Coalescent (Destiny's Children S.) by Stephen Baxter

Author:Stephen Baxter
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780575075535
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2004-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

alliance with the civilized world. That is the only way things will ever return to normal.”

Ceawlin laughed. “Normal!Woman, what isnormal ? It is a generation since Constantius. There are

children—adults—all across Britain now who have never heard a word of Latin . . .”

“The Empire has lasted a thousand years,” she said calmly. “We can wait a thousand days for

themagister to reply.”

Artorius shook his head angrily. “I will crawl to nomagister , in Gaul or Rome or anywhere else. This is

our island. We will defend it, and we will build it anew—not the Roman way, not the Saxon way, butour

way.”

There was a silence; none of them seemed sure how to respond.

Artorius stood. “We will break. Eat, bathe, sleep—with your kindness, Ceawlin.” The fatnegotiatore

nodded his head. “We will talk later.”

After the meeting broke up Artorius came to Regina and led her to a quiet corner of Ceawlin’s

colonnaded courtyard, away from the others. “Why do you betray me?” he demanded in a sharp whisper.

“I found you in your wretched scraping on the hillside and made you what you are. I brought you into

this council. Why will you not support me before the others?”

“Because I don’t agree with you,” she said. “The adventure you are planning in Gaul. Your drive for the

purple—”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you worried that I will make the mistake of Constantius, and drain the island of

its strength?”

She tried to explain how she felt. “Yes, there is that. But there is more. I think you are being—seduced.

Your war against the Saxons is justified, because it is clear that given the chance they would kill every

one of us, and fill our island with their own bawling, blond-haired brats.

“But now you are talking of fighting for its own sake. I think to you war as an adventure, a great game.

But this is no game of ’soldiers,’ Artorius. The tokens you spend are not stones or beads of glass. They

are men—humans, each with a soul, an awareness, as bright and vivid as yours or mine.”

He looked at her blankly. “Regina—”

“Your soldiers believe there were better people in the past,” she said, “who built the great ruins at which

they gawp. I wonder if people will be better in the future. Perhaps our remote grandchildren will

understand the sanctity of life, and to them using the lives of others, as if they were of no more

consequence than bits of stone, will be as unthinkable as for me to pluck out my own heart.”

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