The Half-Slave

by Trevor Bloom

  Ascha shouted the withdrawal and they rode away, riderless horses trotting alongside them, jerking and shaking their heads. He recognized one as the young trumpeter’s, the saddle empty and the trumpet dangling from one of the pommels.

  At the foot of the ridge, he reined in and waited. The Pritanni gathered. No sound but the pawing and snuffling of horses. Ascha pulled at his neck cloth. He swept his sword blade clean, sheathed it and rubbed a blistered palm over his face and looked around him. The men grinned at each other, their faces filthy with mud, sweat and speckled with blood. He saw Tchenguiz, and they exchanged huge smiles, delighted to see each other alive.

  When the auxiliaries had assembled, he led them back up the ridge. At the top, he twisted in the saddle and looked back. A mess of dead and dying covered the plain like grass. He could hear the distant shouts of the Saxons and the cries of their wounded.

  He allowed himself a thin smile of satisfaction and then he led them away.

  That night, the Pritanni went back to where the Saxon campfires glowed. Riding without sound through the trees, they came to where they could hear the murmur of northern voices. The Pritanni had wrapped branches in rags and dipped them in buckets of pine pitch. They paused, their horses snorting and blowing softly, while men passed between them, and the torches flared.

  The horse soldiers came out of the darkness like demons from hell. Whooping and hollering, they fired the Saxons’ wagons and tossed their torches onto tents that were starched by the sun and dry as a bone. Men fled from their tents with their clothes and hair ablaze. Flames shot high, shadows leapt and capered, and there was a strong smell of burning. The glare of burning wagons threw a yellow glow across the night sky.

  Afterwards, Ascha turned his horse away and led them out of the forest towards Tornacum.

  They came to a field outside the city and pulled up. A high and grassy mound squatted on the landscape like an unlanced boil. On the other side of the mound, behind a dead wickerwork of trees, the moon hung fat and white.

  ‘Wah!’ said Tchenguiz. ‘What is this place?’

  ‘It’s a grave,’ Ascha said, coaxing his horse forward. ‘Childeric, father of Clovis, was buried here a year ago with all his war horses.’

  Tchenguiz shook his head in disgust at the waste of good horse-flesh.

  Ascha pulled up, dismounted and dropped the reins. The auxiliaries slipped off their mounts, stood their lances against the boll of a tree, and flopped wearily to the ground. Ascha began to climb the mound. Tchenguiz and Rufus watched him and then followed. At the top, he turned and looked about him. This would do, he thought.

  Childeric’s death mound occupied one side of a small plateau bare of trees through which ran a shallow depression sloping up towards the east. On the far side, he could make out the tangled green mess of an old limestone quarry. Across the plateau ran the road to Viroviac, the road down which the Saxons would come.

  Make a stand here and the troops would have the higher ground, anchored between Childeric’s mound and the quarry. He ran back down the mound and walked to the edge of the quarry and looked over. In Roman times, he supposed, the quarry would have provided stone for the city’s buildings, but it was now choked with bushes and weeds as high as a man. He stepped down from the edge, clambered through the bushes and weeds, allowing the germ of an idea to grow in his mind, and then climbed back up and went to join the others.

  He told Rufus to leave some men to warn them of the Saxons’ advance.

  Then they mounted and rode down into Tornacum.

  He left Tchenguiz with Rufus and his auxiliaries and rode on alone. He crossed the old bridge to the house of Flavinius on the east bank of the Schald. A light rain began to fall, and he pulled his cloak over his head. When he arrived, he dismounted and knocked on the door. The door opened, and he stepped inside.

  They were all there: Lucullus, dark and aloof, Gydda, his head bumping the rafters, Flavinius, plump and smiling,

  Flavinius was shocked by Ascha’s appearance, and Ascha smiled to see himself as the Roman saw him: dirty and stinking, his clothes and hair filthy with blood and dust.

  Hanno sat by the fire, staring into the flames. He did not look up when Ascha entered, but Ascha saw him cock his head on one side and listen like a bird to the sound of Ascha’s voice.

  ‘There was a message for you,’ Flavinius said. ‘The queen wants to see you before she leaves.’

  He nodded. He was in no hurry to see the queen.

  ‘Gydda, you know the Saxons are coming?’ he said, slapping the big Jute on the arm. ‘Tomorrow you will fight alongside us.’

  Gydda gave him a slow smile. ‘Gydda fight with Ascha,’ he said and put his head back and laughed.

  Ascha knelt by Hanno and said, ‘How is tha, brother?’

  Hanno bent his head, and Ascha could see his face working.

  ‘Why did tha rescue me, Ascha?’ Hanno mumbled. ‘Tha should have left me to drown.’

  ‘What’s this? I did no more than tha did once for me,’ Ascha said breezily. ‘Does tha not remember the time tha rescued me from the ice?’

  ‘That wasn’t me,’ Hanno muttered.

  Ascha laughed. ‘What’s tha saying? Tha rescued me. I remember it well.’

  ‘It was Hroc who went on the ice and pulled tha out,’ Hanno murmured. ‘Hroc saved thi life, not me. I cleaned you up. Tha saw me when tha came round and thought I’d saved tha and I let tha think it.’ His tone was colourless and without emotion.

  Ascha gazed at him. ‘And all these years I thought it was tha.’ He shook his head and sighed before turning to Lucullus. ‘Come, a word,’ he said, switching to Latin. They moved away from the fireside.

  ‘How is my brother?’

  Lucullus looked back at Hanno. Ascha waited. The Gaul’s fingers, he noticed, were long and thin and the back of his hand was covered with fine black hair.

  ‘Your brother is not well,’ Lucullus said, pushing his words out of the side of his mouth. ‘He rambles in his speech and he sees things. Up here.’ Lucullus tapped his brow with a meaningful finger.

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘He says that he sees his brother.’

  ‘He sees me?’

  ‘No, his other brother, the one who died. And sometimes he calls out for his father.’ Lucullus threw Ascha a questioning look.

  He remembered what Radhalla had said. Could Hanno have had anything to do with his father’s death? Was that why his mind was slipping?

  ‘Will he recover?’

  Lucullus waggled his hand in a maybe, maybe not kind of way.

  Ascha gave Lucullus an appraising stare. ‘I was wrong about you, Lucullus. I suspected you of…many things. I want you to know I am grateful for what you have done.’

  The Gaul shrugged his bony shoulders.

  ‘I owe you. If there is anything I can do for you.’

  Lucullus threw him a crafty sidelong glance. ‘I would like to buy my freedom,’ he said. ‘You could do that.’

  ‘It will cost you,’ Ascha said softly.

  There was the faintest smile from Lucullus. ‘I think my family can afford it.’

  A servant brought him hot water and a linen towel. Ascha washed and scoured his body and then threw himself down on Flavinius’ bed and slept. After a little while he awoke and dressed hurriedly. Flavinius had laid out a clean shirt and britches and taken his own mud-sodden clothes. Ascha sent Gydda off to find Tchenguiz. The manservant said that Lucullus had gone out earlier but didn’t know where. Ascha chewed it over. He’d been a fool to talk to Lucullus about buying his freedom. It put ideas in his head and he had a premonition he would not see the Gaul again.

  Hanno hadn’t moved. He sat staring at the fire, lost in his own thoughts.

  Ascha went back the way he came, crossing over the wooden bridge, hooves clopping on the boards. Two days ago the river had been lined with cargo vessels but now the boats were gone and the wharves deserted. On the other side of the bridge he turned and ro
de towards the south gate.

  Passing the Basilica, he looked up at the huge windows and considered whether he should go and see Clovis, and then put the thought out of his mind. He had too little time and he was anxious to make sure the girl and Octha were safe.

  The Overlord could wait.

  The light was fading and the sun slipping fast when he reached the inn. The mansio was a crumbling stone house with a low bowed roof that lay on the side of a hill some way outside the city to the south. Only part of the inn was in use, the rest had long since been abandoned. He stabled the horse and went in. Men sat and looked at him and there was a smell of warm cabbage. He was aware that he cut a different figure now, bathed and dressed in clean clothes, a long sword on his hip. He could almost pass for a Frankish high-born. The mood in the inn was quiet. Hard to believe there was a Saxon army a day’s march away.

  He was excited about seeing Herrad again but he was nervous, unsure how she would receive him. Busy with his own thoughts, he was not prepared for the stooping figure in worn-looking robes who shuffled along, his twisted foot rasping on the stone floor, to greet him.

  ‘It’s good to see you, my boy,’ Octha said with some warmth in his tone. He put his arms around Ascha and kissed him on both cheeks.

  ‘How are you, old friend?’ Ascha said, embracing him gently. Octha looked gaunt and haggard, his skin the texture of wax. The merchant held up his hands, thickly wrapped in stained bandages.

  ‘Couldn’t be better,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘How is the inn?’

  Octha pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Your Lucullus took good care of us.’

  The room was clean and dimly lit. A bed, smothered in goatskins, and a small table. A fire burned in the hearth. Octha called for beer and a servant brought a jug and two beakers and put them on a table and went away. Octha looked at Ascha, raised both hands and smiled helplessly.

  Ascha leaned across, picked up a beaker and held it to the merchant’s lips.

  ‘Have you come to see me or Herrad?’ Octha said, his words slurred. A trickle of beer ran down his chin.

  ‘Both I hope.’

  Octha looked at him and smiled a thin smile.

  He knows, Ascha thought. He knows everything.

  ‘And why did you come?’

  ‘I came to warn you. The Saxons are coming. Their army is marching on Tornacum. We slowed them down but they’ll be here soon enough.’

  Octha passed a hand across his face, and Ascha saw the fear in his eyes.

  ‘You should leave,’ he said, and felt guilty that once again he’d put Octha in harm’s way. He knew he should insist the old man leave, but he’d been down that road before.

  ‘You knew all along the Saxons weren’t going to land south of Gesoriac,’ he said.

  ‘I suspected it, yes, but I never imagined they would come here,’ Octha said wearily. ‘We thought we would be safe in Tornacum.’

  ‘And you knew Radhalla’s war was with Clovis, not the Romans?’

  ‘I heard rumours, nothing more.’

  ‘Radhalla tricked us,’ Ascha said. ‘I should have trusted you.’

  Octha smiled gently, not disagreeing. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Bauto is marching north with the scara. Syagrius and Ragnachar will join us here. Together we will stop the Saxons.’

  ‘Ragnachar?’

  ‘Bauto says he will come.’

  Octha looked at him with scorn. ‘You believe that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he will and maybe he won’t.’

  ‘There will be a great battle.’

  ‘Yes.’

  An uneasy silence fell between them.

  ‘Ascha, you’ve done enough,’ Octha said. ‘Why don’t you leave now?’

  ‘Where would I go?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing for you here.’

  People were always sending him away. ‘Where can you go but where you come from?’ he said with a trace of bitterness.’

  Octha shook his head. ‘That’s not true. This is not your fight.’

  ‘But I have made it my fight.’

  ‘You have no idea what you’re doing here. You think that Clovis or Syagrius are any different from Radhalla?’

  Ascha raised both hands and let them fall. ‘Clovis wants to build a new empire and Syagrius wants to rebuild the empire he has lost, but at least they believe in something. Radhalla is against life. He destroys everything he touches. If it wasn’t for Radhalla my brother and perhaps my father would be alive, and you and Herrad and Hanno would not have been harmed.’ He looked away. ‘I have to stay and see this through?’

  Octha gave him a crooked smile. ‘And after Radhalla is dead, will you stop then?’

  Ascha frowned. He’d given no thought to what happened after Radhalla’s death.

  ‘Kill Radhalla,’ Octha added bluntly, ‘and another warlord will take his place. It’s the way of the world.’

  ‘I just want to do what is right,’ Ascha said hotly.

  ‘And Herrad? What do you want for her?’

  Ascha felt the blood rush to the back of his neck. He was suddenly confused and didn’t know what to say.

  Octha sighed.

  He leant across and put his head close to Ascha’s and laid his bandaged hands on Ascha’s shoulders. His eyes were round and watery and Ascha saw that the skin across his cheekbones was mottled with tiny red veins. He looked at Ascha for what seemed like forever.

  ‘I know you love Herrad,’ he said softly. ‘I have known it a long time. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You are ambitious and want to overcome the hardship of your birth. She is beautiful and has her best years before her. But what can you give her, a young man who will go out and fight and perhaps die? And if not tomorrow then the day after? If you really loved her, you would let her be.’

  Ascha ran his palms along his knees. The old man was right. He loved Herrad but what could he, a Saxon half-slave, offer her? He closed his eyes and opened them again. ‘And is that what you want old man?’ he said, tightening his jaw. ‘That I let her be?’

  A sad smile appeared on the merchant’s face.

  ‘What I want is to live out my days with Herrad and then leave her with someone who will care for her as much as I do.’

  Ascha shook his head. ‘I will not give her up,’ he whispered fiercely.’

  ‘Nor do I expect you to.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Ascha, I am not long for this life. Grant me what little time I have left’

  Silence.

  Ascha tossed the merchant’s words around in his head. He reached down and picked up a piece of wood and threw it on the fire. A shower of sparks rose and drifted, and a yellow flame swept up the side of the branch. They both watched as the wood burned bright and then died and crumbled into ash.

  There was the sound of feet, and Herrad walked into the room. He saw that she had changed how she looked. Her hair was tied up in an open-work cap of woollen yarn, she wore a long white linen dress, pinned at the shoulders, and her feet were bare. She carried a cape over one arm. She smiled at Ascha and kissed him on the cheek, as a friend would.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ she said. ‘We were worried.’

  ‘It’s good to see you too,’ he said, happy to be in the same room as her. ‘I came to tell you the Saxons are coming.’

  ‘So the rumours are true,’ she murmured. ‘I couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Animals! They are all animals!’ Octha said suddenly, and began to weep.

  Herrad went to the merchant, patted his shoulder, unfolded a cape and laid it across his knees while Ascha watched them, feeling like a stranger.

  The evening passed uncomfortably. The innkeeper brought fried pork and greens, and they picked at it without appetite. Octha sat in a chair, hardly eating, his head back and eyes lightly closed. After a while he seemed to doze. Ascha and Herrad talked in muted voices, not wanting to disturb the old man.

  ‘What will
you do?’ she said after a while.

  ‘I will stay and fight,’ he said simply.

  ‘You are heavily outnumbered.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I will pray for your safety.’

  He looked at her and she looked at him and they were silent for a long time. He had thought when he saw her he would know what to say, but he found he was without words. It occurred to him that this might be the last time he would see her and the thought filled him with an indescribable sadness.

  The girl got to her feet and laid a hand on the back of the merchant’s neck.

  ‘I think Octha is tired,’ she said. ‘He needs to rest.’

  It was his signal to go.

  She walked with him into the courtyard and stood with her shoulders hunched, clasping her elbows. The sky was beginning to turn red with the coming of sunset, and he could smell rain in the air. Far off he heard shouts and singing in the town, the sounds of soldiers carousing, and at that moment he knew that if he lived nothing in the world would matter but her.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ was her reply.

  ‘Come with me tonight? I don’t want to be alone.’

  ‘She looked at him for a long time while she thought it over. Then she nodded. ‘Come back later,’ she said. ‘When Octha is asleep.’

  29

  Ascha left the horse in the stable and went back to the city on foot. Reaching Tornacum, he made his way to the queen’s house. There was a line of wagons outside with sleepy-eyed oxen in head yokes chewing thoughtfully. He tapped at a side door. It opened and an Antrustion waved him in. He found himself in a room at the back of the house. A young woman stood by the window looking out at the street. In the shadowy interior he thought for a moment it was Herrad. A little shorter maybe, but a similar line of nose and chin. The woman turned and he saw it was the slave girl, Eleri.

  ‘Ascha, is that you?’ she said with surprise. ‘I hadn’t expected to see you here. Why did you come back?’

  ‘I had to,’ was all he said.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Then you’re a fool. Come with me. The queen is waiting.’

  She led him into the main hall. Slaves scurried to and fro, their arms piled high with blankets, drapes and bed linens. Others were filling chests and panniers with bundles of clothes. There was an air of feverish urgency mingled with more than a whiff of fear.