Eagle in the Snow: The Classic Bestseller

by Wallace Breem

  “That I know,” I said. “That is why I take your young men into my service and pay subsidies (it was the polite word for bribery) to you so that you may help your people who are poor.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I want nothing this time but information.”

  “I will do my best to help you.” He looked relieved.

  “Is the king Gunderic still in the land of the Alemanni?”

  He hesitated for a moment. “Yes. His people wintered there.”

  “All of them?” I asked sharply. “Or only those who fought under the shield of Radagaisus?”

  “I do not know how many.”

  “And what of the Quadi and the Asding Vandals whom my general and friend, Stilicho, drove from Italia? Have they gone to their own people?”

  “It is as you say. They have joined with their own kind.”

  He smiled and plucked at his beard. There was a stir among the men about him but though I looked at them hard there was little enough in their faces to tell what they thought. A slim arm that was about to lower a jug of beer onto the table between us shook slightly, so that a few spots spattered the roughly scraped boards. I looked up at the blue eyes of a tall blonde girl who stood beside me. Her hair lay in thick plaits upon her breast; about her neck she wore a silver torque, elaborately decorated. I judged her to be the king’s eldest daughter. She was certainly a fine looking girl. She smiled at me, wiped the spots with the sleeve of her gown, said something to her father (it sounded like an apology) and then withdrew.

  The king said, “If you have time you must come hunting. I can show you some fine sport.”

  “I would like that,” I said. “It has been a long winter.”

  Quintus said, “I drink to your health. You have fine sons and beautiful daughters.”

  “Indeed, yes. Four daughters, but six sons, all old enough to carry their axe, save for this cub here.” He dropped his hand onto the shoulders of a small boy who stood at his side. There was a look of great pride in his eyes. “You have sons, too, who will be men now with sons of their own, no doubt.”

  Quintus glanced at me. “No,” he said. “We have no sons.”

  The king looked troubled. “It is a fine thing to have sons who will bear one’s name. But sometimes it is the will of God that it shall not be so.” There was silence. Neither of us spoke. Then he said regretfully, “I am indeed sorry to hear you say that.”

  I said, “Our camp was attacked last autumn. You heard of the matter, no doubt. There were Alans, Quadi and Siling Vandals among the dead. None of these belong to the Suevi.” By Suevi I meant those tribes whose lands marched with the frontiers of Rome along the Rhenus and the Danubius.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “We have peoples of other tribes within our own. It signifies little.”

  I said, “King Guntiarus, you know and I know that an attempt will be made to cross the river. If those who make the attempt try to march through your lands first, I shall expect you to fight and defend it. If you do, we will aid you. But if the crossing is made outside your frontier, I want you to keep your sword hand empty, unless I ask for your help. You do not want war with the Alemanni and I want them to have no excuse for attacking you. Help me in this matter and I promise that next year’s subsidies will be twice the normal size.”

  “What if they try to take our salt again?” said the king’s eldest son in a clear, high voice. “Are we to give it to them as though we were slaves?”

  “Neither behave like slaves nor like foolish women who throw cooking pots in a temper. Behave like men. A cool hand is better than a hot one.”

  The king said hastily, “I understand. I am a friend of Rome. But why are my people on your bank not allowed to cross the river? It is causing much talk and much difficulty.”

  “Because I do not want offence to be given. If I treat your people differently from the Franks and the Alemanni it will make for difficulties—for both of us.” It was a lie, and he knew it was a lie, but there was truth in what I said—a little anyway—and he had to accept it. Thirty years before, the Alemanni had put seventy thousand men into the field against the emperor Gratian. They were too strong to quarrel with without a reason.

  He said, “I am a man of peace. Soon I celebrate the marriage of my eldest daughter to Marcomir of the Franks. It is a good match and will help to bind us all together. There will be a great feast. You and your generals must come and honour my house with your presence. I am, after all, a friend of Rome.”

  “We shall be happy to come if our duties permit.”

  He slapped his thigh then. “I promised you one of my daughters,” he said with a chuckle. “I had almost forgotten. I remember, I was very drunk at the time.”

  There was a roar of laughter from the chiefs about the table.

  I began to protest. “No, no,” he said. “A promise is a promise. The marriage can take place with the other. It will be a fine double wedding and we shall have a great feast. It will bind the alliance strongly between us.”

  I said quickly, “When my wife died I took an oath not to marry again. I cannot foreswear my gods.”

  He began to look disgruntled. He said, “You should be a christian like me.”

  “But I am not and I cannot change now. It would be wrong for your daughter to marry a pagan and one who is old enough to be her father.”

  He chuckled. “But that is what we need at our age.” He turned to Quintus and grinned.

  I said hastily, “My friend is also a pagan.” I looked desperately at my cavalry commander for inspiration.

  Quintus said, “Our senior tribune, Lucillius, is a fine young man, and of good family. It would be a good match and the girl would like him. He is—very active. He is also a christian.”

  “Which girl?” I muttered under my breath.

  “Excellent. It is agreed.” Guntiarus roared his delight and the pact was sealed in wine.

  As we undressed that night in the guest-house, I said, “And who is going to tell the unsuspecting Lucillius?”

  Quintus yawned. “You are,” he said. “It is your command.”

  On our way out of his berg we passed a line of poles upon which the heads of enemies and criminals shrivelled in the sun.

  “Peace,” said Quintus, looking at them curiously. “Only the dead have that.”

  We rode along the east bank, following a twisting track that rose and fell between the wooded hills and the dark valleys in between. At Marcomir’s berg the young chief came out to meet us, riding bare-back and carrying a hunting bow in his hand. I congratulated him on his coming marriage to the king’s daughter.

  “She is a fine girl,” he said. “My father would have been pleased.”

  “When will it take place?”

  “After the harvest.” He grinned suddenly. “That is a good time for feasting.”

  I said, “Let us hope that it will be so.” I leaned over my horse’s neck. “Marcomir, I am sending patrols to hold your side of the river between the Moenus and the foothills. If they are driven in they have orders to light beacons as a warning before they retreat.”

  “And what do you want me to do?” he asked gravely.

  “Nothing, until I tell you. Do not throw one spear, nor fire a single arrow in anger without my word. I will tell you when is the time to strike.”

  He said, “I understand.” He smiled. There was a pause and then he said quietly, “Can you hold them if they attack you with all their war-bands?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I can. They have never met cavalry before.”

  “But we ride,” he protested. He was half angry, half laughing. “We use horses in war. A little anyway.”

  Quintus said, “Come over the river when you have time. Then watch my cavalry.”

  In the distance, like a thin smudge of charcoal against the evening sky, I could see the Taunus, the great mountain range that had once marked the extent of our eastern frontier. “That is where I want to go,” I said suddenly. “Will you t
ake us?”

  We stayed a day in his house and then, with his men guiding us and he riding on my left side, set out along the road that led to the abandoned Limes. I was intensely curious to see them, and so was Quintus. We might never have the chance again. After a time the road, whose surface grew worse with each mile, vanished suddenly and there was nothing ahead but green turf and tangled undergrowth. “They tore it up,” said the Frank. He turned to me, his face serious. “You do not know how they hate Rome.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “There are many reasons: the loss of freedom, the heavy taxes, the injustice of your laws, the cruelty of your military conscription. Even your towns, with their houses and their straight roads, seem like prisons to men who hunt in the forest and whose women cook by an open fire.” I glanced at Quintus and shook my head slightly. This was not a time for argument.

  The sky clouded over, it grew dark and the rain began to fall in great splashing drops that soaked the breeches I was wearing and made wet patches on my knees and shoulders. The horses plodded on, squelching through the mud and we had to duck our heads to avoid being scratched by the branches that barred our way. We saw few people; a hut or two in a clearing, occupied by a sullen farmer and his wife, who watched us suspiciously as we passed, but that was all. The forests were full of game. Twice I saw bears, playing in the watery sunlight with their cubs; once a great boar lumbered across our path, stopped to grunt at us with red eyes, and then trotted off into the scrub. And at night we could hear the wolves, howling in the darkness around the camp. It was then that I remembered Varus and his three legions and was sorry that I had come. All the time we were climbing upwards towards a forest ridge that showed itself upon the horizon whenever we came to a clear space between the trees.

  On the fourth day we came out of the woods into a great clearing that seemed to extend for miles to the right and left of us. It was as though the blade of a giant sword, red hot from the furnace, had been placed on the forest and burned a great cut along its length. The clearing was nearly a thousand yards wide in places. In front of us ran a road, half covered now with weeds and dirt. Beyond it, a quarter of a mile distant, stood a square stone watch-tower with a smashed roof and a broken balcony. We rode up to it and dismounted, while our squadron spread out and posted sentries in a half circle. Slowly we walked up to the tower through a litter of fallen tiles. In front of it, facing north, half filled in now by the action of wind and rain were the remnants of the great ditch. But the great mound of earth that had been flung up behind it still remained. Not even time could destroy that. On the further side were the fragmentary remains of the palisade. Much of the timber had been pulled out to be used for other purposes, but here and there, a section still stood in its entirety, mute evidence of the slackened power of that empire—my empire—which now fought only on the defensive.

  The entrance to the tower was ten feet above the ground, and in the old days the garrison had used a ladder which they then pulled up after them. One of the legionaries made a rough climbing pole out of a loose piece of timber and said, with a grin, “Will that do, sir?” I nodded. I took off my helmet and climbed, entering the gap where the door had once been. Inside was dust and darkness. I found the original ladder that led from one level to the next and mounted it cautiously till I came out onto the balcony at the top. It was raining slightly and there was a cold wind blowing from the north. Scratched on the walls I saw names—the names of men, now dead, and long forgotten; men whose names told me clearly that they had come from Moesia, from Apulia, from Pannonia, and from such far distant provinces as Mauretania and Aegyptus, the southern rim of the empire. Carved with greater care I read the name of the legions from which the men came who had once guarded this section of the frontier. I screwed up my eyes. “Legio IV Macedonica,” I said, peering at the faint scratches on the stone.

  “What, in the name of the gods, happened to them, I wonder?” said Quintus softly. “I never heard their number in my life.”

  “Perhaps someone will say the same of us,” I said grimly. “They were raised by Caesar and fought with Marcus Antoninus in Macedonia, but deserted to Octavius before Philippi.” I peered again. “Here are some more. Leg. XXII Prim. They were here at the death of Nero. But both they and the Fourth were annihilated in one of the Aleman wars of the last century. Now this looks like Leg. XIV Gemina. They were posted to Moguntiacum by Augustus. Asprenas brought them back to Vetera after the Varian disaster. They came back again, after going into Britannia with Aulius Plautius. They’re in Pannonia now.”

  Quintus scrabbled at the stone work. “Can you read this? It’s the Thirtieth, I think. Only the last ten is missing.”

  “Yes, look at the emblem. They were raised by Domitian and were still here in the time of Hadrian. A detachment fought alongside us in Italia. Do you remember? By the gods, that seems a long time ago.”

  Marcomir said, “It is a place of ghosts.”

  “It was not defended to the end,” I said. “It was just abandoned.”

  “That was in the time of Gallienus,” said Quintus. “My father told me about it. The cohorts were in forts, seven miles apart, with these posts every half mile in between.”

  “And now—nothing.”

  We descended the ladders and walked back to where our horses cropped the grass. I looked at the clearing and at the mound of earth, stretching away into the distance. I said, “Once, you could walk along that under the protection of Roman spears. And if you walked far enough you would travel through eight provinces until you reached Scythia and a great sea.”

  Quintus said, “I should like to have done that. It would have been a fine thing to walk across the roof of the empire.”

  We looked at each other and there was the same thought in both our minds.

  Marcomir said, “Then, you were the lords of the world. But now. . . .” He did not end the sentence. He did not need to.

  At the edge of the clearing I turned to look back but the square tower was almost hidden now by the driving rain. It was as though even the gods had pity enough to weep for our fallen greatness.

  A mile from Moguntiacum we reached the furthest of the out-posts that I had stationed on the east bank. When I had finished inspecting the men and their weapons I spoke privately to the optio in charge. “What is the matter?” I said. “You look as though you had seen a ghost.”

  He said, his face tense beneath its leathery tan, “I will show you, general. I have already sent a message across the river.”

  We walked as he directed. Two hundred yards from the post I could see an object standing above the ground. As we came closer I could see what it was: the decapitated head of a horse, fixed upon a pole. I looked at the dried blood upon the nostrils, the human hand held between the yellowed teeth and the glazed eyes that crawled with flies. “What does it mean?”

  Marcomir said, “It is the common way to insult an enemy in these parts. You may expect trouble from now on. I will warn my people.”

  Two nights later I was woken by a disturbance and the camp guard commander was at my door, reporting that a small boat had been seen close to the shore, north of the town. The two men in it had been killed with javelins but the guards’ efforts to catch the boat had failed. It had drifted downstream in the darkness.

  “I do not know what they were trying to do, sir, unless making contact with a spy in the town,” he said. I nodded and went back to bed. Long ago I had learned not to worry about small problems that I could not solve. It was as well, for in the morning the puzzle solved itself. I looked at the dead man lying on the bank, close to the point where the guard had intercepted the boat—and I recognised him. “They brought him back to show that they had caught him,” I said. “He was a Frank I sent to spy out the camp of Rando some weeks ago. They were not kind to him, were they, Quintus? Pity. Now we shall never know what he learned.”

  The work of preparation and its problems continued. Complaints from quartermasters about a shortage of boots and ra
tions; queries from armourers concerning war heads for arrows and suitable canisters in which to hold the preparation for liquid fire; difficulties over the stabling of spare horses; requests from cohort commanders whom I visited to advise on tactics to meet this eventuality or that; discussions to simplify our signal system; auxiliaries to be commended for their efficiency; and everyone to be encouraged; everyone to be made to believe that with their aid I could achieve the impossible. The days were never long enough, and though I worked my officers hard and delegated my authority as much as possible, both Quintus and I began to feel the strain. We woke tired in the mornings and we went to bed at night to sleep as though we were already dead.

  Often I had dreams and I stood again on that beach with Julian, knowing every line on that tired, bitter face, creased with the lines of middle-age; and hearing again the tired, bitter words that he had spoken. It is I who shiver now . . . what happened to my high-priest’s daughter? . . . . they believed I was a god. . . .

  Did he know or did he guess that exile was the punishment that Fullofaudes had intended for him? I often wondered.

  XI

  JULIUS OPTATUS SAID patiently, “I am sorry to trouble you again, sir, but the supplies for this month are overdue. We are short of fodder for the horses; the remounts we were promised haven’t arrived, and General Veronius keeps pressing me to do something.”

  I looked at the documents in his hand. “What else?”

  “There’s quite a lot, sir.”

  “Go on.”

  “The breast-plates for the auxiliaries at Confluentes still haven’t arrived; the spear shafts came on that last mule-train, but without their heads, and some of the weapons aren’t up to standard. The bows from Mantua are too light, and the last consignment of swords are badly balanced; much too heavy in the hilt. Shall I send them back?”

  “Can our armourers do anything?”

  “They can try, sir, but the master fletcher just got into a rage when I showed him the bows.” Optatus grinned. “You know what a temper he has, sir. He snapped the one he was testing and threw it at me.”