Emperor

Cunedda spoke up. 'You think so little of us that you imagine we need a Roman to tell us what to do? This was for our own purposes, to rid our lands of you. And even if we fail today, with the men of the west and the druidh at his side, Caratacus will return, and you will pay the price in blood.'

Claudius seemed puzzled. He asked his secretary, 'Caratacus?'

Narcissus said, his voice tremulous, 'A son of Cunobelin.'

'Ah, of course, the useful princes who harassed their neighbours, drove their rival chieftains into the arms of Rome, and made themselves healthy profits from the slaves they took.'

Cunedda frowned. 'Slaves?'

Vespasian said coldly, 'Your princes postured in defiance of Rome. But at the same time their raids on your neighbours won them a healthy flow of slaves to send to the markets of Gaul, in return for Roman gold.'

Claudius was watching Cunedda's face. 'You are actually disappointed, aren't you? Are you British fussy about selling slaves? Was Caratacus a hero for you? But can't you see that this is part of your conquest, that the Roman slave market distorted your politics long before a single soldier set foot here? Caratacus and his brother played two games at once, you see. They were not heroes, little boy. They were hypocrites and fools. And such men can never prevail against Rome.'

Nectovelin was as crestfallen as Cunedda, but he sneered, 'We'll see.'

'How defiant you are! But how do you imagine you could possibly succeed, you or your Caratacus? Rome is a system, you see, a system that works on timescales far longer than a mere human life, even an emperor's. And it feeds on expansion. The acquisition of wealth flows back to pay for the army, which then wins still more territory and wealth-on and on the wheel turns. Rome was always going to come here; it is destiny.' His eyes sparkled; he was fascinated, as if this was all an intellectual game, Agrippina thought. 'But emperors have been assassinated before, and no doubt will be again. Yes, if you had killed me it would have made a mess of things for a bit. Is that what you imagined, you hairy Briton, that history trembled at the point of your sword?'

'You gabble, Roman,' Nectovelin said. 'You speak of destiny. But I have a Prophecy, given to me at the moment of my birth. A Prophecy of victory and freedom. That is why we will win.'

But you are wrong, Agrippina thought, her heart sinking.

XXI

'A prophecy? How very interesting. What prophecy?'

Nectovelin glared.

'Search him, Vespasian.'

Vespasian called a guard to help him. It took only a moment for the leather document wallet to be placed in Claudius's hands.

Claudius fingered the wallet gingerly, his face pinched. 'It smells as if it has been strapped to a horse.' But he loosened its ties, extracted the parchment, and unfolded it. He carried it over to a lamp for better light, and squinted. Then he picked up a little wire frame mounted with two lenses, and held it before his eyes.

Agrippina gasped, thinking of another Prophecy phrase-a man will come with eyes of glass. Somehow, was it all coming true?

Nectovelin looked at her suspiciously.

'Well, well,' Claudius said. 'A British prophecy written out in Latin-and quite good Latin at that. Tell me how this came to be.' When Nectovelin did not reply the Emperor took off his 'eyes of glass' and turned on him. 'You do understand that all that is keeping you alive is my curiosity.'

Nectovelin seemed to be shaking with rage. Agrippina understood that to him the Prophecy was an amulet, its magical powers independent of whatever its words actually said-and now, in this moment of ultimate failure, he was having to endure those words being read by a stranger, an enemy. But he made himself recount the story of his birth: the Latin chatter of his mother in labour, how her words had been transcribed by Agrippina's grandfather.

Claudius eyed Agrippina. 'So it's a family matter. And when was this? How old are you, man?'

Nectovelin gave his age: forty-seven summers.

'Forty-seven, forty-seven…' Claudius went to his desk and began pawing through scrolls. 'Something is in the back of my mind. What else was significant about that date? We Romans are partial to a good prophecy, you know,' he said, lecturing the party of rebel Britons and tense soldiers, while casually facing the other way. 'You can see the appeal. We mortals fumble our way through the mist of events like men in blindfolds. How marvellous it would be to glimpse the future clearly-or even the past! We Romans have our own prophetic books…'

The Sibylline Books had been a gift to a king of Rome by a sorceress called the Sibyl. The Books foretold the entire future of Rome, so the sorceress said.

'Sadly the Books were destroyed in a fire more than a century ago. But a collection of fresh oracles has since been gathered from shrines around the world, and housed in the temple of Apollo on the Palatine since the time of the deified Augustus. Perhaps this new oracle will find a place in that strange library-what do you think?…

'Ah, here we are.' He dug out a scroll, unrolled it on his desk and ran his thumb along its surface. 'Um. According to this compendium the year of your birth was unremarkable, hairy man-save for one thing: another birth, of a certain prophet in Judea. The Jews, you know, an excitable people! The villain was crucified in the reign of my uncle Tiberius as I recall, and rightly so. No more than a coincidence, no doubt-though if I were a god composing a prophecy, nothing about it would be coincidental.

'And what is it we actually have here?' He held up the parchment, peering down through his lenses. 'Quite brief, isn't it?'

Agrippina found herself saying, 'Only sixteen lines.'

She saw Nectovelin's shoulders stiffen. In that moment Nectovelin knew for certain she had somehow seen the document herself, against his express wishes. Whatever the outcome today, she feared that she had already destroyed her relationship with a man who had been like a father.

Claudius watched this with interest; he seemed fascinated by the British. 'Sixteen lines, yes. You've evidently read it, girl. But I wonder how well you know it-if your education was only Gallic then perhaps not well at all. There is some subtlety here. Why, there's even an acrostic.' He held up the bit of parchment to Agrippina. 'Look, girl, can you see how the first letters of the lines combine to form a phrase? A-C-O-N…Perhaps this is the key to the whole thing. The original Sibylline Books featured similar acrostics, as I recall. An intriguing connection.

'There are some specific predictions here, aren't there? Of an emperor with a German name…And I am Germanicus.' He looked up sharply at Agrippina. 'Interesting. But what's this about a noose of stone around the neck of the island?' He glanced at Vespasian. 'Does this island have a neck, legate?'

'Nobody knows, sir.'

'On we go, cryptic and confusing-baffling, as are all such oracles, or I suppose we wouldn't value them so highly-ah, and at the end, a few lines about freedom and happiness and so forth. Clumsy poetry, nothing more; I'm surprised the gods saw fit to include it.' He turned to Nectovelin. 'You, hairy man-can you read this at all?' Claudius threw back his head and laughed. 'So you have a prophecy, uttered by your own mother, in the language of your conquerors-a language you can neither understand nor read! The gods may or may not know the future, but they certainly have a sense of humour.'

'I don't need to read it,' Nectovelin said. 'I know what it says. That you Romans will be thrown off this island, and I will enjoy doing it.'

Claudius seemed perplexed. 'Actually it says no such thing.' He turned to Agrippina. 'Do you believe this is prophetic?'

'Yes,' Agrippina admitted.

'And what does it mean?'

'I think we cannot fight you today,' she said quietly.

'What? What? Speak up, girl!'

She took a deep breath, aware of the harm she was about to do to Nectovelin, whether he lived or died. 'We can't win today. The Prophecy says so.'

Nectovelin rumbled like a bull. Vespasian's grip on his arm tightened. All around the room the soldiers tensed,