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say no. How do we either of us explain to Senpat what went wrong?"
The tribune found himself promising to keep the friendship going. To his
surprise, he also found
himself meaning it. Not being an outgoing sort, he had too few friendships to
throw any casually away. And whatever he wished was there with Nevrat, they
did genuinely like and care for each other.
"Good," she said crisply. "Then we need not break our next meeting-day three
days from now, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"I'll see you then. Truly, I will be glad to. Always believe that." Nevrat
smiled a little more cautiously than she would have before, Marcus judged, but
not much and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind her.
Her footsteps faded. Scaurus put the wine away. It was probably for the best,
he told himself.
Senpat was a good man as well as a close friend. He had no business trying to
put cuckold's horns on him. Down deep, he knew that perfectly well.
He kicked the side of the cheap pine chest as hard as he could. It split. Pain
shot up from his toe. He heard the jug of wine break. Swearing at fate, his
damaged foot, and the wine, he used a rag to mop up the mess. By luck, the jar
was almost empty, so only one tunic was ruined.
He gave a sour laugh as he blew out the lamps and crawled into bed. He should
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have known better than to think he was having a good day. Since Helvis left,
there were no good days for him.
He was still limping as he climbed the stairs to his office two days later.
His right big toe was twice its proper size and had turned purple and yellow.
The day before, one of the pen-pushers had asked what happened.
"I gave the wardrobe in my room a kick." He'd shrugged, leaving the bureaucrat
to assume it was an accident. Sometimes literal truth made the best lie.
Seeing him abstracted, a middling-important scribe tried to sneak some fancy
bookkeeping past him. He spotted it, picked up the offending ledger, and
dropped it with a crash on the luckless seal-
stamper's desk.
"You piker," he said contemptuously to the appalled bureaucrat. "Last winter,
Pikridios Goudeles used that same trick to get himself an emerald ring with a
stone big enough to choke on, and here you are, trying to steal a miserable
two and a half goldpieces. You ought to be ashamed."
"What what will you do with me, illustrious sir?" the pen pusher quavered.
"For two and a half pieces of gold? If you need it so badly, keep it. But the
next time I find even a copper out of place in your books, you'll see how you
like the prison under the government offices on Middle Street. That goes for
all of you, too," Marcus added for the benefit of the rest of the bureaucrats,
who had been listening and watching intently without seeming to.
"Thank you, oh, thank you, merciful and gracious sir," the would-be embezzler
said over and over.
Marcus nodded curtly and started back to his own desk.
He remembered something as he passed Iatzoulinos. "Have you arranged to send
the Romans at
Garsavra their pay?" he asked.
"I would, ah, have to check my records to be certain of that," Iatzoulinos
answered warily. No, Scaurus translated without effort.
He sighed. "Iatzoulinos, I've been patient with you. If you make Gaius
Philippus angry, I don't think he will be. I know this man; you don't. Take it
as a warning from one who means you well."
"I shall, of course, attend to it at once," Iatzoulinos said.
"See that you do." The tribune folded his arms and waited. When Iatzoulinos
realized he was not going to leave, the pen-pusher set aside the project he
had been working on and picked up the ledger that dealt with military
expenditures in the westlands. He inked a pen and, with poor grace, began
drafting a payment authorization. Satisfied for the moment, Marcus moved on.
He jumped as a hailstone rattled off the window. His sore foot made him regret
it. Winter would be here in earnest soon, he thought; the storm that blew in
yesterday had already covered the lawns of the palace complex with a snowy
blanket. The tribune hoped the weather would stay bad awhile.
Despite his promises to Nevrat, he was not ready to face her and Senpat
together quite so soon as
tomorrow. Maybe the snow would force them to put things off.
His office and his room were both pleasantly warm. He was glad the bureaucrats
heated their wing of the Grand Courtrooms so lavishly. Then he thought of his
friends on the steppe and was even gladder.
XIV
THE
WIND HOWLED AND MOANED LIKE A DEEP-VOICED HOUND
gone mad, driving snow into Batbaian's face and frosting Viridovix' ruddy
mustaches. A thick, short beard hid his cheeks and chin; he had not shaved in
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Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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