Raptor (115 page)

That commotion went on for some time, but was finally resolved when King Feva simply threw up his hands in seeming resignation, abandoned the parley, reined his horse about and splashed back through the water. He rode up the far riverbank and over to the left flank of the army still stolidly waiting there. He gesticulated some more, shouting orders that I could not hear. Then a great part of what I could see of that army’s front—obviously Feva’s Rugii—made the “down weapons” sign of truce. The horse warriors dismounted, the spearmen put their points to the ground, the swordsmen sheathed their weapons. That caused consternation in what I could see of the rest of the army. There was much milling about, and the signifers’ flagstaffs wavered, and there came to my ears a murmur that must have been loud and angry quarreling among those troops. Their consternation was nothing compared to Strabo’s. He was now flailing and humping about inside the litter so that it was jouncing on the shoulders of its bearers, and those four men were having to dance to keep their footing. Theodoric and Soas merely sat their saddles and coolly regarded all the goings-on. I heard Strabo’s voice one last time, hoarsely bellowing, “Take me back!” And his bearers, staggering tipsily, turned and carried the litter, rocking and yawing, across the waters to the far bank.

Frido asked me, in a wondering voice, “Am I not to see a war?”

“Not this day,” I said, smiling at him. “You just
won
this one.”

There now occurred the day’s final event of significance, the one that historians in their books still mention with awe. Strabo was continuing to heave about inside his litter so furiously that his bearers had trouble lifting their burden up the riverbank. From the front rank of his nearer troops, several spearmen ran down to lend a hand. And then the litter gave such a violent bounce that Strabo pitched right out of it, visible to everybody, a thick torso wearing a cut-down tunic from which protruded a bearded head and four stumps helplessly thrashing in distress. At that moment, the swine-man looked very much like a porker indeed, splayed for display at a meatcutter’s stall.

The history books nowadays give only meager mention to the lifetime doings, to the reign and the tyrannies and the atrocities of Thiudareikhs Triarius, called Strabo. But the books all tell how—after his having outlived many enemies and surviving many battles and even recovering from the gross mutilation that should have killed him—Strabo finally came to die of an ignominious accident. He was tossed from his litter onto the spearpoint of one of the soldiers hurrying to assist him. The man tottered at the sudden shock, and his fellow soldiers confusedly leapt to help him hold his spear from falling. So the last sight I had of Strabo was of his truncated body impaled and briefly wobbling aloft before its deadweight bore the spear sideways and down, and he disappeared among the shuffling feet of his remaining loyal men.

Over wine in Theodoric’s field tent that night, he and Soas and I discussed the happenings of the day.

Soas, somberly shaking his gray head, said, “It is certain that Strabo did not deliberately seek the inglorious death he died. But he might as well have done, after the dual humiliation of being denied battle and of having his chief ally desert him in front of all his other men.”

“Ja, he was finished and he knew it,” said Theodoric. “Still, I am happy that the world is now rid of him altogether. He was a blight on the memory of my lamented sister Amalamena. I can hope that she, and the woman who so gallantly took her place in Strabo’s clutches, and all Strabo’s other victims of that time, are satisfied with his fate.”

“I am sure they are,” I murmured, for I knew that one of them was—that one being me.

“And now that Strabo is gone,” said Soas, “all this day, from the moment of his misadventure, his last diehard, desperate Ostrogoth followers have been crossing the river, by twos and threes and whole droves, to cast their lot with our forces. His other allies—that rabble of Scyrri and Sarmatae tribesmen—are simply evaporating.”

“And better news yet,” said Theodoric. “Rather than march his troops straight home again, King Feva has offered to put all of them at my disposition.”

I said sardonically, “Feva may be less than eager to return to his queen, Giso. I would not blame him. And, by the way, I have as yet seen King Feva only from a distance. Does he really have a nose smaller than the average?”

Both men blinked and said, “What?” and Theodoric said, “Well, he is a Rugian. He hardly has an imposingly Roman nose. Why on earth would you ask that?”

I laughed and told them of Queen Giso’s eagerness for dalliance with my companion Maghib, because of his Armenian long nose and what she supposed that portended of his masculine equipment and prowess.

Both men joined in my laughter, and Theodoric said, “I wonder why that ancient myth persists, when it must so often have been proven a fallacy.”

Old Soas scratched in his beard and said thoughtfully, “On the other hand, regarding the opposite sex, I have always found a woman’s
mouth
a reliable indication of what her sexual parts are like. A large mouth means a capacious kunte. The wider and looser and wetter her mouth, the same with her nether aperture. And a woman with a small, pouty, rosebud mouth always has a similarly small mouth below, to match.”

I stared at the marshal, finding it a little hard to think of him as having once been young enough to have experienced a variety of female mouths. But Theodoric only nodded and solemnly confirmed Soas’s contention.

“Ja, the correspondence of a woman’s two apertures is no fallacy. That is why, in many eastern countries, the women are made to keep their faces always covered in public, all but the eyes. Their men do not want other men lasciviously
measuring
their women, so to speak.”

Soas also nodded and said sagely, “And a man might be expected always to
seek out
a woman with a small mouth—knowing how deliciously tight and clasping will be her kunte—except that all men also know that small-mouthed women are more than likely to be similarly small and tight and mean of temperament. A man must beware, above all, of the woman with a small mouth
and
thin lips. She will prove veritably vicious.”

“True, true,” said Theodoric. “Akh, well, in the matter of selecting a woman just for frolicking, it is best to follow the one simple rule. Seek a woman who wears the Venus collar. Whatever she may lack in beauty of face or form or temperament—and however anxious you may be to get rid of her next morning—she will be an irreproachably enjoyable bedfellow for the night.”

It was apparent that Theodoric and Soas had seized on this lightsome subject just because they were glad to have, for a change, something more pleasant to discuss than weighty matters of statecraft and policy and strategy. However, I brought them back to the here and now by remarking:

“I am gratified but slightly surprised to hear that King Feva has so readily allied himself with us. I should have thought he would be wrathful at his son’s having been abducted and held hostage.”

“Ne,” said Theodoric. “He seemed actually
pleased
to have so unexpectedly found his small prince in this far land, and to find that the boy had been well cared for. Also, Thorn, I believe it was as you conjectured. Not until Feva arrived here would he have realized that Strabo was only a pretender, a would-be usurper—and worse, that Strabo had woefully little chance of succeeding even at usurpation.”

“Well, now,” grumbled Soas, again being the sober and sententious old marshal. “For the loan of Feva’s army, Strabo no doubt promised him half your kingdom, Theodoric. What are
you
promising for the use of that same army? Or what is Feva asking?”

“Nothing at all,” Theodoric said lightly, “except his and his men’s fair share of whatever they can win while under my command.”

“But win where?” I asked. “Win what? From whom? Strabo was your only real rival, Theodoric, and the only real nuisance bothering the Emperor Zeno. Putting him down gained no one any land or plunder to be shared. True, there probably will in the future be other such petty upstarts to be conquered, but they will likely have even less of property worth winning. There is nowhere any rich king or nation affording an opportunity for a profitable war, so I do not see—”

“You forget,” Theodoric interrupted. “Zeno has for some years now been annoyed by one chronic affliction. I expect he will eventually ask me to help cure it.”

“What or who would that be?”

“Come, come, Thorn,” he said mischievously. “You yourself once quoted the late Strabo on the subject of this person. And, Soas, you have actually been in the man’s company.”

We two marshals glanced questioningly at one another, and Theodoric grinned at us both as we instantly realized.

I breathed the name, “Aúdawakrs.”

And Soas said, “Odoacer Rex.”

And we both, in awe, spoke the resounding word: “Rome.”

As the saying has it, all roads lead to Rome, but we would have to travel many of those roads and be a long time getting there.

Theodoric had first to go to Constantinople, and he took me and Soas and his generals Pitzias and Herduic and a sizable retinue of his finest troops with him, because he was summoned to that city to enjoy a signal honor, never before bestowed by a Roman emperor on any outlander. The Emperor Zeno, on being apprised of the bloodless victory over Strabo, insisted that Theodoric come to the capital and be threefold celebrated—with a triumph, with the name of Flavius and with the imperial consulship for the year.

Many a conquering Roman general has been accorded the grand public ceremony called a triumph. And numerous Roman citizens, even a few noncitizens, have had the nomen gentilicus Flavius formally prefixed to their names. And every year at least one notable Roman has been designated that year’s consul of the empire (often having well-nigh bankrupted himself to
buy
that honor). But Theodoric was the first and only Goth ever to be given all three of those accolades, and all at the same time.

Some would later say that Zeno thereby bribed Theodoric, and to good effect; but I saw it more as a wooing. In the time since the emperor had recognized Theodoric as King of the Ostrogoths and appointed him the imperial commander-in-chief at the Danuvius frontier, Zeno had been loyally served and properly deferred to and faultlessly respected. But Theodoric had continued to be very much his own man, for example in declining the emperor’s offer of reinforcements to help quell Strabo’s uprising. So now, it seemed to me, Zeno wanted ties of more than mere concord between ruler and subordinate; he was seeking to weave bonds of equality and comradeship between two good men.

Thus it was that, at the side of Flavius Amalus Theodoricus, and followed by his splendidly caparisoned troop of horsemen, I was privileged to ride again along the Via Egnatia and through the Golden Gate of Constantinople. Under the gate’s triple arches a crowd of the Eastern Empire’s senators and magistrates and high churchmen awaited us. Theodoric dismounted from his horse so he could be crowned with laurel by the city’s Patriarch Bishop Akakiós, who saluted him as “Christianorum Nobilissime et Nobilium Christianissime”—most noble of Christians and most Christian of nobles. The senators draped him in the gold-and-purple toga picta and presented him with a scepter to carry, addressing him as “Patricius” and welcoming him to his office as Consul Ordinarius of this Roman year 1237 ab urbe condita—or, in the Christian count, anno domini 484. Then Theodoric stepped into the distinctive circular-shaped chariot used only for triumphs, holding its four horses to a slow walk so the body of dignitaries could march ahead of him as an honor guard.

I and my fellow marshal Soas rode next after Theodoric, with our troop of warriors behind us. Since we totaled no impressive contingent, and since we had no captives or spoils of war to parade, our number was augmented by columns of marchers and horsemen from Zeno’s Legio III Cyrenaica, and by several bands of musicians playing on military instruments. There were many drums and pipes, of course, but also other instruments of marvelous variety—the brass infantry trumpet, the lighter cavalry trumpet of wood and leather, the twisted horn called the bucina, the cornu that coils over its player’s shoulder, the very long trumpet called the tuba and the
extremely
long lituus that requires two men to carry. Stepping out smartly to that brave music, we proceeded along the broad Mése, where the throngs lining both sides of the avenue cheered
níke!
and
blépo!
and
íde!
and children flung flower petals at us.

We Ostrogoths wore the war armor and embellishments that I was familiar with, but this was the first time I had seen Roman legionaries on parade. They were most gaudily outfitted in armor of colored leathers, and with towering plumes affixed atop their helmets, and those helmets were of odd construction. The everyday helmet protects skull and forehead and cheeks; this Roman parade helmet covered a man’s whole face, with only eyeholes for him to see through. The legionaries also carried many bright flags and standards and guidons, some of which were not just cloth oblongs, but were ingeniously fashioned to imitate animals. There were dragon flags, for instance: multicolored ribbons braided into long tubes that, as they swept through the air, writhed and undulated and even
hissed
like serpents.