by Tony Roberts
The men laughed and split up, each making his own way to their hut. Casca was left with Gundomar. The tribesman pulled Casca out into the daylight and took him across the wide space to a hut on its own. “This can be yours my friend,” he said, “the previous owner died back in Italy, and he was a loner. His woman died in childbirth the year before we were recruited, and now there’s no-one to fill its interior with happiness. It’s yours. Go on, put your belongings in there and make yourself comfortable. I shall come for you at sun down for the feast!”
Casca looked round the interior after Gundomar had gone. A simple dwelling, one large space with a conical roof rising to a high point in the center, held up by a stout central pole. The fire was sited a little off to one side, marked by a circle of blackened stones, long cold and bare.
The place was musty and cobwebbed, but Casca nodded in satisfaction. He’d had far worse in his time, and this place looked reasonably easy to keep tidy. A few upturned items lay in dark corners; a broken pot, a small three-legged stool. The bed had been a collection of straw but had disintegrated and now was nothing more than a mess in a heap on one side of the interior.
Looks like I’ve got a bit of work to do here, he thought.
Gundomar came for him as it was getting dark, and found Casca had tidied up the interior, throwing out the broken pot and spreading some of the straw on the floor to make it drier and warmer. The soil underfoot spread damp unless covered with fresh straw every so often.
“Ach, this won’t do!” Gundomar shook his shaggy head, “a man doing the house work! You’ll be growing tits next!”
“As long as you keep away from me!” Casca grinned.
Gundomar roared with laughter. “We’ll get a few of the wenches to collect unused stuff and present them to you to use. Then we’ll have to see about getting you a permanent wench!”
“Just one?”
“Oh, by God’s wrath, you’re a greedy one!”
Casca cocked an ear. “God? You’re Christian?”
“Of course,” Gundomar said, surprised. “Isn’t everyone? After serving in the Roman army and trading with them it’s not hard to see the advantages of accepting God. Makes things much easier all round.”
“So, you’ve a priest in the village?”
“Dunno. Not that we’re that Christian! We still acknowledge the old gods, but don’t go telling any of those serious Christians; they’ve about as much humor as a bear being woken up in winter by having its balls bitten.”
“Well good,” Casca breathed easier. “I’ve had a few run-ins with priests in the recent past and I don’t want to have any more arguments!”
Gundomar nodded and led his friend to the feasting hall. Most of the villagers were gathering within its walls and flames from many candles and fires lit the interior so that the long tables and chairs were clearly visible. Gundomar led Casca to a chair next to him and sat him down. The others sat in various places, none of which seemed to be for anyone in particular, and the meats and ale were brought in and the feast began!
Casca found himself thinking back to Helsfjord and the ribald times there with Glam, Sifrit and Lida. A pang of nostalgia came over him but it was soon drowned out under cups of ale, and he was singing with the best of them before long. The evening went on and Casca lost himself in the rounds of toasts to anyone and everyone. His head span and he vaguely remembered being led back to his hut by a young athletic brunette whose name he couldn’t recall and the night passed. He remembered a fleeting picture of her on top of him, thrusting up and down, moaning aloud and tossing her head, but everything else was a blank.
He came to, face down and draped untidily on his bed, alone. Gods! He needed a piss and badly. He threw on his clothing and staggered out into the drizzle that was falling from dark grey clouds. A few others were about but they were hurrying past on their way to wherever. Without a piss-pot Casca needed to find the communal toilet, but he had no idea where it was. So he weaved his way unsteadily out of the village and stood outside, facing the palisade.
He relieved himself against the fence with a long sigh. He finished and turned to see a dog regarding him with its head slightly cocked to one side. “Hades, dog,” Casca said testily, “what would you have me do, lift one leg?” The dog sniffed his leg. “Oy! Gerrof! I’m no tree, you mongrel.”
The dog trotted off and Casca returned to his hut. Gundomar hailed him from the right and Casca stopped, wiping a droplet of water from his eyebrows. “Ho, you ravisher of women! How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve had a flock of diseased buzzards nesting inside my mouth for the night!”
Gundomar roared in mirth. “You poor unfortunate! That little bitch you ran off with is the hottest thing in the village. She’ll be too much for any one man to settle down with, she’s insatiable! You want to have the strength to stand the next morning, leave that one alone, mark my words.”
“Tell that to her! I hardly remember anything. I don’t think I had the strength to stand before she started!”
Gundomar laughed again, clapping Casca on the shoulder. “At least you had the strength to get it up and satisfy her, if only briefly. Jarl my brother-in-law says she had another man after he left the feast outside his own hut! He was too drunk to resist. He was raped!” The two men approached Gundomar’s hut which was twice the size of a normal one.
“This looks like the village elder’s place,” Casca commented.
“Well, it is, sort of. But I’m no elder! Come on in.” The place was grander, a large room with benches on the two side walls and a single seat at the end of the room. The pointed roof was held up by stout wooden poles in the center of the floor. Behind the solitary chair was an opening and Casca could see that the living quarters for Gundomar and his family existed there.
“Ah, it’ so difficult at times being spokesman of the village. I have to please so many people at the same time.”
“But surely if you are village spokesman you couldn’t be permitted to partake in the war of the Empire?”
“I went when my uncle was spokesman. He died while I was fighting. News arrived before we returned home. Glad the old bastard is dead, may God rot his bones in hell.”
“Ah, so you’re not upset then.”
Gundomar scowled. “Ass licker to anyone senior to his station, tyrant to those not. Permitted favors to young women who had sex with him. That was his undoing; he died in the middle of one young slut riding him! Ha! What a way to go. Dirty old bastard. He was sixty-five.”
“So it’s passed on through family then, not a vote?”
“It has to be confirmed by a meeting of the elders and that’s next week. We’re in some sort of waiting period. My return has caused some complications. Jarl tells me Karlobad was hoping to be elected, hence his sour expression whenever I’m around. After my uncle died the elders sort of ran things here. Now I’m here they can get down to some serious debating. That’s all they’re good for, apart from pissing themselves and dribbling good ale through their gums.”
“So you’re favorite.”
“Looks like it. Karlobad is the only serious contender. Why he wants to be spokesman is a mystery; he has the personality of a castrated rabbit. What Gretasuntha sees in him I really don’t know. Maybe he’s hung like a plowing ox.”
Casca grinned. “Maybe. So what’s the ruling structure here? I mean, who do you pay fealty to?”
“Ah. Well that’s easy. We have a king, by name of Audoin. He collects taxes from time to time and he’s the one we send our spokesman to for any reason; a complaint, a plea, anything. He’s far to the north, by a great river. It’s a long journey to get to him, and I do remember when I was a boy we crossed it on our long journey to this valley.”
“That would be the Ister River,” Case said. “That was the old Roman border many years ago, and the imperial government in Constantinople still view it as their boundary. Not that they can do anything at the present time about it.”
“Well they can piss in t
heir own soup as far as I’m concerned. The only thing I will take notice of that’s theirs is their gold. They pay me gold to kill stupid Goths then I’ll kill stupid Goths. Who cares if they’re allied to my king? My king doesn’t pay me gold; he demands I pay him!”
“Do you know who else lives in these forests? Apart from Lombards, I mean.”
“No. There is talk of a danger from the east but nobody takes it seriously. Our neighbors to the north are the Gepids. Or at least they were when I went to fight for Constantinople’s gold.”
“Ah yes, the Gepids.” Casca knew them well. They had been Attila’s allies when the Huns had ruled the roost in central Europe, but after Attila died and his sons tried to keep the empire together, it was the Gepid confederation that turned on the Huns, defeated them and destroyed their empire. Now it seemed the Gepids shared the former Hun lands with the Lombards. How long this peaceful co-existence would last was anyone’s guess.
“So we need to know what to do with you, Casca my friend. You’re not a farmer, or a smith, or a tanner by the looks of you. What can you do?”
“Fight. I’m a soldier.”
Gundomar sighed. “A village does not need professional soldiers. We all have other skills, learned from our youth. You have nothing?”
Casca sat on one of the benches and thought for a moment. “I won’t waste your time by pretending I’m something I’m not. I’m no farmer, blacksmith or carpenter. If you need a bodyguard, then I’m your man. If there’s nothing here for me then I’ll move on north to the Great River and see if the king wants another bodyguard.”
The Lombard made a rude noise. “He needs another one like a fish needs tits. Well, my friend, whoever is elected village leader here will need to advise the chieftain of that. A delegation will be sent to his court for approval. You can do that at least.”
“Seems easy enough. What if he doesn’t approve?”
Gundomar grinned. “Hah! Why wouldn’t he? Unless he has a particular hatred for someone or needs a crony of his in place, then he normally accepts the nomination. As long as we give the tithe he couldn’t care less if we spent our time picking our noses or not.”
“I get the impression you’re not a friend of this man.” Casca eased his behind on the hard bench.
“Pah!” Gundomar’s mustache wafted with his breath. “Gets rich sitting on his arsch while we work like idiots just to survive. Let me tell you, my Latin friend; he gets gold from Constantinople as well as our taxes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pisses gold, he’s that rich.”
“And if Constantinople ceases paying its gold to him, he orders you to attack the Empire.”
“You’ve got it. And he stays safely in his court! Verdamned arschloch!”
Casca laughed. “Very well, Gundomar. I’ll stay here until the leadership is decided, then I’ll travel to the king, pay him the village’s respect and tell him you’re his devoted vassal.”
“Ja! I’ll lick his golden arsch provided he leaves me alone.” Gundomar smiled and jabbed his wickedly pointed dagger into the bench top. “My loyalty is to this village and the people that live in it. He only gets my obedience because if I didn’t show it he’d come down here and chop me into bits, or some other bad bastard would come here and plunder us. I’d rather it was a fellow Lombard than some flea-bitten ugly warthog of a Gepid. Or, come to that, an effeminate Greek with a liking for the boys.”
Casca nodded. It made sense. The Germanic tribes liked to be independent, but at the same time needed protection from marauding bands of bandits or rival powers. The Lombard people’s leader, this king or chieftain or whatever he was, ensured that rival powers left their territory alone. Bandits were another thing altogether, but thankfully they were few and far between.
“In the meantime,” Gundomar said standing up, “you can join the hunting parties into the forests. We have need of brave men who hunt the wolves who inhabit this valley; we’ve lost a fair number of domestic animals to these creatures in the recent past. Bring back the slain wolves and we can make furs out of them. And it’d make you appear useful.”
Casca agreed to do that small task. He returned to his hut and looked around with a critical eye. It was bare and badly needed items to make it homely, if only for a week. He’d spend the rest of the day looking around the village and finding out who did what and try getting some cast-offs for his place.
Unfortunately he didn’t get much of an opportunity for Karlobad appeared together with four other men, all armed to the teeth. The war leader gave Casca a curt glance and snapped a peremptory order to join them as soon as he got himself armed up. They were off to hunt wolves now, rather than wait until nightfall when the beasts would be at their most active.
Within a few moments Casca was running out of the stockaded village in the wake of the fur-clad bearded group of men, all of whom had spears. Their garb was varied and the only common item of dress were their leggings, from below the knee to their feet were tightly wrapped strips of cloth tied into place by a crossed set of leather strips.
They strode rapidly down a grassy valley that had a narrow, chuckling stream in the center, half-covered by nettles and large-leaved plants. Trees grew in abundance by the water’s edge and many leaned over because of the eroding of their roots. Two had even fallen over and provided bridges across the stream.
Karlobad remained on the near side of the stream, saying little. Ahead, after perhaps an hour, appeared a rocky outcrop where the land climbed. A cave could be seen standing back from a ledge about thirty feet up, and the warband leader indicated with a jerk of his arm that this was where they were headed, and that they should now be quiet.
As they reached the bottom of the climb, Karlobad beckoned Casca to him. “You go up and see if it is clear to enter.”
“Why me?” Casca whispered back.
“Because you are new and I order it,” the leader growled through his teeth.
Casca was no fool; this was a dangerous task and both knew it. Besides, Karlobad was probably sore at Casca for the eyes that Greta had been giving the scarred warrior. Karlobad had in fact spat out a sharp command to her before he’d left that she was not to pay the Roman any attention, enforcing it with a cuff around her head.
Casca grumbled but prepared himself anyway. He slipped the thong on the handle of his ax around his wrist so it was handy, then his round shield he put onto his back. His spear he gripped tightly in one hand and made sure his sword, strapped to his left thigh and hip, was easily accessible.
Once satisfied, he began climbing, using the many rock protrusions and roots and shrubs that dotted the rock wall. He grunted and sweated as he climbed, but soon enough he was close to the top and slowed down. He risked a cautious peek over the top and smelt the animals first, his nose wrinkling. The cave was before him, maybe twenty feet distant, and the black yawning mouth seemed threatening. Disturbed dirt lay all around at the entrance, and then he saw, lying in the mouth, a brown-haired wolf, whose head was lifted and peering at him.
The creature rose to its feet, growling, teeth bared. Cursing to himself and to Karlobad, the eternal mercenary scrambled over the lip of the ledge and gripped his ax tightly, as the wolf lunged at him. Casca threw his weight to one side and smashed the blade of his ax into the creature’s neck as it leaped for his throat. The wolf squealed in pain and landed heavily on the edge of the rocky ledge before slipping over, its paws scrabbling for purchase.
It landed with a heavy thud at the startled feet of the men waiting below along with a few stones, and whimpered in pain. One thrust with a sword ended its life.
Casca, meanwhile, crouched at the top and waited. The sound of the fight would have carried into the cave and no doubt alerted the rest of the pack. How many of them there were was unknown, but he wasn’t looking forward to finding out. Why Karlobad hadn’t sent the rest up to help him was obvious; the blacksmith wanted Casca out of the way and was hoping the wolves would tear him to bits. Either that or Karlobad had the tactical abilit
y of a pile of dog’s turds.
Shapes began to coalesce out of the blackness of the cave and move towards him; one, two, four, six… shit. He edged backwards to the lip of the ridge. He was no coward, but he wasn’t stupid either. The pack leader led the rest out and growled, and in response the rest began to fan out left and right, outflanking him, encouraged by the enforcer, a black-haired shaggy bastard whose role was to maintain pack discipline and make sure the leader’s wishes were followed no matter what.
Casca decided it was time to get the heck out of there. He scrambled down hurriedly, allowing gravity to assist in his descent. The pack peered down at him, howling in fury. Casca landed and bent his knees to absorb the impact, then turned around. “There’s maybe ten up there, perhaps more.”
“So you ran like a whipped dog,” Karlobad said in disgust. “Some warrior you are.”
“Fuck you,” Casca spat. “You’d do the same. I didn’t see you making any effort to join me up there.” He looked around at the undergrowth at the bottom of the ledge. “So where does the track go up to the cave?”
Karlobad frowned.
“Oh for Zeus’ sake!” Casca snapped. “You don’t think the wolves climb up this damned rock wall every day, do you? There’s clearly some easier way around, and they’ll be down here in no time to get their own back for killing one of their number.”
The others looked to one another, then turned and began to run back to the safety of the forest; better there than being caught out in the open. Casca was at the rear and kept on casting worried looks over his shoulder, and on the third occasion saw the pack emerge from the foliage to the left and come running at them, spreading out, howling. The entire valley seemed full of the animals.
Casca turned. No time to get to the trees. He gripped his spear in his right and ax in his left hand. Behind him the others swung about and got into a defensive formation, Karlobad at the back. Before they could even draw breath, the pack was upon them. Casca rammed his spear up at the first shape that sprang at him, skewering it through the chest. It howled in pain and fell to the ground, dragging the spear out of the eternal mercenary’s grip.