"Well, General, I can't give you an eyewitness assurance, but I promise you this. You leave me to indulge my folly in my own good time, and one of these days I'll give you metal from those heavenly stones. I swear it. In the meantime, if you would turn your mind to assuring everyone else in the world that I am not insane, I will be greatly in your debt. " He looked me straight in the eye and blinked rapidly, and for one incredible moment I thought I saw the beginnings of tears in his eyes. Then he swallowed hard, clapped me on the upper arm, nodded and said,
"Done!" Then he left me to my bath.
By the time I had bathed and eaten, Caius was once more immersed in his lists, and I did not see him again until we sat down to dine that night. No sooner had we begun our meal, however, than we were interrupted by the arrival of our old friend Bishop Alaric, accompanied by two of his priests. Caius insisted that they join us immediately, dusty and travel-weary as they were, and after our greetings were exchanged, they set about the meal with the single-minded gluttony of men who have not eaten for days. All of us noticed it, but apart from exchanging glances among ourselves, no one passed comment.
Finally, Alaric set down his knife and washed the grease from his hands.
"Caius, on behalf of my brethren here, I thank you for the meal. We have not broken fast since the day before yesterday. "
"In God's name, why not?" I responded, astonished.
"In God's name we could not afford the time, Publius, and I knew we could eat here before going on. "
Caius was frowning. "Going on to where? You are upset, my friend. What's happening outside there, in the world?"
Alaric returned Caius's frown with one of his own. "You have not heard?
No, obviously you have not. There is bad news on every hand, Caius. Invasions in the north, across the Wall. Nothing that's organized, but heavy raiding parties range far south, destroying whole towns and marauding widely. They have kept far apart from each other, moving fast, so that the northern legions have been split to combat them. "
"Has no one sent them help from further south?"
"No. The garrison at Arboricum has mutinied, stirred up by discontent, they say, over the newly commenced crackdown of discipline. It could not have come at a worse time. The garrison is confined within the city and the field forces containing them were faced with a choice of marching to the north to stem the Picts or staying there to quell the mutineers. It is chaos. They had to stay, of course. So the depredations of the raiders in the north have been massive and more or less unchecked. " He fell silent, but I could see from his expression that he had not finished.
"There is more, Alaric, isn't there?"
His eyes switched from Caius to me. "Aye, there is more. A fleet of Saxon longboats has landed in the southeast, on the Saxon Shore, and ravaged the country there. They managed somehow to outwit and ambush the forces sent to deal with them — slaughtered them all. "
"How many?"
"A full cohort of the Seventeenth. "
I felt the hairs on my arm stand up. "Good God!" I whispered. "Five hundred men?"
"A thousand! It was the First Cohort. The Millarian. " I leaped to my feet. "That's impossible! A band of undisciplined Saxons?
Never!" My reaction was involuntary, pure shock, for I knew Alaric was no liar.
He ignored the implied insult and looked me straight in the eye. "Not impossible, Publius. Improbable, perhaps, but it happened. "
"How, in the name of all that's good in Rome?"
He shrugged, shaking his head. "No one knows. All that is known is that they were taken on the march. The Saxons set fire to the grass. It has been a dry summer and the winds were strong that day. From the way the corpses were found, it was clear that they had been driven by the flames into a defile in the hills. They were trapped there and butchered. "
"It still seems impossible, " said Caius, his voice betraying shock similar to mine. "They must have had scouts out! Light cavalry. No Roman army, cohort or legion, marches blind!"
Alaric shrugged and had no comment to make.
"So, Alaric, where are you going now?" I asked him.
"South. To the coast. They have need of us. It seems another fleet has landed there, where no raiders have ever come before. The people were unprepared for them, and there is much suffering. "
It was Caius's rum to interrupt. "A fleet? South of here? But how? They couldn't sail along the Saxon Shore without being challenged by our naval forces. What's happening?"
"It seems, Caius, they came across the sea. From Gaul. "
"No!" Caius shook his head in denial. "How could that be? The Narrows — that I could understand. But a war fleet across the widest part of the sea? At the start of winter? Who would dare try it at this time of year? The Gauls have neither the courage nor the ships. "
"I'm told that these were Frankish pirates. "
"Franks? God! They dare much today, for petty brigands!" Alaric was quick to contradict him. "They are no longer petty, Caius. The Franks today dare much more than you know. They have bred warrior kings. The word from mainland Gaul is that they are highly organized and are quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with. The legions are in trouble over there. "
I looked across the table to where Caius and my wife sat in awe, seemingly spellbound by the chronicle of disaster Alaric was presenting. For what seemed the longest time, a silence lay over all of us, almost suffocating in its density. I was the one who eventually broke it.
"Well, Caius, " I said, my voice sounding flat, hard and heavy even in my own ears, "this could be it, the start of what you've been warning us of for years. "
He looked at me as though he didn't understand what I had said, a tiny frown of puzzlement appearing briefly between his brows.
"What?"
I carried on, my tone unchanged. "It looks as though your ending might have begun. To do what they have done, these Franks must be hungry. And that means they'll be humourless and hard to reason with, for hungry people seldom stop to laugh. If they really are, as Alaric contends, emerging as a coherent fighting force — damnation, if they're foolhardy enough to dare the sea between Gaul and here at this time of year — they could destroy the entire balance of the Empire. They could be the final straw that breaks the camel's back and sends the whole world toppling into ruin. "
He nodded wordlessly, thinking my comments through before addressing Alaric again.
"Tell me what more you know of these Franks, my friend. Why have they suddenly become so troublesome?"
The Bishop shook his head. "I cannot answer that with any ring of truth, Caius, for I truly do not know. "
"You spoke of warrior kings. Who are they?"
Alaric shook his head. "I have no names. I only know they exist, bred of the troubles of their people. The Visigoths have leaders, too, today. Leaders with great talent for warfare. "
"Heathen bastards!" I interjected.
"No, Publius. " Alaric shook his head again. "Not heathens. Many of them are Christians, forced into war by injustices against their people. This I know to be true. We have bishops and priests among them now, preaching the Word of God with great success, except where it concerns war. These people will not stand still any longer and be exploited like cattle at the whim of Rome. They choose to fight. As they see it, they fight for their survival as a race. "
"Aye, and they're all Roman-trained!" I said.
"That may be the least troublesome thing about them. " Alaric's voice was solemn. "The Franks have taken to horse. They are highly mobile now, capable of covering great distances far faster than the legions. It makes them difficult to contend with. "
"The Franks now, too?" Caius's voice was rich with disgust. "Rome had enough trouble with the Ostrogoths in Asia Minor when they took to horse! That was, what? Five years ago? A whole consular army wiped out!