Emperor

III

Inside the house Brica lay on her hide pallet. The circle of women, clearly exhausted themselves after the long labour, sat back, helpless.

The paleness of Brica's face contrasted vividly with the crimson splash between her legs, as if all her life force were draining away there. But Cunovic saw a small head, smeared with grey fluid and still misshapen from its passage through the birth canal. The baby, its body still inside Brica, was supported by the strong hand of Sula, its grandmother. Like its mother it looked very pale, and it had hair, a reddish thatch.

And Brica, her eyes fluttering as the druidh's had done as he prayed, was gabbling out that rapid speech. The women were distressed; some of them covered their ears to keep out the noise. Even the priest had stumbled back into the shadows of the house, his eyes wide.

Cunovic stared, entranced. The speech was indistinct and very fast, an ugly barking-but he could make out words, he was sure.

Sula, cradling her grandson's head, looked up at Ban in weary despair. 'Oh, Ban, the baby is weak, his heart flutters like a bird's, and still he won't come. She's growing too tired to push.' She had to speak up to make herself heard over Brica's noise.

'Then you must cut her,' Ban said.

'We were ready to,' Sula said. 'But then she started this chattering, and we can't think, none of us!'

Nectovelin growled. With two strides he closed on the druidh, grabbed a big handful of the priest's robe and hauled him close. 'You! Is this your doing? Are these curse words she utters?'

'No, no! On my mother's life!' The druidh was thin, pale, balding, perhaps forty, and he trembled in Nectovelin's huge grasp.

'Nectovelin!' Cunovic spoke sharply enough to make his grandfather turn. 'That will do no good. It's nothing to do with him. Let him be.'

'And how do you know that?'

'Because I recognise what she is saying. Those aren't the words of gods-not our gods, anyhow.'

'Then what?'

'Latin. She's speaking Latin.'

There was a silence, broken only by Brica's continued chattering.

Nectovelin released the druidh's robe. The druidh slumped to the ground, shamed. Nectovelin said heavily, 'How can this be? Who knows Latin here?'

'Nobody but me,' Cunovic said, 'save for a few words picked up from me or the traders.' And certainly not Brica, who, always a quiet girl, had probably ventured no more than a day's walk from her birthplace her entire life.

'Then what does this mean?'

'I've no idea…'

Cunovic started to hear what Brica was saying, to make out the words. It was only a few lines, like doggerel poetry, repeated over and over. It occurred to him someone ought to write this down. He ought, as the only literate member of the family. He found his bag, dug out a tablet and stylus, and began to scribble. The children watched him, wide-eyed; the letters appearing on the wax must seem like magic to them.

Nectovelin glared and turned on Ban. 'With a birth like this, with his mother gabbling Latin, his life is already blighted. Call him what you want, Ban. He will be no warrior.'

Something seemed to snap in Ban. He yelled, 'You arrogant old man! Must you think of yourself even at a time like this? I have no time for you and your antique war. Caesar is long dead, just as you will be soon, and you and your bragging will be forgotten!'

For a desperate heartbeat Cunovic thought the giant Nectovelin might strike down his grandson, even in this dreadful moment. But Nectovelin merely stared down Ban, contempt hardening his scarred face, and he walked out of the house.

'We must cut her,' Sula said, wearily practical amid the mysteries of Brica's gabbling and the posturing of the men. 'Ban is right. We must free the baby before they both die.' The other women nodded and moved closer.

Sula raised a flint blade. This gift of the earth was the traditional tool for such desperate moments, and its carefully worked edge was sharper than the best Brigantian iron, or even Roman steel, Cunovic knew. As the stone blade bit into her flesh, Brica screamed. Ban bit his lip; he knew the risks of the moment.

But still Brica's flood of Latin continued; still Cunovic scribbled at his tablet. The words were strange, enigmatic, disconnected: Horses large as houses…A little Greek…Dead marble…

Cunovic started to understand that this was a description of the future-or a future-a description of events that could only occur long after he and Brica and all of them were long dead. Fearfully Cunovic imagined a wizard in some dark cell, somewhere in the past or future, pouring these alien words into the head of the helpless Brica, in this moment when birth and death were in the balance-a wizard, a Weaver of the threads of history, threads that were human lives. But why?

Cunovic didn't know if he was serving the cause of good or ill by writing down these words-and yet, once having started, he found he dared not stop. And as the words formed in the wax, words in a language the woman could not possibly know-words in the language of the most powerful empire on earth-Cunovic tried to suppress his own superstitious fear.