Debt of Ages

by Steve White

  “You damned pagan half-breed!” Cador yelled, groping instinctively at his side for the weapon that wasn’t there.

  “Enough!” Gwenhwyvaer’s voice cut across the rising hubbub like a sword-slash. “Cerdic, your mouth will talk you into trouble yet. And you, Cador—and all your house!— whether you wish it or not, the Saxons are here to stay, however or whenever they first came. Whatever future Britain is to have, they will be a part of it. All those of their race who now live in this island are citizens or allies of Rome; to strike at them is to strike at Rome—and at Artorius who is Rome! Will you defy him, Cador?” The western chieftain dropped his eyes. After almost a decade and a half, the memory of how Artorius had dealt with the rebellious Silures was still fresh. Yes, irony piled upon irony! Ambrosias, are you listening to me invoke the iron fist of Rome? Is that your ghost I can almost see, looking too stunned to haunt? Or could it be the ghost of my own younger self?

  All at once exasperation overtook her. “We will meet again tomorrow and see if you fools can attend to the business at hand. And know this: I will have an end to this endless paying of blood-debts, before there’s no blood left to be paid! In the meantime, remember my ban on all quarreling within these walls and for five miles around! This conference is adjourned.” They all rose to their feet as she swept out, followed by her guards.

  “I need to breathe air that isn’t thick with stale old hates,” she declared. “I’m going riding.”

  “I’D summon an escort, Lady,” the guard captain said.

  “The Devil take escorts! I need a time by myself.”

  “But, Lady, alone… ?”

  “Sweet Jesu! Will no one obey me this day?” The captain inclined his head. He belonged to the Artoriani, the elite heavy cavalry Artorius had commanded by right of birth before he had become High King, much less Augustus. A small detachment of them remained stationed here, a reminder that he had not forgotten the island of his birth.

  A few minutes later, she was cantering away from the stables, her full ankle-length skirt hitched up so that she could use the stirrups that Artorius’ Sarmatian ancestors had brought from the steppes long ago. He had taught her how when they’d been young, in the years that seemed a solid blaze of happiness in her memory against which all the hurtful wrongnesses since were silhouetted like dead trees against the sunset. I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to do this, she thought. I’m not getting any younger. But compared to most women my age… ! Of course, they’re mostly worn out from childbearing… . Automatically, from long practice, she thrust the thought back down into the cavern where it dwelled.

  She rode through the southwest gate, under the tower Ambrosius had designed to resemble a work of Rome, and down the hillslope past the four rings of earthworks that attested to this place’s past as a Celtic hill-fort. Today, she had to thread her way among encampments—the chieftains had brought far too many retainers for Ambrosius’ walls to hold. Ahead, the River Cam snaked among the scattered stands of trees, ablaze with the reflected afternoon sun. She wanted none of the old Roman road to the north of the hill, where travelers would distract her with their salutes. No, she would seek the old trail alongside the Cam, where she might find solitude—and remembrance.

  But the days cares would not leave her. Yes, Artorius, you were right. The things that drove the Saxons to this island—too many mouths to feed from too poor a land— didn’t stop driving them when you conquered that land. So where they once came as raiders, you let them come as immigrants to join their kindred already here—most recently Cerdic and his fellows from the Loire. Yes, it has been as you commanded. But not even you can command old blood-feuds to quietly die. Not from your golden City of Constantine,faraway beyond the sunrise.

  She tried to imagine what the City must be like—she’d heard descriptions, but discounted them as typical travelers’ exaggerations—as she rode slowly along the trail, dappled with late-afternoon sun that slanted through the trees. Then, up ahead she saw a group approaching on foot. She urged her horse forward to see them more clearly, and they halted. The leader—a tall middle-aged man whose exotic appearance reminded her of someone, she knew not who— motioned his three companions to a halt with his walking staff. One of them was a tall lad, also foreign-looking, who Gwenhwyvaer felt she ought to know. Another was a big, dark, rakishly good-looking man in the prime of life, evidently a bodyguard but seeming in an indefinable way to be something more than your typical hiresword. And finally there was a powerfully built man whose face was obscured within a hood.

  All in all a decidedly odd group of wayfarers, Gwenhwyvaer decided. And something about the hooded man—was it a movement he had made, or the way he held himself?—caused her to feel, just below the level of thought, a shuddering fear that was absurd in the absence of any threatening or hostile move from these men. Indeed, the leader bowed with every evidence of respect and addressed her in cultured Latin.

  “Greetings, Lady. I am Tertullian, cousin to Ventidius, known to you of old.”

  Ventidius! Of course this man had looked familiar. “Yes, I remember now, although it was… what? Fifteen years ago? He was a merchant, close to my household. In feet… yes, his fiancee was briefly one of my ladies-in-waiting. But then they both disappeared abruptly. It was quite a mystery. What ever became of them?”

  “Alas, Lady, they were never seen again. They must have fallen afoul of brigands. It was a terrible blow to our family. But I’ve come trying to rebuild our British business. That’s why I’ve brought my young kinsman Philogius—time he was learning something of the world.” The maddeningly familiar-looking boy bowed. “And this,” Tertullian continued, indicating the hooded man, “is Gerontius, a business associate who met us after our arrival from Constantinople.”

  Gwenhwyvaer’s eyes widened. “Constantinople? You’ve come all the way from the City? What news of… of the Augustus?”

  “The divine Augustus was, God be praised, very well at the time of our departure. In feet, I was privileged beyond measure to be presented to the Sacred Presence. He commanded me to convey his greetings to you, and to deliver certain messages.”

  “Well, then, you must stay with us this night! We’ll talk on the morrow.”

  “You are too kind, Lady. But surely there’s no room for us. We’ve heard since our arrival that you are hosting a great gathering…”

  “Yes, to discuss border adjustments to accommodate the latest Saxon arrivals.” Her expression momentarily darkened. “But no matter. We’ll find room for someone who brings word from the Augustus! Your bodyguard can be lodged with my personal troops.”

  She turned her horse around, leading them back toward the hill at a slow walk. Tertullian walked beside her, answering her avid questions. If she had torn her attention from him and looked back, she might have seen the bodyguard—who Tertullian naturally hadn’t introduced— move up alongside the youth Philogius and mutter in an unfamiliar tongue.

  “This is something I’ve been meaning to take up with Tylar,” Sarnac groused. “Why is it that you always end up hobnobbing with the social elite while I’m billeted with the grunts?”

  “Seems reasonable to me,” Tiraena replied judiciously.

  They proceeded up the hill of Cadbury, passing through the concentric rings of earthworks and the camps; they got stared at by what Sarnac thought were some very tough-looking hombres. Then they were at the summit with its twenty-foot-thick rampart of stone-faced earth topped with a timber palisade.

  “This gate-tower is a damned clever design,” said Sarnac, who fancied himself an authority on low-tech military engineering since his last sojourn in this century, as they entered the fortress.

  “Yes,” Tiraena nodded. “But from the standpoint of Ambrosius Aurelianus, who designed it, it was even more important that it reflect Roman patterns, and even incorporate some recycled Roman structural elements. He was a fanatic, you see—a brilliant fanatic, but a fanatic.”

  They entered the enclosure. “I guess this a
ll looks familiar to you,” Sarnac remarked.

  “Mostly,” Tiraena acknowledged. “But I was here fifteen years ago, before the timelines branched off. There have been a few changes. That proto-Byzantine cruciform church, for instance. I remember it as little more than a foundation. It never got finished in our timeline, or so I gather from the implanted historical data I’ve now gotten back.”

  They approached the timbered hall that had been the primary headquarters for Artorius as High King of the Britons and for his viceroys—first Ambrosius and now Gwenhwyvaer. It was the nucleus of this stronghold at the summit of Cadbury, already known by the name which, a millennium later in their timeline, the Tudor antiquary John Leland would hear from the local people and make famous: Camalat.

  “So you were at the Battle of Angers?” The youngster in the red-and-white uniform of the Artoriani gawked at Sarnac. “Did you know my father Caradoc?”

  “I did indeed,” Sarnac said truthfully. “Does he still live?”

  “No,” the young cataphract replied with the fatalism of an era when death usually came early. “Disease took him during the campaign against Odoacer in Italy. I can barely remember him, for I had not long been weaned when he departed for Gaul with the Pan-Tarkan.” This reality’s Artorius might be Emperor of Rome, but these men would always call him by the title that they alone were privileged to use.

  A somewhat older man looked at Sarnac narrowly. “You hardly seem old enough to have fought at Angers, Bedwyr.”

  In point of coincidental fact, Sarnac had spent just about the same amount of subjective time since his participation in that battle as had elapsed in this timeline. But a decade and a half meant for less to one with access to twenty-third century bioscience than it did to these men. “Well, I was little more than a stripling then. My parents, settlers in Armorica, had been killed by the Saxons. I had some training in arms, and a mercenary who knew my family took me on. He’d just been hired as a bodyguard by the Bishop of Clermont’s secretary, who was traveling with the High King. It got confusing—his name was Bedwyr too.” To his relief, no one reacted. He’d been counting on this era’s mortality rate to assure that none of the men he’d served alongside—or, rather, their counterparts—would still be on active service. And nobody had, it seemed, heard of him. There’ll be no Sir Bedivere in this world’s legends. Bummer.

  “But what about the later campaigns?” the young man persisted. “I’ve heard that at Bourges…”

  “Sorry,” Sarnac shook his head. Now came the tricky part. “Just before the Battle of Bourges, our employer was called back to Clermont by the Bishop—now His Holiness Pope Gaius, you know—and we had to go with him. After that there was plenty of employment for us in the south of Gaul as the old Visigothic kingdom broke up and bands of their survivors were everywhere. But now,” he said firmly, “I’ve got to take a trip outside.” The facilities were holes in the ground. He didn’t really feel a need to use them, but his head needed a respite from the hot, smoky interior. This common room was used for sleeping and all other purposes, including cooking at the fire that was kept smoldering under a hole in the roof through which the smoke would rise when the wind was right. Tonight it wasn’t.

  He stepped out into a night which, like the day that had just ended, was unusually clear for this land; he could actually see some of the stars to which he had voyaged. On impulse, he ascended the rampart and leaned on the timber palisade, looking out over the darkened landscape. Yes, there were more stars visible up here above the scattering of torches that gave some illumination to the enclosure.

  He heard a rustle from below and looked down. A cloaked man, his head not far below the level of Sarnac’s feet, had emerged from the shadows and was proceeding toward the gate tower from the direction of the great hall. Then three other figures stepped unsteadily from the shadows and crossed his path. One of then staggered into a collision with the cloaked figure—Sarnac couldn’t tell whether or not it was intentional—then sprang back, glowering. “Who do you think you’re running down, dog?” he said in alcohol-slurred British.

  “Your pardon,” came the reply in the same language. “The night is dark.” The cloaked man made to go around, but the trio moved to block his path.

  “Oho! The Saxon pig can grunt in a human tongue,” another of them said in the careful way of a drunk who is trying to convey a particular tone—in this case, sarcasm.

  “He still needs to be taught manners,” said a bystander who, like the drunks, belonged to the visiting tribal contingents and not to the Regents guards.

  The Saxon, as he evidently was despite his facility with the British language, spoke calmly. “I’ll remind you that the Lady Gwenhwyvaer has forbidden all fights within these walls.” The bystanders were gathering, in a way that bore an odd resemblance to an attempt to surround him.

  “Aye,” one of them said. “So it’s too bad you started one by attacking Brychan here.” The man who’d collided with the Saxon nodded with drunken profundity, endeavoring to look very much the injured party.

  The Saxon looked around. “You may be too drunk to fear the Regent, but my men—who, fortunately for you brave lads, are camped outside the walk—will come looking for you. On that you have the word of Cerdic of the West Saxons.”

  It was evidently the wrong thing to say, because an ugly rumbling arose in which Sarnac could pick out the phrase “half-breed.” Suddenly, the Briton who’d been doing the talking lunged for Cerdic. The latter’s sturdily shod left foot shot out and caught him below the belt. Then the Saxon twisted around and fed another attacker a knuckle sandwich before disappearing under a knot of kicking, punching men.

  Sarnac reminded himself that he had only one purpose in being here, and that any actions that might jeopardize the mission were to be avoided at all costs. He reminded himself that the rights and wrongs of the local residents’ disputes could not be his concern. He even reminded himself that he didn’t have all that much use for Saxons.

  He was still telling himself all these things as he leaped off the parapet and landed feet-first on the back of one of Cerdic’s attackers.

  He scrambled to his feet and waded in, pulling two men off Cerdic and bringing their heads together with an authoritative clunk. It gave the Saxon the break he needed to get free of the tangle, and he began laying about with swings that were as powerful as they were unscientific. Nobody here knew the deadly hybrid form of unarmed combat that the PHL military taught its people, and Sarnac had enough presence of mind to avoid using it.

  All at once, Sarnac felt a brain-rattling jolt against his jaw and the world turned to spinning galaxies of stars. He managed to get his right arm up in time to block a second powerful but clumsy blow, and his head cleared enough to recognize his opponent as Brychan. With all the force he could muster, he drove his left fist into the boozy Briton’s gut. Brychan doubled over and proceeded to rid himself of his battered stomach’s contents. At the same time, Sarnac took a blow from behind to the kidneys. Scarcely noticing the pain, he thrust backward with his right elbow, connecting with something, then spun around and squared off with his new foe, wishing he was wearing the impact armor on which the fellow would have broken his knuckles. I’m getting too old for this shit, he thought. Why didn’t I think to remind myself of that?

  “Halt! Enough, I say!”

  As though by magic, the clarion-like voice transformed the scene into a still life. Everyone still conscious—except Brychan, who continued retching—turned slowly toward the approaching group of torch-carrying guards and the tall woman who strode forward at their head.

  “By all the demons of hell! Did I, speaking with the voice of Artorius Augustus, not prohibit all brawling?” Gwenhwyvaer was in a splendid fury, and as her blazing blue eyes swept the scene, nobody met them. Instead, these hulking warriors studied the ground, looking exactly like boys who’d been caught playing with their pee-pees.

  “Er, it’s his fault, Lady,” somebody finally managed, pointing at Cerdic. �
�The Saxon. He attacked Brychan, over there.”

  “Bullshit!” Sarnac remembered to say it in British. “Brychan and two others, all drunk out of their minds, decided to pick on Cerdic. The rest joined the fun.” Brychan had reached the dry-heaves stage and was in no condition to give evidence.

  Gwenhwyvaer stepped closer and recognized the young Saxon through the battering he’d taken. “Cerdic! What in Gods name have you done now?”

  Cerdic gave a grin which obviously cost him some pain. “It’s as this man says, Lady. By the way, friend, what’s your name?”

  “Bedwyr,” Sarnac muttered, hoping Gwenhwyvaer wouldn’t make any connections.

  “Well, Bedwyr, if you ever need a favor, remember that Cerdic of the West Saxons owes you a rather large one. You did me quite a good turn, even though your name couldn’t be more British. But, then, neither could mine___”

  “Shut up, Cerdic!” Gwenhwyvaer muttered through clenched teeth. Then she stepped closer to Sarnac. “Haven’t I seen you before? Aren’t you… ?”

  “My bodyguard, Lady,” Tylar finished for her. He hurried forward into the torchlight, followed by Tiraena in full “Philogius” kit. Following behind came the hooded figure of Gerontius.”

  “Well, Tertullian,” Gwenhwyvaer said imperiously, “he knew the ban on fighting. He must be turned over to the guard captain for judgment.”

  “I beg you to be merciful, Lady. I’ve known this man for some time, and I’m certain he would not have disobeyed your commands had it not been in defense of himself or others.”

  “He claims he was defending the ealdorman Cerdic of the West Saxons here against an unprovoked attack. These others say it was Cerdic who did the attacking.”

  “Well, Lady, I appeal to your common sense. How likely is it that the ealdorman would, in the teeth of your prohibition, single-handedly begin a fight in the stronghold of his people’s blood-enemies? He would have had to be either mad or a fool, and I have yet to hear that he is either.”