Island of Ghosts

XVII

I was in the hospital in Corstopitum for fourteen days. I didn’t need to stay there so long, but I was technically under arrest for the whole of that time, and no one wanted to put me in the prison. Pervica came down from Cilurnum with Eukairios, and they found a place to stay in the town and came to keep me company. Eukairios started to teach me to write, and read me letters about what was happening elsewhere.

The mutiny was strangled on the twenty-third of January, the day before it was scheduled to take place. The legate Julius Priscus ordered the arrest of a number of his officers, then resigned and allowed the spies of the grain commissary to arrest his wife. Bodica wrote a letter to Arshak, not knowing that he was already dead, and poisoned herself in the prison. A lot of people afterward who hadn’t seen the letter claimed they had, and cited it as scandalous and salacious, but it wasn’t; Facilis showed it to Eukairios, who repeated it to me. “Aurelia Bodica, to Arsacus, prince-commander of the second dragon, greetings,” it said. “My white heart, we have been betrayed. I would have made you a king, as you deserve, but the gods have decreed otherwise. The purposes of the Hooded Ones are hard to understand. They did not effect my curse and my prayers have gone unheard. Yet I beg them again to hear me, and to receive my spirit, and yours. Farewell.”

I still don’t know if she had, as Facilis thought, committed adultery, and it still doesn’t seem very important. She had undoubtedly betrayed her husband, but at least she genuinely loved the man she had chosen in his place. I did not forgive her for her pleasure in drowning me, let alone for Vilbia, but it was some relief to learn that she was, after all, a human being, and not the demon she had appeared.

Siyavak, who had indeed been arrested with his pretended allies, was released on Bodica’s death and publicly proclaimed the discoverer of the conspiracy, a hero of the Roman state-which cannot have pleased him-and the revenger of Gatalas, which I know did. He was given the kind of decorations Romans always give to award conspicuous courage-a silver spear, a golden crown, and an assortment of armbands, torques, and medals. He was also confirmed as commander of the Fourth Sarmatians, and his liaison officer, Victor, was recalled to the headquarters of the Sixth Legion. Siyavak sent me a letter announcing his satisfaction at revenging Gatalas’ death and at receiving honors from the Romans, which, he said, had greatly pleased his men. He also congratulated me for killing Arshak. “I’ve heard that the Romans revile you for fighting him when he would have been arrested anyway,” he wrote, “and the man who writes this letter deplores it. But it was honorably done, Prince, and I was glad to hear of it, for I would have been ashamed to see him, the descendant of kings, imprisoned and executed by the Romans. I look forward to seeing you again, and hearing of the combat, which I’ve been told was terrifying both for its skill and for its ferocity.”

Pervica had one very surprising piece of news from her druid acquaintance. It seemed that the druids of the North had held their convocation and that, with Cunedda dead and the rest of the extreme sect in fear, the whole meeting had swung over to her friend Matugenus. Instead of being branded a heretic lover of Rome, he was a hero of the true religion. The meeting had denounced “those who betray their own people to foreign plunderers out of hatred of their enemies,” and voted that human sacrifice of an unwilling victim was blasphemous. The followers of the old religion all over the North were delighted with Matugenus, and Matugenus was enormously pleased with himself. Through Pervica he sent me a message saying that he would pray for my swift recovery, and offering me the friendship of his order.

That was immediately after the rebellion was crushed. A few days later we heard that the grain commissary, less careful than Facilis, was arresting any druids they could find and torturing them until they confessed to having some part in the conspiracy. Unlike Facilis, the commissary struck blindly. They had no list of druids, only the reports of their own informers. They didn’t take many men, but they did grab everyone whose name was reported to them. Matugenus’ name was on everyone’s lips-and he was among those taken.

Pervica went to Facilis and told him that Matugenus was innocent, that he’d led the opposition to Cunedda. Facilis told me that he knew that from others and had said as much to the intelligence officers, but that the only interest they took in it was to ask him who his informants were: for him to intervene again would be no help to Matugenus, and could put more lives at risk. There was nothing we could do.

The governor of Britain, Quintus Antistius Adventus, arrived in Eburacum to decide what to do about the mess of the northern army on the eighth of February. The summons for me to go there had come some time before, on the third. I was carried down in a horse litter, much to my disgust. I told everyone that I had ridden seven hundred miles from Aquincum with my leg in a splint, so I could perfectly well ride a mere seventy-five or eighty to Eburacum, but everyone disregarded me completely. The doctor in Corstopitum said I must not put any strain on the bone, that my riding with it in a splint had done it considerable damage before, and that the only good thing about it breaking again was that now it could at least set straight. Even my bodyguard sided with the doctor, and Facilis gleefully pointed out that I was under arrest and had no choice about which way I traveled. So I went to Eburacum lying on my back in a litter, like a Roman senator’s wife.

Facilis rode along beside me, with Longus, a squadron of Asturians, and a cavalry cohort from the First Thracians under Titus Ulpius Silvanus. Eukairios and Pervica came as well, Pervica driving her farm cart and Eukairios riding my red bay, but all of my own men were left at home. Facilis promised them that the arrest was only a formality, but said that even so, a man charged with murder really could not go to trial with a bodyguard and several squadrons of armored horsemen at his back. They protested angrily at this. I had to have all the captains summoned to the hospital, so that I could command them to obey their oaths. The Romans promised them that no one was likely to execute me, reminding them that the arrest was just a formality. Eventually they yielded, though sullenly. I charged Leimanos and Banadaspos with making sure they behaved with grace during my absence. Comittus also stayed behind, partly because the fort required at least one senior officer, but also, I think, because he didn’t want his own connections inspected at Eburacum.

When I arrived in Eburacum, I was put in the fort hospital-again to keep me out of the prison-while my friends found lodgings in the town or squeezed into fort buildings already crowded with the governor’s staff. The next morning a party of soldiers in old-fashioned strip armor and cap helmets marched into my room carrying a sedan chair and asked if I were Ariantes, commander of the Sixth Numerus of Sarmatian Horse. I agreed that I was.

“Then we’ll take you to see the governor,” said their spokesman. “We’re with the Second Numerus of the Consular Guard. He’s sitting in judgment now, and your case is next.”

I looked down and rubbed my knee, trying to collect myself. I felt very nervous and unsure of myself, now that it had come to the point. I did not believe that the authorities particularly wanted to punish me for killing Arshak, now that he had been exposed as an oath-breaker. On the other hand, duels between commanders were not something that the Roman state would want to encourage. They might punish me with demotion to make an example of me to the next eight dragons. They could even conceivably execute me. I was glad that my bodyguard had been left behind in Cilurnum, but I wished I had a friend with me now.

“Do you want to change?” suggested the leading consular guardsman, misunderstanding my hesitation. “If you have Roman dress, we’ll give you time to put it on.”

I had my own clothes, and my friends had seen to it that they were clean. I put on my best shirt to see the governor, and pinned my coat loose across my shoulders. I had a new hat-black, with gold embroidery-but for weapons I had not so much as a dagger, and I felt exposed and ashamed. It was worse when the guardsmen brought up the sedan chair for me. “I will walk,” I told them.

“We were told you couldn’t,” said their spokesman. “Just sit down in it, sir. I don’t want to get in trouble with the doctors. The governor must have finished the last case by now, and they’ll all be waiting for you.”

I sat down in the sedan chair. I felt utterly ridiculous.

The governor was seated at the tribunal in the great hall of the headquarters of the Sixth Legion. The courtyard outside was full of his personal guard, and the hall itself was so full-with his staff, with officers of the legion, with prefects of all the auxiliary forces of the North-that it was hard to see any known face among all the faces. I noticed Julius Priscus, though, standing behind the tribunal. He looked shrunken and aged since our last meeting, and he stood with his shoulders slumped. His eyes met mine as I was carried in, and his mouth twisted. He looked away. Everyone else in the room seemed to be staring at me.

The guardsmen who were carrying the sedan chair set it down, and I stood up, balancing on my good leg. The governor sat with his hands on his knees, looking down at me. He was a middle-aged Numidian, grizzled brown and dark-eyed, and in honor of the military occasion he was wearing gilded armor under his gold-fringed crimson cloak. The emperor’s statue watched with a preoccupied frown from the chapel of the standards at the side of the hall.

I saluted the governor. “Greetings, my lord Antistius Adventus!” I said. “Greetings to you all.”

The governor clear his throat. “You are Ariantes, son of Arifarnes, commander of the Sixth Numerus of Sarmatian Horse?”

I bowed my head in agreement.

“You have been accused of murdering the commander of the Second Numerus, Arsacus son of Sauromates.”

“I killed him, my lord, in fair combat,” I corrected him.

One of the governor’s staff coughed. “Were you aware that he was plotting a mutiny?”

“I was.”

“Was the fight perhaps connected in some way with that mutiny?” the same staff member prompted.

“We had chosen different sides, sir,” I said carefully. “He wished to fight, and took steps to provoke me.”

“You might have taken steps to inform your Roman liaison officer, or your camp prefect,” put in a different man, this one an army commander in the red cloak and sash of a prefect.

I had no intention of discussing Comittus and his druidical connections. “I had informed both of them,” I said instead, politely, “of the conspiracy against Roman power in this region. I had informed them, and the legate, and you, my lord governor, and all who were concerned, of Lord Arshak’s involvement in that conspiracy, as you all know. But I was provoked, as I said, to fight him. And I thought also that for him to die at the hands of the Roman state would be crushing to his people, to mine, and to those of our nation who have yet to arrive in this province. He was the nephew of our king. Moreover, it seemed to me very likely that many lives would be lost overcoming him, for he was a powerful man and a brave one, and would have fought his arrest. I therefore fought him privately, and the gods granted me victory.”

“You are a loyal servant of the emperor?” asked the first prompter.

“I am faithful to my oaths,” I replied.

My prompter turned back to the governor. “You notice that he was aware of everything that the centurion told us?” he asked. “That this man Arsacus would have been an immense embarrassment to us if he had been arrested and executed, and that many Roman lives would have been at risk in any attempt to arrest him? Isn’t it far better that this loyal commander killed him in a duel?”

“Yes, I did notice it, Quintus Petronius,” answered the governor, testily. “But I’m still not going to give him a gold crown for it. I agree that it was a mercy of the gods that this fellow Arsacus was taken out quietly and in a way that his followers don’t too much object to, but dueling remains a practice I do not wish to encourage in the British army. Ariantes son of Arifarnes, it’s plain that the man you killed was a rebel and traitor and that you killed him largely because of it, and I therefore have no hesitation in proclaiming you innocent of murder. But I cannot give you the reward you may have expected, because of the manner in which you killed him. In future, you must respect Roman discipline.”

I bowed my head to hide my surprise. I heard someone laugh over to one side, and I glanced round to see Longus and Pervica, squeezed in the door that led from the courtyard, watching me, in Longus’ case, with delight.

“However”-and the governor smirked, and began to speak in a peculiar booming voice which I later realized was the way they’re taught to talk in rhetorical schools-“it is clear that the province of Britain owes you a debt for the prompt way in which you reported this treason to the authorities, for your tenacity of purpose and loyalty when faced with threats against your life, and for the encouragement you gave to Siau…”-he had trouble with the name-“Siauacus, the commander of the Fourth Sarmatians, in his brave and loyal service in uncovering the conspiracy. Moreover, I have taken note of the high regard in which all your junior officers hold you, and the tributes paid to your administrative ability by the procurator of the fleet and the former legate of the Sixth Victrix. In respect of the services you have rendered us-but not the killing-I have decided to award you the silver spear, the medals, and the armbands normally given to honor valor. In appreciation of your proven loyalty and abilities, I have decided to do away with the need for a Roman liaison officer in your case and to allow you the supreme command of all the troops at Cilurnum, including the five squadrons of the Second Asturian Horse. As a temporary measure, I would also like you to take charge of the Second Sarmatian Horse.”

My head was swimming, and I was afraid my leg would give way. “My lord,” I said, spreading my hands helplessly, “that I cannot do. They are Arshak’s men, and I am their lord’s killer. They will not revenge it, because it was fair combat and they had sworn to abide by its result-but they would not obey me. I suggest that you allow Siyavak to choose one of the squadron captains as commander of the dragon, and appoint him jointly with a Roman.”

The governor frowned, looking offended-then shrugged. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll resolve that matter later. In the meantime, Ariantes, I wish to offer you, in the emperor’s name, a reward greater than any of those I have mentioned so far: the citizenship of Rome.”

I bowed my head again, to conceal my feelings. The citizenship of Rome. I, become a Roman. Become a countryman of Tirgatao’s murderers. I did not want it.

But the governor had taken my gesture as one of awed consent, and he smirked as he instructed one of his staff to draw up the papers. Another staff member was already sorting out a memorandum about the next case, and the audience whispered to each other about it and about the business they had just seen finished. I asked if I were free to go. I was told I could, impatiently, by the officer who’d been annoyed with me about dueling, and I began to limp heavily out of the hall. Longus and Pervica pushed their way in through the door and forced me back into the sedan chair. After a moment, the consular guardsmen picked it up and carried me out.

I made them stop before they took me back to my hospital room, and they put me down outside in the hospital courtyard, where there was a garden. Pervica and Longus hurried up behind them. Longus was laughing. I climbed out of the chair and steadied myself against a potted shrub. “Should we take the chair back then?” asked the leading guardsman. “Or will you need it later, sir?”

“I do not want it!” I said, with some force, and he grinned.

“Very good!” he said cheerfully, and gestured for the others to take it away. “Sorry they didn’t give you the crown, sir. You deserved it. But that’s the senior command: they always come down hard on a breach of discipline. Good luck!” And he and the rest marched off.

Longus laughed again. “Hercules!” he said. “You looked so stupid when the governor said you couldn’t have a golden crown.”

“I thought I would be punished,” I told him.

He laughed again. “That’s what Marcus Flavius said. You have a very low opinion of Romans, don’t you? We’d be a pretty ungrateful bunch to punish you after you saved the province-or the north quarter of it, anyway. And you standing there, wobbling on one leg, the other injured in your struggle against the enemies of Rome-Hercules! Half the governor’s staff think he’s treated you very unfairly as it is. Of course, you gave them presents when you were trying to increase the pay offer, didn’t you? They had a high opinion of you anyway.”

I shook my head in bewilderment. I told myself how pleased my men would be when they learned that the Romans had honored me-but I realized even as I thought it that they would find out that I might have been given a gold crown, and they would instantly forget their relief and resent the lack of it. Siyavak, they would tell each other, had been given a gold crown, and he wasn’t even a scepter-holder. And the next time they met up with the men of the fourth dragon, they’d quarrel with them. As Facilis said, Sarmatians!

“So,” said Longus happily, “now you’re officially prefect of the ala of the Second Asturians-my prefect, my lord”-he swept me a mocking bow-“as well as commander of the Sixth Sarmatians. And Comittus goes back to being a staff officer of the Sixth Legion. You’ll have to move into that house after all, you know. You’re a Roman citizen! What are you going to call yourself?”

I shrugged. Pervica came over and put my arm over her shoulders, helping me to balance. “You don’t want to be a Roman citizen, do you?” she asked gently.

“No,” I agreed.

“You can’t refuse!” exclaimed Longus, losing his mockery.

“It would insult the governor if I did, would it not?” I said evenly, “And it would give me… advantages, I suppose, which would be useful. No, I cannot refuse.” I looked sourly at the hospital. “If I am not technically under arrest, I do not need to stay here, do I? But my wagon is in Cilurnum.”

“I’m sure they’ll find you a house,” said Pervica.

I put my arm around her waist and looked at her. I could feel her hipbone against my wrist, and the smoothness of her stomach under my hand. I suddenly wanted her very badly. I knew that she was staying in an inn in town, and I didn’t want to leave her there. “If I am a citizen,” I said, “it will make it easier to marry legally. I suppose I could tolerate a house, if you shared it.”

Her fingers tightened on my shoulder. “It will probably take longer than one afternoon, though, to sort it out,” she said quietly.

“Let us try!” I said, urgently now. “We can have a wedding feast back in Cilurnum: see if we cannot sort out some kind of contract today!”

She flushed bright red and kissed me. “Yes!” she cried, suddenly enthusiastic. “Yes, right now! Gaius and I will go and see what we can do. I’ll find Eukairios, and he can find Marcus Flavius: they’ll know how we can do it.”

I stayed in the hospital garden while they searched, sitting down beside the fountain. It was a warm day, for February: the sun was shining, and the early crocuses had shoved their blunt snouts above the ground. Hellebore was flowering, white and sweet-scented, and the water was dark and clear. After a while, Facilis trotted into the courtyard. He seemed unusually pleased with himself.

“Congratulations,” he said. “Honors all round. Gaius tells me you want to get married today.”

I nodded. I had another thing to say to him first. “I understand you spoke to the governor on my behalf, urging him to give me honors for killing Arshak.”

Facilis grunted. “I pointed out to them that you solved a very sticky problem for us.”

“You slippery bastard,” I said, with feeling.

He barked, and sat down on the fountain beside me, grinning. “We’ll have you speaking Latin properly yet!” he exclaimed. “About the marriage-I can help arrange it for you, if you like. I’m going to the public archives myself this afternoon anyway.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”

He grinned at me. “A manumission and an adoption.”

“What?”

He gave a pleased grunt. “I told Julius Priscus last night that I’d… um, found Vilbia, with her baby, in Corstopitum, and that I’d, um, apprehended them. But I said I’d taken a liking to the girl and wanted to buy her. He had no objection. He doesn’t want anything that ever had anything to do with his wife, poor bastard; he’s sick with the whole business, ruined and disgraced. His administrative career is finished, though I can’t see anything he did that was worthy of blame. Anyway, he gave me Vilbia on the spot, I drew up the manumission papers, and I’m going to get them witnessed this afternoon and legally adopt the girl.”

“As your daughter?” I repeated, bewildered.

He barked with laughter. “You want a wife, but that doesn’t mean everyone does. I had one once, and that was enough for me. But I also had a daughter once. She died when she was seven. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind, ‘What would have happened if she’d lived? What would she be like now?’ Probably not a bit like Vilbia. But the girl has suffered, and she needs someone to care for her. She’s a sweet, kind girl, and brave, to defy her mistress over the baby-you know she believed in Bodica’s magic absolutely, and was terrified of her. I want a daughter; she wants a father. These things sort themselves out. One little piece of parchment and instantly I’m a father again, and a grandfather as well. Flavia Vilbia and Marcus Flavius Secundus, citizens of Rome. How about that, eh?”

“Congratulations,” I said, smiling at him. “I wish you all much joy.”

“We’re going to move to Eburacum,” he went on. “I’m being promoted, to primus pilus of the Sixth Victrix! Think of that! All those years I sweated in the Thirteenth Gemina, and I thought hastatus of the first rank was as high as I could get, and now I’m primus pilus for a year, over the heads of two others, and afterward something senior. No more muddling about with a lot of barbarians who always smell of horses.”

First the news that Comittus would be recalled to the Sixth; and now Facilis as well. “I will miss you,” I said, and it was perfectly true.

He slapped my shoulder. “You don’t intend to forget me completely, then? You remember that?”

I nodded.

“I’ll miss you, as well.” He added it very quietly, as though it embarrassed him to say it, and hurried on, “But it’s been pretty damn clear ever since we reached Cilurnum that you never needed me to keep an eye on you. And I imagine you’ll be in and out of Eburacum fairly frequently, as well as down to Londinium, advising people on how to treat Sarmatians: we’ll see each other from time to time. Anyway, there is a quick way of getting married, without going through all the ceremonies. You have Eukairios draw up a legal contract expressing your intent to marry a Brigantian citizen, one Pervica, and arranging your various properties however you wish. Then you sign it, she signs it, three witnesses sign it, and that is sufficient evidence of affectio maritalis to satisfy any court in the land. I’ll file it for you when I go down to the archives, and the job’s done. You’ll need your citizenship papers, though. I can collect them for you from the governor’s staff. What names do you want on them?”

I shrugged. Roman names.

“Well-to whom do you owe your citizenship?”

“First to the governor, then to the emperor.”

“Quintus Antistius Ariantes? Marcus Aurelius Ariantes?”

I flinched. “Marha!”

He grinned at me. “A bitter mouthful, is it? You’ll get used to it. Which one shall it be?”

“Marcus Aurelius.”

“The safest choice. The governor would be flattered if you used his names, but his term of office ends in a year or so, and he can’t be offended at you choosing to honor the emperor. I won’t call you Marcus, don’t worry.” He got to his feet. “I’ll go arrange it for you. Good health!”

Eukairios arrived a few minutes after he’d gone. “Pervica said you wanted to see me, Patron,” he said.

“I wanted to marry her today,” I said. “Marcus Flavius says that you can draw up a marriage contract concerning our property, and that we need three witnesses for it. He says he will collect my citizenship papers from the governor’s staff, take them down to the public archives, and file the contract for us. Is that all it needs?”

“That should be- What citizenship papers?”

I looked at him sourly. “I am rewarded with Roman citizenship.”

“Oh.” He sat down beside me and stared into the fountain. I noticed quite suddenly that his eyes were red.

“What is the matter?” I asked.

He looked away from the water reluctantly and rubbed his eyes. “I

… was visiting the brothers here, and they had a letter for me from the ekklesia in Bononia, the one I used to belong to. Three of my friends have been arrested, and were sent to Augusta Treverorum to die in the arena.”

“I am very sorry,” I said, after a moment’s silence.

He shook his head. “We say it’s a glorious death, to die praising Christ in the arena.” His voice had thickened. “We say that it’s the sure road to the Heavenly City, and that God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

“But you wept, nonetheless.”

“They were always so kind!” he exclaimed passionately, beginning to weep again. “Especially Lucilla. There was never a stray cat that went hungry from her door, and if she saw a child crying in the street, she comforted it. She used to send me honeyed wine when I’d had my rations stopped, and charcoal to warm my cell in the winter. Oh God, God, I loved her! They are going to throw her to the wild beasts.” He looked up at the dull sky, his face contorted and streaming. “I want to take the soldiers who arrested her, the magistrates who ordered it, the jailers who keep her prisoner-I want to take the whole howling mob of people who are going to watch it-I want to take them all, and cast them into the lake of Hell, and watch them burn!”

“I am sorry,” I said again.

“Vengeance is evil. I should forgive my enemies.” He was back in control of himself. “Otherwise the wounded strike the wounded, and so the world is chained in suffering. I should be glad for my sister and my brothers: they are leaping from a moment’s pain into eternal glory. I am confident that Christ will give them strength and bring them home.”

There was another minute of silence. I thought about the kind Lucilla, doomed to die in the arena; about the Pictish prisoners we had taken; about the druids imprisoned in this very city. I thought about Tirgatao’s death.

“So,” said Eukairios, after another minute of silence, “they’ve given you the Roman citizenship.”

I nodded. “Tell me, Eukairios, should I refuse it?”

“No!” he said, in astonished disbelief. “Of course not!”

“I do not want it. The gods know, I do not love Rome.”

“But you’ve risked so much to defend Roman power!”

“I had a choice between that and joining its enemies, who seemed to me much worse. I was not offered the choice my heart would make; one never is.”

“What choice would that be?”

I was silent for a long time. I did not want to be a Roman, but I already knew that I was no true Sarmatian anymore-and I still had no clear idea of what the Britons were like. What world would I choose, if I had my freedom?

“A world without hatred,” I said at last.

Eukairios looked away, into the fountain. He reached over and stirred the stagnant water with his hand. “You’re right,” he whispered. “That’s not a choice we’re ever offered.”

I touched his shoulder.

Pervica came into the garden and hurried over to me. I stood up, balancing on one foot, and let her take my left arm. “Facilis says he can arrange for us to be married today,” I told her. “Eukairios can draw up the contract, and Marcus will take it to the archives this afternoon.”

“I went to see Publius Verinus, the camp prefect here,” she replied, “and he says we can have a guest room in the commandant’s house, despite it being so crowded. He was very pleasant when I told him we wanted to get married, and wished us joy.”

Her face, turned up to mine, was flushed and radiant. I smiled into it. In that part of me that was neither Roman nor Sarmatian, I kicked shut the doors of all the worlds that offered, and chose the one that no one would give me, the way to the Jade Gate, where I could never go.