“Every corner of the world is savage and unforgiving,” Alaric noted as he pulled his cloak close around him. He had been exposed to brutality and death at a young age, when his village in Germania was destroyed by the Roman Army and the inhabitants massacred. As far as he knew, he and his mother, Milla, were the only survivors. He had not seen his mother in many years, and he hoped she was well.
During his years in both Rome and the east, he had witnessed similar cruelties that men seemed to inflict upon each other with reckless abandon. Men killed to gain power, as well as for sport. Alaric found it hypocritical that the Romans would refer to certain races as barbaric, whilst forcing men, women, and beasts to brutally slay each other for the amusement of the mob in vast arenas. In this sense, he found civilization to be, at best, a relative term, subject to one’s own interpretation. At worst, it was an agreed upon fiction.
There was one who had tried to teach a different way of thinking; the way of love and compassion for all, even one’s bitterest enemies. The man had been a teacher from the city of Nazareth in Judea. Alaric’s lifelong struggle to reconcile himself with the Romans who had destroyed his people led him to listen to the Nazarene’s teachings voraciously. And yet even this man of divine peace had met an ignominious and ghastly end. Betrayed by his own people, he was subjected to a savage scourging before he met his end via the crucifix. To be fair, Alaric knew that the blaming of the entire Jewish people for this noble man’s death was short-sighted and naïve. In reality, it had only been members of the Jewish religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, who had called for the Nazarene’s execution. The common people had loved him, and many still professed to follow his teachings. There were even those who professed that the teacher had risen from the dead. Whatever the truth or myth of these beliefs, even the Romans, who never shied from unleashing their cruelest of punishments, had been extremely reluctant to carry out the Nazarene’s execution.
These events had left Alaric even more lost and confused. He spent the next eight years wandering the east, sometimes with friends and disciples of the Nazarene, other times alone. When the coin he had accumulated during his years as a mariner started to run low, he decided it was time to leave the east. Judea was every bit as volatile when he left as when he’d arrived, and he secretly wondered if the area would ever know peace. His months-long journey had at last returned him to the shores of the one place he had thought of as ‘home’. And yet, he found he was still searching, his years of experience providing more questions than answers.
He kept to himself, traveling with his hood over his head whether the weather was fair or foul. No one bothered him, not even the occasional band of armed men who he assumed were part of King Caratacus’ personal guard. A week after passing through the occupied remnants of the Atrebates kingdom, he at last reached the northern lands that had been his boyhood home, ever since he and his mother fled the onslaught of the legions. Though Isurium Brigantum was the capitol of the Brigante Kingdom3, the village Alaric now approached was about twenty miles to the south on the border of Corieltauvi4. As he walked along the hard packed dirt path, which was slick from the spring rains, he saw a pair of riders approaching him. Though devoid of armor, both men were armed, each carrying a lance and oblong shield. Both wore earthen colored tunics, belted around the middle, and each had a bronze helmet hanging off their saddle packs. They were relatively clean, unlike the grubby famers and laborers Alaric had seen, and he suspected they were part of the king’s guard. They stopped when they noticed him, one of the men eyeing him suspiciously.
“You’re a stranger to these lands,” the man said. He spoke in his native tongue, which Alaric had not used in many years. It took him a minute to form his words, during which time he could not help but think the horseman looked familiar to him.
“Not a stranger,” he replied at last. “I’ve simply been gone for many years.”
“Indeed.” The man dismounted and walked towards Alaric, who suddenly broke into a fit of laughter. “You find something in jest, or are you completely mad?”
“Not mad,” Alaric said, smiling broadly for what felt like the first time in years. His laughter was brought on by his recognizing of the man who stood before him. Despite his longer hair that was pulled back, and a lengthy mustache that ran well past the corners of his mouth, Alaric still recognized him. “It’s been many years, Landon.”
“You know my name?” The man looked at him while trying to recall where they had known each other. His eyes then grew wide in realization, for his childhood friend was more recognizable, as he was devoid of facial hair and had kept his hair cropped shorter. “By Belenus…Alaric!”
The two men shared a boisterous laugh and embraced heartily.
“I’d given you up for dead years ago!” Landon asserted. “When the king granted his leave for you to depart, I thought your poor mother would die from sorrow.”
“My mother,” Alaric said, pausing before continuing. “Is she…”
Landon shouted some words back to his companion, seeming to avoid the question. The mounted warrior nodded and turned his mount about. “I asked him to send word to the queen, letting her know that you’ve returned. Your mother remains a guest of the royal house.”
“Queen,” Alaric noted. “Then I gather King Breogan rules no more.”
“He passed on to our ancestors seven years ago,” Landon explained as the two men started to walk towards the village, the warrior leading his horse as he told his friend as much as he could about all that had transpired since his departure. “Cartimandua is now our queen. She married an older warrior named Venutius not long after her father’s passing, though they have no children.”
“So she’s married now,” Alaric said quietly to himself. Though the woman who was now queen of the Brigantes had always regarded him as a younger brother, his feelings for her had always been more than that between siblings. It was folly, of course. She was several years older than he, and the only child of the king, while he was little more than a refugee from a defeated tribe in Germania. Now, seventeen years later, she was a queen, and he felt like he was still a refugee seeking the protection of her people.
“And what of you?” Landon asked. “I would think you’d have found yourself a bride on the other end of the world.”
“No,” Alaric replied with a chuckle. “No wife for me, at least not out there. What about you?”
“Oh, yes,” his friend said with a mocked, tired sigh. “We have three daughters and a son, ranging in age from twelve to three. I was fortunate to gain my posting as a member of the queen’s guard, otherwise I’d be stuck tilling the earth from dawn till dusk, or risk being crushed in the mines, in order to meet out a living for them. I am part of a small detachment that the queen has posted near the lands of the Corieltauvi. We act as messengers for her, while also serving as an early warning to any hostile encroachments into our lands. Given the size of our lands and the manpower we can muster, few would dare provoke us. Still, after watching the Catuvellauni overwhelm the lands of the Atrebates, it is hard to tell who we can call ‘friend’ these days.”
Near the edge of the village sat a small cottage. Its walls were whitewashed stone with a thatched roof. Outside, a woman was speaking quickly to a pair of young girls, one of whom was holding the hand of a small boy.