Acclaim for
EMPEROR
Time’s Tapestry Book One
“Baxter produces something new and subtly different in the time-travel genre. A multigenerational story of how an idea can permeate time and change the parameters of human existence…with a large cast of Romans [and] ancient Britons, and colorful settings.”
—S. M. Stirling, author of The Scourge of God
“Epic historical fiction laced with a science fiction premise…a vividly convincing picture of a past world.”
—SFX
“Strong imagination and a capacity for awe abound in the work of Stephen Baxter.”
—The Times Literary Supplement
“Formally audacious, constantly surprising, clinically subversive of the genre norms, cosmic irony always at hand to awe and undercut the reader.”
—Locus
“Baxter at his best.”
—The Guardian (U.K.)
Acclaim for
Conqueror
Time’s Tapestry Book Two
“[A] series…full of page-turning action, intriguing mystery and awe-inspiring scientific speculation. Full of evocative historical detail and characters who jump off the page, this is history lived by people whose future is not yet locked as our past.”
—The Eternal Night
“This is fast-moving populist fiction written with a scholar’s interest in the past as Baxter brings to life Norse raiders, merchants, monks and those who serve in the retinues of kings. It’s masterful, a mix of wide-screen spectacle and telling details. Mighty impressive.”
—SFX
“Well written and certainly engaging, dealing with an interesting period of history in an interesting manner.”
—Strange Horizons
Acclaim for
Navigator
Time’s Tapestry Book Three
“The storytelling is excellent, the historical background exceptionally developed. As before, Baxter shows people in ordinary occupations getting involved [with] and sometimes dragged into dealing with the prophecy. This and the rest of the Time’s Tapestry series aren’t mere page-turners; they’re downright thought provoking.”
—Booklist
“Engrossing…Baxter understands how a craving for beauty and knowledge can become ghastly fanaticism, and he’s also very good at showing his characters thinking within the limitations of their time.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Baxter’s profound historical understanding, his ambitious demand of historical fiction that it acclimate to the resounding rigor of hard SF, makes for a cogency of argument, and eloquence of cause and effect as well as style that is extremely impressive.”
—Locus
Praise for multiple award–winning author Stephen Baxter
“What is astonishing is how successfully [Baxter] brings to life a wide range of facts and conjectures, and how entertaining as well as informative this book manages to be.”
—The New York Times
“Remarkable…intriguing…fast paced.”
—The Washington Post
“Absurdly ambitious, technically brilliant and downright exciting.”
—SFX
“Baxter’s latest opus adds to science fiction’s extraordinary body of work pondering the big questions of the nature of the universe and the nature of ourselves.”
—Sci Fi Weekly
Time’s Tapestry Books
EMPEROR
CONQUEROR
NAVIGATOR
WEAVER
EMPEROR
TIME’S TAPESTRY BOOK ONE
Stephen Baxter
ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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EMPEROR
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Orion Books
PRINTING HISTORY
Gollancz hardcover edition / 2006
Ace hardcover edition / January 2007
Ace mass-market edition / April 2009
Copyright © 2007 by Orion Books.
Cover art by Alan Brooks.
Cover design by Annette Fiore DeFex.
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ISBN: 978-1-101-20891-5
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Place names
Banna, Birdoswald
Caledonia, Scotland
Camulodunum, Colchester
Durovernum, Canterbury
Eburacum, York
Dolaucothi
Londinium, London
Mona, Anglesey
Rutupiae, Richborough
Tamesis, R Thames
Sabrina, R Severn
Tinea, R Tyne
Ituna, R Solway
Cantiaci River, R Medway
Gesoriacum, Boulogne
Massilia, Marseilles
Principal British Nations
Atrebates
Brigantia
Catuvellauni
Cantiaci
Durotriges
Iceni
Ordovices
Silures
Timeline
55–54BC Julius Caesar’s expeditions to Britain
4BC Birth of Nectovelin
c.AD38 Death of Cunobelin
AD43 Invasion of Britain by Claudius
AD51 Defeat of Caratacus
AD60–61 Revolt of Boudicca
AD69–71 Brigantian civil war and annexation
AD77–84 Agricola’s campaigns in Scotland
AD122 Hadrian in Britain; construction of Wall begins
AD193–197 Britain under the rule of Clodius Albinus
AD208–211 Campaigns of Severus in Scotland
AD259–274 Britain under the rule of the Gallic Emperors
AD287–296 Britain under the rule of Carausias and Allectus
AD296 Invasion of Britain by Constantius Chlorus
AD306 Constantine the Great elevated in Britain
AD312 Constantine’s defeat of Maxentius in the west
AD314 Constantine raises troops in Britain for war with the east
AD324 Constantine sole emperor, Constantinople founded
AD337 Death of Constantine
AD350 Magnentius proclaimed emperor in Britain
AD367 The Barbarian Conspiracy
AD378 Roman defeat by Visigoths at Adrianopolis
AD383 Magnus Maximus proclaimed emperor in Britain
AD407 Constantine III proclaimed emperor in Britain
AD418 Excommunication of Pelagius
Note on Measurements
1 Roman foot = 0.96 modern foot = 11.5 modern inches (292 mm)
1 Roman mile = 0.96 modern mile = 1686 modern yards (1.54 km)
Oraculum Nectovelinium
(The Prophecy of Nectovelin, 4BC)
Aulaeum temporum te involvat, puer, at libertas habes:
Cano ad tibi de memoriam atque posteritam,
Omni gentum et omni deorum, imperatori tres erunt.
Nomabitur vir Germanicus cum oculum hyalum;
Scandabit equos enormes quam domuum dentate quasi gladio.
Tremefacabit caelum, erit filius Romulum potens
Atque graeculus parvus erit. Nascitur deus iuvenus.
Ruabit Roma cervixis islae in laqueui cautei.
Emergabit in Brigantio, exaltabitur in Romae.
Pudor! comprecabit deum servi, sed ispe apparebit deum.
Ecclesiam marmori moribundi fiet complexus imperii.
Reminisce! Habemus has verita et sunt manifesta:
Indico: omnis humanitas factus aequus sunt,
Rebus civicum dati sunt ab architecto magno,
Et sunt vita et libertas et venatus felicitae.
O puer! involvaris in aulaeum temporum, fere!
The Prophecy of Nectovelin
(freely translated with acrostic preserved)
Ah child! Bound in time’s tapestry, and yet you are born free
Come, let me sing to you of what there is and what will be,
Of all men and all gods, and of the mighty emperors three.
Named with a German name, a man will come with eyes of glass
Straddling horses large as houses bearing teeth like scimitars.
The trembling skies declare that Rome’s great son has come to earth
A little Greek his name will be. Whilst God-as-babe has birth
Roman force will ram the island’s neck into a noose of stone.
Emerging first in Brigantia, exalted later then in Rome!
Prostrate before a slavish god, at last he is revealed divine,
Embrace imperial will make dead marble of the Church’s shrine.
Remember this: We hold these truths self-evident to be –
I say to you that all men are created equal, free
Rights inalienable assuréd by the Maker’s attribute
Endowed with Life and Liberty and Happiness’s pursuit.
O child! thou tapestried in time, strike home! Strike at the root!
Table of Contents
Prologue: 4 BC
I
II
III
I: Invader AD 43-70
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
II: Builder AD 122-138
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
III: Emperor AD 314-337
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
Epilogue: AD 418
I
II
III
IV
Afterword
PROLOGUE
4 BC
I
It was a hard day when Brica’s baby, Cunovic’s nephew, struggled to be born, a hard, long day of birth and death. And it was the day, Cunovic later believed, when the wintry fingers of the Weaver first began to pluck at the threads of the tapestry of time.
The labour began in the bright light of noon, but the midwinter day was short, and the ordeal dragged on into the dark. Cunovic sat through it with his brother Ban, the child’s father, and the rest of his family. In the smoky gloom under the thick thatched roof, Brica’s mother Sula and the women of the family clustered in the day half of the house, uttering soothing words and wiping Brica’s face with warmed cloths. The watchful faces of the family were like captive moons suspended within the house’s round walls, Cunovic thought fancifully. But as the difficult birth continued Ban grew quietly more agitated, and even the children became pensive.
The druidh was the only stranger here, the only one not related by blood ties to the unborn child. The priest was a thin man with a light, sing-song accent, which, according to him, emanated from Mona itself, the western island of prayer and teaching, where he claimed to have been born. Now he wandered around the house and chanted steadily, his half-closed eyes flickering. No help to anybody, Cunovic thought sourly.
It was old Nectovelin, Cunovic’s grandfather, who lost his patience first. With a growl he got to his feet, a mountain of muscle and fat, and crossed the floor. His heavy leather cloak brushed past Cunovic, smelling of blood and sweat and fat, of dogs, horses and cattle, and he limped, favouring his left leg heavily, an injury said to be a relic of the war against Caesar fifty years ago. He stalked out of the house, shoving aside the leather door flap. The other men, who had been sitting quietly in the house’s night half, stood stiffly, and one by one followed Nectovelin out of the door.
When Ban himself got up Cunovic sighed and followed. Nectovelin was old; he would be the great-grandfather of the child being born tonight. But all Cunovic’s life it had been Nectovelin with his size and power and legacy of youthful combat who had led the family, and especially since the death of his only son, father of Cunovic and Ban. So it was tonight: where Nectovelin led, others followed.
Outside the night was crisp, cloudless, the stars like shards of bone. The men stood in little groups, talking in low voices, some of them chewing bits of bark. Their breath-steam gathered around their heads like helmets. The dogs, excluded from the house tonight, pulled at their leashes and whined as they tried to get to the men. Even in the frosty cold there was a rich moistness in the air; this was an area of wet moorland.
Cunovic spotted his br
other standing a little way away from the others, at the edge of the ditch that ringed the little huddle of houses. Cunovic walked over, frost crackling under the leather soles of his shoes.
The brothers stared out into the stillness. This little community, which was called Banna, stood on a ridge that looked south over a steep-walled wooded valley. There was no moon tonight, but starlight glinted on the waters of the river at the foot of the cliff, and Cunovic could make out the sensuous sweep of the shadowed hills further south. This was the home of the Brigantian nation. In the morning you could see trails of smoke spiralling up from houses studded across a landscape thick with people and their cattle. People had been here a very long time, as you could tell from the worn burial mounds that crowded this cliff edge, amid tangles of ancient trees. But now there was not a light to be seen, for the houses sealed in their light and warmth like closed mouths.
Cunovic waited until his brother was ready to talk. Ban was only twenty, five years younger than Cunovic himself.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ Ban said at last. ‘I could do with the company.’
Cunovic was touched. ‘I know I’ve been away a lot. I thought we were growing apart—’
‘Never.’
‘And besides, I’m not much use. I have no children of my own. I haven’t been through this, not yet.’
‘But you’re here,’ Ban said solemnly. ‘As I will be for you. I suppose you miss the comforts of your travels. On a night like this a dip in a pool of steaming water would be welcome.’
Cunovic grunted. ‘Don’t believe everything you hear. The king of the Catuvellaunians has built himself a bathhouse. He paid through the nose for a Roman architect to design it for him. But the traders from Gaul say that to them it’s no more than a muddy hole where you’d let your pigs wallow. Not that they would say such a thing to the king’s face, of course.’