Eagle in the Snow: The Classic Bestseller

  I said, “You realise what you are doing?”

  “Yes. I and my people know.”

  “What is your plan?”

  “We shall try to rescue her first, secretly. If that fails, then we shall attack the camp.”

  “The daughter of Rando is our prisoner. I will be glad to use her as a bargaining counter. That is what I would do in your place.”

  “But you are not in my place. She is an Aleman and Douna—my wife—is in the hands of Godigisel. The Alemanni and the Vandals will not help each other in this matter.”

  “If you fight, you will destroy yourself and your people.”

  He said, “Your men took one prisoner out of their raiding party. He had twisted an ankle and they had left him behind in their haste to escape. You will find what is left of him upon two poles behind this hut. When I have the Vandal king in my hands I shall make him feel that he is dying.”

  I said, “I am your friend in this matter, as in all other matters. But I must warn you of one thing. Do not ask me to help. If you go out against the Alemanni and the Vandals I cannot support you with even one man from my legion.”

  He said bitterly, “I have not asked you. But if you were my friend I would not have to ask you.”

  I said, “If you do this thing, will Goar and his war-band help you?”

  He hesitated. “Goar has told me that he will help me as a friend would, but that he will obey you.”

  “In this matter?”

  “Yes, in this matter and in all matters.” He tightened his belt, slid his sword into its sheath and moved into the outer room.

  I followed, and stepped in front of him. “I had a wife—like your wife. Once, a long while ago, I had to leave her in a town abandoned to an enemy while I retreated away from it with my soldiers. It was not an easy thing to do.”

  He tried hard to smile. “That is why you became the rulers of the world. I admire your courage. I envy you your sense of duty, but I hate your pride. I am not a Roman, like you.”

  “You took my emperor’s money. You promised to obey me. March out with your men and you doom, not only yourselves, but me also.”

  He said, “I am sorry. You can still march with me.”

  “Marcomir.”

  “No,” he said. “It is my wife they have taken. For two nights I have dreamed of what Godigisel has done to her. Now I am going to kill him.”

  I remembered the Vandal; his square iron body; the brutal face and the thick lips, and the hairs on the back of the stubby fingers. I knew what he was thinking.

  I stepped aside. “Go,” I said. “And in the name of Mithras, do what has to be done.” I gave him my salute and watched him go out into the rain at the head of his men. He was a brave man. As a soldier I could not forgive him, but in his circumstances I might, myself, have done the same thing.

  I saw the glint of bronze and went across the mud to the stable. “Fabianus,” I said. “I have failed. Ride to Goar’s berg and tell him what has happened. Ask him to support Marcomir at his discretion. Stay with him and do what you can.”

  He saluted. He said, “And do we not help?”

  “I am a general,” I said, “not the captain of a robber band.”

  On my return I said to Quintus, “There was nothing I could say that would have stopped him. He had that look on his face. I tried, but only because I had to.”

  He raised that eyebrow of his. He said, “It seems a pity that we cannot help him.”

  “How? We have already talked on the difficulties and danger of moving the legion across the river. To build a good bridge would take too long, and a good bridge is hard to destroy if things go wrong. I cannot even use the fleet. They have put a boom across the mouth of the Moenus. It would take too long to break it down. In any case, they have strengthened their defences at just those points we attacked before. As for the east bank, they have pulled their camp back five hundred yards and are out of range of our catapults.”

  The night raid must have been a failure, because Marcomir was compelled to do battle as he had foreseen. He challenged Godigisel to fight and the Vandal king, under pressure from his allies who wanted no attacks on their part of the camp, was compelled to accept. For a long day the two hosts faced each other and Marcomir, on the advice of Fabianus, waited till an hour before sundown before advancing his men. It had been a hot day, the Vandals were hungry for their evening meal, and it was good tactics to tire them with waiting. Marcomir attacked in strength and, aided by three thousand of Goar’s Alans, broke through the enemy centre and cut the Vandals to pieces.

  Godigisel was taken alive and his men fled back to their camp. Marcomir then made his mistake. He camped where he had fought, eight hundred yards from the enemy, and, all night long, we on the west bank could see the flicker of his fires and hear the sounds of Godigisel dying. Few of us slept, and in the morning when I met Quintus upon the guard-walk his face looked as sick as my own. Three hours later Respendial led his men out onto the plain and attacked Marcomir as he was striking camp. Outnumbered, the Franks withdrew in disorder to the hills while small bands, who found themselves cut off, were hunted westward to the banks of the Rhenus and drowned in the shallows. Goar watched the fighting from the scrub and did not allow his men to take part. He had no wish to set one half of his tribe against the other. The Franks were routed utterly.

  Late that afternoon an embassy crossed the river and asked to see me. I could guess the purpose of their visit, so I ordered Rando’s daughter to be brought to me, and I received them in the courtyard outside my headquarters, surrounded by a guard of honour. Their leader was a wiry man in his fifties, brown eyed and arrogant in his manner.

  “I bring for the General of the Romans a present from Respendial, King of the Alans,” he said. He held out a bundle, shook it slightly and the head of Marcomir fell to the ground and grinned at me with sightless eyes. The girl put her hand to her mouth, but said nothing. Quintus dropped his hand to his sword, and Aquila grunted with rage.

  I said, coldly, “I am glad that you kill each other. It saves me the work.”

  He bared his teeth and said, softly, “When we cross the river we shall do the same to you.” His eyes flickered from face to face. “All of you.”

  The girl said, in a whisper, “I am glad he is dead. Glad, glad, glad.”

  I heard her. I said, “The day you cross that river I shall crucify the daughter of Rando, a princess of the royal house, upon a stake on the river’s edge so that she may see you coming. Tell that to the Alemanni, whose bread you eat like the beggars that you are.”

  “You would not dare.” He was white with rage. “It is against all custom. It is even against your own laws.” His sense of outrage and shock was genuine. His people had a high regard for women. They would steal them, make slaves of them, rape them and force them into marriage; but they did not torture them. That was stupid. It was a waste of a life that might breed and produce new warriors for the tribe.

  I said, “There is nothing I would not dare to protect the lands of my emperor.”

  He stared at me with unblinking eyes. “I believe you would,” he said. He nodded to the men with him and they left abruptly.

  I went back to my office and the courtyard was empty but for the girl. She was white-faced and weeping.

  Quintus limped after me. He said, coldly, “We should have helped them. Men fight best when there is something to fight for. If Marcomir could destroy the Siling Vandals we could have beaten the Alans. We had the opportunity to destroy them in one pitched battle.”

  I said, “We had no bridge.”

  “Only because you would not build one.”

  “I told Marcomir we could not help him.”

  “Yes,” he said. “You would do that, of course. I can hear you saying it.”

  “It was my duty.”

  He said, bitterly, “It always is your duty. Marcomir is dead. Do you ever think of people instead of things?”

  I was angry now. I said, “Do you questio
n my command?”

  He hesitated. He said, “I question your judgement. There is always a risk in battle. This was our opportunity, and you threw it away.” He added in a low voice, “You did not even ask my opinion.”

  “There was no time. I was on one side of the river and you on the other.”

  “There would have been if we had had the bridge.”

  “But we had no bridge.”

  He breathed heavily. “No,” he said. “You are not good at building bridges.”

  “At least I do not break them down.”

  He flushed and turned away.

  The tribes across the river buried their dead, repaired their camp and nursed their wounded. There was little they could do except wait, and time was on my side and not on theirs.

  Fabianus returned to the Franks and tried to put new heart into them, but many deserted, some to join the Alans, others to seek refuge in the shadow of Guntiarus and the Burgundians. Goar at least did not lose his nerve. He quietly annexed the Frankish land on the right bank and made preparations to defend it; but whether against me or against his own kind I could not be certain. I did not trust him as I had trusted Marcomir.

  Reports came in that more waggons had been seen moving out and that, imperceptible though it might seem, the camp was thinning slowly, as families and clans moved back to the east in search of better sites in which to pass the winter. Like a swarm of locusts, they had stripped the land bare on which they had lived all summer, and starvation threatened them at last.

  Acting on my instructions, a cohort at Bingium moved across the river and, with troops working hard on both sides, the fort commander began to construct a wooden bridge. The river at this point was four hundred yards across; the weight of the moving water and the speed of the current was tremendous, and there was great difficulty in sinking the piles accurately. The water was bringing down a great mass of stone and shingle from higher up, so that the shoals and sandbanks were constantly changing shape and altering their position. Nevertheless the bridge was finished and ready for use eight days after the first tree was felled.

  I had it in mind to risk all on a single throw, move the legion across the river at the end of October and engage all that remained of the enemy in battle, relying on the fact that by that time their courage would be at a low ebb. Quintus urged this course every time we met. We argued the matter with cold hostility. He was confident that the risk would be worthwhile and that the shock of one more defeat would finally extinguish their hopes of forcing a crossing. I was not quite so certain. It was I who bore the final responsibility; not he.

  During this time I saw little of our prisoner. She had recovered from her beating and gave no more trouble. Occasionally I saw her at a distance, walking through the camp with a guard behind her, but if she saw me she turned her head and looked the other way. Sometimes, one of the tribunes was with her. It might be young Marius who came from Arelate, or Severus who had joined us after Pollentia. Occasionally it was Didius, one of Quintus’ more promising squadron commanders, who had been transferred to us nine months ago from a cavalry unit in Hispania. Usually, however, it was Fabianus; but I did not ask questions. He worked hard, as they all did, and if he found it amusing to spend his spare time in her company that was his affair, not mine.

  In the second week of September I received a series of agitated messages from the fort commander at Bingium; Guntiarus was on the far bank, asking permission to cross. He wished to see me on a matter of great urgency. I sent a message back saying that he was to remain on the east bank and that I would come to visit him in his berg as soon as my duties permitted.

  When he heard of this Quintus said, bleakly, “He wants more tribute. I can smell his demands a mile away. He is a greedy man. He offered no help to Marcomir. He thinks only of himself.”

  I said, “He is not alone in that.” I pointed to my desk. “I have just received the answers to my other letters.”

  “What do they say?”

  “The Praefectus Praetorio is cautious and diplomatic. I may call on the field army if I need it, but the field army is not to enter Belgica unless and until the barbarians cross the Rhenus. He is afraid, you see, that I might have ambitions to set myself up in his place. The news from Britannia will not have helped.”

  “The man is mad.”

  “Oh yes, but there is some logic in that dull little mind. Germania has always been a breeding ground for usurpers.”

  “Go on.”

  “The Dux Belgicae, poor man, has troubles of his own on the coast and cannot spare a man. Him, I believe.”

  “And our friend, Chariobaudes?”

  “He will move his troops as far east as Cabillonum and will help us, subject to the Praefectus’ orders.”

  “How many men has he got?”

  I laughed. “That is what is so funny. Oh, he’s quite honest about it. He has ten regiments of five hundred men each. All are veterans between the ages of forty five and fifty. Out of that he can make an effective fighting force of about three thousand.”

  Quintus said, “They won’t be much use. We shall have to rely on ourselves.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But, the day may still come when we shall be thankful for even three thousand men.”

  “How far is it from Treverorum to Cabillonum.” He put his finger on the map and traced the route. “Well over a hundred miles.”

  “Yes.”

  “It will be of great comfort, when we are in trouble, to know we are so closely supported by the glorious army of Gaul.”

  I looked up at him. I said, “I have always known that in this affair we should be quite alone. In that there is nothing new.”

  He said, steadily, “It is only when I think about it that I get frightened. I wake up in the night and sit on the edge of my bed and sweat with fear.”

  I put out my hand, unthinkingly, but he backed away. He said, “In the day I can pretend. It is easy then. But at night I know the truth; and, sometimes, I cannot face the truth.”

  Guntiarus said, “It was kind of you to come. My people are poor, as you know, and the harvest has not been a good one.”

  “A further payment of tribute is not due for another six months,” I said, brutally.

  “That is understood. Of course, I can always sell food to the Vandals. Their ambassadors are here now. Their people are, I think, starving, and would pay a good price—in silver. But you are my friend and I do not care to help your enemies unless I am forced to.”

  I said, “You have had all the tribute I can spare. If your harvest was bad then it was because you are a lazy people and bad farmers. I cannot help you.”

  “My people are warriors,” he said, mildly.

  “If you prefer to treat with the men who took your daughter and slew your son-in-law, that is a matter for you,” I said, contemptuously. “Make friends of their murderers, but do not come again asking me to give you silver.”

  “The Vandals are very strong,” he said, anxiously. “I am only a man of peace. My people do not wish for war.”

  “No,” said Quintus. “Only for the chance to share the west bank in return for helping these Vandals.”

  “You would force me to see my people sell them food,” he squeaked.

  “Those are your words, not mine. But are you certain your men are strong enough to guard your waggons against my cavalry?”

  He said, anxiously, “We are friends. We have made a pact. I am in the service of the Emperor. You, yourself, appointed me the Praeses of Germania Inferior.” He stumbled over the Latin words awkwardly, but there was an absurd pride in his voice at his remembrance of the meaningless title. It was almost as hollow as my own. “You will not kill an ally.”

  “No,” I said. “I kill only those who oppose me.”

  We walked out to where our horses stood. His small son, a flaxen-haired child of eleven, was standing by my horse, fingering the harness. I mounted, and then bent down and lifted the boy onto the saddle cloth in front of me. His struggles c
eased the moment my knife pricked the soft skin of his throat. There was a growl from the tribesmen around us. My escort of five closed up on me. The king stepped forward and then hesitated. His face had gone white. He was afraid of me, and I was glad. What was a yellow haired Burgundian to me—I who was Maximus?

  “Your son needs a change of air,” I said. “I will show him my camp and my soldiers and he will like that. He will be my honoured guest and I will look after his health as carefully as my own. You will remember that, Guntiarus, when you think to sell food to the enemies of Rome.”

  “My son,” he cried. “Give me my son.”

  “When you have avenged your daughter, I will know that you care for your son.” I lifted my hand and we trotted through the camp, followed by a great host of men who would have killed me if they had dared. Outside the stockade we dug our heels into our horses and galloped hard for the river. When we reached the shore opposite Bingium I knew we were safe. At Moguntiacum I sent for the girl who was Rando’s daughter.

  She came and Fabianus was with her.

  I said, “Look after the boy. If he goes sick or escapes you will embrace that tree by the river sooner than you think.”

  She cried out at me then, called me a Roman butcher and a murderer until she ran out of breath. I laughed and she went away in silence, but I knew that the boy would be safe.

  On the last night of the month I was awoken a little after dawn by the centurion of the watch, beating upon my door.

  “What is it?” I asked, irritably.

  “The girl has escaped. We found the sentry outside her hut half an hour ago. He had been stunned.”

  “Half an hour.”

  He said, steadily, “I had the camp searched at once. She is nowhere inside. I found a ladder against the south wall by the stables. And this, sir.” He held up a woman’s sandal.

  “Yes, that is hers.”

  “We had to make sure before we told you, sir.”

  “She must be found. Take a patrol into the town. She may be hiding there. Search every house, if need be.” I flung on my cloak and picked up my sword. “She was locked in?”