The Half-Slave

by Trevor Bloom

  He saw the girl get to her feet and walk out through the trees towards the grassy sweep of the riverbank. On impulse, he rose and followed her. An old path ran along the riverbank. She turned, saw him and walked on. He fell into step beside her, pushing through knee-high grasses and weeds that rustled softly. They walked together in silence, no more than a hand’s breadth between them, their shoulders hunched against the river wind, listening to the frogs croaking in the marshes. She did not look at him again but kept her eyes before her as if waiting for him to speak.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘How do you think I feel,’ she said, without malice.

  He let it go.

  ‘I’m leaving for Gesoriac tomorrow. I have to warn the Franks the Saxons are coming.’

  ‘What will become of us?’

  ‘You should go to Tornacum. You will be safer there.’

  ‘Will you help us?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and paused. ‘Can Lucullus be trusted?’

  She thought before answering. ‘Yes, you can trust him.’

  ‘He wouldn’t betray me?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Lucullus would never do that.’ She thought for a moment and then said, ‘Is there anyone you trust, Carver?’

  He turned away, thinking she was laughing at him, but the idea that he had forgotten how to trust shocked him.

  They were passing a small ruined building that stood back from the river, half buried in a grove of trees. Ascha glanced around. A stone altar covered with weeds and broken walls patched with red plaster. The pillars that had once supported a roof of baked tiles lay in the long grass like bones on a beach.

  ‘What is that place?’ he said, wanting to hear her talk.

  She gave the ruin a fleeting look. ‘It’s a shrine,’ she said. ‘The Romans had many gods before they accepted the true faith.’

  He gazed at her in surprise, ‘Do you have a faith?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what I believe.’

  ‘You should have a faith,’ she said. ‘You are not God to decide your own destiny.’

  He swept a hand like a scythe through the grass and breathed in deep. ‘I’ve learned to carve my own destiny,’ he said. ‘It’s better that way.’

  ‘You can’t find truth on your own,’ she said.

  Her hair had come loose. She took a comb and wound her hair in a coil and deftly tied it, her bracelets jangling faintly at her wrists.

  ‘You believe your god protects you?’

  ‘I believe it every moment of every day,’ she said.

  He shook his head, her quiet conviction suddenly irritating. ‘Where was your god when my mother was taken as a slave?’ he said, hearing the dry rasp in his voice. ‘And where was he when Sigisberht came calling?’

  He regretted the words as soon as they had left his mouth.

  She turned and faced him. Her eyes glistened and her cheeks were flushed.

  ‘You are right. God was not there to protect me!’ she said. ‘But God made sure that man paid for what he did to me.’

  He pictured Sigisberht sprawled on his back with the girl’s knife in his eye. No arguing with that, he thought.

  A strand of hair had fallen, and she pushed it back behind her ear. And it was with that small gesture he felt something he had not felt before. He no longer cared about her life with Octha, or what had happened with Sigisberht. He loved her, and that was all there was to it. The realization came to him with no surprise, and it occurred to him that he had always known.

  Chastened, he said, ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

  She glanced at him, and her face softened. ‘You are a good man, Carver, but you want too much. It is not wise to reach so high.’

  ‘You think I should stay a half-slave, digging shit-pits and waiting on tables for the rest of my life?’ he said hoarsely. All he had ever wanted was to be the same as his brothers. To be free of the shame and the feeling of worthlessness that had dogged him as long as he could remember.

  ‘No, but everything you could be is already within you. Work for the Franks if you must but none of this will bring you peace of mind. Only you can give yourself that.’

  She picked up her skirts and left him, her small strong back driving her on.

  He watched her go and wondered what his mother would have made of her.

  The next morning, Ascha crawled out of his blanket as a pale cold light moved up from the east. He sat for a moment trying to open his eyes and then he pulled on his boots, picked up his long-knife and pushed it in his belt.

  He shook Tchenguiz by the shoulder. ‘C’mon! We have work to do.’

  While Tchenguiz rolled their blankets and saddled their mounts, Ascha kicked Lucullus awake and took him aside.

  ‘I want you to do something for me,’ he said.

  Lucullus said nothing.

  Ascha hesitated. ‘I want you and Gydda to take the old man, Hanno and Herrad to Tornacum. Cross the bridge at Ceuclum and take the stone road south. When you get there, go to the Basilica and ask for Flavinius. Tell him I sent you. Ask him to send the Greek physician to my brother and to Octha. There is a mansio, an inn, outside the town walls on the road to Lutetia Parisi. Put the old man there. Then go to Flavinius and stay there until I come for you.’

  Ascha pulled out the leather bag of coins that Flavinius had given him and handed it to Lucullus. ‘Take this. Buy whatever you need.’

  Lucullus shook the bag and tapped out a few solidi into his palm, the gold gleaming brightly in the sunshine. He touched the tiny coins with his finger and looked at Ascha in astonishment.

  Ascha gripped him by the arm.

  ‘Do this for me and I will reward you, Lucullus. But if you abandon them or harm them in any way, I will come for you, I will find you and I will hang you from the highest tree.’

  ‘I understand,’ Lucullus said.

  Ascha took the reins of his horse from Tchenguiz. He tightened the girth and then threw himself on its back.

  Gydda grinned and raised a huge hand. ‘Gydda will see you both in Tornacum,’ he said. Lucullus weighed the bag of gold in his hand and gave Ascha a tight smile. Ascha and Tchenguiz wheeled their horses. They twisted in the saddle, waved goodbye to Octha and the girl and then they headed west.

  26

  Ge soriac. A walled town on the cliff top on the edge of the sea. Below the town, at the foot of the cliffs was a small harbour strewn with vessels and fringed by a cluster of tiny grey houses. The Frankish warcamp lay on the cliffs outside the town and was a shambling city of wagons, tents and makeshift huts.

  They had ridden all day and through the night. They arrived sore and weary. In the camp Frankish troops repaired weapons, whetting blades and re-hafting spears. Horsemen rode up and down between the tents, harness jingling, yelling at men to get out of their way. There were shouts and cries and the harsh din of armourers beating iron. The wind brought the dry smell of dust and horse dung mingled with the tang of the sea.

  Bauto’s tent lay in the middle of the camp. Ascha pulled up and slid achingly to the ground. He handed the reins to Tchenguiz and approached the tent. This time there was no delay. As soon as he gave his name, he was admitted. His star was rising.

  Inside, all was stir and bustle. Bauto sat on one side of a long plank table, talking to two high-born Franks. Armed Antrustions flanked his seat, a fighter watched the doorway, and a crowd of clerks armed with scrolls crowded the back of the tent.

  ‘Ah, it’s you, Saxon,’ Bauto said when he saw him. ‘I’d given you up for lost.’ He gave him a big leathery smile and clasped Ascha’s hand. He gestured to the Franks. ‘You know Lords Charibald and Ingoald.’

  Ascha gave them a stiff nod. ‘We be of one blood,’ he said courteously.

  The Franks were tall men, heavy in build but without fat. Charibald wore the crushed nose of a fighter and a grizzled beard, while Ingoald had a thick moustache and an old war wound in the middle of his fore
head deep enough to hold three fingers. They glanced at him casually as if he were dirt on their boot.

  Still the half-slave.

  Bauto placed both hands on his knees and leaned forward. ‘What news?’

  ‘We came here direct from the Rhinemouth. The Saxon fleet has sailed.’

  The three of them stared at him open mouthed. ‘When?’

  ‘The day before yesterday.’

  ‘Holy Tiw!’ said Bauto. He lurched to his feet, looked around the room and slowly sat down again.

  A long silence while they took it in.

  ‘How long do we have?’

  ‘One day, perhaps two,’ Ascha said. ‘They’re sailing into a head wind which will have slowed them down some, but they can’t be far behind us.’

  Charibald flashed a glance at Bauto and leaned in.

  ‘Which way are they heading?’ he said.

  ‘South of Gesoriac. Probably the mouth of the Samara. I think they’re making for Parisi,’ he said with conviction, quietly pleased he had the last piece of information.

  ‘That’s a long haul,’ Ingoald said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You sure of this?’ Bauto burst out. ‘Saxons can’t be trusted. You of all people should know that.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sure.’

  He told them how he had discovered Hanno on the beach at Thraelsted and what Hanno had overheard.

  Bauto scratched his chin and then grinned, showing big white teeth.

  ‘There always was more to you than a half-slave,’ he said with a sly smile. ‘Think of what you could have done if you’d been born a free man?’

  Bauto saw the look on Ascha’s face and barked with sudden laughter. ‘Na, you’ve done well,’ he said. He slapped Ascha on the back and turned to speak to a slave. The slave went away and came back with bread, sausage and wine. Bauto sloshed the wine into beakers and handed them round. ‘Here’s to victory!’ he said, holding up his beaker. ‘And the slaughter of our enemies.’

  ‘To Victory!’ the Franks shouted, ‘and the slaughter of our enemies.’

  Charibald and Ingoald tipped their heads back and drank. They then smacked their lips, laughed and held out their beakers for more. Ascha, still smarting from Bauto’s jibe, took a mouthful of wine and let it trickle down his throat. If he had been born free, he wondered, would his life have been different? And would he have grown up like his father, or like Hanno or Hroc?

  He shook his head, with no way of knowing.

  The sky was vastly blue and distant, swept with wisps of white cloud. Ascha sat on his horse looking out over an ocean that was wide, clean and empty. The wind gusted, nudging his cloak and bringing the smell of the sea, warm and thick.

  That morning, he and Tchenguiz had watched Bauto lead the Frankish army out of Gesoriac, the column winding south like some vast iron-clawed serpent. They had sat on their horses by the side of the road and watched the wagons trundle by, listening to the rattle of harness, the scrape of iron on leather and the sullen tramp of booted feet.

  Now the air was full of listless heat.

  The sun beat down with all its aching power, flashing off helmets, prickling the men’s eyes and flaming their pale northern skin.

  A month earlier and all this would have been a sea of soft-swaying wheat, but now the fields were stubble and dry earth. The dust rose in clouds, working its way under their shoulder straps, rubbing their shoulders raw. Every man chewed the grit kicked up by the man in front.

  He drew a flask from his belt and pulled out the stopper with his teeth. Dribbling water on his neckcloth, he rubbed it about his face and under his chin. He was beginning to feel uneasy. They’d seen nothing of the Saxon fleet, not a ripple. Even with the winds against them, the fleet should be in sight. Ascha sighed and wiped his brow. He drank from the flask, retied his neckscarf and then turned his horse to the south.

  Mid-afternoon Ascha and Tchenguiz came upon Bauto and his captains. They were by the side of the road watching the scara go by. Ascha dismounted. The Franks had barely greeted him when there was the sound of drumming hooves and two scouts rode up and reined in. Their horses were covered in dust and sweat and looked worn out. The men slid off their horses and saluted wearily.

  ‘What do you have?’ said Bauto.

  ‘Nothing, Lord. We have searched the coast in both directions but there’s no sign of them.’

  Bauto scowled and flashed Ascha an accusing look.

  Ascha bit his lip. ‘It’s not possible,’ he said. He had a sudden bile-sharp foretaste that something was wrong. Where was the fleet? How could they have been delayed this long?

  ‘Maybe they went back to Frisia.’ Bauto said.

  ‘No, he has to make his move now or he’ll lose his chance.’

  ‘You’re sure it was below Gesoriac?’ Bauto said.

  Ascha shook his head with irritation. They’d been over this. ‘That’s what Hanno heard Radhalla say before they staked him.’

  He felt a sudden shudder of doubt. He and Bauto both looked at one another sharing the same thought.

  ‘He’s tricked you, you stupid prick!’ Bauto said and gave an angry laugh.

  Ascha clawed his fingers through his hair. If the information was wrong then either Radhalla had changed his mind or Radhalla had never planned to land south of Gesoriac. Which meant that Hanno had deliberately misled him or Radhalla had cold-bloodedly staked Hanno out on the mud and given him false information, knowing that if found alive he would pass it on.

  Ascha felt sick to the pit of his stomach. Somehow, he’d been duped and his hopes of obtaining his freedom and taking revenge on Radhalla were drifting like summer mist.

  ‘But if he’s landed, where the fuck is he?’ said Ingoald.

  ‘Could be anywhere between the Rhine and Hispania,’ Charibald muttered darkly.

  ‘No,’ Bauto said. ‘He has to be further north, somewhere along this coast, or we would have seen them.’

  Ascha swivelled in the saddle and looked back along the cliffs. And then it came to him. ‘He’s not raiding the coast. He’s already broken out. He’s driving inland.’

  ‘Inland? But where to?’

  ‘Tornacum. He’s making for Tornacum,’ he said and felt his stomach churn.

  They looked at him blankly.

  ‘He’ll not do it,’ Charibald breathed. ‘He wouldn’t dare.’

  Bauto’s face was set hard. ‘He might. And if he succeeds in punching his way through to Tornacum…’ He let his words drift.

  The Franks looked at each other, and Ascha knew what they were thinking. The Overlord was in Tornacum, as was the treasure house of the Franks, and the grave of Childeric, father of the Frankish nation. Take Tornacum and you could go anywhere, Colonia, Cambarac, Parisi, the Rhine. The Franks would be headless and with the Frankish scara chasing their own tail in the south, there’d be nothing to stop you. You’d be master of northern Gallia in weeks, and the Overlord’s dreams for Greater Francia would be no more than a fireside memory. Ascha swore viciously. But that wasn’t all, was it? Because he’d sent Octha and the girl to Tornacum. And Hanno! He’d put his brother and his friends right in the path of the Saxon host. He’d been so sure of himself and now they were all in mortal danger.

  ‘He might already be there,’ Charibald said gloomily.

  ‘No, not yet,’ Bauto said. ‘But he’s got a head start. And it will take us time to turn the army around and send word to Syagrius and Ragnachar.’ He leaned over and spat onto the half-bare ground. ‘Our only chance now is to try and slow Radhalla down. If we can do that, we can buy time.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Ascha said.

  Bauto gazed at him, unblinking. ‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough,’ he growled.

  Ascha felt his heart thump. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘The report was mine, and it’s only right that I take care of it.’

  Bauto rolled his lower lip and then nodded. ‘Ride to Tornacum. Get the Overlord and the queen away to safety before the Sa
xons get to them. Then find the Saxons and do what you can to delay them. I’ll send word to Syagrius and Ragnachar to meet us at Tornacum.’

  He grabbed Ascha by the wrist and pulled him close. ‘We ain’t always seen eye to eye, but I’m relying on you now. Delay Radhalla, or we’re lost!’

  27

  It was late by the time Ascha and Tchenguiz rode through the gates of Tornacum. The town was on the edge of panic. News of the approaching Saxons had travelled, and the streets were jammed with people trying to get across the river before the northerners came.

  We’ve let them down, Ascha thought. No-one thought Radhalla would penetrate this far inland. They rode through the winding alleyways, into the market square and pulled up outside the Basilica. He wished now he had left Herrad, the merchant and Hanno back in Thraelsted instead of sending them here. He would have to find them, but first he had to get Clovis away and do what he could to delay Radhalla. Ascha slid off his horse, gave the reins to a waiting boy and ran up the steps

  ‘Tchenguiz! With me,’ he called over his shoulder, and went through the doors.

  Inside was chaos and confusion. Clerks scurried to and fro, carrying scrolls and books and storing them in chests which were stacked as high as a man ready to be carried away. At the far end of the hall, he could see clerks feeding documents into a blazing fire. Ascha and Tchenguiz passed quickly down the hall, their feet echoing on the flagstones. Hearing them approach, the clerks looked up in sudden alarm and then went back to their work.

  They found the Overlord pacing up and down outside his chamber, biting his knuckle. Every so often he stopped and issued orders to servants who immediately scurried away. He had a sword strapped to his hip and was attended by a nervous posse of Antrustions who shouted and glared at the approaching intruders with hostile eyes.

  Clovis turned to see what the din was about ‘Ah, Theodling,’ he said. He was dressed in a plain woollen tunic dyed green and edged in red, and a short fur-lined cape which he had pulled close around him and pinned with a heavy red metal brooch. He threw Tchenguiz a look of barely concealed distaste and then turned and led the way into his chamber gesturing for Ascha to close the door behind them. There was no fire in the hearth and the air was dank and chill.