Island of Ghosts

III

The apples helped. I tossed them out as soon as the bireme docked in Bononia, the men passed them from hand to hand, examining them and tasting them, and when I rode back into the center of our camp and made a speech about Britain, they were ready to be convinced. Nonetheless, it was no easy job to tear ourselves loose from the land and set sail on the unfathomable water. I asked the procurator Natalis to allow us a day for preparation and prayer before embarking.

“Of course, Lord Ariantes,” he said, smiling benevolently. “Roman soldiers often want to purify themselves before a voyage, too. I’ve even seen Italians afraid to cross the ocean, and we often have trouble with the Pannonians and the easterners. Your people aren’t the only ones who think the world ends at the Channel. Do you need any cattle for the sacrifice?”

“We use horses,” I told him, and he offered to provide some.

Facilis apparently argued with him after I left, telling him that a delay would only give us more opportunity to mutiny, but, fortunately, Natalis didn’t listen to him. He was eager to help us. In Dubris I’d learned that he usually resided on the British side of the Channel, and had only based himself in Bononia to supervise us. He saw to it that we had proper food, access to water for washing and enough fuel, and medicines for sick men and sore-footed horses-all the things we’d missed on the journey. I began to realize how much we had endured before because Facilis was the only one responsible for us. Of course, perhaps a part of it was that I was willing to go and ask for what we needed, instead of drifting blindly in the nightmare-or enduring proudly and dreaming of revenge, like Arshak and Gatalas.

So we were able to commit ourselves to the gods before embarking. We washed our clothing, groomed our horses, and set up some steam tents to clean ourselves properly. Then we assembled at noon to sacrifice to Marha and read the omens for the voyage. The sacrifice, of three horses, went well, and the omens were, on the whole, encouraging. Each of our companies had its own diviner, who knew how to read the patterns made by the willow rods, marked black with charcoal and white with chalk, that we use to discover the will of the gods and to foretell the future. Gatalas’ diviner foretold life and good fortune for the dragon across the sea, but warned of danger from lies and from fire; he promised the company glory in war-which they received with a loud yell of pleasure-but warned the commander to beware of deceit, and foretold that he would die in battle. Arshak’s diviner was less skillful. His company was indeed promised good fortune, but also disaster. The message for Arshak himself was equally confused: danger in lies, danger in darkness, life and death appearing equally balanced. Arshak received this prophecy with a smile. “I will die when it is fated,” he said, “but I trust I will not die unavenged.”

For my troop, the omens promised victory, which pleased them very much. But I myself had a divination as confused as Arshak’s, and rather grimmer: danger from lies, battle, death by drowning, death by fire, and victory.

“What does that mean?” Arshak asked Kasagos, my diviner. “You’ve killed Ariantes twice there, and had him win a victory afterward. You Roxalani can’t read the rods properly.” (I had five squadrons of men from the Roxalanic tribe in my company, and the men in the other companies sometimes jeered at them. The rest of our army were all men from the tribe of the Iazyges, as I am myself. The Roxalani are just as much Sarmatians as the Iazyges, but are a less ancient tribe, and have a slightly different history.)

I thought Arshak had no business scoffing at Kasagos for making a confused prophecy, since his own diviner had produced an equally puzzling one. “Perhaps I will be wounded winning the victory, and die by either water or fire afterward,” I suggested. A horrible thought occurred to me: that I would be wounded by a defeated enemy, drown, and when my body was washed ashore, some Romans would treat it with their own funeral customs and burn it. But I kept the thought to myself. Death by water is a wretched fate, and to burn the body, so my people believe, is to destroy the soul. The bare suggestion of such a fate would upset my men.

Kasagos frowned at the rods. “The sign for victory comes after the two deaths. I think, my prince, that the deaths must be read as warnings. If you avoid death by water and fire, you will win a victory.”

“In other words, don’t go swimming, and be careful when you light a fire,” said Arshak, grinning. “Good advice at any time, but you hardly need the divining rods to tell you that.”

Still, the omens had promised good fortune to every company, and when we followed the ceremony with a feast (courtesy of the procurator of the British fleet), the men were inclined to look on the bright side, especially after the wine started flowing. There was no resistance next day when the time came to board the ships.

But even without resistance, it was hard work. Fifteen hundred men and nearly four times that number of horses had to be loaded onto transports. The transports were larger, sturdier, and slower ships than the fast bireme, but only three of them were suitable for carrying more than a handful of horses at a time. The horses had all been on boats before, to cross the Danube-but many still had to be blindfolded to get them aboard, and their owners had to go with them to soothe them on the voyage and prevent them from harming themselves when the ships rolled. Since most of the men had three horses and we also had extra horses for the wagons, it meant that some men had to make two trips to cope with all the animals. Then, of course, there were questions of precedence. Put two Sarmatian nobles in front of a gate and they’ll spend all day arguing over who goes through first-and we had fifteen hundred Sarmatian nobles in front of three horse transports. It helped that our companies had had their order of march established long ago. Arshak’s company was called the second dragon, because his dragon standard followed second behind that of the king; Gatalas led the fourth dragon, and I commanded the sixth: Arshak’s company thus went first, Gatalas’second, and mine last. But each commander needed to stand on the dock the whole time his dragon was embarking, to give each squadron, and each man in the squadron, his proper place.

Then there was a problem with the wagons: the Roman sailors saw no reason to transport these at all. Why couldn’t we live in tents and barracks, like their own soldiers? they asked. I had to insist and threaten, coax and cajole them about it for some time, and when they at last gave in, it was as much from exasperation with the wagons clogging the shipyard where they were as from any desire to help us shift them.

Then there were more problems, with supplies.

My fellow princes remained proudly aloof from the Romans and left all the insisting and cajoling to me. I became, as I’d feared, the reasonable one, the one the Romans could work with. The procurator Natalis turned to me to say which troops went when, and asked my advice about how to secure the wagons or restrain nervous horses. I disliked the position, but could not shrug it off, and the more I cooperated, the more they turned to me.

Halfway through the first day of the transportation, Natalis came down to the ships while they were being loaded, carrying a set of wax tablets.

“There you are, Ariantes,” he said, and offered me the tablets. “I’m trying to get a week’s supplies for your people together for you in Dubris, and I’ve drawn up a list of what we think you might need. Can you just look it over and correct it if there’s anything you don’t need?”

I stared at the tablets, not touching them. “I cannot read,” I told him.

“Oh,” he said, pulling the tablets back. “No, of course you can’t. I don’t have time to go over them with you. I’ll find you a scribe.” And he went back to his headquarters.

About an hour later, a man of about forty, small, dark, and weary, trotted up with the tablets. “You are Lord Ariantes?” he asked me, and when I nodded, he went on, “I am Eukairios, a slave in the office of the procurator. Lord Valerius Natalis sends me to you. He said you needed a scribe.”

I have never forgotten the shock of that afternoon. Eukairios was very good at his work. We went over the list of supplies, and it was all wrong: it contained vast amounts of wheat, which we weren’t used to, and no cheese or dried meat, which we were. There was no wood to mend the wagons, should one break; there was the wrong kind of horse fodder; there was no felt to patch the awnings and not enough leather to bind them-it was a useless list altogether. And Eukairios knew exactly what to do to put it all right. All the afternoon it went on, me saying, “What we need is…” and Eukairios answering, “That would take us over budget, Lord Ariantes, but what we could do…” and me saying, “Can you really do that?”

Letters. “Ariantes, commander of the sixth numerus of Sarmatian cavalry, to Minucius Habitus, procurator of the imperial saltus, greetings. My lord, we require a hundred barrels of salt beef from the imperial estates to be shipped to Dubris under authority of the procurator Lord Valerius Natalis…” “Ariantes… to Junius Coroticus, shipping agent, greetings. The procurator Valerius Natalis requests that you provide a ship to the port of Durobrivae of the Iceni to transport a hundred barrels of salt beef…” “Ariantes.. to Marcius Modestus, head of the fleet workshops in Dubris, greetings. The procurator authorizes you to allot us a hundredweight of oak staves and two hundredweight of beechwood planking…”

“And now, Lord Ariantes,” Eukairios would say, “you put your mark there, and I write ‘Unlettered’ here, and we seal it thus, and we can send it off first thing tomorrow.” Take a thin leaf of shaved beechwood, mark it with ink, fold it and seal it with wax, put it on a dispatch vessel-and men a hundred miles away who’d never heard of Sarmatians would roll barrels of salt beef onto a ship that had appeared to move them, take them to a warehouse in Dubris that was expecting them, and have them stacked waiting for us when we appeared. Letters are wonderful things.

After that, Eukairios was assigned to me every day until I left Bononia myself, on the last transport. To say I found him useful is as misleading as it is true. I had carefully planned and prepared troop movements in the past-I’d organized raids and gathered the men of my dragon to fight the war. But always I’d relied on those I knew, drawn on my own resources and those of my dependants, and done without records. The freedom of the pen, which can run backward in time to take account and forward to draw up a budget, which can speak directly to unknown persons far away, was intoxicating. It terrified me that I liked it so much, that, within two days, I was waiting impatiently for Eukairios to arrive in the morning, depending on him to come so I could do my own work. It infuriated me that I should depend on a Roman slave, and I looked forward to leaving him and Bononia behind. But I dreaded being left voiceless, while around me the letters flew and Romans spoke to Romans about my people, and we stood like mute and bewildered children in an alien world.

In the end I set sail from Bononia with Eukairios-and with Valerius Natalis, and with Flavius Facilis. Eukairios came because we were finishing some accounts; Natalis, because he was returning to his preferred base at Dubris-but Facilis was an unpleasant surprise. We had seen very little of him once the crossing began, and I’d thought that he’d given up his charge of us and was preparing to return with his legionaries to Aquincum. I found that instead he’d been writing to the legate Priscus, offering his services as an expert on Sarmatians. I could not ask him why. I suspected, even then, that it was not because he had any straightforward plan for revenge, but because he felt his business with us was unfinished. He meant to finish it and make sure we would not forget him, as I had wished to do. I suppose, too, he had nothing waiting for him in Aquincum except regrets and painful memories: why shouldn’t he start a new life in Britain? At any rate, Priscus had accepted him and had offered to appoint him camp prefect of some fortress in the North where he could keep an eye on us. I was not happy at Facilis coming-he would have provoked my men into mutiny twice, if he’d had his way-and I was still more unhappy that Priscus thought we needed him. But because I could do nothing about it, I avoided the man. I had eight horses on the transport, and I went into the hold with them instead of onto the deck with the Romans-but, of course, I took Eukairios and the accounts with me.

When we were three hours out from Bononia, however, Natalis sent a slave to invite me to have a drink with him. The horses were all accustomed to the ship by then, so I agreed to leave them-I’d relied heavily on the procurator’s authority in Bononia and I couldn’t afford to offend him. I told Eukairios to come up on deck as well, and to bring the accounts, since we’d finished them. (I was not seasick on that voyage. The transport bucked and rolled far less than the bireme had, and the sea was calmer that day.)

Natalis was in the covered cabin by the sternpost of the transport, sitting in a carved chair and looking out at the ship’s wake. He gave me his most benevolent smile, had another chair brought up for me, and offered me a cup of wine. “I thought we might have a drink together to celebrate a job well done,” he said. “I’ve been grateful for your help, Ariantes.”

“We have been grateful for yours, Valerius Natalis,” I returned. I sipped my wine uncomfortably.

“Yes-but I was obliged by my position to help you, and you might very easily have decided to… cause difficulties. I believe we might have had serious trouble in Bononia, if it hadn’t been for you.”

“It was my own people who would have suffered most,” I said, just a bit too sharply.

“Oh, indeed, indeed,” Natalis agreed quickly. “But one doesn’t expect barbarians to be so reasonable-or to show such flair for administration. As a token of my gratitude, I’d like to give you a present.”

“Lord Valerius Natalis, I did not act as I have through hope of reward from any Roman.”

“I am quite sure of that, Lord Ariantes. It would be an insult to you to suppose otherwise, wouldn’t it? Nonetheless, it’s a Roman custom for senior officers, such as myself, to make gifts to those who have helped them. I am sure you could use a reliable scribe in your future career, so let me make you a present of Eukairios.”

Eukairios, who’d been standing quietly by the entrance to the cabin all this while, dropped his accounts ledger with a clatter and stared at Natalis in horror. “Lord procurator!” he gasped.

“I could not accept,” I said. “My people do not keep slaves.” I spoke quickly because I was angry with myself. I already knew that if Natalis pressed me, I’d accept. Now that I’d been offered him, I knew I wanted the scribe badly.

“Oh, you must have some slaves!” protested Natalis. “How can a gentleman manage without them? What do you do with the captives you take in all your wars, eh?”

“We do not take captives, Lord Procurator. We do not keep foreigners in our wagons, and our own people are all free, the sons and daughters of warriors. What would I do with a slave? Eukairios cannot ride a horse.” (I’d discovered this in Bononia when I asked him to take a message, and it had shocked and astonished me.) “Where would I put him?”

“I’m sure you could arrange something,” Natalis said easily.

At this, Eukairios interrupted. “Lord Procurator,” he stammered, “please, my lord, please don’t send me away from Bononia.”

“Be quiet, man! Well, Ariantes? It would be a shame to waste your talents because of a lack of pen and ink.”

“But, Lord Procurator…” begged Eukairios.

“I said, be quiet!” Natalis snapped.

Eukairios staggered over to Natalis and dropped to his knees, reaching out a hand to his master. “Please, my lord, I beg you, my lord, please don’t-”

Natalis shoved the hand away. “Why are you making a scene like this? You don’t have any family in Bononia.”

“No,” pleaded Eukairios, “but I have friends, old and dear friends and-”

“I know all about your friends,” Natalis said, now tight with anger, “and I don’t want them connected with anyone in my office. You’d disgrace us all, Eukairios, if there was trouble here like there was in Lugdunum. Do you think I want to see a scribe from my own office-the office of the procurator of the British fleet! — killed in the arena to amuse the mob? You can go off to Britain with the Sarmatians. Even if you find some more of your ‘friends’ there, no one will pay any attention to them.”

Eukairios went white. He knelt with his hands on the floor before him, like a beast. “I’m sorry, Lord Valerius Natalis,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I… I… you know…” He rubbed at his eyes. “Oh my God, my God!”

“Get out,” Natalis ordered him. “You’re embarrassing Lord Ariantes.”

Eukairios staggered out.

Natalis turned back to me with a forced smile. “The truth of the matter is, I’d be glad if you’d take him off my hands,” he said, apparently realizing he had to explain the scene. “He’s a good, reliable scribe, but he’s a Christian. I’ve overlooked that in the past, but there have been some demands in Gaul to stamp them out, and I don’t want any scandal to attach to the office. He’d be all right in Britain. No one cares about the Christians there.”

“What is a Christian?” I asked, torn between pity for Eukairios and suspicion of Natalis at this admission that he wanted to get rid of the man.

“A follower of an illegal cult. Christ was a Jewish sophist crucified for sedition under the emperor Tiberius, and some of the Jews were stupid enough to decide that he was a god-and not just any god, but the Jewish god, who can’t even be spoken of by name. The rest of the Jews naturally turned on them with all their usual ferocity toward blasphemers, so they went Greek, and now there are adherents of this lunacy in every city in the empire where Greeks are found. It appeals to slaves and riffraff, of course, not the better classes.”

He rolled his aristocratic eyes in contempt, and went on pompously, “The Christians practice disgusting rituals in private houses at night, hoping, poor wretches, that this will give them immortality, and they refuse to worship any divinity except their crucified sophist, and even refuse to make offerings to the genius of the emperor and the spirit of Rome-so, of course, the cult’s illegal. It was banned almost immediately after it appeared, but that hasn’t stopped it spreading. Personally, I don’t see any point in punishing the Christians, and I’ve turned a blind eye to the business as much as possible. I don’t believe most of the stories about them-they aren’t wicked, just silly pathetic fools. And, as I said, nobody’s ever bothered with the cult in Britain-and even if somebody did, no one would worry that you, a barbarian nobleman, had the least sympathy for that kind of nonsense. But if anyone took official notice of Eukairios and his ridiculous religion, he could be killed for it. Complete waste of a good scribe, in my opinion. Now you know the worst of Eukairios. The best-that he’s hardworking, experienced, and able-you knew already. I can add to that that he doesn’t drink, doesn’t get into trouble with women, and keeps out of quarrels. This cult is the one great daring secret of his drab little life.”

“There has been trouble with this cult in Gaul?” I asked, after a moment.

“They executed a pack of the cultists in Lugdunum,” Natalis admitted, “and some administrators in the South have called for a purge. I’d intended to shift Eukairios to Dubris anyway. But I’d rather give him to you. I do believe you’d find him useful.”

I was silent for another moment. I, too, believed I’d find the scribe useful. It was against all the customs of my own people to keep any slave, and I didn’t like the sound of this cult at all-but I needed the man to write letters for me. I wouldn’t know how to buy or hire another scribe. I had no idea how much a good scribe would cost, and I suspected that I’d need all the money I’d brought with me to secure a good position for my men. “Thank you, Lord Valerius Natalis,” I said at last. “I accept him.” I got to my feet. “But let me give you a gift as well, in gratitude for your efforts on our behalf.” I unfastened the gold pin from my coat. It was dragon-shaped, set with rubies, and about as long as my middle finger. “This I have worn as prince-commander of a dragon of Sarmatian cavalry,” I said. “Very few Romans have ever held one of these, my lord Natalis. Perhaps the emperor alone. I trust you will keep it and remember my people kindly.” I set it in his hands.

Natalis went pink with pleasure. “You have quite outdone me in your generosity, Lord Ariantes! Thank you, thank you very much indeed!” He took his own brooch off and pinned his cloak with mine instead. He fondled it a minute, running his fingers along the curves of the gold. “I will certainly remember you with friendship.”

I’d thought that morning of giving him one of my horses; I saw that I’d been correct to offer instead this, which a Sarmatian would have valued less. I was relieved. I had another pin-in fact, I had a wagonful of valuables I had brought along especially for bribing Romans-and it would have been hard to part with any of the horses. “As I shall remember you,” I told Natalis. “But you must excuse me now, my lord. I ought to stay with my horses to make sure they come to no harm. I could not easily replace them.”

Eukairios was sitting beside the horses with his cloak over his head. When I came up he pulled it off his head again and rubbed his face. The hold was only dimly lit by the light that came in down the gangways, but I could still see well enough that he’d been crying. “Wh-what happened?” he asked me. It was a sign of how distressed he was that he omitted my title.

“I accepted you,” I told him. After a moment I added, to defend myself against his misery, “He would have sent you away from Bononia anyway.”

“To Dubris?” When I nodded, he rubbed his face again. “I didn’t realize he knew,” he said wretchedly. “I always thought no one in the office knew.”The one great daring secret of his drab little life, as Natalis had called it, had proved to be no secret at all, and he was trembling with the shock of it. “He told you I was a Christian?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. And had you ever heard anything about us?”

“No. But I understand that it is illegal.”

“It’s all lies, what they say,” Eukairios declared bitterly. “Wicked lies. People have died for them, tortured until there wasn’t any sound flesh to use the irons on, but it’s all, all lies. We don’t”-he looked up and met my eyes directly-“we don’t hold incestuous orgies and feast on human flesh. We are forbidden to shed blood; we are told to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. If I had any choice in the matter, my faith wouldn’t allow me to work for the regular army, let alone for a man who decorates his horses’ bridles with men’s scalps and drinks from a Roman skull. God help me.”

“I do not have that cup anymore,” I said. I was touched by his defiance, the more so as he’d never referred to the scalps or the skull story before. In Bononia he had been attentive and deferential, and warmed to friendliness with his own efficiency. “I will not require you to shed blood, Eukairios, or to do anything else your faith forbids. I only want you to write letters.”

He rubbed his face again, then, giving up on suppressing the tears, buried it in his hands. “God help me,” he said again, thickly. “I thought I’d stay in Bononia for the rest of my life.”

“Were you born there?” I asked, both to calm him and because I felt I should know more about him. “Your name is not Latin.”

He understood what I wanted. “My name’s Greek. I’m not,” he said, still thickly but with his usual precision. “Many gentlemen think it adds a touch of elegance to a household to give Greek names to the slaves. My mother was a cook in a gentleman’s house in the countryside, thirty miles from Bononia, and our master had me educated and sold me as soon as I was old enough and trained enough to be valuable, when I was fourteen. The office bought me. That is the only other time I’ve changed hands. I never expected to be sold again-or given away.” His voice was growing thicker again. “I have my other clothes in Bononia, and a couple of books, everything I own. I haven’t said good-bye to anyone. I thought I was going back tomorrow.”

“Then go back, collect your things, say your good-byes, and return,” I said. “I will ask Valerius Natalis to send you on his dispatch vessel. You know yourself that we must load the supplies for the journey to Eburacum and plan the itinerary; we will not leave Dubris for another two days. That should give you time.”

“You’re not worried I’d run off as soon as I got home?”

It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I am not used to slaves,” I admitted. “I have never owned one before. Would you run off?”

“It would be against my religion,” he said, taking his face out of his hands and glaring. “If you’re not used to slaves and won’t keep foreigners in your wagons, what are you going to do with me?”

I sighed. “I suppose I will have to let you stay in my wagon, at least during the journey, although it is against our customs.” I winced inwardly at what Arshak and Gatalas, and my own men, would think of it. The fear still twisted in the back of my mind, the terror that I would be turned by the Romans and used against my own people. I had to have the use of letters, though, to defend them. “You will have to ride in it, too, at least at first-though I hope it is not against your religion to learn to ride a horse. When we reach Eburacum, we will see what else can be done.”

There was a long minute of silence. Eukairios sat staring at his hands. The ship rolled, and one of my horses-the courser, who was always a high-strung animal-neighed nervously and kicked. I slid into the stall beside him and coaxed him into calmness again with my hands and voice. When I slipped out, Eukairios had stopped staring at his hands and was looking at me doubtfully. What sort of treatment could he expect from a master such as myself-a barbarian prince who’d killed Romans freely in the past, and now not only owned him, but owned a secret that could cost him his life?

I pitied him. “I am sorry, Eukairios,” I said, again answering the misery. “You do not want me for a master, and I do not want to be the owner of a slave. But you know yourself that I need someone to write letters for me; for the sake of my men, I need it. Serve me faithfully and I will deal with you justly and without treachery, and reward you, as soon as I may, with your freedom. This I swear on fire.”

I meant to keep my oath. But I knew it would be a long time before I rewarded him with his freedom, and a part of me hoped that he’d forget his religious scruples and run off as soon as he set foot in Bononia.

It was night when the transport reached Dubris, and the ship wallowed into port with the guidance of a lighthouse on the promontory above. When it had docked it had to be unloaded, a task that promised to take some time. Natalis stopped to wish me good health before going off to his house to rest, and I asked him to send Eukairios back to collect his things.

“You’re not afraid he’d run off?” Natalis asked, as Eukairios himself had done.

“He says it would be against his religion to do so,” I answered. “I am content to let him go.”

“Very well, very well. I’ll take him with me tonight, shall I, and send him off first thing tomorrow morning?”

“Thank you, my lord.” A wagon we were pulling out of the hold lurched, and one wheel slipped off the gangway. Its owners crowded round, trying to push it one way; Natalis’ sailors tried to drag it another; behind it, the tired horses waiting to get out began to whinny and kick. “Good health!” I called, leaving Natalis and hurrying to take charge.

“Good health!” the procurator called after me, and, as an afterthought, “You know your people are all camped at the parade ground?”

“Eukairios read me that letter,” I said, shooing my men away from the stuck wagon. “We can find it.”

The parade ground was not hard to find, but it was after midnight by the time we reached it. The wagons of the men who’d crossed before us were already in their concentric circles, but the fires were banked down and everyone was asleep. It was beginning to rain, a fine drizzle that made the ground soft. We were too tired to prepare a meal, and simply moved our own wagons into the outermost circle, saw to the horses, and went to bed.

I was tired, but I lay awake for a little while, listening to the rain splashing in the felt of the awning, and the sound of the horses tethered outside. I remembered lying listening to the rain with my Tirgatao, warm in her arms, holding her and not needing to say anything. The grief was like a black chasm, more unfathomable than the sea; I could no more understand or limit it than I could the deep waters. What would she have said if I’d suggested keeping a Roman slave in our wagon?

I got up, went out of the wagon and checked my horses unnecessarily, then went back in and slept like the dead.

I woke next morning late, muzzy-headed and stiff-legged, to find Arshak and Gatalas waiting outside ready to raise another mutiny. It was still raining.

“They won’t give us our weapons!” Arshak declared angrily as soon as I stumbled out of my wagon. “They swore we would have them in Britain, but now they say we must ride to a place called Eburacum. They don’t mean to return them to us at all!”

“Let me eat first,” I said.

Leimanos, the captain of my bodyguard, at once brought me a chunk of bread, then, with a grin and a flourish, presented me with a cup of milk. The milk was the result of letter-writing in Bononia: we hadn’t had any on the journey, and I’d tried to arrange for the loan of some cows during the few days we were in Dubris. But I doubted that the neighboring countryside had spared us more than a few beasts, and most of the men must have had to make do with the sour beer we’d been given on the journey. I guessed that when Leimanos had set this cup aside for me, the others had squabbled over the rest. Another thing to sort out. I sat down on the step of my wagon and began eating.

“Did you know?” asked Gatalas, angrily.

“Of course I didn’t,” I replied sharply. “I’ll join you in protesting-after I’ve eaten.”

“Protesting?” Arshak snapped. “What’s the point of ‘protesting’? We must do something to show them that they cannot tell us lies and escape. Gatalas and I have decided that we will not leave this city without our weapons. When you’ve finished eating, you can go and tell them that.”

“ I can go and tell them?” I snapped back, beginning to lose my temper. “Why only me? If you and Gatalas decided it, you and Gatalas can tell them so.”

There was an abrupt silence. I looked from one to another of my fellow commanders. Why only me? Because I was the Romanized one and compromised already. If I went alone, they could keep their own hands clean of ignoble bargaining, take the advantage, and leave the shame to me. “You perhaps think that my nature is better suited to dealing with Romans than yours?” I asked quietly. I half wanted to fight one of them just to prove myself a Sarmatian.

Arshak and Gatalas looked uncomfortable. “You’ve been able to deal with them successfully so far,” Arshak said.

“I am still a prince of the Iazyges,” I told him. “No less than you, Gatalas, or you, Arshak, for all your royal blood.”

“I don’t deny it,” said Arshak, embarrassed now. “But you went to Britain before the rest of us, and you met this legate, Priscus, and you were managing well with the procurator in Bononia. I thought, since you knew the men…”

“Haven’t you met this legate yourself now?”

“Briefly,” Gatalas answered for him. “We both met him briefly when we arrived.”

That “briefly” was probably to the good. I hadn’t told anyone what the Romans had planned to do with us, either what I’d overheard in Bononia or what I’d argued against in Dubris. It would have fed suspicions and inflamed resentment, and it was just as well there’d been no chance for the others to learn what I had. But I was not in the mood to be pleased about it. “Then why couldn’t you go to him yourselves and tell him what you’d decided?” I demanded bitterly. “Why sit about like a couple of eagles with ruffled feathers, too grand to complain, waiting for me? And then, the moment I arrive, sending me to deal with them as though I were your message boy!”

“I am sorry, Ariantes,” Arshak said-rare words for any Sarmatian prince to use, and rarer still in his mouth. “We were mistaken, Gatalas and I. We will all go and see this legate together.”

At this I was ashamed of myself. The bread choked me, and I tossed it aside. “My brothers,” I said, speaking now with the urgency of what I felt, “don’t you and the Romans conspire to make a Roman of me. I have tried to deal with them on their own terms, it’s true, but it’s only because they won’t listen to me otherwise, and we must make our voice heard. But you know what they say: di vide et impera. ” (And I said the words in the language to which they belonged.) “I know perfectly well that they think I’m the man they can use, the reasonable one, and they’ll make a tool of me if they can. Don’t help them by pushing all the reasoning, and all the bargaining, onto me.”

Arshak stepped over to me and offered me his hand. “We will stand by you,” he promised solemnly. Gatalas nodded and followed him.

I stood and took both hands in my own. The fear that had twisted in the back of my mind was out in the open now, and it was an immense relief to throw it off, and stand joined with my brother princes. “Thank you,” I told them. “We’ll all go and see the legate, then. But, Arshak, I think you should change your coat first.”

He frowned. He took great pride in his coat, and was wearing it that day tossed loose over his shoulders and pinned. The scalps had been stitched on in a kind of pattern, with the lighter-colored ones making a stripe down the back and each arm, and the body in shades of black: the red wool of the coat’s fabric showed only at the cuffs. (I’d watched him carefully working out where he’d put Facilis’ scalp, if the gods were kind, and which others he’d move to make space for it.)

“We want to ask the legate to give us our weapons back,” I said, when he was silent. “It’s not a good move to start by reminding him how many Romans we’ve killed with them.”

Arshak sighed. “Very well! I’ll wear the other one. But I’d thought we would demand our weapons back, not ask for them.”

I hesitated. “Do you want my advice?”

“You know more about the legate than we do.”

“Then we should ask first, and ask softly, before we demand. My impression of the legate is that he’s a proud man and a hard one, and doesn’t like to be corrected: if we demand, he may say no, simply to prove to us that he won’t be dictated to. Then if we refused to leave the city weaponless, even if he had to back down now, for lack of troops to put down a mutiny, he’d punish us later. He doesn’t like or trust us, and he’s accepted Facilis into his legion to advise him about us.”

“What!” exclaimed Gatalas. “Facilis isn’t going back to Aquincum?”

I told him about Facilis’ offer to the legate and its acceptance.

“No wonder we haven’t been given our weapons back,” Arshak said thoughtfully. “Facilis has got at the legate. Well, I’m pleased he isn’t going safely home.” He smiled.

I hated that smile. I wanted to ask Arshak to leave the centurion alone, say that the risk of trouble from killing the man far outweighed the pleasure of vengeance. But I knew Arshak would be offended if I did, so I said nothing.

“How do you think we can get round this legate, then?”Gatalas asked, while Arshak fingered the place on his coat that he’d chosen before.

“We go to him quietly, all three of us, and tell him that the men are upset because they expected to be given their weapons as soon as they had crossed the ocean. He may not even know that; he wasn’t at Aquincum. We tell him that it will damage their confidence in him if they don’t get the weapons, and that they’ll be suspicious of any promises that he might make in future.”

“What confidence?” asked Gatalas.

“The confidence we might have if he deals with us fairly. My brother, he’ll know that the men must believe that he means what he says, or there’s no reason for them to obey him. He knows he must give us our weapons sometime. We can pledge our honor that our people won’t do violence to any Roman on the way to Eburacum. If we phrase it tactfully, I think he’ll give in. Arshak, you know how it’s done-you did it yourself in Bononia.”

“Not exactly this,”said Arshak. “But yes, near enough. Very well, we do it gently. In fact”-taking charge-“we don’t even go to him as though our first thought was to complain. We appear before him to greet him as our new commander, and to give him a gift. Romans love getting presents. What do we give him?”

“A horse?” suggested Gatalas.

“They don’t value them as much as we do,” I said. “A jewel?” My hand went involuntarily to the unpinned top of my coat.

Arshak looked at me sideways. “What did you do with your coat pin?”

“Gave it to Valerius Natalis, as you’ve guessed,” I replied-evenly, though I couldn’t yet bring myself to admit that Valerius Natalis had given me a slave. “He was very pleased with it.”

Gatalas winced. “Did you have to give him a dragon?”

“If it bought us one friend in the Roman camp, it was well given,” said Arshak. “If Natalis has a jewel, though, we don’t want to give the same to Priscus. I have a length of silk which I bought from a caravan from the East and took along for just this kind of thing. Would he like that, or would he think it was woman’s gear and be offended?”

“He has a beautiful young wife,” I answered. “She’s influential too, or I’m much deceived. Give it to him, and mention her: that should be safe.”

“We’ll bring only ten men each from our bodyguards,” Arshak went on, now in charge completely. “Enough to show that we’re persons of importance, but not enough to be interpreted as a threat of force. Very well. I’ll go fetch the silk and change my coat, and we can all collect our horses and our men. We’ll meet back here in a few minutes.”

He strode off, and Gatalas started for his wagon, less quickly, and scowling: he disliked asking for what he thought he should demand. I ran my hands through my tangled hair and turned to the captain of my guard.

“Leimanos, was there trouble over the milk?” I asked. “How much of it is there?”

His eyebrows bobbed up, and he snorted with appreciation. He was a kinsman of mine, a lean brown man with eyes as blue as Arshak’s, loyal and hardworking: we’d ridden together since the battle where I’d killed my first man. “Enough for about twenty men in our dragon. The other companies got the same amount. I poured some for you, my prince, and told the men to be quiet until you’d drunk it and could say who got the rest.”

“Good man. It’s to go to the men who are ill. If there’s anything left over when they’ve had their cups, make cheese.” I picked my own cup, which I hadn’t touched, off the step of the wagon. “Take this to whoever’s most ill.”

Leimanos frowned. “The rest can go to the men who are ill. You drink that, my lord. You didn’t eat last night and you didn’t eat the bread this morning: you should at least drink that. And the other commanders drank milk. It’s true what you told them: you’re no less a prince than either of them, and it’s a disgrace to the dragon if you’re treated with less honor.”

I drank down the milk. A company’s sense of its commander’s dignity ought to be treated with respect.

Leimanos smiled with satisfaction. “Do you want me to take the first ten of the bodyguard and come with you to see the legate?”he asked.

“No, stay and see to the milk,” I answered. “Tell Banadaspos and the second ten to get their horses. I’m going to dig out another coat pin and comb my hair.”

“Yes, my prince.” Instead of going off obediently, however, he hesitated.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Only that I’m glad you put that brace of eagles in their place,” he said vehemently. “They had no business thinking themselves better than you. They’ve been happy enough with the leather and the medicines and the food and the milk that you talked out of the Romans, to say nothing of their crossing the ocean safely instead of dying on Roman swords in Bononia-but their men have been whispering that you’re Romanizing, and they’ve let the whispers run.”

“Ah. There’ll be more whispers to come, Leimanos,” I said, steeling myself. “There’s worse Romanizing that you don’t know yet. I accepted the gift of a slave, a scribe, from the procurator Natalis. I needed someone to write letters.”

“My lord,” said Leimanos, “if you say you need a scribe, then you need one. No one who knows you, who’s followed you through the war, will talk of Romanizing. You are our prince”-and Leimanos came and touched my hand to his forehead-“and we say the gods favored us. I can speak for the whole dragon when I say that if you can deal with the Romans successfully, we’re glad of it. How would we live, otherwise?”

“Thank you,” I said, liberated for the second time that morning. “I will see if I can’t get us back our weapons.”