Anthony Riches - Altar of Blood

December AD

184

‘Bructeri warriors, your king is dead!’

The gathered warriors of the tribe, five hundred of the bravest and best men sent from all over the tribe’s lands raised their gazes to look reverently at the bearded man lying on the funeral pyre around which they were gathered in the torch-lit darkness. As one they chanted the words expected of them in response to each pronouncement by the dead man’s brother.

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

‘He ruled over us with a fair and strong hand!’

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

‘He made us stronger, to resist our enemies!’

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

‘His life was long and fruitful, and he fathered a strong son!’

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

‘His life is ended, and he goes to greet his ancestors with pride!’

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

‘Now is the time for him to leave us!’

‘Wodanaz, take him!’

The noble took a blazing torch from a waiting priest and put it to the pyre’s wooden base with a symbolic flourish, then handed it back to allow the holy man to ensure that the fire was properly lit.

‘Now is the time to anoint his successor!’

The encircling warriors’ chanting became more urgent, the responses pitched as if demanding an answer.

‘Wodanaz, name him!’

The dead king’s brother ushered forward a younger man dressed in the ceremonial armour of a prince of the Bructeri, his body clad in enough iron to equip a dozen men of the tribe for war.

‘The king’s son Amalric is his son and successor!’

‘Wodanaz, anoint him!’

He swiftly smeared holy oil across the younger man’s forehead, tracing an ancient rune of power over the pale skin.

‘We his warriors declare him our king!’

‘Wodanaz, crown him!’

Bowing solemnly to the prince, the noble held a simple gold crown, taken from the tribe’s treasury for the occasion, over his head, then lowered it into place and stepped back.

‘Will his warriors give their loyalty?’

A sudden hush fell, and the assembled men sank as one onto their knees, the iron helmets of the new king’s household companions gleaming in the firelight.

‘Swear the oath!’

The words were shouted proudly by every man present like an unstoppable force, a profession of their willingness to serve until death, at their king’s command in all things, for his glory, for the glory of the Bructeri people and in the name of their god Wodanaz. When it was done they turned to the blazing pyre and bowed three times, each time roaring out their approval of the dead king’s life, then repeated the homage for his son, their new ruler. The dead monarch’s brother held up his hands to command their silence, and after a moment all was quiet once more.

‘I, Gernot of the Bructeri, swear to serve this new king with all of the devotion that I gave to my brother, and to share what wisdom I have with him, to guide him on the path to equalling his father’s glory and that of his father before him. I will strain every muscle in my body to help him outdo them both, and make our tribe’s name echo in the halls of our neighbours, a name to inspire respect, and where needed, fear. In the halls of all our neighbours. In the halls of the Marsi!’ The warriors cheered. ‘The Chamavi!’ They cheered again. ‘The Angrivarii!’ Again. ‘And in the halls, my brothers …’ They knew what was coming, and five hundred men drew breath to shout ‘Of the Romans !’

When the tumult had died down he signalled to the priest, who nodded in turn to his acolytes. With great ceremony a wooden frame was carried into the gathering, a frame on which was suspended a man’s naked body. Bound to the wood, his arms and legs spread wide, he was gagged to prevent any foul word sullying the ceremony, the rolling of his eyes his only means of communicating his terror at what was about to happen to him. He had been denied both food and water for three days to prevent any loss of bodily control casting a bad omen on the new king’s succession. Gernot gestured to the prisoner, calling out to his warriors once more.

‘See, I bring you a sacrifice to consecrate our new king’s reign! A Roman soldier, the symbol of our tribe’s oppression since the days of our forefathers! King Amalric, will you do us the honour as our chief priest of making the first cut?’

The younger man nodded graciously, taking the proffered knife from the priest the tribe called The Hand of Wodanaz, who would shortly be hard at work on the captive with his own tools — fierce, workmanlike knives, flenses for peeling away a man’s skin from the flesh below, and the terrible saw with which he would liberate the greatest prize of all. He held up the knife, its blade liquid orange in the pyre’s flickering light as the flames consumed his father’s body, and the encircling warriors bayed for the helpless Roman’s blood. Approaching the struggling captive, now writhing ineffectually against the ropes that held him tightly, he raised the blade theatrically before placing it against the sacrificial victim’s right index finger, taking the digit in his other hand as was the accepted practice, pulling it tight for the first cut that had to remove the finger with one cut if the omens were to be favourable.

He dragged the knife backwards, severing the finger with a single pull of its ragged edge, staring into the Roman’s eyes as they slitted with the pain, nodding slowly as the captive met his stare, then said two words in Latin that only the victim would ever hear.

‘Forgive me.’

April AD

186

‘Now then, here’s a rarity, eh lads?’

The figure who had strutted out of the night’s deeper shadows spoke with the confidence of a man who knew that he had the upper hand in whatever it was that was about to happen. Lean and hard muscled, he grinned in apparent amusement, the dagger in his right hand glinting in the glow of a crescent moon and countless stars. Insulae rose around them in rough-faced rows, lights extinguished and shutters firmly closed to keep out the sounds and smells of the Roman night, a time when robbers roamed the streets and the population’s rubbish and faeces littered the cobbles. There would be no help forthcoming for any man foolish enough to find himself alone in such a place after dark.

‘A man with money who chooses to walk through this part of the city at this time of night needs to have his wits about him, or better still a gladiator or two. He needs to have hired big men, friends, ugly men with scars and blades. Men he can depend on to scare bad people like us away, and bring him home safe.’

The robber strolled towards the lone pedestrian standing in the road before him with the easy gait of a man taking his leisure, grinning wolfishly at the tunic-clad man he and the men behind him had interrupted in his progress through the fetid streets of Rome’s Subura district, stopping a few paces from the subject of his wry monologue. More men coalesced out of the night to either side of him, stepping forward to reveal their ragged clothes and hard faces.

‘And yet here you are, unarmed and all on your own, without so much as a well-built slave to steer you clear of trouble. It’s not clever, not with you so clearly being a man with a lot to lose. Look at those shoes lads, that’s proper workmanship. Worth a gold aureus to the right man, they are. And that tunic? What sort of man walks the streets of Rome after dark on his own in a tunic with a purple stripe on it? Your purse must be weighing you down like a bull’s ball bag. And you’ll have a house somewhere a good deal nicer than this shithole, probably with a pretty little wife waiting for you to get home and see to her needs …’