Raptor (119 page)

The first two hundred and forty miles of our journey were, as we had expected, uncontested and unimpeded, not even very rigorous. September and October are months of good weather for traveling, neither too hot during the day’s march nor too cold for comfortable sleeping at night. And the season well deserves its old-time name of Spear Month, because game animals are plentiful. We had outriders ranging at a distance ahead of and alongside our columns—frequently Frido and I took our turn among them—acting both as lookouts and as hunters. In addition to bringing down edible beasts and wild birds, the outriders plucked fruits from orchards, olives from groves, grapes from vineyards and fowl from farmyards. That of course defied the emperor’s ban against pilfering from his local subjects, but even Zeno would have conceded that soldiers cannot be commanded to
too
good behavior.

Along the way, we were several times hailed and joined by additional contingents of warriors eager to march and fight with us. They were of various minor Germanic nationalities—Warni, Langobardi, Heruli—sometimes only a handful, sometimes all the able men of an entire tribe, and some of them had traveled far distances to meet us. It was a nuisance to integrate them into an already organized army, and that made the officers to whom they were assigned grit their teeth in exasperation, but Theodoric did not turn any of the newcomers away. In fact, he took some pains to make them feel welcome as close comrades. Every time a sizable group joined us, he would conduct a ritual of swearing auths, they to him and he to them. Although our army was accompanied by several Arian Christian priest-chaplains, Theodoric did not mind making the priests, too, grit their teeth in exasperation. As I well knew, our king wore his Christianity only lightly. So, since most of the new men were adherents of the Old Religion, Theodoric obligingly joined them in swearing the auths on the pagan Allfather Wotan.

Those first two hundred and forty miles of journeying brought us to where the Danuvius is joined by the river Savus, where stands the city of Singidunum. We made camp along the riverbank and stayed there for several days, partly to procure fresh supplies of one commodity and another, partly to give the troops brief leaves to avail themselves of the city’s facilities. Singidunum was now garrisoned by the Legio IV Flavia and, while we were in the vicinity, many men decamped from that legion also, to join Theodoric.

This city having been the site of my initiation into battle, I felt quite proprietorial as I again walked its streets. My companion, Prince Frido, was even more thrilled to be visiting here, because, when he and I had come past the city on the barge taking us south to Novae, I had told him all about the siege of Singidunum and the defeat of King Babai’s Sarmatae.

“So now, Saio Thorn,” he said eagerly, “you must show me everything that earlier you only described.”

“Very well,” I said as we strolled. “Ahead of us yonder are the gates—though rebuilt now—that were breached by our trumpets of Jaíriko.”

And anon I said, “In this square I skewered a scale-armored Sarmatian warrior. And on that farther side Theodoric disemboweled the traitor Camundus.”

And anon I said, “From yonder wall the dead were dumped down the cliff to be burned. And here is the central square where we celebrated our victory with a banquet.”

And finally I said, “I thank you, friend Frido, for letting me play the seasoned old campaigner revisiting his old stamping ground. But now please go and find some amusement of your own. I wish to seek out one of the diversions traditional to old campaigners.”

He laughed understandingly and, with a cheery wave, went off by himself.

It is popularly supposed—at least by homefolk who have never been abroad on military service—that an army’s officers go on leave just to soak themselves clean in a respectable therma, and that it is only the coarser-fibered enlisted men who go to tumble lupanar girls and get vilely drunk. But it has been my observation that about equal numbers of the lesser ranks go virtuously to wash and officers go wickedly to wench and tipple.

I myself went
first
to the city’s best men’s therma. While leisurely lolling there, I imbibed enough good wine to make me comfortably mellow. Then I went out to saunter the streets again, alert for other pleasures in prospect. I had no inclination to resort to a lupanar, nor had I any need to. I knew I was personable enough to attract women of better than ipsitilla grade, even if I had not been wearing the fine raiment and insignia of my own grade. I had gone only a little way from the therma when I caught the appreciative eye of a well-favored and well-dressed young woman, who, it soon developed, had also a well-appointed house. It was well furnished, that is to say, with every convenience a housewife could want—except a husband, hers being a merchant gone downriver on business. Not until very late in the evening did she and I even pause to introduce ourselves. Her name was Roscia.

When, two days later, I went again from camp into the city, I carried my Veleda garments and adornments and cosmetics in a bag, and found a secluded alley where I could put them on unobserved. Then I went to the city’s best
women’s
therma and spent a long, luxurious time there. I left at nightfall, walking as languidly and assuredly—and as watchful-eyed—as Roscia had done. And, just as she had done, I soon caught the admiring eye of a personable male. But I had to make an effort to keep my face straight when he hesitantly approached. This was no townsman, but one of our warriors, and a very young one. Also, to judge from his breath, he had taken a good deal of wine to fortify himself for the accosting of female passersby.

He stammered awkwardly, “Please, gracious lady… may I walk a way with you?”

I looked coolly at him and said, with pretended severity and genuine amusement, “Your voice is only just now cracking and changing, boy. Have you your mother’s permission to be out after dark, niu?”

Frido flinched guiltily and, as I had rather expected, wilted a bit at the mention of a mother. He could only mumble confusedly, “I need no permission…”

So I continued to tease him, demanding, “Or do you, boy, mistake
me
for your mother, niu?”

To his credit, he braced up at that and said firmly, “Stop calling me ‘boy.’ I am a prince and a warrior of the Rugii.”

“And a raw beginner, obviously, at making conversation with strange women.”

He shuffled his feet and muttered, “I did not know… I thought you would know what to say. I thought any woman out walking alone at night must be… well…”

“A noctiluca? A night moth? And what was I supposed to say? Come to bed with me and let me relieve your fruit of its kernel?”

Now Frido looked slightly alarmed. “What?”

“It means devirgination. The end of innocence. The onset of maturity. The first time ever. It
would
be your first time, would it not?”

“Well…”

“I thought so. Come along, then, prince and warrior. Here, you can carry my bag.”

As I took his arm and guided him along the street, he said dazedly, “You mean… you will?”

“Not I, ne. I am old enough that you
might
mistake me for your mother.”

“I assure you, gracious lady, I never would. No one ever would. If you but knew my—”

“Hush. I was only making jape of you. Now I am escorting you to meet a more complaisant lady. Very near here.” Frido did not speak again, because he had to concentrate on walking without weaving. We came to a door and I pointed. “She lives there. You will enjoy Roscia. She wears the Venus collar.”

“Are you not going to introduce me? I cannot simply come calling at a stranger’s door and—”

“If you intend to dare maturity, young prince and warrior, you must get used to doing things on your own. Call her by name—Roscia—and tell her that you are a friend of her friend of the day before yesterday.”

He stood undecided before the door, so I took my bag from him and departed, confident that he would not long remain undecided. I was also confident that Roscia would willingly and expertly induct young Frido into manhood. And I was glad; the lad could not too early begin learning how to function as Princess Thiudagotha’s husband, even if he did not yet know that that was what he was to be.

I must confess that I
had
briefly toyed with the mischievous notion of playing noctiluca to Frido myself. He was a handsome and sturdy and likable boy, and I would have made sure that we both reveled in the experience of his first time ever. I could easily have managed it, as I had long ago done with Gudinand, without Frido’s ever suspecting that I was
not
a female stranger casually encountered. Why, then, had I declined to take raptorial advantage of such a wickedly winsome opportunity? Perhaps because the prince was addled by drink, and it would have been unfair. Perhaps because I had for so long been “big brother” to Frido and did not wish to be anything other. Perhaps because I felt it would be perverse of me, helping to prepare him for marriage to my “niece” Thiudagotha. Perhaps because, having spoken to Frido of maturity, I decided to demonstrate some myself, instead of my usual carefree impetuosity. Or was I perhaps secretly, slyly saying to myself that there would be plenty of time for “that” when the lad was older? Akh, it was all very complicated.

In any case, my having forgone that opportunity seemed to have dulled my appetite for adventure—for that night, anyway. As I continued walking through Singidunum, I caught admiring glances from other and more eligible males. But I primly parried the glances and kept on walking, and found another secluded alley in which to change clothes, and went virtuously back to the camp.

Not until our army had been on the march again for a day or two did Prince Frido ride up beside me and, after a few pleasantries, shyly remark, “I believe, Saio Thorn, we now have something in common. More than we used to, I mean.”

“Indeed?”

“A common friend, a lady named Roscia, back in Singidunum.”

I said lightly, “Akh, not too common, as I remember. Merely liberal.”

He nodded knowingly. “I was told that she wore a Venus collar, and I did not know what that was, so I asked her. She laughed, but she showed it to me. And then she showed me… well… what the Venus collar signifies…”

He waited for me to say something, so I did. “Frido, we men of gallantry do not bruit the attributes or the talents or the enthusiasms of those women known to us by name. Only our anonymous wenches are fair game for discussion.”

“Oh vái, I stand rebuked,” he said contritely. “But… if nameless women can be talked about, there was one of those in Singidunum, too. The woman who introduced me to the lady Roscia. It was nighttime, and I was not very sober, so I remember only one of
her
attributes. She had a tiny scar bisecting her left eyebrow.”

There were a number of things I might have said, but I said only, “So?”

“Well, it was a scar exactly like yours, rather distinctive. I wondered if you might have seen her and noticed it, too.”

I decided simply to laugh it off. “A bisected eyebrow, eh? Frido, if you were property drunk, I am surprised that you were not seeing five or six eyebrows on every face. Come, shall we join the outriders and see if we can flush something tasty for nahtamats?”

From Singidunum, the army had proceeded along the north bank of the river Savus, meaning that we were now well inside the province of Pannonia, and could forage at will without breaking any agreed-on rules. But we found few people to take anything from, and not much to take from them. The word of our march had gone before us, and it has long been proverbial that people in the path of an advancing army have only two choices: “flee or fast.” The countryfolk having got their autumn harvests in, most of them had chosen to flee, taking produce, herds and flocks with them. However, we were not lacking in provender. The bargeloads of stores were still waiting for us at intervals along the Savus, and there was still plenty of wild game, and the riverbanks afforded dry but ample grazing for our horses.

Eighty miles upriver of Singidunum, when we approached the city of Sirmium, Theodoric sent ahead of us a herald bearing the message of warning that our marauder ancestors had employed:
“Tributum aut bellum. Gilstr aíththau baga. Tribute
or
war.”
Though the main body of us had not yet sighted the city, we were downwind of it, and we all began gasping and gagging and commenting profanely on the foul smell of that place. When we arrived there, we found out why it stank so. It seems that the surrounding countryside is especially well suited to the breeding and raising of swine. So, in all of Pannonia—maybe in all of Europe—Sirmium is the leading slaughterhouse of swine and exporter of pig meat, pigskin, hog bristles and every other sort of pig product.

The city had prudently acceded to the first choice offered by Theodoric’s message, but of course it did not receive us joyously when we entered into its smelly precincts. Cityfolk being not so readily able to pack up their possessions and take flight as country people are, the civic storehouses were well stocked with provisions—not only pork but also grain and wine and oil and cheeses and much else—a plenitude to support our army in comfort throughout the winter, and we appropriated all those goods. However, Sirmium’s one defensive weapon—its awful odor—kept us sufficiently at bay that we did not occupy the city or devastate any of it or quarter troops in its houses or even molest any of its inhabitants, but set our winter camps at a sensible distance upwind.

We also had to do without some of the happier diversions and comforts we had enjoyed at Singidunum. That is to say, long after we had eaten every hog and sow and pig and piglet in the Sirmium stockyards, and then had eaten every vestige of preserved pork stored in the warehouses, the city still stank of sties and offal. Even its therma waters and its lupanar girls and its night moths reeked so terribly as to be unapproachable. None of us, including Prince Frido and myself, was at all tempted to go into the city either to wash or to wench. So our men stayed conscientiously at their posts and at their military duties in the cleaner air of the camps, the whole winter long.