Promised Land

by Roger Booth

  In the doorway stood Rohilde. “Uncle,” she said formally, “Galla Placidia is tired but well. And the baby, Uncle; the baby is a wonderful boy.”

  *

  From either side, the Roman priest and Sigesar stepped as one towards the altar. The small chapel was full to overflowing with the reiks and maistans, also the leading Roman families. Together Sigesar and the priest turned towards them, made the sign of the cross.

  It had been evening before Athaulf was invited to greet his wife, the mother of their new child. The baby he had fleetingly seen earlier before it was whisked off to the nursery and the attentions of Elpidia. The baby was a baby like any other, blue eyes, a hint of hair on its small head and the already big voice. But he was also a child full of wonder, for there had never been one like him before. The boy’s royal Goth blood was as much the Roman blood of Emperors.

  She was propped up, her hair loose but combed. The smile was welcoming but the eyes tired and the red tinge that was never normally far from her cheeks almost entirely absent. Happy and relieved, she was also spent.

  “The child is well and I am well, Husband.”

  He took her hand, leant over to kiss the forehead that was cold from fatigue. “Placidia, the Lord be thanked for that. You’ve slept?”

  “A little. I’m so… I am so thrilled in my mind that I cannot fully rest.”

  “Tonight, let your mind empty for a while. You’ve always told me; that we had time on our side.” Their hands clasped tight. “Many years till our son approaches manhood. Time enough for us to enjoy the boy in him, for us to be mother and father.”

  “I was sure it was a boy,” she said. “Elpidia told me… the kicks… But I daren’t say, I tried not to think. But I thought a little even so, I thought about his name.”

  He had raised an eyebrow in mock indignation. “And what if I don’t agree?”

  “Husband, only one name is possible, so I knew you would agree. Our child will be called Theodosius.”

  “After your father.”

  “My father’s name is one of these few that men will always follow. Rome has need of a great Emperor again.”

  He kissed her forehead a second time. “My wife, as you say – I am bound to agree. I will tell it to the reiks tomorrow morning early, when you, Placidia,” he added, “will hopefully still be fast asleep.”

  So Council and people learned the momentous news. The town of Barcino and the Goth encampments along the coast talked of nothing else, prayers were said and flagons drained. What else mattered? Set against this birth which changed the world – young Theodosius, grandson of the great Theodosius, the boy who, one day and with the Lord’s blessing, would grow to become both Emperor and King?

  He felt her briefly shiver by his side, otherwise the dark head held high and motionless. With its narrow windows and low ceiling the spring suns had yet to drive away the cold of winter. The priest of the chapel and Sigesar stood gravely before the plain low altar, the small silver casket sadly resplendent on a table in the middle of the transept.

  It was Elpidia who had first heard the coughs during the night that had become harsher during the next day. The doctors had offered cooling poultices and comforting words as the fever had caught hold. Placidia and he, they took turns to sit in the nursery, somehow hoping to do more than doctors through will power and prayer. Sometimes it seemed that they might. They would tell themselves that the coughing was less, much less. Then the coughs would start all over again and the whole body, so small Athaulf could circle it within his hands, began to burn hot like the log on a fire.

  The doctors put on new poultices, burnt herbs to purify the air of disease. By now Placidia and he would neither move from the room, uniting in a last effort to will their son to stay. But the fever would not break and by the next evening even the wailing and coughing were muted and worn. Sigesar was summoned to perform the last rites as the spring light faded across the room. By midnight, cold as the barren, little chapel and before the blank eyes of his parents, Goth and Roman, the new born Theodosius quietly left the world he had barely known.

  The small coffin was lifted onto the shoulders of the pall bearers; two Romans from Barcino, Brodagast and Herfrig. Following Sigesar and the chapel priest, they stepped out into the brightness of the spring morning. Towards the corner of the graveyard, a grey marble cross; the chapel was outside the town walls, on enough of a slope to offer a picture of the same sparkling blue sea they had swum in less than a month ago. A sparkling mockery, his eyes were fixed on the small silver box and the little gash dug in the earth.

  The box was lowered and Sigesar spoke the familiar words, the priest repeating them in Latin. A mother and father had lost a child but this was not uncommon. Death was a persistent companion that stuck to mankind like the fleas to a dog. And it was no respecter of rank, however high and mighty. The silent woman by his side had told him again these last days; how both her mother and father, the great Theodosius himself, had been snatched away long before their natural time.

  He stepped forward, threw the first clod, Placidia the second. For them all the private grief was one they already knew and would likely know many times again. But, this time, he read from the faces filing past; how every Goth had lost something more. They had lost another battle to Flavius Constantius and his Empire; to an enemy they could not even see.

  The earth fell first loud; now softly into the tiny grave. The Goths shared his grief; then looked away – quickly, too quickly. The men of the camps as much as the maistans here, in the graveyard; they were numb with shock. And numbness, he knew, is not at all like death. Death waits upon the coming of the Lord Christ to deliver up men to judgement. Numbness waits but little time before judgements are made by men themselves.

  *

  “Where is he?” she demanded. “Where is the King?”

  She had not seen him all day. The slave shuffled and looked awkwardly down at the ground. “Highness, the King asked that he … that he not be disturbed.”

  Galla Placidia shook her head in exasperation. “Just tell me where he is,” she ordered a second time, making a determined effort to keep her voice level.

  The slave shuddered before the fiery ice. “The treasury, Highness,” he said, fearful. “But you won’t tell the King? You …” the voice trailed off as she left him standing alone in the room.

  “Elpidia,” she shouted, “my cloak. And your own; come with me.”

  She had never been inside the treasury but she knew where it was. Athaulf had once pointed it out in passing, a warehouse one street behind the quayside proper. She rushed past the astonished retainers standing guard at the house door, cloak flying furiously about her shoulders. She marched on down the road, blind to the looks of neighbour, tradesman and slave; until she heard Elpidia’s call. Her old companion, flushed face, hand on heart and a cough that sounded like it came from the pit of hell; the sight sobered – and shamed – her more than all the raised eyebrows of the street.

  Her hand on Elpidia’s back calmed the wracking cough and she reminded herself bitterly; there was no rush. No rush for those who had time on their side.

  They started off again, this time at a more considered pace, at the pace of a Princess, the pace of a Queen.

  Since the funeral he was often gone for hours on end and, when she did see him, she hardly recognised the man whose face she could draw in every detail and eyes shut. He slipped late into their bed, in the morning often gone before she woke; light on his feet as if he no longer cared to make footprints on the world. From Rohilde she knew; the people were confused, in need of a guiding hand. She was young enough to have many more children. If they only believed, time really was still on their side.

  Outside the warehouse as ever a group of Athaulf’s guards; they stood smartly to attention, at the same time carefully blocking the entrance.

  “I must see the King,” she began, to b
e answered by stolid faces, staring away above her head. “The King… Thiudans,” she tried the Goth word without as much as a flicker.

  Just then steps behind her: “Brodagast, I want to see Athaulf.”

  The tall retainer did not seem to have heard.

  “I must see him, Brodagast; talk to him.”

  She begged the cool eyes.

  “For all our sakes,” she added; a final throw.

  A long pause then a quick nod; the men stepped aside. Leaving Elpidia, she let herself in.

  The place was eerie and silent but for her hesitant steps; lit only by what daylight struggled through the shutters. Chests secured by heavy chains were stacked either side of the central walkway, the fruit of the Goths’ long march through the Empire. There stood also open boxes, bursting with gold and silver plate, candlesticks and cups.

  The warehouse was deep, the back of the room almost completely dark. She took one pace at a time, chest tight with a sense of foreboding. Sometimes the light would catch the cut edge of an embedded gem and bounce across the room. Other times the gold seemed almost to absorb and crush what scant light there was.

  “Athaulf, where are you?” she called, as if lost in a dark forest, surrounded by the menace of bright eyes and sharp teeth. “It’s me, Placidia.”

  A sudden touch on her shoulder and she gasped in terror even as she saw the face she knew so well. “Athaulf,” she shouted, half way between anger and relief. “You frightened me.”

  “If you hadn’t come, you would not have been afraid,” he said in a tone of utter reasonableness. Then: “But I thought one day you would come.”

  He put his arm around her shoulder and walked her along the central aisle. “Is there anything you would like to see?” he asked conversationally. “We have everything you can imagine. Some of the gold and silver plate you have already seen. But we have so much more; gems, necklaces, bracelets – coins, too.”

  He looked into her eyes. “Enough to buy the whole world. We are rich, Placidia, you and I; richer perhaps than your brother. But the granaries they are empty. By winter the bellies of our people will be empty as well.”

  “I didn’t come here to look at the treasure, Athaulf. I came here to talk to you.”

  They had wandered along a smaller walkway. He stopped beside an open chest full of solidi, the gold coins of Rome. Taking a handful, he casually let them drop back down again into the chest with the dull clink of soft metal.

  “Athaulf, the people have been hungry before and survived.”

  He nodded as they came into a small open space by one of the walls. He pointed to an upturned wooden box and sat down opposite her. He took her hands. “You and I have shown that Goths and Romans don’t need to fight, that there is another way. But all we get is deafening silence and an empty sea. Ravenna does not want to hear us.”

  “So what we have done is a mistake? You want me to go back to them so you can eat your fill?” She sat back and their hands slipped apart.

  It was a while before he spoke again. “You remember our wedding, the verse from Daniel people talked about?” he asked. “Ingenius mentioned it; about a Princess from the South marrying a King from the North?”

  She nodded absent-mindedly. “Yes, Athaulf, I remember. But what has that…?”

  He reached behind him and opened a heavy book. “Read the whole of the verse,” he said, pointing at the open page: “See what it says?” He waited patiently. “See,” he began again. “It says their union will not last. Shame they found the verse but didn’t read it properly.”

  She re-read the verse where his finger pointed then shook her head. “Athaulf, these words were written so long ago, before the Lord Christ. Who is to say that they refer to us, apart from some gossips and one old fool in Narbo?”

  “You may be right, Placidia, you may well be right,” he conceded with hardly a flicker of interest.

  “Husband,” she knelt before him, taking his face in both her hands; staring full into his eyes. “Husband, do you regret our marriage; do you wish me to go back? You’ve not answered me.”

  “Placidia, that’s not a serious question,” he said. “I told you that day at St Martinus some things were beyond price.”

  “So why…”

  “You came to chide me.”

  He kissed her slowly and pulled her towards his chest.

  “I will do what a King must do, Placidia. I will smile and hunt and drink with the men again. See, I agree with you before you even say a word.” He spoke softly, almost to himself. “You are right in so many things, Placidia. But I’m afraid not in this one.”

  He turned her face back up towards him. “For the moment, time is on the side of Ravenna, while we can only wait. You see, truly as we sit here as man and wife, someone will come at me with knife or sword – soon, before this winter, when the dread of hunger is more unbearable than the hunger itself.”

  He told her about the dream after Massilia. “I’ve never told anyone before. To be honest, Placidia, I’m not sure I believe the dream any more than that prophecy. But I know my people. We have talked of this before – they are not good at waiting.”

  He managed the ghost of a smile. “Placidia, my love, we cannot create new facts that quickly – however much pleasure it would give me to try.”

  She wanted to shout the objections she had rehearsed on the way down from the house. But the quiet certainty of his words left her for once tongue-tied.

  “Believe me, Placidia: I’m far from ready to quit your side. If the blade misses its mark, we shall have time to do everything we’ve talked of – everything.”

  Casually he took a coin from his pocket and flicked it into the air.

  “If not,” and they both listened as the coin rattled through gold plate to settle, unseen, on the floor. “If not, my wife, then by the grace of God I shall be seeing our young son long before you.”

  *

  The grass glistened still damp from the dew. A light mist hung between land and sea, across the fields a small encampment of Goths, the smoke from their fires drifting eastwards – towards the mountains far away, towards Gallia, Italia and another world.

  Athaulf had risen early, given her a peck. “Hunting,” he whispered: “Taking some of the men.” He had been true to his word. He laughed and drank with the reiks and his retainers, to all appearances their life once more as it had always been. Except, within, she felt; he was acting a part in which he no longer believed. She held back her reproaches. If they were to live out the winter, then others must believe him even if she did not.

  That morning she had seen him off; made sure the men saw her fullest smile in gown and hair undressed. They would think like most men. Then she had quickly called the slaves and Elpidia. Since the funeral she had never been back to the chapel; he would have come with her and enough was weighing on Athaulf without that.

  She decided they would walk, with her ladies a determined phalanx of silks and simpler cloths, the arrow point of a grumbling procession of wagons along the busy street. Carters and wagoners coming into the town pulled over, the curses dead on their lips, to nod in silent and almost disbelieving salute as she swept past. By the gates, though, the guard had resolutely blocked her way.

  A youngster came forward, saluted after the Roman fashion.

  “Highness.”

  She had seen him before. The face clear-skinned, his fine nose and light, blond eye-brows made him look more boyish than, from his sword and manner, she guessed he must be. “You are…”

  “Herfrig; Highness, son of Wallia’s sister – I command today this gate.”

  She gathered herself for the fight. That morning she would see her son’s grave and no man would stand in her way, however well-formed the frame and face. It was not, though, quite as she had thought.

  “Highness,” he spoke further, in Latin as good as Rohilde’
s. “I will not ask where you go. If, for your safety, I may accompany you.”

  “Of course.”

  Now the young Goth Herfrig stood at a respectful distance with Elpidia and the others, while she rounded the chapel, in the far corner of the graveyard the grey marble stone. At once she noticed the small bunches of wild flowers, the pinks and yellows of the woodland or meadow. Unsure whether she was more thankful or resentful that another did what she had left undone, she knelt and prayed through the tears with no sense of the minutes or hours. So many things she wished to know from beyond that stone; whether she had done well or ill, what might yet become – to none of her questions the hint of a reply.

  Time it was to leave save for the one thing she still must do.

  Climbing the dusty path from the highway, the small stones sharp as penance through the thin-soled slippers, she had decided on her final gift. The grave she would not visit again; nor weary the child with the long lessons of a love still-born. So that, unburdened, he might play at will across the meadow; garlanded by the morning mists. This she solemnly told him through lips barely moving.

  She rose, wiping the smudged powder from her cheeks; and stayed her hand. A group of Goth women stood just a handful of paces beyond the wall; to judge from the round faces so much alike, a grandmother, her daughters and their girls. She had not heard them coming.

  Ash blond the youngest, the hair hung loose; grey the grandmother’s, short cut like a man’s – a Roman man – stiff hairs to her jutting jaw. All the faces were scrubbed spotless, unlike the patched smocks – as if they had washed specially before coming from the little camp and without the time to change. But from Athaulf she knew. For the women of the wagons one gown apiece was all they had; that and their pride.

  Only then did it strike home; how below the quietly solemn faces each woman had her hands joined in prayer.

  And that she was their Queen.

  One pace back she stepped; gave silent thanks for the long hours spent with Rohilde over that great leather book.