Emperor: Time’s Tapestry Book One

by Stephen Baxter

  Though Hadrian listened, he seemed restless, unfocused, even bored. Brigonius knew that Hadrian thought of himself as a scholar. To him, in an empire which contained Greece and Egypt and Mesopotamia, an empire like a huge museum of civilisations, Britain must seem dull indeed.

  For an instant Hadrian’s gaze locked on Brigonius himself. Perhaps there was a flicker of recognition in the Emperor’s eye; perhaps he remembered him from the speech at Rutupiae. Now he inspected Brigonius more carefully, his neck, his torso, his bare legs.

  Brigonius, his blood still hot from the hour he had spent with Lepidina, turned away. Here was something else everybody knew about Hadrian. In Brigantia homosexual affairs weren’t unknown, but they were unusual. Among the Romans they were more commonplace – but it wasn’t Hadrian’s sexuality but his ardour that drew comment. A serious man wasn’t supposed to lavish too much energy on his bed-warmers.

  And now Brigonius noticed the gaze of Primigenius was on him too, that deadly white face, the black-rimmed eyes, the lips scarlet as a wound. Was it possible this raddled ex-slave was jealous? Brigonius suppressed a shudder.

  At last Xander got to the point. His slaves whipped aside the cloth that covered his model. The courtiers all leaned forward to see the painted hills, the shining ribbon-rivers and the finely worked forts and turrets. The exquisite detail evoked childlike pleasure in their heavily made-up faces.

  Xander described the route he proposed. His mighty Wall would be rooted in the east, at the site of a small fort called Segedunum. It would cross the river Tinea, and then climb to the west following the high ground. Hilltops and a natural escarpment of basalt crags would be incorporated into the new frontier. ‘It will seem to all,’ Xander pronounced, ‘as if the Wall has sprung out of the very rock itself!’ Beyond this point would be a further river crossing, and then the Wall would take a less dramatic course through more broken country, finally crossing a plain and approaching its destination at the west coast. The total length would be some seventy-one miles, said the architect, every foot of which would be dominated by a stone curtain fifteen feet high. Not only that, earthworks before the northern face of the Wall would give further protection. The Wall would be punctuated by small fortresses, one every mile, and broken further by turrets, two between each pair of mile-forts, to provide signal points and massing positions. There would be gates in each of the mile-forts so that the Wall could be made as permeable or as closed as local commanders desired.

  There could be no doubt that the Wall would be a magnificent piece of engineering, and Brigonius could see that Hadrian and several of his courtiers were immediately taken by Xander, his beautiful model, and his compelling vision. But others raised objections.

  The first to speak was Aulus Platorius Nepos, Britain’s new governor. He pointed out some of the practicalities of building this monument. Under Hadrian in Britain there were three legions and sixty-five auxiliary units, some fifty-three thousand men in all. All three legions would be devoted to building the Wall – say fifteen thousand men. Nepos swept a hand over the model. ‘But all of this must be completed in three years, no more. My question to you is – are you sure of your calculations? Is this feasible in the time with the available manpower?’

  Brigonius thought he understood why three years; a governor’s term was usually no longer, and Nepos would surely want to see the Wall finished during his tenure. But Xander seemed shocked to hear this time limit; his mouth opened and closed. Recovering, he stood his ground and spoke clearly. ‘We Greeks are famous for our arithmetic skills. I can assure you, sir, my calculations are sound.’

  The next attack on the proposal came from a legate, the commander of one of the three legions currently stationed in Britain. He spoke of the border control that had already been set up under Trajan, along a line a few miles south of the proposed wall. Here, well-established forts, including Vindolanda, and connected by a good road, already served as a base for a rapid and flexible response to any trouble. Wouldn’t it be better to reinforce that existing barrier rather than to start afresh?

  Xander was no military man, and he was fortunate that the question got bogged down in discussions among Hadrian’s own advisers, who plunged into an evidently ongoing argument about whether a purpose-planned barrier would provide a better long-term solution to the problem of the northern frontier. Hadrian let this discussion run for a while, but no conclusion was reached.

  The final objection was raised, diffidently, by an older man, a seasoned soldier who had served in the north. He carefully pointed out that the proposed Wall would cut right through the homeland of the Brigantians. ‘Now, the Brigantian nobles, the survivors anyhow, are powerful figures in the local government,’ he said. ‘They may not take kindly to having their fields sliced in two.’

  But nobody among the courtiers took the objections of provincials very seriously.

  Hadrian leaned forward, and everybody fell silent. He spoke in convoluted Greek, and Karus translated in whispers for Brigonius. ‘He likes the idea. It is a bold statement. But he is a practical man who counts his sesterces. He built a barrier of turf and wood along the Rhine; would that not be adequate here? After all the threat from the northern British is not as severe as that from the Germans beyond the Rhine.’

  It was the crucial objection, and Severa stood. Among the courtiers eyebrows were raised at a woman’s intervention, but they let her speak. ‘A wall of wood and grass will do for a German – but it would never have done for a Greek.’ And she spoke of spectacular long walls the Greeks had built centuries ago, connecting places Brigonius had never heard of: from Athens to the Piraeus, and across narrow isthmuses such as at Corinth. ‘The Wall will be in the best Greek tradition,’ Severa said, ‘but in its mile after mile of shining impenetrable stone it will be a truly Roman statement.’ Xander who had whispered all this to her, looked pleased.

  Hadrian looked impressed.

  Karus’s eyes were moist. He whispered to Brigonius, ‘That mind, that fire – that heaving chest! Isn’t she marvellous?’

  The Emperor was tiring of business. The courtiers sat back, and to a burst of music a troupe of dancers, jugglers and acrobats exploded into the room.

  Nepos approached Xander and clapped him on the back, a bold soldier’s gesture that made the little architect flinch. He said in Latin, ‘When I was governor of Thrace my province included such a wall, at Gallipoli. Six centuries old, the historians told me, and still standing today.’ He turned back to the Emperor. ‘You will indeed be building in a grand tradition, Little Greek!’

  Hadrian smiled.

  But that phrase of Nepos’s – ‘little Greek’ – shocked Severa. ‘What did he call him?’

  Nepos had used a Latin word: ‘Graeculus’, Greekling, Little Greek. ‘It’s just a nickname from Hadrian’s childhood,’ Karus said. ‘He always had a passion for all things Greek, even then…’

  Severa turned to her daughter, who looked as startled as her mother. ‘Rome’s great son has come to earth…A little Greek his name will be…A little Greek! That’s what the prophecy says, mother. Oh, my eyes! It’s coming true, it really is…’

  The Emperor and his courtiers continued to chat with fascination over Xander’s model, all unaware of the metaphysical shock among those who had proposed it.

  And when Brigonius looked up he met the cold eyes of Primigenius. The freedman did not seem happy at this turn of events, not one bit.

  X

  Once Hadrian had made his decision, things moved quickly.

  Governor Nepos insisted that at least some ground be broken, a few stones laid, before Hadrian left the province. And besides, if the ambitious project was to have any chance of being completed within Nepos’s three-year governorship, then some progress surely had to be made this year. ‘I want to see those stones piling up faster than leaves in autumn,’ Nepos declared.

  This decree sent Xander into a spin. Brigonius had the uneasy feeling that Xander’s toy architecture did not translate qui
te as coherently as he had given the impression into a real-world project to be built by fifteen thousand hulking legionaries. But an emperor’s will was not to be defied. And nor was Severa’s: cold as ice, her determination fuelled by the Prophecy, she allowed no room for doubt. Thus they were all committed.

  Hadrian planned to advance to the northern legionary fortress of Eburacum to inspect his troops. Once again Severa and her party rode ahead of Hadrian’s caravan. Severa would use every hour she could steal to get the project up and running before the Emperor even arrived.

  But for Severa’s party the journey north was tense and sour. Once they were out of the pacified south, Roman military control was overt. There were no towns here save military outposts. The land was studded with watchtowers and beacons, and churned up by the remains of marching camps. Brigonius had grown up here; it had been his family’s home for three generations. As a boy he had even played at the foot of a stern Roman watchtower, erected in Banna before he had been born. But for his companions it was a strange, uneasy landscape, and they barely looked out of the carriages. Xander and Karus kept themselves busy poring over plans of their Wall. Lepidina huddled over her poetry, and even Severa was subdued. In their minds this was the edge of the world, beyond which lay only a chaos that threatened to blow out the orderly lights of civilisation.

  Once Brigonius tried to engage Severa and Lepidina in conversation about this. He talked of stories still told around Brigantian fires, of dynasties of bronze and stone, an oral history that went back thousands of years.

  Lepidina said, ‘I have an aunt who told me that Agrippina, my great-grandmother, told such stories to her daughters—’

  Severa cut her off. ‘It’s all barbarian nonsense. Everybody knows that Britain was colonised by refugees from Troy. That’s why Caesar came up against Trojan chariots here. And that is what we are: Trojans, good Mediterranean stock, a few generations removed. I won’t discuss it any further.’

  The party at last neared Eburacum. The legionary fortress stood on a hilltop on the north bank of a river, its walls square and uncompromising, and a shanty town of traders, soldiers’ families and other hangers-on sprawled outside the fort wall and south of the river. Eburacum was one of six military power centres in the province, including the other two legionary fortresses and the three coloniae, including Camulodunum. As if to reinforce the permanence of the imperial stranglehold on Brigantia, in the last decade the fortifications of Eburacum had been rebuilt in heavy stone.

  They reached a gate in the fortress wall. Here a unit of soldiers under the command of a decurion stopped them and had them dismount so their luggage could be searched.

  As they waited at the gate Brigonius at last managed to shepherd Lepidina away from the others. After his hour together with her at Camulodunum, and that lightning-strike of passion, he had barely been able to spend any time alone with the girl.

  ‘You’ve been quiet for days,’ he said.

  She pulled a face. ‘Are you surprised? This is an awful country, Brigonius.’

  ‘It’s just different from what you’re used to, that’s all. And your ancestors came from Brigantia, remember.’ He took her hand; it was warm and soft. ‘Lepidina – that hour in Camulodunum, what happened—’

  She blurted, ‘You’re thinking about the future, aren’t you? Our future, a future for us together.’

  He hesitated, reluctant to ask the next question. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose so,’ she said.

  He breathed out.

  ‘But standing before all this legionary stone – it seems so unreal, Brigonius. We are so different, our worlds are as far apart as sun and moon. Could you live in a town, even a mudhole like Camulodunum? Or could I live in one of those funny round wooden houses? I want to be with you. I think I want it. But how could it possibly be?’

  ‘Then what must we do?’

  ‘Let’s give it time, Brigonius. A mere wall takes three years to build. A love takes a lifetime.’

  He smiled. ‘You do have depths, Lepidina.’

  She arched an eyebrow. ‘You patronising toad.’

  ‘I wonder if your mother’s Prophecy would be any help.’

  Lepidina laughed sadly. ‘Prophecies deal with trivia like the fall of empires. They say nothing about the important things, like love and the human heart! Look, Brigonius, we don’t have to think about this now. If mother succeeds in building her wall, if you sell a thousand cartloads of stone to the Roman army, then we’ll all be rich – ridiculously rich. And one thing I do know about the Roman way is that money changes everything. We’ll be able to live as we choose, anywhere we choose. But for now—’

  ‘Yes?’

  She kissed him lightly on the lips.

  When they got back to the carriage Severa turned on them. ‘So you’re lovers.’

  Lepidina snapped, ‘Mother—’

  Brigonius raised his hands. ‘Claudia Severa, if you’re referring to the day of the banquet at Camulodunum—’

  ‘When you screwed her? Not that. What does screwing matter? Animals screw. Humans become lovers. I can see it. You are comfortable in each other’s presence. The way you talk, the way you walk. You are fusing. It is obvious.’

  Brigonius said carefully, ‘Severa, I don’t think we know our own hearts. Not yet.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you?’ Severa leaned forward, and in the gloom under the canopy her face was a mask of bloodless determination. ‘Listen to me. Your silly hearts do not matter. What matters is the project. Because the project is our future – the future of our families for generations to come. Remember, both of you, that you are here to serve my purposes. Just keep your mouth shut, Brigonius, do as you’re told, and if you must fiddle with my daughter do it out of sight of the Romans.’ And with a sneer she turned away.

  Brigonius was shocked. Severa had obviously used her daughter as a snare to lure him and his quarry to lend her scheme some plausibility. Now he had crossed some invisible line by getting too close to Lepidina, and she had struck back. There was no room for love in Severa’s cold calculations – not even pity.

  Lepidina was quietly angry. But it was clear to Brigonius that she had faced such dressing-downs from her mother all her life. Brigonius began to wonder how much Severa was capable of, how far she could go in pursuing her ambitions.

  Karus and Xander had of course heard every word of the exchange. Karus, trying to cover the tense silence, rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, as for me I could do with a shit, a bath, a drink, and some food, not necessarily in that order.’

  Xander snorted. ‘For a lawyer you’re very crude sometimes.’

  ‘That’s the Brittunculus in me,’ Karus said cheerfully.

  Severa extracted a letter from her purse and unfolded it; the bindings of the wooden pages creaked softly. ‘I have an invitation from one Ceriala Petilia, the cousin of a friend’s friend, who just happens to be the wife of a tribune. She has offered to host us while we are here. A good Roman woman. No more barbarians!’

  ‘Then all we have to do is find her,’ Karus said mildly.

  Severa glanced about and saw a soldier crossing towards the gate. He was a centurion, as Brigonius could tell from the vine stick he carried. ‘You! Come here. I have an assignment for you.’ And to Brigonius’s astonishment she ordered a centurion of the sixth legion to carry her bags as if he was a common slave. Meekly he obeyed.

  ‘Marvellous,’ said Karus, but he sounded uneasy.

  XI

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ said Prefect Tullio. ‘You want to build a wall.’ A brisk, bustling man of about forty with a shock of bright red hair, he was clearly used to command, and he easily dominated his cluttered office in Eburacum’s headquarters building.

  Xander, his model set out on the floor of Tullio’s office, sat more nervously, Brigonius thought, than in the presence of the Emperor himself. ‘Yes, a wall,’ he insisted.

  ‘Seventy miles long.’

  ‘Seventy-one actually.�
��

  ‘With three legions.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you want to do this in three years.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tullio’s eyes bulged. ‘Are you twisting my cock?’ He leaned back and called through the door. ‘Hey, Annius! Get in here and listen to this. You’ll love it.’

  Another soldier, evidently one of the prefect’s aides, walked casually into the office, polishing a strip of breast-plate armour with a bit of leather. He was a muscular man whose head was shaped oddly like a bucket, Brigonius thought, with a narrow chin, protruding teeth, a broad forehead and a mass of black hair. ‘What’s up, Tullio?’

  Tullio turned back to Xander. ‘Go on, friend. Do your routine again. How many miles? How many forts and turrets?…’ As Xander stammered out his plan once more, Tullio and his pal leaned back in fits of laughter.

  To compound Xander’s mortification two small boys came running into the room, squealing. They both had red hair as bright as Tullio’s. They had been playing with short wooden swords, but when they saw Xander’s toy wall with its tiny fortresses and plaster hills they fell on it with delight. Xander, in a fussy panic, tried to keep the boys away, but he only excited them further and made things worse.

  Amid this chaos Brigonius glanced around at his companions. Karus looked as if he was having trouble not laughing himself. Severa, however, seemed ready to burst into flame.

  Severa had been relatively happy here at Eburacum. Compared to the cities of the south, let alone Rome, it was a coarse, military-tinged place. But the officers of the sixth legion and their wives formed a seamless social circle with ties of patronage, obligation and letter-writing that stretched all the way back to Rome itself – a circle that excluded any British, of course. It was a circle Severa had immediately joined thanks to her friend Ceriala, and so she had restored contact with her own world. But now here she was enduring the goading of this buffoonish barbarian soldier, and her fury was obvious.