Eagle in the Snow: A Novel of General Maximus and Rome's Last Stand

Messages came in from the various forts. Confluentes reported a willingness from the Frankish settlers to serve as auxiliaries and that their defences were completed, their quota of signal towers finished. Boudobrigo reported hostility among the tribesmen in the district and said that planned accidents had wrecked a half-completed tower, while a three man patrol had been killed in the woods, but by whom, no-one knew. At Bingium all was quiet, but there was considerable movement on the east bank and everything that they did was spied upon. Their commandant added, naively, that he trusted no-one save his own troops, though the new auxiliaries were behaving well. From Borbetomagus the cohort tribune wrote that tribesmen were infiltrating across the river in small boats, and that two attacks had been made on the supply trains that we had sent him. Patrols, landed on the east bank, however, had found the countryside apparently deserted and had returned safely with unsheathed swords.

Walking through the streets one morning my eye was caught by a half-naked man sitting dejectedly in a pen by the slave market. He was dark skinned and wore round his neck a leather thong with a disc on it. His wrists were chained in front of him, which was unusual except in newly made slaves, and he was making patterns in the dust with his fingers. He was about my own age.

“Just a moment,” I said to Barbatio. “I want a word with this man. Find the dealer and have him brought out to me.”

The man was filthy; his one garment stank and I could see the movement of things in his hair. I put my stick under his chin and forced him to look at me. “What is your name?”

“Fredbal,” he muttered sullenly.

“Where did you get that disc on your neck?”

“It is mine.”

“Is it? Give it to me.”

Barbatio cut the thong and I took it between my fingers. It was a lead identity disc such as our soldiers always wore.

“Are you a Frank?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you get this? In a fight with our people, I suppose.”

He shook his head violently. “No. It’s mine.”

“You’re lying.”

He stared at me and the sudden anger vanished, to be replaced by a look of incredible misery. The change was astonishing.

“Wait a minute. Barbatio, look at his ankle.”

The tribune did so.

“Is he branded?”

“Yes, sir.”

I said, “Then you were in our army. A deserter, I suppose?”

He looked at me gloomily, and said in bad Latin, “No—sir. I was—an optio in the auxiliaries here at Moguntiacum. I was taken prisoner when the Alemanni raided the town.” He dropped his eyes. “I was only a boy at the time.” He added, in a low voice, “I have been a slave ever since. That was a long time ago.”

I turned to Barbatio. “Thirty years,” I said. “In the name of the gods! Thirty years.”

Barbatio, his face flushed, said, “All the men in this pen have been sold, sir. To a merchant from Treverorum.”

“Did you tell the dealer you were a Roman citizen?”

Fredbal shrugged his shoulders. “It never makes any difference. They sell you just the same.”

“How do you know that?”

He said, “I used to listen to—to my master talking. He was an Aleman. People never care what they say in front of slaves. It’s a common thing. They all do it. There’s a big trade in the likes of us across the river.”

Barbatio said, “Yes, that’s true, sir.”

I said savagely, “You, certainly, should know that. Have him brought up to the camp. Get the records looked up and check his story. If it’s true then we can find a use for him—as a free man.”

Barbatio said in a shocked voice, “There will be complaints. This is a common practice.”

“You mean it was. If the merchant complains, arrest him. It is an offence to sell a free citizen in his own land. And get the magistrates and have the market closed at once.”

“But, sir, he’s one of a lot already bought and sold.” The tribune added desperately, “They’ve been purchased for work on one of the new churches in Treverorum. The merchant told me.”

“You heard my orders.”

“But, sir, the Bishop—the Praefectus—”

“I am the governor here.”

“Yes, sir.” He saluted and hurried off.

I turned and walked back towards the camp, the man following me like a dog.

‘Thirty years,’ I thought. ‘He kept that disc for thirty years in hope. And then he was bought and sold by his own people to work for the church. Oh, Mithras, you would not ask that of any man.’

At last came the news for which I had been waiting; first a rumour only of a great victory in Italia, brought by a wine merchant returning from Mediolanum; and then a letter, containing the facts and the details: a letter from Stilicho himself.

Radagaisus had been beaten. He had tried to besiege Florentia, had been besieged in his turn by Stilicho, had tried to fight his way out and had been captured and executed. More than a third of his men, Suevi, Vandals, Alans and Burgundians, had died beneath the walls of the city. The remainder had retreated north into the country of the Alemanni.