Ursula leans to talk to Basina over me. “You must try the baths here,” she says. “Maybe tomorrow they can heat them up for us again.”
“I never understood your walhas obsession with baths,” Basina replies. “A river or a pond is good enough to get clean after the battle.”
“Trust me, nothing beats a good hot soak,” says Ursula. “You’re never as refreshed and invigorated as after a session in a caldarium.”
They continue this hollow conversation for a time; all the while, Basina strokes me under the breeches. I’m covered with sweat, and I can feel my face grow red; I pray that neither Hildrik, nor anyone else, spots my predicament, but the Franks and the Romans are too busy arguing. I can no longer pay attention to what they’re saying, only that for some reason, they are unable to reach a compromise that moments ago seemed so close.
“You are just as deceitful as all Romans,” cries Hildrik. “Like Aetius, you would have us die for you, but you’re not willing to part with any of your precious gold!”
“Your price is unreasonably steep,” replies Rav Asher. “It is one thing to ask for payment for services rendered, but to bleed us dry in exchange for protection — why, that’s tantamount to extortion!”
“The gold on the wagons you mention is not mine — it belongs to citizens of Coln,” adds Pinnosa. “I will gladly give you my share, and so will Rav Asher, I’m sure, but if you want more, you’ll have to take it from us by force.”
Their quarrel grows hotter just as Basina’s fingers go faster, until at last, Hildrik slams his goblet on the table — and I explode into his betrothed’s hand.
“Come, my beloved,” Hildrik says. “Their wine is as sour as their tongues, and their meat is as rotten as their hearts. Maybe tomorrow these walhas will come to their senses.”
He stands up and bids Basina do the same. She leans over and kisses Ursula and me on the cheek for good night — and wipes her hand in my tunic.
“We bury our fallen in the morning,” she says. “I will meet you at the church yard.”
“Of course,” says Ursula. “Rest well.”
“Rest… rest well, both of you,” I stutter, catching my breath.
Honour. What a strange idea it is. An idea that makes people fight, and die, and yet provides no tangible benefit to anyone.
People fight for plunder; they fight for mercenary pay; they fight to defend their homes and families; they fight because their chieftain wants to conquer a swathe of land. All this, I get. But this… this honour thing? This, I could never understand.
My father always hated it. “It’s a useful tool for a leader,” he’d say. “It makes men die for you without you having to pay them or promise them favours. But once the leader himself starts to be guided by honour, or glory, or some other futile endeavour like it, his people are as good as lost.”
It was honour that made the Franks stand against the Saxons, despite the overwhelming odds. It was honour that killed the many warriors we are putting into the damp ground on this dreary, drizzly, grey morning. Poor Gille is among them, one of the two warriors I lost in this battle, the other the young shieldmaiden, Haeth; both died before dawn, just like the acolytes expected. No god saw it fit to save them. Gille will never put a fresh saddle on another untamed moor pony. He will never entertain us with one of his odd Frisian jokes. Few of the wounded survived the night; those who did, including two of my Iutes, are bound to make a recovery quick enough to return to our ranks soon. The others are all waiting on the biers; the acolytes and the surviving Franks work hard on digging the many graves needed to accommodate the fallen. The town does not have a separate cemetery for the heathens; at Pinnosa’s insistence, they’re all buried in the empty corner of the church’s hallowed ground.
There will be twenty fresh graves today in this corner: all victims of Hildrik’s pride and honour. And now, because it is never rational, the same honour is forcing Hildrik to refuse Pinnosa’s offer of continuing the fight against the Saxons, a fight so many of his men already gave their lives for.
I know this isn’t about the gold — at least, not just about the gold; Meroweg’s Franks are a proud, wealthy people. They don’t need trinkets from Coln’s refugees. When we departed Tornac, to pursue what we then thought was just a raiding Saxon warband, there wasn’t even any talk of spoils. If we caught the Saxons at the end of their raid, we would take what they plundered back to the villages they took it from. If, as we hoped, we intercepted them before they did too much damage, there wouldn’t even be anything to take. It is, then, nothing but Hildrik’s stubbornness and pride that made him leave last night’s feast in such anger. Pinnosa’s offer, as far as I can make it out, is more than fair; moreover, I’m almost certain Hildrik does still want to pursue Odowakr; to avenge his fallen, to prevent the enemy from capturing Trever. All the same, he can’t be seen as weak by his men, accepting what may be mere scraps from the walhas table.
I need him to go after the Saxons, too. I haven’t come all this way just to lose a friend. I want a part in Pinnosa’s deal. Hildrik can keep all the gold; I have glimpsed a little of Rav Asher’s library and know it’s worth more than any treasure. The books and Rome’s friendship are what I’m after, but I’m not going to get any of it if we now decide to return to Tornac.
“My father would know what to do,” I whisper to myself, wiping the drizzle from my brow.
“About what?” asks Ursula. She’s the only person standing close enough to hear me through the rain.
“Hildrik and his cursed pride.” I explain the dilemma to her in a few words. “This is exactly the sort of problem my father used to deal with at the Londin Council. Even when he was my age, he somehow convinced Hengist to accept the settlement deal offered by the magistrates, even though it was far more insulting than the one Pinnosa is offering Hildrik.”
“Can’t you do the same?”
I shake my head. “I don’t have his skill with words. He was raised in a Councillor’s household. He could read the Ancients at half my age.”
“I think it’s about time you got out of your father’s shadow.” She glances across the field of graves, where Basina stands solemn, watching the ritual Hildrik conducts over the dead; we have no priest or rune-maker, so Hildrik must perform their duties. The rite is simple and not very different from the ones performed by the Saxons and Iutes. For every dead, Hildrik throws a sprig of oak, and a splash of bull’s blood, now blended with rain, from a small clay basin.
“Maybe your new… friend could help with your problem,” she says, nodding at Basina. “She certainly seemed keen on helping you yesterday.”
My cheeks burn, but I admit there’s merit in Ursula’s advice. There’s more than one way to play on Hildrik’s pride. As another body is brought up, I walk slowly over to him and his betrothed.
“How soon are you going back to Tornac?” I ask.
“Now is not the time to discuss this,” Hildrik replies, then adds: “In two days, if the wounded can walk by then.”
“We will miss your company.”
He looks at me sharply. “What do you mean?”
I feign surprise. “We are coming with the Coln refugees, as guard.”
“Alone?”
“My friends and I came to Gaul to help Rome,” I say. “It’s too early for us to go back home while there’s still a war on.”
“You took Pinnosa’s gold?”
“I did not,” I say. “I do not need his gold. There is glory and plunder enough to be found at Trever.”
“There is death to be found at Trever,” he says. He glances at Basina. She smiles faintly. He must hate me now. He knows he’s right; going with Pinnosa is a great risk, hardly worth any reward. And he must suspect I’m bluffing — I would never dare to follow the Romans on my own with the handful of Iutes that I have left. We would barely make a dent in Odowakr’s forces.
But admitting all of this would make me look like a coward. And while I might not care about that, pointing this out to
me is what makes him look like a coward, in his men’s and Basina’s eyes.
He scowls.
“Do what you want with your men,” he says. “I can’t stop you.”
“Maybe I should go with Octa,” says Basina.
“You are my betrothed,” Hildrik seethes.
“But not your slave,” replies Basina. “I always wanted to see Trever. And so did you, from what I remember. They say it’s almost as great a city as Sirmium. We talked of it even in Thuringia.”
“And we will see it. As soon as I get enough men from my father.”
“We will be waiting for you,” I say. “But try not to take too long, or there may not be much left to see.”
As I walk away, I hear Hildrik roar and smash the bowl of bull’s blood against the church’s wall.
CHAPTER XII
THE LAY OF ODILIA
Odilia returns from her dawn patrol in a hurry.
“Found them,” she says, catching her breath.
She is soaked through; the dew rises in steam from her clothes and skin.
Odilia has not proven herself a skilled warrior in the battles so far, but she’s a keen tracker, and discovered a surprising natural talent for horse riding, so I have often been sending her out as vanguard as we march south towards Trever. We’ve been marching for six days now, straight down the great Roman highway, at a moderate pace, careful not to catch up to Odowakr too quickly in fear of ambush. If he’s been sending any rear guards of his own, and he’s bound to have, he must know we are following him. It’s impossible to hide the mass of Frankish warriors, Roman soldiers and Iute riders from spies: nearly two hundred men under the joint leadership of Hildrik and Pinnosa.
Hildrik is still furious with me for forcing him to join our expedition to Trever, even though we both know it was what he truly wanted all along. The broad bands of freshly melted Roman gold on his arm and the arms of his officers did little to allay his anger at my trickery. We have barely spoken a word since Tolbiac, other than to grudgingly coordinate our war plans. All through the march, he’s been keeping Basina away from me, and from anyone else, under guard, though I’m certain no guards would hold her for long if she didn’t wish to play along with the pretence of Hildrik having power over her. It is a dangerous game; she knows she’s the main reason why Hildrik eventually agreed to march south, rather than return north. His honour and pride must be satisfied by her subservience, otherwise he might as well pack up and go back home. He may be the son of a Rex, and a war chief of many victories, but he will not command the respect of his warriors for long if they start to suspect he can’t control his betrothed’s virtue.
Pinnosa stays largely silent, too, but for a different reason. Three days after we set out from the crossroad town, a bloodied messenger reached us from Coln. The city had fallen to the River Franks after a battle that lasted one day and one night. Pinnosa’s calculations proved right — Hildebert’s warriors, elated with easy victory, spared the lives and freedoms of most of the city’s inhabitants, except a handful who insisted on fighting to the last, barricaded inside his father’s basilica. But the once proud and mighty Roman city was no more. Not even Rav Asher had enough hope left to think Rome could ever capture Coln again. And with Coln gone, it was only a matter of time before smaller towns like Ake and Tolbiac succumbed to the River Franks; the entire lowland province would become Hildebert’s domain.
It was an inevitable consequence of Pinnosa’s decisions, and he was well aware of what would happen when he made them — but that knowledge did nothing to alleviate his melancholy mood, which soon spread over his entire army. That mood did not improve when we entered a dark, wooded highland area, that the local guides called Arduenna. The Roman highway now weaved up and down — though always due south, like an arrow shot — between fertile valleys, dotted with rich farms, windswept hilltops marked with watchtowers and small forts, and slopes covered with black forest of tall pines and gnarled oaks. The weather turned melancholy, too — what started as a grey drizzle at Tolbiac turned into a procession of violent showers and gale-torn mists, unseasonably cold and windy for this time of year; we marched even slower now, not wanting to leave the miserable crowd of refugees following us from Coln too far behind.
This is a land that’s seen its share of barbarian raids over the centuries. The road from Coln is a natural corridor for any conquering horde, and the locals have learned to live with the invasions as if they were natural catastrophes. This time is no different. Each small hilltop fortress we pass is filled with people and their livestock, gathered from nearby farms and villages, huddling together in the walls of the ruined barracks, waiting for the Saxon warband to march past until it’s safe enough to leave. The forts this far north are only manned by skeleton garrisons, enough to slow Odowakr’s progress down, but not stop him. He doesn’t pay attention to their walls. With his wagon train gone, he can afford to simply march around the forts, plunder the surrounding farms for food and fodder, and move on.
We don’t have such freedom. In every fort, we stop for the night, waiting for the refugees to catch up. In every fort, our news brings sorrow, but no surprise. It seems the people of Arduenna have long expected Coln to fall to the River Franks. If anything, they are surprised Pinnosa managed to save so much from the fallen city, and with so few losses. In every fort, a handful of the refugees decides to stay behind, too exhausted to march any further. Pinnosa, still a superior officer to the local commanders, orders each garrison to split into two unequal parts. One, smaller part of each, he sends back north, to the border fortress of Icorig, guarding the entrance to Arduenna, in case Hildebert’s warriors decide to try their fortune fighting their way deeper into Gaul. The remainder is ordered to join our army in its march to Trever.
“There’s no point leaving good troops in these hilltop forts,” he explains. “Icorig should hold any incursion for a while, but if Trever falls, none of it will matter. We need to get as many men to the city as possible.”
By the time I send out Odilia on her mission, our army has grown by another hundred or so fresh soldiers. There are now more Romans in our midst than Franks, and Hildrik’s unease only grows. We’re a small barbarian band, deep in the Roman territory — if they turn against us, what chance do we have to fight our way back home? And if we reach Trever, will there be enough glory and plunder to share if the Franks are only an auxiliary force to the main Roman host?
The news Odilia brings is not related to Odowakr. We don’t need any more patrols to track his movements. We know he’s ahead of us — coming up to the outskirts of Trever now, less than a day away, having slowed down to avoid the last fort along the way. Odilia’s mission took her across the Mosella River, to the other side of the Roman city, to find out the position of the greater Saxon army coming from across the Rhenum.
“They blocked approaches to all three gates,” Odilia explains, drawing a crude map in the mud. “The main camp is on the northern road, two smaller detachments to the south and east. There is still one road left open, south across the river. I saw some wealas fleeing in that direction.”
“They would have come through Mogontiac,” says Paulus, who joined us on the side of the road, together with Basina and Pinnosa. As Pinnosa’s army grew, so did the need for new officers to command the recruits, and so Paulus was promoted to his former position of a centurion. “The same way Attila’s Huns did. There will be many in that horde who came with him the last time.”
“I remember when Mogontiac was an impassable fortress,” muses Pinnosa. “Guarding the Rhenum crossing since Drusus vanquished the barbarians in the days of Augustus.”
“The Huns left it a smouldering ruin,” says Paulus; I can see in his eyes he witnessed the destruction himself. “And we could never afford to rebuild it again. It is now merely a watchtower, maintained to warn Trever of approaching barbarian warbands.”
“They can’t have been here long,” adds Odilia. “The south camp was still being set up when I saw it.”
“Is the siege tight in the north and east?” asks Basina.
“It is porous as a sieve,” says Odilia with a grin. “There is little to stop the men and the beasts from simply crossing the fields around the city and reaching the gates this way. There is a gap more than an arrow shot wide between the walls and the Saxon camps. I saw some barges sail up the river from the North, undisturbed.”
“They still fear the might of Augusta Treverorum,” says Pinnosa. A faint, triumphant smile appears on his lips, the first in days. “The barges must be from Coln. They made it all the way here, after all.” His fist clenches in anticipation of battle.
“The army must be waiting for Odowakr to join them before they begin the siege in earnest,” I guess. “Is there no chance of reinforcements from the South?”
“If there were any, they’d already be here,” says Pinnosa. “There is a strong garrison in Mettis, but they would not risk sallying forth to meet a barbarian army in the field. We are the only help the city may count on.”
“Before we take on Odowakr’s entire army, we need to figure out how to get them into the city safely,” says Paulus, nodding in the direction of the crowd of refugees, huddling in makeshift shelters and on the wagons along the road.
“We’ll figure it out presently,” replies Pinnosa. “It looks like we have a little more time to come up with the plan than I feared. As things stand, the city will hold for weeks. You have my gratitude, girl,” he says to Odilia. “Yours is the first good news I’ve had in weeks.”
“She’s not a girl,” I say, and wrap my arm around Odilia’s shoulders in a proud embrace. “She’s a Iute shieldmaiden!”
Trever spreads below my feet as if it was a mosaic floor, a perfect map of the city and its surroundings, each red shingle roof a separate tile, set out on a vast grid of streets, punctuated with several enormous compounds of imposing public buildings — a basilica, a Praetor’s palace, an ancient temple turned into a church between them, a complex of bath houses in the distance.
The Blood of the Iutes: The Song of Octa Book 1 (The Song of Britain 4) Page 21
