I

No one knows better than I just how big our empire is.

My bones ache from its immensity.

I, Draco, am frontiersman and bureaucrat, inspector and scribe. Men fear me for what I represent, the long reach of Rome. I have the ear of emperors. I make and break careers. I wear this power like armor because it's the only protection I have when making my unloved appearances and blunt reports. I carry no weapon but authority.

The cost of this power is exhaustion. When I was young, traveling Rome's borders to recommend a strengthened garrison here, a tax office there, my job seemed glamorous. It showed me the world. But I've walked, ridden, barged, and sailed for twenty thousand miles, and now I am old and weary, sent finally to this farthest place, my joints sore from its chill.

I have been ordered to northern Britannia to answer a mystery. A report on revolt and invasion, yes, but that is not all of it. I read again the dispatch ordering my mission, sensing the bafflement behind it. A senator's daughter, lost to the wilderness. Valeria, her name is, beautiful by all accounts, willful, adventuresome, discontented, the spark that ignited blood and fire.

Why?

The northern skies outside my window in the grim legionary fortress of Eburacum are gray and blank, offering nothing. I snap at my slave to add more charcoal to the brazier. How I miss the sun!

The tone of the plea I've received from the patrician Valens has more of the petulance and self-pity of the endangered politician than it does the heartbreak and guilt of the bereaved father. He is one of the two thousand senators who burden today's Rome, clinging to an office that provides more opportunities for greed than power. Still, a senator cannot be ignored. I read again.

I wish for a public report on the recent barbarian invasion and a confidential addendum on the disappearance of my daughter. Rumors of her choice have strained relations with my Flavian in-laws and interrupted the financial partnership necessary to sustain my office. It is important that Valeria's reputation be restored so that her family can make claim to rightful estate. I trust you understand the delicacy of your mission and the need for discretion.

Retirement should have come long ago, but I am a useful kind of man, loyal not to a ruler so much as the idea of Rule. Loyal to stability. Longevity. That means I persist through each change of emperor, each switch of state religion, each reorganization of the provinces. I'm also kept as far away as possible, out on the borders. An idealist can be usefully employed but never completely trusted.

I am here to interrogate survivors, which means I try to find some truth in the web of lies, self-deception, and wishful thinking that makes up human memory. Many of the best witnesses are dead, and the rest are divided and confused by what happened. They carry in their mood the stink of Hadrian's Wall, the smell of burned timbers, unburied flesh, and abandoned food pots that churn with squirming maggots. The flies come by day and the wild dogs by night, driven off by the desultory crew of sullen slaves, crippled soldiers, and pressed Briton laborers working to repair the damage. It is the stink of victory that in truth is a kind of defeat, of stability replaced by uncertainty.

How soon before the barbarians come back again, perhaps for good?

That too, the emperor and Senate want to know.

I have made a list of informants to interview. The handmaiden. The cook. The villa owner. The captured druid. But I start with a soldier, direct and blunt.

The centurion on the field litter before me is named Longinus: a good record, his foot crushed by a battle-ax in the desperate fighting, his eyes dark with sleepless pain and the knowledge he will never walk again. Still, he has glory I can only envy. I question him.

"Do you know who I am?"

"An imperial inspector."

"You understand my purpose?"

"To do the bidding of emperor and Senate."

"Yes. And yours?"

"I'm a man of duty. It's all I've ever been."

"So you will answer any question?"

"When there's an answer I can give." Crisp, unhesitating, to the point. A Roman.

Copyright © 2004 by William Dietrich.