'Since I arranged the audience,' Cornelius said stiffly, 'I'm well aware of it.'
'Is the boy ready?'
Thalius glanced across at Tarcho and Audax, who sat in the pavilion a few rows behind the others. The old soldier was looking reasonably smart in his own polished armour, though he obviously longed to be out on the field with the troops. Audax had been washed, dressed in a smart new tunic, his hair trimmed and combed. He still looked thin and pale, though, much younger than his years-he was still the sun-starved worm Thalius had found in Dolaucothi. And yet he was the key to everything.
'He's ready,' Thalius said to Aurelia.
'All right,' Cornelius said. 'Let's go over it one more time. I will lead you in, Thalius, with the boy. I've managed to interest the Emperor in the Prophecy etched on the boy's back. He is fascinated by such things, in his credulous soldier's way. Then I will call you forward, madam-'
Thalius said, 'And with Aurelia's help I will show him how to read the acrostic.'
'A prophecy of his own murder,' Cornelius said with a cold grin, just softly enough not to be overheard, loudly enough to make Thalius fear that he had been.
'Then I will present our testament.' Thalius tapped his tunic, within which he had tucked the ten pages of parchment on which he had written out a fair copy of the final agreed text: Honest Advice Humbly Offered by Concerned Citizens.
Now they were so close he felt his confidence growing stronger. It was an extraordinary thing they were attempting, to change an emperor's mind in such a profound way, and Thalius had barely slept for the last two nights. But though the Emperor feared no human, he did fear God, and perhaps he would take the Prophecy as the warning they intended, and be receptive to the logic of their missive.
Then he noticed Cornelius and Aurelia sharing a look he could not read. It reminded Thalius he was not in control of this situation. His confidence evaporated like dew, and a dread of possibilities he could not envisage gnawed at his stomach.
XIII
Being presented to the Emperor didn't feel like an honour to Audax.
It felt like the time he had been hauled up before overseer Volisios because he had cut his hand in a tired fall in a quartz seam, making himself useless for days. It had never even occurred to him to try to explain that he had been kept without sleep for two nights by a gang of dirty men. After yelling at him for a while the overseer had shown him the row of crosses where the bird-pecked remnants of slaves dangled, Audax's destination if he made any more mistakes, and then had handed him over to a burly brute for a whipping.
That was how this felt today, as Thalius and Aurelia led him into the elaborate shrine-like room where the Emperor sat on his throne. The room was filled with light that dazzled from the Emperor's clothes and jewelled crown. Audax recognised some of the people with the Emperor. On his right hand side was Helen, his mother, almost as fancily dressed as her son. To the Emperor's left was Cornelius, his eyes on Audax but murmuring to the Emperor. And beyond them were hard-eyed soldiers, their hands on the hilts of their stabbing swords, watching every movement.
He was brought to within a pace of the Emperor, close enough to touch him. Constantine was terrifying. Audax thought he could feel heat radiating from him. He had spent a lifetime suppressing the instinct to resist, but Audax couldn't help but pull back. But then Constantine caught his eye and smiled at him. Suddenly he seemed human, and Audax's dread subsided, just a little.
Thalius and Aurelia, he nervously, she with smooth confidence, began to describe Audax's scarring and how it had come about. Audax could understand a little of their Latin talk, of a family history, a rich woman who sold her descendants into slavery…Constantine listened with an expression of faint boredom. Audax imagined him listening to hundreds of people every day, each of them with a story they needed him to hear.
Then came the revelation of the scar itself. Aurelia turned the boy around and had him lift his tunic over his head. Audax waited, his head swathed in his tunic, smelling his own sweat, hearing the muffled voices of the adults as they discussed the one thing about him that made him interesting to them. An acrostic…Christian elements, the alpha and the omega…encrypted words. He felt a warm, heavy finger tracing across his back, perhaps the Emperor's own, and his gruff voice teasing out the words: Constare, perire.
The boy was straightened up, his tunic flopped down, and he was turned around to face the Emperor. Audax saw that one of the guards had drawn his sword. Everybody understood the true meaning of the two words. Suddenly the tension in the room was enormous, and Audax, at its focus, was very afraid.
It was Helena who spoke next. Are you threatening my son? Is he to die today?
Thalius spoke rapidly, clearly terrified; he hadn't anticipated this reaction. Nobody will die…Not a threat…We bring you the Prophecy in good faith, we did not make it…We hope you will take it as guidance for a better future for all of us…We bring you a letter…He fumbled beneath his toga for his document, and the guards glared at him even more intently.
And while they were distracted Audax discovered a knife in his hand, a fine, polished blade. It had been put there by Aurelia. As he looked down on the blade, her cold fingers closed around Audax's hand, and the knife.
And she pushed Audax, stretching his arm, and the blade was thrust forward. Audax saw all this as if watching from outside his own body. It had been beaten into him across a lifetime that when an adult pulled you around you didn't resist, not so much as a muscle. So it was his hand that held the knife, but Aurelia's strength that shoved it through layers of cloth, a briefly resisting skin, and then into a wet warmth beyond.
Even as the knife pierced the Emperor's chest, Aurelia screamed, 'No! The slave is a rogue! Help me hold him back, oh help me!' When the knife was embedded to its hilt, Aurelia fell back with a cry.
For a heartbeat all was still. Audax and Constantine were locked together, the knife hilt still in the slave's hand, the blade in the Emperor's chest. Constantine's mouth gaped, with strings of spittle stretched between his lips. Audax's hand felt small, pressed against the huge warmth of the Emperor's body.
Then there was pandemonium. Helena screamed, the soldiers yelled and drew their weapons, and Thalius and Aurelia were both grabbed and held. But nobody dared touch the Emperor himself, or the boy.
Constantine raised his hand, and everything stopped.
The Emperor was breathing slowly, carefully, and he kept his eyes locked on Audax. 'Don't move,' he said in Brigantian.
Audax was surprised enough to speak. 'You know Brigantian.'
Perhaps his arm moved, just a tiny bit, as he spoke. Constantine gasped, and his huge body shuddered, as if he was a puppet controlled by the boy, and the knife.
Constantine said breathlessly, 'I was a soldier here, serving under my father, for many years. This was my home. I learned British. What is your name? Nobody thought to tell me.'
'Audax, sir.'
'Audax. All right, Audax, listen to me carefully. There are two very important things that I must tell you. The first is that I know that it wasn't your fault. I saw the woman push you-what is her name?'
'Aurelia.'
'Yes. I saw it. So whatever happens today, if I live or die, you won't be punished. Do you believe me?'
Audax thought it over. 'No,' he said.
Constantine gritted his teeth. 'I wish my advisors were half as honest. I am the Emperor, Audax. If I make a promise it is kept. So believe me.'
'What is the second important thing?'
'The second thing is that as a soldier I learned a lot about the human body. Mostly by cutting holes in other people. And I know that if you move that knife, even a little bit, you will puncture the vessels of my heart and I will surely die. If you do not move it, I might yet live. Do you understand now why I asked you to stand still?'