By the time the underfloor current heats up the water in the bath, there’s already a small crowd of us waiting in the towel room. Comes Pinnosa, having found out about my discovery, brought with him one of his most senior officers, and old Rav Asher. I called for Audulf — and Ursula. Her presence makes the men of Coln uneasy.
“Is the girl bathing with us?” asks the officer.
“It’s fine,” says Audulf. “Ursula bathes with us all the time. She’s used to this.”
“But I’m not used to it,” says Rav Asher. “What would my wife say if she saw me bathe with a young girl?”
“You could invite your wife,” says Ursula. “There’s enough space.”
“Lord forbid!” Rev Asher raises eyes to the sky. “No man has seen Esther’s bare skin in thirty years!”
“We owe today’s victory to young Octa,” says Pinnosa with a soft smile. “If he says we must bathe with his friends, it is what we shall do. Consider this a test of your character. A temptation we must suffer through.”
“Suffer?” Ursula whispers and rolls her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever made anyone suffer with my body before.”
“Well, if the Bishop of Coln gives us dispensation, who are we to protest?” says the fourth man sitting on Pinnosa’s side. He’s not from Coln, though he came with the refugees — he’s Paulus, the praefect of Ake. His arrival was a delightful surprise, and one that I have not yet had a chance to decipher.
The acolyte enters and announces that the water in the caldarium is ready. The men of Coln enter first, so that they don’t have to look at Ursula as she disrobes and joins us. I have grown so used to seeing her naked that I rarely think of her as an object of lust anymore; it is only when I see how Pinnosa and his guests struggle to avert their eyes from her body, clad only in steam and olive oil, that I remember she is a woman. Her cheeks turn red as she senses all the men’s gaze upon her, and she quickly submerges herself into the plunging pool to her neck.
Rav Asher clears his throat, and we all turn towards him in an instant, relieved at him drawing our attention away.
“The Comes mentioned you two met the night after I left,” I say.
“Yes, indeed,” the Rav says, stroking his beard. “We had an interesting conversation on the virtue of hope.”
“I wasn’t convinced by the Rav’s philosophy at first,” says Pinnosa with a wry smile. “As a Bishop, I believe in hope eternal, in God’s gifts awaiting us — in the afterlife. But as a Comes, I view the world around us through a dark lens, much as yourself, I understand. The old world is dying. Maybe it is already dead, we just haven’t noticed it. We made too many mistakes. We let our allies turn to enemies, and we let our enemies exploit our weaknesses. I did not think there was anything for us to do other than delay our demise for as long as possible.”
“What changed your mind?” asks Ursula.
“I did,” says Praetor Paulus. He scrubs his arms with the scraper. Of Pinnosa’s men, he’s the least perturbed by Ursula’s presence — I imagine the open steaming pools of Ake do not provide much in the way of privacy. “I brought news of what you and the Franks did in Ake.”
“We didn’t do anything remarkable,” I protest. “We just helped you with the fire.”
“It is more than any River Frank ever did,” says Pinnosa’s officer. “At best, they would have left Ake alone. At worst, they would have plundered what was left to plunder.”
“Hildrik is not like that,” says Audulf.
“Perhaps he isn’t,” says Pinnosa. “But it wasn’t Hildrik who came to ask my help with the Saxon warband.”
He picks up Paulus’s scraper and applies it, with the oil, to his thighs. Dried blood and dead skin mixed with dirt sticks to the blade. I study his ablutions with interest — not even my fathered bothered to observe the Roman rites of bathing, preferring the Briton soap and rag. For a moment, I feel transported into the world of the Ancient writings, as if Caesar himself were to enter the bath at any moment.
Pinnosa must also feel like he’s in another time and another place; without thought, he puts the scraper away for an attendant slave to clean and replace with a fresh one — but there are no attendants here, so the scraper falls to the wet stones with a soft clang.
“This place,” he says, gazing around the caldarium’s walls, painted with ancient, faded murals, dancing in the faint light of the oil lamp, “it is much like yourself, young Octa. A curious remnant of Rome in the heart of a heathen land. I’ve never seen Franks and Saxons show any interest in our baths, or our libraries.”
“My father was raised as a son to a Briton magistrate,” I say and then remember another fact of my upbringing that is bound to make an impression. “My foster-uncle, who was my tutor in all Roman matters, is the Bishop of Londin.”
Pinnosa guffaws. “Now I understand how it is that you could speak to me with such audacity! But it only confirms what I have already come to believe, after talking to Rav Asher and Praefect Fulco. The old world may be dying, but there is a new one being born. A world of men like your father and yourself. Men, Lord willing, like Hildrik.”
“What does this have to do with the crowd of refugees outside?” I ask.
“Coln, the city, is just so many walls. Bricks. Stone. Tiles. Plaster. All of it can one day be rebuilt, like the basilica my father raised from the rubble. What cannot be rebuilt is here,” he points to his head, “and here,” he lays a hand on his heart. “I could send all my men to death defending these stones. It would be a glorious battle, but a short one. And then, the barbarians would prevail anyway, and raze the city to the ground. Melt the statues, burn the books, rip the marble, just as they have in so many other cities in Gaul, so many times. Just as they did to Rome herself, three years ago.”
“Or we could try to save as much as possible, and find a new home in the South,” says the officer. “Nearer to the centre of the Empire. Shorten our supply lines, compress our borders. Try to survive for a generation more.”
“Only a generation?” I ask.
“Even I don’t hope for more,” says Rav Asher with a bitter laugh. “But a generation might be enough — to teach eager younglings like yourself what we know. To ensure that at least a memory of Rome remains.”
“Your library,” I guess.
He points to the outside. “All that was worth taking is on my wagon. The Franks are free to do what they want with the complete works of Statius.” He laughs, but his literary joke is as lost on me as it is on everyone else.
“Not everyone agreed with you,” I say. “Or there would be thousands more waiting to enter Tolbiac.”
“It’s not easy to evacuate an entire city overnight,” says Pinnosa. “More will come over the next few days. Some are going by water, by way of Confluens. The others — most — will try their fortune with the Franks. To many of them, little will change with the new masters. You’ve seen how Gauls live in Tornac, under Meroweg. The plebs are no better or worse under the Frankish kings than under a Roman Comes.”
“We left a centuria of soldiers to man the gates and keep order,” his officer adds. “We’re not going to let the Franks just march into the city without a fight.”
“And where do you want to take all these people?” asks Ursula. “To Trever?”
“It depends very much on what your commander decides,” Pinnosa says and wipes a thick trickle of sweat from his brow. He takes a deep breath. “I’ve had quite enough of the heat. What say you all we move to the cold room?”
“I would stay a while longer,” I say. “My bruises need all the healing they can get.”
“Of course.” Pinnosa nods. “You’ve been fighting all day — we only joined you at the very end.”
The men stand up, leaving me, Ursula and Audulf alone. The girl finally emerges from the water and sits up on the edge of the bath with a sigh.
“I like him better now,” says Ursula. “Though he can still make milk sour with his voice.”
“He’s lived through
a lot,” I say. “I’m surprised he’s managed to find so much energy at his age. When we first saw him, he was ready to die and take his city with him. Our visit must have shaken him out of some stupor.”
“What do you think he meant, ‘it depends on what Hildrik decides’?” asks Audulf.
“I’m sure we will find out tonight at the feast,” I say. “I wonder if Gille —”
I pause. The room darkens. Gille was placed among the worst injured in the corner of a makeshift hospital of the church yard. The acolytes tending to the wounded made it clear that their skill was no longer enough to heal those that lay there — only God’s miracle could save them.
“We must have hope,” says Ursula.
“There’s that word again, hope,” I say. “I’m not sure there’s enough of it for everyone. Hand me that scraper,” I ask Audulf. “I think I’ll skip the cold pool today.”
It is a sombre feast; not one of those vulgar occasions we heathens are so fond of, with barrels of mead pouring all night, and youths humping each other in the shadows while scops sing songs of valour. We are not in a mead hall, but in the debating chamber of Tolbiac’s curia, under a leaking roof, surrounded by stone walls of peeling plaster. Instead of a hundred celebrating warriors, only about twenty of us fit at the long table of venerable oak wood, dusted from mould and cobwebs for our arrival. Of my men, I brought only Ursula and Seawine; the rest of the table is divided between Hildrik’s and Pinnosa’s officers, with one lonely seat at the end for the representative of our hosts, a slightly miserable-looking chief magistrate of Tolbiac. The feast may be thrown at Pinnosa’s orders, but it’s the town that’s paying for it; it’s better than having the town plundered by rampaging Saxons, or razed by angry Franks, but it’s still a substantial expense for a town this size, in the middle of a country ravaged so often by passing barbarian hordes.
There is just enough ale and mead to keep everyone’s spirits up, and a few flasks of wine to share among the officers. We should be celebrating a victory, but everyone is too weary and worried about their wounded comrades, out in the church yard, many of whom will not live to see the dawn.
“As the King of Epirus once said, ‘another such victory and I’ll be coming home alone’,” quipped Pinnosa as we passed the makeshift hospital.
He is now explaining to Hildrik the presence of the Coln garrison on the battlefield, pointing to me and Ursula once in a while. Basina glances to me, smiling, whenever he does so. At the end of Pinnosa’s speech, Hildrik asks him the same question I posed at the bath house: what now for the Coln refugees?
“What now for Hildrik’s warband?” the Comes replies with a question.
“Nothing,” Hildrik replies. “We will go back to Tornac. I don’t have enough men to pursue Odowakr as it is, and there’s a thousand-strong army waiting for him across the Rhenum. I will consult with my father and, if he so decides, gather a greater force to fight the Saxons.”
Pinnosa scratches his cheek. “By the time you’re back, Trever might be in Saxon hands.”
“I cannot fight all your wars for you, Roman,” says Hildrik. He picks up a strip of salted pork from the plate.
“And I would not ask you to. Not out of charity, at least.”
Hildrik chews the meat slowly. “You would hire us as mercenaries?”
“I will need warriors to guard my people on the way to Trever. What’s left of my own garrison is scarcely enough to fight through Odowakr’s forces. A centuria of Meroweg’s best would do just fine.”
“You brought gold all the way from Coln?” asks Basina. “A risky move.”
“I have brought a few chests with me, yes,” says Pinnosa. “But it is not gold that I would like to buy your services with.”
“Silver is good, too,” says Hildrik.
“Not silver, either, though I have enough to cover your needs along the way. No, I was thinking of paying you in a different currency, one that none of our enemies could possibly outbid.”
“What is it?” I ask, sensing an answer.
“Rome’s friendship,” replies Rav Asher, leaning over towards us so that the tip of his beard lands in the soup he’s eating instead of the pig. “Rome’s knowledge.”
“Your books,” I say.
“What would I do with books?” scoffs Hildrik. He grabs a carving knife. “I need iron for swords, and hands for holding them.”
“I know what I would do with Rav Asher’s books,” I say quietly.
All heads turn to me. I take a sip of the wine before formulating a response.
“My father once had a dream,” I say. “He wanted to create a kingdom of the walhas and barbarians, united, combining the talents and skills of Rome and the strength and virility of the Iutes. Of course, that was before he grew disillusioned with Rome, like Meroweg.”
“What happened?” asks Pinnosa.
“The Britons waged a war on us. Unprovoked. They destroyed farms, villages, killed innocents by the hundreds, or took as slaves. My home village was burnt to the ground. My mother lived only because she wasn’t there at the time. I myself was abducted and put into a monastery, far from home and anything I knew.”
The faces of the Romans turn grey as I describe what I saw as a child — of men, in uniforms imitating those of Roman soldiers, slaughtering innocent village folk, the flames, consuming the house around me; Hildrik grows grim, and nods, silently.
“This is not the story we were told,” says Rav Asher, stroking his beard distractedly. “I got a copy of the latest Massalia Chronicle for my library. It tells of the barbarian levies rebelling and attacking the Dux in Londin, and the Britons forced to defend themselves from their onslaught.”
“Wortimer would send his own messengers to Gaul, to ensure his version of events was what got into the chronicles,” I say. “And worked with Germanus to spread the news from church to church.”
Hildrik laughs. “If this is the quality of the knowledge you want to share with us, you can keep it,” he says. “My father sent warriors to help the Iutes fight against the walhas.”
“And we will be forever grateful for it,” I say, with a nod.
“It affected him also,” says Hildrik. “He, too, once hoped for a union with the walhas. When we crossed the Rhenum, we were just one of the barbarian hordes, raiding and plundering, much like the Saxons still do. But when Aetius beat us, instead of throwing us back across the river, he offered us land around Tornac for settlement… We thought this was the beginning of a great alliance. Maurica proved he was just using us for spear fodder.”
“We have been paying for Aetius’s betrayal of our allies at Maurica dearly,” says Pinnosa. “The Goths and Burgundians have never forgiven us for it, either.”
“What happened at Maurica?” Ursula asks me quietly.
“Aetius took all the plunder the Huns left on the battlefield,” I tell her. “Leaving none as reward for his barbarian allies.”
“He argued that Rome needed the gold more,” says Pinnosa. “And he may have been right, at the time. But it was an ungodly thing to do.”
“It was enough to make my father forever suspicious of Rome’s intentions,” says Hildrik, “but Wortimer’s war in Britannia was the final blow to his hopes.”
I’m surprised — he never told me about this; I never even realised how much he was aware of the events in Britannia. Even in his exile in Thuringia he must have been kept abreast of his father’s undertakings, and judging by what Rav Asher said, he had better access to this information than any of the Romans.
“It wasn’t Rome,” says Pinnosa. “That is what happens when Rome is gone. When the peace and order that Rome brings are destroyed.”
“I wish I could believe it,” says Hildrik.
“Then come with us to Trever,” says Pinnosa. “And I give you my personal word that you will be sufficiently rewarded. Perhaps this could be a start of Rome regaining your trust.”
“I need more than promises,” replies Hildrik, and I notice Pinnosa’s eyes
glint. Hildrik talking about rewards means that now at least he’s considering his proposal. “I got no plunder off of the Saxons, other than some supplies.” He scratches his nose. The wagons we took were filled with odd load: thick ropes, long wooden beams, barrels of grease, blacksmithing tools, iron clamps and hinges. The iron could perhaps be forged into weapons, but the rest was useless to a warband. “If I leave now, I return with nothing, but at least I bring most of the men alive back to my father. If I go with you, I may lose even that.”
“What if you left your gold and silver here in Tolbiac, for safekeeping?” I propose. “If neither of you returns for it, have it sent to Tornac in Hildrik’s name, as spoils of the campaign — and wergild for the lost warriors.”
Rav Asher and Pinnosa look to each other, then glance at the Tolbiac magistrate, staring glumly into his mug of ale. Pinnosa smiles. “I don’t hate this. It’s better than having to carry all that treasure to Trever through battle. How does it sound to you, chieftain?”
“Like Aetius’s promises.” Hildrik scowls. “I don’t trust these magistrates to do what you ask. And what if Tolbiac falls to the Saxons, too? Or the River Franks? What of your gold then?”
“Bury it all in a secret place, and it will be safe,” I say. “The walhas in Britannia did that all the time when war came near their homes.”
“I need silver for the armbands to reward my warriors,” says Hildrik, his resistance faltering. “And gold for the diadems. Otherwise, I may not be able to convince my men to continue this campaign. We are already far outside our borders, and Trever is further than we ever planned to go.”
“I’m sure we can arrange something that will suit all of us,” says Pinnosa. “Even if I have to reach into my personal accounts…”
As Hildrik and the Romans continue to haggle over the price with which to hire the Franks as mercenaries, I sense a hand on my thigh. I look down, startled, then up, to see Basina’s eyes glinting with mischief. I freeze as her hand moves up my breeches, and to my quickly bulging crotch. I glance to my left. Ursula has also noticed what’s going on, and she’s struggling to stifle laughter. She moves closer, to cover me from the eyes of others sitting at the table, even as Basina’s hand reaches inside. My heart quickens.
The Blood of the Iutes: The Song of Octa Book 1 (The Song of Britain 4) Page 20
