children were really his children,” Matt said slowly, “and the empire was ruled by a line of diplomats, not a series of sadistic madmen. How about Caligula?”
The pope gave him a blank look, but Arouetto said, “He was a scion of the Claudians-mad, as the Lord Wizard says. When his incest with his sister was discovered, he was sent to the frontier, then executed for commanding a century of legionnaires to charge a thousand Germans. They were slain to a man, though they took five hundred Germans with them.”
“So.” Matt steepled his fingers. “The Claudians never took power, and the Etruscans and Carthaginians kept an informal system of checks and balances operating, so the emperor never really was a total despot. Power didn’t corrupt the office?”
“Well, somewhat,” Arouetto admitted, “but never more than it corrupts any bailiff or reeve.”
“No absolute power, so no absolute corruption.” Matt nodded. “Come to that, how many countries did the empire actually have to conquer, and how many joined to get better trade advantages?”
“Shrewdly guessed, for one who claims not to have read the books,” the pope said with a frown, but Arouetto smiled. “I doubt not it was a shrewd guess indeed-and I have but to confirm the answer. Yes, Julius Caesar was as clever in commerce as in battle, as I’ve said, and invented a score of advantages for other nations to federate with Reme. The army conquered only those nations intent on stealing Reme’s trade-pirates’ nests and bandits’ roosts-and those intent on overthrowing Reme herself, or raiding her provinces; it was for that reason we conquered the Germanies.”
“Conquered the Germanies?” Matt stared. “On the other side of the Rhine?”
“Even so.”
“Just when did the empire fall?” Saul demanded. “The federated nations had almost all broken away by the year of Our Lord 653,” Arouetto said, “but it was not until 704, when the last of the Caesars had died, that the Visigoths attacked Reme herself. The Ostrogoths marched up behind them and made short work of them, so Reme was not sacked-but an Ostrogoth declared himself to be emperor. No federated nation would obey a man who was not a Caesar, not even a Latrurian, so we may say that is the date at which the empire fell.”
Matt frowned. “But Hardishane established his empire only a hundred years later!”