Coalescent

by Stephen Baxter

  At first Brica resisted the trip, even daring to refuse bluntly, for Regina's opposition to her liaison with Galba was now obvious. With patience and pressure Regina won her over. But the journey to the east along the old roads, with the two of them riding side by side in an open chariot just behind Artorius and his party, was silent and sullen.

  • • •

  The party approached a gateway, near a fort in the northwestern corner of the city's wall. The wall remained intact, though here and there it had undergone hasty repairs with great blocks of stone, no doubt scavenged from abandoned buildings. The fortress itself was manned, though not by troops answerable to the Emperor. Remarkably, many of the soldiers were Saxon mercenaries. According to Artorius, Saxon defectors from the Londinium garrison had played a big part in sparking the unrest and revolt among the wider Saxon population, once Vortigern had allowed them their toeholds in the east.

  With the payment of a nominal toll, the party passed through the gate, and they were granted their first views of the city itself.

  North of the dock area by the river, the center was a place of monumental buildings, many of which would have put Verulamium's best to shame. There were temples, bathhouses, triumphal arches, and great statues of copper and bronze set on columns. Once, it was said, the center had been dominated by a basilica greater than any of these survivors, but that had been long demolished. Regina's eye was drawn by stranger buildings, like nothing in Verulamium: blocks of tenements, some three or four stories high, in which the less splendid inhabitants of the city had once lived, each in a small cubicle. They looked oddly like ships, stranded on the hillsides of Londinium.

  Brica, child of a hillside farm to whom the dunon of Caml was a metropolis, was subdued to wide-eyed silence.

  But as they made their way through the city, Regina saw that most of the public buildings showed signs of neglect. The amphitheater, a bowl of rubble, had been turned into a market. One bathhouse had been systematically demolished, robbed of its stone: a child in a colorless smock clambered over the rubble, and Regina wondered if she had any idea what this strange, alien ruin had once been for. Most of the big tenement blocks had been abandoned, too. Evidently only a fraction of the number of people who had once dwelled in the city remained, and there was no need for them to cram themselves into the little cubicles anymore. Away from the central area, indeed, the city seemed depopulated. The buildings had been demolished or collapsed, and large areas were given over to pasture, even within the walls.

  Still, Regina heard the muttering of Artorius's men as they peered up at the great buildings, and compared them with the huddled farmers who now raised their cattle in their shade. The city was the work of giants, they said, who must have passed away a hundred generations ago.

  And there was still prosperity here. Among the ruins were town houses of recent construction, well maintained and brightly painted, their red-tiled roofs gleaming in the sunlight. Perhaps these belonged to negotiatores — traders and brokers. The more crowded streets close to the Forum were full of men and women in Roman garb, tunics and cloaks, and Regina stared at these reminders of her own vanished past. But most wore the trousers and woolen cloaks of the Celtae, or had the flowing hair and long mustaches of Germans.

  As the imperial writ had declined over the rest of the diocese, Londinium had drawn in on itself, sheltering like a hedgehog behind its defensive walls. So far it had weathered the Saxon catastrophe that was overwhelming the rest of the country. Even now wealth still flowed through its harbors from trade with the continent; even now you could get rich here. Decayed it may be from its greatest days, but Londinium was still busy, prosperous, bustling, powerful — an arena for the ambitious. And that was why Artorius was here.

  They had come to Londinium because the development of Artorius's ambitions had continued, despite all Regina's subtle discouragement. He seemed determined to mount an assault on Gaul, and then, perhaps, to march on Rome itself, to try for the purple as had Constantius and so many other British leaders before him.

  It was a challenging ambition. Britain was far from united, the Saxons far from subdued. And for all his successes Artorius commanded only a fraction of the number of troops he would need for such an adventure, and would have to rely on allies. But, fired by a dozen victories over the Saxons, Artorius was determined. And so he was coming to Londinium for a council of British chiefs, magistrates, kings, and warlords, to see if he could shape a common intent. Regina was disturbed by this. The disaster that had followed Constantius's withdrawal of Britain's forces, she thought, should be obvious to everybody, and not an adventure to be emulated. But she was here, ostensibly supporting Artorius, in fact wary, uncertain of her own future.

  The party reached the river, close to the site of another fort at the eastern corner of the wall. Londinium had once sprawled across both north and south banks of this great east-flowing river. In latter days, though, the settlement on the south side had declined. Today, to the south of the river there was nothing to be seen but farmsteads, low buildings, meandering cattle, threads of smoke. But a bridge still spanned the river, from north to south. It was an impressive sight, a series of broad semicircular arches, its roadway high enough to allow the passage of oceangoing ships.

  Brica stared at the bridge openmouthed. She was muttering, "Lud, Lud..."

  Regina touched her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

  Brica turned, her pretty eyes blank. "It's the bridge. It's as if the river has been tamed, the mighty river itself. But this is the dun of Lud, the god of the water..."

  "The Romans took to calling the city Augusta," said Regina dryly. "It never caught on. But if there are such legends buried in a mere name, perhaps they were wise to try..."

  She was disturbed. She didn't want her daughter's soul to be so primitive that she was astonished at the sight of a mere bridge. At least Regina remembered the villas and the towns as they had been. What next — would Brica's daughter in turn cower from thunderstorms, fearing the anger of the sky gods?

  I must get her away from that place, the dunon, Regina thought with renewed determination. And I must save her from Galba, and his mind like a sink of stupidity and superstition.

  Artorius had negotiated the use of a town house for himself, Regina and her daughter, and others of his party. The town house was the home of a particularly wealthy negotiatore called Ceawlin. A grossly fat man of about fifty, Ceawlin was of Welsh origin, but he spoke fluent Latin and Greek. Having risen to the top of Londinium society, such as it was, he seemed determined to expand his business interests on the continent, and had become one of Artorius's most significant backers.

  But he troubled Regina. He clearly dismissed her as unimportant, a mere woman. In her presence he would let slip the mask of smiling beneficence he kept up before Artorius — and Regina saw the greed and calculation in his fat-choked eyes. His motivation was his own wealth and power, she saw immediately, and Artorius, this barbarian soldier-king, was no more than a means to an end.

  While Regina was to be admitted to Artorius's councils, Brica was expected to stay with Ceawlin and his household. But she was unhappy — and loathed Ceawlin on sight. "They laugh at me," she groused. "These pretty children and their vapid mother. They laugh at the way I speak, and the clothes I wear, and the way I do my hair. But I bet not one of them could strangle a chicken or gut a pig. And that Ceawlin makes my skin crawl; he stinks of piss, and he stands so close..."

  Once Regina herself had been like Ceawlin's spoiled daughters, she thought, and would have laughed just as much at a girl from an old hill fort. She embraced her sturdy, bronzed daughter. "I'm proud of you," she said. "And anyhow it won't be for long." She was sure that was true — she was becoming convinced she was nearing an end game with Artorius — though she didn't yet know how that end game would play out.

  And at the same time she faced another problem.

  It had become obvious to both Brica and Galba that Regina opposed their union. Regina was so
powerful that Galba and his family did not dare stand up to her, and Brica herself had so far stopped short of open rebellion. But Regina knew that could not last forever. Just as Artorius's ambitions were overweening, so Brica's frustration, as the years flowed steadily by, was becoming overpowering.

  In both areas of Regina's life a crisis was approaching, then. She had no clear idea how she would handle these twin issues — not yet. But this Londinium trip would surely be useful. It would let her gauge the seriousness of Artorius's ambitions; and it would buy her a little time by taking Brica away from Galba for a while.

  And perhaps, in Britain's greatest city, other opportunities would open up. Before setting out, with no clear intention in mind, she had taken the three matres, her deepest symbol of family, carefully wrapped them in her softest cloth, and lodged them in her luggage.

  • • •

  Artorius held his war council in Ceawlin's reception room. It was a large, well-appointed chamber, but it was crowded, for it held no less than ten petty kings and their advisers.

  Regina quickly got to know a few of these ambitious warlords. Aside from Ceawlin, two struck her as significant.

  One was a very young man, barely twenty it seemed, who called himself Ambrosius Aurelianus. In his shining body armor he was a slab of muscle and determination, and it seemed to Regina that he would follow Artorius wherever he asked — and perhaps, on Artorius's inevitable death, take up Chalybs and wield that mighty sword himself against the Saxon hordes.

  The other was a thin, intense man called Arvandus. He was actually an official of the Roman Empire, a prefect in the troubled, half-dislocated province of Gaul. But his ambition was clearly to rule not in the Emperor's name but in his own right. Regina fretted that because he had already betrayed one ruler, in the Emperor, he would likely have few qualms in betraying another.

  Artorius, in his zeal and passion, seemed to have no idea that such complexities might be brewing among his nominal followers, that these men were not like the loyal soldiers with whom he had fought side by side, but men with their own goals and ambitions, even their own dreams: In Artorius's blindness Regina felt she saw his destiny clearly shaped.

  They spent much time discussing the tactical situation across the country. Information was patchy, the situation complex. Though the Saxons were unified in their hostility to the British and the Roman legacy, they were not a politically coordinated force, and their advances were opportunistic and scattered. Meanwhile the British response was equally fragmentary.

  "But what is sure," said Artorius grimly, "is that there isn't a blade of grass east of Londinium that isn't now in Saxon hands. And time is short..."

  He described the Saxons' destruction of the town of Calleva Atrebatum. They had not just slaughtered or driven off the population, not just plundered and burned down the remaining buildings; the Saxons had also hurled blocks of building stone down the wells, so the site of the town could never be reoccupied. It was an erasure, systematic and deliberate.

  "And by such acts they are erasing our will as well as our towns," Artorius said. "We still far outnumber the Saxon settlers. But in some parts you feel as if the Saxons have won already. While the old elite flee to Armorica, I've seen farmers give up their lands to the Saxons without a fight. But if they think the Saxons will welcome them, they've another thing coming. For the Saxons don't want us, we British! Oh, no. The Saxons just want our country. And if we don't oppose them now — it may take them decades, but in the end they will kill us or push us out, bit by bit, until we are banished from the land that was once ours, our only refuge in the rough lands to the west and north. And the worst of it is, nobody will even realize it's happening..."

  Now Arvandus said, his heavily accented voice as thick as oil, "Perhaps we should wait for the response to our plea to the magister militum."

  Regina had seen a copy of this letter to the Roman military commander in Gaul. "To the thrice consul, the groans of the British... The barbarians drive us to the sea and the sea drives us back to the barbarians. Between these two types of death we are either slaughtered or drowned..." It had given her hope that such a missive had been sent to the Roman authorities, even if it was stated in such ludicrous terms.

  "If the magister were going to reply," Ceawlin said, "he would have done so by now. There will be no help from Rome. Besides, they are too busy facing the Huns."

  "Then we should try again," Regina said.

  Every head swiveled. She was the only woman here, save for the servants.

  She said, "We will not defeat barbarians by acting like barbarians. We must ensure we maintain our alliance with the civilized world. That is the only way things will ever return to normal."

  Ceawlin laughed. "Normal! Woman, what is normal? It is a generation since Constantius. There are children — adults — all across Britain now who have never heard a word of Latin..."

  "The Empire has lasted a thousand years," she said calmly. "We can wait a thousand days for the magister to reply."

  Artorius shook his head angrily. "I will crawl to no magister, in Gaul or Rome or anywhere else. This is our island. We will defend it, and we will build it anew — not the Roman way, not the Saxon way, but our way."

  There was a silence; none of them seemed sure how to respond.

  Artorius stood. "We will break. Eat, bathe, sleep — with your kindness, Ceawlin." The fat negotiatore nodded his head. "We will talk later."

  After the meeting broke up Artorius came to Regina and led her to a quiet corner of Ceawlin's colonnaded courtyard, away from the others. "Why do you betray me?" he demanded in a sharp whisper. "I found you in your wretched scraping on the hillside and made you what you are. I brought you into this council. Why will you not support me before the others?"

  "Because I don't agree with you," she said. "The adventure you are planning in Gaul. Your drive for the purple—"

  His eyes narrowed. "Are you worried that I will make the mistake of Constantius, and drain the island of its strength?"

  She tried to explain how she felt. "Yes, there is that. But there is more. I think you are being — seduced. Your war against the Saxons is justified, because it is clear that given the chance they would kill every one of us, and fill our island with their own bawling, blond-haired brats.

  "But now you are talking of fighting for its own sake. I think to you war as an adventure, a great game. But this is no game of 'soldiers,' Artorius. The tokens you spend are not stones or beads of glass. They are men — humans, each with a soul, an awareness, as bright and vivid as yours or mine."

  He looked at her blankly. "Regina—"

  "Your soldiers believe there were better people in the past," she said, "who built the great ruins at which they gawp. I wonder if people will be better in the future. Perhaps our remote grandchildren will understand the sanctity of life, and to them using the lives of others, as if they were of no more consequence than bits of stone, will be as unthinkable as for me to pluck out my own heart."

  "But until that happy day, we flawed mortals must get along as best we can," said Artorius dryly. "How do you think the Empire itself was built, save through war? How do you think its peace was kept for so long, save through endless war?" He grinned. "And — Regina, if it is a game it is a marvelous game. The world is an arena for the ambitious, and the prize for victory is no petty favor from a stadium crowd. What else is life for?"

  "Once you prized my strength of character," she said. "My defiance."

  "But now you are starting to irritate me, my Morrigan." He stepped closer to her, his face even. "Do not oppose me tomorrow."

  When he had gone she stood for a time, in the cool shade of the colonnade, thinking through her problems. Artorius was determined on this course, a course that must lead him to disaster. And then there was Brica with her moon-faced barbarian boy.

  Both her problems had a single solution.

  It is time, she told herself. She must not go back to the dunon. Perhaps she had anticipated th
is decision, for she had after all packed the matres, the heart of her home. The decision made, all that remained was to work out how to achieve her new goal.

  And yet, standing here, she felt suddenly old, and weak, and tired. Must she do this? Must she uproot herself again, build yet another life? And would she have to fight even her own daughter to do it? But she knew there was no choice, not anymore.

  As it happened, an opportunity to get what she wanted showed itself before the next council.

  • • •

  Ceawlin sought her out in her small chamber. Standing in the doorway, his bulk seemed to fill the room.

  "I saw the tension between you and the riothamus," he said evenly. "If I can help—"

  She eyed him, calculating, wondering what motives had brought him here. "Perhaps you can. I need passage."

  "Passage? Where?"

  She took a breath. "Rome."

  "Why do you want to go to Rome?"

  "To find my mother."

  He gazed at her, his eyes invisible behind layers of fat. "You fear Artorius. You think he is leading us all to disaster. You, specifically."

  "My relationship with Artorius isn't your concern. Can you get me a passage?"

  He shrugged massively. "I am a negotiatore. I can provide anything — for a price." He considered. "Come with me."

  He walked with her out of the house and along the line of the wall beside the river, heading west toward the bridge.

  After a short time they came to the docks. A massive series of timber quays and waterfronts had been constructed in the shadow of the bridge. Behind the quayside was a row of warehouses, and behind them, as Ceawlin pointed out to her, was a district of workshops. There was a handful of boats in the quays. Most of them were small, but one was larger, with bright green sails furled against its masts.

  "Here is the heart of Londinium. Goods from the heart of the Empire flow into these wharfs and warehouses, and our goods flow out. The workshops house crafstmen — shipwrights, carpenters, metalworkers, leatherworkers — to service the ships, and to process the trade goods. Once British wheat fed half the western Empire, and our metal clad the mighty armies that held Gaul. Now the port is much declined, of course. But there is still a profit to be made," he said, patting his belly complacently.