Gratillonius and Florus had drawn aside at the latter’s request, away from the dead, wounded, captured, the thickening blood puddles. As yet, the sky and the crowns of trees were bright overhead. A few rays slanted golden through the westside gloom. Only a hint of chill was in the air. Crows cawed.
“But the bishop is gone,” Florus wailed. “A holy man, a lord of the Church, borne off by a gang of sacrilegious murderers! I’ll never live down the scandal, never. And my mules, my well-trained carters, lost! Why could you not make better speed?”
“I told you,” Gratillonius said wearily. “If you mean to complain at the garrison, spare your breath. Any competent officer will understand. Be glad we saved what we did and can help you finish your journey.”
His command would have to do that. The chances of some other group coming along, whom he could dump the chore onto, were slight, as feeble as traffic had become. He couldn’t leave these people without escort when a dozen outlaws were still at large. The delay in his own progress would be excused him. Though the Christians would be aghast at what had happened to a veritable bishop—
“Hs-s-s,” whispered from the brush. “Roman, listen.”
Gratillonius spun about. He saw nothing but tangled green, murk behind it. Helmetless in the aftermath of battle, the breeze cool upon his brow, did he hear a rustling?
“Hs-s-s,” went the voice again. “Hark’ee.”
“What’s this?” yelped Florus. “Are the murderers back? Help! To arms!”
Gratillonius caught him by the nape and squeezed till he whimpered. “Be still,” the centurion said, never looking away from the forest. “Go back to your wagons and say nothing. I’ll handle this.”
“But—you can’t—”
“Begone and shut up, or I’ll have you flogged.”
He let go. Florus stumbled off, half sobbing. Gratillonius spoke softly: “Who are you?”
“The Bacauda chief. Make no move, if you want your bishop alive.”
Something eased in Gratillonius. He heard himself chuckle. “Very well,” he said. “Now how shall we go about bargaining?”
2
The centurion’s tent was large enough for two men to sit in, on its floor which kept out the dampness of the soil. Its walls likewise withstood autumnal cold. Outside, a wind had arisen after nightfall, to rush through branches, whirl dead leaves away, rattle the leather of the tent and make its poles tremble. Within, a lantern threw dull highlights onto faces, against monstrous shadows.
“Your price is high,” Gratillonius said.
Rufinus shrugged and grinned. “One bishop for six Bacaudae. Take it or leave it. Myself, I think I’m being swindled.”
Gratillonius peered at him. His invited visitor was young, about nineteen or twenty he guessed, though the spirit behind the green eyes seemed as old as the night wind. Rufinus was of medium height, much of it in his legs, and wirily built. Features otherwise sharp and regular were marred by the scar of a cut, poorly treated, puckering his right cheek and giving his mouth the hint of a perpetual sneer. Though his beard was still scanty, he kept it trimmed in an unconventional fork. His black hair was also short, and reasonably clean, as were the rest of his person and his clothes. Faded, many times patched or darned, shirt and breeches were of stout material. A deerskin jerkin gave additional protection, and he had doffed a cowled cloak. His footgear was clearly from no shoemaker’s shop, but just as clearly made to his measure with a degree of skill. At his belt were a pouch, a knife, and a Roman sword.
“You put me in a cleft stick,” Gratillonius said. “Unless I let dangerous bandits go free, what will become of the bishop?”
“He’ll be butchered like a hog,” Rufinus answered coolly. “Before then, maybe some of the boys will use him.”
“What?”
“Well, we seldom see a woman, you know. Though in this case, it’d be revenge more than lust. I wouldn’t want that withered prune.”
Fury thickened in Gratillonius’s throat. He could barely stay where he was, and not assail the other. “You rotten snake!”
Rufinus lifted a palm. “Hold on,” he said. “I’m only warning, not threatening. “I’d forbid such a thing if I could. But I’m no army officer. We’re free men, we Bacaudae. We choose our leaders ourselves, and follow their orders if and when we want to. My gang is enraged. If they don’t get their friends back—if, instead, those fellows go off to death, maybe first to torture—I can’t stand in the way of their justice. They’d kick me aside.”
He leaned forward. His Latin flowed easily despite rough accent, sloppy grammer, and idioms strange to Gratillonius. “As is,” he said, “I’ll hear curses aplenty when they learn they won’t get a ransom besides the exchange. I wonder how you dare hold back stuff that could make you sure of your holy man.”
Gratillonius returned a grim smile. “He’s not my holy man. I’ll have to answer for whatever happens. Leave me this much to show. If you won’t, well, I need just report that no meeting took place.” He didn’t know if he could bring himself to that. Certainly he could not if put under oath. However, he needn’t reveal his vulnerability. “Besides, think. You’ll have to go far and fast, before the garrison comes after you. This wood isn’t too big for them to beat. Four of our prisoners are too hurt to walk much. They’ll encumber you enough, without adding boxes of goods.”
Rufinus laughed. “Right! That’s how come I gave in on that point. I did hope for some solidi, but you win.”
He grew serious, with an underlying liveliness that never seemed to leave him. “How’s this sound? We meet at sunrise. You keep your men in camp. We’re woodsrunners; we’ll know whether you’re honest about that. We’ll show up half a mile south with the bishop. One of us’ll stand by him—me—ready to kill if anything goes sour. You release our four disabled buddies and give time for us to carry them well away. Then two of you bring our two hale down the road. You can have their hands tied and leashes on them, and you can have swords, but no javelins. We stop a few yards apart and let our hostages go, both sides. The bishop’s slow on his feet, so I’ll release him first, but you’ve got to release ours while he’s still near enough for me to dash up and stab him. Naturally, you can pay us back in kind if I play you false. We scamper off into the woods and you return to camp. Satisfied?”
Gratillonius pondered. This was a quick intelligence he dealt with. “The leashes will be long, so your fellows can’t bolt off after we let go,” he decided. “When they reach you, you can cut the cords.”
Again Rufinus laughed. “Done! You’re a workman, Gratillonius. Be damned if I don’t like you.”
In his relief, the centurion couldn’t help smiling back. “Aren’t you damned already?”
Mercurially, the Gaul turned somber. “No doubt, if it’s true what the Christians say. But then I expect the fire for me won’t be so hot as what they keep for the great landowners and senators. Do you really know the masters you serve?”
Memories crowded on Gratillonius. He scowled. “Better them than outright banditry. I’ve seen enough places looted and burnt, women who’d been raped over and over, children and oldsters killed for fun, that I’ve no lost no sleep after striking down what reavers I could—be they barbarians or Romans.”
Rufinus gave him a long look before murmuring, “You aren’t from hereabouts, are you?”
“N-no, I’m a Briton. But these past two years and more I’ve been in Armorica. Osismiic country, that is.”
“I don’t believe there’re any Bacaudae that far west.”
“There aren’t. Most of it’s been picked too clean. Ys alone has stayed well off, because it’s got ways to keep the wolves out.”
Rufinus sat straight. His eyes caught the lantern light as they widened. “Ys,” he breathed. “You’ve been there?”
“I’ve operated in the area.” Gratillonius’s instinct was to reveal no more to an enemy than was unavoidable. “Now I’m on a different mission. I planned no fight with you. Nor did those wayfarers yo
u attacked. For whatever you’ve suffered, blame yourselves.”
“Ys, the city of fable—” Rufinus broke off, shook himself, spoke sharply. “I’ve never been yon way, of course, but I can guess what kind of ‘wolves’ you’re thinking of. Saxons and Scoti for the most apart, hey? And some Gauls who took the chance to go looting around after everything was wreckage—though I’ll bet a lot of those were driven to it by hunger. Where was the Roman state that taxed them and ordered them about, where was it when they needed it? But anyhow, they were not Bacaudae.”
“Do you mean you’re something else than marauders?”
“I do.” With bitterness: “You wouldn’t care to listen. I’ll go now. See you in the morning.”
“No, wait!” Gratillonius thought for a moment. “If you’ll stay a while, I’ll hear you out.”
“How’s that?” Rufinus asked, surprised. He had gotten up. His movements were apt to be quick, nervous, but deft.
“Well, you see,” Gratillonius explained, “I am a Briton, and my time in Gallia has all been at the far western end, except for a march there from Gesoriacum. But I may be, well, in future I may be having business elsewhere. I can handle it better if I know how things are. All I know of the Bacaudae is that they’re vagabond gangs of runaway serfs, slaves, every sort of riffraff. I mean, that’s all I’ve heard. Is there more to it?”
Rufinus stared down at the big, blunt-featured, auburn-haired man. “You’re a deeper one than you make out,” he said low. “I’d give a bit to learn what your business really is. But—Look here. What I’ve got to tell won’t please you. It’ll be the truth, but the truth about Rome. I’m not after another fight.”
“I don’t want any either. Say what you will, and if I get angry, I’ll hold it in. I may or may not believe you, but… I’ve had worse foes than you.”
Rufinus’s smile glistened forth, bad though his teeth were. “The same right back at you, Gratillonius! Let’s.” He lowered himself.
The centurion rose in turn. “How about some wine to help our tongues along?”
—The tale came out in shards. Sometimes Rufinus japed, sometimes he struggled not to weep. Gratillonius plied him with drink and questions, and meanwhile tried to fit events together in his mind. Later he would try to understand.
Rufinus was born to a smallholder near the latifundium of Maedraeacum in the canton of the Redones, about twenty miles northwest of Condate Redonum. Albeit impoverished, the family was close-knit and had its joys. Rufinus, the youngest, especially liked herding swine in the woods, where he taught himself trapping and the use of the sling. Yet even before his birth, the vise was closing. The best of the land had been engulfed by the manors. Imperial regulation made needed goods costly when they were available at all. Such transactions were generally furtive, while farmers had no choice but to sell their produce openly, under strict price control. Meanwhile taxes climbed out of sight. Rufinus’s father more and more sought refuge in the cup. Finally, his health destroyed, he coughed himself to death one winter.
Rather than let children of hers be sold into slavery for back taxes, the widow conveyed the farm to Sicorus, owner of Maedraeacum, and the family became his coloni—serfs. They were bound to the soil, compelled to deference and obedience, required to do labor for their lord and, after working for themselves, pay more than half the crop over to him. Their grain they must have ground at his mill and at his price. There were no more forest days for Rufinus. Thirteen years old, he was now a field hand, his knees each evening ashake with weariness.
The following year his pretty older sister Ita became the concubine of Sicorus. She could not be forced, under the law. However, he could offer easements for her kin—such as not assigning her brothers to the most brutal tasks—and for her it was a way out of the kennel. Rufinus, who adored her, stormed to the manor house to protest. The slaves there drove him off with blows. He ran away. Sicorus coursed him down with hounds, brought him back, and had him flogged. The law permitted chastisement of contumacious coloni.
For another year, he bided his time. Whispers went along the hedges and in the woodlots; men slipped from their hovels to meet by twilight; news seeped across this narrow horizon. It came oftenest on the lips of wanderers who had made their lifework the preaching of sedition. The Empire had rotted to worthlessness, they said; Frankish laeti at Redonum sacrificed human beings to heathen Gods; raiders harried the coasts, while war bands afoot struck deep in from the East. Meanwhile the fat grew fatter, the powerful grew ever more overbearing. Had not Christ Himself denounced the rich? Was not the hour overpast to humble them and take back what they had wrung from the working poor? The Last Day drew nigh, Antichrist walked the world; your sacred duty was to resist him. Righteous men had sworn themselves to a brotherhood, the Bacaudae, the Valiant….
Ita’s death in childbed was the last thing Rufinus endured. After that, he planned his next escape carefully, and found his way to the nearest Bacauda encampment.
—“We’re no saints, oh, no, no,” he hiccoughed. By then he was fairly drunk. “I learned that soon enough. Some amongst us are beasts of prey. The rest’re rough. I give you that. But the most of us, the most of us, we only wanted to live in peace. We only wanted to till our plots of ground, and keep the fruits of our work, and have our honor under the law.”
“How do you live?” Gratillonius asked. He had matched the Gaul stoup for stoup, but he was larger and not half starved.
“Oh, we hunt. What a pleasure that is, when we know we’re poaching! We raise a little garden truck in the wilds. We rob when we can, from the rich, like that futtering smug trader today, but we swap the loot in honest wise for what we need. And merchants who pass through sections, regular-like, where we are, they pay toll. They’re not s’posed to, but they do, undercover, and save ’emselves trouble. And our own people, serfs who’ve not fled and what few small freehold farmers are left, they help us out, for love.”
“For love. Indeed.” Gratillonius made his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I’m a farm boy myself. I know farmers. What you say sounds exactly like them.”
“Well, we’re fighting their war,” Rufinus declared. “It’s only right for them to pay their share. Food, clothes, that sort of thing. Besides, we protect ’em against bandits.”
Gratillonius shrugged. He could well imagine what their protection consisted of. Cotters who declined it were apt to find their roofs ablaze or their throats slit.
Rufinus read his thought and said defensively, “It can be for love. How d’you think I got this outfit of mine?”
By charm, Gratillonius imagined. This young man had an abundance of that. Let him enter the drabness that was the life of some isolated, poverty-stricken wife—in and out of it, like bursts of sunshine when wind drove clouds across heaven, like an elf by moonlight—If every Bacauda were as glib, the band today would look a lot less scruffy.
Still, said Gratillonius’s stubborn mind, Rufinus was in fact as neat and clean as possible in his kind of existence: which revealed something about him.
The centurion shifted the subject toward matters of more immediate interest. “Well, then, have you Bacaudae a secret kingdom that considers itself at war with Rome, the way the Persians usually are? That doesn’t square with what I’ve heard. But tell me.”
“M-mm, no, not really,” Rufinus admitted. “We do have emperors—an emperor for each region—but he doesn’t do much except lead his own group and be at the head of the gatherings, when several groups meet. We call the head of any other band its duke.” His sardonic tone implied that the title didn’t mean “leader” but was a deliberate parody of Roman organization. “I’m the duke of mine.”
“A bit young for that, aren’t you?”
“There are no old Bacaudae,” Rufinus said quietly. Gratillonius remembered Alexander of Macedon. For that matter, he himself was twenty-five when he became King of Ys.
“We do make our deals,” the Gaul went on in a rush, as the wine sent another tide through his hea
d. “I’ve heard of bargains struck with Scotian or Saxon. Our folk’d guide ’em to a manor, they’d sack it but in return let the serfs be. And I got friendly with a Scotian—fled his homeland, he did, on account of a feud, and came to us—he told me ’bout Hivernia, where Rome never ruled, where they’ve always been free—”
Rufinus started, stiffened, once more shook himself. “I’d better not go on,” he said. “I might let too much slip out. You’re a good fellow, Gra—Gra—Gradlon. But I can’t let you in on any secrets of the brothers, could I, now?” He picked up his cloak and lurched to his feet. “G’night. I wish we could be friends.”
“I’ll take you past the sentries,” the soldier offered, rising too. He would have liked to continue the conversation, but it verged on questions that might suddenly make this two-legged wildcat lash out, and his duty was to get the bishop back unharmed.
They walked together into the windy dark, mute. As they parted, they clasped hand to arm.
III
1
About fifteen miles west of Augusta Treverorum there was an official hostel where Gratillonius decided to spend the night, even though sundown was still a couple of hours off. This was doubtless the last such place till he reached the city. Starting at dawn, with nothing to do except swallow breakfast and strike tents, the soldiers should reach their destination early enough next day that he would have no trouble getting them settled in and word of his arrival borne to the Emperor. Besides, he might find no suitable campground between here and there. The hills roundabout were largely given over to vineyards, with scant room between rows. Hazed and dreamy under the declining sun, this country seemed to lie in a different world from Armorica, as did most of what he had passed through. It was as if wars, brigands, and wild men had never been, save in nightmares.
As was common, the hostel maintained an open space for military parties. Having seen his established and supper cooking, Gratillonius sought the house. The dignity of his mission required that he avail himself of it, whether or not it was the kind of fleabag he had found too often along the way.
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