TWENTY-ONE
Men live there under the natural law; capital sentences are marked on a man’s bones; there even rustics perorate and private individuals pronounce judgment
In that vast and dreary landscape, the three men looked like crawling dots, the only moving things in an expanse of soggy bottom land, intersected by sluggish tributaries of the lower Sequana.1 They had met by chance south of Samarobriva2 three days previously, and, discovering that they had all forsworn Rome and had a common destination, had decided to travel together for mutual security.
The eldest, a spare man in his fifties whose careworn features bore the stamp of authority, had quickly emerged as their leader. His once fine but now travel-stained dalmatic hinted at curial status. He it was who, when the party discovered it was being followed by hunting dogs — lean shaggy brutes of British ancestry — had cajoled and bullied his companions into outrunning pursuit through unimaginable thresholds of pain and exhaustion, until they could throw off the scent by crossing running water.
The youngest was a rangy lad of eighteen, whose chapped hands and incipient stoop denoted a farm labourer. A pus-stained bandage concealed the wound where his right thumb had been. His gentle face had the stricken expression of a dog whose master has unexpectedly kicked it.
The third man, who could have been any age between thirty and fifty, had eyes bleared from much close stitching, and a palm calloused from the pressure of a cobbler’s awl. He had the slack, desperate expression of one whom circumstances had conspired to break.
For days, the trio struggled westwards through the wetlands, where possible following broken causeways, more often splashing knee- or waist-deep through morasses. As recently as the reign of Gratian, this land had been fertile and well-drained. Now, thanks to depopulation resulting from the combined effects of a crushing land tax and growing insecurity, it was fast reverting to its pristine state — to swell the Register of Deserted Lands in the archives of Ravenna. But at last the ground began to rise, allowing swifter progress, and, ten days after they had met, when they were down to their last scraps of stale bread and rancid pork, they crossed a height of land to find the streams now flowing westwards and to see, in the far blue distance, their goal: the granite hills of Aremorica.
Looking around, Marcellus, the eldest of the trio, saw that the glade in which they had been resting was now fringed by men: nut-brown stalwarts, dressed in an assortment of skins, patched homespun, and the tattered remnants of army uniform or civilian Roman dress. A tall man, whose silver neck-torque and air of command suggested he was the leader, stepped from the ring and addressed the fugitives. ‘Welcome to Aremorica. You travel light, I see; business or pleasure?’
An educated voice, Marcellus noted. ‘We flee the tyranny of Rome,’ he replied, holding the other’s gaze. ‘We were hoping to start a new life among the Bagaudae who, we’ve heard, respect freedom and justice — unlike the Roman government.’
‘Freedom and justice,’ repeated the tall man wryly. ‘Noble concepts, but perhaps expensive luxuries when times are hard. Still, we do our best. Our motto is:
“If each gives what he is able,
Then all can share a common table.”
It seems to work.’ He grinned, and added disarmingly, ‘Well, most of the time it does.’
‘So you are Bagaudae?’
‘Bandits? That’s what the Romans call us. We prefer the name “Free Aremoricans”. Once, we were Roman citizens like you. But, also like you, finding Roman rule oppressive and unjust, we removed ourselves from it and set up our own republic, here in the far north-west.’ He surveyed the group appraisingly. ‘You’ll understand that before we can accept you you’ll have to prove you can make a useful contribution to our society. We can’t afford to carry passengers. First, however, we’ll give you a good meal, which you certainly look as though you could do with.’
For some hours, Marcellus and his companions were escorted along woodland paths. Several times they saw by the side of the track a grim signpost: a stout pole bearing a wooden placard and surmounted by a skull. On asking what they signified, Marcellus was told, ‘They’re the heads of our executed criminals, with a notice of their sentence.’
Eventually, they arrived in a large clearing containing a dozen long huts, of rough but workmanlike construction. Around them, noisy children played and women cooked. Carrying farming implements, men were filing into the clearing — from nearby fields or plots, Marcellus assumed.
‘The capital of my own little fief,’ declared the Bagaudae leader. ‘We Free Aremoricans are a very loose society, with lots of little communities like this one, each with its own headman and elders. There’s an overall Grand Council, and a President — one Tibatto. Also a code of laws that all must subscribe to.’
‘And if the laws are broken?’
‘Small matters are settled at community level. Major transgressions are dealt with by courts appointed by the Council. Now, my nose tells me supper’s almost ready. Come and eat.’
After a welcome and plentiful meal of game pottage, washed down with tart beer, the newcomers were summoned to a meeting of the elders in the largest hut. Here, they were requested to give an account of themselves, in turn. ‘My name is Marcellus Publius Bassus,’ began the eldest, ‘decurion of the imperial city of Augusta Treverorum, in the province of First Belgica.’
It was the time of the Indiction again, the first of September, the beginning of the fiscal year when the annual budget had to be made up and balanced, from the collection of taxes.
In his office in Augusta’s vast brick basilica, built a hundred years before by Constantine, Marcellus — one of the councillors responsible for collecting the revenues within the city’s fiscal catchment area — groaned aloud. Once, he reflected sadly, men of good family had competed eagerly for the honour of serving the community. But that was back in his great-grandfather’s time, before Diocletian had ushered in an era of grim austerity and crushing taxes, to save a sinking empire. Now decurions were mere agents of an oppressive government, required to carry out its more unpopular policies — squeezing money taxes and levies in kind from their fellow citizens, helping to manage imperial mines and estates, and drumming up recruits for the army. Most of the money went to pay for the army, which, ironically, seemed less and less able to protect citizens from barbarian incursions.
Every year the task became harder and more repugnant. But there was no way out, Marcellus thought grimly. Men like himself, owners of twenty-five Roman acres, were compelled to serve as decurions. But not the very rich — senators and knights — who, to add insult to injury, always found ways of evading or postponing paying tax, which left those least able to pay, the poor, to shoulder the bulk of the burden.
This year, the collection of the revenue was going to prove even more difficult. The harvest looked to be the worst in a decade, and a particularly destructive raid by a Frankish war-party (the latest in a long series), had left a swathe of smoking villages and blackened fields in its wake. A compassionate man, Marcellus hated the business of extracting money from poverty-stricken peasants and artisans; for many of them, payment of the standard seven
A servitor appeared in the doorway. ‘They’re here, sir,’ he announced nervously. (Marcellus’ temper was notoriously short at Indiction time.)
‘Well, send them in then, send them in,’ Marcellus barked.
Into the office filed two groups of rough-looking men: the
‘Here’s your list.’ Marcellus handed a scroll to the
‘And here’s yours.’ Marcellus glared at the leader of the second gang, a brutal-looking thug appointed by the
