"'I was wrong," said Pertinax. "We are all mad. Speak
up, O Madman called Emperor!"
'Maximus smiled his terrible tight-lipped smile, but
two years on the Wall do not make a man afraid of mere
looks. So I was not afraid.
"'I meant you, Parnesius, to live and die a Centurion of
the Wall," said Maximus. "But it seems from these," - he
fumbled in his breast - "you can think as well as draw."
He pulled out a roll of letters I had written to my people,
full of drawings of Picts, and bears, and men I had met on
the Wall. Mother and my sister always liked my pictures.
'He handed me one that I had called "Maximus's
Soldiers". It showed a row of fat wine-skins, and our old
Doctor of the Hunno hospital snuffing at them. Each time
that Maximus had taken troops out of Britain to help him
to conquer Gaul, he used to send the garrisons more wine
- to keep them quiet, I suppose. On the Wall, we always
called a wine-skin a "Maximus". Oh, yes; and I had
drawn them in Imperial helmets.
"'Not long since," he went on, "men's names were
sent up to Caesar for smaller jokes than this."
"'True, Caesar," said Pertinax; "but you forget that
was before I, your friend's friend, became such a
good spear-thrower.
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