My father had summoned a plenary meeting of the Council and augmented the company with the full officer complement of the garrison, including the ten senior members of the Centuria, the warrant officers. All military personnel were instructed to attend in full parade uniform, so it was a brilliant and colourful assembly. Extra seating had been brought into the Council Hall to accommodate the unusual number of people in attendance, and the circle of fifty or so men took up almost the entire circumference of the Hall, leaving the centre empty, with an open segment at the back of the circle to allow the group of priests to enter.
Everyone was punctual. My father began by outlining the situation for the benefit of the partially informed and the totally uninformed, of whom there were very few. He followed his outline with the announcement that he had arrived at a unilateral decision on what to do, and that his decision would be binding upon everyone in the Colony for the ensuing twenty-four-hour period, at the end of which he would be prepared to listen to arguments and to accommodate compromise in response to intelligent and informed opposition. Until that time, however, his decision and the enforcement of it would be absolute.
He had invited their attendance here today, he went on, to witness the delivery of his decision to the visiting priests so that no one, whether in the Council or on the staff of the garrison, could claim to have been unaware of developments. Having said all of this, he ordered the priests to be brought into the assembly under escort.
There was a loud murmur of comment and speculation at this order, which my father chose to ignore, and the noise grew and was sustained during the interval that followed. I noticed that my father took care in the meantime to allow no eye contact between himself and any member of the assembly. Someone called his name, but he ignored the summons, turning and beckoning me. I walked across and leant towards him.
"I only regret that Uther has not returned. Of all the people here, he is the one with the greatest right to have been consulted in this matter."
"Don't let his absence concern you too much, Father," I said with a small smile. "We both know Uther well enough to know that he will have no quarrel with your findings, unless it be on the grounds of too much restraint. Had he been here and subjected to the abuse you had to face, these priests might have been sorry men today."
As I returned to my seat, there came a sudden hush, spreading inward from the entrance to the hall, and we looked up to see the seven priests being brought forward into the open circle. Centurion Popilius himself advanced ahead of the six-man escort party who herded the priests to the centre of die circle and then came to a halt. The silence in the room was absolute and my father, who, like everyone else in the Hall, was seated, remained sitting as he spoke into it.
"Thank you, Centurion Popilius. You may dismiss your men, but ask them to remain outside. You yourself may join us. There is a seat for you." Popilius saluted and did the General's bidding, instructing his soldiers to remain within hail. While the escort were leaving the hall I gazed in frank curiosity at the priests who stood before us.
They were all young, and all were dressed in ragged, dirty black cassocks bound at the waist with plain rope. It was to this fact that I at first attributed the strange aura of uniformity I sensed about them. It took me some time to redefine that initial reaction. There was a sameness, certainly, but it had nothing to do with what they wore; it was in their eyes, and it was almost indescribable. The word that first occurred to me was wildness, but as this confrontation continued I replaced that with arrogance, then disdain, then intolerance, and finally fanaticism—although I had never heard the expression prior to my father's use of it the day before.
Whatever that expression in their eyes signified, I found it disconcerting to die point of being almost frightening. Then I remembered the name of the Hebrew fanatics of biblical times, the followers of Simon Zelotes, the Zealots, the men who would gladly die for their own, steeped-in-blood beliefs. You could tell simply by looking at these men that they believed, deep in their souls, that they were the masters here and we were all their inferiors. There was no deference or civility apparent in the demeanour of any of them. They looked around them at the assembly with sneers of defiance on their faces, and then their leader took one long step forward and addressed my father in a loud, hectoring tone that no one in the assembly hall could fail to hear.
"I assume, Picus Britannicus, from the numbers you have assembled here, that you have decided to make public your renouncement of the heretic Pelagius and his misguided teachings and to seek the forgiveness of Holy Mother Church!" Someone seated in the circle of the hall drew in his breath with an audible hiss, but the priest continued, "It is only fair to advise you, however, that in the light of your treatment of myself and these of my brethren who have shared your prison with me, the clemency you seek might be slower in being granted than it might otherwise have been. To lay hands on, or to offer insult to, the envoys of the Holy Father in Rome is not the best way to seek the favour of the Church."
The speaker, a tall and emaciated man who could have been any age from twenty-five to thirty-five, had a voice that grated on the ears. His face was so thin as to appear cadaverous and I knew his breath would be rancid and foul. My father swept him with his eyes from the hem of his garment to the top of his head and then spoke as though the priest had never opened his mouth.
"I have assembled these people here to witness the delivery of the decision I promised you when we last spoke." He paused, seeming to weigh his words. "I am Commander here—Commander-in-Chief of this Colony. In terms of years, I am an old man, although by the grace of God, I am still young enough and healthy—"
"I warn you, Britannicus! You stand excommunicate! Speak not of the grace of God in terms of yourself. You blaspheme!"
This outburst produced a shocked reaction from the assembly. My father gestured for silence, then drew a deep, deep breath and held it until his face began to grow red, at which point he released the pent-up air steadily and audibly. I, who knew all the signs, had never seen him so angry. The tall priest, however, stood his ground boldly, his face a mask of arrogant intransigence.
Finally, my father spoke, his words slow and sibilant, his voice pitched ominously low. "Priest, hear me clearly and without distortion. I dislike threats, either given or received. And I dislike hasty judgments. Most of all, however, I dislike bad manners. You are here to hear my decision on a matter of great Import, and by the crucified Christ, Son of the Living God, you will hear it in courteous silence if I have to have you stifled and bound hand and foot!"
Again he quelled an outburst, this time of approval, with a glance of implacable anger, so that the spontaneous support subsided immediately. He returned his eyes to the priests. "Hear me, now! I suffered your abuse and your scandalous tongue in silence for hours yesterday... That was yesterday. Today, it is my turn to speak, and not only will any interruption be unwelcome, it will not be tolerated! I will, as I have said, stifle you and bind you if you force me to. The choice is yours." He paused, awaiting a reaction, and receiving none, continued.
"I am a soldier. As a young soldier, I had no time for religious pursuits. As I have grown older, however, I have made some study of the Christian doctrine, particularly the spread of it in Britain. It has been, by and large, a Roman religion, spread, over the years, through Roman settlement and Roman civilization. The people of Britain are not, or have not been until recently, predominantly Christian. In the past few years, since the withdrawal of Rome, they have had other things to occupy them. Survival, for example... The people of this land are beset on every side by invaders. North, south, east and west, they have to contend with Picts, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Franks and Scots. All of these come to kill, to conquer and despoil, to pillage and destroy. None of them have the slightest regard for the people of Britain other than as sacrificial sheep.