Raptor (65 page)

“Ne, ne, ni allis.” What else
could
I say if, as he suggested, a mere female might readily make the same journey to confront the august Emperor Leo. “Have you any further instructions?”

“Ne, only high expectations. That you will speedily return, bearing the pactum I charge you with obtaining. Be it so!”

The grizzled optio Daila, although he had known me the day before as the newest and least and lowest (both in stature and rank) of the turma of warriors he commanded, this day formally saluted me as I led Velox aboard the barge. Daila did so without a sneer or smirk—and so did the two bowmen, beefy veterans as old as he—but I returned their salutes rather sheepishly, and thereafter refrained from giving any orders that would have required them to go on saluting me. Anyway, there was no need for me to utter any commands, because the voyage was uneventful; they and I had to do no fighting off of river pirates or ambushes from the riverbanks. Nor did I have to give any orders to the bargemen, because they knew their work and the caprices of the Danuvius far better than I did.

In all the time I had spent on the Danuvius so far, it had been a swift-flowing but broad, brown stream. Because of the influx of the river Savus above Singidunum, it was now broader than ever, more than half a Roman mile in width, and the forests of its farther bank were only dimly visible. But, just a day’s voyage downstream from Singidunum, the river completely changed its character. Now it had to force its eastward way between two great mountain chains, the Carpatae to the north, the Haemus to the south.

Since the Danuvius had to squeeze through a defile between them, with precipitous cliffs of gray rock towering impossibly high on either side, the formerly broad river was here pinched to less than a stade in width. It turned from brown to foaming white, and roared through that narrow channel like a horizontal cascade. The horses all braced their legs wide apart, and Daila and the bowmen and I clutched anxiously for a firm grip on everything solid about the barge, because it slapped and skipped and bounded along with jaw-jarring and neck-whipping lunges and checks and yawings and veerings. However, the barge crew remained unruffled during the wild ride, as they expertly plied their poles and steering oar to keep us in midstream and well away from the rock walls that could have ground us to splinters.

Having myself been in combat, I can attest that it heightens all of one’s senses and emotions and responses. And I have to say now that being in the midst of a contest between the elements of earth and water can be just as tumultuously invigorating as any contention of man against man. I was riding a river that apparently once had fought its way through solid rock, and still was triumphantly doing so. As in combat, I felt my awareness and alertness much enhanced. There was one difference, though, and it was not particularly pleasurable. When caught in a battle between two mighty elements, I found, you cannot take sides, you cannot have either element as an ally, you cannot strike a blow for yourself or parry one, you can only wait and cringe and hope to survive the outcome.

I daresay that is why the old-time pagans paid more reverence to the gods of earth, water, air and fire than they did even to the gods of creation and love and war.

That furious, turbulent, fearsome part of the voyage lasted for most of a day that seemed as long as a week, but then ended as abruptly as it had begun. The river spouted out of the gap between the mountains, the cliffs spread away from us on either side, and then the whole ranges of the Carpatae and the Haemus likewise backed away, giving room for riverside forests and meadows and underbrush. The Danuvius, as if it were grateful for its release from constriction, muted its noise from a roar to a sort of contented sighing, slowed its pace from a headlong gallop to a placid amble, turned brown again and flattened out to its former breadth. The barge crew steered us to a grassy bank, where the horses could graze and we humans could thankfully relax on unheaving solid ground to eat our evening meal.

The crewmen laughed as we four warriors—and the horses, too—reeled and staggered ashore, the two archers grumbling that they had not enlisted in Theodoric’s ranks to be white-water sailors. I am quite sure that the bargemen were as muscle-sore and bone-weary as we, and that they only put a brave face on their misery so they could be disdainfully amused at ours. While we all ate and drank, they told us that we “land-lobbes” had better enjoy the next few easy days on the river. They said that we had but negotiated what they called the Kazan Defile, and the next rapids downstream, the Iron Gate, would make the Kazan seem to us in retrospect as serene as the tepidarium in a Roman bathhouse.

At least we had the chance, over the ensuing several days, to unkink our limbs and spines and to recover from our aches and bruises. The Danuvius gradually became almost as broad as a lake between the mountain ranges, and it had no banks to speak of, but on either side of us dwindled off into stagnant marshes and bogs, and the main stream flowed so turgidly that the bargemen poled with vigor to move us along faster than the river moved. They could not, however, propel us fast enough to suit me and Daila and the bowmen, because now, instead of hurting, we itched intolerably. Blood-prickers, gnats, midges and every other kind of predatory flying insect rose from the riverside swamps in clouds as visible as
real
clouds, and feasted on us insatiably and tormented us fiendishly.

The crewmen—I suppose through long familiarity—seemed to pay the swarms no mind, except occasionally to wave a hand before their faces to clear the insects enough for them to see through. But we other four itched and scratched and bled so continuously, and were for so long unable to sleep, that we came very near the verge of madness. Every exposed bit of our skin was raked with the marks of our nails—the three bearded warriors had even gouged out patches of their facial hair—and the insect bites so overlapped that our faces and hands were bumpily bloated, our eyelids swollen nearly shut, our lips puffed and raw. The horses, though they had thicker hides, had also the disadvantage of being unable to scratch, so they twitched and fidgeted and thrashed and kicked until we feared that they would stave a hole in the barge and maroon us all forever in this hellish place.

It was a genuine relief when, after a seeming eternity, the Danuvius again began to narrow and to surge faster, and the wind of our passage diminished the number of insects. Eventually we left the last of them behind, when the river and the barge plunged into another narrow, cliff-walled pass. The buffeting we endured in here was, as the crewmen had warned, indeed worse than at the Kazan Defile, and lasted longer. But Daila, the archers and I—and even the horses, I imagine—found the pounding we suffered to be far less of a torture than the insects had been.

I could see why this defile was called Iron. The bordering precipices were not gray here, but of a rock that was the somber red color of rust. And I could see why it was also called a Gate. The cliff walls were so close together that any body of men, perched atop them, could have poured down onto the river enough arrows, fire, boulders or tree trunks to have barred the Iron Gate to any passing craft, even to all the gathered dromo vessels of the entire Roman navy. But no inimical force was at present doing any such thing. So our barge raced unimpeded down the white-water chute, bucking and slewing and wallowing and walloping. We got safely through, though we emerged from that ordeal even more sore and fatigued and stomach-sick than the Kazan had made us. The bargemen this time took pity on their passengers. They poled the barge to the river’s left bank and moored it there for the two whole days it took us to recuperate.

Situated here was the first inhabited community we had yet encountered during our voyage. It was only a hamlet, but it boasted the distinguished name of Turris Severi, after a local landmark, the stone tower erected by the Emperor Severus, more than two centuries before, to commemorate his victory over the outlander tribes called Quadi and Marcomanni. Evidently one of the terms Severus imposed on the vanquished was that they settle here and devote their lives to succoring any voyagers who met mishap in the Iron Gate—or who, like us, came out of it in wretched condition. Anyway, the villagers
were
all descendants of the survivors of those tribes, and they
did
treat us most kindly. They gave us an ointment made from the flowers of the blue vervain, with which to daub our insect bites, and that helped greatly to ease our swellings and itchings. They gave us to drink a tincture of valerian root, to relieve our agitated nerves and settle our stomachs. When that had been accomplished, and we were able to eat, the villagers fed us fresh fish from the Danuvius and fresh vegetables from their gardens.

During the remainder of the voyage there were no more turbulent waters to be endured, and less likelihood than ever that we might be attacked by river pirates. From Turris Severi onward, we were drifting down the lower Danuvius, where there was much other river traffic, including the armed patrol boats of the Moesian Fleet. The stream was once more brown and broad and flowed calmly, and the landscape we passed was utterly empty and monotonous, until we came to our destination, Novae, on the river’s southern bank.

I privately thought that Theodoric had rather exaggerated when he spoke of Novae as a “city.” I had seen several cities by now, and Novae was no more than a small town in comparison. The buildings were mostly of only a single story, there was no amphitheater at all, the one church was considerably less than majestic, the two or three thermae were of nothing like Roman-style grandeur, and what Daila pointed out to me as “the royal palace and gardens” was an estate much more modest than that of, say, the herizogo Sunnja back in Vindobona. Nevertheless, Novae was a pleasant-looking place, spreading from the riverside up a gentle rise of hill, and there were many market squares shaded by trees and brightened by flowers. The town was indeed unwalled, as Theodoric had said, but Daila explained that it was by no means complacent in its openness.

“Notice, Saio Thorn,” he said, as we stepped ashore, “how every residence, shop and gasts-razna has its street door situated so it is not opposite the door of the building across the way. That is done so that, if the city is threatened and an alarm sounded, the men inside every building can seize their arms and dash outdoors and not collide with those emerging from the house opposite.”

“Ja,” I said. “Planned with foresight. I have not seen that precaution taken even in cities.” I hastened to add, tactfully, “In bigger cities, I mean. Now tell me, Optio, what is expected of us? Do you and I and the bowmen take lodging in one of the gasts-razna?”

“Akh, ne. The men and I will proceed over the hill to the army encampment beyond, and we will take the horses with us. But you are a marshal. You will be hospitably received by the princess Amalamena, and given lodging in the royal palace.”

I nodded, then said uncertainly, “I am new at being a marshal, as you know. Do you think I ought to wear full armor and arms when I present myself to the princess?”

Daila was tactful, too. “Um… considering that you do not yet have your own armor, tailored to fit your—er—your stature, Saio Thorn, I should recommend that you make your entrance in your everyday garb.”

I decided to change into clean clothes, at least. To do that in privacy, I took my packs inside a dock shed, only to discover that every garment I owned was moist and musty from our passage through the two white-water gorges. I could not take time to dry all those things in the sun, so, damp though they were, I donned the best of the raiment I had bought and worn as Thornareikhs in Vindobona—not the toga, of course, but a fine tunic, undercoat and trousers, my Scythian-latcheted street shoes, and I pinned onto my tunic’s shoulders my matching fibulae of aes and almandines. When I was fully clad, I smelled rather of mildew—even though I got out my phial of rose essence and dabbed some of that on me—and my shoes squished when I walked, but I thought I
looked
well enough dressed to pass for a marshal of the king.

Bearing no arms but my sheathed short-sword, just to show that I was sometimes a warrior, I went uphill toward the palace grounds. I noticed that most of the passersby, and the people in the market squares—and even those working at forges and potters’ wheels and the like in the open-fronted shops—were female or very old or very young males, so I assumed that the men of Novae who were not with Theodoric in Singidunum must be either in the trains of supplies and reinforcements on their way there or camped in reserve on the other side of this hill, where Daila had gone.

The palace grounds were encircled by no wall, either, but only by a dense hedge that had a fretwork iron gate in its one opening. That was guarded by two sentries, the brawniest and bushiest-bearded Goths I had yet seen, wearing complete armor and helmets and holding contus lances. I strode up to them, told them who I was and why I wished admittance and showed them the letter I carried from Theodoric to his sister. I doubted that the men could read, but I expected them to recognize the seal, and they did. One man growled to the other to “go and fetch the faúragagga,” and gruffly bade me wait for that steward to come and escort me. While I waited, still outside the gate, the sentry looked me thoroughly up and down, not so much suspiciously as with an air of mild incredulity.

The steward came from the palace and down the pathway, walking with a staff, for he was a very old, bent man with a long white beard, and he wore a heavy, ground-length robe even in this summer weather. He introduced himself to me as the faúragagga Costula, bowed as I handed my letter through the gate, then broke the wax seal, unfolded the vellum and read it entirely through, occasionally glancing from it to me, his white eyebrows raised high. Finally he bowed again and handed it back to me, and ordered the sentries:

“Open the gate, guardsmen, and raise your lances in salute to the Saio Thorn, marshal of our King Theodoric.”

They did that, and I walked between them, walking as tall as I could, but they loomed over me like the cliffs of the Iron Gate. The old steward courteously took my arm as we went up together up the path. But then he looked surprised, withdrew his hand from my sleeve and wiped it on his robe.