Iron Rebirth: The Eagle Eternal

Alatheus came to the boundary on the fifth day after Hrodgar's visit, which was not something Abster had been expecting and which, when it happened, did not look like what he'd been conditioned to expect from Alatheus.

He came alone. No warriors, no escort, no audience — none of the theatricality that Abster had associated with him over twelve months of watching him operate. He arrived at the northern edge of the XII's sector at mid-morning in plain traveling clothes, without armor, and stood at the boundary line with his hands visible and empty, which was a deliberate signal in a man who was always deliberate.

Abster was at the practice ground when Pilo brought the word. He went to the boundary without calling the century to alert, which was a decision he made in about two seconds based on the description — alone, no weapons displayed, mid-morning. If it was a threat it was the most unusual threat architecture he'd encountered. He went with Tullus, because Tullus was fast enough to respond to anything and inconspicuous enough not to read as escalation.

Alatheus looked at him when he arrived. Not the assessing look he'd had in the hall — something different, something Abster couldn't immediately place. He took it in and held it without decoding it, because decoding things quickly was the habit that had gotten him wrong about Alatheus before.

"I want to talk to you," Alatheus said. In Latin. His Latin was not as polished as Fritigern's but it was more fluent than Abster had heard in the few times he'd spoken it before. He had been practicing, or had been practicing a long time and concealing how much he knew.

Abster filed that too. "Here," he said. "Or inside."

"Here." He looked at the camp behind Abster. "I don't want your centurion to know about this conversation yet."

That was unexpected. Abster thought about it for a moment — Alatheus asking him to keep something from Corvus was a different kind of ask than a diplomatic exchange. It had the quality of a personal request rather than a political one. He didn't say yes and he didn't say no. He stood and waited to hear what it was.

"Hrodgar's people in the hills," Alatheus said. "I don't agree with what he did. The way he did it." He looked at the ground briefly — the movement of a man organizing something difficult. "But the families up there include people from seven different lineage groups. Three of those groups are mine. People who followed me during the revolt, who trust me." He looked up. "If the three weeks run out and Rome hasn't produced a marker and Hrodgar loses patience and pushes deeper into the hills, those people are inside a second engagement. A worse one. Vallio will have reinforcements by then."

"I know that."

"I want to know if you can actually produce a named official within three weeks." He held Abster's eyes. "Not whether you're trying. Not whether Sebastianus is managing it. Whether it is actually going to happen." He paused. "I need an honest answer, not a diplomatic one. I can get diplomatic answers from Fritigern."

Abster stood with the question. He had been thinking about Alatheus for twelve months as the obstacle — the voice arguing against the channel, the pressure that required management. He had not thought about Alatheus as someone who had people in the hills and was trying to protect them. The revision was not dramatic. It was simply a piece of the picture he hadn't had before, sitting down into place.

"I don't know if a named official comes within three weeks," he said. "Sebastianus is working it. The revised document removed the obstacles that had been blocking progress. Three weeks is a short window for Constantinople to move." He paused. "What I can tell you honestly is that the conditions for it are better now than they've been since the crossing. The stability clause is gone. The field army commander received the framing he needed before Fritigern's message arrived. The record of this sector exists and is at Sebastianus's disposal." He met Alatheus's eyes. "I cannot promise three weeks. I can tell you the channel is more real than Alatheus has ever believed it to be."

A silence. The morning was cold. Behind Abster, the camp's sounds — Macro's count on the practice ground, the supply argument, the birds. Normal things, continuing.

"You told me once," Alatheus said, "that one true thing from a Roman was how every betrayal started."

Abster looked at him. He had not said that — Adalric had told him that Alatheus had said it. Which meant Alatheus knew Adalric had passed it to him, which meant the midnight conversation was known on the Gothic side, which meant layers of the situation he hadn't mapped.

"I heard that you said it," Abster said carefully. "I wasn't there."

Something shifted in Alatheus's expression — a small recalibration. He'd been testing whether Abster would claim the line as his own. "You were told about it."

"Yes."

"Adalric."

"Yes."

"He tells you things." Not accusatory. Observational.

"He tells me what he decides to tell me. I don't always know what that is or why." He looked at Alatheus directly. "He told me about the argument with Ragnaris. He told me you were angry at Hrodgar for going to the hills without strategy, not for going at all."

Alatheus was quiet for a moment. "I was." He looked at the boundary line. "Sixty dead in the pass. Warriors who held so the families could keep moving. They were good men and they died in bad terrain fighting a battle they couldn't win because Hrodgar moved when the conditions weren't right." He paused. "That is what I told Ragnaris. That the problem wasn't going. It was the manner of going. An eight-hundred-man column in daylight on a road doesn't choose the engagement — it hands the choice to Rome." He looked back at Abster. "You need to understand that. Because when war comes — and it is coming, whatever the channel produces — the manner of it matters to us. We do not want a massacre. We want a settlement."

Abster stood with this for a long moment. Alatheus had just said when war comes and meant it as a statement of fact alongside a statement of preference — not if, not I want war, but when it comes, this is what we want from it.

"Get me three weeks," Alatheus said. "Not for the channel. For the people in the hills." He turned and walked back into the encampment without waiting.

Tullus came to stand beside Abster. They both watched Alatheus go.

"He just told you war is coming," Tullus said. Quietly.

"He told me it's coming regardless of the channel," Abster said. "That's different from wanting it."

He went back to camp. He did not tell Corvus about the conversation yet, because Alatheus had asked him not to and because he needed to think about what the conversation had actually been before he reported it. He might be wrong about what it was. He had been wrong about Alatheus before.

He sat in the records tent and thought about it for two hours without writing anything down.

The Vellum493 days.

Alatheus came alone. No weapons. Asked me not to tell Corvus yet. Has people in the hills — three lineage groups from the revolt.

He said when war comes, not if. He said we want a settlement, not a massacre. He said the problem with Hrodgar was the manner, not the going.

I have been wrong about Alatheus since the first week. I think I'm still wrong about some part of him that I haven't found yet.

Didn't write any of this down for two hours. Kept thinking I'd decoded it. Kept not being sure.