Louise Allen - Virgin Slave, Barbarian King

The boy shifted in the saddle and half turned. Focusing on him, she saw he had a snub nose, blonder hair than Wulfric, vivid blue eyes. ‘We keep our word, all of us. Your emperor is an oath-breaker.’ He put loathing into the words. ‘There is nothing worse. If you cannot trust a man’s word, what can you trust? He is less than a man, he is not fit to lead.’

‘It is politics. Honorius must do what is right for the state,’ Julia protested. What am I doing, debating politics with a barbarian youth while the city burns around us?

The boy stared at her as though she had sprouted two heads. ‘Do Roman women understand nothing of honour? Your emperor gave his word. He broke it, now he must pay.’

She was saved from answering him by the doors swinging open and Wulfric appearing on the threshold. ‘They have fled and abandoned their slaves, let’s see what else they left behind.’ He whistled and the grey followed him, Berig’s mount behind. Hooves cracked sharply on the expensive mosaics of the entrance.

‘Where would you hide the family treasure, Julia?’ Wulfric enquired, his eyes scanning the empty peristyle. There was a muted scuffle from the shadows; the whites of wide eyes were just visible.

‘You! Come out, I will not hurt you.’ To Julia’s amazement the slaves shuffled out of hiding, their eyes fixed on the big man like mice in front of a fox. ‘Your master does not treat you well.’ It was a statement, not a question. The group were thin, bruises showed. ‘Perhaps you saw where he hid his gold before he ran and left you.’

They shook their heads, silent. Then their gazes slid furtively towards the big urn standing in the open space. A drooping laurel bush stuck out of the top.

‘Not a good time of year to be transplanting shrubs,’ Wulfric observed, strolling over and giving the urn a push. It was rock solid, taller than he was. ‘Fetch me a rope, a long, strong one.’

The oldest slave, the steward perhaps, grinned suddenly and hurried off, returning with a hefty coil of hemp in his hands. Wulfric tied it round the urn, fed it round the nearest pillar, then tossed the end up to Berig before remounting. The two riders looped the rope on their pommels and began to back the horses. Craning round Berig’s shoulder, Julia saw the urn rock. The grey’s hooves slithered on the mosaic, there was a lurch and the marble vessel toppled over to smash on the paving.

No wonder the shrub had been drooping! It was planted in pure gold, a mass of coins that spun and flashed on the paving. The slaves hurried forward and began to scoop up the money, stuffing it into the saddle-bags that Wulfric gave them with an enthusiasm that said everything about their feelings for their master.

When the bags were full, one woman ran off and found more. ‘Keep the rest.’ Wulfric secured the gold behind his saddle. ‘And run.’

‘One of them is sure to be able to cook better than I can and they are slaves already,’ Julia protested.

‘Yes, but I want you.’ Wulfric smiled. It was not an indication of weakness—even in her desperate state she was all too aware of that—but it held a touch more warmth again.

Something cold settled in Julia’s stomach. She tried to tell herself he had meant it when he said he did not believe in ravishing women. Surely he did not think he would not have to? That she would willingly…Oh, no, my arrogant barbarian, if you think that broad shoulders and big muscles are going to seduce Julia Livia Rufa, you are in for a major disappointment.

They stopped again further down the street in front of an arched doorway. ‘No!’ she protested. ‘Don’t you dare, you thieving pagans! That is a church, it is sacred…’

‘Yes, I know.’ Wulfric swung down from the saddle. ‘I want to check they have had no trouble.’ He disappeared inside, leaving Julia gaping after him.

‘We are Christians,’ Berig said angrily. ‘Don’t you Romans know anything about anyone else?’

‘I…I didn’t think. But you haven’t been Christians very long, have you? Some of you still worship the old gods?’

‘A few, perhaps,’ the lad conceded. ‘It doesn’t mean we would smash up a church. And I will wager some Romans still worship your old gods as well.’

Grandmother for one. Julia knew her father’s mother kept the shrine to the household gods tended, despite her son’s displeasure. She bit her lip. What else did she not know about these people? She recalled seeing Wulfric’s lips move as he had laid the slave girl down in the burning shop. Had he been praying over her? And she, Julia, had not even thought to do so. Ashamed, she tried to fashion the words, but her mind was too muddled to find them.

Wulfric emerged. ‘They are all right, Theofrid passed this way two hours ago and gave them a password.’

Julia looked about her, puzzled. This was not at all what she had expected the sacking of a city to be like. True, there was panic and confusion, smoke was rising everywhere she looked and she was with two men whose saddle-bags bulged with looted gold. But she had expected blood to be running in the street, churches and palaces to be burning, savage men, painted with strange symbols, to be dragging women off by their hair for unspeakable purposes. This was more like a particularly forceful form of tax collecting. With human coin.

‘We will go to the Forum, see who else is there.’ Julia’s spirits rose—surely there would be soldiers, surely some resistance to this invasion was being organised? By going to the Forum they would be walking right into the hands of the emperor’s men and she would be saved.

But they were moving against the tide of people streaming away from the heart of the city and her confidence began to ebb. Why were people fleeing, unless the Goths had overrun the Forum itself? Other riders, dressed like Wulfric, their hair long on their shoulders, fell in beside them.

Greetings were exchanged in the tongue she could not understand, snatches of news tossed from rider to rider. A knot of men on foot were herding a group in tunics before them. From the resigned expressions on the captives’ faces, Julia guessed they must already be slaves.

Berig was calling to another group who appeared to be teasing him about his captive. Julia turned her head away from their curious stares with a haughty lift of her chin and found herself looking into the startled face of a man she knew, half-hidden in a doorway.

‘Marcus! Marcus Atilius! Help me!’ The young man, her neighbour, started from his concealment, then began to back away as the riders closed up around Berig’s horse. ‘Tell my father,’ she shouted as he took to his heels. ‘Tell Antonius Justus! I have been kidnapped!

‘Let me go!’ Seeing someone she knew galvanised her, gave her hope. She jerked at the bonds linking her to Berig, then tried to score her fingernails into his back.

‘Ouch, you cat, stop that!’ He twisted round, furious, hissing with pain as Wulfric wheeled his mount alongside them.

‘Stop it.’ He reached out one hand and jerked back her clawing fingers. ‘If you do that again, I’ll sling you over the front of my saddle like a sack of grain, which won’t do much for your dignity, my lady.’

Julia subsided, more shaken than she was willing to admit to herself. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, had been the thought that she would be rescued just as soon as someone in authority realised her predicament. She had expected to find all the young men of patrician birth had taken up arms and were defending Rome, while their elders met to form strategy in the Basilica.

But if men like Marcus Atilius were skulking in doorways, togas or silk tunics hidden under dark cloaks, then who was rallying the troops?

No one was the answer, she saw as soon as they reached the Forum. The heart of Rome, its pride, was overrun by the besiegers. Groups of mounted men shouted news to each other, others mustered carts laden with chests, sacks of food, barrels. Anxious huddles of slaves waited the pleasure of their new masters—and there was not a sign of resistance.

Wulfric reined in under the circular wall of the ancient Temple of Vesta. It seemed it was a prearranged meeting point, for the men already there crowded forward, clenched fists raised in salute.

Thirsty, stiff, hungry, almost beyond fear with sheer discomfort, Julia let herself lean against Berig’s back, let the noise wash over her, and sank into a half faint, half doze.

‘Here.’ Someone was shaking her shoulder. Wearily she raised her head. Wulfric was holding out a flask. ‘Drink, you must be thirsty.’

‘How can I? My hands are tied.’ The thought of water made her dry throat tighten with longing, but she refused to thank him.

Wulfric leaned forward and released one wrist. Julia took the flask and drank. It was watered wine, a poor thin red probably snatched from a tavern, but it went down like the finest vintage from the family vineyards. She handed it back with a stiff nod. He did not try and secure her wrist again and she realised as she steadied herself that the pommel of Berig’s knife was now within reach. She could snatch it, hold it to his ribs until they agreed to take her back, or…She let her free hand drift further round the boy’s side as though to secure her position.

‘Berig, move your knife.’ The boy shifted it round, out of her reach, and she glared furiously at the big man.

‘Do you have eyes in the back of your head?’

He grinned, the green eyes crinkling with amusement. ‘Of course, that is how I stay alive. That, and being able to read my enemy’s mind.’

Is that what I am? His enemy? What have I done to him to deserve this?

One of the groups of slaves trudged past and she looked down at them, seeing for the first time just what a mixture they were, the people who made life in the Empire run with the smooth efficiency of a water clock. Tall, sandy-haired, light-skinned Northerners, a few black faces, the wiry stature and deep olive skins of men from the Eastern Empire, all caught up and brought back here. What have they done to deserve it? These barbarians have learned from us and now we reap what we have sown.

‘Come.’ Wulfric raised his voice and heads turned. ‘Back to camp, we have done enough today. Alaric has called a council for tomorrow.’

It seemed Wulfric’s word carried weight. That had been an order, not a suggestion, and Julia watched to see who followed him. Fifty or so men, at a rough count, and many older than him by years, grizzled old veterans.

‘Who is he?’ she asked Berig, once they were away from the hubbub of the Forum. The wine, thin though it was, had revived her; to escape she needed knowledge, needed to understand her captor. ‘Who are all these men?’

‘Our kin and some of those who would ally with us. There are many more than this, of course.’ More? A private army, then.

‘Are you his…no, he is not old enough for you to be his son.’

‘I do not know the word.’ Berig wrestled with it. ‘My mother’s sister married the brother of his mother.’

‘A distant cousin?’ Julia suggested. ‘Why do you serve him?’

‘Cousin.’ The boy practised the word. ‘It is the custom. I serve him, he teaches me how to be a man, how to fight. In two years he will give me my sword.’

‘I see. But why do all these men follow him? They are older than he is, many of them.’

‘Because he is—ah, I do not know the word in Latin! King-worthy? Do you understand? He has the way of it, to lead.’

‘But you have a king. Alaric.’

‘He will not live for ever.’ The boy shrugged. ‘Wulfric is loyal, says Alaric is a good king, but many mutter against him. We have been wandering for years, fighting, waiting for your emperor to honour his word. There are some who say Alaric should have struck harder, sooner.’