THE bitter ROAD ALSO BY THE AUTHOR The Legend Begins In Pursuit Of Kingdoms The Rule of St Benedict Augustine of Canterbury THE bitter ROAD R.G.J. MACKINTOSH AWAKENED PUBLISHING awakenedpublishing.com ©2021 Rob Mackintosh All Rights Reserved. To my Companions, sharing the journey. PR EFACE 596-7 AD in the Kingdoms of Francia, the Legend continues as strife and conflict multiply in Rome. Pope Gregorius launches an unprecedented mission across sea and land to the far-distant Saxon Kingdom of Cantia. Desperate to find his sister Tola, Alric is also torn between returning to his Saxon homeland and remaining in Rome with his beloved Paulina. An even greater physical and emotional struggle lies ahead across unfamiliar, hostile terrain through the very heart of a freezing-cold winter. Their unexpected and yearlong journey takes Alric and Cadmon, Augustinus their Prior and his forty companions through warring Kingdoms of the Franks on their harsh and bitter road. Every mile brings the Saxons closer to their home as they press ever deeper into the bitter heart of the Kingdoms of the Franks. CHAPTERS 1. Porta San Paolo, Rome 1 2. Ostia 5 3. Mare Nostrum 13 4. Lerins 29 5. Frejus 43 6. Castro Caneto 51 7. Shrine of Maria Magdalena 59 8. Aquae Sextiae 67 9. Return to Rome 75 10. Papal Letters 85 11. Nocturne 99 12. Return to Aquae Sextiae 107 13. Arelate 117 14. The Rodonos 127 15. Lugdunum 139 16. Cabillonum 147 17. Augustodonum 165 18. The River Liger 171 19. Tu ro n e s 177 20. Aureliana Civitas 189 21. Lignum Aureliana 195 22. Parisius Civitas 205 23. Marchfields 217 24. Quentovicus 229 PORTA SAN PAOLO, ROME 1 I PORTA SAN PAOLO, ROME May, AD 596 “READY, ALRIC?” PRIOR Augustinus turned to me as I stood waiting alongside our cart. I nodded, but my thoughts were elsewhere, returning again and again to the crossroads of joy and despair, anticipation and regret. My anxiety centred on a secret I was leaving behind in the nunnery of San Quattro Coronati–beautiful Paulina, the love of my life, now bereft and alone. “All clear! Safe to proceed!” I looked up at the watchman standing high on a parapet above the city gate, the sun glinting on his spear as he observed our approach. He turned briefly, looking beyond the wall at the open countryside and deserted road to the west. On this early morning in late May, the trees stood sharply outlined against a clear blue sky. The temperature was rapidly rising as the first in our single file of eight carts trundled across the open square to the gateway of Porta San Paolo. Cadmon, my lifelong friend, led the way with his cavalry troop of five riders, and moments later we passed through an arched passageway into dazzling sunshine. After seven tumultuous years in Rome I had become a postulant in the Monastery of San Andreas, now approaching my seventeenth 2 THE BITTER ROAD birthday. The monastery had given me much that I was grateful for–the friendship of the monks, learning another language, reading and scribing. But the prospect of returning home to the distant Kingdom of Cantia, to Sandwic Haven, to my family and the King and Queen I much admired, filled me with nervous anticipation. Glancing back, Prior Augustinus counted the remainder of our party of a score of men, eight carts and mules throwing up clouds of dust on the road. Augustinus turned and strode resolutely ahead with staff in hand, a figure taller than anyone else in our expedition party. His dark tonsured hair ringed his shaved crown, his face was a light brown hue from a life in the sun, and his lips moulded in a permanent half-smile beneath his pronounced Roman nose. Brother Petrus, my tutor ever since I had come to the Holy City, walked alongside us, his eyes ever alert. Out on the open road there would be little protection from Langobard warriors sniffing for spoil. Ahead lay swathes of desolate farmland and homesteads burned to the ground. The landscape was as barren and empty as the first time I had seen it seven years earlier. Wild grasses swallowed the last remaining stalks of wheat and maize on this once-fertile farmland. A hawk hovered above us, marking its prey, and a pervasive sense of menace drifted on the breeze. Cadmon–my closest friend since birth–waited for us alongside the road. His lightly bearded face was calm and watchful, his magnificent dark-grey warhorse Belisarius, snorting impatiently, scraping at the dirt. The squadron was a comforting presence with the soft clinking of their weapons and lamellar armour accompanying the last of our carts. Some seven years earlier Cadmon and I had gazed at this same basilica from the deck of a merchant slaver hauled up the River Tiber by a team of oxen. Much had changed for us since the time we arrived for sale in Rome’s slave market. Now Cadmon rode as a cavalry officer, and I walked as a free man and postulant monk. Beneath our feet, the cobbled road to Ostia had received scant PORTA SAN PAOLO, ROME 3 attention for more than a century. In no time my feet ached, ankles swelling from the hard, uneven surface of the road, but they were no longer the feet of a slave; they were feet free to go where I wished. After an hour on the road we came to the Basilica San Paulo on the Tiber, the white columns shimmering in the morning heat. “Let the mules loose for a while,” Augustinus called out. “There’s grazing here and water down by the river. It’s a good moment to see how your carts and mules are doing before we press on to Ostia. Anyone who wants to join us at the shrine of San Paulus is welcome!” Cadmon added, “And if you have anything in your cart that you could use as a weapon, bring it out now, and place it below your cover sheet for quick access.” Graciosus our senior layman in the expedition raised his eyebrows beneath his Phrygian cap, a twinge of concern crossing his sunburned face. “Are we expecting trouble?” “No, the Langobards don’t usually rise from bed this early. But let’s be prepared.” Our small group of half a dozen monks accompanied Augustinus through the portico and up a short flight of stairs to heavy bronze doors that led into this enormous Basilica. Augustinus paused. “Let’s think for a moment why we have stopped here. We’ve come to pray at the shrine of our great Apostle to the Gentiles. We’ve just taken our first steps in our long walk as he did. Come.” A dazzling spectacle met our eyes as we entered the basilica. The ceiling and its massive supporting columns glittered in beaten gold. The mosaic floor shone beneath our feet as we walked the long distance down the nave. At the shrine a semi-circle of stairs led down to the altar below. We filed slowly past, extending a hand into the small, circular aperture. The bones of the saint felt cold to 4 THE BITTER ROAD the touch, and my hand did not linger long. The Abbot of San Paolo joined us as we sat in silence close by the shrine, praying our prayers and thinking our thoughts, increasingly aware of the expectations that the Pope’s mission had placed on us. As we left the Basilica, Cadmon was deep in conversation with his cavalry troop. He broke away as we approached, and the two of us walked slowly down to the river. I looked upstream recalling the day we had arrived in Rome, and I wondered aloud; “Would we have felt less fearful for our future had we known that seven years later we would be returning home?” “No,” Cadmon replied, and I laughed out loud for the first time in a week. As he swung into his saddle Cadmon cautioned, “Let’s not make light of the demands that this journey will place on us, Alric.” He paused. “These last years have been hard, but they are merely a dress rehearsal for what lies ahead. Back in our early days, after Felix stole us from the Haven, we fretted all the time over our survival. Now our concern is to reach home before the Apocalypse!” OSTIA 5 II OSTIA May, AD 596 FOR SEVERAL HOURS we journeyed hard towards Rome’s ancient port. Sand dunes and the occasional tree and tufts of dry grass dotted the landscape, but there was no sign of human habitation or any Langobard warriors. Cadmon’s leadership of his men was exemplary, their cavalry support first-rate. There was no idle conversation, only brief exchanges and hand signals so that their eyes were looking where they should–everywhere. By late afternoon we came to the outskirts of the town as Ostia’s cathedral came into view. Chickens clucked and scattered out the way, as we rattled into the courtyard of Cardinal Bishop Domenico’s residence. Augustinus threw back the hood of his brown habit and gathered us all together with a sigh of relief and a smile. “My brothers, this is our last resting place on the shores of our homeland, and already your feet are swollen! It is a bitter road that stretches before us, hard and long before we reach our journey’s end. Each of us must weigh again the cost of making this journey, so that we can go forward together resolved in heart and mind, rather than have painful regrets later.