The Beacon at Alexandria

by Gillian Bradshaw

  There were plenty of traders coming down the river with cargoes of slaves; I gathered that the Goths in Moesia were selling off some of their children so as to have money to settle with. It always seems to me tragic for a parent to sell a child, but it’s something that happens, and something that always has happened, like war and disease, so I wasn’t unduly worried about it. One bright morning in early August I went down from the fort to the trading station at the docks and had a look around. There was a fair-sized slave boat there, standing moored against the bank. It was roofed over with thatch and watched by a few guards; the trader himself was inside the station, buying food for his merchandise. I told one of the guards what I wanted, and he ran off to fetch his master. In a moment the slaver, a large blond man with a red face, came out, smiling in what was meant to be an ingratiating fashion. But his eyes kept flicking over me in a quick assessing fashion, calculating how much I was worth. Eunuchs are very valuable slaves. Still, I was plainly an army official, and this slaver was hardly going to kidnap me from the Novidunum docks. “Your Prudence wishes to buy a slave?”“ he asked.

  I nodded. “A girl, about twelve years old, by preference. Biddable and good with children.”

  “Of course, of course! I have plenty like that, though I was, umm, planning to take them down to Histria. One earns more that way; you’ll have to take that into account, eh? Would Your Discernment care to step on board?”

  I stepped on board, and the slaver showed me under the thatched canopy. The boat was packed with children, far too many for the size of the craft. They ranged in age from about four to fifteen. They were sitting cramped in the bottom of the boat, the older ones shackled together in groups of three, the little ones loose. There was a terrible smell. They didn’t have a cloak among them, and many of the boys were without tunics either, wearing only their tattered Gothic trousers: you could count the ribs in their thin chests. They looked in ill health, as though they had been worn out by hunger and rough living over a long time. I remembered the camps on the other side of the river. But the children there had looked healthier than these, surely? And these children came from Moesia, where conditions should be better. When the slaver came in with me, they stared up at us hopefully; one or two smiled nervously. It was very hot under the canopy. Flies buzzed, the boat rocked slightly on the river, but the children were eerily silent. One little girl was playing with a straw doll and an older child was rocking a four-year-old boy on her lap, but the rest sat still, waiting, hoping perhaps for the nightmare to end and their parents to take them home.

  “Here’s one that might please you,” said the slaver, indicating the girl with the four-year-old. She was a thin, pale waif with dirty white-blonde hair and staring eyes. “Loves children, as you can see, very helpful and obedient. She’s thirteen; cost you six solidi.” He added to the girl, in Gothic, “Here, baggage, sit up! The gentleman wants to buy you!” I’d learned enough of the tongue by then to understand quite a lot, though I spoke it very badly. The girl sat up and stared at me in horror. The little boy looked at her and started to cry.

  “Is that your brother?” I asked her. She stared at me blankly, and I repeated my question in Gothic. Her eyes widened; she shook her head. But she clutched the boy tightly, and he clung to her, sobbing pitifully.

  “He’s just taken a fancy to her,” said the slaver. “Your Kindness need not worry about breaking up a family.”

  “I’ll give you five solidi for both of them,” I said. I had not the least need of a four-year-old boy, and I didn’t have the space for one, but I decided all at once that I would buy the two. They had lost their families and clung together in their enslavement, and I didn’t want them separated.

  “Eight,” returned the slaver. “He’s a healthy child, a pretty one too — look at those blond curls! He’ll grow into a fine strong man; you can train him to whatever you like.” He grabbed the child and held him up so that I could see how healthy he was; the boy screamed in terror and kicked sticklike legs wildly in the air. The slaver handed him back to the girl, where he clung like a limpet.

  “I already have a manslave,” I said, determined not to pay this carrion crow a copper drachma more than I needed to. “I’m buying him out of charity. Neither of them speaks a word of Greek, and I think they both have worms. Five.”

  We bargained for a bit, and then the slaver let me have both the girl and the boy for five solidi, which I had not expected: his prices had been very low to start with. I had expected to pay more than that for one slave. But he had a bigger cargo than his boat could carry, and was probably worried about making the others sick.

  We shook hands on the bargain, and then the slaver had the girl’s shackles struck off, and his guards pulled them out of the boat and stood them up on the dock. I paid out the money, five small gold coins stamped with the face of His Sacred Majesty, Lord Valens the Augustus. The girl stood there looking at me, still clutching the little boy in her arms, the eyes of both wide with fear and confusion. The slaver asked me if I needed help to get them home, and I said that I thought I could manage on my own.

  “I have buyed you from that man,” I told my new slaves in my clumsy Gothic. “I have a woman slave, she have baby soon, she need — needs — help. You come home with me.”

  “You’ve bought Alaric too?” asked the girl uncertainly.

  “Yes. If you like, he is your brother. Now come.” I pointed up the hill. The girl stared at it unhappily, stared back at the slave boat, then started up. After the first few steps she set the boy down. He took her hand and walked beside her.

  When we reached the house, we found Sueridus and Raedagunda in the kitchen; I heard them giggling together before I opened the door. When I came in, I found Raedagunda sitting at the kitchen table kneading dough for bread, while Sueridus was making a model cradle from the extra. They stopped giggling and sat very straight when I showed my purchases in. I’d told them I meant to buy someone else, but they stared at the little boy with astonishment.

  “This is my house,” I told the girl in my bad Gothic. “This is Sueridus, that is Raedagunda. You are —?”

  “Gudrun.” She looked around the kitchen, then looked at Raedagunda, then looked at me. “Please, are you a man or a woman?”

  Sueridus laughed.

  “She is a woman dressed up as a man,” said the little boy, Alaric, confidently — the first words I heard him say.

  Sueridus and Raedagunda both laughed at the child’s simplicity. Raedagunda jumped up and came over to the little boy; she knelt in front of him. “He is not a woman, he is a very wise and powerful wizard! You are very lucky he bought you. Would you like a sesame cake?”

  The child’s mouth went perfectly round. He stared hard at me, then looked at Gudrun. “I would like a sesame cake,” he told her, rather than Raedagunda. But Raedagunda laughed and fetched two cakes, one for Alaric and one for Gudrun. The little boy bit into his hungrily, but the girl stood holding hers, still watching me doubtfully. Not surprising, since she’d discovered that her new master was a powerful wizard.

  “I am a eunuch,” I told her. I had to use the Greek word; there isn’t a Gothic one. “Do you know what that is?” She shook her head. Sueridus explained to her; she looked horrified.

  “You won’t do that to Alaric!” she declared. It sounded like an order.

  “I don’t do that,” I said, wishing I spoke the language better. “I have an oath. I am a healer.” Then I gave up on the Gothic and continued in Greek. “Raedagunda, tell her that this is her home and that I won’t hurt her or her brother; give them some food. Sueridus, get some clean clothes for them — here’s five solidi for it; if there’s any change, buy some bedding for them. Buy them some boots, too.” They were both barefoot.

  “You don’t want to buy boots,” said Sueridus while Raedagunda conveyed my instructions. “I’ll buy the leather and make the boots myself.”

  “Very well, but go.” He went. Raedagunda gave the children milk and some bread and chee
se, which they ate as though they’d been starved a long time. Then I helped her to wash them. The Goths don’t bathe often, and they were both terrified of the warm water, but submitted; I was so busy that I didn’t even think twice about entering the bathhouse. They had lice, which I treated with a rinse of ivy and vinegar; the bath got rid of the fleas. They did both have worms, for which I recommended eating large quantities of garlic and applying an ointment of gentian. Gudrun had sores from her shackles, and had been beaten. I treated these injuries while Raedagunda assured the two that I was the cleverest healer in Thrace. Sueridus returned with the clothing, and soon the children were sitting at the table, looking presentable, clean, and comfortable, and eating garlic.

  “There was a healer in the camp of Lord Fritigern,” Gudrun volunteered. “He too said that eating garlic cured worms.”

  “Perhaps that was me,” I said to Gudrun. Then: “Why did your parents sell you?” I was very anxious to hear her story. It is true that traders have always sold Gothic slaves. But a boat like that, crowded to the gunwales with children who are sold very cheap, for as much as it costs to clothe them — that’s unusual. And it wasn’t the only boat on the river. I thought I’d seen more than usual, heading down to Histria and the Euxine ports, but I hadn’t thought much about it until now.

  “We needed food, sir,” the girl answered, putting her garlic down. “We had none. My mother said at least the Romans would not let me starve. The Romans gave them a dog in exchange for me, so Mother could eat the dog.”

  “Merciful Christ,” I said, and I stared at the girl to see if she was joking. Exchange a human being for a dog?

  Raedagunda stared too. “My parents sold me for a young plow ox and a gold tremissis,” she said.

  “That was before the people went across the river,” Gudrun said confidently.

  “Begin again,” I told her. “You are from the north? You fled the Huns?”

  She nodded. “The Huns came, and they burned our house,” she said in a flat voice, then looked at me curiously. After a moment she went on. “They killed my father. My mother took me and my little brother out before the Huns came, and we hid in the forest. The Huns looked for us for a little while, but then they rode off again. We walked south. We had heard that Lord Fritigern had agreed with the king of the Romans that we could cross the river and find lands there, where there are no Huns. We walked south a long way. Mother sold her bracelets and bought food, and I picked berries. Then we reached the river, and things were better. Mother found another father for us — his wife had been taken away by the Huns. Lord Fritigern gave us some wheat to make bread. I picked acorns and reeds and meadowsweet, and I tried to catch fish; my brother and I caught lots of frogs — we had plenty to eat. Then Lord Fritigern had it proclaimed that we could cross the river, and brought wagons to move the little children and the sick and all our possessions. We walked along the bank for many days, together with many other people, until we reached the place where the boats were. But we were very happy when we reached it. We got into a little boat and it took us across the river into the Roman lands. But when we got there, there was no food. My new father wanted to go look for some food, but the Romans wouldn’t let him. They had very many soldiers there, and wouldn’t let anyone go forward; they said that we must wait for lands to be allotted to us. We waited, but we had nothing to eat. I couldn’t even find any frogs or berries; the people who had crossed before us had eaten them all. The Romans had lots of food, but they wanted money for it, lots of money. Mother sold her cloak and her earrings. My new father had a mail coat that he sold — the Romans had taken his sword away when he crossed. After a while I wanted to go back across the river. But the Romans wouldn’t let us do that either. Mother sold my necklace and my cloak, and all our shoes. Then she said that we would all starve unless she sold us to Romans who would give us food. So she sold me first, but all they gave her was a dog, and when she protested they laughed at her. They gave me to the man you bought me from, sir, and he put chains on me and put me in the boat. I told him he didn’t need the chains, but he put them on anyway. I tried to get away, and he beat me. Alaric was in the boat already when I came there, lying on the floor and crying. I’d seen him before in the camp, so I tried to comfort him. He’s just like my little brother used to be. Thank you for buying both of us.”

  I said nothing. My five solidi suddenly felt like blood money, linking me in guilt to the people who had offered dogs in exchange for human beings. People in dire need have always sold their children, but the need is not usually created by unscrupulous men simply to acquire slaves. Those lands should have been allotted before the Goths ever crossed the Danube; I was sure Athanaric had mentioned certain parts of Thrace as already designated for settlement by the Theruingi. I tried to picture the camps beside the river in Moesia: worse than the ones I had seen in the spring. Cramped masses of people living in a few wagons and some makeshift shelters of bushes and leaves, with a few hides stretched out as roofs; people feeding on grubs and acorns and whatever they could afford to buy at extortionate rates from the well-supplied Roman force beyond them. People dying of disease, freely, inevitably — dysentery, typhoid, dropsy. People with no good drinking water, no privacy; children crying with hunger, the dead buried among the living or else thrown into the river. And the Romans taking jewelry, mail coats, clothing — and people.

  “Who were the Romans who did this?” I asked at last. “Did you hear their names?”

  Gudrun nodded, staring at me wide-eyed. “The commanders of the soldiers were called Lupicinus and Maximus. And there was a leader called Festinus, too, who had no soldiers but who should have sent food — that’s what my new father said.”

  Festinus. Yes, Thorion had said that he was now governor of Moesia. He’d be capable of a thing like this. And I remembered what Sebastianus had said of his commanding officer’s greed. Maximus was the duke of Moesia, and I knew nothing about him, but he must have been of a similar stamp or Lupicinus would not have been able to inflict such suffering.

  I was utterly appalled by what the girl had told me. Moreover, it frightened me. I did not think Fritigern would endure too much more of this treatment; I suspected that already he was plotting some way to rally his people. They had had to surrender their arms when they crossed the river, but probably they had not all done so; they would be weaker than the opposing force of Romans, but still armed and dangerous. Or would they even be weaker? How many of them had crossed? I knew from Athanaric that there were thousands of the Theruingi.

  Someone had to stop this. The authorities in Moesia were plainly in collusion, but Sebastianus and Thorion might be able to do something. And Athanaric? I couldn’t believe for a moment that he was a part of this corrupt scheme, or that he wasn’t aware of it already. I hadn’t seen him since the trial. Presumably he had discovered how the Roman commanders were handling the Goths and had ridden posthaste to the court at Antioch to report them. Perhaps orders were already flying from the court to put an end to the disgraceful practices of Festinus and Lupicinus.

  But corruption is a part of the way the empire is governed, and it can be difficult to get anyone at court to take notice of it. And I knew that Festinus at least had powerful friends. It would be difficult to stop this business. In fact, I was in as good a position to move people as anyone. I was a friend of the duke and a sister of the governor of Scythia. I would have to talk to both of them.

  “Gudrun,” I said, then stopped, baffled by my ignorance of her language. “You stay here now,” I said. “I give you to your parents later, when — Raedagunda, tell her that I will not profit from this trading of people for dogs, and that I will return her and Alaric to their parents as soon as the Theruingi are settled on their own lands. And tell her that not all Romans are like Lupicinus and Festinus, and that I am going to tell her story to the duke and the governor and ask them to send food to her people.”

  Raedagunda stared for a moment, then gave me a radiant smile and translated. Gudrun
stared too, and then her whole face lit with hope. She fell onto her knees and kissed my hands. “You will send me home?” she asked. “You will send food up the river?” Alaric stared at her, then ran over and hugged my knees in imitation.

  “I will do everything I can,” I promised them, in the language that they didn’t understand, then: “All I can do, I will do,” in Gothic. I only hoped that what I could do amounted to anything at all.

  Sebastianus was still in Tomis, arranging supplies for the winter, and of course Thorion had never left it, so I determined to go to the city and speak to both of them personally. I told Valerius I was taking leave indefinitely but that I hoped to be back within a week. Then I arranged the hospital’s affairs and left Arbetio and Edico in charge. They were delighted when I told them where I was going. Edico had heard from his family something of what was happening in Moesia, and from the looks that passed between them I gathered he’d expressed himself fiercely on the subject to Arbetio. At first I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t said anything to me. Then I realized that they believed that the cruel exploitation of the Theruingi was what the Romans had always intended, and that my friends Sebastianus and Thorion were party to it. They hadn’t trusted me. Indeed, they plainly still suspected Sebastianus and Thorion, and were unsure of how much success I would have, but they wished me luck. I asked Arbetio to check on my new slaves occasionally while I was gone, and to check Raedagunda as well, and then I got onto my horse and set off. I had a spare tunic and my medical bag, and I took twenty solidi and some Gothic jewelry in case I needed to bribe someone. I left Raedagunda with a good supply of copper money for the shopping. In an emergency, she could buy what she needed on credit.

  I reached Tomis in the middle of the afternoon on the second day after leaving Novidunum, and went straight to the prefecture. The prefectural slaves told me that the governor was seeing no one. I offered them a bribe, and they looked unhappy and said that it was really true: the governor had given orders that he would see no one. I said that he would see me. They whispered among themselves, then one of them went off to see if this was true, while I was left standing in the public waiting room, my horse tied up outside in the street. There was one other person waiting there, an old man with a petition, and he stared at me uneasily, recognizing me, no doubt, as the sorcerer whom Thorion had acquitted.