Iron Rebirth: The Eagle Eternal

Three days after the arbitration meeting, Ragnaris lost four more men to Alatheus's fire.

Not a dramatic defection — no speeches, no public declaration. Four warriors who had been in his contingent since the revolt simply began spending their evenings at a different fire. Ragnaris noticed on the first evening and said nothing. He noticed on the second and still said nothing. On the third he went to find Alatheus himself.

Abster found out about this from Adalric the following morning. What happened at that meeting he found out, partially and imperfectly, from Ragnaris himself two days after that — because Ragnaris came to the boundary and asked to speak, which he had never done before, and which told Abster that the conversation with Alatheus had gone badly enough that Ragnaris needed somewhere to put it that was outside the encampment.

"Tell me," Abster said.

"I asked him to stop." Ragnaris looked at the river rather than at Abster. "To stop — not arguing. I know he argues. I was arguing. I asked him to stop taking my men." He paused. "He said he hadn't taken them. He said they came."

"He's right."

"I know he's right." His jaw tightened. "That's not the point. The point is that he knew what it meant when they came to his fire and he let them come and he did not tell me." He looked at Abster. "We grew up together. Since we were children. He knows what the men at his fire cost me in the council. He let them come anyway."

Abster sat with this. "What did he say when you told him that."

A pause. "He said that what he was doing was protecting them. That if the channel failed and the war came, the men at his fire would be on the right side of Fritigern's military leadership because they had not committed to a political position that had failed." He paused. "He said he was keeping them available."

"For what."

"For the war." Ragnaris looked at Abster directly. "He said — he said that the channel was either going to work or it wasn't, and if it wasn't, the men who had been most vocal in supporting it would be in a weaker position when Fritigern needed to make military decisions. He said he was keeping the good warriors from a position they couldn't recover from." He paused. "He said he was doing it for them."

"Do you believe him."

Ragnaris was quiet for a long moment. The river moved behind him, the spring current faster than the winter had been, the Danube back to its full voice. "Yes," he said. "That's the problem. I believe he means it. He thinks he's protecting them." He met Abster's eyes. "He also knows that if the channel fails, the men at his fire will follow him and the men at my fire won't follow anyone, because they'll have been on the wrong side of a failed political position, and Alatheus will be the dominant military voice in the community." He paused. "He can believe both things simultaneously. He is genuinely protecting his men. He is also positioning himself. I don't know how to argue against someone who is right about both."

— ✦ —

Abster went to find Alatheus the following morning.

Not to the boundary — into the encampment, without asking Corvus first, which was the old habit reasserting itself, the habit Corvus kept calling out and which he kept repeating because the situations kept requiring it before the consultation was possible. He would tell Corvus afterward. He always did.

Alatheus was at the northern fire, alone with two of his senior warriors, eating in the morning in the way of men who had been up before dawn doing something that required food before anything else. He looked at Abster without surprise, which meant he had been expecting this visit.

"Ragnaris," he said.

"Yes," Abster said. "And you."

The two warriors looked at Alatheus. He made a small gesture and they moved away without discussion, which told Abster something about the kind of authority Alatheus had — not the authority of rank, the authority of a man whose judgment the people around him trusted without needing explanation.

"Sit," Alatheus said.

Abster sat on the ground by the fire. It was not protocol. It was what the situation asked for.

"He told you what I said," Alatheus said.

"Yes."

"And you think I'm wrong."

"I think you're doing two things simultaneously and calling both of them protection." He held Alatheus's eyes. "I'm not here to argue about that. I'm here because you're the most capable military mind in this community and if the channel fails and the war comes, the manner of that war depends in large part on what you decide." He paused. "You told me once you wanted a settlement, not a massacre. I believed you."

Alatheus looked at him steadily. Something moved through his expression that was not easy to read. "What do you want from me."

"I want to understand what you're afraid of." Abster said it plainly. "Not strategically. Actually. What you're afraid will happen."

A silence. The fire between them. The encampment's morning sounds around them. Alatheus looked at the fire for a moment — the first time Abster had seen him look at something other than a person or a horizon during a conversation, the looking-down that people did when they were accessing something they kept in a lower register than their public positions.

"My father," he said. "He believed Rome three times." He looked up. "Not different Romans. Three times, the same pattern. An agreement, a period of compliance, and then the agreement's conditions changed in ways Rome called administrative and we called betrayal." He met Abster's eyes. "The third time, my father was in a position he could not recover from. He had been vocal in his support. When the agreement changed, the warriors who had been skeptical looked at him and said: you vouched for this. And he had nothing to answer." A pause. "He died three years later, not in battle. He died in a community that had stopped listening to him." He looked at the fire. "Ragnaris is voicing for the channel. If the channel fails, Ragnaris cannot recover. I am keeping the warriors who trust me away from that position."

"Because you watched your father."

"Yes."

Abster held this for a moment. The argument was not manipulative. It was a man who had watched something happen to someone he loved and was determined it would not happen to the people he was responsible for. "Does Ragnaris know about your father."

"Everyone knows." He paused. "He knows and he doesn't understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. Because Ragnaris is twenty-two and has not yet watched someone he trusted become a man the community stopped listening to." He looked at Abster. "You are asking me to not protect my warriors from that outcome."

"I'm asking you whether the outcome you're protecting them from is worse than the outcome you're protecting them toward." Abster met his eyes. "If the channel fails, you're positioned. The men at your fire follow you. You lead the military response. Rome fights a Gothic force that is organized and led by the best tactical mind in the community. And Adrianople happens, and Valens dies, and thirty thousand people are dead and the settlement that Hrodgar is building on the south-facing slope doesn't exist." He paused. "That's the outcome you're positioned for. What do you want me to tell Ragnaris that makes that better than what he's doing."

Alatheus was very still. It was a different stillness from his usual one — not the patience of a man waiting, but the stillness of a man being presented with a thing he had been not-looking at and now could not avoid.

"You know the battle," he said. Not a question.

"I know the shape of what happens if things continue as they are." He held his gaze. "I'm trying to change the shape."

A very long silence.

"I'm not sending the men back to Ragnaris's fire," Alatheus said finally. "That would cost them something I won't cost them."

"I know."

"But." He looked at the fire. "Dionysius's arbitration. The temporary grazing line." He paused. "That's real. It happened." He looked at Abster. "I am aware that it happened. I am watching it." He met his eyes. "That is the most I am going to say."

Abster stood. "That's enough," he said. "For today."

He walked back to camp and told Corvus about the visit immediately, which was the right order, which he was getting better at. Slowly.

The Vellum449 days.

Alatheus's father believed Rome three times. Died with the community stopped listening. That's what Alatheus is protecting his men from. He's right about the risk. He's wrong about what protects them from it.

He said: I am aware that the arbitration happened. I am watching it. That is the most I am going to say. I will take it.

He's not sending the men back to Ragnaris's fire. Ragnaris is carrying that. I don't know how much longer he can.