The Half-Slave

by Trevor Bloom

  When the Theodi realize that their journey has been wasted they go wild. They scream abuse and jeer and bare their arses. The boy joins them, leaping up and down in his anger, hurling every curse he knows. On the walls of the town, stone-eyed farmers stare without emotion while above the jumble of terracotta roofs a thick plume of red smoke already smears the sky.

  The boy watches as Aelfric throws his helmet on the ground and stumps up and down. Aelfric swears at the Gauls for having been too quick and his men for having been too slow. The Theodi look shamefaced. Without ladders, they cannot break into the town and they know the Gauls will never leave the safety of their walls while there are Saxon raiders about.

  Aelfric orders the crew to search the surrounding farmsteads. They soon return to say that the Gauls have fled, taking their livestock with them. For a town that has never before been raided, Samarobriva was well-prepared.

  The drizzle stops.

  Wet grasses steam under the rising sun. Midges and horse-flies the colour of iron rise in clouds. The sky migrates from a dove grey to a deep and impossible blue. Aelfric wipes his brow with the back of his hand.

  Nothing they can do.

  He orders the boy up the tree as look-out. The boy gives Aelfric a grin and shins up the tree as lithe and quick as a squirrel. The Theodi cheer him on and take bets on whether he will fall and break his neck. At the top, he crooks a leg over a branch, waves to show he is up and settles back against the trunk. He scans the horizon in every direction and then takes a piece of wood from his tunic and a small knife and begins to carve.

  The Theodi stack their spears and shields. They eat the last of their bread, chewing in morose silence and then they lie down in the soft shade beneath the trees, drag their cloaks over their faces.

  And sleep.

  The riders pulled up when they reached the brow of the hill and saw the Theodi waiting for them in the shield wall. Lodged in his tree, the look-out eyed them with open-mouthed fascination. The strangers’ horses were enormous, far bigger than anything in the homeland. Every man carried a lance and shield, an axe in his belt and a spatha, the long Roman cavalry sword, at his side. They wore mail shirts or tunics of boiled leather and helmets that gleamed in the sun.

  He glanced back at the Theodi. Apart from Aelfric and Besso, they went bareheaded and, while a few had long knives, most were armed only with shield and spear. Compared to the riders, they were wild and rough-looking. They outnumbered the strangers, but he knew men on foot were always ill-matched against men on horseback. If there was going to be a battle, it could go either way and he felt a jolt of anxiety at the thought that he might have to watch as his clanfolk were cut down in front of him.

  The riders sat on their horses for a long while, barely moving, their horses shaking their heads and flicking their tails. Then the boy saw one of the riders kick the flanks of his horse and move forward.

  Besso moved to Aelfric’s side, his lumpy face encased in a battered old iron helmet.

  ‘What are they? Romans?’

  Aelfric shook his head. ‘They look like Romans. But I don’t think they are.’

  ‘Think we’ll have to fight?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Aelfric said.

  Besso pulled a mournful face. ‘Guess we’ll find out soon enough,’ he said.

  When Aelfric looked back he saw that a horseman, a slight figure on a cleanlimbed bay mare, was walking his horse towards them. Another rider, a burly man on a big thick-necked stallion, kicked his horse’s ribs and followed, staying close.

  As he approached, Aelfric saw that the lead rider was a young man, little more than a boy, his face angular with a long nose and a wide mouth, high-born by his clothes and weapons. He wore a mail coat and helmet and a dusty riding cloak draped over his back, pinned with a long-tailed gold brooch. Aelfric noted with envy that for all his slightness of build, the young man controlled his horse with a touch that was light and sure.

  The side-rider was older, a raw-boned brute with powerful shoulders and a hard mouth. Aelfric knew a veteran when he saw one, yet he noticed the older man held back, as if deferring to his young companion.

  The riders stopped, and there was an uneasy silence.

  The mare shook her head, jangled her bridle and sighed.

  ‘We are of one blood,’ the young man said politely.

  The dialect was ugly, the voice thin and reedy, but the stranger spoke with confidence employing the formal greeting of the Germanic peoples. Not Roman then, although Aelfric knew that meant little. The Romans often hired barbari to guard their frontiers.

  ‘We are of one blood,’ Aelfric growled. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  The young man smiled.

  ‘We are Franks, known as the Salt-People,’ he said. ‘We serve Lord Childeric, Overlord of the Franks.’

  His horse dropped her head and began to crop.

  Aelfric knew the Franks of old. A southern tribe who had done well from their closeness to the Romans. The Salt-People lived at the Rhine mouth while their kin-tribe, the River-Franks lived upriver. As the Romans had grown weaker, Childeric’s Franks had grown stronger, wasting no time in grabbing what they could of Roman Gallia. Even the Theodi knew of Childeric as a bloody and slaughterous war leader.

  The young Frank gazed at them, as if unperturbed by their silence. ‘Who leads here?’ he said mildly.

  Aelfric felt a twinge of unease, unsettled to be addressed so coolly by a mere boy. ‘I am Aelfric, hetman and war-leader of the Theodi Saxons,’ he said. ‘This is my captain, Besso.’

  The young Frank smiled as if the names were familiar to him.

  ‘What do you want, Frank?’ Aelfric said curtly.

  The boy smiled again. ‘Childeric wishes to speak with you,’ he said. ‘We came to take you to his hall in Tornacum.’

  Besso let out a soft gasp. Aelfric frowned. What did Childeric want with him, and who was this boy to tell him, Aelfric of the Theodi, what to do?

  The young Frank seemed to sense Aelfric’s distrust. ‘You would be Childeric’s honoured guest,’ he said smoothly. ‘And of course, your safety is assured. But so you may meet with confidence, I will stay here as hostage until you return. And as you do not appear to have a horse,’ he looked pointedly around the forest clearing, ‘you may take mine.’ He gestured to the big Frank at his side, ‘Bauto here will accompany you. But you must leave now. It is a long ride to Tornacum.’

  Aelfric saw the shock on Besso’s face. No Theod would dare talk to Aelfric that way. The Frank seemed unabashed. He stared at Aelfric, his expression combining a haughty authority mingled with defiance. But there was something more behind those pink cheeks, a touch of cruelty that suggested to Aelfric that this boy was more than he seemed.

  Aelfric rubbed his chin with the back of his fist. He was flattered that the Overlord of the Franks wanted to meet him, but had no wish to ride into his lair alone. Yet if he refused the boy’s offer he would look a coward. He leaned over and muttered in Besso’s ear.

  Besso cleared his throat and took a step forward. ‘We thank you for your offer. It is most kind,’ he said in rich and formal tones. ‘We have heard of the Lord Childeric. It is a great honour for my Lord Aelfric to be invited to talk with him.’

  The boy nodded, but his eyes never left Aelfric.

  ‘But you should know that among my people, Aelfric is a great war leader,’ Besso went on. ‘In the northlands he is far-famed. He has hewn limbs and split helms and wielded the wave-sword against our enemies more times than there are hairs on my head.’ Besso stroked his thinning hair with the flat of his hand. ‘If we are to take a hostage for Aelfric, we must have a warrior of equal rank.’

  Besso lowered his voice so that only Aelfric and the two Franks could hear. ‘You may be high-born, you arrogant little Frankish shit,’ he said, his voice dripping with contempt, ‘but you’re no more than a boy.’ He raised his plump hand and gave a delicate, almost feminine, little flutter in the Frank’s direction. ‘Come b
ack in a few years, when you’re a man, huh?’

  With a broad wink at Aelfric, Besso turned and stepped back.

  The big Frank swore, his face dark with surprised anger, but Aelfric had eyes only for the boy. He watched as the young Frank struggled to contain his fury. Dipping his head in ironic acknowledgement of the insult, the youth gave Besso a thin and bloodless smile and then turned to Aelfric.

  ‘Aelfric is a great warrior, a noble ring-giver, the most generous of men,’ he said softly. ‘I meant no disrespect.’

  Aelfric waited. Smooth as honey, he thought, but where’s the sting?

  The Frank looked at him. ‘But there is something you should know. My name is Chlodwig, known to the Gauls as Clovis, and I am the son of Childeric, Overlord of the Franks.’ He paused and then said, ‘And my father is not accustomed to being kept waiting.’

  Aelfric pulled at his earlobe. This was different, not at all what he had expected.

  ‘Bring Ubba!’ he whispered in Besso’s ear.

  The look-out shifted his cramped limbs. He watched, not understanding, as Besso walked back to the shield wall and returned with the Frisian guide. By his walk, the boy could tell that the Frisian guide was nervous and seemed reluctant to be drawn from the safety of the shield wall.

  When the big rider saw the Frisian, he let out a roar of rage. His fist fell to the hilt of his spatha, and he jerked his reins, forcing his horse back. Alarmed shouts rose among the riders, and the line of Saxon spears lurched forward.

  The look-out held his breath. He saw Aelfric lift a calming hand and the young rider speak sharp words to the older rider. The boy couldn’t hear what was said but the older man seemed to bite his tongue, leaning over his pommel and glowering at Ubba. Bad blood there, the look-out thought. Maybe the strangers don’t like Frisians guiding Saxon war bands into Roman Gallia.

  Aelfric bent his head and spoke to the Frisian. Ubba looked at the foreigners and nodded. Aelfric spoke to Besso and then seemed to come to a decision. He spoke to the young rider who swung his leg over his horse’s neck and slid to the ground and held out the reins to Aelfric. Ascha saw Aelfric take them and then hesitate. The boy shook his head. Everybody knew the hetman of the Theodi was a poor rider and uncomfortable on horseback.

  The young stranger clapped his hands. At once one of the horsemen spurred up the slope, hurriedly dismounted and knelt on all fours. As the look-out watched, leaning so far out of the tree he almost fell, Aelfric stepped on the man’s back and clambered clumsily onto the horse and grabbed wildly at the reins. The big foreigner shouted an order, and the strangers wheeled and rode away leaving the young stranger behind.

  The boy watched as the horsemen trotted down the valley, Aelfric bobbing in their midst like a bark on a rough sea. They turned onto the Roman road and went north. The boy followed them with his eyes until they were little more than a dark smudge on the horizon. He felt troubled by what he had just seen, without fully understanding why.

  Who were those people, he wondered.

  And where were they taking his father now?

  2

  When Aelfric and the Franks had gone, Clovis the Frank unpinned his cloak and carefully spread it on the dry grass. He unbuckled his sword belt, let it fall and then pulled the helmet from his head, revealing a thick thatch of straw-coloured hair. He placed his sword and helmet neatly side by side on the cloak and then lay down, folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes.

  Besso stood for a while, scratching the bristles on his chin and watching the young Frank, as if lost in thought. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, but he was afraid that Aelfric had done something very stupid and they were never going to see him again. He ordered the Theodi to disband and then heaved his belt up over his belly and ambled over towards Clovis. Bending down, he put his face very close to that of the young Frank.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable, my fine Lord,’ he said. ‘But if you do not return Aelfric to us by this time tomorrow, I promise you by Tiw’s holy breath that I will stick those skinny feet of yours into a bonfire and I will burn them to the bone.’

  Clovis opened his eyes. He looked up at Besso and gave him a cold smile.

  ‘Of course you will, Besso,’ he said softly. ‘That’s what hostages are for.’

  The look-out had heard only snatches of what had passed between the Theodi and the horsemen, but he had seen his father ride away and he realized that the young foreigner had stayed with the Theodi as hostage for Aelfric’s life. Passing a rope around the trunk, he half-slid, half-climbed down the tree and then dropped. He landed heavily and fell in an untidy sprawl, his legs numb from the time spent aloft.

  He sat and chafed his limbs back to life and then got to his feet, enjoying the prickle of grass under his feet. He found his carving and shoved it in his tunic, gasping as the heat closed in around him. Looking back up the tree, he felt a quick pang of regret. As look-out, every man’s life had depended on him, but here on the ground, he was nobody again. Yet he had shown what he could do and that was something they could not take away from him. But now he was desperate to find out what had happened. Who were the horsemen? Where had they taken Aelfric, and who was the young man they had left behind as hostage?

  He looked about him.

  Beams of sunshine filtered through the trees creating pools of light on the forest floor. The shield-wall had broken up and dispersed. Now the danger was over, the Theodi seemed to be in a boisterous mood. They wrestled and joked, and Ascha could hear them bragging about how bravely they would have fought if only the horsemen had dared to attack.

  He was not so sure.

  The strangers had seemed had come on boldly and had not been afraid of the Theodi shield wall. He suspected that, against the Theodi, their big horses and slashing long swords would have caused havoc.

  He saw Besso, sitting on a log munching an apple and went to join him. Besso looked up as he approached and waved. The boy could see that the apple was mostly rotten, but Besso did not seem to care. He was a big man with a solid neck and a long face who was known to eat almost anything without getting the flux.

  ‘Ha! Ascha. Tha did well, lad,’ Besso said in the dialect of the north shore. ‘Thi warning meant we were ready for them, although how tha managed to stay awake, let alone see them, I don’t know. Does tha want an apple?’

  Ascha smiled, delighted that what he had achieved had been noticed, and then spoke quickly, the words tumbling out. ‘Besso, who they were and what did they want? And where they have taken my father?’

  ‘Steady on!’ said Besso. ‘And I’ll tell tha everything.’

  Between mouthfuls of browned fruit, Besso explained what had happened. The riders were Franks, he said, and were far from where Besso would have expected them to be. Aelfric had gone to speak with the Overlord of the Franks. Besso spoke slowly and solemnly, as was his way.

  Ascha bit his tongue and waited as patiently as he could until Besso had finished.

  ‘But why does the Overlord of the Franks want to talk to my father?’

  Besso sighed. ‘It’s always questions with tha, isn’t it?’

  Ascha stared. Of course, he asked questions. How else could you learn?’

  ‘Well, it’s a funny thing,’ Besso said heavily, ‘but just this once the Overlord of the Franks forgot to take me into his confidence.’

  He looked up at Ascha and winked.

  Ascha sighed. He hated not knowing what was going on.

  ‘Will my father be all right?’

  ‘Course he will,’ Besso said.

  ‘What will tha do now?’

  ‘Wait for Aelfric’s return,’ Besso said, ’It’s all we can do.’ He gestured with his apple toward Samarobriva. ‘Them Gauls won’t pay tribute now they’re safe behind them gates. The men are hungry, but I can’t send them out to look for food when there are horse Franks abroad. They’d pick them off like flies.’ Besso suddenly slapped a hand against his jaw and studied the tiny corpse in his palm. ‘I have a bad
feeling about this. If it was down to me, I wouldn’t be happy until we’re at sea again and I can feel the ocean kicking under my keel.’

  Ascha sighed with exasperation. Besso was never one to shake the tree if he could avoid it. The Theodi had just seen off a Frankish war band, his father had been taken, and all Besso could think of was getting out.

  ‘And him?’ Ascha said, turning to the sleeping Frank. ‘What is he?’

  Besso blew out a pip. ‘Says his name is Chlodwig or Clovis, son of Childeric, which makes him a prince, I suppose. Ubba said he was who he said he was, so Aelfric went with them.’ Besso put on the slightly astonished look he wore when people acted differently to what he thought wise. ‘I told him he were mad, but tha knows what thi father’s like when his mind’s made up.’

  Ascha looked at his uncle and then at the Frank.

  ‘I want to talk to him.’

  ‘Talk to him, why?’

  Ascha wasn’t sure why. He was curious and realized that he was also a little envious. The Frank was the son of an Overlord, and Ascha couldn’t help but notice how self-assured he had seemed a short while ago. The Frank had ridden up to the Saxon shield-wall completely without fear. Ascha shrugged and said, ‘No reason.’

  Besso gave him a baffled look and then said, ‘Go ahead, but watch thi step. There’s more to that one than meets the eye.’

  The stranger lay on his side and seemed to be asleep, eyes closed, one arm folded beneath his head, thin lips pressed together. An armed guard stood nearby. Ascha ran his eyes over the Frank with a mix of awe and fascination. They were about the same age, the Frank maybe a little younger. He was tall and lean; clean and seemed untroubled by the heat. Ascha noticed that he wore his hair loose to his shoulders, not greased and coiled on top of his head as the Theodi and other Saxons did. His tunic was in a fine and closely-woven material, dyed black, and his helmet and chain mail looked as if they had been made for him. Both had been sand-scrubbed until they gleamed. His sword alone was worth a fortune, the hilt heavily decorated with a rich red metal, framed in gold.