Emperor

EPILOGUE AD 418
I

Isolde hated the idea of travelling to Britain with her father.

For one thing Isolde, nineteen years old, didn't know anybody in Rome who had even been as far as Gaul, much of which was in the hands of foederati, German 'allies' of the empire. All Isolde's friends knew about Britain was that giants had built a mighty Wall across the neck of the island to keep out capering monsters.

Nonsense, said Nennius, her father, predictably. You could tell when he got really angry because a pink flush spread all the way up his round cheeks to the shaven patch at the top of his head. Britain was just a place, its inhabitants just people, not monsters-and there was a Wall, but it had been built by Romans, not giants. Why, it was less than a decade since the British Revolution, when 'ragged-arsed rebels' had refused to pay their taxes. Britain had been detached from the empire many times before, and would no doubt be rejoined to the mother state when time and resources permitted.

'And anyhow,' he told her with a certain malicious glee, 'we're off to visit a cousin of mine, who lives on the famous Wall. We share a grandfather, cousin Tarcho and I, a slave who became a soldier called Audax, who was at the heart of the Prophecy story. And do you know how I happen to have a cousin there? Because you and I are British ourselves, daughter-a couple of generations removed, but British all the same…'

Nennius's latest scheme was all to do with a Prophecy, he said, a Prophecy lost and now partially found again, a Prophecy made but never fulfilled-a Prophecy that might have shaped the world. The key to reconstructing this puzzle, he believed, and perhaps even to recovering the Prophecy itself, lay in Britain. And so because of this old man's legend Isolde must travel beyond the empire itself.

Isolde had learned long ago that it did her no good to argue. Her whole life had been shaped by her father's ambitions, and so it was now. But as they crossed a Gaul in which you heard nothing spoken but German, and as they took to the sea in the leather-sailed boat of a blond Saxon trader with bad teeth, she felt terribly vulnerable. She was a pregnant woman accompanied only by an absent-minded old man. Not only that, her stomach churned with every tip and rock of the boat. The trader offered her a remedy, a cold tea of German herbs, but Nennius forbade her even to try it.

She tried to tell herself she was safe with her father, but she had never believed that even as a small child. He simply didn't pay enough attention to you to make you safe.

Isolde's mother had died young, and even as a young girl she had seen how unworldly Nennius was. Respected thinker and monk he might be, famous for his friendship with the great theologian Pelagius, but there were mornings when he couldn't put his own trousers on the right way round. In fact Isolde grew up thinking of herself as the adult in their relationship.

Isolde had briefly escaped when she married a young man called Coponius, of ancient Roman stock. But his good looks had belied a sickly nature. Only a month after Isolde found out she was pregnant he had been carried off by a nasty little plague, one of a series that had nibbled at the population of Rome in recent years. So Isolde had had no choice but to return home to her father, a widow at nineteen, and carrying a child. Nennius was not uncaring; Isolde knew her father loved her. But with his head forever filled with one dream or another-and now stuffed with his determination to make this extraordinary journey across the known world-there was no room for Isolde.

The boat landed at a place called Rutupiae, where a grim-looking fort loomed over a good natural harbour. The fort had seen better days. Its elaborate earthworks were clogged with rubbish, and the facing stones of its massive walls were crumbling away under the assault of the caustic sea breeze. In places they looked as if they had been robbed, quarried out.

Nennius was excited, for it was here, he claimed, that Roman invaders had, centuries ago, first set foot on the island. The only Roman from such incomprehensibly ancient history Isolde had ever heard of was Julius Caesar, and when it turned out not to have been him who had conquered Britain, she lost interest.

Anyhow there were no emperors here now, and the place swarmed with Saxons. Living in clusters of small wooden buildings outside the fort's earthworks these Germans handled the sparse trade from the continent. They used this old fort, built to repel their own piratical ancestors, as a storage depot, and just as in Gaul the only tongues you heard were Germanic.

Isolde and her father found a small timber-built church set on the fort's north-west corner. It had a pretty baptismal font, made of reused red Roman tile. They said prayers of thanks for their safe passage this far. Then they returned to the small wharf and stood together uncertainly while the trader unloaded his boat.

The Saxons looked extraordinary to Isolde. Many of them were blond and blue-eyed. The men shaved the front of their heads and let the hair grow at the back, an effect that made their faces look long, like a wolf's. There were plenty of kids running around the wooden-hut settlement. Perhaps their fathers had been pirates, but these were clearly immigrants and had no plans to go anywhere. But every adult wore a knife at the waist; even some of the older children carried weapons.

Isolde was relieved when a young monk came pushing through the throng to greet them. He dressed as Nennius did, in a plain robe of heavy brown cloth, tied off with a belt of rope. He was young, perhaps not much older than Isolde. But his tonsure, severely cut, looked rather old-fashioned to Isolde, though she was no expert on monkish modes. His name was Damon, he said. 'I bring greetings from the bishop of Camulodunum, and I come to escort you there.'

'Oh, how kind, how thoughtful,' Nennius burbled. 'The exchange of letters I have already enjoyed with Bishop Ambrosius has been delightful, and I am sure the gift of his hospitality will be most welcome…'

Damon guided them to a carriage, crude but covered and serviceable. He had a man with him, a rough-looking servant too surly to be a slave; he hauled the visitors' baggage from the wharf to the cart. Damon went on, 'The bishop asked me to stress that the honour is all his. Any friend of Pelagius is welcome in his palace.'

Nennius nodded. 'Britain has become something of a refuge for we Pelagians, I fear. But then Pelagius was born here; he is one of our own.'

Damon said cautiously, 'Perhaps you haven't heard the most recent news.'

'About Pelagius's excommunication by Pope Zosimus? Quite a victim for Augustine and his crew!'

'Bishop Ambrosius comforts us that truth and goodness will prevail in the end,' Damon said mellifluously.

They walked to the carriage as they talked. Isolde felt tired, bloodless, even a little giddy, but her father was oblivious to her, of course, and so was Damon, the young monk, and nobody helped her.

The Saxons, going about their own business, ignored them as they passed. The shoulder straps of the women's gowns were fixed with brooches, they had sleeve-clasps around their cuffs, and around their waists they wore belts from which dangled odd metal good-luck charms like large keys. Isolde thought the style was rather attractive, and the quality of the metalwork looked good. She wondered if they would stop at any markets where she could do some shopping.