The Eternal Empire (20 page)

"I'm off for a long hot
bath," announced Katherine, "I'll see you at dinner."

Cornelius nodded his acknowledgement
and Katherine turned to leave. Before she closed the door she turned back to
him. "Oh, and one more thing Cornelius," she said, the grin back on
her face, "there is a bearskin rug."

Roman
Embassy, Minden, Saxony

The telegraph office had been busy all
morning. Lengthy coded messages from Constantinople were arriving non-stop and
the duty officer had to call in additional staff. The first message decoded was
marked ‘Urgent – Ambassadors eyes only’, and Taronites was contacted in his
residence immediately. The message warned him to expect new instructions in
respect of the current trade negotiations.

The ambassador send messages for the
rest of his senior staff to attend and waited with a sense of foreboding whilst
the coded messages were received and carefully translated by the embassy staff
and typed up for delivery. The messages described the developments in the
political situation at the Capital and the declaration of the State of
Emergency. They were followed by the details concerning the new trade tariffs
and regulations that Exanzenus had devised.

The ambassador read these twice to be
sure that he had read it correctly. He then put the document down on his desk,
closed his eyes and shook his head in despair. “They have all gone fucking
mad!”

Maleric
Hunting Lodge, Saxony

Although there were only the two of
them, dinner was a formal affair. Cornelius had not expected this and so had
not packed a toga, so he wore the most respectable of the casual clothes he had
with him. Katherine wore an elegant, low-cut green evening gown which made him
even more self conscious.

Like his vision of the roaring fire and
the bearskin rug, Cornelius had imagined a simple and intimate supper with
Katherine, not a five course dinner with half a dozen servants hovering around
waiting to fill a wine glass, serve a course or clear a plate. Still, once he
got over the feeling that the servants were all staring, or disapprovingly of
his clothes, Cornelius found that he was enjoying the meal. The food was
superb, a great deal better than what he normally ate.

Katherine could see that Cornelius was
not comfortable talking in the presence of the servants, and kept the
conversation light and superficial. After the final course had been cleared
away they retired into the drawing room, where as promised there was a bearskin
rug in front of an open fire.

A small table stood nearby, on which a
jug with a matching pair of stoneware goblets had been placed. Katherine went
over to the table and poured each of them a drink. She passed Cornelius one,
and then sat down on the rug. Cornelius sat down opposite her and they both
watched the flames dance in the fire while sipping the hot wine.

Without the inhibiting presence of the
servants they began to talk more freely. Katherine asked him about the time he
had served in the imperial army, casually at first but then the questions
became more probing. Finally Cornelius asked her what she really wanted to
know.

She stared into her goblet, not looking
directly at him as she spoke. "I want to know what you really think and
feel about war."

Cornelius looked at her for a few
moments, but she did not look up. He turned his face away to stare into the
fire. He cast his mind back to Africa, to the Atlas mountains in the interior
and recalled memories that had been suppressed but never forgotten. Ambushed
whilst pursuing Moorish raiders, his patrol had been pinned down in a pass for
four hours in the midday heat. Half his men had been killed or badly wounded
before a relief column had found them.

"Cornelius?"

He snapped out of the trance he had
fallen into and looked at Katherine. She saw in his face that her question had
triggered some painful memory and did not push him to elaborate.

"As I’ve mentioned to you before,
when I was little-I used to play with the children on our estates. As I grew
older I realised how few had a father, so many of them had been killed in the
war. That's when I learnt to hate war and the misery and pain it brings."

Cornelius nodded slowly. "War is a
tragedy, a sad indictment on us all. For all our technological achievements we
are as morally deficient now as when Rome was founded. After the army I joined
the diplomatic service in the hope that I could find peaceful solutions instead
of fighting. It's better to talk than to fight."

Katherine looked relieved and smiled at
Cornelius. "I'm glad you feel that way," she said and then looked
away again, into the fire. "I've grown very fond of you Cornelius."
There was a vulnerability in her voice that he had not heard before.
"There was someone a while ago," her voice sounded dry and she
coughed to clear her throat, "that I was very close to. We loved each
other and there was talk of marriage, but his burning passion was not for me
but for another war - a war against your Empire." The memory was obviously
strong and she was taking deep breaths to control herself. "I couldn't
accept that and eventually stopped seeing him. It was very hard and it hurt us
both a great deal, but I had to do it." She turned away from the flames to
look directly at Cornelius. The light from the fire reflected off the tears in
her eyes. "I won't put myself through that again."

Cornelius moved closer to her, and took
her hands in his. He now understood her brother’s concern. He spoke quietly.
"I'm very fond of you too, Katherine. I wouldn't do anything to hurt you.
I've seen the horror of war, the death and destruction that it brings. I would
do anything to prevent another war between our nations."

She moved closer to him and he put his
arms around her. They just sat there for a while, looking into the flames. Then
they looked at each other and kissed, softly and tentatively at first, then
with more confidence, their hands beginning to caress each other. They lay down
on the rug and Cornelius was wondering where this would lead, when the sound of
heavy boots on the wooden floor outside the door broke the spell. They quickly
separated and sat up as the door opened and a man entered the room and came to
a stop staring at them.

They stood up, and looked at the
intruder. He was about the same age as Titus, with the bearing of a military
man, erect and confident. He looked at them both but addressed himself to
Katherine.

"Well, isn't this cosy," he
said mockingly, "I'd no idea that you had dragged yourself away from your
books to come down this way. And with an ‘admirer in tow."

Katherine looked at him coldly. "I
didn't expect you here either." As they both stood up she turned to
Cornelius.

"This is my younger brother
Franz," she said, "and this," she indicated Cornelius to Franz,
"is Cornelius Petronius, from the embassy in Minden. He's working with
Frederick on the trade negotiations."

A scowl came over Franz Maleric's face.
"A Roman! You really have come down in the world, haven't you
Katherine!"

To Cornelius surprise, Katherine was
quite calm as she replied. "When I need your opinion about the company I
keep, I'll send you a letter." The tone of her voice was cutting and
sarcastic. It was clear that she was used to trading barbs with her sibling.

"In that case," he snapped,
"I'll leave you two alone." He turned and walked out of the room, but
paused at the door for a final verbal shot.

"I won't mention this to poor
Edwin, he was hurt enough by your rejection of him. If he knew that you are now
consorting with Saxony's enemies, I would just be rubbing salt into his
wounds."

Cornelius noticed that Katherine tensed
and balled her hands into fists at that last remark but did not say anything.
She just stared at her brothers back as he left the room. He went over and
stood behind her, putting his hands on her arms. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "As you can see, I
don't get on with Franz as well as I do with Frederick."

He held her close and she seem comforted
by his proximity. "Was Edwin the one you mentioned earlier?"

"Yes. He was a friend of Franz
from the military academy." She moved out of his arms and sat down on an
armchair, Cornelius sat on the rug in front of her. She continued, "at
first he laughed a lot and was fun to be with, but after he went to the staff
school he became almost obsessed with a hatred of the Empire. Franz was the
same."

Cornelius had heard about the Saxon
Army's Staff School. Count Godisger took a close interest in the officers
selected for the staff course, and his hatred of all things Roman was well
known. If Godisger ever got his way, another war would be a certainty.

Katherine looked up at the clock on the
mantelpiece. "It's late and we have a busy day tomorrow," she said as
she rose from the chair, "I think I'll go to bed now."

Cornelius got up and she kissed him.
"Goodnight Cornelius. I'll see you at breakfast."

Cornelius watched her leave before
pouring himself another drink from the jug on the table. The romance of the
evening had been ruined by the intrusion of Franz and whilst he felt
frustrated, he was also slightly relieved. He was very fond of Katherine and he
was certainly attracted to her, but should he, an imperial diplomat be getting
that 'involved' with the sister of the head of the Saxon trade delegation? The
fact that Katherine's brother and his ambassador did not appear concerned only
marginally reduced his anxiety.

He drained the last drops of wine and
holding the empty goblet resumed his staring into the flames, as though he was
looking for an answer in the shapes formed by the flickering tongues of fire.

After a few moments reflection he
realised that he was already involved and he believed that Katherine was too.
All that was left to be decided was the depth of that involvement.

5th
April 1920

Minden,
Saxony

Katherine had promised to get Cornelius
to the trade talks at her brother's estate by nine o’clock, so they had left
the hunting lodge early that morning. The previous days trek through the
Teutoburger Wald had been quite exhausting. They had covered a fair distance,
and Cornelius was pleasantly surprised that Katherine had managed to keep up
with him. The paths through the dense, dark forest were well worn but with few signposts,
and without Katherine as a guide Cornelius would have missed many of the sites
that he had wanted to see. She had shown him the location of the first camp
made by Varus and his three legions. The neat, straight lines of the ditch and
ramparts were still visible after nearly two thousand years beneath the
undergrowth and tree. When they had come to the legions second camp, it was
clear that the morale of the army had begun to collapse under the harassing
attacks of the German tribes. The ditch was shallower and the ramparts lower
than the first camp, and the outline did not have the same military precision.

Finally Katherine had led him to where
the Romans had been trapped in a gorge that ran through the Teutoburger Ridge.
It was here that Arminius and his warriors had destroyed Varus and his men.
Many of the senior officers were sacrificed on hastily built altars to the
pagan gods of the forest and their skulls nailed to the trees. When a Roman
army eventually returned to the site of the disaster, six years later, they
found piles of bones where groups of legionaries had fought and died.

On a hill overlooking the battle site
there was a forty foot high statue of Arminius, with his right arm pointing a
sword skywards and his left hand holding three Eagles. The three legions that
had died with Varus that fateful autumn in 9 AD were never reformed and no
legion since then had ever been numbered after them.

Katherine and Cornelius had had their
lunch on that hill. She had laid out a table cloth and emptied the contents of
the hamper which Cornelius had been carrying on his back all morning. Cold
chicken, ham, assorted sausages, various breads and a bottle of Riesling wine
from the Rhine valley. They had had a leisurely lunch, chatting about what they
had seen and arguing light-heartedly about the pros and cons of Germany having
been 'saved' from the civilising influences of the Roman Empire. Katherine had
leaned back against Cornelius whilst they finished off the wine. He stroked her
hair whilst she snuggled into his arms, and they talked about the futility of
war and the horror it brings in its wake.

They had taken a slow walk back to the
lodge, arriving in time for supper, and gone to bed early.

Katherine stopped the motor carriage at
the entrance to the estate and Cornelius kissed her goodbye before getting out
and retrieving his bag from the back seat. He was feeling rather euphoric and
did not notice that the atmosphere among the occupants of the hall had changed
until he was standing beside the ambassador.

The smile on Cornelius's face
disappeared when he saw the ambassadors’ expression.