Passage

by Dirk van den Boom

  Von Klasewitz didn’t recognize the sunken, tired and disoriented face. But Maximus and his officers drew their breath audibly and then seemed petrified.

  “For those of you who don’t know this man, let me introduce him: Welcome Flavius Julius Valens, uncle of Gratian, Emperor of the East.”

  Von Klasewitz stared at the older man in disbelief. Valens had died, fallen before Adrianople – in his timeline as well as in this! Which mysterious powers of fate ever had thrown the Saarbrücken into the past, this incident seemed to have led to more than just the appearance of the Germans. Valens had survived and fell obviously into the captivity of the Goths.

  Maximus stepped forward. “How can we know that this is the real Valens? I admit, he resembles the Emperor very much, but …”

  “He carries the imperial seal with him,” Ambrosius interrupted. “He knows things that only the emperor of the East can be aware of. Ask him once he feels better.”

  “Better?”

  “He was seriously injured and his mind has, for the moment, escaped into a dream once he realized the magnitude of the defeat he had to answer. He is …”

  “Crazy!” Maximus interrupted and now seemed to be completely relaxed. “Crazy and thus not capable of governing. Even his survival is pointless, because as insane as he seems, he must resign or be removed from office.”

  Ambrosius smiled softly. “You may call him crazy, Comes. I call him … docile.”

  Maximus eyes narrowed again. “What is your intention, Bishop?” he asked.

  Ambrosius’ smile widened. “I procured you an unexpected degree of legitimacy, Maximus. Like Valens has approved the appointment of Gratian as Emperor of the West after the death of Valentinian, he will now confirm you as worthy of the purple – in public and to the testimony of each and everyone.”

  Silence reigned the room.

  Then Maximus smiled.

  6

  “The normal way, if you want to go by ship, is through the Eritrean Sea,” Aurelius Africanus explained, pointing to what Köhler knew as the “Red Sea.” “The new maps have helped to determine the geographic elements in more detail, but it was still difficult to guess the actual position of towns and cities and the exact line of the coasts. Köhler had to realize that in a thousand years some areas silted while other areas have been reclaimed from the sea, so that the German maps, while basically very helpful, differed in important details. After Köhler and Behrens had persuaded Captain Rheinberg to attempt the expedition with the Valentinian, he had ordered them, among other things, to record any deviation from the maps accurately and, where possible, to take measurements, even if they might not be absolutely perfect.”

  “That would be easily done in our time,” Köhler commented on the proposal of the Trierarch and frowned. “We have a channel, called the Suez Canal. It connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, which you call the Eritrean. We could go to Egypt, cross the channel and then … where is Adulis exactly?”

  “Here!” Aurelius pointed to a spot where there was also a marker labeled by a Roman cartographer. Adulis was on the east coast of the Horn of Africa. In his time, the corporal remembered, this was the Empire of Ethiopia, which traced his own roots back to Aksum. “It is the largest seaport of the kingdom of Aksum, the most important trading center. From there goes a road into the interior, directly to the capital itself. If we can’t find what we seek in Adulis, then we’ll get it in Aksum. There is an embassy of the Emperor there which is largely occupied with trade issues. Some of our priests are active as the Empire has opened itself to christianity for a long time. But the Aksumite are not trinitarians, and therefore the relations are in this respect somewhat … well, cold.”

  “Well, we can’t use the ship all the way to Adulis, since there is no channel,” Köhler came back to the actual subject.

  “Oh, it’s there,” Aurelius corrected him. “It may be that this is a large structure in your time, but already the Egyptian pharaohs have dug such a channel hundreds of years ago. The Persians have expanded it, and I must confess to my shame that it silted up, despite the efforts of Emperor Traian, for the most part now.”

  Köhler shook his head, less in regard to his deficient faith, but more about himself. “I have to apologize again, my friend,” he said. He went to the window, which gave him a good look at the new shipyard facility, one he took in for a moment. From here he could not only see, gently swaying, the Valentinian at her pier, but also not far away, the moored Saarbrücken. If he turned his head slightly to the right, the seemingly endless row of slaves was to be seen, who labored with shovels and buckets to excavate the major drydock, which belonged to the core of the port facility. There the light cruiser was to be placed, due in a few weeks. The waters of the Mediterranean attacked the iron hull with special aggressiveness, and Dahms scrutinized the ever-spreading rust with great concern. It was high time to give the ship a fresh paint job.

  Köhler also knew that it was Rheinberg’s plan to buy all the slaves whenever enough gold was available, and to release them immediately thereafter. Already now they were treated as employees, not as property, as the captain had ordered.

  Then his eyes fell back to the cruiser. What would happen if they ran out of the special color needed to protect the hull from salty water Köhler didn’t want to imagine. One of the reasons why Rheinberg supported the development of wooden steamships, manufactured by the Romans, was not least the fear that the life and operability of the Saarbrücken was limited and they had to have alternative means of naval power available.

  Inevitably, at a certain date, the cruiser would be only a rusting wreck.

  Köhler didn’t want to be reminded. He broke away from this image and turned back to Africanus, who had watched him smiling.

  “So there is a channel, but we cannot use it anyway, because it wasn’t properly protected against silting up.”

  Africanus shrugged. “It is on the list.”

  Köhler shook his head. He had heard this response in recent weeks quite often. The fabled list had been drawn up by Rheinberg and Dahms. It contained all the measures that they tried to take, “once time permitted.” The reconstruction of the channel was certainly one of them, as well as some other construction projects. Now that they had proved that it was possible to build a functional, though not particularly efficient steam engine from bronze, even more ambitious things were on the plate like covering the Roman Empire with a railway network. This would bring benefits for trade but also for defense – and it was now, at least in theory, technically feasible. If someone asked when they would take care of it – as many other challenges too –, the answer was, It is on the list. As if by that, half of the work was already done.

  To get coffee had been on the list, its need especially clear as the coffee bean was apparently not known yet, despite access to Aksum. It was thanks to Köhler’s and Behrens’ initiative that this item had been removed from the list to be actually implemented. Rheinberg called it his “feel-good-project” – the attempt to prove the critics that the arrival of the Germans didn’t only have advantages because the Empire now could efficiently kill its enemies. Köhler was the motivating force that had persuaded the captain to authorize the expedition.

  All of them wanted to drink real coffee again.

  “So we won’t go to Adulis. What is the alternative?” the NCO asked.

  “Not so fast, my friend. We can, of course, travel to Alexandria, then by river boat up the Nile and afterwards across the southern border of the Egyptian province overland to Aksum. But this trip will last much longer, even though it is the most direct route, because it is difficult and the weather very hot. We can also move only relatively few trade goods by cart. But if we want the Negusa Nagast’s permission to search his country for the wild coffee bean – or even muster his active support for this mission –, we have to offer something in exchange.”

  Africanus
bent over the map.

  “We will therefore instead take the Valentinian to Alexandria, then travel the Nile to the channel close to Clysma in order to equip a coastal sailor who will take us directly to Adulis. At sea, we will be much faster and we can adequately carry with us merchandise that we’ll acquire in Egypt.”

  “But from Adulis onwards …”

  “Most goods we’ll sell in the port, directly to the royal merchant, so the Aksumite emperor will know soon if he has made a good deal. With a selection of precious jewels and some gold coins from the stock of the Saarbrücken, we’ll travel over land to Aksum. There we will pay our respect to the Negusa Nagast, prepared and introduced by the local Roman representative. He should put great interest in our plans since they would earn well on a lucrative trade. We have already sent messengers ahead and announced our expedition.”

  “The news of the arrival of the time-travelers has spread to Aksum already?” Köhler asked.

  “We don’t know. But experience shows that important information travels fast around the Mediterranean. It wouldn’t surprise me if the agents of the Aksumite emperor in Syria or Egypt or Palestine are very well informed about what is happening in the Empire. Aksum is a powerful state in itself – and with ambitions. These ambitions are aimed fortunately not against Rome, but to the east, to Arabia. Given our relationship with the Parthians, we are in favor of anyone who acts decisively in the East. Aksum and Rome are not allied but benevolent friends, and that should help us.”

  “Then we travel as you proposed,” Köhler said with a nod. “The Valentinian is equipped, and we have a proper crew. Besides Behrens and I, two infantrymen, two sailors and a machinist of the Saarbrücken will join us. The rest of the crew consists, if I have understood you correctly, of veterans of the Scipio.”

  The Scipio had been Africanus’ last command, a Roman trireme, which he had led in an equally heroic and senseless attack against the just appeared Saarbrücken in the Mediterranean. A hit from a naval gun of the cruiser had sent the trireme to the seabed, but a good part of the crew had been rescued. The Valentinian required fewer men than the great rowers, so Africanus was able to completely run the ship with the rest of his men. He liked working with people he knew and on who he could rely upon.

  “I’m training consistently with the whole crew,” Africanus confirmed. “We need to be familiar with a very unusual type of navigation and try to understand the weaponry properly. But once it is spring, we can safely go to sea and start our expedition.”

  Köhler nodded. He would soon begin his own training session on the Saarbrücken; currently it was his task to explain to a group of Roman sailors the basics of instrumentation. He thought of his students, who were trying to process this with a mixture of disbelief, astonishment and snide arrogance of experienced sailors refusing to learn something new, as a third man stepped into the room. It was Dr. Hans Neumann, Navy Medical Corps, and he looked unexpectedly happy.

  Köhler guessed the news that the doctor brought and frowned. “Sir!” he greeted the doctor respectfully.

  “Köhler, I was looking for you!” Neumann boomed and settled into a chair with a groan. “What a day, damn. For six hours I tried to teach the best healers of Ravenna and their assistants what a blessing it would be if they’d boil their surgical instruments prior to use and that it makes sense to throw away rusty instruments, rather than to continue to use them endlessly. Damn, one of the men had dirt under his fingernails and boasted that they he had already carried out operations on the open skull! They make me completely insane!”

  Köhler grinned. Neumann had to air his exasperation at regular intervals, otherwise he wouldn’t bear the management of his newly minted School of Medicine for long. In fact, he spoke mostly very favorably about the traditional knowledge of his students, whose manual abilities were often higher than he had imagined. The Gallic medicine schools were famous throughout the Empire, and his students were all graduates from there, complemented by some Egyptians who also referred to a long medical tradition. Still, some issues which had to be discussed came up again and again. Hygiene during treatment – during each treatment – was one of the necessities that wasn’t always easy to convey. Fortunately, the Romans were commonly very clean people, so that the basic idea of cleanliness had a certain social acceptance. Had they stranded a few hundred years later, one would have assigned exaggerated cleanliness in a man as a weakness and mocked him accordingly.

  “How is progress generally?” Köhler asked. He knew that von Neumann’s efforts were of utmost importance. They needed qualified physicians, at least more highly trained paramedics, and a local production of medical supplies like bandages and simple medication. The cabinets in the small hospital of Saarbrücken were well filled, but that wouldn’t last forever, and the more the Germans would distribute themselves over the Empire, the harder it was for a single doctor to treat everyone.

  Neumann sighed. He took out his empty pipe, looked at it wistfully and stuck it in his mouth, in a desperate effort to catch some of the tobacco flavor in the wood. He had smoked his last crumb some weeks ago. It was a frustration that he shared with many men of the Saarbrücken.

  “It’s actually quite good. The initial two-month course is over, and I started purposedly with experienced field surgeons of the Roman forces. These are very pragmatic men, used to both frustration as well as improvisation. Eight of them I have intensively trained, and I want to assume that they’d already be capable to act as a nurse in our time. For this era, they can be regarded as highly trained physicians. And I learned a lot about local medicines from them. For both sides, exchanging knowledge was a good thing. One of them stays with us and will help in future courses. Two will henceforth continue to work on the Saarbrücken in the hospital, along with my medical assistants. The remaining five go back to the legions. I have told them to train at least two of their assistants as thoroughly as possible, as I have done with them, and they have promised me to do so. With luck, the new expertise will spread quickly and become general knowledge soon.”

  Neumann sighed again. “Rome needs these experts.”

  Africanus abstained from any comment. Although he felt, like many others who worked closely with the Germans, great admiration for some of the engineering marvels from the future, he had also developed the same, subtle inferiority complex like many intelligent and educated Romans. Not everyone showed it. Some compensated with particular eagerness to prove that they weren’t too stupid to learn and improve and would quickly catch up. But others had big problems with the knowledge gap, although Rheinberg was carefully anxious to show the necessary respect while displaying their knowledge. For some, this inferiority complex gave way to rejection, sometimes even pure hatred. This issue remained to be difficult.

  Africanus wasn’t immune to these feelings, but he was confident about his own qualities. His knowledge of the Mediterranean and his familiarity with the regions of the Empire made him a valuable source of knowledge the Germans couldn’t easily replace. So the Trierarch never had the feeling not to be equal or not to be respected. Neumann’s last remark was silent but revealed that he was not entirely free of reservations himself.

  “But you are surely not here in order to report about the progress of medical education,” Köhler turned the topic back to the topic on hand. “Unless you want to tell us in person who of your graduates will accompany us on the Valentinian.”

  Neumann’s eyes flashed. He grinned broadly.

  “No,” he said simply.

  “No? But I thought …”

  “I’ll come myself!”

  Köhler raised his eyebrows, but was careful not to show too much surprise. Neumann had probably foreseen this doubt and nodded friendly toward the man.

  “I spoke with Rheinberg shortly before his departure to Trier about this,” he said. “Of course, I’m particularly interested in the medical knowledge in Egypt and Aksum and want to le
arn from it. Moreover, I am the only member of the crew who has certain botanical knowledge, quite useful for the purpose of our endeavor, I presume. The most important thing is that I no longer can endure it here, and I’ve told Rheinberg that he either gives me better things to do than playing the professor of medicine, or I leave the service, open a practice in Rome, buy me a fat villa and marry a senator’s daughter with huge tits!”

  Köhler smiled. Neumann was and remained to be the officer with the laxest attitude toward proper soldiering. No wonder that he got along so well with the man. “And the captain has accepted your ultimatum?”

  Neumann was still grinning. “Naturally! You have helped me!”

  “I did?”

  “You and Behrens and your tavern in Ravenna, poisoning the Empire with brandy. Other crew members also began to develop ideas. Rheinberg will have more and more trouble holding the men together. If I disappear, the dam will break. No, he has every interest to keep me happy.”

  Köhler saw that the doctor was enjoying himself royally.

  No, he corrected himself: imperially.

  He grinned back and welcomed Neumann in his crew.

  It would be fun.

  7

  Julia thought of how to endure all this, and it wasn’t easy. Her parents, as well as her estranged fiance and soon happily wed spouse, had insisted on a public ceremony – and quickly, before the defiant Julia could think of something to subvert this union. Since their families were both Christian, they had waived the traditional Roman marriage formalities. The church itself hadn’t developed any guidelines on how they had to get married – not yet, anyway –, and therefore the families had agreed to make it a proper but also conveniently fast ceremony. The primary goal of this event was less to delight the newlyweds than to show the public of high ranking guests that several problems had been solved – Julia, who had previously been in serious danger to become a spinster, was finally supplied with a husband, Martinus Caius, who so far had been very familiar with all the anatomical details of local prostitutes, was shown the right path, and two important families of nobility and money had joined, which was also of political importance. Something to be sealed with a lot of attendance, something which had to be festively celebrated and adequately witnessed by other worthy families – and therefore they had invited all of them.