“You are too melodramatic sometimes, Apollinaris. I urge you: let him go free. Show the world that we can tolerate even a Timoleon in our midst.”
“I think you fail to understand just how dangerous—”
“Dangerous? He’s just a ragged rabble-rouser. What I don’t want to do is make him into a martyr. We could capture him and crucify him, yes, but that would give the people a hero, and they would turn the world upside down in his name. Let him be.”
But Apollinaris saw only peril in that path, and the search for Timoleon went on. And in time Timoleon was betrayed by a greedy associate and arrested in one of the Underworld’s most remote and obscure caverns, along with dozens of his most intimate associates and several hundred other followers.
Apollinaris, on his own authority as head of the Council of Internal Security and without notifying the Emperor, ordered an immediate trial. There would be one more climactic spate of executions, he told himself, and then, he swore, the end of the time of blood would finally be at hand. With Timoleon and his people gone, Laureolus at last could step forth and offer the olive branch of clemency to the citizenry in generaclass="underline" the beginning of the time of reconciliation and repair that must follow any such epoch as they had all just lived through.
For the first time since his return to Roma from the provinces Apollinaris began to think that he was approaching the completion of his task, that he had brought the Empire safely through all its storms and could retire from public responsibility at long last.
And then Tiberius Charax came to him with the astonishing news that the Emperor Laureolus had ordered an amnesty for all political prisoners as an act of Imperial mercy, and that Timoleon and his friends would be released from the dungeons within the next two or three days.
“He’s lost his mind,” Apollinaris said. “Demetrius himself would not have been guilty of such insanity.” He reached for pen and paper. “Here—take these warrants of execution to the prison at once, before any releases can be carried out—”
“Sir—” said Charax quietly.
“What is it?” Apollinaris asked, not looking up.
“Sir, the Emperor has sent for you. He asks your attendance at the palace within the hour.”
“Yes,” he said. “Just as soon as I’ve finished signing these warrants.”
The moment Apollinaris entered the Emperor’s private study he understood that it was his own death warrant, and not Timoleon’s, that he had signed this afternoon. For there on Laureolus’s desk was the stack of papers that he had given Charax less than an hour before. Some minion of Laureolus’s must have intercepted them.
There was a coldness beyond that of ice in the Emperor’s pale blue eyes.
“Were you aware that we ordered clemency for these men, Consul?” Laureolus asked him.
“Shall I lie to you? No, Caesar, it’s very late for me to take up the practice of lying. I was aware of it. I felt it was a mistake, and countermanded it.”
“Countermanded your Emperor’s orders? That was very bold of you, Consul!”
“Yes. It was. Listen to me, Laureolus—”
“Caesar.”
“Caesar. Timoleon wants nothing less than the destruction of the Imperium, and the Senate, and everything else that makes up our Roman way of life. He must be put to death.”
“I’ve already told you: any fool of an Emperor can have his enemies put to death. He snaps his fingers and the thing is done. The Emperor who’s capable of showing mercy is the Emperor whom the people will love and obey.”
“I’ll take no responsibility for what happens, Caesar, if you insist on letting Timoleon go.”
“You will not be required to take responsibility for it,” said Laureolus evenly.
“I think I understand your meaning, Caesar.”
“I think you do, yes.”
“I fear for you, all the same, if you free that man. I fear for Roma.” For an instant all his iron self-control deserted him, and he cried, “Oh, Laureolus, Laureolus, how I regret that I chose you to be Emperor! How wrong I was!—Can’t you see that Timoleon has to die, for the good of us all? I demand his execution!”
“How strangely you address your Emperor,” said Laureolus, in a quiet voice altogether devoid of anger. “It is as if you can’t quite bring yourself to believe that I am Emperor. Well, Apollinaris, we are indeed your sovereign, and we refuse to accept what you speak of as your ‘demand.’ Furthermore: your resignation as Consul is accepted. You have overstepped your Consular authority, and there is no longer any room for you in our government as the new period of healing begins. We offer you exile in any place of your choice, so long as it’s far from here: Aegyptus, perhaps, or maybe the isle of Cyprus, or Pontus—”
“No.”
“Then suicide is your only other option. A fine old Roman way to die.”
“Not that either,” said Apollinaris. “If you want to be rid of me, Laureolus, have me taken to the plaza of Marcus Anastasius and chop my head off in front of all the people. Explain to them, if you will, why it was necessary to do that to someone who has served the Empire so long and so well. Blame all the recent bloodshed on me, perhaps. Everything, even the executions that Torquatus ordered. You’ll surely gain the people’s love that way, and I know how dearly you crave that love.”
Laureolus’s expression was utterly impassive. He clapped his hands and three men of the Guard entered.
“Conduct Count Apollinaris to the Imperial prison,” he said, and turned away.
Charax said, “He wouldn’t dare to execute you. It would start an entirely new cycle of killings.”
“Do you think so?” Apollinaris asked. They had given him the finest cell in the place, one usually reserved for prisoners of high birth, disgraced members of the royal family, younger brothers who had made attempts on the life of the Emperor, people like that. Its walls were hung with heavy purple draperies and its couches were of the finest make.
“I think so, yes. You are the most important man in the realm. Everyone knows what you achieved in the provinces. Everyone knows, also, that you saved us from Torquatus and that you put Laureolus on the throne. You should have been made Emperor yourself when Demetrius died. If he kills you the whole Senate will speak out against him, and the entire city will be outraged.”
“I doubt that very much,” said Apollinaris wearily. “Your view of things has rarely been so much in error. But no matter: did you bring the books?”
“Yes,” Charax said. He opened the heavy package he was carrying. “Lentulus Aufidius. Sextus Asinius. Suetonius. Ammianus Marcellinus. Julius Capitolinus, Livius, Thucydides, Tacitus. All the great historians.”
“Enough reading to last me through the night,” said Apollinaris. “Thank you. You can leave me now.”
“Sir—”
“You can leave me now,” said Apollinaris again. But as Charax walked toward the door he said, “One more thing, though. What about Timoleon?”
“He has gone free, sir.”
“I expected nothing else,” Apollinaris said.
Once Charax was gone he turned his attention to the books. He would start with Thucydides, he thought—that merciless account of the terrible war between Athens and Sparta, as grim a book as had ever been written—and would make his way, volume by volume, through all of later history. And if Laureolus let him live long enough to have read them all one last time, perhaps then he would begin writing his own here in prison, a memoir that he would try to keep from being too self-serving, even though it would be telling the story of how he had sacrificed his own life in order to preserve the Empire. But he doubted that Laureolus would let him live long enough to do any writing. There would be no public execution, no—Charax had been correct about that. He was too much of a hero in the public’s eyes to be sent off so callously to the block, and in any event Laureolus’s stated intention was to give the executioners a long respite from their somber task and allow the city to return to something approaching normal.