The Wolves of the North

XXII

Ballista had been surprised at the reaction of Andonnoballus to the discovery of the body. The young Herul atheling, who had displayed no emotion either when his own men had fallen in battle, or when he had ordered the mass blinding of the Alani and the impaling of their leaders, had been visibly upset. He had not hidden his tears. And he had been angry, at times almost to distraction.

For a day, the horde had remained where it was. Andonnoballus had questioned the sentries. They had seen nothing. A painstaking search of where the body lay revealed nothing; trampled grass, and blood, a lot of blood. Wulfstan had not been mutilated after death — just the blade wiped in his bright hair — but the blows that had killed him had nearly disembowelled him. His killer had to have been soaked in blood. Andonnoballus had ordered a search of the camp. Ballista had thought it most unlikely to discover anything. It found nothing; although one Herul half waking in the night had seen a hooded figure drop what he had taken to be some old rags on one of the campfires. No, he could not say anything about the man; not even if he was Herul, Sarmatian or Roman. Andonnoballus had the ashes sifted. No tell-tale ornament or anything else came to light.

Andonnoballus ordered a pyre built. He had washed and dressed the body with his own hands. He had placed splendid offerings around the dead youth: the weapons of Aluith that Wulfstan had carried, gold and amber ornaments of his own. The other two Heruli who had been with the caravan from the start, Pharas and the ex-slave Datius, added things of their own.

Before he put the first torch to the pyre, Andonnoballus had spoken a eulogy. Wulfstan had been born an Angle, once the enemies of the Heruli. The fates had cruelly taken him from his home, made him eat the bitter bread of exile and hardship. But his own courage had raised him up again, had won his freedom. Before his murder, Wulfstan had asked to ride with the Heruli. Andonnoballus, by the authority granted him by Naulobates, had accepted the young warrior into the brotherhood of the wolves of the north. Let the murderer know, should the gods reveal his identity, Andonnoballus of the Heruli would track him to the ends of the earth to revenge his unjustly and cowardly slain brother.

They had collected the bones the next morning; packed them in a pannier on a packhorse, like the others. The long journey north resumed.

Ballista rode at the head of the horde with Andonnoballus, Pharas and the commander of the relief, Uligagus. They rode in silence. Andonnoballus’s mood did not encourage small talk.

Behind them came three great parallel columns of horsemen. The fourth was further back, out of sight, strung across the Steppe as a rearguard. Each column contained two thousand riders, but many more horses. Each of the Heruli had at least three remounts on a line. They rode at a fast canter.

From the charged silence of the vanguard, Ballista looked back and studied the Heruli. Many banners flew above them, most bearing tamgas, some with wolves and other fierce-seeming but less determinable animals. Travelling at speed, they all kept surprisingly good order. Aureolus, the emperor Gallienus’s own Prefect of Cavalry, would have been impressed. There was nothing of the irrational or the primitive which Romans liked to see in barbarians in this order of march. The scruffy-looking ponies, however, would have been odd to Aureolus’s eyes, as would the complete absence of armour. There was not a helmet or mailshirt among them. Some, presumably the unfree, did not even carry one of their small round shields. Slave or free, they relied on no more than a heavy sheepskin coat for defence. Every Herul had a recurve bow and supply of arrows in a gorytus on one hip and a long cavalry sword on the other. There were spare bowcases on the remounts. Ballista was impressed. These were true light cavalry, but, as he knew, they were prepared to fight hand to hand. They would not be able to stand up to a charge by Roman cataphracti or Persian clibanarii. The big men on big horses, all covered in mail, would ride them down. Yet out here on the Steppe, that eventuality need never arise. In these wide expanses, if the Heruli were well handled, the heavy horse should never catch them.

Ballista’s thoughts wandered. The grey clouds of dust the columns kicked up drifted behind them to the south. Up above, the wind had shifted and was blowing wraith-like clouds in the opposite direction. Under the immense sky, the disjunction was vertiginous. It was always some such immensity philosophers invoked to try to assuage grief. He thought of the works of consolation he had been made to read as part of his education at the imperial court. Compare your grief with something huge, something without end — the gods, the divine spark in man, eternal Rome, or time itself. See how insignificant is your misery. He thought back to the time when he believed his wife and sons were dead. He remembered how his recollections of the philosophers had offered him nothing but specious comparisons with things that did not touch him, infuriating injunctions to self-control, and leaden platitudes. In the face of the ultimate profundity, the great minds of a Plutarch or a Seneca could come up with little better than the banalities of a nursemaid soothing a child: There, there, it will feel better in time. At least in the latter they had been right.

In honesty, the grief Ballista felt for Wulfstan was limited. The boy had been beautiful. There had been good qualities to him. He had served the familia well. He had been brave. A capacity for affection had shown in his grief for his drowned friend, Bauto. Occasionally, there had been flashes of humour. But his enslavement, the never spoken of but obviously terrible things that had been done to him, had made him something almost terrible himself. Wulfstan had wanted to kill. Too young to disguise it, he had enjoyed the pain of others. It had disgusted Ballista when Wulfstan had stayed with Castricius and Hippothous to watch the blinding of the Alani. Ballista was sad the boy was dead, but an unpleasant part of him was glad it was not someone he really cared about; not Julia, not one of his sons, neither Maximus nor Calgacus.

Ballista’s lack of compassion made him feel guilty. And, of course, there was something more tangible to feel guilty about. He had brought Wulfstan to his death. Unthinkingly, he had assumed that merely purchasing the boy from the slave market, taking him into the familia, one day manumitting him would be enough. But he had brought him into the familia of a man in imperial disfavour, a familia ordered first to the savage Caucasus mountains, then to this murderous journey. And the familia was cursed. Kill all his family, all those he loves.

‘Another day and we will reach the summer camp.’ The words of Uligagus brought Ballista back.

Up ahead was a flock of sheep. There must have been a thousand or more of them. They were herded by just two very young Heruli on ponies. One of the shepherds had the long head and dyed-red hair of the Rosomoni. As the sheep were driven out of the path of the horsemen, they bunched into a solid baaing mass; some were forced up off their feet by the pressure. The two herdboys waved. Some of the vanguard waved back. Andonnoballus did not. Lost in who knew what incarnadine thoughts, he paid them no mind at all.

Seeing the young shepherds, so full of life, Ballista’s mind turned back to Wulfstan. The northern poem he had heard the boy reciting came to him.

Storms crash against these rocky slopes,

Sleet and snow fall and fetter the world,

Winter howls, then darkness draws on,

The night-shadow casts gloom and brings

Fierce hailstorms from the north to frighten men.

Nothing is ever easy in the kingdom of earth,

The world beneath the heavens is in the hands of fate.

Here possessions are fleeting, here friends are fleeting,

Here man is fleeting, here kinsman is fleeting,

The whole world becomes a wilderness.

They came to the camp of Naulobates incrementally. First they crossed swathes where the grass had been torn and stamped to near nothing. The grey earth showed through, pocked by myriad hooves. Then they saw a drifting cloud of smoke. From a distance it looked like rain. It was as if the natural order had been subverted, as if some elemental force or capricious deity was drawing the water back into the sky. Getting nearer, Ballista smelt the sharp tang of woodsmoke and burning animal dung. Finally, breasting a slight rise, spread before them was the broad floodplain of a hitherto unsuspected river which ran away to the east. On the near side ordered rows of round tents and covered wagons stretched for a couple of miles. In the centre, one tent, dazzling white in the hot sun despite the smoke, was three times the size of any other. Above it was a standard. On it was a tamga drawn like three orbs pierced by an arrow being pursued by three wolves.

A messenger came to Andonnoballus and Uligagus. Ballista had been unsure since the relief which was in command. The messenger announced Naulobates would receive the Roman embassy at a place called the meadow. He stressed all members of the party were to attend.

Ballista, Castricius and the others took leave of Uligagus. The Herul led his fighting men off back into the Steppe to the west of the camp. Andonnoballus, Pharas and Datius remained with the Romans. When all, men and pack animals, were mastered, the three Heruli took them down through the camp.

Walking their mounts along a broad thoroughfare running down to the river, Ballista took it in. Small children watched big-eyed as they passed. Some trotted along beside, waving and calling out to the Heruli warriors and the strange outsiders indiscriminately. The women were more circumspect. They sat weaving or spinning in front of wagons and tents decorated with patchwork patterns of trees, birds, animals and many tagmas. Others tended the fires or prepared food. None spoke. Everything was hazed and gilded by sunshine and smoke.

Ballista had seen the camps of many tribes on the move; in Africa, along the Danube. Much here was what he expected. Wherever you looked, you met the guarded, solemn gaze of seated women. Some nursed babies. Everywhere ran gaggles of excited small children. Dogs — lean hunting animals — nosed about. Here and there a sickly colt or lamb was tethered. It took him some time to realize what was unusual. There were no men, and there were no old people. Come to that, there were no pigs either.

The river was fringed with stands of timber. It was wide, but shallow. The ford had a good bed of shingle. The water splashed up, refracting the light, as they clattered across.

The meadow was idyllic. It was ringed by trees: oaks, limes, ashes. Through the foliage could be seen a sweep of lush grass jewelled with flowers. Well watered, the meadow had not yet been scorched by the June sun. Evidently it was debarred to the herds. At the far end a group of men were sitting on the grass, at their ease in the shade. Off to one side two saplings had been bent down and their tops tied together to form a rustic arch. It was the sort of place in which Plato might have set a Socratic dialogue — the lovers of wisdom strolling at leisure, their minds freed from mundane cares by the beauty of their surroundings.

They dismounted at the tree line, hobbling their horses. Andonnoballus said there was no need to leave their weapons. It was the custom of the Heruli to come armed into the presence of their king.

The Romans unstrapped and unpacked those diplomatic gifts that had survived the journey. As accensus, Hippothous handed Ballista the small golden image of the town walls. Ballista buckled the Mural Crown — the award for being first over in the storm of a town — on to his sword belt. It seemed a lifetime ago he had won it in North Africa.

As Andonnoballus led them through the trees something high above caught Ballista’s eye. He had to look twice. There was a man precariously perched in the topmost branches of an oak. Ballista looked about. Another man was clinging high up in an ash. They did not appear armed. There were just the two. It was not an ambush. And they were unlikely positions for lookouts.

‘What the fuck?’ Maximus said.

Andonnoballus laughed. ‘The Allfather hung for nine nights and days in the branches of the tree of life to learn the secrets of the dead. Naulobates is merciful. Those two will learn the error of their ways from just one dawn to the next. And, unlike the Allfather, their sides have not been pierced with a spear.’

‘What if they fall?’ Ballista asked.

‘It is a long way down,’ Andonnoballus said.

Hippothous and Castricius joined in the laughter of Andonnoballus and Datius. Ballista noticed Pharas did not laugh.

Naulobates was seated on a simple wooden chair. His courtiers sat in no discernible hierarchy on the ground around him. Naulobates was dressed no differently from them: a simple leather coat, trousers and boots. His hands were in his lap, hidden in a plain leather bag.

‘ Zirin,’ Ballista said, as an envoy should on the Steppe. He placed the palm of his right hand flat to his forehead.

Naulobates did not reply.

‘ Zirin,’ Castricius said, as Ballista’s deputy. He also made the gesture of respect.

Still Naulobates said nothing.

The King of the Heruli had the deformedly high forehead of the Rosomoni. His dyed-red hair was sparse, ill-kempt. His dyed-red beard was thin and straggly. His face was narrow, fine featured under the red tattoos. But it was his eyes that held Ballista. They were grey and possessed the unwavering moral certainty of the zealous convert armed by a fierce deity with complete faith and untrammelled force.

‘Dernhelm, son of Isangrim, son of Starkad, the cruel man of blood.’ Naulobates spoke in the language of the north. His voice was soft, unexpectedly high-pitched. ‘God, in his providence, has brought you across Middle Earth to the camp of your hereditary enemies.’

All there were silent. Birds sang in the trees.

Ballista cleared his throat. ‘I come to the Heruli as Marcus Clodius Ballista, Legatus extra ordinem Scythica of the Imperator Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus Augustus. The emperor of the Romans prays for the health of you and your men. He has sent me with gifts.’

‘ Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,’ Naulobates said. He recited the Latin of Virgil with a northern accent, before reverting to the language of Germania. ‘Unlike the Trojan Laocoon, I do not fear the gifts of the Greeks. But then neither do I need them. Should my warriors desire more cunningly wrought silverware for their tents, I shall lead them again into the imperium and they will take whatever pleases them.’

‘My Lord Gallienus requests to ransom those of his subjects in your power,’ Ballista said.

‘We took his subjects in war. It was the will of God. If Gallienus desires them back, he should come and put the issue before God on the field of battle.’ Naulobates gestured to one of the men seated at his feet. ‘Having tasted true freedom and brotherhood among the Heruli, many, like my brother Artemidorus, would not choose to return to the slavery of the imperium.’

‘We have made a long and dangerous journey so that those who do wish might have the chance to return with us,’ Ballista said.

‘Dangerous in the extreme.’ Naulobates shifted his gaze above Ballista’s head. ‘I have observed the trials; yours and those of my Heruli. I was with you every step of the way. Brachus, my tauma, moved among you.’ Naulobates, seeing the word meant nothing to Ballista, smiled. ‘You might call it my daemon.’

Ballista could think of nothing to say. He sensed both Castricius and Hippothous stiffen.

‘My tauma observed everything. The treacherous attacks of the Alani, and the treachery within your own party.’ Naulobates was not smiling now. ‘The murderer among you is subtle. His daemon hid from Brachus in devious ways. I would let him know his fate should he disturb the peace of my campfires.’

At a sign from Naulobates, a bound man was brought forth. The prisoner struggled wildly. Through his gag he made incoherent sounds. Four young Heruli manhandled him off to one side, towards where the trees formed the rustic arch.

‘This despicable criminal is a traitor to the God-given customs of the Heruli. A thief and a murderer, he sought to appropriate for himself what is the property of all. When another man went to the woman, this sacrilegious wretch burst in and struck him at the moment a man can least defend himself.’

The four young Heruli roped the man to the tied-together branches of the two bent trees. Ballista had heard of such things, but never expected to see them.

‘Let the murderer among your party see what will become of him should he let his daemon indulge itself in the camp of the Heruli.’ Naulobates nodded.

One of the young Heruli swung an axe. It sheered through the ropes binding the trees together. With the vigour of youth, the saplings sprang apart. Where there had been a man, now severed body parts hung like badly butchered sides of strange, unpalatable meat.