The Amber Road (4 page)

‘We must have been seen,’ said a voice in the ranks.

‘No,’ Starkad said, ‘they knew Arkil’s name.’

They trudged on, pondering the bad implications of that.

‘Arkil was here last year, with Morcar,’ Guthlaf said.

Starkad smiled, but with no humour. ‘Morcar would have left none alive to say their names.’

‘They must have taken Ashhere’s missing boat,’ someone said.

‘None with Ashhere would betray us.’ Starkad was certain.

‘Yet they knew Arkil was coming,’ Guthlaf said.

There was no answer to that.

Through gaps in the foliage a high sky of mackerel-patterned clouds could be seen. Lower, light clouds pushed to the east. A fair wind, if they could make the ships. Not more than three miles to go.

Ahead, the column was marching out into the sunlight. Before Starkad reached the edge of the wood, he knew it was not good. A low groan of disappointment from the men at the front. Then he heard Arkil’s horn, and the order came back down the track.

‘Shieldwall! Form on the
atheling
. Last crew as reserve. Wounded form as their rear ranks.’

Again Starkad brought his men into the warhedge on the right of Wiglaf’s crew. They were about twenty paces out of the wood, the reserve at the tree line.

This time it was an army they faced. The Romans were drawn up on a gentle hill, a stream at its foot, open country in front, smudges of smoke in the sky behind. Red-crested legionaries in the centre, auxiliaries on either side, all backed by archers. A formidable phalanx, with cavalry further out on both wings. Starkad counted their standards, their frontage, gauged their depth, tried to estimate their numbers. Three thousand or more, perhaps quite a few more, a third of them mounted. In a good position, standing in good order.

‘Well, that would seem to be that,’ Guthlaf said.

‘Heart and courage. Some of us may win through.’ Starkad did not believe it, but he felt it was the sort of thing an
eorl
should say.

‘Heart and courage,’ some of the men muttered uncertainly.

‘It is no more than a mile to the ships.’ Starkad added the lie gamely, and none of the
duguth
or the warriors chose to correct him.

The wind sighed through the big trees behind them, hissed sibilant in the jaws of the
dracones
above. A horse neighed in the enemy array.

‘Another herald.’

The Roman rode down the slope, forded the stream in a cloud of spray, cantered towards the Angles. Mounted on a magnificent black horse, this was an officer of high rank, his muscled armour gilded and chased. He reined back to a walk, and brought his charger to a standstill about as far as a boy could toss a stone from the shieldwall. Bareheaded, hair and full beard artfully curled, he looked like a portrait on a coin of an emperor from a previous age.

‘Arkil, son of Isangrim.’ The Roman spoke the language of Germania with an accent from somewhere near the Rhine. ‘You lead brave men. Too brave to waste their lives in a hopeless cause.’

Arkil stood forth. ‘No man can predict the course of events.’ He raised his voice. ‘
Wyrd
will often spare an undoomed man, if his courage is good.’

The horseman nodded, as if at the wisdom of the lines, then pointed over his shoulder. ‘Your longboats are burned.’

Beyond the Roman army Starkad could see the smoke had grown into a thick column. It rose vertical, then billowed out to the east.

‘The Augustus Postumus would have men like you in his
comitatus
, if you would give him your oath.’

Arkil took off his helmet, so his face could be seen. ‘My father, the
Cyning
Isangrim, long ago pledged his friendship to your enemy the Augustus Gallienus. Isangrim is leader of our people. It is not for us to go back on the word of our
theoden
.’

The black horse tossed its head, and the Roman quieted it with a practised hand. ‘The tyrant in Rome does not merit the friendship of men such as the Himlings of Hedinsey or the brave Angle warriors they lead. Gallienus has treated your half-brother Ballista shamefully. He has shown him no honour for his years of service, no honour for the risks he has run or the wounds he has taken. Instead, it is said, he has sent him into exile in the distant Caucasus mountains, sent him to his death among strangers.’

At the mention of the hostage, there was a low
hooming
from the older warriors in the warhedge. Starkad felt his own emotions rise.

‘Gallienus wastes his time in idleness in the baths and bars of Rome. Dressed in jewels and silk as a woman, he leads a
comitatus
of pimps and catamites. There can be no shame in renouncing the friendship of such a man.’

‘What of our booty?’ Arkil asked.

‘What you left behind on the field of battle beyond the wood will be divided among my soldiers. What you have with you will remain yours.’

‘Where would the Augustus Postumus send us?’ Arkil asked.

‘If you give him your oath, the Augustus Postumus will lead you first against your hereditary foes, the Franks. He will reward you with an open hand. It is in my mind you will not find Postumus lacking in courage.’

Arkil laughed. ‘That I can see already.’

Postumus acknowledged this with a civil gesture.

‘The decision is not mine alone,’ Arkil said. ‘I must consult the
eorls
.’

‘It is a pleasant day. I will wait.’ The emperor, all alone, sat easy on his horse.

Starkad and the other
eorls
clustered around their
atheling.

‘We could kill him,’ one of the
eorls
hissed. ‘They would not fight then.’

Arkil rounded on the man. ‘That is the thought of a
nithing
. Only a man of no account would think to harm a man who came as a herald, trusting our word.’

‘I have no desire to stay here,’ Wiglaf announced. ‘We should fight.’

‘Fight this army, then the army on the Rhine, and on the far banks the Franks? We are far from home,’ Arkil replied.

‘After we have defeated the
fiend
in front of us, we should seize a port, take their ships.’

‘My old friend’ – Arkil spoke gently – ‘the battle madness is on you. If we fight today, we will all dine in Valhalla this evening.’

A murmur of agreement ran through the ring of
eorls.

‘Then it is agreed.’ Arkil turned back to the emperor, raising his voice. ‘We will serve in your
comitatus
for two years.’

‘Five,’ Postumus replied equitably.

‘Three, with the same pay as Praetorians.’

Postumus laughed. ‘The
stipendium
shall be as you say, and you will receive such donatives as are fitting, but you will serve for five years.’

‘Five it is then.’

‘Will you swear the military oath on behalf of your men?’

Arkil nodded.

‘Then take the
sacramentum
here in the sight of men and gods.’

Arkil drew his sword, placed his left hand on its edge, and spoke in Latin. ‘By Jupiter Optimus Maximus and all the gods, I swear to carry out the emperor’s commands, never desert the standards or shirk death, to value the safety of the emperor above everything.’

Five years, if he lived. Watching from the line, Starkad had to reconcile himself to five years before he could hope to return home.

Prologue II

The Island of Abalos in the Suebian Sea, AD263

The Roman was very far from home, beyond even the great forests of Germania. He was alone and afraid. This island, which had looked so small when first sighted in the restless grey expanse of the Suebian Sea, now seemed endless.

He could run no further. The wood here was mature timber, aspen and birch. There was little underbrush, no obvious place to hide. He looked about. Off to his left a big tree had fallen, its roots fanned up in a rough arch, a damp hollow where they had grown. He hobbled over and huddled there.

He listened, but could hear nothing over his own laboured breathing. The thick folds of the toga which had so hampered his flight were hot and heavy. He tugged and pulled until the voluminous thing fell away. Clad in just a sweat-stained under-tunic and sandals, he crouched, fingering the hilt of his knife. It was more suited for peeling an apple than a desperate fight.

His breathing quieter, he strained to catch any sounds of pursuit. Nothing except birdsong and the sounds of the wind moving through the trees. He leant back against the roots, exhausted.

Marcus Aurelius Julianus, a Knight of Rome,
Vir Egregius
, reduced to this. Only the gold ring of an equestrian distinguished him from a fugitive slave. When he was young, his father – may the earth lay light on him – had taken him to Nemi to see the priest-king. They had crossed the fence into the sacred space. It was festooned with strips of material, offerings to Diana of the Lake. They had found the runaway slave. He had emerged from a thicket, suspicious, blade in hand. When he had decided they were not of his own kind come to kill and replace him, he had moved off on the endless, fearful patrol of his haunted, diminutive kingdom.

Julianus knew this was all his own fault. He remembered his delight at the invitation. A formal banquet on the Palatine with the emperor himself in attendance was an honour beyond the hopes of most in the equestrian
ordo
. Many of the great had been there: Nummius Ceionius Albinus, Prefect of the City and
Consul Ordinarius
for the second time; Censorinus the Praetorian Prefect; Plotinus the philosopher; Cominius Priscianus, the new
a Studiis
; and several eminent military men, including the Danubians Tacitus and Aurelian and the Egyptian Camsisoleus. Julianus had been on a table higher than some of the
principes
, no distance from the imperial presence. Gallienus had been wearing a magnificent amber amulet to aid his recovery from tonsillitis. Julianus had admired the piece. The emperor had been graciousness itself, asked if he was interested in amber. A collector himself, and warmed by the Falernian and other noble wines, Julianus had not been able to stop himself expounding on the errors of the Greeks concerning its origins. Liguria, Iberia, Ethiopia, all nonsense, as were Egypt, Numidia and the Pyrenees. The only true amber was washed up on the shores of the Suebian Sea. Julianus had gone on to talk of its colours and properties. And the very next day Censorinus had come to his house. It was not a social call. The Praetorian Prefect carried an imperial command. A discreet diplomatic mission was leaving for the north. Julianus’s deep knowledge of amber would act as a Trojan horse. He must have longed to travel to the Suebian Sea, to the fabled Cimbric peninsula and the islands where the precious resin was washed ashore. Now he could fulfil that desire, provide good service to his emperor, and purchase all the amber he might dream about. An imperial command was not to be disobeyed.

Too much wine, too much talking – hubris, even – had combined to lead Julianus to this dismal forest beyond the north wind.

Still no untoward sounds, but he could not stay here. Bundling up the toga, he did his best to conceal it under the roots of the tree. The sun was visible through the branches. It was directly overhead, no help in determining his course. There had been a fishing village on the southern coast, seen before they had rounded the headland and run up to the port. With money in his belt, the knife in his hand, he might get a boat. Casting around anxiously, he set off in what he hoped might be the right direction.

The wind stirred the branches and the sun dappled down. Julianus slipped from one sylvan glade to another. He had always loathed the countryside. Like most of his acquaintance, he preferred it tamed, the hand of man having transformed it into something like the garden of a villa. It was all very well in bucolic poetry or a Greek novel – clean-limbed young goatherds playing their pipes and innocently falling in love. But the reality, even at home in Campania, was threatening, full of outlaws and shepherds, and they amounted to the same thing. He remembered being frightened when his father had taken him to Nemi. But that had been nothing compared with the journey north from the last outpost of the
imperium
in Pannonia. Eight hundred miles or more through
barbaricum
. He had been terrified, even in the company of Tatius the ex-centurion and their several slaves.

When they had reached the shores of the Suebian Sea nothing had been as literature had led him to expect. There had been no hint of the Hyperborean good fortune of which Aeschylus had spoken. Contrary to the
Odes
of Pindar there had been sickness, baneful old age, and toils. Certainly there had been no avoiding Nemesis. The northern chief they had travelled to see dwelt to the west. Far from conveying them to him, these barbarians had insisted they accompany them to this island. Were they guests or prisoners? Julianus understood little of politics.

A bough creaked in the wind. Julianus was alone. What had happened to the others? It had been pure chance he had not been taken as well. He had always suffered from a weak bladder. Waiting to be summoned for their second audience with the sinister chief of this island, Julianus had stepped out of the hovel that formed their lodging. He had been relieving himself – not easy in a toga, hard not to splash yourself – at a polite distance, when he heard the uproar. At first he had thought it some rough barbarian custom or sport; their ways were unaccountable. Until he had seen Tatius dragged out and knocked to the ground. And then … and then the slave tried to protect his master, and the barbarians killed him.

Had they killed Tatius as well? Julianus had not stayed to discover. He had gathered up the skirts of his toga and fled into the forest. What had they done with the boy? If he were a hero, he would go back and rescue Giton. The gods knew he loved the boy. But Julianus knew it was not in him. He had done his military service half a lifetime ago. A year as a tribune with Legio II Adiutrix on the Ister had convinced him his courage was a finite commodity. He was not a hero. He was a 43-year-old landowner who enjoyed poetry and had a taste for pretty boys and fine amber artefacts.