When lads he’d known as a youngster had difficulty with his name, their tongues slipping on the syllables, they’d called him Carl and it had stuck, but in his heart he remained Caracalla. It was much the same in the army, where, to tell the truth, he went not out of inclination but long family tradition. The years, spent mainly in peacekeeping, were happy, though, and educative. His men loved him, and he left with a good record when the time came. It came a lot earlier than expected because his regiment was merged with another. Duplicated roles and those deemed to have historic significance but little or no future value were lost. He heard bitter complaints that the regimental mascot had more future use than a trained soldier in the government’s eyes. It hurt some of the men to be put out to grass before their time, made them feel useless and unwanted, but for his part, Caracalla was happy. He went back to the country and took over a few acres of pastureland, and it wasn’t long before he was well known and well liked locally, although the same old problem meant that, for the most part, he was well known as Carl. Just that morning, in fact, he’d been quietly pruning the hedge when he’d overheard a couple of youths at the gate eyeing up the apple tree in his meadow. ‘Old Carl won’t mind,’ one had said, and over they’d climbed. Well, he did mind. He loved the apples, he loved the tree, he was not old, and his name was Caracalla. He stopped pruning and waited. Once they were at a tactical disadvantage, backsides hanging lower than the fruit, he charged. Essentially a pacifist, Caracalla thought, biting down, he was, after all, a trained warhorse.