by Roger Booth
He thought he could still smell her light, dry perfume; maybe he imagined it. But she was gone and her words he could not precisely recall; no more he knew what he would have her say. But soon, and both of them, know they must.
Maybe the attack on Massilia had not been such a bad idea after all. Yesterday another letter had arrived; from Arelate but in the name of Constantius himself. The offer first mooted to Wallia in the spring still stood. What was one misunderstanding between the Empire and its most important foederati? The little difficulty in Africa was also resolved. They could have their lands and all the wheat they desired. But if – and only if – the Lady Galla Placidia was promptly restored to her brother in Ravenna; the brother who missed her so.
VI
The first days of September:
at Narbo
“Erfrid, you’re the only one who’s seen this. The messenger’s safely hidden away.”
His brother scanned the rolled letter then placed it between them on the couch which, with its sumptuous red and white stripes, filled almost one whole side of the room.
“When did it arrive?”
“Last week.”
His brother’s eyes shot to the roof. “Last…but Athaulf,” he said. “What about the others? Why haven’t you called Council?”
“Brother, I shall. But not before you and I know what we want them to agree.”
Erfrid looked more puzzled than a few moments before; when Athaulf had unexpectedly arrived on his younger brother’s doorstep and, during their embrace, whispered they should go to his private study. Erfrid brushed the couch with the back of his hand, stroked the polished and curled wooden arm.
“But how is that so difficult?” he frowned. “They accepted the Roman offer already in May.”
“Just so, Brother, just so. But I’ve spent all week thinking. And I think things have changed.”
Erfrid’s features he knew so well. They were like his own, he supposed, but softer, as the hair was more brown than blond. And those familiar features were etched with doubt.
“But what’s changed, Athaulf? We still need peace, still need food.”
“Constantius,” he said cautiously. “I’m not sure we can trust him. We tried once before, remember, and where did that get us? That African story; maybe it’s true. But I don’t believe it was the whole story. Can’t have been.”
Erfrid nodded but the doubt in his face had not moved an inch. “The Prefect overplayed his hand; with or without the approval of Constantius – who knows?”
“Precisely, who knows? But if the same thing happens again, then what? How do you think the people will react?”
“Much as before – they’ll want revenge.”
He stood up as abruptly as his one good arm would allow.
“Erfrid, my brother, the people won’t want revenge. They’ll want blood.”
Erfrid remained impassive. “Then blood we would have to find.”
“What, like at Massilia?”
He paced the room. His right arm was still in a sling, so to emphasise he must gesture with his left and he was aware; he was gesturing a lot. But without Erfrid he could not persuade the other reiks. And persuade them he must.
“Brother, every Roman garrison will have heard by now. Even if we’re stupid enough to try the same trick again, they’d see us coming a mile off. And the Romans daren’t fight us in full battle.”
“Athaulf, there are towns without garrisons.”
“Yes, like Burdigala, like Tolosa, like here in Narbo. This is where we live; for now – maybe for a lot longer. Will we bring our own house down about our ears, hurt the first people we’ve found who would be our friends?”
Erfrid gave that some thought. “No, we wouldn’t want that,” he said. “Candidianus and the others; they are good men,” he conceded for the first time that morning.
“So, where will the blood come from?” Athaulf threw himself onto the couch and mouthed an oath under his breath as the shoulder jarred and the pain flooded his body. He looked up at the room’s cream-coloured ceiling, then straight into the thoughtful eyes.
“Where will the blood come from, Brother?” he repeated. “But from you and me?”
Erfrid returned his gaze without a flicker. “Athaulf, I’m sorry but, today, you’re not yourself. Or else there’s something you’ve not told me.” He hesitated. “Brother, what happened at Massilia?”
Athaulf had hoped to avoid it but, in his heart, he was not surprised Erfrid had guessed. So he told his brother about the misunderstanding at the gates; about Wallia’s words on the way back to Narbo. He told him everything – except for his dream. What was the point in that?
Slowly Erfrid rose to his feet, on his face the doubt giving way to quiet sadness. His hand rested on the wall painted a warming yellow. Athaulf could guess what he was thinking. How all stood so solid; then could shake to nothing in a second. The last days so he had thought many times himself. And Erfrid knew as well as he; how, in the time before Alaric, Eriulf had coughed out his life on the treachery of a Goth blade.
“It is merest suspicion.”
So his brother said, but, suspicion or no, his mind was already one step ahead.
“If we moved against their reiks, the Karthi would rise as a man. Even if the other clans backed us – and with Wallia they might – it would still be Goth against Goth. A great and bloody disaster.”
“Erfrid,” he parried. “You were the one who asked what happened at Massilia. I didn’t want to say. But, whatever else, Sergeric was right last time in Council. We can’t carry on with the army our answer to everything. If we draw our swords again, we’ll only wound each other.”
He saw that Erfrid understood; that, for good or ill, this moment would shape their lives for ever.
“If we accept this new offer,” he continued, “we give ourselves into the hands of Constantius. He betrays our trust again….” His good hand chopped down hard into the couch. “Then, Brother,” he said. “You and I will bleed.”
Erfrid shook his head.
“But you’re saying the Romans, we can’t fight them, no more we can trust them. Athaulf, that won’t hold. The men, they will follow their King – but only if he leads them somewhere.”
“Brother, I know it. But I’ve had an idea. No, that’s not right; you had the idea.”
Erfrid raised both hands wide in silent question.
“Brother, you remember what you said many months ago – about Galla Placidia? It’s quite simple. I marry her.”
*
He lay awake, listening to the gentle breathing of the slave girl asleep by his side. She had been taken by the Goths somewhere in Italia when very young and already someone else’s slave. She couldn’t remember where in Italia or even where she was born. She had become one of his wife’s household slaves. Now she helped him forget his wife.
The Council had fallen silent at his deceptively simple words, every face guarded bar Theoderic’s. In the end the youngster could hold no longer.
“You mean you marry her and no battles ever again?”
Athaulf had to smile and the others followed. Theoderic made him feel young – at least younger than his shoulder told him to.
Then Wallia: “We’re not done with battles, Theoderic. Something’ll turn up – always has, always will. As for Massilia, Athaulf said it right. But for you we were gone. And that scheming bastard of a General; he’ll never give us a tilt at his last precious army.”
So Wallia had spoken. He had understood him well that night on the road back to Narbo. The tune was new.
“Sergeric?” he asked, encouraged. For once, the man in the close cropped hair seemed thrown off guard.
“Athaulf, I agree with Wallia,” and he looked surprised at his own words. “But your proposal, I must admit. It… I didn’t expect… Have you already… I mean; Athaulf, d
oes the Princess herself consent?”
“No, I haven’t asked her. But I raise the matter now because, if asked, I think she may. She may. And, once I do ask, there’s no turning back.”
There was a slight stir at his side. Carefully he turned so as not to knock his shoulder or waken her, a shock of dark hair against the white of the sheets.
The Council had gone on for an age. The idea of a Goth King with a Roman wife did not over-joy Wallia though, with peace on all their lips, it was Sergeric who was the real stumbling block. Which made him wonder until, not for the first time, Erfrid came to their rescue.
“Sergeric,” his brother had said what he, as King, could not. “We may make an enemy of Constantius. But think where it could take us; one day, perhaps, a Goth Emperor on the throne of Rome?”
Erfrid had gathered his thoughts.
“Otherwise we must do what the letter from Arelate says. We must trust the man who has let us down once; and face the wrath of our people if he lets us down again. And we’re all agreed; picking another fight with the legions will not help. So,” the reasonable voice had asked, “do we trust Constantius? Put another way, why should we?”
No-one wanted to argue that they could rely on the Roman offer being honoured, not after that first letter from Dardanus. Finally, with tempers fraying, Sergeric had asked straight out; was this marriage conceived by him as King or by him as man?
He answered Sergeric as he had answered Erfrid two days before when asked much the same thing.
The proposed marriage was an affair of state, though he would not have considered it if he felt the union would be barren. And he did not insist on the marriage. How could he, when the position of Galla Placidia herself was still uncertain? He recommended in reply to the latest letter from Arelate that, even now, they accept the proposed peace. But, first, the Romans must deliver food and lands before the hostages were returned.
Odd, he thought, how men always take heart when they think they’ve avoided a decision. But he was sure Constantius would say no. Then the strangest of things; their next step would be decided not by the Goths themselves, but by a Princess of the Roman Imperial family.
The girl turned and nestled warm against his good left shoulder, her hands falling on his chest and leg. He lent his head against hers. If, against all the odds, Galla Placidia did become his wife, then this could not continue and he was already decided. He would not send her a slave into the bed of another man. She would be given her freedom, a dowry; a life.
The shutter stirred in the breeze, the air fresh after the grumbling storm whose flashes had lit up the hours after sundown. He looked past the tousled tress of hair and out into the unstarred night. This was the time, he told himself drowsily, when all could dream; though most dreams were as insubstantial as a moonbeam – especially the dreams of a king. For the waking world, as it is fashioned, grips a king faster than a king his crown.
But in another house nearby lay a woman with a rare power; the power to make dreams come true. If together they walked out against that world; and, through the quiet of their nights, together stayed.
*
The old man whistled as he strolled along the highway, the Via Domitia, which ran down from Arelate and on through the town; straight up and over the great mountains that guarded the borders of Hispania. Not for him the grand Roman houses of the reiks, though of late he had begun to make concessions to his age. He no longer slept under canvas. Wherever they went, he tried to find a small house close by where the men were camped.
“Bishop!”
“Sigesar!”
He nodded a benevolent smile to the many greetings. Sometimes he could even remember a name.
To either side of the highway were scattered houses and public buildings. Some sat alone among the wild flowers. Others were arrayed in tidy lines, relics of the gracious roads from more ordered times, now sliced through by the town’s circular wall. The blocks of stone could occupy him for hours. Though, taken from monuments of long ago, he found the inscriptions hard to read; the carving worn, often upside down or on its side.
From the grand triumphal arch, echoing to the day’s traffic, it was not far to the forum where he paused to get his bearings. The market was in full swing. He meandered about this wealth of late summer, between bundles of dried herbs and the cloying sweetness of hung meats. As he went, he gazed up at the small army of statues placed at carefully measured intervals. To judge from the missing limbs, the statues and his people had much in common. Both had fought their full share of wars with life.
It should be easy to find the house. The town was laid out in regular grid and the directions had been most precise – precise and, yes, quite insistent. Leaving the forum, he passed the brick box that was the Horrea. This sun-drenched land was rich; so spoke the high-sided town granary. But rich enough to feed a hundred thousand mouths more? Perhaps the winter would not be too hard – he prayed this might be so.
Off the main street, the side roads, too, were full with the life of a busy country town. Donkeys made their complaining way, panniers of earthenware and foodstuffs strapped to their sides. Children were sent scampering if they got too close to the donkeys’ hooves or the wide-open doors of the weaver or potter. For the most part, people just stood and gossiped. Many turned curious faces towards him, far fewer the greetings than out on the highway. But, then, these were not his people.
“Ah, Bishop Sigesar, thank you so much for coming.”
He took the seat indicated by the elderly maid who, to his astonishment, then quietly closed the door and left them. She had never spoken more than two words to him before but here he was; alone with none other than the Princess Galla Placidia, who was quietly but obviously taking his measure.
She might have stepped straight from the palace at Ravenna, it seemed to the man in him; those enquiring eyes set above smooth cheeks with just a touch of appealing red against the darkness of her immaculately piled hair.
Under the Imperial stare he shifted. He would not cut much of a figure. Age he possessed, he was of the same times as Wallia. But his long-used trousers and patched tunic could not hide themselves even under the long robe he wore; a robe that might once have been Episcopal purple. Why he was summoned he was at a loss. But she had asked and asked most keenly.
He smiled what he hoped was the smile a Roman Princess expected from a man of the cloth.
“I have started reading your bible, Bishop.”
“Then you must be the first Roman who ever has. Forgive me, Princess, but what made you do such a thing?”
“Rohilde and I talk much. She told me about it – how important it is for your people.”
“The faith of the people is surprisingly strong,” he said with careful emphasis. He was not looking forward to a long and futile discussion on the errors of their belief.
“So I know, Bishop. But we were talking more about books in general that day.”
“And Rohilde told you that our Bible was our book and that we do not know many other books worth keeping?” He brightened. “Rohilde is a true daughter of her father.”
She inclined her head, a polite smile of agreement. “Wise she is beyond her years. But she also told me that to keep books as we Romans do was to arrest time. At least I think this was what she meant. And that we would not succeed in this forever.”
The lady frowned.
“I will be honest, Bishop; she startled me.”
“Princess, the faith we share teaches us that nothing of this earth is truly immortal. But otherwise I would agree with you. Often I would wish,” he added wryly, “that we Goths kept more books and fewer swords.”
She did not respond, as if expecting more, and he continued as best he knew how.
“But if Rohilde meant to keep the old books and never write any new, perhaps I could understand. For then a library is like a forest of oaks. It stands for ce
nturies until, one day, a great storm. Then, overnight, every last one of the old trees falls and the forest is gone forever.”
He paused, waiting in vain for some response. “I don’t know if that was what Rohilde meant,” he added awkwardly
“Nor I, Bishop, nor I,” she said, as if distracted, and he was not sure if she had heard a word he’d spoken.
Then, abruptly: “Bishop Sigesar, you must wonder why I asked to see you.” A moment’s final hesitation before, with a look of determination, defiance even, she explained. “I want you to hear my confession.”
Most things he had seen in this life. But he would have wagered much gold against becoming confessor to an Imperial Princess. If gold he had and it was not a sin.
“Princess….my daughter….I am not suited…our faiths…”
She swept away his objections.
“Bishop Sigesar, what I have to say, I could not say to one of my world. And there is another reason why I have chosen you, the bishop of the Goths.”
He could not imagine what she meant but understood very well – she intended him to find out. He had already heard from Rohilde; how the Princess ruled their camp as if it was a Roman palace. And, if at that moment he had stood before his maker, he must admit to an unholy curiosity.
“Princess, if you seek judgement of your soul,” he said carefully, “that you will seek from me in vain. But I am a Christian bishop. And I will listen to a fellow Christian, if that is your wish.”
Once, twice she made to start, looking down at hands that would not stay still. Then, fixing him with a firm if troubled gaze, she began.
“You will remember, Bishop, the end of the year of our Lord four hundred and eight. It was the year the Goths first came to the walls of Rome.”
He nodded. “Yes, I was there.”
“So was I, Bishop. So was I and, sadly, so too was my cousin Serena.”
“Serena?”
“My cousin and the wife of General Stilicho.”
