Promised Land

by Roger Booth

  He had read all the reports and spoken long to Euplutius and now again to Lucellus. But he had never actually seen Goths before, except for that one short moment long ago; and now the Goth retainers forever by his wife’s side. Nothing could quite prepare you for the sight of those half washed faces framed by lank hair peering out at you from every wagon. And the smell Lucellus had reminded him of, by way of warning.

  The two Goths were chatting away to the others and, left to his own devices, he thought again of what Lucellus had said. Maybe fifty years was not such a bad stab after all. Though quite what his wife had seen in them…?

  More wagons they slipped past, rocking and rumbling. He was determined; his face would show not a single sign that they were riding past one gigantic pig-sty on wheels. Even so, he couldn’t prevent the briefest shake of the head.

  This had been her life. And they had to drag her away from it.

  *

  The laughter of warriors, fists pounding the table; they were near, very near, the foaming flagons of ale, the hips of the serving maids swaying in invitation. Room for room Wallia wandered through the hall. The clink of goblets and strumming fingers of the harp, these he heard through the loud din of the feast. Footsteps; he turned, thinking it the Prince. Nothing and he noticed; no head of bear or tusked wild boar stared down from the walls. Wherever he went, the hall, it was empty; not even rushes scattered on the polished timber floor. But footsteps he heard again, now voices. The fingers of the harpist moved faster, taut the strings, the notes rising higher. He ran from one room to the next, following those fingers in their brittle, nameless search. “Prince of the Hall,” he bellowed, with all his might.

  The valley laughed back up at him in the afternoon light. He had dreamt again; save the footsteps he heard weren’t a dream. Still half dazed, by instinct he slipped back between the bushes and trees; careful not to make a sound.

  Peeking out, he saw Rohilde clambering up the hill, Thorismund sometimes by her side and mostly in her arms, on up the wooded slopes until she found an outcrop of rock, a few yards below him. To show himself now was to admit the foolishness of an old man. So he watched and listened as the boy on her lap rested his head on the younger brother or sister she obviously carried in her belly.

  “See Tolosa, Thorismund,” Rohilde pointed, “see the town.”

  The child sat upright, nodded gravely.

  “The walls, see how they wrap the town safe, like this,” and she squeezed her son against her. “Then there’s the river… all the way to the Ocean it flows, imagine that…miles and miles, all the way to world’s end.” A pause. “The bridges, where do they go? They’re not bridges, they’re the aqueducts…aqu-e-ducts. That’s right, Thorismund. They carry the water. See – follow my finger… water all the way from the hills…”

  The boy murmured something.

  “No, silly, a bucket won’t do. A thousand buckets in each of them, ten thousand, I should say. Water whenever we want, Thorismund, every day, every night, every year. And our water it’ll be, our town. Think of that. Tolosa will be the capital of our new Kingdom, the capital of the Visigoths,” and he heard the pride from yards away.

  As too the young, high-pitched voice: “What’s a Kingdom?”

  “A Kingdom? Well, it’s a nation, with land, with towns and villages. And it’s ruled by a man, wise and brave. That man is the King.”

  “Will I ever be King?”

  “One day, Thorismund, one day. God willing. After your father…” She corrected herself, almost as an afterthought. “After Wallia and your father.”

  On his short legs, Thorismund ran up and down. “I, Thorismund, King of the Visigoths,” he shouted to the wildflowers which shook and nodded, however the wind took them. Soon though the young voice was asking; when they might go back and he run with the other boys – the boys who did not have to wonder whatever a Kingdom might be.

  “Thorismund, look again, my son. Look.” She did not want to go. “Look so you never forget the first time you saw our land.”

  But, however hard she tried, the child would not look. Thorismund turned his face towards her belly, stamped his feet. When she tried to set him right, he whined. When she slapped his legs, he bawled.

  She picked him up, threw him over her shoulders. “Very well.”

  For a moment, the child’s eyes looked straight into the bushes where he sat, quiet and still. Their eyes met, yet he was not seen; as if, already, he was thinned to finest shade.

  After they had left, the boy’s squall already giving over to laughter, he stayed long in the bushes, one more furtive animal on that hillside, mulling the episode he had never been meant to witness. Finally, he crawled out of his hiding place and sat himself down on the same rock from where, as it seemed to him, the woman’s voice he knew so well had spoken over his grave.

  A boat he saw slip down river towards the town, the road to Tolosa empty as most days it was; as if the Romans did not care – or did not dare – to pass by the last caravan of the people. All afternoon he sat in search of the life she had seen; milled wheat’s powdered softness, the solid warmth of coin, from beyond the reach of the aqueducts he imagined the steady chant of plenty. Brick farmsteads he saw and wood barns; piled carts, bulging nets, stone roads, dirt paths, the casual cluster of shacks, the round purpose of town walls. The teeming people he saw were the sons and daughters he had never had; then again, he hardly recognised them. So bright their eyes sparkled, bright as silver, in faces of contented gold.

  Towards nightfall he sat there still, his rock an island amid the dew, watched the blue-blackened sky; the river’s last, flat flaming. The breeze stirred itself, brought by way of tribute the hillside’s soft scent of mould and bracken. Slow and heavy he breathed to the rhythm of swaying branches, the leaves stiffening for the autumn fall, the feathering of an owl’s wings. Rohilde and Thorismund, the lioness and her cub, another cub already on the way; perhaps Herfrig had seen it well, after all.

  An instant, he felt the young arm press about his shoulder as so often it had; tried to picture that other life his sister’s son had chosen. Ringing marble, streets full of torches and screams, atop the hills those brooding, powerless temples; a proud snatch of memories glowed in his mind. Beyond them, Herfrig’s way was shut tight to him behind doors of solid brass. He wouldn’t know where to start.

  The night had crept up on those strutting bridges of stone. By the cloud-muffled starlight, they made barely a line of shadow. God help him. No-one could say he hadn’t tried. But he didn’t like the look of them; not even now.

  XIX

  The next day: in Tolosa

  “Morning, Lucellus, Brodagast!”

  “General,” the respectful answer from Goth and Roman.

  Tolosa on a bright morning of late summer; or the first days of autumn, it was difficult for him to tell. The horses were waiting in the forum, to escort him back out to meet Wallia and, in a strange way, he was looking forward to it. He had always considered himself to be a man of his word – whenever circumstances allowed – and Wallia had earned his lands. It was also the closing of a circle; the final touch to the painting he had conceived five years before – even if that painting had needed retouching more than once along the way.

  As he mounted up, he glanced at the traders, setting up their stalls. No-one seemed interested in what a General and Patrician of the Empire might be about in this sleepy provincial nest. At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel the eyes of the whole town upon him; silently mouthing their heart-felt curses.

  They cantered out through the town gates, past the tents of the Roman camp, nestling snug under the walls. The road began a gentle climb shortly after leaving the camp behind, to the right glimpses of the river, its blue waters fresh against the creeping browns of summer’s end. And, yesterday, a strange ending it had been to a strange day.

  On the approaches to what Radem
er had described as the King’s camp, a group of Goths were waiting; quickly spoke something in their own incomprehensible tongue. Brodagast and Rademer had whispered a moment more.

  “General, you’ll be tired from the journey,” Brodagast had finally declared. “You have quarters ready in the town. The men here will guide you. For the regiment, Lucellus, there’s a field marked out by the walls. You’ll see. Tomorrow morning, General, I’ll come to Tolosa; bring you back here, to meet our King.”

  Odd way of proceeding; but at least they had the decency to let him invite them into Tolosa, rather than simply march in unannounced. He’d looked at Lucellus who clearly had no more idea than he why the Goths were delaying. It had been a long ride, though, and the wine and a bed would do him no harm. And in Tolosa the air would be fresher.

  Not that he had much rest, within the hour a deputation of local Romans in their best togas had been at his door.

  “You have seen the letters?” he asked. “From Dardanus?”

  They had but were in a state of shock and disbelief. He assured them as best he could; of course, they remained Roman citizens under the rule of their Emperor.

  “You have not seen the Goth camps?” one said bluntly.

  The hill steepened through the edges of the woods that, for now, hid the Goth wagon train from the town walls; though, as he had learnt, not the townspeople from their fears. Brodagast led them off the cobbled road onto a track winding deeper into the wooded hillside, cool the dappled shade. Yards further and they were in a clearing edged by a scattering of tents.

  A tall young man came out, followed by Rademer, one other man and a woman, who was obviously with child. The tall man walked over and held up his hand. “Welcome, General, to the camps of our people. I am Theoderic, King of the Visigoths. This is my wife, Queen Rohilde, and this is Harduric. Rademer you know.”

  He had heard of Theoderic from his wife; much more of a woman named Rohilde. But in his moment of complete surprise the names meant nothing. He followed Brodagast and the others in dismounting and glanced over to Lucellus who knew these people best.

  “Theoderic,” asked the Count, voice as unsettled as he felt. “What in the name of God has happened to Wallia?”

  “Afraid he’s dead, Lucellus, died in his sleep. Couldn’t tell you yesterday,” the Goth apologised. “We couldn’t hold a Council until Brodagast and Rademer were back.”

  The slab-faced one, older than Theoderic, spoke up. “He’d been acting strange, the last days, Lucellus.”

  “How so, Harduric?” and the question reminded him of the strange name he had quite lost in the first blur of confusion.

  “Sat on the hillside,” the Goth waved up into the woods. “Hour after hour; hardly spoke a word. Night he died, he hadn’t come down long after dark. I went for him. Found him dead, next to a rock.”

  Theoderic stroked the scabbard hanging to his side.

  “One thing Wallia did say,” completed the man Harduric, “day after we got here. Anything happen to him, Theoderic was to have his sword.”

  The tall Goth drew the sword half into the light. “And you see, General. Fine sword it is.” The blade slid back into the scabbard, with a firm thud of hand guard on the swirling trim. “At Council it was agreed I should be King.”

  The Goths had arranged themselves in a semi-circle behind their new King and Queen. Through the silence he suddenly realised. They were all looking at him. “My wife, the Princess Galla Placidia” he offered. “She always told me, Theoderic; that you would be the next king. And that you, my Lady,” he turned to Rohilde, “would be Queen.”

  There were small nods from the men but the woman Rohilde’s clear blue eyes remained small and hard. To ponder over later: “And Wallia, when is he to be buried? We would want to say farewell to so stout an ally.”

  “Wallia was buried this morning at dawn, General. In the place he had wanted; also something he told Harduric in the last days. Back towards Carcaso, up on the hill. He overlooks the last of our great camps, the end of our last journey through the Empire.” Theoderic paused. There were more nods from the Goths. “Later, if you wish, we can show you the spot.”

  The clearing had fallen silent again but for the call of a bird away in the trees. Lucellus caught his eye, drew his sword. “Hail Theoderic, King of the Visigoths!”

  He understood; drew his own sword in salute.

  From Theoderic a solemn bow of the blond head, behind their King the Goths now grinned wide.

  “We would like to see Wallia’s grave, Theoderic. We’d like that very much.” He sheathed his weapon; put his arm around the younger man. “But first, it seems to me, we have much to discuss.”

  They filed into the largest of the tents; benches set either side of a long table. He excused himself an instant, poked his head outside and spoke to the woman Rohilde, who was shooing the slaves. “My Lady, please forgive me, in the surprise I completely forgot. My wife, Galla Placidia; she asked to be remembered to you.”

  His good intentions were met by a firming of the pale lips, in her eyes ill concealed anger: “Thank you, General,” she said in Latin as good as his own. “I had not forgotten the Princess either; nor who it was you took to wife.”

  *

  From the road Tolosa looked somehow different, she thought, what she could see of it between the bodies in the cavalcade. Ahead rode Theoderic, by his side Constantius and in ranks behind the Goth maistans and Roman officers. She would gladly have ridden with them, but the child to be would not allow. So she sat back in the carriage that the Romans had delivered just before they all left the clearing.

  Wallia’s sudden death and now, equally sudden, the grand day; all true, though she could scarcely credit. Even from such a distance she saw Tolosa’s gates in wide-open welcome.

  Early evening it had been and the light beginning to fade before the Romans had saddled up and headed back to town and the regiment’s camp. Theoderic had dropped onto the seat in their tent with a sigh.

  “Difficult?”

  “These Romans make things so complicated, Rohilde. Just as well Rademer was there or we’d have been completely lost.”

  She bit her lip. “But we have the lands?”

  “Yes, yes, my love,” he reassured her. “They fell over themselves, really. Everything from here to the Ocean and then up to another big river they call the Liger. Rademer’s got a map, he can show you later. They don’t want us in Narbo, but they explained.”

  She looked curious.

  “They’d have to ask permission to march troops from Arelate to Barcino.”

  “Apart from Lucellus and his men, I don’t think they’ve got any.”

  He stroked the back of her hand. “No, but I can see why they’d not want that.”

  So could she. “Then why did it take so long?”

  “Well, there were eight of us for a start,” and his smile she rewarded with a playful cuff. “No, but it was what I said. They want to make everything so complicated. Some lands we get given, others we have a share of the taxes. Some of the landholdings stay just as they are. At one point Euplutius and Rademer were having a private discussion, while the rest of us ate your excellent ham and cheese and talked horses.”

  “The taxes. Where are they paid, Theoderic?”

  “Rademer asked that and we agreed; here, in Tolosa, to the royal treasury. We take our share and pay the rest to Ravenna.”

  She nodded her approval. “Was it decided when we move to Tolosa?”

  “Tomorrow first thing.”

  “So soon?” She drew up a chair for herself, sat to quieten the shock.

  “Aye,”

  “When do they want to see Wallia’s grave?”

  “You know, that’s odd, now you mention it. Constantius seemed most upset about Wallia this morning. It must have completely slipped his mind.”

  Constantius
, it seemed to her, was not the sort of man to let something slip his mind but, for now, other matters pressed more. “What should we wear?” her husband was asking her, rubbing the back of his neck and twisting his head from side to side. “I could always borrow a toga from somewhere.”

  “No toga, Husband. I shall wear fur, you your tunic and sword. This is our land, our ways.”

  So they had done, the Goth maistans dressed in their finest tunics, she and the other ladies in the carriage in light fur cloaks or stoles. Though the day would be warm, it was a small price to pay; to start as they meant to carry on. One other thing she had sought out that evening; Alaric’s gold head band – the one precious item she could not bring herself to bury with her father. Such things had almost passed out of fashion and their kings had never had time to wear a proper crown. They were too busy wearing helmets. Theoderic had hardly dared don the thing and all it spoke for.

  Now they were approaching the valley floor, she saw why the town had looked different. Properly seen, the walls were high, the walls were massive; their walls. Wagons piled with tents and supplies, the Roman regiment was packing in readiness to depart. By the gates she gave a small, nervous wave to Brodagast who had heavily-armed men from the treasury guard already in place. Then, for the first time, she was rattling through the gates of Tolosa to be met by a sea of silent faces, watchful and curious; from this day also somehow their people.

  They swung into the forum, familiar from all the other towns she had ever seen. Except that statue with its sharply drawn stone folds, the blemish to the side of its head, the slabs at its feet worn down by the tread of centuries; they were all hers, all theirs – today, tomorrow and every tomorrow God saw fit to send.

  Theoderic had dismounted and handed her down. Over thick, flaxen hair, the head-band he wore shone with the morning’s sun. “Welcome to Tolosa, my Lady,” he smiled.

  Together they walked to the low timbered platform, flowers at every corner, where the local people stood and waited, from the crisp linen and the purples, landowners and clerics, she presumed. One of the Roman priests spoke stiff, correct words of welcome, while with his officers Constantius stood to one side and looked to her out of sorts and out of place; as if he didn’t quite know why he had even bothered to come.