If You Can Keep It
A Short Fantasy Novel
If you haven’t read Chapters I and II, you can do so here. If you haven’t read Chapters III and IV, you can do so here.
Chapter V
The following week, Regus introduced allegations of bribery into the Senate record against Gaius Flavius Cornelius. Another investigation was opened. Several of Regus’s allies stood up and gave speeches about the seriousness of the charges and the importance of following the investigation wherever it led. They talked of the need for upholding the rule of law. Most said that they did not know whether or not the allegations were true, but that if they were that would be very grave indeed. One friend of Regus, known for being a maverick willing to speak frankly, said that he didn’t doubt the allegations were true, because Gaius Flavius Cornelius was as corrupt as the day was long.
Some of Cornelius’s friends stood up to respond. A couple of them pointed to the allegations against Regus himself. One went so far as to state that Regus had no evidence of any bribery, but was simply paying back Cornelius for the first investigation, and attempting to salvage his own reputation by slandering an innocent man. All of them stated for the record that the allegations were false.
Nobody believed their testimony any more than they had believed Regus’s friends. Everyone knew that both men were simply expressing their loyalties, nothing more.
Several senators now spoke who weren’t partisans of either man, but who harbored a dislike for one or the other, or both. Some said that the allegations against both men were likely true, and that they should be removed from the Senate. A couple said that the allegations against Cornelius were almost certainly true, and three men who disliked Regus personally took the opportunity to take shots at him. Nobody stood up and said that both sets of allegations were likely false, but one or two of the unaffiliated senators stood up and said that both sets of allegations were serious, but given as they were yet unproven, both investigations needed to proceed without prejudged conclusions on either side.
Catus said nothing during the entire morning’s session. He sat there stone-faced. Julia was there as well, and she likewise spoke to no one the entire time.
When it was over, Catus went immediately to Regus’s chambers. He passed Julia in the hallway, and she shook her head at him.
“That was a disgrace,” she said.
“Indeed,” he nodded, but kept walking. When he reached Regus’s chambers, Regus wasn’t there yet. He waited outside. Within minutes, Regus arrived, with Yarius Denius and Julius Crucius in tow.
“Do you have any evidence,” asked Catus, “for the allegations you have just made against Gaius Flavius Cornelius?”
“Is it not obvious,” asked Regus, “that the man is a liar and a scoundrel? He has surely taken bribes at some point in his career.”
“Then you have none?”
“Do you not think it likely that…?” began Yarius Denius.
“Yes, I think there is a likelihood that Cornelius has taken a bribe at some point in his career, but if I am being perfectly frank, Senator, I would say the same about you,” replied Catus. “What is at issue here is not whether or not Senator Cornelius is a scoundrel. He is. What is at issue is whether Regus has made allegations for which he has no evidence.”
“An investigation will surely turn up something,” said Regus, leading the way into his office. He bade the others sit, but Catus remained standing. Regus waited for him to take a seat, and when he did not, Regus sat down. A retinue of clientes and hangers-on milled in the corridor outside outside. The largest number of them were there for Regus, but Denius and Crucius also had their own. Catus, as usual, was alone.
“Then you have no evidence. You have introduced what you have no reason to believe are not false charges into the record,” said Catus.
“As I have said, I do not believe them to be false.”
“But you have no basis for them.”
Regus stared at his friend for a while. He then looked at Denius and Crucius each in turn. “Thank you,” he said, “my friends, for speaking up in my defense. Catus, I noticed you did not speak today. I was disappointed. You usually have something important to say on the subject of the rule of law.”
“The rule of law? What happened in the Senate chamber today had nothing to do with the law. It had everything to do with your friends speaking up for you, and Cornelius’s friends speaking up for him, and each of your enemies speaking up to hurt you.”
“I was very pleased by the willingness of my friends to defend me against what you know to be baseless charges,” said Regus. “Catus, though, my friend, I worry about you. I worry that you think ill of me. Perhaps you think they are true.”
“No. I don’t. There is no evidence that you have done anything but uphold the law in your career,” said Catus. “That is why you are my friend. But your actions today have undermined the law. You couch it as intolerance for lawlessness, but you have spoken falsely on record.”
“Catus, will you support me? You have said that you believe me to be innocent and you believe Cornelius to be guilty, even if we have no evidence that he is. Why not join me? Why not join the investigation? Surely an esteemed prosecutor such as yourself could find the evidence, if any exists.”
“But under the new law, we do not need to find evidence,” said Catus. “And that is what I am afraid of. I will have nothing to do with any of this.”
“But aren’t you my friend?” asked Regus.
Catus stared at him. He could not speak for anger. Finally, he shook his head and choked out a few words. “You throw yourself on my friendship? You ask this of me? Do not ask me for a favor I will not give you.”
He stormed out of the office.
Chapter VI
For two weeks, Regus’s friends and Gaius Cornelius’s friends took turns denouncing each other in the Senate chamber. Senate business ground to a halt as the two sides took shape. Within the fortnight, they had self-organized into defined factions along the lines of their loyalties. Even those who previously held no sympathy for either man found themselves forced to choose, which usually resulted in them choosing the opposing faction to their enemies. Almost every senator had enemies.
Regus’s faction called themselves the Regulans, but later they would come to be called the Blues, after they took to wearing a blue band on their wrists. Cornelius’s faction were known as the Cornelii. Previous loose partisan affiliations, along the lines of class, dissolved. The senators reassembled themselves along the lines of factions, which were variously referred to as the tribes (after the seven tribes of the city of Granfallia, corresponding to the seven chariot teams), or the parties. There was also a group of men who weren’t able to decide whom they hated more, Regus or Cornelius, and they formed a faction known as the Unaffiliates.
Catus refused even to join this latter group. He still gave Julia a cold shoulder in the Senate chamber, but they spoke more often outside of it, and they even sat together when they were both attending sessions. They kept one seat open between them, so as to indicate that neither of them was in a faction with the other, but they both clearly disapproved of the turn of events. Catus found fewer of his colleagues would speak with him, and Regus wouldn’t meet his eye. Julia occasionally found herself escorted out of the Senate, as she had on Regus’s first day back. Other days, her presence was tolerated so long as she did not speak.
In years past, Catus hadn’t caucused with the optimates, but it was understood by all that his sympathies led him to similar conclusions on most policies, except for the odd exceptions where he went his own way or even sided with the populares, though he detested them. Now, former populares were shoulder to shoulder with former optimates in support of their charismatic leader, whether Regus or Cornelius. Regus had generally been liked before, but now even men who had shared a drink with him were sitting with his enemy, if they had happened to have closer ties with Cornelius. The same was true in the other direction. Cornelius’s allies sat in the front of the chamber and Regus’s allies sat in the back. The Unaffiliates sat in one corner and Catus and Julia had moved to be near one of the columns, where nobody wanted to sit.
There were a few scattered stragglers, usually men just back from business trips to the provinces, who weren’t affiliated with any faction. Some of them tried to sit with Catus, but he made no move to organize them, and under threat they began to sense they would be better off with a stronger faction. They all eventually moved away, joining either one side or the other.
There were threats and shouting matches. It never came to blows, but each day the discourse grew worse. Catus did not speak much, but when he did, he loudly denounced all sides.
“A plague on all your houses,” declared Catus in one particularly memorable speech. “You have brought disgrace to this nation and to this august body. I ashamed to be living in such a time and place and it is only my love for the customs of our forebears which prevents me from turning from this place and setting foot here no more. O’ what a burden to be alive at a time like this. We can only say that our ancestors were lucky not to be alive to witness it, though they are turning in their graves at this very moment and cursing us. It may be my duty to remain here and do what I can for the people of Uiria, to uphold the law and preserve what can be saved of our republican institutions and traditions, but I fear for the future of this land. I am under no illusion that my efforts will be successful. Every man who has sided with either Gaius Flavius Cornelius or Tullius Germanus Drusus Regus should be removed from this body and his descendants banished forevermore.”
Later, Regus came to Catus’s chambers. “I was disappointed by what you said today in the Senate,” he told his old friend. “I was very hurt. Your words were unkind.”
“Yesterday,” said Catus, “You threatened to have Cornelius tortured and summarily executed, should the investigation against him prove successful.” He began to recount a series of offenses committed by both sides over the previous week. Regus stopped him.
“Look, my friend – and I hope you will still consider me a friend,” he said, “I know all that. It was rash of me to say that yesterday and you are right to call me out. But this is not the time to litigate those words. Please, you must understand what situation we find ourselves in now. When this is all over and the charges against me are dropped, my record exonerated, and my reputation restored, we can talk about all that. There will be time enough when we have successfully proven the case against Cornelius. He is corrupt and he was wrong to bring those charges against me. I know you know that. There will be time enough for me to apologize for my conduct, which was ill-considered, but I lost my temper in the moment, as I so often do in these Senate meetings these days.”
“As I well know,” said Catus.
“As you well know,” continued Regus. “Catus, my friend, you have always been willing to correct me when I am in the wrong and I know I am better for it. I very much appreciate your honesty, for not all of my friends are honest. But now is not the time to be critical of me. You know as well as I that our two sides are not equal in abusing the customs and traditions of the Senate. You know as well as I that Cornelius is the aggressor in sinning against our Republic, may it last ten thousand years.”
Catus looked unpersuaded. “What do you ask of me?” he said. “The hour is late and I have other matters to which to attend.”
Regus looked his old friend in the eye without speaking for some time. Then he smiled a tired smile.
“I’m asking you to choose a side,” he said. “I know you know my side is more in the right than Cornelius’s. You are my friend and he has never been a friend to you. I have done you many favors.”
“Which I have returned,” said Catus coldly.
“Which you have returned, and by no means must you think I am calling in any favors. You have been more than generous with me and you owe no debt to me, but I am asking you, as your friend, to show me some loyalty.”
“Loyalty?” asked Catus.
“Yes, loyalty. I have stood by you, even though you have never been popular in the Senate. So many of my friends have asked me over the years why I stood by you when you were so universally disliked, with your brimstone-laden speeches, and I always responded that you were a good man and you were my friend and I would hear nothing against you.”
“Thank you.”
“And now I am asking you to stand by me.”
“But what you are asking me to do is wrong.”
“Wrong? I have refused to hear a word against you, even when it cost me! I have always insisted upon your character, even when men whom I could not afford to offend denounced you. I did that not because you are a perfect man, but because you are my friend and it was the right thing to do. I am asking you to do the right thing by me now.”
“Regus,” said Catus coldly, “What I am telling you is that what you are doing will lead to the downfall of our Republic. Perhaps you do not see it now, but your actions have helped to set us on a course which I hope does not turn out as dark as it appears. I do not know how far down this road we will go but…”
“How can you talk of the downfall of the Republic at a time like this?”
“I am telling you this as your friend,” replied Catus.
“A friend is supposed to stand by his friends.”
“A friend is supposed to ensure his friends do the right thing.”
“What is right other than to do right by one’s friends?” insisted Regus.
“The right thing is to stand by the law.”
“What do you mean by the law?”
“I mean the ancient charter of Uiria, which holds that a man cannot be punished for crimes he did not commit, and that he is innocent until proven guilty. You have turned that upon its head. The principle of the law is that the rules exist outside of the political context of the time. The principle of your new law is that any man may be defenestrated by his enemies based on the thinnest of justification, and that the rules must be molded to fit the moment.”
“You speak to me of the law and the right thing in the same sentence?” asked Regus with a grimace on his face. “The law as you speak it is something cold and inhuman. It is morally neutral, devoid of all values and principles. And the right thing is to transgress the law when the law is in the way of doing the right thing. I’m asking you to set aside your personal feelings about the law and to honor my friendship. I’m asking you to do the right thing.”
Catus frowned. “You and I have very different ideas about what is right,” he said.
“Catus, I am afraid you do not realize the hour. It is late. You are fretting about the law, but the law is all but gone if corrupt men like Gaius Cornelius can get away with their corruption while pinning false charges on innocent men like me. The time is coming when you will have to pick a side. If you have any team, it is mine, because I am still willing to be your friend, even when most of my allies are telling me otherwise.”
“What you want isn’t justice,” said Catus, “for you as yet have no way of knowing if Cornelius is really guilty of any corruption. What you want is revenge.”
“And I am entitled to it,” cried Regus. “He has wronged me. I am a good man. My reputation was beyond reproach. My name…”
“If your name was beyond reproach,” said Catus, “these false charges would have been dismissed out of hand.”
Regus went pale. He stared at Catus with wide eyes. “How dare you,” he gasped finally. Then he jumped up and stormed out of the room.
It would be another week before either man spoke to the other. Within that time, any in Regus’s or Cornelius’s tribe who still had a respectable character sullied his reputation. There were rumors about last-gasp solutions. Each side began to fear the other would end the Republic. Impassioned speeches were given on the floor of the Senate, all of which appealed to principle and claimed to uphold the charter of Uiria. All speakers denounced their enemies and claimed they were a threat to the peace of the nation. By all accounts, every man believed himself to be telling the truth, and it was hard for Catus to say that any of them were wrong on this. As he heard worse and worse rumors of what each side was plotting for the other, he began to accost any senators yet friendly to him.
“Is it true what they are saying?” he would ask. “How can you possibly be justified?”
“They will end the Republic. They will destroy us. They will punish us,” he was told. “We have to be willing to go farther than them, and to do it first, because otherwise they will do it and they will win.”
“Do you realize what you are saying?” he would ask.
Catus had a near-constant sinking feeling that each of the men he knew had been possessed by a demon in the previous month. Not a man of them was the same man he had once known, not so long ago. He didn’t know who they were now. He was only sure that he was the same. But strangely many of them told him that he had changed.
“But I haven’t changed any of my principles,” Catus would say.
“We didn’t believe you meant them,” was the reply, and Catus wasn’t sure how anyone could have believed so little of him.
Read Chapters VII and VIII.