It had not been that difficult to arrange, but Kadlin knew the risk she ran. The leaving feast continued in the hall. The drink was flowing. Most were drunk. When she saw him go, she had told her serving women what she wanted them to do. They had not been unwilling. They had taken his closest companions away; most likely taken the Suanian and the Hibernian to their beds. Was that what she wanted for herself? She was bathed, perfumed. She had dressed her hair and chosen her clothes with care. It was for him, not for her husband. Did she want him to take her to bed? Throughout her life she had overheard the whispers that she was no better than a whore. The whispers that had started all those winters ago were his fault, and perhaps they were true. If she was caught, that was what Oslac would assume, what everyone would assume. If that was what Dernhelm wanted, she would not be in a position to resist. Was that what she was doing, giving herself no choice, putting the choice, and all its ramifications and guilt, on him? No, she told herself, that was not the reason. He was leaving, and before he left he must be told. Most likely there would never be another chance.
Muffled in the big, hooded cloak, she slipped into the outlying hall. It was empty. His hearth-troop were still drinking in the great hall. She climbed the stairs. Light showed around the door. She lifted the latch and went into the bedchamber.
The shutters were open. Dernhelm had been sitting, staring out at the dark trees. He twisted to his feet, hand reaching for the hilt of the sword propped against his chair.
She pushed back her hood.
‘Kadlin.’
She walked right up to him. His hands fell to his sides. She touched his forearm. It was wanting you that made me sick. The line of poetry came into her mind.
‘Were you going to leave without seeing me?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He spoke quickly, but she heard the uncertainty.
‘I thought you — ’ He stopped, obviously unsure what to say. ‘- With your daughter being betrothed tonight, I thought you might not want to see me.’
She took her hand from his arm, stepped back, suddenly furious. He was a fool; all men were fools. ‘Aelfwynn will marry for duty, as I did.’
He stood irresolute, thrown by her sudden change. ‘Does Oslac treat you well?’
‘Yes.’ Was that all he could say? She could not imagine how, coming here, she had desired him.
‘I was sorry to hear your son Starkad was one of those taken in Gaul.’
She wanted very much to hit him. If she had been a man, she would have knocked him down. Her sister would have knocked him down. Starkad was in Gaul. His son was in Gaul, and very likely this man, his father, had ensured he would die there.
‘May the gods hold their hands over you, see you safely back to your wife and sons.’ She turned to go.
‘Kadlin …’
She stopped.
He held his hand out. She did not take it.
‘Kadlin, you know I never wanted to go, never wanted to leave you.’
‘I know.’ She managed to smile. ‘I never wanted you gone.’
He moved to put his arms around her.
‘No.’ She stepped back.
He looked hurt.
‘Life has not been kind to us,’ she said. ‘Now, I must return.’
She did not look back. Outside, in the dark night, she began to cry.
Our lips had smiled to swear hourly
That nothing should split us — save dying —
Nothing else …
Some lovers in this world
Live dear to each other, lie warm together
At day’s beginning; I go by myself.
Epilogue I
Gallia Lugdunensis, AD264
As he had not had sex with his wife, at dawn the emperor Postumus went out into the atrium to his household gods. The pleasures of the flesh had not been on his mind, not since the news last night. A fleet of Angle and Frisian longboats were off the coast of Gaul, their leader a barbarian called Evil-Child. The towns of Caracoticum and Iuliobona had been sacked and burnt.
Postumus pulled a fold of his toga over his head. He picked up the incense box and with his right hand scattered a pinch into the fire on the little altar. The painted genius of the house mirrored the emperor: togate, veiled, incense box in hand. Two lares flanked the genius. A drinking horn in one hand, a wine bucket in the other, they danced, their short tunics flaring out. Their happiness did not reflect his mood. The statuettes of the gods — the deified emperors Augustus, Trajan, Marcus, and Pius, Alexander, Neptune and Hercules Deusoniensis — had a more sombre demeanour.
It was the sort of legalistic question which entranced his son. Treachery makes a group of men your hostages. They prove their loyalty, but further treachery turns their countrymen into your enemies. Do you reward them for their own behaviour, or do you punish them for their compatriots’ betrayal? Such questions were all very well in the fictive world of Postumus Iunior’s Controversiae, but very different in the hard, indeed lethal, arena of imperial politics.
The Angles of Arkil had done well at the battle of Curia. They had resisted the blandishments of Gallienus. One of their leaders, called Wiglaf, and his men had stayed and died fighting a rearguard action. Arkil and the others had got to their horses and cut their way out of the disaster. Arkil had taken a bad wound. Like Xenophon taking command of the ten thousand, a young Angle warrior called Starkad had led the survivors over the Alps back to Postumus in Lugdunum. The Angles had remained true to the oath they had sworn.
The Angles had been the only good thing about the disaster at Curia; an army lost, the province of Raetia lost. The governor Simplicinius Genialis had only just managed to get clear. And it was all caused by the treachery of Bonosus. The Spanish drunkard had suborned Legio III Italica Concors, and with its desertion all had been lost.
It was late in the season, probably too late for Gallienus to mount another campaign. But there was no doubt he would come next year. He had more options now he held Raetia. From that province he could strike north-west into Germania Superior, or he could move west from northern Italy into Gallia Narbonensis. Gallienus had a large Mediterranean fleet; Postumus did not. Superiority at sea meant Gallienus could strike direct at the south coast of Gaul, or even as far afield as Spain.
Bonosus had turned traitor, and he was not the first. The betrayal by Lollianus still hurt. Lollianus had been there from the start. He had been a friend, and he had been well rewarded. If Lollianus had not proved trustworthy, who would? Who guards the guardians? Wearing the purple had shown Postumus that trust and mercy were both finite qualities.
Postumus placed his right hand on his chest and prayed to his patron Hercules Deusoniensis for guidance. What should he do with the Angles? Late the previous night, he had put the same question to his hastily summoned consilium. His councillors had produced various arguments and advice, most of it severe. The Angles of Arkil could no longer be trusted. They would not fight against their own. Of the latter, Postumus was convinced. They should be disarmed and sold into slavery, sent to work in the mines, thrown to the beasts. Simplicinius Genialis had led a minority of voices which dissented. The Angles had fought well at Curia. Outnumbered two to one, they had nearly broken the Pannonian legionaries in front of them. In the face of disaster, they had held true to their sacramentum.
Postumus looked to the sky. There was not a bird in sight. He looked at the fire. It did not waver. Neither Hercules nor any other deity whispered in his mind. He would have to make his decision without divine aid. In the midst of his field army, Arkil and his men were impotent in his power. Postumus had faced a similar decision once before. When the citizens of Colonia Agrippinensis had surrendered the Caesar Saloninus along with Silvanus, the Dux of the German frontier, all options had been open. Postumus had ordered them beheaded; his consilium had urged it. The decision had troubled him ever since. Saloninus had been no more than a child, an innocent child. Saloninus had not desired to be Caesar any more than Postumus wanted to be emperor. All too often, Postumus had imagined the boy’s fear as he was led out, knowing he would be killed, knowing he would be denied burial, and that his soul would be condemned to wander the world for ever without hope. Severity too easily declines into savagery.