The Druid King by Norman Spinrad Read Free Book Online

among the Edui’s most powerful rivals, the Arverni, that the legions of Rome had completed their task and it was time for them to leave.
    Logic told him that the difference between the Gauls and the Teutons must have something to do with the druids, since the Teutons had nothing like them. Nor did any other people Caesar had encountered in his travels or readings. Not only did they perform the rites and sacrifices, they administered the law throughout Gaul. But nowhere was the law written down, nor did anyone seem to know quite what it was but the druids themselves.
    The druids were recognized by all Gauls as the ultimate authority, yet they did not seem a priestly theocracy, for they did not rule. But they somehow made sure that no one else did either.
    It was a paradox worthy of Zeno.
    It was early afternoon when Gisstus arrived at Caesar’s camp from the Eduen capital, Bibracte. Caesar was sitting on a stool in the pleasant sunlight, composing his latest dispatch with stylus and wax tablet before committing it to the permanence of paper, since he had found that turning an account of a minor skirmish into a tale of glory usually required several revisions.
    “Hail, Caesar,” Gisstus said, then peered over his shoulder. “Still writing
The Conquest of Gaul,
eh? Let’s hope it won’t be long before you can write the final chapter. And then on to—what?—the first chapter of
Julius Caesar, King of Rome
?”
    “No, Gisstus, the gods forbid that such a volume ever be written!”
    “But the whole purpose of this war is to seize power and—”
    “To
rule
as dictator as the law allows, Gisstus, not to
reign
as king. The king who founds a dynasty is a hero and a statesman, his son is a mediocrity, his son a half-wit or a monster, and
his
son probably both!”
    “All this for six months as dictator?” Gisstus said sardonically.
“As
the law allows?”
    “Laws can be changed when inconvenient to the health of a state,” Caesar told him.
    “Spoken like a lawyer.”
    “By a lawyer, as I am, who is also a general with a sufficient force behind him to be decisively persuasive in debate. As I will be.”
    Gisstus laughed. “Spoken like Gaius Julius Caesar,” he said. “But changed to what?”
    In truth, Caesar hadn’t decided yet. “Perhaps dictator for life?” he said tentatively.
    “That might turn out to be a shorter term than it might seem, since it would leave only one means of retiring you from office,” Gisstus pointed out dryly.
    “Appointed for some long fixed term, then? Ten years? Twenty?”
    “A modest enough ambition . . .” Gisstus said dryly.
    “Indeed. When Alexander the Great was ten years younger than I am now, he had conquered the entire civilized world.”
    “When Alexander the Great was your age, Caesar, he was dead.”
    “All the more reason to hurry.”
    Gisstus’ sardonic mien warped toward an expression of worry. You had to know him well, as well as Caesar did, to read it.
    “What is troubling you, Gisstus?” he asked.
    “We may have a small problem with the Arverni. Or perhaps not so small . . .”
    “I thought this Gobanit they’ve just elected vergobret is a greedy and pliable fellow. . . .”
    “Oh, he is, and he’s not all that clever either,” Gisstus told him. “But he’s not the problem . . . the possible problem. It’s his brother.”
    “His brother?”
    “Keltill, the outgoing vergobret . . . and the omen . . .”
    “You mean the new star?” Caesar asked in no little perplexity. According to the locals, a new star had appeared in the heavens shortly before his arrival, a sign of a change of destiny or some such thing. Caesar’s attempts to claim it as a sign of the good fortune of his own coming might not have been exactly a great success, but he couldn’t see how this omen could become a problem.
    “Not the
new
star,” Gisstus told him, “a
falling
star.”
    “They take falling stars for omens too? But at certain times the night skies are full of