Fireball (13 page)

The threat, delivered with that air of steely command, was chilling. Marcus Cornelius did not respond at once. The priest started to lift his rod; the golden snake looked live and venomous. Then with a shout—“Only Christ is God!”—Marcus Cornelius slammed down his sword, and the high priest fell across the altar. The cry echoed round them as blood spread over the marble.

•  •  •

“It was a good fight, Simonus,” Bos said, “though short. A pity you came late. But there will be more fighting, God willing.”

The last bit struck Simon as slightly odd, and whatever either God or Bos felt, the prospect didn't cheer him particularly. He confined himself to smiling.

Bos took another deep swallow of wine and bellowed for more. A servant girl came quickly, and took the empty jug. She was no longer a slave because the Bishop had declared all slaves free, but she cringed as the big man patted her.

“Good wine, this. Chian, they say.” Bos stretched luxuriously. “Drinking Chian wine, in the governor's palace. Nothing wrong with that, eh, Simonus?”

It was a sentiment Simon felt he could more easily assent to. They were in the residential area of the palace, at the rear of the administrative section, looking out onto gardens which included a menagerie and a lake with a pleasure island in the middle. The lake reminded him of the one he had known in St James's Park, and he wondered if it could possibly be the same geographical location—if at this spot in that other universe Horse Guards might right now be clopping their way to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. But no, they were quite close to the forum, and the ruins of the forum surely had been in the City. Not Horse Guards, then, but stockbrokers in bowler hats. The thought was even weirder.

The girl came back with the wine, receiving another pat from Bos. He offered wine to Simon, who shook his head; one glass was more than enough. Bos drank deeply, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and his hand on an embroidered silk cushion. Outside, a pair of young fawns cropped the winter grass. Bos was getting drunk. He talked happily about the fight and how the guards had run like sheep.

He broke off as Brad arrived. He was a bit in awe
of Brad. Simon he remembered as a fellow slave and pupil, but he associated Brad with people like the Bishop and the lofty Cornelian family.

Brad said to Simon: “I might have known I'd find you taking things easy.”

“Any reason why not?”

Brad settled on a couch. “Better make the most of it. News has just come in. The Twenty-third is on the move.”

Of the three legions in Britain, one was stationed in the far north, guarding the wall, and another at Deva (Chester). The Twenty-third at Venta Belgarum (Winchester) was responsible for the internal peace of the province, up to now a pretty soft option.

“How do they know?” Simon asked.

He had been on the point of adding “without telephones” when he realized that not only would it baffle Bos but also that he didn't have a Latin word to say it.
Telephone
came from Greek, so it wouldn't be
telephonus. Proculsonor?
Not that it mattered.

“Pigeon,” Brad said. “From the local priest. His Holiness has quite an information network working for him.”

“Will it tell him how to fight a legion?”

He was trying to work out a probable time. Winchester to London was—what? Sixty or seventy miles? On a good road a legion could probably make twenty-five miles a day. So in three days . . .

“Recruits are flooding in,” Brad said.

“Not soldiers. Not gladiators either.”

“Keen, though. And not only Christians. Original Christians, that is. Converts are coming hot and heavy to the god who won Londinium. And every woodyard in the city is busy turning out longbows.”

“It was easy here. A small garrison, caught on the hop and soft from easy living. But a legion . . .”

“What's a legion,” Bos demanded, “compared with the power of the Lord? The others were sheep. These'll be lambs for the slaughter. Bring them on!”

He brought his glass down heavily on the marble table, and it smashed into smithereens, except for the silver rim. Bos stared at the spilt wine and broken glass and burst into bellowing laughter.

•  •  •

The road ran arrow-straight beneath them, a long ribbon of black cutting through green, south to Venta Belgarum, north only a few miles to Londinium. They
were somewhere in the inner suburbs of his London, in fact, Simon thought. They were on a hillside, under cover of trees, with another hill opposite, and a small river running at this point close by the Roman road. Clapham? Brixton? He had no idea. There had been no rivers in the London suburbs he had known, but that only meant they had gone underground, part of the drainage system of the megalopolis.

The road had been empty except for an occasional
cisium
or lumbering wagon, but was empty no longer. It moved steadily towards them from the south: a single dark shadow at first, then a series of strips moving in unison. The stamp of feet provided a rhythmic base to the distant chorus of a marching song. The column stretched at least half a mile. Simon looked round at their tiny troop of horsemen. There was another newly recruited troop on the far side of the grove. There were the archers and foot soldiers concealed along the hillside. But altogether they numbered less than half of those approaching along the road. And
that
was a Roman legion.

At least he was mounted, providing him with a better chance of escape. Make for the villa, he thought . . . find Lavinia, and get her away. . . . He
remembered what had happened after Boadicea's revolt was put down. Roman vengeance could be grim.

The head of the lead column was directly beneath their position. Simon could make out the words of the song they were singing; it was one he had heard the gladiators sing, each verse about a different girl. He wondered when the order to attack would be given, or if it would be. Marcus Cornelius, in command now of the whole Christian army, was on the hill opposite with the archers. The song ended, but the legion came on; the silence was broken only by the steady thump of feet and an occasional barked command. On and on it came, unflagging, relentless.

Simon did not hear the order. He saw the sky darken, turned from the winter afternoon's drab grey to a sudden blackness by the cloud springing out of the hill, soaring and falling. It fell on the marching column, shattering its solidity on the instant. They were individual figures that cried out in alarm and pain and fright, that fell or broke ranks. A second cloud struck, followed by a third. They did not know what was happening—how death could fall on them from out of the sky. And packed as they were, they
provided an easy target even to unskilled archers.

While they were reeling, the foot soldiers rose from cover and attacked, shrieking battle cries. Galbus, a flaxen-haired man who had succeeded Marcus Cornelius in command of the cavalry troop, gave the order to mount. He set them at the charge against a group of Romans who had managed to form a defensive square. The others were shouting, and Simon found himself shouting along with them in battle lust. They drove into the square and through it. He slashed unthinkingly at the helmeted figures, heard men scream, and felt his horse stagger, with bodies beneath its hooves. They reined in beside the river, and he saw his sword dripping red. But the river itself was red, and thick with bodies like boulders. Behind them the foot soldiers were slaughtering the remnants of the square.

•  •  •

The news, and the revolution, spread like fire through a forest dry as tinder. At Deva, the commander of the legion tried to put down the people's rising. But the legion had been stationed there a long time; the faces in the crowd in front of them were faces they knew, often faces of kinsmen. And the
crowd called the name of the god who brought victory—greater than the great Julian, because he was his overthrower. The soldiers turned their swords instead on their commander.

Then they marched north, as the legion from the wall marched south. For three days they stood in lines, opposing one another, but day by day men slipped away from the legion of north to join the comrades who stood opposite them, and on the fourth day the legions came together, not in battle, but celebration.

All Britain paid allegiance to Christus, and to his servant, the Bishop.

T
HE BISHOP WAS NOT CONTENT
with Britain. He at once gave orders for ships to be gathered from every port and assembled at Portus Dubris, where the sea crossing to the Continent was shortest. As soon as the fleet was assembled, the army, still growing, would march there and embark, to cross the straits.

Simon managed two visits to the villa before the marching orders came. On the first, Lavinia was away; on the second, although she was present, so was her aunt. Fabiana Cornelia proved to be a tall, matronly woman, her steel grey hair piled high in an
elaborate coiffure, wearing a blue dress of stiff silk that looked more like steel. Lavinia was subdued in her presence, and Simon felt bothered under her cold scrutiny.

He was surprised when she said, just before he was due to leave: “I like your young barbarian, Quintus Ericius.”

Ericius was Quintus's cognomen, a kind of nickname; it meant hedgehog, but no one seemed to know how it had originated. Quintus Cornelius put an arm on Simon's shoulder.

“Yes, he is coming on well. We shall make a Roman of him, I fancy.”

Simon had a feeling Fabiana's opinion carried weight in family councils, and her unexpected words of approval made up to some extent for the fact that he did not succeed in getting a single moment alone with Lavinia.

He reflected, riding back to the city, that but for Lavinia, this might have been a good moment to go missing. Tomorrow the army moved south. This was not his war, and the prospect of helping carry it into Europe, against the full might of the imperial army, appealed to him even less. In the confusion that had
followed the breakdown of central government and amid the subsequent sweeping changes, it ought not to be too difficult to find a new and safer identity. But of course, there
was
Lavinia, and deserting would knock out any hope of seeing her again.

The road passed between the hills from which they had ambushed the Twenty-third. The river ran clear over its stones, and the green slopes were empty and calm under a mild west wind and patchwork sky. The only sign of the happenings of a few weeks ago was the mass grave under the hill, surmounted by a wooden cross. The Bishop had ordered Christian burial for the enemy, even though they were pagans.

What mattered, Simon decided, was to make sure of coming back. The furious passion he had felt riding against the men of the legion seemed even more remote than the battle. Survival was the name of the only game that counted.

The mild spell continued as the fleet of ships set out from Dover harbour into a calm sea, with a small wind from the west. Bishop's weather, the men said. The air of general enthusiasm was infectious, but Simon avoided being infected by it. He said to Brad: “He's been lucky so far. That's the point.”

“And he's taken advantage of the luck—which is what counts.”

The horses, tethered in the well amidships, were being fed and watered by the grooms. Simon thought of the chaos a rough sea would have produced. He said: “The luck will turn eventually. It must.”

Their ship was near the head of the formation; they could look out into empty waters. Simon said: “No sign of the imperial fleet yet.”

“No sign of the Luftwaffe either. This isn't D day, with radio and radar and the whole bag of tricks. The emperor's not even had time to get spies into the province, let alone have them report back. I guess that's why His Holiness has moved so fast. He's got a general's instinct.”

“Marcus Cornelius is supposed to be in command.”

“That's right. And in another sense we're under the command of the Holy Ghost. But it's His Holiness who does the heavy thinking and the planning. Very well so far.”

“Do you really think he can beat the emperor?”

Simon was aware of the change in his own attitude, in that he could even ask it as a serious question.

Brad shrugged. “Put it this way—I'd want good odds to bet against.”

“And then?”

“Then?”

“What do you think is likely to happen if he does win?”

“Do you mean as far as we're concerned?” Simon nodded. Brad looked out to sea for some moments without answering. He said at last: “I've got one idea.”

“What?”

“It'll wait.”

He spoke with a finality which Simon knew would not easily be overcome. In any case, he was not particularly interested in Brad's idea, whatever it was. He had ideas of his own. He thought about them as the ship drove onwards.

•  •  •

The Christian army landed and pushed on south. There was no sign of an enemy. Instead, day by day there was an increasing buildup of recruits, and towns and villages opened gates and food stores to them. The triumphal receptions they were given meant that news of their approach had travelled ahead, which in
turn meant that the imperial forces in Gaul must have been alerted to their progress. As the days passed, Simon began to find this ominous. The most probable explanation was that the opposing general was biding his time, luring them into the heart of Gaul so that he could not only destroy them but cut off their retreat. When they at last had sight of the enemy, he was sure that was it.

He did not know where they were, except that they were a long way south of the territory of the Parisi. Fairly flat country was starting to give way to land that rose in ridges towards high hills in the southeast. The imperial army was drawn up on high ground east of the road, with woods behind them.

It occupied several acres of ground. The front stretched for over a quarter of a mile, and it was nearly that in depth. The cohorts formed squares around a central tented area from which rose the smoke of campfires. A larger tent, presumably the general's, was decorated in purple and gold. The whole thing had a look of organization and efficiency, in marked contrast with the straggling Christian disorder. It was plainly far superior in numbers, too. Eagles that had been set up identified
three legions: close to twenty thousand disciplined Roman soldiers.