NEXT MORNING THEY resumed their journey. After a hearty breakfast, Hagan and Zerco chose new horses from the mansio stables and set off over the pass. Mountains towered on either side of the narrow valley. The snow was deep and while once again Zerco could mount and ride, Hagan found himself wading through deep snow that at times came up almost to his waist. At least the ground was flat – the mansionarius had told them they would be crossing a frozen lake – but the effect of the sun glinting off the snow was dazzling. At length Hagan’s head hurt and his eyes felt as though they were burning. After exhausting, slow progress the ground began to slope downwards as they followed a snow-filled river valley on its frozen path from the high lake to the plains below.
They spent most of the day descending the valley, which was as much hard work as the climb up to the pass had been. Every step was a struggle to stop from slipping and falling out of control down the slope below.
At length the snow began to peter out and they found themselves once more on the paving stones of the Roman road. As the sun passed its highest point they reached the bottom of the valley, finding themselves in a wide, flat plain that ran between the mountains they had descended from and another range just like them.
From here they headed west. The Roman road still carved through the landscape but it was not long before they began to see signs that the Pax Romana had broken down in this area. Burned-out farmsteads and villas sat beside the road. The blackened ruins were choked with weeds which showed whatever had happened to them had occurred several years before. Apart from these there were no signs of human habitation. The fields lay uncultivated. There were no cows, sheep or chickens. Even the road was webbed by grass and dotted with potholes. The entire countryside had an eerie, empty feeling.
Despite this, Hagan could not suppress an itching feeling in the back of his neck. It was a sense he had honed as a Roman scout when working deep in enemy territory and he knew not to ignore it when it whispered to his mind that they were being watched. Where from he had no idea. The countryside was flat and featureless between the mountains. There was little undergrowth or ditches to conceal anyone.
Eventually they saw a line of blue against the mountains far ahead. Hagan knew that their route took them to a large lake. The sight of the water up ahead at least assured him they were still going in the right direction.
‘What’s that?’ Zerco said. He had a hand over his brow to shade his eyes as he peered ahead.
Hagan looked and saw up ahead there was some sort of wooden arch built over the road. A tall pillar rose on either side of the road, to about three times the height of a man. A crossbeam went over the road and from it dangled nine long objects, each one connected to the beam above by a rope. They swayed slowly back and forth in the gentle wind.
As well as the strange arch, a line of posts led away from it to the left and right. They marched away from the road across the flat fields of the valley floor as far as the eye could see, placed at intervals every bit as regular as the Roman milestones they had passed along the Via Helvetica. The posts were narrow and tall, like spears planted in the ground, and each one appeared to be topped by a ball which looked black, brown or white in the distance. Occasionally there would be something much longer and bulky dangling from the pole. These were distant and it was not possible to make out more than that they were attached at one end, judging by the way they swayed in the wind around the pole.
‘It’s like a fence,’ Zerco said. ‘Except the palisades are too far apart to keep anything in or out. Same with that arch over the road ahead. I’d say that was a gateway except it has no gates. What use is that?’
Hagan squinted at the strange constructions, trying to make out more details and puzzling over what their meaning could be. Something tapped at his mind, a memory he could not quite fathom. This was somehow familiar to him, but he could not place why or how.
‘Some sort of decoration, perhaps?’ he said.
Then he saw there were crows perched on the arch and on many of the round knobs on the top of the poles. As they rode closer he made out more details. He saw the weathered scraps of skin that barely covered the white bones beneath. The hollow eye sockets, their contents picked clean by the ravens. The matted clumps of hair and the air-dried lips that had shrunken back, revealing lines of teeth beneath, a strange half-smile that seemed to mock the approaching travellers or suggested an endless, jocular dream disturbed the eternal sleep of the dead.
‘They aren’t decorations,’ he said, his voice becoming grim. ‘They’re human heads.’
Zerco winced.
‘And that isn’t a gate,’ Hagan went on. ‘It’s a gallows.’
Zerco started as he realised the gently swinging objects above the road were dead bodies. The nooses that had ended their lives still bit into what was left of the tattered, rotting flesh of their necks. The crows had taken their eyes too. What was left of their desiccated cheeks had drawn back so they grinned, as if they were haunted by the same dream as the severed heads, except they found it even more amusing.
‘This must be the border of the Burgundar lands,’ Zerco said. ‘They certainly have an impressive choice of boundary markers.’
‘It’s a ghost fence,’ Hagan said, his voice harsh and gravelling.
‘What?’ Zerco twisted in the saddle to look at him.
‘It’s an ancient custom of my people,’ Hagan said. ‘Traitors, enemies and wrongdoers are brought to the border for execution, then their heads or corpses are placed here. Their spirits will defend our land, warning those thinking of invading us. I’ve only heard of it talked of in legends and old stories though.’
‘Well, it looks like someone has decided to revive some old customs,’ Zerco said.
‘I think I will put my war gear on,’ Hagan said, swinging off his horse. ‘There is something strange here. It’s best to be prepared for anything.’
‘Good thinking,’ Zerco said, also dismounting.
‘You have war gear?’ Hagan said, a sceptical expression on his face.
Zerco unbuckled a leather satchel that was thrown over his horse’s back and drew out a shirt of mail that he pulled over his head. To Hagan’s further surprise the shirt appeared to fit, meaning it must have been made for the little man. Then he pulled out a bronze breastplate, cast into the likeness of a muscled torso. Zerco strapped this on over his own chest which was about as far from the Adonis-like body modelled in metal as it was possible to get.
‘I was the personal jester of Bleda, Attila’s brother,’ Zerco said, seeing Hagan’s curious look. ‘I went everywhere with him, even on campaign. He commissioned this special armour for me.’
‘It certainly fits you,’ Hagan said, looking at how well the armour covered the little man’s body. ‘But does it work? Will it stop a blade or is it just for show?’
‘Oh yes, it will stop a blade,’ Zerco said. ‘I’d say it’s more effective than that rubbish you’re putting on. The man who made that worked in a fabrica. He had hundreds to make, as cheaply as possible. Who knows what was added to the metal to make it stretch to as many pieces as possible? Mine was made by a master craftsman who knew that if his work did not please the king of the Huns then his reward would be a nasty death.’
‘You said you were Bleda’s jester, not Attila’s,’ Hagan said. ‘I thought Attila was king of the Huns?’
‘He is now,’ Zerco said. ‘But the Huns should have two kings, usually brothers or cousins. It has always been that way. It is supposed to stop one man becoming too powerful. Bleda and Attila were joint rulers. Then Attila killed Bleda.’
‘What’s this Attila like?’ Hagan said, wondering if he had seen the man before among the Hun leaders who had been at Vorbetomagus.
Zerco thought for a moment.
‘He’s like the very Devil himself,’ the little man said after the pause. ‘I don’t just mean that he is cruel, wicked-natured and will cause the deaths of a thousand men without losing a wink of sleep over it. He is all that. But he is also proud. You can see it in the way he walks, the way he looks at everyone around him. He knows he is in charge. And, like Satan, he is overthrowing the order set by God. Not just in the Christian world. He could not share power with his brother so he killed him. He rebelled against the customs of his own people.’
‘You hate him for killing Bleda?’ Hagan said. ‘Because Bleda looked after you?’
Zerco cast a look in Hagan’s direction that suggested he had just said the most stupid of words.
‘I hate all of them,’ Zerco said. ‘I cared little when Bleda was killed. I said I was Bleda’s jester but that really just means they all laughed at me. I entertained them after dinner just by dancing and singing. I was doing my best but they just found it hilarious. I was more like Bleda’s pet. He dressed me up in clothes like his own, like a doll or a statue. This armour was part of that. He found it most amusing to have a little version of himself. All the others did too.’
Hagan sighed. Despite his dislike of the man, he was starting to understand what had twisted Zerco’s soul as much as cruel fate had twisted his body and feet.
‘Life must have been hard for you,’ he said.
Zerco grunted.
‘You have no idea,’ he said. ‘But perhaps you understand why I want the treasure? When you are a very rich man no one cares that you are half the height of everyone else.’
He clenched his teeth.
‘When I can pay for bodyguards – ruthless bastards who will do anything I say, Huns, probably,’ he said, ‘no one will laugh at me again. When I am swimming in gold no woman will scorn my advances.’
They finished arming and remounted. Hagan checked his sword, now slung in a scabbard under his left shoulder, slid easily in and out.
‘Did Bleda make you weapons as well?’ he said.
The dwarf laughed.
‘This, my friend,’ pointing a thumb to the mail that now covered his torso, ‘is just to keep me alive while I run away. If we get into any problems you will be doing all the fighting.’
They set off once more, heading into the new land of the Burgundars, towards the invisible fence of spirits and under the swinging corpses that dangled from the gallows over the road. Hagan hoped it was not an omen.