This missive, which I must believe you will someday read, will no doubt impress you with its clarity and the apparent ease with which it has been written. Disabuse yourself of any misconception, Father; I am as awkward in my efforts to write today as ever I was. The letter you read now is no more than a painstaking copy of the last of many scribbled, much-altered, often-perspired-upon scraps of parchment and paper, laboured over on many a night by the agued fluttering of an almost lightless lamp.
I know you will have little need to be reminded of the discomforts involved in writing a letter on campaign. I have been on campaign endlessly now for years, ever since leaving Britain with Magnus Maximus, and throughout that time it has ever been too easy to find reasons for never having enough time to write. It has been several months since I decided to end that condition, and it has taken me until now to produce something I consider fit enough and substantial enough to send to you after so long a silence.
I am in Constantinople, serving on the personal staff of Flavius Stilicho, Count of the Domestics, Commander of the Emperor's Household Troops. You might be amused to know that I have met Theodosius now on several occasions and have endorsed, in my own mind, the verdict of Publius Varrus, who declared that Theodosius was, "for all his faults and personal shortcomings, " an able administrator and a fine soldier. In those days, Theodosius was Count of Britain. Now he is Emperor and still, again in Varrus's words, " a grandiloquent and pompous pain in the arse!" But he is, above all, an able Emperor and a notable judge of men...
That I can write such words in a letter will give you some idea of the import of my posting and the security we enjoy in our communications. All of that is due to the personality and influence of my commander, Flavins Stilicho. It is he whose privilege and personal seal attached hereto enable me to write my mind thus openly, and it is he who has finally made me wish to write to you, for many reasons, although mainly to tell you about Flavius Stilicho himself, and the privilege and honour I enjoy in being close to him.
Father, you would take Stilicho to your bosom! He is all that you hold honourable in the Roman tradition. He is half Vandal, his father a low-born captain of mercenaries. And yet, for all that, by the strength of his own intellect and the astounding abilities he has demonstrated in his short career
—
he is but twenty years of age, seven years younger than I!
—
he has completely won the affection and esteem of Theodosius and is married to the Emperor's favourite niece, Serena. She, too, fell victim to the charm of Stilicho.
If, as I suspect, you and Publius Varrus have just exchanged mutual snorts of "Nepotism and privilege!" you must withdraw them. I swear this is a man among men, for all his youth
—
a military genius on the level of Alexander.
I met him just over a year ago, in the late summer of the second year of Magnus's campaign in southern Gaul. Things had been going well for Magnus (as they still are, I hear) and we had won many victories against all sent against us. My own mind was not at peace, however, with the way the affairs of our army were developing; the Magnus I had known and admired in North Britain was neither the man nor the Emperor I followed now in Gaul. Greatness had worked great changes in him, and as far as I could see, none were improvements.
One afternoon, on a routine patrol ahead of the army, my party unexpectedly encountered a fair-sized group of the enemy, men and officers. We discovered them first, fortuitously, and I was able to entrap them. In the course of the fighting I found myself matched against a young tribune, barely out of boyhood, richly appointed and uniformed, who fought like a madman
—
a very skilled madman, be it said. Luck was with me. He slipped in the grass, and I had his life in my grasp and my sword at the ready. Thank God I could not bring myself to kill him at that moment! Telling him to live for another day, I clubbed him with the hilt of my sword and left him lying there. Moments later, we were surrounded and outnumbered by an army of newcomers sent, as I discovered later, to meet and escort the party we had attacked. I was taken prisoner with my entire force and brought to the camp of Proconsul Glaucius Mamilias. As you will have deduced, the boy I spared was Flavius Stilicho.
He sent for me later and questioned me closely. I felt, although I know not how to describe it, an affinity for the man, youth though he was. He told me he was just returned from Persia, from the Court of King Shapur III, where he had been the personal ambassador of Theodosius himself On his return to Constantinople he had been dispatched immediately to form some intelligent appraisal of the rebel Magnus and his
modus operandi,
and to divine a method of defeating him.
You may imagine my astonishment as I listened to him speak, although I must tell you it never crossed my mind to doubt him. The reverence in which he was held was all too apparent. The Proconsul himself deferred to this young man!
In short, Flavius Stilicho thanked me for his life and offered me manumission
—
for all my men — if I would serve with him and give him my allegiance. He assured me I could do so with honour, for he would require me neither to divulge information concerning Magnus's plans nor to bear arms against the soldiers among whom I had fought my way across Gaul. Father, I did not even hesitate before accepting his offer. I knew, somewhere in my soul, that I was born to fight beside this Flavius Stilicho. And I had decided long before then that I was unhappy in the ranks of Magnus Maximus. I chose to be Stilicho's man, and my soldiers all chose to follow me.
Since that day, I have not looked backward. Offered the chance to leave and wait for Stilicho elsewhere, far from Magnus, I chose to remain with him. Three months later we were in Asia Minor, and for the next nine months we went soldiering wherever Stilicho was needed. Then, three months ago, Theodosius promoted him to Commander of the Imperial Household Troops, and we have been in Constantinople ever since. I suspect we will not stay much longer. Stilicho lives on horseback and detests the confinement of a city, and besides, there are too many battles to be fought throughout the Empire.
My rank is now that of prefect. I am a cavalryman, and a cavalry man by conviction. But that is another story, and I am presently composing another letter
—
this one is already too long
—
in which I will tell you of the developments in Stilicho's mind, and in my own.
Farewell, Father.
My love to Aunt Luceiia, and to the tribe of small Varri who, I am sure, run all of your lives. I shall send this in care of Pontius Aulus Plautus, Publius Varrus's friend in Colchester, by military courier. He will see that it reaches you from there.
Your dutiful son, Picus
I read that first letter from Picus four times without pause, from start to finish, when Cay eventually passed it on to me. I had been awaiting it impatiently for a long time, schooling myself to be calm. Cay had received no fewer than fourteen letters in all, none of them short and none of them showing, externally, any sign of order, process or continuity. Picus stood revealed, by the end of all of them, as a highly conscientious and able correspondent, but an unthinking one in that he seldom gave any indication of the dates on which he was writing. In consequence, his father had to read all of his letters in random order as they came to hand, and only after that could he begin to place them in some kind of temporal progression.