Emperor: Time’s Tapestry Book One

by Stephen Baxter

  ‘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 Roman, 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.’

  ‘Then this mass of scars is all that is left of your famous Prophecy.’ Cornelius peered, pointing to the letters with his finger. ‘Well, if it’s an acrostic it’s cleverer than the one on your wall, Thalius. That one made sense whether you read it up or down, back or forth. This one doesn’t make sense any which way!’

  ‘But I think it does,’ Aurelia said. Tension shaped her aged, vulpine face, and Thalius wondered how he could ever have found her attractive. She said, ‘It is how I visualised it, but now I can see it – here, see the A and O in the lower left, upper right corners. Alpha and omega – remember? This is an acrostic compiled by and for Christians, just like the Pater Noster.’

  But how could that be? Thalius wondered, chilled. For if the old legends were correct the acrostic came from a poem written down in the year of the birth of Christ, when there were no Christians.

  Cornelius said, ‘But there is another A, another O – never mind! Can you decipher this jumble?’

  ‘With the start and end points of the A and O, I think I can, yes.’

  ‘Then do it, woman!’

  Aurelia paused, staring at the scar for a long breath. Suddenly, quite uncharacteristically, she seemed hesitant. ‘First we must be sure we want to know.’ She turned away from the boy. ‘You Romans have a word for such a moment as this, Cornelius: discrimen, a crucial, life-shaping decision, a choice that might lead to triumph or catastrophe. Even if I can read the Prophecy, should we follow its advice? Constantine’s elevation may be the most significant event ever to have occurred in Britannia. Rome is the world’s greatest power, and decisions made by emperors cause history to shudder. And now we propose to deflect an emperor from his mighty path. History
’s Weaver may want this, but do we? Are we sure? Cornelius?’

  Cornelius considered. ‘If left unchecked this emperor will dissipate the very strengths that have made Rome strong. Rome must rediscover itself – and if Constantine is the man to lead that revival I will be happy. But he must be shown the way. And you, madam?’

  ‘I am concerned for Britain. We are being taxed to death. And if the heart of the empire is moved east, the west could wither. Yes, he must be deflected before his course is set. I’m sure. And you, Thalius? Will you follow the Prophecy?’

  Thalius, heart thumping, tried to think it through.

  The others forever took a partial view, it seemed to him. The fact was the world was a different place from the arena in which Rome had achieved its first dazzling successes. Now there was no room to expand, and from the heart of Asia whole peoples were on the march, fleeing drought and famine.

  The Romans were not technical innovators, but, Thalius believed, they were social innovators. They had already put themselves through one vast transformation, when the pressures of running their huge acquisitions had become too great for the fraught political processes of a republic, and the emperors had been hatched. Now in response to the pressures of a new age, Constantine was attempting a still more drastic metamorphosis as he tried to weld a conglomeration of differently developed provinces into a single nation, tightly controlled under one man’s authority, and bound together by the theological cement of Christianity. It seemed to Thalius that Constantine might be hailed by future generations as truly great, as a genius of his kind.

  But what of Christianity? If, in preserving Rome, the Church was corrupted or destroyed, Thalius concluded sadly, the loss to mankind would be greater even than if Rome fell. So what was to be done?

  He closed his eyes in brief prayer, seeking guidance. If only Constantine could see the effect of his policies on his subjects, perhaps he could use consent, not force, to unite the empire around a new set of goals to meet the challenges of the age – rebuild the empire as a truly Christian nation – and all fifty, sixty million of its citizens could move forward together. A letter, he thought: yes, a letter signed by a spectrum of concerned but good-hearted individuals – a letter backed by the mysterious authority of the Prophecy – that might encourage the Emperor to clarify his own thinking on many issues. Perhaps it could be circulated to other concerned groups. A petition, then. Standing there, eyes closed, he imagined how he might draft the first paragraph – he would need advice on the honorific to be used when addressing a modern emperor—

  ‘Falling asleep, Thalius?’ Cornelius’s voice was sardonic.

  Thalius’s eyes snapped open.

  Aurelia was watching him, her face impassive. ‘What are you thinking, Thalius?’

  Irritated, defensive, he said, ‘I am thinking that even Constantine’s actions are trivial compared to the greater forces that shape our age. I am thinking that perhaps we are simply distracting ourselves from the uncertainty of the future with a word game.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s so,’ Cornelius said, apparently not offended. ‘And perhaps we aren’t as shallow as you seem to believe, Thalius. Whatever you say we are faced with a decision. What will you do?’

  Thalius, embarrassed by his outburst, took a deep breath. ‘I am with you.’ He glanced at Aurelia. ‘Read the Prophecy.’

  Aurelia stepped towards the boy, who, with the dogged, choice-free patience of a born slave, continued to wait, back bent, tunic pulled over his head. With surprising tenderness Aurelia touched his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, child. It will be over in a moment.’ And with one manicured fingertip she began to trace the acrostic.

  PEEO

  NERR

  OSRI

  ACTA

  ‘From A to O, alpha to omega – bottom left to upper right, for by your tradition God is always to be found on the right hand side, am I correct, Thalius? This is a path to God, then, the true route for the pious. But it is a long and tangled path. How do we proceed? I believe these diagonal letters are a clue: C, O, and then up to the N…C-O-N referring to Constantine perhaps? And then I suppose we follow the diagonal back down again – S, T – and then to the corner – A, and work our way back up the long diagonal…’

  Thalius held his breath as the trail of her finger, working back and forth along the diagonals of the square, picked out words:

  A CONSTARE PERIRE * O

  ‘From alpha to omega,’ he read. ‘To stand firm. To die.’

  Cornelius straightened up and snorted. ‘Is that it? It’s not even a sentence. A nice motto for you pious types, I suppose. Hold true in death and you will be led to God. Fine. But it’s no use to us, is it?’

  Aurelia said, ‘Look again, you fool. There are layers of meaning. Can you not see it? Constare – Constantine – perire…’

  And in that moment Thalius saw the meaning of the message. The scrap of text was three hundred years old, yet it was quite specific, and it went to the heart of his own modern dilemma like an arrow from a bow.

  If the true Church was to survive, Constantine had to die.

  The slave boy was beginning to tremble.

  XI

  After Audax was sold to Thalius, he had been brought all the way across the country to the coast at a place called Rutupiae. Then he was taken through an immense city and across a huge river, through mile after mile of a green land of farms and canals and ditches, and at last to another city, Camulodunum. Now he was bundled into Thalius’s cart once again to be hauled off to what Tarcho called ‘the Wall’.

  Tarcho tried to explain where he was going, with maps sketched in the dirt with sticks. Audax didn’t understand what a map was in the first place, and north, south, east and west were all the same to him.

  And he didn’t want to leave Thalius’s house in Camulodunum, because of the food. He had been fed in the kitchen, with the slaves and servants, and sometimes Tarcho joined him. It was better food than he had had in his life. Sometimes he was given so much that he stopped being hungry, so much food he couldn’t finish it. Tarcho promised that Audax would never go hungry, he could always share Tarcho’s bread.

  But whether he understood or not, of course, whether he wanted to go or not, he had no choice about making the journey.

  And now they had new people to travel with, and that was another problem for Audax. The lady Aurelia rode with them, and sometimes Ulpius Cornelius too. The three of them, Thalius, Cornelius and Aurelia, would huddle in the back of the cart, whispering.

  Audax, utterly dependent on their goodwill, was acutely sensitive to their moods. Thalius, overweight, fussy, clumsy, was a good man. Audax couldn’t imagine him harming anybody on purpose. But he was vague. When he turned his attention on you, you could bask in his kindness, but then he would turn away, his head full of thinking, and he would forget you even existed. Thalius was all right, but he wasn’t to be relied on.

  As for Aurelia, she was an old woman with the body of a girl. Caked in creams, she trailed a cloud of stinks that made Audax’s nose itch. She hadn’t been unkind to him, that time when she had touched the tattoo on his back. But to her Audax was just a slave, no more than a bit of furniture, and just as easily disposed of. Audax understood this very well.

  It was an attitude Ulpius Cornelius shared too. But sometimes Cornelius looked at Audax with a searching stare. Perhaps Cornelius was a ‘dirty man’, as the boys in the mine had called the men, slaves and overseers alike, who had used them. Perhaps he was working out how he could get Audax alone, or dreaming of what he would do if he could. But he made no approach to Audax. Tarcho was careful not to let Audax out of his sight.

  All this discomfort was dwarfed by a deeper dread.

  Audax had spent almost all his life in the mines, shut up in the dark. Before Thalius and Tarcho came he had had only broken memories of the wider world, relics of when he was very small. Now he was stuck out in the open, and he hated the vast pulsing of day and night. It seemed unnatural, somehow out of control.
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  Thalius ambitiously tried to explain to Audax the difference between ‘finitude’ and ‘infinity’. Audax’s deep confusion came from a life spent in the enclosed and finite, and now he was stranded in a world of openness without end. Audax dimly grasped these ideas. But he thought it just went to show that Thalius had never been a slave. Slaves understood infinity, even if they had no words for it, for slaves faced a lifetime of labour, of an utter lack of choice, without end. Servitude was infinity.

  The one element in this huge open world of the outside that he felt drawn to was the sun. When the sky was clear the warmth of that great lamp in the sky sank deep into his bones and drew up his blood. Thalius gently explained to him that it was the sun that gave life to all things on earth, and that some people worshipped it as a god. Some believed it was a form of Thalius’s own god, the Christ, who had also been a man. The sun reminded Audax of Tarcho, in his strength, his warmth, his patience. Audax imagined Thalius’s Christ as a huge bearded soldier in the sky who smelled of sour German cabbage.

  They stayed a couple of nights at a place called Eburacum. This was a city of massive walls and towers strung along a riverfront, looking down on the civilian town that huddled around it. A huge building loomed out of the centre of the town, visible for miles around. It was the Roman military headquarters, Tarcho said.

  Founded as a legionary headquarters Eburacum had always been an important place. One emperor had died here: Severus, a century ago, after his campaigns in the Highlands, and after making Eburacum capital of one of his two British provinces. Since then the fortress and its walls had been rebuilt, massively. And another emperor had been created here, in Constantine, who had been proclaimed in that imposing headquarters building. Now Eburacum was the base of the military commander of the north, the Duke of the Britains.

  But Thalius didn’t like the place. ‘With its aloofness and arrogance and monumental military architecture,’ he said, ‘it prefigures in stone the haughtiness of the absolute monarchy of the future.’ Audax didn’t think even Tarcho knew what he was talking about.