Stephen Baxter - Emperor

Nennius nodded sagely. 'Of course. Britain has always been part of the Roman world. It is only a matter of time-'

Tarcho snapped, 'No. It's different now. Rome is the last of a line of antique empires that go back to Alexander. But the world has changed, and Rome has had its day. If the Caesars ever do come back they won't be welcomed.' He eyed Nennius. 'You know, you should stay here, cousin. Here in Brigantia. Our family has been many things, soldiers, stonemasons and scholars. But at heart we have always been Brigantians.'

Nennius frowned. 'But Aeneas of Troy came to Britain and-'

Tarcho waved a hand. 'Forget that garbage. Here in the north, we haven't forgotten who we are. Our grandfather Audax grew up a slave, yet he remembered he was a Brigantian. And now the Romans have gone we're in a position to restore Brigantia to her old power. Think of that. Why not an empire of the Brigantians this time-and with us at the top? Why, we could take on the Caesars themselves.' His eyes gleamed.

Isolde wondered what the Duke of the Britains and the Eburacum government would have to say about such an ambition. And Nennius looked confused. Isolde knew that exiled Britons in Rome boasted that they were descended from Trojans who had fled the Greek siege, and that such groupings as 'Brigantians' were just artificial labels, imposed by the Romans for their administrative usefulness.

Was the future to resemble the past, then? Would Rome return, as Maria seemed to hope? Or, if they ever existed, could Tarcho's old erased nations really be reborn? And what of all the Saxons milling around in the south? They weren't going to disappear. She had a feeling that the future would be much more complicated than either Maria or Tarcho imagined, or hoped for-complicated, and bloodier-

That was when she felt the first contraction. She bit her lip and bent forward, clutching her belly.

Maria leaned forward. 'Isolde! Are you all right?'

Typically, Nennius didn't even notice his daughter's difficulty, and nor did Tarcho. 'We must talk of my purpose here,' Nennius said. 'My grandfather told me about the Prophecy. He had decided our family must remember the truth about itself. But the Prophecy, of course, was lost. Or was it?

'I simply couldn't believe no copy exists! Claudius hints of a copy placed among the ancient Sibylline oracles. I looked there-but Stilicho, Honorius's Vandal general, had the oracles destroyed decades ago.'

'And so,' Tarcho said, 'you wrote to me.'

Nennius sat up on his couch, intent. 'I know what meticulous record-keepers you army types have always been, Tarcho. It was here that the Prophecy's original was, supposedly, destroyed. But, I wondered, couldn't a copy of it have survived here, deep in some old vault? Wouldn't the tidy, indeed superstitious, mind of a soldier have ensured that much? And so I wrote to you, and asked you to search in advance of my visit-and, well, here I am. Come now, cousin, stop teasing me! Tell me if you found what I asked you to look for.'

Another contraction. Through her pain, Isolde clung to Maria at her side. Maria murmured comforting words.

Tarcho, evidently growing bored, shrugged. He reached inside his tunic and drew out a battered slip of wood. 'You were right. Somebody did make a copy, from memory at least-a pagan, probably, too superstitious to risk offending the gods by destroying their words; you're right about that too. Here.' He flipped it to Nennius. 'Probably all a forgery anyhow, or a hoax.'

Nennius grabbed the slip and unfolded it tenderly.

Another surge of pain, and there was liquid between Isolde's thighs. Now she did cry out. Maria, with calm competence, felt between Isolde's legs. 'Your waters have broken. Oh, by Jesus, I think I can feel its head.'

'It can't be. It's too early,' Isolde gasped.

Maria rolled up her sleeves and made Isolde lie down on the couch. 'They make their own time, dear.' She turned to a waiting servant. 'You, fetch my sister. And get some clean water and cloths.'

The servant hurried from the room.

Even now Nennius was more concerned about his precious Prophecy than about his daughter. He read, ' "Ah child! Bound in time's tapestry, and yet you are born free / Come, let me sing to you of what there is and what will be"…Sixteen lines-the alpha-omega acrostic-it's all here-oh, Tarcho, I think it's genuine all right! And here are the lines about Claudius, and Hadrian-the "little Greek", hah, I knew what it meant, I was nearly right in my reconstruction. This reference to a "God-as-babe" must refer to the birth of Christianity, for the faith was finding its feet in Hadrian's time.

'Oh, and here are the lines that must refer to Constantine. "Emerging first in Brigantia, exalted later then in Rome! / Prostrate before a slavish god, at last he is revealed divine, / Embrace imperial will make dead marble of the Church's shrine"…Yes, yes! Wasn't Constantine proclaimed at Eburacum? Wasn't Christianity always called a cult of slaves? Didn't he have himself deified after his death, despite his conversion to Christ? And a church turned into dead marble-yes, surely that refers to Constantine's institutionalising of the faith. It speaks the truth! I knew it. I knew it all along, that the Prophecy was real, that it was truthful. If only Thalius and his plotters could have seen this document in full! How might history have been deflected?'

Isolde barely heard any of this. Her world contracted to the inside of her head, the heaving of her lungs, and the pulsing contractions of her belly.

Maria murmured in her ear, 'Don't worry, love. We'll fetch the army doctor. He's the son of a doctor too. I told you you're in good hands…'

Somehow Isolde found the words slippery, wriggling from her grasp like fish in a stream. What were words beside the bloody reality of pain? But even as ocean-deep agony washed down her body, she felt impelled to speak. She turned her head, opened her mouth-but the words that poured from her lips were harsh and unrecognisable, even to her. She tried again, but only more alien words came.

Tarcho turned, curious now. 'What's she saying?'

'I don't know.' Maria frowned, concerned. 'It isn't Latin-is it? Or any British tongue.'

'I think it's German,' Tarcho said. 'Saxon maybe. Or Angle-ish. Why would a girl like that learn to speak Saxon?'

But I never have, Isolde thought, locked inside her own head. She tried again to speak but more of the repetitive gibberish, this Saxon, poured from her mouth.

'I know what this means,' Maria breathed, her face flushed. 'It's happening again.'

Tarcho asked, 'What is?'

'The Prophecy! You heard how Nennius described it. This is just as at the birth of Nectovelin-oh, get a stylus, you fool, and write it down!'

Tarcho stared. Then he disappeared from Isolde's view.

Isolde longed for her father to come to her, but he was still poring over his document. 'And the Prophecy's final lines-at last!-'

The pain intensified even further. Maria yelled, 'It's coming!'

Nennius read, ' "Remember this: We hold these truths self-evident to be-" '

'The baby's head-I can see it'

Even now, even as she pulsed with pain, Isolde helplessly gabbled Saxon.

'Why is she speaking Saxon?' Tarcho growled. 'The future is Brigantian, not Saxon!'

'That may not be up to you,' Maria said. 'Now shut up, you fool, and help me.'

' "I say to you that all men are created equal, free / Rights inalienable assured by the Maker's attribute / Endowed with Life and Liberty and Happiness's pursuit…" ' Nennius sounded baffled. 'Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? What does it mean? If these are the words of the Weaver, what dream of his is this? Oh, what does it mean?'

The pain squeezed Isolde like a vast fist, and her baby fell into Maria's arms.