Justinian

villagers of raids by Sarmatian brigands. Untying the laces securing the cheek-pieces of his helmet beneath his chin, Crispus removed the headpiece and tied it to his belt. ‘That feels better,’ he sighed, as his sweat-soaked scalp began to cool — ‘a whole lot better.’

‘Put it on, you idiot,’ cautioned the man next to him. ‘We’re supposed to be in a combat zone, remember? The biarchus’ll have your guts for garters if he finds out.’

‘And how’ll he do that?’ sneered the other. ‘You gonna report me? Oh Christ!’ he exclaimed suddenly, as his helmet — carelessly secured, detached itself from his belt and tumbled free. Dropping his spear, Crispus made a frantic grab for the helmet as it rolled to the side of the road. Too late; it toppled over the edge and bounced a hundred feet, before coming to rest in the branches of a shrub sprouting from a crevice in the near-vertical slope.

Delighted by the unscheduled break, the column halted, while the biarchus or corporal strode up the line from the rear to find out what was causing the hiatus.

‘Well, well — Pedes Crispus; who’d have thought it?’ murmured the biarchus silkily, shaking his head in mock surprise. He peered over the edge. ‘Oh dear — lost your helmet, I see. Well now, Pedes,’ he continued, looking round at the ring of grinning faces which had formed at the scene, ‘we’d all be interested to learn what you propose to do about it. Suggestions?’

‘Well, we could form a human chain I suppose, Biarchus,’ mumbled Crispus.

‘A human chain,’ repeated the biarchus, nodding sagaciously. ‘Congratulations, Pedes. But if you think,’ he added, his voice changing to a sarcastic snarl, ‘that I’d risk the necks of any of your mates to save your worthless skin, you must be even stupider than I thought. If you get your brains knocked out by a Sarmatian sling-shot because you’ve got no helmet, it’ll serve you damn well right.’ He thrust his face to within an inch of the other’s. ‘You horrible little man!’ he shouted. ‘What are you?’

‘A horrible little man, Biarchus,’ growled Crispus, fully aware that any other response would land him in even greater trouble than he was in already. This would almost certainly include being on a charge for disobeying the order to wear helmets.

‘Listen up, Pedes; here’s what we do. Once back at base, you will put in a requisition for two helmets, chargeable against your pay.’

‘But — that’s not fair, Biarchus! I only lost one.’

‘So you did, soldier. So you did,’ purred the other. He went on, with irrefutable military logic, ‘You draw a helmet from the stores to replace the one you lost, see. Then you pay for another to replace the one from the stores. Got it?’ He turned to the others. ‘Right lads, show’s over. Let’s be having you. Into line. Forward, march!’

One summer Sunday, when Uprauda was approaching his fourteenth birthday, two of his companions — named Atawulf and Wamba — sought him out; both were bursting with excitement, clearly over some news or secret they couldn’t wait to divulge. (Despite never putting himself forward, Uprauda’s imposing physique and something about his air of calm self-possession, had led him to be chosen as their leader by boys his own age in Tauresium. Though invariably the planner and organizer of youthful escapades, strangely, Uprauda was never the one to be caught or to incur the blame whenever such activities miscarried.)

‘Hey Raudie, you won’t believe what we’ve found!’ exclaimed Atawulf, the bigger of the tow-headed pair. ‘It’s a helmet — a real soldier’s helmet. Only trouble is, it’s stuck halfway up a cliff.’

Uprauda smiled. ‘Lead on, then,’ he invited, sparing the two from having to plead with him to accompany them.

It being a Sunday, when only essential tasks such as milking (which anyway was girls’ and women’s work) were carried out, the boys were free until supper-time. Keeping a lookout for wild animals, and also Sarmatian bandits, bands of whom had recently been sighted in the vicinity, the trio set out along woodland trails. There was in fact little risk. Hunted for centuries by gangs of professional venatores to supply the Roman Games, large animals such as bear, lynx, elk, and bison had been driven to the verge of extinction, and had only recently begun to make a comeback following the collapse of the Western Empire twenty years before. As for Sarmatians, they were after cattle, goods, and specie, not half-grown youngsters. And even if they were attacked, like all Dardanian boys who had grown up minding livestock, the three were expert slingers, able to give a good account of themselves. A blow on the snout from a round river-pebble delivered with terrific force was usually enough to deter even the most aggressive assailant.

The boys pushed on through dense stands of spruce, oak, and beech, some of the trees rising to a prodigious height. After a mile or so, they emerged onto a flower-stippled meadow fringing a wide but shallow stream. Beyond the far bank towered a cliff of whitish rock, mottled with dark green where vegetation had taken root in cracks and ledges.

‘There she is, Raudie,’ proudly announced Atawulf, pointing to a winking point of light high up on the cliff- face.

After wading through the stream, they approached the base of the cliff from where they were afforded a clearer view of the object in question, which was wedged in the upper branches of a bush. Surmounted by a scarlet horsehair crest, and complete with brow reinforcement, cheek-pieces, and neck-guard, the helmet — fashioned of bronze — glittered like gold in the strong noonday sunshine. (Presumably it had been dropped by a careless soldier from the roadway far above, Uprauda thought.) A rare prize indeed, one that would make them the envy of all the other boys in Tauresium — if it could be recovered. And that would not be easy, realized Uprauda, staring at that beetling precipice, the ascent of which must surely call for nerves of steel and practised skill.

‘Let me try, Raudie,’ entreated Atawulf. ‘I’m a good climber.’

Uprauda hesitated. Atawulf indeed had an unrivalled reputation for scaling heights. Scarcely a tree of any size around Tauresium had not been climbed by ‘Spiderboy’, as had (inevitably) the baptistery of the local church, and the ramparts of a nearby abandoned Roman fortress. Nevertheless, any attempt to scale the cliff could prove suicidally risky, Uprauda felt: definitely not something he himself would care to try.

But still. . In his imagination, Uprauda saw himself (along with Atawulf and Wamba) returning to the village in triumph with the trophy, the focus of excited admiration on the part of his peers. To be the owner of such a glorious find (for his two fellow adventurers would, he knew, insist on presenting the helmet to him) would confer enormous status. Such a helmet Perseus might have worn when he slew the Gorgon, he fantasized, or Alexander when he set out to conquer Asia. (From his earliest years, an ancient local of Hellenic descent had told him stirring tales from Greek and Roman legend and history: of Jason and the Argonauts, the ten-year war of Troy, Horatius who held the bridge against an army, Leonidas and his valiant Three Hundred, of Alexander, of Caesar and of Spartacus’ doomed heroic struggle against the might of Rome. Such stories had aroused in him a vague but powerful longing to achieve great things, beyond the stifling restrictions of a backwoods village life.)

‘All right, Wulfie,’ he heard himself say, ‘give it a go. But come back down if it gets too dangerous.’

‘Thanks, Raudie — I’ll get that helmet; you’ll see.’ Atawulf cast Uprauda a grateful look. Far more important than retrieving the thing itself was the fact that in doing so he would earn Raudie’s approval. He scanned the cliff, looking for possible routes to his objective. What at first glance seemed a sheer rock face, so smooth as to be unclimbable, on closer inspection revealed that it was textured by tiny cracks and wrinkles — just sufficient to afford purchase. Higher up, a long fissure or ‘chimney’ led up to a pitch not far below the ledge where grew the bush in which the helmet was lodged. ‘Es geht,’ he told himself — it could be done.

Combining caution with speed, for he dared not trust any of those minute finger- and toe-holds to support his weight for long, Atawulf began to climb. Establishing a rhythm, he moved upwards steadily and with increasing confidence, seeming almost to flow over the rock as he ascended, displaying all the grace and assurance of the born climber. Arriving at the base of the chimney, he wedged himself in and proceeded to push himself up by alternating thrusts of back and feet against the opposite walls.

All went well until, to his dismay, he encountered an obstacle which he had failed to notice when surveying the route from below. The upper part of the chimney was blocked by a chockstone! Peering upwards, he could see light between the chockstone and the back of the chimney. He tried to squeeze through the gap, but was forced to give up after the third attempt; it was just too narrow. Which left him with but one alternative: he would have to climb up and over the outside of the chockstone — a difficult and probably dangerous challenge. For the huge boulder projected proud of the cliff face, its bulging contours presenting Atawulf with the problem of having to surmount an overhang. Would the chockstone’s upper surface, which the bulge prevented him from seeing, provide