p1b6fn7sdh1ln0g4v1pkvkuqim54

by A. A. Attanasio

  myself. What point hoping for what is not there? The

  dragon marked you."

  "It didn't save Father."

  "The dragon fights for us on the battlefield—not in the stateroom against treachery."

  Theo leans back against Ambrosius. "I hate battle."

  "You know something, little brother?" Ambrosius speaks into Theo's ruffled hair. "Father hated battle, too."

  "No."

  "Yes. I once saw him weeping before battle, he

  hated it that much. He fought in spite of his loathing. There was no other way. Everything we have is made by the

  sword—or taken by the sword."

  Theo pulls away from Ambrosius and faces him in

  the night shadows. "You don't think me a coward, Ambrosius?"

  "You are no coward. You are an Aurelianus. You

  hate killing, like any sane man."

  Theo hangs his head. "Sometimes, when you shout

  at me in the field for not fighting harder—for not killing—I think you must despise me."

  "Theo—" Ambrosius reaches out and takes Theo's shoulders in his large hands. "I love you. I shout at you, because I love you. Don't you see? You bear the mark of the dragon. If you don't use it, you will die senselessly, and our people will die with you. That is why the dragon comes to you in the night, to wake you up to the truth of war. War is not about killing, young Theo. We are not murderers. We fight war so that we may live."

  Theo's eyes fix ardently on Ambrosius' proud stare

  and his face brightens as he says, "I will try harder, brother."

  "I know you will, little brother. The dragon has marked you."

  *

  Out of the moon's nest low in the forest, through

  cold lunar fumes off the bog, the dragon priest rises. He is a man, clearly, yet not human. Centuries twine his hair in long, black braids that sprout from a green skull. The braids coil an armored body, a brass cuirass tarnished black as a crucible, leather shoulder plates cankerous with rot, and tatters of a tunic hanging like a web.

  Theo remembers he is dreaming. He does not try to

  hide this time from the scabrous figure but stands still, daring to challenge his brother's faith that this deadwalker is not Satan.

  Moss trails from the wraith, and his face is

  shrunken, reptilian.

  Slouching closer, the archaic soldier steps into a

  slant of moonlight and reveals a shriveled visage of

  speckled salamander skin, newt holes for a nose, and

  Theo's own bright amber eyes watching intently.

  *

  "Was Jesus wrong?" Theo asks Merlinus on a wintry morning with the wind like a wolf's snarl in the dragon banner atop the equerry. "Is it wrong to love all men?"

  The day before, he witnessed his brother and the

  city cavalry hack down a troop of starving rovers who had sacked a granary, and he has been sick all night with the bloody memory of it.

  Merlinus feeds the twig fire in the clay oven of the

  leather shop and watches light tearing itself to shreds in its eternal struggle against darkness. At last, he says to the young man, "Did not Jesus preach that there is no greater love than that a man lay down his life for his friends?"

  "But to break the commandment against murder?"

  Theo asks, twisting the leather cord he is reeving.

  "Is it murder to slay a murderer and save the

  innocent lives he would have slaughtered?" Merlinus waves that question aside and turns his cold backside to the fire. "Go deeper yet. I believe that if you are a true Christian in these evil times, then you, Theodosius

  Aurelianus, must lay down your life as a priest and take up the sword. Otherwise, the very faith you worship may well be extincted in your lifetime by barbarians who love only plunder and pillage."

  That is an argument even the priests could

  understand, especially as news reaches them of pagan

  attacks upon the bishoprics of the east and the massacre of defenseless Christians on the open farmlands of the north. Steadily, despite Vortigern's mercenaries outside Londinium, the Furor's minions sweep into the islands, devouring Britain.

  Talk in the marketplace among the servants of the

  noble houses centers more around retreating across the Channel to Armorica than entertaining Christian warlords.

  Merlinus searches for Ygrane in his dreams,

  seeking her counsel, hoping she will direct him to take Theo out of the City of the Legion and bring him west to her. In those rare sleep-trances when he does find her, she seems oblivious of him.

  Once, he watches her singing blessings on the

  cattle as they return from pasture, the drovers and their families garlanded in flowers, celebrating some Celtic holy day. Another time, he dreams of her with the unicorn by an obsidian pool in a night forest, gathering moonlight in glass jars, the zinc energy ringing like bells in those clear containers.

  Other times, Merlinus dreams that he drifts nearby

  as she reads maps with her scribes or feasts burly clan chieftains and their boisterous families. A ghost in the wind, he sees her in the tight buckskin trousers her people are fond of, galloping on horseback along the Roman roads that connect the fortresses of her fiana.

  Surrounded by her fierce knights with their swords

  strapped to their backs and their grand mustaches

  streaked by their rushing flight, she appears to the wizard a warrior-queen—and he wakes wondering if his gentle Theo can ever be man enough for such a woman.

  *

  That spring, Merlinus willfully changes everything.

  He uses his magic to call for gold. In a grove of

  overarching alders not far from the city, where the original battlements of the town stood four centuries earlier, his spells lead him to a rubblestone burrow shrouded with bines of hop.

  He arrives there with Theo on one of their foraging

  walks, seeking berries and small game while mentally

  picking over the fragmentary philosophy of Heraclitus.

  Merlinus pursues a hare into a mossy fissure in the

  overgrown rubble and pretends to get stuck. Piteously wailing for help, he does not allow Theo's strenuous efforts to budge him.

  Shouting encouragement to the old man, Theo

  hurries for help and comes back with a grumbling

  Ambrosius, a draft horse, and a block and tackle. They strenuously dismantle the stone debris of the fallen wall, working earnestly most of that afternoon.

  When Merlinus gauges that Ambrosius has reached

  the limit of his patience, the wizard comes tumbling out of the rock heap in a spill of gravel, dusty billows of schist and—on top of the whole mess—a glittering avalanche of gold coins.

  The heads of the emperors Nero and Nerva

  stamped on the coins reveal they were buried in the first decades of the conquest, hidden perhaps from early

  insurrectionists. Forgotten long before the hempen sacks that contained them rotted away, the coins have survived the very empire that minted them and consequently belong wholly and without dispute to the brothers Aurelianus.

  Overnight, Ambrosius and Theodosius become the

  wealthiest men in the City of the Legion and, in truth, of all the western provinces. The dark arts, Theo strongly suspects. No one will confirm his eerie suspicions of Merlinus. From the first, the wizard has been careful to enchant Theo's confessor as well as the priests who

  instruct him, even the bishop. No one sees anything but God's providence in the uncovered treasure.

  Immediately, Ambrosius purchases for himself the

  military leadership he craves and for which he has readied himself since his embittered childhood.

  Some of the finest warriors of the region come to

  him, for he is not only generous with his gold, he is the most daring martial intelligence to take the field since the retreat of the legi
ons.

  As the general's brother, Theo accompanies

  Ambrosius to his war councils and battle tours and

  preaches both to the commanders and the troops. When

  he goes onto the field, it is not to fight but to aid the wounded and bolster the faith of the dying.

  His official title is quaestor, and he serves as quartermaster and finance officer for the troops who do the fighting. He looks aristocratic in his buffed bronze shoulder guards and red leather cuirass embossed with his family's dragon crest.

  After initial fits of doubting, even Merlinus becomes convinced that his vision of him as king is not entirely improbable. The wizard is eager to show him off to Ygrane, but Theo has no interest in leaving his brother's side, where he feels he has important work to do ministering to the soldiers.

  "I was afraid there would be no meaning to life

  without the Church," he tells Merlinus one day in the atrium of the city's largest house, where they now live. Sunlight

  stands like lances under the round skylights, and kitchen clatter rings in the discordant rhythms of Asian jungle music as the galley prepares for that night's great feast—

  another dignitary come to honor the new, triumphant

  warlord in the City of the Legion.

  "I think I agree with the Greek Sophists," Theo went on earnestly, sitting back in a curve-legged cathedra chair.

  "I have come to believe there are as many meanings to life as there are lives. Though I hate war, I'm happy now, even on the battlefield, because Ambrosius is happy."

  "In early spring, you and your brother were stable masters," Merlinus reminds him. "Six months later, you are generals, a dozen successful engagements with the enemy behind you. Don't let it go to your head, young Theo. The roving brigands have been driven out, yes. The enemies you will face in the lands to the north and east are not rabble gangs, but ferocious barbarians who thrive on

  combat. You must convince your brother to ally himself with the Celts to the west. Only they can fortify your ranks with the seasoned warriors we need to stop the barbarian advance. Come west with me and meet Ygrane, their

  queen. Be your brother's ambassador. There you will find significant meaning to your life."

  "Are you still harping on about the mighty Celts?"

  Ambrosius says, entering the atrium through a portal of pillars. He wears a tunic and sash of subdued shades of gold with a silk scarf of purple over his right shoulder, signifying his majestic aspirations. "I've already told you.

  We don't require the alliance of barbarians, Merlinus."

  "And I've told you, Lord Stable Master, the Celts are not barbarians. They held all of Europe in thrall from Britain to Persia before there was an Empire or even a Republic in Rome. They are a mighty and—"

  "A noble people," Ambrosius finishes for Merlinus impatiently, throwing himself onto a couch. "Remember that they were the enemies of my fathers, and so, they are my enemies."

  "Your fathers lived in very different times,

  Ambrosius," Merlinus reminds him, edging his voice harshly. "They were the invaders, you'll recall. The Celts fought them valiantly."

  "And lost," Ambrosius sneers. "We don't need them.

  It's an alliance among the Britons that we need. There are too many kings and too few leaders."

  "A great leader includes all," Merlinus advises,

  "even those outcast."

  Ambrosius heaves an exasperated sigh. "Then you'll be pleased with our guest tonight. We're hosting a duke who knows the Celts well. I think I can even say intimately.

  I'll be curious to see what he thinks about your insistence on an alliance with heathens. He should have an informed opinion. He's married to the very queen you've been

  bragging about. A herald came ahead from Westerbridge and has announced that, within the hour, the City of the Legion will be honored by the retinue and presence of Gorlois, duke of the Saxon Coast."

  Anxiety spurts through the wizard.

  "You know this duke, Merlinus?" Theo asks.

  "Yes," the wizard mutters. "We met some years ago, at Maridunum. I did not detect in him then much love for the Celts."

  "He's a Roman," Ambrosius says tersely, standing up and pacing among potted plants. In the stables,

  exhausted by his frustrations, he slept nights. Since attaining his new station with all its grand possibilities, he has taken to scouting the countryside obsessively by day and prowling the mansion at night, plotting, strategizing, scheming. "No one in the coloniae comprehends why Gorlois married such a vixen in the first place. Word is, Ygrane's a Celtic witch."

  "The Church condoned such a union?" Theo

  wonders aloud.

  "The Church!" Ambrosius snickers derisively. "When are you going to open your eyes about the Church, little brother? Why do you think they delayed your ordination when you were a stable master and now, if you ask in your sleep, they'll make you a bishop?" He pauses before a wax bust of his father and stares intently into those bald eyes.

  "Gorlois was abandoned by the coloniae when the sea rovers swarmed over his coastline. What choice did he have? And what choice for the Church on the Saxon

  Coast? Better to give the gold to the Celts and keep

  Church and state alive than succumb to the barbarians and lose all."

  Theo nods. "Then, the Celts are worthy warriors."

  "Would there be Celts at all today if they weren't?"

  Ambrosius strolls to a Corinthian pillar beside the entryway to the peristylum, the spacious court at the house's interior, open to the sky and surrounded by porches and columns of the mansion's many rooms. "We'll dine here tonight under the stars—if Gorlois gives me his pledge. Otherwise, there'll be no dinner. I need alliances, not dinner guests.

  Britain requires unity."

  "I would not expect too much from Gorlois," Merlinus cautions. "The duke is an arrogant man and nearly twice your age. He will share power perhaps, though I doubt he'll give a pledge."

  Ambrosius strides off into the peristylum, grousing

  over his shoulder, "Share? The way Vortigern shares? Not with me! We need one high king who will share nothing with barbarians. We need unity. Not sharing."

  Theo and Merlinus exchange concerned looks, and

  the wizard shrugs. "He's right, you know. The old Romans understood that. If power is shared, it becomes diluted."

  Theo frowns at Merlinus as though the old man

  should know better. "Not the oldest Romans, Merlinus. Not the Republic. They shared power, and it made them great."

  "Yet in times of grave crisis, even they appointed a dictator."

  His frown deepens, and he does not seem to hear

  the wizard. "I love my brother, but in this I really think he's too proud. Is he uniting Britain—or simply displacing Vortigern?"

  "Simply?" Merlinus cocks a tufted eyebrow. "For your brother to achieve that, he will have to unite Britain.

  Vortigern's allies are too powerful for him to be simply displaced."

  "That's exactly what I'm afraid of, Merlinus. Civil war.

  Instead of uniting us against the barbarians, my brother will have the coloniae fighting each other." He closes his eyes.

  "There must be another way."

  Merlinus stops and stares at Theo, marveling at how

  far he has come from the callow youth who lifted the wizard from the gutter. For the first time, Merlinus begins truly to believe that Theo is undeniably the king from Raglaw's vision.

  It is not just that, in the bronze and leather gear and costly array of silken and embroidered tunics, the youth has taken on the guise of a king, his handsome, boyish lineaments all one might hope for in the visage of a young monarch. Merlinus sees something more, something

  deeper in those early, fervid moments of his brother's ascendancy.

  What impresses him is his abiding faith in the

  Christian God, which inculcated him to regard first the good of others, the commonwe
al, above himself. It is a caring that hurts him, though, for it makes him acutely sensitive to the problem of his brother's own acquired evil.

  He opens his golden eyes and regards the wizard

  sadly. Minion of Satan or benighted magus, with you came the fulfillment of our darkest ambitions. "You were right, Merlinus. All along. I didn't want to believe you—and in the stables, perhaps, I could have gone on not believing. But now—now that we have the might to fulfill Ambrosius'

  dreams—now that it has us, it's too obvious. Too frightfully obvious." He stares at Merlinus, half-sick with fear.

  "Perhaps in the end, no one will be saved."

  *

  In the evening, passing through a gap in the low

  western hills, the duke's caravan arrives on the plain above the City of the Legion. "We camp here for the night,"

  Gorlois informs the master of the horses. He lifts himself in the saddle better to view the country below. In a deep violet haze of grasslands under stacks of red cloudbanks, the city of black stones squats like the jagged crown of a giant.

  "Father, why are we stopping here?" Morgeu pulls up beside him atop her roan stallion. Her red hair curls in the wind like a furl of the sunset behind her, and her tiny, tar-drop irises reflect the very depths of night. "We can make the city gates by nightfall."

  Gorlois' small eyes shift slightly, enough to displace the full weight of his incredulity into his daughter's lap.

  "Arrive at nightfall?"

  She sighs, understanding. "Of course. The duke of the Saxon Coast does not ride into a city under night's cover. Father, I would so much enjoy a hot bath."

  "The baths of this city are exceptional, Morgeu," he says without regarding her. His gaze fits to a nostalgic recollection of the brutal stonepile below, wrapped now in the golden gauze of day's end. "They were constructed in the reign of the Emperor Vespasian, when craftsmen

  prided themselves on grandiosity. You will enjoy the

  submerged steam vents that swirl the water and lave the body with heat. It will warrant the wait, I assure you."

  "Unless the provincials have cannibalized the baths to build another of their tacky baptismal fonts."