The Eternal Empire by Geoff Fabron Page B

up to now.
    The man was in his fifties and the left
side of his face was badly scared. He spoke harshly to Katherine, pointing and
gesticulating towards Cornelius. Katherine was obviously unsettled by this and Cornelius
moved to intervene, but Katherine motioned him back. She spoke firmly to the
man. Cornelius could not follow but did catch her brothers’ name. At that the
man became silent, but the look of anger was still in his eyes. He bowed curtly
to Katherine and walked away.
    "What was that all about?"
asked Cornelius. Katherine was visibly upset. She took a couple of deep breaths
to calm herself down before replying.
    "He wanted to know what a Saxon
woman was doing with a Roman, although he put it rather more crudely than
that!"
    "There are many Saxons who haven't
forgotten the last war," she continued, "and regard any contact with
Romans as a betrayal of those who died."
    Cornelius thought about this for a
moment.
    "Would you like me to go?" he
asked gently, "I don't want to cause you any problems with your
people."
    "No!" Katherine said
emphatically. "The problem is his, not mine and certainly not yours!"
She forced a smile back to her face and took his arm again. "Let's move
on."
    The incident muted the atmosphere but
they carried on. The last part of the tour was outside in the castle courtyard
where there was a large memorial to those who had died in the last war.
Katherine was about to lead Cornelius off to have lunch when he asked her to
wait for a few moments. The rain had stopped and he walked over to the large
grey obelisk. In front of it where there was an inscription written in German,
Cornelius came to attention and bowed his head. He could not read the
inscription. He did not need to. Every military post in the Empire had a
memorial and they all said the same thing, even if the language and the words
were different.
    After a few silent prayers to the
memory of the men represented by the stone before him, he turned to rejoin
Katherine when he saw him. A few yards away was the man who had accosted
Katherine earlier. He was staring at him, but without the belligerence he had
before. He saw beyond the Roman that he hated to the soldier who had also seen
friends die beside him in battle. He looked at the memorial, then nodded his
head towards Cornelius and turned away.
    Katherine had been watching from the
edge of the courtyard. As he rejoined her she took his hand and spoke quietly
to him. "Why did you do that?"
    Cornelius did not look at her, but stared
back at the grey obelisk he had just left.
    "No matter who wins a war, the
ones who die lose - whatever uniform they wear."
    "You've lost friends?"
Katherine asked. Cornelius turned towards her.
    "I lost nearly half of the men in
my unit in 10 minutes. They weren't friends in the normal sense but they were
men I commanded and I was responsible for them."
    "I'm sorry," she said and
squeezed his hand gently. There did not seem to be anything else that she could
say and Cornelius appeared to be withdrawn in his thoughts. Katherine decided
to change the subject. "I'm hungry, let's go and eat."
    Cornelius smiled back at her and
nodded. She took his arm and they moved off towards the restaurant in the
castle.
     
     

Chapter
Four
     
    2nd
February 1920
    Isca,
Britannia
     
     
    Titus Petronius watched the legionaries
being drilled by the training centurions. One group in full combat equipment
was tackling the obstacle course whilst another was practising parade ground
drill whilst in the distance he could hear shots from the firing range. Despite
all the activity, the field of Mars looked empty. The training grounds used by
the imperial army were called the field of Mars after the original exercise
area in Rome. The name had been brought back into use about forty years ago when
Emperor Philip had re-organised the army.
    As part of his policy to reconcile the
Eastern and Western halves of the Empire, Philip had taken advantage of the
renewed interest and reverence