The Wolf

by Alaric Longward

  THE WOLF

  THE GOTH CHRONICLES BOOK 3

  By:

  Alaric Longward

  THE WOLF © 2018 Alaric Longward

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  THE WOLF

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  MAP OF THE SOUTHERN GERMANIA B.C. 30

  NAMES AND PLACES

  RAVENNA (A.D. 37)

  BOOK 1: THE RED RAVEN

  BOOK 2: THE SACRAFICE

  BOOK 3: THE WHITE TENT

  BOOK 4: THE BLIND OWL

  BOOK 5: THE BASTARD’S WEDDING

  EPILOQUE

  MAP OF THE SOUTHERN GERMANIA B.C. 30

  (HERMANDURI AND CHATTI)

  NAMES AND PLACES

  Agin – son of Gislin, a Svea Lord and rival to his father, brother of Saxa

  Akkas – the would-be-Thiuda of the Hermanduri, supporter of Rome

  Aldbert – the poet friend of Maroboodus

  Amalric – relative of the Boat-Lord

  Anvil – the war-chief of

  Arvid – Gulla’s son

  Badurad the Wolf – former Thiuda of the Hermanduri

  Balderich – the Thiuda of the Marcomanni

  Bero – Lord of Marka, the supposed Thiuda of the Black and Bear Goths

  Bertilo – son of Heinrich

  Boat-Lord – father of Hughnot and Friednot

  Bone-Hall – Bero’s hall

  Cato – a Roman Prefect

  Ceadda – the Saxon ally of Maroboodus

  Cenhelm – the son of Badurad, the would-be-Thiuda of the Hermanduri

  Cerdic – a Saxon lord and suitor of Gulla

  Crow – a Hermanduri war-lord

  Cuthbert – a Lord of the Saxons

  Cynefirth – the Thiuda of the Quadi

  Danr – champion of Bero

  Dragon’s Tail – the hills where Hughnot and Maroboodus fought

  Draupnir’s Spawn – spawn of Draupnir, Woden's ring, the influential ancient ring of Maroboodus’s family

  Dubbe – champion of Hulderic

  Eadwine – champion of Bero

  Ekkehard – the Saxon king and Gulla’s suitor

  Falco – the bodyguard of Akkas

  Finnr the Merry – Langobardi relative of Hulderic and Bero

  Friednot – father of Bero and Hulderic, Lord of the Black and Bear Goths

  Galdr – rhythmic spell singing

  Gasto– champion of Bero.

  Geirr – the bodyguard of Akkas

  Gislin – Svea Thiuda of Snowlake gau

  Gothonia – home of the Goths, an island in the Baltic Sea

  Gothoni – old Germanic tribe from the Baltic Sea

  Grimwolf – relative of the Boat-Lord

  Gulla – widow of Cuthbert the Black

  Gunni – Skallagrim’s man

  Halli – Skallagrim’s man

  Hamingja – Skallagrim’s völva sister

  Harmod – champion of Hulderic

  Heinrich – the Red Raven, the Thiuda of Hermanduri

  Hild – völva of Agin

  Hraban – son of Maroboodus

  Hrafn – a Saxon lord and Gulla’s suitor

  Hrolf the Ax – son of Hughnot

  Hogholm – home of the Boat-Lord

  Horsa – lord of the Semnones

  Hughnot – Lord of the Black Goths

  Ice Wolf – champion of Magni

  Ingo – champion of Hughnot

  Inguiomerus – a Cherusci adeling

  Ingulf – champion of Hughnot

  Iron Eye – slave of Magni

  Long-Lake – a stretch of water on the coast of modern Sweden, stretching far inland from the Baltic Sea

  Lucius – a Roman centurion

  Ludovicus – champion of Friednot

  Mada – daughter of Tamura

  Magni – a Saxon lord and Gulla’s suitor

  Maino – son of Bero

  Marcus – daughter of Fulch the Red, lover to Hraban, then Wandal's wife to be

  Mare Suebicum – the Baltic Sea.

  Mare Germanicum – the North Sea

  Marka – the home of the Bear Goths

  Maroboodus – son of Hulderic the Goth

  Njord – the Saxon and brother of Ceadda

  Oderic – a Chatti warrior

  Osgar – champion of Friednot

  Owl – the former Thiuda of the Quadi

  Ragnarök – the final battle of Germanic mythology, the end of most of the living things, the gods included

  Saruke – daughter of Tamura

  Saxa – the Svea princess, daughter of Gislin, sister of Agin

  Seidr – magical power of Freya, the war goddess, mistress of seduction

  Sigmundr – champion of Hulderic

  Snake – a Hermanduri war-lord

  Skallagrim – the mad Saxon lord

  Spear Hall – the home of the Black Goths

  Stick-Wolf – the vitka of the Hermanduri

  Suebi – a vast confederacy of Germanic tribes stretching from Sweden to Danube River

  Tamura – the Sarmatian warrior-queen

  The Red Raven – Heinrich, the Thiuda of the Hermanduri

  The Three Forks – rivers near Wolf Hole

  The Three Spinners – norns, the Germanic deities, or spirits, sitting at the foot of the world tree, by the Well of Fate, weaving the past, the present, and the future of each living creature. Also called Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld

  The Weasel – Skallagrim’s mad follower

  Tor �
� a ship-builder

  Tudrus – the adeling of the Quadi

  Tyr – the best Hermanduri war-lord

  Ulger – a Hermanduri war-lord

  Vaettir – Germanic nature spirits

  Vitka – priest

  Völva – priestess

  Whisper- vitka of Gislin

  Woden – also known as Odin, the leader of the Aesir gods, one of the creators of men and the world.

  Wolf Hole – home of Gislin the Svea

  Wulf – the vitka of the Marcomanni

  Wyrd – fate in Germanic mythology

  Yggdrasill – the world tree, where the nine worlds hang from. Source of all life

  RAVENNA (A.D. 37)

  Marcus sat down on the bench. He crashed on it heavily and visibly resisted the urge to grasp the cup of wine from my hands. He shuddered, fought the temptation, and succeeded. Instead of succumbing to the thirst, he looked down to the desk he had grown to hate, adjusted his ass on the chair he loathed, rubbed his unshaven chin with the back of his hand, and probably felt as miserable as he looked.

  There was a haunted look in his eyes.

  It spoke of a barely controlled fear that something surprising might go wrong during the coming week. He looked like he was facing a wrestler who had humiliated him previously, a man who had held him in a chokehold until he had passed out, and he was going in to the ring for one more fight, knowing the struggle likely would be more than he could handle, but he would have to see it through if he were to ever find his freedom, his dignity, indeed, his very life, again.

  “Marcus?” I asked. “Will you not drink with your king?”

  He eyed me angrily. “You are no king. No king of mine, no king of the Marcomanni, even. No longer. You are the king of grape, I grant you that, and of debauchery.”

  “But I am the king of wine indeed, Marcus,” I said, and I saw the poor fool truly hated me. I had become a personal challenge for him. “A king is a king.”

  As had wine.

  He shook his head. I lifted a jar of wine to the table. It was Falernian and freshly opened. The alluring fragrance filled my nostrils. It filled his too. Those nostrils flared, and he smacked his lips.

  “Have you slept, Marcus?” I asked him, fully aware he had not. “Are you still having nightmares? Now, you should not eat at night. Parsnips and meat and lentils, so late at night, and broiled fish will give you shit-terrible nightmares. Drink, Marcus, and do not eat. If you just drink your wine in greater quantities just before the sleep takes you, you should see fewer—”

  He slapped his hand on his thigh. “One week, Maroboodus,” he said thinly, as he prepared his pen, and the wax tablets. He had a huge pile next to the table. I had seen him break a dozen, and more. He spoke on, almost to himself. “Just one. One week, and I can finally escape this drunken hole of evil. I will be Marcus again, and I pray I can forget Ravenna. I’ll not piss in its direction. I must make sure I know where that is, when I do piss.”

  I smiled and poured myself wine. His eyes went to the cup that was filling with red nectar. He twitched involuntarily, and a tablet fell on his lap. He just caught it before it broke on the floor.

  “You won’t take her with you?” I asked with cruel smile. “She is sort of pretty, if you like a rodent’s smile.”

  He stammered and shook his head. He hesitated and rubbed his face, shaking visibly. “No. Her? Your cleaning woman?”

  “The whore,” I corrected, “who also cleans and steals from me, and who stays with you. Balbina, I know her name to be. She does occasionally call herself by other names. I know she plays with your cock every night. Take her with you.”

  He laughed. “Take her to Rome? Are you mad?”

  “You should,” I said, smacking my lips lecherously. “She knows what you like. She is already well-trained in the business of pleasing Marcus. No matter what she is, and that terrible smile, she can make you weep with pleasure. I know. Take her to Rome.”

  He suffered through my suggestion and calmed himself. “Of course, I won’t take her. How do you know about that…rest? I mean…she can…we are sleeping in the same bed. But—”

  “You are not the silent type,” I said. “You are not.”

  “I am!” he demanded. “I won’t make a sound when ...”

  “You do.”

  “No!” he yelled. “How do you know of the pleasure she can, just occasionally, give me? And how did you know she stays with me?”

  “I told you already,” I said, and he frowned, and he was finally convinced wine had muddled his brains. I had given him no explanations, and he wasn’t sure if I had. All I had to do was … push.

  In truth, he had never made a sound that reached my lofty apartment. I knew about their activity, and that she slept and lived with him, because obviously, I had spoken with the wench. As I said, she was the same, nasty girl who cleaned my apartment and hated every moment of it. Despite the hate the woman had for me and the hate she had for her work—the former developed over years of mutually unproductive feuds and the latter because I was a slob—she had lately developed disdain for Marcus as well, and theirs was not a happy companionship, unless she had his cock in her mouth. The freedman was wealthy and still miserly. She had found him a rich, inexperienced patron, but he barely gave her anything for her efforts. She wore the same clothing, her hair was done the same way, and she was as poor as she had been without him. Marcus likely thought she was doing it all for her own pleasure.

  He was a disappointing lover, and a bad customer.

  Still, one might think she would have known better than to drive him mad.

  She didn’t. Perhaps she couldn’t help herself. She was scum, after all. She worked part time as a whore, and her master had developed a curiosity for Marcus’s coins and clothing, and they had had a violent alteration just past night, when Marcus had returned to his rooms from my wine-torture. He had been missing his best tunic and three denarii, and even Marcus had been able to smack her, until she had managed to drag him to bed and to forget the tunic, if not the three denarii.

  She wasn’t stupid.

  She was just unkind, evil, and impatient. It is hard to be patient, when life has nothing to look forward to.

  The fact she wasn’t stupid might still save my plans. That morning, I had spoken with her and begged, and I hoped she knew better than to ruin everything. She knew my word was the one she should be listening to. The only way things could really go wrong was if Marcus actually took to liking her and took her to Rome. She’d flip on me faster than I could blink.

  Apparently, there was no fear of that.

  She knew Marcus, despite his promises, wouldn’t take her anywhere.

  He’d run to the night, as soon as he could.

  And so, a former king of the Marcomanni, the slayer of Drusus, the schemer of the first class, I had opened her another doorway into golden future, one bereft of Marcus, Maroboodus, and her leno. It was a road laced with silver and gold, and I had explained her why Maroboodus was the gatekeeper to such a future. She had, probably, entertained thoughts of going at it alone, but in the end, she understood she’d have no place to hide if Marcus and Tiberius began to search for her. She had a future, but only if I had one, as well.

  I smiled at Marcus. “Well. At least enjoy the flesh and leave it behind.”

  “In a week, I shall.”

  I pitied him as he was finally ready. “Something to fortify your troubled soul, Marcus? Come, come, a drink will smooth the road.” I handed him a cup.

  He closed his eyes and took the cup from me. He sipped it gently, downed some more, and gathered himself again. “You,” he said softly, “fled south from the Semnones and Cherusci, both, and planned to use your captive, your uncle Bero, to lure your cousin where you could kill him.”

  “Oh, yes. Ingulf and I, we planned it so,” I told him. “Or, perhaps we had no plan. None. Father—”

  “And your father, he was finally determined to kill you, the dreaded Bear of the family,” h
e said. “Yes?”

  “Yes, that is so. He and Harmod, and what remained of father’s men, wanted to take my head. That’s what Finnr the Merry thought. I though he was right. All I wanted was to kill Maino, and for Father to ride away, and for me to find a rich hall with a band of bloody men to obey me. I wanted…I didn’t know what I wanted. I suppose I wanted to be what I was meant to be. A king.”

  “Evil bastard,” Marcus muttered, and he no doubt didn’t mean Finnr or Father. He drank down his wine with a sorrowful face.

  “But for a time, we fled,” I said. “We fled but also planned, and with Ingulf, I could have simply vanished.” I laughed and shook my head. “The problem was that Father knew I had to kill Maino. In his dealings with Inguiomerus the Cherusci, he took and held Maino close in order to find me. He knew I would come for the man. So, basically, we were trying to find a land where we might find shelter and a solution to our dilemma. We passed from the lands of the Semnones, to those of the Chatti, and then to the lands of the Hermanduri. He kept coming after us, and we kept riding south, just out of reach. We were like two bloody animals looking at each other, preparing for a fight that had to come, and still dreading it. We were related. Could we actually raise a weapon against each other? It was the question. So, I was trying to come up with solutions. It was an awful summer. It grew worse when I figured out some of those solutions.”

  “And you mentioned the Hermanduri?” Marcus asked, finally ready. “There were Romans dealing with the great Hermanduri tribes at the time. Rome had trouble elsewhere, but it was reaching over River Danubius even then. Illyricum wasn’t peaceful, and Pannonia was a reluctant ally with all those straw-shoed tribes, but I know Rome dealt with the Boii and then the Hermanduri as well. Slaves, power, and delicate touches were—”

  I laughed. “Aye. Rome. There were delicate touches. There were Romans allying with chiefs and forcing them against others. They were replacing bad ones with loyal ones, and they killed the ones they didn’t like. It was about slaves and about trade, and, Juppiter’s balls, if you disrupt Roman trade, things go wrong. Aye, this is where I got to know Rome. It is where I met some of the men I worked with later.” I pointed a finger at him. “Delicate touches or not, there was nothing delicate about what happened at the end of that summer. There were Roman soldiers involved.”