Promised Land

by Roger Booth

  He looked at her sharply, though the words were mild. “You were never happy, Highness; that Athaulf did as he did. You did not want me as Emperor.”

  How to tell him that even Athaulf had never wanted him Emperor? That loud proclamation in the spring, trumpets blaring about Narbo’s forum, the march of Goth feet before Attalus draped in Imperial purple; it had just been a feint in the big game, the Goth way to persuade Ravenna to accept their marriage. She had told Athaulf it wouldn’t work and it hadn’t. They had to be patient, let time work its healing magic. Let time create new facts.

  “Attalus, I am no admirer of my brother still less of his master general. But I honour the name of my father. His family rules in Rome as in Constantinople and so it must remain. The family ties are one of the few things that still hold the Empire together.”

  Attalus had objected; how this was no right in law; that in this respect the Empire had borrowed wisely from the Republic.

  “That is true, Attalus. But the legitimacy of birth has been the mark of the Empire’s greater moments, right back to Augustus and Tiberius.”

  “And Nero and Claudius.”

  Recalling the words she sighed to herself; not surprising he was bitter. If he was captured, more probably when, there was little hope of reprieve. Yet her bloodline, the bloodline of her father Theodosius; even more than the strength of the Goth army, this was the chief card she and Athaulf had to play. Such things, though, she could not say.

  “Attalus, I am grateful you came to take your leave. And in such fine spirits; you’ve been a good friend in times when friends were hard to find.”

  “Highness, if you want to play at dice you have to accept the way they fall,” Attalus had answered, voice calm and assured.

  And her heart went out to him; this probably the last time in his life when he could talk as an equal to her and her like. Time enough to feel the anger and fear that she knew must hover perilously close to the surface.

  “I knew it was over long before Athaulf told me.”

  That had surprised her. “When?”

  “Within a month. I had appointed my officials. That was simple, Highness, as you recall; no lack of volunteers from the families in Gallia. I had my army and in your husband my magister militum. That was easy as well. But I knew it was over one day when I sat at my desk as Emperor of the West and my secretary asked what he should write. And I couldn’t think who in the world would want a letter from me.”

  She rolled over. Sleepily, her hand stretched out. The bed was empty and, eyes full open, she saw the candles burnt low. She listened carefully; no murmur from downstairs. The reiks must have left.

  Athaulf did not tell her everything. Of what passed in his Council she was not sure he told her very much at all. But she understood Ravenna and had known better than him; how its first reaction would be disbelief and hostility. Then that hateful little man Constantius had done something neither she, nor Athaulf, had ever expected. Out to sea, sometimes just in view, mostly over the horizon, the fleet had locked up the coast of Gallia as tight as a drum. The port of Narbo was at a standstill. There had been the odd skirmish but, for the most part, her brother’s general just sat in Arelate and waited, while the grain stores and fields slowly emptied; with them the hope from her husband’s eyes.

  She looked again at the empty bed; then slipped on her sandals, called her slaves. “My robe,” she ordered and a sleepy Elpidia came to the door. She shook her head. “In this you cannot help me. I will find the King.”

  The guards slumbering in the hall looked up, startled, as with soft tread she reached the bottom stair. They stood to some sort of attention, their eyes following her every step towards Athaulf’s private study. Gently, she lifted the latch and went in.

  A wine cup cradled in his hand, he sat alone. At first he did not seem aware of her at all.

  “Come to bed,” she soothed, taking the wine from his unresisting hand, wrapping her arms around the neck that felt stiff and cold. “A difficult Council?”

  Fondness spoke through the grey of fatigue. “That man Constantius, he must want you very badly.”

  “Time, Athaulf,” she said firmly. “I have told you before. We must give it time.” She tried to coax him to his feet but he sat firmly in the chair; motioned her to sit.

  “I have things to report, Placidia,” he said. “Better here than in our bedchamber.” He forced himself upright. “Tonight we decided; we are going to Hispania, to Barcino.”

  “But we have friends here, Athaulf, I thought. Candidianus, Ingenius…”

  “Aye, Placidia,” he agreed, “friends but no food. And the men… That fire, you saw it?”

  She nodded.

  “Our men, Placidia; Faurgar told me.”

  “Faurgar?”

  “My cousin, tall, few years older than me; at the wedding…?”

  She looked blank. How many tall Goths had smiled over her outstretched hand that day?

  “No matter, he was in charge in Burdigala. There have been… riots there, too. We must do something, Placidia. For now it’s mainly Burdigala …”

  He left the words hanging.

  “Placidia,” he said, “I know you think me impatient. But so are my people. That was why I took the gamble with Attalus, to show them…”

  “Why you married a Roman,” she completed softly for him. “Why you married me. Do they already regret; having me as their Queen?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. And he looked it, she was relieved to see. “No,” he said, “the maistans, they certainly do not. The men? They want a full belly and an easy life.”

  “And you, Athaulf?”

  “Me?” he held her hands. “Me? Surely you know the answer to that?”

  She pouted. “It is sometimes good to hear the words, even when you know the answer.”

  “It’s late but I will do more than words,” he offered.

  She stood, pulling him up with her. “And I was feeling sorry for you.”

  She slipped the tunic over his head, ran her fingers over his chest. He carried her to the bed where she placed a finger to his lips. His eyes clouding, she sat up.

  “I have always told you, Athaulf; that time is on our side.” She put her arms about him again. “Time, Husband, and our love have created a new fact.”

  She saw how, still, he did not understand. She laughed, as she stroked his back and shoulder blades; then traced with her finger the scar of his wound. “And the new fact, my hasty husband, is that you will be a father again.”

  “You are…?”

  “I am.”

  He sat in a mute daze and she pulled him towards her.

  “Everyone is forgetting, Athaulf,” she said, kissing his forehead. “But, unless my brother astonishes us all, one day our eldest son will be the next Emperor of Rome. When the child is born next spring, be it girl or boy, this fact everyone will suddenly remember.”

  She laughed again and after a moment so did he; their laughter echoing through the still of the house.

  He beamed, then a shadow. “The men…,” he began.

  “The men, they will also understand,” she told him, hands gripping his face, her eyes writing the words into his mind. “For now, Flavius Constantius, he may hold the sea. But we, Athaulf; we hold the future of Rome.”

  She took his hand and placed it on the warmth of her belly. “In here.”

  X

  The month of April in the year of our Lord 415: in Barcino

  Wallia surfaced with a snort that could be heard by a hippopotamus in Africa. Athaulf he saw tread water and, brushing the soaking hair out of his face, wave towards the shore; Galla Placidia, surrounded by the other women, waving back. Meanwhile Theoderic’s curious head bobbed up yards further out to sea. He was a strong swimmer and a few lazy strokes brought him alongside.

  “Worth the wait, Athaulf?�
�� shouted the younger man.

  “Worth every minute,” Athaulf shouted in answer, his eyes not leaving the figure of his wife on the shore.

  Even from this far away she was obviously heavy with child; in her white robes, an earth goddess from an earlier age. Meanwhile Theoderic also looked towards the beach with an interest which Wallia registered with the hint of a smile. Theoderic, he guessed, was more concerned with the blond woman wearing the woollen dress of their people. The young man turned away to seaward, eating up the distance with a speed that might attract an admiring glance from those ashore.

  It was not his business and he had less energy to burn off than Theoderic, whatever was passing for thought in that young head of his – or in his loins. He floated leisurely on his back, under the canopy of a cloudless sky.

  Yes, they had all needed the spring. More than usual, this spring was a time for the future, a future very obvious in the form of Athaulf’s Queen. You had to hand it to her. Roman or not she was a real lady – he’d even heard from Rohilde she was making some progress in learning their language. A labour of love, if ever there was one. A lady, right enough, and just a shame that her two admirers each had big armies that neither of them could afford to commit to battle and lose.

  He drifted round so that he was facing landward. Between the toes that stuck out of the water as if to remind him they were still there – and Lord, those toes had covered some miles since he used to swim in the lakes of the old Gutthiuda – between the battered toes he could see the high Roman walls that marked the harbour and the inner town. Serious walls, those; Athaulf was a charmer, sure enough. But they’d been lucky the news from Burdigala had not travelled ahead – or else blond locks and good looks would have got short shrift and no mistake.

  Unusual shape the town had, now he looked at it; the walls reaching back into the land but barely wider than the quayside. Bit like a giant tower that had toppled over; or a drowning man dragging himself by the arms ashore.

  Someone must have thought it was a good idea at the time, whenever that was. Long while ago now, couple of centuries, he’d heard Galla Placidia say. Heaven only knew where the Goths would be in a century from now. You’d have got good money back in the Gutthiuda if you’d said in fifty years young Wallia would now be floating around, watching his toes and ruminating in the sea off Barcino.

  ‘Where in God’s name is Barcino?’ they’d have wanted to know for starters.

  Exactly my point, he agreed with himself; before the sky suddenly disappeared in a gurgling flood, and water poured into his gasping mouth. He broke surface again to see a grinning Theoderic and made a futile motion to cosh his laughing assailant round the ears. With a lazy stroke the young reiks made towards the beach; Athaulf, he saw, already wading through the shallows.

  *

  Galla Placidia bent down to pick up the stone but her body stopped her even before Elpidia’s warning hand on her arm. Athaulf, hair still dripping wet, knelt by her side.

  “This one?” he asked, a jet black flint between his fingers.

  She shook her head: “No, that little one,” she said, pointing to a stone as white as pearl.

  It was good to be out. Not long and she would be confined to the house, not long now. She had watched them swim before, first, Athaulf and then the other two had waded ashore, naked but further down the beach to preserve a semblance of decorum. With the other women she had loudly discussed how beautiful were the hills behind the town; or so they had pretended.

  The bright sun and Athaulf’s shining face burnt away the fears that otherwise could fester. Childbirth was for women as the battle line to men; a moment of chance out of which, through all the overwhelming confusion, came either glorious life or sudden death. She did not forget. Despite all the care an Emperor’s wife could command, Galla, her mother, had died bearing the sister or brother that was never to be.

  But it was also a time of power, the mystery of life that only a woman could unlock through the months of her preparation; then the hours of her pain. She was conscious how the eyes of all the reiks never strayed far from her full belly.

  She had done her share of travelling since Rome; down to the tip of Italia, then all the way to Burdigala, Narbo and now Barcino. Any other season the trip over the mountains would have been a delight. In November it had been windy, wet, cold and dark. She had barely noticed; all her attention on what she felt inside. A healthy baby and the sun would shine through the darkest clouds; a boy and no clouds at all.

  Athaulf joked in his tongue with the reiks before placing an arm around her shoulder. They made for the tables and the inviting waft of grilled fish, a simple meal, a long way from the feast at St. Martinus. At St. Martinus he had told how, for him, her words would always have meaning. She had never quite found the way to say what she felt in return. As they sat, she caught his eye again. In that moment, it was as if all the others on the beach, many of them dear to her, had vanished in his smile.

  And the world was theirs alone.

  *

  “Here, Sergeric,” Wallia called and the Karthi looped the leather ball to perfection over Erfrid’s outstretched arm. About to throw the ball between the two piles of stones, Wallia was knocked sprawling from behind. Both Athaulf and Sergeric reached for the ball that had bobbed away before Theoderic swooped and dropped it into the goal.

  A roar of triumph, polite laughter from the ladies watching on, and he dusted himself down, Athaulf the same.

  “Some wine?” the King asked and they crunched their way back up the shingle. Too good to miss this weather and the Queen so heavy with child, once the fish was done they stayed on the beach and played ball rather than go back into the sea. Sergeric and Erfrid had never learnt to swim.

  Wallia lagged behind, a watchful glance at the disappearing backs; ears open to the slightest tremor. Uncomfortable months he’d spent in Narbo, covering the retreat. But he was a cautious one, that Constantius; barely as much as a cart and horse had come travelling down the stone road from Arelate.

  All the while, Wallia couldn’t help wondering; what he’d find in Barcino – what thoughts had churned in the close cropped head that was swapping compliments with young Theoderic. But from Sergeric not a false note all day; you’d have said brothers at their games, the way they tumbled across the sand after that ball.

  He took the goblet on offer.

  “The Queen of the Goths!” came from Athaulf the toast and, as one, the cups were hefted skywards.

  In answer Galla Placidia sat serene and calm as the waters; the waters a sight too calm for Wallia’s liking. Not a mile from one of the biggest ports in Hispania, just a few fishing smacks scarred the smooth mirror of the sea. Clear enough what this must mean but, for now, it was not important. As the dice came out and the wine flowed, Wallia kept his peace. Throughout that glorious afternoon, he and the others, they would wait upon the Roman who was their Queen and their hope.

  Wait for time, once more, to begin.

  *

  Athaulf gazed from the corridor window, this house another loan from an understanding Roman. The courtyard was empty and the entire house still – still that is apart from the tearing screams that even the heavy wooden door could not keep back. He had done this many times before, but it did not get any easier.

  He stared at the latch but knew that even to the King this one door was barred; the other side a place of mystery that men could only defile. She was in the best of hands. Elpidia and Rohilde would do whatever it was that women did, while the old woman who had delivered his boys went about her work.

  His boys, they were learning Latin now, so soon at least they would have a mother again to talk to. The other week he had played with them. They attacked him with wooden swords and in their young high-pitched voices whooped the Gothic war cries. Fine boys they were but they were Goths. The next one…

  He stopped himself.

&nbs
p; They had agreed they would not talk; about whether it would be a boy or a girl. One day it was important it be a boy, she had reminded him, but not now. They had time on their side. Those were always her words, time enough for them to make the world the better place it should be.

  For now, time sat long and heavy. He paced the corridor, trying to keep his thoughts from the other side of that wailing door. Hispania was new territory for them. Erfrid had been quick to get maps and plan where they might best go for food. Tarraconensis, the name of the province they were in, the only province the Romans still controlled – or had done until their arrival. The Alans, the Suebi and the Vandals who had crossed the Rhenus these ten years past; they had all washed up in Hispania as well.

  Which was the trouble; it was no longer virgin territory. For all his nerves on edge, he allowed himself a smile. What with the Vandals and the others, a miracle if so much as a single virgin was left anywhere in all Hispania. Harsh perhaps on the Suebi; Wallia’s daughter was married to one of their maistans. Not that it figured. The Suebi were a long way away in Galicia, the north-west corner; too far away to do any harm – or any good.

  It was the Vandals who mattered, their two tribes, the Silings and the Hasdings. The Goths and the Vandals, they knew each other from long ago. Village against village, across the plains they had hunted and hated each other with a vengeance.

  He listened.

  The screams had died down and the doorway loomed at him down the corridor. He took half a stride and then the screams were starting again. He stopped in his tracks; the door seemed to shake on its hinges from the rising crescendo of din.

  The people, he thought as he resumed his pacing up and down, they must fight as hard as did their Queen; fight to deliver their future, hardly clearer now than it had been that day on the Danuvius, veiled behind the reeds of the Roman shore. For what were they, the Visigoths, but the new born; still speckled in their mother’s blood, crying out for life?

  The door sprung open and, automatically, his hand reached for the sword hilt.