Raptor (83 page)

“The word of what? Who is Aúdawakrs?”

“An outlander, like you and me. He is the son of the late King Edika of the Scyrri.”

“Of Edika I have heard,” I said, again remembering the little village of handless people. “Theodoric’s—my father slew King Edika in battle, shortly before he died himself. But what has Edika’s son to do with—?”

“Aúdawakrs joined the Roman army in his youth, and rose rapidly through the ranks to a position of high eminence. In emulation of Rikimer, that other outlander before him, he recently has been the ‘King-Maker’ at Rome. It was Aúdawakrs who put young Augustulus on the throne, and he who chose to throw the boy off it.”

“Why? The King-Maker Rikimer, in his time, was the real ruler of the Western Empire, and everyone knew it, but he was satisfied to remain always behind the throne.”

Strabo shrugged his shoulders and rotated his eyeballs. “Aúdawakrs is not. He waited only for a pretext. The outlanders in the army petitioned to be granted homestead lands on their retirement from service, which have always been granted to the Italia-born. Augustulus peremptorily refused, or his father, Orestes, did. So Aúdawakrs ousted the boy and executed Orestes, and announced that
he
was granting the petition. The outlander troops cheered and exulted and raised him on their shields. So now Aúdawakrs rules in name as well as in fact.”

Strabo chuckled, taking pleasure in telling of the plight of Rome, and added, “Of course, his Old Language name is too difficult for the Romans to pronounce. They render it Odoacer, as much as to say in Latin ‘Hated Blade.’ “

“An outlander!” I breathed, agog. “The Emperor of Rome! Truly, an overthrow unprecedented in all time.”

“Ne, he does not claim the imperial title. That would be too brazen, and he is too cunning. Neither the Roman citizens nor the Emperor Zeno would let him do that. Nevertheless, Zeno seems perfectly content to let Odoacer go on ruling in the west, so long as he continues to manifest subservience to the Emperor of the East. That is to say, the
only
emperor of all that remains of the Roman Empire.”

Strabo belched again, as if totally uncaring that he had literally been speaking of the end of an era, perhaps the end of modern civilization, maybe the end of the whole world as we had known it.

Still dazed, I said, “I have lost count of all the emperors who have ruled at Rome or Ravenna in my lifetime. But I never dreamed that I should live to see an outlander—ne, a savage
barbarian,
if he is of the Scyrri—regnant at the dissolution of the greatest empire in all the annals of history.”

“At any rate,” Strabo said pointedly, “I very much doubt that Odoacer will ever ally himself with the son of the man who slew his father.”

“Ne,” I had to concede, and I sighed. “Theodoric can expect no friendship from that quarter.”

“On the other hand,” said Strabo, “if one outlander could attain to such eminence, so could another.”

He slitted his frog eyes, like a frog espying a tasty fly, and he smiled slyly, and he spoke slowly, as if he had been waiting for some time to snap up that fly.

“Odoacer might well succeed in merging all the disparate nations and factions of the west. He might make of them a league so powerful that Zeno finds him a most uncomfortable neighbor next door to the Eastern Empire. I believe that the time will come. Until it does, I will continue to let Zeno, holding my worthless son Rekitakh, think that he has me subdued and in thrall. Let him think that I remain his meek and servile underling. Then, when Zeno needs someone to invade and conquer and take over Odoacer’s domains… who better than Zeno’s longtime loyal and trustworthy minion, Thiudareikhs Triarius? Niu? And then… shall we make a wager on how long
Zeno’s
empire will stand? Niu?”

Very well. I had allowed myself to be captured solely in order to learn what I could of Strabo’s ambitions and designs, and now I had learned them. They were marvelously simple: he intended to rule the world. It sounded so possible and so credible and so likely that I was tempted to start immediately on my preparations for escape, so I could ride at a stretch-out gallop to take the word to Theodoric.

However, there were a few more things I wanted to investigate—one thing in particular that had intrigued me since our first arrival in Constantiana. So, on another night, after Strabo’s sweating, heaving, panting exertions had left him lying limp and drowsy, I broached the subject.

“You have spoken of the invincibility of your army and of how Zeno fears it,” I said. “But I have seen here no army, only a garrison, and that numbers fewer men than Theodoric keeps in our city of Novae.”

“Skeit!” Strabo grunted indelicately. “My army is an army, not a hive of drones. Garrison duty turns men into sluggards and incompetents. I keep most of mine in the field, where soldiers belong. Fighting, as soldiers should be doing.”

“Fighting whom?”

“Anybody.” He went on, sleepily, as if it were a matter of no great moment, “Recently, two of my subject tribes up north in the swamps of the Danuvius delta—two minor offshoots of the Heruli—for some reason had an altercation. Then, without my permission, they commenced a petty war between them. I sent my army to quell that.”

“How did your army know which side to take?”

“What? They were ordered to obliterate
all
the fighting men, of course, and take as slaves their women and children. How else
should I
punish disobedience?” He stretched languidly and broke wind. “As it happened, though, a good number of the rebellious warriors cowardly surrendered before they could be slain. So a portion of my army is on its way back here right now, bringing those prisoners of war—some three hundred from each side, I am told. I shall execute them in a manner to give entertainment to everybody in Constantiana. The tunica molesta, perhaps. Or wild beasts. Or the patibulum. I have not decided.”

I persisted, “But if you keep your army always afield, and only a small garrison here, what is to prevent Theodoric—or some other enemy—from laying siege to Constantiana? I should think that you and your garrison troops and all the citizens of Constantiana might be starved into capitulation before your army could get here to relieve you.”

He snorted in disgust. “Vái! The words of women are wind! This city could not be effectively besieged by all the armies of Europe combined. You saw the harbor yonder. The Black Sea ships could keep Constantiana fed and armed and supplied and defiant for decades, if necessary. Only by all the navies of Europe could a blockade harm Constantiana. And no navy could get here without having to squeeze through the narrows of the Bósporos to get into the Black Sea. I would be long forewarned of the approach of any such fleet, and could take measures to repel it.”

“Ja, I should have realized that myself.”

“Listen, dotterel wench. The only way this city
might
be subverted is from the inside. An uprising of either the inhabitants or the troops. That is another reason why I keep the mass of my soldiers well away from here. Armies have been known to mutiny against their leaders. But I also maintain enough of a garrison—and have those men keep the people brutally intimidated—to discourage any potential revolutionaries among the cityfolk.”

I commented daringly, “I should hardly suppose that either your troops or your people adore you for those measures.”

“I do not give a ferta for their adoration, any more than I do for yours.” He hawked up phlegm and spat it on the floor at my feet. “While I am no slavish imitator of the effete Romans, I do follow two of their ancient maxims. ‘Divide et impera.’ In order to rule, divide. That is wise advice. The second I like even better. ‘Oderint dum metuant.’ Let them hate… so long as they fear.”

Odwulf, when next he was assigned to guard my door, alluded to the same subject.

“Those few warriors with whom I have made slight acquaintance think I am an imbecile,” he said. “To explain my newness among them, I have put out the story that I was formerly a lancer in Theodoric’s army, that I was caught cheating at the dice and was severely punished at the whipping post, that I then deserted my fellows to join Strabo’s forces instead.”

“It seems to me a clever pretext,” I said. “What do they find imbecilic about it?”

“They say that only a man with skeit for brains would prefer Strabo’s army to Theodoric’s.”

“Why? Apparently
they
do.”

“With them it is a matter of their families’ long-standing allegiance to Strabo’s branch of the Amal line. They feel obliged to serve him, but they are much discontented. Akh, they are good fighting men, ja, and Strabo gives them ample fighting to do. But even when there is no one to fight, he keeps them riding and trudging and lurking in one hinterland or another.”

“So I have heard.”

“Except for occasional reliefs to serve here in the Constantiana garrison, they seldom get to enjoy the diversions of a town. A good frolic in a lupanar, a good meal and a good drunk and perhaps a good brawl at a taberna, not even a good leisurely bath at a therma.”

“Are you saying, Odwulf, that Strabo’s men might desert him and go over to Theodoric?”

“Akh, ne. Not any time soon. They and their fathers and grandfathers have been for too long committed to the Amal line from which Strabo descended. I suppose their discontent
could
be aggravated into open dissension and rebellion, but it would require agitators as subtle as priests, and many of them, and maybe many years.”

“However,” I said thoughtfully, “if Strabo were eliminated… if they had no leader to be loyal to…”

Odwulf looked at me much as Strabo had done when I suggested his amputating the servant’s fingers. He said, “Swanilda, I have heard of Amazons, but I never expected to meet one. Are you proposing to murder the man? Yourself? A slender young woman against a tough old warrior? Here in his own palace, inside his own city, deep within his own territories?”

“If I did—or if someone did—if his troops had no Strabo at their head, do you think they might accept Theodoric as their king instead?”

“How can I say? I am only a simple soldier myself. No doubt they would be considerably confused and uneasy. But remember, Swanilda. Strabo’s authority would pass to his son Rekitakh.”

I murmured, “I believe even Strabo would not wish his good men afflicted with a fish for a king. But tell me, Odwulf, how have you managed so well to remain undiscovered this long? Can you manage for a while longer?”

“I think so, ja. It is an odd and unsoldierly feeling for a soldier—not to be attached to some turma, not to answer to the roll call, not to have any duties at all. But I learned. Everywhere I go, I carry something. Something large and visible. An untrimmed log, a sheaf of lances needing polishing, a saddle needing repair. Every officer who sees me takes me to be doing some chore or some errand for some other officer.”

“Then keep on doing so. Stay invisible. I have an inkling of an idea, and if I attempt it, I will have need of you. Sometime soon, a detachment of Strabo’s troops will be returning from a minor battle somewhere north of here. They will be bringing some hundreds of Herulian war prisoners with them. When they arrive, get yourself assigned again to guard my door. I will tell you then what I have in mind. And I assure you, Odwulf, you will feel once more a soldier.”

Strabo was by this time being almost continuously irate and fulminant, and frequently staggering drunk, and his frog eyes, nowadays permanently bloodshot, were more horrible than ever—all because his optio Ocer still failed to appear. And of course Strabo raged and railed at me, as the most convenient target for his vilification. I really became apprehensive that he might incontinently strike out and injure me so badly that I could not carry out the plan I had formulated. One night he roared drunkenly:

“Fingers be damned! I think I will carve out your kunte and send it to your nauthing brother! Is Theodoric likely to recognize
that
as his sister’s?”

“I doubt it,” I said, as coolly as I could, and parried with a lie that I invented on the instant. “You should know it well enough yourself, but you do not always.”

“Eh?”

“The other night, you were foully drunk and this room was dark, so I put Camilla in my bed for your use.”

“Liufs Guth!” The eye careened again, to look aghast at Camilla, who was shuffling through the room just then. “That unappealing trull?” But then he recovered, to counter with a lie of his own. “I
wondered
why, that night, though still not making a sound, you evinced so much more spirit and cooperation and reciprocation than usual.” He reached out, seized Camilla’s thick wrist and growled:

“Let us see if she still does. You stay too, wench, and watch this. You may learn how to behave like a real woman in bed.”

Well, I felt a little remorseful for having put the maidservant to that humiliation and distress and contamination. Still, I could not feel too sorry for her. It may have been the only such experience she would ever have. And for once, thags Guth, it was not
me
enduring it.

When Strabo was finally done with her, he fell back flat on the bed to catch his breath, and the naked Camilla, besmeared with múxa and bdélugma, tottered out the door. When Strabo was able to talk again, I took care to bring up a very different topic, calculated not to provoke him to another fit of temper.

“You have frequently called my brother a nauthing, and I have heard the word once or twice before, from other speakers of the Old Language. But I never have known exactly what a nauthing is.”

He reached for the wine jar he had brought with him, and took a long drink from it before he said, “I am not surprised. You are a woman. It is a man’s word.”

“I do not take it to be an endearment. If you are insulting my brother, as I suppose, you might at least tell me what you are calling him.”

“Are you acquainted with the word ‘tetzte,’ niu?”

“Ja. It means worthless.”

“Well, nauthing means much the same, only it is infinitely more offensive. It comes from the rune called the nauths. The one that looks like two twigs crossed at an angle. Do you know the runic alphabet, niu?”