After the Fall(18)
King Alaric was already standing beside the great central fire pit, the official meeting place. Alaric’s elderly foster-mother, Randegund, stood on his left, her birth children, Queen Verica and Athaulf, on her right, while Magnus, Sergeric and several of the other captains waited farther off. The welcoming committee.
Just then, Randegund’s gaze strayed toward Gigi, who shivered beneath the woman’s icy-blue glare. The old witch hated all things Roman, and marrying Magnus had put Gigi squarely in the enemy camp. She had tried to stay away from Randegund, but the woman was frequently in Alaric’s company and avoiding her proved impossible. At first Gigi hadn’t understood why Alaric kept Randegund so close, but then she’d pieced together the complicated relationship between the two; not only had Randegund taken him in when he was orphaned as a child, she’d given him her only daughter’s hand in marriage. It was still hard for Gigi to believe sweet Verica and noble Athaulf were scary Randegund’s biological children.
With a last, defiant look at the witch, Gigi edged her way along the fringes of the crowd. She found a decent spot to one side, where she could see all the faces, and hopefully hear something.
“Jolie! Jolie!” a little voice cried out.
Gigi looked down, surprised to see Berga, Alaric and Verica’s youngest, hopping up and down. She grinned at Berga’s continued use of the alias Gigi had first given the Visigoths — Angelina Jolie. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision so Honorius’s spies would never make the connection with the fugitive slave they knew as Gigiperrin.
“Help me up, Jolie.”
“Shhh, Berga.” Gigi rumpled the girl’s hair. “This is very important. Your parents are going to have an important meeting. We must be quiet.”
“We told her that!” two insistent voices said in unison.
Gigi looked behind her. The twin boys were there, looking annoyed with their sister. She knelt down and motioned for Berga to climb on her back, then glanced at the twins. “Go to the front to watch, but come right back here afterward to get your sister.”
They started to complain, but when Gigi threw them a look, they quickly wriggled past onlookers to a prime location.
A murmur of astonishment swept the crowd and Gigi rose with Berga, straining to see.
Berga pointed and started to giggle. “They’re funny looking. Those men have naked faces. They must get cold as girls in the wintertime.”
Gigi drew in her breath at the sight of Priscus Attalus and several other Romans. Although dressed in their finest senatorial regalia, they looked haggard and thin. Attalus was in the worst shape, his face ashen and pinched, the fringe of hair around his bald pate now snow-white. She could see the nubs of his shoulder bones poking up against his toga.
What was this about? She struggled through the mass of people, straining for a better spot. “Berga, you absolutely cannot say a word, no giggling, not one sound. Promise?”
“Promise,” Berga breathed in her tiniest voice, right next to Gigi’s ear.
“Good girl.”
Once at the front, Gigi stood in amazement. Behind the cluster of Roman senators came dozens of large wagons, each pulled by legionnaires and guarded by others marching three deep on both sides, and running the entire length of the convoy.
“ … all the worldly riches left to Rome,” Attalus was saying, his tone low and shaded with desperation. “They avail us not, since they cannot sustain life, so we give them freely, in exchange for a lifting of the siege. Rome asks you, noble King Alaric of the Visigoths, please, allow us to purchase our freedom, our very lives, but know that we ask this as citizens only, and do not speak for the Empire, since the Empire has chosen to ignore our plight.”
Do it, Alaric, Gigi tried to force her thoughts into his. Accept the offer.
“Tell me, Senator Attalus,” the king responded calmly, “what have you brought? All the riches of Rome, you say, but I have no need of statues and fancy paintings. You Romans owe me gold and land, and if I don’t receive my due, my men shall — ”
“What? Your men shall what?” Another senator, a tall, unfamiliar man with a hooked nose, stepped forward. “You forget,” he said, frowning, “that the people of Rome are well trained and ready to fight.”
Alaric laughed. “And I would remind you that handfuls of wheat are easier to cut than individual stalks. If you dare test us — and I would strongly advise against it! — then we shall have no choice; Visigoth scythes shall reap your Roman blades in one fell swoop.”