Caesar's Sword (I): The Red Death Read online

  Owain immediately applied to join Clovis’s elite household guard, privileged troops that got the best gear, quarters and rations. He knew only a few words of Frankish, and had to speak to the soldiers on the palace gate via a British priest who had taken pity on us.

  The tall, arrogant Franks took one look at Owain, wretched and beggarly as he was, and laughed him to scorn.

  “I am a better man than any of you,” he cried, struggling to keep his temper in check, “and am ready to prove that on your bodies.”

  His proud bearing, and the sword at his hip, persuaded them to give Owain a trial. Despite his weakened condition, he did well enough with sword and spear to persuade them that he could be of use, but not in the guard. Instead he was offered a lowly berth in the city garrison, which he accepted for our sake.

  My mother and I lived with him in poor lodgings near the barracks, all three of us together in a single tiny room. She, a descendent of the illustrious line of British kings, was reduced to cooking and washing and living alongside the wives of common soldiers. My earliest clear memories of Eliffer are of a painfully thin, tired woman, old before her time, her hands red-raw from endless work: cleaning dishes, washing and darning clothes, toiling over a kitchen fire, and countless other menial tasks.

  As one raised to privilege and soft living, Eliffer hated her new existence. In later years she freely admitted that, were it not for me, she would have put an end to it and herself with a knife. For Owain she seemed to care remarkably little, though we owed him our lives. He was the only person who treated Eliffer with the deference she had been raised to expect. Instead of responding with gratitude she treated him like an inferior to the end of his days.

  This was not long in coming. When I was five years old Clovis made war on his neighbour Alaric, King of the Visigoths. In the spring of that year the Frankish army marched to meet the Visigoths in battle. Owain marched with it. Desperate to prove himself worthy of a place in Clovis’s personal guard, he had volunteered to join an auxiliary unit of infantry. Eliffer was too proud to try and dissuade him, and I have a memory of standing hand-in-hand with her on the parapet over the city gates, watching the long columns of horse and foot march away.

  A few days later the casualties started to come in, carried on the backs of litters and covered wagons. Eliffer did not spare me from witnessing the procession of maimed and shattered men as they came through the gates.

  I will never forget the sight and stench of so much pain and death, or the misery of families and loved ones as they searched through the human wreckage for what was left of their men. That was my first exposure to the reality and cost of war.

  But it was victory. With his usual swiftness and aggression, Clovis had led his men across the Loire, in the northern marches of Visigoth territory, and destroyed Alaric’s army at a place called Vouillé. Clovis personally slew Alaric, and many of his soldiers were made rich by the plunder and spoil that the fleeing Visigoths left behind.

  Owain’s well of good fortune had run dry. We found him lying on a filthy stretcher just inside the gates. One of his comrades, a young Frankish auxiliary, was kneeling beside him and trying to force a few drops of water from a gourd through his lips.

  I remember the Frank’s head was partially covered by a blood-soaked linen bandage, wrapped tight around where his left ear used to be. He glanced up at us, and his pale face turned paler still as he made the obvious mistake.

  “Owain,” he said, patting Owain’s bloodless cheek, “your wife and son are here.”

  The fallen man’s eyes opened a little. He was in terrible pain. The auxiliary units wore little armour, and a Visigoth spear had pierced Owain’s chest. The ash shaft of the spear had split and broken off, leaving the iron head lodged inside him. Much of his life’s blood had already pumped out of the mortal wound, though his comrades had done their best to stem it with a crude bandage made from his cloak.

  Owain’s spirit was all but flown, and he was robbed of speech, but there was time and strength left inside him for a few more words. He did not look at my mother, but beckoned feebly at me.

  Children can be terribly heartless, and I recall feeling no great emotion as I knelt beside his stretcher. Owain had been like a father to me, and risked his life many times over to protect mine, but I appreciate these things only in hindsight. Perhaps I did not fully understand what was happening, or the sight of so much blood and death had numbed my senses.

  His fingers crawled to the hilt of the sword at his belt. “Yours,” he whispered.

  The young Frank looked impressed. Only the richest and noblest warriors usually carried swords, and it must have been a wonder to him that Owain possessed such a fine one.

  Owain tried to pull Caledfwlch from its sheath, but his strength failed. I placed my small hand over his and helped him to draw it out. The blade was smeared with blood, presumably belonging to Visigoth warriors he had slain in battle.

  “He has struck his blow,” said Eliffer, “let him go to God.”

  “Remember,” Owain repeated as he slipped away, his dying eyes fixed on mine, “remember.”

  Chapter 3

  My mother had no desire to stay in Frankia after Owain’s death. There was nobody to protect us anymore, unless she married a Frankish soldier or civilian. The very idea of wedding a commoner revolted her, even though she was now one herself. Eliffer had no skill or trade, and no money or anything of value in her possession except Caledfwlch.

  Even so, she never spoke of pawning or selling the sword. Caledfwlch was the sum total of my inheritance, and she could not bring herself to deprive me of it.

  “Your father’s shade would never forgive me,” she said one night in our lodgings, “nor would your grandfather’s. I do not care to have Arthur pursuing me though all eternity.”

  “What shall we do, then?” I asked. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Caledfwlch laid across my knees. Since Owain’s death I had insisted on carrying the sword at all times, and grew angry if Eliffer tried to take it from me. She was terrified that someone might steal it, and ever watchful for agents from Britain or Domnonia.

  She rubbed her thin hands together, and her eyes took on a faraway look. “East,” she murmured, “the whole of the Western Empire is tumbling into barbarism, but the Eastern half remains strong. These days the pillar of civilisation is not Rome, but Constantinople.”

  Eliffer took my hands in hers. “We are going to a marvellous city,” she said with one of the rare smiles that summoned up the ghost of her old beauty, “a place of silver and gold, where the people wear silks and eat caviar. We can start anew there.”

  Her description of the city made me eager to leave at once. Nor did I object to leaving Paris, which I regarded as a dirty, alien and friendless place.

  We left very soon after Owain’s funeral in a large military cemetery outside the city, and joined one of the many merchant caravans striking out on the long journey to Constantinople, half a world away. The mighty imperial city straddling the Bosphorus was the world’s largest centre of commerce, a place where East met West to trade.

  The man who agreed to take us was a Frankish cloth merchant named Clothaire, an ex-soldier who had fought in Clovis’s army against the Romans at Soissons. He had one leg and an inexhaustible fund of stories about his military career. Most of these were obvious lies, even to a child like me. He took a liking to my mother, and chose to believe her story that Owain had been her husband.

  “Who am I to ignore the plight of a fellow soldier’s widow?” he said, “no common widow, but a woman of beauty and learning.”

  He stroked her hand with his callused paws as he spoke, and smiled at her with a suggestive familiarity that Eliffer must have found repellent. But she was a fine actress when occasion demanded.

  “My eternal thanks,” she replied, discreetly pulling her hand away, “and we promise not to be a burden to you.”

  Clothaire might have been a liar, but he was no fool, and provided well fo
r the long and dangerous journey to the East. His caravan consisted of a dozen wagons, all loaded with merchandise and supplies. His drivers were honest, sober men, and he hired a reliable troop of mercenaries as a guard. Most of them were Franks, but I remember a trio of Sarmatians, expert horsemen from the steppes of Rus, hundreds of miles to the east.

  The Sarmatians were extraordinary-looking men, larger than most Franks, with long fair hair and beards and dark skins. They wore bronze helmets and coats of scale armour made of lacquered bone, and preferred to keep their own company, sitting apart at meals and growling away in their strange language. They took a liking to me, perhaps because I was the only child in the caravan, and let me perch on the saddle of one of their big horses while the rider walked the beast about.

  Some seventeen hundred miles lay between us and Constantinople – seventeen hundred miles full of danger, even for a company so well-armed and prepared as ours. I was happily oblivious to the risks, and regarded the journey as a great adventure into the unknown.

  We left Frankia and passed through the land of the Burgundians into southern Germania, part of the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. These were relatively civilised and peaceful lands, but the roads and highways were not as safe to travel as they had been under the Caesars, nor as well-kept. Several times the caravan was attacked by bandits, but they were easily driven off by Clothaire’s guards. I recall one of the Sarmatians riding back from pursuing one such band of would-be robbers. His white teeth flashed in a grin as he galloped past our wagon, proudly holding his lance aloft with a severed head impaled on the tip.

  Clothaire was amused by my friendship with the Sarmatians, and lusted after my mother for the duration of the journey. She was aware of his intentions and skilfully managed to evade them without giving offence. He made strenuous efforts to ingratiate himself, and had one of the Sarmatians make me a leather baldric or sword-belt for Caledfwlch. I was too small to carry the sword at my hip, so slung it across my back.

  Even at that tender age I knew Caledfwlch was an essential part of me. It was a link to the homeland I would probably never see again, the father I had hardly known, and my famous grandfather. The shadow of Arthur loomed large in my mind, though I knew little about him save what Eliffer chose to tell me.

  She whiled away the tedious hours on the road by regaling me with stories of Arthur’s exploits and his extraordinary court at Caerleon. I devoured them all and demanded more, and like every good storyteller she filled the gaps in her knowledge with colourful lies and exaggeration.

  “Your grandsire was a man of fire and gold,” she told me, “a huge man, the biggest I ever saw, and immensely strong. They called him The Bear of Britain. His hair was the colour of molten gold, his eyes flashed like stars, and he wore golden armour with red boots and gauntlets. A leaping red dragon was engraved on his shield, and seemed to roar and breathe fire when he charged into battle.”

  “Did he kill many men in battle?” I asked excitedly. That was what I cared about – not whether he was a good man, or a kind man, but whether he was a fighter.

  “Hundreds, I should think,” Eliffer said absently, stroking my hair. I was perched on her lap, and she was seated on the back of one of the wagons, dangling her legs over the edge. Hills covered in dark pine forest stretched away either side of the uneven, rutted road, and rain pattered against the canvas roof above our heads. We were passing through southern Germania, a gloomy, rain-misted land populated by sullen barbarians whose harsh tongue scraped against my nerves.

  “Hundreds,” she repeated, warming to her theme, “thousands. Arthur and his Legion slaughtered innumerable hordes of foul barbarians, Saxons and Jutes and Irish and Picts and other such pagan filth. He fought twelve battles, and in every one was victorious. During the twelfth battle, at Mount Badon, he raised a great wooden crucifix and called on Christ to help him vanquish the pagan host. Christ heard him. A great shaft of light pierced the clouds, and in the first charge Arthur himself slew nine hundred and sixty warriors.”

  She tapped Caledfwlch’s hilt. “This sword drank the blood of Britain’s enemies that day. But not enough. An entire generation of Saxon warriors was wiped out at Badon, but those folk breed like vermin. Slowly they recovered their strength, while we dissipated ours. Young men grew up who knew nothing of the old wars and how close Britain had come to destruction. They betrayed Arthur, and the result was Camlann.”

  “My father was one of the traitors,” I said. She sighed and nodded.

  “Yes. He was a good man in many ways, but weak and easily led. He allowed his cousin Medraut to trickle poisoned words into his ears. Amhar was a traitor to his father and oath-sworn lord, and paid the price for it. Never forget that, Coel. Treachery is an unforgivable crime.”

  She preached the same lesson many times on the road to Constantinople. As a result the shame I felt over my father’s treachery festered inside me. I swore a private oath to be honest and true all my days, and root out treachery wherever I encountered it.

  Eliffer also told me of Arthur’s wars, and the provenance of Caledfwlch. I learned how his Legion, which never exceeded three hundred horse-soldiers, had so frequently routed and overthrown the invading barbarians.

  “The Saxons and their kin disdain horses except as pack-animals,” she explained, “and prefer to fight on foot. Your grandsire’s men used to ambush them at river crossings, or catch them in the open when they were loaded down with plunder.”

  I devoured her stories of Arthur and his companions Cei, Bedwyr, Gwalcmei and the rest, whose names and exploits will live forever in legend. I also absorbed the lessons of Arthur’s strategy, and how a few well-disciplined men, with good horses and armour, can defeat many times their number of less organised foes.

  “As for the sword,” she added, “it first came to Britain with Julius Caesar, who had found it, so the story goes, in the ruins of Troy. He wanted to conquer our homeland, but the Britons fought him under their prince, Nennius. During one of the battles, Caesar and Nennius engaged in single combat. Nennius was a great warrior, but Caesar even greater, and when his legions were forced to retreat he left Caledfwlch buried in the prince’s skull.”

  “For a time Nennius hovered between life and death, but no-one could save him, and he died and was buried with honour. Most of his belongings were buried with him, but not Caledfwlch. The priests took the sword, and threw it as an offering to their pagan gods into a certain pool beside Caer Gai, near the mountains of Eryri.”

  “How did Arthur come by it?” I asked. Caledfwlch lay unsheathed on my lap. I ran my fingers up and down the blade, marvelling at its strange history.

  “The prophet and magician, Myrddin, who advised Arthur when he was a young man, went in search of Caledfwlch. He knew the region where it lay, and beseeched the gods of wind and water to deliver it up to him. The waters of the pool parted, and the sword appeared, held aloft by the skeletal hand of a long-dead pagan king. Myrddin gave it to Arthur, who wielded it as a symbol of his authority.”

  Even at five, I was somewhat inclined to doubt this version of events. “Wouldn’t it have rusted, from lying in the water for hundreds of years?”

  Eliffer chuckled and patted my head. “An ordinary blade would, yes,” she said, “but this was forged by the gods on Mount Olympus. It could well be indestructible.”

  Her faith in ancient Greek gods, especially coming from a Christian, surprised me, but a child can only question so far. I was content to believe that the sword really was Caesar’s, and that Myrddin had dredged it up from somewhere. From the little I knew of that old trickster, much of the story was probably a lie spun from his fertile imagination.

  After several weeks on the road we passed from Germania into the lands of the Bulgars, and crossed the frozen waters of the Danube into Thrace, the westernmost province of the Eastern Empire. By now it was deep winter. Our caravan descended from the Haimos Mountains into a bleak, snowbound landscape swept by icy rains and frequent snowstorms.

  The
native Thracians that we encountered wore fox-skin caps on their heads and thick shawls that covered their bodies and reached down to their feet. We could have wished for such protection against the cold, which was so intense it made watered wine freeze inside the jars. I experienced the agony of frostbite for the first time in my life, and Eliffer bundled me up in furs and cloaks until I resembled a heap of baggage.

  Clothaire traded with the Thracians, exchanging cloths and silks for spiced wine and food to get us through the last stage of the journey. He punished the wine savagely, and if I concentrate I can still hear his harsh, cracked voice echoing across the barren white fields, braying some obscene marching song from his time in the army.

  The memory of my early youth is wreathed in shadows, and it has taken much effort to dredge up the details I record here. Soon they shall sink back into the black well of my fading mind, forgotten save for the words scratched on this manuscript. One image, however, shall never leave me. The first time I beheld Constantinople shall remain scored in my brain until my dying hour.

  We approached the city from the west, the only side it is not bound by water. Our travel-weariness lifted as the distant walls came within sight, and a thrill of excitement ran through the guards and drivers. Clothaire’s mounted scouts galloped on ahead, forgetting their duty in their eagerness to see the fabled city of the Romans.

  I had listened to endless stories of Constantinople during the journey, and was heartily sick of hearing about the place. It could not, so I thought, possibly be so impressive in reality.

  “O imperial city, city of the emperor…Queen of the queen of cities, song of songs and glory of glories!”

  This snatch of rhyme runs through my head as I try and record my first impression. That great concentric ring of fortifications, a triple line of walls protected by a moat and enclosing the landward side of the city, would have impressed an adult. To a child it seemed awesome and not quite real, a dream-fortress that had somehow taken on substance. I had seen walls and towers of similar design as we passed through Thrace, but the sheer scale of the defences of Constantinople was overwhelming.