The Half-Slave Read online

  ‘Good to see you too, old man.’

  ‘Last time we met you were travelling to Thuringia. How in Tiw’s name did you come to be a slave and who are those men you made me buy?’ Octha said, jerking his thumb towards the door.

  Ascha hesitated. His mind urged caution but he had lost time and he desperately needed the merchant’s help. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’ he whispered.

  The merchant looked at him and smiled. ‘You saved our lives, lad. You can trust me.’

  Ascha breathed in deep and let it out very slowly. ‘First, I am not Thuringian, nor Frankish.’

  The merchant smiled uncertainly. ‘What then?’

  ‘I am Saxon.’

  The girl gave a little shudder of revulsion. She gasped and went to rise and then sat down again. Octha knitted his brows. Ascha took a quick sip of beer and began to talk. He spoke for a long while. He told them of his upbringing, how he had been born a half-slave, how he came to be a hostage for the Franks, how he was trained and sent home to spy. He told them of the occupation of his village by Radhalla’s Cheruskers and the dead bodies of his friends lying in the muddy alleyways of his village. He spoke of his brother’s death and the long boats drawn up on the gravel at Radhallaburh. Finally, he spoke of the danger that the west was in, of the destruction that Radhalla would bring, and how he had to get word of Radhalla’s fleet to Clovis.

  Octha listened in silence, picking at his teeth with a birch twig. Now and again he gave a strange little grunt, as if something Ascha had said confirmed own thoughts.

  Ascha’s eyes flicked to the girl. She sat further back, her face partly hidden in the shadows. At first she had busied herself with her sewing but after a while she put her work down and sat with both hands in her lap, listening. When he talked of how his mother was taken as a slave, he felt her eyes upon him, the firelight washing her cheeks, her mouth parted slightly. Outside, he could hear rain pattering on the shingles. There was a storm brewing in the Rhine mouth.

  He told them more than he thought he would, probably more, he thought later, than he should have done. Afterwards, for the first time in months, he felt a sense of peace, as if a cold slab had lifted momentarily from his grave allowing a narrow bar of sunlight to drop into the darkness.

  There was silence.

  Octha threw away the twig. He blew out his cheeks and exhaled. Both he and Herrad looked subdued and thoughtful.

  ‘This is serious,’ he said. ‘If that many northerners are let loose in the west it will sow panic from here to Ravenna. Tiw’s breath! Think of the slaughter.’

  He muttered something to the girl and she rose and fetched more beer. As she passed, Octha touched her hip and gave her a little smile.

  Ascha flushed and felt as if a stone had dropped to the pit of his belly.

  ‘They’ll devastate the country,’ Octha went on. ‘They’ll burn and rape and murder. Trade will collapse all along the Rhine and it will be like when the Huns came.’

  The three of them looked at each other without a word. Octha raised his hands in the air and let them drop and gave Ascha a rueful smile. ‘I knew you were more than you seemed.’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why did they try to kill you on the boat?’

  Octha shrugged his shoulders. ‘They thought we were carrying silver.’

  ‘But Wacho knew there was no silver.’

  ‘Then someone wanted me dead.’

  ‘Why would they want to kill you? You’re just a trader?’

  Octha seemed distracted, his mind elsewhere. Thinking about what a Saxon uprising would do to business, Ascha suspected.

  Octha brought himself back and gave Ascha a faint smile. ‘Oh, I have my uses,’ he said.

  ‘And what would they be?’

  The merchant pushed both hands deep into the sides of his gown. ‘The barbarian warlords like to live like Roman senators. I get them the things they want, Roman jewellery, glassware, wine, silks.’

  ‘And?’

  Octha hesitated. ‘And while I’m about it I keep the Franks informed on what’s happening beyond their frontier.’

  ‘You spy for the Franks?’ Ascha said.

  Octha squirmed. He looked down and stroked one hand across the other as if his palm was dusty. ‘Let us say I help them from time to time.’

  ‘You help them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what do they do for you?’ Ascha asked, thinking as he asked the question that neither of them were what they seemed.

  ‘They pay me and I get access to their towns for trade.’

  ‘Then why were you attacked?’

  ‘Perhaps not everybody is happy with the way I do things,’ Octha said. ‘Or perhaps someone thought I should be taught a lesson.’

  ‘Radhalla?’

  Octha shook his head. ‘His power is in the north not here, and Radhalla has no grudge against me.’

  ‘What do you know of a man called Fara?’

  Octha stiffened. ‘Fara? Dark-haired Frank, face like a ferret, with a scar here?’ He drew a finger across his left eye.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  The merchant picked up his beer. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I think he followed me from Tornacum. And I saw him again at Radhalla’s fortress.’

  Octha paused, the beer midway to his mouth, and looked at Ascha. ‘Fara was at Radhallaburh?’ he breathed.

  ‘Yes.’

  Octha put down his beer, and Ascha saw his hand was trembling.

  ‘Fara works for Ragnachar, the Overlord’s uncle,’ Octha said. ‘He’s a dog and does whatever his master bids.’

  ‘You don’t like him much do you?’

  ‘When Childeric died, Ragnachar expected to be made Overlord. He thought Clovis was too young to rule. He considered himself to be more throne-worthy.’

  ‘And was he?’

  ‘Clovis is young but he’s shrewd and he has ambition whereas Ragnachar is an unprincipled brute.’ Octha leant forward and put a hand to the side of his mouth. ‘You know it’s rumoured he has relations with members of his own family.’

  Ascha clicked his tongue but said nothing. Among the northern clans, relations between kin were not unknown. On cold winters’ nights people sought warmth and comfort wherever they could find it.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Clovis won the throne with his mother’s help, and Ragnachar has harboured a grudge ever since.’

  ‘Could Ragnachar be plotting with Radhalla to attack Clovis?’

  ‘Maybe?’

  ‘It would suit Ragnachar to have Saxons raiding in Clovis’ rear,’ Octha said, tugging his beard. ‘It would destabilize Frankland and give him a chance to take over.’ Octha leaned forward with his elbows on the table and laced his fingers together. ‘Can you prove Fara was at Radhallaburh?’

  He thought of the perfume flask and then grunted and said, ‘No.’ For the briefest of moments he thought he saw relief pass across the merchant’s brow.

  ‘Then say nothing,’ Octha said. ‘The Overlord distrusts his uncle but he will never go against him. For Clovis, royal blood is everything and it will do you no good to accuse Ragnachar of treachery without proof.’

  They sat in silence. Ascha’s mind went back to Hanno’s betrayal. If my kinsman planned to betray me, I would want to know, he thought.

  ‘What will you do now?’ Octha said.

  ‘I must go to Tornacum. I have to warn the Franks.’

  ‘Of course. Is there anything you need?’

  ‘A horse.’

  Octha nodded. ‘You can have the gelding. When does the fleet sail?’

  ‘The first day of Eostre.’

  Octha gazed at him in horror. ‘But the festival of Eostre began three days ago.’

  Ascha felt his stomach turn. The journey had taken longer than he thought. The fleet was already on its way. ‘Then I must go now,’ he said, getting to his feet.

  Octha laid a ha
nd across his chest. ‘It will soon be dark and the roads are treacherous. Go tomorrow.’

  Ascha hesitated, torn between wanting to ride to Tornacum and the realization that if he stayed he would see more of Herrad. ‘I’ll leave at first light,’ he said.

  19

  He wrapped a cloak around him and went into the yard. Some of the merchant’s men were sitting in the yard and Ascha nodded to them as he passed. They nodded back curtly. At the castellum wall he stood at the gap where the path ran down to the river and looked out at the rippled mud flats and watched the blood red orb of the sun drop into the dark and distant sea. He heard the door open and saw the girl come out of the house with a bowl of water which she emptied into the yard. She turned and was about to go back in when she saw him. She put down the bowl and walked over, her arms folded against the evening chill.

  ‘How is your wound?’ she asked.

  ‘Better. Thank you.’

  He touched his side with his fingertips. The wound had festered, but Tchenguiz had cleaned the cut and stuffed it with hair, mud and spittle and bound it. It was sore but healing slowly.

  ‘You should rest and not walk too far.’

  He shrugged. ‘I have to ride tomorrow to Tornacum. I will rest then.’

  She took the news in silence. After a while they turned and walked alongside the wall.

  ‘Do you remember when you carved the prow dragon on the river ship?’ she said.

  ‘I remember it well.’

  ‘It was beautiful. You made the dragon come alive.’

  He shook his head. ‘A prow dragon is supposed to bring luck.’

  ‘And it didn’t?’

  ‘The boat master died – and Baculo. When I got home my father was dead, my brother…’ His voice tailed away.

  ‘It was not your fault.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘The story you told us. Was it true?’

  ‘Every word.’

  ‘Your mother is a slave from Pritannia and your father is a Saxon warlord?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He watched as she tried to come to terms with what he had told her.

  ‘Then why are you doing this?’ she said softly. ‘You’re not a Frank.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know what you want?’

  He shrugged. ‘I want what everybody wants: gold and glory.’

  ‘So it was the gold?’ she said with a little sniff.

  ‘It was never just the gold!’ he said, louder than he intended.

  ‘What then?’

  He hesitated and then said, ‘I promised the Franks I would do it if they would make me a free man. If they would make me whole.’

  ‘Is that why you agreed to work for them? For your freedom?’

  He nodded. ‘I owe them. They said they would give me what my own people would not.’

  ‘They’re using you. You just can’t see it.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, tightening his lip. ‘But I gave my word.’

  She leaned against the wall and studied him. Behind her, the sun had slid almost beneath the sea.

  ‘And now?’

  He looked down at his feet in shame. ‘Now the Cheruskkii own the Theodi and I have become this,’ he said, running a hand over his slave-cropped hair.

  ‘You want revenge on those who’ve wronged you?’

  ‘I think about it every waking moment,’ he said forcefully.

  ‘But revenge will not make you free nor give you back what you have lost.’

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  He looked at her, she looked at him and there was silence between them. And then he said, ‘You and the merchant…are you married?’

  ‘No, we are not married.’

  ‘But you are his woman?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘You are so young, and he is so very old,’ he said. ‘Old enough to be your father.’

  She sighed, the faintest hiss of escaping breath. Her hand reached out and pulled at a weed from a dense patch that grew as high as her waist. She held the plant in one hand and plucked at the leaves with the other, watching the seedheads drift away.

  ‘I am from Armorica, but my family is originally from the island of Pritannia. We owned land in the east. Good farming land. When I was a child a Saxon war band came to our village. Their warlord told us that they ruled now, and we could either accept their rule or go. Most people stayed, but my father and some others decided to leave. He had dealt with Saxons before.’

  She shrugged, her father’s decision, not necessarily a wise one. ‘My father brought us and a few followers over the water to Gallia, to Armorica in the west. A lot of people did what we did at that time. We came with no more than the clothes on our backs. It was a catastrophe.’

  She paused again he saw there were tears in her eyes. ‘Life in the new land was hard. We had lost everything. One day we were attacked by raiders and my sister was taken. I never saw her again.’ She stopped, and he saw the effort it took to talk. ‘My father knew Octha. He had traded with him in the old country, and they had known each other for many years. Octha was good to us. He said he would help find my sister.’ She shivered and then went on. ‘I knew he liked me. I had seen him looking at me, his eyes following me around the room. When I was fourteen he went to my father and offered to take me away. To care for me as if I was his own.’

  He looked at her and then looked across the river. The mudflats and the sand dunes bristled with grasses, the birches by the water’s edge swayed in the breeze.

  ‘I was flattered. Octha was rich. He traded all along the Rhine and as far south as Parisi, all those wonderful places. Did you know he has been to Rome?’

  ‘He bought you,’ he said hoarsely.

  She shook her head, and he saw the hurt in her eyes. ‘It’s not like that. His wife is dead, and his son drowned years ago. He took me from a bad place. He protects me, and I care for him. We are friends as much as… anything else.’ She looked away, gazing at something he couldn’t see.

  He saw the truth of it, how the decision had been made for her; a tidy arrangement with gold and furs for the father, silks and jewels for the mother, and a beautiful girl for the merchant. Her father kept his followers and the trappings of rank for another year or two, and Octha had a young girl to keep him warm on winter nights. Perhaps she thought she was in love. More likely she had done what her father wanted. He imagined her and the merchant together, the old man touching her gently, as if she were a flower whose petals might tear.

  ‘But your name is Frisian.’

  ‘Octha didn’t like my old name, so he changed it. He said Herrad was a new name for a new life.’

  ‘He owns you,’ he whispered.

  She shook her head. ‘Nobody owns me,’ she said defiantly. ‘Octha takes care of me. It’s just the way it is.’

  ‘And you,’ he said. ‘What do you do for him?’

  She flushed, the red seeping up from her neck and colouring her cheek. Gathering her skirts, she went to leave and then changed her mind. She stood for a moment, clasping her elbows and then turned to face him.

  ‘I did what I had to do and have no regrets,’ she said, the anger blazing. ‘But who are you to say what is right and what is not? You are a half-slave and you are a spy. You work for the Franks against your own people. Tell me, Saxon, who are you to judge me?’

  That night he couldn’t sleep. He lay in the straw, listened to the men snore and went over what the girl had said.

  He lay there for a long time.

  In the middle of the night, he awoke with a start, feeling a prickle on the back of the neck where the fine hairs rose. He got up, shivering, his arms thrown about his shoulders and went to the window only to find it barred and shuttered.

  There were bales of hay on the loft floor. He dragged one over to the window and stood on it to open the shutters. They were stiff, and he needed all his strength. He heaved as hard as he could and the shutters opened with a loud crash against the si
de of the barn. A cold night with a hard white moon standing over the sea, black clouds sailing before a freshening wind. He breathed in the odour of pine and a faint trace of wood smoke.

  He blinked and looked again.

  The sea was dotted with lean dark shapes, like basking sharks to the feeding ground.

  The Saxon fleet had come.

  20

  He hammered on the door of Octha’s house until until the old man was there, blinking and rubbing his eyes. A servant came up behind him with a blanket thrown over a tousled head.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The fleet has come, and I need weapons for my men.’

  ‘The fleet? Weapons?’ he said sleepily. ‘How can I give them weapons? They’re slaves.’

  ‘There are Saxons in the harbour and you have a warehouse filled with goods. Give my friends arms and they will guard you and the girl while I am away.’

  ‘I have my own men,’

  ‘You trust them with a Saxon fleet in the river mouth?’

  Octha thought it over and then nodded. ‘I’ll give you arms, but no one must know,’ he growled. ‘Even Frisians draw the line at arming slaves.’

  Octha went back into the bowels of the house and returned moments later carrying several old shields which he threw down in the yard. He went away again and reappeared with an armful of spears and a few rusty long-knives which he dropped with a clatter. The spears were black and shiny with age, the shields warped and their bosses heavy and cumbersome. But they would do.

  Ascha picked up a spear and ran a thick thumb along the edge of the leaf-shaped blade.

  Finally, he thought ruefully, he had his spear giving.

  Ascha led Octha’s gelding down the bank to the boat. Octha bustled up and thrust a woollen cap into his hand.

  ‘Here, wear this and, with luck, they’ll think you’re a Frankish colonist,’ he said.

  Ascha pulled on the cap, hiding his cropped hair, and took the seaxe Tchenguiz handed him, but refused the spear and shield. He wanted to travel light.

  Tchenguiz blindfolded the horse and walked it with much clucking and soft whispers up the board onto the boat. Ascha followed. The girl cast off. Ascha waved once to the merchant, Gydda and Lucullus, and then the girl took him and the horse across the Rhine. Tchenguiz stood by the horse’s head throughout the journey, while Ascha and the girl sat in the stern. Neither of them spoke.