by M. K. Hume
Caradoc ap Ynyr was finally dead and his struggles with his old friend would now be a thing of the past.
The official period of mourning that followed was accompanied by visits from most of the local kings of Britannia or their representatives. Many duties softened these miserable days of mourning, not least the humdrum, prosaic necessities that convention demanded of kinfolk.
As Caradoc’s heir, Cadal’s duty included clearing the detritus of his father’s private life once the funerary rites had been completed. The new king felt a need to present a brave face during the performance of this sad duty, so he asked Endellion to assist him with the delicate task of distributing his father’s personal effects. The love that father and daughter had shared entitled her to this one last chance to say farewell to the great man.
Then, as Cadal cleared Caradoc’s possessions from his clothes chest, he found one last gift that had been wrapped in fine cloth but not yet presented to its intended recipient. In almost-illegible script on a piece of valuable parchment, with what must have been an excruciatingly painful hand, the old king had written a message to accompany the gift:
For Endellion, my daughter – her wedding crown
Somehow, in secret, Caradoc had set his smiths to work on a delicate task, much like the golden shells that had been wrought so long ago for the kings of Britannia. The piece of driftwood found at the water’s edge had provided the base of a crown, embellished with yellow gold and silver, as were some shells, a spiralled whale-tooth of ivory, the entire skeleton of a fingerling, delicate traceries of golden weed and, in the very centre, a huge amber egg surrounded by gold and silver wildflowers. Endellion held the parchment to her breast and cried in earnest.
Meanwhile, the fate of the comatose man who was lying in a small room on the lowest level of Tintagel Castell was all but forgotten. He had sickened after his arrival and had wandered through night horrors in his delirium. At first, the servants who were charged with caring for the stranger had feared for his life but, eventually, he woke on the very day of the king’s cremation. In his weakness, he was as light and as pale as sea mist and as insubstantial as a wight.
‘I must speak with Caradoc, the regent for Magnus Maximus,’ he said urgently to the first servant who entered his room, as he tried to rise to his feet. Light-headed, he could barely stand upright as the servant tried to explain that the master had passed into the shades.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but such a meeting is not possible. If you look out of the window and across to the headland, you can see King Caradoc’s funeral pyre. He passed into the shades on the very night that you arrived at Tintagel.’ The stranger tried to position his body so that he could see the tower of timber.
‘Do you wish to watch the ceremony that will soon take place when the fire is lit, sir? I’m sure no one would object if you watched from a seat in the forecourt.’
The stranger smiled up with heart-stopping charm and gratitude. ‘Such kindness would place me forever in your debt, good sir.’
Two servants helped the stranger out to the forecourt and placed a stool near the ramparts where he could sit and view the massive funeral pyre. Across the causeway, if he had been able to move himself, he could have seen Decius’s monument on the opposite headland, the place where the decurion’s spirit looked out towards the sea in a fruitless wait for his master.
Caradoc’s body, under a coverlet of fur, had been placed at the very top of the pyre and made ready for the torch. Above the fur, the king’s hands gripped the hilt of his sword upon his breast. The dead king appeared like a carved image on a sarcophagus, distant and impassive in the realms of the dead.
The sick man had no sooner seated himself than the fire had been lit in each of the four corners by Caradoc’s male kinsmen. Soaked in fish oil, the timber flared with an audible whoof and the crowd below stepped back from the sudden heat of the conflagration. The stranger’s eyes swept the crowd and, eventually, he was forced to stand and move to the edge of the battlements to observe the tiny figures on the headland that seemed to have been frozen in exaggerated expressions of grief. Leaning against the stone half-wall, the stranger watched the whole ceremony as the pyre collapsed and continued to blaze fiercely. Then, as the twilight began to lengthen into dusk, the inhabitants of Tintagel began to move back towards the causeway as they mourned the loss of their king, the man who had been the bulwark of their lives for so many years.
Why Endellion should suddenly chance to look across at the cliffs as she was returning to the castell was a mystery to her later when she attempted to make some sense out of this strange, strange day. She had stared at her feet throughout the entire cremation ceremony with her head shrouded in a thin black veil. Suddenly, as she was crossing the causeway, the edge of the veil had blown away in the breeze to sail off like a pennon of sorrow. She leaped high to catch it, and raised her eyes in an attempt to snare the frail piece of errant material that was slipping through her fingers.
Then, she saw the figure of a man who was standing high above her.
And she knew!
The stairs seemed impossibly high and faint in the half-light, but Endellion wormed her way through the guests like an eel, racing up the uneven steps with all of youth’s fervour. She had not seen him for seven years, but she had dreamed about the set of those shoulders, the colour of that russet hair and the shape of that forehead for every day of that interminable, lonely time.
Aeron ap Iorweth had finally come home.
POSTSCRIPT
A venal city ripe to perish, if a buyer can be found (Of Rome)
Sallust, Jugurtha
Flavius Magnus Maximus marched into Illyricum in the heat of summer with the intention of cutting off Theodosius’s army, led by General Richomeres, a dour general from Constantinople who was determined to break the siege of Italia that Maximus had put in place a year earlier. Andragathius and Marcellinus had been ordered to take their commands to Siscia and Poetovio respectively, with orders to trap and encircle Richomeres in an iron grip that couldn’t be broken.
The heat of a Middle Sea summer made movement difficult. The soldiers’ armour was scorching to the touch, while the horses also suffered terribly inside their oxhide protection. Eyes were gritty from sun-blindness and dust, and even those men born in Italia suffered under the flail of the abnormal heat. The land was barren, bereft of shade and glittering from shale and stones that reflected the summer glare.
On the third night of their forced march, Aeron, the secretary to the emperor, took a rare opportunity to speak frankly with his master. Previously, they had enjoyed insufficient time for the luxury of conversation, even on those occasions when Maximus permitted such familiarity.
‘I know you’re weary, Lord Maximus, and you require nothing of me apart from my writing skills, but I’m moved to ask permission to speak on a matter concerning the safety of your army.’
‘You may speak, Aeron, but get on with it. I want to sleep while time permits,’ Maximus snapped. His gaze roamed around the campaign tent, anywhere but into the eyes of his secretary.
Since Decius had been left behind in Britannia, Maximus had felt unaccountably cut adrift in time. No one would dare speak bluntly to him and he was unable to trust the opinions of his officers.
Only Aeron, the scribe, offered some honesty. So, although Maximus seethed with impatience, he permitted the Briton to speak his mind.
‘I’m moved to ask whether it’s wise to divide your forces, my lord? I’ve seen and learned much from King Caradoc’s strategies, but I can’t understand why you’ve adopted such an unusual one. I’ll need to understand your thinking on these matters if I’m to complete your history.’ Aeron knew he was gabbling but his honesty was such that he couldn’t still his tongue.
‘I’ve watched as you fought battles across the known world, my lord, but your brother is a relative tyro as a commander. Andr
agathius is an experienced officer, but he is more successful when he is following the orders of a more imaginative superior. Neither man is a Caradoc, and definitely not a Maximus.’
Aeron could see that Maximus’s face was reddening with temper, but something prevented him from following a more prudent path.
‘We could easily be cut to ribbons if the battle goes wrong. You’ve asked me to keep meticulous records of your campaigns, sir, and I’ve done as you asked. In the way of these things, I have learned much by watching you carefully, but you would never follow such a course in your usual approach to an important battle. Never!’
The emperor turned and knocked his chair over in the process. His rage was a living thing, but Aeron suspected that much of it was a pretence, designed to deflect further unwanted questions.
‘Let me tell you something, Master Secretary. My father was Flavius Julius Crispus, who was executed on a false charge when I was an infant. I was raised on the estates of Theodosius Major in Hispania, a place where I could be kept under the close observation of my masters.’
‘I don’t understand, my lord. I thought your brother was younger than you. I’m sorry, but I don’t see the reason for such behaviour.’ Aeron was beginning to fear for his safety as Maximus whipped himself into a furious tantrum over old wrongs.
‘I’d forgotten that you British are ignorant of Roman history and family lines. Marcellinus is my half-brother. Crispus, my sire, was the lesser son of Constantine the Great. I am the Imperator’s grandson and the politics were such that I should have been murdered when my father was executed. I don’t know if Theodosius Major was part of the plot to clear the way for other men to rule, but he was also executed for his pains. I should have become emperor in Rome and Constantinople but for the dirty tricks of lesser men. The throne is mine by right, so Theodosius Minor and Valentinian will remove me any way they can. Theodosius must know my history, and he won’t permit me to live. I can sit and wait for the strangler’s cord, or I can take the initiative. I’ve never been one for waiting.’
Aeron opened and closed his mouth several times, but he had nothing further to ask. So many details had fallen into place in the puzzle that was Magnus Maximus, even the venom of Theodosius Minor, which had always seemed odd to a clinical mind like Aeron’s. The secretary had found the answers to his questions.
Likewise, he now understood that Theodosius would never acknowledge Maximus’s parentage. He, and his line, would be carefully and coldly removed from life so that the Throne of the East, in Constantine the Great’s city, would remain in Theodosius’s hands. Even Valentinian was likely to have a short and unhappy life, for the Emperor of the East was a man with a cool brain who was totally uninterested in sharing power.
‘You have my permission to add those details to your history if it suits you. Should I live, it won’t matter a damn. If I should die, Severa is the only child of my blood who is safe. Britannia is her prison now, but it is also her bulwark. I’d like to think she will survive me, but Fortuna seems to have turned her face away from me.
‘Go away and sleep, Master Secretary. You can be sure that I’ll keep you alive for as long as I can. I owe much to Caradoc, so I trust your continued survival might ensure that something of my life will be remembered.’
Aeron had no choice other than to obey.
The army of Flavius Magnus Maximus came to the River Save in a heatwave that made the air, the grass and the trees tinder dry with the scorching breath of a particularly vicious summer.
The land was flat and featureless, so the army of Theodosius could be seen long in advance of their arrival before the lines of Maximus’s formations in their extended battle plan. To his surprise, the enemy was moving at some speed, seemingly content to fight with their exhausted men and horses. Maximus lit fires that burned through the dry, brittle grasslands, but the wind turned and he was forced to withdraw.
The battle that followed raged for hours. Maximus used every skill at his disposal but fate and luck had both turned their faces away from him. Time and time again, victory was almost in Maximus’s grasp but, in the cruelty of history, the general of Constantinople eventually won that bloody and wasteful day.
Hun warriors, who were the implacable enemies of the Western Empire, had been induced to throw in their lot with Theodosius and Valentinian. Huge sums of gold had changed hands and land was promised, as well as noble positions in Rome’s governance if the Hun was prepared to send in their cavalry. No opposing army had ever defeated them on horseback, for their superior skills allowed them to fight with the reins between their teeth, a talent that left both hands free to use their light and deadly bows during a battle, even at close range. Maximus had no answer for such a terrible weapon and he watched in a fug of impotence as his troops were cut to pieces. The flower of Britannia’s young men died on that distant field with the river at their backs, along with the soldiers from the last of the massed Roman armies. Rome would never again have so many foot soldiers at her disposal.
Ultimately, Aeron dragged the wounded Maximus from the field, whipping their horses and forcing the shattered emperor to ride in a daze of pain and defeat. Like thieves in the night, they travelled until the sun rose, and then slept in hiding until night came again. Maximus rode, slept and talked like a man in a waking dream. Sometimes, he spoke of his sons and daughters and how Valentinian would kill them all, if he could capture them. Occasionally, he wept for Elen, but he was mostly silent, tormented by unspoken possibilities.
When they reached Aquileia, Maximus refused to run any further. Surrounded by the remnants of his guard, he refused to budge, although Aeron used every argument at his disposal. Here, they had hidden in a copse on the outskirts of the city for three days, knowing that the local population was aware of their presence, until Andragathius rode into their encampment. There were only six men in his wake.
Like Maximus, Andragathius had discovered the skills of the Hun cavalry when he faced them at Siscia. Boxed in by the Hun cavalry and unable to assist Maximus who was many miles away at the river, Andragathius had fought like a lion, but had been forced to order the retreat. On the grisly road leading back to the Save River, where the corpses of thousands of his fellow Roman and British warriors were rotting under a pitiless sun, Andragathius flagellated himself for his inability to keep his master safe. When a courier arrived to inform him that the emperor’s brother had been defeated, captured and executed at Poetovio, Andragathius’s grief was a living thing. He would have fallen on his sword, but his master still lived, so he rode on in a fruitless search that eventually led him to Aquileia.
So, as the light had fled, Andragathius fell onto his knees in the dust beside the campfire, where Maximus rested on a large stone and stared blankly into the dancing firelight.
‘I have betrayed you, my lord! I have lost the battle of Siscia and our troops have either been slain or have fled. I stayed alive only to bring you the news that your brother was executed at Poetovio, on the orders of Theodosius. With your permission, I wish to ride back until I reach his army and search for honourable death.’
‘No!’ Maximus’s hoarse voice sounded as if it had come from the bottom of a tomb. ‘You have yet to complete a task for me.’
‘Anything! You only have to ask.’
‘Take my secretary away from this place and lead him through the mountains to Gallia Cisalpina. He must live, do you hear me? Our lives mean nothing! But it is vital that Aeron should escape and remain alive.’
‘I am at your command, my lord,’ Andragathius murmured through unshed tears. ‘Secretary! Gather together your scrolls and your chattels. We depart within the hour.’
‘No! I can’t just leave, my lord. I’m bound by my oaths to you, and I don’t intend to dishonour those vows for any reason,’ Aeron began, but Maximus rose to his full height and gripped his secretary’s cloak at his throat with one strong right hand.
‘You will take all the scrolls that are in your saddlebags and collect the others that were left behind at Augusta Treverorum. Give my best wishes to my wife and tell her to protect herself by any means at her disposal. I’d prefer you didn’t leave her to die unwarned because you have some foolish idea of honour and valour. Once you have completed this duty, you will remove all your notes and histories from these dangerous lands and return to your home in Britannia. You shouldn’t let all this death be for nothing.’
‘But what of you? Will you try to return to Augusta Treverorum?’
‘Me? I’m already dead, Aeron, and there is no place in this world where I could expect refuge. I intend to go to Aquileia and wait for the jackals to arrive in the best inn in that miserable city.’
Aeron opened his mouth to speak again, but Maximus had turned away, ordering his guard to give Andragathius and Aeron the two best horses they had as spares for the journey across the mountains.
‘Come now, or I’ll be forced to tie you to your own saddle,’ Andragathius urged. ‘You will obey my master’s orders without argument or you’ll make the trip in an undignified position.’
Aeron took one more moment to kiss his master’s ring, and then Andragathius dragged him away.
And so the long, unbearable journey began.
As promised, Andragathius took Aeron to the road leading to Lugudunum. Once they had reached the top of the pass, the vast network of Roman roads lay before them, straight and true.