The Wolves of the North

XXI

Maximus checked the girths of his mount and the packhorse. He kicked the latter hard in the stomach. It let out the breath it was holding. As he tightened the strap, it tried to bite him. It was a wilful, cunning brute. The Herul who had handed it over had said as much.

They were all nearly ready to leave. The scale of things, the speed with which everything had happened, had staggered them all, Maximus as much as the others. Less than forty-eight hours before, he had been reconciling himself to death. Not a bad life by his own lights. He had travelled the world, had his fill of drink and women. Not what a philosopher would call a considered life, but he had been a man. All that had remained was to die like a man by the side of Ballista and that old bastard Calgacus. He loved Ballista. There were worse men to die with than the ugly old Caledonian. Maximus had always known it had to come.

Then the ground had trembled and the air had been filled with the thunder of hooves and the yip-yipping of the approaching Heruli. A lifetime of experience had allowed Maximus to judge there were almost exactly two thousand of them. They were riding two deep in a line that swept over a mile of the Steppe. Standards alive with tamgas and wolves snapped above them.

And then something almost more wonderful had happened. The Alani, the majority of whom had been fleeing south, came haring back. Some fool in the wagon-laager had called out, What were they thinking, had the gods driven them mad! It should have been obvious to a child. The keen eyes of Maximus had looked beyond them and spotted it straight away — the mile-wide cloud of dust coming up from the south. It had been the work of moments to find the matching clouds rolling in from east and west.

The Alani, careless in their good fortune, had been transformed from arrogant hunters of men to the hapless human quarry at the centre of an enormous battue. Afterwards, the Heruli said, with much plausibility, that not a single Alan had escaped. Many were killed, shot down in high spirits. Yet 107 survived to be taken prisoner; among them the chiefs with the horsetail and tamga banners.

Dismounted, the Alani had been divested of their weapons and portable wealth, often including their belts and boots. Several suffered unpleasant indignities after Maximus had mischievously suggested they hid coins up their arses. That very afternoon, sullen and often a little bloodied, they were put to work. One detail collected the dead. It was a demanding task. There were more than two hundred corpses, spread widely across the Steppe. Around the laager, those killed the day before were becoming noisome in the June sun. After the members of the caravan had salvaged what of their belongings had not been spilt, bloodstained or otherwise ruined by being enlisted as part of the barricade, a second group of Alani was set to breaking up the wagons. As this progressed, the final detachment had moved from gathering brushwood and begun to build pyres. As the Sarmatians took their dead away for inhumation, there were three pyres. Two were small, one each for the fallen Heruli and the Romans. The final one was for the Alani. Although it was large, clearly it would not be able fully to consume the number to be cremated. No one but the Alani seemed to care, and their opinion had been of no account.

The work had gone on through the night and into the next day. Relays of Heruli wielding their vicious horsewhips had ensured it never ceased. The pyres had been lit at midday. By late evening, they had been able to rake the smaller two. The bones were collected and placed in any suitably sized, suitably reverent vessels that happened to have survived the fighting. These were then stowed in panniers strapped to some of the numerous packhorses.

It was not at all the same with the Alani dead. Even now, the following day, Maximus could see places still burning in the heart of the big pyre. At the extremities, where the fire had retreated, were half-burnt bodies. These attracted no more than macabre curiosity. Only their kinsmen would have mourned, and the surviving Alani could no longer see the sight.

As soon as their labours were complete, all but three of the Alani had been herded into a line. Surrounded by Heruli, they had been roped together by the neck. One by one, they had been hauled to the block. Each was held down. An akinakes rose and fell. A hideous scream. Sometimes it took more than one blow. The Alan’s right hand was severed. Another blade was pulled from a brazier, the hot steel pressed to the stump. The next Alan — struggling, kicking — was dragged into place. The akinakes rose again.

It had taken a long time, blunted five akinakes, but it was nothing to what had happened next. Four of the Alani had died; of fear, the shock of it, loss of blood, or — Tarchon suggested — humiliation and despair. The remaining ninety-nine mutilated Alani again had been pulled forward one by one. Maximus had not stayed to watch. He had seen many dreadful things over the years. Before the walls of Arete, the Persian mobads had poured boiling oil into the eyes of their Roman prisoners. He had crossed the river with Ballista and Calgacus and ridden north out on to the Steppe to avoid witnessing the blinding of the Alani.

Not all had shown such delicacy of feeling. Hippothous, Castricius and young Wulfstan had stayed to watch. The surviving soldiers had regarded it as a good spectacle, initially. Yet even they, by the time Maximus and the other two returned, had become quiet.

The Alani were haltered together in a long file of mutilated men. They had been ordered to move. Whips had cracked above their heads. In a sightless world of pain, they had shuffled slowly forward in response to the rope around their necks. The Heruli had left one man with a single eye to guide the others.

Maximus was glad it was all over, glad they were about to move from this daemon-haunted place of suffering. As he swung up into the saddle, Andonnoballus and Pharas came trotting over. There had been no opportunity for much talk with them since the relief. Both greeted Ballista and his familia. Andonnoballus looked as if he would say more, but he did not.

‘How long were your Heruli scouts watching the Alani attack the laager?’ Ballista said.

Andonnoballus smiled. ‘You knew they were there?’

‘I thought there were men upstream in the riverbed,’ Ballista said.

‘They had been there some hours. They were waiting for the other columns to get into position.’

Maximus had known nothing of the scouts. He watched Ballista’s face. It was closed, angry.

‘Why did it take so long for the relief column to get here?’ Ballista said.

‘Naulobates rules over wide lands. It takes time to gather a large force.’ Andonnoballus’s voice was smooth.

‘Naulobates could have sent fewer men sooner.’

‘He wanted to ensure he apprehended all the Alani. He decreed their punishment was to be complete and terrible.’

‘Nomad horses ride like the wind,’ Ballista said.

Andonnoballus paused. ‘When the messengers reached the camp, Naulobates was… away.’

‘Away?’

‘Naulobates is…’ Andonnoballus looked Ballista hard in the eye, daring him to mock. ‘Naulobates is not like other men. He communes with the divine. Sometimes he enters the world beyond.’

‘Your father travels in the world of daemons?’ Ballista said.

At his words a sudden stillness settled on the two Heruli. Andonnoballus looked at Pharas. The older warrior shrugged.

Andonnoballus asked, ‘How did you know he is my father?’

‘You Heruli pride yourselves on your brotherhood, your equality, but the older warriors all deferred to you. And occasionally one of them would forget himself and call you Atheling.’

Andonnoballus laughed. ‘You are no fool. But then you would not be, you are a grandson of cunning Starkad.’

‘Wait,’ Maximus said. ‘If you Heruli have your women in common, how can anyone’s father be known? I thought that was the point.’

‘It is,’ Andonnoballus agreed, ‘but it is a recent innovation of my father’s. Many things have changed in the last few years. Naulobates is a law-giver like Scythian Zalmoxis or Spartan Lycurgus. He is refashioning the customs of the Heruli. Through him, the gods are creating perfection on earth.’

‘Well, we shall be honoured,’ Ballista said, straight-faced. ‘It is not every man that gets to enter perfection.’

Andonnoballus gave him a measuring look. ‘It is time to go.’

They rode out past the remains of the laager, past the still smoking large pyre, and past the three stakes. The bones of the Roman staff who had once hung there were now travelling in panniers to their final resting place. Three new men were impaled on the stakes. The Alani chiefs were still just about alive. Above them, the horsetail and tamga standards flew.

Maximus and the others forded the watercourse, and rode away to the north.

Wulfstan looked up at the night sky. The moon was waning and the stars were bright — the eyes of Thiazi, many thousands of others and, brightest of all, the toe of Aurvandil the Brave; all placed there by the gods to bring comfort, to watch over man.

It was quiet in the sleeping camp. The wind sang softly through the ropes of the tents. Down in the horse lines, beasts shifted and coughed in their sleep.

Wulfstan’s arm hurt. He and Tarchon had been ordered to hold the breach that the Alani had hacked in the makeshift defences between the first two wagons back at Blood River. After Ballista and the others had moved on, the Alani had tried to break in again. Wulfstan had dropped the first with an arrow. Tarchon had near-beheaded the second with his sword. But, shields up, the next two had forced their way through. One went for Tarchon. Before the other could attack, Wulfstan had thrust the point of his sword at the centre of the nomad’s embroidered tunic. The Alan was too quick, too experienced — just too strong. He had turned aside the blade, as if Wulfstan were a small child, and riposted in one movement. The steel had sliced open Wulfstan’s right bicep. Wulfstan had dropped his sword. He had not been able to stop himself. His left hand had clamped to the wound. Doubled up, it would have been all over with him. Tarchon struck with the speed and sureness of a cat. The Alan he had been fighting was still falling when the Suanian cut down Wulfstan’s would-be killer.

They had been ordered to hold the breach. They had done that. Wulfstan’s arm was the price they had paid. After the fighting, the gudja and the haliurunna had cleaned, salved and bound the wound. The hideous old crone had muttered strange incantations over it. That had been four days ago. It still hurt like poison. The last two days riding had not helped. Yet Wulfstan almost did not care.

After they had made camp and eaten the previous night, Ballista had summoned what remained of the Roman mission. With his own money, he had purchased the two slaves from the three surviving soldiers at a more than generous price. Good to his word, he handed both his new slaves a papyrus roll recording their manumission. One of the soldiers had tacked up some felt into a pair of pointed caps. The new freedmen accepted these symbols of freedom gladly. There was amusement, as neither pileus came close to fitting.

Wulfstan had joined in the laughter, but it was what had happened next that still left him near uncaring of his injury, that still had his heart singing. With no ado, Ballista had called him forward and handed him two papyri. One ended Wulfstan’s slavery, the other awarded him the toga virilis. Wulfstan had found it difficult to comprehend. He had dropped to his knees, kissed Ballista’s hand. He was raised up. In a matter of moments, he was both free and a man. The thoughts still rang loud in his head, drowning out nearly all else.

It was a quiet night. Wulfstan knew he should go to sleep. There would be another long day in the saddle ahead of them. But his arm did not make sleep easy to come by, and his heart was too full. He listened to the peep-peep of a night bird and the strange whistling of the marmots in their hollows out on the Steppe. Another sound, closer altogether.

Wulfstan whirled around. His hand went to his hilt. The pain made him wince.

A tall figure emerged from the shadows. It pushed the hood back from its long head.

Wulfstan relaxed.

It was Andonnoballus.

‘You are up late,’ the Herul said in the language of the north.

‘As are you.’

‘I had to check the sentries,’ Andonnoballus said. ‘You?’

‘I could not sleep.’

‘Have you given much thought to what you will do with your freedom?’

‘Some.’ Wulfstan did not want to say more.

‘The Romans would say you still had a duty to Ballista, now he is your patronus.’

‘I owe him a debt, but I do not care what the Romans might say.’ Wulfstan himself thought his tone sounded immature, almost petulant.

‘Aluith said you would make a good Herul.’ Andonnoballus smiled.

Wulfstan was quiet for a time. ‘Before I came into the familia of Ballista, things happened which call for revenge.’

‘Even if it can be achieved, it will not undo the past,’ Andonnoballus said.

‘Some things demand revenge.’

‘None among the Heruli would know whatever those things might have been. Among us, under the rule of Naulobates, a man can rise high irrespective of what he was before.’

‘I would still know,’ Wulfstan said.

Now it was Andonnoballus who paused before replying. ‘Revenge is a two-edged sword. It can damage the man who takes it as surely as those upon which it is inflicted. It can become a disease that spreads, infecting everything a man does, everything he thinks. It might be you will not be truly free until you are free of the desire for revenge.’

Wulfstan said nothing.

‘I gave you Aluith’s weapons because he would have wanted you to have them. You have done well; very well for your age. Aluith would have been proud. He would have wanted you to carry his tamga, take his place among us.’

Wulfstan did not reply.

The night stilled. The whistling of the marmots and the peeping of the nocturnal bird stopped.

The silver-white wings of a great owl swept over them; silent, spectral.

They watched the darkness into which the hunter had voyaged. After a while, the whistling and peep-peep calls of the less fierce denizens of the night resumed.

Andonnoballus turned to go. ‘You might take that as a sign. Naulobates would have known. When we reach his camp, ask him.’ Andonnoballus walked away.

Wulfstan remained, deep in thought. The poetry of his youth drifted into his mind.

The weary in spirit cannot withstand fate,

And nothing comes of venting spleen:

Wherefore those eager for glory often

Hold some ache imprisoned in their hearts.

Perhaps nothing would come of venting his spleen. He would not change anything. Kill one slaver, another would take his place. He could bind his memories in fetters, confine them in some dark place in his soul. The Heruli offered a new beginning. He could refashion himself into the warrior he would have become if the Langobardi had not come, if they had not sold him to the slavers. No, not quite what he would have become. The slavery, and this murderous, violent journey across this never-ending plain had tempered him into something stronger.

He shivered. The wind was rising, the night getting colder. Up above, thin clouds raced across the eyes of Thiazi, hid the moon from the wolf that pursued him. Hati would not run the moon down and devour him tonight.

Another sound, close by. Wulfstan turned, expecting to see Andonnoballus. It was not Andonnoballus.

The steel shimmered in the weak starlight. It was at Wulfstan’s throat.

‘Why?’ Wulfstan said.

The killer actually smiled. ‘You have an implacable, vengeful daemon.’

‘I can change.’

‘Your daemon will do terrible things — to those around you, to you.’

Desperately, Wulfstan tried to ready himself. The sword at his throat. His own right arm near useless. Next to no chance. But better than dying like a sheep.

‘The young Frisian, your friend Bauto, who drowned — he had a bad daemon too.’

The words checked Wulfstan. He remembered the storm; the year before, out on the Euxine sea. He remembered the rogue triple wave hitting the Armata. The seeming miracle when the trireme righted herself. The half-demented joy, the cheering. Then the shout, ‘Man overboard!’ And there, over the stern of the galley, alone in the wild, pitiless expanse of the sea, the small head of his friend, the Frisian Bauto.

With an inarticulate cry, Wulfstan pushed the sword away with his right arm — pain as the blade cut deep — grabbed for the throat with his left hand. Wulfstan felt a blow like a punch in his stomach. Winded, he looked down. He saw the fist curled around the hilt of the dagger. He saw the blade withdrawn, saw the black blood flow.