The Council of the Cursed Read Online Free PDF Page B

Fidelma.
    ‘Brother Budnouen. He is a Gaul.’
     
    Brother Budnouen was rotund, with a podgy red face seemingly lacking a neck, for folds of flesh seemed to flop straight down on to his chest. Middle aged, short in stature and tanned, he had pale eyes, almost sea-green, and long brown hair, which they immediately saw was cut in the manner of the tonsure of St John rather than in the corona spina favoured by Rome. In spite of his heavy breathing, caused by his girth and weight, the brother’s forearms seemed quite muscular from hard work, and his hands were callused. They later learned that this was due to his being a wagonman; the leather reins caused the hardening of the skin on the palms. It came as no surprise when he told them that he had spent his youth asa seaman, sailing along the ports of Armorica to Britain and Hibernia, whose languages he spoke with great fluency. He was an excellent companion; his eyes had a twinkle, his face a ready smile and his attitude was to look for the best that life had to offer. In fact, he was a very loquacious fellow and the moment they left the abbey at Nebirnum, Brother Budnouen kept up a steady commentary as he guided the wagon, pulled by four powerful mules, along the road which headed due east.
    ‘I am originally of the Aeudi,’ he told them. ‘This was once Aeudi country, but then many years ago, the Burgunds came and drove us out. Some of us fled to Armorica. Some, like me, stayed to make the best of things. Now the Burgunds, in their turn, are made vassals by the Franks who call this land Austrasia.’
    ‘The Aeudi were Gauls?’ queried Eadulf, who was always determined to add to his knowledge. He and Fidelma were seated beside Brother Budnouen on the driving seat of the wagon as their guide and driver expertly directed the team of mules by a flick of the long leather reins now and again.
    Brother Budnouen laughed pleasantly and there was pride in his voice.
    ‘They were indeed the Gauls, my friend. I am descended from the great Vercingetorix–king of the world–who nearly destroyed Caesar and the Romans until he was forced to surrender in order to save the lives of the women and children that Caesar would have sacrificed by the thousands to ensure his victory. Caesar was so scared of that great man that he had him taken in chains to Rome, kept for years in a dungeon and then ritually strangled to celebrate his final victory.’
    Eadulf pursed his lips. ‘War is not a pleasant thing.’
    ‘That was something the Romans found out. If they thought that the death of Vercingetorix would cowe us into submission, they were wrong. We rose many times against them but it seemed that when one legion was defeated, three more took its place. We were still fighting the Roman legions nearly a hundred years after Caesar departed. Eventually Gaul became a Roman province and peaceful, until a few more centuries when the Burgunds and Franks came flooding across the Rhine to destroy us.’
    ‘What do you know of this city of Autun?’ asked Fidelma, trying to change the conversation to the subject that was continuing to trouble her.
    ‘Autun?’ Brother Budnouen shrugged. ‘There was nothing there but a few huts until the Emperor Augustus designated it as the new central city of the Aeudi. He called it Augustodunum, the fort of Augustus–that’s where the Burgunds derived the name Autun. The Romans had made our own capital and fortress Bibracte uninhabitable as a punishment for Vercingetorix’s near-defeat of them. They created Augustodunum into a great Roman city to impress the Gauls.’
    He paused to negotiate a difficult bend of the road.
    ‘The Faith reached the town very early. They say that it became an episcopal see in the time of the blessed Irenaeus, just over a century after the crucifixion of Our Lord. It is told that the son of Senator Faustus of Autun, a young man named Symphorian, converted to the Faith and destroyed a statue of the Roman goddess Cybele as a