"Murder and rape! Thou knowest the punishment."
"Bah! Would an accuser come forward? And the Emperor? The Emperor of Juvavum--is myself. Let us see who will climb the walls of my Capitolium."
"The Cross, my roaring Leo, the Cross and the Presbyter. No, no, it must not be an open sin crying to heaven. True, the Judge and his lictors are weak in this land, which is almost given up by Rome. But the Church is so much the stronger. If the haggard, white-bearded Johannes thrust thee out, thou art a lost man. No pound of meat, no cup of wine, will the people of Juvavum again sell to thee."
"I will take what I need with my lancers."
"But thy lancers are Mauritanians: pious Christians, baptised by the Presbyter. See if they will follow, if the old man have cursed thee."
"I will strike him dead after, or rather, before the curse," cried the officer, and he made a quick step forwards; his long dark-red mantle floated in the wind.
But the money-changer again stopped, adjusting with his bony fingers his yellow tunic.
"How useless! Dost thou not know that they are immortal? If thou strikest one dead, the Bishop sends another. And they are all alike--much more than thy soldiers resemble each other. And I--I would not look at thee across the street if thou wert thrust out from the Holy Church."
But now the soldier stopped and laughed aloud: "Thou! Zeno of Byzantium! Thou believest as little in the Holy Church as Leo himself. And it is my opinion, that thy soul-destroying usury is not regarded more favourably by the saints, than my trifle of pleasure in love and murder. What hast thou to do with the Church?"
"I will tell thee, thou rash son of Mars. I fear her! She is the only power now left in these lands. The Emperor is far away, his officers are all venal; the barbarians are like the storm, they bluster around us, we bend to them, and they again bluster away; but the Church is everywhere, even if only a single priest says mass in a half-ruined house of prayer. And the priest is not to be bought. The miserable creature dares not live like a man, so he needs nothing; and all who hope for heaven follow him, that is to say: all fools. But woe to the man who has the fools against him--he is lost. No, no! we must not rouse the Church against us."