The Centurion's Empire

by Sean McMullen

  The physician Milos sailed from Genua to Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber. He told port officials that he was going up the river to see Rome, but while the timber and skins were being unloaded from his ship he found another that was about to sail for Valentia. It was still short of riggers, and he was taken aboard. From Spain he worked his way to Britannia aboard a ship taking olive oil and pottery to Lon-dinium. Some years later he met a young centurion named Vitellan Bavalius, a youth with a curious malady that seemed to be treatable with the Venenum Immortale. After a delay of many years, Vitellan was about to share in the Temporians' type of immortality after all. __2

  pax romana

  Wessex, the British Isles: 16 February 870, Anno Domini

  The villagers of Durvonum worked their way across the gleaming white field slowly and methodically, harvesting the newly fallen snow into blocks. They were in teams of four, two shoveling the snow into square wooden pails, one packing it down with a mallet, and a carrier taking each completed block to an oxcart at the western corner. Although a raid by the Danes on this particular village was unlikely, a dozen men armed with pikes and axes stood guard near the cart. Alfred looked closely at the nearest team-All the workers were armed, both men and women.

  "Notice how they stay within a short run from the cart," he said to Bishop Paeder. "If Danish raiders burst out of the woods the snow harvesters could rally together in moments."

  "They also have scouts in the woodlands," said Paeder. "The Danes would have a hard, bloody fight, and for nothing better than a cartload of packed snow. Vitellan trained this first village well."

  Alfred considered the words, then nodded. "Just as he is training dozens more. I know that he is my friend, but he still frightens me. The man could have this land on a platter if he turned against us. He knows the arts of warfare so well, yet he has no fame or following."

  Paeder shifted his weight in the saddle with a rippling jingle of chainmail. "He is on our side, and we cannot do without him. Let's not tempt fate by prying too much." He glanced casually at the men of their escort. The sight of the villagers gathering snow was unsettling

  to the soldiers, and some crossed themselves in a nervous reflex. The scene had an uncanny resemblance to a grain harvest, except that this crop was white and cold. There was something here that seemed pointless and unnatural, the very essence of a pagan ritual.

  "So not all churls are so stupid, eh Githek?" Paeder called to the captain. The man was caught off guard. He had been fingering the pommel of his sword and staring intently at the villagers.

  "I—ah, their guards are well deployed," Githek began.

  "Not the guards, the ice!" said Paeder in loud and studied exasperation. "They need no expensive salt or smoking to preserve their meat. Instead they store it in some deep cave with blocks of ice made from snow—which is free for the taking."

  At once the mood of the men changed. Some edged their horses closer for a better view, while others talked excitedly among themselves and traced outlines of square pails in the chilly air.

  "Best to make this seem like a clever local trick, rather than let it go unexplained," said Paeder quietly, turning back to Alfred. "This way they will talk about the skill itself, rather than where they saw it done." Alfred nodded. "Yes, Vitellan has always said that he wants the real secret of this place to go no further than us two." The villagers worked in silence, except for the dull thudding of the mallets on the compacted snow. Over at the oxcart an elder inspected each block before it was loaded. Paeder pointed to him.

  "There's Gentor, the Icekeeper," he said. "He's very particular about the quality of the blocks, and the packing of the ice chamber."

  "It's one of the few times I have seen him away from Vitellan."

  "This snow harvest ceremony is very important to the people here, and nothing would make him miss it. It's old, very old."

  "Perhaps as old as Vitellan claims, in fact," said Alfred, frowning. "Do any chronicles give a clue to its age?"

  "I once read a chronicle by Augustine of Canterbury describing a village hereabout where they did this—the harvesting of snow into blocks to preserve meat through summer. I'm sure he was talking about this place. It was written two hundred and seventy years ago."

  "I would like to see that chronicle."

  "That is not possible, my young lord—even if your Latin was up to it. The book was in a library that was burned by the Danes three years ago."

  Alfred blew a streamer of breath into the frosty air, and Paeder briefly had the impression of an angry young dragon.

  "Vitellan is right," Alfred said in an ominously muted voice. "There is no more dangerous enemy than one who despises learning. Come Paeder, I've seen enough. Show me the village now."

  The thumping of the mallets faded behind them as they rode slowly through the woodlands. Durvonum itself was on a hillock in a large clearing. Although the huts were as small and crude as might be seen anywhere in the Kingdom of Wessex, they were arranged in orderly rows behind a low, square stockade. It had earth ramparts with sharpened stakes pointing outward to break any charge by horsemen. As they approached, a squad of villagers was drilling in a pike-wall formation.

  The villagers looked around quickly as the riders came into view, but relaxed when they saw the colors of the Royal House of Wessex. As they got closer the churls stared in fascination at the armor and weapons worn by the men of Alfred's escort. The riders in turn preened themselves as they rode past the staring eyes. To a villager they were magnificent indeed, true warriors dressed in leather scale mail or iron chainmail, with helmets of banded iron and leather. Painted roundshields were strapped to their backs, and their axes had never chopped firewood.

  "My, but we're pretty," snapped Paeder sarcastically as they stopped before the line of stakes. "Githek, hold your squad of dandies here and make them watch the churls at practice. They may learn something about real fighting." Alfred had already dismounted and was walking slowly

  through the maze of stakes. Paeder jumped to the ground in a flurry of snow and hurried after him.

  "No wonder they managed to fight off five raids by the Danes," said Alfred, pointing along the line of the stockade. "It's all rough, country work, but under masterful command. In fact there's something almost familiar about the way this stockade is built."

  Paeder grinned. "An outline more often found in old Roman ruins, I'm sure, but there are more marvels to see yet. No magic, just simple, practical things that work miracles."

  It was the first village in Wessex that Vitellan had trained, and after it had withstood several raids by the Danes, dozens of other villages petitioned for his help. After a year he assembled a'force of two hundred churls and razed a Danish camp near Leicester as an example to them. When word reached Alfred he invited Vitellan to a meeting, hoping to dissuade him from setting up a rival state.

  Tension had been expected, and the gaunt, enigmatic Vitellan had everyone on edge at first. The discussions began with politics, fortifications, and strategy, then someone mentioned that Alfred could read. The discussions abruptly became a dialogue between Alfred and Vitellan on literature, poetry and history. At the end of the meeting the pale, clean-shaven commander stunned the onlookers by pledging total loyalty to the Wessex throne. He even offered to train Prince Alfred's own men.

  The fifteen heads on stakes that topped the gates of Dur-vonum had by now been stripped down to skulls by the crows. There was arrogance in the gesture, proclaiming to the Danes that these people had slain their warriors and would be pleased to do likewise to anyone else who cared to attack.

  Because all the villagers were armed and trained—men and women—the place was a total fighting machine. An attacker would encounter twice as many defenders as would be expected in such a place: everyone fought. Children carried weapons, put out fires, and even helped care for the wounded.

  "Mind that you walk only between the little poles," said Paeder, taking Alfred's arm and guiding him.

  "But you s
aid we have to go across to that hut."

  "Follow the path, my lord. They've planted lilies."

  "Lilies? You mean there are gardens under the snow?"

  "These lilies are small, conical pits with fire-hardened stakes at the bottom. In winter the snow covers them, in summer they conceal them with leaves and a thin layer of dust. Your foot would be guided down to the stake, and the point would skewer it, boot and all."

  "Traps? In here, behind their own walls? Where they live?"

  "If the Danes breached the wall they would not be expecting to find still more traps. It's cheap, simple, and very demoralizing for an enemy."

  "And Vitellan's idea?"

  "Of course."

  The chief's hut was unexpectedly neat and orderly, with plank benches for visitors and no litter on the earth floor. Hides hung on the wall painted with crude Latin declarations of loyalty to the Christian church and to the Kingdom of Wessex. A crucifix was included for the benefit of the majority of his visitors, who could not read. Daegryn greeted them in broken Latin that had obviously been learned by rote, then reverted to a Saxon dialect as he earnestly renewed his allegiance to Wessex and cursed the Danes. He showed them around the stockade and they watched the villagers training. Even though he had seen it all before, Bishop Paeder whistled at the teamwork and discipline that the churls showed. At last the prince raised what he thought was the sensitive subject of the Frigidarium. He had expected Daegryn to become suspicious and guarded, but Paeder had already explained that the prince was in Vitellan's confidence. The chief led the way, lighting a reed torch as they left the hut.

  " 'Tis a great way to save salt for curin' or wood for smokin', sire," he explained. "Aye, and it's been in our village since the time of Christus. 'Tis true, and when Christus was leadin' his armies against the Pharaoh, so too were my ancestors packin' ice in the very fields that ye just rode through."

  "I must make sure that the local priest comes here more

  often," murmured Bishop Paeder in Latin, and Alfred grinned.

  The entrance to the Frigidarium was beneath a stone slab fireplace, and this was lifted aside by a dozen men using two stout poles. Narrow stone steps led down steeply into pitch blackness, and the chief hurried ahead with his smoky reed torch. Alfred counted ninety-two steps before they reached a small anteroom. With some effort Daegryn opened a massive, stone-inlaid wooden door. Cut into the stone lintel was rufus me fecit in neat, square letters.

  "Observe, sire, the stonemason was literate," said Paeder as they entered. "That makes it very old."

  "This place is Roman," said Alfred, holding his torch to the stone lining of the chamber while he shivered with the cold.

  "Look at the arches and stonework. The village must have been built over this chamber after the Romans left. Even the

  name frigidarium is a Latin term for a cold bath."

  The chamber was about fifteen feet long and ten wide, and one could stand up straight near the middle of the roof's arches. Each stone block was neatly cut, faced, and fitted, but there were none of the carvings and decorations common in the Roman ruins that were scattered throughout Wessex. The place was built with a clean, solid grace, and had clearly been meant to last a very long time. The air was dank and clammy, and utterly still.

  "So this place is where Vitellan, ah, lay?" Alfred asked the chief, kicking at the slush from the previous year's ice. The man looked anxiously to Bishop Paeder.

  "It's all right, Daegryn, tell the prince what you first told me," Paeder reassured him.

  "Until two winters ago the great Lord Vitellan slept here, aye. He was a great Christian king, and spread the faith so far and killed so many pagans that Christus said, 'You are too good to go to heaven yet. You will be kept here in this village, in case the pagans come back.' Us churls were commanded to make fresh ice each winter for his bed and in return could keep our mutton fresh here, without need of salt orsmokin'.

  "Then came the pagan Danes, and they burned our chapel and took the silver chalice. Aye, and they burned most of the village besides, and killed twenty people—and fifteen sheep, and six pigs, just for sport. They're cruel, godless pagans, says I to the other village Elders, or those Elders as was still alive, that is. It is time that we called on our sleepin' Master. We came down here and we called, and blew horns and whistles, but he did not wake. That's when I sent for Bishop Paeder, who is skilled in learnin' and cures. Gentor the Icekeeper was against me. He said only he had the right to say when the Master should be wakened and he refused to read out the sacred words that was carved on Lord Vitellan's stone bed. He called down all manner of curses from Heaven, but none came so I'd guess that Heaven thought that I was right. Bishop Paeder came—"

  "That's enough, Daegryn," said Paeder. He glanced at Alfred, who nodded. "We wish to speak alone. Wait for us at the entrance." Daegryn smiled broadly, took his leave and bounded up the stairs.

  "So Gentor is only in charge of making ice for this chamber?" asked Alfred, holding his torch to a row of grooves in the wall.

  "He is the Icekeeper, but the position means more than just making ice. In a way he's more powerful than the chief. They sometimes call him Glacicida, as I recall. It's probably corrupted Latin."

  Alfred stared at the far end of the chamber. Although some ice from the previous year had become a dark slush around the edges, the main mass was still solid and the meat embedded in it was frozen. Parts of the floor had been worn into deep grooves, where the villagers had carried blocks of packed snow and ice in for centuries. Other grooves were intentional, deliberately cut to carry meltwater into a small reservoir.

  "The Romans built well," said Paeder, following Alfred's gaze. "Perhaps this was a cold room or cellar to chill their wine in summer."

  "There are no ruins nearby. If I was building a cellar room I would have it right beneath my fort." Paeder shook his head. "Dig hereabouts and you may well find some Roman foundations. I first heard of this place when the terrible comet-star flew through the sky

  thirty-five years ago. The villagers here built a whole chapel of packed snow and thatch, then petitioned the bishop to come and offer mass to drive the star away." "Did he come?"

  "Yes, but he took one look at the chapel and decided that the slightest breeze would bring it down on him. The youngest priest in his entourage was ordered in to say the mass."

  Paeder shook his head.

  "Yourself?" asked Alfred, raising an eyebrow.

  "None other. Twenty summers old, and sure that I'd not live to see one more. The chapel did not collapse, though, and the comet-star went away. I had become a bishop myself by the time they petitioned me to come and revive their... Master. They may have remembered my supposed miracle with the comet-star.

  "When I arrived the chief told me that a mighty Christian king had been sleeping beneath the village for hundreds of years. If we could revive him he would vanquish the Danes. The body was lying down here, packed in ice, amid frozen joints of mutton and pork. The odd thing was that it was soft to touch, while the flesh of the animals was solid.

  "I began to have suspicions. I rubbed my fingers along the skin, then sniffed them. There was a faint scent of strong drink. Now any herbalist will tell you that a drunkard caught in the snow will have a better chance of surviving than a sober churl, so could this man have swallowed a massive draught of fortified mead, then had himself placed down here just hours before I arrived? He could then be revived as some ancient hero, with a senior father of the Church as a witness. After all, some priests claim to have the bones of saints in their churches to increase their own importance." Alfred stared at the concave slab where Vitellan had lain. Chiseled into the rock were the words ut reviviscam, mane aqua cauda corpus meum lavet; post meridiem aliquis in so meum spiret et pectus meum aperta manu percutiat.

  " 'to return me to life: bathe me in warm water for a morning; breathe into my mouth and beat my heart with your open hand for an afternoon,' " Alfred read

  slowly. "How was that?"
he asked, looking hopefully to Paeder.

  "You have the words, young lord, but your grammar is awful."

  "Nevertheless, it is better than most in the village could do. It all seems too elaborate for these churls to have arranged."

  "Vitellan is highly skilled as a warrior, and speaks Latin as well as Saxon."

  "He speaks it better than Saxon, but we stray from your story. How did you deal with the villagers? Did you reprimand them?"

  "Oh yes, I gave them hellfire and brimstone, and I told them that the comet-star might come back and eat them for lying to a bishop. Then I felt the body again. If the flesh was still soft it could only be because he had not been down here for very long. Perhaps he was still alive. He might be saved.

  "I made them rig up a shallow bath, a trench lined with oxhide, and this was filled with warm water. Years ago, when I traveled to Rome, I saw a drowned fisherman brought back to life by a man who breathed down his mouth while another punched his ribs. I held Vitellan's head above the water while two of them did this, then ordered hot irons to be struck against his legs to try to shock him into life. All the while I prayed aloud. After perhaps an hour his heart was beating again, then he began to breathe by himself. By the time the sun was setting his eyes were open, and he could move his arms and speak. He spoke only Latin and said his name was Vitellan Bavalius. I gave everyone another warning and left, but when next I returned he was calling himself Vitellan and, and—"