Promised Land

by Roger Booth

  “He brought me back this morning; like we were coming to market. With those sacks of I don’t know what, he said no-one would come anywhere near us. And no-one did. I’ve washed my hair twice today and I can still smell it.”

  She leant forward, her hair an inch or so from his face. Whatever had been in the sacks, it was the finest scent he had ever known; lavender and the warmth of summer.

  He swung round to Wallia, who stood with Ardrade by the door. “And Harduric, just now at the gate?” he said.

  “Theoderic, he doesn’t know. Rohilde slipped from the cart by my door. She was wearing a peasant’s shawl and her hair under a scarf. The guards didn’t recognise her…”

  “Till I whispered to one of them; told them who I was,” smiled Rohilde. “You should have seen their faces.”

  “Like mine, just now.”

  A peel of girlish laughter; Wallia coughed. “I swore ’em to secrecy, Theoderic. Best keep Sergeric guessing.”

  “Aye, Wallia, I was forgetting,” and he looked sideways at Rohilde. “So what is that two-faced bastard of a Karthi up to now?”

  “Good you thought to ask,” the dry response. “Well, he’s taken Athaulf’s house for one. Proclaimed himself King of the Visigoths for two…”

  “But we never agreed…”

  “No, we didn’t, Theoderic. So it’s the Karthi on the one side, the Grethi and Ruthi to the other.”

  “And, in between, the Balthings,” finished Rohilde.

  “And all the new men,” added Wallia.

  “No Balthing will follow Faurgar and Sergeric,” she said proudly. “Not once they know Alaric’s daughter is alive.”

  “Which,” Wallia said, “if all agree, they’ll know before nightfall.”

  Theoderic nodded, as too Rohilde. “What will Sergeric do then?” he asked.

  Wallia threw open the door. “Time for a welcome home feast,” and he raised the goblet he held still in one hand. “Don’t know, Theoderic,” he said. “But he’ll be desperate, that I do know. And desperate men often make mistakes.”

  They filed out of the door and made towards the stairs. “Brave of him, that old peasant,” and Theoderic spoke softly, leaning close to Rohilde. “Generous, too, to take the risk for nothing in return.”

  “Who said anything about him doing it for nothing?” Playfully, she pushed him away, with the reward of one more smile. “He was generous enough to keep my horse.”

  *

  The east gate was guarded by Karthi clansmen but everyone knew. The people were a forest at height of summer – one spark and they would all blaze down. Unmolested, Herfrig and others from the Ruthi and Grethi trooped out under the stone arches and on into the fields. Some of those around him had faces flushed with wine or ale; no surprise if Sergeric had spent the morning wooing what friends he could find.

  Even those sober had caught the mood of a high day, lively chatter, snatches of song despite the sweltering afternoon heat. This was the first public act of their new King and, whatever their thoughts on the matter, men were curious. Entertainment was scarce, the field already black with men and women come in from the camps.

  The evening before, when the news went round Barcino, he noticed at once how Wallia perked up. “Herfrig, take men enough. And make sure you know where the Balthings are standing in the crowd.”

  “Uncle, of course. But what am I to do?”

  With him still none the wiser, Wallia poured them both a cup of wine, more at ease than he had seen him in days. “No idea,” his uncle had said. “But if there is anything, Nephew, this I tell you. It’ll be so clear, you’ll not need instruction from me.”

  Sergeric’s retainers had marshalled the crowd into some sort of line, many rows deep. With a handful of the men and by dint of a helpful shove or two, Herfrig joined the front row as near he could judge in the middle. The others he told to spread out; to stay close to any Balthings they recognised. Ardrade, he knew, was elsewhere in the crowd with some of Theoderic’s men.

  Still at a loss what Sergeric intended, he noticed, at the far end of the line, a group of Romans under casual guard, all hostages of one sort or another. Sergeric’s men sometimes shouted an order but for the most part chatted to each other or to people in the crowd. The Romans were quiet. And among the Romans he also saw a slim, upright woman with dark hair that he couldn’t help but recognise; besides her an older woman; her maid, as he guessed.

  The crowd was still in good humour but the first flush of excitement had given way to a hint of impatience, when, from the town gate, there sounded a brace of battle horns and a group of horsemen came cantering towards them; Sergeric flanked by Faurgar and Brandas followed by their escort. As if riding out to battle, the horsemen wore armour and helmets, the escort holding high their spears. They came to a halt twenty paces away from the front row, the crowd once more a-buzz.

  Brandas edged his horse a pace or two forward. “Men and women of our people, proud nation of the Visigoths, I give you Sergeric, your King.”

  There was scattered cheering in the crowd then Sergeric unsheathed his sword. “To you I pledge this sword arm. My people, these days have been difficult days. You have my word, my solemn oath; I will never flinch from my duty. And a king’s foremost duty; it is to defend the people from our enemies. Who can doubt who that enemy is?”

  Spontaneously or not, a few helpful voices shouted back: ‘Aye, Rome,” ‘Constantius,’ ‘the Empire’.

  “Men and women of the Visigoths!” Brandas took over again. “The Romans you see there,” and he pointed down the line to the collection of hostages. “They will now submit to the will of our people; and to the power of King Sergeric.”

  At this, the Romans were forced forward; began to trudge before the crowd towards the men on horseback, an occasional shove in the back or theatrical snarl from one of the guards.

  But Herfrig noticed at once. From the people there was no great outpouring of hate. How to hate the men in tunics who looked so much like the ordinary folk in Barcino or Narbo they were used to seeing every day? Unless in a rare fury or drunken rage, these were not like soldiers you could hack and kill. There was some heckling but also an awkward shuffling of feet. All knew these men were not the real enemy, not the evil General in Arelate, who would starve them to death.

  If this was true of the men they saw, how much more true for the woman with the dark piled hair and the maid following a few steps behind? This woman was Roman through and through, but she was Athaulf’s Queen who had born their King a son.

  His fingers tingled as he understood what his uncle had already guessed. Humiliating her, Sergeric the Karthi somehow humiliated the Balthings; through them every Goth. The crowd grew quiet, apart from a handful of die-hards whose jeers and catcalls sounded ever more strident against the gathering hush. By the time Galla Placidia had reached the men on horseback even those few jeers had all but died away and the great crowd was silent and tense. Directly in front of Sergeric she came to a halt and faced the crowd.

  “Hwas habai ausona hausjandona, gahausjai!”

  The words flew like arrows through the air and it was hard to say who were more astonished to hear her speak in this way, her fellow Romans or the Goths. ‘Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear,’ she had cried.

  The Goths waited and listened.

  “That man murdered Athaulf, my husband and your King.” She continued in Latin but most of the people understood and, if not, there were plenty willing to offer a quick translation. Words, though, were hardly necessary. The icy cold voice and the thin outstretched finger now pointing back up at Sergeric’s armoured breast were more eloquent than words could ever be.

  “Euervulf was a puppet and Sergeric it was who pulled the strings. Sergeric would never have dared fight Athaulf face to face. If he had,” she cried, “he would have lost.”

  “And who among us can doubt S
ergeric was the murderer?” She swept the crowd with penetrating stare. “The next morning my brother in law, Erfrid, and the six children of my husband – six – they lay butchered by Sergeric’s knife in the streets of Barcino. Are we to believe?” she asked. ”Are we to believe such bloody treachery suddenly occurred to him while sweetly asleep overnight?”

  Herfrig heard about him the nervous laughter.

  “This show of force,” she went on sarcastically; arms outstretched the length of the front rank. “What do you think this really means? Look around you – only unarmed men and women. Oh, yes,” she mocked, with vicious smile. “Behold the might of Sergeric the Great.”

  Brandas spurred his horse forward but she was facing the crowd and did not see the sword being drawn even as she spoke again. “These are not the actions of a King,” she cried, a widow’s grief blazing into open fury. “They are not even the actions of a man.”

  The sword fell flat across her back and she went down in a heap. Sergeric sat motionless, and even at twenty paces, Herfrig saw a face caught between anger and dismay. For what was Sergeric to say; now the sword of Brandas had spoken loud before the people?

  She struggled to her knees; no shortage of strong hands to help her upright, as the Goth women in the crowd came forward to make their feelings plain. In thin robes, crumpled by pain and grief, she looked helpless against the hard armour of Brandas, towering above. Ignoring him, she turned instead on Sergeric and Faurgar. “Hwa auk boteith mannan, jabai gageigaith thana fairhwa allana jah gaslei…gaslei,” and her voice began to stumble.

  Elbowing his way forward, Herfrig stood before the crowd and completed the sentence for her. “Jah gasleitheith sik saiwalai seinai? Highness, I’m sure Sergeric and Faurgar must agree with you. For, as you say; what does it benefit a man if he gains the whole world, yet loses his soul?”

  His men, and many others, had stepped forward to join him, swords in hand.

  “After Athaulf’s murder, I don’t know who today can rightly call himself the King of the Visigoths,” he was speaking to the crowd as much in sorrow as in anger. “But I think we all agree who is our Queen.”

  Even as he spoke, Ardrade and others began to fan out as a guard around the Romans ignoring Sergeric’s men now thoroughly confused. The silence of the crowd had turned to a deep and growing roar of anger as it began to inch forward. Sergeric saw it was hopeless. Without a word, the men on horseback turned about and quickly galloped back the way they had come.

  *

  Not yet dawn, the ground hard; Herfrig gave up trying to sleep and stepped carefully between the men still wrapped in cloaks and blankets. At the makeshift barricade across the Roman highway, two carts set crossways, he came up alongside Ardrade.

  “Anything?”

  Ardrade shook his head. “They’ll leave at first light, I reckon.”

  “Don’t know about you,” he murmured to Ardrade. “But I’m still getting used to it; my uncle, King, and a Ruthi.”

  “Ruthi, Grethi; makes no difference. There was no-one else.”

  Those selfsame words he had heard only yesterday.

  With Sergeric having turned tail, amid the confusion, he had called up a wagon; led the escort back to his uncle’s house. There the maid and Rohilde had taken charge of the Queen, the silk to her back torn to shreds, a weal wide as a man’s hand where the flat of the blade had drawn blood.

  “Uncle, you should have seen her; nothing but her faith and the bible, our bible, to protect her against the whole world.”

  Wallia looked at him quizzically before Theoderic brought things back to earth. “So what now?”

  “Herfrig and Ardrade, within the hour they take men twenty miles north,” so Wallia.

  “What do we do there, Uncle?”

  “Nephew, you wait. Until Sergeric, Faurgar and Brandas come riding up the road, as I promise you they shall. Then,” he had said, foot stamping down on the tiled floor, “then you crush that nest of vipers right into the earth.”

  An order from his uncle was never to be disobeyed; now even less.

  Rohilde had come downstairs. “Bruised for a month,” she said to the questioning eyes of all the men. “But nothing broken; she’s asleep.”

  “Herfrig,” and she held his arm. He felt the warmth of her hand, not long; but long enough for him to think how it might be, if he were reiks and had the same years as Theoderic. “Elpidia, the maid, she told me what you did. That man is finished for ever. And may the Devil take his miserable soul.”

  She waited; while the room fell into silence. “So, Wallia,” she finally asked what none of them would have dared. "So how do we make you King?” When the grey hair began to shake, she had used the same words as Ardrade just now. There was no-one else. An awkward silence before Theoderic took Wallia by the arm, almost dragged him outside, where retainers filled the street. Flanked by Rohilde the Balthing, the reiks of the Grethi had unsheathed his sword.

  “Men! All hail Wallia, King of the Visigoths!”

  And the answering roar had echoed through every street and alley of Barcino.

  He looked into the darkness once more. No sign of movement and Ardrade not in the mood for talking; his thoughts wandered. No-one else for King and his uncle already more than fifty summers old; in not many years the people would need a new King, a younger King. As he ran his mind over the maistans of the old clans, so weakened by the long roads of Empire; it suddenly occurred to him. When the time came it must be either Theoderic; or himself.

  *

  By first light the men were at their posts. Archers by the wagons, one group of horsemen under Ardrade guarded the seaward side. His men hid in a clump of trees to landward. Not long they waited until Sergeric, the self-proclaimed King, came riding in haste to leave his Kingdom.

  “Herfrig,” the hissed warning of the watchman and he spurred his horse, followed by the men, ducking beneath the branches as they surged out into the open. Six riders had come over the brow to find the barricade not fifty yards beyond. Arrows were buzzing, one man already hit. The horse dragged him down the sloping sides of the raised highway before another clutch of arrows brought the animal to its fall. The next flight of arrows downed two more horses with their riders.

  The three remaining riders scattered, two in his direction. At the sight of him and his men, they wheeled about, a shower of arrows leaving them miraculously unharmed as they galloped away across the scrub.

  “Fan out,” he screamed, “keep them out of the wood.”

  The troop answered his call. They had done this before, chasing stags or chasing men. And, like he, they knew. Their horses were rested; their quarries’ had twenty miles hard riding in the legs. From behind he couldn’t tell; which of Sergeric’s band they were chasing. Until a head swivelled and he caught a glint of snake eyes.

  “Brandas,” he yelled, pointing his spear at the one.

  The blood was pounding. The horses sped, sure-footed, over stone and beaten earth. One Goth freed both his arms, took aim with the bow. An arrow lodged in the haunch of Brandas’ mount. It reared. Then, for all his furious thrashing, it slowed.

  “Keep him in your sights,” he cried to the men nearest, then spurred on.

  The flanking riders were now almost ahead of their prey. The fleeing man looked left and right in panic. Herfrig didn’t recognise him. A Goth, like any other, loyal to the wrong side.

  “Yield, man,” he shouted. “Yield, if you will serve King Wallia.”

  The Goth reined in and swung about. Then with the battle cry of the Karthi on his lips, the man charged straight for him, spear raised to throw.

  Two of the Ruthi spurred forward to protect the nephew of their King, a throwing axe spinning fast and flat. It took the onrushing Karthi on the shoulder, knocked him from the saddle, spear bouncing harmlessly away. The second Ruthi had his own spear at the ready. As the wounded man got to his
knees the spear buried itself in his chest. Jumping down, the Ruthi slashed at the neck with his long sword.

  A ragged cheer: “Not done yet, men.”

  By the time they came up, Brandas was wiping his sword on the body of a fallen Ruthi. “Who’ll be next?” he challenged the others, who kept a wary distance beyond sword’s reach.

  “Or you, my young friend,” said Brandas, catching sight of him. “You were full of words yesterday – with that Roman whore. Come talk to me now, Herfrig,” he cooed; the blood-smeared blade beckoning. “Come talk to me as a man.”

  He felt the eyes upon him and a clutch within his chest and guts. Everyone knew; Brandas was a killer second only to Wallia himself. The blade beckoned once more; that blade and the evil, mocking stare his certain death.

  He trotted over to the man with the bow. “Give it,” he ordered, taking the quiver from his shoulders. Then he dismounted, notched the first arrow.

  Brandas he saw look first puzzled, then nonplussed. No Goth would do this to another once fair fight was offered. They would each fight in turns until the wounds weakened him and his death was another’s glory. So it had always been.

  The first arrow took the Karthi in the shoulder with a jolting thud. At such close range the force lifted even such a warrior off his feet. The second struck home in the upper leg and Brandas rolled over with a cry of agony cut-short, face to the ground, the arrow wedged in his shoulder snapping off at the shaft.

  Brandas lay face down, panting, and Herfrig waited, his next arrow notched. Suddenly the Karthi rolled again, reaching for his boot. The arrow pierced the breast plate to the heart and the throwing knife slipped into the grass.

  “Six children, six arrows.” Three more arrows he fired, each thudding into the carcass lying still. Then the wind’s soft whistle was the only sound to be heard.

  The men about him looked away. Herfrig cast aside the bow and quiver, stepped forward to place his boot on the chest – between the arrow shafts. The unseeing eyes looked up at him, disbelieving still. A moment he felt his gorge rise; the burning bitterness he forced back down. He must carry this off or among the people never again carry his head high; if his head they let him keep. For it had not been a fight; it had been a cold-blooded slaying.