Legacy (25 page)

"I hardly think it will be the last time, Lady, so I had better get used to it."

"Just so. And you certainly seem to hold up under that sort of unpleasantness far better than these others." She looked quizzically at this tall young woman who, though come of well-to-do merchants, had nothing aristocratic in her background to account for her self-possession amid the temper tantrums of rulers. Of course, if she was really unshockable . . .

"Your must understand," she continued, "that Ambrosius is wrong—this time." She smiled, for she had clearly made an impression. "Oh, yes, I've taken lovers in the past. I think Artorius even knows. But not lately. I'm getting too old, and I
won't
become one of those pathetic hags who end by paying pretty boys to go to bed with them for no better reason than habit! And besides . . . it never meant anything. For I spoke the truth earlier. Even now, my every sight of him is still like the first."

Then she shook herself, and was all business. "Come, let's get some candles lit. The darkness is falling."

It was also growing dark at Clermont, and Bishop Sidonius read the letter by the feeble light of the setting sun. Then he was silent for a long time, as the sun continued to set behind the Puys range to the west and the chamber grew gloomy.

"Excellency . . . ?"

"Leave me." The curtness was so unlike Sidonius that the secretary was startled. He motioned the scribes out and bowed himself through the door.

Sidonius rose heavily to his feet and walked to the western window, oblivious to the chill. He watched the sun setting and crumpled in his hand the letter he wished he had never seen.

He had asked a friend in Rome to keep him apprised of Arvandus' trial. The friend had obliged, describing the convening of the court—five Senators, presided over by Sidonius' successor as City Prefect. He had also related what everyone in the City now knew: the matter was far more serious than Sidonius had realized. The charge against his old friend was not to be graft and extortion. It was to be treason.

After the earlier charges had been brought, and Arvandus ordered to Rome to face them, a letter had been intercepted en route from him to King Euric of the Visigoths. The friend had included portions of it, and Sidonius had grown soul-sick as he had read. The former Praetorian Prefect had urged Euric to make war on the "Greek Emperor" Anthemius, and to strike immediately at the British troops that were then north of the Loire, defeating them in detail while they were separated from the armies of the Kingdom of Soissons.

The ass even presumed to draw up a foreign policy for Euric
, Sidonius thought bitterly.
Advised him to detach the Burgundians from their Roman alliance and partition Gaul with them. We should have let the letter be delivered—Euric might have died laughing!

Except . . .
except that Arvandus is absolutely right in his central point: Riothamus' army
is
the key threat to Euric, and this
is
the time to attack it, catching it in a forward position, unsupported. Yes, it is very fortunate indeed that that letter never reached its destination!

Sidonius found that he was trembling, but not from the cold—in fact, he had broken a sweat. He wiped his brow and reviewed the rest of the letter in his mind. Arvandus had scandalized everyone with his jocular familiarity with the judges.
They don't know him as I do. He's quite mad—I see that clearly now. I'm sure he'll be genuinely surprised when he's found guilty, even though he's admitted writing the letter. The rest of the world isn't
real
to him; he owes it no loyalty, and it can do him no harm. He probably turned traitor simply in a fit of pique over being accused of corruption.

No, there's nothing at all surprising about his conduct at the trial. But some of us are still sane, still conscious of our obligations. I will say nothing of this to anyone. Arvandus has a right to not have his case further prejudiced. And it's bad enough that the details of his advice to Euric have been bruited about as much as they have. The contents of this letter will go no further.

The sun vanished behind the hills, leaving Sidonius standing in chill darkness.

The Britons' winter quarters overflowed the walls of Bourges, a spreading growth of wooden huts. But the High King had appropriated the old mansion of the Roman governors. Tertullian had been assigned a nearby house, where Sarnac arrived one bleak afternoon bringing a miserably nervous traveller from the south.

The fellow—he had "small landowner" written all over him—had brought a cover letter from the Bishop of Clermont instructing Tertullian to deliver to Riothamus the enclosed letter of introduction, and then present the bearer to the High King. The three of them made their way to the mansion, where the new arrival waited in an antechamber while Sarnac and Tylar were escorted to the office where Riothamus conducted business before a roaring fire.

"Ah," the High King sighed after breaking the seal and reading the letter, "I'm afraid Sidonius is cross with me. He's back to addressing me as Riothamus! Or maybe not—he's just doing as he's bound to do, now that he's Bishop and representing the interests of his flock."

"What is the letter's subject, Riothamus?" asked Tylar, who already knew the answer from a traceless scan, which used techniques that meant little more to Sarnac than they would have to the High King. "If I may know, that is."

"Oh, it's nothing confidential." Riothamus leaned back in his chair, plunking his feet on the heavy wooden table and waving the letter in the air. "It seems our foraging parties have been straying over into the Auvergne."

"Ah," Tylar smiled. "Poaching from members of His Excellency's congregation?"

"Undoubtedly! But that's not what the letter's about. If it was just a matter of pig stealing, I doubt if Sidonius would involve himself. No, the problem is not pigs, but men."

"Slaves," Sarnac stated from near the door. He wasn't sure he had any business speaking up, but slavery was something that had never stopped bothering him about this world.

"Yes." Riothamus nodded absently. "Just as they've been doing on the estates here in Berry, our men have lured away some of this man's slaves as recruits. He appealed to his Bishop for redress, and Sidonius has sent him to me with a letter intended to influence me in any way possible. I'm afraid Sidonius rather lays it on." He squinted at the letter in the pale winter afternoon light and quoted, " 'I am a direct witness to the conscientiousness which weighs on you so heavily, and which has always been of such delicacy as to make you blush for the wrongdoing of others.' Ha! He's referring to the times he saw me holding court at Nantes, and gently reminding me that I've always done whatever was necessary to maintain discipline in my army. There's more needling on that point further on. 'I fancy that this poor fellow is likely to make good his plaint, that is if amid a crowd of noisy, armed and disorderly men who are emboldened at once by their courage, their number, and their comradeship, there is any possibility for a solitary unarmed man, a humble rustic, a stranger of small means, to gain a fair and equitable hearing.' " Riothamus chuckled, while Sarnac tried unsuccessfully to frame a Latin or British translation of the quaintly old-fashioned expression "laying on a guilt trip." Then the High King sobered.

"It's a thorny problem. You see, our men haven't been doing this sort of thing just to hunt for recruits. Most of them genuinely hate slavery. I think it goes back almost exactly a century—to 367, if I remember correctly, although my old history tutor thought that anything after Julius Caesar was too recent to be worthy of notice. That was when
all
the barbarians—Saxons, Picts and Irish—descended on Britain together, from three directions at once." His eyes took on a faraway look. "God, but I'd love to have talked to the unknown, illiterate genius who organized
that
!" Tylar looked mildly scandalized, but Sarnac remembered what he had heard about the perverse admiration felt by a good cop for a really smart crook.

"At any rate," Riothamus resumed, "as the hordes of looters swept across Britain, they were joined by slaves fleeing from the burning villas. The whole country was in anarchy. It was all put down in the end by Theodosius, father of the emperor of the same name. But nothing was ever the same again; the old villa system couldn't be restored, the landowners had to adjust to a world without slave labor. The escaped slaves melted into the general population, and their attitudes became part of our British. . . ." He groped unsuccessfully for the term he was after, and Sarnac restrained himself from supplying, "national character."

"Sidonius can't understand this, of course," Riothamus went on. "He comes from a line of aristocrats reaching back to the Flood! For him, it's simply an issue of property rights."

"Under Roman law, Riothamus, that's exactly what it is," Tylar said smoothly. "Did not the blessed Saint Augustine himself admonish slaves to obey their masters? And has slavery not always been the basis on which civilized life rests?"

"So we're told. Maybe that's why it seems to rest so uneasily!" The High King shook his dark head, scowling. "What's gotten into me? The problem at the moment is to do justice to what's-his-name without alienating my own troops. And it
is
necessary to do justice to him." He got up and started pacing in a way which suggested not nervousness but restless strength under flexible control. "Partly as a matter of equity—he didn't invent the system, and when he bought the slaves he was just doing what his own laws told him he was entitled to do—but also as a matter of policy. After this campaign is over, if I'm to hold on to my enlarged holdings on the continent, I must allow the people here to live under their own laws."

Aha!
Sarnac thought.

"This is the first time I've heard you speak of 'enlarged holdings,' Riothamus," Tylar observed blandly.

"Is it?" The High King's smile was all affability. "Well, it follows inevitably, doesn't it? My original objective was to secure the safety of Armorica, and for that, certain strategic acquisitions are necessary. Otherwise, all this will have been in vain. Sometimes I feel as if my long-range plans are being made for me—one step seems to lead logically to the next.

"Anyway, this isn't getting my business done with Sidonius' landowner. Send him in!"

It had turned dark by the time Sarnac rode back into the encampment, but the night was less chilly than most of late, and a circle of the Artoriani were gathered around a fire, Kai among them. He waved a wineskin at Sarnac, who waved back and dismounted, hitching his horse to a nearby post and joining the men, who were listening to Hamyc.

This, he realized as he took a pull at the wine, was a night not for history, but for old Sarmatian hero tales. Hamyc was concluding one about somebody named Batradz, the leader of a war band of demigods.

"Ah," Hamyc sighed, after lubricating his throat, "that was long ago, in the days before the Sarmatians ever reached the threshold of Rome. And far away, in the country where the Black Sea laps the feet of the snowcapped Caucasus. There, halfway back to the land where the sun rises, our ancestors dwelt in the days when the gods walked among men and sired children by mortal women!" None of these nominal Christians took exception. But they weren't about to let Hamyc get away with one of his trademark cliff-hanging cutoffs tonight.

"The death of Batradz! Tell about the death of Batradz!"

"Well, if you insist,"—Hamyc smiled in the flickering firelight—"although, as you know, nobody ever really
saw
Batradz die! And some say he's merely sleeping, awaiting a time when he is needed again."

Something stirred at the back of Sarnac's mind. It was an annoying sense of having missed something very obvious—something hovering just outside his consciousness like the shadowy figures at the edge of the fire's circle of light. What could it be? Something dimly remembered from long-ago history classes? Or from even further back? He shook his head and listened to Hamyc.

". . . And so his faithful followers, Uryzmag and Sozryko, bore the grievously wounded Batradz from the battlefield. Soon they wearied, and paused near a lake to rest. Then Batradz spoke to Uryzmag. 'Take my sword and throw it into the lake, returning it to the magic from which it came. Only thus may I come to the end of my suffering.'

"Uryzmag and Sozryko looked at each other, reluctant to throw away the wondrous sword with which Batradz had slain so many foes throughout the years he had led them. So they took the sword and hid it, then returned and told Batradz that they had done as he commanded."

Kai, spellbound as always by the tale, didn't notice that Bedwyr had suddenly stiffened convulsively beside him. He did hear a mutter in some strange tongue—probably one of those Balkan languages Bedwyr had picked up, although Kai could have sworn that it resembled some of the sounds the Saxons made. He went back to listening to Hamyc's narration.

" 'And what did you see when you threw the sword in the lake?' Batradz asked them. Again they looked at each other, not understanding.

" 'Why, nothing, Lord,' Uryzmag replied. 'Only the ripples as the sword struck the water.' "

" 'Ah, faithless dogs!' Batradz cried. 'Return to the lake, I command you, and . . .' "

Kai became aware that no one was there at his side. He looked over his shoulder, just in time to see Bedwyr riding away toward the town, faster than was prudent at night. What had gotten into him? Kai shrugged and returned his attention to the grand old story.

Tylar was studying a data-retrieval device that was yet another of the manifestations that his "short sword" could assume, when Sarnac stalked unceremoniously into the room.

"Tylar . . ."

" 'Tertullian,' " the time traveller corrected him, raising a cautionary finger. "Remember, cover names at all times while we're . . ."

"Tylar, we need to talk! And I want Tiraena in on it!"

"I'm afraid I haven't been entirely candid with you."

"Has anyone ever told you that you say that a lot?" Tiraena glared at him. Her mood had started at rock-bottom upon being awakened and bundled off to Bourges, and had gone downhill from there. The revelation that Koreel could—contrary to what she had been told—get her out of Camalat and send her to Gaul via the portals, and could have done so at any time, didn't help. "You'd better start talking straight, because I'll be missed if I don't get back to Camalat before—"