Theodoric

TWO

Returning to his spartan little suite in the palace, Theoderic found himself confronted by Timothy. Standing with folded arms in the middle of his charge’s tablinum or study, the bodyguard — stocky, muscular, nose flattened in some ancient brawl — looked exactly what he was: a self-reliant bruiser.

‘Timothy! You wish to speak with me?’

‘Indeed I do, young Deric, indeed I do. This Cambyses business. .’ He shook his head and chortled softly. ‘Lucky for you I’m an Isaurian — agin the government. What I should have done is report your plan to the Master of Offices. Then you’d have been confined to barracks, as it were, and I’d have been commended.’

‘But. . how did you know?’

‘To see but not be seen, to hear but not be heard — all part of my job. A gaggle of schoolboys taking on Cambyses on their own. I can think of simpler recipes for suicide.’

‘I suppose it was a stupid idea,’ Theoderic admitted, reddening. He shuffled his feet, his expression downcast.

‘Now there you’re wrong. It has the makings of an excellent idea. All it lacks is a bit of planning, preparation and expert assistance. That’s where I come in.’

‘You’d help us?’ Theoderic’s face lit up.

‘I must be crazy even to be thinking of it,’ murmured Timothy wryly, ‘but the answer’s yes. Having grown up in the back streets of Tarsus, I know how important it is to establish your status in a peer group. If you don’t, they’ll kick you to the bottom of the heap, and that’s where you’ll stay. So old Timothy understands that you need to even the score with your schoolmates. Lucky it’s me you’ve got to lend a hand. Isaurians aren’t just streetwise; most of us, and that includes yours truly, are expert woodsmen to boot. The Taurus mountains are our backyard, and they’re teeming with bears, wolves, deer, wild boar — you name it. There’s scarcely a cottage in Cilicia without its bearskin on the floor or pair of horns on the wall. Right, listen, young Deric, this is how we’ll go about it. .’

As arranged, the six boys — Theoderic, Julian, and the four of Julian’s circle who had accepted the challenge — met Timothy outside the Charisius Gate at the second hour,* soon after the opening of the gates in the Theodosian Wall. It was the feast day of St Euphemia (so no school), a celebrated local martyr, credited with performing a miracle at the Council of Chalcedon seventeen years previously. For several miles they followed the River Lycus north-west on made roads, taking turns to wheel the handcart containing a long bundle, which Timothy had brought. Arriving at the confluence of the Lycus and a small tributary, they followed the latter north along a farm track, gradually leaving behind villas and cultivation to enter an area of rough pasture climbing towards woods. Reaching an isolated farmhouse the party halted; Timothy went off to find the farmer, while the boys flopped on the ground, exhausted by the trek in the warm September sun. After quarter of an hour Timothy returned, with four rangy mongrels on leash.

‘Not much to look at,’ he said, ‘but the best boar-hounds this side of the Bosphorus. If any get killed, your dads’ll pay the bill — except Deric’s, for obvious reasons. Understood?’ He looked round the circle of tense young faces; all nodded. ‘Right, gentlemen, what I’m about to say I’ll say just once, so listen good. In a mile or so we’ll be entering Cambyses’ parish. Follow my instructions and you’ll be all right. Ignore them and you could end up dead or maimed — your silly faults but my head on the block. Which I don’t intend to let happen.’

Exchanging the leashes with Julian, the Isaurian unwrapped the bundle on the cart and handed a short spear to each boy, retaining the last for himself. They were workmanlike affairs, with sturdy hafts and broad, vicious-looking blades with a cross-bar below where the blade joined the handle. ‘Tempered steel with razor edges; extra-wide for maximum damage. The guard’s to stop the quarry getting close, if spitted. A boar’s weapons are its tusks — sickles that’ll rip you open from crotch to breastbone. Now, we don’t want that to happen, do we, lads? So here’s the plan. When we track down Cambyses’ lair — which’ll be in dense undergrowth — the first task is to persuade him to come out. That’ll be my job. You lot stand back in a semicircle, weapons at the ready. When he comes, he’ll do so in a rush. A charging boar’s a scary sight, and Cambyses is a lot of boar. It’s vital to keep your nerve and hold your ground; he won’t charge the blades. Let the dogs distract him, then, when I give the word — and not before — move in for the kill. Above all, no heroics. There are old hunters, and bold hunters, but no old, bold hunters. Remember that. Questions, gentlemen? No? Then let’s be having you.’

Deep in a thicket, Cambyses slept. At twenty years, too old for sows to feature in his reveries, he dreamt of sunlit glades carpeted by acorns, with juicy tubers just below the surface waiting to be grubbed up. Suddenly he started twitching, as something intruded on these pleasant visions. Blinking awake, he became aware of of what it was that had disturbed his rest: a familiar, hated scent. Man. His inch-thick hide seamed with scar tissue bore witness to past encounters with hunters, some of whom had suffered death or mutilation from his tushes. The scent grew stronger, stirring memories of pain and danger. Quivering with fury, the old boar raised his vast bulk from the ground and prepared to give battle.

‘They’ve got the scent, lads. Let ’em go,’ Timothy called to the three who, besides himself, had held the hounds in leash while they quartered the terrain — a soggy plateau stippled with bushes and stands of dwarf timber. Unleashed, the hounds — silent until now, streaked off, barking with excitement. They halted before a patch of dense under-growth, their baying, an eerie chiming sound, rising to a frenzied crescendo.

Lining up the boys in a wide semicircle behind the hounds, Timothy took a handful of pebbles from a pouch at his waist, and proceeded to pelt the patch of brush. For a full minute nothing happened. Then the bushes began to shake, and a moment later the quarry burst from shelter. He was a terrifying sight: huge body covered in blackish bristles streaked with yellow, tiny red-rimmed eyes blazing with hate, long foam-flecked snout, pair of wicked tusks curving from the lower jaw.

Faced with this apparition, Theoderic was seized with paralyzing fright. The urge to run was overwhelming, but, recalling Timothy’s advice, he stood firm, spear levelled — as, to their credit, did the others.

Confused by the hounds, Cambyses halted in full career, then charged first one, then another. But his tormentors were old hands at the game, and backed away from his furious rushes. At last, bewildered and exhausted, flanks heaving, the old boar stood at bay.

Julian, next in line to Theoderic, broke ranks and rushed forward, spear raised to deliver the coup de grace.

What happened next, though lasting only seconds, seemed to Theoderic to pass as though time had slowed down. Julian tripped on a tree-root and toppled forward, to lie extended on the ground. Spotting one of his enemies prostrate, the boar, like an ox turning a mill-wheel by its pole, wheeled slowly round and made for Julian, its short legs rising and falling no faster than a galley’s oars.

Then the moment passed, and the enraged brute was hurtling towards the boy like a bolt from a ballista. Unaware of making a conscious decision, Theoderic found himself sprinting forward, standing athwart Julian’s body and thrusting out his spear to receive the boar’s charge. The blade took the animal full in the throat, the impact hurling Theoderic backwards, in a spray of blood jetting from a severed artery. Closing in at once, the others quickly finished off the dying monster. Julian rose shakily to his feet.

Timothy, his face suffused with anger, struck the boy a ringing slap across the cheek. ‘Glory-hunting fool!’ he roared. ‘You nearly got yourself killed. Worse, you put your mates in danger. If it hadn’t been for Deric here. . Now, apologize and make up.’

Trembling as reaction set in, his emotions in a tumult, Theoderic extended his hand to his erstwhile enemy. His chief feeling was exaltation: surely now they would accept him as an equal and, more importantly, a Roman.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Julian stiffly, Timothy’s handprint livid on his face. ‘I behaved stupidly. I owe you my life. For that I thank you.’ He looked at the other’s open hand, then turned his head away. ‘But I don’t shake hands with Germans. You’re brave, I grant you that, but then so are all your race. For all your courage, Goth, you’ll never be one of us — Roman, that is.’

Theoderic’s euphoria drained away, replaced by a terrible feeling of failure and frustrated longing. Now he knew how Moses must have felt when, having led his people to the Promised Land, he alone was not allowed to enter.

* About 7 a.m. (see Notes).