by Chris Tookey
“Because they are filthy pagans,” snarled his father. “Spawn of the Devil. Servants of Satan. We must never allow them to rule Britannia. The day that Picts dictate to Albion will be the end of civilisation.”
Young Theodosius had never forgotten those words, and they came back to him many a time later on, as he fought against the Huns, another ferocious tribe – even more dangerous than the Picts, since the Huns were skilled horsemen and far more single-minded in their pursuit of land. No sooner had you defeated one band of Huns and left their territory than another band of the barbarians would gallop in and lay claim to it.
At least when the Picts were defeated, they’d go off, grumble and get drunk for a couple of decades.
Theodosius was brought back to the present by the sound of weeping. His younger son, Honorius, was only eleven and sniffling snottily into one of the bandages the medics had brought to staunch the Emperor’s wounds. Theodosius felt that the boy’s mother had brought him up too effeminate but was secretly pleased that someone was showing sorrow at his passing.
“Don’t cry, Honorius,” he managed to gasp. “Remember you will soon be Emperor of the West. Great emperors do not weep. They make others cry – for mercy!”
Theodosius waited for the child to laugh, but Honorius was probably snivelling too loudly to hear properly. Either that, or the Emperor’s comic timing had deserted him.
“Bring me Bishop Ambrose,” rasped the Emperor. “Where’s he gone? He was here a minute ago. I heard that godawful singing voice.”
“I am here, Caesar.”
One of the dark shapes at the back of the room swam into focus. It was Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. He was the source of the smell of incense, for he bore a censer that he pointedly waved across the bed.
“Sorry,” breathed Theodosius. “I must smell awful.”
“You will soon enjoy the fragrance of eternal life, breathed on you by means of the sacraments,” intoned the bishop, who was not so foolish as to tell the Emperor that his body odour was, indeed, terrible.
“Amen to that,” muttered the Emperor. “Tell me truthfully, Ambrose, have I been a good emperor?”
The bishop hesitated before evidently deciding that the time was not right for a lengthy clerical exposition on the various meanings of the word ‘good’.
“A good emperor? My lord, why else would they call you Theodosius the Great?” he replied, perhaps a little too unctuously.
“Flattery, perhaps?”
The bishop affected merriment at the Emperor’s attempt at a deathbed joke.
“Ha! Ha!” he intoned, mirthlessly. “I assure you, Caesar, that your achievements are second to none. You have routed the pagans and brought the entire Roman world under the beneficent governance of Christianity. You are the sacred flower of civilisation, the pinnacle of piety, a burning beacon of belief.”
“Am I?” The dying man let out a long-suffering sigh. He had never much cared for alliteration. “I suppose I am.”
“You have turned the whole of the civilised world into a theocracy. What greater achievement can there be than that?”
What, indeed? Theodosius’s mind drifted back eleven years to 384, the year of young Honorius’s birth. It had also been the year when he had declared war on the evil of paganism. He had led by example, not only ordering the summary execution of an old man who had been absent-mindedly inspecting the entrails of a chicken, but carrying it out himself.
“This man is throwing sand in the eyes of the Lord with his superstitious ravings!” he said, smiting off the old man’s head with his sword, at the third or possibly fourth attempt. “Leave his headless corpse in the forum, where he can be seen as an example to all.”
Over the next few years, Theodosius perfected his swing and made law after law. He forbade blood sacrifice and all forms of pagan worship, even the ancient Roman practice of offering votive candles to their household gods. To everyone who objected, he made the same statement:
“There is no salvation outside the Church. Rome has spoken. The case is concluded.”
Burning offerings to pagan gods became a treasonable offence, and even minor acts of religious rebellion, such as kneeling in front of a statue, tying a yellow ribbon around an old oak tree, or wolf-whistling a nun, could and usually did result in state confiscation of all the offender’s property, plus the summary removal of his genitalia.
Theodosius tried to remember whether it was he or Bishop Ambrose who had written the edict demanding religious orthodoxy across the empire. He found his lips framing once again his most famous words:
“It is our will that all the peoples who are ruled by the administration of our clemency shall practise that religion which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans. The rest, whom we adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogma, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of our own initiative.”
It wasn’t the snappiest of manifestoes, but clear and to the point. Many thousands of unbelievers had died as a result of it, and Theodosius was especially proud of its impact on alien cultures.
Only four years ago, he had sanctioned the destruction of the most famous pagan temple in the east, the Serapeum at Constantinople, which also contained most of the city’s world-famous library. Theodosius had been hesitant at first over so ruthless a cultural cleansing, aware that not every Roman intellectual shared his pleasure at the destruction of scores of synagogues, hundreds of temples and thousands of statues, not to mention the burning of millions of written works.
But Bishop Ambrose had assured him that the cause of Christianity must triumph over the curse of paganism. The cancer must be cut out, not permitted to grow back, whatever the human cost, he said with the determination of a surgeon.
Only once had Theodosius weakened in his resolve. Seven years ago, Christians had set fire to the synagogue in Callinicum, a previously insignificant town in Mesopotamia. The civil authorities had complained to the Emperor, and Theodosius had been impressed by their representations. He commanded that the arsonists be executed. He even ordered the rebuilding of the synagogue at imperial expense.
Theodosius smiled as he remembered the shocked reaction of his religious advisor.
“But, Caesar,” Bishop Ambrose had remonstrated, “the burning of synagogues is most pleasing to God.”
“An emperor must protect law and order,” Theodosius had replied. “My duty is to respect the rights of all citizens, even the Jews.”
“But, Caesar, the Jews have not been equal citizens for over one hundred and fifty years. Your illustrious predecessor, the Emperor Constantine, forbade the Jews to proselytise. You yourself have banned the practice of any religion other than Christianity. A Christian emperor has no duty to show goodwill towards such people. They have no rights. Your duty is to ensure the triumph of Christian truth over Jewish error.”
“Oh, very well,” Theodosius had said. “You know much more about these things than I do.”
The sound of Ambrose’s nasal voice brought Theodosius back to the pain-wracked present.
“Yes, Ambrose. What is it?” he asked, aware that his mind had been wandering.
“I was just saying, Caesar, that I shall do my utmost,” said the priest, “to ensure that you are remembered as a saint.”
“If I’m a saint,” grumbled Theodosius, “why is God punishing me with these infernal agonies?”
“Pain exists to test our faith, but a true saint will rise above it,” said Ambrose.
“Perhaps it’s those old pagan gods who are punishing me,” chuckled Theodosius. “Have you ever thought of that?”
“Caesar, your mind is wandering,” replied Ambrose. “The pagan gods do not exist. They never did exist.”
“Don’t you remember Delphi?” wheezed the Em
peror. “That day we destroyed the Oracle?”
The Bishop hesitated. Theodosius could see that he did recall that particular fiasco but had done his best to put it out of his mind.
“Don’t you remember the curse?” persisted Theodosius.
Ambrose shook his head.
“I remember no curse,” he said.
“She said I wouldn’t live to see fifty,” wheezed the Emperor, “and it looks as though she was right.”
“A lucky guess,” suggested Ambrose.
“Not so lucky for me, though, was it?” said the dying Emperor. “Do you remember what else she said? Those prophecies?”
“The woman was raving mad,” replied the bishop.
“Not many people can be raving mad and make prophecies that come true,” said Theodosius.
The Emperor thought back to the day two years earlier, when he had arrived by boat at Itea, the port of ancient Delphi, to close down the Oracle.
“Do you think we are doing the right thing?” he murmured to Bishop Ambrose, as they climbed the Sacred Way up Mount Parnassas. “I mean, this is the most important oracle in the world. The woman’s a legend.”
“All the more reason why we should put an end to her superstitious nonsense,” said Ambrose. “Look at these temples and idolatrous statues. They’ll all have to come down.”
The party stopped at the wide marble steps leading up to the huge Temple of Apollo, an imposing structure in the old, Doric style, with fifteen mighty columns along the front. A few ancient priests attempted to bar their entry, claiming that their armed arrival was “an insult to Apollo”. Well-aimed Roman swords swiftly put an end to their resistance, along with their worthless, pagan lives.
The imperial party strode into the temple. Soldiers led the way in case of ambush. It took several seconds for Theodosius’s eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. The first thing that struck him was the smell. As he breathed, he began to feel dizzy and light-headed.
“What is that?” asked the Emperor, sniffing. “It’s like ripening fruit.”
“Some kind of gas, I think,” said Bishop Ambrose, rubbing his eyes. “Are your eyes itching?”
“Most damnably,” replied Theodosius. “My God, is that the Oracle?”
In the innermost chamber of the temple, there was a sunken area over a crack in the floor. Above the crack was a golden tripod. On it sat a wild-haired creature with staring eyes. She was breathing heavily and twisted her body from side to side. Clothed in white linen, she seemed possessed by some gas, drug or unwholesome spirit. Theodosius had been expecting a wizened old crone with cobwebs under her arms, but the woman before him could not have been older than her mid-twenties.
“Who dares to come before me? Are you armed?” slurred the young woman. She did not look at them but rolled her head around as though in a trance. Only the whites of her eyes were showing.
The Emperor motioned to his soldiers to put up their swords, and they did so.
“Are you the Oracle?” asked Bishop Ambrose sternly.
“That is one of my names,” rasped the woman. “But most call me Gaia. Do you come to ask for guidance?”
“No,” said the bishop. “We have come to banish you.”
“Banish me?” cackled Gaia. “So, you have come at last! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
“And,” continued the bishop, “if you refuse to be banished, you will be put to death.”
“Banish me?” repeated the Oracle, recovering her composure and looking straight at him. “Banish me where?”
“To some outermost part of the empire,” replied Theodosius. “Britannia, perhaps.”
“Britannia? That will not be part of your empire for long,” said Gaia, pointing at him and laughing hysterically. “Ha! Your son Honorius will see to that.”
“Oh yes?” asked Theodosius, calmly, although his hand moved to clench the sword that hung from his side. “Is that a threat?”
“It is a prophecy,” sneered the Oracle. “I see things as they are, not as they ought to be. You, miserable cur, have only a year or two to live. You will not live to be fifty.”
“Really?” asked the Emperor, wondering which part of her to skewer first.
“Yes, really,” answered the Oracle.
“That’s very interesting,” said the Emperor, deciding instead upon a clean stroke through her filthy neck. “And when I die, will I be a saint? My friend here says I will.”
“You will never be a saint,” answered Gaia, “though your friend here will. The Church will look after its own, not a sinner like you.”
“Saint Ambrose!” said the Emperor, drily. “Well, well!”
“You must not speak to the Emperor with disrespect,” Ambrose told the woman sternly.
“Him? Why not?” shrieked the Oracle.
“He is a legend in his own lifetime,” said Ambrose.
“Pah!” she spat. “I am the legend here! Your precious Emperor holds no dominion over me!”
The soldiers around Theodosius drew their swords. But the Emperor removed his hand from his own weapon.
“Put up your swords,” said the Emperor, before turning back to the Oracle. “Your words cannot harm me.”
“They are not intended to,” she said, fastening her gaze upon him for the first time. “I merely see things as they are, or will be.”
“Well, we must agree to differ,” answered Theodosius with an amiability he did not feel. “You say my son will lose Britannia, and I say he won’t.”
“Why should you care?” hissed Gaia. “You will not survive long enough to see it!”
“I care, you vermin,” replied Theodosius, “because I helped my father defend Britannia from the Picts and Celts. Your prophecies do not frighten me because I will ensure that they never come to pass!”
“He is no ordinary Emperor, witch!” added Bishop Ambrose. “This is Theodosius the Great, guardian of Rome, defender of the one true faith, scourge of the pagan.”
At this, the Oracle began to laugh again, rocking to and fro on her tripod.
“What do you find so amusing?” asked Bishop Ambrose.
“You calling him ‘the Great’. This… Theodosius,” she spat out his name, “will soon be rotting in his grave, forgotten. Rome will cease to be the centre of the empire. Britannia will be lost forever to Rome, and in centuries to come Britannia will have its own empire, greater than any Rome has ever seen.”
“Preposterous!” snorted Bishop Ambrose. “The British are barbarians, on the northernmost edge of the world.”
The young woman threw back her head and started to sing:
“When the purple blood of Atlantis
Meets the crimson blood of the Hun,
A Theodosian will rule over Albion
Though the Empire of Rome will be done.
When the purple blood of Atlantis
Meets the crimson blood of the Hun,
The races that ruled over Albion
Will find that their course has been run.
When the purple blood of Atlantis
Meets the crimson blood of the Hun,
Arthur shall reign over Albion
And all kings shall bow unto one.”
“What does this song mean?” asked Theodosius. “By Albion, do you mean Britannia?”
“Albion is the greater part of Britannia,” said the Oracle.
“So, it’s not even the whole of Britannia?” said Theodosius, scornfully.
“One man will unite the tribes against foreign invasion. One king. One ruler.”
“I hardly think that is likely,” retorted the bishop. “They spend their wretched lives fighting among themselves!”
“How are the tribes going to choose him?” asked Theodosius. “Draw lots?”
“The way they will know him,” said the Oracle, “is that
he will draw a shining sword from a block of stone, and it will shatter into a thousand pieces!”
“What? The sword?” asked Theodosius, who was finding her ramblings increasingly hard to follow.
“Of course not,” said the Oracle. “The stone.”
“What’s so clever about that?” said Theodosius, scratching his head. “It’s hardly proof of leadership potential.”
“It will be seen as a miracle,” explained the Oracle.
“All because of one measly conjuring trick?” said Theodosius. “Damn stupid way to choose a king if you ask me!”
He caught Bishop Ambrose’s eye, and both men laughed.
“Laugh all you like,” said the Oracle, fixing her eyes on Theodosius, “but this man who will drive his enemies before him, this sword-wielder, this kingdom-builder, will be of your own blood.”
Theodosius considered for a moment, before speaking.
“Yes, I heard you say a Theodosian will rule over Albion,” he said. “And that is itself an insult. You mean a Roman from my own family will betray the empire and rule this godforsaken land?”
“Assuredly,” replied the Oracle. “And his name will outlast yours by centuries – no, millennia. He will become a legend, a byword for honour, good government, tolerance and all the things for which you, o Emperor, will never be renowned.”
“You say nothing of his religion,” remarked Ambrose.
“He will have no religion, neither Christian nor pagan,” said Gaia, her eyes flashing. “And I hate him already.”
“Hate him? Why?” asked Ambrose. “You sound as if you approve of him.”
“I hate him because his reign will mark the end of the ancient races.”
“What ancient races?” asked Theodosius, puzzled.
“You Romans!” said the Oracle. “You think you know so much, yet you see so little. Do you know nothing of dwarves, elves, wizards? Giants, lizard-men and bugbears? The ancient races that once ruled Britannia and beyond?”
“This woman talks nonsense,” said Bishop Ambrose. “No such ancient races exist. Guards, cut her throat!”
“No, Ambrose!” said the Emperor, holding up his hand, which he suddenly noticed was shaking. “Let her speak!”
