The Centurion's Empire (13 page)

He cares for his appearance, thought Alfred, he keeps standards that no longer exist. He is so alone, his standards
are all that are left of his world. I am alone, because I am a scholar in a world of barbarians, but Vitellan is a soldier from
a time when even mere fighters knew more than the greatest of Wessex scholars. Alfred's frustration and longing for the
greatness of the past almost blotted out the pain of his wounds.

Gentor had found his way there during the night, and was cooking his Master's breakfast not far away. He scowled at
Alfred.

The Danes had raided a small, badly fortified hamlet, then ridden hard for this wood, some thirty miles away. Vitellan
had posted a network of mounted scouts, and one of these reported the raid to the main group of Wessex churls while the
fires were still alight in the hamlet. They soon found the riders' trail, then rode fast in pursuit. Once they reached the
wood the churls dismounted and slipped as silently as foxes through the frosty undergrowth. The Danes were taken by
surprise and slaughtered.

"So you led the fighting, Vitellan," observed Alfred. "Is your stomach better?"

"I always lead the fighting," replied Vitellan in slow, heavily accented Saxon. "But yes, the cramps and bleeding have
eased for the past week. Thank you for coming to my aid. That was very brave, riding blind through the woods like that."

"I'm sorry to spoil—"

"Please! Say nothing of it. Anyway, that blind fight in the woods has increased the respect of your men for you."

"I'd rather impress them with my grasp of Latin."

"That would not impress the Danes, but it can come later."

After they had eaten they walked through to the remains of the Danish camp. Alfred noted that it was being
systematically stripped of everything of value. Not one Dane was alive, and there was a great deal of blood on the muddy
snow. Their mutilated bodies were piled in a heap, naked. Many were missing their heads.
Vitellan took him to where two kidnapped women who had survived the fighting were telling one of Vitellan's captains
all that they could remember of the raiders' tactics and

methods. One carried the head of her recent ravisher by its long, blond hair. She was thin and disheveled, and there was
mania in her eyes. Her dress was torn, and there was still blood on her legs.

"This is Prince Alfred of Wessex " said Vitellan, and the bruised, bandaged, and filthy Alfred cringed inwardly as the
two women goggled for a moment, then dropped to their knees.

"Please, stand up," said Alfred, taking their hands. "I think we have all spent enough time in the mud. Was, ah, that
your own work?" he asked the thin woman, indicating the Dane's head.

"Oh yes, sire, when the attack started he tries to jump up, but I trips him," she said breathlessly. "I snatches up a little
cookin' knife, then pulls his hair back and cuts his throat like Lord Vitellan shows me. Oh brave sire, I hears about how
ye charged 'em in the dark and was wounded—"

"It will seem less impressive once I have washed," Alfred cut her short in embarrassment. "One day I must visit your
village, when it is rebuilt. Mind that you show that head to your people, that all may know how you fought."

"Oh yes, sire, it will sit on a good high pole, I swear. And ye'U always have a welcome in our poor home if the Danes
burn your castle or somesuch."

"Have no false illusions," said Vitellan as they walked on. "The Danes fought back fiercely, and two churls died for
every one of them. Still, they were wiped out: their heads will grace pikes, and their skins will be flayed from their
bodies and nailed to the doors of our churches as a warning."

"That will cheer our people, but it will surely antagonize the Danes in north Mercia as well," said Alfred doubtfully.

"Of course, my lord. Better to have your enemy making stupid decisions through blind rage than to have him planning
his .raids against you intelligently."

"My brother's vassals said that your churls could never beat Danish cavalry. I wish they could see this."

"These Danes were not cavalry. They used their horses like their longboats, for the fast transport of footsoldiers."
Alfred felt annoyed with himself. This man always went straight to the enemy's weakness and hit him there. If he was a
Roman, then this was another legacy of their vast empire. Their armies had fought countless battles in dozens of
countries for centuries, and the lessons learned had been preserved and taught. One could do that when the commanders
knew how to write reports. How could Rome ever have fallen, with soldiers like Vitellan?

And yet Vitellan had been born three and a half centuries before Rome had yielded to Alaric. Something had changed.
Alfred began to think about the ice chamber that he had seen the day before. It was a marvel as well, yet so simple ... as
simple as pursuing mounted Danes with mounted churls. There were costs, however, such as the oil that had to be drunk
before he could sleep for centuries in the Frigidarium. It was a corrosive poison, and had injured his throat and stomach
severely, perhaps beyond healing. It was strange that the oil that kept him alive for so long should also shorten his life.
Even as Alfred pondered the paradox Vitellan stopped abruptly and clutched his stomach, gasping.

"Just a twinge," he said as Alfred steadied him. "The first for some time."

"Shall I call for help?"

"No! No, the men would think that I was wounded, and we cannot have that."

Gentor had noticed, however, and was already hurrying over. He drew a small clay jar from his pouch and unstop-pered
it.

"The pain is back, Master, yes? Drink this, quickly, you know how it always soothes you."

"Thank you Gentor. What would I do without you?"

"Such a cruel, rough world, Master, full of harsh food to hurt your poor stomach. In the Frigidarium you would be safe,
Gentor could look after you so well."

Vitellan swallowed the contents of the small jar, which he could neither smell nor taste. Alfred caught the suggestion of
something strong and sweet on the air.

"A few months more, Gentor, that is all I need. Once the Danes have been driven away I shall return to the ice, and I
shall be much less of a worry to you there."

"But surely you would not do that!" exclaimed Alfred, alarmed. "You have so much to teach us."

"But I am dying, my stomach is ruined by the freezing oil. If I am to die soon, I would like to take generations to do it."
He laughed softly. "Death may be close behind me, but he will freeze his fingers if he tries to take me with too much
haste."

"That's just foolishness."

"Horace wrote that it's good to be foolish at the right time."

"But what has the future to offer, Vitellan? The last time you were frozen the Roman Empire passed away. What might
happen in another seven centuries? Judgment Day may come in the year of the Millennium."

"You could not understand, it is like becoming a type of god. The star Sirins is blue now, but it used to be red. Red dogs
were sacrificed to it in the temples. The sun seems to be colder, too. I remember the summers being quite hot, and the
winters mild. There are great cycles in the sky that mortal men cannot see—but I can. Once, in the time of Lucretius,
my countrymen thought that mortals like us, rather than gods, live in the sky. If they are very big and very slow, men
could not perceive them in a lifetime, yet I could. Empires, religions, I outlive them all in my chamber. The prospect of
sleeping there does have an allure, just like that of being king."

He pointed to Gentor, who smiled and bowed, and showed no sign of moving away.

"Here is the faithful captain of my ship through time. The tradition of maintaining the Frigidarium has outlasted even
Rome's rule here, and I have more than enough oil left to be put to sleep again. The jar lay beside me in the ice."

"Horace, Lucretius ... you speak of their writings so easily, yet most of their works are lost to us and all the gold in the
world could not buy them back," said Alfred bitterly. "Much of the wisdom of Rome is gone forever, apart from what is in
your head. Could you stay just one year more? If your stomach does not worsen you could teach us so much."

"Scholarship is a luxury in such an age as this."

"So teach us more about fighting as well. A land safe for

scholars will be safe for your village too, and then churls who tend your ice chamber."
Vitellan put his hands on his hips and looked around at the carnage from the night before, then closed his eyes for a
moment.

"I often wish that I could close my eyes and awake in my old villa. Oh, we had wars back then, but at least there were
centers of civilization to retire to. All this countryside was peaceful farmland, with towns, stadia, baths, temples, and fine
villas. The weather was warmer then, and the harvests were always good. I would spend the mornings reading, then there
would be long afternoons and evenings talking with my friends about all manner of things: Virgil's works, chariot races,
the price of corn, old battles we had fought, the Emperor's new mistress . . . People like us need some civilized and safe
place as a touchstone."

"Then help me build one."

Vitellan turned to look at the battered, filthy Wessex prince. In this raw and savage age he was fighting for literacy as
well as his homeland. He was a rare type of leader in such times.

"All right, then, I shall stay for one year more, or until I begin to sicken. Poor Gentor, you will just have to be patient."
Gentor scowled, but dared not contradict his Master directly. The inspection continued, and Vitellan showed the prince
how his churls had skirted the sentries with his own berserkers. He had chosen only men who had lost wives and
children in earlier raids for the first wave. The Danish and Norse berserker warriors had terrified them for decades, yet
here were local churls who also fought in such a frenzy that they felt no pain and seemed to have the strength of two.
Alfred was shown one man who was still hysterical and weeping, with his face in his hands. He killed nine Danes before
his axe broke, and then dispatched two more with the shaft.

"Then he attacked his fellow churls for not leaving more Danes for him to kill," Vitellan explained.

"You—you trained him to do that? Can you train my men too?"

"Berserkers are easy enough to train, but they have limited uses. I have seen a pike-wall of women stop a group of
Danish berserkers by fighting intelligently and staying together. I had trained them too, of course." "The women killed
them?"

"They held them back until the archers came and shot the Danes down, but that is not the lesson. The women fought as
a team and held together, and a dozen berserkers had to explain some very embarrassing deaths to Wotan, or whoever
their underworld's god is supposed to be."

"Their gods are said to take badly to that sort of death," said Alfred, laughing out aloud.
Later that day Vitellan had another attack of cramps in his stomach, and this time he vomited blood. Gentor begged him
to move back near his village, so that he could be frozen quickly if his condition worsened. Alfred compromised: they
would stay in a small fortified town nine miles from the village, and would discuss Roman methods of warfare until
Vitellan either recovered or was carried off to the ice chamber.

Vitellan had never made a secret of his origins to Alfred or Paeder, although he avoided the subject with everyone else
outside his own village. His father had been an officer in the Roman army, and the youth had followed the same career.
He had fought in several areas of northern Europe, and was finally posted to the north of Britain where the Caledonians
were making sporadic raids. His uncle owned a large estate in the south, and it was while he was on leave and visiting
him that he had met Flavia.

She was the daughter of a minor official, and was captivated by the strong, handsome young soldier who already had a
reputation for bravery and was rising fast through the ranks. When he returned to the northern forts they had exchanged
passionate letters for two years. Vitellan's uncle had also been impressed by bis brave yet studious nephew, and when the
childless fanner had died in a boating accident, the young soldier was found to be named as his sole heir. He returned
south to the estate, only to find that Flavia had married a local farmer a year before. Her letters had all been lies.
The farmer, Drusus, had the advantage of being a neigh-

bor of Flavia, and had played up to her vanity while disturbing her with stories of how hard life was for the wife of an
officer. If she and Vitellan went to an African garrison the heat would make her skin dry and wrinkled. If they were sent
north, the cold would make her face red and frostbitten. Drusus knew that Flavia's worst nightmare was the prospect of
losing her beauty. Although the farmer soon won her over, she continued to write her romantic letters to Vitellan
because the young soldier was exciting and dashing by comparison. She reassured herself that some hairy Caledonian
would probably kill him and resolve her dilemma. Instead he returned alive, and rich . . . and there could be no
accounting for her behavior toward him.