The Centurion's Empire by Sean McMullen Page B

in learnin' and cures. Gentor the Icekeeper was against me. He said only he had the right to say when the Master should be wakened and he refused to read out the sacred words that was carved on Lord Vitellan's stone bed. He called down all manner of curses from Heaven, but none came so I'd guess that Heaven thought that I was right. Bishop Paeder came—"
    "That's enough, Daegryn," said Paeder. He glanced at Alfred, who nodded. "We wish to speak alone. Wait for us at the entrance." Daegryn smiled broadly, took his leave and bounded up the stairs.
    "So Gentor is only in charge of making ice for this chamber?" asked Alfred, holding his torch to a row of grooves in the wall.
    "He is the Icekeeper, but the position means more than just making ice. In a way he's more powerful than the chief. They sometimes call him Glacicida, as I recall. It's probably corrupted Latin."
    Alfred stared at the far end of the chamber. Although some ice from the previous year had become a dark slush around the edges, the main mass was still solid and the meat embedded in it was frozen. Parts of the floor had been worn into deep grooves, where the villagers had carried blocks of packed snow and ice in for centuries. Other grooves were intentional, deliberately cut to carry meltwater into a small reservoir.
    "The Romans built well," said Paeder, following Alfred's gaze. "Perhaps this was a cold room or cellar to chill their wine in summer."
    "There are no ruins nearby. If I was building a cellar room I would have it right beneath my fort." Paeder shook his head. "Dig hereabouts and you may well find some Roman foundations. I first heard of this place when the terrible comet-star flew through the sky
    thirty-five years ago. The villagers here built a whole chapel of packed snow and thatch, then petitioned the bishop to come and offer mass to drive the star away." "Did he come?"
    "Yes, but he took one look at the chapel and decided that the slightest breeze would bring it down on him. The youngest priest in his entourage was ordered in to say the mass."
    Paeder shook his head.
    "Yourself?" asked Alfred, raising an eyebrow.
    "None other. Twenty summers old, and sure that I'd not live to see one more. The chapel did not collapse, though, and the comet-star went away. I had become a bishop myself by the time they petitioned me to come and revive their... Master. They may have remembered my supposed miracle with the comet-star.
    "When I arrived the chief told me that a mighty Christian king had been sleeping beneath the village for hundreds of years. If we could revive him he would vanquish the Danes. The body was lying down here, packed in ice, amid frozen joints of mutton and pork. The odd thing was that it was soft to touch, while the flesh of the animals was solid.
    "I began to have suspicions. I rubbed my fingers along the skin, then sniffed them. There was a faint scent of strong drink. Now any herbalist will tell you that a drunkard caught in the snow will have a better chance of surviving than a sober churl, so could this man have swallowed a massive draught of fortified mead, then had himself placed down here just hours before I arrived? He could then be revived as some ancient hero, with a senior father of the Church as a witness. After all, some priests claim to have the bones of saints in their churches to increase their own importance." Alfred stared at the concave slab where Vitellan had lain. Chiseled into the rock were the words ut reviviscam, mane aqua cauda corpus meum lavet; post meridiem aliquis in so meum spiret et pectus meum aperta manu percutiat.
    " 'to return me to life: bathe me in warm water for a morning; breathe into my mouth and beat my heart with your open hand for an afternoon,' " Alfred read
    slowly. "How was that?" he asked, looking hopefully to Paeder.
    "You have the words, young lord, but your grammar is awful."
    "Nevertheless, it is better than most in the village could do. It all seems too elaborate for these churls to