Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [35]
`Yes,' Ian replied quickly. 'Well, at least, I live there now. I am a teacher... A scribe, if you like. I was actually born in Reading, know it at all?'
Ì was with the God Claudius and Aulus Plautius when he took the wild and barren land, twenty years since. I saw the savage king Caratacus of the Catuvellauni defeated. I was but a mere legionnaire in those far off and troubled days and, as my rank progressed I saw much of that beautiful and harsh land from whence you say you come. Segedunem and the bridgehead at Pons Aelii where we could smell the breath of the Caledonian scum...’
`Well, I've never been too keen on the Scots myself,' Ian noted. `You won't get any argument from me. You want to try building a great big wall from Carlisle to Newcastle and keep the blighters out.'
Time always looks after itself, Ian thought. That was one positive thing that the Doctor had taught him.
Maybe it was the casualness of Ian's reply that impressed Calaphilus, but Ian could certainly sense a change in the general's attitude towards him. Perhaps only a fraction, but when the general began to speak again, his voice was lower and noticeably softer in tone. 'I was garrisoned at Eboracum.
And then Aquae Sulis, Corinium and Camulodunon,'
continued the soldier. Ian recognised the second Latin place name as the ancient Roman designation for Bath on Avon, a place he knew little about except that it had some impressive Roman baths, and that he'd once got drunk in the rugby club there. Nice beer, he remembered.
However, the last name...
Ian shuddered. 'Colchester,' he said. 'A perfectly horrible town. I spent one of the worst weekends of my life there with a girl from Guildford. It rained, and it rained...’
`Yes,' noted Calaplailus. `That sounds like Camulodunon all right.' Now, for the first time, there was a glint of shared experience within the soldier's eye. He had dearly loved the land of Ian's birth and if Ian was to be his only link to it then he was, seemingly, better than nothing at all. He half-turned away from Ian and indicated to the other men in the dungeon that there was at least some truth in the stranger's story.
`So, you believe me then?' asked Ian, relief etched into his voice.
But still, Calaphilus's eyes were like those of a snake as it hypnotises its prey. 'You and I shall talk further on this matter at another time, alleged Briton,' he said.
Ian seized a possible opportunity. `My companions. A woman, an old man and a young girl. They were in the square with me when all hell broke lose. We lost each other in the panic. I have to know if they're all right.’
The general shouted to Drusus, still standing by the door.
'Find a place for this guest of Byzantium within the Villa Praefectus until we can ascertain whether his family survived the terrible massacre.'
Drusus bowed to the general's authority.
Ian, too, was impressed. 'You have my thanks, general,'
he said. Calaphilus nodded and then told Erastus, the sergeant and Drusus to leave them for a moment. When they were alone in the dungeon, the general drew Ian to one side and, in a conspiratorial whisper said, 'I would appreciate that you keep open and wide your eyes and ears within the Villa Praefectus.’
Ian understood. ‘Politics,' he said, 'is not my area of expertise.'
Ìn Byzantium,’ the general noted, 'politics is everyone's area of expertise. Only the dead are free of it.’
Chapter Thirteen
The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend
Forbid him not: for there is no man
which shall do a miracle in my name,
that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part.
Mark 9:39-40
Sunrise over the desert. It was something of an anticlimax, Barbara was forced to admit.
This was her first proper look at the phenomenon. She couldn't sleep - there was simply no point in trying. Instead she had spent the small hours of the night pacing the guest room in Hieronymous's spacious