Raptor (64 page)

“True. So I have already posted sentries to prevent any treacherous or disaffected citizens from sneaking across the Danuvius to report. I will station half our men here to garrison the city, to look after the wounded, to rebuild the gates. While they are doing that, I and the rest of our men will continue our patrols roundabout, as before, to intercept any Sarmatae roaming hither, so that none of
them
escapes to take back word of Singidunum’s fall. I have also sent messengers galloping southeastward, to meet and urge on my supply trains and to summon still more reinforcements.”

“And in what capacity can I best serve?” I asked. “Sentry? Garrison? Messenger? Patrol?”

He said with some amusement, “Eager for more combat, are you, niu? Still consider yourself just a warrior of the ranks, do you,
niu?”

“Just
a warrior!” I protested. “It is what I traveled across half of Europe to become. What I have long been preparing and training myself to be. What you invited me, back in Vindobona, to come and be. A warrior of the Ostrogoths. What are you yourself, if not a warrior?”

“Well, I am also commander of all the warriors. And king of a great many other people besides. I must determine how to employ those warriors in the best interests of all those people.”

“That is what I asked. That you assign me to some employment.”

“Iésus, Thorn! I told you long ago—
be not humble.
And if you are merely
playing
at being modest, I will treat you as such a tetzte pretender deserves. I will assign you to be permanent scullion to the coquus in some kitchen tent far, far away from any action or hope of action.”

“Gudisks Himins, anything but that,” I said, though I knew he was jesting. “That was the first employment I ever had. I should hope my lot in life had improved by now.”

“Vái, any rustic straight from the farm can learn to use a sword or lance or bow. And any rustic with any intelligence and ability can eventually win promotion—to decurio, signifer, optio, whatever.”

“Fine,” I said. “I am neither humble nor modest. I should not at all mind rising through the ranks.”

“Balgs-daddja!” he said impatiently. “You have more than intelligence and ability. You have imagination and initiative. I laughed at your tying a rope around your horse, but that seems to be a useful invention. I laughed at your oat-filled trumpets of Jaíriko, and they
certainly
proved useful. I allowed you to participate as a lowly ranker in the taking of the city, just to give you the taste of hand-to-hand combat you desired. You did well at that, too, and I am very glad you survived it. But now, do you expect me to
go on
risking a valuable man as I would risk the rawest recruit?”

I spread my hands. “I have no more inventions to offer. Command me to whatever you will.”

He said, almost to himself, “Some ancient historian once observed that the Macedonian general Parmenio won many victories without Alexander the Great, but Alexander not one without Parmenio.” Then he said, directly to me, “I have at present only one marshal, the Saio Soas, who held the same office during my father’s reign. I should like you to serve as another marshal to me.”

“Theodoric, I do not even know what a marshal
does.”

“In earlier times, he was a king’s marah-skalks, and his name denoted his post: keeper of the royal horses. Nowadays, his duties are different and inestimably more important. He is a king’s envoy, carrying the king’s commands and messages to his distant armies or high officials, to the courts or monarchs of other nations. He is not a mere messenger, for the marshal speaks in the king’s name and bears the king’s authority. It is a post of great responsibility, because the marshal is, so to speak, the long arm of the king himself.”

I stared at him, hardly able to believe what I was hearing. It was giddying and a little frightening. When this day had dawned, I had been a common soldier. Even if I had been this day my alternate self, Veleda, my soldiering would not have been
too
unusual, because Amazons and other viragines have been known to fight like men, and even earn promotions to high military office. But now, as this day was ending, I was being offered not just promotion—practically apotheosis—elevation to a courtier of a king. That was because Theodoric assumed me to be as much a male as himself. I was fairly certain that no mannamavi had ever served as king’s marshal, and I doubted also that any female ever had.

Theodoric seemed to take my hesitation for disinclination. He added, “The post of marshal carries with it the noble rank of herizogo.”

That flustered me even more. A Gothic herizogo was the equivalent of a Roman dux. And, in the standings of Rome, a dux was the fifth-highest order; only the imperator, a rex, a princeps and a comes stood higher than a dux. I
knew
no female had ever borne that rank. Even if a woman married a dux, that conferred no title upon
her.
Of course, I was not being offered a ductus of the Roman Empire, but it would be no small thing to become a herizogo of the Goths and the marshal of King Theodoric of the Ostrogoths.

I briefly wondered if, before Theodoric or I consented to this new association, I ought frankly to confess to him the true nature of myself. But no, I decided not to. I had so far acquitted myself believably, even commendably, as a woodsman, a clarissimus, a bowman and a swordsman. I would try to do the same as a marshal and herizogo. Unless I failed at that and lost the post, or unless somehow I was revealed as a mannamavi, I might well continue in that office for the remainder of my life, and then rest in my grave under a stone bearing an imposing epitaph. It would be a splendid jape on history—for one of this era’s marshals, one of its herizoge, one of its duces to have been, all unknown to the historians, not truly a man at all.

Still waiting for me to speak, Theodoric prodded, “You would be addressed respectfully as the Saio Thorn.”

“Akh, I need no persuasion,” I said. “I am flattered and honored and overwhelmed. I was but pondering one thing. I have to assume that a marshal does no fighting.”

“That depends on where your royal missions take you. There could be times when you will have to fight to get there. Anyway, though you may not yet believe this, there are some things just as exhilarating as combat. There are machinations, complots, stratagems, intricacies of diplomacy, conspiracy, connivance—and there is
power. A
royal marshal gets to taste of them all, to engage in them all, to delight in wielding them all.”

“I only hope there
will
still be fighting. And adventure.”

“Then you accept the marshalcy? Good! Be it so! Háils, Saio Thorn! Now, find yourself some soft cobblestones and get a good night’s sleep. Report to my praitoriaún tomorrow morning and I will tell you of your first mission as marshal. This one, I promise, you will find both adventurous and pleasurable.”

“Impossible!” I gasped when Theodoric, next morning, told me what he wanted me to do. “I? Talk to an emperor? Why, I would be struck as mute as a fish!”

“I doubt it,” Theodoric said lightly. “Granted, I am only a lowly king, but you are hardly inarticulate in my presence. Indeed, you frequently talk
back
to me. How many of my subjects dare do that?”

“It is entirely different. As you have said, you were not a king when we met. And we are very much of an age. Please, Theodoric, consider. I am but an abbey brat. An unmannered rustic. I have never been anywhere near a capital or a court of the empire…”

“Balgs-daddja,” he said, which did not much inspirit me. Ever since my abbey days, I had been hearing people declare my utterances to be “nonsense.”

He leaned forward across his table and went on, “This new Leo is only a brat himself. You long ago told me, Thorn, how you served as exceptor to the abbot of that abbey, and dealt with his correspondence to and from many distinguished persons. So you have some acquaintance with the words and ways and wiles of such high-placed notables. You have boasted of your successful imposture among the upper classes of Vindobona. Well, what you will encounter at an imperial court is not much different from what you found in the society of those provincial dignitaries. And this time you will not be pretending prestige of your own; you will
have
it. You will present unimpeachable credentials as the marshal of the King of the Ostrogoths. Since I know that you speak Greek well enough, you are capable of dealing with little Emperor Leo the Second, and whatever man or group of men is helping the boy to govern. That is why I am sending the Saio Soas to confront the Emperor Julius Nepos in Ravenna—because Soas speaks only Gothic and Latin—and why I am sending Saio Thorn to confront the Emperor of the Eastern Empire. Be it so!”

I nodded obediently, and even half saluted, though we were all sitting down—Theodoric and Soas and myself—and one does not customarily salute while seated. We three were conferring in the same simple little house outside the Singidunum wall where I had twice before talked with Theodoric. He could have appropriated for his praitoriaún and residence the grandest mansion in the inner city, but he had chosen to go on using the humble abode of Aurora and her parents.

Soas was a gray-haired and gray-bearded man almost as old as Wyrd had been, and indeed looked very much like him. But the resemblance ended there, for Soas was a man of few words. He raised no objections to the mission
he
was being sent on, and he evinced no jealousy or displeasure at my having been so suddenly appointed to share the office of marshalcy with him. And he and I, when we conversed at all, addressed one another respectfully as “Saio,” despite the great disparity in our ages.

I had been honest in protesting myself unworthy of the mission Theodoric proposed for me, because I
did
view that with some trepidation. But, to be equally honest, I was just as much excited by the prospect. I would never in my life have supposed that I might ever visit the New Rome of Constantinople, let alone be admitted to the imperial court there, let alone be granted audience by the eastern emperor himself. I felt rather as I had felt that time I was exiled from the monastery to the nunnery: half apprehensive, half welcoming the opportunity for new and unforeseeable adventures.

“I have no least desire to keep possession of this city,” Theodoric continued. “Like every other free-born and free-living Goth, I have no fondness for any walled city. I much prefer our Amaling city of Novae, wide open to the Danuvius and the riverside plains. However, you marshals will of course not confide that to the emperors. Make them believe that I love and treasure Singidunum, and yearn to stay here forever, and to make it my capital city instead of Novae. Because I
will
stay here until I get what I want in exchange for Singidunum. Or, to be realistic, I will hold this city as long as I can. So you two must deliver my demands to Ravenna and Constantinople before I
am
perhaps dispossessed by a Sarmatian counterattack.”

He reached across the table to give to me and to Soas each a sheet of vellum, bearing many lines written in his own hand and sealed with his monogram stamped into purple wax.

“I sat up most of the night composing these,” he said. “Yours in Latin, Saio Soas. Yours in Greek, Saio Thorn.”

I murmured apologetically, “I speak some Greek, Theodoric, but I do not read it.”

“You need not. Every official in Constantinople does. Anyway, both you and Soas know what I am communicating. The emperors are to demonstrate their gratitude for my having rescued Singidunum from the Sarmatae, by sending me a vadimonium—a pactum—a renewal and ratification of the treaties made between the empire and my late royal father. To wit, that we Ostrogoths be assured permanent ownership of the lands in Moesia Secunda granted to us by Leo the First. Also, we want a resumption of the consueta dona for our services as guardians of the empire’s frontier—the payment of three hundred librae of gold annually, as before. Once I have that pactum, I will relinquish this city to whatever force the empire sends to garrison it. But not until I have the pactum. Not until I am satisfied of its good faith and validity and its imperviousness to being abrogated or disavowed or rewritten by any emperors who succeed Julius Nepos and this latest Leo.”

I asked, “And how do the Saio Soas and I prove to our respective emperors that you have indeed taken Singidunum?”

Both of the men gave me glances of exasperation at my persisting in quibbling, but Theodoric said, “A king’s word ought to be sufficient. However, since
you
impudently raise the question, others might also. Therefore, you and the Saio Soas will each carry irrefutable proof.” He raised his voice and called, “Aurora, bring the meat.”

At that curious command, I expected the girl to fetch in platters or trenchers. But she came from the kitchen carrying two leather bags, of a sort that I had seen before, and handed them to Theodoric. He opened one bag, looked into it, gave it to Soas and gave me the other, saying casually as he did so:

“Aurora has likewise been up most of the night. Smoking those things so they will not be too putrescent and stinking when you deliver them. Camundus’s head to Julius Nepos. Babai’s head to Leo the Second. Proof enough, Saio Thorn?”

Chastened, I only nodded again.

“Saio Soas, you have the longer way to go, all overland to Ravenna. You had best leave at once.”

“I am there, Theodoric!” barked Soas, leaping to his feet, snapping the salute and vanishing out the street door.

Before I could ask how I was to get to Constantinople, Theodoric told me. “A barge awaits you at the riverside, well provisioned and with a trustworthy crew. You will continue on down the Danuvius to my Moesian city of Novae. Since you are already acquainted with the optio Daila, I am sending him with you, and also two bowmen, in case you meet pirates or other impediments on the river. The barge is big enough for all of you and your horses. However, I would wish you to have a more impressive body of retainers when you arrive at Constantinople. So here is another letter, to my sister Amalamena at Novae. It instructs her to provide more warriors and mounts. She may even wish to accompany you, with servants of her own. Like yourself, Amalamena has never yet visited Constantinople. You will enjoy her company; she is comely and charming and beloved by all who know her, including myself. Also, she will see that your entire retinue is grandly dressed and equipped and provisioned for the overland ride southeastward from Novae. There! Does that sound intolerable, Thorn? Are you still timorous of being my marshal to that imperial court?”