The Centurion's Empire

by Sean McMullen

  The old man was secretly a litde claustrophobic, and disliked both being in the Frigidarium Glaciale and the prospect of some day returning to his assigned cell there. He heaved the bronze panel back into place. "Never again," he promised himself as he scanned the dates in the dancing lamplight, then he turned and shuffled farther down the corridor of the Frigidarium Glaciale like a short, arthritic bear.

  At a vacant cell he took a metal tag from his robes, slid it into a bracket and sealed it into place. He studied the entry for a moment before moving on.

  "Vitellan Bavalius, eh?" he chuckled softly to the name on the panel. "You're the lad who survived five days in a cold sea after that troopship sank last September. You don't know about us yet, lad, but you are destined to join us -and sleep in this hole. We're watching you now, and you are very promising. You're a strong, natural leader, and you have great resistance to the cold. Those are perfect qualifications to become a Temporian and live for a thousand years." Regulus patted the tag with Vitellan's name like a teacher encouraging a good student, then walked down to the very end of the Frigidarium Glaciale. The panel bearing Cel-cinius' name was alone in the wall at the end of the corridor. Regulus turned and glanced behind him, more through habit than paranoia. The entrance had now faded into blackness, but the corridor was empty as far as he could see. He released the pins and pried the panel out to reveal a block of rammed snow, from which emerged leather straps bound with a wax seal. He allowed himself a little smile: the imprint in the seal was his own: 217 years earlier he had been acting as the Frigidarium Glaciale's Master of the Ice for the first time when Celcinius had returned to the ice. Satisfied, he swung the plate back and checked the dates inscribed in it. Celcinius was ninety-four in terms of years awake. That was bad. It would be a difficult revival. Regulus slowly made his way back down the length of the Frigidarium Glaciale, past the 370 other bronze plates, and stopped at the thick, metal-bound oak door. With a twinge of shame he realized that he had not checked the reading in the lock when he had entered. "Memory's going too," he muttered, taking a stylus and wax tablet from the folds of his heavy robes and peering through a slit in the lock's housing. Three numerals were visible, and Regulus noted them. He was about to pull the door shut when he realized that he had not locked the door behind him while he was inside the Frigidarium Glaciale. "Lucky nobody's here to see all this," he said, pulling the door shut. Taking an iron key nearly a foot in length he locked the door, unlocked it, then locked it again. The lock's mechanism was the most advanced in existence, and had been installed only five years earlier. It incorporated a counter-wheel that recorded the number of openings and closings, and could not be reset. He noted down the second—and now correct— reading.

  "If my memory's as bad as that I'll not get out alive," he muttered as he pulled his fur-lined mittens back on. The Frigidarium Glaciale was not located in a glacier, but was cut into unmoving, stable ice in a deep ravine between two mountain peaks. Regulus cautiously walked down a

  flight of steps carved out of the ice and along another passage. At the bottom was a door, in fact every twenty feet there was another door to seal in the cold air. There were no guards down here, but it was still a dangerous place for intruders. One door opened onto a walkway above a deep pit with long, sharp spikes at the bottom. The walkway was designed to tip unwary visitors off if they did not reset a group of levers in the right sequence at the halfway point. Beyond this was a vault of ice blocks that would collapse unless a lever back at the previous door was moved to the correct notch first. Finally there was a cage of metal bars, and beside it three wheels with numbers engraved on the rims. Set the wrong code on the wheels and the lower passage would be automatically flooded with water piped from a heated cistern two hundred feet above. The right code alerted a slave in the palace to start his horse turning a windlass to raise the elevator cage. Regulus entered the cage and pulled the door shut. He reached back out through the bars and set the wheels to the correct code.

  After an interval that never failed to unnerve him the cage jerked slightly, then began to move upward. He leaned back against the bars and sighed a long plume of condensed breath. Perhaps his memory was not so bad after all, perhaps his lapses in the actual Frigidarium Glaciale had only occurred because his life had not been at stake down there. The olive oil lamplight showed stratified layers in the ice and occasional stones as he made the slow journey upward. He had a name for every embedded stone that he passed;' he had made the trip hundreds of times. All that seemed to change was the intensity of the cold. For the last few feet the shaft was lined with marble blocks. The cage emerged into a torchlit stone chamber, then stopped. A woman in her late fifties was waiting for Regulus, shivering within several layers of pine marten fur. She unlatched the cage door while the slave in charge of the windlass threw the anchor bolts at the base of the cage. Regulus was trembling almost convulsively as she led him to a little alcove that was heated by air piped from a distant furnace. The warmth slowly eased his distress.

  "I told you to take an assistant," she said as she poured

  him a cup of warm, spiced wine from a silver flask on an oil-burner stand.

  "The rules are the rules," he replied between chattering teeth.

  "Do you know how long you were down there?"

  He ignored the question. "Well Doria, the seal on Celcinius' body is intact," he reported, then gulped a mouthful of wine. "Everything is as it was during my previous inspection. I can authorize his release if the Adjudicators vote for it."

  "He was eighty-nine last time he was revived," said Doria, putting a pan of wax on the oil-burner. "According to the Revival Ledger he hovered near death for six days. I'll not vote for revival. Not just now, anyway."

  "The last unpaired date on his panel shows that he was ninety-four at the time of his last freezing."

  "I know, I know. It is in my own records." Doria closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Surely we can make our own decisions by now. We don't need his sanction."

  "Perhaps not, but the Adjudicators are still calling, for his sanction," Regulus said as he rubbed the circulation back into his hands. "That's why they want him revived."

  "If he dies, what then?" asked Doria.

  "If he dies we have lost our founder," he replied with resignation.

  "Precisely," she said with some vehemence, now leaning forward and tapping the heated stone bench. "We lose our greatest unifying symbol."

  "Doria, please—there are complex issues here. The Adjudicators cannot be forced to rely on their own authority and judgment when they rule on Vespasian making himself Emperor."

  She sat back, shaking her dyed black curls. "With Celcinius frozen, at least we still have our founder symbolically alive. The Adjudicators must learn to make their own decisions without a nod from him."

  Regulus slowly picked up his cup and took another sip of wine. "I'm confused. Would you have Celcinius frozen forever?

  What is so bad about such an old man's death?"

  Doria sat watching the condensation of her own breath as she considered her reply.

  "It is bad for the woman in charge of the revival team that fails to restore Celcinius to life, and I am that woman," she said slowly and clearly, then closed her eyes.

  "So, a hidden agenda."

  "In the ice he is at least not dead, but if we try to revive him he will almost certainly die. Why bother, why not leave him alone? What is your hidden agenda, Regulus?"

  The slave appeared at the door of the alcove, bowed and entered.

  "We shall continue this later," said Regulus with some relief.

  The slave reported that the cage was secure for his inspection. Regulus grumbled, but got to his feet, pulling himself up hand over hand with his staff. The slave bowed again and backed out of the alcove, and Doria followed them with the pan of hot wax. Regulus gave the cage a cursory check, tapping bars, pins, and gears with his staff, then he gestured to Doria. With a practiced flourish she poured the wax over the master
lock pin of the windlass, and after a moment Regului pressed his ring seal into the soft, warm wax. The heat was welcome on his chilled fingers, and he withdrew the ring with reluctance.

  "Did you attach the tag plate for young Vitellan Bavalius?" Doria asked as they walked through the blackstone access corridor.

  "Yes, yes, yes, I'm not senile yet. When is he due to be initiated?"

  "In a few months. He was to be sent to Egypt, but I had him sent instead to the Furtivus Legion that guards the approaches to this palace. He is stationed in Primus Fort, and Centurion Namatinus has been sending me reports on him—in fact he is due to be part of the escort for our next mule caravan of supplies."

  "How has he reacted to being in a secret legion?"

  "Extremely well. He is our first Christian recruit, did you know that? The Christians have a strong sense of discipline, dedication, and duty, and they teach their children to keep secrets almost as soon as they can talk. They could well become a prime source of new blood for us Temporians. Vitellan is certainly a model recruit." Regulus spat and cursed. "Damn cruel, it is, taking a boy of seventeen and freezing him for fifty years. It's killing his friends and family for him, even though they will live out their lives unharmed."

  "But he must have all his personal ties severed while he is young and flexible, Regulus. He must become accustomed to living as we do. It may be a sharp wrench for him, but the rewards are great. Our reports certainly indicate that he has the rare combination of qualities that makes a good Tempo-rian."

  "He may not want to join us, once he has been told of our existence. He may have a girl somewhere."

  'Then he will be killed," said Doria simply. "You know that as well as I do." They emerged into the palace, but Regulus insisted on going out onto a balcony at once. The winter sky was blue and clear, although the lower part of the mountain was shrouded by mist. The air was still and crisply cold. He breathed deeply, savoring the pure, fresh air and swearing to himself that he would never again drink the Venenum Im-mortale and sleep frozen in the Frigidarium Glaciale.

  An Alpine Trail: 17 December 71, Anno Domini

  Gallus was thankful that this was the season's last trek through the Alps to feed the gods. Already the snow was deep, and within a few weeks his mules would find it impossible. An unseasonably heavy fall could easily happen as early as tomorrow, he reminded himself. Vitellan rode the last mule in the line, alert and keenly observing everything. He was young and enthusiastic, like all the other Roman legionaries that had been assigned to escort Gallus' mules over the years. In the spring Vitellan would be transferred somewhere else, but Gallus could look forward to many more years of hauling grain, oil, firewood, and luxuries through the mountains, and leaving it all on a huge altar for the gods to take. Why are my assistants transferred so quickly yet I remain here, Gallus wondered. Have I failed some unspoken test of the Furtivus Legion?

  In all his years of travel Gallus had never seen the gods.

  Their altar was at the base of a sheer cliff whose top was generally obscured by mist. Occasionally a muleteer-legionary would stay back and hide among the rocks to see what took the piles of sacks, bales, amphorae, and firewood from the altar, but the story was always the same. An enormous hand would reach down and snatch away the piles during the night. Some muleteers who stayed back were never seen again.

  Gallus was steady and conservative in his work. He displayed no curiosity about the gods, did as he was ordered, and was always punctual. It was a hard but secure life, as there were no bandits to fear in such a remote part of the Alps. Later that day they would meet with the main convoy of seventy mules, and from there it was another two days to the altar. An arrow thudded into his chest. Gallus stiffened, then toppled across the neck of his mule. His thick butt-leather breastplate had taken most of the impact so that the point barely scratched his skin, but Gallus was not about to let anyone know that. Behind him came shouts and curses from Vitellan and their attackers: "He's hiding!" and "Mind the mule!" The animals were in a panic already, but the snow and their leads prevented them from bolting. More shouts echoed through the mountains, mingled with the clang of blades. Vitellan was fighting from behind his mule. The mules had value, and the bandits would not risk injuring them. Gallus listened to the voices. Four or five of them. "Grab the lead mule!" That was his cue. Footsteps came crunching through the snow, lungs wheezed that were unaccustomed to the thin alpine air. "Off with ye," said a voice with the intonations of a pleb from the lowlands cities, but as the bandit tried to push Gallus from the mule the old legionary suddenly reached forward with an un-threatening, fluid, even gentle gesture and plunged a dagger into his throat.

  Now Gallus slipped from the mule and looked back, the arrow still protruding from his chest. Vitellan had sent one of the bandits staggering away clutching his side and was engaging the other two. Two down. No more than five in total, including one hidden archer. Gallus started back, sheltering

  behind each mule in turn. An arrow struck a grain sack, fired from the rocks to the side of him. Good, good, nearly past the archer, Gallus thought.

  "Keep 'em fighting, Vitellan, they'll tire before we do," Gallus called, but even as he spoke he realized that he was tiring fast himself. With dagger and gladius he engaged a bandit who was working his way behind Vitellan. The man was skilled with his weapons, but was hampered by the thin air, cold, and snow. Another arrow hit Gallus' breastplate, but its point barely pierced his flesh. Somewhere to one side a bandit cursed with pain as Vitellan's blade slipped past his guard. Gallus was by now all too aware of a lethargy sweeping over him. He tried ineffectually to parry a curving snap and the blade thudded into the side of his head, cutting flesh and bone. Gallus collapsed to the snow, but felt as if he was still falling and falling and falling. In the distance Vitellan screamed, an echoing, fading scream. Lars scrambled down from his vantage, brandishing his bow and cursing with fury.

  "One dead and two wounded!" he shouted. "And from fighting only two legionaries."

  "Tough buggers," gasped Vespus, who was draped across a mule's packs.

  "You're veterans of the arena."

  "Gladiators don't have thin air . . . and snow. These legionaries ... are stationed here. They're used to it." The mules were standing still, but were frightened and restless. Lars began to strip Gallus' body.

  "Butt leather," exclaimed Vespus. "The old fox wore butt leather under his furs."

  "It slowed my arrows and scraped most of the poison from them. No wonder he took a while to die." Lars tramped over to the edge of a steep drop where the two other bandits sat resting and binding their wounds.

  "The other one tried to run, and lost his footing at the edge of the cliff," one of them explained.

  "Yes, I saw it all," Lars said sharply. "Now climb down and get his clothes." The man groaned with dismay. "Master Lars, that's a fearsome drop and we've been badly cut about."

  "Do as I say!"

  "If we do, it'll take all afternoon. That will make us miss the rendezvous wi' the main caravan in a few days' time. D'ye know the way to the altar without them?"

  Lars glared at the black smudge that was Vitellan, half buried and motionless in a snowdrift far below, then tramped back to the mules. "Here's his cloak and a spare tunic," he said, flinging a bundle to the wounded men. "Strip the clothing from this dead one, and that will have to do. What are your injuries?"

  "Three broken ribs and a long cut," said one.

  "Deep thrust to the leg, but I can ride," said the other.

  "Then bind yourselves up and dress as the legionaries. Try to fight like 'em too, if needs be. You will be Vitellan, and you will be Clavius, a new recruit. When you get to the rendezvous tell the trailmaster that Gallus fell ill."

  "True enough," laughed the new Vitellan, then winced at the pain from his ribs. They threw the bodies of Gallus and the dead bandit down after Vitellan, then unloaded two of the mules and flung the sacks over the edge as well. After an hour of frantic labor in the thin air, the
line of six mules moved on again. The animals were nervy and cantankerous at being driven by unfamiliar masters. Lars and Vespus rode in padded sacks marked as woollen cloth. The sun was already down when they reached the rendezvous. They found it only because the mules knew the way on their own.

  Vitellan revived soon after his fall, but he had the sense not to move until after dark. Deep snow had broken his fall, and beyond a few minor gashes and sprains he was unwounded. He examined the two bodies nearby. Gallus had been stripped, but the dead bandit's body was fully clothed. Vitellan was surprised to find sacks from two mule packs lying in the snow as well. There was costly cloth, fine smoked fish, dried beef and even a small amphora of very expensive wine. With a prayer of thanks to the God of the Christians he crawled under a rock shelter in the face of the cliff, wrapped himself in the bolts of cloth and settled down to a more than satisfactory meal to recover from his ordeal.

  "Yet again the cold has saved me," he whispered to him-

  self as he gazed out at the starlit snowdrift that had preserved his life.

  The next morning it took five hours for Vitellan to climb back up to the trail with a makeshift pack of provisions on his back. At the site of the ambush there was nothing of any use left behind. He considered his options as he examined the mule tracks. The bandits had continued along the trail right after the ambush, and there were at least four of them. Even if he could catch up with them there was no point in a lone man attacking four. Besides, they had stolen no more than supplies for some temple deep in the mountains where offerings were made to the old gods. As a Christian, Vitellan thus felt no sense of outrage or sacrilege. He would walk back to Primus Fort and alert the centurion. A couple of dozen legionaries would be sent to hunt the bandits down.

  Vitellan started walking back along the trail. At first he estimated that he could reach the fort in three days or less at a brisk pace, and provided that no more snow fell. The distance was no problem, as he had plenty of food and warm bedding for the trek. Presently he slowed his pace. Aware that death from bandits, snowslides, or just sheer cold was never far away, Vitellan decided to travel more slowly and cautiously. He had been badly shaken by Gallus' lonely death and his own narrow escape. He had not known the older legionary long enough to be a real friend, but his death nevertheless left a distinct hole in Vitellan's sense of reality. As it turned out his trek was without incident, but he took five days to reach the fort. Had he hastened and made it in three, the course of history would have been changed. The Temporian palace of Nusquam had been built between two mountain peaks, and the original building was over four centuries old. The walls were carved out of the mountain itself, while the buildings of the palace rose in terraces up the side of one peak. The design was such that it was not obvious to anyone looking up from below. It was divided into the Upper Palace, where thirty Temporians lived, and the Lower, which housed seventy slaves and guards. Three hundred frozen Temporians lay far below in the Frigidarium Glaciale, and the other forty Temporians were scattered throughout the Roman Empire, attending to its business and expanding their control.