"The preservation of the republic no less than governing it-what a thankless task it is!" Cicero
Rain, pattering into the mud.
A road.
Autumn.
Two riders, walking their horses towards each other. One is hooded, with the tattered remnants of a cloak wrapped around his shivering body. The other is not, riding straight backed on her white stallion, letting all the world see her dark face and lank, soaking hair.
Both have swords amongst their saddlebags.
The wind blows once more, slashing like a Forsworn's sword through cloak and scarf alike. The woman glances over her shoulder, perhaps knowing that many actual Forsworn were following her. But it is a brief glance; she tries not to be a coward, and tries hard.
The other rider draws his sword, salutes with a flourish. He tries to say something, but it is lost in the howling gale.
They both spur their horses to a trot, and the exhausted animals only obey reluctantly. Soon, they are right alongside each other, a little clump of life in the desolation.
"Ma'm," the man says, bowing. "It is an honour."
"You," the woman says, "are late."
The man is too tired to argue long. "There was a problem. A brigade of the Imperial Light Horse, almost stopped us altogether. I had to take a circuitous route." He sneezes, scrabbles for a filthy handkerchief. "But still, I am here."
The woman's face relaxes. "It is good to see that you are well, Sir Leon," she says.
"Likewise, Lady Nasuada." Sir Leon Dauthay found his handkerchief, and sneezed explosively. "You are looking, if I may say so, especially beautiful today."
She almost giggled. "Thank you. You have a message?"
"Your hair curls like strands of midnight… I have a message, yes. Their bastard Black Hand constantly watches for us, so we often have to take it by horse, lest we are taken by force." Not his best pun. He whipped out a scroll. Nasauda took it.
"Why do you ride alone?" Sir Leon asked, as she unfurled the scroll.
Her first response was drowned out by the wind, so she had to shout. "For much the same reason as you, Captain. If I was to ride with a full escort, standard flapping erect in the noble breeze, we would be immediately noticed and ridden down by Red Cavalry. But a single rider, however, may be more discreet." She read through the message, struggling to keep it from blowing away. "You're cold. Falneriv?"
"Thank you, Ma'm, thank you. Your generosity knows no bounds!" Sir Leon accepted the flask and drank eagerly. "It has been a very trying few months," he said, wiping his mouth with a dirty glove. "Constantly riding, constantly fighting."
"Yes. Well, Eragon has a stockpile, and he is very kind…" Nasuada finished reading the letter. "Now that is perverse!"
"Perverse?"
"Yes. Gydrynne demands a magical conference. It makes me wonder exactly why she ordered you to ride out in the first place. Scheduling, I suppose. She wants it in sundown, two days time."
Sir Leon stared exasperatedly at the sea of mud. "Then my ride was… pointless!"
"Of course not, you got some Falneriv, and I have a new letter. Come, we've got a camp fire a few miles that way. Let us go." She rode off, but Sir Leon was already asleep in the saddle. His horse, however, followed Nasuada's instinctively. Sir Leon was soon carried into a tent, and Nasuada spent the rest of the day watching the remains of the Varden march into camp. There were precious few of them, and the worst thing was that her usual advisors were gone. Eragon was constantly in flight, seeking out the enemy with his reserves of magic dwindling all the while. Jormundr, bravest of the brave, had fallen to a Captain's mace in the midst of his Foot Guards. Angela was seeing to the wounded, Elva was bound in a tent tearing at herself, Orrin was with the Surdan Horse, Arya at the front, and as for the non humans… Getting them to support a victorious army was hard enough. She shuddered at the prospect of making the Dwarves return, having seen so many of their clansmen fall, and the Urgals! There had been eighteen arrests of "unruly" rams already, of which sixteen were for their assaulting Varden officers. And there were five thousand of the damn things. With Garzhvog dead, who was going to keep them in line?
She went to her tent, and fell into it. Only Farica knew for certain what went on in there; but the sentries could have sworn that they heard the sound of weeping.
Two nights later, Flaccus also fell into his quarters, in his case what had once been an inn called Crown's Mercy. For all the efforts of the army's food supply to be distributed to the people, he could still only get a relatively good supper-meaning bread that was not filled with sawdust, and meat that was only partly gristle-at the officer's mess, which was where he cravenly took his meals rather than paying any especial attention to the populace of Aroughs.
"By Hercules," he said. "By Hercules!"
No one replied, which reminded that Tertius was dead. No remarks, no wit, no advice flitted from the little desk in the corner. No scratch of stylus on tablet either, which had made their struggling attempts to administrate an entire city full of the starving, the sick, and perhaps most demanding of all, soldiers, when the Argard keep-the house of the Mayor, containing all the records-had been destroyed, and the mayor killed. Flaccus was now beginning to appreciate exactly why so many provincial governors treated their office as a method of stealing as much of the local artworks, treasure and womenfolk as possible. They would never accept the post otherwise.
Out of force of habit, he started pacing up and down the bare boards of his little room, and thought aloud anyway. "The Varden," he said, "are in crisis."
No words of wisdom as to the nature of the Varden from Rufus. No solid advice from Mactator. No query from Pulcher, who was struggling at present with a mountain of petitions from the city's leper colony.
"The crisis, I feel, is complete. The conference was opened by their wretched elven spellweavers, drawn together at great effort, and when they could have been doing so much else, confirming to each other that the Empire would not be able to see through their connection, and inquiring, in the most formal and flowery terms, after their own health! Lady Nasuada then opened the meeting, at long last, by condemning our conduct of the Aroughs campaign-my conduct of the Aroughs campaign!"
She had attacked the Romans constantly, almost as if they had failed in their task. She had accused them of allowing a dragon egg to slip through their fingers once more by overt caution. Arya, recalled from her duties to represent the Elven View, had had the nerve to add that he was too busy protecting the lives of his own precious Legionaries to consider the strategic necessity of seizing Aroughs, whilst her own folk sat in their forests and lazily groped for their swords. Furthermore, his own preparations for the siege had been criticised, that he had placed too little emphasis on actually taking the city, and too much on sitting outside and defending against dragon attack.
"We saw many things in Mactator's company," she had said scornfully. "We saw stakes, barrels of foodstuffs, and timber in plenty, and hammers, chisels, spades, and all the gear one needs to sit in camp were in abundance; but what was lacking was the gear of assault, the gear that wins dragon eggs, and wins wars."
So Flaccus, as a punishment for trying to conserve casualties, was forced to apologize-the humiliation! So many holes had been torn through the ranks now, so many Centurions and Optios killed, and so many men lost! One thousand, eight hundred and fourty men had died holding the Empire back from Aroughs, of which six hundred had been Roman. Finding good men to replace those officers was to be extremely difficult, and he was never going to replenish the ranks of the XXIII Adiutrix. It never occurred to him that, perhaps, he could have attempted an assault upon a weakened, hungry, outnumbered, out trained, and out armed enemy, and then taunted the armies of the Empire from behind stone walls; that was too far from Caesar's way to merit consideration.
He had, of course, apologized with all the grace that could be expected from a man of his Dignitas. "If I may humbly interject the opinion of a common human soldier, My Lords and Ladies-forgive my ignorant address-then it seems to me that we have achieved, in our campaign, total victory. The armies of the Empire have withdrawn, a city is under our protection, and their dragon lies crippled. It also appears to my humble, ignorant perspective, that, whilst it was a most grievous mistake of our's not to seize a dragon egg that we did not even know to exist, there is no reason why it should hatch now when it has stubbornly refused to hatch for the past hundred years, although I must plea the greatest of ignorance on draconic matters. In addition, if I may be so bold as to make a small query, it is your army that has been crushed by the Empire, so if you will excuse my common, ignorant, soldierly language: What in the name of Mars went wrong?"
The answer, slowly and begrudgingly, emerged, and as it emerged, Flaccus' heart sank further.
The expertise of the Varden military leadership was beyond doubt. They had had many advantages: a professional army, full of veterans of decades of skirmishes, whereas the enemy was largely a conscripted force; at least a parity in magic, owing to the presence of a handful of elves; shorter supply lines, in the friendly territory of Surda, whereas the Empire were being forced to cart their own through a barren, hostile, burning wilderness for hundreds of miles; skilled engineers in the form of the Dwarves, who constructed considerable fortifications; and a gigantic, mythical, fire breathing creature capable of flying over any obstacle. Due to their great industry and inventiveness, the Varden managed to squander every last drop of their good fortune.
"So," Flaccus had said as the last babbling mouth shut, "let me, if you will forgive the expression, get this straight. You were faced with an enemy that outnumbered you, and had considerable field fortifications. You decided to abandon these, and march out to attack. But not march, for that would have required a measure of skill in your commanders which was completely lacking. No, you elected to advance at a run, for a distance which, according to my varying sources, ranges from several hundred yards to over a mile. And run, mark you, in full armour, and cheering loudly enough to wake the enemy! You elected to advance your outnumbered, exhausted infantrymen into a wide open field of fire-I use the term literally as well as figuratively-for an enemy who had had several days to precisely calculate ranges for his massed batteries of artillery, heavily defended by magic users, and was determined to use them. After receiving your fire, you elected to order your soldiers to continue their advance, directly into the front of well formed pike blocks, with crossbowmen shooting all the while; and, once engaged, attempted to order your soldiers to continually press the attack for hours on end, when the enemy was capable of using his superior numbers to bring up fresh troops as his own began to tire."
He waited for Blohdgarm to transmit his words, and then said quite clearly: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I had studied military strategy and tactics with great care. This is, without a doubt, the most stupid battle plan I have ever encountered. It is a testament to the fine courage, endurance and fighting qualities of the Alagaesian soldier that they even reached the lines with enough strength to raise their swords, and that the majority of those living have not yet deserted in disgust. If I did not know better, I would suggest that it was the intention of your high command to lose the battle, and spend the rest of their days in the lap of luxury in an Imperial Lord's Castle; such as the reward for traitors, I believe. Had not the Dwarves arrived, forcing the Imperial forces to halt their counter attack, these traitors would be in Uru'baen about now. Certainly, the losses of around twelve thousand casualties, out of a force of twenty thousand men at the battlefield, would make these hypothetical traitors veritable heroes of the Empire."
For a brief moment there was a horrified silence on both ends. Gydrynne both sat her stool, watching Blohdgarm intently for the next message. Roran, representing the Carvahall contingent, cracked his knuckles, obviously thinking hard.
And, after the calm, the storm broke.
The messages were almost hilariously predictable, had not the situation been so serious. Three commanders challenged him to duels, all of which he declined. Almost all of them asked, word for word, "How dare you question our courage? The courage of Eragon Shadeslayer!" (Strangely, Shadeslayer was not among these. He knew that he had fought magnificently, but nothing like enough to compensate for the thirty five thousand men by which the Varden had been outnumbered.) The actual military self justification was even moreso. That, had they attacked with more vigour, they could have overcome the Empire; obviously, the spies of the enemy were at work! Nasuada accused the Surdan cavalry of refusing to charge. Orrin accused her of asking too much of them, that ordering horsemen to charge pikemen twelve times was too much; no, that was the job of the Varden footmen, who failed in every respect! Why, if they had locked them in place, so as he could flank them, although they could easily have screened their flanks with their pikemen whilst simultaneously crushing the Varden…
And, finally, Nasuada made the inevitable remark. Flaccus could imagine her leaning forward in her chair, shuffling her notes for the final push. "If we had had more troops," she said, "we would have won."
"Ma'm, it was your orders that sent them away. And they would, in all likelihood, have been killed anyway."
"Fetch them, then!"
The conference ended shortly afterwards, leaving Flaccus with the Herculean labour of getting the Legion ready to march once more. Flaccus, Gydrynne and Roran had decided after a brief conference of their own to leave one thousand lightly wounded men, along with most of Carvahall, garrisoning Aroughs, and to bring the rest of them. Any Carvahall man who volunteered would be permitted; every one of the men stepped forward immediately, when Roran asked them. This, if one included an estimated 50 casualties suffered by the Surdan cavalry, meant over 10,000 fighting men, not counting the inevitable camp followers, would have to be readied for war at short notice. News of the defeat at the Burning Plains would be announced officially, so as to prevent rumours spreading of it being any more significant. The presence of the new Dwarven army would be focussed on in particular.
"That," Flaccus thought aloud, "is what happens when you leave the decisions of command to a young woman, a boy with a performing animal, a female nymph, a monarch, and a group of freedom fighters, none of whom have ever commanded large formations of human soldiers into open battle before. A disaster!"
With nothing else he could stomach doing, he collapsed into bed: a flea ridden affair, and a shadow of its former four poster glory. His mind was still awhirl with thoughts: half formed ideas, frustration, rage. None of these should be conducive to a sound sleep; but that, ultimately, was what he got. He slept.
And dreamed…
That night, Flaccus dreamed of his wife.
It was their villa on the Bay of Naples. He knew this with the strange vividness of dreams, although it seemed far, far brighter and more open than usual. Sunlight gushed through every wide open shutter, gleaming off every white stone wall, with every inch of marble floor polished to perfection. Even the little strings of flowers, dangling down from their little frames, seemed to shine.
She stood there; tall, gawky, dark haired, modestly dressed, with one of her smiles. Her rare smiles. Rare, because he rarely made her smile. He knew this, knew it well. Even his dream self knew that, which was perhaps why he started sobbing immediately.
"I felt a little ill and called doctor Symmachus.
Well, you came, Symmachus, but you brought one hundred medical students with you.
One hundred ice-cold hands poked and jabbed me.
I didn't have a fever, Symmachus, when I called you –but now I do."
One of Martial's epigrams. Her favorites. He knew that, at least.
"Yes," he found himself saying, and then his daughters were there. The three of them: Cassia, Cassilla, Cassia Minor.
"I felt a little ill and called doctor Symmachus.
Well, you came, Symmachus, but you brought one hundred medical students with you.
One hundred ice-cold hands poked and jabbed me.
I didn't have a fever, Symmachus, when I called you –but now I do."
"Yes," his dream self said, "yes."
Someone coughed.
Flaccus turned, to find a man standing directly behind him. A short man, with spectacles, untidy dark hair, and an extraordinary tan. "I know it isn't polite to enter someone's, ah, house u-unnaccounced," the man said, "but y-you see, ah, well, it isn't really your house, is it?"
Flaccus didn't know quite what to say. His mind, now with the sluggishness of dull reality, scoured his memories. No, he still couldn't place the man. "I'm sorry?" he asked, not quite knowing what was happening.
"This is a dream," the man said.
"I know this," Flaccus replied "for it is mine. I insist that you leave it."
"N-no, no! You misunderstand," the man said, laughing nervously. He suddenly noticed the Cassias looking on curiously, and bowed to them. "Enchanted. Ah… shall we speak elsewhere?"
Flaccus thought for a moment, and came to the conclusion that, as he knew no obvious way of ejecting strange, stuttering men from his dreams, he might as well accept his offer. He shrugged apologetically at his family, hoped they weren't dreaming the same dream, and led the man to his study.
As they seated themselves, Flaccus ensuring he had the larger chair and the great expanse of desk to his advantage, the weather was already beginning to change. The sunlight was less blazing, and, out of the window, Flaccus could almost smell the storm brewing in the Neapolitan heat. Nothing unusual about that, of course-Naples had sporadic summer storms, which made interesting watching- but a bad omen in a dream.
"So," Flaccus began, "could you kindly absent yourself from my dream? It is just that I have a great deal of work to be getting on with, and…"
"Ah-sorry! I forgot to introduce myself, haha." The man, eyes sparking, offered his hand across the desk. "Galbatorix. King of the Empire, Rider of Shruikan, and so on."
Flaccus leaned forward in his chair, watching the man intently. "Interesting," he said. "Publius Cassius Flaccus, Legate of the XXIII Adiutrix, and Senator of Rome." He accepted the handshake. "My question still stands."
"Nyes, nyes, it does. Right." Galbatorix reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small, leather bound book. He leafed through it, sitting bolt upright. "I got the right one," he said after a moment. "Good. Well, I'm here in your dreams. Yes. Man of your dreams, ha-ha, well, I'm here, let's not beat about the bush, to get the measure of my enemy. To make a proposition."
Flaccus raised an eyebrow. "Do you do this to all your enemies?" he asked.
"No, no, only those with weak magical defences." Galbatorix laughed again. "You need to practice."
By Hercules! "So," Flaccus said, "you intend to kill me."
"Kill you! No, no, that requires far more strength than my mind could muster undetected with e-elves close by. Just have a talk. See?" Suddenly, Galbatorix stood and gripped Flaccus by the throat. His hand passed straight through. "Just a dream image. We can talk, see, listen if our minds are open enough, but not attack each other. I am, whatever the V-Varden p-p-propagandists say, a gentleman!"
"Indeed. What do you wish to discuss?"
"A proposition, and a simple one at that. Mmm. Do you wish, Legate, to join the Empire?"
"Explain, sir, exactly why I should." Flaccus instinctively snapped his fingers, remembered Tertius was dead, and with a start found him at his elbow, tablet at the ready.
"He cannot talk, f-f-for the dead have no voice. But he can, ah, write, nyes." Galbatorix flicked a few more pages through his book. "Excuse me… ah. Legate, the reasons why you should join me are simple. The Varden are on the edge of defeat. Their army is crushed, whereas mine is not. The d-dwarves have come, but they will soon go once they realise just how precarious the situation is, and how many will have to die in the name of the Varden. And if you were to somehow muster more armies-difficult in the middle of winter, or so my General Staff tells me-I still have my dragon eggs."
The stylus scratched vigorously, and the King smiled. It was not a nervous smile now. Quite the reverse; the King smiled, for he knew he was, at long last, soon to have his victory. "But I can be merciful to the defeated. You are from a foreign land. You understand little of this war, and were d-doubtless swept up on the wrong side by an accident of fate. If you had emerged in Uru'baen, now, you would be with my Red Tunics. At least, I think so."
"That depends on the reception committee," Flaccus said.
"Oh, yes! I gather you were received by my Urgals. All I can say for that is-sorry. Not my doing that you ended up here! Not theirs either, ha-ha! But you did, and the rest is history. Still, it can be changed. From, ah, a 'doomed last stand' to your Legion marching intact, well fed and rested, under the banner of the Empire, as its honoured elite!"
"But," Flaccus said, "with no Aquila."
"No what? No eagle standard? I see. I'll see what I can do." These last two sentences were made far too quickly for Flaccus' liking. And what did the King know about Roman standards? "But, you see, your men will be far better off under me than under a defeated Varden. You will have your slaves, and can purchase more. Legions of them, if you so please! You will be well fed, your exploits honored, and once we have victory, will be able to grow old and fat under the peace and prosperity of the Empire!"
"I see. But, to clarify; with a mass conscription of three hundred thousand people, out of a population of a few millions, how do you intend to feed the rest?" Out of the teeming masses of the Roman Empire, after all, only around three hundred and fifty thousand men could be mustered. "Who will work the harvest?"
"Oh, peasants. They usually manage." The King shrugged. "D-do you accept the offer?"
"It is interesting," Flaccus said. "Most interesting." He made to rise. "May I have some time alone? I wish to consider it." And he did.
"Of course! This is a dream, and I find that they have m-m-malleable concepts of time, nyes. Very malleable, mmm." Galbatorix smiled, spread his arms wide. "Take your time."
So Flaccus rose, called for a slave to get their guest some wine (it was, after all, his villa), and considered.
His villa was not, he found as he strolled through it, entirely as he had left it in Naples. As the thunder rolled outside, he discovered that it incorporated several rooms from the house in Rome. The library was still there, with the busts of Zeno and Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus glaring at him as he deliberated. The garden was from the villa alright, albeit with several Alagaesian flowers, the names of which he had never learned. Looking up, he thought he glimpsed the Cassias watching him-and then, immediately, they were gone.
Strangest of all, perhaps, was the presence of the family death masks. Not in the cellar where they were usually kept, well maintained in their wooden cabinets, but hanging on a wall right in front of him. He was walking back to the library, with an intense desire to look up some moral tales, when he almost crashed into a wall. The wax masks, beautifully lifelike, stared down. He could recite their names off by heart: Publius Cassius Orator, Publius Cassius Dalmaticus with his red hair… but, right in the middle, was Publius Cassius Felix, the Consul. The old, wrinkled face seemed to emanate a sense of experience and assurance as its chin jutted, eyes always staring out into the next horizon. The eyes that had seen Hannibal and the bloody fields of Cannae, witnessed the waters run red at Trasimene. The mouth, in a stern line, that had helped defend the Shield of Rome himself, the dictator Cunctator, from accusations of cowardice. Would such a man betray his allies?
And the honest answer came: in the interests of Rome, or his dignitas, yes. He turned, and saw the Cassias flit away. "Get to your lessons! The Grammaticus is waiting," he said, but no one answered him.
Afterwards, he could never remember exactly what he sought in the library. But for a time, he sat there, scouring the scrolls like a madman. Lightning flashed almost constantly, illuminating the room more than any candle. Was Jupiter watching him? He wondered. Perhaps.
A gust of wind swept through, causing the door to crash open. Flaccus turned with a start, saw a silouette-but it his wife. Aurelia.
"Wyrda," she said.
They embraced once.
And Flaccus returned to his study.
Galbatorix still sat there, bolt upright, reading his little book. "Is that interesting?" Flaccus asked, genuinely curious. "I could have something fetched from the library…" he looked around vaguely; the role of courier, especially in his own villa, did not come easily to him.
"Interesting? No! Just my memories, a diary, engagements…" Galbatorix stuttered, stopped, put it down quickly. "Nothing of interest to you," he finished, removing a set of wooden reading glasses. "Nothing."
"Possibly." Flaccus resumed his seat. "But you are a king, an Emperor! Your thoughts cannot be very dull, surely."
"They are to us. But they get so intertwined with His sometimes that I have to write them down before f-f-forgetting!"
"His?"
"The Dragon's. Shruikan's. It's very difficult to explain, but, ah, well. My offer." The King pocketed the book, but still drummed his fingers on the spine. "Do you accept?"
Flaccus looked intently into the King's eyes. He flicked an imaginary speck of dust off his toga, gripped his cane, and, rising to his feet, began to walk around the desk to where Galbatorix's side. His feet echoing on the stone floor, he started pacing, making the King turn awkwardly in his chair to see him.
"It is, I will admit, an interesting offer. It could have been of great advantage to us, I believe. Health, security, riches-all things that a Great Power can offer, and all things which, when the only alternative is filth, death and poverty, can be accepted. Should be accepted! Only a lunatic will refuse them! For what is a lunatic, but a man who rejects the riches of the world, rejects its beauty and wonders, instead to cling to his own petty beliefs and ideals?"
"But what is required, sir, to qualify as a Great Power? It is simple-to have certainty of success against your foes! To be unrivalled in your greatness! To have its name spoken across all the world as a byword for might and mercy, ingenuity and economy, for power and piety and philosophy. Which brings me, of course, to the reason that I reject this offer."
The cane crashed onto the floor, echoing loudly. Flaccus turned, eyes boring into Galbatorix's. "When, Oh Great King," he said, "will this Empire cease to abuse our patience?"
It was not, he would admit, a speech made up on the spot; for every child of any learning would be taught, by their Grammaticus, their teacher of oratory, the works of Cicero, and it was not that difficult to adapt it. But the vehemence with which it was spoken shocked even Flaccus. Every last bitter thread of anger he had felt over the past months-of frustration at the Varden's stupidity, sorrow at the deaths of his men, and of sheer blind rage at the ludicrous situation the Gods had placed them in-was poured into the speech, into every hissing syllable, all directed at this one quietly spoken man who ordered the deaths of thousands without a blink of his eye.
"For how long must we continue to put up with the madness of its ruler? When is there to be an end of its audacity, swaggering about as it does now under the eyes of the world, of the Gods, in its pretense as a great power? Does not the muster of the Elves and Dwarves-does not the resurrection of dragons-does not the rebellion amongst its people, and the famine soon to ensue through lack of men- does not the contempt and disdain of all good men and races have any effect upon it? Do you not feel that your plans are detected? Do you not see that your armies are to be crushed and rendered powerless by the might of the world at arms? What is there that you have mustered-what rabble of feeble foot-what mob of horse-what feeble sand castle-what circus of petty dragons and coven of conjurers, do you consider us unable to defeat?"
"What a place this is, and what morals there are! The Elves can crush them-the Varden and Dwarves can crush them- and yet this still endures. Endures! Yes, it spreads across the land, it takes a part in the affairs of the world, and all the while it has been marking down which peoples it wishes to gorge upon. And for too long have its opponents, gallant men that they are, floundered against it, holding it in check with the merest shadow of their power."
"What? The Varden are defeated, you say? Did not that most illustrious man, Fabius Maximus Cunctator, as Dictator of Rome, put to flight the great army of Hannibal, though having lost a hundred thousand men in the process? Was it not the call of Cato Censorius, the Consul, that Carthage, that greatest of cities, must be destroyed in every one of his speeches-and was it not razed to the ground by Africanus himself? And shall the Varden, and the Elves and Dwarves, with all their might, tolerate a foe which cares not for the welfare of its citizens, but only the pointless conquests of its leaders? There is-there is such steel in the Roman soldier that, as he helps the Varden, none can stand before it. The Varden may once have failed in their duties. But no longer."
"Let us go over the events, then, of the past year. You mustered a horde of Urgals, unrivalled, so you believed, in strength-and it was slaughtered to the last beast, the remainder choosing to serve the Varden, who were obviously unmatched in power. Then you muster your great armies, only to have them humiliated, your dragon rider-I'll be precise-your dear Murtagh unmounted, and Aroughs, a veritable jewel of a merchant city, taken, with negligible losses to the besiegers. Your armies, it is true, defeated a number of the Varden-only for even greater armies to step into place, from the Elves, from the Dwarves, from the victorious hosts of the Varden, and the Romans! Why your silence? Do you deny this? Do you deny, King, that your armies are to be shattered, your towns put to the sword, your castles cast down?"
"Oh, ye immortal gods, where in the world are we? Where are we that can even tolerate, amongst the dignified peoples, and all their might and strength, men who wish to mediate their ends, and the death of their citizens-all by the orders of a King and his dragon, lost in their own arrogance. You decided where you want each crown to be brought to your throne, and laid at your feet. You chose which cities are to be burnt, even as your armies make ready for their defeat. You even sent armies, feeble armies, to stop us. So I say to you, Oh Great King, why do you not leave, to fulfil your orders? At long last, you may leave my mind, and return to your bed, filled as it doubtless is with catamites of the worst sort. The gates are open! Be on your way! Even the feeble, fumbling armies await their General. Take all your followers. Put a thousand miles between us, for all I care. Ready your fleet for your inevitable voyage into exile-even you cannot be so arrogant as to not possess such a bolt hole against your fall. And you know that, when you fall, there will not be a person in the world who will not hate you."
"That's a no, then," the King said.
"Let the King, then, depart! Go forth then, Oh Great King, to your iniquitous and wicked war, and bring salvation to the world, disaster and ruin on yourself, and destruction on those who have joined you. Jupiter will protect us, and unleash his punishment eternal!
As Galbatorix stood, lightning flashed. A sure sign of Jupiter-but he remained standing, shook hands with Flaccus one last time, and departed.
Flaccus slept for some hours, awoke thoroughly refreshed, and told Pulcher of what had happened.
"We all get some queer dreams, you know. But why did you decline it?" Pulcher asked.
Flaccus' explanation included many things. He could never order the men to withdraw, he explained, without some magic user finding out and unleashing the rest of the Varden on them, or even having Shadeslayer and the Surdan cavalry harry his ranks as he withdrew, even if he was to somehow steal enough supplies without being noticed. He had no wish to serve in an army where any slightly untrustworthy looking individual could be killed on sight-and a Roman, as a foreigner from another continent, would doubtless look extremely untrustworthy. Finally, as a famine would doubtless ensue if the King conscripted hundreds of thousands of people from an Empire which, as it had few cities, was presumably possessed of a low population, he doubted that they would be very much better fed in the army of the Empire than in the army of the Varden.
He did not include any speech in his explanation; indeed, there was very little highfalutin rhetoric at all.
((Author's note begins: If you are looking down here for a glossary, this chapter has none. Please, return to where you left off.
Anyway, the moment I read that speech-The First Oration Against Catiline-I knew it was going in somehow. It has been somewhat shortened, and somewhat adapted from the original. And it has probably crossed the line between "heroic speech" and what the people at TV Tropes call "Narm". But still, it's in there. And, as for it in context… Flaccus can get away with certain amounts of hypocrisy-Trajan will conquer more in his reign than Galbatorix ever will- because Galbatorix knows very little about Rome. And it is debatable whether he actually means the speech seriously, or if he just wants to spook the King.
What Cicero would think of being used in someone's fanfic is debatable. On the one hand, he was probably vain enough to feel pretty cheerful that he is still being appreciated thousands of years on. On the other, more likely option, is that he would be pretty irritated at having his precious work being spouted out in some adolescent's bizarre internet ramblings. Well, I can't please everyone. Please review!
The next few chapters are going to be gradually shifting the viewpoint. The next will feature a sort of history book retelling of exactly what the Elves are getting up to whilst all hell breaks loose on the Southern front. The one after will introduce a new viewpoint, where people speaking The Queen's Latin will be minimised.))