Chapter Thirty-Three
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The night was well on its way to morning and the men were still wide-awake. They filled the blazing hall, drunk on mead and homecoming, working off the hardship of weeks of difficult travel. Alaric was at the center of it, dicing and drinking with the rest of them.
Ataulf stayed on the periphery and resisted the urge to grit his teeth.
Ataulf loved Alaric like a brother. He’d lay down his life for Alaric, willingly, without an instant’s thought. But Alaric in a crowd set his teeth on edge.
In crowds, Alaric’s towering charisma burned so bright it was impossible to ignore. People behaved strangely around it. Grown men would start laying their weapons at his feet and swearing hundred-year oaths. Women schemed to tempt him into bed—even those who were happily married.
And Alaric in a crowd could turn on a knife-edge. Ataulf had seen him go from at his ease to lethal in a blink more times than could be counted. It was worse when he was drinking. But he did it sober too.
Ataulf held no love for throngs, especially those that gathered around Alaric. But the things he had to say to his brother-in-law now couldn’t wait.
He drained his tankard and waded through the knot of men. Alaric was seated at the head of the plank table, rolling dice with the men. There was no way Alaric would be dragged away from his adoring public to have a conversation he didn’t want—and he wouldn’t want this one. So Ataulf would have to be strategic.
He slid onto the bench, shoving a bearded Sarmatian out of the way. “I thought you’d like to play a real game.”
The men roared their objections, but Alaric held up a hand. A silence descended. Ataulf blinked. He knew these men. A diverse assortment from Riga’s and Thorismund’s own war bands, not to mention Ataulf’s own. Ataulf had led them the past few weeks, suffered with them in the heat and the dust. They followed him readily enough, but he could not simply hold up a hand and expect a whole room to fall silent.
Alaric was leaning back in his chair as if he’d done nothing so unusual. “And what was it you had in mind?”
Ataulf unrolled his latrones board and tossed his little bag of counters on the table. Alaric’s skill at this game was more than legendary, but he hadn’t played since Milan. “Durostorum rules,” Ataulf said, raising an eyebrow in challenge. “Unless you’re too rusty.”
“Why don’t we find out?”
There was a puzzled silence as Ataulf shook out his stones and began to lay them out on the board. None of the others knew about Durostorum rules. This was the game as they’d played it in the refugee camps by the River Danube, Alaric a gangly boy of six or seven, all knees and elbows, Ataulf a youth not ten years older and already a widower.
Alaric had had an elder sister, Inna. She’d had bronze-gold hair like Alaric’s, and a quick, ready laugh. Ataulf had been married to her not yet a week when the Huns had come and driven them all into the Danube, to swim for the safety of the Roman side. Inna had gone in with them, but she had not come out.
The Roman soldiers had been waiting on the opposite shore, housed the refugees in camps at the fort at Durostorum. Camps that rapidly became traps of starvation and death. Ataulf and Alaric had learned how to survive there, both ravaged by grief and hunger.
The cacophony grew again as the men jostled and shoved for a better look at the board.
“I have to talk to you.” Ataulf let his gaze slide to the stairs where the copper-haired Roman princess had recently departed. “About your wife .”
As he said it, Ataulf slipped into the language they’d both grown up with—an ancient tongue with no name, a dense thicket of inflections no one else in this room would understand. It was possible there was no one else alive who spoke the language of the pine-tree island.
Alaric’s grin broadened as he switched easily to the same language. “Ah, I see. You’ve come to congratulate me.”
“That isn’t it and you know it, you smug bastard.” Ataulf finished laying the stones. “I suppose you’re going to take loser’s privilege from the last time we played.”
“No. By all means.” Alaric made a magnanimous gesture to the board, smiling as if he hadn’t dropped the mother of all problems in Ataulf’s lap. “I’m not the one who will need it.”
* * *
Durostorum rules made latrones a fast-paced game. Cutthroat. Most versions of latrones sprang from the formal rules of aristocratic Roman villas; this version had arisen among people who knew their days were numbered.
In the camps, there wasn’t time for lengthy strategy. Ataulf and Alaric had played this game there, cheating ferociously, winning scraps from those guards who liked to gamble. Just enough to keep them both alive.
“I’m not surprised that you took her to bed,” Ataulf said as they fell into a lightning dance of thrust and parry. “I’m not questioning your right to that. But we both know how this goes. You fuck her senseless. Make her fall in love with you, if that amuses you. Then you send her back to the Romans for a mountain of gold. You don’t—”
“It is already done.” The words were flat and cold and final.
So he doesn’t want to be questioned , Ataulf thought to himself. That’s too bad. “You’re fooling yourself if you think you can keep her. Be realistic. One day we’ll need that gold. Or an exchange of hostages. Or what we’ve been fighting for all along.” He spotted an opening and launched his first serious attack. “Would you turn down a homeland for her?”
“I will not need to turn down a homeland for her, Ataulf.”
Alaric brushed his attempt aside. His answering move—from the diagonal—drew blood. Three pieces, and suddenly it was all Ataulf could do to hold his line. The men cheered for Alaric, who took their admiration with his usual generosity.
The game continued, and it was clear Alaric wasn’t giving it his full attention. The men were rowdy, boasting and jesting, and Alaric joined in, his gaze barely flicking across the board as he countered. That was to be expected. Alaric in a crowd belonged to everyone.
But Ataulf couldn’t help noticing how often he glanced toward the stairs, where the bright-haired princess had departed. As if half hoping she’d descend again.
Ataulf felt himself go furiously tense, thinking of what she’d said about Bromios. And how free is he, exactly, if he is not free to choose where he sleeps?
The insult . As if a Roman woman had anything to teach him about coercion or slavery or choosing where one sleeps . As if she hadn’t kept slaves of her own, as if she wasn’t currently bewitching his brother-in-law for her own purposes.
Besides, Bromios had chosen him of his own will. Hadn’t he?
He could never be quite sure of anything with Bromios. The other man guarded his heart and his speech carefully, and Ataulf hadn’t minded at first; this was never meant to be more than a dalliance. Something to fill the long nights between Ravenna and Noricum.
But now he glanced across the room to see Bromios bend his head to jest and laugh with Riga and Thorismund, and angry jealousy flared in his chest. What if he chose one of them next?
He knew it was ridiculous. He and Bromios did not own each other.
Still. He would tell him to stay away from Julia. He hadn’t liked how the two had been thick as thieves all night. Hadn’t liked how friendly the twins were with her either. Even Thorismund! That was witchcraft.
He turned back to Alaric, putting a check on his fury. “What did she tell you, to make you agree to this lunacy? I hear you almost lost the hill tribes over her.”
“I strengthened my hold on the hill tribes because of her.” He looked positively smug about it too. “Was there anything else?”
“What you faced in the hills will be as nothing compared with what’s ahead of you at Noricum. The chieftains were half in rebellion when you left. Have you given thought to what they’ll do when you insist they be ruled over by a Roman queen? They may not even open the gates.” Ataulf straightened. Suddenly he had it—the solution to both of their problems. “You’re lucky you have me,” he informed his brother-in-law. “I’m going to get you in that gate and have all the chieftains prostrating themselves at your feet.”
“Oh?” The lightning-fast click-click of the stones continued. “And how is that?”
Ataulf’s grin broadened. “A triumph.”
That got his attention. Alaric loved a spectacle. “Go on.”
“How many times have the Romans thrown these to celebrate grinding our people into the dirt? It’s our turn,” Ataulf said. “A proper triumph. First will come the carts of gold you extorted from Stilicho, overflowing their coffers and leaving glittering trails in the streets.”
“I didn’t extort gold from Stilicho.”
“No matter. We’ll plunder it from somewhere and spread rumors that you did.” He warmed to his topic. “And then the gems will come. Everything the princess wore when she came to you, carried on silver platters by a troupe of beautiful youths, or something.” He waved a hand. “And then, we’ll send her .”
Alaric’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
Ataulf paused. He would have to tread carefully here.
“We won’t actually hurt her,” he added hastily. “No need to flog her through the streets. It will be very humane. We’ll just put her in chains and make her walk behind your horse.” He smiled. “You’ll be the great warlord who answered Stilicho’s parlay and came back with a valuable war prisoner and a royal cache of jewels. The people will be eating out of your hand again, and the chieftains will have to welcome you with open arms. Your kingship will be secure.” It was as easy as that. He’d solved all of it, because between the two of them, he’d always been the one with the brains.
Alaric’s impassive expression didn’t change. But Ataulf saw the lethal glint in his eyes just before he spoke.
“No.”
Just one word. Soft and chilling; and for the first time, Ataulf felt a prickle of fear up his spine. Even he would be foolish to provoke him now.
Which was why he leaned forward, looked Alaric in the eye, and said, “Don’t be a fool .”
A sudden hush fell over the room. The men could not understand the language they spoke, but they knew a building argument when they saw one, and they were men of violence too. The very air in the room seemed to hinge on Alaric’s mood.
There was none who could do this but him. “You know I’m right,” Ataulf pressed into the silence. “You cannot simply ride up to the gates of Noricum with that woman at your side, in a place of honor, and expect to be let in. They’ll skin us all alive.”
“They’ll let us in, Ataulf.” Alaric spoke with quiet certainty. “We’ll all keep our skins. Julia will ride at my side, and the people will call her queen.”
“Oh, for certain they will. And I suppose they’ll call me a leek .” Ataulf repressed the urge to roll his eyes heavenward. “Look. There isn’t a man in this room who wouldn’t follow you into the mouth of hell if you asked it. And I’m no different. But I need to know your plan .”
For a moment Alaric only regarded him from beneath hooded lids. To the men, he must’ve looked bored. I knew it , Ataulf thought angrily. I knew there’s no plan. There’s just Alaric thinking with his cock, and—
“Do you truly not see it, Ataulf?” Alaric said then, softly. “Julia is Theodosius’s daughter. If I kill her useless brother, I’ll have a legitimate claim to the Empire itself. And if she carries my son, no force on earth can stop us.”
“Is that your plan?” This was worse than he could have imagined. “You cannot believe the Senate will honor that claim. Assuming they’d overlook your many and varied insults to the Empire—which they won’t —you’ll never inherit the throne from a woman. The rules don’t—”
“Fuck the rules. If I played by their rules, I’d still be in chains. And so would you, and every man in this room.” A slow, bloodthirsty grin spread across his face. “I’m going to obliterate the rules. And the chieftains won’t just thank me for it. They’ll worship me.”
He said it in Gothic. The silence broke among the men; their approving laughter rang in the hall. Ataulf shook his head grimly. Their plan had always been to bleed concessions from the Empire, never to replace it entirely. He had sworn to follow his chieftain even unto death—but he hadn’t envisioned it would be so soon.
“Fine words,” he said quietly. “One day they won’t stop what happens to you.”
Alaric smiled. Suddenly the fierce god of war was gone, and he was only Ataulf’s charismatic brother-in-law, lounging lazily in his chair. “Maybe so. But that day will not come outside the gates of Noricum.” He nodded at the board. “Shall we continue, or will you concede?”
Ataulf glanced at the pieces and cursed. His position had been entirely surrounded, a dagger at his throat.
He’d lost.