Destiny's Children - Coalescent. Part 6

Britain was a diocese within the Praetorian Prefecture of Gaul. So thevicarius , the governor of Britain, reported to the prefect of Gaul, who reported to the Emperor. Similarly there was a hierarchy of towns, from the lesser market towns, up through the local and provincial capitals, to Londinium, the capital of the diocese.

The most important activity of the central administration was the collection of taxation and the spending of government funds. Most of the tax money came from the countryside, because that was where most people lived. Landlords, like Regina's father, collected the Emperor's taxes from his tenants, along with his own rent. The tax revenue paid the salaries of the army and the sailors of the British fleet, who kept Britain safe from the barbarians who would otherwise swarm from the north and across the sea.

People grumbled about the taxes they had to pay. But most of the money collected came back into circulation. And the fact was the vast volumes of foodstuffs, animals, clothing, metalwork, pottery, and other goods bought by the government to supply the army and its other agencies was central to the working of the economy . . .

Aetius struggled to explain: "It's like a wheel, Regina. It goes around and around, a great wheel of money and goods, taxing and spending, keeping everyone safe and wealthy. But if a wheel comes off its hub-"

"We'd fall over."

"Exactly. Everything would fall over. Now then, when my old chum Constantius took us soldiers away for his adventure in Europe, some people in the towns decided they didn't need to pay his taxes anymore, and threw out his collectors and officials, and said they would collect the money for themselves and keep it for their own towns, rather than give it all to some distant Emperor they never saw. But while people will pay up for an Emperor, especially if he has an army to collect for him, they're a lot less willing to pay some fat fool of a local landowner . . ."

Regina was a bright child, and capable of understanding a great deal. But at seven she was an experienced enough student to know that while Aetius might be a fine soldier he was no teacher. He wasboring .

And as the day wore on and the heat continued to stifle, Regina got more and more uncomfortable. It had been days now since she had seen her mother. Aetius never mentioned Julia, and Regina was wary of asking. She missed her mother even so, and wondered where she was. She grew withdrawn, sullen.

Eventually Aetius relented and let Regina sit in the back with Carta. They tried to playludus latrunculorum -"soldiers," a fast-moving game a little like chess played only with rooks-but the rattling of the carriage knocked the colored gla.s.s counters away from their squares. So they settled forpar impar , a simple game of odds and evens, played with pebbles held in the hand.

That night they stayed at yet another way station. The next day they made another early start, but Regina found it increasingly hard to sit still.

Things came to a head when, about midday, the weather abruptly broke, and an immense storm lashed down from a gray lid of sky. Aetius insisted they kept going, but soon they were all soaked through.

Regina was cold and frightened; she had never been exposed to such elemental rage before.

When the storm finally let up she pushed away from Aetius and jumped down from the carriage. "I won't go any farther! I want to go home, right now! Turn around and take me home! Icommand you!"

Aetius was angry, placating, demanding, but he got nowhere; and when his will broke against her seven- year-old stubbornness, he stomped around the road, fists bunched.

Cartumandua, with some courage, intervened. Soaked herself, she clambered down to the road surface and brushed at Regina's hair, calming her down. She said to Aetius, "Sir, you can't speak to her as if she's one of your legionaries. And you can't expect her to sit there day after day on that wooden bench and listen to you lecture about procurators and prefects."

"She needs discipline-"

"It's notnatural . You need to give her time."

"But every heartbeat we stand here in the road is wasted time."

"The Wall has stood for three centuries, and I daresay it will still be there if we take a few days more. If you don't make allowances, I don't think we'll get there at all."

He walked back grudgingly. "Catuvellaunian princess or not, you are a feisty one for a slave."

She dropped her head submissively. "I'm just trying to help."

Aetius crouched down before Regina. "Little one, I think we have some negotiating to do . . ."

They continued the journey, but after that to a different pattern. They would ride a while, and break a while, generally long before Regina got too bored or uncomfortable-although Aetius retained the right to keep on if he was ill at ease with the countryside, or the company they kept on the road. Their pace dropped, from fifty or sixty waystones a day to less than forty.

But for Regina, though she lost count of the days, and had only the dimmest idea of where they actually were by now, the trip became much easier-even fun again, as the days settled into a new routine.

As they worked steadily north the countryside changed character.

Though the road still arrowed past farmsteads, there were far more roundhouses of the old British type, rather than the rectangular Roman-style buildings. The towns here were more like bristling forts, with tall walls and looming watchtowers. Here and there Regina saw plumes of dust and black smoke rising up. Aetius said they were mines. Once they pa.s.sed a man driving muzzled wolves along the road; he was a trapper, hoping to sell these animals to a circus.

In the roadside dirt Aetius sketched a map of the island of Britain, and slashed a line from southeast to northeast, from the Severn to the Humber. "Southeast of this line there are plains and low hills. Here you'll find fields and citizens, with everything run from the towns-under the greatest town of all, Londinium, capital of the diocese. Northwest of this line there are mountains, and barbarians, and tribes and chiefs who run their own affairs and have barely heard of the Emperor, and pay his taxes with the utmost reluctance. To the southeast there are a thousand villas, but none at all in the northwest. That is why, to the northwest, the diocese belongs to the army." But Regina continued to have only a dim grasp of the country's geography, or indeed of where they were.

In the final days, as the endless northward journey continued and they rattled across high, bleak moorland, Aetius told her something of his family's past.

"We were all Durotriges. Your father's people were aristocrats-landowners-even before the Romans came," he said. "Mypeople-and your mother's-were farmers, but they were warriors." He glanced back at Cartumandua. "The Catuvellaunians call themselves a great warrior people. But when Claudius came they rolled over and bared their a.r.s.es to him . . ."

Regina gasped at this language, shocked and delighted, and Carta colored.

"Butwe fought back. While the Emperor Claudius was still in Britain, one of his generals, Vespasian, had to fight his way west, taking hill fort after hill fort, supported by the fleet tracking him along the coast. It was a mighty feat of generals.h.i.+p-and later Vespasian himself would become Emperor-but, by my eyes, we made him earn that throne. And that is why the men of the Durotriges became such good soldiers for the Empire."

"Like you, Grandfather."

He said gruffly, "You'd have to count my lumps. But, yes, I've been a soldier all my adult life. As was my father, and his before him. But things have changed. There have always been barbarians-"

"In the north, and beyond the sea."

"Yes. They aren't soldiers but professional savage fools, farmers, bound to the land. They could not even mount a genuine campaign. They were no match for the Empire-not until thebarbarica conspiratio ."

It had come more than forty years earlier, a great barbarian conspiracy, a coordinated attack on Britain by the Picts across the Wall from the north, the Franks and Saxons from across the North Sea, and the Scotti from Ireland. Defenses designed to hold against an attack from any one of these enemies had been overwhelmed. There was much muttering of espionage, for the British military commanders on the northern frontier and the coasts were ambushed and killed.

"It was a terrible time," Aetius muttered. "I was not fifteen years old-no older than you, Cartumandua.

For a time the countryside was full of roaming bands of barbarians-and, I have to say, of deserters from the army itself. Even Londinium was sacked. It took the Emperor two years to restore order. My own view is we're still trying to recover from that great shock."

Carta spoke up again. "Sir, she is only a child."

Aetius said grimly, "She needs to hear it even so, Cartumandua, and to hear it again until it sinks in. Let me say this. Six years ago I was on the Rhine-Gaul's great river frontier. In the middle of winter it froze over, and into Gaul swarmed the Vandals and the Alans and the Suebi and Jove knows who else.

They just walked across the d.a.m.n river, as cool as you please. We couldn't hold them-we fell back and fell back.And they are still there now, crawling around the prefecture, far inside the frontier. I was glad to get a posting back to Britain and away from all that, I can tell you . . . I suspect this poor child will spend much of her life seeking a place of safety."

Regina sniffed. "This poor child understands every word you say, you know."

Aetius looked at her, astonished. Then he laughed, and clapped her on the back. "So now I've gotyou to contend with, as well as the Vandals and the Picts and the Saxons . . ."

"Look." Behind Regina, Cartumandua stood up and pointed. "I cansee it."

Aetius reined in the horses. Regina stood on her seat, s.h.i.+elded her eyes with her hands, and stared until she saw it, too.

A line of darkness stretched across the world, from one horizon to another, rising and falling over the contours of the moorland. Along that line, smoke rose up everywhere, and mud-colored buildings huddled. Suddenly she knew exactly where she was, exactly how far she had been brought: from one end of the country to the other.

She wailed, "It's the Wall.What are we doing here? Aren't we going to a villa, or a town?"

"No," said Aetius grimly. "This is where we will live now, here at the Wall. It won't be so bad-"

"This is a place for dirty, stinking soldiers. Not forme !"

"You'll just have to make the best of it," he growled warningly.

Carta hugged her. "Don't worry, Regina. We'll be fine here, you'll see."

Regina sniffed. "We won't be hereforever , will we?"

Carta looked at Aetius. "Why, I-"

Regina asked, "Just until things get back to normal?"

Aetius looked away.

Carta said, "Yes. Until things get back to normal."

Regina looked about more brightly. "Where's my mother?" None of the adults would reply. "My mother isn't here, is she?"

Aetius sighed. "Now, Regina-"

"Youpromised me."

His mouth opened and closed. "Well, that's jolly unfair. I promised no such thing."

"Liar.Liar. "

Carta tried to subdue her. "Oh, Regina-"

"She doesn't want me. She's sent me away."

"It's not like that," Aetius said. "She loves you-she will always love you. Look-she asked me to give you this." From a fold of his tunic he produced the precious silver dragon brooch.

She dashed it from his hand; it fell to the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, where it gleamed. She turned on Cartumandua.

"And don't youdare pick it up, Carta! Inever want to see it again."

Cartumandua flinched from the command in her voice.

And that was when the tears came, in a sudden flood, sudden as a rainstorm. Aetius folded her in his arms, and she felt Carta's small hand on her shoulder. She wept for her mother and herself, as the carriage clattered its way the last few paces toward the Wall.

Chapter 6.

I took Vivian's advice and set off in search of my sister.

I booked some overdue leave. I had no trouble getting it through my line manager, or even through the n.a.z.i killer robots who ran Human Resources. But I saw the way their gazes slid away from me as I handed over the forms and explained my vague plans. My days at Hyf were numbered. To h.e.l.l with it.

I drove north, listening to news radio all the way. Along with the sports and the useless traffic bulletins, the main topic of the day was undoubtedly the Kuiper Anomaly. Absorbed with my own affairs, I just hadn't noticed the way this thing had continued to mushroom in the public consciousness.

Reaching Manchester at around ten that evening, I drove to the city center, to the hotel I'd stayed in before. I actually parked the car. But I didn't get out. I remembered what Vivian had said:reconnect . I shouldn't be here.

I turned the car around and drove out to the suburbs. I canceled my hotel reservation with my cell phone.

There was a real estate agent's sign outside my father's house. I hesitated to disturb Peter, but when I knocked on his door he was awake-I heard the hum of PC cooling fans; perhaps he was working-and he was happy enough to give me a key. I let myself into Dad's house. Inside it was warm and clean, but of course it was stripped of furniture; somehow I hadn't been able to imagine it this way. There were pale patches on the wallpaper where furniture had stood for years. Empty or not it still managed to smell musty.

To my chagrin I finished up knocking on Peter's door again. I borrowed a sleeping bag, pillow, and flask of tea. I spent the night on the thick carpet of my old bedroom. Lulled by the sound of distant trains pa.s.sing in the night, immersed in a familiar ambience, I slept as well as I had in years.

In the morning, around eight, Peter showed up. It was a bright, fresh morning, the sky a deep blue. He brought soap, towels, a gla.s.s of orange juice, and an invitation to come over for breakfast. I accepted, but I promised myself I'd get to the shops and stock up as soon as I'd eaten.

Set on the other side of the road, Peter's house was a mirror image of my father's, the staircase and rooms eerily transposed from left to right. I went in there with some trepidation: this was the domain of Peter the solitary weirdo, after all. Well, it was plainly decorated, so far as I could see, with bland pastel paint hiding old wallpaper. The furniture looked a little old, and certainly wasn't modish, but it wasn't shabby. There were bookcases everywhere, even in the hall. The books seemed neatly ordered, but not obsessively so.

Peter wore a gray sweat suit of soft fabric, and thick mountaineer's socks-no shoes or slippers.

We consumed Alpen and coffee in the kitchen. I told him I'd seen him on TV, and we talked about the media frenzy over Kuiper. Peter said it was all to do with positive feedback.

"It's like that Mars story a few years back. You know, where they found fossil bacteria in a meteorite-"

"Thought they found."

"And Clinton zipped himself up long enough to p.r.o.nounce that NASA had discovered life on Mars.

Suddenly it was everywhere. The story itself became the story." It was the nature of the world's modern media, he told me. "The days when news was controlled by a few outlets, the big networks, are long gone. Now you have CNN, Sky, Internet news sites: thousands of sources of news at local, national, and international level. And they all watch each other. A story sparks into life somewhere. The other outlets watch the story and the reaction to it, and pick up on it . . ." He was overfamiliar with this stuff, and tended to talk too rapidly, using specialist jargon, words likemediasphere . He showed me an editorial he'd clipped from theGuardian decrying the bubble of hysteria over Kuiper. "There's even news about news, which itself becomes part of the story. It usually finishes with a spasm of self-loathing. 'What This Hysteria Says About Our Society.' Pathological, really. But it shows the kind of world we live in now. We're all densely interconnected, like it or not, and this kind of feedback loop happens all the time."

Densely interconnected.For some reason that phrase appealed to me. "But the fuss about Kuiper has been good for you," I said.

"Oh, yes," he said. "It's been good for me."

Cradling our second mugs of coffee, Peter led me into his living room. Beyond a big double-glazed picture window, a garden glowed green in the soft light of the autumn morning. The room obviously served as an office. In addition to a music stack and wide-screen TV with various recorders and set-top boxes, there was a large table given over to computer technology: a big powerful-looking desktop, a laptop, various handhelds, a scanner, a joystick, and other bits of gear I couldn't recognize. The desktop was booted up. There were books and stacks of printouts on the desk and on the floor.

All this looked like the environment of a freelancer working at home. But there was no sense of style, and a certain lack of ornamentation and decoration-no photographs, for instance-a lack of personality.

The only exception was in the little alcove over the fireplace. In my home my parents used to keep silly souvenirs in there-tiny wooden clogs from Amsterdam, a little Eiffel Tower, other family knickknacks.

Peter had set up a little row of die-cast model toys. Intrigued, I asked, "May I?" Peter shrugged. I reached up and brought down a fat green aircraft. It was a Thunderbird Two, heavy and metallic-cold. I turned it upside, trying to see a manufacturer's date. Something rattled in its pod. On the edges of the wings and along the base the paintwork was chipped and worn away.

"It's a d.i.n.ky original. Nineteen sixty-seven," Peter said.

I cradled it in my hands like a baby bird. "I never had one of these. My parents got me a plastic snap- together subst.i.tute."

"Without a detachable pod? I sympathize."

"They didn't understand. This must be worth something."

He took it back and restored it to its place. "No. Not without the original box, and it's hardly in mint condition."

"Much loved, though."

"Oh, yes."