deity that was being cemented into the machinery of state, not the gentler God of Christ's own teachings.
At last Thalius, his heart thumping, was beckoned forward towards Constantine's dais-but his way was blocked by the man whose response had brought him so far.
Ulpius Cornelius, aged perhaps forty, wore a purple-edged toga. He was tall, angular, thin, his hair black and swept back, his mouth small and down-turned, his prominent nose ideal for looking down on people. Before him Thalius felt poor and shabby, a low-class provincial. If Constantine looked like an eastern potentate Cornelius was every bit the classic Roman-and therefore out of place in Constantine's court.
Cornelius, consulting a list, looked Thalius over keenly. 'So you are the prophet,' he began bluntly.
'I wouldn't call myself that,' Thalius said, embarrassed and disconcerted. 'It is a legend of my family that-'
'But in your letter you did speak of a prophecy. Of specific warnings of an uncertain future, of momentous events unfolding in our lifetimes-events that might deflect the course of history forever. Yes?' His Latin was so pure it sounded strangulated.
'Sir, I am a Christian. I am here because of my concerns over the future of men's souls, not-'
'Yes, yes. But I am what is now referred to as a 'pagan', what I would call a defender of Roman tradition. I have precious little interest in your slaves' cult. It is not your anguished proclamations of faith that caught my eye, citizen, but your claims about this Prophecy. I researched your family in the libraries in Rome and Alexandria. I even traced a mention in the biographies of the Emperor Claudius himself. Imagine that! And there is indeed something about a Prophecy there…But you say the Prophecy is lost.'
'Not entirely,' Thalius said.
Cornelius raised one plucked eyebrow. Thalius was urged to say more, but he felt Tarcho touch his arm, and he stayed silent. Cornelius seemed to notice this interplay, and looked at Tarcho with new interest. He stepped closer to Thalius and spoke more quietly. 'Listen to me. Things are changing. The empire is not as our grandfathers would have recognised it, and soon it will change again, one way or another. The question is how it will change. If your Prophecy has any validity at all it may be a very powerful weapon in this time of great historical flux.'
Thalius heard only one word. ' 'Weapon'?'
Cornelius studied him. 'In your muddled way you want to deal with Constantine, don't you? You want to alter the course he has set himself on.'
'I'm not sure I'd put it like that-'
'You'll find you're not alone. There are many of us who have reservations about the Emperor, reservations which have nothing to do with Christ but with the traditions of Rome-and their survival, and the survival of city and empire, into the future. Do you see?'
'I think so. But I-'
'And,' Cornelius said almost wistfully, 'is it true that your Prophecy speaks of freedom? Was that truly the subject of the enigmatic final lines of which Claudius wrote? Was the unknown seer writing of a return to the freedoms of the Republic, the lifting of the heavy hand of the Caesars?'
'I wouldn't know,' Thalius said.
'Well, now I've met you I can see you aren't ready to meet the Emperor today. I will arrange another audience. In the meantime perhaps we will find time to talk. Now go.' He turned away.
Thalius, dismissed, felt crushingly disappointed he would not after all confront Constantine today; but already the processes of the court were moving on.
Tarcho snorted. 'These Romans and their foretelling-always have been a superstitious bunch!'
'But I didn't come here to conspire against Constantine.'
'Didn't you? Perhaps that stuck-up Roman saw your soul better than you see it yourself.' He pulled Thalius's sleeve. 'Let's get out of here. We've already lost our place in the line, and it doesn't do to hang around an emperor's court.'
Thalius let himself be led away. Tarcho held Audax firmly by the hand. The boy, wide-eyed, hadn't spoken through the entire exchange.
VII
Thalius, with Tarcho and Audax, joined the imperial procession from Rutupiae. The Emperor rode in a gaudily adorned litter, with his bishops flocking like exotic birds. Thalius grumbled, 'The Christ rode into Jerusalem on an ass. How He would have been appalled by the sight of those strutting fools!' Tarcho, who seemed to think of Christ and God the Father as something like a centurion and his commander, was only confused by this remark.
Constantine would visit the four provincial capitals, including the overarching diocesan capital at Londinium, and he would call at all the principal military bases, including Eburacum and the Wall forts in the north. The Emperor had many objectives. He wanted to firm up the new provincial government arrangements his father had left him, and to bed in army reforms begun by Diocletian and continued by his father. Constantine also intended that his visit would spark off a wider programme of refurbishment and renewal of the four provinces' shabby public facilities and military infrastructure.
But everybody knew that Constantine's main purpose was to detach units of British troops for his coming conflict with Licinius, Emperor of the east: he was here to take from the island, not to give. Constantine was popular in Britain, but there would be much resistance to his stripping troops from the diocese in a time of uncertainty. Constantine was wily enough to understand this. So he had come here in person, to dazzle and reassure even while he bled the island's garrisons.
After Londinium Constantine proceeded towards Camulodunum. But his route took a long detour to the north, so he could visit the fen country, an enormous quilt of farmland in the east conjured out of the sea by a vast system of dykes, canals, drainage ditches and roads-all paid for by the local people and maintained by labour levies and slaves. In older countryside the farms and settlements had grown out of communities and cultivation patterns that had been here for centuries before a Roman ever visited Britain, and so they were more disorderly, ancient, stubbornly chaotic. Here, though, the new land had been a blank canvas for the Roman planners to set down the orderly patterns they preferred, and in this utterly flat, wholly manufactured landscape the roads and dykes ran arrow-straight for mile after mile. Thalius thought that this geometric fenland was the quintessence of the obsessively disciplined Roman mind.
The reclamation wasn't perfect, however. In places Thalius saw farmers dismally scraping at soggy ground, and some farms had been abandoned to flooding altogether. If is was true that in Germany the Ocean was rising perhaps it was true here too.
During this progression one member of the imperial court deigned to join Thalius and his companions: Ulpius Cornelius. His preliminary excuse was to show Thalius a letter he had been carrying, on a folded-over slip of wood.
Thalius scanned it quickly. It was from one Claudia Brigonia Aurelia, a widow of Eburacum-and it concerned prophecies about Constantine. Thalius handed it back hastily, chilled.
Cornelius seemed to enjoy his discomfiture. 'Aurelia's family, it seems, has its own legends about prophecies and emperors. Was some ancestor of hers tangled up in the complicated stories you have told me?'
'How does she know about me?'
'Through me,' Cornelius said smugly. 'I'm a thorough man, Thalius. I told you I confirmed the existence of your Prophecy through hints in the archives. But in following it up I drew extensively on contacts in Britain. And it happened that I caught the attention of this lady Aurelia, and sparked her interest.'
' 'Sparked her interest'? What does that mean, Cornelius? What does she want?'
'Why, I've no idea, not specifically. But, like you-and me-it seems she has concerns about the direction in which the Emperor is taking us all.' He grinned coldly. 'I don't think she had ever heard of you, Thalius. And yet it seems you have another member of your conspiratorial cabal.'
As from the beginning of his dealings with Cornelius, Thalius had the feeling that events were spinning out of his control. 'I don't have a conspiracy, and I don't want a cabal!'
'Then the Emperor has nothing to fear,' Cornelius said smoothly. 'And nor do you.'
It seemed to Thalius that what Cornelius really wanted of him was an ear in which to pour complaints about
