Training

The old man sat back and hitched his leg into a more comfortable position.  Sweat glistened on his
brow.  His bony shoulders, thin with years, still shone with the energy of his workout.

"Yes, they do need some work,"  he said.  "If they can't knock me down, they've got some things to
learn."

Ceridwen raised an eyebrow.  She had watched the workout and doubted if a more experienced
fighter could have thrown the old man to the ground with any ease.  He might be old, but he was a
veteran of the Roman army.

"They need more discipline.  Takes over when their interest wanes."

"That's why we have asked for your help,"  Ceridwen answered.  "The way things look, we'll need a
well-disciplined fighting force to defend the village."

"And with a little bit of that Gaelic cunning..?"  he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

Ceridwen inclined her head.  "That would certainly help.  I hear their forces are more experienced,
and larger..."

"I remember those days, the Gaels coming out of the hills, striking, and fading back into the brush like they'd never been.  We were sore-pressed those times.  Only thing that saved us was our discipline.
Fortified encampments at night, shields at the ready on the march...  The problem was when we went through a narrow pass.  We were strung out, couldn't form up.  Lost a lot of men that way."

"Well, if we can effectively combine the best of both, we'll have some sort of an advantage, even if
we aren't as experienced."

"Discipline, attention to duty, confidence in their training and their leaders..."  he leaned back.  "I
might not be much to look at.  Old, I expect.  But I'm not much older than you, Lady.  I did my time,
served my emperor... emperors...  There's always at least two of them now, isn't there?"

Ceridwen grinned.  Which she rarely did outside the family.  She remembered as well as he did that
there had been an Emperor of Britain a few years before.  "Well, there's the Eastern Emperor in
Byz... uh, Constantinople, and the Western Emperor in Rome.  And occasionally, an emperor of one
province or another.  Do you remember Maximus?"

"Magnus Maximus.  Soldier, leader, Emperor of Britain.  Some emperor,"  the old man sniffed.
"Took his troops and left Britain almost undefended while he tried to usurp the throne of Rome.  I
was there, but I was not with him.  I figured, if he did succeed, I could always run up to Caledonia,
or over to Hibernia."

"Maxen Wledig,"  Ceridwen agreed.

His eyes became dreamy as he recalled those days, before he'd gotten older.  "Those were
treacherous times,"  he said.  "You couldn't trust a man, not friend nor brother.  Keep your thoughts
to yourself was safer than speaking them aloud, even to the winds.  You know, the empire would
have given anything to have Hibernia.  They'd give even more for Forumland."

He'd lowered his eyes to watch the patterns he was drawing in the earth with a long stick.  Ceridwen
couldn't read his expression.

"With Forumland, they wouldn't have to worry about the Germans on their borders.  There's power
here.  Power and magic.  One mage from this land, and those Germans would turn into so many
salmon in the streams of Europe.  Or bow their knees in homage.  But the empire no longer has the
time."

His voice had dropped with his eyes.  Ceridwen watched the patterns forming from the end of his
stick.  Spirals, lines, hills, the island itself.

"Whoever rules Forumland, rules the empire... and the world."

"Forumland is not a united empire,"  Ceridwen reminded him.

"Not now, no.  But there are those who would see it happen."  He raised his eyes.  They were
intense, a light gleaming out from behind them.  "All the glories of Rome would be nothing to the
empire of this land,"  he said.  "Gold and jewels and the bounty of the earth, ripe and ready for
conquest.  Whoever rules Forumland can have anything in the world.  They can have the world.  The
person who rules Forumland, rules the Empire."

Ceridwen sat back, her face, she hoped, a mask.  So that was it.  She knew Forumland was a
special place filled with magic.  But she had never connected this specialness to the conquest of the
world.

She was old enough not to want to rule the world.  There were too many headaches in just holding
the lands and dependents her family owned now.  Imagine that on a global scale! she told herself.
But, she had to admit the allure.  Ruler of the world and everything in it.  Homage from Senators to
Barbarians, all bending their knee to her.  Riches beyond her wildest imagination, goods and land,
and her name spoken of as a Goddess...

Any one of the other clans' leaders, though, if they realised this, would probably jump at the chance
to become Emperor of the World.  Who was this man she had entrusted with the training of her
troops?

He nodded at her as her gaze finally settled on him.  "That's their plan,"  he said.  "To rule Forumland, to rule the empire.  To have knees bend to them, their pleasure where they take it.  Remember
Caligula?  Nero?"

Ceridwen shuddered.  Such excesses, and unstoppable because they were Divine Emperors.  "That
can't happen here,"  she gasped, more as a spell against it than an affirmation.

"Not if we train our soldiers right.  Not if we give them the power to fight against the Otherworldly
forces which will be come upon us."  He smiled in grim satisfaction.  "This land is dear, too precious
to despoil with the likes of those Dianas, or the O'Connors, or any of the rest of them.  Let it live
naturally, like it has since time began.  Let the factions keep to themselves as the Gods have
decreed."

"Marcus, who are you?"  she asked him.

"Just a man who's had his allegiance shifted,"  he answered her.  "I owe you my liege.  It is my duty to ensure the safety and independence of this land we live on, and the autonomy of this family."

Ceridwen's son Brandon wandered by, rubbing his muscular shoulders from the morning's workout.  He nodded to his mother, then squatted sorely beside the old veteran.  "That was some exercise,"  he said.  "I thought I had you!"

"Never assume anything,"  the old man said, punctuating his remark with a curt nod.  "In war, any
assumption could be your last."

Chronicle 4
Chronicle 2
To the Chronicles
© 1998