him.
He had been a child when, twenty-one years ago, his people, along with the Suevi, Alans, and Burgundians, had crossed the frozen Rhenus and swept into Gaul.2 Together with the Suevi, the Vandals had pushed on into Hispania, and, after defeating a Roman army sent to suppress them, had settled in the south of the peninsula, subsisting largely on plunder and piracy. Surrounded by a hostile population, and living with the constant threat of renewed punitive expeditions, the tribe’s position was, to say the least, precarious.
As the horn-blast echoed round the crags, the waiting Vandals emerged from hiding and surged down the slopes to converge on the doomed village. Barring a trio of women at the well, and a boy driving some cows to pasture, no one was astir. As ordered to, the warriors fanned out into the houses, forcing outside the sleepy and terrified inhabitants; some, not having had time to fling on any clothes, tried to cover their nakedness with their hands. Totalling some three hundred, they were herded into the square, where their olive colouring contrasted with the fair skins and blue eyes of their captors. Apart from the crying of some babes-in-arms, there was silence; the silence of fear and foreboding.
The silence stretched out as the shadow of the church began to ebb back across the square, while a detail proceeded to ransack the buildings. The looters re-entered the square and cast their findings on to a blanket spread before Gaiseric: a pitiful hoard consisting of a few rings, coins, cloak-pins, brooches, and kitchen utensils. Most articles were of bronze or iron; only a few jewellery items were of gold or silver. A Vandal emerged from the church carrying a missorium and chalice, which flashed in the morning rays. ‘Silver,’ he announced proudly, adding them to the pile.
‘Poor man’s silver,’ growled Gaiseric, his eyes glinting with fury and disappointment. ‘It’s pewter, you fool.’
He glared balefully at the assembled Hispano-Romans. ‘Which of you is the priest?’ he asked in broken Latin, speaking in a slow, measured voice which, although husky and low-pitched, carried to every corner of the square.
Silence, punctuated by muffled sobs and wailing of children.
Gaiseric nodded to two of his henchmen, who plucked a man at random from the crowd. In an almost casual movement, one of the Vandals drew a dagger across the man’s throat. He gave a choking gurgle then fell, blood sheeting from his severed gorge. A gasp of horror arose from the villagers.
‘Which of you is the priest?’ repeated Gaiseric in the same slow monotone. This time, a tall, middle-aged man stepped forward from the crowd. Though visibly shaking, he made an effort to comport himself with dignity as he addressed the Vandal leader. ‘I am the priest, barbarian. I protest against your treatment of my flock, and the murder of this innocent man. I demand that-’ He was abruptly silenced as a spear-butt smashed against his mouth, pulping his lips.
Gaiseric issued a few curt orders; a party of his men proceeded to drive the villagers into the church, encouraging the tardy with shouts, and blows from spear-staves. Ominously, before locking the doors they conveyed combustible materials — furniture, firewood, handcarts, oil, hangings — into the building.
Gaiseric turned to the priest. ‘Where are your church’s treasures, jewelled reliquaries, silver ewers and the like? I know you Romans would rather beggar yourselves than see your altars go unadorned.’
‘We cannot afford expensive plate,’ mumbled the priest, spitting bloodied teeth from his ruined mouth. ‘We are only poor fishermen and peasants. ‘That is all of value that our church possesses.’ And he indicated the pewter vessels.
‘Then we shall be generous and return them to you. Tell me, priest, do you believe that Christ the Son is equal to God the Father?’
‘He is very God of very God, of the same substance as the Father, and equal to the Father.’
‘Deluded heretic,’ snarled Gaiseric. ‘How can a son be equal to his father? He is younger, therefore inferior.’ A fanatical Arian, he despised Nicene Catholicism almost as much as he hated Romans. ‘Drink your Saviour’s blood, them. Not in wine, but in the cup itself.’
A cauldron was produced, a fire kindled, and the missorium and chalice soon reduced to a bubbling pool of liquid. The priest’s arms were gripped, a funnel rammed between his jaws, and a stream of molten metal poured into the opening. He convulsed in silent agony; released, he writhed and flailed on the ground, then shuddered and lay still.
‘The king comes!’ called a Vandal warrior, pointing to the sea. A large galley, its sail embroidered with Gunderic’s personal symbol, a charging boar, was moving into the harbour; the vessels blocking the entrance rowed back hastily, to give clear passage.
Ignoring this, Gaiseric called for torches to be lit and thrown inside the church. The men were about to comply when Gunderic, a commanding figure with yellow hair swinging about his shoulders, strode into the square followed by his retinue.
‘Hold!’ he roared. ‘Have I not said, brother, we must befriend the Romans, not give them cause to hate us? If we intend to live among them, we should remember that.’
‘Better they should fear us — brother,’ replied Gaiseric with studied insolence. Taking a flaming brand from one of his men, he tossed it through an unshuttered window high up in the wall. Within seconds, smoke began to gush out; mingled with screams, loud crackling issued from the building. The screaming rose in intensity as flames leapt from the roof and shot from the windows.
Gunderic’s face whitened with anger. ‘I came to tell you, brother,’ he said, raising his voice above the roar of the flames, ‘that the Romans have appealed to us for help. The Count of Africa has sent an envoy. He asks that we join forces with him to resist the Emperor.’
In Gaiseric’s cunning mind, a train of thought began to run. Africa. Here might lie the fulfilment of his own and his people’s destiny.
In the Vandal camp that night, he approached an ancient crone, skilled in the preparation of salves. And poisons.
1 Cartagena
2 On 31 December 406.
EIGHT
Could any other name but that of barbarian, which signifies savagery, cruelty and terror, fit them [the Vandals] so well?
‘It grows dark, old friend, yet surely at latest it can only be the eighth hour.’ Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, scourge of heretics, the foremost intellect and most influential churchman of the West, raised his wasted head from the pillow of his sick-bed, and gazed at the Count of Africa with a puzzled smile.
Looking through the window of the upper room, Boniface pretended to scan the sky: it was a brilliant blue without a speck of cloud. Beyond the walls of Hippo Regius (so named because it had once been the capital of Numidian kinglets), he could see the Vandals sweltering in the August heat to build yet another of their versions of a siege tower. Like all its predecessors, it was a hopeless construction, destined to fall apart under a few well- aimed shots from one of the
‘It’s the sand-wind, Aurelius,’ replied Boniface; the hot south wind could at times obscure the sun with whirling veils of sand. Dread clutched at his heart. It had come, then. Death was stalking the room, about to take from him his dearest friend and only source of comfort in this dreadful time. He thought, with guilt and horror, of the consequences of his appeal for help to Gunderic, King of the Vandals.
In the midst of preparations to mobilize assistance, Gunderic had died suddenly, of a mysterious sickness. His half-brother Gaiseric had assumed the kingship and, with a fleet of captured Roman vessels and ships eagerly
