by M. K. Hume
‘My master, Flavius Magnus Maximus, pays for all his rations in good coin and he’s already defeated the emperor at Lutetia,’ Andragathius explained.
He swallowed another mouthful of the raw brandy, then offered the flask to the smith, who downed the liquor in a large gulp. The Roman returned the flask to his belt pouch.
‘It’s a pity then that your Maximus didn’t kill Shithead while he was about it,’ the smith snapped irritably and with traitorous sincerity.
‘You are describing my exact mission. I’m ordered to catch up with the emperor and deliver him to the justice of Flavius Magnus Maximus. You would be doing a service to both of us if you can tell me how far they are ahead of us. I’d also appreciate any knowledge of their immediate destination that you may have heard.’
‘They’re only a day or so ahead of you, but Gratian is burdened with supply wagons and a war chest which is kept under constant guard by his soldiers. They move slowly, and you should catch them within two days if you bustle yourselves along. I couldn’t see for certain, but I gained an impression that the emperor reeks with over-confidence and doesn’t have a rearguard travelling behind him.’
Conanus was returning to the blacksmith’s shop and Andragathius could see that he only had an armful of stale bread and a rusty bucket that was slung over one arm. He raised his eyebrows at Andragathius, who thanked the smith with total sincerity and dropped a silver coin into the man’s callused hand.
‘You’ve paid too much, master. I would have told you everything I know for free,’ he muttered as he bit into the coin to test its worth.
‘Share it with the village! We men of the legions come from villages such as yours, so we’d not want to see your children starve.’
Most of the inhabitants turned out to stare after them when the troop rode away, while the blacksmith went so far as to raise one hand in farewell.
The nameless village was soon behind them and the empty road stretched out ahead, a shining ribbon across the green and yellow fields.
A slow anger was beginning to build in Andragathius, a fury that had nothing to do with his orders or the ambitions of his master. The horse captain’s chest felt tight and his mouth was dry, while he discovered that his right hand had flexed and then clenched into a fist.
He had been that boy at the bellows. He knew how it felt to be examined like a new and interesting insect that had no ears to hear the derision in the voices of aristocratic persons who considered him to be less than human. Tullia, the youngest wife of Theodosius Major, was a woman who was barely past girlhood herself, but was arrogant with the certainty of her superiority. In a tantrum, she had struck him across the left hand with her razor-sharp eating knife when his seven-year-old body had been too slow and clumsy to carry a heavy water jug. Pig Boy had spilled a little water on her new peplum, so her table knife had drawn blood. She had cursed him like a fishwife in front of Theodosius’s young son and the boy, Magnus Maximus, who was in residence at the general’s estates at that time.
Andragathius looked down at the hand that was holding the reins. A pale knife scar ran across the knuckles, where it resembled a half-delivered sword cut.
‘What a bitch!’ he recalled aloud. He had bled freely from the cut and his fingers were only saved by Lady Tullia’s poor aim. Instead of slicing at them as he struggled to grip the heavy terracotta jug, she had stabbed across his knuckles with a vicious slashing motion that had cut deeply into the tender bones. Ultimately, she had been required to use some force to wrench her knife free from the wound.
‘Be careful, you idiot! You’re bleeding all over the eating couch. Can’t you do anything right? Get out of my sight and go back to the piggery where you belong. I gave you a chance to work in more pleasant surroundings . . . and this is how you thank me for my generosity. My peplum is ruined and my couch has been stained. Get out of my sight!’
Tullia would have sent him straight back to the mud and filth of the pigpens with the snickers of the half-grown boys ringing in his ears. However, Willa, one of the serving women, had saved him. After she had thrust the water jug into the hands of another serving girl, she had gripped his right arm and dragged the boy to the safety of the servants’ quarters.
Pig Boy looked back at his mistress with hatred in his eyes, but she had already forgotten him and had turned her fashionable head away. Only Magnus Maximus, a lad of twelve and a distant relative of the family, had met his bitter gaze with eyes that held some sympathy and what seemed like an odd understanding. Nor had Maximus betrayed Pig Boy’s rage to Lady Tullia. All too late, Pig Boy had lowered his eyes to hide his childish fury and his bitter defiance.
Willa had sewn stitches into his deep wounds and her ministrations hurt him a great deal, especially when she pulled the narrow pig-gut thread through the skin that covered his swollen knuckles. Later, she had pounded some concoctions together in a stone mortar with a granite pestle, before adding some pungent liquid from a battered flask and stirring the resulting paste together until it was thick and free of all lumps. Then, with gentle hands, she used a battered spatula to spread the paste over the wound.
It burned like fire, or the many stings of hornets that Pig Boy dimly remembered from early childhood.
‘Yes, lad, the potent brandy I’ve used in the paste will sting a little, but you’re a strong young boy. You didn’t make a sound when I tied each knot, so I’m certain that you’ll manage my healing salve. Meanwhile, I’ll wrap your hand and you mustn’t get it dirty, because it might go bad if the wound begins to fester.’
Willa seemed to realise how silly the last order was to a boy who was expected to feed, wash and tend to a herd of powerful sows and their litters.
Suddenly, she grinned conspiratorially at him. ‘Wait here and try to appear inconspicuous in case the mistress takes it into her head to search for you,’ Willa muttered, before disappearing through the sagging, unpainted door in a swirl of unbleached canvas skirts.
Pig Boy shrank back into a dark corner to nurse his aching hand.
Around him, chaos reigned as slaves ran to and from the main building, bearing heavy platters of food of mouth-watering richness in far too great a profusion for the five children and the women of the villa, who would only pick sparingly at the cook’s offerings. That worthy, red-faced and sweating, was a man with snow-white hair who screamed orders in several languages at any hapless servant who came within range of his hands. Petrified, Pig Boy huddled as far from the fires as he could, while hoping he would be overlooked by a searching Tullia.
Willa returned within minutes, pink-cheeked and pretty in her peasant dress and carrying a single, child-sized leather glove. One of the fingers was mostly missing and the leather was badly scuffed and soiled but, as Willa eased it over his bandaged knuckles, she surveyed her handiwork with satisfaction.
‘This glove will do perfectly well, boy. I doubt that Theodosius Minor will ever miss one of his childhood gloves, especially while he’s at the frontier with his father. Now! If those louts in the stables ask you how you got it, you must tell them you were given it by the head of the household. They’ll ask no more of you if you speak honestly and meet their eyes without any display of guilt. Come each day and I’ll dress it again.’
Pig Boy’s face must have held some doubts because Willa punched his shoulder gently as she ushered him out of the kitchens.
‘It’s the truth, isn’t it?’ she said with a conspiratorial giggle. ‘You have been given the glove, so it’s not a lie. If you intend to deceive, you must never lie openly. My old da taught me that wisdom when I was still a young girl, and he managed to live to a ripe old age. Now, get yourself off to bed, lad. And please stay out of trouble. We don’t know when our master will return and, perhaps, he might just remember your father.’
Comforted, Pig Boy obeyed her sound advice and discovered that Balbus and Livius accepted his explanati
on. That night, he went to sleep despite the aching in his hand, lulled by his adoration for a young woman with bright, hazel eyes.
Willa had died before her time, after she was accidentally struck down in the farm forecourt by Theodosius Minor’s horse when the animal took fright from a snake that crawled between its hooves. She had been collecting eggs, and was holding a full basket that fell and smashed around her. They had been cracked open, just as her skull had splattered when an iron-bound hoof shattered her forehead as if it had the same consistency as the eggshells.
With such a fond remembrance of Willa, the grown Andragathius found himself fuming at the fate of Sabina’s girl who had been raped by Gratian and then, no doubt, had been handed down to any other soldier who wanted her. Broken and discarded, only a fierce will to live could save her from an ugly death.
‘They wants what they wants when they wants it,’ Andragathius repeated, as he aped the words and accent of the blacksmith to perfection.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ Conanus replied with a hint of nervousness at the half-heard words.
Suspecting that his features might have revealed his inner turmoil, Andragathius attempted to clear his face of all expression.
‘Not at the moment. We’ll learn more of the emperor when we reach Bibracte. He’s slowing the column’s retreat already, in order to steal peasant girls for pleasure and confiscate the stored food held in the villages. Without intending to impede him, those villagers might easily bring about Gratian’s downfall. His personal greed and hubris are his true weaknesses.’
Conanus had seen Andragathius’s unguarded face, so he made no comment. The Roman had been snarling with a rage that made the Briton flush in surprise, for he had recognised the killer instinct in the eyes of his captain.
Conanus had always considered his superior to be something of an idolatrous fool. His slavish devotion to Magnus Maximus had amused Conanus, who saw his brother-in-law as a means to achieving his own ambitions. Land in Gaul and Armorica had been promised to those Britons and Romans who threw in their lot behind Maximus’s cause in his search for the laurel wreath of Rome. For his part, Conanus had been lulled into a false sense of security by Andragathius’s love for his master, so he never considered that the captain of the cataphractarii was a warrior to reckon with, a man of ability who possessed an implacable will.
But he had just received fair warning. For some reason known only to himself, Gratian’s death had now become a personal quest for the horse captain. This situation could be fraught with danger, if Andragathius’s blazing and iron-hard eyes were any indication of his thoughts.
It’s like looking into a furnace, Conanus decided. I’m surprised that the air didn’t catch alight around him. God help us all if he should lose his head.
But Andragathius had no intention of failing in his task, for Gratian would surely lose his head before the week was done.
CHAPTER III
The Storm Clouds Gather
Nowhere can a man find a quicker or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Bk 4
In the far north, the war machine of Flavius Magnus Maximus was marching towards Augusta Treverorum with the ranks swelled by defectors from Gratian’s army. At the same time, Andragathius’s troop of assassins had set up a small camp on a low rise overlooking Bibracte.
When the troop awakened in the early dawn, they could see that the town was walled and seemed secure. Farmers were slowly moving their wagons towards the gates from the north and the south, so the Roman decided that this fine morning must be their market day. But the sight of a troop of heavily armed Roman cavalry, at rest on the slopes of the hill, caused the farmers to hurry past, flicking the backs of their oxen with their reins and almost running to keep up with their lumbering, two-wheeled wagons filled with fresh produce. The presence of a number of barbarians among the Romans in the column alarmed these peasants even further, so they were determined to pass these dangerous and unpredictable men as quickly as possible.
When Andragathius finally ordered his cavalrymen to mount their horses, the farmers pulled their overloaded wagons as far as possible on to the verges of the road so the horsemen could safely move past them. When the column had trotted by without incident, more than one of the farmers kissed their crucifixes or the amulets that hung from dirty necks. They were thanking their gods for a lucky escape.
‘Why are they so fearful?’ Conanus asked as he kicked his horse’s ribs to force his stallion closer to Andragathius’s roan. ‘You’d think we were the enemy, rather than their protectors.’
‘These peasants have no reason to love Roman fighting men. Their sons are forced to enter the ranks of the legions, their livestock is stolen and their hard-won stores of food are confiscated for battles that have nothing to do with the peasants. Gratian’s scribes then impose taxes that relieve them of their small store of base coins or strip away what is left of their crops in lieu of payment. Each year, the taxes grow larger and their burdens are such that hunger stalks what should be fruitful lands. Why would they want to trust us?’
Andragathius’s voice was bitter, so his words set Conanus’s vivid imagination racing as he considered any number of reasons for the Roman officer’s obvious disgust with the treatment of the local peasants. Conanus had rarely considered the feelings of his own farmers, far away in Cymru, and nor did he see anything unusual in Gratian’s demands on the peasantry. After all, this pattern of rule and power was familiar, even normal, throughout the entire world. He said as much, and then watched in astonishment as Andragathius’s fierce eyes turned on him.
‘Of course, Conanus, I had forgotten that you were an aristocrat of the bluest barbarian blood.’ The horse captain’s voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘Gratian considers you to be as important as his Circassian slaves, because they’re highly prized by all rulers. They’re not quite human, of course, but they are quite exotic. As are you, whatever you might believe. Gratian would breed from his Circassian slaves if he could, but he wastes them so quickly.’
Conanus’s jaw fell as he absorbed this flow of invective, so he tried to defend himself.
‘Why the diatribe, my friend? And what is a Circassian slave? Perhaps we should calm ourselves, because the men can hear us arguing.’
‘I don’t give a fuck who hears my opinions! One day, the men who wield power in this world will learn that you can’t break the backs of the peasants with exorbitant taxes and then confiscate whatever you want from their livestock and their women as a right of birth. I can assure you that the rage that lies on our doorstep grows with the passing of every year. Rome cannot feed itself, yet it brutalises the very people who provide the food that is needed for Roman tables. Woe betide Rome if the huge mass of the peasantry should rise up and refuse to obey the commands that pass through the Senate. The legions would collapse, for the sons of the common people fill the ranks. No, these common soldiers don’t lead the army or give the orders, but we expect them to hold the line when our officers give their orders. What if our legionnaires, whose childhoods were spent on farms across the Roman world, cast down their arms? How would rulers like the mighty Gratian survive such a revolt?’
Appalled, Conanus tried to face the burning red eyes of his compatriot. He had never seen such passion and rage at work on the face of the horse captain and, suddenly, Andragathius revealed himself as a man to be feared. Conanus was accustomed to treating his superior with a touch of cynical scorn that was thinly veiled by humour, because Andragathius appeared to be little more than an enforcer for his idol, Magnus Maximus. In the stunned eyes of the Briton, his comrade had suddenly become a warrior with a mind and opinions of his own. And this discovery was so disconcerting that Conanus had to stifle the urge to flee from his commander’s presence. The fierce and unpredictable warrior who rounded on him was now a dangerous enigma, so Conanus realised he would have
to reassess his opinion.
‘You’ve given me much to think about, Andragathius. Do you think we’ll find this anger in Bibracte? Should we be on our guard for treachery?’
Andragathius snorted humourlessly. ‘Just look at the face of the gatekeeper as we enter the town. For once, we should stare into the faces of the peasants when we are on the streets of Bibracte. Take note of how the farmers and their labourers cringe away from us as we pass them by. We are the embodiment of the power and order of the Empire, so the peasants should welcome us with pleasure as the guardians of their safety. They should, but will they? No, they won’t,’ Andragathius added as an afterthought.
Conanus refused to argue, so he pulled back on his reins and positioned his horse directly behind his commander whose stiff back reflected a surprisingly contained rage.
But Conanus would have been a fool if he had overlooked the narrow, suspicious glances of the farmers as the cavalry entered the town. Several spat when the troop passed them by and they dropped their eyes mulishly when Conanus craned his neck to look back at them. The Briton recognised the expressions of fear and anger in those flat, half-obscured eyes around him, and his back began to itch between the shoulder blades.
Could Andragathius’s assumptions be correct? Was the horse captain pointing out an obvious truth, one accepting that the peasantry had no love for their lords and were only compliant because they were afraid? If so, Conanus must change a lifetime’s habit of viewing his world from under the constraints of a blinkered, autocratic status. He began to feel uncomfortable and unaccountably defensive.
And he no longer considered Andragathius to be Maximus’s fool.
In the faces of the crowd, Andragathius could picture Balbus, Livius and his friend, Horse, the stableboy who made his first years on Theodosius Major’s estate almost bearable. Although the memories were painful, the horse captain was forced to recall the past as his roan moved steadily through the town.