The Songs of Slaves (46 page)

Connor looked up, letting the sleet sting his reddened face. Through the low clouds he could see the high mountains, already blanketed in gleaming snow. Above these swirled heavy gray snow clouds. He turned his head and regarded the camp – now just a shell of what it had
been. Where Sarus’
men had rested
was now trodden earth and smoldering campfires. Valia’s followers huddled on the other side of the line of men who protected them. The rock outcroppings offered slim shelter from the devious wind. More than two thirds of the camp – its warriors, horses, tents, livestock, baggage carts, and families – was gone. What had looked like a formidable force now looked like a rabble of refugees lost in the barren mountains at the edge of winter.

Valia turned on his heels towards them, his eyes alight.

“You ten – meet me at my tent at noon where we will finalize our plan,” he said, looking at Connor, Gaiseric, and the others in turn.

Valia raised his voice and addressed the crowd.
“
Contu
bernii
One through Four
, lock shields and face the path. I want three lookouts posted on each of these rock spires – here, here, and here. We do not know what the traitors are scheming. Perhaps this has all been an elaborate plan to separate theirs from ours to make it easier to kill us. They may come screaming back down this path any moment and try to cut us to pieces. I do not think that they have the balls for that, but they may
yet find their courage. We will not let such further unmanly betrayal prosper against us. I want every warrior ready.”

There was a half-hearted shout from the warriors, who still held their formation as ice formed on their armor.

Valia lifted his hands wide.
“Brothers!
Where are your hearts? We have been betrayed by a cunning fox – an emasculate worm masquerading as one of us – but we are not beaten. We are not alone, for we have each other. We are not weak, but we have both the strength of body and of purpose. We have given our word to pass through these mountains, and to bring our swords to the great fight of our people. I know that for my part, I will keep my promise. I will fulfill my
mandata
.”

Valia drew his
spatha
from its scabbard. What winter sun that could pierce the clouds shone on the blade that Connor had taken from Lorentius.

“And I!”
Henric called, pulling forth his blade. “I will keep my promise.”

“I will keep my promise!” Connor called, drawing
Archangel.
The others followed until a great commotion rattled on the rock walls. The Visigoths shouted and beat their swords or spears against their shields. Valia’s grim smile could be seen through the shadows of his helmet. He raised his sword higher as the shouts of his people reached crescendo.

“Every man to his busines
s,” Valia said. “L
ook sharp. Watchmen, we all rel
y on you. Each
contubernium
shall be relieved in turn every
three hours. Now, all unassigned, take your rest. These next two days will be long and dangerous. Who knows? After that the worst may be yet to come.”

Despite the negativity of the last statements, the Goths cheered loudly before sheathing their weapons and dispersing
.  The forty or so men of the first four
contubernii
,
or battle groups,
locked shields into a shield wall five men deep, their spears pointing down the path where Sarus had gone. Whether Sarus would reappear there, or whether the battle cry would come from a host of
bacaudae
Connor did not know. He felt vulnerable and stranded. They all did, he reminded
himself. He walked towards his tent to try to at least get out of the worst of the weather.

Lucia
was sitting with her knees up, as she had been, her dark woolen cloak gathered tightly around her. Connor remembered how she always used to wear white. Now he only saw her in her dark travel clothes, as if her innocence was lost and replaced by
a cloak of
misery. Though they had shared sleeping quarters for about a month now, she had been able to hide her body from his eyes – not that he had really tried, or that his frequent absence had made that especially hard for her. But still he thought it was strange, and admittedly disappointing. For his part, he had tried to treat her with respect, and had not touched her at all. But he had not gone out of his way to hide himself from her. Connor thought that he had caught her staring a few times, but in the girl’s current frame of mind whether she was lusting over him or planning where she would thrust the knife remained in question.

The oilskin tent was not up to keeping the moisture out, and a puddle was forming under the apex.
Lucia
stared into the puddle, almost as if she was expecting to see a vision.

“Are we going to die?”
Lucia
asked, not turning her gaze.

Connor sat down. He reached for a small flagon of wine. His heart was pounding and his hands trembled slightly as he poured a cup. He needed to sleep – he felt exhausted, but his heart and mind were racing. Though his exterior was still and careful, he could not seem to calm his mind and body down.

“What does your godd
ess tell you?”

“She does not say.
I know that I am travelling her path for her purpose, but I do not know where it leads.”

“Well then I will tell you what I know,” Connor said. “We are not going to die.”

Lucia
smirked bitterly. Connor sipped his wine, reminding himself that there was too much that needed to be done for him to indulge in more than one cup. Their whole future hinged on today. He offered the flagon to
Lucia
, but she refused with a gesture. Nonetheless, he could see by looking at her eyes and her skin that she had ended the fast that threatened to
undo her. She was probably only eating bread and water, but at least she was eating.

“I will tell you how I know that we are not going to die,” Connor said. He set the wine down and went to draw his sword so that he could sharpen it. He stopped when he remembered that he had sharpened it through half the night as he watched
Lucia
sleep, expecting to ha
ve to defend her against Sarus’
host at dawn. The ring of the stone on the blade and the rhythmic motion seemed to focus his energy and calm his nerves. It seemed strange to him – he felt worse now than he had when he had been spying on the
bacaudae
yesterday. How could he feel anxious when nothing was happening, but focused when his life was actually at stake?

“Illuminate me,”
Lucia
said
sardonically
.

“I have seen the enemy, and I have seen us. I do not know what they have inside, but I know what we have inside. It is that simple.”

Lucia
smiled despite herself. Connor finished his wine, threw his damp cloak over him, and watched
water moving on the roof of the tent as the hours passed towards noon.

XXI

             
It would be dawn soon, but for now all was blackness. For the first time in days there was no rain or sleet, only the stark air about them; but the clouds still hung low in the sky. Connor led the way forward, crawling on his belly over the cold, wet ground. Tuldin and Henric were behind him as he followed the stream, trusting to the high grasses to conceal them from the few treacherous moonbeams that would at times break free. Connor worked diligently to control his breathing. “Control your breathing to control your body,” Titus used to say; but right now Connor felt that his heart must be loud enough for the dogs within the palisade to hear him coming. They were still a few hundred yards off, creeping slowly, risking as little as they could until it was time to risk everything.

             
There was little question that the
bacaudae
knew of them by now.
Sarus would have reached
the rav
ine
yesterday, about two or three hours after leaving the camp. As Connor looked at the seemingly intact palisade ahead, and not a smoldering ruin of a settlement, he knew that Sarus had not found the
bacaudae
before they found him. Even if it had been
possible for him to get his people around the trap, it would have been impossible for him to get his wagons up the steep inclines outside of the path. Therefore Connor was fairly certain that Sarus had been trapped by the men who guarded the pass. It was only a matter as to whether he fought his way out or bought his way out. Sarus was a proud man and a great general; but because he was a great general it was unlikely that he would have risked his men against such hopeless odds if he did not have to. So it seemed likely to Connor that he had bought his way out, and Connor knew that one of the things he would have sold the
bacaudae
was Valia and his followers.

             
Nearby a small owl challenged them, but did not stir from his branch. In the east the edges around the wooded slopes that towered above grew faintly gray. The palisade ahead was constructed of pine logs, sharpened on the top and lashed tightly. It looked to be about ten feet high. No gate was visible from Connor’s angle, as he and the others approached it obliquely for better concealment from the watchmen that he knew must be there. Whatever happened, they needed to be within the shadow of the walls when the light took to the sky. If they were caught in the open field between
the river and the fort it may take only one
good
bowman to kill the three of them.

Within the settlement Connor had seen thatched roves. He wondered how many of these
bacaudae
might just be women and children, or the old and infirm. He had heard many stories of them while he was a slave. The
bacaudae
may be thieves and criminals, and were often murderers and sometimes – as in one famous uprising a hundred years before – even revolutionaries; but many had
been merely plebes
who had been forced to run away. Wrung dry by ever-heavier taxation; menaced by one civil
war after another and the ever-
worsening incursions of Germani from outside the
Imperium
;
persecuted for religions that were no longer accepted by the status quo; many had just decided that they were better off making their own life in the wilderness. Connor thought of Philip, and the woman in the market at Masillia who watched her children dragged into slavery. Some of these
bacaudae
may have started out in similar straights as these. But something had made them decide that they would not accept it. Something made them decide that the costs of society had outweighed the benefits it offered, and they had fled to live as the wild Germani did, in small bands
answerable only to themselves. Yet any sympathy Connor had for them did not change the fact that these men now lived by the sword and lived by taking
whatever they could
. The wild game here must be ample enough, but there was nothing else – the
bacaudae
survived off of the hardship of others, just as others had once tried to live off them. Unlike Sarus, Valia had little treasure left to offer. So they would be after the food that there was already too little of, or they may even try to take some of the women and children as slaves to trade. Connor quickened his pace, leaving the edge of the stream and crawling the last few dozen yards of open ground. He was not going to let that happen.

The gray light of dawn came quickly. The three men froze as within the enclave a dog began to bark; but it did not seem to be alerting on them, and soon it was quiet. They were close enough to the palisade to hear the noises of the settlement waking up. They could smell the urine on the walls and the mix of human and animal feces from the pens. Connor looked back to the wooded mountainside that had sheltered him when he first spied on the enclave two days ago. Hopefully, Valia and his force of forty men were already concealed
there. Another forty or so were to take up positions near the opposite ledge of the ravine. Well down the slope, hidden within the shadows of a rocky overhang, the remainder of Valia’s Visigoths with their horses and wagons held in place waiting to pass through.
Lucia
was there depending on him now, as Connor rested his back to the outside of the palisade and prepared to make their move.

“We must move around to the rear,” Henric breathed, coming up beside him. “The women will be gathering water soon.”

Henric was right. Every morning, everywh
ere in the world, began with
women fetching water. The
bacaudae
women might
not see them on the wa
y out of the camp, but they
would definitely see them coming back from the stream. Connor followed Henric and Tuldin, now walking in a low crouch. The rear of the palisade was oriented to the east, so there would be no shadow to conceal them. The three hung close to the walls, hoping for luck. Within the enclave the sound of morning activity continued. Connor heard pigs grunting in their pen, and a man’s voice cursing from just the other side of the wall. He took a deep breath and again
forced himself to calm, but if the man did not move on then they would have to find a new spot. Moments later, the voice was silenced. Connor ventured to try to peak through one of the narrow spaces where the logs did not meet flush. He could not get more than a sliver of a view, but it seemed the man was gone. The settlement within the walls looked like he would expect any mountain village to look. Women, dirty and dressed in tattered garments carried wicker baskets and buckets, going about their morning chores. A grubby child, wearing only an oversized tunic, squatted in the path near one of the long houses. Then he spied a man carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows walking from one of the houses to the fore of the enclave. Connor noted the man’s short stabbing sword and dented helmet, but he wore no other armor. Within seconds he had disappeared.