Flavius had looked on dispassionately. His mind had strayed to Una once the sword-play had begun, and it had taken him a few moments to register the accident. He remembered his own first shocks as a young man, watching as men of his numerus were ripped apart by the dogs before Carthage, feeling stunned by his own first kill. Quintus had suffered the cruellest of blows, killing his best friend in practice combat, but Macrobius had been right to respond as he did, and Flavius would not be seeking his cousin out. Either Quintus would go to pieces, another reject from the schola, or the experience would make a man of him, would toughen him up, his ability to ride it through strengthened by a drive to uphold the honour of his family, of Flavius himself, who he knew had been watching, of their uncle Aetius, of a Rome imbued with glory and honour and military virtue that they all desperately hoped to rebuild. He glanced up at the statue of Trajan again and turned back to the door. It was time to go.
8
That night Flavius lay with Una on the sands beside the mouth of the river Tiber, watching the moonlight dance across the ruffled surface of the Tyrrhenian Sea. They had ridden down from Rome that afternoon on Flavius’ horse, through the dilapidated town of Ostia and past the canal that led to the octagonal harbour of Portus, and now they were on the great stretch of sand near Antium that extended south as far as the eye could see. Fewer ships came up the Tiber now than in the days of Flavius’ youth, the fall of Carthage having cut off the trade in African grain and oil, and the last vessel of the day had left hours ago, their solitude since then broken only by a few fishermen who had come and cast their nets during the early evening but who had left as soon as darkness set in.
Flavius propped himself up on one elbow as he took some grapes from the food they had brought with them and drank from a flagon of wine, and watched Una as she lay with her eyes closed stretched out on the blanket beside him. She was long-limbed, taller than he was, with high cheekbones and tightly curled black hair, and even among the people of Rome, used to slaves and soldiers from all quarters of the world, she raised eyebrows as she passed through the streets and the markets, more beautiful in Flavius’ eyes than any of the pasty-looking girls from noble families who were endlessly paraded in front of him as suitable prospects for marriage.
Una was not like the black-skinned slaves he had seen sold as exotica in the markets of Rome, slaves said to have come from far-off lands to the south of the great African desert, nor like the Nubians and Berbers who had thronged into Carthage in the city’s final days; instead she was from an African land to the east where the river Nile rose in the highlands overlooking the Erythraean Sea, a place that she called Ethiopia. She had told him that on the high plateaus of her homeland the girls would run between villages carrying messages and news, effortlessly covering thirty or more miles in a day, further even than a day’s route march for a soldier, and that when they came down from the thin air of the uplands to the plains and the desert below they could run even further and faster. He had seen it for himself on the many occasions he had brought her from Rome to run on these sands, and she had done so again this evening, Flavius cantering and galloping alongside her while she covered miles and miles, her breathing barely quickened and her legs seeming to float above the sand. Afterwards they had made love and swum in the sea, and her skin still glistened with the water that left the taste of salt on Flavius’ lips, a cleansing taste that for a few precious hours made the machinations of Rome and the venality of the emperor and his court seem a distant irrelevance.
She opened her eyes and sat upright, pulling up her robe against the first chill of the night, and stared out to sea, saying nothing. Flavius drew himself alongside her, dragging over the flagon and taking another draught, feeling the warmth of the wine in his belly. ‘What are you thinking?’ he said, wiping his lips and passing her the flagon.
She took it, raised it to her lips and then put it down again. ‘I was thinking about Quodvultdeus, the Bishop of Carthage.’
‘Why think about that monster in this place? He nearly beat you to death on the ship back from Carthage. If Macrobius hadn’t held me back, I would have killed him with my bare hands.’
She was silent for a moment, and then spoke quietly. ‘You must remember what I’d been through. After the slavers kidnapped me from my village in Ethiopia I spent two years working for a Nubian whoremaster, caged up with other girls in wagons that travelled from oasis to oasis waiting to service the men of the camel caravans when they came in. I had already learned of Christianity from the followers of the monk Frumentius who had first brought the new religion from Alexandria to my people, and it became my salvation; knowing of the suffering of Jesus and the two thieves on the crosses gave me the strength to carry on. When Bishop Quodvultdeus rode by one day, pointing to me and two of the other girls, giving the whoremaster a purse of gold, I thought that Christ himself had answered my prayers, and I fell down on my knees and worshipped him. Later, when he led us in prayer, entrancing us all with his messianic eyes and deep voice, he used to say that we were the holy innocents, that those who would abuse us and vent their fury on us were really paying us homage, as Herod did when he wreaked his fury on the Christ child. It was only much later, after far too long under his spell, that I realized he was no messenger from Christ but a venal and cruel man who had bought us to satisfy his own desires, when he wasn’t occupied chasing boys around the cloisters in Carthage.’
‘Quodvultdeus, “What God Wants”,’ Flavius muttered, flinging a stone into the surf. ‘If a man like that thinks he’s what God wants, then we’re better off without a Church.’
‘I never lost my faith,’ Una continued, ‘because the Christianity taught in my land is not the Christianity of Rome. I never saw Quodvultdeus as an intermediary to God, just as one who seemed in my fevered imagination to have been sent by God to bring my deliverance. Once I saw through him I saw the truth of the Church he represented, a hollow vessel created by men to satisfy their own ambitions and cravings, as far from God as he is from the courts of the emperors.’
Flavius pursed his lips, looking out to sea. ‘The last I heard, Quodvultdeus had set himself up as the Bishop of Rome’s special inquisitor in Neapolis, leading a squad of thugs house by house to root out so-called heretics who don’t believe that the Bishop is already up there sitting in judgement alongside Christ himself.’
Una shuddered, clutching her robe closer around her. ‘That’s only two days’ ride from here. The closer he gets, the more I want to leave. I’m conspicuous enough in Rome as it is, but the methods he uses to extract confessions will lead to someone pointing the finger at me.’
Flavius peered at her. ‘You often go out quietly in the night, and don’t return until dawn. I’ve never asked questions, but I’ve guessed.’
Una reached out and put a hand on his arm, squeezing it, and then drew back under her robe. ‘You may as well know now. We meet in the catacombs, under Rome and along the Appian Way. There are secret places, known only to a few.’
Flavius stared at her intently. ‘Have you met Pelagius?’
‘We never know the names of those who lead us in prayer, or see their faces. It’s too dangerous for them. It’s been that way for almost four hundred years, since the time soon after the crucifixion when the Apostles came to Neapolis and Pompeii, worshipping in secret among the sulphur pits of the Phlegraean Fields before spreading to Rome when the first catacombs were being dug. We are an underground Christianity, always in hiding, persecuted now under the Church of Rome just as we were in pagan times.’
‘What will you do?’
She reached into the folds of her robe and pulled out the golden cross on a necklace that she had removed when she went running, an elaborate latticework of geometric patterns with a square at the base that she had told him represented the Ark of the Covenant. She held it up, the moonlight shining through the lattice, and then turned to him. ‘What do you know of the kingdom of Aksum?’
Flavius hesitated, then said, ‘It’s t
he place Arturus told his two Nubian slaves to find when he sent them away before the fall of Carthage. He said it would offer them safe haven, and freedom from slavery.’
She lowered the cross and looked out at the horizon. ‘Aksum borders my own land to the north, occupying the valleys and hills that lead down to the Erythraean Sea. It’s the first nation you reach when you travel south from Egypt. Its capital city has great granite columns, taller even than the column of Trajan, and tombs and houses dug from the living rock, built by an ancient civilization that some believe was one of the lost tribes of Israel, those who brought the Ark of the Covenant with them. Since the time of Constantine the Great when the monk Gregorius converted the Aksumite king Ezana to Christianity the kingdom has grown ever stronger, spreading its influence north to Egypt, south to the Horn of Africa and east across the narrows to Arabia, to the land of the Sabaeans. It controls the Erythraean Sea trade from India to Egypt, but its real strength lies in its Christianity. It is the word as taught by Jesus, spread from person to person, from village to village. There are no priests in Aksum, no bishops. All are welcome, whatever their faith, Jews, pagans, the Arabs with their desert religion, as long as they follow a path of peace.’
‘Do you wish to return, Una?’ Flavius said.
She held the cross with one hand and grasped his with the other. ‘You know I can bear you no children. The whoremaster and his wife saw to that. And ahead of us now can only be long absences, campaigns and battles, and then one day you won’t return. Everyone in Rome knows what the future holds. Mothers are doting on their sons, knowing they will soon be drawn away to war. At night the stands of the Circus Maximus next to our quarters are full of lovers not willing to wait any longer for marriage. Fathers of military age who fear conscription are taking their children around the monuments of Rome, teaching them everything they know while they still have time. And it’s not only the men whose lives may be foreshortened. If darkness falls on the city of Rome itself, if Attila arrives, if the Vandals sweep up from the sea, then all of our lives are at risk. There is more and more talk of the biblical apocalypse, of a coming doomsday, spread by the monks of Arles and now taken up by others who have descended on the city in droves, real monks and charlatans, persuading people to give up all of their gold and silver in return for a special prayer to the Lord.’
‘The army will prevail,’ Flavius said, emotion in his voice. ‘We will defeat Attila.’
Una shook her head and looked at him, gripping his hand hard. ‘It makes no difference for us. I’ve made up my mind.’ She was crying, but there was a fervour in her eyes he had never seen before. She wiped them, and carried on. ‘I listen when you talk, you and Arturus and the other officers who share your views, followers of your uncle Aetius. Just as you wish to break away from the emperor and take the war yourselves to the barbarians at the frontiers, so we wish to wrest Christianity from the hold of the Church and take it to places beyond the empire, beyond the reach of the priests and the bishops. Some will go north, Pelagius himself, to try to establish a new Christian foothold in Britain. But others among us are planning to go south to Aksum. Already monks of the East who have turned from the Church in Constantinople are going there, and they will soon be followed by others from the West. There are some who believe Aksum is the promised land, that it could become the kingdom of Heaven on earth.’
‘Do you feel that God is calling you?’ Flavius said, his voice wavering.
‘All I know is that I was able to bring the words of Jesus to the other girls enslaved with me in the desert, and it gave them hope. If I can do the same to the distant people in the mountains of my own land, then I will have found purpose in life. And I want to run again, not along these sands that lead only south to Neapolis and persecution or north to war, but between the villages of my home in the Ethiopian highlands, bringing messages only of peace. I have had enough of Rome and her wars.’
She turned and drew something else out of the folds of her robe, handing it to him. It was a small stone, black and polished smooth, suspended from a thin leather thong that had been threaded through a hole in the centre. ‘I found this piece of jet outside my village when I was a child, and have worn it smooth by handling it. Take it, and remember me.’
Behind them Flavius’ horse whinnied and stomped, moving down from the grassy knoll in the dunes where they had left it grazing while they went swimming. Flavius picked up the nosebag he had prepared and got up to feed it, stroking its nose and whispering into its ear, and then slapping it on its haunches as it cantered over to the river for a drink. He felt suddenly alone, standing behind Una as she stared out to the horizon, watching his horse dip its head into the waters where the Tiber flowed into the sea. He had expected to be the one breaking the news to her of his imminent departure, but instead she had turned the tables on him. He had felt thrown by it, confused, unable to reply. Yet standing here, poised between her and the restless horse, he knew where his future lay. The free will preached by Pelagius and his followers was all very well, but in a world on the verge of imploding, the lives of men were as constrained as those of the gladiators of old in the Colosseum. He was as locked into war as Una was into her vision of peace.
He heard a distant noise, a drumbeat, and stared out to sea. Beneath the light of the moon a galley came into view, a single-banked liburnian, one of the patrols they had seen leave the mouth of the Tiber shortly after they had arrived. Even here on the beach under the stars the sense of peace was an illusion. For months now Gaiseric’s Vandal navy from Carthage had been raiding and pillaging its way along the coast, using the Roman ships that he had seen abandoned in the harbour of Carthage before its fall. Arturus had been right in his prediction that day: the warriors of the forest had become warriors of the desert, and now of the sea. Gaiseric had not been content to rest on his laurels at Carthage but had taken his men on the only route of campaign open from there, out onto the Mediterranean. All of the strategists in Rome knew it was only a matter of time before raiding and pillaging became a seaborne assault. The Roman navy was too weak to confront Gaiseric in a full-scale naval battle, so the only hope was a victory for the army, not against the Vandals but against the Huns, a victory that would allow troops to redeploy along this shore to counter an invasion. Yet even that strategy was riddled with uncertainty: any victory against Attila was likely to be one of attrition, leaving the Roman army too weak to redeploy effectively. Everything was on a knife-edge. All that seemed certain was that one day soon these beaches, like the shore before Troy, would run red with blood, that those left to defend Rome would make the invaders pay a dear price among the dunes and hollows of this shore.
The horse returned and kicked at the sand. Una got up and Flavius quickly rolled the blanket, leaving the grapes and the empty flagon in the sand. He leapt on the horse, reining it in as it reared into the air, whinnying and stomping again, and then he put out a hand, pulling Una up behind him. She held him tight, her breasts warm against his back, and they rode hard for Rome.
9
Early the following morning Flavius led Arturus out of the schola, over the exercise yard and onto the street in front of the emperor Trajan’s great column, its white marble drums soaring a hundred feet into the air between the Greek and Latin libraries. As a boy, between lessons with his teacher Dionysius, Flavius had spent hours staring from the upper floors of the libraries at the column, scrutinizing each scene on the spiral frieze until it was etched in his memory: scenes of war and conquest, of weapons and fortifications and river crossings, of defeated barbarians and victorious Romans, of the emperor himself commanding his men from the front and leading them on. He saw the inscription at the base of the column, the place where the ashes of the emperor lay in a casket of Dacian gold, and read the first line: SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS, remembering the rest by heart: The Senate and the people of Rome give this to the emperor Caesar, son of the divine Nerva, Nerva Trajanus Augustus Germanicus Dacicus, Pontifex Maximus, in his seventeenth year in
the office of Tribune, having been acclaimed six times as imperator, six times consul, pater patriae.
He looked up and saw a scene featuring the vanquished King Decebalus and another of the Romans crossing the river Danube, the image that had most fired his imagination as a boy, and he felt the excitement course through him. He could hardly believe that he would soon be going to the same place, that he and Macrobius and Arturus would be crossing the river where the legionaries had gone three hundred and fifty years before, treading where his revered hero Trajan has taken his army on a war of conquest that would reach the limits of Parthia and see the Roman Empire expand to its greatest extent ever.
They left the column behind and climbed up a winding road on the north side of Trajan’s forum into the adjoining market complex, a huge brick structure that had been converted under Aetius’ orders into the Rome headquarters of the fabri, the corps of military engineers. They passed several buxom slave girls carrying baskets behind an overweight cleric and flashing smiles at them, and he thought of Una, wondering when he was going to see her again. Just before leaving the schola he had called Macrobius back and asked him to tell Una to leave, to take her belongings to his sister’s house in Cosa up the coast and await his return. It was just a niggle, but he had a sudden feeling that it was not worth taking chances, that if Heraclius was on to Arturus then he might also have agents who had seen the two of them together, who might be following them now. He had little else to lose in this world, but if anything happened to Una he knew he would have to exact vengeance on those who had perpetrated it, something that could start a terrible bloodbath that might bring down all of those around him and destroy Aetius’ plans. Not knowing when he might see her again was a small price to pay for avoiding that, though it was one he knew he was going find hard to bear in the days and weeks ahead.
The Sword of Attila Page 10