Yesterday's Battles, page 2
“Such as?”
“We’ll come to that. But there will be a price.”
The merest hint of a smile touched Levi’s lips, then vanished. “There always is. But I have no more money.”
“I did not mean money. The price will be some of the contents of your mind. Payable immediately.”
“My thoughts, you mean? Interesting. And for what . . . commodity will I be paying?”
“Understanding. My understanding.” Tullius watched him. “That makes you smile. Why?”
Levi shook his head slightly. “Simply because of your need to believe that I have any need of your understanding. You Romans value understanding, Caius Tullius. Few others do—particularly in this land of ours. But Romans crave it. You lust after it, are obsessed by it. Why? Can you not simply accept that there are some things that defy understanding? Or that knowledge, in and of itself, is enough? Why are you driven to understand everything?” He brushed the matter away with a flick of his hand. “Fruitless to discuss that. Unless your understanding would permit me to continue with my craft—and you have already said you are powerless to influence that—then I have nothing to gain from any understanding you might have of me. But I confess I am curious nonetheless. About what would you have me speak? What portion of my mind interests you?”
Tullius stretched out his arm idly and thrust his hand into the beam of sunshine that now laid a brilliant band across the table. The hand leapt into prominence, painted with golden light. “The different part,” he said, turning his hand and admiring the play of light and shadow as it moved. “The part that makes you able to absorb what I have been saying to you, make a decision based upon it—a swift, drastic decision that radically alters your entire life—and allows you to remain outwardly unruffled as though you had not a care in the world. Those are Roman attributes. One does not expect such—what is the word? Sophistication, I suppose—from . . .”
“From a Hebrew?”
“From one who is not Roman, was my thought.”
“A barbarian.”
“A non-Roman.”
“Not of the blood.”
“What blood? Roman blood?” Tullius smiled. “There is no longer any such thing, Levi, you know that. The ideal did exist, once upon a time, when wealthy patrician Roman families took pride in being descended from Romulus and Remus. But it is more than a hundred years now since the so-called emperor Caracalla decreed that all free men in the empire, along with their wives, were to be awarded full Roman citizenship. That immediately made nonsense of the idea that anyone’s blood could seriously be considered Roman. So I have no hidden reason for requesting your opinion, merely curiosity.”
“What is it that you want to hear?”
The Roman gazed at him through narrowed eyes. “You said earlier you have an understanding of power, and you’ve shown me the power you have over yourself. Where most men would be raging, or crushed, or emotionally overwhelmed by the situation you now find yourself in, you remain completely calm. Placid. Is that your understanding of power, Solomon Levi? That it is the power of self-control?”
Levi’s expression was set and solemn. “Why should you care what I think of power, Caius Tullius, and why should I indulge your urge to know my thoughts?”
Tullius shrugged. “I care what you think because I see that you can and do think, Solomon Levi, and that in itself is unusual among the clients with whom I deal. Many of my clients function very well within the limited areas they choose to work in, and many have abilities that sometimes verge upon the uncanny in the matters of their trades, but there are very few I would ever think of as being thinkers. You, I perceive, are a thinker—a man who uses his powers of logic and deduction to govern his actions. And so I am interested in your opinion.”
“But that is ludicrous, Caius Tullius. I am a simple man, a craftsman. I have no wealth, no sophistication, as you so pointedly observed a moment ago, and I certainly have no power. The fact that I am here, at your bidding, at your mercy and at your disposal, demonstrates that, does it not? Why do you seek to humiliate me by asking me what I know about power?”
“Few equals among your supposed peers, I said. I take that back. It was inadequate and ill considered. You have no equals, and I am disappointed in myself not to have seen that before now. I called you here as a recalcitrant debtor, an unknown, delinquent nuisance to be dealt with firmly. But instead I find an opponent to be reckoned with—a client with a mind.” He rested his elbow on the arm of his chair, leaned his weight on it. “So be it. No more false modesty from you, Solomon Levi, and no more blind prejudice from me. Your speech alone, the way you hold yourself, your lack of fear of me and what I represent, all signify your sophistication. Now, again, tell me what you know of power. All of what you know.”
Levi shrugged in a way that no Roman could ever mimic with authority. “My grandsire’s grandsire used to say, ‘Be careful what you wish for, lest your wish be granted.’ Very well, then. What I have to say may turn you from an importunate moneylender into an implacable enemy, Caius Tullius. But then, since I know you are already such a foe—even though you may not yet realize it—I have nothing to lose by telling you what you wish, or do not wish, to hear.”
He stood up and stretched out his hands for Tullius to inspect. “Look at these.” They were big hands, dwarfing Tullius’s own, their palms hard-skinned and callused, with strong, thick, blunt thumbs and fingers, all with broken nails. “I am a builder. There is power in these hands, you agree? And in these arms,” he added, pulling up the sleeve of his robe to display powerful forearms corded with heavy muscle. “Look.” He stepped behind the table and, using only one hand, picked up one of the heavy marble busts by the neck, clamping his fingers around it easily. It rose as though weightless, and there was no sign of strain in any part of him. Tullius’s eyes widened slightly as he watched Levi replace the statue gently on its plinth and return to the front of the table.
“That is one kind of power, the kind you expect of men like me, no?” He shook his head. “But no. It is a spurious power, without substance, because without moving from your chair you could summon soldiers and have my arms and my hands broken into so many pieces I could never use them again for anything. What is the use of such power to a working man, except for lifting things? It even works against him, because it is useful to you and your like who can threaten to remove it by force, crippling him and leaving him truly powerless. So physical strength is not often worth much to its owner, is it? Where, then, is power?”
He waved an arm to indicate the chamber and its furnishings. “This room represents power, all on its own. When I came in, I was led in by a slave who never raised his eyes to look at me, yet let me know by his demeanour that I was less significant than he because he belonged here, whereas I had been ordered to attend. And then I was left waiting, left to be daunted by the richness of this chamber and to become aware of my own lack of worth. Consider that table at which you sit so grandly. Possession of that single piece would finance my entire enterprise and wipe out my indebtedness to you. That is as magnificent a piece of citrus wood as I have ever seen, but then, I have only ever seen three pieces. Yet I would be prepared to wager, in defiance of my creed, that it is as magnificent a piece as you have ever seen, too, no? And you—you are magnificent in your clothes and in your appearance and in your carriage. That too is power, is it not?
“But let us remain with the table. Your table is a symbol of power on its own, quite apart from its value or its substance. This table represents power in its very appearance. Look at it! All that flat, polished, empty space, waiting to be used for momentous things. And the parchment scrolls, so fine, so tightly rolled. So substantial! They are obviously very important documents, otherwise why would they be so carefully rolled and stacked so neatly? Who else but a financier, a merchant who deals in money, would ever take the trouble to roll parchment so tightly, so neatly, so impressively? And to treat each one with such care? And look, only one pen! Only one ink horn. This is the table of no ordinary man. This is the table of a man of power, and every lesser man who sits, supplicant, in one of these lesser, less comfortable chairs, facing this table, is aware of that. These are the trappings of power.
“And when you entered and sat in the curule chair behind the table, I knew who you are! Not to mention what you are. I wonder, however, whether you realize fully who and what you are.”
The noises in the street outside hardly seemed to penetrate the room. Tullius stirred. “Go on. I’m enthralled. Who, and what, am I?”
Levi gazed steadily back at the man behind the table. “Are you sure you want an answer to that? Do you not feel the slightest stirring of unease?”
“Yes to the first question and no to the other—not the slightest stirring of unease. Not at all. Should I?”
Levi shrugged his big shoulders. “Who knows? Tell me later. For now, I have to speak of power. I grew up in a village where the second most powerful man in the place—the second most powerful—was a carpenter called Ichabod. He was a bad carpenter and always had been, but in his youth, he married a woman called Mehitabel, and she bore him fourteen daughters. Fourteen! And not one son. He was a laughingstock, and perpetually impoverished. But his girls grew and worked hard to lessen their parents’ burden, and lo and behold, as they ripened, they grew astoundingly beautiful, each of them a pearl beyond price, as the saying goes, although none of them was beyond price. Ichabod sold them off wisely, marrying each to the highest bidder, one after the other. He accumulated a fortune, and he bought land and cattle, and his fortune multiplied. He became a power among our people because he grew rich, and those who had laughed at him soon grew to envy him.
“And one day Ichabod’s goats—by this time he had hundreds—attracted the attention of a richer man, from a nearby town, who ruined Ichabod simply because he was both jealous of him and richer than him, and was therefore able to ruin him. Ichabod killed himself, a great sin. By our village standards, you see, Ichabod was powerful, but by the other man’s standards, he was weak, because his power—his knowledge, his wisdom—was not great enough to protect either him or itself.
“So you see, riches do not constitute power—unless, of course, those riches are so massive that they become unassailable and inexhaustible, and by that time they have changed. They are no longer merely riches. They have become wealth, and wealth is an entirely different creature. Few men can accumulate real wealth unassisted in one lifetime.”
He squinted towards Tullius, whose face was half-obscured in shadow. “And that, I can see you thinking, is ludicrous. Of course they can. And they do. You have done it, have you not? Whereas I, I have not. Therefore your power over me is so absolute that I will not allow it either to surprise me or to anger me.” He stretched his own hand into the beam of light. “There. I have told you all you want to hear.”
“I think not.” Tullius clapped, and the doors opened instantly. “Wine,” he snapped to the slave on the threshold, then immediately raised his hand to detain the man, glancing at Levi. “Will you have some? Or is it against your beliefs?”
“It is.” Levi smiled. “But it is a lesser sin, a gentle weakness, in moderation. I will have some wine.”
The slave departed and Tullius sat for a moment, staring at Levi. “Your thinking interests me, Solomon Levi. Your logical processes. As I said, you are a far more intuitive man than anyone would guess from your appearance. But I think you are still not telling me what you truly believe. You’re holding something back, some understanding, or some conviction. Why? Do you judge me unworthy of hearing it because I am Roman?”
Levi laughed, a great, booming sound. “Unworthy, as a Roman? No, not at all!”
“Then why? Believe me, you may be open with me. This is between us alone. Your words, no matter how incendiary, will go no further than this room. If you do not judge me unworthy, then you do consider me an enemy. You have said so. Yet I sense no hatred in you.”
Levi shook his head slowly. “You sense no hate in me because I do not hate you, Caius Tullius. I do not even dislike you. You and I could never be friends, but our hostility is intellectual only. I know your function, you see—although you do not see—and I can appreciate it without admiring it, or condemning it, other than in principle.”
“What do you mean, you know my function?”
The slave returned at that point, and they sat in silence until he had poured each of them a glass beaker of wine from a magnificent glass flagon and departed, leaving the flagon on its salver on the table.
Levi raised his cup, sniffed appreciatively, and sipped. “That is delicious. And, of course, you are correct. There is something I am not saying. But you do not wish to hear what else I have to say.”
“Try me.” Tullius sipped at his own wine.
“So be it.” Another sip, then Levi stood up. “Here we are, you in your curule chair behind your table, me standing here. If I were to point now to the power present in this room, where would I point?”
Tullius blinked. “At me.”
“Correct.” He sipped again. “Now, a suggested change of circumstance.” He sat down in his high-backed sella. “Were you to come around and stand here”—he pointed to the chair next to his and waited while Tullius stood up and moved to stand beside him—“can you show me where the power in the room is now, with you standing and me sitting? Where would I point?”
“At me.”
“Wrong.”
Tullius stood stock-still, a frown clouding his face. “How can it be wrong?” he growled.
Solomon Levi pointed at the empty curule chair behind the table. “Because the power resides there, in that chair, behind this table. When you left it, you left the power behind you. Standing on this side, you are no more than a man, and you are powerless over me.”
Tullius scowled. “That is ridiculous.”
“You see?” Levi said tonelessly. “I was correct. You did not want to hear it.”
Tullius strode around the table and threw himself into his chair. “How could you even say such a thing? I had been listening to you with respect, Levi, but that is ludicrous. Laughable. Stupid!”
“Is it? Where did your personal wealth come from?”
“What concern is that of yours?”
“None, but you are young to have so much of it. You inherited it, did you not?”
“So?”
“So it is not yours.” Levi’s voice was hard, quite suddenly, and cold. “It belongs to your family, and they accord you the use of it, providing you do as you are told. That is your function!” The words hung in the air with the dust motes in the sunbeam. In a softer voice, he continued. “I know your family, Tullius. I know your clan. I know far more than you, or any of them, could suspect. If you were to demonstrate an unwillingness, or an inability, to carry out the wishes of your immediate family and their advisors, you would be removed from your post, no? That is why you said there was nothing you could do about the moneys. You are a functionary. The real decisions are out of your hands. Beyond your power.
“You sit upon the real power. That chair. Because—and let us be truthful here—that chair represents, along with every other inanimate thing in this room, the truly incredible power that your family has accumulated over centuries, a wealth so colossal that its limits are indefinable. It is not your wealth, it is your family’s wealth. It is so enormous that no one person could own it or administer it, although there will always be one paterfamilias charged with the responsibility of administration. But even he will be removed immediately should he ever give cause for concern. Because the power of your family’s wealth is so vast that it demands strict patterns of behaviour from the people of the entire world to keep that power functioning. It demands the most rigid stability to keep the empire’s financial affairs from plunging into chaos. And that need for stability carries within it the awful potential for overwhelming destruction, for annihilation, for unprecedented cataclysmic changes that will accommodate predetermined change. And the responsibility for that pursuit of stability to maintain the wealth resides in the family, in the clan, in the bloodline. And no one who is not of the blood can be allowed to know that truth, because the realization would bring destruction on the clan, and chaos to the entire world.”
Caius Tullius was ashen, and his mouth worked aimlessly before he could articulate his next words. “How can you know this? Who told you this?” He looked crushed, physically wilted, and his voice sounded as though he had aged thirty years.
Levi emptied his cup and placed it on the ground by his foot. “No one told me. I worked it out for myself, when I was old enough to wonder why people like my father, and like me, and people far greater than either of us, could not survive without the support of people like you, the great moneylenders, even though God had qualified them to do what they do so well. So I began to ask questions. And I listened. And I read. And I looked carefully around me and asked more questions. And eventually I began to discern the beginnings of some answers that conformed, quite frighteningly, to the observations that had led to my questions.”
“‘Conformed quite frighteningly,’” Tullius said, almost in a whisper. “Explain that, please?”
Levi picked up his empty cup. He rolled it gently between his palms as he spoke. “When I was a boy, I overheard a conversation between my father and one of his greatest friends, a man I had always considered fabulously rich and powerful. That man said something that day that astounded me when I considered it later. Not merely later that day but throughout my life. He said that there are people in this world who are so staggeringly wealthy, and therefore so immensely powerful, that the laws that govern ordinary men do not apply to them, and further that the mass of ordinary men are not only unaware of this, but remain completely unaware throughout their lives that these people exist.
