Adalwulf: The Two Swords (Tales of Germania Book 1)

by Alaric Longward

  We walked past warehouses, took to an alleyway where cats lived in quarrelsome co-existence, meowing like mad spirits, and the crew, laughing and anticipating pleasure of unimaginable stature, were in a great mood. We passed the gates to the city, manned by bored Roman and a drunk Vangione guard, who blithely ignored each other.

  The gates were tall, thick and wooden, and the walls, where men walked, were seven feet high. We skirted the wall, and took more alleys towards the castra, and passed it. I could not help but stare at it. It was the first Roman fort I had seen. It was a powerful looking monster, much more intimidating than Mattium’s walls, or the tower in the village. There were guards on those walls as well, a deep fossa, high earthen walls, and stone walls before and on top of that.

  Then we saw the Temple.

  The roof, I noticed was far less intricate than I had thought, but it did demand respect, and gods would be watching, I thought, when I’d enter. The pillars flickered with the burning lights as the evening deepened towards the night, and the whole structure was oddly disquieting, holy and powerful, and at the same time felt somewhat disgraced, due to the number of people making merry amongst the pillars.

  Issa pulled me around. He pointed a finger where a well-lit, low building stood amongst some trees. “The Oil Lamp. A tavern. Seedy bit of shit, but that is where much of the business is conducted. You know what business. You do your bit, and me and the boys shall be there, waiting, hoping you will not drag our asses needlessly from the girls and the wine, but as lord Tiberius asked, we shall do our best to help you. I’ll make sure they don’t drink too much, never fear. They are ready with their spears. All kinds of spears,” he winked. Indeed, they were all armed to the teeth, some had spears, and all had axes, and pugiones, Roman daggers, and looked like proper fighters. “Be careful,” he told me, and I nodded nervously.

  “Thank you,” I told him, and as if I had uttered a password for paradise, they all whooped and ran to chase girls, many of whom pointed fingers at the bearded alps men, knowing them, their ability to pay, and some to love. The girls yelled greetings, ran to embrace the men, and I was left as alone as a piss-sodden drunk in a feast, and then there was rain.

  It began to trickle down, making the braziers flutter.

  I walked forward, looking at the place in awe. I saw there was a fairly large walled enclosure, and inside that, there were fluttering curtains, braziers with burning wood, slaves walking about lazily. I decided to enter, walking to the bottom of the temple and made my way up the steps for the door. I now noticed other people walking around the temple, slowly and reverently, apparently giving sacrifices for the god of trade.

  The god was sitting in the hall.

  I had never seen such a sight. It stopped me in my tracks. Our gods were crafted in wood, occasionally some vitka created a doll they hung from a branch to ward off wrongdoers, but a statue twice the size of man? Never. It was sitting there, at the end of the room, a hunched, dangerous looking man with a beard, his eyes empty, muscles well-toned. It was a thing made of stone, and I could not imagine who managed to craft something like that.

  I made my way towards the door, and a woman shifted away from me as she exited, startled, and then her eyes hardened as she was contemplating me as a potential buyer. I ignored her and walked in, and while the temple area was not large, the cella, main room, was large enough to house a dozen people. Behind a dour, painted statue there was a doorway, where there were more rooms, no doubt.

  A thin servant in a white tunic was cleaning a table, an altar, most likely, judging by the array of coins and other sacrifices dispensed on it, cursing under his breath as he nearly dropped a bowl of liquid. His eyes went to the visage of the god, and I was sure the man spat his way, but the god didn’t care. I decided to speak to the man. He saw me coming, and took a step back, as I leaned on him. “Do you understand me?” My Celtic was as broken as ever, but he nodded. “I need a favor.”

  He snorted and wiped his nose. “I’m not Mercury, if you think to beseech him for a boon. Leave your sacrifice on the table, dance and sing, and do whatever you want, except piss, and then leave. The god will—”

  “I’m not looking for Mercury—”

  “Then why are you here?” he frowned, nearly the unhappiest man in the entire Midgard.

  “I’m looking for one Clodius,” I told him, begging he would know such a man.

  “Clodius?” he breathed. “There are many.”

  “Someone near the King Vago?”

  He frowned. “Why would you want him?”

  I thanked Woden profusely in my head and grasped him, making his eyes bulge in his head.

  “I need him now. Important business he must attend to.”

  “So go up the hill?” the man said, struggling a bit in my grip. “Ask at their hall?”

  I hesitated. “In fact, I have never met him. I need a bit of help.”

  “I’m a slave. Not allowed to help rogues. I have to stay in the temple,” he muttered.

  “I shall leave these,” I said, and showed him two silver denarii, “as thanks for the …god to claim.” His eyes never left the coins, and then he smacked his lips.

  “Clodius is an official for his uncle, Vago,” he whispered.

  “He is Vago’s nephew?” I asked, and he nodded enthusiastically. Shit, I thought. Terrible news, as he would be well-guarded. I decided to press on. “And does he ever leave his home?”

  “You sure you have business with him?” the man frowned. “You sound like he might not enjoy this business at all.” I added a denarius to the other two, and he asked no more, his eyes teary with greed.

  “Don’t worry about it. Does he ever leave his home? And is his home hard to get to?”

  He nodded. “It’s inside their walled enclosure. Very risky. But he is also a priest,” he murmured. “He changed the name into a Roman one, when he realized it would be advantageous for him. This place is a gold mine for him. Being a priest is the best business there is.”

  Gods, thank you, I thought. He’d be about the town. “He is a priest here?”

  He nodded towards the town. “Here, and he also deals with trade, local laws as well. Not the warrior type you see, and that why he has no future in the war bands of King Vago. Instead—”

  “Does he ever come to the temple?”

  He smiled, and we waited as a Gaul walked to the table and set a loaf of bread on it. He bowed and left. “Damned mongrels with their moldy bread. Hate cleaning them crumbs up. Even the dogs won’t eat them. I—”

  “To the point,” I said, and shook him a bit. “Does he come here? Tell me more about the turd.”

  “Right,” he said. “Vago has many sons. Some are mighty already, like Hunfried, others less so, being young, like Koun and Vannius, but he has other family, and Clodius is his nephew. He is more Roman than the Romans, and generally looked down upon the family. Vago’s men keep their own names, and Clodius doesn’t, being an annoying prick, but Vago needs him, and so he thrives. He has some enemies, and rarely goes anywhere. Very rarely. He is a priest here, but Roman priests have few duties. He is a priest, because it gets him a title and part of these sacrifices.” He looked sour, and apparently hated the entire world, but Clodius most of all. I had been lucky. “He visits occasionally.”

  “Did he,” I asked, “leave the hall just now, some days ago? Do you know?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. How could I know that, eh? He might have the trappings of a priest, but he doesn’t clean here, or even care for these duties. It’s just a golden opportunity for him to—”

  I nodded. “Too bad.” I played with the three denarii, and his eyes went to the coins and stayed there. I tortured him by twitching my arm closer to my pouch, then putting the coins in sight again, but not on the platter. His mouth mumbled something, and his hand swiped his forehead. “There is—”

  “You know a way for me to speak to Clodius?” I growled, and jingled the coins.

  “Possibly,” he said mi
serably, bathed in greed. “He wouldn’t be happy, you understand. I’d need to—”

  “Four denarii, that’s enough. And more if I get what I need from him,” I growled.

  He threw his reluctance out of the door. “He has a woman in the town,” he said conspiratorially. “Not like these sorry, lice-ridden whores here, but a real woman.”

  I stared at him, and he shrugged, and I added two more coin to my fist, making it five. I had no idea what kind of wealth I was flaunting, but the man was practically drooling. “Can I get to this woman?”

  “She is the wife of a Mediomactri chief,” he whispered. “Scandalous thing, that. They meet here, when she comes to …pray. But I don’t know—”

  “How will he know when she will be here?” I asked him.

  “She sends him word. Sometimes he has time, other times not, but he might come, if he is in the mood.” He looked like a defeated man as he went on. “I cannot order the woman to come here, can I? I just know who she is. That’s valuable. I think that deserves some consideration.”

  I tapped my finger on my chin, stroking my beard. I had a plan. “I tell you what. You have seen the woman here, this very evening.”

  “I have?” he asked, confused. I clinked the coins, and he agreed that he had by nodding vigorously.

  “But she has another man, doesn’t she? She is in the very same room they normally would use for their rabbit-games, but this time there is a filthy, if handsome, mercenary here with her, entertaining her so well, she can barely walk.” I leaned towards him, and let the coins fall to his hand, one-by-one. “You are a loyal servant, are you not? You serve him, you serve the temple, the Roman dominion and King Vago, and there cannot be such a situation where another man is making his woman squeal with joy. It is disgraceful, and she also called Clodius a small-pricked mouse as she spoke to the man. They laughed at that, and then he took her again. Tell him what you will. You seem to have a goodly amount of imagination.”

  “Tell him?” he whispered, fondling the coins. “I should tell him—”

  “That you saw his mistress bending over for a greasy Gaul from the Alps, a warrior with tattoos, and tell him you saw him laying eggs in a nest that was once that of Clodius’s. You go, and tell him this. Or if you do not wish to, then find someone else to do it. If it makes it easier for you do decide if you will take part in this, know that Clodius will not walk away from that room a free man.” I nodded towards the backroom. “He will go, and visit Tiberius.”

  “Tiberius?” he whispered, his face full of cunning.

  “And Tiberius can reward a wise, brave man very well,” I told him earnestly.

  He left, and I walked for the tavern, and soon, Clodius would come charging.

  We would succeed, I thought, and nodded at two hooded men who disappeared to the shadows.

  CHAPTER 27

  “What if he brings an army?” one of the Vindelica men asked me. There were eight of them; all I could drag from their women. I had been cajoling, begging, and even threatening, and Issa helped me, and so they sat in the small, smelly room, light by oil lamps as we waited. There was a back door to the temple, something that Clodius would probably be using, good for transporting supplies and adulterers to the place, but the wait was a terribly long one. Worse, the servant had not returned to tell me the news, though he should have been back by then.

  “Perhaps Clodius stormed to her apartment, instead?” Issa said tiredly.

  “And tell her husband he had been—”

  “Perhaps, I would,” he snarled and I nodded, because he might be right. Jealous lords had no use for tact.

  “We will see,” I told them. “Wait.”

  We waited for long minutes, fidgeting in the backroom, cursing, and still ready and tense, but then the waiting stopped.

  The attendant was rushing in the temple. I could hear his voice, calling for a man to step back, and then I knew he passed the statue. “Cursed, cripple bastard,” he called the god, to the stunned silence of those who were visiting the place. I got up, opened the door and then I saw him in the corridor, wringing his hands. He looked around and waved me closer. I noticed his lip was cut, and eyes wild with worry. “Well,” he whispered, “it worked. He is coming. He brings some men, and he’ll be here in a few moments. Please don’t fail to take him. He told me he’d kill me, and then feed me to crabs.”

  I was about to retreat to the rooms, when someone entered hallway behind the attendant. I thought it would be Clodius, and I tensed, but then I noticed it wasn’t a man.

  It was a middle-aged woman with a very long, braided dark hair, an expensive leine, a cloak of red materials, not wool or linen, but something more expensive and Roman, and she looked as surprised as we did. The attendant took a horrified step back, then another, and then he tried to rush past me to the room. I grabbed him by the throat, as the woman stood there, her mouth open. She spoke imperiously. “You gave my room to someone else? It was always to be available!”

  The man squeaked and looked at me. “It’s her. This is terrible. Why did she have to come today?”

  It was the lover of Clodius, and things would turn ugly.

  Clodius stormed to the temple at that very moment. It was clear as day as the woman turned to look towards the doorway, her face a mask of surprise, of happiness, of erotic anticipation, but then she frowned. We didn’t see Clodius’s face, of course, but could well imagine it was not graced with happiness. She spoke. “Love? I didn’t have time to call for you, yet.”

  “Tart! You whore!” a man stuttered, “where is he, eh? I’ll string him up by his ball-skin!”

  “Who? What are you talking about?” the bewildered woman asked, and I cursed as everything was going to Hel.

  At that moment, some of Clodius’s men surged to the room by the backdoor, and I heard Issa snort with amusement, because they were probably as shocked as the woman had been when she saw Clodius, but the alpsmen didn’t hesitate, and a terrible beating took place in the room. I saw the woman take a step back, and I stepped fully to the hallway. Some priests popped their heads out of the other doors, saw us there, and sensed it was best to keep doing what they had been involved with moments before. They disappeared, and Clodius appeared.

  He had a limp. He was short, ugly, and yet strangely powerful, with wide shoulders, but his foot was strangely twisted, and so he’d never be a soldier, and perhaps he didn’t have the temperament for it, because there was something shifty and unkind in his eyes, and certainly evil, as he slapped the woman to the wall.

  His eyes turned my way.

  He snapped his fingers, grinned as he heard his men fight in the room, and ordered two men forward. “Bring him to me. In one, or many pieces. I care not.”

  The men were hulking Vangiones, sporting long beards, jutting foreheads, and looked barely human as they came in. Neither carried spears or shields, only clubs. I pushed the shrieking attendant to them, and one of them hit the man so hard he flew into a room, where he could be heard cursing.

  Clodius flinched. “Hurry! Take him to the woods, and we’ll hang him with her.” He kicked the unfortunate woman.

  I saw Woden stamp his feet in the dark shadows, raising dust, in midst of a battle-dance, and buoyed by my god, I charged the men.

  They were taken by surprise.

  One bellowed to the other, but then they saw the hammer. Both tried to dodge aside, but the walls stopped one, the other fell through a doorway to smother the attendant. I chopped my hammer at the remaining man, who caught it on his chest. He made a strange sound, like dog passing gas, and fell to his back, his face a mask of red pain. I rammed a fist in the face on the warrior who was coming out of the room, but he tackled me to the wall.

  And through it.

  We rolled across the floor to hit the stony statue of Mercurius, and while the god wasn’t upset as we panted and tried to wrestle each other to death, clawing and biting each other, the people in the cella were.

  “What’s happening?” one scre
amed.

  “Thieves?” another yelled, and both came forward. I saw Clodius’s face, and then his eyes twitched as he looked towards the room where my rowers were doing their bit with the other Vangiones. I saw him look at the woman, uncertain, as she rolled in the floor in pain, her nose broken. Perhaps it dawned on him there was something odd about the whole deal, and if I had been the man with her, then who were in the room creating havoc?

  He hesitated, his eyes met mine again as I kicked the Vangione over me to land on the statue with a pained gasp. My side hurt terribly.

  He took uncertain steps away, and ran off.

  “Stop him!” I roared, but the people in the room, the worshippers and the whores, didn’t oblige. I scrambled up to my feet, kicked the Vangione as hard as I could, felt a rib break, and surged after Clodius. A guard outside tried to stop me, holding his spear limply, but I pushed him over a brazier, scattering burning wood across the stairs. As people were screaming and cursing, I rushed after Clodius.

  For a club-footed bastard, he was very fast.

  The Vangione rushed in the dark for the gates, and I cursed my luck as he might make it. The guards would know him, I’d be dead, and Gisil a slave, or worse. He was looking back, I was gaining on him, and his face was glistening with sweat as he sped on thorough the alleys outside the main city, past halls, and the castra, where soldiers on the walls yelled encouragements and laughed at us.

  The gate was there, right in front of us.

  He opened his mouth to shout.

  Three armored Vangione guard stepped forth from under the shadows of a half-closed gate, looking confused.

  I cursed, was suddenly inspired, and so I screamed. “Fire! The temple! It’s on fire! It’s spreading to the city! Call an alarm!”