If You Can Keep It
A Short Fantasy Novel
Make sure you’ve read Chapters I and II, Chapters III and IV, Chapters V and VI, and Chapters VII and VIII.
Chapter IX
One morning, when the Senate wasn’t in session, Regus held a rally in the Palatius Forum – the largest open square in the city, one block from the senate chamber. Catus normally disliked crowds and detested these spectacles of public pandering, but he went down to the forum anyway. He felt the need to keep an eye on things.
Several thousand people had packed into the square, which made Catus uncomfortable. Bad things happened when crowds this size gathered, especially in times like these. He turned back as soon as he reached the square and headed up the Quiritine hill, looping around to the side and ending up on a relatively uncrowded street overlooking the forum, directly to the right of where Regus was about to speak. A platform had been erected for him. Currently, two of his clientes entertained the crowd, warming them up for their patron.
When Regus walked out of one of the buildings abutting the square, the crowd erupted in wild shouting. Catus shook his head. Regus mounted the platform and strode to the center. He took what appeared to be an impromptu bow. His men introduced him, and then left the stage so he could have it to himself.
“Good people,” boomed Regus to a round of applause, which he paused to wait out, “for too long this nation has been ruled by the wealthy and powerful for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful.”
There were more yells.
“For too long, the deck has been stacked against the working man. The patricians and the equestrians consolidate all power in their own hands, giving only token powers to the tribunes who represent you. I wish to end that. I wish to ensure that the common man is no longer disenfranchised. I have introduced a bill in the Senate which would take away some of the power of the consuls and put it in its rightful place – with the tribunes of the people! I plan to introduce tomorrow a bill that would circumscribe the power of the Senate itself.”
He paused and there was a hush. The crowd may not have known much, but they understood that this was very important.
“This bill will fail. Never in the history of mankind has a body so constituted voluntarily relinquished power. The optimates will ensure it fails. They will never do anything to give the people more power.”
Catus was pretty sure that no senator, not even him, was referring to himself as an optimate anymore, and he was saddened to see how quickly that word had become nothing more than an epithet in the mouth of a man who still called himself, to the delight of the crowd, one of the populares.
‘We’re all populares now,’ thought Catus to himself, although he didn’t mean to include himself.
“Gaius Cornelius will never stand to allow…”
There it was at last, a namecheck of Regus’s foe. Catus listened for a little while longer, but the speech continued in that vein. Cornelius came in for more bashing and the crowd cheered more. It did not turn violent, but Catus still felt uncomfortable. He left before his former friend had finished speaking.
He mulled Regus’s pandering speech all the way home, but came to no definite conclusions about what would come of it. He spent the afternoon reading and writing down his thoughts. In the evening after he ate, he went out to go for a walk.
When he stepped outside his door, he found Regus waiting for him. The man was alone, which must have been difficult for him to achieve, and must therefore have been intentional. Catus stopped and stood.
“My friend,” said Regus, who perhaps had been waiting some time, knowing Catus liked to walk in the evenings, “I wish to speak with you.”
Catus nodded. He started to walk forward and Regus fell in beside him. They headed down a deserted street, towards the less-trafficked corners of the city, although Catus knew they would be spotted and that rumors would circulate. Regus must have known this, too, and probably desired it. Catus didn’t care. There had been rumors about him for as long as he was in politics and he’d never considered them worth his time. Even most people who repeated them knew they weren’t true.
Granfallia wasn’t particularly dangerous, but Catus had taken to carrying a short sword under his tunic recently. Regus, too, was armed. They walked without fear of robbers, although the darker corners of the city, less frequented by reputable citizens, could produce such. Catus idly wondered whether Regus would lead him to an ambush and have him killed, but he doubted it. Still, that he was wondering it at all spoke volumes.
“My friend,” said Regus in a soft voice, “I know you have been very displeased with me lately, and I know you disapprove of my actions, but I hope you know that I am only motivated by the good of Uiria. All I have done I have done with an eye towards the good.”
“Most men think this of themselves,” commented Catus, but his friend ignored it.
“You have been very harsh in your conduct and speech towards me, and very hard on me, and sometimes I have been very upset by that,” Regus went on, “but I know you are nothing if not unfailingly dedicated to principle. You have always corrected me when I have erred and I have always been better for it. You and I may have our disagreements – strong disagreements even – but you have raised very serious points and I value that. I think you keep me and mine honest and I truly appreciate that.”
“Then you will desist in dismantling our republican institutions?” asked Catus.
Regus broke into a smile. “My friend,” he said. “Please hear me out. Did you see my speech today by chance? Did you come to it?”
“I did.”
Regus looked genuinely surprised, but Catus wondered whether he’d been spotted near the forum. He also wondered whether his warnings about republican institutions had grown stale throughout constant repetition, much as he believed that he had been unquestionably correct from the beginning of his career. He was coming to see a straight-line arrow from his earliest days in the Senate, wherein each new assault upon law and custom had brought Uiria closer to the moment in which they now found themselves.
“What did you think of it?”
“I thought you were pandering to an ignorant rabble,” said Catus.
Regus twisted his mouth in a half-frown. “I should have known you would say that,” he said. “You should not speak so ill of the good people of Uiria.”
“Are they, though? Good people?”
“I believe that they are. I believe that at heart there is in the common people some natural dignity which those of us in the leadership class lack. I believe that common work is naturally uplifting in a way our sordid business of politics is not.”
“It was less sordid a year ago,” said Catus. “There was a time even in my lifetime when the Senate was considered a noble calling by dutiful public servants.”
“That is what I am,” said Regus. “I serve the public. I know you and I disagree about my reforms to the tribunate, but surely you must see that I am trying to make our republic better. Stronger. I share your dispirit on the state of current affairs, but I think I see my way to a better place for us. And this is it. I am trying to do what is right and I am motivated solely by that desire. I wish you to see that. I have always granted that to you, even in times such as now when you stand so staunchly in the way of the good of the country.”
They were walking further and further from the city center, into the working-class districts. Catus avoided these areas, especially at night.
“We have different ideas about the good of the country,” said Catus eventually, after letting the pause go on long enough to know his friend had finished speaking. “On a change of subject, do you think perhaps we had better turn back? I am not fainthearted, but it is foolish to walk too much further down the Via Rudica at this time of night.”
“I am not afraid. You never go here,” Regus said. “But I do.”
Catus looked at him in surprise. “These are my people,” said Regus. “They have been to my speeches. They love me. I have nothing to fear from the people of the city.”
Catus did not let his emotion show on his face. He knew what his friend meant and he knew that he was right. He tried a different tack.
“Aren’t you at all worried that Cornelius will stage an ambush? You usually travel with a guard for that very reason, even in the day. I have no fear for my own safety, but I am an old man and can do little to protect you.”
“The people here know me,” said Regus. “They love me. They will protect me. But perhaps you are right. It would be wise for us to turn back. It is growing late.”
They spent several minutes in silence on the return journey, but when they neared Catus’s door, Regus tried again to convince him that he had nothing but the glory of Uiria in his mind. Catus let Regus wonder as to how convinced he was by this. They bade each other goodnight, and Catus made sure his door was barred.
Chapter X
In the mornings, on his way to the Senate, Catus passed by larger and larger crowds. More often than not, the majority were crying out for Regus, praising his name. They lauded his character, his good name, his defense of the Republic, his willingness to make sacrifices on their behalf. Catus assumed that Regus had seeded the crowds with his own men. But he knew most of them were sincere. Regus was young, handsome, eloquent – everything required to win over the people to his side. Cornelius – whose crowds were out, but in much smaller numbers – was bald and only five years younger than Catus. He never gave public speeches.
“Can’t you hear what they say about me?” asked Regus to Catus as soon as he walked into the senate building one morning. “They love me.”
“Be careful,” said Catus. “You know what they do not know.”
“What do I know?” Regus said, rounding on him. “You are always scolding me and talking about temptation. Listen to them. They praise me for my virtue. They know that I always try to do the right thing. I know I am just a man – they know that, too. I am not perfect. They know that. But you can’t tell me that their love for me doesn’t mean something. The good people…”
“It does mean something,” snapped Catus. “It means you’re dangerous.”
Regus recoiled. “If that is so, then the people themselves are dangerous.”
“They are.”
“What are you saying? I thought you loved Uiria.”
“I do.”
“How can you not love its people?”
“Uiria is more than its citizenry. We are not simply a collection of men who happen to live together. Besides, you can hear as well as I that many of them – not as many as praise you, but many, still – praise your enemy, Cornelius. I suppose that means they are not good people of Uiria? Or perhaps it means that you are wrong and Cornelius is a good man.”
“You know Cornelius is not a good man.”
“Yes,” said Catus, and broke a rare smile. He went into his office.
That day in the Senate, Regus continued agitating on behalf of the people. He made a motion to be named a representative of the people, an ad hoc position separate from the tribunate. He would take into his own hands the power – on behalf of the citizens he represented – of drawing up some reforms which he claimed would solve the current predicaments facing the nation. Catus stood up and gave a short speech in which he said that it was interesting his fellow senator proposed giving more power to the people by means of taking more power into his own hands.
“I have to do that in order to restore it to the people,” shouted Regus, jumping up indignantly. “Everything I do – for too long the patricians and equestrians (I mean no disrespect, gentlemen) have concentrated power in their hands and have taken it away from its rightful place. The rightful place of the power of Uiria is in the hands of the people of Uiria. I wish to, temporarily – yes, it’s true – concentrate some limited power in my own hands in order to disperse it among the citizen body.”
Catus thought this was self-serving, but luckily he didn’t have to say so, for several of Cornelius’s partisans jumped up to make this very point.
Even after rebuking his friend, Catus was surprised by the vitriol Cornelius’s men directed towards Regus. One man described him as a threat to the Republic and said that he needed to be eliminated. Another said that if Regus wasn’t careful, bad things would happen to him. A third said that his presence was dirtying the Senate and it needed to be cleansed.
Cornelius didn’t say much these days. There seemed to be something the matter with his throat. Catus wondered whether his henchmen did his thinking for him, too.
Eventually, someone put forward a motion to bestow the new office of representative upon Regus. Catus voted against it, but Regus had by now persuaded a bare majority of senators to his side – which he had no doubt taken into consideration when introducing his latest idea – and the motion passed. Regus now held more power than any single individual other than the consuls, and perhaps including them. Of course, Catus knew there was a ceremonial aspect to this. Regus had been granted new official powers, which meant he could make decisions in the open and had less need to trade favors. That he had been granted it, that he had a majority of senators in his coalition, meant that he already had more unofficial power than any individual – including the consuls. His new powers included the power to veto legislation and the power to name officials to a new committee on reforming the Senate.
After the session ended, Catus went immediately to Regus’s office chambers. There, two dozen senators were gathered. Regus was in the center, drawing up the committee. As Catus watched, he named several of his closest friends to the committee, as well as a couple of other senators who had been particularly obsequious towards him. When the committee was full, it had been stacked entirely with Regus’s allies.
But Regus didn’t stop. He went on to name several prefects to sit in governance over nearby provinces, and also granted public money to four projects brought to him by some of his friends. Catus knew these projects were shams – fronts for funneling money into the pockets of the men who proposed them. The prefectures, too, were little more than glorified corruption. The prefects exacted taxes upon the local peasants and took most of the revenue into their own hands, passing on only a little to the national government.
Catus stepped forward. Regus looked up and smiled at him. Regus had noticed him as soon as he had entered and taken up position just inside the door, but had waited until now to acknowledge him.
“Would you like money for a project, my friend?” asked Regus.
“What are you doing?” asked Catus.
“I am drawing up my committee on reform.”
“You just assigned public monies and four prefectures. Those are not part of your purview.”
“The power to assign limited public monies to special projects, was listed near the end of the legislation we passed this morning establishing my position. And the power to appoint the governors and prefects for all of the jurisdictions within two-hundred miles of the city is one I have taken to myself as necessary to the carrying out of my official duties. I have, of course, been given discretion by the Senate – you were there this morning – to take such measures as I deem required to perform my duties. This is one of them. I will need the local administrators on my side if I am to be successful in my reform efforts. Their opposition could stand in the way of the whole thing, and therefore I will be removing certain prefects and replacing them with men I can trust to do the right thing.”
“You’re just handing out favors to your cronies! You’re rewarding your friends.”
Regus pursed his lips. “I dislike that word ‘cronies,’” he said. “But you are correct that I am rewarding my friends. That is what friends do. Would you like a prefecture? Perhaps somewhere quiet and pastoral?”
Catus nearly spat, but remembered that he was in the senate building. “You disrespect me,” he said. “I will not take such a bribe.”
“Very well then,” said Regus, ignoring that last word and turning his head down to a wax tablet in his lap. “Have you any other business here with me, then? Or shall I get on with mine? It is quite a lot of work, this new position of mine.”
“I just want to ask how you justify all of this to yourself?” asked Catus, aware that the other men in the room were glaring at him and several were muttering behind their hands.
Regus glanced up from his wax tablet and stared Catus directly in the eye. “You heard what they said about me today,” he said. “Cornelius’s men. They would kill me if they had the chance. I can’t trust any man I know isn’t on my side. I need to staff these positions with men I can trust – for my own protection, and through me for the protection of the people of Uiria.”
“I suppose you need to increase your holdings of land, too, for your protection,” said Catus, although this was unrelated. He suspected it would be the next shoe to drop.
“Why, now that you mention it, I…” but Catus was already walking out of the door, having heard enough.
Read Chapters XI and XII.