CHAPTER THIRTY

A peddler on the coast sold me two old donkeys that were ready for the stew pot. One had particularly bad teeth, but was not yet lame. Roman coins were no good anymore, so I traded two fine steel swords for them. Strapping bags of scrolls to their backs, I led them across Britannia.

Few people traveled much anymore. The roads were gradually crumbling from the lack of repair. In years past, one could cross the countryside and find an inn or villa to spend each night in. Not so anymore. Fortunately, the late summer weather allowed me to sleep outdoors with only a blanket.

The legions had gradually left in the last few decades, drawn into a never ending series of struggles for the title of Emperor, though the title meant little now that the Visigoths had sacked Rome. The legions were the backbone of Roman power. With them gone, the Picts and Scots started pushing south. The Saxons came in their ships and set themselves up as overlords. It was a time of considerable misery, but I found much to be happy about.

I was not sorry to see the western half of the Roman Empire disintegrate. Times of misery and chaos were upon us, but sometimes it takes a period of tearing down before a new moral order can arise. I prayed that the new morality would be better than the old. Rome was a cruel master. Most people were slaves, and while many were treated well, many were not. Young children were trained as sexual toys and fetched high prices when their skills were proven. A decadent culture had stagnated, sucking the life out of the soil and the people.

Because a time of chaos seemed imminent, I thought to save some of what might be worth preserving. I collected the finest scrolls and carried them across Gaul and the Channel. I had heard of a monastery in Ireland where the monks valued learning. These treasures could stay with them during the centuries of confusion.

Five days from the coast I came upon the river Thames. The road led to the former provincial capital of Londinium. A bridge over the river that once carried so much commerce was no more than charred stubs on each bank. A ferryman emerged from his hut, and after some bargaining, accepted a few trinkets as a payment for his services.

After leaving his raft, I entered a town that was no more. Like unruly snarls of hair, vines covered the remains of villas and crumbling walls of nameless buildings. Pieces of red roof tiles littered the ground. The town wall was a thin pile of stones.

The buzzing of flies attracted my attention from the path. I walked though some thigh-high weeds and found an old ditch. Two bodies lay within. Men stripped naked, bloated with blackness, probably left in the last three or four days. When bodies go unburied, order has completely collapsed. I considered burying them, but had no spade. An hour’s work brought enough rubble from a nearby ruin to cover them both.

Leading my donkeys from where they were grazing, I proceeded on my way. The warm sun, combined with my labors, had overheated my body. Pulling aside my tunic to air myself out, I stopped suddenly.

An arrow protruded from my chest. No pain, just stunned amazement and raw terror as I felt my body failing.

I slumped to my knees, desperately clinging to life. The pounding of my heart, audible in my ears, sounded ragged as the muscle attempted to work around the wooden shaft bisecting it. I had left a fragmental in an innkeeper back in Gaul, and one in the peddler on the coast, so my total existence was not in doubt, but the urge for self-preservation raged strongly within me. My strength ebbed as I toppled over onto my side.

“Great shot, da,” a young voice cried out.

Through blurry eyesight I saw a young girl, perhaps five years old, running toward me from the bushes where she had been hiding. She wore sandals and a dress that seemed too big for her. Her eyes were alive with the glee of a fine game.

“Bree, stop!” a voice called from beyond her. A man stepped from behind a tree. He carried a bow.

The child did not listen to her parent, but she was not completely foolish. She stopped near me, and hopped up and down. She was not shocked by death; she must have seen it many times before.

My tunic was soaked with blood, and I felt consciousness receding away. Death was imminent. I refused to die just yet. Despite any better intentions, I lunged out with my arm and grabbed her arm.

She yelped and her father roared. My grasp went limp as the body died. My entire essence blasted its way into her mind, blowing her consciousness into that unknown place where I am afraid to go. I hope, I pray, that there is an afterlife. It makes me feel just slightly less guilty.

With my new host came a pack of recriminations. Bree was an innocent child, though she had seen her father ambush many travelers. She thought that was how people acted. She had no mother. I tried to think of all the good that I could continue to do, but even that self-justification was critically flawed. So what if my current host had died? Another fragmental would have taken over, and the innkeeper or the peddler were by no measure more innocent or sweet than that child.

Some think survival is a virtue. It is not.