The Songs of Slaves (42 page)

Connor took some of the food offered him. He was too nervous to be hungry, but he knew that he had to keep his strength up. He set some aside to take u
p to
Lucia
. Reaching for his goblet
he took some more wine
to steady him. He had determined that he would not drink in order that he might be ready for any action; but it seemed that he would be more likely to save
Lucia
and himself through drinking than through fighting this night.

Once the other slave had
brought more wine and proven it unpoisoned
to everyone’s satisfaction, the men started showing each other some of the items they had found. There were a few gold ornaments, and some silver items; a few hand mirr
ors and coins; as well as some
personal curiosities. Clearly some of Arastan’s men had staked their claim to
Lucia
’s room first, as none of
Valia
’s men had any jewelry to speak of. Connor wondered what had become of her precious cask of the accoutrements of her religion. Would anyone be likely to have taken them? Or would they have feared that it would bring bad luck?

“We are making good time,
”
Valia
was saying.
“We
should beat the worst of the snows. Though if we did not have so many with us I would say forget the passes and take ship instead. That is the problem with this type of expedition – safety in numbers, but slowness in numbers too.”

“Just where is it that we are going?” Connor said, trying to make his voice sound light.

The others just looked at him;
then a few of them laughed.

“To meet up with Alaric, of course!”
Valia
said. “Had we not told you?”

“Perhaps you tried t
o tell me, but were interrupted,
” said Connor, his mind racing too fast to feel foolish at their reaction to his seemingly perpetual ignorance. Alaric – the man from the story; the man Paulinus Effacus had m
entioned months before;
hero of the Battle of Frigidus, King of the Visigoths. 

“You’re right
,
”
Valia
said. “I do not think that we ever finished our story. We got enmeshed in the plans that brought us here.”

“When we got interrupted, you were telling me of the Battle of Frigidus an
d Alaric’s elevation after that,
” Connor offered.

“Right
,
”
Valia
said. He took another drink and settled his elbows on the table.

“This is no setting to tell such a great story, so I will cut it very short for you. After the battle, Alaric realized that there would never be
both prosperity
for our people and peace with the Romans until the Romans were forced to respect us. The wanderings of our people under Fritigern
–
that Alaric lived through as a child
–
taught the Romans to fear us. O
ur service to them in the various wars and ultimately in the great battle to once again unite the
Imperium
tau
ght them that they could use us. B
ut so far nothing had taught the Romans respect for us. Our people were well within the
Imperium
now and there was no land to go back to outside of it. We absolutely had to have our place within it – lands in which we could liv
e
our lives our way, and a legitimate role to play so that we would nev
er again be used merely as arrow
fodder for Rome’s enemies. As Alaric and the others saw it, there was only one way to do that. Treaties had not worked. Our invaluable services had been ignored. We had to take it for ourselves.

“So once again, the Goths went to war with Rome, not to destroy the
Imperium
but to force it to listen, to bring it to the table with us once and for all. I will not go into the account of those wars now, but they
raged all over Macedonia, Thrace, and the Peloponnese, a
nd even into the north of Italia
itself. Sometimes we had allies, sometimes we were on our own; but the fight continued to get what we believed was our rights by any means that we had.

“Well, let me back up a bit. As this was happening, the
Imperium
was suffering changes too. For all of his scheming and dreams of greatness, Theodosius did not live more than a few years after the great battle. Again there would be two rulers – his son Arcadius ruled in the east, and his son Honorius ruled in the west. Both were young, inexperienced, and devoid of the wisdom of their father. And so before he died, recognizing the troubles of the empire his sons were
inheriting, he appointed men of
heroic military standing to act as consuls to guide the young men. The consul he appointed to take charge in the name of Honorius, and to help bring him up to be a great emperor was none other than Flavius Stilicho.

“Tireless and dedicated, as I have already described, Stilicho wasted no time in dealing with the threats to the
Imperium
head-on. That of course meant taking his armies after us. And so he did. For years we
fought – maybe close
to ten years. Through those years
I and my fri
ends assembled here passed
into manhoo
d. We met our first test of iron
and taste of
blood in the battles for Mediolanum
and Sparta; we covered the ground of Thrace battling Stilicho to our left and Radagasius to our right. So many g
reat deeds and great days we witnessed
and took part in; so many great losses and great sufferings we were dealt
, as well
. Again, I will have to save those tales for another time. But through it all, I must say that Stilicho with his resources, his bravery, and his military ability often took the upp
er hand. So many times we escaped only by the speed of our horses
.

“And yet there were many times when Stilicho would not press his advantage. Many times the fools back in Constantinople or Ravenna would say ‘why did you not finish them?’ –
as
if it were that easy!
Cowards.
We will cut their tongues out some day. But Stilicho knew what he was doing – knew better than they ever would. He understood us. He kne
w that we were men of honor, as he was
a man of honor. But it was not only an insistence on fighting a noble fight in a noble manner that constrained him – no! He understood our purpose, understood what we were trying to achieve, and he
believed in it. For look – there was the
Imperium
divided between two foolish boys of no real ability, Honorius and Arcadius
–
equally inept, selfish, a
nd full of vice and guile. The E
ast was being savaged by the Huns, and had to utilize its armies on its frontiers to fight them. Meanwhile, Stilicho knew that a great menace was brewing to the north; and in the bitter cold winter, just a few years ago, when the wind and frost were so great that the mighty
river Rhine actually froze over
, that menace marched forward un
deterred. Franks, Alamanni, Burgundians, and many of
the tribes of northern Germania were coming south into the already distressed and fractured
Imperium
. Stilicho knew that instead o
f fighting us he should be leading
us against these enemies. It was a fight we Goths were born for! But we had had enough of serving Roman needs for Roman’s sake. We needed acknowledgement on our own terms and more than empty words. Only then would we unite with the Romans and crush their enemies with them.

“But alas, it was not to be. Over that decade of fighting us and working vigorously to secure the
Imperium
’s endl
ess borders, Stilicho had risen
in power until he seemed to outshine all others. Though
,
as a man
who was half-Vandal he knew that he would never take the throne of an
Augustulus,
he had risen to the level where Honorius was even to marry his daughte
r;
and where most of the acts of that emperor – the effective ones, at any rate – where of Stilicho’s design. You know enough of how the world works, Connor. You know that this would be enough to make him many powerful enemies.”

“Many indeed,
” Connor offered. The other men were nodding their hea
ds, wrapped up in the story that
had been their reality all this time.

“Well, a brave man – a man such as yourself – can stand against any man in battle and live or die. But who stands a chance against the viper in the grass, the low-minded coward? Who can stand against the knife in the dark? And so it was with Stilicho. One day he was our noble enemy, the most powerful man in the
Imperium
, the ablest man to face the Germani threat and the Hunnic threat, and our one hope of a diplomatic solution. The next day his own people were selling him out. His enemies that schemed against him enacted their plan. They even found the one man who owed him nearly everything and who should have been most loyal
to him – the
Augustulus
Honorius, himself – to be all too easily swayed by their lies. United, his enemies struck when he
least expected it, in double betrayal murdering Stilicho
on the steps of a church – though he had given himself up peacefully.”

The Goths at the table
banged their goblets on the wood and growled
their revulsion at this. Connor looked into the fire in the
fireplace, trying to understand
all that he was hearing
, and make sense of these men who were disgusted at the murder of their enemy
.

“But
the outrage did not stop there,
”
Valia
said.

“No it didn’t
,
” muttered some of the men in response.

“The
bastards assassinated his
family
and almost all connected with him
in the days that followed. But it did not end there.”

Again, the murmur of agreement.

“The people – the Romans throughout all of Italia – were whipped up into
a frenzy
by these enemies of Stilicho and haters of us. They believed the lies blaming him and his fellows for everything from not
wiping our people out, to not stopping the irresistible advance of the Germani, to allowing Constantine the Usurper to gain ground here. They blamed Stilicho and they blamed all barbarian kind. They were going to kill barbarians wherever they found them. But they were too cowardly to march out and find the Germani armies to the north, or the Hun army to the east. No. They were far too cowardly for that. They were ready for murder, not ready for war. So they turned towards the only outsiders they could find – the woman and the children, the families of the
foederati
who were peacefully settled in the Italian countryside as their brave h
usbands and fathers fought Rome’s
wars!”

T
here was an eruption of outrage
at the table as the Goths reacted to the story that they o
f course knew well
. Connor heard one of the women in the kitchen drop a plate, as if fearing the sounds of anger meant some new assault.

“Imagine, as their brave men fought as
foederati
against Rome’s enemies, these Vandal, Sueve, Alan, a
nd Ostrogoth women were raped
, their children slain, their babies cast out of windows, their houses fired and burned to ash, and all their possessions stolen by the
people they were fighting to protect! Tens of thousands w
ere murdered. Tens of thousands!
With such coordination that it had to have been planned.
The parade-ground Praetorian soldiers murdered the families of men who had the courage to fight on the frontier. Vile, cowardly civilians plundered and tortured their neighbors whose husbands and sons fought for their protection.
”

“When did this happen?” Connor asked, a wave of nausea coming over him as he envisioned what he was hearing.

“Only a year ago.
A little more than a year.
That is what these people are.”

“That is what these people are,
” Connor heard
Valia
say; but he knew that he should have just said “that is what people are”. He struggled to suppress the sense of claustrophobia that arose in his chest. He wanted to get away from all of this. He wanted to fly on the wind back home to Eire and hide in the hills forever.

“Well, it did not work out as th
ey had planned,
”
Valia
continued
in a low rumble
. Around him the turns of anger turned to sounds of affirmation.