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Back Emperor
Chapters (76)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. I
  4. II
  5. III
  6. I - INVADER AD 43-70
  7. I
  8. II
  9. III
  10. IV
  11. V
  12. VI
  13. VII
  14. VIII
  15. IX
  16. X
  17. XI
  18. XII
  19. XIII
  20. XIV
  21. XV
  22. XVI
  23. XVII
  24. XVIII
  25. XIX
  26. XX
  27. XXI
  28. XXII
  29. XXIII
  30. XXIV
  31. XXV
  32. XXVI
  33. II - BUILDER AD 122-138
  34. I
  35. II
  36. III
  37. IV
  38. V
  39. VI
  40. VII
  41. VIII
  42. IX
  43. X
  44. XI
  45. XII
  46. XIII
  47. XIV
  48. XV
  49. XVI
  50. XVII
  51. XVIII
  52. XIX
  53. XX
  54. XXI
  55. III - EMPEROR AD 314—337
  56. I
  57. II
  58. III
  59. IV
  60. V
  61. VI
  62. VII
  63. VIII
  64. IX
  65. X
  66. XI
  67. XII
  68. XIII
  69. XIV
  70. XV
  71. EPILOGUE
  72. I
  73. II
  74. III
  75. IV
  76. Afterword

‘Perhaps that’s so,’ Cornelius said, apparently not offended. ‘And perhaps we aren’t as shallow as you seem to believe, Thalius. Whatever you say we are faced with a decision. What will you do?’

Thalius, embarrassed by his outburst, took a deep breath. ‘I am with you.’ He glanced at Aurelia. ‘Read the Prophecy.’

Aurelia stepped towards the boy, who, with the dogged, choice-free patience of a born slave, continued to wait, back bent, tunic pulled over his head. With surprising tenderness Aurelia touched his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, child. It will be over in a moment.’ And with one manicured fingertip she began to trace the acrostic.

PEEO
NERR
OSRI
ACTA

‘From A to O, alpha to omega - bottom left to upper right, for by your tradition God is always to be found on the right hand side, am I correct, Thalius? This is a path to God, then, the true route for the pious. But it is a long and tangled path. How do we proceed? I believe these diagonal letters are a clue: C, O, and then up to the N ... C-O-N referring to Constantine perhaps? And then I suppose we follow the diagonal back down again - S, T - and then to the corner - A, and work our way back up the long diagonal ...’

Thalius held his breath as the trail of her finger, working back and forth along the diagonals of the square, picked out words:

A * CONSTARE * PERIRE * O

‘From alpha to omega,’ he read. ‘To stand firm. To die.’

Cornelius straightened up and snorted. ‘Is that it? It’s not even a sentence. A nice motto for you pious types, I suppose. Hold true in death and you will be led to God. Fine. But it’s no use to us, is it?’

Aurelia said, ‘Look again, you fool. There are layers of meaning. Can you not see it? Constare ─ Constantine - perire ...’

And in that moment Thalius saw the meaning of the message. The scrap of text was three hundred years old, yet it was quite specific, and it went to the heart of his own modern dilemma like an arrow from a bow.

If the true Church was to survive, Constantine had to die.

The slave boy was beginning to tremble.

XI

XI

After Audax was sold to Thalius, he had been brought all the way across the country to the coast at a place called Rutupiae. Then he was taken through an immense city and across a huge river, through mile after mile of a green land of farms and canals and ditches, and at last to another city, Camulodunum. Now he was bundled into Thalius’s cart once again to be hauled off to what Tarcho called ‘the Wall’.