He turned his horse.
‘And the insult to my honor?’ I asked.
‘If you meet him out there,’ he said, pointing to Ragwald and then to the woods, ‘discuss it with him.’
‘And my sword?’ I hissed.
Segestes smacked his lips as he regarded me. ‘You shall have it when you leave. Catualda? Give it here.’ The fat-lipped man snapped his fingers, the sword was brought to him. He rode to Segestes and their eyes met as he handed over the thing. Segestes leaned to give Catualda some advice and the bastard left, not looking back at me.
The retinue rode off, and I could see Thusnelda talking with her father, angrily, gesturing towards the woods to the east. Segestes ignored her and left her fuming as we rode on. That evening many more smoke pillars touched the skies in the lands of Sigimer. Villages burned as the Roman army snaked forward, and there were reports that auxilia cavalry had been sighted near Segestes’s troop, and I prayed for Chariovalda to appear.
He did not.
Instead, the army of Segestes took to looting. Warlords gleefully detached themselves from the army that I now estimated to be some six thousand strong, and the lands of Sigimer were ravaged as the pig of a lord took a chance to relieve Sigimer’s people of their halls and cows. By the evening, he stopped at a village formerly held by a lord of Sigimer and set up a feast in the hall. Men drank, women laughed, and slaves worked, and there was a general feeling of festivity in the army of Segestes, except for Ragwald, who eyed me with a manic intensity. I ignored him as best I could, begging Woden to hand me a good shield and Nightbright back.
By late evening, Segestes was drunk, not overly so, but in a merry way and spoke Latin to his relatives, made jokes about Germani customs. He seemed to travel with the excessive amount of silver and gold and drank wine served from a beautiful green glass horn, trimmed with silver. I sat at the end of the table, nibbling at some pork and tasted ale frugally and waited. Men around me were speculating on the amount of wealth Segestes was wearing. I stared at the traitor lord with hate, his white tunica covering his ample belly, his thick, hairy neck adorned with silver and gold chains, hung with tiny emeralds, and his hair was held in place with a gold circlet.
Segestes eventually noticed my stare. He pointed at me. ‘So, tell us, boy. Since we have new allies,’ he yelled and some Germani in the table looked down in shame. ‘Tell us how it is serving in the Roman army?’ he called out.
‘Come, tell us!’ voices yelled.
I pretended I was a bit drunk as I shook my head, but they were relentless.
I felt malicious and shrugged. ‘Men like any, I suppose. They have rarely lost a war. That is—’
‘What? Speak up!’ Segestes yelled.
I shook my head. ‘Your nephew Armin nearly showed them defeat because he knew what to expect. But they do grind a normal Germani column down fast enough. But not Armin,’ I said reverently, and the damage was done, men were whispering about Armin. Segestes clearly regretted having asked me anything, and I felt gleeful as I was determined to glorify Armin.
‘Tell us of the great battle? Hraban? Do tell us!’ A man was asking, giving me a drink of mead.
I got up and waved my hand. ‘Armin was brilliant. Drusus ran after him in the valleys and woods of the Bructeri homelands and foolishly led the Romans to a killing field. Armin then inspired them, the Bructeri, and the Marsi to hold the enemy. Roman cohorts went up, full of fire, but soon they were wallowing in the dirt on the bottom of a trap he had dug. Armin, Sigimer’s mighty son, was able to hold the indomitable Roman iron fist in place while the Sigambri charged for the enemy, committing all the Romans into a terrible battle.’ Men were staring at me, their mouths open wide. I slapped my hand on the table, and they were all startled. ‘And when the time was right, his horn! It blew!’ They stared at me totally enraptured, and Segestes was looking at them as if he did not know them. They were his men but also Germani, no matter how much wine you poured into them, and how much Latin they had been taught. ‘He blew the horn, by Woden, by Donor! With the hard work he had laid down in the spring, and Sigimer’s few thousand men led by Rochus, they split through the legions and took some iron-willed cohorts down! They took their standards and pissed on them, and Armin led his men to slaughter more of the Romans!’ I said, and men roared, proudly.
‘And how, then, did the pup lose the battle?’ asked Ragwald spitefully, and men were quiet.
I sat down. ‘He lost because our kind will not work together. We quarrel, we argue and they, they work, tirelessly. And I, of course, fought them.’
Men laughed and roared at my bravado as Ragwald glowered at me. Segestes got up wearily.
‘And what did you do in the battle? Serve Drusus his meals?’ asked Ragwald with spite, and Segestes was about to shut him up when a blushing man got up. He was young, very young, and I saw he held a thick piece of silver in his hand. Then I spotted Thusnelda inching away from him and realized he was a poet.
‘Asgar?’ Segestes asked, slumping. One did not silence a poet.
‘With your permission, I was at the battle and know it. I made a song after we made our way home.’
‘No!’ Ragwald spat.
‘Let him.’ Segestes sighed.
And he sang.
If you have heard a work of Horace, Lord, you will know a power that a true orator and a poet hold over men. A poet of the Germani is no different though he knows no letters, nor can he sway men far away, across the nations and time with written scrolls. But he is what the Germani are. He is a vessel of living history, spreading the past, weaving the present through their songs, giving birth to memories of humor and valor. He gives pain and regret a voice. A singer can silence kings and warlords, and woe to a man who cannot pay for such men.
The man chanted, his fine voice reaching the rafters, and all men were silent.
‘The steel fisted foes snaked through the woods,
and the Fox ran across the land with the tribes and their goods.
Easy victory they sought, the southern lords,
but to seek to undo a young god of Sigimer, is to meet the angry swords.’
Weeks they marched, many they slew,
and much they burned, laid forts and made ever thinning stew.
The Fox smiled, the men cheered, in the night their arms were sharp.
Ditches they dug, stakes they cut and in the mornings, they raised the ale jugs.
Then, finally, like a cloud of a storm, the enemy followed the bait like a steely swarm.
The horn was blown, the men braced, to Woden their yell was raised.’
He had a beautiful voice and sang about the battle, of Armin, and of Drusus. He pictured the Romans as fearful warriors, men far from home, obeying the oaths they have taken, and Drusus, as a young hero, reckless and relentless, looking for glory, and he praised his honor, his courage and his carefree attitude when danger threatened. He then sang of the Germani heroes. He sang of Maelo, Varnis, and Baetrix, charging from the forests, and the men who stoutly held in place the metal clad men of the legions, of Wodenspear and the Bructeri, and the clever Marsi, slayers of so many of the best men of the legions. He sang of sad heroes, and of mighty champions, men I did not see that day, and sometimes men would toast a name they knew. He sang more of Armin, the young lord sitting on ridge, facing ten thousand legionnaires and auxilia and directing the free peoples in their fight, men drunk on honor, mead, and blood that day. He sang how the men around him surged forward, wearing no armor, against men carrying swift death and how Armin led them, his horn a terror of Rome.
And then, incredibly he gave verses to me.
He sang how Chariovalda had failed and how I rallied the weak hearted, routed auxilia, harassed them into manhood and how I, the champion of the Dead Wall of Castra Vetera broke the Cherusci, and how the hero Rochus fell in my hands, a young man still, Woden’s favorite. The last bits about my heroics were added to the song at the moment, I was sure, for Thusnelda had paid him silver for them, a
nd he did an admirable job. He finished the song with some stammering as he gave me credit for bringing Thusnelda to Segestes, safe from harm.
I smiled at Thusnelda, thinking the poet would die for that. The men were singing his song, toasting me happily and should I disappear, many men would know I was cheered thus in Segestes’s own feast and some would remember the last verses. Men do not forget a poet’s fine songs. Thusnelda looked down, and I knew she was afraid for me, having tried her best to spare me humiliation and pain. The poet was pale as a sheet. The room was quiet, all staring at the lord of the hall.
Segestes took a step forward unsteadily, threw a gold ring to the man who caught it clumsily. The fat lord’s face was dark with fury as he turned and walked out, looking at me. I nodded and bowed to Thusnelda. She gave me a nervous, wry smile. The party went on, the poet being bombarded by questions. I walked out in a few minutes and nodded at some guards following me. I pulled on my helmet as I exited the hall, found my horse and turned to look for Segestes, but there was no need. He was there, sitting on his.
‘We ride,’ he grunted, and I followed him.
We rode up to the hill nearby.
He sat there quietly, looking over the dark, fertile Cherusci lands, fields and sparse woods and dark hills. The moon was up, and we could see the silhouettes of distant halls. The west and south were full of fires.
‘It is our land, Cherusci land,’ he said sadly. He gestured around him. ‘I will not enjoy seeing so much of it burning down these coming weeks, but Armin, like it was said in the song, wishes to be a hero. And the fools admire him,’ he said, taking a swig of a gourd on his hip. ‘Is Armin as good as he said?’ Segestes asked, with a note of worry in his voice. ‘And as you claimed. Just to spite me, of course, but did you lie?’
I shook my head. ‘If the men fought like the Romans, with better discipline and had been better armed, not a man of the legions would have escaped that field unhurt.’ He stood there on his horse in silence, waiting. ‘Your daughter seems to think he is a great warrior,’ I teased him, and he spat.
‘She is to be married to your father. That is her role and not to voice her opinions. She was always too quick to speak out and ready to disagree. I hear your father knows how to break a mare?’
I sat still, thinking about his words. ‘My father is not a friend to Drusus. And you are now … allied, as you said, to Drusus.’
He quaffed. ‘Your father, Hraban, serves a noble cause of Rome. He is out to kill Drusus. You know this. I know it. In return, he will be awarded. And given lands in the south.’ The way he said it made all the warmth in my body disappear.
‘And that, Hraban,’ said a gruff voice I hated, ‘leaves the north untended. It needs a king while your father rules the south. And Maroboodus does need help if he is to slay our friend Drusus.’
I turned to look at Antius. He was seated on a huge horse, swathed in a dark cloak, and his throat was covered with a white scarf. ‘You.’ I shook my head in disbelief.
‘Yes, it is I.’ Antius grinned, his eyes glowing with unholy light. ‘Had I died, Segestes still would have dealt with my masters and mistresses in Rome. Cornix would have mediated with him.’ There, near him a shadow moved. Cornix, the mad, green eyed Roman with a bear-like, short stature and half melted face came forward. He tilted his head but said nothing. I had last seen him when Ansbor died in an ambush set up by the two rats, and I did not expect to survive him now. He clutched a wickedly sharp gladius.
Segestes grunted. ‘Of course, your father always wanted to see Armin fall. It is his job to kill Drusus, not this upstart of ours from the hay hall of Sigimer. So, I was happy to help. Sigimer and Armin are soon dead, and I will lead his men. I will help Drusus in his conquest of the Cherusci, he will learn to trust me, and one day soon when the time is right, I will help Maroboodus kill Drusus. Then, we will take over Germania and Rome will rule here, and we will rule in its name. I thank you for Thusnelda’s life though and that is why I denied Antius his request.’
‘You will live a while, son,’ Antius said gruffly. ‘Not for a long time, but for awhile.’
‘I saved your daughter from rape,’ I hissed at Segestes, looking around. There were shadows sitting in the darkness, on horses. ‘From murder.’
He nodded and spoke, bored. ‘I said thank you. I say it again. Thank you for that. Now, you will dwell in my house and live on until everything is peaceful in the land or until I find a use for you. I might have one, after all. To Drusus, you are dead. For me, you are a pawn. For Antius and his pain, you will not enjoy your stay. It is the best I can do for him. Ragwald?’
Ragwald rode from the darkness with a dozen men and grinned at me.
BOOK 3: THE BLACKSMITH
‘You ask me about plans? The idiot who nearly died in pig shit?’
Hraban to Thusnelda
CHAPTER 12
They guided me to the edge of the Visurgis River. Segestes had spoken to them, harshly, and the result of that discussion was that I remained in one piece as we traveled. Ragwald was scowling, gnashing his teeth. Cornix was his usual mad, silent self, but they did not touch me. While waiting at the river’s edge, the half-faced Roman spat in the water. His horse turned to drink from the river, and he grunted. ‘It has been awhile since I first saw you on that field in the southern woods. I should have heeded Koun then and not Antius and let you slip to the afterlife. But I did not. One of my few mistakes in this life.’
‘Segestes and Maroboodus, eh?’ I spat sourly. ‘It was always so.’
‘It was always so,’ Cornix grunted. ‘Your father alone cannot accomplish much. He will need the help of Segestes. But your lovely Armin is making a terrible mess of things. But then, perhaps Armin is giving us an opportunity. Your Drusus hates Armin, fears him, and Armin is stopping him from taking the land and pacifying it. He will come after Armin as many times as it takes. So, we know where a famous Roman death shall take place. We will see. Then the Republic is gone for good. No more Senate and dreams of bygone ages. Mind you, I don’t hate the thought of old Rome and its former honor. No. I am not political. I just collect my pay and that pay currently comes from opposing the Republic’s resurgence. That simple. It’s a high pay, and I’ll keep at it.’
‘What are you two?’ I asked him. ‘Antius is a soldier, and you—’
‘Does not matter what we are, Hraban,’ he said tiredly, his burned face twitching with that strange hint of madness always evident in the Roman. ‘We have a master—’
‘Or a mistress,‘ I interrupted him.
‘Ah!’ he gloated. ‘Young Drusus must have guessed where all this spawns from.’
‘He has not told me,’ I told him sullenly. ‘But he is not a fool.’
‘He knows there is a plot to kill him, and he knows he must chew it up rather than avoid it,’ Cornix grinned. ‘He has to pacify the Germani, and he thinks he can, no matter what is arrayed against him. Unfortunately, he needs allies here, and his allies are his downfall. Sad it is. He could have been a hero like Africanus or Caesar. He would have taken the lands, then marched to Rome with a wrathful spite for Augustus and those who tried to murder him. He would have been like Juppiter himself, his face painted red, his dignitas enough to make the rabble bow before him. And you were to ride with him.’ He chortled. ‘Instead, here you are.’
‘I will, still,’ I told him rebelliously.
‘No,’ he stated simply. ‘Segestes is keeping you alive for Thusnelda. Perhaps for his own ends. Perhaps he has thought of a use for you. For now.’
‘What possible other use could I have?’
He shook his head heavily. ‘You sure are no politician, either. To make sure Maroboodus does not grow too powerful? You can embarrass Maroboodus, at least? You know their plans and Segestes can, perhaps make a small threat of flaunting you before him should your father desire lands not partitioned to him after Rome rewards them both? Imagine Maroboodus waging war to wrest these lands from Segestes? He would win. So, by keeping you,
he can threaten your father by setting you free to tell the truth of what took place?’
‘I might not be a politician, but that sounds like an idiotic plan,’ I spat.
‘Perhaps he just wants to sell you to him? Your father would love to see you roasted over a slow fire.’ He grinned.
‘That sounds more plausible,’ I agreed.
He looked excited for a moment and pushed me with misplaced camaraderie, his mad face twitching. ‘Perhaps he wants that ring of yours? It will help him govern this hole of Hades. He has so far grown fat in the arms of Sigimer and Inguiomerus but will have to fight for himself soon. Your ring would give him Suebi mercenaries and peace, perhaps, from those terrible warriors.’ Cornix looked like he was chewing on a rock for a moment, his face strange and full of wonder. Then he nodded at the crippled champion. ‘But Ragwald there will not let you leave, no matter the plans of his master. You took his arm.’
I gazed at the thick warrior whose eyes never left me. I looked away. ‘It is crippled? Permanently?’
Cornix hooted. ‘Yes! Cannot move it. Useless. Flaps around like a bag of flesh. All he has left is an abundance of anger. And he will be looking after you. Take care Hraban. By the way. Next time you hang a man, do it yourself and wait for half an hour, at least. I had a hard time reviving him after you left, but I did manage it. All that grease in his throat must have protected him somehow.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ I told him glumly. ‘But I suppose it did not matter in the big picture as you were out here dealing with Segestes.’
‘No, it did not matter,’ Cornix agreed and rode to speak with Ragwald.
Segestes and Father, I thought. Drusus must learn of Segestes. I should escape.
But there was no chance of that. They watched me like cats would a mauled mouse.
The sun began to rise, and we waited. Then, somewhere near, there was a splashing noise.
The Winter Sword: A Novel of Germania and Rome (Hraban Chronicles Book 3) Page 15
