Emperor

by Stephen Baxter

  Cornelius said, ‘And the boy, the slave on whom the destiny of an empire pivots?’

  ‘I have sent him to the kitchen with Tarcho–and, incidentally, I have instructed Tarcho to guard the boy as he has guarded me these last eight years.’

  Aurelia said, ‘Why have you invited us, Thalius? What do you want to achieve today? Have you thought it through that far?’

  Cornelius rumbled, ‘I doubt if any of us has.’

  Thalius said, ‘We appear to have a common interest. We may uncover a common goal. Let’s leave it at that for now.’

  That seemed to satisfy them. For a while, in the closed and locked room, sipping diluted wine, they were silent.

  Claudia Brigonia Aurelia lay on her couch. She seemed effortlessly in control, utterly superior. Thalius was sure that the soft crossing of her ankles, the way the drapery of her dress fell about her hips and thighs and hung away from her breasts–none of it was accidental but the product of a lifetime of self-training. With such simple tools she must effortlessly dominate the men around her, even now she was growing old. He thought too of what she had told him of an unrequited love affair between their ancestors, centuries ago. Was it possible that such unsatisfied lusts could send echoes down the generations? But that was a very un-Christian thought, he decided.

  Aside from her sexuality he sensed she was a natural snob, and had the manner to go with it; before her judgemental gaze he felt unreasonably ill at ease in his own home. Though her family was no better off than Thalius’s, she did have an ancestry she could trace back to the Claudian conquest, the date at which British history began–but she spoke of legends of royal blood even before that. Perhaps her ancestor was a princess of Troy, for the British race was supposed to have been founded by Trojans, who, fleeing the war with the Greeks, had brought the chariots that had met Caesar. It was only as an adult that Thalius had come to challenge this imported Mediterranean legend–and to wonder what true history had been lost, what old remembered wisdom dissipated, when the ancient British nations had been obliterated by Rome.

  While Aurelia sat, Cornelius carried a brimming cup of wine and walked around the triclinium, looking at the frescoes and the tapestry. He didn’t seem distracted by Aurelia’s charms. Perhaps, Thalius wondered, as many of Constantine’s eastern-tinged courtiers were rumoured to be, Cornelius preferred to pluck his fruit from a different tree.

  Thalius lumbered to his feet, picked up a jug of wine and refreshed their cups. ‘In the absence of a servant I must remember my duties as a host. You’re taken by that fresco, Ulpius Cornelius?’

  This particular painting showed a portrait of Christ at the time of His mission, a smooth-faced man of thirty or so, His hand raised in blessing. The figure was surrounded by symbols: the chi-rho, a sunburst behind Christ’s head, and a small acrostic in a lower corner.

  ‘It’s done well enough,’ Cornelius said, rather patronisingly. ‘But Christ was a fisherman in Judea, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Actually a carpenter.’

  ‘And a rabble-rouser. He would never have worn a toga!’

  Thalius smiled. ‘That’s what the pattern-book showed, and my artist didn’t have the confidence to deviate from the design.’

  ‘Interesting symbolism.’ Cornelius tapped the chi-rho with a fingernail. ‘I’ve seen this before.’

  Aurelia languidly uncurled from her couch and joined them. ‘It’s called the Christogram. The first two letters in Christ’s name in Greek, superimposed–you see?’

  ‘I have seen this scrawled on temple walls. Even in Rome.’

  Thalius said, ‘A relic of the days of persecution. Such symbols as this united a community under pressure.’

  ‘But now Christians are under pressure no more,’ Cornelius said. ‘And your Christogram has become a symbol of pride, yes?’

  Aurelia said, ‘Ah, but the Christogram is more than that. Look again, Cornelius. Haven’t you seen figures rather like this in other contexts?’

  Cornelius stepped back and tipped his head. ‘Do you know, I have. In Egypt, I think. It is rather like the ankh, an ancient mystic symbol–surely much more ancient than Christianity!’

  Aurelia murmured, ‘As a girl I learned to write Greek. This is also rather like a sign you make when editing a passage of writing–chi-rho for chreston, which means good.’

  ‘One symbol with many meanings, then,’ Cornelius said.

  ‘But that’s intentional,’ Aurelia said. ‘You can scrawl a chi-rho on your wall; a Christian will see the Christogram, a pagan will see an Egyptian good-luck sign. It appeals to everybody and offends nobody. The Emperor’s advisers are wily to encourage it.

  ‘Constantine is a Christian. Everybody knows that. And he wishes to establish Christianity as the empire’s core religion. But almost everybody else of influence–like you, Cornelius!–remains pagan. Most of the army too, despite Constantine being one of its own. Constantine, and the bishops who manipulate him, is proceeding subtly, through tools such as this clever little symbol. But, like the rain beating on your tiles, Cornelius, each drop brings you pagans closer to the day when the roof falls in.’

  Thalius said, ‘You seem to have thought deeply about this, madam.’

  ‘Emperors make the weather,’ she murmured. ‘It is best to pay them attention. Besides I am fascinated by the sheer machination of it all.’

  Cornelius said, ‘Machination, yes. And there are plenty who doubt Constantine’s sincerity about his conversion in the first place. How is it even possible for a good pagan to become Christian?’

  ‘Oh, I believe he is sincere,’ Aurelia said. ‘And as for how he was converted, you can see it painted up here on dear Thalius’s wall.’

  Cornelius looked again. ‘You mean the sunburst around Christ’s head?’

  Aurelia said, ‘Constantine grew up as a protégé of Apollo. And some years ago he hailed the sun god, Sol Invictus, as his tutelary god. Some would identify Apollo with the sun, and others identify the sun with your Christ, Thalius: Jesus is sol justitiae, the sun of justice. So you see there is a progression, logical in its way, through an overlapping identity of deities, from Apollo, via the sun, to Christ. But it will be quite a challenge for the biographers to make sense of all this one day.’

  Thalius felt irritated at this smug analysis. ‘All this theological trickery has nothing to do with the true nature of Christ and His message.’

  Aurelia just laughed.

  Cornelius turned to Thalius. ‘It is a little difficult to understand, good Thalius, what it is you object to about an emperor adopting your own long-marginalised faith.’

  ‘But the faith of Constantine isn’t necessarily mine,’ Thalius said unhappily. ‘Constantine’s warrior God has nothing to do with Christ and His teachings. And the Church he is creating is a mirror of the man and his empire: centralised, autocratic, intolerant, ruthless. That is why true Christians are appalled. Many of us are turning away–becoming ascetic, hermits and monks, retreating into the wilderness.’

  Cornelius winked at Aurelia. ‘What a loss to society!’

  ‘Be nice, Cornelius,’ murmured Aurelia.

  ‘Frankly, Thalius,’ Cornelius said, ‘the fate of your derivative little sect is of little interest to me compared to the use Constantine evidently plans to make of it.’

  Aurelia was interested. ‘And that use is?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? Constantine is turning the empire into a monarchy. He will be a king as supreme and unchallenged as the rulers of ancient Persia and Egypt. And he wants to draw on the unity of Christianity to cement all that in place; he imposes this alien cult on us in order to control us all.’

  Aurelia said, ‘You asked Thalius what he objected to in an emperor who adopted his own faith. Now I ask you, Ulpius Cornelius: what is wrong with an emperor whose goal is to unify the empire? Isn’t that better than the bloody chaos of our youth?’

  ‘Not if it is done the wrong way,’ Cornelius said. ‘Not if it means abandoning everything that made Ro
me strong in the first place. For if he does that, even if he succeeds in the short term, in the long run only ruin will ensue.’

  Aurelia tutted, mocking him. ‘And I had you down as a rational man, Ulpius Cornelius. Are you superstitious like Thalius here? Do you fear that if you turn your back on Rome’s old gods they will punish you?’

  Cornelius reddened, and Thalius saw there must be some truth in the charge. But the courtier said, ‘I talk of political realities, madam. Of a system that has worked for centuries. There has always been room for another god or two in our infinitely flexible pantheon! And that way nobody, from Germany to Africa, from Britain to Asia Minor, need be excluded from the consciousness of empire. It is not its army that made Rome strong but its inclusivity.’

  ‘But that is because Rome’s gods are so like its subjects’ gods,’ Aurelia said. ‘The Romans were farmers, as our ancestors were, Thalius. And farmers, rooted to their land, have gods of specific places. So the gods can happily coexist–each to his own scrap of land. The Jews, though, were nomads. And their god, who became Christ’s God, was a god of no-place, or perhaps of all places, an infinite god of the sky. But there is only one sky, and in such a scheme there can be only one god. Now the Romans are accepting this sole nomadic god as their own. There will be a fight to the death, Cornelius, a battle between the old farmers’ gods and the new sky god. There cannot be room for both. Now there will only be exclusivity, and intolerance.’

  Cornelius pursed his lips, and Thalius saw his deep dislike of being analysed in this way by a provincial woman, however valid the points she made. ‘Well, madam, you are here too. What is your objection to Constantine?’

  Aurelia was unperturbed. Thalius imagined she dealt with bullying men like Cornelius in the course of her working life all the time. ‘It’s simple. My concern isn’t for the fate of empires, still less for the immortal souls of humanity, but for Britain.’ She railed about Constantine’s excessive taxes, and repeated the rumours she had heard that Constantine had plans to move the capital of the empire permanently to the east. ‘Somewhere in Greece, it is said, or Asia Minor, or even Africa. Do you know anything about this?’

  The courtier pulled his lip. ‘There are always rumours. And there are practical issues involved, not least the defeat of Licinius first. But, yes, there is such talk. Rome will always be the heart of the empire. But Rome isn’t terribly convenient as a capital: it is far from the frontier provinces, like Britain, where the energies of the empire have to be concentrated. It is overcrowded, cluttered, difficult in the summer—’

  ‘And,’ Aurelia said laconically, ‘it is full of potential opponents of the Emperor, from the ever-hungry mob to old families like yours, Cornelius.’

  ‘I won’t deny that. Here is the bald truth. The eastern provinces are far richer than the west. Isn’t it sensible to place the capital at the economic core of the empire?’

  Aurelia said, ‘Only if you want the rest to wither away and die, neglected.’

  ‘Well–so here we are, the Christian, the pagan and the ambitious provincial, all united in believing that something must be done. But nothing is going to happen unless we manage to decode the slave child’s puzzle-tattoo–eh?’

  ‘There is that, yes,’ Thalius said gloomily.

  Aurelia sighed and settled back on her couch. ‘I’ve been working on it and have got nowhere, I’m afraid.’

  Cornelius said, ‘These acrostics are a Christian game, are they not? Like this one on the wall.’ He pointed to a cryptogram carefully painted in a corner of the Christ portrait:

  ROTAS

  OPERA

  TENET

  AREPO

  SATOR

  Thalius said, ‘The fresco painter added it.’

  Cornelius bent to see. ‘Very clever. Reads the same up and down, forward and back. But so what? The sower Arepo guides the wheels carefully. What is this, some reference to a holy life? Oh, I do hate word puzzles!’

  ‘Perhaps, but there is more in it than that,’ Aurelia said. She unfolded herself from her couch, dipped a delicate fingertip in the black of an extinguished candle, knelt down by the acrostic, and with her blackened finger wrote lightly on the wall. ‘Do you mind, Thalius? I am sure it will brush off. You see, you can rearrange the letters in the form of a cross, like this.’

  P

  A

  T

  E

  R

  PATERNOSTER

  O

  S

  T

  E

  R

  Cornelius studied the result. ‘A cross for Christ–eh? And it reads Our Father both ways.’

  ‘The first words of the Lord’s Prayer,’ Thalius said.

  Cornelius frowned. ‘But you haven’t used all the letters.’ He compared the cross to the original acrostic, and dabbed his own blackened fingers to pair up the letters in each.

  Thalius groaned, ‘My housekeeper will disembowel me for this mess!’

  Cornelius sat back. ‘You made a mistake, Aurelia! You have two As and two Os left over.’

  ‘There’s no mistake,’ Aurelia said. ‘It’s yet another layer of meaning, Cornelius, at least for a Christian. A and O, or Alpha and Omega: this symbolises the ‘beginning and the end’ in the Christian revelation…’ Her eyes defocused. ‘Oh.’

  Thalius took her arm, mildly alarmed. ‘Madam, are you all right?’

  ‘No. Yes! I think I have it.’

  ‘Have what?’

  ‘The key to your slave’s puzzle, Thalius–and perhaps the key to all our destinies.’ She stood up. ‘You must take me to the boy–now!’

  X

  Thalius led the way to the kitchen, where Tarcho was looking after the boy. He was greeted at the door by the warm smell of cooking bread. Inside, Tarcho was pounding vegetables with a mortar and pestle. Audax, standing close by, watched, fascinated. On a whim, Thalius paused, and his guests waited behind him, curious.

  Thalius heard Audax say to Tarcho, ‘You didn’t squash beets when you were a soldier.’ He was proving a fast learner, but his Latin was still rudimentary, uncertain, his accent strong, his abused throat gravelly.

  ‘Oh, I did, and more. Soldiers do everything for themselves.’

  ‘Soldiers fight.’

  ‘Well, not all the time! And in between fighting we do other things. We build forts and lay roads and build bridges.’

  ‘And squash beets.’

  ‘We squash beets and lay roads.’

  ‘Do you work in mines?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  Audax pulled a face. ‘Why would you work in a mine?’

  ‘Well, you have to, if you’re ordered to.’

  ‘A soldier is like a slave, then. You have to do what you’re told.’

  Tarcho faced the boy. ‘No. Never like that. A soldier is free in a way a slave never can be. It’s a good life.’

  ‘Why is it so good?’

  ‘Because the emperors need us. The whole of the empire, all of it, the cities and the walls and the forts, is like one vast farmyard designed to feed the army. Why? Because without us it would all collapse in a day. Have you heard of an emperor called Severus?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Came to Britain to put down a rising.’

  ‘Carausias?’

  ‘No, long before him. While he was here Severus took the whole of Britain, far to the north of the Wall, then his sons gave it away again. Long story. Anyhow Severus had to sort out a mess, and it was the army that sorted it for him, and Severus knew it. “Feed the soldiers,” he told his sons, “and let the rest rot.” Or words to that effect. Dead a hundred years, but he was right. And every emperor since has followed his advice.’

  ‘Should I join the army, Tarcho?’

  Tarcho looked at the boy, surprised. ‘Well, you’d have to be bought out of your slavery…Is that what you want? You’d have to fight for Rome, you know.’

  ‘That wouldn’t make me Roman.’

  ‘No, true. But if you aren’t R
oman, what are you?’

  ‘What I always was. Brigantian.’

  So, Thalius heard, fascinated, under the surface of Britannia the old nations survived, if only in the memory of slaves.

  Audax said now, ‘I want to be like you. I’ve got the muscles. Look.’ He held up an arm, pitifully thin, and bent it to show a bicep like a walnut.

  Tarcho grinned, and in a brief and uncharacteristic moment of tenderness, hugged the boy against his own massive chest.

  ‘Sweet to watch them,’ Aurelia whispered. ‘Like seeing an eight-year-old care for a three-year-old.’

  Cornelius murmured, ‘I suggest we get on with our business, Thalius.’

  Thalius took a breath. ‘Very well.’ He coughed loudly to announce his presence and walked into the kitchen.

  Tarcho stood, surprised, dropping the mortar and pestle. Audax hid behind Tarcho. The kitchen staff were startled, and Thalius waved a hand at them, shooing them out.

  Tarcho stepped forward. ‘Sir, is there something I can do for you?’

  Thalius sighed. ‘Not you but your charge, I’m afraid. Audax! Step forward now.’

  The slave obeyed without thinking, his head bowed. Tarcho stayed a step behind him.

  Thalius bent and whispered, ‘I’m sorry about this, lad. You must show your back again. But it won’t be for long, and I promise you won’t be hurt. Is that all right?’

  The boy didn’t reply. For all Tarcho’s good will the boy’s spirit remained a flicker.

  Thalius straightened up. ‘Turn around and lift your tunic. You know what to do.’

  The boy leaned forward to expose the grid of letters he had borne all his life but never seen:

  PEEO

  NERR

  OSRI

  ACTA

  Cornelius, bending stiffly, inspected the boy. ‘Tell me again where this thing came from, Thalius?’

  Thalius shrugged. ‘I have only legends, passed down for generations. The original Prophecy was a poem, sixteen lines long. It was burned at Hadrian’s orders. But it contained an acrostic–the first letter of each line, perhaps making up the core of the Prophecy’s message–that was remembered and passed on. And then, at some later time, it was encoded into this grid form.’