Authors: Morgan O'Neill
Athaulf’s horse reared in fright, pawing the air, and then tried to bolt, but the mob was too thick around them. Glancing across the masses, he could see Alaric and the other horsemen having much the same difficulty.
Finally, the crush of humanity broke free as many in the vanguard reached the maze of streets beyond the gates and flowed away, but as Athaulf found room to maneuver, great wafts of black smoke billowed across his path.
“Luifs Guth!”
Athaulf swore, urging his horse forward as the smoke engulfed them, but it was useless — with everything going on, the animal balked and refused to advance. Dismounting, he tried to find something to cover the horse’s eyes, but this was no time of year for extra clothing and there was nothing, nothing!
Jostled by his fellow Visigoths, Athaulf felt a rising panic. This was taking too long.
Placidia!
He had to get to her. Spotting a man with a sack, ready for plunder, he yelled and then wrenched it out of his grasp. Quickly slinging it over his horse’s head, he was finally able to make some headway, and soon they passed the worst of it.
Remounting, Athaulf drove his horse on, realizing he had no clear sense of the layout of Rome’s winding streets, praying God would guide him to the palace without more delay. He scanned the area, trying to locate the Palatine Hill amidst the darkness and smoke. It was somewhere over …
there, there it was!
“Yah!” His horse leapt forward, and Athaulf did not care as Romans and his own people scattered before them, in fear for their lives.
• • •
King Alaric urged his horse forward into the smoke, struggling to keep abreast with the surge. This was it, what he had waited for his entire life.
Penetrabis ad Urbem.
You will penetrate the city. Randegund’s chant echoed in his mind.
A frenzy of shouts roused him, and he looked around. A brazier had been overturned, setting fire to the guardhouse. Nearby, embers and ash wildly blew into elaborate pleasure gardens, the famed Horti Sallustiani, and several large plane trees burst into flames. Hearing panicked screams, he saw Romans fleeing their homes, running in every direction. Alarmed, he searched for some hint of structure in the chaos and spotted a band of Visigoths advancing as a unit toward the Senate building. For the most part, he judged, these men were keeping to orders, but as for the rest … ?
Suddenly sensing trouble behind him, Alaric twisted in his saddle.
More fires, hungry flames leapt out of windows and rooftops —
no!
He heard a shriek and spun back to see one of his men raping a young woman right in the street.
“Stop!” he yelled, urging his mount forward and kicking the man with his boot. “Leave her be. You are not to rape!” But the wretch paid him no heed, so Alaric jumped down and pulled the man off his victim, then punched him in the jaw, knocking him senseless. The woman scrambled to her feet, then spit at Alaric and ran away, cursing him and sobbing.
Alaric reached for his reins, but his horse shied and bolted as more Visigoths came on, and he found himself on foot, alone. Frantically looking around, he realized his army was out of control. With only his authority and his sword to curb the tide, he ran deeper into the city.
Smoke was everywhere, thick and black. Alaric saw three men coming back down the street with sacks of booty, and he was about to continue past, when he noticed one of them carried a lit oil lamp.
“Do not — ”
Laughing, the man tossed the lamp against a wall, which burst into flames.
Alaric grabbed the man by the throat, furious. “Your orders were not to burn — pillage only!”
“I take my orders from Sergeric, and he gave us a free hand,” he pushed Alaric aside, “to do whatever we please, just as the Romans would do. When in Rome!” The man broke off, laughing again, then sprinted away with his friends, bumping into a terrified woman and causing her to fall.
Dressed in black, her head modestly covered, she was obviously of some religious order. Alaric approached her as thick, acrid smoke filled the air, but she cowered, hiding her face.
“Sister, fear not. I am a friend.”
She peered at him, and he was struck by her youth and beauty.
“Sanctuary!” she cried out, whimpering, yet defiant. “I am Marcella, Daughter in Christ, and I claim Holy Sanctuary. But, please, I haven’t the strength to get to my church, so I claim it right here, on this spot, before God.”
“Sister,” Alaric said, reaching out, “I, too, am a Christian, and if you allow me, I will escort you wherever you want to go. I will protect you — I swear.”
It took a long time to get the woman to safety, passing bodies, burning buildings, and the horrific din of rape and destruction. After leaving her at St. Peter’s, safe and among many of her own, Alaric refused to accept her blessings and grimly continued on.
He moved through the streets, commanding those breaking his rules to desist, even swinging his blade against some when needed. At other times, he dispatched people in the throes of an agonizing death, and many times, too often, he pulled horrified women from the clutches of their abusers.
What had happened? How had it gotten so badly out of control? He knew Sergeric was partially to blame, but he blamed himself as well. He should have known that once unleashed, a sack would be ungovernable. Lawlessness breeds frenzy breeds every kind of unspeakable evil.
This was his sorrow, his sin to bear. He made the sign of the cross and beseeched God for forgiveness.
• • •
Dawn approached, the sky lightening despite the heavy smoke in the air. Reaching the Domus Augustana and finding the palace gates broken, Athaulf hastened inside, securing his horse in a side court. He prayed no one would steal him. The palace was supposed to be sacrosanct, yet everything was in turmoil, people fighting, bodies scattered everywhere.
Placidia!
Her soldiers battled the onslaught as best they could. Even servants struggled, almost comically, with pots and pans and broomsticks against his well-armed men.
“Leave the palace at once,” Athaulf bellowed as he passed his men. “At once!” He ran from room to room — her study was open and empty — the adjoining imperial bedchambers hacked up, the beds, tables, and couches overturned.
Iésus, where is she?
He barged into an unfamiliar room and found one of his own men raping a servant, and he pulled the man’s head back and struck him hard with the butt of his sword. “Leave!” he roared. “You’re not to touch — ”
“Athaulf!”
He spun around to find Magnus, bloodied sword in hand, and Gigi, looking fierce and holding a club.
“Where is Placidia?” Athaulf cried out.
“Don’t know — we haven’t found her,” Magnus shouted back.
“Keep looking.” With that, Athaulf ran off, alarm redoubling over what he might find.
Time dragged as he searched room to room, level by level, yelling at any Visigoths he found, ordering them to leave at once. The place was a labyrinth, and he could only hope, in his despair, that he’d not missed something along the way.
He stopped suddenly — what had he heard? A scream? Athaulf turned and peered behind him, then crept back. There it was again, muffled and indistinct, but very close. Glancing into a room he’d already checked, he considered it more closely, and then caught sight of something he hadn’t noticed before, the merest crack of a concealed doorway. He’d seen one like it before at the House of Livia: painted over by botanical scenes and blending with the rest of the wall.
Another sound of anguished struggle, a stifled cry. Athaulf sprinted across the room and thrust open the door.
The Visigoth was half-naked, his buttocks flexed as he pinned Placidia against the wall.
Athaulf’s blade pierced the whoreson, jabbing from one side of his waist to the other. The body buckled and fell as Athaulf pulled Placidia into his arms. Bruised about the face, bleeding and naked, she held on to him and wept.
“Placidia, my love, forgive — ” His voice strangled.
“
Iésus,
forgive me. I tried to get here, truly I did.” He held her close and let her cry, tears of his own falling into her hair.
After a moment, her sobbing slowed, and she raised her chin, but wouldn’t look him in the eye. “My gown, please,” she said, her voice faint but determined.
Athaulf let go and turned away, shoving the dead bastard with his foot to free her things. He handed them to her without glancing back, and she dressed quickly.
“You may turn,” she said, her voice ragged with pain.
He faced her. Her gown was bloodstained, and suddenly he was certain he’d arrived too late. Oh, God in Heaven, why had this happened?
Arms folded tightly across her chest, she kept her eyes averted, her agony clear to see. Athaulf held her gently, felt her trembling. “I love you, Placidia. I love you.” It was all he could think to say. He had to reassure her he felt no different because … because …
“We must go see to the others,” Placidia said, pushing away from him, her voice a monotone. “I have to protect my people.”
“Placidia, I love you. It does not matter if he … ”
She met his gaze, and he sucked in his breath — her eyes looked dead.
“I thank God you came when you did, Athaulf. He didn’t … he hadn’t … not yet.”
Then she turned around and left.
• • •
When Gigi and Magnus reached the atrium, they saw Athaulf standing amid the damaged foliage and broken statues. The place seemed empty now, quiet, the palace abandoned by the Visigoth marauders. They started toward Athaulf, still cautiously looking around, but when Gigi spotted Placidia kneeling on the floor, she rushed forward.
When she reached the princess, she clamped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, no, Placidia!”
Persis was lying in a pool of blood amongst the shards of a broken urn, her skin already yellow and waxy after bleeding to death.
“How dare you, Athaulf, how dare you,” Placidia moaned, weeping uncontrollably, reaching out to finger Persis’s sodden hair. “You have sent your people to burn my city, rape and murder my citizens, yet you would protect me? I will stand against you, Visigoth, and fight with my own.”
Athaulf bent and touched Placidia’s arm, an expression of pain and pleading on his face, but Placidia, covered with blood, suddenly got up and launched herself at him, shoving him backward with all her might. “Stay away from Persis! Don’t touch her — this is your doing.”
Devastated, he opened his mouth to explain, but Placidia shrieked, “You are no better than any of the others. I will not run away and leave my people to their fate. How dare you suggest such a thing!”
Gigi gripped Placidia by the shoulders, shocked to see how badly battered she appeared. “Who — what happened to you?”
It was only at that moment Placidia seemed to realize Gigi and Magnus were there. Her eyes filled with tears as her face contorted in misery. “Oh, Gigi,” she cried. “Persis, my Persis is dead!”
Gigi hugged her. “I’m sorry. Are you hurt?”
Placidia shook her head just as a great gust of black smoke billowed into the room through the roof of the atrium. Shouts followed, rising from nearby corridors.
“We must leave — now,” Athaulf warned.
“No,” Placidia yelled. “I will not abandon my people!”
“Placidia, we must get out of here,” Gigi urged.
Athaulf approached the princess and stretched out his hand.
“Barbarian!” She lunged at him again, but he pivoted and pinned her arms behind her.
“I love you, Placidia,” he said, as he scooped her up and carried her outside, ignoring her protests. Athaulf voiced relief that his horse was where he’d left it.
Luck was with them as Magnus spotted another horse nearby, wandering riderless, and within moments all were mounted, the men perched behind the saddles, Gigi and Placidia in them. Athaulf struggled to keep the princess’s arms under control and her bottom firmly in place.
As they galloped through the chaotic streets and out of Rome, Gigi noticed how his face was buried in Placidia’s hair, and how he was holding her tenderly against his chest — as a lover would, rather than as her captor.
After three days of pillaging, the Visigoths left Rome for the countryside, taking their captives with them. Placidia refused to speak with anyone, including Gigi and Magnus, keeping to the traveling wagon provided her during the day and her tent in the evenings. Anguished, Athaulf was convinced he’d destroyed all feelings she had ever held for him, and he tried to console himself with the fact that she was safe, and for now, nearer to him than she had ever been.
Resting after a long day’s march, Athaulf sat by the newly dug fire pit, jabbing a stick at the glowing embers. Verica was close by, preparing several pheasants for the evening meal, and Alaric was meeting with men just returned from taking inventory on the booty.
“Athaulf.”
He looked up at Alaric, who handed him a horn of beer and sat down.
“The reports are in,” he said, “and I must say, I’m surprised and heartened at the plunder of foodstuffs, and at the civility of our people during the attack.”
Athaulf snorted and shook his head. “Surely you jest?”
Alaric frowned. “It was a sack and brutal by its very nature, but as far as it went, more men than I would have guessed followed my orders.” He spread his hands. “Much burned, but nothing that can’t be rebuilt in a year, and true, many died, many were raped, but far fewer than I thought — ”
“You heard, didn’t you,” Athaulf cut in, “that the Mausoleum of Augustus and that of Hadrian were pillaged? Our people stole the royal urns, scattering the imperial ashes, as well as those of royal family members.”
“And for that travesty, I shall personally apologize to Placidia,” Alaric said evenly. “But still, it could have been worse, much worse. Above all, the right of Holy Sanctuary at St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s seems to have been strictly adhered to — ”
“And what of the other Catholic basilicas?” Athaulf asked. “Take a good look at our treasure. It is filled with objects from the Roman churches.”