The Sacred Spoils
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Copyright
For Hugh and Sara
Cast down by his reverse and deliberating what to do, King Alaric was overtaken by an untimely death and departed from human cares. His people mourned for him with the utmost affection. Turning from its course the river Busentus near the city of Consentia, they led a band of captives into the midst of its bed to dig out a place for his grave. In the depths of this pit they buried Alaric, together with many treasures, then turned the waters back into their channel. And that none might ever know the place, they put to death all the diggers.
–Jordanes, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths
Prologue
Rome, 24 August CE 410
Quintus Rufius was half asleep when the horn sounded, so that he dreamed it a summons to a great banquet hall whose tables groaned with food. But the only groaning was his comrades as they threw off blankets and wearily sat up. The horn died away. For a moment there was silence. Another false alarm, thank the gods. Rufius closed his eyes and tried to return to his banquet hall and the only food he’d likely see today; but then a man came running screaming down the street outside, and suddenly there were horns blasting on every side, and he knew that it had happened.
The barbarians were at their gates.
The barracks door banged open and Gaius Villius marched in, a flaming torch in his hand to show the grimness of his expression. He marched along the aisle, kicking the feet of anyone still abed, yelling at them to suit up. Rufius’s hands shook wildly as he pulled on chest padding and then his suit of rusting chain mail. He’d never fought in earnest before, just with wooden swords – and those had hurt enough to make him weep. The prospect of doing it for real was the stuff of nightmares, not just being wounded or even killed himself, but of having to do it to others, piercing their flesh with his long sword, their blood gushing and entrails spilling. He couldn’t imagine hating anyone enough for that. Not even Alaric and his murderous horde.
Villius was still yelling at them. It made it impossible to think, let alone resist. Rufius strapped on his helmet, buckled on his sword then grabbed his shield and ran out with the others. A few people were fleeing from the Salerian Gate. Villius ignored them. He marched them to where the street narrowed then had them form defensive lines across it. Rufius tried to shuffle to the back, but so did everyone else – and they proved better at it than he. So, to his consternation, he found himself at the front.
God, but he needed a piss. Too late now.
The street emptied as fugitives found houses to hide in. An eerie silence fell. The moon hung fat and low above the houses at its far end. And red, too – that particular watery red of a slit wrist in a public baths. Rufius felt a terrible foreboding, as when that fortune teller hadn’t even met his eye. She’d known something, he was sure of it. She’d known this. What the hell was he even doing here? He was no soldier; he was a farmer. He should be in Sabina helping his family with the harvest. His elder brother had cut off his thumb rather than be conscripted. But not he. He’d told them that his sister had to be revenged. But the shameful truth was that the thought of mutilation had given him nightmares.
He suffered badly from nightmares, did Rufius.
War cries. The pounding of feet. It was happening. It was happening right now. He couldn’t believe how quickly they’d got inside the city. They must have been betrayed from within – it was the only explanation. His body stiffened and tingled. Everything grew slow and sharp and bright. Around the turn of the road they charged, yelling and screaming and waving their long swords above their heads, others carrying flaming brands or spears already drawn back to hurl. And the size of them – he couldn’t believe how fucking big they were; it was unfair, for they themselves were a ragtag group made up of those too old and too young for proper units, infirm and weak with hunger too. They drew closer, so that he could now see the crazed bloodlust on their faces. Fuck, but they didn’t stand a chance. He was going to die, he knew it suddenly. He was going to be run through and left to bleed out upon the cobbles. Barely seventeen, and never once even having lain with a woman in—
A spear hurtled out of the gloom towards his face. He saw it only at the last second. He jerked up his shield and it thumped into it like a blow from a double-handed war axe, knocking him back against the man behind, who cursed and shoved him forward again. The spear’s barbed tip had pierced the leather of his oval shield so that its shaft now hung down heavily onto the cobbled ground in front of him. Before he could pluck it free, the Visigoths were on them. One of them stamped hard upon the spear’s shaft, dragging down Rufius’s shield and exposing him to his sword. He cried out and threw himself to the ground a moment before the blow could cleave off his head. His helmet fell off and bounced away. He lay there in a huddled ball as the barbarians smashed into their feeble line, treading on his face and body. Swords clashed, people shrieked. And then it was over, footsteps charging onwards, the war cries growing fainter, and all he could hear now was the wailing and sobbing of his wounded comrades.
He was still lying there when a hand grabbed him by his short hair and hauled him to his feet. A knife as sharp as a razor but the size of a small sword was pressed against his throat. He was manhandled through a fast-striding line of Visigoth warriors to find himself face-to-face with four high-ranking officers. ‘This one seems fearful enough,’ his captor told them. ‘If his bladder’s anything to go by.’
It was only then that Rufius felt the hot wetness on his leg and the piss squelching in his boot. Shame burned his cheeks. The tallest of the four men turned to look at him. He was maybe forty years old, handsome yet battle-scarred, his long, fair, grey-threaded hair combed into ropes that were then tied in an ornate side knot. ‘You know who I am, boy?’ he asked.
It wasn’t his face that told Rufius t
he answer, though it matched all the descriptions he’d ever heard. It was his bearing and the deference of those around him. All kinds of flatteries came instantly to Rufius’s mind. The kind of flatteries that prudent people paid to rulers in order to stay alive. But he couldn’t do it. At this moment of great crisis, his cowardice failed him utterly. He lifted his chin instead, and gazed into the monster’s eyes. ‘You’re the man who starved my sister,’ he told him.
The knife cut even sharper into his throat. ‘He’s our king, you little shit. Address him as such.’
But Alaric only waved his hand for his soldier to relax. ‘An honest one, at least,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that what we need?’ He turned to Rufius again. ‘I’m sorry for your sister. But your emperor could have saved her at any moment by honouring his promise to my people. He chose to feed his chickens instead.’
Rufius stared helpless at him. ‘What do you want from me?’
‘Look around,’ said Alaric. ‘Your city is already lost. The only question is how many more must die before we leave again. So I want you to take a message to your commander for me.’
‘But I don’t even know where—’
‘Of course you do. Good honest foot soldiers like yourself always know the beds their generals skulk beneath. I want you to tell him how it will be: the places of sanctuary I’m designating, how his soldiers and citizens can keep themselves safe. All I ask is three days and nights unimpeded to take the plunder we’re rightly owed and then we’ll be on—’ A door banged to his left. Two Vandal warriors came out of a tall, thin house, laughing and dragging a half-naked girl by her long black hair. They froze when they saw Alaric standing there. Their faces blanched as he marched across. ‘There’s to be none of that,’ he told them furiously. ‘How many times must I give the order?’
‘They started it,’ muttered one of the Vandals mulishly, still holding the girl by her hair. ‘These bastards raped my wife and then they killed her.’
‘Yes,’ said Alaric. ‘And would you not have wanted someone there, to stop them before they did?’
The Vandal lowered his eyes. The girl tore herself free of his weakened grasp and fled back indoors, slamming and bolting the door behind her. Alaric seemed satisfied. He turned on his heel and marched back across. Rufius gazed at him in astonishment. This man bestrode the Western Empire right now. He had more power than almost anyone else alive. And Rufius knew all too well what power was. Power was their feeble-minded emperor choosing to let this great city fall rather than lose face. Power was the plutocrat who sold out his nation in order to add more land to his already vast estates. Power was the senator who spoke movingly of justice, then went home to beat his wife and rape his slave. Power was the ambitious general who threw his soldiers into pointless battles to advance his own career. Rufius had never protested or even questioned this. It was simply how life was.
‘Well,’ said Alaric curtly. ‘Will you take my message, or not?’
A strange perturbation roiled Rufius’s heart. ‘Yes, my king,’ he said. ‘I will.’
Chapter One
Cosenza, Italy
The packing case was too heavy and cumbersome for Carmen Nero to manage by herself, especially with her purse and overnight bag to think of too, so the moment the train rolled into Cosenza station she pulled down the sash window to look for Giulia Surace, who’d sworn she’d be here waiting. And waiting she was, halfway along the platform, scouring carriages as they passed. Carmen yelled out to her and waved. Giulia waved excitedly back and hurried to the nearest door, running alongside it as it slowed, throwing it open and pushing her way past the small crowd of indignant passengers waiting to disembark. ‘Where is it?’ she asked.
‘This way,’ Carmen told her.
‘Porca vacca,’ muttered Giulia in awe, when she saw the size of it on the luggage rack.
‘What did I tell you?’ said Carmen, not without satisfaction.
Giulia gathered herself. ‘We need to hurry. It’ll only be stopping here a minute.’
The case was the size of a chest of drawers. It weighed as much as one too, though at least it had wheels on its corners, helpful for trundling across platforms, though less so for lugging on and off trains. At Rome’s Termini station early that morning, her professor, Matteo Bianchi, that world-renowned authority on Italy in late antiquity, had dropped it on his foot while helping her heave it aboard. ‘Tell your friend, never fucking again,’ he’d yelped, hopping around the platform clutching his toes. ‘And if I don’t have everything back on Sunday night – and I mean everything – she better find herself a new university.’
‘She’s not my friend,’ Carmen had retorted. ‘I barely even know her.’
‘Then why spend the fucking weekend with her?’
An excellent question, and one to which Carmen still had no answer.
With no direct trains from Rome to Cosenza, she’d had to change at Napoli Centrale. Unable to move the case by herself, she’d thrown herself on the mercy of two kindly porters, who’d stowed it on this rack for her. She and Giulia now heaved it down together and rolled it to the nearest door, forcing the milling passengers out of their way. A whistle sounded. Doors banged. Giulia hurried ahead to stop the train from leaving. A limber young black man in denim shorts and a tattered orange string vest gallantly offered to lower the case down the steps onto the platform, only to grunt in surprise at the weight of it. But between them they got it down.
‘See,’ said Giulia. ‘I told you it would be fine.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Carmen, thanking her benefactor and rubbing her sore palms against her jeans. ‘Like you said on the phone, it’s just a small parcel.’
Giulia didn’t even acknowledge the jab. She pointed to the exit. ‘We’d better hurry. They’re crocodiles here about parking.’
Carmen shouldered her purse and set her overnight bag on the packing case then wheeled them both across the platform, seething both at Giulia’s high-handedness and her own feebleness in not calling her out on it. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t been warned. Their fellow students at Sapienza had nicknamed her La Greca, not for her dark looks or her Magna Graecia origins, but rather – as she’d belatedly learned – from how wary one should be when she came bearing gifts. Yet when she’d called out of the blue last night, gushing about how gorgeous Cosenza was looking right now, Carmen would have felt churlish to refuse her invitation. Only after she’d accepted had Giulia mentioned anything about a package.
A silver-haired man in a wide-collared check shirt and stained blue jeans was leaning against the bonnet of an ancient sky-blue Fiat pickup, smoking contentedly despite the station porter berating him for parking in the wrong place. His face lit up when he saw them. He tossed away his cigarette and strode across. ‘You must be Carmen,’ he declared. ‘I… I am Vittorio.’ His eyes widened when he noticed the packing case. ‘Oof, what a beast! I had no idea. You are so kind, to bring it for us. How you must hate us!’
‘Not at all,’ said Carmen, disarmed by his charm. ‘My pleasure.’
He laughed delightedly at her lie. ‘I am so glad you have come,’ he said, commandeering the case and steering it around the back of his pickup. ‘Our poor house used to fizz with Giulia’s friends. Now I never see her. And she tells me nothing, nothing, nothing about Rome. So you will have to tell me everything yourself. All the gossip. Boyfriends, girlfriends – who even knows these days? In return, I will show you Cosenza. You will have a wonderful weekend, I promise you! A spectacular weekend! You will talk of it to your grandchildren! Oh, yes. You think I am joking. I assure you I am not.’
He tried by himself to lift the case up onto his flatbed, only to grunt at the weight of it and put a rueful hand on his small of his back. They gathered around it and heaved it up together, on the count of three. The suspension creaked a touch ominously beneath its weight. It wasn’t a vehicle to inspire confidence, its bodywork dinged like hammered pewter and its back bumper held on with tape. Inside, it was hot enough to roast lunch. The
three of them sat like chickens on a spit along its bench seat, with Giulia in the middle. The torn green plastic upholstery stuck to the undersides of Carmen’s legs. Coloured wiring dangled beneath a dashboard of broken dials, and Vittorio had to pump the accelerator with his foot while turning the key to get the engine started. ‘Okay!’ he said, raising a fist in mock triumph when finally it caught. ‘Home, home, home!’
The railway station lay north-east of town. Home lay south-west. The trip between the two was not a pleasant one. Exhaust fumes seeping up through the floor made Carmen a little carsick, while smoke from Vittorio’s cigarettes rasped her throat like a fine sandpaper. She tried rolling down her window but the handle spun uselessly. And Cosenza’s outskirts proved dismayingly ugly, their streets strewn with black bags leaking rubbish, and lined by shabby apartment blocks with pocked cladding, as if a bored artillery unit had whiled away an afternoon lobbing shells into the town. She sank into gloom. What had she been thinking, coming here with her thesis stalled and still not having learned Italian? She needed to return to Rome and pull herself together. Plenty of others had had it worse, and didn’t mope around like this. She might even have said something to that end had Vittorio not turned down a new street at that moment, the name of which sent a thrill straight through her.
It was imagination that had made Carmen a historian. As a girl, all it had ever taken was a fragment of antique text or a glimpse of a museum exhibit for her mind simply to fly away with her, spiriting her across centuries and continents, putting her at the heart of riotous adventures in alien cultures. History had literally enchanted her. But those magical moments had grown rarer in her teens and early twenties. Too much knowledge had a way of suffocating daydreams. Three months in Rome, the world’s most beautiful, romantic and historic city, and not once had she been transported or taken by surprise.
Not until now.
For this was Via Popilia, the ancient Roman road that had run south from Capua to the ancient port of Rhegium. It had been along this road that the Visigoth king Alaric had marched in triumph after his remarkably bloodless sack of Rome, having plundered it of its fabulous wealth. It had been along this road too that Alaric had retreated a short while later, after his failed effort to reach Sicily. This right here was where he’d fallen sick, most likely with malaria. This right here was where he’d died, mourned by his brother-in-law Athaulf and his grief-stricken army. And this was where his men had diverted an entire river from its course to dig a burial chamber beneath, in which they’d interred him with anything up to a billion dollars’ worth of Roman loot before restoring the river to its previous course and putting the slaves they’d used to death, so that no one would ever find it.
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