Radulf begins... (476-492 AD)

I was born on the 8th of February, during the year when Odoacer deposed the last Emperor of Rome, and the Western Roman Empire finally died - 476 AD.

…but I was not born in Rome or Roman territory - I was born to an Ostrogothic mother and father in Panonnia.

I was named Radulf.

My childhood was fairly uneventful, much unlike my teens.

Or the rest of my life, for that matter…

When I was twelve, a new king rose to power among the Ostrogoths - Theodoric, the strong and righteous king who was to become known as “Theodoric the Great”.

Under Theodoric, the Ostrogothic people, including me and my relatives, marched out of Panonnia, and invaded Italy. And the invasion was a great success - city after city fell, army after army was vanquished, and soon, all of northern Italy had fallen in Gothic hands.

But successful as it was, the conquest still took years. And by the time that Ravenna, the defacto capital of Italy, was about to fall, five years had passed, and I had reached the age of sixteen, and I was only a few weeks away from my seventeenth birthday.

I remember the anxiety among our people as we were preparing for the attack on Ravenna. Our morale was high, and I remember very well how the soldiers were preparing for battle. Oh, how I wanted to fight alongside them ! I wanted to join the ranks of our brave soldiers, I wanted to join in the glory of victory!

…but alas - I was still too young…

“Don't worry lad, your days of glory will come soon enough” I remember my uncle saying, the day before he went to fight in the battle for Ravenna. That was the last time I saw him alive, by the way…

War is not all about glory and victory - something I realized for the first time when I learnt of my uncle's death on the battlefield. That was the first time that I was confronted with the mortality of my loved ones, and it would certainly not be the last…

But in spite of the tragedy of the death of my uncle, there was reason for rejoicing - soon after the fall of Ravenna, our king Theodoric personally ended the life of the wretched Odoacer. They say that he drew his sword, and struck a blow on Odoacer's shoulder that was so hard, that his sword sliced all the way to his pelvis.

Our king then made Ravenna the capital of the Ostrogothic kingdom. But the conquest of Ravenna was not why I remember the city so well, oh no…

Three months after our family had moved into Ravenna, I remember walking through the streets on a late, warm summerevening, and I saw something - something that was to change the rest of my life… In a dark alley, I heard the sound of swords clattering and the occasional sound of men talking, screaming or swearing at eachother.

“Bandits” I thought.

I knew very well that the best thing was to just stay away from the whole fight. But deep down, I felt that there was something special going on here. This feeling was so strong, that it simply forced me to come closer and watch.

So I quietly moved closer to the fight, and I carefully peeked around the corner. In the flickering light of a few nearby torches, I saw two men, both of them wielding swords, who were locked in a fierce duel with one another.

Utterly mesmerized, I witnessed the fierce duel for what seemed like hours, until it happened… One of the men clearly got the upper hand over the other, and the other man was soon on his knees. The victorious one briefly said something to the other (allthough I could not hear what) and then he swiftly cut his head off with a single swing of his blade. What I saw next, was beyond description - it was as if a thunderstorm suddendly broke loose, with the victorious one of the two swordfighters being at the centre of it. I later learnt that this was the quickening, but even then, I immediately realized that this was something very special, and that I too had something to do with it.

Whilst strucken with sheer amazement as I withnessed the Quickening for the first time, I remember losing my balance and falling on the street in sheer amazement. I may even have let out a shriek. But whatever sound I made, the surviving swordsman certainly heard it - as soon as the Quickening had subsided, he looked right at me. As he walked towards me, I was frozen with fear.
“Please sir, spare my life - I won't tell anyone, I swear!” I tried to say - if it weren't for the fear that had paralyzed my tongue. The man grabbed me by my mantle, lifted me up, and said “sorry lad, no withnesses”, after which I felt the cold steel of his blade slice right through my chest, piercing my heart and lungs. My face twisted with pain, and as I coughed up my own blood in my attempts to draw what I believed to be my last few breaths, all I could think was “Lord, have mercy on my soul…”. And then, I lost consciousness.

I must have lied there for hours, bathing in my own blood. And then, the impossible happened. As I felt the gentle rays of the morning sun caress my face, I slowly opened my eyes.
“Is this heaven?” I thought for a moment.
But then I realized that I was still lying in the exact same spot as where I had lost consciousness during the night. My bloodstained clothes and the pool of blood around me convinced me that a miracle must have happened, and that I was still alive. Immediately, I thanked the Lord for my miraculous survival - even though I instinctively realized that this was about more than just divine intervention… As I tried to stand up, I noticed that the wound had appearantly healed, as I felt no pain or anything. After that, I immediately went home. My mother was very worried, as I was not the kind of person to stay away all night. And when she saw my blood-stained clothes, she immediately panicked. Deciding that I didn't want to draw too much attention to me, I told my mother that I was ambushed by a bandit that night, but that I had managed to kill him in a fight (thus explaining the blood on my clothes and the absence of any wounds on my body). Though my parents and siblings were still shocked by the whole ordeal, life soon resumed as normal.

…for my relatives, that is.

After that fateful night, all I could think of was what I had happened that night, and finding the man who was responsable for nearly killing me. For weeks, I searched throughout Ravenna for this man, and many times, I returned to that alley where it all had happened. And after over a month of searching, when I was on the verge of giving up, I found him. He was right there, in plain sight, walking around on the marketplace in broad daylight. I recognized him as soon as I spotted him, and I immediately began to make my way through the crowd, moving towards him as fast as I could. When I got closer, it appeared that he noticed me. In response to me getting closer, I saw him moving towards an alley on the edge of the market.
“You want to lure me into an alley so you can kill me again, eh ?” I thought “well, so be it - but this time, I won't be going without a fight !”
Against my better judgement, I walked into the alley. I took a few turns, walking deeper into narrow deserted alleys, nearly losing him twice - and there he was…
He was standing in the middle of an alley, waiting for me, making no attempt to escape whatsoever. We looked each other in the eye.
“You…” I said, giving him a furious look.
He looked back at me in a nonchalant manner, as if he weren't suprised at all to see me alive.
“…I do not know what that fight was about - but you killed a man, and you tried to kill me” I said “You're a murder - and I swear that I'll make you pay for your vile deeds!”
“…and how were you going to do that, eh, boy?” he suddendly replied.
“You've seen me fight, and I reckon that you realize what I can do with a sword…” he continued “What makes you think that an inexperienced boy like you can take on the likes of me?”
Knowing that he was right, and that he'd propably slice me to pieces in a real fight, I replied “…but I'm not interested in fighting you - all I want is to bring you to justice, no matter how.”
He grinned.
“You want to take this to the authorities? You want the king himself to judge me, and condemn me to the dungeons or death?”
“I could kill you right now, boy” he continued “or I could just tell you to run back to your mother and stay out of fights until you're old enough to wield a sword properly…“
”…but you're a special case, lad, and your perseverance definitely deserves a reward.”
“Come to the western side entrance of the king's palace tonight, and tell the guards that you're Apollonios' new messenger - they'll let you through.”
He then turned his back tome, and walked away.
“Oh, and Apollonios is my name” he added.
“Apollonios, eh ?”
“So that's my enemies' name…” I whispered to myself.
I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about the things he had said to me. I was convinced that he was attempting to lure me into a trap, and every bit of common sense in me told me not to go.

But I felt that urge again - the same urge forced me to take a closer look at the fight that got me into this mess in the first place… And that urge was now telling me to go to the palace, and find out and face whatever Apollonios had in store for me… Again, that nameless urge turned out to be more powerful than logic, reason or common sense, as I found myself standing outside the western wing of the king's palace about an hour after sunset.

It didn't take me very long to find the side entrance Apollonios was talking about.
And sure enough, one of the guards approached me, saying “HALT! Who goes there?”
“I'm the new messenger of Apollonios” I replied, not expecting that the guard would accept this answer.
But the guard took a closer look at me, and said “Allright, go right ahead. Appolonios is expecting you.”
Another guard beckoned me to follow him, and after walking through several rooms and hallways, the two of us arrived in the room of Apollonios.
“The new messenger you have requested has arrived, sir!' the guard said.
“Very well. Dismissed.” a familiar voice said, after which the guard immediately left and closed the door behind him.

Radulf speaks of his language skills and favourite languages

Gregorios: By the way, what are your favourite languages that you've learned to speak over the years? And what “extinct” or “endangered” languages do you speak?

Radulf: Well, my favourite would still be my native Ostrogothic language, allthough I like old Italian a lot too (it's propably officially called vulgar Latin, but it's really more like archaic Italian than classic Latin).

And as I had a proper education during my youth in Ravenna, I can also speak and read classic Latin, classic Greek, Koine Greek, and old Church Gothic.

Throughout the Medieval Ages, I picked up a bit of Visigothic, Burgundian, Vandalian, Old Frankish, Carthaginian Romance (never really managed to understand Punic Carthaginian, though), old Hispanic Romance, Qipchaq Turkish, Old South Slavic, Medieval Punjabi, Medieval Sindhi, and a few common Aramaic/Syriac vernacular dialects - but I never really mastered those languages.

Languages I did master during the Medieval Ages include various vernacular dialects of Arabic and Persian, various old Byzantine vernacular Greek dialects during that period, old Basque, Medieval Georgian, Medieval eastern Armenian, various Turkish languages (such as a few old Oghuz Turkish dialects, Qarluq Turkish, Chagatai Turkish and the Uyghur(?) dialect of the Qara-Khanids), Medieval Kashmiri, late Medieval Mongolian, old Russian, Lingua Franca, old French, and old German.

I also learnt to read and write Arabic when I was a slave in Egypt between 847 and 858 (my master soon found out that I was an educated man, and decided that I could do better things than simple chores and menial labour), and I learnt Middle Persian and classic Syriac in Baghdad, during the early 11th century. (for a while, I ended up in a Nestorian monastery in Baghdad, but that's a long story).

During the early 15th century, I ended up in western Europe, where I more or less settled down. And as a result, I became fluent in French, Aquitanian, old Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, Portugese, various Italian dialects, and eventually, English.

And during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, I spent a several decades in the East Indies, where I learnt Malay, along with some Javanese and Balinese. I also visited Dejima a few times, but I never really learnt the Japanese language.

…and that's pretty much all the languages that I can remember right now…

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