BooksBarbecue
Back Conqueror Save as PDF
Chapters (88)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. I
  4. I
  5. II
  6. III
  7. IV
  8. V
  9. VI
  10. VII
  11. VIII
  12. IX
  13. X
  14. XI
  15. II
  16. I
  17. II
  18. III
  19. IV
  20. V
  21. VI
  22. VII
  23. VIII
  24. IX
  25. X
  26. XI
  27. XII
  28. XIII
  29. XIV
  30. XV
  31. XVI
  32. XVII
  33. XVIII
  34. XIX
  35. XX
  36. XXI
  37. III
  38. I
  39. II
  40. III
  41. IV
  42. V
  43. VI
  44. VII
  45. VIII
  46. IX
  47. X
  48. XI
  49. XII
  50. XIII
  51. XIV
  52. XV
  53. XVI
  54. XVII
  55. XVIII
  56. XIX
  57. XX
  58. XXI
  59. IV
  60. I
  61. II
  62. III
  63. IV
  64. V
  65. VI
  66. VII
  67. VIII
  68. IX
  69. X
  70. XI
  71. XII
  72. XIII
  73. XIV
  74. XV
  75. XVI
  76. XVII
  77. XVIII
  78. XIX
  79. XX
  80. XXI
  81. XXII
  82. XXIII
  83. XXIV
  84. XXV
  85. XXVI
  86. XXVII
  87. EPILOGUE
  88. Afterword

These the Great Years/of the Comet of God
Whose awe and beauty/in the roof of the world
Light step by step/the road to empire
An Aryan realm/THE GLORY OF CHRIST.

The Comet comes/in the month of June.
Each man of gold/spurns loyalty of silver.
In life a great king/in death a small man.
Nine hundred and fifty-one/the months of the first Year.

The Comet comes/in the month of September.
Number months thirty-five/of this Year of war.
See the Bear laid low/by the Wolf of the north.
Nine hundred and eighteen/the months of the second Year ...

‘And so on.’ Ambrosias said reverently, ‘This prophecy says that the comet will come again - and it has come before.’

‘How can that be?’ Ulf asked reasonably. ‘Comets are like clouds. Aren’t they? How can it come back?’

Ambrosias snorted. ‘How could I possibly know? Ask Aristotle or Archimedes or Pythagoras - not me! All that matters is that it does so. And that is the basis of what the prophecy describes. My family, scholars all, refer to this as Isolde’s Menologium, a calendar. For it is a calendar of a sort - but not of the seasons but of the comet’s Great Years, each of them many of our earthly years long, marking out the events of man. Do you see?

‘For example, the second stanza talks of the comet’s appearance in the year of the Saxon revolt against the Vortigern. And then nine hundred and fifty-one months pass, marking the first Great Year, before the comet returns again, and then thirty-five months after that—’

‘Nine hundred and fifty-one months,’ Ulf mused. ‘That’s seventy years? Eighty?’

Ambrosias looked at him. ‘You people are traders, aren’t you? Illiterate or not, you can figure well enough.’

Wuffa said, ‘You’re going too fast. Why do you speak of the Vortigem?’

‘Because that’s what the prophecy says, in the first stanza. Look, here - ah, but you can’t read it! “Each man of gold/spurns loyalty of silver. /In life a great king/in death a small man” ...’ “‘Man of gold?”’

Ambrosias reached out and tugged a lock of Wuffa’s blond hair. ‘Don’t you people use mirrors? And as for “great king”—’

‘That is what “Vortigern” means.’

‘Yes! The reference is clearly to the revolt against him. So, you see, knowing that enabled my family to fix the start of the first Great Year at the date of the revolt. And then we were able to look ahead to the events foretold in the second stanza, to calculate its date. By then Isolde was already long dead, and I was not yet born. Yet the events the verse foretold came to pass, thirty-five months into the Great Year. “See the Bear laid low / by the Wolf of the north.”’

Wuffa glanced at Ulf. ‘Ammanius told us that “Artorius” may have been a nickname—’