April 487
Ten years after Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, refugees expelled from Vienne by the Aubroges were settled in a new Roman town at the confluence of the Rhodanus and the Arar. With its tall dominating hill, named after the old forum, or Forum Vetus that stood on it, Lugdunum became a well-defended heart of Roman power in the region. By virtue of its strategic position, the patronage of Emperors, imperial philanthropy such as amphitheatres and vital bridges, the city eventually grew to burgeoning Roman settlement of thousands. In time, it became a provincial capital, the center of a great pottery industry, and an influential city in imperial politics. Such ambitions began to fade after Severus’ bloody battles with Albinus at the close of the second century. The rising power of the East versus West and a myriad of invasions and civil strife saw the decline of Lugundum’s power. The division of Gaul into smaller and smaller provinces by Diocletian and other emperors meant that its preeminence over other Gallic cities was at an end. By the late 5th century, invading barbarians, most notably the Burgundians, had swept down the valley of the Rhodanus, expelled the defenseless Roman authority, and had appropriated Lugdunum as their capital. The governing consularis was expelled, and a harder barbarian rule was installed in its place.
What remained was a Roman populace inundated by new settlers, warriors mostly and their families, who encountered the very foreign situation of living in and governing a city. New settlers began to reside directly along the riverbanks, leaving the original city, on the Forum Vetus, to diminish. With its walls and grand buildings, however, Burgundian rulers maintained their residence literally above their subjects. It was a difficult proposition to weld two societies together for common benefit, and warrior kings found it trying to learn economics and civil administration to complement their mastery of warfare. Loathed though the Roman aristocracy may have been, they were invaluable in keeping the city running. Once despised and persecuted, Burgundian rulers now found it necessary to protect them. King Gundobad found this to be vital, and he was one of the first barbarian rulers to draft legal codes that differentiated between Burgundian and Roman, and afforded protections to both. It was a divided society, assimilating at an agonizingly and painfully disruptive pace.
They bent over their makeshift fire, a privilege granted only after a long and halting conversation with their guards who, even after they understood their intent, were reluctant to allow their prisoners access to an open flame. After a time, their badgering paid off and with a gruff wave of their hands, their keepers relented, leaving them only a minimum of material to build their fire. A small pot made out of copper was all they could muster to make their mid-afternoon meal, which Arenius grandly titled ‘boiled water with dirt’. Though they ate less food than their captors, they ate the same variety, which called into question how these people could maintain themselves on such decrepit fare.
Gundomar’s army had carved a small camp on the south bank of the Arar, directly across from the old Roman town and above a small settlement that was growing along the south bank. Remus, who had never been to Lugdunum in his lifetime, could only marvel at why a people would ignore such a defensible position above for vulnerable points down by the rivers. Was it a need to be closer to a source of water, a superstitious fear of distrust of stone and marble towns? Or perhaps it was more efficient, for easy access to trade and the old Roman roadways? Having encountered a world beyond them, these people simply made the worst use the tools they had come across. These were still warriors, he decided, and not rulers.
”Has Gundomar returned?” he asked idly as he stirred the thin gruel. Hearing their prince’s name, a couple of the guards glanced warily at them, but turned back. This must be an important journey, Remus noticed, as a full eight warriors had the responsibility of keeping their Roman guests contained and miserable. Some watched them, while others watched the camp.
”I spotted him crossing the river this morning. He only took ten or so guards with him, not much of an escort if one feared ambush. Likely he’s talking with his royal father now, the grand paterfamilias screaming at him if I was to hazard a guess.” Gillenus grunted and dipped a spoon into the pot, wincing at his brief taste. Remus decided it had little to do with the heat.
Remus swept the sky briefly and took in the terrain, which seemed perfectly placed to set up Lugdunum as a fortress city. The Burgundians had chosen their capital well, even if they made poor use of it. He felt the wind on his neck, noting the more moderate temperature. He glanced at Arenius.
”It’s spring now. You think the Franks are marching?”
Arenius didn’t look at him, though his expression sobered.
”If King Clovis was smart, and I believe he is, he’ll be on the move. Between Alaric and he, Syagrius is an anvil. A weak, vulnerable anvil.”
Gillenus sighed, even as he sat down with a veneer of calm.
”We simply have to escape. Successfully, this time. Yes, general?”
”Vero,” Remus sighed and turned to sit as well. As he did so, he couldn’t help catch a glimpse of blue out of the corner of his eyes. Bending on one knee, he turned and saw what could only be a marvel. A man, tall and erect, with a bearing that instantly marked him as a Roman aristocrat, was strolling right down the muddy causeway of the Burgundian camp, his eyes ignoring those around him, making purposefully for where Remus, Gillenus, and Arenius sat. His dark hair had long since faded to a distinguished grey, and his pale skin look soft and refined, with an aquiline nose Remus hadn’t seen since Rome. To his shock, no one accosted the intruder, though more than a few pairs of eyes looked him over. None of the guards brandished a weapon or even flinched. What sort of camp was this that allowed just anyone to brazenly walk through its defenses?
Cautiously, the trio stood and waited for their visitor to approach. Though their clothing was far shabbier than the approaching man, they naturally assumed a matching posture, with a certain raising of the shoulders, the positioning of one’s feet, the inquisitive raising of one’s eyebrows, gestures not yet lost in the chaotic world around them.
Holding up a palm, the man stopped and bowed his head. Remus and his men did likewise. They could have been meeting one another at the baths in Rome. But they were not, and the absurdity of the situation was not lost on them.
The visitor smiled and looked around them with a wave of his hand.
”Warriors they may be, yet they still have a certain wariness of our culture. They can best our legions in the field, yet let a Roman walk upright, dressed in our fineries, bathed, with an assurance they will never emulate, and they will let him pass. In their hearts, they still deem us betters. Remarkable, is it not?”
Remus was silent.
”Ah, my manners. Yet another quality we possess over our fellows here.” He nodded to one of the guards, who started indifferently at him. The man was right. Their guards were perfectly willing to let Romans talk amongst themselves.
”I am Marcus Celeris, late of Vienne, newly residing here in Lugdunum.”
”And I am----“, Remus began.
”Remus Macrinus, magister militum. It is something of a wonder that Romulus’ leading general is here in Gaul, a prisoner of the Burgundians?”
Having become used to people knowing his name, Remus merely fell silent, not affecting the look of surprise as he might have in the past.
”Well, magister. When I heard Prince Gundomar had brought his small army to visit his father’s capital, I knew you would not be left behind. Oh, don’t look so surprised. Everyone knows the Prince has a Roman prisoner, and among my circle, we know perfectly well who it is.” Celeris looked around the camp again, with a sniff of his nose.
”So naturally I strolled up to the Prince’s camp to take a look for myself. These guards can’t fathom that a man would dare walk unarmed into their camp. Any such man must surely have authority.”
His voice dropped to almost a whisper.
”There was a time when I truly would have walked unarmed, but times do change.” He pulled the lower part of his light blue
tunica aside, revealing an unmistakable sheath on his leg.
”Even the aristocracy has had to make accommodations to the new reality.”
Having absorbed all this, Remus nodded, and invited the man to sit around the fire. Observing the hardening mud, Celeris wrinkled his nose and, looking around, grabbed a small hide of leather that sat nearby and dragged into position near the fire, sitting with as much grace as he could muster. Again, the guards did not object.
”Now that your curiosity is satisfied, I trust you have a pragmatic reason for being here,” Remus mentioned as he offered a spoon to Celeris. For his part, the aristocrat declined, his manner almost making them believe it had to do with his own contentment than the food itself.
”Naturally, though does any man in my position need a reason to observe? Or to view what foods you cook here, dear magister? My old master, Sidonius, used to say that there is nothing like thin living to give tone to a system disordered by excess. It is fitting that you give truth to this.”
For a time, they sat in quiet, accepting one another’s company with any lack of rancor of tension, Remus feeling a certain reassurance at this Roman intrusion into his barbarian captivity.
Celeris was staring down to the river, his eyes appearing more pensive than the rest of him. He turned back and smiled.
”And so, magister. Your presence here in Gaul can only be military. Surely Romulus needs you more in Italia, however? I hear Odoacer remains defiant and King Gunthamund besieges Agrigentum even as we speak. Well, if one can trust the gossip of sailors.”
Remus eyes flickered upward as he digest Celeris’ words. Agrigentum, a small town in southern Sicily, was surely outside Romulus’ domain. Which meant that either the young imperator was pushing into Sicily or else the Vandals were absorbing the vestiges of Odoacer’s rule in that region. Either way, it boded ill for the Empire. No commander wished to face two fronts in war.
He gazed back at his visitor, who was again looked down to the river. Remus followed his eyes, observing the slow languidly crossing of a pair of distant wagons, a supply train perhaps. The city gates were opened and a pair of riders had crossed beyond the walls, taking the long mountain trail up the Forum Vetus. Riders were also galloping down the roadway.
”Any news of Syagrius, domine?” Arenius, seeing Remus keeping his own counsel, had leaned forward to continue the conversation.
Celeris turned back, his eyes sparkling some.
”Ahhh, I had thought your manner distinct. Gallics, then.” He nodded with a touch of self-satisfaction.
”Very little, I am afraid. If anything had happened, I am sure word would have reached us here soon.” It was an answer that did little to satisfy Arenius, who slumped back.
Again, Celeris looked back at Lugdunum. Remus gazed at Gillenus a moment, to see if he was observing the same.
He was about to bring his guest back to their conversation, when a distant shout echoed up the hillside. Remus ignored it at first, but then it rang out again. Now it continued as an echo, a pulse, someone repeating a short burst of sound. Celeris stood and looked after the shouts, which were coming from precisely where he had been looking the whole time. Almost as if…Remus smiled to himself.
The sound was closer now and Remus realized it was a single word, shouted over and over. Around them, the normal business of camp faded and men stood to regard the distant approach of dust. It surely was one of the riders Remus had observed coming down the Forum Vetus. He couldn’t distinguish the pronunciation. It was a Burgundian word, harsh and sharp as it echoed across the camp. Then slowly, like a rolling wave, others in the camp picked up the sound. It reverberated around the tents, less of a shout and more of a wail, a collective groan as warriors added their voice to the echo. Men dropped what they were doing, put down food, set down all they were carrying, and turned their eyes down the hillside.
Remus turned to Celeris, who was now watching him with twinkling eyes.
”Lost,” he said with precision.
”It means lost.”
He stepped closer to Remus and together they observed the rider, who had dismounted in the center of camp, warriors gradually walking closer, their manner shiftless.
Remus suddenly cast back to years back, to Pryopius’ camp on the Via Cassia. He recalled the lone rider sweeping into camp, the shiftless soldiers watching him.
”Imperator mortuus est,” he mouthed, not realizing he was doing so out loud.
”Not precisely,” Celeris said next to him.
”The King lives. It is his son who has died. The King has struck down Gundomar.”
They looked at each with regard, both wrestling with what it meant.
”Then we…” Remus began, faltering.
”You will be in the King’s hands by nightfall if you remain. Fortunately,” he said with more calm than Remus felt,
”these warriors are in no state to object when four unarmed Romans walk boldly out of camp.”
Remus, staring at the idle guards walking towards the center of camp, all of them with their backs to them, and quietly agreed.