Island of Ghosts (10 page)

Facilis looked furiously at me. “We need the wagons for supplies?”he asked. “So this was your idea, Ariantes. I should have guessed.”

“Flavius Facilis,” I said, “you know we all wanted to have the weapons back now. We had to have them sometime. Since you must give, why not give gracefully?”

“I don’t give anything gracefully to you,” he answered, and, under his breath, added, “You slippery bastard. The others would have asked for what they wanted straight-out, and been straight-out refused.”

I shook my head and excused myself, and my brother commanders joined me. Just as we were mounting our horses, Lucius Javolenus Comittus ran out after us. “Hey! Wait a moment!” he shouted. When we paused, he trotted up grinning and out of breath.

“I’ve been talking to the two other, uh, liaison officers,” he told us, “and we’d be very pleased if you could join us for dinner this evening. There’s a very good tavern by the harbor . . .”

“It would please us better that you join us, instead,” said Arshak, smiling pleasantly. It was beneath his dignity to sit in Roman taverns by harbors, and Comittus had just plummeted in his opinion for suggesting it. “We can have a feast at the wagons, and you can meet the captains of our squadrons . . . the
decurions
, you’d call them, yes? I will have my men buy an ox to roast, and we will put up awnings against the rain.”

“Yes,” said Comittus, in pleased surprise. “Excellent! I’ll bring some good wine. What time do you want us?”

“Young idiot,” Arshak commented, when we were riding back to our wagons. “What do you suppose a ‘liaison officer’ does?”

“It’s obvious,” said Gatalas. “He brings good wine to dinner parties and sits in taverns.”

“Well, I suppose that’s a light yoke to bear,” Arshak observed. “He can sit in taverns, and I can forget about him. And we’ll get our weapons back!”

“You spoke to the legate like a prince, Arshak,” I said warmly. “So sweet-tongued and respectful that he began to doubt Facilis’ judgment.”

“I can fill my mouth with honey when I like,” agreed Arshak, grinning. “But it was that business you came up with that really tipped the balance. Where on earth did you learn that phrase—what was it? Above the bugget?”

“Over budget,”
I corrected. “A budget is a list of how much money you expect to spend on something. The scribe I was lent in Bononia used the term a lot.”

“Scribes’ talk, money talk,” said Arshak, disdainfully. “And that legate listens to it! But I’m glad you learned it.”

It would be better to announce my status as a slave-owner myself, rather than have someone else report it to my fellows behind my back. “It is useful,” I agreed. “Natalis gave me the scribe as a gift. If we need to write letters to the Romans, or read any letters they write, to us or about us, we will be able to.”

The other two stared at me in shocked silence for a moment.

“Where is this slave now, then?” asked Gatalas at last.

“I sent him back to Bononia to say his good-byes. He should be here tomorrow afternoon.”

“Ariantes . . .” Arshak began—then shook his head. “I can see it will be useful. To all of us. I would not keep a foreign slave in
my
wagon—but I can see it will be very useful, so how can I speak against it? You’ve proved the use of it already. This afternoon”—he stood up in the stirrups, stretching his arm—“this afternoon I will hold my spear again! And
that
is worth a few soft words to a legate!”

The weapons were distributed from the tribunal under a steady drizzle. Priscus sat on a seat set up for him on the stone platform with a slave holding an awning over him, watching with his tribunes while we collected our things from the twenty wagons. The silk tails of our dragon standards hung down limply, dripping, and the horses tossed their heads unhappily as their hooves stuck in the churned-up mud. But for the men, it was a white day, a day of pure sun. The wagons had been loaded company by company, squadron by squadron, and they were unloaded in the same way. The orderly line of horsemen filed past, each collecting a sword, lance, bow case, and the oilskin-wrapped bundle that contained the armor for himself and his charger. Arshak’s men, first as ever, cantered off to the other end of the field to put the armor on as soon as they got it. Gatalas and his men armed closer to the tribunal; I was aware of them saddling and buckling as I waited with my men for our turn. The rasp of armor against armor, a sound that had once been as natural to me as breathing, sounded all over the field. I could see the Romans on the tribunal beginning to stare as the dragons of Sarmatian cavalry twisted into the glittering metal of their skin and came to life.

It was my own dragon’s turn. First of my company, as befits a prince, I collected my own oilskin bundle, bow case, spear, sword: all the heavy illusion of invulnerability. I hefted the bundle of armor unhappily. I felt a strange grief to see it again.

“Why put it on?” I asked Leimanos, who’d joined me, smiling over his own package of armor. “With this rain, it will just have to be taken off and dried and oiled thoroughly again tonight.”

Leimanos looked shocked. “We must put it on, my lord!” he said. “The other dragons have. Besides, it’s been in the wagons for a couple of months, and it will need drying and oiling anyway, as well as wearing, to keep it supple.”

I couldn’t shame my men by choosing to stay ingloriously disarmed beside the other commanders, and thus requiring them to do the same. I dismounted and began arming, and my hands remembered the old sequence of actions even though my mind was numb. Farna, my charger, a mare of the Parthian breed, stood patiently as I unsaddled her, only occasionally stamping her foot in protest at the rain. I tossed the armored blanket over her back and saddled her up again, clipping the blanket to the saddle and buckling it firmly across her chest and around her neck. Then came the chamfron, the horse’s head-guard with its delicate filigree bowls to protect her eyes, gold-chased bronze on scaled and painted leather. Next my own armor. I took off my coat and hung it on my saddle. First the leather trousers, heavily stitched with overlapping scales of gilded iron on the lower outside leg, but scaled more lightly farther up, and next to the horse. The three slashes on the left leg showed only on the inside, where the new piece of leather had been fitted in; the outside looked as polished, golden, and impenetrable as ever. Next the leather cuirass, scaled to give a double thickness overall. I pulled the wrist-guards over the backs of my hands, then picked up my coat, slung it over my shoulders, and pinned it: no reason to get the armor wetter than I needed to. I pulled on the helmet with the crest of crimson horsehair, hung the bow case on the left side of my saddle, slung my sword over my right shoulder, and mounted, slipping my spear into its holder by my right foot. Leimanos had armed more eagerly than I had and was finished already, but most of my men were still busy.

Over the rasp of armor came a roll of kettle drums, and then a roar of hoofbeats. Arshak came galloping up from the far end of the ground at the head of all his company. His armor was gilded, like mine, and, like me, he was wearing a coat over it—but his was the coat of scalps, and he had his lance lowered and his long sword drawn in his hand. The red crest of his helmet tossed; the tail of the standard behind billowed and twisted in the wind, and over the hooves and the drums we could hear the hissing boom of wind in the golden mouth of the dragon. I’d forgotten the terror of it, and the magnificence. The drumbeat altered; the squadrons divided, one going left and the next right, then right and left, spreading out across the field, encircling it in a ring of iron. Arshak and his bodyguard came straight on toward the stone platform where the legate was sitting, and the legate stood up and looked as though he wanted to turn and run.

I started Farna towards them at a gallop, cursing inwardly. I was quite certain that Arshak was only showing off—but the legate didn’t know that.

Luckily, Priscus didn’t jump off the tribunal in a panic, and Arshak reined in immediately before him, making his white Parthian rear up and tear the air. As soon as the horse’s forelegs touched the ground again, Arshak kicked his feet out of the stirrups and jumped up to stand balanced on the saddle, his eyes almost level with those of the legate. He swept off his scaled cap, bowing his sleek fair head to Priscus, and laid his sword at the legate’s feet. “Arshak son of Sauromates,” he said, “scepter-holder,
azatan
, prince-commander of the second dragon of the Iazyges of the Sarmatians, at your service, my lord Julius Priscus.”

Priscus let out his breath a bit unsteadily. He bent and picked up the sword. “Thank you,” he said.

Arshak grinned. I’d forgotten how he was, how he could be—his revelry in his own splendor, his power and strength. He’d undone all his good work of the morning, swaggering before the legate in his coat of scalps, but my own heart leapt at the sight of his arrogant grace. “Show me an enemy, my lord,” he declared, “and I will bring you his head before the sun is down.”

“There are no enemies of Rome here in Dubris,” Priscus answered. Slowly he reversed the sword’s hilt and offered it back to Arshak. “Keep this dry, and use it only when you’re told to.”

Arshak grinned again. He slid the sword back into its sheath, pulled his helmet on, dropped easily back into the saddle, saluted, and galloped off. Priscus let out his breath again and sat down.

I turned Farna quietly and started back to my own troop. A stone wall ran from the base of the tribunal along the edge of the field, and as I passed the far end of it, I noticed the carriage on the road behind, and the white stallion yoked between the shafts. I recognized the horse, and because of that, recognized the legate’s wife, peering through the carriage window with her cloak over her head to keep out the rain. From the way she held her head, her eyes were still fixed on Arshak.

“What are you doing over here, Ariantes?” came Facilis’ voice. “It is Ariantes inside that armor, isn’t it?”

I turned back to see the centurion standing at the end of the wall, where the stone gave some shelter from the rain. I did not like to explain that I’d come over in case the legate needed reassuring about Arshak, and I tried to think of a convincing excuse. Facilis, however, went on before I could come up with one. “You thought you might tell the lord legate that Arshak’s not as dangerous as he looks, did you? Too late. Anyone can see that he is.”

“Arshak will keep his oath,” I replied. “He will fight as well for Rome as he did against her.”

“And if all there is for him to do in the North is patrols and guard duty, with no fighting?” asked Facilis. “What will he do then? He has to fight someone. He might need to mend his coat.”

There was no point in talking to the man. I started Farna on without saying anything.

“Will you stand up in the saddle as well, and offer your sword to the legate?” Facilis jeered as I went past. “Or is your leg too stiff to let you? Tell me, did you ever succeed in killing the brave man that chopped it?”

I stopped Farna and looked at him. For a moment I felt like contesting Arshak’s right to the centurion’s scalp. But a commander shouldn’t think with his dagger. “Why do you want there to be trouble with us?” I asked.

“Because if we have the trouble out now and break you, you won’t make trouble later, when we’re off our guard,” he said vehemently. “There are Roman lives at stake. I’m quite clear about that.”

“Clearer about it than we are,” I told him. “There does not have to be trouble. Peace will take work, yes. It will take great care, delicacy, close attention. But it is possible. We are willing to serve the emperor if we are not forced to betray the customs of our own people. You do not help. If one of my men had heard you say that, he might have killed you where you stand. Then he would die himself, for defending my honor. Is it just, Facilis? We are both servants of Rome now, or trying to be.”

“And why should you want peace?” Facilis asked bitterly.

“Because I am sick of war,” I said—and the strange grief I had felt when I held my armor again snapped suddenly clear.

He looked at me in open disbelief. “You? A Sarmatian?”

“I. A Sarmatian. And you, a Roman, you still love it?” I set my heels to Farna and sent her flying down the field without waiting for response.

I cursed him silently as I led my dragon in front of the legate and offered him my sword—without standing in the saddle. As so often, the centurion had been right as far as he went—and then completely wrong. Mine is not a peace-loving nation, and if I had told my own men that I was sick of war, they would have stared in dismay and begged me not to talk like a coward. And yet, anyone can tire of death and killing. I saw now that I was so tired of it that I dismayed myself.

At the dinner with the tribunes that evening, the talk was all of arms and armor and horses. It was friendly, though.

We’d made awnings of brushwood about the main campfire, covering them with straw, which was abundant in the surrounding countryside since the harvest was just in. With more straw on the ground to keep it dry underfoot, and rugs and cushions brought from the wagons, we were able to make ourselves and our guests comfortable. I’d arranged for fresh meat for all the men while I was in Bononia, and Arshak had purchased an ox in the marketplace for the officers, together with good Roman bread, apples, carrots and leeks, fresh cheese, and a kind of sweet made from nuts roasted with honey. One of the tribunes brought a scented oil, with which the Romans like to anoint themselves at banquets, and Comittus brought some wine, as he’d promised. I fetched the set of gold drinking cups from my wagon and we drank some wine and ate some cheese while we waited for the ox to finish roasting, the Sarmatians sitting cross-legged, and the Romans reclining against bales of straw. None of the tribunes commented on the fact that the drinking cups were of Roman design. Perhaps they thought I’d bought them.

We introduced our squadron captains to the tribunes, and received in return the important information that the eldest of the three men, the married one, Marcus Vibullus Severus, was assigned to Arshak; the second, Gaius Valerius Victor, to Gatalas; and Lucius Javolenus Comittus to me. Comittus smiled at me when he announced this. I was pleased as well. Severus seemed a more serious and responsible man than his younger colleague, and might do better with Arshak. Though Comittus had won back some esteem from my brother princes during the dinner—largely by admiring our weapons and our horses.