This is the first of the ravaged towns we pass on our way, though it was the last on the path of destruction. West of Mosa, the rampaging hordes made their way quickly down the Roman road, avoiding fortified towns as if they were in a hurry to be somewhere. But the countryside between Mosa and Rhenum is a burnt-out shell of its old self. This must have been once a land rich beyond measure, dense with settlements and all sorts of industry. It would have made Cantia look like a barbaric wilderness. There is barely anything left of it now. We pass miles after miles of sacked towns, ruined villas, fallow fields, farmsteads of which only stone chimneys remain. People still live here, eking out a sorry existence among the fields and pastures, but unlike further south, they make no effort to rebuild the ruined dwellings. Vine grows over the charred stone; young trees sprout where wheat once grew.
We reach the edge of one such collapsing town by the end of the first day of marching after crossing the Mosa. The wall that surrounds it is breached and torn down in several places; through the gaps I see the ruin of a large bath house, and a wall of what would have been a basilica, looming over the small mud huts raised by the town’s returning citizens within the perished insulae. I would like to explore more, but Hildrik tells me we are to camp outside the walls in a settlement the River Franks built along the northern edge of the Roman road. There’s more activity here than in the town itself. Iron foundries and smithies bellow smoke and flame high into the evening sky. We’ve passed several such iron-making villages before, all busy smelting what must be enormous amounts of weapon metal.
“Walhas live in towns,” he explains. “Franks live in the villages. Such is the custom here.”
“At least as long as the walhas keep a garrison in Coln,” says the chieftain of the village, coming out of his long house to greet us. “Gods willing, and with Drohten Hildebert’s help, this won’t last long!”
“I was there when the Huns came,” Weldelf begins his tale. The burly Frank, his curly black hair bound with a silver band, is not just a village chief, as it turns out, but a chieftain of the local clan, and a relative of Hildebert, a Drohten of the entire River Frank tribe. The timber-framed, shingle-roofed long house built for him in the centre of the village is a smaller, simpler imitation of a mead hall, without any decoration inside, and only furs and animal skins spread on the floor around the hearth in place of table and chairs.
“It was just a large foraging band, really,” Weldelf continues. “Attila’s main host moved south, towards Mettis. He sent a smaller force to the north, as a diversion and to gather supplies for the main battle with Rome. We had been fighting Aetius for several years before, and were too exhausted to stop them, so we hid in the woods and the marshes. The walhas had nowhere to hide.”
“They fought well when the Huns besieged their walled towns,” says another Frank, with a face marked by a deep diagonal scar. “Like badgers in a sett. And like badgers, they died in their hundreds when the Huns breached the walls.”
Other Franks hum in morose agreement.
“My brother was in that Hunnish band,” says Basina, unexpectedly. Everyone stares at her in surprise, and I’m reminded of the fact that her people were allied with the Huns, before Attila’s death and the demise of his empire. “He died at Coln.”
“Ja.” Weldelf nods. “Coln held. Many Huns fell at her walls.”
“Where is this Coln?” I ask.
“On the Rhenum,” says Hildrik. “The greatest city the walhas ever built in this land. An impregnable fortress.”
“As long as there were warriors enough to man the walls of Coln, the city could withstand any enemy,” says Weldelf. “Legend has it that our ancestors once besieged it for a full year, and only got inside when a traitor opened the gates.”
“There’s a city in Britannia by that name,” notes Ursula.
“There are many cities by that, or a similar name all over the Empire,” says Hildrik. “They were all called Colonia-something-or-other in Imperial Latin. But,” he turns back to Weldelf, “if Coln is as impregnable as you say, why is your Drohten planning to wage war against it?”
Weldelf grins. “I know you and my Salian brothers well,” he says, “but I never met this one or his… Iutes, you said?” He nods at me. “Your allies will need to earn our trust before we begin to share our war plans with you.”
“There may be a chance of that soon,” says Hildrik. “What do you know of the Saxon band, that…”
“I’ve heard enough men talking of war tonight,” Weldelf interrupts him. “I want to hear women singing. I want see girls dancing.” He claps his hands, and a group of young, fair-haired women stands in the middle of the hall. One of them, clad in a white flowing dress embroidered with red flowers, starts playing a lute and singing a cheerful tune in some language I don’t recognise, while the other two dance around her.
I look to Hildrik and notice him scowl in impatience. All through the night, Weldelf had been dodging the subject of the Saxon incursion, and now, it seems, he’s evaded the conversation for good, at least until morning.
During a pause between the young woman’s songs, Hildrik stands up, bids everyone good night and leaves the hall. A moment later, Basina stands up also — but instead of leaving, she sits down on the deer hide beside me.
A monotonous, rhythmic, humming sound, like a deep, crackling breath, echoes in from the outside, underneath the young woman’s eerie song: the noise of the village’s iron foundries, working ceaselessly through the night. From a further distance comes a metallic ringing of a blacksmith’s hammer. Many of our ponies need looking after, their shoes and hooves damaged from all the charges and tight turns on the hard stones of the Roman road. It calms me down to know someone is taking care of them.
“I saw your reaction when I mentioned my brother,” says Basina. “Why were you so surprised?”
“I keep forgetting your people were allied with the Huns,” I reply. I spit the name of the tribe with such disgust that it takes her aback.
“It was either that or be conquered,” she says with a shrug. “Enslaved. Like her people.”
She nods to the dancing girls. The young woman’s song turns mournful. She sings in broken Frankish now, of the warriors slain by the Hunnic army.
“I understand. It’s just that to the Iutes…” I turn my eyes away from Basina’s face. “…the Huns were just a myth, demons from a distant legend. I never thought I’d talk to someone who actually lived among them.”
“I didn’t know the Huns ever got that far north,” says Basina.
“They didn’t have to,” I say. “They were a great stone thrown into the pond of peoples, the ripple of which threw us out of our homeland and washed onto Britannia’s shores.”
“It was the same with the Frisians,” says Gille quietly. “I remember my grandfather’s stories. The floods were bad enough… The sea swallowed the beaches and the fishing villages, flooded the fields, soaked the pastures, drowned the livestock. My grandparents had to move ever deeper inland, ever closer to the Saxon and Frankish lands… But then they stumbled on the Saxons and the Franks moving the other way. Nobody knew why. We were too weak to fight. Our only choices were to flee south or be enslaved.”
“The Thuringians had to fight the Saxons because the Goths and the Longbeards were encroaching on our land from the south,” says Basina. She opens her eyes wide. “And the Goths were on the march because the Huns were forcing them out!”
“We knew nothing of those movements up north,” I say. I recall the few times my father and Hengist would reminisce of the life in the Old Country, before the whale-road and the songs of the scops telling of those ancient days. “The first thing my father remembers from his childhood were strange riders attacking his clan’s lands. Now I wonder if they were Thuringians, or maybe Alans — but back then, all we knew was that they were fleeing from some unstoppable force. And so we, too, had to flee — to Britannia.”
“What was life like under Attila?” asks Ursula.
“I never thought of it as living under him,” says Basina, after pausing for thought. “The Huns were just always there, living among us, with Gepids, Rugians, Longbeards, Goths and so many others. I liked all the attention I was getting from them as a child. I got this from a Hunnic chieftain on my tenth birthday.” She reaches into her tunic and takes out a pendant in the shape of an eagle, made of gold and encrusted with garnets. “Sometimes I miss those days,” she says. “Before all the tribes started warring among each other.”
“Sounds like the old days of Rome,” I muse. “I wonder if we’ll ever see a world like that again.”
“There will be other men like Attila,” says Basina. “I’m certain of it.” She puts the pendant back between her breasts, and briefly, I wish I was that pendant. “This is an age of great upheaval — and great upheaval breeds great warlords.”
“You hope Hildrik will be one of them?” asks Ursula.
“I hope my husband will be one of them,” Basina replies with a playful grin. “Whoever they may be.”
We march out the next day — not quite at dawn, as the feasting had gone long into the night. I pack some of the food left over from the feast into my saddlebags: freshly baked bread, matured cheese and pork sausages should make a nice change from the usual travelling fare for a couple of days.
I find Hildrik already out on the road. He’s wearing a wry scowl on his face; his left eyelid is twitching, a result, I’m guessing, of a pounding headache we all suffer after drinking too much of the River Franks’ heady ale.
“Where are we heading?” I ask.
“South,” he says.
“You managed to get something out of Weldelf, then?”
“Something’s not right about him and that Saxon band,” he says. “But I spoke to other men in the village, and I went to town in the morning.” He nods towards the crumbled walls. “Another of those foraging packs passed through here the day before us. If we hurry, we might catch them before they join the main host. And this time, we should keep some alive.”
Hildrik splits a small group of fast walkers from his centuria; men who can keep up with a trotting pony. We’re launching into a pursuit, and this time, Hildrik is not going to let me and my riders have all the glory.
Another, smaller Roman road crosses the town from north to south. Following it, we enter deeper into what was once the centre of the province of Germania Secunda and is now the land of the River Franks. The traces of the destruction left in the wake of the Hunnic horde are not as severe here — the foraging army kept mostly to the east-west road, leaving these southern villages aside.
There’s still more industrial activity here. In every cluster of farmsteads, there’s either a smelting furnace, a charcoal pit or a blacksmith’s forge working all through the day. The entire land is making ready for war. With each village we pass, the scowl on Hildrik’s face grows deeper.
“Why do you think Weldelf didn’t want to tell us about the Saxons?” I ask. My voice is hoarse and breaking. After an hour of hurried trotting, even on a moor pony, my bottom is aching, and my breath is short.
“I hope it’s because he’s too busy preparing for the war with the walhas,” Hildrik replies with an equally weary voice. “And not because he’s allied with them.”
“The news of the war surprised you.”
“I would have thought Drohten Hildebert would consult such action with my father,” says Hildrik. “Antagonising the Romans when there’s an Imperial army marching for Gaul…” He shakes his head. “It’s just stupid. If Rome lashes out, they will not care if they’re fighting us or them. They’ll just want Franks to suffer — and we’re closer.”
“You think Rome still has enough power to make us suffer?” Basina asks, overhearing our exchange. She surveys the ravaged fields around us with a doubtful eyebrow, and I remember all the ruined towns we passed on our long journey from Tornac, and earlier, as we marched with Ingomer from the coast.
I know nothing of what the rest of Gaul looks like. Perhaps in the South, where the Huns never reached, it is still as prosperous and populous as it always has been, and it might still be worth fighting for. But I can’t imagine any Legionnaires willing to travel all the way up here, to wage war over some barbarian villages and crumbling towns. I imagine the same thought must have occurred to this Hildebert; surely, he must have thought the time was ripe to conquer the last vestige of the walhas’ presence in his land.
“Even a lame wolf can bite,” Hildrik replies, then snarls out a litany of swearwords. “And Rome is the greatest wolf there ever was.”
“You admire them,” I say. “I noticed you made up your army in the Roman manner — and you seem to speak some Latin?”
“And a bit of Greek,” he replies with a satisfied smile. “So does she,” he adds nodding at Basina. “We had tutors from both Imperial courts in Thuringia.”
“Have you seen much of the Empire itself?”
“Only once,” he says. “When I accompanied the Gepid king for annual tribute. We crossed into Pannonia and entered the great city of Sirmium. I have never seen anything like it before or since — even Coln doesn’t compare. I thought that was Rome, at first.”
“You paid tribute to the Empire?”
“The Empire paid tribute to us.” He chuckles. “Or rather, not so much a tribute as a salary — the Gepids kept other tribes away from Rome’s borders, and Rome didn’t need to waste its own men on holding the Pannonian frontier.” He clenches his fist. “If only I could convince my father to join forces with Rome, instead of that fool Hildebert! We could be like the Goths and the Gepids, sharing in Rome’s riches and power, instead of fighting for scraps in these mist-shrouded marshes!”
“I know exactly how you feel,” I agree, glad to find a common subject with the Frank. “Fathers can be so stubborn! If only…”
Hildrik raises his hand. I follow his gaze down the Roman road. Before us, a mile or so ahead, rises another walled town, somewhat larger than the last two we passed. Once again, I feel like a serf from some barbarian backwater; how many towns have the Romans built in this land? And if this is a remote northern frontier of the Empire, what must the rich South look like?
Several columns of black smoke rise above the town — and, mysteriously, right in the centre, one thick, expansive column of white steam, dissipating into a mist over the fields.
The gates are broken open, but the damage is not recent. It seems more like the wood of the door has rotten through so much the hinges no longer could hold it in. We enter the town with caution. There is little damage within the walls, and what there is, like at the gate, appears to come from neglect rather than intent. The town resembles more the places I know from Britannia, with its stone tenements abandoned, the street grid obscured, the crumbled foundations built up with wooden houses and mud huts.
The locals pay little attention to us at first. They’re busy running around with wooden buckets of water, extinguishing the fires scattered throughout the town. The water flows out of a large, shallow pool, lined with marble, dug in the middle of the central crossroad. I have never seen anything like it. The water is the colour of pure azure, smells of sulphur, and produces bellows of white steam, as if heated from below, but I can see no furnace or hypocaust pipes.
What I do see, instead, as we march further into the town, are not one but four great bath house complexes, one in each corner, each as large as any in Londin. It is from inside these bath houses, and from several more shallow pools I now spot at other crossroads, that the odd cloud of white steam rises above the city. There are other large public buildings attached to the bath houses — temples, hostelries, taverns, a Praetorium; all far too grand for a town this size, and all abandoned a long time ago, judging by the remains of pagan statues and frescoes still adorning the porches and the walls. Between them rise ruins of grand porticoes, atriums and gardens, now filled with waste or built up with huts. There isn’t a church anywhere in sight.
“What is this plac
e?” I ask Hildrik. He shakes his head.
“I don’t know.” He grabs a passing townswoman. She looks up, startled, as if she’s just noticed us.
“You!” he asks in rough Latin. “What do you call this town?”
“Ake,” the woman replies, “Waters.”
“Why is the water steaming?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Who knows? It comes like this from the ground. Maybe it flows through the flames of Hell. Now let me go, I have a fire to take care of.”
“Wait — the fires — was it the Saxons?”
“It wasn’t the damn Huns!” she replies with a sarcastic scoff. “Why would they bother burning down these ruins? I don’t know. Lord knows they took everything they wanted anyway.”
“Nobody tried to stop them?” I ask. “Have you no town watch?”
She laughs bitterly. “The vigiles were the first to hide! Now, will you let me go?”
“We should help them,” I tell Hildrik.
“We have Saxons to catch,” he says. “They can’t be far.”
“If the fire spreads from that bath house’s roof, it will engulf the entire town.”
In my mind, I see the flames consuming a village. I hear the screams of people being burned alive. My hands tremble, and I start into a cold sweat. Hildrik must see it too, in my eyes, for he ceases his protesting and orders his Franks to form a bucket chain from the nearest steaming pond to the blazing bath house. I tell my friends to join them, then rush into a nearby house and grab a tin tub from the hearth. I cast it to the first man in line.
“No!” shouts the townswoman. “Not the tin!”
It’s too late — the Frank fills the tub, then drops it with a howl of pain, spilling the scalding water over himself and the nearest comrade. The townswoman runs over to them.
“Take off your clothes! Quickly!”
The Blood of the Iutes: The Song of Octa Book 1 (The Song of Britain 4) Page 14
