by Roger Booth
“Brother, why do you think this dreadful… little man wants me? With me in his bed he is just one stab from your throne.”
Honorius had looked touched; remained unmoved. “Dearest Sister, it is merely… symbolic. Perhaps it is even better this way,” he had lazily suggested, while a eunuch fanned him against the year’s last heat. “Should, tragically, widowhood ever beckon once more, your heart need not break a second time.”
She had stormed out. Then a further summons into the presence and, she must admit, her brother was more persuasive than she had expected. First the stick: spoken earnest, even honestly. “I know how much you care for these barbarians. I hear you even brought some back with you; as a reminder.”
Stare answered questioning stare.
“Sister, you cannot want them to wander for ever. When it comes to arranging the land they so ardently desire; how much better if your devoted husband has the matter in hand? Sister, surely you must agree?”
She had been swayed, not persuaded; then had come the carrot.
“Dearest Sister,” he had said pleasantly, “if I really wished it, I could order you dragged from here by the hair and married to a mule. But even I cannot prevent you divorcing whomsoever you choose.”
Her face must have shown too much, because he turned at once to the eunuch with a clap of triumph.
“You see?” he crowed. “What did I tell you? Love always finds a way.”
“Imperator Honorius!”
She heard the first call echo along the corridor.
She had dreaded telling Herfrig; this marriage of all marriages the final betrayal. The blond, upright face that reminded her of so much; it listened, impassive. The next day he suggested the Princess might want to inspect her guard. So she had. All fifty were dressed in the strange uniforms they had designed for themselves. Red Roman cloaks over linen tunics; then the Goth trousers her brother forbade in Rome. And she encouraged them to wear. The belts had gleamed like polished amber, the buckles fine as silver. She had always known they would die for her. That they would stay up all night and polish for her…
She inspected them every one. Then Herfrig called out “All hail, Her Highness Princess Galla Placidia!” And at the answering cry of “All Hail,” the hollows of her heart had echoed to the many good years.
“Imperator Honorius!”
Closer it rang; the death-knell to her life of freedom. Athaulf always told her how the Goths were not good at waiting. In that, at least, she had been to them a worthy Queen. Once she rebuked him for almost dying in the dust of Massilia when, like a Goth, she had charged headlong at the walls of Ravenna, screaming death and destruction to the old ways.
Now she must play the game of surrender,
To the rules,
To the black-haired arms,
To the years still granted.
In obedience wrap the flame of revolt,
The knowledge of another way.
If the Lord ordained,
The dead be revenged,
In love,
In peace.
If the flame still burned,
How she could not foresee,
On a day long hence,
She might still win,
For them,
For him.
*
“Imperator Honorius!”
Everyone in the room sank to the knee, rigid as stone. A wave of purple Herfrig saw from out of the corner of his eye, the cloak making more sound than the purple slippers across the pretty floor. But a man blind and deaf would have known Honorius had come. Even with the January wind through the half open doors, it was as if every bazaar and basilica in the Empire had poured their stores of incense into the room.
“Sister, good Patrician; stand, please, no ceremony,” came the voice. “Today is your day.”
With the others in the room he rose. The face without a trace of hair, the pallor of an Empire’s powders, by the cheeks a hint of rouge; a man’s voice, he thought, in a woman’s face.
The doors to the balcony were thrown wide and the trumpeters filed out.
An Imperial stare: “One of your … bodyguards, Sister dear?”
The Princess half turned. “Tribune Erfrigius, commander of my guard.”
“Ah! Tribune.”
From the balcony, even through the mounting din, came the hissing voice of the eunuch, arranging the trumpeters to the very inch. Honorius gave an indulgent smile followed by what might have been a quiet glance of sympathy to the General. Then the eunuch was back in the room, scraping the floor with his shiny head.
“Esteemed fellow consul,” said Honorius to the one and “Dear Sister,” to the other. “It is the time of your happiness,” he said to both.
Constantius raised a hand, taken at finger tips by the Princess, she looking straight ahead.
“A fine couple,” beamed Honorius. “Shall we?”
Joining hands again, together the three of them stepped through the open doors, out into the thin blue of winter.
The crowd roared its salute from down below in the forum, the waves of a people’s belief almost drowning the practised blasts of the trumpeters. Ahead rose the capitols of the city, white between the red rooftops; while, just hidden behind the wall, he knew there floated the Coliseum’s majesty of curved arches.
He a maistans of the Ruthi!
Others in the guard had told how in Rome there were high-born ladies with grand mansions, long hours to kill; and a weakness for men tall and strong. Perhaps one day he would meet such women, perhaps not. For now he had the ear of a Princess, breathed the same air as the most powerful on earth.
He could not conceive of a better place to be.
XVII
The month of June in the year of our Lord 418: in and around Corduba
The Goths stumbled off the stone road, down the slope and into the field rutted rock hard. One raised the leather bag to his lips. “Ev’nin’, Tribune,” he garbled. His fellows laughed, tackling the other from behind, going down in a heap. Lucellus saw on one arm a line of spittle. He had fast learnt the trade of the diplomat; a thin smile. Then with his little cavalcade of troopers he was past. Through air still quivering dry from the midsummer sun, the long, white walls of Corduba beckoned not a thousand paces ahead.
By his reckoning this was the third summer he would spend with the barbarians. Long summers, longer years. When they arrived before those walls five days ago, the sight of a proper Roman city like Corduba – towers and domes, baths, basilicas and all – and he realised how much he missed of life, the life he was born to; the only life worth living.
Euplutius had told him; not many Roman officers who could have kept a steady head those first months. But he had seen it through. As the men came to see each other take wounds fighting the same fight, the hostility faded to where it was no longer in every man’s eye. Not that he was fooled. The laughs and smiles; they didn’t matter any more than how many masses the Goths sang or heretic prayers they mumbled. You’d hear them say something in that awful dark language of theirs or get downwind of one of them, like those drunken fools back up the road. Then you couldn’t help thinking of Varus and his poor legionaries, strung up in the forests of Germania all those centuries ago.
The long stone bridge, its vaulted shadow spreading across the river, sluggish and wide-banked, the hint of water freshness to the air; the Goths at the gatehouse ahead were sober or held better their wine and ale. He was well known by now. Even so, he noticed how the guards moved; not enough to be threatening but enough to bring him to a halt.
“Evening, Count Lucellus. Looking for Wallia?” the captain asked.
“Meeting him at Theoderic’s.”
“Over the forum, first right. You’ll see guards on the left.”
“Thanks,” he said with a curt nod.
They melted to t
he side of the road and he was through into the town. It was always so; he and his men slept under canvas. Any town they took, the Goths it was who guarded the gates and the Goth noblissimi who commandeered the houses. Corduba they had retaken without a single bolt fired, the Siling Vandals fleeing for the hills. The Alans, last summer, had stood and fought. Now the Alans were no more, a slaughter like he had never witnessed.
He noticed the pervading smell of wood fire. When he came out onto the broad square of the forum he saw why. Several hundred Goths had turned it into a temporary barracks. Tents they had rigged on poles stuck between the paving slabs, canvas awnings tied to the heads of the statues high upon their stone plinths. To judge from the reek in the streets, the men did not often care to use the baths which he knew to be not two hundred paces distant. Meanwhile, the fires crackled away, searing the flagstones, leaving a burnt stain that would not wash clean with all the scrubbing in the world.
Once he would have been outraged, now he registered it all with the barest shrug. A disgrace it was but he had learnt from the General and seen now with his own eyes; an unavoidable disgrace. Call them barbarians, call them what you would, the Goths were like a slavering, messy wolf-hound – loyal to master and deadly fierce to foe. The last time he had seen Euplutius he had made the point. As a Roman, you could never feel sure what sat behind the unblinking eyes; except that wild savagery. If ever crossed, they would bite and bite hard. Euplutius had assured him; these were just the observations the Patrician appreciated. Only it would never do to write such things. Hounds had fine senses; and some of the people associated with this particular hound could even read.
*
Thorismund pushed off from his knees, waddled precariously across the floor; and just reached the outstretched arms of the older man with the fast greying hair. The child laughed and giggled as the man bent over him and the great soft beard, not for the first time, tickled the back of his neck. He reached for the long shiny thing at the man’s waist.
Now it was Wallia’s turn to laugh, as he stayed the podgy little hand. “A true Goth you are, my boy. No sooner walking than you want to get your hand on a sword.”
Theoderic stole a look to his side. The daughter of Alaric, the most beautiful woman amongst the people; she had been his wife now these two years. A lull in the fighting and they married, a Goth wedding. The bright noon before Sigesar, Wallia at Rohilde’s side; behind, the field crammed. A time for the people to rejoice, to set aside despair; through that midsummer night just how they had rejoiced before the gods of wine, ale and dance; between the flickering light of the great fires.
He watched as his son fought, laughing, to reach the sword. Wallia played like any grandfather but ruled like a king. He had held the people together, made the peace; and now led them to victory after victory. Euplutius hadn’t lied when he spoke of full granaries elsewhere in Hispania. It was hard to imagine what hunger felt like any more.
The door opened and, at his wife’s nod, the nurse came forward to pick up the child. Time for bed. The small round face peeked back over the nurse’s shoulder, disappeared out into the hall.
“Rohilde, he’s a wonderful boy,” Wallia said.
She accepted the compliment with an unchanging smile. Earlier, when the slaves had poured their wine, he noticed her take a small portion and top it up with water. More good tidings; she would say when she was ready. “When’s Lucellus joining us?” he asked.
Wallia glanced outside into the softening light of the early evening, leant over for more wine. “Should be on his way now.” He took a sip and savoured the fullness of the grape long in his mouth. “They’ve done well, Lucellus and his men.”
“We could have done it without them.”
“Probably. But we were men down. They fought their share.”
“No shortage of men now.”
“No,” Wallia agreed, “though fighting men’s one thing, leaders another. When the Alans horse got bogged down, it was Scaervo who had the nous to take men out of the line; encircle ‘em.”
For a moment, Theoderic heard again the din of that great slaughter, a victory of which in the past the people would have sung. But they hadn’t felt so much like singing once the battle fever was gone. They’d won the battle; but it hadn’t been their war.
“At least now we have a reason to fight,” Rohilde said.
“Yes, my wife, that is so,” he agreed, wondering again how often she spoke his silent thoughts, sometimes before he was even aware of them. “After Fredbal and his dead horse trick in Gades, killing every single damn Siling in the world would be a pleasure,” he said. “Just rather not do it for a Roman.”
“Theoderic, we’ve no choice.” Wallia spoke softly but the face was dark. “More land we have to forage and the granaries are full. But Constantius has his navy and we don’t. In the end we’d be back where we started.”
“We’ll have a choice once we have our lands, Wallia. They’re all that matters.” His wife reached for her cup and then slowly put it back down again. “We must learn from the Romans. But we must never forget these years past.”
Her voice had cut the air with a fine edge.
“Rohilde, my wife,” Theoderic said, surprised. “You have always been their friend, I thought; more than Wallia or I.”
“I was, I am, a friend of one Roman. Even if her taste in husband has not been…” She looked down at her lap. “Perhaps she had no choice. I hope she had no choice.” Then she reached across and, gratefully, he clasped the hand on offer. “Galla Placidia always said I was a Goth through and through. And that I am, Theoderic. The Romans aren’t our enemies, not like once the Huns were. They don’t want to kill us. But they do want to change us; make us like themselves.”
“I think I’d rather live in a house like this than in a tent,” he laughed, only to regret it, as she frowned.
“We will have houses like this if we get the lands,” she said. “And we’ll change – will need to change. But we also need to stay Goths.”
Wallia stirred, thoughtfully: “And why’s that, Rohilde?”
“Galla Placidia, she once told me: the way we live, camp to camp, province to province, the Romans, they couldn’t do it. We can. We can but it leaves us always just the one season away from hunger. Once we have our lands, our weakness, it will be gone.” She stared at both of them in turn. “The Romans, though, where will they ever find new strength?” she asked. “If not from us?”
*
Sometimes they surprised him; in his honour they were eating on couches, Roman style. The goblets shimmered in the growing brightness of the candles, silver platters for the meat and silver baskets for the bread and fruit; all this ten minutes’ walk from the forum and its casual desecration of Rome’s proudest ways.
“This meat, it’s good.”
From Wallia an indistinct growl, a polite smile from the lady of the house; and the meat really was good, finely grilled lamb with a hint of the sweetening herbs that grew in Baetica so well.
“Wallia, you were saying to the Lady Rohilde just now.”
Wallia was Wallia but Lady Rohilde he always called her; that was one lesson he had learnt very early – for their women only respect. In the early days one or two of the men had followed a blond head and inviting smile; and walked onto a knife in the ribs.
“You were saying, if I understood you well, how we suffer from our own success. Fredbal would be a fool to offer battle.”
“And there are fewer Silings than there were Alans,” agreed the Goth Theoderic. “We’re just going to have to hunt them down.”
Wallia watched the candle lights, a-whir with moths attracted in through the darkening windows. “Trouble is, Theoderic, we do that, they’re just going to keep heading north. You remember at Gades; we worried about the Vandals joining forces, the Silings and Hasdings.”
“Aye?”
“We press to
o hard that’s just what we’ll get.”
“Still outnumber them, though,” replied the younger Goth.
“Probably. But the Hasdings, they know the land up there. The Suebi could join in; even we get word to ‘em that we mean no harm. And I certainly don’t relish making my only daughter a widow,” he said. “Especially now that Herfrig…”
A vinegary glance Lucellus did not pretend to understand so he did what he always did in such cases. Ignore it. “Then we must force the issue, here, in Baetica. But, Wallia, you’ve already said it – why would Fredbal let us do that?”
The Goth King pointed to the candles. “See them moths, Lucellus. They can’t help ‘emselves. They know it’s going to end badly but they fall for it every time. Men, they’re no different.”
“Wallia, you’ve a plan.”
“I’ve had a thought, right enough. See, Lucellus,” and the bone in the Goth’s hand traced a distracted circle in the air. “I’m not as tender as that lamb you were kind enough to admire. But I’m a good taster for a mutton stew. And Fredbal would love nothing more than to put me in the pot.”
“So you’d be bait,” he nodded in admiring approval. “And the trap?”
“Don’t know, Lucellus. Not yet. But this is rugged land. Valleys can be treacherous things.”
“Aye, with men over the brow,” added Theoderic.
“Mmh,” mused Wallia. “And if the valley’s a dead end.” He sat forward on his elbow, eyes filled with a force which belied the playfulness of the words. “Think either of you can find me one of those?”
*
The encampment ran the length of the slope, down towards the river, shielded on the south by a scantly wooded hillock. The river ran as a stream within the deep-gouged banks, in winter a torrent. They had dug ways down for the horses, the water churned brown by the thirsty hooves. They told him the water he and the men drank was from a spring nearby. He drank it and didn’t ask questions. Beyond the camp they were surrounded by wide plains of grey-white rock, what passed for land here, high towards the great hills; hills that looked as friendly as the teeth in a growling dog’s jaw. Wallia lay sprawled on the baked earth, under the tree. He’d been waiting, sprawled there, day on day. The shaggy head he raised a second time, stared through the wilting air. “What you make of it?”