by Paul Waters
We stared out. A band of Saxons had swarmed on deck. They cut the ship’s moorings, and slowly the vessel parted from the quayside, drawn by the tidal current.
The Saxons began jumping about, waving their swords in the air, howling and barking out threats in their uncouth tongue. (There had been a large store of wine in the warehouses.) The captain of the merchantman cried, ‘What fools are they? They are bringing her up to the city. Can they not see there is not the depth?’
At this, a shiver of fear spread along the crowd on the wall. The city was weakest from its river side.
But the Saxons had put out before they had mastered the rigging or the steering oar. As the distance from the quayside grew, the current strengthened. Their wild cries died in their mouths. They ran to the starboard rail, scrambled around, then cast out the lanyard to their friends on the shore.
Yet already they were too far out. The lanyard fell short, dropping limply into the water. Slowly the ship yawed out into midstream, gathering way as it was seized by the full force of the current. For a moment they gaped – at the water, at one another, at their barbarian friends gesturing wildly from the shore. Then one leapt, and in quick succession the others followed, dropping into the swirling water like stones, still clad in their heavy furs and sword belts.
Some made it to the far bank; but most we did not see again. Like many seafarers, Saxons are poor swimmers. And then it was our turn to howl and whoop and cheer.
The Council took charge, distributing food from the municipal granaries, organizing work-gangs to pull down derelict buildings for their bricks, which were used to patch up the neglected city wall.
Word was that an old aristocrat by the name of Quintus Aquinus had been recalled from retirement, and Balbus told me it was owing to this one man that the city continued to function at all, for the rest of the Council, the ruling magistrates and the decurions were, he said, incompetent.
I listened to all this with half an ear, not knowing that this man Aquinus would later bring so many changes to my life. At the time I merely reflected that, although Balbus had no good word for the city government, yet he himself had contrived not to serve; and Lucretia had plotted that Albinus, when he came of age and was made a priest, would not have to serve either – Christian priests being exempt from public service by order of the emperor. Little wonder the government was incompetent, I thought, if all men did as he.
Balbus was not a man who was able to cope with leisure. There was no trade, there were no ships, the market was empty, and the gates were closed. He went from the house to the office, and from the office to the house, like a man trying to escape his own shadow.
Lucretia snapped at him, or squabbled with the servants, or went off to pray; and I, to get away from them both, took to spending my time at the baths and the gymnasium.
On one such day, returning by way of the forum, I saw a crowd gathered on the steps of the basilica, waiting under the columns by the high bronze double-doors of the Council chamber. As I approached someone called my name. It was Ambitus.
‘What news?’ I asked, crossing to him.
‘They’re talking still. They’re going to send another envoy to plead with the emperor.’
‘Another? But what of the first? Did the Saxons get him then?’
‘Oh, he reached the court safe enough,’ he said, giving me a dry look, ‘but Constans told him he could spare no men.’
I stared at him. ‘Then what does the emperor expect us to do?’
‘He says the cities must look to their own defence.’
I cast my eyes over the crowd of frightened citizens – urban poor, merchants, artisans, bureaucrats – and shook my head. These people were no match for the blind, unreasoning violence that the Saxons brought.
We were standing beside one of the great columns. A man near us who had overheard – an old country farmer in a homespun smock – cried, ‘Then why are we bled white for taxes, if the emperor will not protect us?’
There were shouts of agreement, and he went on, ‘Better to keep our money and raise an army of our own, one that the emperor can’t call away whenever it suits him. That’s what I say.’
‘And who’s going to fight in your army, old man?’ cried a youth dressed in the drab garment of a minor official. ‘Will you?’
‘Go on and laugh!’ the farmer shouted back, waving his stick. ‘I lost everything – my house, my slaves, and all my livestock. You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face when you go hungry.’
At this, everyone began arguing.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Ambitus.
We descended the steps, and drew away across the great rectangular open space of the forum, with its surrounding colonnade of shops and offices. In the street we paused at a wine-stall. Ambitus ordered two cups of watered wine.
‘If you ask me,’ I said, leaning on the stone counter beside him, ‘that old farmer’s right. The Saxons would not be here if Constans had not called the garrison troops away.’
‘Perhaps so. But it’s not something the emperor cares to hear, and I’m not going to be the one to tell him.’ He took a gulp from the cup, spat the wine back out of his mouth, and scowled down into the opaque liquid. ‘What’s this?’ he cried at the stallholder. ‘Vinegar?’
The man gave an indifferent shrug. ‘The beer’s better. You should have asked for that instead. Haven’t you heard? There’s a siege on.’
Ambitus tossed the contents of the cup on the ground, and, without asking, took a raisin-cake from an earthenware dish on the counter and bit into it.
‘What’s the matter with Balbus?’ I said. ‘Have you noticed?’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed. York shook him badly. He thinks death, and Saxons, are something that happen to other people, not him.’
‘He said the Saxons would not come.’
‘He says what he wants to believe. But now they are here.’
‘Do you suppose he is afraid?’
‘Come Drusus, aren’t you? You’d be a fool if you weren’t. You know, I’ve stopped going onto the walls these last days, because every time I see one of those grinning savages I don’t sleep at night. Have you any idea what they would do to us if ever they broke in?’ He paused and chewed. ‘Well, you’ve heard the stories; every man has . . . and every woman too.’
He turned and looked towards the great open square of the forum, absently regarding the marble statues that lined the basilica roof.
‘Still,’ he said, ‘we have something to thank the Saxons for.’
‘Oh? And what’s that?’
He lifted his little black simian brows and gave me one of his ironic looks. ‘Haven’t you noticed? The Christians are nowhere to be seen. The townsfolk are saying the disaster is a sign of the gods’ anger.’
I too had heard this rumour. The old gods had protected Rome. What could we expect, people said, when time-honoured observances were thrown over and ancient shrines desecrated? I thought of the little temple of Isis, in the walled garden near my uncle’s house. It had long been the haunt of pigeons and vagrants; but lately, if I rose early and went out before first light, I caught the glimmer of a candle or a lamp in the shadows, and sometimes a morsel of food – an apple or a flat-cake – placed on the threshold as an offering.
With a laugh I said, ‘Well, I did not expect I’d find a reason to praise the Saxons.’
But Ambitus looked serious. ‘A drowning man will cling to anything, if he thinks it will save him.’ He blew down his nose and looked disdainfully at the forlorn crowd, milling about on the basilica steps. ‘Look at them; they wait like sheep at feeding time, for someone to tell them they have nothing to fear. Why should the gods listen now? They have never listened before.’
Later I found Balbus sitting alone in his office, by the light of a single lamp. His eyes were puffy and red.
I told him what I had heard at the forum, and he listened in silence, staring into the lamp-flame with such a look of anguish that I wished I had ke
pt the news to myself.
When I had finished he said with a sigh, ‘Let the Council send another envoy. And if Constans still will not listen, send another after.’ He planted his heavy chin in the ball of his palm and gazed down at the desk. For once it was tidy. I do not know what he had been doing all day. Then, looking up, he said with sudden vehemence, ‘But these Saxons are like flies: swat them away and an instant later they are back. We gave them gold. What more do they want?’
There was a scratch at the door; a nervous office-boy edged in, carrying a tray of refreshments. He must have been no more than ten years old. He set the tray down on a side-table, a pretty olive-wood import from Spain with delicate fluted legs, which my uncle had kept for himself.
‘Good lad,’ said Balbus absently, as the boy withdrew.
I saw the child smile at the acknowledgement and leave happy. In spite of the collapse in trade he had dismissed no one, knowing they had nothing else and would go hungry. It was a secret we kept from my aunt. Reflecting on this, and seeing his bleak face staring at the empty desk, I was filled with a sudden pity for him. He was like a ship becalmed, waiting for a change in an element he could not control.
I went to the side-table, filled a cup from the pitcher and took it to him.
‘All this—’ he began, gesturing behind him at the racks of stored tablets and scrolls, records of suppliers and transactions and stocks. But he shook his head and did not go on, and stared down into his cup. ‘I am truly sorry about your father,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘We were not close; I suppose you have guessed that for yourself. But he was a decent, honourable man, and you are a credit to him. I know you have not been happy, and I am sorry for it.’
He sighed and looked up. ‘You are a young man now. Have you considered what you will do? I may as well tell you, I had hoped you might join me; by God you are more help than that good-for-nothing son of mine, and more deserving.’ He shook his head. ‘But what is the use of all this effort, unless a man can defend what is his from those who would rather take it than build something for themselves?’
I had been doing some thinking of my own that year, and now I answered, ‘We shall drive the Saxons off, Uncle, for we are better men. But only so long as we are willing to fight them. That is why I will be a soldier, if I can find a way.’
He looked at me surprised. But then he slowly nodded.
‘You are right. We have lost the will; and soon we shall lose the knowledge too, like the masons who can no longer build as our forefathers did, and know only how to patch and mend. We have grown soft, and entrusted our safety to others, while we sit like women, trembling and helpless behind our walls.’
He gave a long sigh. ‘Well, we have brought it upon ourselves. Look at me: I am fat and old before my time, and what use now are the gold coins buried in my cellar? They will not buy me life, or self-respect. Every year the barbarians return, and every year there are more of them. One day they will drive us from the land and burn our cities, and we shall be blown away like lamp smoke in a gale.’
He ceased, and I stared at him. The bleakness of his vision chilled me. I said, ‘But Uncle, it need not be so. The Saxons are only men, and so are we.’
He gazed at me like a condemned man peering from the window of his cell. ‘The voice of brave youth,’ he said. ‘Yet sometimes youth can teach old age wisdom.’ He shoved pointlessly at the few papers on his desk. ‘Take no notice of me, lad; I am being foolish. Go and become a soldier. I honour you for your choice, whatever others may say. And perhaps, with God’s grace, you may do some good.’
FOUR
HARD WINTER CAME ON. Gales scythed up the river from the east, stripping the last dead leaves from the trees, whipping them in swirling eddies against the white- and ochre-painted walls of the houses. Then the wind swung westwards, bringing low cloud and a steady, fine rain, which sat on one’s hair, and crept through winter cloaks and tunics.
Beyond the walls, the Saxons were discovering it was easier to break than to build. They ranged around the treeless flatlands outside the city, wet and hungry; everything that might have sustained them, they had already destroyed.
Then one morning we woke to blue skies and sunlight and deserted fields. All that day the citizens looked out from the walls, not daring to venture outside, suspecting a trap.
The Council convened. It was said that the Saxons, being unable to take the city by force, had resorted to trickery, withdrawing only to lure us out. The magistrates deliberated and came up with a plan, calling for volunteers. They would lead out a train of carts piled with food and wine-jars from the city store: if the Saxons were lying in wait, these easy pickings would surely bring them out, like meat thrown to starving wolves.
Next day, we watched from the walls as the mule-carts set out into open country, led by a band of nervous men armed – uselessly – with forks and pikes. Everyone scanned the horizon. But nothing stirred in the oak woods on the rising ground to the north; no one emerged from the concealing walls of the ruined farms. The south was clear, all the way to where the hills began to rise and the land was lost from view.
We asked ourselves where the Saxons had gone, and why. Then, on the following morning, came our answer, emerging out of the dawn mist from the east: rank upon rank of armoured men, marching beneath banners of purple and black and gold, with the low winter sun glancing off their burnished helmets and gilded standards – Roman standards, Roman eagles. It was the imperial army.
A great cheer echoed along the ramparts. As news spread, it was picked up by those in the streets, until it seemed the whole city was cheering.
The army halted on the south side of the river, among the burnt-out villas. A troop of horsemen separated from the rest and took the road to the bridge: straight-backed men in plumed helmets and scarlet cloaks; and in their midst, upon a horse of purest white, a man resplendent in a gold cuirass and helmet, trailing a cloak of purple from his shoulders.
I was on the walls with Ambitus. Down the line a voice asked, ‘What general is that?’
Someone else cried, ‘It’s no general, look again! It’s the emperor himself, come to save us!’
The man who had spoken began dancing a clumsy jig. Everywhere there was merriment and laughing.
The city gates were thrown open; the magistrates hastily assembled. From across the bridge the emperor approached, accompanied by the officials of the imperial household: the grand chamberlain in a fur-collared cloak bordered with bullion; the under-chamberlains, the Marshal of the Court, the Tribune of the Stable, the Master of Offices, the Count of the Imperial Purse, and, following behind them, in strict hieratic order, their liveried clerks and notaries and quaestors.
The emperor sat rigid like a statue, not looking left or right, his features fixed into a look of sublime arrogance; Constans, youngest son of Constantine, of the house of Constantine, a man less than thirty, with the power of a god.
‘Today,’ said Ambitus dryly, ‘it seems everyone is the emperor’s friend.’
I nodded and said nothing, for that was not the place to express what was in my mind. I was glad, in all that noise and wild joy, to have Ambitus’s sardonic presence beside me. I felt a strange solitude. I was in no mood to cheer and laugh. Constans may have driven off the Saxon pirates, but all I could think was that below me in the road, riding on his fine white horse, was the man who had decreed my father’s death.
‘A crossing in winter!’ came Balbus’s voice, echoing from his study. ‘Can anyone remember such a thing?’
‘Not I,’ said Ambrosius the cloth-merchant, and others spoke up in agreement. Lucretia and Albinus were there, with a crowd of his business friends.
‘Ah, there you are, Drusus!’ he cried, seeing me at the door. ‘Did I not tell you we had nothing to fear? I intend to charter a fleet, and bring in wine and spiced sauces, and glassware and Iberian plate. With the army present, there will be demand for luxuries; and gold to pay for them.’
He laughed with pleasure and
beamed at his companions. From the corner Lucretia muttered, ‘Praise be to God!’ and fluttered her fingers at me in a gesture of dismissal. I left them talking business and money, and went off to find Sericus.
Constans had made landfall on the flat sands near Richborough. The Saxons, having sacked the town and fort there, had moved on, leaving their black longships where they beached them. Our army, advancing inland, had cornered the main horde in the farm country between Dover and London.
What had followed could hardly be called a battle: the Saxons, faced with a wall of locked shields and trained men, had turned and fled. They were scavengers at heart, and thieves; they were content to rape and murder and burn, but they lacked the discipline to organize themselves into a fighting force. They scattered like barn-rats before a pack of terriers, heedless of the safety of their comrades, and as they fled they ran into Constans’s second column, advancing from beyond the ridge.
The few that escaped reached the coast only to find their ships burned, and our men waiting.
Constans was no strategist and had sense enough to know it. He brought with him his most accomplished general – his name was Gratian – and placed him in command of the campaign. While Gratian was busy fighting, Constans attended church in London, and the bishop attended Constans, fussing and clucking about him like a mother-in-law at a wedding.
But elsewhere, away from the sycophancy and adulation, people quietly said the old gods had heeded the prayers of the people. They reminded one another that the stormy winter sea had stayed calm while Constans crossed with his bulky troop-carriers, and the sun shone during Gratian’s campaign.
The Christians condemned such talk, calling it superstition and devilry. They had a new champion – the emperor himself – who was one of them. And yet, for all the emperor’s show of public piety, it was whispered (I heard it from Ambitus) that when it came to deciding upon war or peace, or considering the propitious time for a sea-crossing, it was the astrologers and diviners he turned to, not the Christian priests. These ancient seers would study the motions of the planets, and inspect the dissected livers of beasts, and see in them the answers that he sought.
