Roma Mater (55 page)

The centurion rose in turn. “How about some wine to help our tongues along?”

—The tale came out in shards. Sometimes Rufinus japed, sometimes he struggled not to weep. Gratillonius plied him with drink and questions, and meanwhile tried to fit events together in his mind. Later he would try to understand.

Rufinus was born to a smallholder near the latifundium of Maedraeacum in the canton of the Redones, about twenty miles northwest of Condate Redonum. Albeit impoverished, the family was close-knit and had its joys. Rufinus, the youngest, especially liked herding swine in the woods, where he taught himself trapping and the use of the sling. Yet even before his birth, the vise was closing. The best of the land had been engulfed by the manors. Imperial regulation made needed goods costly when they were available at all. Such transactions were generally furtive, while farmers had no choice but to sell their produce openly, under strict price control. Meanwhile taxes climbed out of sight. Rufinus’s father more and more sought refuge in the cup. Finally, his health destroyed, he coughed himself to death one winter.

Rather than let children of hers be sold into slavery for back taxes, the widow conveyed the farm to Sicorus, owner of Maedraeacum, and the family became his coloni—serfs. They were bound to the soil, compelled to deference and obedience, required to do labor for their lord and, after working for themselves, pay more than half the crop over to him. Their grain they must have ground at his mill and at his price. There were no more forest days for Rufinus. Thirteen years old, he was now a field hand, his knees each evening ashake with weariness.

The following year his pretty older sister Ita became the concubine of Sicorus. She could not be forced, under the law. However, he could offer easements for her kin—such as not assigning her brothers to the most brutal tasks—and for her it was a way out of the kennel. Rufinus, who adored her, stormed to the manor house to protest. The slaves there drove him off with blows. He ran away. Sicorus coursed him down with hounds, brought him back, and had him flogged. The law permitted chastisement of contumacious coloni.

For another year, he bided his time. Whispers went along the hedges and in the woodlots; men slipped from their hovels to meet by twilight; news seeped across this narrow horizon. It came oftenest on the lips of wanderers who had made their lifework the preaching of sedition. The Empire had rotted to worthlessness, they said; Frankish laeti at Redonum sacrificed human beings to heathen Gods; raiders harried the coasts, while war bands afoot struck deep in from the East. Meanwhile the fat grew fatter, the powerful grew ever more overbearing. Had not Christ Himself denounced the rich? Was not the hour overpast to humble them and take back what they had wrung from the working poor? The Last Day drew nigh, Antichrist walked the world; your sacred duty was to resist him. Righteous men had sworn themselves to a brotherhood, the Bacaudae, the Valiant….

Ita’s death in childbed was the last thing Rufinus endured. After that, he planned his next escape carefully, and found his way to the nearest Bacauda encampment.

—“We’re no saints, oh, no, no,” he hiccoughed. By then he was fairly drunk. “I learned that soon enough. Some amongst us are beasts
of prey. The rest’re rough. I give you that. But the most of us, the most of us, we only wanted to live in peace. We only wanted to till our plots of ground, and keep the fruits of our work, and have our honor under the law.”

“How do you live?” Gratillonius asked. He had matched the Gaul stoup for stoup, but he was larger and not half starved.

“Oh, we hunt. What a pleasure that is, when we know we’re poaching! We raise a little garden truck in the wilds. We rob when we can, from the rich, like that futtering smug trader today, but we swap the loot in honest wise for what we need. And merchants who pass through sections, regular-like, where we are, they pay toll. They’re not s’posed to, but they do, undercover, and save ’emselves trouble. And our own people, serfs who’ve not fled and what few small freehold farmers are left, they help us out, for love.”

“For love. Indeed.” Gratillonius made his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I’m a farm boy myself. I know farmers. What you say sounds exactly like them.”

“Well, we’re fighting their war,” Rufinus declared. “It’s only right for them to pay their share. Food, clothes, that sort of thing. Besides, we protect ’em against bandits.”

Gratillonius shrugged. He could well imagine what their protection consisted of. Cotters who declined it were apt to find their roofs ablaze or their throats slit.

Rufinus read his thought and said defensively, “It
can
be for love. How d’you think I got this outfit of mine?”

By charm, Gratillonius imagined. This young man had an abundance of that. Let him enter the drabness that was the life of some isolated, poverty-stricken wife—in and out of it, like bursts of sunshine when wind drove clouds across heaven, like an elf by moonlight—If every Bacauda were as glib, the band today would look a lot less scruffy.

Still, said Gratillonius’s stubborn mind, Rufinus was in fact as neat and clean as possible in his kind of existence: which revealed something about him.

The centurion shifted the subject toward matters of more immediate interest. “Well, then, have you Bacaudae a secret kingdom that considers itself at war with Rome, the way the Persians usually are? That doesn’t square with what I’ve heard. But tell me.”

“M-mm, no, not really,” Rufinus admitted. “We do have emperors—an emperor for each region—but he doesn’t do much except lead his own group and be at the head of the gatherings, when several groups meet. We call the head of any other band its duke.” His sardonic tone implied that the title didn’t mean “leader” but was a deliberate parody of Roman organization. “I’m the duke of mine.”

“A bit young for that, aren’t you?”

“There are no old Bacaudae,” Rufinus said quietly. Gratillonius remembered Alexander of Macedon. For that matter, he himself was twenty-five when he became King of Ys.

“We do make our deals,” the Gaul went on in a rush, as the wine sent another tide through his head. “I’ve heard of bargains struck with Scotian or Saxon. Our folk’d guide ’em to a manor, they’d sack it but in return let the serfs be. And I got friendly with a Scotian—fled his homeland, he did, on account of a feud, and came to us—he told me ’bout Hivernia, where Rome never ruled, where they’ve always been free—”

Rufinus started, stiffened, once more shook himself. “I’d better not go on,” he said. “I might let too much slip out. You’re a good fellow, Gra—Gra—Gradlon. But I can’t let you in on any secrets of the brothers, could I, now?” He picked up his cloak and lurched to his feet. “G’night. I wish we could be friends.”

“I’ll take you past the sentries,” the soldier offered, rising too. He would have liked to continue the conversation, but it verged on questions that might suddenly make this two-legged wildcat lash out, and his duty was to get the bishop back unharmed.

They walked together into the windy dark, mute. As they parted, they clasped hand to arm.

1

About fifteen miles west of Augusta Treverorum there was an official hostel where Gratillonius decided to spend the night, even though sundown was still a couple of hours off. This was doubtless the last such place till he reached the city. Starting at dawn, with nothing to do except swallow breakfast and strike tents, the soldiers should reach their destination early enough next day that he would have no trouble getting them settled in and word of his arrival borne to the Emperor. Besides, he might find no suitable campground between here and there. The hills roundabout were largely given over to vineyards, with scant room between rows. Hazed and dreamy under the declining sun, this country seemed to lie in a different world from Armorica, as did most of what he had passed through. It was as if wars, brigands, and wild men had never been, save in nightmares.

As was common, the hostel maintained an open space for military parties. Having seen his established and supper cooking, Gratillonius
sought the house. The dignity of his mission required that he avail himself of it, whether or not it was the kind of fleabag he had found too often along the way.

A man stood outside. He had come forth when the legionaries arrived and watched them set up. As Gratillonius neared, he lifted a hand and said, “Greeting, my son. Peace be with you.” His Latin had an odd accent; he could not be a native Gaul, though it shortly turned out that he used Gallic idioms with ease.

Gratillonius halted. Dignity also required he return courtesy, no matter how poor and unkempt the person was who offered it. This one didn’t cringe or whine, either. He stood straight, spoke levelly, and looked you square in the eye. “Greeting, uncle.”—what soldiers usually called an elderly man who had a bit of respect due him but not too much.

The stranger smiled. “Ah, that takes me far back. I was in the army once. Let me compliment you on the smartness of your squadron. Sadly rare these days. Not many units of old-fashioned regulars left, are there?”

“Thank you,” Gratillonius looked closer.

The other carried his years well. While slenderness had become gauntness, the shoulders were wide and unbowed, and if his gait was no longer lithe it remained firm. A snub nose marked a face pallid, lined, and gap-toothed, which you barely noticed after meeting its brilliant blue gaze.

Puzzlement rose in Gratillonius. Why should somebody like that, clearly well educated, go in a coarse dark robe, hardly fit for a slave, belted with a rope underneath a camel-hair cloak—when his footgear was stout though well worn, bespeaking many leagues of use. Had he fallen into poverty? Then he should at least have had the pride left to keep himself clean. Streams, ponds, and public baths weren’t that scarce. He had in fact laved hands and feet, but Gratillonius could smell him. Pungent rather than sour, declaring that he spent much time in the open, the odor nevertheless demeaned him… did it not? He shaved, but probably seldom, for white stubble covered jaws and cheeks. Likewise it bristled over the front half of his pate. Behind, hair rose wildly; it would have waved in the breeze if he had washed it.

“Well, you’ll want to inspect your quarters before we eat,” he said. “Shall we go in?”

Gratillonius stared. “You’re lodging here?”

The old man smiled. “I’d rather sleep under God’s stars or the roofs of His poor, but—” he shrugged—“a bishop traveling a main highway isn’t allowed that.”

Gratillonius stood a moment in his neat Roman outfit, confronting the beggarly figure, and wondered whether he had heard aright. Arator had been bedraggled when the Bacaudae released him, but his clothes
were of the best, and it didn’t take him long after reaching Juliomagus to reappear bathed, barbered, and resplendent. “A bishop?”

“Unworthy though I be. Martinus of Caesarodunum Turonum, at your service. May I ask your name, my son?”

Gratillonius stammered it forth, together with his rank and his legion, scarcely hearing himself. His head was awhirl.

“You are a long way from your home base, eh? I think we shall have considerable to talk about. Come.” Martinus took him by the elbow and led him inside.

While he changed clothes in his room, Gratillonius tried to put his thoughts in order. Only recently had he first heard of yonder person, but what he had heard was extraordinary.

Passing through the Liger valley, he had observed that the small pagan temples that elsewhere dotted the landscape were absent, or made into heaps of stone and charred timber. Occasionally he went by the stump of a tree that had been huge and ancient; occasionally he spied, afar, a hut raised by a spring or on a hilltop which must have been a sacred site, where now a single man dwelt. Curious, the centurion had inquired among people he met when he stopped for a night. He learned that the bishop of Turonum and a troop of monks had been going about for years, not only preaching their Christ to the rural population but destroying the halidoms of the old Gods and rededicating these to the new.

“A great and wonderful work!” cried devout young Budic. At last his faith was marching out of the cities.

“Hm,” said Gratillonius. “The wonder is that the people stand for it.”

Well, he reflected, this Martinus did have the Imperium at his back. Gratillonius himself was technically violating the law when he worshipped Mithras. Had the heathens killed the churchmen, they would have risked terrible punishment. Still, they might have resisted in other ways. Gratillonius well knew how stubborn and sly rustics could be.

It seemed as if Martinus overwhelmed them, simply by being what he was. Gratillonius was unsure how much belief to give stories of miracles wrought by the holy man. They said he healed the sick, the lame, and the blind by his touch and his prayers, that he had even recalled a dead boy to life. They said that once, demanding a hallowed oak be cut down, he had accepted a challenge to stand, bound, where it would fall; as it toppled, he lifted his hand and it spun about and crashed in the opposite direction, narrowly missing and instantly converting the clustered tribesfolk. Maybe so. Gratillonius had seen strange things wrought by his Gallicenae.

He thought, though, most of the force must lie in Martinus himself. The bishop was humble as well as strong. He dwelt outside the city, in a community of like-minded men whom his reputation had drawn to him. Mainly they devoted themselves to worship and meditation.
When they went forth evangelizing, Martinus never ranted or threatened. People told Gratillonius that he spoke to them in their own kind of words, quiet, friendly, sometimes humorous. They told of an incident: he and his followers had torched a Celtic temple, but when the flames were about to spread to the landowner’s adjoining house, the bishop led the firefighting effort.

He had never desired his office. When it fell vacant, a trick brought him from his peaceful monastery elsewhere, and a crowd fell upon him and carried him off, willy-nilly, to be consecrated. That was the second time he had been conscripted. The first was long before, he a lad in Pannonia who only wanted to enter the Church, borne away at the instigation of his pagan father and enrolled in the army. Not until the twenty-five-year hitch was up could he give his oath to his God. Thereafter he had been clergyman, hermit, monk—Had that God chosen this means of training him for his mission?