Promised Land

by Roger Booth

  “Bit before your time, Lucellus.” At the Goth’s thickening anger, and with business to be done, soft words would not come amiss. “If I’m not mistaken, our friend refers to the times of the usurper Eugenius. The Goths fought on the side of the true Emperor – big battle on the Frigidus; in Illyria, my part of the world in fact, Lucellus. Our gallant allies lost many men.”

  “Father, two uncles, many more of our clan,” said the Goth, flexing his wide, menacing shoulders. Then a deep breath and the roughened face fixed Lucellus with an ugly stare: “I see ‘em now, young man; piled high in their thousands. All for your precious Empire – that still spurns the hand of peace.”

  Which was far from the whole story. Three years ago these self same Goths, presumably Wallia amongst them, had captured Eternal Rome. The shame still burned in every Roman across the Empire.

  Then a movement in the corner of his eye; one of the officers patrolling the ranks, staring down the first hints of a muttering that meant no good.

  Constantius beckoned Lucellus to follow; slowly edging his horse forwards so they could speak without the regiment hearing every word. The look of the man should have warned him but the stale smell of saddle and sweat was indescribable. “Your people, Wallia …” and it was all he could do not to gag. “Your people,” he rallied. “They have done us a service. We may be able to offer you much in return. What did you call it? A new Gutthiuda.”

  The Goth did not even try to hide the suspicion. “So? But why now, General; after all these long years?”

  “Times change, Wallia. People change. Look about you, as you ride back to Burdigala. Look at the emptiness. There are lands for those who will be loyal friends of the Empire. Rich lands, rich despite all the ruin. Tell this to Athaulf,” he urged. “Food and lands are on offer.”

  “And in return?”

  “Loyalty. And, as proof of that loyalty, the return of all prisoners.”

  “Ah, Galla Placidia.”

  In spite of himself Constantius was impressed. Galla Placidia, the Emperor’s sister – half-sister to be precise – was the only prisoner who mattered; to the Empire or to him. “I’m glad you mention the Princess, Wallia,” he said. “Now hear me and hear me well. If you must – borrow – certain things in the coming months; we will understand. We will understand, though I could not possibly say this out loud,” and he gestured towards the IVth Palatine, ranks fallen silent but bristling still. Then he looked the Goth hard in the eye and, all of a sudden, his friendly voice was gone. “But, as for her Highness; as much as a hair on her head…”

  He did not get to finish. Wallia motioned to the others that the parley was over, casually threw the reins of Jovinus’ horse to Lucellus. “Here, what we came to bring you.” The Goth cast thoughtful eyes along the regiment’s ranks; as if measuring the best point of attack. “General, I’ll take your words to Athaulf,” he said, impassive, before wheeling away to follow his men.

  Constantius watched him go, riding up through the scrambled ranks of his little war band. Once out on the highway, the Goths cantered north, in the direction of Valentia. Suddenly his shoulders were shaking as a dog rids itself of water. Barbarians!

  Tempting enough, like Lucellus, to reach for the sword and dream of grinding the Goths into the dust. But he was not a young cavalry tribune and so he knew. A dream was all it was.

  Meanwhile the Tribune was speaking through a crooked smile. “Sir, I apologise. All I could do not to order the regiment…”

  “Feelings that do you credit,” he assured the younger man. “Hard to believe, though, isn’t it? At Adrianopolis they rout a Roman army, kill an Emperor. They even take Rome, may God damn their miserable souls.”

  In his head he felt the blood pound as earlier that morning. Oh, the hand-wringing there had been from all sides. Mostly from hands that were quick and deadly with the pen; but would never dream of doing anything useful like wield a sword.

  “And yet you saw,” he said wistfully, “just a minute ago. They can’t dress properly. For that matter, they don’t even wash.”

  “No, Sir.” Lucellus waited. “And this specimen, Sir?” he asked with a curt nod towards the hapless Jovinus, who had been listening so quietly he might already be dead. “We could execute him now, Sir.”

  Constantius raised an avuncular eyebrow.

  “No telling who did it,” the young Tribune acknowledged, with a nod up the hill; to the ruined villa in whose former grounds they had made camp. “Could just as easily have been Vandals as Jovinus and his rabble. Not sure it matters, Sir. Just seems the place to finish with him; symbolic, if you like.” Lucellus crooked his head at the camp’s surround. “No defensive walls, no ditches, a private house secure in its open fields – that’s what we’re fighting for, Sir.”

  The previous evening Constantius had also noticed the ruin. While the men made camp, he had taken a stroll up that hill. And it had been easy to imagine the once proud owner in the company of friends, the fragrance of rose and honeysuckle, vines hugging the villa, row by pleasing row.

  From his vantage point he surveyed it all; the regiment’s encampment, flowering fast as weed with white tents, the highway from Arausio to Valentia and, beyond, the broader road of the river Rhodanus. Bound for the sea’s embrace, swallows swooping low in escort, its waters had glowed red and gold in the lengthening shades.

  Then, with a brightly polished leather boot, he had kicked at the charred, burnt out timbers; all that was left of the villa’s roof.

  As Lucellus so rightly said, no telling who had brought flame and fear to that once perfect place. Vandals, Roman rebels, Goths perhaps; there had been so many.

  Fingers at his chin, he gave every appearance of considering the Tribune’s murderous proposal; to his slight shame, found how much he relished the blotched horror in the rebel’s face.

  “Execute him we could, Tribune,” he agreed and then regretfully: “But it would never do. Proper ways, you see, Lucellus, proper ways; that’s also what we’re fighting for. Send him to Postumus Dardanus. He’s the Prefect; that’s the law.”

  He gave Jovinus a baleful look. “And when Dardanus cuts off that worthless head, I hope he uses a very blunt sword.”

  III

  The last days of May: at Burdigala

  “Of course, the wanton destruction of palaces; that wasn’t nearly enough. So you even went and burnt the churches. And then you have the nerve to call yourself Christians.”

  The target of these scornful remarks sat calmly a few paces away and scratched his head. Three years their acquaintance and the King of the Visigoths was wondering, not for the first time, why it was he endured, even sought out, such reproach. Not many the women who used him so; some even considered him handsome. Not tall for a Goth, his fair hair he wore long in their people’s fashion but, unlike many of the people, he made sure it was clean. Once, his wife had said his face had the features of a Roman statue; those words, Athaulf well knew, spoken in love.

  “I say Christian,” the disdainful voice lashed out again. “But what do you expect from heretics?”

  He leant back; admired the effortless elegance of the room filled with her tingle-dry scent he had never been able to put a name to. The walls were lined with red-flecked marble, the cladding cut away on the long wall to form a picture frame. Within the painted circle of mellowed gold a man and woman, presumably the owners of long ago, kept timeless watch against a sky of pastel blue; the woman’s cream gown not so different from the silks the Princess always wore.

  Across the floor ran borders of brown mosaic, inlaid with diagonally set squares. In the centre grew a bed of stone-drawn roses, the pink blooms as lush as those in the little garden outside. Even here in Burdigala, at the edge of their Empire, the room spoke of wealth without end.

  He turned once more to the Princess, smouldering still, and considered dispassionately the full mouth and strong, slightly
bulbous nose; the oval face almost overpowered by its own features. At the same time he would not deny; the vibrant olive to her skin, those dark painted eyes…

  But he was sure he came not on account of her beauty; nor yet even her rank. He came because the Princess Galla Placidia had the courage and sheer bloody-mindedness of one of them. After all, she was only their captive because, unlike her brother Honorius, she had stood by the people of Rome.

  He looked across to the other player in this little drama, his niece, daughter of the dead Alaric, a girl soon to be a young woman. She toyed with her straw blond plaits and appeared to be enjoying the spectacle immensely.

  “Rohilde,” he asked in mock despair. “What can I possibly say?”

  The girl laughed. “Well, Uncle, you could ask which of our other faults the Princess will examine this morning.”

  “Now, Rohilde;” and the Roman managed to sound sisterly and hurt both at the same time. “You know I don’t mean it like that. But you were younger. You didn’t see it all. Or hear it all; the fires, the panic, the swords, the screams.”

  The Princess Galla Placidia paused; for once – apparently – at a loss for words. “The… the sheer desecration,” finally she said.

  Many things Athaulf thought he might reply. One of the buildings burned down had been home to the moneylenders and tax collectors. A good service the Goths had done, so a renegade had told him. But he knew. Such truths would not win over a princess in the pomp of her outrage. Instead, he resolved once and for all to convince Galla Placidia of the greater truth.

  “Princess, I’ve told you before. We didn’t want to capture Rome.”

  “What? Your people accidentally camped around the city for several months; stole anything glittering that moved. Then, in their quieter moments, they slaughtered and raped in a fit of absentmindedness?”

  The withering words would have silenced most men. Today, though, not him. “Never for an instant did we imagine your people would care so little for the city.” He paused, then: “Princess, at times it seemed you were the only Roman who did.”

  At this honest compliment the dark-brown eyes suddenly glistened more than burned. He sensed a change of mood; that this really might be a time for truths. “Princess, I’ve never told you before,” he said. “But all those years ago, when we crossed the Danuvius and entered the Empire, on the far bank before we began the crossing, all the men swore a solemn oath – that for ever we would be the enemy of Rome.”

  For once no scorn, just genuine puzzlement: “But why,” she asked, bemused. “If you were seeking refuge with us from the Huns?”

  “I, too, have often wondered. In the end, I think the answer is simple,” he said. “My people preferred anger to fear.”

  Galla Placidia looked across to Rohilde.

  “It’s true, I’m afraid,” his niece confirmed. “Men talk about it even now.”

  “Princess,” he pressed on, “truly we did not seek war. But your brother would have no truck with Goth ‘barbarians’. He refused our terms and he refused to fight. Alaric did not understand, I did not understand and, most importantly of all, nor did our people.”

  Captor to captive, he pleaded with the brown eyes; for reasons he would have been hard put to explain. “It is as I’ve said to you these many times, Princess: we did not want to enter the city. We were left with no choice. No choice that is, unless Alaric and I wanted a treacherous blade between the ribs.”

  “But the killings, the rapings, the burning?”

  Athaulf offered a world-weary shrug. “I suppose you’ve never witnessed a village taken by your legions. No? Then that is good, Princess. You see; I have. Alaric and I – all the other reiks – we posted our retainers to guard the main churches. We sent the rest to patrol the streets, bring anyone in need to sanctuary. But Rome is a great city and we do not have so many retainers.” He threw up his hands. “You can only do so much.”

  Galla Placidia looked down at the brightly coloured floor; below the piled, dark hair her face almost hidden from view. After an age he saw, as he thought, the slender, taut body soften.

  Finally, she raised her head and broke the heavy silence with a thoughtful smile. “Athaulf,” she said. “I accept your apology. I shall not mention those awful three days to you ever again.”

  He wasn’t sure he had apologised for anything. But the unguarded relief on Rohilde’s round young face told him this no time to cavil.

  And it was Rohilde who spoke next with all the certainty of youth. “Uncle, that oath, I know I’m only a girl. But, really, it’s too silly for words. I’m a Goth,” she said proudly. “But I don’t think of Galla Placidia as my enemy. Not now, not ever.”

  “Nor I,” he agreed. “But, often as not, our people live out in the fields, in search of the next meal. They’re proud people who’ve seen us fight with Rome all their days.”

  His niece twisted her plaits, plainly unconvinced. His words, though, received support from an unexpected quarter.

  “Rohilde, believe me; I am proud to own you a friend.” Galla Placidia studied her immaculately painted nails. Then, with the hint of a sigh: “Most Romans; they see your clothes, they see your hair – and at once you are a barbarian.” He caught in the briefest of sideways glances a moment of companionship, as equal to equal. “Your Uncle told how your people preferred anger to fear. I understand him, I understand him only too well. It is the same way we Romans have dealt with our own dread; of the menace beyond the great rivers.”

  “But surely, some way must be found?” so Rohilde again, this time to Roman and Goth both. “We cannot live forever wandering from one province to the next. And Rome cannot afford to fight the one group… ” She wrinkled her nose before continuing: “the one group of what they call barbarians who wish to be its friends.”

  The three of them sat together in that cool, perfectly proportioned room; not hard to picture a world where anger and fear never need come between men and women of good faith. Yet all the hard years had taught him; so true yet never to be.

  But if Galla Placidia could terrify a clan leader, not long before Rohilde would be her rival. “My niece”, he said, walking over to her. “Yes, a way must be found. Who knows? Perhaps, when we next have time to talk, one of us will think of something.” Fondly he brushed her straw-coloured head. “But now I must go. Wallia returned last night. There’s a Council at noon.”

  *

  As the door closed, Rohilde looked across the room in triumph; saw the Princess already gliding out her chair, engrossed in the ornate decoration that covered the floor between them. With the toe of her slipper, bejewelled and bright yellow, the Roman traced each of the delicate, stone flowers. Finally, she came to stand behind her. The scented lips brushed one after the other against her neatly woven plaits. “My proud young Goth,” said the older woman, playfully.

  Then, all of a sudden, in a voice rich and thoughtful, a voice Rohilde did not remember ever hearing from her friend before; “Yes, you are quite right,” the Roman was saying. “Somehow, we must find a way.”

  *

  His feet led him out into the warm and sunny bustle of the stalls, workshops and stonemasonries that, along with the port, were Burdigala’s lifeblood. The smell of loaves baking warm, the ringing of iron on iron; as he weaved his way through the teeming artisans, retainers in his wake, Athaulf surveyed the scene with practised eye. There was always so much to admire.

  Yet for him none of the lovingly produced wares could hold their own against the mosaics. Fine to sit down with a master craftsman from Burdigala, design a house full of dancing patterns; a house dancing with joy.

  One other thing never to be, he shrugged, thinking back to that room with its deceptive calm and well-intentioned hopes. Before they came north from Italia, his wife, the mother of his children, had left into God’s silent embrace.

  By the harbour, to the crack of sails flapp
ing loose, fishermen jostled, waiting to follow the ebb tide out through red-brick gates. North, the Garumna flowed many leagues; at low tide between glistening mud banks, before reaching the great Ocean. From Burdigala’s west gate, a day’s ride and a man stood by the same Ocean’s strand.

  Once he had made that journey through sandy forests of whispering pine to gaze on the world’s last horizon. Blue and smiling the Ocean had been that day. Fishermen much like those in the harbour below, wind-burnt men whose only concern that the fish bulged in their nets; such men had told him. The Ocean did not always smile. It was not always empty either. Through spray and surf there sometimes washed ashore what they feared far more than storm; the savagery of the long ships, slaughter without pity, the lingering death of slavery among the cattle and swine of a far-away land.

  “Athaulf!” By the warehouses, on the other side of the harbour basin, a group of his retainers lounged in the warm sun, armed and armoured as if for battle. Returning the cheerful waves, briskly he skirted the harbour on his way towards them, the smile of a King fixed to his face.

  “All well?” he asked, accepting a swig from the gourd that had been making the rounds from lip to lip, the gourd full of water not wine.

  “All well, Athaulf,” answered Brodagast, his retainer and leader of the treasury guard. Even on a harmless spring day, the cool grey eyes he had trusted a lifetime were ever watchful. When, once, they all lived in villages, Brodagast’s father had been chief of the village closest to theirs.

  Their people, the people that called itself the Visigoths, had long since ceased being a thoroughbred. There were former slaves and all sorts who had fled to the only freedom they could find. Without complaint these recent recruits would fight and die for their new found King. But, as he reluctantly admitted, they would also steal from their own grandmother and, once drunk, slit a man’s throat for no reason than their blinding rage. And drunk they often were.