The Amber Road

by Harry Sidebottom

  XXII

  The Islet of Nerthus, South of Varinsey

  Kadlin thought about Dernhelm. To begin with, in the first months after he had gone, he had been in her mind all the time. She had thought she would go mad. She had been very young, her life in confusion: the hastily arranged betrothal to Holen, leaving her family to live over the sea, her pregnancy, the painful birth, nursing the infant Starkad, trying to adapt to the role of mistress of a strange hall. All those things had played their part, but not accounted for the whole. It was wanting you that made me sick … the hollowness at heart. Over the many subsequent winters she had thought of him less often. His memory had become like an heirloom or the image of a household spirit; most of the time it remained locked away in a cupboard or dowry-chest. Now and then she had taken it out, turned it over and viewed it from different angles, each time to be surprised almost by its powers of evocation. Now he was coming home.

  The lowing of cattle announced the approach of the goddess. Men and women laughed, children played in the sunshine. The festival of Nerthus was a time of rejoicing, a time of peace, when all iron was locked away. It was a moveable feast. The priest in charge of the sacred grove had announced the epiphany more than a month in advance. It gave time for the news to travel, for celebrants to journey from far away to the tiny holy island. There were Aviones, Varini, Myrgings and others from the Cimbric peninsula. Farodini and Langobardi had travelled from the mainland, Hilleviones from Scadinavia. There were many Angles, of course. And there were a few Brondings, Wylfings and Geats, all men. Unsurprisingly, Unferth and his son Widsith had not appeared, but it would have been hard to turn away the people of the tribes which had fallen under their rule. Time out of mind, those on the islands had worshipped the goddess. With everyone else, they had handed their weapons over to the priest. Morcar had argued that if they were to be allowed to participate at all – a thing he opposed – they should be searched. Oslac had said that submitting them to such indignity would be unprecedented. In the absence of their father, the cyning Isangrim, the decision had been made by the priest. The island was inviolate; no man could be so sacrilegious as to think of bearing arms in the sight of the Earth Mother.

  The cows could be seen, dappled coming out of the shade of the grove. The chariot they drew flashed with gold and silver. A cry went up as the goddess was seen. She shimmered, glorious in silken vestments. Kadlin felt her heart lift. It was impossible not to accept that the deity inhabited her statue. It swayed slightly as the chariot rumbled along, as if animated from within. Men and women raised drinking horns, called out things of good omen. Children ran, squealing. Only the slaves walking behind the procession remained sombre, as well they might. Later, when Nerthus returned to her grove, the slaves would wash her in the lake. And then they would die.

  Kadlin was soothed by the presence of Nerthus, the bringer of all good things. The goddess had brought much that was good into Kadlin’s life. Her first husband, Holen of the Wrosns, had been a good man; tactful enough not to question his new wife’s virginity, strong enough to ignore the rumours about the paternity of the infant she had given birth to in his hall. Holen had treated Starkad as his own. Kadlin smiled. Holen had been strong in other ways. She had appreciated his vigour in their bedchamber, and not just there. At the one Nerthus ceremony they had attended, he had led her away from the crowds. In one of the woods nearby, he had hauled up her skirts and taken her, fast and urgent, against a tree. The danger of discovery had added to her excitement. Their time together had been all too brief. When the news came that Holen had fallen fighting the Aestii away in the east, her grief had been unfeigned, as deep as when Dernhelm was sent away.

  On Holen’s death, despite her unhappiness, she had done what was right. Starkad was only three winters old. The talk about his paternity would always have cast a cloud over his rule of the Wrosns. Having sought the cyning Isangrim’s permission, Kadlin had sensibly arranged for Holen’s brother Hrothgar to take the high seat.

  Kadlin had had little desire to remarry. Holen had been generous. Along with the traditional oxen, bridled horse and shield, spear and sword, he had included several estates in her dowry. With those and the lands settled on her by her father, she could have lived independently in comfort. She could have raised Starkad. As a woman of means, if discreet, she could have taken lovers of her choice.

  The position of her family had demanded she remarry. The Wuffingas stood second only to the Himlings on Hedinsey. Her late father and the cyning Isangrim had decided the two families should be more closely bound together. Conscious of her duty, she had raised no objection to marrying Oslac.

  Kadlin looked across to where Oslac stood with her brother, Heoroweard, and her sister, Leoba. They made a striking group, all tall and blond, but very different. Oslac was powerfully built but slim. Heoroweard was vast and fitted his nickname, Paunch-Shaker. Leoba was the most unusual, a tall young woman dressed as a man. Kadlin got on well with her sister, but made no pretence of understanding her. What made a girl renounce the pleasures of men to become almost one of them as a shield-maiden was inexplicable to her. Kadlin had never had any ambition to fight. Her place was running a well-lit hall, decorously moving through the benches, acting as a peace-weaver. She liked jewels, fine things, pleasure. She wanted a man in her bed.

  Oslac was a man in bed, every bit as enjoyable as Dernhelm or Holen. And Oslac was considerate in many other ways. He was open-handed, and he loved her. Yet he was not Holen, let alone Dernhelm. Oslac had always been in the shadow of the other sons of Isangrim: the beautiful, doomed Froda, the capable and strong Arkil, the wild young Eadwulf and Dernhelm, and his own full brother, the overbearing Morcar. Oslac was the quietest of the athelings; always thinking, reading Latin poetry and always consumed with worry.

  Kadlin had been faithful to Oslac. She had given him no cause for concern. He had given her the son and daughter who stood by her. At nineteen winters, Aelfwynn was a beautiful girl, radiant like the sun, and Aethelgar, just a year younger, was already a fine young man, a proven warrior. The marriage had lasted, could be considered a success.

  With the news that Dernhelm was travelling the Amber Road, much had changed. She knew Oslac was troubled. Much of the time he was yet more attentive, making love to her with something like desperation. But at others, he was withdrawn. Too often he was away, closeted with Morcar and his brother’s sinister familiars Glaum, son of Wulfmaer, and Swerting Snake-Tongue.

  And all the time, Dernhelm was coming. She had to accept he would have changed. He would be older, much older. News travelled slowly up the Amber Road, but she knew he had two sons by his Roman wife. What would she do when she saw him? What would she say? Would she say anything? How could she tell him he had another son, and then in the next breath tell him that Starkad was a hostage far away in Gaul? Kadlin longed to tell him. She longed to see him. But she knew if she were given the choice, it would be Starkad coming home, not the father he had never met.

  Sudden shouts through the sounds of merrymaking. A flash of steel. The screams of women and children. A man with a knife in his hand running towards her. Aethelgar stepped in front of Kadlin. The man thrust at him. Aethelgar failed to catch his wrist. The blade cut deep into her son’s arm. His blood was bright in the sunshine. Her daughter was screaming. Aethelgar doubled up, defenceless. The man drew back for the killing blow. He reeled sideways. Leoba hit him again with the heavy metal drinking cup. He went down. Leoba landed on top of him. Again and again she brought the cup down, smashing his face to a bloodied pulp.

  Men were fighting. Others were running with the women and children. The chariot of the goddess had come to a halt. Her slaves were fleeing, seizing this opportunity to escape the terrible fate which awaited them.

  Kadlin struggled to make sense of the confusion. The Brondings and the others subject to Unferth were massively outnumbered, but they had knives. Four of them surrounded Heoroweard and Oslac.

  ‘Get Aelfwynn to the boat.’
r />   Kadlin struggled to take in what her son was saying.

  ‘The boat – you and Aelfwynn get to the boat. There are guards there.’

  Leoba got up from her horrible handiwork. She had the dead Bronding’s dagger. She moved to help their brother and Oslac.

  ‘You are hurt,’ Kadlin said to Aethelgar.

  ‘Go, now!’ The youth sounded angry.

  Kadlin put her arm around Aelfwynn’s shoulders, turned her to go.

  Aethelgar wrapped his cloak around his left arm, and picked up the metal cup Leoba had discarded. When he was sure his mother and sister were moving, he ran after Leoba.

  At the edge of the timber, Kadlin looked back. They were still fighting. She could see Aethelgar and Leoba. Oslac was still on his feet. But her brother Heoroweard was gone.

  XXIII

  The Alps

  ‘A coin for a shave, Dominus?’

  Gallienus smiled down at the bearded soldier standing near his horse, and held out his hand for Achilleus, his a Memoria, to place a coin in it. A recollection came to the emperor. ‘You were at Mediolanum.’

  ‘I was, Dominus. We whipped those hairy fucking Alamanni.’

  ‘We certainly did, Commilito, and we will win again.’ Gallienus raised his voice. ‘Today we will beat Simplicinius Genialis and his rabble of Raetian levies. Next year we will crush his master, the Batavian bandit who pretends to be an emperor. Today we start to dismantle the foul, murderous tyranny of the half-barbarian Postumus.’

  Gallienus flipped the coin through the air. ‘Good luck.’

  The soldier caught the coin. ‘May the gods grant you victory, Imperator.’

  Others called out. ‘Dominus, over here. Me, too, Dominus.’

  Gallienus held up his hands, palms empty. He waited for the clamour to die down before speaking. ‘There will be little plunder today, although the baggage of Simplicinius Genialis I give to the troops. When we have won, you will not find me ungenerous. If you Cantabrians chase those northern peasants off this hillside, your donative will be doubled.’

  The auxiliaries cheered. ‘Io Cantab! Io Cantab!’

  Gallienus saluted them, and, nodding to his entourage to follow, turned his horse.

  Riding back to where the horse guards waited behind the main line, Gallienus wondered about the loyalty of the Cantabrians. The unit had been raised in northern Hispania. But they had served with his comitatus for many years. There could not be many Spaniards left in their ranks; not many in whom the call of home and family might have been played upon by agents of Postumus to lead to thoughts of desertion.

  The opening moves of the invasion of Raetia had gone smoothly enough, the result of long planning. Gallienus had left a sizable force in northern Italy; eight thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry under the Prefect of Cavalry. Aureolus may have started life as a Getan shepherd, but now he was a senior officer long experienced in independent command. He had orders to block the Alpine passes to the west. The infantry to be employed would be commanded by four other experienced protectores: the Danubian Claudius, the Egyptian Camsisoleus and the Italians Domitianus and Celer. Should Postumus break through, his counterattack would be met by the cavalry on the wide plains where they could best manoeuvre. As deputy, Aureolus had another protector in Marcianus. If all should fail, the towns of the region were being put in readiness for a siege by yet another protector, the siege engineer Bonitus, assisted by a capable officer called Julius Marcellinus. It was hard to think what more could have been done to protect the rear.

  An order had long been issued that on the day Gallienus left Mediolanum, troops from the province of Noricum would begin their advance through the high country to the river Aenus to threaten Raetia from the east. The governor Aelius Restutus was capable. There was no reason to think it had not been carried out.

  Gallienus and the comitatus had marched due north from Mediolanum to Comum. They had taken the road on the western shore of the lake, advanced as far as Clavenna, turned first east, then west, and negotiated the Julier pass. In the mild early-summer weather, the mountain road was not too hard for a lightly equipped expeditionary force. The slopes reached up on either side; dark green where there were trees, lighter on the high Alpine meadows. Mist hung in the valleys and folds in the mornings until the sun burnt them off, leaving odd clouds anchored to the distant bare rock peaks. They had just passed a perfect, still, little lake where the road clung to a precipice, when the scouts had come back with the unwelcome news.

  Simplicinius Genialis had done well. There was only one other practicable route for an army from Mediolanum up through the mountains into Raetia. It started at Verona and ran east of Lake Benacus, up through Tridentum, on the Via Claudia Augusta. Unfortunately, both routes came together far to the north at the town of Cambodunum. Gallienus had known Simplicinius Genialis had based his army at that strategic place. What had surprised the emperor was the alacrity with which the governor of Raetia had moved to meet him down the path he had chosen. Gallienus was still some fifteen miles short of the small mountain settlement of Curia, a very long march south from Cambodunum. Obviously, the secrecy of the imperial consilium had been broken. Although it was probably otiose, Gallienus had instructed his Princeps Peregrinorum Rufinus and his junior Praetorian Prefect Censorinus to conduct investigations.

  For a fat, small-town equestrian with a civilian career behind him, Simplicinius Genialis was turning out to be something of a general. Some four years before he had defeated a force of Iuthungi and Semnones returning from the great Alamannic raid into Italy. Now he had selected an excellent defensive position for an army vastly outnumbered in cavalry. The road ran uphill through a highland plain about a thousand paces wide. Steep, heavily wooded slopes reared up on either side. These precluded not just cavalry but the movement of any formed body of troops. There was a small stream running along the tree line under the western escarpment, but Gallienus thought it was likely to prove of little consequence.

  Simplicinius Genialis’s dispositions showed equal skill. He had drawn up his heavy infantry, six deep, in close order across the plain, filling it from slope to slope. Legio III Italia Concors, about four thousand men under the Spaniard Bonosus, held the centre. On their right were vexillationes from two legions from Germania Superior, VIII Augusta and XXII Primigenia, amounting to about a thousand shields. The left consisted of something less than a thousand Germanic warriors. They were on foot, but handlers held their horses a little way to their rear. Gallienus’s frumentarii had informed him recently that Postumus had despatched these Angles to Simplicinius Genialis.

  Close behind the main battle line stood the provincial militia. Their numbers were harder to judge; by their very nature, they were ad hoc units. They looked to almost equal the total of those in the front. Raetia was a beleaguered frontier province, and its levies would have more experience of fighting than most. They had been a part of the recent victory over the barbarians. But militia could never stand up to regular troops in close combat. It had to be assumed they had been stationed there to hurl missiles over those in front. Should they want to, the amateur soldiers of Raetia would find it difficult to run. Some twenty paces to their rear were posted what Gallienus already knew were all the two thousand regular auxiliary archers in the province. Most likely, apart from shooting at the oncoming enemy, the latter also would have been given orders to shoot any of the militia who turned tail.

  No reserve was to be seen, except, much higher up the road and thus well to the rear, almost back with the baggage, two alae of cavalry. At a distant glance it was evident that these were far less than the thousand riders which should have been on their muster rolls. Judging by the mounted messengers coming and going, Simplicinius Genialis himself probably was with them.

  The array was completed by some regular auxiliaries on the extreme flanks armed with javelins and swords. Some of them could be seen now and then precariously scrambling between the trees on the vertiginous slopes. Given the terrain, despite th
e words he had spoken to the Cantabrians on his right, Gallienus considered it most improbable that troops there would have any influence on the outcome.

  The emperor had had plenty of time to study his opponent’s order of battle. Simplicinius Genialis had chosen his ground well and set out his forces with acumen. Yet he had surrendered all initiative. For the past two days the imperial field army had watched the rebel forces. Each morning the army of Raetia formed up in good order, and each night posted adequate numbers of advanced pickets. The latter had little effect on the deserters. In the dark, men crossed from one side to the other, as was the way in any civil war.

  Both days, the imperial army had remained in camp. They could not stay where they were indefinitely, because their supply line was too long and tenuous. They could not retreat, because that might prove fatal to imperial prestige. The troops were restless. Despite the advantageous position of their enemy, despite the terrible casualties that would come from plunging missiles, they were eager to advance. In part to curb this impatience, on the first day Gallienus had made it known he had sent two columns on flank marches to come around behind the enemy. One thousand Dalmatian horsemen under the Egyptian Theodotus had retraced their steps through the Julier pass all the way to Clavenna, where they were to take a parallel route north through the mountains to Curia. At a conservative estimate it was over a hundred and twenty miles along a narrow road easily blocked. If they arrived at all, it was unlikely to be any time soon. Another thousand cavalry, Moors commanded by the Danubian Probus, had followed a local shepherd who claimed he knew a sheep track passable by horses which snaked off to the east and came out to the north of the enemy. The existence of this path was dubious.

  Several factors, all in the lap of the gods, had encouraged Gallienus to delay. The omens had been ambiguous, and there had been portents.