Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [54]
Thalius announced grandly. 'Our guest must think us impolite savages.'
'Nothing could be further from the truth,' Ian quickly countered. ‘The hospitality I have received from everyone within this household has been... pretty unique.’
Thalius seemed pleased to hear this. 'One always worries that cultural differences may lead to mistakes being made,' he said. `My motives for seeing you, however, are slightly ulterior. I have something which I should like you to have.'
The praefectus reached down beside his opulent silver-trimmed throne and produced one of the short stabbing swords, the gladii, carried by Roman legionnaires and centurions. He held it up to the light and looked along its razor-sharp cutting blade like a craftsman inspecting his finest tool. 'The gladius,’ he said proudly. ‘This is the weapon of an artist. I am no soldier, though I suspect you are, or have been at one time in your life.'
'I was trained as a fighter, it's true,' Ian agreed, wondering whether six months spent whitewashing doorsteps at RAF
Lynham truly counted as such. ‘I studied some oriental disciplines; karate, ju jitsu and unagi.'
'Then you will know that military might depends upon possessing the weapons of power. I am a historian and I know that the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser II, boasted that he could raise an army of 120,000 men and charioteers. These men wore coats of iron scales and chain-mail and carried nine-foot-long spears that could stop an enemy dead at fifty paces. But their weakness was in the wicker shields that they used with which to defend themselves.'
`Most shields are pathetic and useless against the might of a sword,' Gemellus added. 'Particularly small and weak ones.
They are of no use to man nor beast'
`Roman soldiers have no such weaknesses and the gladius,’ Thalius banged the sword on the arm of his chair, 'the gladius is our way of ruling the world.'
Thalius handed the weapon to Ian. 'I should like you to have this,' he said, turning the sword over in his hands and revealing the initials 'IC' carved into the hilt. Ì have had the weapon inscribed for you, lest anyone hereabouts should fail to realise to whom it belongs.'
`The praefectus is a generous man,' Ian said simply, taking the sword and weighing it in his hand. 'It is a fine weapon and I am honoured to accept it.'
'Use it wisely, and with prudence,' the praefectus told Ian,
‘but keep yourself alive with it. Life is the most precious thing that a free man can possess.'
The wine arrived and the talk turned to more trivial matters, Ian telling the governor of his adventures in the land of the Aztecs. However, just as he was beginning to relax in the atmosphere of power politics around the praefectus himself, a question was sprung on him that threatened to change everything.
`What know you, good Briton, of these Christians?'
Gemellus seems as surprised by the question as Ian. Ì am aware of them,' Ian noted. ‘I am not a believer myself,' he added quickly, remembering where he was. 'I've always found their views to be rather narrow and inflexible. I am a rationalist and a humanist, personally. I don't feel that divinity is necessary in an ordered and scientific world.'
'Find you not that position to be a little... sad?' asked Gemellus.
Ian considered the question for a long time. `There are many religions in the world, and, I dare say, many more yet to be born. They can't all be right,' he said eventually. 'A man of reason must ask himself whether he believes that free will is an illusion, which is what having Gods who direct our every move would suggest? I cannot allow myself to believe in a world like that so I retain a healthy dose of scepticism about all religions.'
Thalius nodded, slowly. 'And the Christians?'
Às good a creed as any, I suppose,’ Ian suggested. 'Far better than some. They believe in many laudable things, but some of my experience often have an intolerance for those who do not share their views...’ Ian paused, suddenly aware that he