Fireball (14 page)

This was towards the end of the afternoon, too late for there to be any fighting that day. The Christians camped on the other side of the road, about three-quarters of a mile from the enemy. It did not look like a particularly good position to Simon: on marshy ground under a hill to the south. But neither the conditions nor the awesome array of the legions seemed to dampen the spirits of the Christians; they sang hymns lustily as the moon rose in a clearing sky to the east. A chill white orb, almost at the full. A goddess Diana, in this world—not a dead cinder of a planet, littered with discarded space hardware.

They were still singing when the cavalry moved off; a local guide who volunteered to lead them round to a position in the rear of the legions had been found. Simon's irritation at having to start another trek when he had been hoping to bed down was balanced by satisfaction that they were moving out of the area that lay in what was likely to be the direct path of the legions' charge. He looked back as they led their horses, hooves muffled, round the side
of the hill. Moonlight gleamed on quite large patches of water. They would be sliding in mud as well as blood tomorrow.

They travelled so far that he began to wonder if the guide had lost his way or was leading them astray. But apart from being dog-tired, he did not care much. Wherever they were heading, it was away from the killing ground.

A halt was called at last. They were among trees, but that was all he knew. He tethered his horse, wrapped himself in his cloak, and settled on the ground. There was moss underneath him. He tried to persuade himself that made it softer, without much effect. But tiredness provided its own featherbed; he fell asleep almost at once.

•  •  •

In the light of morning, they could see that they were behind and to the south of the legions, on higher ground and screened by trees. They could hear the sounds from the imperial army, but could not see them. But they had a clear view of the slope lower down, of the road, and of the Christian army beyond. They fed their horses on hay, themselves on hardtack of biscuit and dried beef, and waited.

It was a long wait. The sun stood high in the sky before they heard the trumpets blare their bristling defiance, and the familiar rhythmic stamp of feet began. It had the steady pulsating thrust of a steam hammer, making the earth vibrate under their feet. The legions which had conquered the world were on the move.

Further down the hill they came in sight: a long line of cohorts, followed by another, and another and another. The sky was a clear blue. Bishop's weather? But Sol Invictus was a Roman god, and his rays shone now on the massed brightness of shields and upraised swords. The front ranks came to the road, marched up the embankment, across, and down the other side without breaking step. It had more the look of a machine in motion than a body of marching men.

They moved in silence except for the stamp of feet. The Christians, who had earlier been singing hymns, had fallen silent, too. What did it feel like, Simon wondered, watching those lines of shields draw nearer? He was glad again he was not down there. The distance between the two sides steadily narrowed. Soon there would be the second trumpet
blast that heralded the charge. But before that happened, unexpectedly there was movement on the Christian side. The narrowing gap widened again. The Bishop's army was retreating.

The trumpets sounded then, and the rhythm of the advancing feet changed, from march to jogging trot. They were going forward at the run, with water splashing up and catching the sunlight as they came to the marshy area. It was an impressive sight.

But as water splashed up, the dark hail came down: volley on volley of arrows from the bowmen on the ridge. The front ranks crumpled and broke, but the ranks behind pressed on blindly, with a terrible momentum. The cohorts crushed in on one another, blocking free movement. Men stumbled and fell, struggled to climb over bodies heaped beneath their feet, and still the arrows came. They stopped only when the Christian horde came howling back to throw themselves mercilessly on a demoralized rabble.

The rear guard, which had not yet reached the road, tried to organize itself to make a stand. That was when Galbus gave his order, and the cavalry swept along the hillside. The Romans stared in
disbelief at the horses thundering towards them down the sunlit slope, then, before the cavalry even reached them, they broke and ran.

The Christians reached the sea at Massilia, which Simon worked out was Marseilles. The weather broke simultaneously into storms of torrential rain, with occasional sleet or snow, and the army took up quarters in the port. The time was not wasted—there were new recruits to train and foraging parties to be sent out, not only for food, but for horses and wood that could be made into longbows. Where they could not find yew they brought in ash. The city's woodworkers toiled at their cumbersome pole lathes, and the harness makers made saddles and stirrups.

The troop of forty horsemen which had first surprised the Romans had grown to six troops by the time they moved on. Galbus had a wing of cavalry to command, and Brad and Simon had a new troop commander, called Curtius. He was a dark, stocky man, taciturn by nature. Simon at first thought him a poor exchange for the hearty, bustling Galbus, but Brad took a different view, and gradually Simon came to share it.

Curtius had an observant eye and a sharp,
sardonic sense of humour. On rainy afternoons, when exercises were over, he took to joining Brad and Simon in a little wine bar on the seafront. Bos, who commanded the gladiators' company which was the spearhead of the foot soldiers, completed the quartet. Brad, though so much their junior and without military rank, seemed to do most of the talking. Simon had a feeling both men deferred to him a bit. That was sometimes irritating but, he told himself, unimportant. Before long the war would be over, and there would be better things to do than sit in a poky wine bar. He realized he no longer had any doubt of the outcome; he took the triumph of the Bishop for granted.

When the storms gave way to calm winter sunshine, the army set out again, refreshed and strengthened. They took the easy road along the coast, north to a city whose name, Genua, had barely changed, then south into Italy. People flocked out to cheer them, and bunches of bright yellow mimosa were thrown in front of their horses' hooves. The Bishop also rode, but on a donkey, not a horse. Their progress was often halted by crowds wanting to be blessed by him.

There had, of course, to be resistance at some point; the emperor would scarcely surrender Rome without a fight. The final battle came at a place where the road, having gone inland from the coast, wound between small hills. The imperial army laid its ambush there.

Once again Brad and Simon had a spectator's view. The mounted forces were in the vanguard, and the Romans let them through before launching their attack. They heard the trumpet blasts and looked back, to see dark lines of figures descending from the high ground on either side towards the main body of the Christians.

It was a classic operation, and under the conditions of warfare that had existed for more than two thousand years, the discipline of the imperial army would have guaranteed its success. But the Christian army was flanked along its length by bowmen, who sent their freight of death whistling into the charging lines long before they could get close enough even to throw their javelins. Simon had time to be amazed at the speed with which they fired and rearmed, producing that almost-continuous hail, before his troop was ordered into the attack.

The cavalry split, charging on either side of the road and striking the shattered Romans on their flanks. Their own cavalry, of course, used horses only for transport, doing their actual fighting on foot. The sight of men riding down on them with upraised swords defied belief, but could not be denied. Coming on the heels of that distant hurling of death, it was too much.

The battle lasted little longer than the others had done, though some Romans did succeed in coming to grips with the main force of the Christians, and one small detachment broke through to where a black-crossed banner waved above the Bishop's head. Simon had a glimpse of the Bishop rising up from his donkey to smite someone with his crozier before more pressing matters engrossed him. What would happen, he wondered, if despite the victory the Bishop was struck down, as the emperor Julian had been in his world?

The speculation was irrelevant. It was soon over, with the black-robed figure still sitting upon his donkey, unscathed amid the carnage, praising God for His mercy.

•  •  •

The palace of the emperor, a marble miracle of pillars and porticoes, of terraces and arches and vaults and domes, was perched on the edge of the Capitoline Hill; from its widest terrace one looked out over the Forum and the whole city of Rome. The fate of the emperor himself was doubtful. Some reports had it that he had fled to the south and taken ship to Africa; others that he had been killed by his personal slaves, and his body thrown in the Tiber. At any rate Simon, together with Brad and Bos and Curtius, lay on his terrace, on couches decorated with gold, cushioned by silk and swansdown, and drank his imperial wine.

The Bishop's weather held still. Under the sky's blue dome the great edifices of the mother city gleamed in their different hues of marble—white and pink, red and ochre and pale green. In the parks trees slumbered with no stir of leaf, and fountains danced in the sunlight. Forum and streets were crowded, but neither noise nor emotions—whatever they might be—carried up here. All was peace.

Soon they would be travelling back to Britain; the Bishop had made it clear that having conquered Rome, he had no mind to stay there. Simon listened hazily to Brad talking, about a project he had in
mind. He was fairly vague about it. The only thing that emerged was that it was some kind of expedition. Bos and Curtius appeared to be interested. Let them be, Simon thought comfortably.

He saw it first as a wisp of smoke curling up from the roof of the Temple of Julian and wondered about the fool-hardiness of whatever priests still tended the sacred fire. But the wisp thickened and darkened and, as he called to the others to look, sprouted pink flame.

Bos said: “Yonder, too. Look.”

There must have been not one firing party, but several. One after another the temples turned to torches. They watched because there was nothing else to do, and the scene had a terrible beauty. From the temples the fire raisers turned to palaces and public buildings. As dusk fell, the flames were brighter still as they burned to ashes the ancient heart of Rome.

T
HEY HAD TO WAIT ONLY
three days for their interview with the Bishop. This was, as his secretary explained, an unusual favour; there was a six weeks' delay on the normal waiting list. Simon thought this encouraging, together with the fact that they were received in the same little room. Nothing had changed, either in the surroundings or the Bishop's own appearance. He wore the same small pectoral cross, not very well repaired at some time, the same worn robe and slippers. The intensity of gaze had not changed either. Simon was glad they had agreed that Brad should do the talking.

The Bishop said: “You seek a favour.”

It was halfway between statement and question, unencouraging in tone. Brad said: “Not for ourselves, Your Holiness.” The Bishop watched him in silence. “For a friend.”

“State it.”

“It's someone called Curtius Domitius. He commanded a troop of horse in your army—the troop Simonus and I were in. He served you well, Your Holiness. He fought in every battle through to Rome.”

“Christ gives His rewards to faithful servants. I, a poor servant myself, have none to offer.”

“Well, that's just it,” Brad said. “Curtius isn't a Christian. As you know, a lot of those who fought on our side weren't. They joined us because they were opposed to things like slavery and the empire itself.”

The Bishop nodded. “He has helped to liberate the Church. And the liberated Church liberates in turn and welcomes. Having been freed from false gods, he can follow the true God, through Jesus Christ, His only Son.”

“Yes,” Brad said. “I see that. But he doesn't want to.”

A silence ensued. The Bishop showed no sign of wanting to end it. Finally Brad did.

“He's been told that as an officer in the army he's got to undergo the pendulum. He offered to resign, but he's been told that's not allowed.”

In a bleak voice, the Bishop said: “These matters are the concern of others, not of me.”

“But you could help,” Brad said. “You only have to say a word to Marcus Cornelius.”

There was another long pause, before the Bishop said coldly: “What word? To grant favour to one of our Lord's enemies?”

“But he's not! He just doesn't want to be baptized.”

“Christ said: He that is not for me is against me.”

Simon could no longer stay quiet. “Christ said a lot of things, didn't he? And nearly all of them were about peace and loving one's fellow men. Do you think he'd have approved of the pendulum?”

Immediately following the return from Rome, the pendulum had been set up in the high-ceilinged state room of the governor's palace, where it swung its murderous arc from wall to wall. Murderous, because
its bob was a heavy cylinder of lead, with a sharp blade of iron set in on either side. An altar, surmounted by the figure of Christ, had been set up just in front of the point where the bob, at the lowest point in its arc, swept some four feet off the ground.

And at that point a small wooden enclosure had been built, big enough for a man but granting him only sufficient freedom of movement to be able to drop to his knees in front of the altar before the bob came down. Some of the more agile were able to sway their bodies just enough to have the bob miss them—on the first few swings anyway. Escape became continuously more difficult as the pendulum swung to and fro, and fatigue in the end made it impossible. The one time Brad and Simon had been there they had seen bystanders laughing and laying bets as to which would be the killing stroke, before they turned away, sickened.