The Shadow of Ararat (50 page)

"I
am
free," he said aloud, but Krista was asleep and the small black cat only yawned, showing a pink tongue and white fangs before tucking its nose under its tail and going back to sleep.

The narrow valley led up onto a barren ridge. Wind whipped across the rocky summit and the Gothic bodyguards drew their cloaks tightly around them. Maxian wheeled his horse, staring out over a vast landscape of pinnacles and rounded, rocky mountains. Clouds and fog filled the canyons between the peaks, making them helmets of unseen soldiers rising from a sea of white froth. Maxian's father ignored the cold, though it blew his fine white hair into a faint halo around his head. He pointed west, across a valley filled with smoke. Maxian turned and saw, as he had as a boy, the citadel of Montsegur, aflame.

The fortress rose, a tumble of white stone and square towers above a vast granite plug that cut into the sky. The peak it crowned was rugged and steep-sided. Only one winding trail clawed its way up the southern face, and that trail was overhung at many points by the walls high above. Montsegur rode in the sky, seemingly inviolate, but on this day it was wrapped in flame. A great tower of black smoke rose above the burning castle, and even from where he stood, a good two and a half miles away, Maxian could see the tongues of flame roaring from the windows of the towers and the central basilica.

Between the bare ridge that they stood upon and the walls of the dying fortress the air was as clear as the finest glass. Maxian could see tiny figures, each wrapped in a yellow-red corona, leaping from the walls of the citadel. Trailing smoke, they plunged down into the bosom of the clouds that swirled around the mount, vanishing like sparks into the sea. The air above the inferno shimmered with waves of heat billowing off the limestone walls.

The elder Atreus grunted as one of the towers, outthrust from the southern wall, suddenly cracked at its base and slid, with dreadful majesty, off into the abyss. For a moment, as the entire seventy-foot structure fell, it held its shape, but then it struck the side of the cliff and exploded with a booming sound that could be heard clear across the valley. Maxian flinched back from the sound, for the volume of the noise it represented staggered him. The echoes came back a minute later from the walls of the canyons.

"Come, my son, and see the work of the Emperor." The elder Atreus urged his horse forward, and they descended a trail of stones that cut down the mountainside across a long slope of broken shale and small round boulders.

Under the clouds the valley below Montsegur was a hive of activity. Thousands of men had hewn a sprawling encampment out of the poor soil and scrubby trees. Maxian followed his father through the camp and marveled at the standards he passed. Four of the Legions of the Army of the West were here, each with a camp placed equidistant around the base of the peak. A road had been built across the valley and then up the flank of the mountain. As they rode through rows of tents, gangs of workmen were raising tall posts by the side of the road, lining it on either side. Each post had a crossbar of rough-hewn pine across the top.

At the base of the peak, a raised ditch had been dug all the way around the mountain, with a parapet behind it. A palisade fence of pine logs marked the top of the earthen berm. It ran off into the rainy mist in either direction. Legionnaires manned watchtowers placed along its length. The soldiers in the towers that they rode past to reach the mountain road looked down upon them, eyes impassive in the shadows of their helmets.

As they neared the base of the mountain, now wholly hidden by the low-lying clouds, Maxian could hear a rumble of fire and cracking stone echo down from the heavens. Between the cliffs and the circumvallation was a stretch of barren soil and tufted grass. Bodies were strewn about it, some already pecked by crows. The inner face of the gate was adorned with the bodies of two men, each nailed up to the crossbars. Maxian turned his head, unable to stomach the sight of their decayed faces. The road rose up sharply on a long ramp of packed earth. The ramp cut past the first three switchbacks of the old road.

They rode up the ramp in silence. Maxian stared around in fear. The clouds were very low now, like a wavering gray roof above them. The elder Atreus rode on, though, and Maxian kicked his horse forward to follow. The passage through the clouds was strange—the mist clutched at them, leaving trails of water on their faces. Strange sounds echoed in it and Maxian's heart thudded with the sudden fear that he would never find his way out of the twilight world that he had ridden into. After a time the mist began to brighten, and they ascended the second switchback above the ramp. A moaning sound filled the air, and there was the rattle of metal.

Ahead, the elder Atreus turned aside from the road and halted on the inner edge. Maxian followed suit, as did the three Goths. Within moments figures appeared in the mist, rising like the bodies of the dead from a disturbed pool. A long line of men and women, stripped naked, their necks bound with wire collars and tied in a coffle, staggered past. Legionnaires trotted alongside in soot-stained armor, swinging spiked truncheons, urging their charges forward with the crunch of a club or a kick if they faltered. The feet of the captives were bloody and the roadway was puddled with crimson when they had passed.

Maxian stared after them as they disappeared into the mist. "Father, won't they ruin the value with such treatment?"

The elder Atreus laughed and looked over his shoulder. "They have no value, boy, they are heading straight for the crucifix. Within the day they will all be dead, ornamenting the road from here to Narbo. More will come too, so close your heart to them."

"Father, who are these people? Are they rebels? Barbarians?"

The governor snorted, then clucked at his horse and cantered up the road. Maxian, his face red with embarrassment, followed after.

The road became a track and Maxian and his father were forced to halt six more times before they reached the end of it. Long gangs of captives passed them, bloody, burned, their eyes vacant and desolate. Many showed grievous wounds and the bite of the lash and the truncheon. Maxian quailed away from the dead eyes that stared at him as they stumbled past. At the top of the trail, a great tower of pale limestone blocks rose up from the dark stones. The massive shape was pierced by a long tunnel, ill-lighted and slippery. At the mouth, soldiers were hauling bodies of men out of wagons and throwing them down the mountainside. A gutter cut into the rock of the road at the lip of that black mouth was chuckling merrily with a stream of frothy red water. Bones floated past as the horses stepped over it. Maxian's horse balked at the smell of the tunnel, but he could not allow that, so he lashed it with his riding crop and it cantered forward into the darkness.

Pale sunlight etched the courtyard beyond. The elder Atreus had pulled his horse aside and sat upon it, unmoved by the carnage that filled the space between the gate tower and the central building. Here there was no distant air to attenuate the crackling roar of the flames that consumed the basilica. Squads of soldiers in blackened armor jogged past into the tunnel, weapons crusted with gore slung over their shoulders. A centurion trotted past after the men and raised his arm in salute as he came abreast of the governor. Maxian stared up at the flames leaping from the windows of the house.

A deep grinding sound came, and then the entire upper story of the building caved in with a roar. The ground trembled at the shock, and a great burst of sparks and new smoke flew out of the top of the ruin to join the black pall that blocked out the sky. Maxian covered his face, for now hot coals were raining out of the sky and the air was thick and hard to breathe. The elder Atreus took his son's bridle and kneed his horse forward again. The gray mare high-stepped through the twisted piles of dead that were scattered around the courtyard, and they climbed a stone ramp on the side of the outer wall to a platform that stood on the side of the rampart.

All around them clouds and smoke billowed. The rest of the castle was aflame, with Roman soldiers running through the smoke, carrying what loot they had scavenged from the dead. The clouds had grown dark and were rising, obscuring the top of the trail and closing upon the gate. Maxian looked out over a sea of white foam, with the hot breath of the dying castle blowing past him. His father got down and tied his horse off on a broken stub of wood at the top of the stone ramp.

"Do you understand this, son?"

Maxian swayed on his horse, near to tears. "No, Father, I don't understand. Who were these people? Why did they have to be slaughtered in such a way? Were they rebels against the Emperor?"

The elder Atreus stared up at his son, his face bleak. "No, son, they weren't rebels. All they desired was to live in their villages and practice their faith in peace. They harmed no one, they did good works, they raised their children to fear the gods and to be honest with men. In all Gaul and Hispania they were respected and welcomed wherever they went."

Maxian began to cry, his voice breaking as he tried to speak. "Then why did they die? Were they bad? Why were they punished?"

The governor stepped to the withers of the horse and reached up to take his son down. The boy clung to him and cried. The horrors of the day were too much for him.

The elder Atreus stroked his son's hair and held him close. "Son, they died because they would not make the proper sacrifice at the altar of the Emperor. They called him a man, and not a god, so not deserving of their faith. They held to a belief that only their twin gods were worthy of the respect of worship. But the Emperor or the state cannot countenance what they did.

"You see, the Empire is like a family, and the Emperor stands at the head of the table, the leader and the protector. All look to him for guidance, for judgment. Like the father of the family, the Emperor protects the people from the barbarians and from civil disorder. Like the father, the Emperor provides an example to the young peoples who are under his protection. The Emperor judges when there are no other judges. The Emperor brings life, providing seed for each new generation. In all of this, he must be respected. He sits, as the father does at the head of the table, between man and the gods.

"But without respect, without the filial duty of his children—his subjects—the Emperor cannot govern. The father who does not have the respect of his children is weak and the family divided. The sons fight among themselves and the daughters are their prizes. There is civil disorder in the cities and mutiny in the countryside. In this matter of faith, the Empire has always been a loving father—forgiving and accepting—allowing each race of peoples under its protection to worship their own gods in their own way. But for the health and the prosperity of the family, each man and woman must also pay their respects—in the temple or the home—to their father, the Emperor.

"These men," he said, his free hand indicating the ruined citadel, "though all judge them goodly men, refused this. They refused to respect and honor the Emperor. They refused, even when put to terrible pain, to venerate his name. They met in secret and urged others to follow their path. In them, in all seeming piety, was worse faithlessness than in any man. In their temples there was no respect, only the slighting of the Emperor's name. This cannot be countenanced. You see their end. One that will only be whispered of in time to come. A final judgment upon them and their Persian creed."

Maxian could not stop crying and burrowed deeper into the warm shelter of his father. The old man stood on the parapet for a long time, holding his son. The limestone walls and pillars of the ruined temple hissed with green flame and the pyre of black smoke rose higher and higher, into the darkening sky.

Krista knelt on muddy ground among the high bushes of the side garden. The day was cold and gusty, so she had tied her hair back with a scarf and wore a pair of knit breeches she had stolen from the old man. They were made of wool, dyed a dark green, and they stopped the wind far better than some flimsy tunic. She had cut an oblong hole five or six hands long out of the ground with a sharp-bladed shovel and carefully placed the turf aside. Into the little muddy hole she placed a bundle wrapped in cotton batting and string. Then she unscrewed the top of a heavy ceramic jar she had borrowed from the basement and carefully sprinkled the gray-green dust inside over the top of the bundle. There was a very sharp smell and she turned her face away while she finished. She closed the top of the jar and put it aside, then she covered the bundle with rocks.

The turf went back on over the rocks and she tamped the grass back down. Still crouching over the hole, she cleaned up the rest of her mess and put the shovel and jar back into her carrying bag. She sighed and leaned over the hidden place.

"Rest easy, little brother," she said, and made the sign of farewell and blessing. Though the grass would soon grow back over the cut turf, she sprinkled wine and wheat grains over the grave. She hoped that the little boy's spirit would find its way to the green fields beyond the Lethe. Then she slipped off through the bushes, heading for the front of the house. This time no one saw her.

"I fear that I am a poor commander for this desperate venture," Maxian said, his voice still hoarse. He sat in a wooden chair with upswept arms, covered with a quilt. His face was still pale, though he had nearly recovered all of his strength. While he still looked young, there was some shadow around his eyes that made him look far older than he had the week before. Krista sat behind him, on the edge of the bed, with the little black cat on her lap. The dead man and the Persian sat in the other chairs, but only Abdmachus seemed comfortable in them. He was sitting cross-legged after the fashion of his people.

"I have put us all at risk with a very ill-considered approach at dealing with this problem. I was thinking of this... thing... as a contagion, a disease. It is not, it is a curse, a construction of forms and patterns in the unseen world. It must be dealt with as such." Maxian raised his hand to stop Abdmachus, who started to speak.