Burning Shadows (2 page)

For those non-Roman guardians appointed in former Roman provinces, there was more responsibility than authority in their offices, but without such men, the Roman Empire erosion would have been more catastrophic, and barbarian conquests more total. By setting up a system that allowed the advancement of responsible foreigners, the Eastern and Western Romans were able to avoid the burdens of dealing with disputed regions, and provided a wonderful scapegoat for any corrosion of already reduced Roman authority in areas that were no longer actual provinces. In addition, the Christianization of the various barbarian groups would have been markedly less than it was had the Roman Empire not become officially Christian under Constantine. The eventual development of Europe as a specific entity would probably have taken much longer to occur without the cohesion of Christianity. It can also be argued that when the Church became a potitical/military power in the West, it opened the door to widespread corruption and influence- peddling, even while it extended its authority into all aspects of European life, which proved both disastrous and beneficial through the Dark Ages and the Medieval Era. Personal rights and property rights that were the hallmark of Imperial Rome (especially as regards the rights of women and slaves, and the upward mobility of freed- men and freemen) gave way to Christian dogma and a policy of repression and fixedness that defined and supported the religious status quo. One of the Roman Church’s earliest political/military acts was the bribe Pope Leo I paid to Attila to take his typhus-stricken army and leave Rome; that act set the Roman Church firmly on the path that led to the politicization of the institution; it is a path that many sects of Christianity follow to this day.

Thanks are due to a number of people who supplied needed information for this book: to Thomas Byrne for his material on the split of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires; to Emily Cummins for the loan of two texts on the barbarian invasions, and for filling in some regional gaps for me; to Paul Gonsalves, S.J., for sharing his vast knowledge of early Christianity, including liturgies and Church hierarchical structures; to George Hope for access to a raft of fascinating, if spotty, records of the deurbanization of the Roman Empire, the decline of the Roman courts, and the development of protofeudalism in border regions of the Empire; to Eric Hunter for providing much insight into the rise of Byzantium; to Perry and Genevieve Ognissanti for wonderful references on language drift and regional dialects of the fifth century, which combined elements of Byzantine Greek, vulgate Latin, and Germanic dialects, as well as coming up with Rotlandus Bernardius’ occasional garbling of Imperial Latin; to Diane V. Razelton for the loan of her thesis on the development and collapse of Attila’s armies; to Beatrice Tully for providing her translations of Greek documents of the period; and to Hal Wainwright for delineating conflicting versions of fluctuating borders from eastern Europe into the Balkans. Errors in the text are my own and should not be attributed to these most helpful people.

On the publishing side of the ledger, thanks are due to my agent, Irene Kraas, for her staunch support of this series; to Tor and my longtime editor, Melissa Singer; to the incomparable Wiley Saichek, who handles so much of my online promotion; to Paula Guran, the designer and webmaster for ChelseaQuinnYarbro.net; to Lindig Harris (
[email protected]
) for her newsletter
Yclept Yarbro;
to the Lord Ruthven Assembly and the ICFA for their continuing enthusiasm; to Elizabeth Miller of the Canadian chapter of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula and
Dracula
expert; to Sharon, Stephanie, Libba, Brian, Steve, and Maureen for their sharp eyes for errors of all sorts; to Delilah Crosby, Jim Estrander, and Corrie Nahum, the recreational readers for this book; to Alice, Megan, Peggy, Charlie, Gaye, Lori, and Marc for useful feedback; to Peter and David in England; to RC for being RC; to my redoubtable and doughty attorney, Robin A. Dubner, who watches over Saint-Germain’s legal welfare; to the book-dealers who have done so much to sustain the series for three decades; and to Saint- Germain’s faithful readers, without whom the tales would not continue. On to #24.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Berkeley, California

9 January, 2008

PART I

ATTA
OLIVIA
CLEMENS

T
ext of a letter from Demetrios Maius, merchant of the Porolis- sensis region of the old Province of Dacia, to Gnaccus Tortulla, Praetor Custodis of Viminacium in the Province of Moesia, written in Latin vulgate with fixed ink on parchment and carried by Es- tephanos Stobi, private courier for Dom Feranescus Rakoczy Sanctu-Germainios, regional guardian of Apulum Inferior, in the company of Maius’ fleeing family members; delivered in ten days.

Ave, Praetor Custodis Gnaccus Tortulla: may God and the old gods
hold you in their favor.
On your recommendation, we have appealed
to the Goths who now rule in the southeastern quarter of the old Dacian region, seeking protection for those of us who are Romans still
living here, from the increasing ferocity of the Huns; the small raiding
parties of three decades past are still growing in numbers, and increasingly they are forming more extensive fighting companies. More
than continuing their search for grazing lands, they are determined to
hold the land they have over-run as their conquest rather than passing
on to broader pastures as they have done before, unless this is a ploy
to drive the last of the Roman settlements away from these mountains
so that they will only have to fight the Gepidae and Goths. We have
lost the good-will of the region, for it’s said that the Huns follow the
old roads to settlements and towns, as merchant-travelers do, and
these are all Roman.

If you will not provide us some relief from these Huns, and maintain some level of military presence around us, we must flee or die. Already one in five of our people is gone, and those numbers are steadily increasing as the Huns become a stronger force. The Gepidae are occupied with protecting their own clans, drawing in to their territories, setting up patrols and guards, and are in no position to offer us any protection. There are more than thirty merchants in this region, and all of us have the same risks, so it will be wise if we bring our causes together and through bargaining as a group, ensure our protection and the preservation of our stock-in-trade. We may also enlist other Romans remaining in this region in building up fortresses and strengthening towns.

Roma is far away, to be sure, and Constantinople’s Generals are unwilling to risk their fighting men by taking action against the Huns while they have employed so many companies of Huns to reinforce their border garrisons. We must find support through other means than Byzantine fighting men, or we will be killed and our lands overrun by Huns, who will strike westward and south from this place, farther into Christian lands. We are not a garrison-town but a trading center, and we are not in any position to become a regional fortress, for we have lost so much of the goods in which we trade that we cannot cover all the costs of constructing a proper stockade for all Porolissum, at least not as quickly as we are likely to need it. Surely there are devout men in Moesia who would be willing to fight for their salvation, and would come north to join with us in our battles. I beseech you to tell your soldiers of our plight and to appeal to them to help us. I have carts and mules I can provide for those who wish to help us. You have only to send word and I will dispatch muleteers to bring fighting men to us. If the men serve well, at the end of our fight they may keep their mules if they had them from me.

It has been a hard year so far; half our crops have been ruined by marauding Huns, and what has not been trampled or burned has been seized; when the harvest is made, we will have very little to lay in against the hardships of winter, and what little we do bring in we have small hope of keeping. Our herds and flocks have also been raided. More than a third of my stores have been looted, and most of the merchants here have suffered a similar fate. The tiered mills have been burned and the grain within them taken. Shepherds and goatherds have been killed in their summer grazing up the mountains, their animals confiscated by the Huns; the few remaining flocks have been moved to the enclosed fields of two local monasteries in exchange for twenty percent of the numbers of the animals to feed the monks.

As we are about to enter the month of Julius, we will have to look to our defenses, and attend to them before autumn arrives. Once the weather turns, our prospects for saving all of us from our enemies will be diminished to a dangerous degree. Already nine of our local merchants have announced their intention to shift their center of operations westward. If you will not provide those of us who seek to remain here some soldiers, we will find ourselves more in danger than we are now, with no prospect of relief. If you cannot spare men, then I implore you to send us weapons at least, or prepare to open your gates to your Roman brothers, for we will have to abandon our Porolissensis towns, either for Viminacium or the old fortress near Apulum Inferior, assuming we can restore its walls in time, or even to the monastery in the high valley between Ulpia Traiana and Apulum Inferior where we will have to retreat when the Huns return if no other fortification is made available to us. I pray you will grant us aid in this desperate time, for without some help we are all dead.

A Roman widow whose horse-farm to the south of the town has guaranteed us fifty horses for our defenders when they arrive. She has also provided silver and gold to help us pay for the strengthening of our walls, and arranged to move many barrels of food to wherever we Romans are to winter this year. This generous woman is the noble widow Atta Olivia Clemens, a blood relative of the foreigner Feranescus Rakoczy Sanctu-Germainios, serving as the regional guardian for Apulum Inferior, and he has pledged to see that her wishes are carried out. After this summer, Bondama Clemens will remain at Lux Perpetua Chapel, inside the northern gate of the monastery, where women stay. When she leaves the protection there, she will carry letters for us.

The monastery of Sanctu-Eustachios the Hermit, nearer the old Roman garrison-town of Ulpia Traiana than Apulum Inferior, may provide us shelter through the winter if we receive no help from other Romans, but it is unlikely that the monks would allow us to stay on past the thaw if our presence would serve to attract more Huns without also gathering more Roman soldiers to protect us from Attila’s forces. The monks will fight to defend the monastery and their faith, but as I have said already, they are unlikely to do anything more than that if the barbarians follow us to their door. Yet we have an obligation to see that the monks are spared the risk of death that must be the destiny of soldiers. In this, Priam Corydon agrees, and as head of the monastery, his cooperation is essential to our purpose.

To secure the protection of more than Christ, I will leave a sacrifice for Mithras, and one for the old Greek Ares, whose temple is on the eastern side of the city. We have two churches here in Porolissum, and three private chapels. This is not so minor a place that everyone beyond Roma has no reason to pay attention to our plight, for it is towns like this one that will hold back the Huns if they are given aid now. The Church sends its priests here, and allows monks to man their monasteries, so it is not so remote that all the Christian world has no cause to be concerned for us. Seharic the Goth has allowed the region to support Christians, so long as the men will defend their lands, to which the Bishops of Porolissensis have consented. The priest who is assigned to our garrison will say his Masses for our fighting men—and tup our wives for us, if the rumors are right. There will be a home for us beyond the setting sun, as is always the end of men who fight.