Burning Shadows (4 page)

A tall, athletically lean, gloriously handsome man in a dark- orange Persian kandys, femoralia of deep-brown knit goat-hair, and wooden-soled peri, who appeared to be about twenty-five, came and stood in the door; a slight glint of amusement in his eyes made it clear that he had been listening to their wrangling. “Where would you want us to gather?”

“In the old courtyard. It won’t rain for a while yet; we might as well enjoy the afternoon while we make our arrangements.” She accepted his salute, watching him stride off to alert the household. “You were good to provide me a bondsman, since you and I cannot remain together. He has come to be more worthwhile than my family: with all the new limitations put upon women, I have needed him very much.”

“I am pleased you have him, then.”

She paused, then continued, “I can’t think how I managed without him for so long. But then, even a century ago, I had fewer hindrances to deal with.”

Sanctu-Germainios regarded her levelly. “It is a great misfortune that you have to deal with so many …” He faltered, going on in a slightly more wry tone, “With such depredations as have been imposed on you. It is unjust.”

“And it will lead to worse: I know it will.”

He stood beside her, not quite touching her. “I hope you prove wrong,” he said, although he seconded her fears.

“So do I,” she murmured. Then she stretched a little. “So. I concede you are right: it is probably imprudent for me to stay here with the Huns becoming so very aggressive. I will have to arrange for my departure.” She moved a little distance away from him. “Since you are the instigator of my coming journey, increase your usefulness by offering your suggestions for my travels.”

Sanctu-Germainios had been expecting something of this sort, and so he said, “How much of your household are you planning to take with you, and how many will you release?”

“I don’t know; there are forty-two of them, not counting the grooms, the shepherds, and swineherds. A handful of servants come from the town and will remain here, but for those in the household itself—” she said, and pondered again. “It depends on what they want. I imagine at least four of them will want to remain here with their families.” She paused, thinking. “Unless they want their families to leave here with the household, which would increase the numbers coming with me.”

“Is that a possibility, do you think.”

“It could be.” She began to pace the room, studying the murals of the reign of Marcus Aurelius on the walls as if she had never looked at them before. “I’ll have to wait until I know what the household wants before I make actual plans.”

“It seems a worthwhile idea.”

“You’re indulging me,” she accused.

“I am encouraging you to talk,” he said.

She shook her head slowly twice. “What am I going to do with you?” she asked him without looking at him.

“You are going to keep in mind that it would pain me beyond all reckoning to lose you to the True Death because you wanted to prove a point. When you became one of my blood, the Blood Bond ensured that you will always have my—my piety, in the old Roman sense of enduring, affectionate dedication; I will devote myself to you as I do to any who love me knowingly, as you did when you were still alive.” He laid his hand on her shoulder. “I know you have courage. I know you are purposeful. You need not take on the Huns to convince me of either.”

“Sanctu-Germainios,” she responded in a uncertain voice, shaking her head in puzzlement. “I can’t think what I’m supposed to say to you.”

“Anything you like,” he told her, and kissed her forehead. “So long as you do what you can to stay out of immediate danger.”

“I could say the same to you.” She reached out and took his hand in both of hers. “I sometimes find it inconvenient that your protection and devotion is all that we share now. Not that I am not pleased and nourished by the lovers I have had of late, but they were not like you.” 

“Now that you and I are of the same blood, it is all we are able to share, or need I remind you about what we seek from our lovers?” He saw her disappointment, and recalled how keenly he had felt it himself, a thousand years ago.

“I would be willing to hear you out on anything but that,” she said, reverting to her teasing manner. “You are going to tell me what you think of our present circumstances, in any case, aren’t you?” 

“Unless you forbid it.” He gave her a quick smile. “Indulge me, Olivia. I might have some useful kernels among all the chaff.”

She studied his face for a long moment. “Very well, then,” she said, a genial note in her voice and a mordant arch to her eyebrow as modifier. “I’ll be glad of the benefit of your long experience.”

“Most gracious,” he murmured, and indicated the two couches and three chairs at the east end of the room. “Shall we be comfortable?”

“If you would like,” she said, and chose the more elaborate couch for herself. “Are you going to be here tomorrow?”

“Probably only in the morning. I must return to Apulum Inferior shortly. I have a meeting of landholders scheduled in four days.” He chose the Byzantine-style chair, and adjusted the cushions before he sat. “Do you intend to come through Apulum Inferior on your way south?”

“I haven’t decided,” she told him. “It depends on where the bridges are still open. I’ve been told that it’s best to cross at Viminacium. From there, it’s straight west to Aquileia.”

“Or you can bribe the Gepidae and cross the Danuvius to Aquincum and Pannonia Inferior,” he suggested, watching her attentively. “From Aquincum, the road goes to Poetovio, Emona, and Aquileia. There are fortresses along the way which would provide you protection. You would be in Roman-Gothic territory sooner by that route.”

“More Gothic than Roman, these days,” she said, not excusing her irritation at his suggestion. “The garrisons are manned by barbarians, and they aren’t completely reliable. They do not honor my titles to the lands I’ve purchased in those old provinces, saying that when the Legions left, the deeds were no longer legitimate, and no claim could be made based on them.”

“A problem not limited to the Romans and barbarians,” he observed, thinking of the many, many holdings he had lost over the centuries to the claims of conquerors. “The Goths are pressing to claim all the Italian Peninsula.”

“And I fear they will succeed.” She looked toward the window. “The Gepidae are restoring some of Legionaries’ Dacian forts,” Sanctu-Germainios observed. “In time that will help protect these mountains.”

“If the Gepidae do not go to be mercenaries for the Byzantines, or hire out as road-guards for the Goths,” said Olivia in a welling of world-weariness.

“Alaric prefers Goths in his fortresses,” said Sanctu-Germainios.

“Not like the Byzantines, with their Hun-soldiers on the borders.”

“The Byzantines do not want to send their hired soldiers so far from Constantinople as these high plains; I doubt they would send Hun-companies while the raids continue to worsen.”

“So they won’t send any companies of soldiers to help us,” said Olivia, her voice flat with certainty.

“The Emperor in Constantinople might be persuaded to engage mercenaries from Roman territory to protect the region; a thousand mercenaries could be here by the end of autumn if they were to be dispatched now.”

Olivia shook her head slowly. “The roads aren’t better-maintained in much of Moesia than they here. I would expect some disrepair in this region, since the Romans have lost most of it, but Moesia is another matter, and in the last thirty years, you know as well as I that the roads have been neglected. Neither Roma nor Byzantium is prepared to maintain the roads in this portion of the old Empire, especially here, where the Gepidae rule, for fear the other portion of the Empire would use them to their advantage. So we languish between them, disputed by both and claimed by neither, except in regard to taxes.” She glared at Sanctu-Germainios. “I am being candid with you, not to offend you, but to—”

“But to express your own misgivings and perturbation,” he said levelly, meeting her gaze with his own. “I do understand, and I share many of your apprehensions. The reason I suggested leaving westward rather than south is that it will move you out of this disputed expanse of former provinces more quickly, and bring you into provinces that retain their links to Roma.”

“Oh.” She stared at the window again. “I’ll have the shutters put up shortly, to keep the rain out.”

“An excellent notion.” He studied her, and when he spoke again, it was in the Latin of her youth. “It may be some time before you reach the point where you can reclaim all you have lost, and while I think it most advisable that you try to keep as much of what is yours as you can, I would hope that you do not make yourself an object of scrutiny. Your true nature is more dangerous to you than Hunnic raiders are, for the Church would condemn you for it. If you are revealed for what you are, that could prove troublesome whether the fighting worsens or not.”

“I gather you think it will—get worse, that is.” She spoke Imperial Latin with a kind of nostalgia that troubled her, but not enough to use the modern version of the tongue.

“I fear the circumstances will encourage more deterioration,” he said a bit distantly. “I must shortly decide how to guard the Romans of Apulum Inferior not only from Huns, but from Gepidae.” 

“Then you suppose that the Gepidae might turn on the Roman settlements?”

“If we are left to fight these Huns alone, yes, I do. I have seen such things happen before.”

“There isn’t reason enough for the Romans or the Byzantines to come to our assistance as matters now stand; less so if the Gepidae want to be rid of us,” she said. “That much is plain, and I think you’re right in your vexations. But if circumstances should change, what then?”

“Change in what way?” he asked, aware that this matter could prove crucial if the changes were abrupt.

“If we could provide soldiers to defend the places we live, then the Gepidae may decide that we are worthy allies.”

“Do you have knowledge of any companies of soldiers you would be willing to hire for such a purpose?”

Olivia shook her head, ordering her rushing thoughts and making herself speak more slowly than she wanted to. “But there is a Legionaries’ camp near Apulum, not more than two leagues from Apulum Inferior. It hasn’t fallen to ruin completely, and it could be reinforced effectively. As the guardian of the region, you could order all those whose claims are from the Roman times to contribute to securing the town and the villages around it. If the men of the region could be persuaded to help in the restoration, then the chance of engaging Roman free-soldiers would increase.”

“It would depend upon how you and those like you decide to respond to threats from raiders. You are not the only Roman still in Dacia who would rather not leave these towns, but you have the good sense to accept the reality of the invasions; you will take your household and go, and that will allow you to retain more of your goods and servants than trying to defeat the Huns in battle. It may not be possible to unite the remaining Roman allies against the Huns, with or without soldiers to man the fortresses.” He swung around toward the open window. “That was lightning. There will be thunder in …” He held up his hand and counted to sixteen; thunder trundled through the air. “It is distant, but it will soon be closer.” 

Olivia sat up on her couch. “Niklos!” she called. “Call the household—go into the dining room, not the courtyard; that will keep us dry. And have Esculus and Spargens put up the shutters.”

“Yes, Bondama,” Niklos replied from the depths of the house. Sanctu-Germainios rose. “Come; so your servants may secure the windows in here,” he said, holding out his hand to her.

She took it and stood up. “The storm is moving faster than I thought it would,” she said.

“The wind is picking up. This is going to be a real storm by nightfall,” Sanctu-Germainios said, escorting her through the small atrium toward her book-room.

As if to confirm this, a long rumble of thunder rolled along the southern sky, far enough behind the lightning still that there was a noticeable gap between them. Four of the household servants rushed toward the side-door, shouting about shutters as they went.

“You may have to remain here through tomorrow,” said Olivia as she and Sanctu-Germainios slipped into the antechamber to the book- room, one of three rooms in her villa that had glass in the windows.

Sanctu-Germainios achieved a single laugh. “You are right: I may have waited half a day too long.”

Olivia took a moment to compose her thoughts. “I’m sorry to have been the cause for—”

“It was my decision, and a shift in the weather, nothing you did,” he said with a fond chuckle. “You are not responsible for either of those things.”

She shrugged. “Still,” she said as she led him into the book-room, accompanied by a louder report of thunder that shook the house. “Still.”

Text of a note from Rotlandus Bernardius, Tribune of Ulpia Traiana, to Priam Corydon, leader of the monastery of Sanctu-Eustachios the

Hermit, four thousand paces from the town gates, carried by local messenger.