The Centurion's Empire

by Sean McMullen

  cruel than a knife through the heart, for all the barbarian that I may be."

  "The details of what happened later that night . . . they would even unsettle a Dane. I departed early, and Lucia left a slave in her bed and slipped away to my estate. While we fornicated our way through the night, Flavia stole through her villa and silently slew her husband and family. Then she had a slave draw her a warm bath and slashed her wrists. Her mind had probably snapped when I told her that jilting me for Drusus had robbed her of eternal youth, but she did her work so quietly that the sun was up and Lucia was on her way home before the slaves realized what had happened.

  "I wish that I could have kept silent as I lay there with Lucia, but I had told her everything. I just had to share my triumph, secrets beg to be shared. All that I concealed was the method of keeping myself young, so she never knew about the Frigidarium."

  Alfred emptied his cup, then poured more mead from the jar. He drank the second measure straight down.

  "The tongue grows loose when there is company in bed, Vitellan. Spies and agents would have a very poor business if it were not for that."

  "I know that now. While we lay tangled together she thought it a great joke on her mother, and was starry-eyed at the prospect of living eternally with me. After she returned home to find her entire family and favorite slave dead, all that changed. She tried to denounce me, but the authorities knew that she was obviously deranged with grief so her wild story was given no credit.

  "I was badly frightened, and tormented by guilt. I had wanted revenge, but not that sort of horror. I kept to myself, and a few months went by. I learned that Lucia was pregnant ... then my taster died of a strong, subtle poison.

  "At once I hired extra guards for my villa, and I began to sleep armed. Lucia was ahead of me, and had planted assassins among my newly hired guards. There was a frantic, desperate fight in my room one night in which I killed the two assassins and one innocent guard. They had forgotten that I was a trained and experienced soldier, but next time it would be different. I told everyone that I was moving to Gaul again, then I prepared to return to the Frigidarium." "And something went wrong?"

  "No, it went as planned. After fifty years more my steward's son revived me, and I returned as my great-grandson this time. For five years it was idyllic; I have told you about living here at the height of the Roman Empire already. Heaven on earth, yet the old guilt still lingered. My father had had me christened nearly a century before, and I began to pray, do good works, trying to atone for my sins. The .priests preached forgiveness for even the worst crimes, after all. The nightmare passed. Lucia had disappeared years before, taking our baby son with her, and few remembered what Flavia had done.

  "Lucia was alive, though, and in her seventies. She had been traveling the Roman Empire, seeking the immortal man who had driven her mother to murder and suicide. Every so often she would return to the old estates in Britain, just to check if I had paid a visit as one of my descendants. Suffice to say that I killed an assassin in the year Anno Domini 161

  ... who turned out to be one of my own grandsons. Again I returned to the Frigidarium, planning to sleep until Lucia was dead, then return as somebody else. I would move to Hispania, buy an estate by the Tagus.

  "The village elders were told how to revive me, the Ice-keeper was reappointed, gold was hidden, and it was arranged that each year a messenger would come from my villa. As long as he told them that Lucia was alive I would be kept frozen. Somehow the scheme went wrong this time. I was not revived for seven centuries." With his story at an end Vitellan sat staring at the glowing coals in the hearth. "After seven hundred years the coals still look the same," he said, shaking his head.

  Alfred drained his cup again. "If enough time passes anything can happen," he said. "Lucia may have learned the truth about you, but not where you were lying frozen. She and her children may have bribed your servants to send the message that she was alive for so long that, well, the villagers forgot who you were, or how to wake you."

  "Perhaps. At first I thought that I had outlived her hate. I

  told Gentor the story soon after Paeder revived me, but he said that the message business was unknown to the villagers. As far as they were concerned I was a great warrior, only to be woken in times of dire peril. Thirty generations, Alfred. A living tradition of revenge."

  "Now you will flee again in your time chamber." Alfred's words were a statement, flat and neutral.

  "The idea sickens me. I have been alive eight hundred and sixteen years, yet have walked and breathed for only thirty-one. What else can I do, though?"

  "My physician says that you cannot drink more of that oil without killing yourself." For a moment he turned his head so that the light outlined his face like that of a skull. The effect startled Alfred, who gasped and drew back. Vitellan turned again, and the light restored his life to him.

  "I am a living ghost, and I shall be dying as I am frozen. The idea appeals ... the dying man who lives for centuries, the living dead."

  Alfred flung his cup against the wall as he stood up. It bounced, clattered, and lay dented beside the fire as he began to pace the floor.

  "I expect to hear this sort of talk from senile old men on their deathbeds, but not from you. You're young and strong; if you were to stop drinking that caustic oil you would be as healthy as me."

  "I have caused great evil. Only my life can be payment in full."

  "You played a cruel joke that led to the death of no more than a dozen people. One Dane could do worse in a rampage through a defeated village. Every time we beat the Danes back we save our people from just such a fate, and you are our greatest weapon against them. You cower like some ragged churl caught stealing wine, yet all of Wessex hails you as the hero who saved them from the invaders."

  Alfred paced back and forth before the fire as he was speaking, his hands behind his back and his head down. He stopped for a moment, raised his foot above the dented cup ... then reached down and snatched it up.

  "A civilized man repairs and builds, no matter what his

  temper would have him do," he muttered as he bent the rim back with his fingers. "Look at me, Vitellan. I am the most civilized man in any position of power in this entire land. I need your help." He sat on the edge of Vitellan's bed. "Just think, on the night that Lucia and you were bedded together Flavia might just as easily have drunken herself into a stupor and been carried away to sleep it off by her slaves. She would probably have been a fearsome and bitter mother-in-law, but there would have been no terrible evil weighing you down. You would have died surrounded by your children and grandchildren some time in the second century, and would probably never have used the Frigidarium again."

  Vitellan closed his eyes. "I went to sleep as a prosperous Roman farmer, and I woke with Rome shattered and overgrown."

  "But Byzantium—"

  "From what Paeder has told me, Byzantium is just a circus by comparison. I have been just a centurion in the Roman army, but now I am a great commander—yet who am I commanding? If I had seen you and your rabble coming over the hill seven of my years ago I'd have ordered my legionaries to charge just as soon as I could have drawn breath. Now I design your defenses, show your blacksmiths how to make better armor and weapons, train your warriors, play with your children . . . I've always liked children, yet my own child spawned a dynasty that's dedicated to killing me." Alfred held his cup up in the firelight, then bent the rim a little more. "If I had done some accidental evil, I would spend my life doing good works to atone for it. What is better, my friend: to hide within a lump of ice, or to help me build a secure and prosperous kingdom? Think upon it."

  Alfred was studying reports of the latest Danish movements when Gentor arrived to beg an audience with him. The Ice-keeper was too fearful of eavesdroppers to speak indoors, so he led him outside, to the middle of a large courtyard. The snow drifted down around them as they stood talking and a chill wind tugged at their clothing. Alfred was attentive and


  patient as Gentor took a scrap of parchment from his pouch and showed it to the prince.

  "The village chief, Daegryn, found it," he said urgently. "It was on the very stone that leads to the Frigidarium."

  "Pretty calligraphy," observed Alfred. "The sort that comes from Meath, I believe."

  "But look at what it says—sire!"

  "Lucia, ah, vivit."

  "Lucia vivit, sire. It says Lucia lives."

  "The—is that the message, the coded message? Was that on the note found after Bishop Alfred was poisoned?"

  "Yes, yes, those assassins, the Master's own descendants, they're still here, trying to kill him."

  "But we knew that from the note at the feast. We know that it's hopeless to escape them. All that Vitellan can do is flee into time again."

  "Sire, they know where the Frigidarium is now!" shouted Gentor, and several distant men-at-arms turned to stare at them through the drifting flakes.

  Alfred looked at the parchment again, tracing the words with his finger. Gentor stood wringing his hands, his face contorted with anguish.

  "Lucia lives," muttered Alfred. "Lucia's hate lives, aye, that's certain. A slight is paid back with a cruel joke, then many murders result. Should it not end here, after seven hundred years? What would you have us do, Gentor the Icekeeper?"

  "Post guards at the village, build a fort over it."

  "And what good would that do? Vitellan has been in the care of your village ten times longer than I am likely to live. The generations who pursue him need just bide their time and breed until the guards are needed elsewhere, or the fort is abandoned. Then the assassins would enter the Frigidarium and plunge knives through his chilled heart, cut off his head and put it on a pike to warm and rot in the summer sun—"

  "No! No more, sire, I beg you," shrieked Gentor, falling to his knees in the snow with his hands over his ears. "We must build another ice chamber, one that is well hidden."

  "Your villagers can do that."

  "They can't cut stone and build proper walls and arches, but your army has masons and carpenters who could do it." Seize what is most precious to someone, and you can lead them wherever you like. It took all of Alfred's willpower to hold the smile down. He hoped that the strain gave him a grim expression.

  "I don't even have the men to defend this part of my brother's kingdom. This did not worry you when Bishop Paeder was poisoned, and you first realized that the assassins were still in pursuit."

  "But we didn't realize that the Master had nowhere safe to hide."

  "Well, you shall damn well have to learn to cut stone and build another chamber. In the meantime, Vitellan will stay in my care, and in the service of King Ethelred of Wessex."

  "No! He is ours," shrieked Gentor, jumping to his feet in a flurry of snow. "Only we can protect him." Shouting at high authority was overstepping the mark in itself, and it was time to remind Gentor of it. Alfred unfolded his arms, let a hand fall to the pommel of his sword, then began to advance. Gentor tried to rally his defiance, but failed. He took a step back, caught his foot on something hidden in the snow and fell sprawling. Alfred glared down at his vanquished foe. To the onlookers it seemed as if the Prince had pushed him over by magic.

  "You could not protect the Frigidarium from those who have been pursuing Vitellan through time, Gentor. Go now, build a more secret chamber, then Vitellan will return to you. While I guard him he will show us how to fight as the Romans did. We shall impose the Pax Romana on the Danes, and the land will be even more safe for your Master's sleep."

  "Lucia's descendants nearly poisoned him while he was in your care," whined Gentor.

  "While you stood behind his back. I understand you, Gentor," he said as he nodded and allowed himself a grim smile.

  "Without him you are just a churl, but while Vitellan is in that chamber you are the keeper of an immortal, you become part of something immortal yourself. I need Vitellan too! I would not exchange him for five thousand men-at- arms. Now go away and dig your chamber, and do a better job of hiding it this time." Wessex, the British Isles: 7 April 870, Anno Domini

  As the winter eased and gave way to spring both Vitellan and Paeder recovered their strength, and both returned to the fighting. The Danish host was trying to advance into the heart of Wessex, but the defenders had fought them to a standstill. It was the Danes' first serious setback in Britain, and there were more to come. Alfred and Paeder sat watching their men prepare an ambush while their horses grazed beside the road. Tall poplars were being cut almost through, and were already braced with ropes.

  "Sometimes I feel like hunting down that Gentor and making him drink some of that poison himself," grumbled Paeder, rubbing his stomach. "Eight months of watered beer and beef soup, and even now the physician cannot say if I shall ever eat solid food again."

  "He only poisoned you by accident," replied Alfred. "Even with Vitellan, he fed him only enough of some type of poison to unsettle his stomach and make him think that he was sick."

  "He should be punished," muttered Paeder, continuing to rub at his stomach. "If you caught one of your servants doing that to you, why he'd be worm food within the hour."

  Alfred felt curiously relaxed, even though a battle was only minutes away. Now that the unseen enemy had been defeated, it was almost a welcome relief to be fighting mere Danish warriors.

  "Gentor was fighting for the most important thing in his life, like a priest defending his church from the Danes. Besides, he is the Icekeeper, the hereditary captain of Vitellan's ship of ice, and our Roman friend may want to use it again. Whatever else you could say about Gentor, he is probably the best, most dedicated Icekeeper that the village has ever had."

  Paeder breathed deeply, as if fighting down a cry of exasperation.

  "But why would Vitellan want to be frozen again? His

  stomach is better, now that his loyal servant has stopped poisoning him, and we have been able to keep him safe from those assassins. He may well live to be an old man."

  Alfred frowned slightly, anticipating that his friend and tutor would one day want to leave. He had faced up to the idea and accepted it already, but he was no happier about it.

  "Perhaps as an old man, with his friends dead and not many years ahead of him, he may decide to travel a thousand years into the future to die. I wonder if my family will still rule Wessex in Anno Domini 1870? Perhaps we could leave a tradition to welcome the Master when he awakes."

  "How did you come to suspect Gentor, anyway?" Paeder asked. "To me he seemed like a model of fawning devotion where Vitellan was concerned."

  "Vitellan's breath. It smelled of strong drink when I was talking to him after you were carried out, yet he had supposedly been drinking water. Gentor probably had a little jar of his poison in his sleeve, to add to his Master's soup and water. Vitellan could taste nothing, but I could smell it. Besides, Gentor was too calm when the note was discovered. Such a terrible threat to his Master should have made him hysterical for Vitellan's safety. I decided on a little test, and had a scribe draw up the secret message. Daegryn delivered it for me—the chief would do almost anything to annoy Gentor."

  "A man after my own heart," muttered Paeder. "How did you know that Gentor wrote the first note?"

  "I did not. I took a guess about that. They tell me that Gentor is looking for a hidden cave to seal off and turn into a new ice room."

  "That will keep him away from us, and good riddance."

  The ambush was on a road bordered on one side by a river and on the other by dense woodland. The Danes had taken to raiding in small mounted parties that would meet up to form a much larger group'for the trip home, a group so large that no Wessex force would dare attack. Vitellan proposed to divide the Danish force by felling a dozen poplars across the road as they passed. The Danes would fall back toward the river as the Wessex churls and soldiers poured. out of the woods, but the Roman had chosen a part of the

  bank that was all deep mud and marsh. His own men were armed with long sp
ears to pick off the raiders as they wallowed about, trying to regroup.

  In the distance a scout with a mirror flashed a brief signal to them, just as the Romans had once done. The Danes were three miles away, with their own scouts riding a short distance ahead. Vitellan rode along the site of the ambush, making sure that no glinting weapons or colored cloth would betray the four hundred men and thirty women who were hidden among the bushes. At last he rode to where Alfred and the bishop were waiting.

  "Are all the ropes bracing the trees hidden too?" Alfred asked, more to prove his diligence than anything else.

  "They have been smeared with silt from the river, my lord," Vitellan replied. "They blend with the shadows so well that I myself am not sure which trees are ready to drop."

  "Splendid, splendid," said Paeder, unstrapping the axe from his back and hefting it. "I'm looking forward to my bowl of soup at the victory feast already."

  They laughed, and Alfred took a small, ornate dagger from his belt. He looked at the blade for a moment, reading the letters engraved on it.

  "When I was ten years old my father, Aetherwulf, made me custodian of this little family treasure," he said, handing it to Vitellan. "He told me the legend that goes with it, and made me swear to hand it on to another member of the family if I could not do my duty with it during my lifetime."

  Vitellan blinked, then looked intently at Alfred after glancing at the little weapon. Paeder looked from one to the other, scratching his beard uneasily, then rode a few steps away and pretended not to listen.

  "Are ... are you sure that you wish to break such an oath, and such a long tradition?" Vitellan asked.

  "My oath is sealed still. You are part of my family, after all." He looked down in embarrassment, toying with the mane of his horse. "I am proud to be descended from you," he said quickly and quietly. The pressure of hundreds of years suddenly lifted. Vitellan straightened, as if he had been relieved of an enormous weight. He wanted to say something in gratitude, yet what words could match events and emotions like these? Like a good tactician, he changed the subject.