The Druid King Read Online Free PDF

was Diviacx’s turn to be discombobulated. Caesar had ordered up one of those layered mixed roasts designed to impress dignitaries at state banquets or, as in this case, to impress a foreigner with the wealth and lavish style of his host, and hence his economic power. At large banquets, the outer layer was usually a whole ox or stag, though Caesar had heard stories of elephants, but for such a small dinner a boar sufficed, glazed with honey, holding an apple in its mouth, and wearing a crown of laurel. Inside this was a whole lamb roasted over rosemary branches, mouthing an orange. Inside the lamb was a peacock with a plum in its beak, inside the peacock a pheasant with a grape, inside the pheasant a pigeon with a wild raspberry, inside the pigeon a tiny thrush with a single currant impaled on its beak.
    Caesar watched in amusement as Diviacx’s eyes fairly bugged out while the slaves sliced this nested confection of beasts and birds open with swords and ceremony, stepwise revealing what was hidden within, extracting it, and laying it out upon the table.
    “Fortunately, Diviacx,” said Caesar, when this had been completed, “you had the foresight to pick delicately at the appetizers.”
    Diviacx made a heroic effort at least to sample everything, washing it all down with more wine, and by the time he had consumed what politesse required, his face was sheened with sweat, his eyes were glazing over, and it was time to negotiate.
    “As you know,” Caesar told him, “I’ve been elected proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul, and am therefore in a position to greatly enhance trade relations between your people and Rome.”
    Diviacx managed to perk up at this, though it obviously took quite some effort. “It is no secret that that is indeed the purpose of my mission.”
    “Well, consider it a success, my friend!” Caesar exclaimed. “You will return home a rich man!”
    “I am here to enrich my people, not myself,” Diviacx replied huffily.
    “Of course, of course. Still, there’s no reason why a man should not do well by doing good. It is what makes Rome great and makes its friends prosper.”
    Diviacx levered himself into an upright position, a magical feat in itself, considering how much food and wine he had consumed. “What are you proposing, Caesar?” he asked.
    “My intent is to shift the route of exports of dyes, chariots, horses, metalwork, and so forth from the lands of the Edui south through my territories to my Mediterranean ports and thence to Rome by sea rather than overland—”
    “A rather circuitous route—”
    “But a more secure one, passing as it does only through the lands of the Gauls and my own and then via sea-lanes pacified by Roman galleys. And since it will be more secure, it seems to me only just to levy taxes on their passage—say, the tenth part of their value for passage through the territories of the Gauls, and the tenth part for passage through mine. I have heard that the writ of the druids crosses tribal boundaries. . . .”
    “This is true,” said Diviacx.
    “I have also heard that there are circumstances under which druids collect such levies. . . .”
    Diviacx’s eyes lit up with a greed that seemed very much of this world and not some other. “This too is true,” he said.
    “May I thus presume that I can leave it to you to find administrators to take care of the collection on the Gallic end . . . ?”
    “That should prove no problem.”
    “Likewise, the same taxes will be collected on the Roman wine, furniture, foodstuffs, arts, marble, instruments, and tools of architecture, medicines, and everything else moving in the other direction by the same route. . . .”
    “As is only just,” agreed Diviacx.
    “Moreover,” said Caesar, “the flow of trade will increase from the present trickle to a mighty torrent, for I will send Roman engineers to build roads to speed this commerce. Why, we will—”
    “You’re forgetting a few things, Caesar,” Gisstus interrupted, as