I nodded. ‘Drusus?’ I asked. ‘Is he well?’
He looked surprised and then shrugged. ‘I suppose. Better than you. He is home, in Lugdunum, perhaps in Rome already. He has to take care of the Tres Galliae and his building projects and make Augustus happy. Not to mention his wife! Were you supposed to take Armin to him?’
‘Yes. But I was not sure I would have.’
‘They are strange men,’ Segestes said, mystified. ‘I buy my men’s loyalty, but both Armin and Drusus seem to be uncannily loved by men they take to war. If it is any consolation, Drusus did ask for you. I sent him an explanation that you have not been seen since you went to Armin,’ he said, lounging in the chair. He slapped his thigh and got up. He walked around the room. ‘That song bit was unfortunate, but I paid the poet to keep that latter part silent. If he should not do as I say? I will find him. I’ll hold onto you for now. Ragwald nearly robbed me of a great prize. He has been admonished. You will spend the Yule and the spring here, work for Helmut, after you feel well,’ he told me. ‘We will see about the rest.’
‘Thusnelda saved me? She must enjoy all this traitorous activity in her homelands,’ I said unhappily at the thought of being anywhere near Helmut without a weapon of some sort.
‘Thusnelda is a woman, and she will marry and be silent,’ he said. ‘I told you this before.’
‘She will marry my father,’ I growled. ‘Now that you two are actually allied.’
‘Yes, that is the plan, always was. We were ever allied, and Antius is our common link,’ Segestes laughed hugely. ‘She has a use with your father, after all. He will tame her, she will tell me his plans. She will because she will hate me less than him. Your time to cause trouble for our alliance is done with and gone, Hraban. Concentrate on survival now. And if Woden did help you survive in the filth, know he has helped me as well in attaining glory. I am the virtual lord of Sigimer’s lands and my own, and only Inguiomerus can stand up to me. Where is your ring?’
I stared at him knowingly. ‘Virtual Lord of Sigimer’s lands. Sounds competent.’
‘I am—’ he began assuring me, but I interrupted him.
‘The ring. Yes, I thought you might want that. To gain power over Inguiomerus?’
‘Catualda said you do not have it,’ he said irascibly, not answering my obvious question. ‘Where is it?’ he asked again, leaning forward.
‘The vitka we spoke of? Odo has it,’ I stated, deciding there was no reason to hide the fact.
‘Odo? These maniacs who are after you?’ he said dreamily.
‘You will have to rule your lands, Segestes, without such devices. All the wars you will have to fight to the north, the Chauci and the Suebi? You have a shiny shield and bear’s strength and virtual rule over rebellious lands. You don’t need any rings. Eventually, you will have to fight. Just like Catualda will, should he find his place of power.’
‘Catualda is a useful boy.’ Segestes grinned and sobered. ‘But he is no warrior like I am.’
I snorted. ‘Warriors look for steel. Not rings. Get a fake one if you must,’ I mocked him.
He pondered my words, slapped his knees and got up. ‘Very well.’ He smiled at me as he went out.
I slept, dreamt, and healed long until spring, missing the Yule feast I was likely not invited into anyway.
CHAPTER 14
The winter was unusually mild and, eventually, I began hopping around the shed. I stared out of the cracks in the walls, and for a while, I even missed the pigs. I had a fleeting bout with my conscience as I was sure I had eaten some of them during my healing spell but chased it away. The pretty, shapely red headed girl with adorable freckles brought me food; an older woman came to heal me. I did not see Thusnelda. My eyes returned to normal as Segestes had promised. I began regaining my strength though I was still weak as a kitten. I would be out of breath as I walked around, my neck was a mass of pain, and I resisted the urge to touch the formerly terrible wound. The old woman healing me would hum and cluck her tongue as she applied medicine on it, but I never saw how bad it was.
Apparently it was healed enough as I was put to work.
It was Maius when Helmut opened the door. He was thinner than he had been, for all men lost weight in the winter. He still hulked over me, and I hated him enough to consider trying to tackle him. He had crude, stained Roman made fetters with him, the kind that shackled your hands to your throat, forcing your arms to your chest. There was a mild look of disappointment on his face as he saw me standing there, still defiant.
‘Here. Lazing is over,’ he told me, and he was followed by a leering, greasy haired boy in a dirty tunic and there was also the pretty girl of my age who had been feeding me. The girl threw me a tunic and pants and used up shoes. I gritted my teeth, shed my blanket and pulled them on. I used rope to fasten up the pants and then I approached the scowling brute, who clipped the chains on my wrists and attached the iron collar. ‘Ragwald tells me you will work in the smithy, helping the Old Saxon, but you will be doing other things as well,’ he grunted and pulled me out.
It was cold outside, and I shivered. Snow was still on the ground though spring was in the air, birds were singing happily, men were enjoying the warmer wind and the sun outside, hoping to spot green grass as they kicked muddy clods of snow around. Women prepared fresh food the hunters were bringing in. On a tall, ominous tree far down the river, I noticed there was a platform where the dead were heaped to keep them away from the wolves until they could be burned and buried properly.
The boy kicked me, and I growled at him.
Helmut pulled me close to his face, his breath stinking through his rotten teeth. ‘He whips you, and you say nothing about it. Nothing. Unless you thank him for reminding yourself that you are a pig. Understand? My Wulstan does not take shit from oath breakers and traitors. He is your master just like I am.’ I held my peace with great difficulty, and after scowling at me for awhile, he dragged me off for the smithy, where a clanging sound was evident.
‘In the morning and during the day, you will hack wood, carry coal, and do what Vulcan, the Old Saxon tells you. Vulcan takes no shit from anyone either. You would do well to remember that. In the evening, you will clean the stables by the hall. My boy here, Wulstan will look after you at that time. And yea, there are guards. My daughter will feed you,’ he grumbled as we walked past the great hall of Segestes.
‘Your daughter?’ I asked him with surprise.
‘Yes, why?’ he growled.
‘She has been kind and intelligent, and I was surprised, that is all,’ I said with a straight face, and the brute stopped for awhile to consider if he had been insulted. I kept my face straight. While I waited for him to make up his mind to beat or to let me go, I gazed at the great hall. Warriors were coming and going, richly dressed, rings gleaming in their fingers. Horses rode out, and many men were arriving from afar, their cloaks muddy from traveling. Then I saw a Roman, a cavalryman in a ring mail exiting the hall. My heart fluttered.
Helmut snorted. ‘You get no help from him. Castra Flamma is many days away, and the couriers care nothing for a bearded slave fuck like yourself.’
Castra Flamma. Woden knew how I wanted to see its walls. The great Teutoburg Wald was spreading around us, full of Germani, but Romans rode to Segestes, unchallenged. And I was there, right under their noses.
I grunted and shook away the desire to call out to the soldier. ‘So the Roman army stayed in Luppia? They did not starve this winter?’
The girl smiled and nodded, her freckles glowing in the sun. ‘Yes, they have only one castra near our country, this Flamma and at least one day away by Luppia River. They guard the Sigambri lands.’ Alisio. Alisio remained as well. I smiled thanks at her, and she smiled back. She had an easygoing way about her, a pretty face, and evidently all the good qualities in the family of Helmut, since the boy pushed her and the father scowled at her.
‘No talking with the boy, you just feed him,’ he said, and the girl nodded with a meek, downca
st look. Evidently, she was used to such treatment. ‘Come. And stop yapping, slave, about the Romans. You’ll not speak with them again. Silence is the way to brief happiness, relatively painless one. You get to keep your teeth, you see?’
We came to the smithy, and a powerful old man with a long white ponytail was hammering busily at a piece of metal and sparks were flying. His face was dry and parched. He glanced and nodded at me, his face utterly expressionless like parched bark. ‘He looks weak, have you been feeding him?’ the man called Vulcan asked.
Helmut grunted. ‘You get what I got, I can spare none else. If it was up to me, he would not—’
The man stopped hammering and pointed the tool at Helmut. ‘You do not speak to me in such a manner, Helmut. You run the estate, but I make the tools you need. I tell you, he looks starved. Weak. He has few clothes, and it is still winter. Do you wish to get punished by the Lord again?’ Helmut reddened and glanced at me. So, the pigsty had had a price. I grinned at him maliciously.
Helmut pushed me, and I nearly fell. ‘You clothe him. At sundown, he will be fetched for other things. For work more worthy of him. Shoveling shit, that is,’ Helmut told him, yanked me around and took the fetters off. He poked me painfully and pointed at a tall man lounging near the main hall. That man was staring at me.
‘Archer. One of the best. You do not want to run,’ he growled. ‘And I still have the dogs. And the stick. I also have trackers who would find an elf’s ass in the dark.’ He spat at me and left. The bastard Wulstan left after him, and the girl smiled my way apologetically, leaving me a clove of strange, hard bread. ‘Breakfast. Our specialty,’ she whispered, and Vulcan snorted. I wiped Helmut’s spittle away, trembling with rage.
I took the bread, sniffed at it, found it delicious and began to eat ravenously, looking around with curiosity. I had been around smithies all my life, as Wandal’s father was a smith. We had actually rebuilt one in Hard Hill, the capital of the Marcomanni, and I loved the heat and practicality of such places. This smithy was cozy. It was partially in open air, but the wide doorway could be shut off with an old bear pelt. It had a huge, dark anvil and well tended tools on a long table; mainly tongs and hammers of different sizes. Wood and charcoal were heaped in a room next to the main one. Yet, another room to my right had a bed. That was where Vulcan slept. He was now tapping at a horseshoe on an anvil, and next to it, in the middle of the wooden floor was a brick and stone-lined pit of burning charcoal, the forge. The heat kept the cold out, and I edged closer with my bread.
There was a door to the river and there, behind the smithy, a tree trunk had been dragged to lie on its side and an ax was leaning on it.
‘Know anything of fire and iron, boy?’ he asked, taking a small hammer to tap something intricate on the horseshoe.
‘Euric, my friend’s father was … is one,’ I told him, swallowing a hard mouthful of bread.
‘Euric the smith,’ he mused.
I perked up. ‘You know him?’
‘No, I don’t,’ he said irascibly. ‘Of course, I don’t. Why would I?’ He kept at it, and I stood there, glancing at the archer, whose eyes did not leave me. He was a clean shaved, tall man with powerful shoulders and an unreadable, handsome face.
After awhile I shrugged. The old man was not particularly talkative. ‘Want me to do something?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Answer my question. Do you know anything about the trade?’
I grinned. ‘No. But I can chop wood. Or make charcoal.’
‘Useless,’ he sneered. ‘Any man or boy can chop wood. Moreover, slaves can make charcoal in the woods and that too is a job requiring few skills other than picking your nose and staring stupidly at your feet. But I suppose I need to warm myself in the evening, so you chop wood then, in the mornings. Afternoons, you help me with these things,’ he said and gestured around him.
‘Will I do hammering—’
He shook his head. ‘You will learn to clean and care for the tools; you will learn how to heat the beast up and know when it is hot enough to be used. You will do things other than shaping the metal. That is how you learn; by doing the small, mean things while your mind wonders about the bigger ones. Perhaps you will, one day, touch the hammer. Take the pelt and go chop.’
I nodded, grabbed a pelt with holes for arms, pulled it on, and went outside, grabbing the ax.
Birds sang, a fox had left its paw prints near the corner of the house, and I was alive. I nearly yelled for the glory of it. The air was crisp, and beautiful, and I enjoyed the clear sky so much I laughed aloud. Vulcan snorted inside.
The archer walked up from behind the corner. He nodded at me. ‘Brimwulf, at your service.’ He grinned, eyeing the ax in my hand. ‘Be careful.’
‘I doubt I am strong enough to kill a squirrel,’ I said with some shame, but he shook his head.
‘No, you have been near death for half a year; you are not strong. Do not swing the ax to your leg,’ he said.
‘Oh! No, I try not to.’ I took an experimental swing, and the icy trunk resisted me, leaving my arms trembling. Vulcan snorted again. I kept at it, my arms and back aching, feeling dizzy, but I imagined the trunk as Segestes, Odo, and Maroboodus. I imagined the blade sinking to the backbone of Catualda, crushing his face from the top of the skull to the jaw and splinters flew. Then I imagined Ragwald and Helmut shivering under the ax, and the trunk resisted arrogantly, and I renewed my attack, cursing softly. I heard Vulcan sniffle. After a few minutes of this, I collapsed next to the trunk, my pants getting wet from the snow, and the archer was smiling at me.
Vulcan dodged out, his eyes twinkling mischievously. ‘They left the ax there for me to sharpen, boy. Use the keen one instead.’ He handed me a proper axe, took mine and went in, cursing the idiotic Marcomanni. I stared at the blisters on my hands incredulously.
‘Did he do that deliberately?’ I whispered. ‘He did.’
‘He looks gruff as a starved old woman, but he enjoys such jokes,’ Brimwulf whispered at me and then laughed with me until our eyes ran with water. It felt good to laugh. Splendid. I felt alive. I was a slave, had lost my friends and my armor and weapons. My honor. But laughter made me feel like a man again.
‘Go ahead,’ Brimwulf said, and I grabbed the ax. I felt an ache in my neck and thought the strain had opened up some of the wound, but I did not care. I renewed my attack on the tree and this time, it cracked with each strike.
‘So, you serve Segestes? You are a mighty hero of a less than heroic lord?’ I puffed as I halved pieces of the trunk.
He looked surprised at my comment. ‘Just a hunter. Archer and a hunter. I have served Sigimer and my uncle is Sigimer’s former warlord. I was one of his hundred men. But Sigimer is gone, and so I serve him, Segestes,’ he told me.
‘Why would you not serve Armin?’ I asked him.
‘I … have a reason,’ he told me.
‘Service to Segestes is service to Rome,’ I said.
‘I hear you serve Rome, as well,’ he answered, testily.
I shrugged. ‘As far as I know, I am still signed up with the 2nd Batavorium ala. I am called the Oath Breaker, after all. The Germani hate me. But it is a mystery to me why good men serve my captor. Your master is a thief and a criminal.’
‘He abandoned Armin and Sigimer for personal gain,’ Brimwulf said carefully, craning his neck to see if anyone heard. ‘Yes. So what?’
I went on. ‘I say he is a rotten bastard, and the gods are looking,’ the Old Saxon, Vulcan grumbled inside. ‘He is not honorable. He seeks to enslave the whole of the north,’ I added. ‘He seeks to betray Rome and—’
‘He has cast his die,’ Brimwulf stated, bored. ‘Let him enslave those who let him. At least he serves Rome now. That is nothing to be scoffed at. Their gods and ours favor him. You are called that Oath Breaker. Killer of the holy men and women, and you are your father’s shame? Who are you to judge a man who has plans?’
‘That is me,’ I spat. ‘Though the story is much juicier than th
at, and one might see it entirely differently.’ The ax split a log so hard it spun to the river.
‘You were saying? Betrayal of Rome?’ he continued. ‘I’m only asking since I love old myths, tales of monsters and fanciful—’
‘They will slay a good man,’ I huffed. ‘Segestes and Maroboodus. Their liege lord. Drusus.’
He hummed. ‘A good man? The Roman General? Good men are dying in our land, Hraban. Have you not noticed? Why would I be bothered by the death of a foreign lord?’ he smirked, but his face betrayed grief. He saw I noticed and shrugged. ‘I loved Sigimer. When he died, I cried.’
‘This Roman lord,’ I told him, ‘is an honest one. Perhaps you should serve him. He is a lord worth crying over and will need men.’
He rubbed his face and shook his head. ‘I’m an archer, not a lord,’ Brimwulf told me with a unhappy scowl. ‘I care little for such high men and their many schemes. And you should remain quiet now. I will not betray Segestes, no matter if Sigimer was as bright as the moon compared to Segestes and this service soils me. I’ll not help you with your Drusus, either. You should get to know a man before you try to subvert him to treason. I am disappointed in you, you manipulative shit. But I suppose that is what pig shit would do to a king, even.’ He looked away from me, and I cursed under my breath.
‘But why Segestes?’ I wondered.
‘Why Segestes?’ he asked incredulously. ‘What business is it of yours? I think you are sticking your nose too deep in my business. I came over to take your measure, but I think you are taking mine. Chop and be quiet.’
‘Fine,’ I told him, cursed him again under my breath and kept on hacking. Brimwulf doggedly looked away from me and said nothing, clearly troubled.
‘Get in here, boy!’ Vulcan yelled after a time, and I cursed him as well. I went inside and Brimwulf followed, eyeing the ax in my hand. The old man glanced at the archer. ‘If he decides to chop you in the head, you won't be able to draw your bow again. Would it not be prudent to stay further away?’
The Winter Sword: A Novel of Germania and Rome (Hraban Chronicles Book 3) Page 17
