Justinian

ONE

‘Baptiso te in Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,’ quavered the priest — an ancient Goth, dipping the week-old infant in the font then making the sign of the cross upon its forehead. Then, as a special favour granted only to a very few parents (who, through gifts or service to the church given over many years, had earned the privilege), he proceeded to inscribe the child’s names and date of birth in the church’s Bible — its greatest treasure. This was a precious copy of the Holy Book translated into the Gothic tongue by Ulfilas, the missionary who had brought the Word of God to his own people, the Goths, nearly a century and a half before. Though originally Arians,* those Goths who had settled in the Roman Empire had been compelled by an edict of Emperor Theodosius to adopt the Catholic faith — the Empire’s official creed. Hence the Service of Baptism had been carried out according to the rites of Rome.

‘Uprauda Ystock,’ the cleric wrote in one of the blank vellum pages at the end of the book, his arthritic fingers guiding the pen with difficulty, ‘natus pridie Kalendas Septembris Trocundo et Severino consulibus.’**

‘At last, Bigleniza, we have a son,’ the child’s father, Valaris Ystock, declared proudly to his wife when the couple had returned with their baby to their home. This was a thatched hut in the village of Tauresium, a scatter of mean dwellings in a clearing hemmed in by dark woods. ‘A son who will work our plot when I grow too old to manage it alone.’

‘There will be other sons for that, my dear,’ murmured Bigleniza, gazing adoringly at her sleeping infant. ‘For this, our firstborn, life holds other ends than tilling the soil.’

Bigleniza, a strong-willed woman of some education, was, so she claimed, partly of ancient Thracian stock, with links to the same family that had produced Spartacus. Valaris — a Goth and former field slave belonging to a wealthy Roman — had been granted his manumission, plus a sum sufficient to buy a peasant holding, after bravely rescuing his master’s wife and child from a house fire. An ill-matched couple, many thought, unaware of the strong bond of love and mutual regard that united the pair.

Beyond the confines of Dardania, impinging not at all upon the lives of its inhabitants, the tides of history rolled on: Julius Nepos, the last claimant to the West’s imperial throne, died, finally legitimizing the German Odovacar as king of Italy; between East Rome and Persia, a current truce was ratified, and held, precariously; the Visigoths, soon to be challenged by the Franks, secured their hold in Gaul and Spain; within the Empire, a formidable leader, Theoderic, united the two great branches of the Ostrogoths, then, as vicegerent of Emperor Zeno, led them into Italy, there to depose and murder Odovacar; Zeno died (interred alive by accident according to the rumours, his cries within the tomb ignored on account of his being a hated Isaurian), to be succeeded by the elderly Anastasius; in Africa, the harsh barbarity of Vandal rule began to soften, as a hot climate and Roman luxury slowly sapped the original tough fibre of the conquerors.

Meanwhile, Uprauda grew into a tall, strong lad, strikingly good-looking, with large grey eyes and golden curling hair (‘my beautiful angel,’ Bigleniza never tired of saying), quietly self-contained, but pleasant and polite to all. Though chafing against the grinding monotony of peasant life, Uprauda proved a dutiful son, helping his parents on their little plot, at first minding the livestock, then, as soon as he could manage implements, joining his father in the back-breaking labour of raising crops of wheat and millet. It broke Bigleniza’s heart to see her boy trudge back at sunset from the fields, his hands all cracked and blistered from the plough or scythe. True to her original vow, despite the fact that she bore no further sons, she remained unwavering in her resolve that Uprauda’s life should follow a more fulfilling path. ‘If nurtured, upright stock* will make its way,’ she affirmed. To this end, she maintained contact (via letters carried by obliging travellers or traders en route to Constantinople) with her brother Roderic, a rising soldier based frequently in the imperial capital, entreating him to help provide the boy with a sound education, with a view to entering a career — in the civil service or perhaps the army.

‘Flamin’ heat,’ grumbled Crispus, as the squad marched in open order along the narrow roadway, hewn out of the mountainside by Trajan’s engineers four centuries before. Crispus was one of the pedites in a detachment from the Legio Quinta Macedonica — the Fifth Macedonians — sent to investigate a remote region of northern Dardania, following complaints by local villagers of raids by Sarmatian brigands. Untying the laces securing the cheek-pieces of his helmet beneath his chin, Crispus removed the headpiece and tied it to his belt. ‘That feels better,’ he sighed, as his sweat-soaked scalp began to cool — ‘a whole lot better.’

‘Put it on, you idiot,’ cautioned the man next to him. ‘We’re supposed to be in a combat zone, remember? The biarchus’ll have your guts for garters if he finds out.’

‘And how’ll he do that?’ sneered the other. ‘You gonna report me? Oh Christ!’ he exclaimed suddenly, as his helmet — carelessly secured, detached itself from his belt and tumbled free. Dropping his spear, Crispus made a frantic grab for the helmet as it rolled to the side of the road. Too late; it toppled over the edge and bounced a hundred feet, before coming to rest in the branches of a shrub sprouting from a crevice in the near-vertical slope.

Delighted by the unscheduled break, the column halted, while the biarchus or corporal strode up the line from the rear to find out what was causing the hiatus.

‘Well, well — Pedes Crispus; who’d have thought it?’ murmured the biarchus silkily, shaking his head in mock surprise. He peered over the edge. ‘Oh dear — lost your helmet, I see. Well now, Pedes,’ he continued, looking round at the ring of grinning faces which had formed at the scene, ‘we’d all be interested to learn what you propose to do about it. Suggestions?’

‘Well, we could form a human chain I suppose, Biarchus,’ mumbled Crispus.

‘A human chain,’ repeated the biarchus, nodding sagaciously. ‘Congratulations, Pedes. But if you think,’ he added, his voice changing to a sarcastic snarl, ‘that I’d risk the necks of any of your mates to save your worthless skin, you must be even stupider than I thought. If you get your brains knocked out by a Sarmatian sling-shot because you’ve got no helmet, it’ll serve you damn well right.’ He thrust his face to within an inch of the other’s. ‘You horrible little man!’ he shouted. ‘What are you?’

‘A horrible little man, Biarchus,’ growled Crispus, fully aware that any other response would land him in even greater trouble than he was in already. This would almost certainly include being on a charge for disobeying the order to wear helmets.

‘Listen up, Pedes; here’s what we do. Once back at base, you will put in a requisition for two helmets, chargeable against your pay.’

‘But — that’s not fair, Biarchus! I only lost one.’

‘So you did, soldier. So you did,’ purred the other. He went on, with irrefutable military logic, ‘You draw a helmet from the stores to replace the one you lost, see. Then you pay for another to replace the one from the stores. Got it?’ He turned to the others. ‘Right lads, show’s over. Let’s be having you. Into line. Forward, march!’

One summer Sunday, when Uprauda was approaching his fourteenth birthday, two of his companions — named Atawulf and Wamba — sought him out; both were bursting with excitement, clearly over some news or secret they couldn’t wait to divulge. (Despite never putting himself forward, Uprauda’s imposing physique and something about his air of calm self-possession, had led him to be chosen as their leader by boys his own age in Tauresium. Though invariably the planner and organizer of youthful escapades, strangely, Uprauda was never the one to be caught or to incur the blame whenever such activities miscarried.)

‘Hey Raudie, you won’t believe what we’ve found!’ exclaimed Atawulf, the bigger of the tow-headed pair. ‘It’s a helmet — a real soldier’s helmet. Only trouble is, it’s stuck halfway up a cliff.’

Uprauda smiled. ‘Lead on, then,’ he invited, sparing the two from having to plead with him to accompany them.

It being a Sunday, when only essential tasks such as milking (which anyway was girls’ and women’s work) were carried out, the boys were free until supper-time. Keeping a lookout for wild animals, and also Sarmatian bandits, bands of whom had recently been sighted in the vicinity, the trio set out along woodland trails. There was in fact little risk. Hunted for centuries by gangs of professional venatores to supply the Roman Games, large animals such as bear, lynx, elk, and bison had been driven to the verge of extinction, and had only recently begun to make a comeback following the collapse of the Western Empire twenty years before. As for Sarmatians, they were after cattle, goods, and specie, not half-grown youngsters. And even if they were attacked, like all Dardanian boys who had grown up minding livestock, the three were expert slingers, able to give a good account of themselves. A blow on the snout from a round river-pebble delivered with terrific force was usually enough to deter even the most aggressive assailant.

The boys pushed on through dense stands of spruce, oak, and beech, some of the trees rising to a prodigious height. After a mile or so, they emerged onto a flower-stippled meadow fringing a wide but shallow stream. Beyond the far bank towered a cliff of whitish rock, mottled with dark green where vegetation had taken root in cracks and ledges.

‘There she is, Raudie,’ proudly announced Atawulf, pointing to a winking point of light high up on the cliff-face.

After wading through the stream, they approached the base of the cliff from where they were afforded a clearer view of the object in question, which was wedged in the upper branches of a bush. Surmounted by a scarlet horsehair crest, and complete with brow reinforcement, cheek-pieces, and neck-guard, the helmet — fashioned of bronze — glittered like gold in the strong noonday sunshine. (Presumably it had been dropped by a careless soldier from the roadway far above, Uprauda thought.) A rare prize indeed, one that would make them the envy of all the other boys in Tauresium — if it could be recovered. And that would not be easy, realized Uprauda, staring at that beetling precipice, the ascent of which must surely call for nerves of steel and practised skill.

‘Let me try, Raudie,’ entreated Atawulf. ‘I’m a good climber.’

Uprauda hesitated. Atawulf indeed had an unrivalled reputation for scaling heights. Scarcely a tree of any size around Tauresium had not been climbed by ‘Spiderboy’, as had (inevitably) the baptistery of the local church, and the ramparts of a nearby abandoned Roman fortress. Nevertheless, any attempt to scale the cliff could prove suicidally risky, Uprauda felt: definitely not something he himself would care to try.

But still. . In his imagination, Uprauda saw himself (along with Atawulf and Wamba) returning to the village in triumph with the trophy, the focus of excited admiration on the part of his peers. To be the owner of such a glorious find (for his two fellow adventurers would, he knew, insist on presenting the helmet to him) would confer enormous status. Such a helmet Perseus might have worn when he slew the Gorgon, he fantasized, or Alexander when he set out to conquer Asia. (From his earliest years, an ancient local of Hellenic descent had told him stirring tales from Greek and Roman legend and history: of Jason and the Argonauts, the ten-year war of Troy, Horatius who held the bridge against an army, Leonidas and his valiant Three Hundred, of Alexander, of Caesar and of Spartacus’ doomed heroic struggle against the might of Rome. Such stories had aroused in him a vague but powerful longing to achieve great things, beyond the stifling restrictions of a backwoods village life.)

‘All right, Wulfie,’ he heard himself say, ‘give it a go. But come back down if it gets too dangerous.’

‘Thanks, Raudie — I’ll get that helmet; you’ll see.’ Atawulf cast Uprauda a grateful look. Far more important than retrieving the thing itself was the fact that in doing so he would earn Raudie’s approval. He scanned the cliff, looking for possible routes to his objective. What at first glance seemed a sheer rock face, so smooth as to be unclimbable, on closer inspection revealed that it was textured by tiny cracks and wrinkles — just sufficient to afford purchase. Higher up, a long fissure or ‘chimney’ led up to a pitch not far below the ledge where grew the bush in which the helmet was lodged. ‘Es geht,’ he told himself — it could be done.

Combining caution with speed, for he dared not trust any of those minute finger- and toe-holds to support his weight for long, Atawulf began to climb. Establishing a rhythm, he moved upwards steadily and with increasing confidence, seeming almost to flow over the rock as he ascended, displaying all the grace and assurance of the born climber. Arriving at the base of the chimney, he wedged himself in and proceeded to push himself up by alternating thrusts of back and feet against the opposite walls.

All went well until, to his dismay, he encountered an obstacle which he had failed to notice when surveying the route from below. The upper part of the chimney was blocked by a chockstone! Peering upwards, he could see light between the chockstone and the back of the chimney. He tried to squeeze through the gap, but was forced to give up after the third attempt; it was just too narrow. Which left him with but one alternative: he would have to climb up and over the outside of the chockstone — a difficult and probably dangerous challenge. For the huge boulder projected proud of the cliff face, its bulging contours presenting Atawulf with the problem of having to surmount an overhang. Would the chockstone’s upper surface, which the bulge prevented him from seeing, provide holds? If it didn’t. .

Well, there was only one way to find out, he thought, grimly. Reaching up, his groping hands encountered cracks and roughnesses — enough to provide a grip. Face against the rock, he began to haul himself up, holding himself to the chockstone partly by hand- and foot-holds, partly by the friction of his tunic against the rough stone. Now his eyes were almost level with the outermost bulge of the boulder. This was the moment when he must commit — or abandon the climb. But to disappoint Raudie, and return to Tauresium empty-handed? That was unthinkable. Firmly, he pushed the temptation to give up to the back of his mind.

His scrabbling left hand found a knob of rock, providing a secure anchor. Letting go his hold with his right hand, Atawulf groped upwards — above the bulge. There was only smooth stone. Desperately, he moved his hand to right and left to the limit of his reach; still no hold. He began to retract his right hand — and made an appalling discovery. He could not bring it down again without losing his balance! Fighting panic, he froze against the boulder.

‘Wulfie’s stuck!’ Wamba cried, pointing to where, high above them, Atawulf’s immobile form was spreadeagled against the cliff. He turned a worried face to Uprauda. ‘What are we going to do, Raudie?’

Uprauda made to answer, found he could not think; his brain seemed paralyzed. The moments crept past. Faint with distance, a cry for help floated down from above.

‘Raudie?’ Wamba’s voice now held a note of desperation.

Uprauda’s mind suddenly seemed to unblock itself. He must form a plan — and quickly. He studied the cliff. Not far above Atawulf’s position, a ledge (the same whence sprouted the bush supporting the helmet) ran along the cliff face. If he or Wamba could somehow reach that ledge and lower an improvized line to Atawulf. . One look at Wamba’s ashen face and trembling lip told Uprauda that he, not the other, would have to meet the challenge. The prospect was terrifying. Uprauda was no cragsman. Any attempt to scale the cliff in the stretch that he could see was out of the question; it was far too steep — a recipe for disaster. He would have to move along its base and hope to find a point at which the incline sloped sufficiently for him to climb it — assuming that the ledge above extended that far.

‘Give me your belt and sling,’ he told Wamba. ‘Bring men with ropes from the village. Hurry!’

‘Try to hold on,’ Uprauda shouted up as Wamba set off at a run. ‘Help’s on its way; I’ll try to reach you from above.’ It was unlikely that Atawulf could make out his actual words, but just to be able to hear him call would provide some reassurance. But for how long could Atawulf maintain his precarious hold?

After running at his top speed for perhaps a quarter of a mile, Uprauda noticed that the cliff face was beginning to slope back. Within a further hundred yards, to his huge relief, the angle had lessened to the extent that grass grew on what had now become no more than a steep incline — mercifully looking as though it needed no special mountaineering skills to climb. While regaining his breath, Uprauda tied his own sling to Wamba’s then joined them to both their belts secured end to end. Now he had a stout line, hopefully of sufficient length and strength to reach Atawulf from the ledge (which still ran above the point now reached by Uprauda), and help him to safety.

A punishing scramble took Uprauda to the ledge — a wide shelf of rock along which he was able to walk in perfect security. Now, in the distance ahead, he could see the bush with that wretched helmet shining like a beacon in the sun. And there, only yards below it, was Atawulf, clinging to a huge boulder projecting from a fissure in the cliff. A tide of euphoria swept over Uprauda. He shouted, to let the other know he was coming, heard an answering cry — then stopped, his elation draining away.

Directly in front of him, the shelf ended suddenly — continuing a short distance further on. Between the two sections was a gap no more than three feet wide, bridgeable by a single bold stride. Uprauda stared at the yawning drop beneath the breach, and shrank against the cliff in terror. With palms sweating and mouth dry with fear, he approached the Bad Step — only to hesitate, then stop, on the very lip. He told himself that there was no risk, that at ground level he could perform such a trifling feat without a second thought. But it was no good; after making several aborted attempts, he knew he could not do it.

He tried to shut his ears to Atawulf’s calls — at first of hope, finally of despair. At last there came the terrible moment when he saw his friend, unable any longer to maintain his hold, begin to slip. Then, with a cry of terror the boy fell, his body twisting and tumbling as it plunged into the void. .

In grim silence, the little procession carrying Atawulf’s broken body on a makeshift litter returned to Tauresium. After the grieving and the funeral would come a reckoning. But no direct blame would be laid upon Uprauda for what, after all, had resulted from a collective enterprise. According to his statement, he had tried to save Atawulf, who had fallen before he could be reached. Which was, insofar as it went, a not untrue account, merely an incomplete one. In Uprauda’s dreams however, the helmet often reappeared — both a symbol of ambition, and a reminder of his cowardice.

In the branches of a bush growing from a cliff, a pair of nesting falcons made a fortunate discovery: a round hollow object, ideal for their home. It even sprouted a ridge of hair — perfect material with which, along with moss, to line their new abode. As, over the years, their dwelling changed in colour from gleaming gold to bluish green, it witnessed the fledging of many generations of falcon chicks.

* Arianism: the form of Christianity adopted by Germans; it differed from Orthodox Catholicism in denying the Divinity of Christ.

** Born 31 August in the year of the consuls Trocondus and Severinus. (i.e. 482; see Notes.)

* A play on the names Uprauda Ystock. As Gibbon shrewdly observed, ‘The names. .are Gothic and almost English’ (my italics) — evidence that Germanic tongues have a common root.