The Songs of Slaves

by David Rodgers

  “Follow me, Connor,” Valia said, still struggling slightly with the sound of the name. “We must introduce you to Sarus.”

  Before Connor could ask, Valia was walking briskly ahead towards the center of the camp. As they drew near to a tent guarded by four sentries, Valia turned back to him.

  “Let me do the talking.”

  And with that the four entered through the open flap.

  Connor was immediately surprised by how orderly and comfortable the inside of the tent seemed. There was an unlit lamp hanging from the center post. There were a wooden table and chairs, and a heavy trunk nearby. Connor did not need much imagination to figure out what that might be. In one of the corners was a stand that held a set of polished plate armor and a tall-crested Roman helmet, as well as a shield that – like Valia’s – had been well hacked. But all this Connor took in quickly, for the tall man standing behind the table commanded all attention.

  “Good evening, Stratygos,” Valia said. Connor detected that Sarus was being treated as the superior and addressed by the Greek term for a high general; but there was no servility in Valia’s voice, only an almost long-suffering politeness.

  “Greetings, Lord Valia,” said the dark haired man in a quiet, low voice – almost like the growl of a bear. “I trust your patrol was unharried and uneventful.”

  “Almost,” Valia said. “Until the end, when we met with a small number of bacaudae.”

  “How many?” Sarus said, stepping out from behind the table and drawing close to speak to Valia – a strange cultural habit Conner had noticed in Goths before. Sarus was older – perhaps in his early forties, with gray hairs in his black beard and mane of black hair. His frame was nothing short of massive, with muscles larger than any of Montevarius’ celebrated heavy lifters. Though at ease in his tent, he still wore a coat of chain mail that was torn in a few places and rusting in others, and from his belt hung the longest sword Connor had ever seen. It was plain, with a hilt almost like a letter I, and easily as long as a man’s leg – too long to be even be considered a spatha. Connor wondered at the iron smith who had the skill to make such a sword, as well as the strength of the man who wielded it in battle. But Sarus’ age and position, as well as the marks on his shield and scars on his face and arms showed clearly that he wielded his hero’s sword well.

  “Only a few less than a dozen, mounted and well-armed,” Valia exaggerated.

  “All dead now?”

  “No witnesses,” Valia answered. “Thanks largely in part to our new friend here. I present to you Connor.”

  Sarus drew near to Connor, eyeing him – almost glaring – sizing him up. Connor bore the gaze as best as he could.

  “You are no Goth,” Sarus said.

  “No, Stratygos,” Connor offered.

  “Are you one of Constantine’s men?”

  “No, Stratygos.”

  “Lying does not become a man,” Sarus returned.

  “His actions become one, though,” Valia said.

  Sarus backed away, resuming his place behind the table and pouring himself a bowl of wine.

  “Indeed. Well, if you vouch for him, Lord Valia, then he shall be my guest as well. Though we have enough mouths to feed, and there are enough assassins on the road without bringing them into our own camp. We may free every Gothic slave in Gaul, as your kinsman Alaric wishes, but do we need strays?”

  “A warrior is always worth his pay, Stratygos.”

  “True. Which brings me to my next question.”

  Valia produced a small bag and tossed it down onto the table.

  “The bacaudae dead rendered this silver and gold, which I offer you, Stratygos, in a sure sign of our continued accord,” Valia said.

  “Thank you, Lord Valia, for this and every service. Now I pray you, go and take food and rest. I want an early start tomorrow.”

  Valia and the others bowed, with Connor hastily following their example. The left the tent, as Sarus sat down to look over his tattered map.

  “Does he think that is all the money?” Connor asked when they were out of earshot of the sentries.

  “Eh? Oh –I doubt it,” Valia answered. “We both have to keep up with appearances, though, don’t we?”

  “Would you bloody-well look at him?” Gaiseric said as they came up beside the others. With a nod of his head the wiry Visigoth indicated a column of about twenty riders entering the edge of the encampment. They were cavalrymen, dressed and equipped like Valia and his men, but the shields that hung on their saddles were green with a gold-painted design around the iron bosses. Behind the column they pulled a wagon laden with what appeared to be provisions – crates and amphorae, some piles of clothing or blankets, and various other items. But Connor’s eyes were drawn to a young woman, her hands bound, mounted on a spare horse tethered behind the leader. Her hair and complexion were dark, like Lucia’s, and perhaps that is what made the sight of her tear-stained face and torn dress distress Connor even more than the sight of another innocent prisoner may have. Overwhelmed horror and despair clouded the beauty of her features. Connor knew that look well. Unconsciously, his hand found the hilt of his spatha.

  “We are out every day scouting – putting ourselves at greatest risk – while he is out foraging,” Henric said, and spat on the ground. The sound of his voice brought Connor back to his senses. Draw a sword in this crowd and you would not live long enough to help anyone at all.

  “Is he foraging, or pillaging?” Gaiseric chimed in. “He’s stolen another girl. Who knows what else he is taking for himself and his lackeys?”

  “Patience, friends,” Valia said, as Connor took a better look at the man in question – the leader of the column of newcomers. The man was young – between Connor’s age and Valia’s – and Connor was again surprised to see one so young leading men who were older and obviously battle-hardened. Though Connor was not an expert, he could see that the young man’s mail, black cloak, and boots were newer and in better repair than Valia’s or any of the others. His stature was tall and broad shouldered, his bearing was proud, and his coloring dark like the charger he was riding. Connor was about to ask who he was, but even then the man saw the group and rode towards them, leading the hapless girl’s horse behind him.

  “Salve, Valia,” the young cavalryman said. His voice was cheerful and even, but was overlaid with a smugness that was hard to ignore. Connor noted that while Sarus had called Valia “Lord” that this man did not bother.

  “Salve, Arastan,” Valia answered.

  “How was the patrol? Didn’t run into any trouble?”

  “None. We should rest safely tonight.”

  “Excellent,” Arastan replied, turning his gaze to Connor for the first time. “Who is this?”

  Connor looked past the arrogant face of the warrior to the girl who wept quietly right behind him, and then back again. He tried to conceal the contempt that was stirring in his chest, but flatness was as close as he could get.

  “Connor,” he said.

  “Conner of Nowhere is our new comrade in arms, for a time,” Valia said.

  “Another drifter for your ranks, Valia, Master of the Masterless,” said Arastan, risking a quick glance to Tuldin. “Our foraging party was quite successful, as you can see.”

  A quick pull of his wrist brought the prisoner’s horse forward a step, as if Arastan was uncertain if Valia’s men could properly see her before. The girl gasped, fearing some new abuse. Behind them, some of Arastan’s men laughed.

  “An aristocrat’s daughter – was, anyway. The villa was too far from the road and too few miles from yesterday’s camp to make a proper stop for tonight; but we got plenty of what we needed there.”

  Connor swallowed hard. More murderers, rapists, and thieves – he knew the type so well by now. He was standing in a brood of vipers. He glanced at Valia out of the corner of his eye. He had started to like the young nobleman. He had seemed to be honorable. What was he really, and what would Valia expect of him?

  “I’
m sure our people thank you and the other foraging parties for providing another night of food and supplies,” Valia said. His voice had changed – it was still evenly paced and polite enough, but there was a hard edge thinly disguised in it now. “But attacking villas, slaughtering aristocrats, and kidnapping their children draws dangerous attention to us.”

  Arastan looked as if Valia had slapped him, but he quickly recovered the same arrogant expression. He handed the tether to one of his henchmen, who led the girl back a few paces as some of the other riders closed in. On foot, as he and his new “comrades in arms” were, Connor did not miss the threat.

  “You would rather I sack farmhouses?” Arastan mocked. “That might take all day.”

  “Of course you must target the villas,” Valia said when the laughter of Arastan’s cavalrymen died down. “But our opportunity lies in that the forces of Honorius and the forces of Constantine are tying each other up. Do you want to create a situation in which one or the other answers the appeals of their rich subjects and has part of his force break off to pursue us? We have a handful of fighting men. We absolutely require speed and stealth if we are to reach the others intact.”

  “Are you suggesting I just go up to the villa door and ask them for a handout?” Arastan jibed, again enjoying the laughter of his men.

  “Are you suggesting that you arrived with twenty mounted fighting men and met real resistance?”

  “Resistance? Yes, he gave us some resistance – when he saw us with his daughter!”

  Arastan’s men thundered their approval of their captain’s wit.

  “Why do you care anyway? Have you forgotten what these people have done to us? Good night to you, Valia,” he said, and turning his horse led his men away, their prisoner in tow.

  Valia let a full breath of air out slowly between his teeth.

  “I hate that fucker,” Henric said.

  “He isn’t the General’s son, is he?” Connor said.

  “Good eye,” Valia said. “He is his youngest son, though his looks favor his mother more. And don’t be deceived – Sarus is not like Arastan in that he has wisdom and experience, but he is much like Arastan in that he knows what he wants and does not hesitate to use what force or cunning he may need to. Do not underestimate either of them.”

  “Because if you do underestimate them, you may wind up hemmed in behind the walls of Valentia,” Gaiseric joked.

  Valia started to walk and the others followed him.

  “I am confused,” Connor ventured.

  “Again?” Gaiseric jibed.

  “You are foederati.”

  “Yes we are – or were and will be again,” Valia offered. “There’s my tent, thank God. I need to wash this dust and blood off and have a drink.”

  “You are supposed to be fighting for Rome.”

  “Ah, but which Rome are we to fight for?” Valia said. “Honorius’s Rome? Constantine the Usurper’s Rome? Eudoxia’s Rome? Why not fight for our Rome?”

  “But we are within the Imperium now. I understand that there is a civil war of some kind going on, but how can Arastan attack Roman citizens in the name of Rome? You speak of needing secrecy and going through a hostile land. If you are the armies of Rome then why would you fear your fellow Romans?”

  “Gods above!” Henric exclaimed.

  “What sort of Britannic rock did you crawl out from under?” Gaiseric said, laughing.

  “Innocence is a gift,” Valia said, lifting his hand. “But let me ease you of its burden. Should we be surprised, friends, that wherever he was they told him so little of us? Honestly, Connor, it makes me feel better about you; because I think that if they were going to send a spy to us it would not be as one left like a child in the woods.”

  XV

  “When my father was just a boy, we Goths lived far away from here,” Valia began. “Our tribes had long been settled in the hills, plains, and woodlands across the Danube. In those days, the Gothic tribes were of one accord – well, more or less. We were proud and strong. Our lands were secure, and our flocks of sheep and cattle large. Our ways were solid and orderly, and had been in place for generation upon generation.”

  The fire crackled and danced as the young nobleman’s voice took on a subtly chanting quality. Valia had removed his mail and untied his hair, giving him the appearance more of a shaman than a warrior. They had all finished their spits of stolen pork and their shares of hard bread, and were now passing a flagon of wine to refill their drinking horns. Connor could hear the hum of conversations and laughter from the other nearby campfires as the wanderers settled from their day on the road.

  “The Imperium – Rome – was our neighbor; and as neighbors will, we made war on each other from time to time. For war is the way of man, and contention is as food and drink to the Goth, they say. But the story of our relations with Rome back then was more of trade then of war. And whether at arms or in trade we always respected them.”

  Connor raised an eyebrow at this; for though Titus had not provided him with a thorough knowledge of history, he had more than once mentioned Gothic raids and invasions going back hundreds of years. It was about a hundred and fifty years ago, if he remembered his facts, that Goths had left the Augustulus Dacius dead in a swamp.

  “We thought they respected us,” Valia continued. “But we should have known better. But over the years, as our wool and wood and craftwork spread throughout Rome, Rome’s thought and religion spread through our lands. In imitation of our wiser brother we learned to write our language, and eventually embraced the Christian god – the god of our respected foe Constantine. The real Constantine, that is. And so those times were, and who knows what might have happened if everything had not so suddenly changed.

  “But change they did. And change came on a pale horse. The Huns rode out of the East. We had fought them before, but in the time of my father they were suddenly so numerous – a massive confederation of savages, drawing other restless tribes unto themselves. They defeated the mighty horsemen, the Alans, and used their surviving warriors against us. They conquered a great number of the Ostrogothic tribes – our own brethren – and heating old enmities they forced them to fight us as well. Before we even realized it, we were surrounded and embroiled in dark war. And such a war it was! A war of terror and indiscriminate death. The Huns care not for age, or man or woman. They care not for honor. They only care for violence, dominion, and gain. If a brave man comes against them they will shoot him from afar rather than match iron with him. And if you can clash swords with one, another will catch you ‘round the neck with his lasso and drag you to death with his horse. How can even the mighty stand against men such as these, who murder rather than fight; especially when they come in such great number, hell-bent on the destruction of everything except for what they would take for themselves?”

  Connor glanced across the fire at Tuldin. The Hun seemed impassive, showing neither displeasure nor pride at these allegations thrown at the feet of his people. Even Connor needed no lengthy introduction to the Huns. Enough slaves had been all too eager to tell him the stories – whether through their own experience, or far more often through the hearsay of others. The Huns were said to be from far away – from the wild lands at the edge of the world – though many Romans held to the story that they were actually the spawn of Gothic witches and the demons they conjured. It was said that on the first day of their birth the male children were disfigured with knives, and that their faces were bound to increase their fearsome appearance. As he looked at Tuldin it seemed that this much at least was true – long scars ran from his mouth across his cheeks and from his forehead across his nose; and while Connor had already observed that the battle scars, swollen ears, and broken noses common amongst these Visigoth warriors made comeliness unusual in this camp, Tuldin was nothing short of ugly. His bowlegged walk attested to a life spent mostly in the saddle; and of course Connor had already witnessed his uncanny speed and skill with the bow – a bow of many layers of wood and horn that had su
ch power as to be supposedly unequalled amongst that of any other race in the world. The stories spoke of the hardness of the Huns, who came from a place so barren that they lived on raw meat and wore clothes made from the skins of field mice and rats. But what had always stood out in the stories was their cruelty. They were reputedly a people who loved not only murder but torture, and who took delight not merely in victory but in annihilation. Yet, here one of their numbers sat quietly, around the same fire with these men whom were telling a tale of their lasting enmity. What was happening to this world?

  “In time the Huns managed to divide us,” Valia continued. “I must say, the strength and resolve of the Goths faltered. One great chief was dead, slain by his own hand rather than face the terror one more day. Another managed to flee with his tribe up into the wild Carpathians, in the Forest Between as that cold land is called; but few could follow him there. The rest of us were trapped, with the savages and their allies closing in. It seemed that we only had one option. We appealed to Rome. Not for military aid – for everyone knew they would not commit to anything that was not their own – but for asylum. Even as they had used the fierce Sarmatians as a guard against us (before we defeated them) we appealed to the Augustulus Valens in Constantinople to use us as a guard against the Huns. Only let us cross the Danube, and settle some ground in Thrace. We asked only for some land, and some provisions to keep us alive until we could settle in and grow our own food. In exchange we promised service of arms and loyalty to the Imperium. We reasoned that facing the Huns with nothing but the river at our back we were doomed; but if we could face the Huns as the first line of defense of the Roman Imperium then we could not fail. And so we were fooled by our own belief.

  “Valens consented. He was even enthusiastic about the plan. Perhaps his intentions were pure. We will never know. In my father’s youth my people crossed over the mighty river. We built up a great refugee camp of tents in the driving Thracian dust and wind. Content to rape our lands, the Huns followed no further for a time.