Raptor (68 page)

“Now that I am well armed,” she said, still smiling, “tell me, Thorn. Why do you not grow a good Gothic beard so that—?”

“So that my skinny neck is protected? I have heard that before. Well, for one reason, I am Theodoric’s emissary to the Greek-speaking lands. And the Greeks have not worn beards since Alexander abolished them. As St. Ambrose said, ‘Si fueris Romae…’ Or, in this case, ‘Epeí en Konstantinopólei…’ “

Amalamena ceased to smile, and meditatively poked with her knife at the broiled cutlet of steerfish we each had been served. After a moment she said, “I know that you wish to be warmly received at Emperor Leo’s court. But I wonder if you will be.”

“Why should I not?”

“There are factors… and undercurrents… that you could not yet be aware of. When you were at the army camp this afternoon, did you notice anything about it? Anything surprising?”

“It is rather smaller and less populated with warriors than I would have expected.” She nodded when I said that. “Are the majority of Theodoric’s forces already on their way to join him at Singidunum, or are they stationed elsewhere?”

“Some are off to join him, ja, and some are manning other posts throughout Moesia. But you may be under a misapprehension as to the total number my brother commands.”

“Well, I know he took only six thousand of cavalry for the siege of Singidunum. How many others are there?”

“Perhaps another thousand of horse. And about ten thousand of foot.”

“What? But I have been told that your people—our people—number some two hundred thousand. If only a fifth of the Ostrogoths are warriors, they would be a force
of forty
thousand.”

“True,
if
they all recognized my brother as King of the Ostrogoths. Have you not heard, then, of the other Theodoric?”

I remembered old Wyrd once, long years ago, discoursing as we sat beside a campfire. I said, “I seem to recall that there have been several Theodorics among the Goths.”

“There are only two now of any consequence. My brother and an older Theodoric, distant cousin to our father, Thiudamer, and near his age, too—the Theodoric who affects the Romanly boastful auknamo of Triarius, ‘most experienced of warriors.’ “

I strove to recollect what Wyrd had told me so long ago. “Is that the one who bears yet another Roman agnomen? An auknamo rather derisive and disparaging?”

“Strabo. Ja, that is he. Theodoric the Wall-Eyed.”

“Well, what of him, niu?”

“Many of our people account
him
their king. He does, after all, come from the same Amal line of descent as did my father and uncle. So, even before the deaths of Walamer and Thiudamer, the Ostrogothic nation was divided in its loyalties—between those brothers and that cousin. And Strabo does have other staunch allies. The Scyrri of King Edika, whom my father defeated shortly before his death. And those Sarmatae of King Babai, whom you and my brother have just now defeated. The Scyrri and Sarmatae may not
now
be such powerful supporters for him. Nevertheless, after my uncle and then my father died, Theodoric Strabo proclaimed himself sole king. Not only of the Ostrogoths, but also of the Balting line—those Visigoths long settled far away to the westward, who may never even have heard of him.”

“The man’s brain must be as addled as his eyeballs. Proclaiming himself king of any or every nation does not make him so.”

“Ne. And most of our people who were formerly faithful to my father have acknowledged my brother as his rightful successor.”

“Only
most
of them? Why not all? Our Theodoric is fighting to secure the lands and the livelihood and the rights of every Ostrogoth. Is the wall-eyed one doing anything like that?”

“He may not have to, Thorn. One or the other emperor, Leo or Julius Nepos, may
give
him all those things.”

“I do not understand.”

“As I said, there are many and various undercurrents at work here. From time immemorial, the Roman Empire has feared and hated all the Germanic nations, and has done its best to make them quarrel among themselves, thus to divert them from seeking to overrun the empire. That has been especially true ever since the empire adopted Catholic Christianity and the Germanic nations the Arian.” She shrugged her delicate shoulders and her feathery pale eyebrows. “Akh, both Rome and Constantinople were happy to call the Germanic peoples their allies when the Huns were rampaging across the world. But, upon Attila’s death and the dispersal of those savages, the emperors of both west and east resumed their policy of keeping the Germanic nations at each other’s throats, instead of the empire’s.”

“Then why,” I asked, “would either west or east favor one Theodoric above the other?”

“Neither ever will, not for long. But right now, with Theodoric Strabo having proclaimed himself king of every Ostrogoth and Visigoth everywhere, it is to the Roman Empire’s advantage—for the time being—to recognize him as such. Thereby, when the empire deals with Strabo, it can at least
pretend
that it deals with all the Goths of Europe, and with all their allies, Germanic or otherwise.”

This was a thing most unusual, to hear a female speaking of matters political, and sounding as if she knew whereof she spoke. So I had to ask, though I tried hard not to make my question seem either skeptical or patronizing, “Is this your own personal view of the situation, Amalamena, or is it widely shared?”

She gave me a look of Gemini fire, sharp but amused, and said, “Judge for yourself. The latest news is that Theodoric Strabo has sent his only son and heir, Rekitakh, a young man about your own age, to live at Constantinople—just as my father sent my brother in his infancy, many years ago—to be hostage and surety of Strabo’s alliance with the Eastern Empire.”

“No doubt about it, then,” I muttered. “Strabo is indeed the currently favored Theodoric. Does your brother know all these things?”

“If he does not, he very soon will. And be assured that he will not passively accept the situation. The moment he can leave Singidunum, he will be ravening for a confrontation with Strabo.” She sighed. “Which, of course, is exactly what the empire wants and expects. Goth against Goth.”

“Unless,” I said hopefully, “our embassy to Constantinople is successful, and we procure the pactum that your brother demands.”

Amalamena smiled—a sort of melancholy smile, as if she admired but pitied my apparent artlessness and baseless optimism. “I have told you how things stand, Thorn. The odds are against our success.”

“Then, as I have warned before, we may even be venturing into hazard. I am the king’s marshal, so I am in duty bound to this mission. You are not. I strongly recommend that you stay here.”

She seemed to ponder that, in serious consideration, but at last shook her pretty head and said:

“Ne. I used to believe that a corner is a safe and sheltered place to stay. But even there, the Fates can seek one out.”

Since I was unsure whether she realized that I knew what she meant, I said nothing at all, and she went on:

“I am a princess of the Amaling Goths. Any adversary, any challenge, I prefer to meet in the open. I shall come with you, Thorn, and I hope you will find me no impediment to your mission. Remember, I am now wearing the Virgin’s-milk phial. Let us pray that it assists us in our cause.”

“In all our causes, Princess Amalamena,” I said softly. “Come with me, then, and welcome.”

When we set out from Novae, we were a formidable column, and a splendid-looking one. We men constituted a full turma, thirty mounted warriors, and most of those were leading pack horses or spare steeds, including two elegant white mules. Only I, the optio Daila and the two bowmen we had brought were unencumbered with lead ropes, because I was senior officer, Daila was in command of the turma and the two archers were accounted my personal guard. Princess Amalamena, insisting that one attendant was enough of a retinue for her, was accompanied by a cosmeta, a lady’s maid, of about her own age and nearly as comely, Swanilda by name. For much of the way, those two young women rode inside a horse-drawn, curtained carruca dormitoria, and slept in that at night. But whenever Amalamena felt hale enough, she would ride alongside me on one of the white mules, with Swanilda on the other a little way behind us. On those occasions, both women wore a sort of split skirt, and rode astride as easily as men do.

We warriors and our mounts were all caparisoned either to fight off any assailants we might encounter or to awe any ordinary folk who beheld us on the road. The horses wore war quiltings and the men wore leather armor and metal helmets, and both men and horses were hung about with various weapons. The men had polished to a high luster all of their leathers, and mine and Velox’s, with a glaze of gum acacia, barberry juice, ale and vinegar. Every man, myself included, carried behind his saddle a glossy brown bearskin cloak, fringed with bears’ teeth and claws, to wear in case we met inclement weather.

My own helmet now was tooled with ornamentation—and so was the exaggeratedly muscular torso of my new leather corselet—the figures of grapevines in full fruit, interspersed with the figures of wild boars, the animal emblematic of my marshalcy. Over the corselet I wore a new woolen mantle of the sort called a chlamys, its hem elaborately embroidered in green, and it was pinned at my right shoulder with a new jeweled fibula, also in the design of a boar. My sword belt was now clasped with a tremendous buckle of Corinthian aes, shaped like a demonic face with protruding tongue. That, its maker had informed me, would avert the wearer’s being troubled by any lurking skohl or other such nuisances.

Though everything I wore was unequivocally masculine attire, I am sure it was the feminine aspect of my nature that made me preen so proudly in my gorgeousness, and even feel sorry because Gothic custom forbade my wearing a legionary-style plume atop my helmet. It may also have been feminine vainglory that made me wish I could put on a show for the company, by demonstrating how my foot-rope invention gave me extraordinary prowess on horseback with the bow and arrow. I also wished mightily that I could find some excuse to wield my new snake-blade sword, and do it impressively. But I could justify my doing that only by going out to hunt game for our meals, and of course that would have been beneath my dignity as a marshal.

So, whenever we desired fresh meat, it was my two bowmen who did the hunting. They, like Daila, had copied my contrivance and put foot-ropes on their own mounts. That made their horseback hunting as successful as mine would have been, and they always brought in ample venison. However, in order to find any game, they naturally had to range out far ahead of our glittering and clattering column. Thus none of our new company got to see how useful was the foot-rope, and none—including the princess and her maid—decided to adopt it.

There was really no need for
anybody
to hunt. When we ate the venison of boar, deer, elk or lesser game, it was a luxury and not from necessity. Old Costula and the other palace servants had laden our pack horses with every kind of staple food and daintier viands as well. The animals also carried changes of clothing for everyone in the company, spare bits of tack for the mounts and the carruca, extra arrows and bowstrings—and a number of sumptuous gifts, selected by Amalamena, for us to present to Emperor Leo: jewels of enamel fillet, jewels of gold or silver inlay, cases of perfumed soap, casks of the good bitter brown beer, and other articles that the Goths make better than anyone else. (We took him none of the snake blades, though.) Since we were so well supplied, and since the lands we traversed were well watered, mostly farm country where we could procure fresh eggs, bread, butter and vegetables, with wide meadows for our animals’ forage—and where we could frequently bed down in soft haystacks or sheltered barns—we traveled without any of the rigors and hardships I had feared for the princess’s sake.

Obviously, she and the other people of Novae were better acquainted than I was with the state of the roads roundabout. I had looked doubtfully on the introduction of Amalamena’s big and heavy carruca into our column of march. But, although we would not find a real, broad, paved Roman road until we were near our destination, the others we trod proved wide and firm enough and mostly of gentle gradient. On reflection, I realized that I should have expected them to be so. Not only because Constantinople is the New Rome of the East, but also because it is the prime port of several great seas, it is—like Rome—the center of a widely flung web of roadways. Those that we followed took us southeastward through the province of Moesia Secunda, of which Novae is the capital, then through the province of Haemimontus, across a corner of the province of Rhodope and finally into the province called Europa.

Besides being not very rigorous, our route turned out to be free of hazard; we never had to contend with any marauders or to circle wide of any unfriendly territory. Daila told me that the Ostrogoths loyal to our own Theodoric occupied the lands to the west of our way, and those of Theodoric the Wall-Eyed all lived off to the east of our route. For most of our journey, then, we were crossing a country settled only comparatively recently, and by a people who had migrated thither from less comfortable lands somewhere to the north of the Carpatae Mountains. They are called by the Goths the Wends, by the Romans the Venedae and by Greek-speakers the Sklaves, but they call themselves Slovenes. I had previously in my wanderings encountered one of them here and there, but this was the first time I had ever found myself among an entire population of those dark-haired, ruddy-skinned people with broad, flat noses and high cheekbones. And while the Slovenes did not seem too much resentful of our passage through their settlements, and did not too grudgingly consent to sell us supplies, we thought them a not very prepossessing people.

The Slovenes are not savages, like the Huns, but they are indisputably a barbaric people, for they have no written language and they are still enmired in pagan superstition. Their pantheon of gods is headed by what must be the oddest in any religion, because his name, Triglav, means “three-headed.” The people acknowledge both a sun god, Dazbog, and a god of the heavens, Svarog. There is no grand adversary, like Satan, but the people do fear a hostile storm god, Stribog. Their demons are collectively the Besy, and those seem to be ruled by a man-eating witch called the Bába-Yagá. No civilized person could possibly discern, from their names, which are the good spirits and which the bad, because
all
their names are so ugly.