Island of Ghosts

XII

Pervica went home that afternoon in exactly the situation I liked least-formally engaged to marry me, planning to continue on her own till the date set for the wedding, and totally determined to carry out her inquiries among her druidical friends. I loaned her a wagon to drive herself back, and I and the bodyguard escorted her all the way to River End, but my continued protests only made her angry. As Longus had remarked, she had a will of iron and she hated to be bullied. I was miserably aware that I had made my explanations to her very badly, driven as I was by my own memories.

When I’d seen her home I rode back to Cilurnum like a thundercloud. I found Kasagos and told him about the cursing tablet-the news was bound to reach the camp within a few days, and I wanted the protection of our own gods; the thing had unsettled me. He was predictably outraged. We sacrificed to Marha, and he lit a ring of fire about my wagon to invoke the god’s protection and keep back the power of the Lie. Then he counted out the divining rods, but their message was ambiguous and uncomforting. I snarled at the bewildered bodyguard, ignored the puzzled questions of my Roman and Sarmatian friends, and went off to work with my horses.

The only other person I spoke to about the tablet was Eukairios. I was afraid that the murdered man was his friend, killed for his inquiries on my behalf, and I sent him into Corstopitum to check.

He returned the following afternoon to report that his friend was safe and well: the sacrificial victim had been a carpenter once accused of using wood from a sacred grove. He said besides that a lead scroll that was supposed to be the famous cursing tablet had been found that morning lying on the altar of the Mothers in Corstopitum. One of the local druids was said to have erased the name on it and to have denounced the ritual murder that produced it as blasphemous. The local people were delighted about this-the victim had been a townsman, and it was widely believed that the murderers were Pictish druids enraged by the failure of the raid on Corstopitum. The marketplace was rustling with whispers, and many of the citizens were going to the temple of the Mothers to see the scroll and leave an offering to the goddesses. This was comforting in that it did not sound as though the countryside was eager to harm Pervica, but unsettling in that if the cursing tablet was lying on an altar in Corstopitum, it must be because Pervica had put it there, and made public her opposition to everything it represented.

The news of the ritual murder and the cursing tablet seeped into the rest of the camp the same day, brought by the first people to visit Corstopitum after the festival. As Facilis had predicted, everyone knew what had been written on the tablet. The general conclusion was the same as in the town: that it had been the work of Picts angry at their defeat. I could see, however, that Comittus in particular was extremely unhappy about it. He lost all his bounciness and looked upset whenever he saw me. Several times he tried to speak to me, but I was still in a very black mood and ignored his tentative questions entirely. I think he and Longus both realized then that I hadn’t shared their food or drink since the near-drowning. They were neither of them stupid, and the mutiny and the raid, the drowning and the curse, were obviously and suspiciously connected. Longus tried to talk, too-but I wouldn’t discuss it with him, either.

A few days later, on the second of January, I set out for Eburacum, as the legate had asked. I brought my bodyguard with me under Banadaspos, and Kasagos’ squadron as well, but left Leimanos in charge of the rest of the dragon. We took our wagons to sleep in. I brought Eukairios, both to have his help with the arrangements for the stud farms and also because he wished to consult his fellow cultists in Eburacum and hear their verdict on an alliance. Facilis came as well, muttering some excuse about legion business-though it was clear to me that he came because he wanted to pursue his own inquiries about Aurelia Bodica.

I also took along the stallion Wildfire. I’d had considerable success training the animal already, partly because he wasn’t used to being outside in cold weather and forgot his distrust of humans in his desire to come under the awnings and be warm. I’d just begun breaking him to the saddle and I judged it would be bad for him to interrupt the training for the time needed for the journey.

On the second day of the journey we met Arshak and his dragon, riding up the north road from Eburacum to their posting at Condercum. It was a cold gray day of intermittent snow, but the sun came out just before we met them and we saw the glitter of their arms in the light while they themselves were only a shadow on the road ahead. They’d spread out across the verges of the road, as we had ourselves, trying to spare the unshod hooves of the horses. Arshak was riding in the vanguard beneath the golden dragon of his standard. As we rode on toward him, he slowed, and when we were almost level, he stopped, and all his men halted behind him. I stopped as well, only a few paces from him, and we stared at each other for a long time in silence. I noticed that he was wearing his coat of scalps. His liaison officer, Severus, looked puzzled.

“Greetings,” he said at last. “I didn’t see you when you were last in Corstopitum. I wanted to tell you how pleased I am that you’re still alive.” He smiled.

I knew that smile: he’d given it to Facilis often enough. I thought of asking him if he had a cup of hospitality he wished to share with me-but there was no point baiting him. “Greetings,” I said, instead. “I’ll be pleased to meet you any time, now that we are to be neighbors.”

He smiled again and ran a hand caressingly down his spear. “You’re a true nobleman, in most ways,” he commented. “You’re bound to Eburacum, you and your”- his eyes raked Facilis-“your good friends?”

I nodded and gathered up Farna’s reins. “And you’re bound to Condercum. I won’t keep you-unless you have business with me now?”

His eyes lit, but he shook his head. “I wish I did. But not now. Still, I’m glad you didn’t drown. A prince of the Iazyges should die by the spear.”

“I will die as the god wills it, and by the hand he appoints,” I replied, “as you will yourself, Arshak.” He flinched slightly, as though the connection between gods and killing made him uneasy. “A pleasant journey to you,” I told him, and started my horse forward.

He moved his white Parthian aside to let me pass, and turned in the saddle to watch me as I rode on. When Facilis passed him, he smiled again and fingered the neck of his coat-then gestured for his drummer to give the signal, and continued on.

“Have you quarreled with Lord Arshak, my lord?” Banadaspos asked me unhappily, when our party was through the long coils of the dragon and on the clear road behind it.

I looked at him. “You should not ask such questions, Banadaspos,” I said. “I don’t want dueling between his men and ours. Whatever is between him and myself is our own business.”

He was not satisfied with this reply. “It is our business to guard our prince,” he said sullenly. Then he added, in a whisper, “That story Arshak told of chasing a boar never made sense. But I don’t see how…” He stopped. He didn’t see how a quarrel with Arshak could end in a drowning and a lie.

“This affects my honor, not yours,” I said; and at this he fell reluctantly silent.

The rest of the journey to Eburacum was uneventful. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon of the fourth day after leaving Corstopitum.

Eburacum, which we had last visited early in the autumn, lies in green, fertile valley land upon a river, and just south of the Highlands of Brigantia. Besides being the home for the Sixth Legion, the city is the base for the civilian administration of the whole of the northern half of the province-which is run by the legionary legate, though he is officially subordinate to the provincial governor in Londinium. Being in a position of such importance, Eburacum has naturally prospered. The stone-based half-timbered buildings crowd unpleasantly close together, overshadowing the street, and the main market square seems in contrast very bright, surrounded by the white facades of the grand public buildings. The shops sell everything from hunting dogs to imported glassware.

The legionary fortress lies the other side of the river from the market square, a severe castle frowning upon its ostentatious neighbor. All forts are much alike. All have the same shape, rectangular with rounded corners; all have the same two main streets, the Via Principalis and the Via Principia, running from the four gates past the neat barrack blocks, and where those two streets meet, the headquarters building and the commanding officer’s house invariably face one another. I had always found the uniformity repellant before, and this time was unsettled to discover that it merely seemed convenient.

We were met at the fort gates and escorted first to the stable yard, where we were instructed to leave our horses and the wagons, and then to the places where we were supposed to sleep-a guesthouse for Facilis, the tribune’s house recently vacated by Arshak for myself, and barracks for the rest of the men. I did not argue, but I told my men, in Sarmatian, that they could stay in their wagons if they wanted to. We were hardly going to be pushed into the barracks by force, and the wagons could be parked as comfortably in the stable yard as anywhere else, so why quarrel over what can be ignored? I left the others to settle in, and, though it was late in the afternoon, took Eukairios and went at once to see the legate.

I was admitted immediately. Priscus seemed pleased to see me, and was happy to get down to business. He had chosen a number of farms for the horses, but he was perfectly happy to add River End to the list. Eukairios and I had a tentative list of mares to breed in the next season, and stallions to cover them, and the arrangements as to which farm would take how many horses were soon made. Priscus then turned to the “other business” he’d mentioned, and my apprehensions about it turned out to have been entirely misplaced. Another eight dragons of Sarmatian cavalry were expected to arrive in Britain between April and July, and the legate wanted my advice on how to accommodate them. I was surprised and delighted, particularly when it turned out that one of the companies was the fifth dragon, commanded by my elder sister Aryazate’s husband, Cotys, a friend as close as any I’d had in my life. These troops were wintering in various locations between the Danube and the ocean but would cross the Channel as soon as the weather permitted. I gave Priscus a great deal of advice on the spot, mostly to do with choosing sites that had enough grazing and allowing the troops the use of cattle to produce all the milk they’d need. Even when the legate had had enough for one day and dismissed me, I kept thinking of other things to tell him, and ordering Eukairios to write them down. Eukairios was impatient to stop work and go see his fellow Christians, and eventually said so.

“You’ll simply have to learn to write,” he told me, while I chewed on my lip in frustration. His eyes were glinting with amusement.

“But I have heard that writing is difficult, and one must learn very young, or not at all.”

He smiled, putting away his pen. “Now, if I were to assure you that writing’s easy, I might find myself in the same position as your men did when they promised me that riding a horse is the easiest thing in the world, and that human beings just naturally stay on-and then were unable to account for it when I fell off. I certainly don’t find writing difficult. But I did indeed learn it very young, if not quite as young as you Sarmatians learn riding, since you seem to sit on the saddle behind your mothers before you can even walk. All I can say is I think you’d be able to learn it and you’d undoubtedly find it useful if you did. But I must go speak to my friends as soon as possible, so that we can make arrangements for… if they agree.”

“Very well, very well!” I said, thinking of something else that I would now simply have to try to remember. “Meet me in the morning, and we will finish this then. I will sleep in my wagon tonight, but you may use the tribune’s house they allotted us, if you prefer-or stay with your friends.”

Between thinking of arrangements for the other eight dragons and worrying about Pervica, I had trouble getting to sleep that night. I tossed and turned in my wagon, and at last got up, pulled on my coat, and stepped outside. The night was clear and very cold and the moon was waning. It was about midnight and everything lay still, the stone of paving and walls white in the moonlight, the shadows very black. I limped slowly toward the stables to check on my horses. I was about halfway there when I heard the shouts, faint with distance, and smelled smoke. Then the trumpets sounded from the gates, and there was a sound of feet running. I ran back to the wagon, grabbed my sword and my bow case, and ran in the same direction as the feet, thinking wildly that the city was under attack.

But the alarm had been raised for a house on fire. I arrived at the row of tribunes’ houses on the Via Principalis to find flames pouring from the windows of one of them and half the Sixth Legion, in various states of undress, lining up with buckets to fetch water from the aqueduct. A centurion was shouting at some men to hurry up with an oak beam. I registered all this before I realized that the house was the one I myself had been allotted, and that Eukairios might be inside. I pushed past the legionaries and hurried toward it.

The stone walls of the house radiated heat like an open oven, and the slates of the roof were cracking like chestnuts in a fire and falling into the flames below. The buckets of water hurled by the legionaries hissed deafeningly on the flames, and clouds of smoke and steam billowed out to choke anyone who went near. The centurion bellowed at his men, striking them with his vine staff and pointing at the door; they raised the oak beam and struck with it, trying to batter down the door.

“Is anyone in there?” I shouted.

“That Sarmatian commander!” the centurion shouted back. “The one that arrived today! If he’s yours, help!”

I caught the end of the beam as they swung it back. “I have a slave…” I began-but didn’t finish, since the legionaries swung the beam. I leaned with them into the stroke: the door held. We struck again, and it gave. A wave of heat so great that it seared the lungs struck our faces; I saw the inside of the house incandescent, the walls dressed with fire, and the remains of something black across the door. The man nearest the door screamed soundlessly and flung himself backward, and his friends caught him and drew him away coughing and choking, his hands burned and his hair singed.

“If anyone’s still in there, he’s dead,” the centurion declared, as we retreated. He looked at me again. “What were you saying? Is that your commander’s house?”

“It was meant to be mine,” I said, staring back at it, “but I did not use it.” I looked at the centurion. “Someone had blocked the door. There was something across the inside.”

“Someone did the whole damned thing!” he returned. “I’ve never seen a good stone house go up like that, and the first lad to get here said the smoke reeked of lamp oil. And the windows were bolted on the outside. Did you say you were meant to be in there?”

I nodded, staring at the house. The roof was collapsing now, but the legionaries still hurled their buckets of water. “My slave may be in there.” Burned alive. Murdered by fire, and burned.

“But no Sarmatian commanders? And no one else? Just a slave?”

I shook my head.

“Well, thank the gods for that!”

There was a stir in the now thick crowd that had gathered in the street, and I noticed Julius Priscus pushing his way into the mob, his crimson cloak askew and his sandals unlaced; he was staring at the flames. I started toward him. The centurion of the Sixth began by following me, but confronted with a wall of backs, pushed in front and cleared a path with his vine staff.

Priscus heard him coming and turned, his face grim- then he saw me, and his eyes flew open in amazement.

“Ariantes!” he exclaimed, and reached over to grasp my hands. “Thank the gods! However did you get out of that… that Phlegethon?”

I was not sure who or what Phlegethon was, but his meaning was clear enough. “I was never in it, my lord. I prefer my wagon. But my slave may be in there.”

“Well, for once I’m pleased with your savagery!” exclaimed Priscus, ignoring my reference to a slave. “Publius Verinus”-to the centurion of the Sixth-“what happened here?”

“Clear case of arson, sir,” the centurion replied smartly. “One of my lads was coming back from a night out, and he smelled smoke as he passed it-and said it reeked of oil. He saw fire through the cracks in the shutters, and tried to open the door, but it was locked. By the time he’d raised the alarm, the whole place was ablaze. When we battered the door down, we found that someone had put something right across it. The shutters were bolted, too, on the outside.” He gave me a level look. “Somebody wanted to kill the commander here pretty badly.”

A wall of the house collapsed, its stones cracking explosively. The fire, though, seemed to be dying now under the constant stream of water from the buckets. It must have burned everything in the house that could burn. I prayed silently that that did not include Eukairios.

Priscus gave me the same level look. “Who wants to kill you?”

I was silent for a moment, struggling with myself. The name of his wife was in my throat, choking me. I had a friend who had, perhaps, just died horribly, and whose life was considered a thing too inconsequential even to discuss. I wanted badly to revenge him. But I could not say Bodica’s name: I still had no proof. Besides, I didn’t know for certain that Eukairios was dead. He’d preferred staying in his friends’ houses in the past, and might well be comfortably asleep in the town outside the fortress gates. “There was… an object found near Corstopitum,” I said at last. Someone was bound to tell Priscus this if I didn’t. “A lead scroll, pushed into the mouth of a murdered man found hanging from a tree in a sacred grove. It had my name written on it. The general conclusion was that it was the work of some Picts, resentful of their defeat.”

Priscus drew in his breath with a hiss and blinked at me several times.

“There are no Picts in the middle of a legionary fortress at night,” declared the centurion of the Sixth. “They might, just, slip into the town, though even that’s pretty unlikely this far south-but they’d never get over the walls of the fort.”

“No,” I said, giving him the level look back. “So it must have been a Roman. And why the Romans would wish to kill me, I do not know-though my men, and the men of the fourth dragon, will doubtless think of a reason. With your permission, Lord Legate, I think I must go back to my men now, or they will be alarmed.”

Priscus caught my arm. “There’s nobody under my command who wants to kill you,” he said harshly. “May the gods destroy me if it’s false! You’re the one we can work with, and worth all the other Sarmatian officers put together.”

“Sir, I do not doubt your goodwill. But it would be better if you did not use such terms, as it would offend the other officers. May I go reassure my followers?”

He let go of me, and I bowed and walked off.

I was halfway back to the wagons when I heard a shout behind me, and I turned to see Eukairios running toward me through the moonlight, waving both hands wildly. I gave a cry of relief and ran toward him.

“Thank God!” he said, and, “I thank the gods!” I exclaimed, at almost the same instant. I caught him by the shoulders and shook him, to make sure he was really there and not ashes in the burned house. I was smiling so hard my face hurt.

“The house is burned down,” I told him. “I was afraid you were inside it.”

He shook his head. “No, I was staying at a friend’s in the town. But I heard the alarm, and came to see what was happening. I didn’t think you were in the house, but I wasn’t completely sure. Was it.. was it arson?”

I nodded.

“Everyone thought you were there. Everyone except your own men.”

“Yes. I do not know what to say to the legate. It is clear now that it must have been a Roman who arranged it: only army people are allowed in the fortress at night. They will think of the message that was sent to Gatalas. They will start guessing. But we still have no evidence, and how can I speak without it? It would be easy for them to kill me, if I were arrested here. Something in the prison food while I awaited trial for slander, another fire-nothing would be easier. Marha! I do not know what to say.”

I started back toward the wagons, and Eukairios fell in beside me. “You’re very upset about it,” he remarked. He sounded surprised.

“I am very glad you are alive,” I told him, beginning to recover myself. “I thought you were dead and your body burned.”

He stopped a moment. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, yes-of course.” He hurried to catch up with me again, and we walked on together, as though we were members of one household. We arrived back at the wagons, where my men were gathered in an anxious knot that broke in shouts and exclamations of relief when I appeared.

The following morning Eukairios was eager to go back into the town: he hadn’t finished arranging matters with the Christians when the fire started. “I spoke to the… the presbyteroi of the ekklesia yesterday,” he said. “The elders of the assembly, that is. They’ve prayed about the alliance. They are mostly Brigantians, and they don’t want to see a rebellion or an invasion of the northern tribes-but they’re not quite sure. They want to meet you.”

“Meet me? Why?”

“My lord… we can be injured very easily. One has only to go to a magistrate and say, ‘He’s a Christian,’ and that in itself is a sentence of death. And we don’t want to start a struggle with the druids: we’d be crushed. If we’re to commit ourselves to the risks of an earthly alliance, we have to be sure of our allies. They-one of them in particular-isn’t sure about you at all. I’ve vouched for you-but I’m your slave.”

I shrugged. “But what do they expect to gain by meeting me? They must know that I am not of your faith, that I am… how did you put it once?… a man who decorates his horses’ bridles with scalps and drinks from a Roman skull.”

“You don’t, anymore. They just want to know if you’re the sort of man they can trust not to betray us. Please, sir, I don’t think they’ll help if they haven’t met you.”

I was not eager to meet Eukairios’ friends. I preferred not to know the sordid details. But I did want their help in keeping contact with Siyavak and whatever knowledge their contacts with that other illegal cult had to offer me. “Very well, very well!” I said irritably. “You may tell them that I will meet them at midday, in a place of their chosing. But be back as soon as you can. I wish to have a list of proposals ready for the legate when we meet him this afternoon.”

He saddled my red bay carriage horse and galloped off almost as briskly as a Sarmatian.

Without Eukairios to help me with my list, I had the morning free. I considered trying to arrange some meeting with Siyavak-but decided that however I did it, I might endanger him, and it was safer to allow him to choose his time to meet me. I worked with the stallion Wildfire instead.

I’d accustomed the horse to the feel of a saddle while we were still in Cilurnum, and I’d ridden him for short distances beside Farna while we were on the road. It was probably fortunate that he’d been trained only as a carriage horse before. The saddle held no particular terrors for him-unlike the bridle, the very sound of which made him roll his eyes and lay his ears back. His mouth was so badly scarred, anyway, that he was unable to feel anything short of a wrestling hold on the reins, so I left him with his head in a halter and trained him only to the signals I gave him with my feet. He already knew the Latin carriage calls for “stop” and “go,” so it was easy to teach him that, and he learned to turn quickly. I rode him round and round the stable yard that morning-turn to the right, good lad, turn to the left, good, my brave one, stop! good, very good, here is some grain for you; turn to the left, trot, to the left, yes, good-and he was working well, still nervous of strangers or any sudden sound, but enjoying himself, wanting to please and be praised. When he’d walked and trotted for about an hour, I stopped him in the middle of the yard and began to show him that riders can do odd things in the saddle but that these are nothing to worry about. I stood up in the stirrups, moved over to one side, moved over to the other, leaned down, talking to him quietly all the while. He stood still, flicking his ears backward and forward, and only occasionally trying to move off. I praised him, then drew my legs up and knelt in the saddle. My left knee was stiff, but did not threaten to give under me. I stood up, carefully-and felt ridiculously proud of a feat of balance I’d once taken for granted.

All of a sudden we heard voices at the end of the stable yard, and Wildfire laid his ears back and shied violently. I managed to drop back into the saddle, though he had moved so that I landed hanging sideways by one leg; he leapt across the yard stiff-legged, prancing and snorting, with me hanging off on one side and dragging myself up by his mane. He nearly crashed into the wagons, shied again, twisted about, and neighed loudly, kicking. I had my hands full trying to stay on, and my men began running to help. Wildfire backed among the wagons, kicking and rolling his eyes. I slipped off and caught his head, put my arm about his neck and crooned into his ear. He stood still, shivering. Banadaspos ran over and caught the other side of the stallion’s halter, while I stroked the damp neck and whispered to the animal. I heard the rattle of a carriage crossing the yard, but was far too busy to pay any attention to it-until I heard Bodica’s voice, very close, saying, “Having trouble with your horse, Lord Ariantes?”

Wildfire neighed again and tried to rear. I put my coat over his head, but he still shifted, trembling and snorting.

“I think perhaps he remembers you,” I told Bodica, not looking up. “If you will please move away, Lady Aurelia, I can put him back in the stables.”

I led the horse past her without looking at her, only vaguely aware that she was sitting in her chariot and watching me. Wildfire calmed a little as I brought him into the stable. I put a blanket over him, and asked Banadaspos to walk him up and down and give him a drink of water when he was cool. Then I went back into the yard.

Bodica was still there, standing and leaning on the chariot rail now, letting the flower-bordered edge of a new white cloak drape elegantly over the painted side. “I think you’re right,” she told me, smiling. “I believe I did own that horse once. But he turned vicious and I sold him. I didn’t know you were interested in secondhand animals.”

I had wondered before if the stallion had ever been hers. While there are plenty of people to mistreat animals, few could afford to abuse such a fine one, and she obviously liked driving large and powerful stallions. “Most creatures turn vicious if they are punished unreasonably,” I told her. “Did you wish to speak to me, Lady Aurelia?”

“My husband and I wanted to invite you to dinner tonight, Lord Ariantes,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I hope you can come. We would be most offended if you couldn’t.”

I set my teeth. I’d been afraid of this, and had tried to think of a good excuse not to share a meal with my commanding officer. I’d been unable to. I would simply have to hope that she would not poison me at her own table, where her husband might discover it. “I am honored,” I told her, bowing my head. “I will come.”

“Good!” she said, and sat down again, “We’ll expect you about five o’clock then.” Her driver shook the reins, and the chariot moved off. I watched the white stallion trot smartly out of the yard, and wondered how long it would be before he “turned vicious,” too.

Eukairios returned about the middle of the morning and said that the Christians had agreed to a meeting, though they wanted it to be discreet. I was still angry and anxious when I set off with Eukairios for this. Eukairios wanted to go as inconspicuously as possible, and he asked that I not wear my armor. I very much disliked the feeling of setting out with my back unprotected. (Eukairios also considered it conspicuous to go on horseback, but I told him that Sarmatian princes do not walk, and I would be even more conspicuous if I did-though I took my courser instead of Farna.) I did not bring any of the bodyguard, of course. They were very unhappy at this, since they understood that someone had not only tried to murder me the night before, but chosen a particularly horrifying method for it, and they guessed now that the cursing tablet had not been the work of any Pict. They were deeply offended that I should leave them behind at such a time, and they protested angrily and swore to their loyalty. In the end I had to issue a flat order that they stay behind and keep quiet, and they watched me ride off very resentfully.

We trotted through the east gate of the fortress, then down the road and into the marketplace-like Corstopitum, Eburacum had grown from a mere army base into a proper city. Despite the cold weather, the market was busy, and the people there all looked at us twice. Eukairios glanced at me nervously and shook his head. “Couldn’t you have worn some other coat?” he whispered. “That red one is very conspicuous…”

“I have no plain coats,” I replied. “Your friends were the ones who wanted this meeting.”

Eukairios sighed. “Yes, my lord,” he said, very tense and unhappy now the time had come. “Well, we’ll have to go round the back, and then I’ll have to go on ahead, and make sure it’s clear, and get someone to hide the horses somewhere…”

We had to do as he said-out of the market, down a street, through an empty alleyway, into an even narrower back alley that smelled of boiled cabbages. Then I had to wait with the horses by a rubbish heap while Eukairios vanished into one of the houses ahead, and came back a little while later with a frightened girl, who whispered that we could put the horses in the shed with her goats. I looked at her remotely and said nothing. If the Christians decided not to help, after all this ridiculous performance, I was going to be seriously angry. But I tied up my courser in a shed in a back garden beside two nanny goats, and followed Eukairios through the back door of a private house. We emerged in a kitchen, very low and smoky, and were ushered through it into a middle-class dining room. The room was warm and bright, heated by a brazier, and the winter sun shining through the glass windows made watery patterns upon the red and white tiles of the floor. There were three men there, all in their forties. Two wore the gray-brown tunics and trousers and checked cloaks one could find on any man in the marketplace, and the third, who was clean-shaven, wore Roman dress. All three came over to me when I entered and shook hands, with me and with Eukairios.

“Lord Ariantes,” said the one in Roman dress. “Thank you for coming. I’m sorry we can’t give you our own names: it’s probably better that you don’t know them.” He sat on the middle couch of the three dining places, and gestured to the couch on his right. “Please, sit down.”

If an army officer had said that, I would have taken off my sword and made some effort to sit or recline in the usual Roman fashion. But I wasn’t going to make myself uncomfortable for a pack of cultists. I sat down on the floor in front of the couch he’d indicated, with my good leg crossed under me and my bad one pulled up before me, adjusting my sword so that it didn’t pull on the baldric. The two other Christians gave me an odd look, then sat down on the central couch beside their spokesman, watching me with wary curiosity. Eukairios, after a moment’s uncomfortable hesitation, sat down behind me.

“Our brother Eukairios,” said the Romanized Christian, “has explained to us that there may be a plot to make this region, Brigantia, our home, rebel against the provincial government. He’s said that someone is trying to involve Sarmatian troops like the one you command in mutinies, and has actually called in the Selgovae and the other Pictish tribes as invaders to occupy the army so the rebellion can succeed. He says further that the person at the center of this plot is… a lady reputed to be a follower of an extreme druidical sect, who wants to make Brigantia a druidical kingdom, with herself as queen. He says that while you know of this plot, you have no other witnesses or material evidence for it, and that your word alone would not be sufficient to convince the authorities. Is that a fair summary?”

I was relieved to have it all set out so clearly and unemotionally, though the open discussion of the details made me feel even more exposed than riding through the marketplace without armor had. “Yes,” I agreed.

“And he says further that you want our help for two purposes: first, to keep in contact with a friend of yours in Eburacum who is trying to discover the details of the plot; and secondly, to make use of our knowledge of, and contacts with, the druids.”

“That is so.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then one of the other Christians asked bluntly, “Why should we help you?”

“Because,” I answered, “you are British, and Roman, and, I think, Brigantian, and the kingdom that this plot would produce would be unwelcome to you on several counts.”

“The present government does not love us,” the other replied. He was a serious, dark-eyed man. “We are persecuted in every corner of this empire, and treated like sheep to be slaughtered. Our kingdom is not of this world, and we have no business interfering in the counsels of princes and legates.”

“And if the Selgovae and Votadini came up to this city and began to sack it?” I asked. “Would you interfere with them?”

“We would not shed their blood,” said Dark Eyes solemnly. “We would oppose them, and die in the name of Christ our Lord.”

“That wouldn’t do our neighbors any good!” replied the other British Christian, before I could say anything. “Nor our brothers and sisters, nor our wives and children! We are Brigantian, as he said: why shouldn’t we defend our home? And the man is asking us to carry letters, not to shed blood.”

The Romanizer held his hand up. “Not in front of our guest!” he said. “Lord Ariantes, our brother Eukairios has vouched for you in the strongest terms, and said that you are kind, generous, and a peacemaker. He says that by helping you, we might prevent a cruel and bloody rebellion. We know… something… of the people involved in this affair, and we’re inclined to believe him. But your people also have a very evil reputation, and it’s hard for us to… How shall I put it?”

“Make an alliance with a Sarmatian.”

He grinned at me quickly, and suddenly I liked him. “Well, yes,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought a dragon was the natural ally of a flock of doves.”

I spread my hands before me. “Granted. But I already have as an ally a Roman who before was a bitter enemy. If I can make an alliance with the eagles, I can make one with a flock of doves.”

“Eagles have more in common with dragons than doves do,” said Dark Eyes. “They are both killers.”

“Eukairios said he was a peacemaker,” said the Brigantian champion.

“He doesn’t look it,” said Dark Eyes. “Sitting there on the floor with his sword on his back and his hand on his dagger! And the stories I’ve heard say he’s killed dozens of men with his own hands.”

I took my hand off my dagger and looked at Dark Eyes thoughtfully, rubbing my knee. I wondered who and what he was, and who’d told him about me. “I have killed above thirty men,” I answered. “I have stopped counting. It is true, we are not a peace-loving nation-and we were sent to Britain as soldiers, and could not choose peace now even if we wished to. But I do not want there to be a war.”

“What do you want?” asked the Romanizer softly.

I gave him the honest, shameful truth. “I would like my dragon to rest quietly in Cilurnum, with nothing more to do than patrol the Wall, put down occasional raids, and breed horses. But I confess to you honestly that my own men might ask the gods instead for glory and victory in war.”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” said Dark Eyes. “There is nothing, I was told, that gives a Sarmatian more pleasure than killing any man whatsoever.”

I looked away, down at my hands now resting crossed on my torn knee. “In ten years’ time,” I said quietly, admitting another shameful truth that I’d known now for some time, “there will be no real Sarmatians in Britain. I am not what I was, nor is Arshak, nor are any of us. If you live in one place under an alien code of discipline, collect your wages four times a year, and spend your time drilling and patrolling, you are not the same as a nomad who lived by his herds and made war for pleasure. The only question has been, what do we become instead? I have answered it, ‘Roman soldiers.’ Arshak says, ‘British warriors.’ And perhaps there is no great difference in it. We are killers, in your terms, whatever we do-though you would do well to remember that as soldiers, we would defend you, while as warriors, we would become your oppressors. But I do not like the company we would keep as warriors, and I think even if we succeeded, we would succeed only to the destruction of all that is best in us. We used, in the past, to love truth, respecting our friends and keeping our oaths; we used to fight fairly, and spare the helpless. Those are the customs I wish us to keep, whatever else we may lose. I swear it on fire”-I raised my right hand and stretched it toward the brazier- “that I have asked for your help in a good cause which I believe ought by rights to be your cause, and that I will deal with you justly and without treachery.”

“It is our cause,” said the Brigantian.

“It is not!” said Dark Eyes.

“Christ is our cause,” said the Romanizer. “Him and him alone-but to serve him may mean serving goodness and justice wherever we may find it, as it is written: ‘and they said to him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? and he replied, Amen I tell you, whenever you gave it to the least of these my brothers, you gave it to me.’ ”

“He is not a brother!” exclaimed Dark Eyes angrily. “Least or greatest!”

“He is a neighbor, then,” snapped the Brigantian, “and engaged in a struggle with our enemies, who, by all accounts, have called on the aid of demons to curse him and have tried to murder him in this very city. Should we pass by on the other side, in the vain hope that the brigands won’t actually threaten us?”

“We put our trust in God, come what may,” replied Dark Eyes. “Not in princes.”

“We’ve prayed over this already, and argued it,” said the Romanizer. “I had a strong conviction of our Lord’s guidance in this before, and meeting the man has only reassured me. I’m sorry, brother, that it hasn’t helped you.”

Dark Eyes scowled. “He could have been worse,” he said, after a pause. “So you’re determined to go through with it?”

“For Christ’s sake!” exclaimed the Brigantian. “It’s our own city and our own homes at risk!”

“We have a clear choice between helping a man who is working for peace,” said the Romanizer, “or standing aside and letting the forces of destruction and violence take their course. I am for peace.” He stood and walked over to me, holding out his hand. “You have your alliance.”