MARIUS'S STORY

5

"It happened in my fortieth year, on a warm spring night in the Roman Gallic city of Massilia, when in a dirty waterfront tavern I sat scribbling away on my history of the world.

"The tavern was deliciously filthy and crowded, a hangout for sailors and wanderers, travelers like me, I fancied, loving them all in a general sort of way, though most of them were poor and I wasn't poor, and they couldn't read what I wrote when they glanced over my shoulder.

"I'd come to Massilia after a long and studious journey that had taken me through all the great cities of the Empire. To Alexandria, Pergamon, Athens I'd traveled, observing and writing about the people, and now I was making my way through the cities of Roman Gaul.

"I couldn't have been more content on this night had I been in my library at Rome. In fact, I liked the tavern better. Everywhere I went I sought out such places in which to write, setting up my candle and ink and parchment at a table close to the wall, and I did my best work early in the evening when the places were at their noisiest.

"In retrospect, it's easy to see that I lived my whole life in the midst of frenzied activity. I was used to the idea that nothing could affect me adversely.

"I'd grown up an illegitimate son in a rich Roman household -- loved, pampered, and allowed to do what I wanted. My legitimate brothers had to worry about marriage, politics, and war. By the age of twenty, I'd become the scholar and the chronicler, the one who raised his voice at drunken banquets to settle historical and military arguments.

"When I traveled I had plenty of money, and documents that opened doors everywhere. And to say life had been good to me would be an understatement. I was an extraordinarily happy individual. But the really important point here is that life had never bored me or defeated me.

"I carried within me a sense of invincibility, a sense of wonder. And this was as important to me later on as your anger and strength have been to you, as important as despair or cruelty can be in the spirits of others.

"But to continue ... If there was anything I'd missed in my rather eventful life -- and I didn't think of this too much -- it was the love and knowledge of my Keltic mother. She'd died when I was born, and all I knew of her was that she'd been a slave, daughter of the warlike Gauls who fought Julius Caesar. I was blond and blue-eyed as she was. And her people had been giants it seemed. At a very young age, I towered over my father and my brothers.

"But I had little or no curiosity about my Gallic ancestors.

I'd come to Gaul as an educated Roman, through and through, and I carried with me no awareness of my barbarian blood, but rather the common beliefs of my time -- that Caesar Augustus was a great ruler, and that in this blessed age of the Pax Romana, old superstition was being replaced by law and by reason throughout the Empire. There was no place too wretched for the Roman roads, and for the soldiers, the scholars, and the traders who followed them.

"On this night I was writing like a madman, scribbling down descriptions of the men who came and went in the tavern, children of all races it seemed, speakers of a dozen different languages.

"And for no apparent reason, I was possessed of a strange idea about life, a strange concern that amounted almost to a pleasant obsession. I remember that it came on me this night because it seemed somehow related to what happened after. But it wasn't related. I had had the idea before. That it came to me in these last free hours as a Roman citizen was no more than coincidence.

"The idea was simply that there was somebody who knew everything, somebody who had seen everything. I did not mean by this that a Supreme Being existed, but rather that there was on earth a continual intelligence, a continual awareness. And I thought of it in practical terms that excited me and soothed me simultaneously. There was an awareness somewhere of all things i had seen in my travels, an awareness of what it had been like in Massilia six centuries ago when the first Greek traders came, an awareness of what it had been like in Egypt when Cheops built the pyramids. Somebody knew what the light had been like in the late afternoon on the day that Troy fell to the Greeks, and someone or something knew what the peasants said to each other in their little farmhouse outside Athens right before the Spartans brought down the walls.

"My idea of who or what it was, was vague. But I was comforted by the notion that nothing spiritual -- and knowing was spiritual -- was lost to us. That there was this continuous knowing . . .

"And as I drank a little more wine, and thought about it, and wrote about it, I realized it wasn't so much a belief of mine as it was a prejudice. I just felt that there was a continual awareness.

"And the history that I was writing was an imitation of it.

I tried to unite all things I had seen in my history, linking my observations of lands and people with all the written observations that had come down to me from the Greeks -- from Xenophon and Herodotus, and Poseidonius -- to make one continuous awareness of the world in my lifetime. It was a pale thing, a limited thing, compared to the true awareness. Yet I felt good as I continued writing.

"But around midnight, I was getting a little tired, and when I happened to look up after a particularly long period of unbroken concentration, I realized something had changed in the tavern.

"It was unaccountably quieter. In fact, it was almost empty. And across from me, barely illuminated by the sputtering light of the candle, there sat a tall fair-haired man with his back to the room who was watching me in silence. I was startled, not so much by the way he looked -- though this was startling in itself -- but by the realization that he had been there for some time, close to me, observing me, and I hadn't noticed him.

"He was a giant of a Gaul as they all were, even taller than I was, and he had a long narrow face with an extremely strong jaw and hawklike nose, and eyes that gleamed beneath their bushy blond brows with a childlike intelligence. What I mean to say is he looked very, very clever, but very young and innocent also. And he wasn't young. The effect was perplexing.

"And it was made all the more so by the fact that his thick and coarse yellow hair wasn't clipped short in the popular Roman style, but was streaming down to his shoulders. And instead of the usual tunic and cloak which you saw everywhere in those times, he wore the old belted leather jerkin that had been the barbarian dress before Caesar.

"Right out of the woods this character looked, with his gray eyes burning through me, and I was vaguely delighted with him. I wrote down hurriedly the details of his dress, confident he couldn't read the Latin.

"But the stillness in which he sat unnerved me a little. His eyes were unnaturally wide, and his lips quivered slightly as if the mere sight of me excited him. His clean and delicate white hand, which casually rested on the table before him, seemed out of keeping with the rest of him.

"A quick glance about told me my slaves weren't in the tavern. Well, they're probably next door playing cards, I thought, or upstairs with a couple of women. They'll stop in any minute.

"I forced a little smile at my strange and silent friend, and went back to writing. But directly he started talking.

"' You are an educated man, aren't you?' he asked. He spoke the universal Latin of the Empire, but with a thick accent, pronouncing each word with a care that was almost musical.

"I told him, yes, I was fortunate enough to be educated, and I started to write again, thinking this would surely discourage him. After all, he was fine to look at, but I didn't really want to talk to him.

" `And you write both in Greek and in Latin, don't you?' he asked, glancing at the finished work that lay before me.

"I explained politely that the Greek I had written on the parchment was a quotation from another text. My text was in Latin. And again I started scribbling.

" `But you are a Keltoi, are you not?' he asked this time. It was the old Greek word for the Gauls.

"'Not really, no. I am a Roman,' I answered.

" `You look like one of us, the Keltoi,' he said. `You are tall like us, and you walk the way we do.'

"This was a strange statement. For hours I'd been sitting here, barely sipping my wine. I hadn't walked anywhere. But I explained that my mother had been Keltic, but I hadn't known her. My father was a Roman senator.

"`And what is it you write in Greek and Latin?' he asked. `What is it that arouses your passion?'

"I didn't answer right away. He was beginning to intrigue me. But I knew enough at forty to realize that most people you meet in taverns sound interesting for the first few minutes and then begin to weary you beyond endurance.

"`Your slaves say,' he announced gravely, `that you are writing a great history.'

"'Do they?' I answered, a bit stiffly. `And where are my slaves, I wonder!' Again I looked around. Nowhere in sight. Then I conceded to him that it was a history I was writing.

" `And you have been to Egypt,' he said. And his hand spread itself out flat on the table.

"I paused and took another good look at him. There was something otherworldly about him, the way that he sat, the way he used this one hand to gesture. It was the decorum primitive people often have that makes them seem repositors of immense wisdom, when in fact all they possess is immense conviction.

"`Yes,' I said a little warily. `I've been to Egypt.'

"Obviously this exhilarated him. His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed, and he made some little movement with his lips as though speaking to himself.

"'And you know the language and the writing of Egypt?' he asked earnestly, his eyebrows knitting. `You know the cities of Egypt?'

" `The language as it is spoken, yes, I do know it. But if by the writing you mean the old picture writing, no, I can't read it. I don't know anyone who can read it. I've heard that even the old Egyptian priests can't read it. Half the texts they copy they can't decipher.'

"He laughed in the strangest way. I couldn't tell whether this was exciting him or he knew something I didn't know. He appeared to take a deep breath, his nostrils dilating a little. And then his face cooled. He was actually a splendid-looking man.

" `The gods can read it,' he whispered.

"'Well, I wish they'd teach it to me,' I said pleasantly.

"`You do!' he said in an astonished gasp. He leant forward over the table. `Say this again!'

"'I was joking,' I said. 'I only meant I wished I could read the old Egyptian writing. If I could read it, then I could know true things about the people of Egypt, instead of all the nonsense written by the Greek historians. Egypt is a misunderstood land --  I stopped myself. Why was I talking to this man about Egypt?

"`In Egypt there are true gods still,' he said gravely, `gods who have been there forever. Have you been to the very bottom of Egypt?'

"This was a curious way to put it. I told him I had been up the Nile quite far, that I had seen many wonders. `But as for there being true gods,' I said, `I can scarce accept the veracity of gods with the heads of animals -- '

"He shook his head almost a little sadly.

" `The true gods require no statues of them to be erected,' he said. `They have the heads of man and they themselves appear when they choose, and they are living as the crops that come from the earth are living, as all things under the heavens are living, even the stones and the moon itself, which divides time in the great silence of its never changing cycles.'

" `Very likely,' I said under my breath, not wishing to disturb him. So it was zeal, this mixture of cleverness and youthfulness I had perceived in him. I should have known it. And something came back to me from Julius Caesar's writings about Gaul, that the Keltoi had come from Dis Pater, the god of the night. Was this strange creature a believer in these things?

" `There are old gods in Egypt,' he said softly, `and there are old gods in this land for those who know how to worship them. I do not mean in your temples round which merchants sell the animals to defile the altars, and the butchers after sell the meat that is left over. I speak of the proper worship, the proper sacrifice for the god, the one sacrifice to which he will hearken.'

" `Human sacrifice, you mean, don't you?' I said unobtrusively. Caesar had described well enough that practice among the Keltoi, and it rather curdled my blood to think of it. Of course I'd seen ghastly deaths in the arena in Rome, ghastly deaths at the places of execution, but human sacrifice to the gods, that we had not done in centuries. If ever.

"And now I realized what this remarkable man might actually be. A Druid, a member of the ancient priesthood of the Keltoi, whom Caesar had also described, a priesthood so powerful that nothing like it existed, so far as I knew, anywhere in the Empire. But it wasn't supposed to exist in Roman Gaul anymore either.

"Of course the Druids were always described as wearing long white robes. They went into the forests and collected mistletoe off the oak trees with ceremonial sickles. And this man looked more like a farmer, or a soldier. But then what Druid was going to wear his white robes into a waterfront tavem? And it wasn't lawful anymore for the Druids to go about being Druids.

" `Do you really believe in this old worship?' I asked, leaning forward. `Have you yourself been down to the bottom of Egypt?'

"If this was a real live Druid, I had made a marvelous catch, I was thinking. I could get this man to tell me things about the Keltoi that nobody knew. And what on earth did Egypt have to do with it, I wondered?

" `No,' he said. `I have not been to Egypt, though from Egypt our gods came to us. It is not my destiny to, go there. It is not my destiny to learn to read the ancient language. The tongue I speak is enough for the gods. They give ear to it.'

"'And what tongue is that?'

" `The tongue of the Keltoi, of course,' he said. `You know that without asking.'

" `And when you speak to your gods, how do you know that they hear you?'

"His eyes widened again, and his mouth lengthened in an unmistakable look of triumph.

" `My gods answer me,' he said quietly.

"Surely he was a Druid. And he appeared to take on a shimmer, suddenly. I pictured him in his white robes. There might have been an earthquake then in Massilia, and I doubt I would have noticed it.

" `Then you yourself have heard them,' I said.

"`I have laid eyes upon my gods,' he said. `And they have spoken to me both in words and in silence.'

"`And what do they say? What do they do that makes them different from our gods, I mean aside from the nature of the sacrifice?'

"His voice took on the lilting reverence of a song as he spoke. `They do as gods have always done; they divide the evil from the good. They bring down blessings upon all who worship them. They draw the faithful into harmony with all the cycles of the universe, with the cycles of the moon, as I have told you. They fructify the land, the gods do. All things that are good proceed from them.'

"Yes, I thought, the old old religion in its simplest forms, and the forms that still held a great spell for the common people of the Empire.

" `My gods sent me here,' he said. `To search for you.'

" `For me?' I asked. I was startled.

" `You will understand all these things,' he said. `Just as you will come to know the true worship of ancient Egypt. The gods will teach you.'

"`Why ever would they do that?' I asked.

" `The answer is simple,' he said. `Because you are going to become one of them.'

"I was about to answer when I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head and the pain spread out in all directions over my skull as if it were water. I knew I was going out. I saw the table rising, saw the ceiling high above me. I think I wanted to say if it is ransom you want, take me to my house, to my steward."

But I knew even then that the rules of my world had absolutely nothing to do with it.

"When I woke it was daylight and I was in a large wagon being pulled fast along an unpaved road through an immense forest. I was bound hand and foot and a loose cover was thrown over me. I could see to the left and right, through the wicker sides of the cart, and I saw the man who had talked to me, riding beside me. There were others riding with him, and all were dressed in the trousers and belted leather jerkins, and they wore iron swords and iron bracelets. Their hair was almost white in the dappled sun, and they didn't talk as they rode beside the cart together.

"This forest itself seemed made to the scale of Titans. The oaks were ancient and enormous, the interlacing of their limbs blocked out most of the light, and we moved for hours through a world of damp and dark green leaves and deep shadow.

"I do not remember towns. I do not remember villages. I remember only a crude fortress. Once inside the gates I saw two rows of thatched-roof houses, and everywhere the leatherclad barbarians. And when I was taken into one of the houses, a dark low place, and left there alone, I could hardly stand for the cramps in my legs, and I was as wary as I was furious.

"I knew now that I was in an undisturbed enclave of the ancient Keltoi, the very same fighters who had sacked the great shrine of Delphi only a few centuries ago, and Rome itself not too long after, the same warlike creatures who rode stark naked into battle against Caesar, their trumpets blasting, their cries affrighting the disciplined Roman soldiers.

"In other words, I was beyond the reach of everything I counted upon. And if all this talk about my becoming one of the gods meant I was to be slain on some blood-stained altar in an oak grove, then I had better try to get the hell out of here."

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