The Centurion's Empire (12 page)

"That's enough, Daegryn," said Paeder. He glanced at Alfred, who nodded. "We wish to speak alone. Wait for us at the
entrance." Daegryn smiled broadly, took his leave and bounded up the stairs.

"So Gentor is only in charge of making ice for this chamber?" asked Alfred, holding his torch to a row of grooves in the
wall.

"He is the Icekeeper, but the position means more than just making ice. In a way he's more powerful than the chief.
They sometimes call him Glacicida, as I recall. It's probably corrupted Latin."

Alfred stared at the far end of the chamber. Although some ice from the previous year had become a dark slush around
the edges, the main mass was still solid and the meat embedded in it was frozen. Parts of the floor had been worn into
deep grooves, where the villagers had carried blocks of packed snow and ice in for centuries. Other grooves were
intentional, deliberately cut to carry meltwater into a small reservoir.

"The Romans built well," said Paeder, following Alfred's gaze. "Perhaps this was a cold room or cellar to chill their
wine in summer."

"There are no ruins nearby. If I was building a cellar room I would have it right beneath my fort."
Paeder shook his head. "Dig hereabouts and you may well find some Roman foundations. I first heard of this place when
the terrible comet-star flew through the sky

thirty-five years ago. The villagers here built a whole chapel of packed snow and thatch, then petitioned the bishop to
come and offer mass to drive the star away." "Did he come?"

"Yes, but he took one look at the chapel and decided that the slightest breeze would bring it down on him. The youngest
priest in his entourage was ordered in to say the mass."

Paeder shook his head.

"Yourself?" asked Alfred, raising an eyebrow.

"None other. Twenty summers old, and sure that I'd not live to see one more. The chapel did not collapse, though, and
the comet-star went away. I had become a bishop myself by the time they petitioned me to come and revive their...
Master. They may have remembered my supposed miracle with the comet-star.

"When I arrived the chief told me that a mighty Christian king had been sleeping beneath the village for hundreds of
years. If we could revive him he would vanquish the Danes. The body was lying down here, packed in ice, amid frozen
joints of mutton and pork. The odd thing was that it was soft to touch, while the flesh of the animals was solid.

"I began to have suspicions. I rubbed my fingers along the skin, then sniffed them. There was a faint scent of strong
drink. Now any herbalist will tell you that a drunkard caught in the snow will have a better chance of surviving than a
sober churl, so could this man have swallowed a massive draught of fortified mead, then had himself placed down here
just hours before I arrived? He could then be revived as some ancient hero, with a senior father of the Church as a
witness. After all, some priests claim to have the bones of saints in their churches to increase their own importance."
Alfred stared at the concave slab where Vitellan had lain. Chiseled into the rock were the words ut reviviscam, mane
aqua cauda corpus meum lavet; post meridiem aliquis in so meum spiret et pectus meum aperta manu percutiat.

" 'to return me to life: bathe me in warm water for a morning; breathe into my mouth and beat my heart with your open
hand for an afternoon,' " Alfred read

slowly. "How was that?" he asked, looking hopefully to Paeder.

"You have the words, young lord, but your grammar is awful."

"Nevertheless, it is better than most in the village could do. It all seems too elaborate for these churls to have arranged."

"Vitellan is highly skilled as a warrior, and speaks Latin as well as Saxon."

"He speaks it
better
than Saxon, but we stray from your story. How did you deal with the villagers? Did you reprimand
them?"

"Oh yes, I gave them hellfire and brimstone, and I told them that the comet-star might come back and eat them for lying
to a bishop. Then I felt the body again. If the flesh was still soft it could only be because he had not been down here for
very long. Perhaps he was still alive. He might be saved.

"I made them rig up a shallow bath, a trench lined with oxhide, and this was filled with warm water. Years ago, when I
traveled to Rome, I saw a drowned fisherman brought back to life by a man who breathed down his mouth while another
punched his ribs. I held Vitellan's head above the water while two of them did this, then ordered hot irons to be struck
against his legs to try to shock him into life. All the while I prayed aloud. After perhaps an hour his heart was beating
again, then he began to breathe by himself. By the time the sun was setting his eyes were open, and he could move his
arms and speak. He spoke only Latin and said his name was Vitellan Bavalius. I gave everyone another warning and left,
but when next I returned he was calling himself Vitellan and, and—"

"Rebuilding the Roman Empire. Do you still think it was a hoax?" asked Alfred.

"After what Vitellan has done? The man teaches a whole tradition of fighting that we know nothing of. Where did he
learn it? In the Holy Land, or Byzantium? I hardly know what to believe."

Alfred paced restlessly. A brave and clever man might well take such a terrible chance to gain the status of a dead hero
brought back to life. A brave and clever man might

also attempt some strange and terrible voyage, across centuries instead of oceans.

"I have asked him if he is the fabled Artorius who shattered the armies of my ancestors many centuries ago," said
Alfred, running his fingers along the neat Roman letters in the stone shelf. "Each time he has denied it, even though
many churls insist that he is Artorius returned to life."

"Understandable," said Paeder. "Artorius was a Briton, and many Britons still hate us Saxons almost as much as the
Danes. They would love Artorius to return and conquer the land for them."

Alfred frowned as he wrestled with two distasteful conclusions.

"Roman rule was within living memory when Artorius was alive, true, but this man remembers Rome as a mighty
empire at its height."

Paeder wrung meltwater from the hem of his cloak and shivered.

"Perhaps he has been telling the truth for all these months past. Perhaps he really was born in Calleva in Anno Domini
54, when the Emperor Claudius reigned. He may really be Vitellan Bavalius, of the Imperial Roman Army."
They returned to the surface just as the ice cart was being driven in from the field. Gentor was walking slowly ahead of
it, carrying the best formed of all the blocks that had been made that day. The team that had made the block walked on
either side of the cart, garlanded with mistletoe. Gentor placed the block on a stone platform as the whole village
watched, then five solemn children brought cups of hot, mulled mead for the Icekeeper and his chosen team. Those in
the other teams were sent down to scour out the Frigidarium before the first of the new season's blocks were stacked in.

"A fine crop this year," said Alfred, inspecting the heavily loaded ice cart.

"It was not always so," replied Gentor, scowling. 'There have been years when no snow has fallen."

"No snow? Then how did you get the ice?"

"We scraped frost from the grass and bushes, and we sent

our folk far to the north to find snow. Many of us have died to preserve the sleep of our Master."

"I'm sure Vitellan is proud of you—"

"He is! He is! And he will come back to us when he has won your battles for you and killed all the Danes. His place is
with us, living forever in the Frigidarium."

"Very good, Gentor, I'm sure Prince Alfred is impressed by your tradition of diligence," Paeder cut in. "Now, my lord, we
have a long way to ride before nightfall."

"But, but I..."

Paeder led him quickly from the village and across the ramparts to where their escort was waiting.

"Gentor was getting agitated," he whispered. "He thinks that you want to keep Vitellan awake for years."

"And I do. The man is a treasurehouse of learning. Once the Danes are beaten he will be of even greater use, teaching
us the lost scholarship of the Roman Empire."

"You do not understand Gentor, my lord. The man . . . well, gains a measure of immortality by being one of the long line
of Icekeepers who has kept Vitellan alive. You might take that away from him by keeping his Master awake too long in a
dangerous world."

Alfred shook his head sadly. Power came in many forms, yet people continued to pursue it with the same fervor. The
Roman was Gentor's talisman, and he would not let go easily. Neither of them said any more on the long and intricate
walk past the traps to their horses.

Alfred and Paeder had planned to spend the night in a fortified town to the northeast, then join Vitellan the next day.
Their enigmatic ally was planning a new strategy against the Danes, and he wanted the prince to see his churls in
action. All that they needed was a nearby raid by the Danes.

The Danes had begun to conduct raids on horseback five years before, riding swiftly down from their northern
strongholds, raiding small towns, then retreating before the Wessex footsoldiers arrived. Vitellan's plan was simple:
assemble a force of armed and mounted churls three times the size of a Danish raiding party, then post a network of
scouts across the shire. The churls could not fight from

horseback, but then neither could the Danes. It was only a matter of catching up with them.
The sun was down and the light was fading fast when a messenger brought word that Danish raiders had struck a hamlet
some distance to the south, and that Vitellan had tracked them to a wood fifteen miles from where they were staying. It
had been a bigger force than he had expected, but he had decided to pursue them anyway, and to attack at night. Alfred
was alarmed: the odds were too heavily in favor of the Danes. He ordered his twenty men to mount up, then they set off
through the twilight.

It took them two hours to reach the wood, as most of the journey was in near total darkness. The path through the trees
was fairly wide, however, and there was a faint glow a long way ahead. When they stopped, the sounds of a distant battle
came to them, and they knew that Vitellan was ahead.

"Brave, stupid gesture," muttered Alfred. "Forward, at a canter. Let's hope these local horses know this path in the
dark."

It was a blind, headlong ride through the blackness, with only the hint of a glow ahead. Alfred only managed to fight
down his panic at riding blind by placing his trust in the horse. The fast canter was a serene, floating motion—

They slammed into the other group of riders head on, and it was only by the Danish shouts that they knew them to be
the enemy. Alfred was thrown through the air into another rider, and when he crawled to his feet and drew his
broadsword he found that it had snapped near the hilt. He flung it away, drew his dagger and lunged for a nearby shape
in the frantic, struggling mass of men and horses. In such close fighting a short blade is a superior weapon, or so Vitellan
had taught.

The fight was near anarchy, often with only the language of the curses as a guide to friend or Dane. Alfred grappled first,
then stabbed if he felt sheepskin instead of the Wessex -style armor. A huge pair of hands seized his throat and would
not let go no matter how many times he stabbed the Dane's side. Then they went down under a crushing weight that
knocked the wind o*t of Alfred, and his face was forced into a bloody mush of snow and mud. Only two nights ago I
was having a quiet mug of beer and reading Augustine's
Confessions,
he thought as the blind melee's din receded.
Gawking churls with torches were milling around as Alfred came back to his senses, and people were dragging the body
of a horse off the body of the Dane that was pinning him down. The Dane's hands were still around his throat, but the
grip was gone.

I'm a scholar, a patron of learning, I've met the Pope himself, he thought as they prized the dead fingers away. What am I
doing in the mud under a pile of dead horses and ... "filthy savages," he whispered.

"Did you hear that?" came Githek's voice. 'The Prince is alive, easy now." Alfred was helped to his feet, and he shivered
violently as the cold air chilled his soaked clothing through the mail.

"The Danes?" he asked through chattering teeth.

"All dead, my lord prince, but..." Githek's voice trailed off.

"But? But what?"

"It was a mistake. Vitellan's churls annihilated their camp, but were allowing these few to escape. He wanted a few
Danes alive to witness that mere churls had beaten them."

Alfred sank to the ground, clutching at his hair.

"My lord?" asked Githek anxiously. "Is it your head?"

"Yes, my head," replied Alfred, almost laughing at the irony. "But it is not serious."
They carried Alfred into the woods, where a bonfire was being lit, and he fell asleep even as they were removing his
armor. He awoke well after the dawn to find Vitellan waiting for him, already scrubbed and shaved. The prince studied
the enigmatic warrior as they talked, fascinated by the odd frailty of his features. He had large, brown eyes, small but
full lips, and a straight nose that was smoothly rounded at the tip. His hair was black and thick, like that of the people
Alfred had met in Rome. A few scratches and a bandage on his wrist were the only evidence that he had been in the
fighting too.