Promised Land

by Roger Booth

  A freighter was coming into port. They watched as it lowered sail, the oars coming out for the last yards to the wharf. More precious wheat to be carted out to the camps; for desperate hands to reach up and grasp from the wagons.

  “Will you visit me in Ravenna?”

  The question abrupt, Rohilde scraped at the moist, cool sand. She watched a long time for the next small wave to fill the mark of her toes, though her answer she had known in a second. “Once you leave, you will be an Imperial Princess again.”

  Athaulf, her uncle, had once said; how anger is easier than fear. Mother, father, uncle; now Galla Placidia soon to go. And with the Roman went the last breath of her girlhood; the last excuse for delay. “We are friends because we never had to remember who we were,” she said. “In Ravenna you will never be allowed to forget.”

  Her attempted rebuke Galla Placidia brushed aside; seemed instead hugely relieved. “I’m glad you understand.” Then, after a while: “Rohilde, I know you thought me foolish. To come back to this beach with its memories, with its ghosts I think you called them. But, Rohilde, we had to come. You see, I must remember the dead.”

  Rohilde watched as the Roman walked back up the beach, knelt down and chose a handful of pebbles. Slowly, a step at a time, she came back, studying the one tiny stone, brilliant white; immaculate. Lovingly, the fingers stroked the sea-smoothness. Along with another she slipped it quickly into the folds of her yellow gown.

  “This is something I shall never do again. You said it, Rohilde. Something I shall never be allowed to do again.”

  The Roman held up her remaining handful of pebbles, the blood-red lips pressed together, determined and tight. “Here I stand,” she cried. “And these stones cast into the sea.”

  The stones sailed through the stillness of the air to drop into the water sometimes with a loud plug, other times with hardly the smallest splash. Time and again, the slender back arched; a warrior throwing a spear. The yellow and red silk of the dress held tight to the Roman’s knee, to her upper leg, her hip and her breasts.

  The meaning of the little ceremony Rohilde did not fully comprehend. Yet she knew what it was she saw; as if, and only at the last, her friend had revealed the full truth.

  Not a Roman princess, her friend, but a warrior-queen.

  At war with the waves.

  With herself.

  *

  It was blustery. Thin grey clouds shot by overhead and, sometime later that day, there would surely be a sharp squall. For now it was the wind Wallia most noticed. It swirled and gusted through the street where he and the maistans had gathered, the wagon and its escort waiting patiently, a troop of Roman cavalry and the fifty or so Goth horsemen.

  Lucellus, Euplutius and Herfrig stepped out first, followed by Galla Placidia and Elpidia. Theoderic and Rohilde took up the rear. The breakfast had been mercifully brief. If Euplutius had been in any doubt before, he knew by now. Things were far from what people in Ravenna had fondly imagined. This was not the joyful release of a long-pining captive. It felt to Wallia something between a funeral and an execution.

  Herfrig mounted up at the head of that mixed column of Roman and Goth horse; a column he would once have considered strange. Herfrig and he, they had said their brief farewells inside the house. Neither sought out the other as Galla Placidia was handed into the wagon; straight back and perfect dark hair, just as she had always been. With a quiet word to Herfrig and a short salute to each of Lucellus and himself, Euplutius gave the order to move off. Wallia watched as his nephew raised his arm and the horses stepped forward. In a few moments the wagon and horses had turned the corner; the silent echo of an empty street.

  That slender figure of a woman, he had casually picked her up those years ago in her throne room, just one more trophy to sit alongside the jewels and gold of Rome in the royal treasury. Now, in her turn, Galla Placidia had carried off something more precious by far. He didn’t much mind that she took the last of their illusions. They had been painfully threadbare a while now. Perhaps this had even been the last thing she could do for them; her last deed as their Queen.

  Yet Wallia had never felt less joy all his days. Kingship, he had discovered, was a lonely business and Rohilde wouldn’t be in his house much longer. There was always the wine; the battles he was sure they would win. But he felt cold that day to the marrow of his soul and he knew it wasn’t just the sharp, swirling wind that chilled him so.

  As for Galla Placidia, she had looked back just the once, on the angle of the street corner. She hadn’t waved and no-one could remember meeting her gaze. Then, as Rohilde said to him later; she hadn’t been looking at them at all. She had been looking for someone she could not possibly have seen.

  XVI

  The first day of the month of January in the year of our Lord 417: in Rome

  The tramp of their feet rang assured off the marble floor and walls. The corridors he knew well by now, the same corridors his uncle might have trodden years before. Around the one corner they marched then another, heads held straight, and slaves did well to grant them passage. Even the one eunuch they met had judged it wise to stand aside, well-clothed back against the wall, gaze elsewhere.

  Two guards stood either side of the heavy wooden door, spears grounded. At Herfrig’s nod the two men stepped forward to the other side of the corridor, the new guards who had followed him taking their place. Another day, together with the guards he had relieved, he would have marched back the way he had come; today not. He slipped the leather strap from off his shoulder, unbuckled the sword belt about his waist; handed it all to one of the waiting men. A quiet order and the two guards marched away to their quarters.

  Strange to stand there, before the others, unarmed and dressed not in Goth trousers but, like the eunuch they had passed, in a toga. Awkwardly, he pulled the white linen straight on the shoulder where the strap had been a moment before. He knocked on the door, its panels picked out in gold leaf against the heavy white lacquer. With a respectful curtsy a young maid ushered him inside.

  He strode through the ante-chamber, women’s perfumes thickening the air, and then on into the audience room. The chair on the low dais was empty, the gilded throne of the Princess. Around the room, wall-length embroideries hung by windows, by doors; all the colours in the world save for the surrounds always picked out in purple. A rug, also purple, covered the dais and a little space of the floor, for those supplicants granted the honour to kneel so close. The chair was slender, the murals all scenes of women; goddesses from times gone by – in pride of place the goddess with her bow, springing by the wood a deer, pale brown.

  A woman’s room, a room of power; here he was no stranger and here for now he stood. Beyond the double doors, in the private quarters where not even he had ever set foot, he sensed rather than heard the hushed hurry of silken hems.

  Scarce a year; Wallia had argued with him over and again.

  “You are a maistans. Today, if you will, I’ll name you reiks of the Ruthi.”

  “The clans, Uncle; they disappear before our eyes. Rademer, Smiler; new men fill the gaps left by the fallen.”

  “Who’s to tell, Nephew? One day you might be King.” He had noticed. On the future of their, and the other, clans Wallia had not disagreed. “Would you not be King?” his uncle asked, puzzled still.

  “Theoderic will wed Rohilde. He will be the next King, Uncle. I see that; so does every man and woman among the people.”

  “Who knows, Herfrig? A stray arrow…”

  “Or treacherous knife…”

  The words had startled even Wallia.

  “For the people’s sake,” he continued, “let us hope arrows do not stray. So, to be King, I must kill Theoderic, Uncle, with my own hands. Would you have your own kin be the next Sergeric?”

  Wallia had tossed his head so that the room became a sea of angry, grey snakes. “Then stay as maistans, reiks. What
ever you will have men call you. After me, you’ll always be the greatest of the Ruthi. In Rome…”

  “If I see these things, then so will Theoderic.”

  “Theoderic’s straight as his sword’s edge.” Wallia’s voice throbbed with danger; as, towards him, he had never heard.

  “Aye, but if he won’t see me for a foeman, then in time, Uncle, his wife, she will. One day I will speak in haste, a shadow will fall on my smile, or the sun on my scabbard. Then Rohilde will understand; for the sake of her children whisper the words.”

  The great fists balled. He prepared for the blow that would send him crashing to the floor. Inches before him the fierce, animal breath; Wallia’s lungs wheezed as if every rasp would be his last. Then the molten flow of fury across the pocked face chilled into solid rock. “So, Nephew, if this the way of it, then better you do go – otherwise, I might have to slay you myself.”

  He had never stood firm against his uncle before. Perhaps he drew it sharper than was needed; but he was sure he had drawn it true.

  The double doors were thrown open and he sank to one knee, a dry waft of sandalwood filling the room.

  “Thank you,” spoke, softly, her red lips, as he stood tall again; the perfectly painted eyes looking to where his sword would normally hang.

  Her silver crown glistened more, a fountain of blue tinted silver flowing across the dark hair. And she wore no veil. Otherwise, in white dress and saffron shoes, he thought her not so different from that day when, as one among many, he had ridden honour guard behind her carriage, through the streets of Narbo.

  His arm swung in salute across his breast; the crash of mailed glove on armour today a muffled thud of knuckles into the linen folds.

  *

  Constantius climbed the sweeping stairway at a casual pace, turned at the half floor. A gold circle to the ceiling, within the circle were painted Rome’s walls and towers; to one side of the circle a helmeted warrior stepped ashore from a galley, Aeneas arrived from Troy, eyes far-seeing, the cloak sky blue. To the other a wolf nuzzled two babes on a hillside, their young bodies pink against the grey stone.

  Just a few minutes more and he would finally join the Imperial family, the descendants of Aeneas; of Romulus and Remus. He supposed he ought to feel a sense of triumph, perhaps even elation. One day, they might get round to doing a painting of him. But those years ago, in that cavalry camp by the highway, who could ever have imagined?

  It had been something of a shock when she arrived that afternoon in Arelate; Euplutius, a small troop of Lucellus’ cavalry and a large band of Goths – and that young Goth evidently in command of them all.

  “Wallia’s taken it a little too much to heart?” he said, nodding towards the young Goth handing the Princess out of the carriage. All this with a broad smile. Euplutius had done a difficult task and done it well.

  “General… please forgive me: Lord Patrician. The Goths… they’re Her Highness’s new bodyguard, as she calls them; her Imperial bodyguard.”

  A formal bow to the Princess; then Euplutius he had hauled into a side chamber.

  “Sit.”

  After a pause: “It is… The marriage to Athaulf, the Goth King… my Lord, that marriage, it was not as we thought.”

  His most trusted agent was looking at the floor, at the ceiling.

  “So, then; how was it?”

  “My Lord…”

  “Yes,” he had thundered.

  “The marriage… it had… it was… It was with consent. It was with the consent of Her Highness.”

  At once he had known it was true – the man’s manner, to be sure. But, were it not so, it would be vilest calumny against the Imperial House. Euplutius could count himself lucky to be crucified. He placed a calming hand on the twitching shoulders.

  “Tell me.”

  From the top of the stairs, he lent against the stone railings, shook his head, incredulous still. It ran in the family; first Honorius, now Galla Placidia. It would have been comic, if it hadn’t been so damned serious. Apparently, he had not been blockading and fighting rebellious barbarians the past years. He had been obstructing the policy of her Imperial Highness, Galla Placidia. And that policy consisted of uniting the whole world, in her person, with the chieftain of a barbarian tribe who called himself King.

  He sauntered down the passage way, followed by his small honour guard. He had made sure he was the first to arrive. One great room among many in the palace, the mosaic floor was a rainbow swirl about an eagle, talons grasping at prey. On one wall a painting of an Emperor a-seat at council, fingers raised, not so different from the Christ and his apostles. On the opposite wall an Emperor in battle armour; he wondered which Emperor had sat for these. Whoever it was, it had surely not been Honorius or else the painter was the greatest jester the world had ever known.

  He walked to the doorway by the balcony; tipped the door open just a fraction – so as not to be seen by the crowd massing below. The chill of January he felt invade the room; together with an excited murmur.

  Their meeting in Arelate had been frosty. He certainly couldn’t tell her the plain truth; that while she apparently had been grieving her dead husband, everyone else – from Arelate to Alexandria – had been dancing in the streets.

  He hadn’t altogether been surprised by the barbarians at first, barbarian not a word his wife-to-be approved of by the way. Maybe Dardanus had over-reacted about the grain; the man was a pompous fool. But that marriage; it made you wonder what Athaulf had been thinking about, if he’d been thinking much at all. Then the woman had something he could not quite put his finger on. Man to man, and across the grave, he’d give Athaulf that.

  The sound of footsteps, not the Princess for sure; they were military boots marching to time. He listened, the hairs rising. The guard he’d left outside was unarmed, with Honorius in attendance it could not be otherwise. But, after Stilicho… It said something when even a Princess wanted her own personal guard.

  The boots came on at military pace; stamped to a halt. One of the Imperial eunuchs glided into the room with an obsequious bow.

  The eunuch pulled back the heavy drapes, set the doors half-open; from the corridor he returned followed by six uniformed trumpeters. They stood to attention, three along either wall, ready to march outside. The eunuch measured the room, came to him and bowed.

  “If my Lord Patrician will stand here.”

  The eunuch peered outside, measured the room once more. Satisfied, he took his place beside one troop of trumpeters, hands folded and eyes humbly downcast.

  He took his cue from the eunuch’s almost trance-like silence; slow, long breaths. It was almost done, this thing. Despite all her follies, nothing had changed since that first meeting with Wallia by the highroad. She was the daughter of Theodosius. For his sake, for the Empire’s sake, they would have to marry. God preserve him.

  The only time she had deigned to talk normally at all was when he mentioned they’d caught the traitor Attalus.

  “Attalus is my good friend.”

  Nothing surprised him any more. Seeing a chance, he suggested clemency to Honorius. Mutilation and banishment the traitor had received; unheard of, an astonishing reprieve. For him a withering glance; even when plotting against the Empire, the Lady’s friends deserved better of the man who would be her husband.

  He had not been the only one to remark on her strange ways. In the end, it was Honorius who had asked; what in heavens to do with his awkward, and awkwardly unmarried, sister.

  “Majesty, what safer place than the most loyal arm in your Empire?”

  “Excellent, Constantius. My thoughts entirely,” so Honorius, relieved as a horse-trader who’s just offloaded a nag good only for glue. Even then it had taken two meetings between brother and sister before he’d been told. On the first day of the New Year he would be made consul. And, on the same day, the throne and its senior gener
al would also be joyfully united before the world.

  Other sounds in the corridor, women’s sounds. The eunuch sprang awake, glided to the doorway. “Highness.” The eunuch’s fawning salute he saw met with precisely measured disdain. “If Your Highness would be so gracious to step this way?”

  She stood an arm’s length from his side and he cast a quick glance. The beguiling Eastern scent and, beneath the brilliance of her crown, the dark eyes that drew you in and spat you out. If he hadn’t known all he did, it might be a rare pleasure. And, in case he should forget, his bride-to-be had kindly thought to remind him. Her leaving aside the veil he quite understood. It was not, after all, her first time. The presence amongst her ladies of the tall Goth Erfrigius, draped ridiculously in that toga; unfortunately, this he understood as well.

  *

  The swelling roar; to judge from the din the forum must be black with heads though the balcony parapet blocked her view. The people, they cheered. She wondered what they would do if they only knew?

  She wondered also which was more distasteful; the grovelling eunuch or the little man, trying to pretend he wasn’t watching her from the corner of his eye. Look your fill, she thought. Look also at Herfrig and wonder; what you daren’t even think. From the first moments in Arelate, the little General’s eyes had been grasping. Even now, they tried to read her mind. Dressed in full uniform, red paludamentum about his shoulders – she thought back to that special day in Narbo when Athaulf had worn the selfsame cloak; and in the cloak had looked twice the man.

  “Except he won, dearest Sister,” as her loving brother had once said. Lord only knew how she had restrained herself. Through the bile she had coughed up the whole night after; she knew. The last years had not been a victory for the Empire. At best, they had been a victory for a Ravenna that only saw what it wanted to see.

  Now by Ravenna’s rules she must survive. And by those rules, her brother could – had – ordered her to accept Constantius.