The guards at the gate study us suspiciously, but they wave us through without questioning. Clearly they don’t feel two youths on ponies are any threat to the city, whose mighty walls are manned by a garrison strong enough to make even the Saxon warband keep their distance.
I only have Ursula with me on this journey — figuring a Latin-speaking, Christian Briton could convince the Gauls where an uncouth son of a barbarian king failed. Only my friends know of my mission; as far as anyone else knows, Ursula and I are out patrolling the riverside, spying on the Saxons. In reality, we have ridden as far away from the Saxon camp as we could, trampling the wheat fields and the pastures still tended by the few Gaul serfs who remain in the land trod on by so many heathen hordes in living memory.
All night, after seeing Basina, in between dreaming of her tongue in my mouth and her hands on my body, I was racking my brain about what more I could do to “impress” her again. Having seen him fight — and win — against the bear-shirts, it was obvious I could never compete with Hildrik in battle prowess, neither could I prove a better war chief with my handful of Iutes against his trained centuria. As the moon crept slowly up the eastern sky, it dawned on me. I remembered how my father came to be respected as a leader, how he would sort out all the difficulties that came to him in his life. Not through beating his opposition in combat — like me, he was never a great warrior, though he could always hold himself in a fight — but by thinking about the best solutions and, most of the time, simply talking to people; forming alliances, or provoking enemies against each other… He was a better diplomat than he was a general, and he was a better general than he was ever a fighter. It was time for me to find out if I had inherited any of his talents…
Coln is a much smaller city than Londin, but it’s more densely built. Having trundled for days through Gaul’s empty rural landscape, I immediately feel at home in its packed streets. There are none of the empty, barren spaces that plague so much of Londin’s western and northern reaches, and although parts of the city bear some of the same wounds of barbarian raids as the countryside, the ancient fabric of Coln remains intact: the grid of the streets is untouched, the insulae of the city folk have not been turned into palaces and gardens for the nobles.
There are obviously fewer people living now in the city than it was originally built for; many of the flats in the stone tenements are boarded up, especially the more expensive ones downstairs; the wide avenues carry a fraction of the traffic they were designed to accommodate; the guest houses are empty, and the door to the bath house is barred with a chain, its vaulted roof rotten through and fallen in. Even the large church by the Forum has seen better days. But the city still lives: a lonely island of civilisation in the sea of poverty and barbarity.
Cardo Street takes us to the Forum, still surrounded by several levels of galleries and a semi-circular portico, though there’s only a handful of stalls nestled between the columns. As I observe the market-goers for a while, I note that, shrunken and impoverished though it may be, the city’s population is as diverse as it must have been in its glory days. I have never seen as many face types, skin hues, eye shapes and hair styles and colours, not even in Londin. There’s a man with black curly hair, full lips and skin the colour of a chestnut, studying intently a knife blade. Here’s a woman, dark-eyed and deeply tanned, with nose straight like a mason’s square and dark hair tied with a ribbon in a bun a foot high, smelling a bottle of some balm or ointment. Behind her, a silver-bearded spice merchant adjusts a piece of red cloth wrapped around his head. Syrians, Iberians, Greeks, Gauls, Germans… This was once a town of the Legions, a frontier fortress guarding the gates of the Empire, and the descendants of the Legionnaires from all corners of Rome had settled here over the centuries, long after the Legions themselves marched off to fight Rome’s distant wars, long after the exotic trade routes dried up.
Ursula watches all this with her mouth agape; she hasn’t been to Londin as often as I have, and a lot of this is new to her. But she is the first to remember why we came here. She tugs at my sleeve and points down the main avenue to the east, to an arcade façade of a grand building — the largest we’ve yet seen in Coln, taking up an entire insula by itself — looming over the riverside.
“This looks like the Praetorium,” she says.
“Then that is where we must go.”
It is a testament to Coln’s reduced strength that one man holds all the temporal, spiritual and military power in his hands. Pinnosa, a grey-haired, balding Gaul, with a jagged scar across his face and cauliflower ears, is the city’s Bishop, Comes and Praetor, all at once, dividing his time between the church, the palace and the garrison quarters.
Even combining so many duties, Pinnosa is not a busy man. We find him returning from an inspection of the city walls. There is no queue of supplicants awaiting his audience, except two merchants arguing about some deal gone foul. Pinnosa gives them a tired look, then notices us and a faint smile lingers on his lips. He nods at the guard to let us enter first.
I have never seen Londin’s Praetorium in its full glory. The building was razed by my father during the war with Wortimer, and all that was left in my time were burnt-out, blackened ruins. In line with the rest of the city, most of Coln’s palace still remains, including its great octagonal audience hall in the centre, though its walls are cracked and charred with the memory of some recent fire, and the Council table is a mere plank of fresh pine wood supported by piles of terracotta tiles.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” Pinnosa asks.
“I am Octa, son of Aeric, Rex of the Iutes. This is Ursula of Dorowern,” I introduce us.
“Iutes? Dorowern?” He scratches his head. “I’m not sure…”
“We’re from Britannia,” says Ursula.
“Britannia! We haven’t had anyone visit from there in… I can’t remember how long. What is a pair of Briton youths doing here, of all places? And why would you want to see me? Do you want some food?” He waves at a slave. “I was just about to have my dinner.”
“Thank you,” I say. “We have been travelling long…”
“Of course. Wine! Meat! Bread!”
As the meal is prepared before us, I tell Pinnosa briefly of our arrival in Gaul, and of our joining Hildrik’s force in pursuit of the Saxon warband. I don’t dwell on details — the moment he finds out we came as part of the Frankish horde, he loses interest in my tale.
“I know all about Hildrik’s army,” he says, waving a quail bone in the air. “And about the Saxons he pursues.”
“Then you also know that the Saxon band is greater than any before, and includes mercenaries from Britannia?”
“I did not know that last part,” he replies, “but I don’t see how that changes anything. Is that why you’re here? To settle some old score with your enemies from home?”
“We’re here to ask you to help us fight the Saxons. I understand you still have a powerful garrison here — between them and Hildrik’s host, we would make short work of the Saxon band.”
“We could,” Pinnosa nods. “And if the Saxons were a threat to my city, I might consider your proposition… But they passed the walls of Coln without stopping. Why should I waste my troops on them?”
“Are you not worried what they might do to the rest of Gaul?” asks Ursula. “To Trever, and other cities?”
“Trever is a greater, stronger city than Coln,” says Pinnosa. “If it can’t hold against the Saxons, what chance would we have?”
He wipes his hands in cloth, stands up and walks to a window. He invites us to join him. The audience hall is on the second floor of the octagonal tower rising in the centre of the Praetorium, with a commanding view over the surrounding area. In one window, we see the Rhenum, flowing proud and calm along the building’s arched foundations; a few flat-bottomed merchant barges stand in the harbour. In the window opposite, the rest of the city, the walls, and the fields and pastures beyond.
“If you travelled here from Tornac, y
ou must have seen Hildebert’s forces, preparing for war,” he says.
“We did,” I admit. “The weapon smithies are belching smoke all over the country. Warriors gather in the villages. Fodder is taken from the fields.”
“They are poised to strike the city at any moment,” says Pinnosa. “The Franks have sacked this city before, more than once. My father came here from the East to help it recover after the last time — he rebuilt the Basilica of the Martyrs, and a few other public buildings.” He points to the great edifice looming over the centre of the city. “Every time, we came back; every time, Rome pushed the barbarians away. But now, Rome is far away. The magister militum of Gaul is busy fighting the new Imperator; there are no Legions stationed along the Rhenum — I’m not even sure if there are any troops left in Trever. Nobody’s coming to our help. If we lose, I fear it may be the end of the city.”
“The praefect of Ake said the same thing,” says Ursula.
“You’ve been to Ake? How did you like the baths?”
“We had no time to take the waters,” I answer grimly. “We were too busy fighting the Saxons. Defending the towns and villages of Germania from their roving bands. Something your soldiers should have been doing instead of us.”
Pinnosa scratches his chin and looks longingly to the walls.
“There was a time when two thousand soldiers manned these ramparts,” he says. “If you had come to me then, I would’ve sent a centuria or two to deal with your Saxons without hesitation. But now, I barely have two hundred men to face the Franks. I have none to spare.”
“What happened to all those soldiers?” asks Ursula. “Did the Huns kill them all?”
“There are more dangers to a soldier than the Huns in these parts, dear,” Pinnosa replies. “Franks, Saxons, disease, desertion… The last one’s the worst. A mercenary life pays more than the meagre salary I can offer them. They have enough conscience to not fight their own comrades-in-arms, at least, but that is a small blessing.”
“Then our trip was a waste of time,” I say. “I wish I had known sooner how dire your situation was.”
I return to the table, pick up a piece of bread and chew it slowly in silence.
“Does Hildrik know you’re here, boy?” asks Pinnosa.
“He does not,” I reply.
“I don’t suppose he would have appreciated you coming to beg the walhas for help.”
“Do you know him?”
“I met his father.” He points towards the western gatehouse, looming over the wall. “He was there, with a small band of Salians, helping us to fight back a Hun raiding party. We were still allies back then, before Aetius called him off to Maurica — to use him and betray him.”
“And you still could be,” I say. “Hildrik is not as bitter with Rome as his father is. He wants you to be his friend, not an enemy.”
Pinnosa smiles sadly. “Maybe in another time… If we all survive these next few months, everything is possible. For now, though, each of us must look to their own.”
He reaches for a pitcher and pours wine into our goblets. It is warm, smooth and sweet like mead.
“Enjoy it while you can, young Iute,” says Pinnosa. “This might be the last of Mosella’s white this world will ever see, if those Saxons have their way.”
CHAPTER X
THE LAY OF ASHER
In grim moods, we ride the streets of Coln back to the southern gate. I initially planned to stay in one of Coln’s taverns for the night — it would have been the first real bed I slept in since leaving Meroweg’s capital — but now, I no longer wish to spend any more time in the city than necessary. Looking at it with a disillusioned eye, I can see now it’s in much worse shape than I first noticed. The red render has fallen off almost every wall. There is no roof that is not patched with straw or board. Only the main streets are paved — the back alleys are just gravel on dirt and feeble grass on mud. Away from these broad, paved avenues, I spot some plots of empty land, left after razed houses and never built up again, turned into vegetable patches or pigsties.
We pass by some large public building of sandstone and red tile; this one, at least, is still well kept — I can’t tell if it’s an old temple or some kind of curia. Its door flies open. A boy runs out, fair-haired, wild-eyed and clad in furs, clutching an oblong bundle in his arms. He’s chased by an old man, with a long, curly beard, dressed in white woollen cloak rimmed with black and a small, pointed hat, which falls off his head as he runs.
“Thief!” cries the old man. There is desperation in his voice, more than greed. Whatever the boy is holding is more precious to the old man than any treasure. “Stop him!”
I have no side in this quarrel but, seeing how nobody is rushing to help the old man, I spur my pony and charge after the boy. I reach him in a few short leaps. I grab his fur coat; the boy slips on the cobbles, drops the bundle, and stumbles to the ground. My hand entangled in his coat, the falling boy drags me down with him. I cry out in pain as I hit the stones with my wounded thigh. The boy extricates himself from his coat and scrambles up, but as he launches into a run, he bumps into Ursula’s pony and falls again.
The old man rushes up to us and picks up the bundle with great care, mumbling words in a language I don’t understand. He then looks to Ursula, who’s holding the boy in a tight grip.
“Let him go,” he says. “He is just a hungry child. Lord forgives him.”
I nod at Ursula. She puts a few coppers into the boy’s hand and pushes him away. The old man turns to me and notices my pain.
“Your leg!”
I look down. The fall opened the spear wound. A dark wet patch grows on my breeches. I feel faint and stumble.
“Come with me, quickly,” he says. “I will take care of that for you. It’s the least I can do.”
I bite hard on the piece of wood in my mouth as the old man pierces the skin on my thigh with a needle.
“You should’ve had this wound mended when it was fresh,” he says. “It will take much longer to heal now.”
I take the wood out to speak. “There are no… arse! …surgeons in a Frankish warband. I hoped poultices and… ah, fuck… wrappings would have been enough.”
“They may have been, if you had rested for a week.”
“How do you know so much about mending wounds?” asks Ursula.
“I was a surgeon’s apprentice in the Thirtieth Legion,” the old man replies. “When such a thing still existed.”
“You were with the Legions?” she asks excitedly. “What battles did you fight?”
“Battles…?” The old man bites through the thread and spits out the end. “I saw the Goths cross the river, fifty years ago, sweeping all men before them like wheat under a sickle. Cities ravaged from here to the ocean. Entire cohorts vanquished overnight. The Thirtieth Legion, gone. This made me lose all interest in fighting. I turned to the Lord, instead.”
“You’re a priest?” I ask. I look around. The building doesn’t look like a church, though now that I can study it with more attention, there is a sense of holiness about it.
In the centre of the room stands a small alcove with a pedestal. The ceiling and the floor are covered in mosaic, showing scenes from some familiar-looking story, but inscribed with black writing I have never seen before. All the walls are lined with bookshelves, filled with bound tomes and scroll cases. At the far end of the room stands a decorated cupboard, bound in gold and silver.
“I am, but not the kind you’d be thinking of. I am Rav Asher,” the old man introduces himself. “And this is the city’s library — and a temple of my people.”
“You’re a pagan, then?” asks Ursula.
The old man’s beard shakes in laughter. “No, my child. My faith is older than any pagan god — or a Christian one, for that matter. To me, you are all heathens,” he adds with a mischievous smile.
“A Iudaeus,” I say. I recognise now the images on the mosaics — they show stories from the Scriptures. There’s Abraham and Isaac, Moses and the
Red Sea, Garden of Eden. But no Christ, no Mary, no Apostles anywhere to be seen. “I’ve never met one of you before.”
“There aren’t that many of us this far north,” Rav Asher says with a nod. “Where did you come from?”
“Britannia.”
“Britannia! I have a cousin who’s a gold merchant in Londin,” he says. “But I doubt you’d know him.”
He finishes wrapping my thigh with cloths. “That’s all done. Give it a few days, and the stitching should hold even in battle.”
“I may not have a few days,” I reply. “I expect to ride to war any day now.”
“Then at least have a night’s rest. Do you have a room in the city?”
“We do not.”
“Then you must stay with us! Esther!” he shouts, before I can protest. “We have guests tonight. Prepare the first-floor bedroom!”
“What was it that the boy was trying to steal?” asks Ursula. She glances around the room. “One of the books?”
She picks one of the tomes at random; opens it, blushes, shuts it, then peeks into it carefully again, before putting it back on the shelf. Her fingers linger on the spine as she’s remembering where she put it.
“Not just any book.” The old man walks up to the cupboard. He whispers a brief prayer before opening its doors. He takes the oblong bundle out and unwraps it gingerly. Inside is a cylinder of silver, studded with jewels.
“The boy wanted it for the silver and the gems,” says Rav Asher. “But the real treasure is inside. The word of God.”
“The Scripture.”
The Blood of the Iutes: The Song of Octa Book 1 (The Song of Britain 4) Page 17