Debt of Ages (21 page)

"Sure," Sarnac said reluctantly, grasping a shroud and sliding down to the deck. Andreas followed more slowly, just as a wave buffeted the ship. He succeeded in hanging on; the fact that Julia was watching from below might have had something to do with it.

Sarnac surveyed the deck, looking aft where the steersmen stood in the projections at the quarters. They had already made the course change needed to round Cape Sounion in response to Corineus's commands; now they kept the handles of their rudders steady (not even the Chinese had the stern-post rudder yet) while the skipper held Avitus and Helena spellbound with imaginative lies about his youthful sea-fights with Saxons, Frisians and the occasional monster.
Yup,
Sarnac thought,
all he needs is a parrot and a wooden leg.
Between the steering stations was the long deckhouse that held most of the living quarters. Sarnac entered it and descended the ladder to the sanctum.

Tylar, Artorius, Ecdicius and Sidonius sat around the little table in the lamplight. Ecdicius fidgeted in the cramped space. On learning of the attack on his family he'd been all for going back ashore and spilling blood in large quantities, even before his own wound was tended to. But Faustina had been able to calm him down, and their departure hadn't been too delayed. Afterwards, when Artorius had given him and Sidonius the same story they'd used on the Restorer, he had accepted it more readily than Sarnac had dared hope. Clearly, Ecdicius was one of those fortunate souls with the ability to file apparent miracles away under the heading "Inexplicable—not to be worried about" and get on with practicalities.

Sidonius, though, was still deeply troubled.

"But is it not heresy?" he was asking as Sarnac entered and closed the hatch. "Surely there can be no warrant in the scriptures for supposing
two
Saviors! So is one of these worlds of which you speak not irrevocably damned?"

"No, Sidonius," Artorius spoke patiently. He'd grown up in this century, and knew the depths of what Sidonius was undergoing while Sarnac could only glimpse the surface. "Remember, the forking of the roads I've spoken of happened twenty-one years ago—four hundred and seventy years
after
the birth of our Savior, and almost four hundred and forty after His resurrection. So all men, whichever history they are playing out, are redeemed."

Sidonius wrung his hands in anguish. "But now, after these 'roads' of which you speak have indeed parted, are there two trinities? How could the divine essence be so subdivided?" Sarnac tried to imagine what a nightmare this must be for Sidonius, in an age when so much ink and blood had been spilled over the precise nature of
one
trinity. He himself couldn't feel these concerns, but he knew distress of soul when he saw it.

"Not at all, Sidonius," Artorius assured him. "The Father, being infinite, is well able to comprehend two—or, for that matter, infinitely numerous—realities." The former High King had had to become something of an amateur theologian to deal with this problem, which they'd known was coming. Luckily, doctrine had never been Sidonius's strong point. He'd started his ecclesiastical career at age thirty-eight as a political bishop. A trained theologian would have been a lot harder to deal with.

Ecdicius squirmed. "This is all very well, but the question now is what we are to
do
! You say these damned conspirators were part of a Monophysite plot?"

"Well, Noblissimus," said Tylar, "it stands to reason, doesn't it? In view of your well-known fidelity to the true Catholic faith, the Monophysites could hardly have welcomed the prospect of your accession, could they?" Sarnac shot the time traveller a sharp glance, but Tylar continued without a break. "Their obvious objective would be to bestow the purple on an openly Monophysite emperor, one who would call a new Council which would undo Chalcedon and make the Monophysite position canonical, anathematizing all others. One might also suppose that they would wish to elevate the Patriarchy of Constantinople to supreme primacy, reducing Rome to the kind of subordinate position now occupied by Antioch and Alexandria."

Ecdicius and Sidonius had been showing signs of gradually rising blood pressure throughout, but the last sentence brought the latter surging to his feet, doctrinal concerns forgotten. "
What!
But everyone knows that our Lord explicitly gave into the hands of Saint Peter . . ."

Ecdicius wasn't far behind him. He stood up with a roar, trying to draw his
spatha
and banging his funny bone against a bulkhead of the little cabin, which did his mood no good at all. "By the mercy of Christ, when I return to Constantinople to claim my inheritance my horse will walk fetlock-deep in the blood of these damned traitors and heretics!"

"Noblissimus," Tylar smiled, "are you absolutely certain you
want
to return to Constantinople?"

"What are you saying, Tertullian? I'm the rightful heir to Artorius the Restorer!"

"And," Sidonius added, "he is our only hope for crushing this foul conspiracy and the Monophysites behind it! Otherwise, the usurpers will impose their devil-begotten heresy on the West, and we will all face damnation."

"Yes! When I'm back in Constantinople with the support of the West, like . . ."

"Like the Restorer was." Tylar's quiet interjection stopped Ecdicius short, and he and Sidonius were suddenly quiet. Tylar smiled. "Noblissimus, I don't question the legal rightfulness of your claim to the purple. But we must consider reality. And reality is that the East, with its multitudes and its wealth, will always dominate a unified empire. This is so even if the Augustus comes from the West and bases his power on Western arms."

"My people," Sarnac put in, "have a saying about the tail wagging the dog."

" 'The tail wagging the . . .' Ha! Good one, Bedwyr! I'll have to remember that!" Ecdicius's mercurial mood-changes no longer caught Sarnac flat-footed. "All right, Tertullian, what are you advising me to do?"

"If the West is to stand as the stronghold of the true faith, Noblissimus, it must stand alone. Once in Italy, declare the resumption of Constantine's division of the empire. Your troops will eagerly proclaim you Augustus of the West, for yourself as well as for the love they bear the Restorer, whose choice of a successor is well known to them. And you, Your Holiness, can lend your support by anathematizing the Eastern Church and excommunicating anyone who adheres to the
Henotikon
."

"Yes," Sidonious nodded. "And specifically excommunicating the Patriarch Acacius and whoever the conspirators set up as Augustus." He turned to his brother-in-law. "Ecdicius, I believe Tertullian is right. We can't save the East from error, but we can . . ." He sought for a word, but of course his world held no such concept as
quarantine
. "I've watched what the East has done to my old friend. The reunified empire of which he—all of us—dreamed can never be anything more than a Greater Eastern Empire, with the West as a set of provinces. I see that clearly now. I think I've seen it for years. But no old fool ever wants to admit that his youthful ideals have been discredited, or were mistaken in the first place, for that admission is the final relinquishment of youth." He sighed deeply, in a silence which no one cared to break, then gathered himself and actually smiled. "Ecdicius, I'm still enough of an old fool to believe that we can preserve what is of value in Rome's heritage. But we can only do it in a separate Western Empire." He smiled again, with infinite sadness. "I hope Virgil will understand," he whispered.

After a space, Ecdicius cleared his throat. "All well and good, but there's one practical point we have to dispose of first." He looked Artorius unflinchingly in the eye. "The Restorer adopted me as his heir in the belief that he had no heir of his body, indeed no close blood-relatives who might be able to set up rival claims. Now, as I understand it, you and he are closer in blood relation than any men have ever dreamed of being." Sarnac thought he could see a sheen of sweat in the lamplight, of a kind that had nothing to do with the cabin's stuffiness. But Ecdicius pressed on, as fearless in the face of the unknowable as he had ever been in battle. "Indeed, unless I misunderstand, you
are
 . . ."

Artorius raised his hand. "Set your mind at rest, Ecdicius. It's true that for my first forty-two years I was one and the same as he who adopted you as his heir. But now I belong to another world—or, perhaps, another story of the same world—and as soon as may be I mean to return to it. I have no intention of seeking to rule this one. I could give you a written statement of support for your claim to the Principate of the West if you like, but it would be a meaningless formality. Let me instead tell you this: I know of what you've done, and what he who you became in my world has done in that world." Ecdicius crossed himself, in a way that Sarnac recognized as something more than mere conventional piety, for which Ecdicius had never been particularly noted anyway. "And I tell you now that had my life followed the same course as that of the Artorius you know, I'd have chosen the same heir he did."

Tylar let the two men regard each other for a moment before filling the silence. "So, Noblissimus, you see that there will be no difficulties in this regard. Furthermore, you will have an ally: Gwenhwyvaer, wife of Artorius the Restorer and his regent in Britain. I'm empowered to tell you that she will support your claim—on one condition."

"Condition . . . ?"

"Only one. You must agree to accept Britain's independence from the Western Empire." Sarnac gave Tylar another sharp glance, but held his tongue. "In exchange, she will recognize you as legitimate Augustus of the West."

Ecdicius frowned. "Independence? Tertullian, I can't set a precedent like that! Britain has been a Roman province since the time of Claudius . . ."

"Once again, Noblissimus, let us leave the legalisms to the lawyers." Ecdicius's eyes flashed dangerously, but Tylar hurried on. "Practically speaking, Britain has been independent since 410, when the Emperor Honorius gave permission for the provincials there to see to their own defense. Everyone recognized that as a
de facto
abandonment of the island, for an armed Britain would inevitably be a self-ruling Britain. And remember how the Restorer came to Gaul in 469 as High King of the Britons, ally of the Western Emperor Anthemius, who dealt with him as the separate sovereign he was. So you can acknowledge this accomplished fact with no loss of dignity."

"But, Tertullian, the precedent! What if other provinces start getting ideas?"

"Given the uniqueness of Britain's history over the last eighty years," Tylar said smoothly, "no valid precedent will be created. So the matter need not concern you, Noblissimus; rather, you should concern yourself with the implications of having a hostile Britain to your west at the same time you're facing an attempt at reconquest from the east."

"Hmmm. . . ." Ecdicius stroked his not-inconsiderable nose thoughtfully. He didn't look happy, but he gave a slow nod. "Very well—so be it. I'll pay Gwenhwyvaer's price." He stood up and stretched, catlike. "Plenty of time to work out the details later. I need a turn on deck." He paused at the hatch and looked back at Sarnac. "The tail wagging the dog!" He shook his head and chuckled as he left the stifling cabin, followed by the others. But Sarnac touched Tylar's sleeve, and the two of them remained.

"I seem to recall you saying," Sarnac began without preamble, "that the plotters who tried to assassinate Ecdicius were an aristocratic clique motivated solely by power politics. You never mentioned anything about them being a bunch of Monophysite fanatics."

"Quite." Tylar pursed his lips. "Strictly speaking, I never actually told Ecdicius that the assassins were Monophysite conspirators, did I? I merely pointed out that their course of action would be a logical one for Monophysite conspirators to take. If he chose to jump to conclusions . . ."

"Also," Sarnac interrupted, "I remember you telling Gwenhwyvaer that Ecdicius would accept British independence on condition of her recognizing him as Augustus of the West—which is exactly the reverse of what you just told him."

"Ah, well, I'm afraid you have me there. But look at it this way, my dear fellow: each of them will get what he or she wants from the other. And these, um,
hypothetical
conditions will cancel each other out, as it were. So in the end . . ."

"In short," Sarnac cut in again, "you've been lying your ass off, as usual!"

"It could be argued that I haven't been entirely candid with them. But it's all for the best, you know. In fact, it's necessary if all we've done isn't to go for nought. Ecdicius must be provoked into a separation from the East, not into an attempt to assert his right to the throne of a unified empire which he'd probably succeed in keeping unified, as the usurpers did in Andreas' history. And Britain's independence must be assured."

"You've never explained that. Why is an independent Britain so crucial to your plans?"

"Isn't it obvious? Our whole object here is to bring about the kind of political pluralism that arose in our world and prevented any one entrenched power structure from stifling scientific innovation to preserve the status quo. The division of the Roman Empire into East and West is a start—but it isn't enough; the two empires might reach some kind of
rapprochement
in the coming centuries. In our history, Europe was carved into nation-states by the invading barbarian tribes. Our friend the Restorer put a stop to that here. So the same result must be obtained through provincial separatism. With the example of an independent Britain . . ."

"But you just told Ecdicius that Britain is a special case and won't constitute a precedent!"

"That's quite true—in the legal sense." Sarnac snorted. "But in men's minds, the empire will have irrevocably given up its claim to universality. Britain will stand as irrefutable proof that political existence apart from Rome is possible, that chaos is not the only alternative to imperial centralization."

"I still think it's a rotten trick to play on Ecdicius."

"Oh, the long-term effects won't manifest themselves in his lifetime. Probably not even in his son's. But his more remote successors will, I think, be living in interesting times, to quote the old Chinese curse."