Island of Ghosts (35 page)

T
HE  FOLLOWING  MORNING
  Eukairios was eager to go back into the town: he hadn’t finished arranging matters with the Christians when the fire started. “I spoke to the . . . the
presbyteroi
of the
ekklesia
yesterday,” he said. “The elders of the assembly, that is. They’ve prayed about the alliance. They are mostly Brigantians, and they don’t want to see a rebellion or an invasion of the northern tribes—but they’re not quite sure. They want to meet you.”

“Meet me? Why?”

“My lord . . . we can be injured very easily. One has only to go to a magistrate and say, ‘He’s a Christian,’ and that in itself is a sentence of death. And we don’t want to start a struggle with the druids: we’d be crushed. If we’re to commit ourselves to the risks of an earthly alliance, we have to be sure of our allies. They—one of them in particular—isn’t sure about you at all. I’ve vouched for you—but I’m your slave.”

I shrugged. “But what do they expect to gain by meeting me? They must know that I am not of your faith, that I am . . . how did you put it once? . . . a man who decorates his horses’ bridles with scalps and drinks from a Roman skull.”

“You don’t, anymore. They just want to know if you’re the sort of man they can trust not to betray us. Please, sir, I don’t think they’ll help if they haven’t met you.”

I was not eager to meet Eukairios’ friends. I preferred not to know the sordid details. But I did want their help in keeping contact with Siyavak and whatever knowledge their contacts with that other illegal cult had to offer me. “Very well, very well!” I said irritably. “You may tell them that I will meet them at midday, in a place of their chosing. But be back as soon as you can. I wish to have a list of proposals ready for the legate when we meet him this afternoon.”

He saddled my red bay carriage horse and galloped off almost as briskly as a Sarmatian.

Without Eukairios to help me with my list, I had the morning free. I considered trying to arrange some meeting with Siyavak—but decided that however I did it, I might endanger him, and it was safer to allow him to choose his time to meet me. I worked with the stallion Wildfire instead.

I’d accustomed the horse to the feel of a saddle while we were still in Cilurnum, and I’d ridden him for short distances beside Farna while we were on the road. It was probably fortunate that he’d been trained only as a carriage horse before. The saddle held no particular terrors for him—unlike the bridle, the very sound of which made him roll his eyes and lay his ears back. His mouth was so badly scarred, anyway, that he was unable to feel anything short of a wrestling hold on the reins, so I left him with his head in a halter and trained him only to the signals I gave him with my feet. He already knew the Latin carriage calls for “stop” and “go,” so it was easy to teach him that, and he learned to turn quickly. I rode him round and round the stable yard that morning—turn to the right, good lad, turn to the left, good, my brave one, stop! good, very good, here is some grain for you; turn to the left, trot, to the left, yes, good—and he was working well, still nervous of strangers or any sudden sound, but enjoying himself, wanting to please and be praised. When he’d walked and trotted for about an hour, I stopped him in the middle of the yard and began to show him that riders can do odd things in the saddle but that these are nothing to worry about. I stood up in the stirrups, moved over to one side, moved over to the other, leaned down, talking to him quietly all the while. He stood still, flicking his ears backward and forward, and only occasionally trying to move off. I praised him, then drew my legs up and knelt in the saddle. My left knee was stiff, but did not threaten to give under me. I stood up, carefully—and felt ridiculously proud of a feat of balance I’d once taken for granted.

All of a sudden we heard voices at the end of the stable yard, and Wildfire laid his ears back and shied violently. I managed to drop back into the saddle, though he had moved so that I landed hanging sideways by one leg; he leapt across the yard stiff-legged, prancing and snorting, with me hanging off on one side and dragging myself up by his mane. He nearly crashed into the wagons, shied again, twisted about, and neighed loudly, kicking. I had my hands full trying to stay on, and my men began running to help. Wildfire backed among the wagons, kicking and rolling his eyes. I slipped off and caught his head, put my arm about his neck and crooned into his ear. He stood still, shivering. Banadaspos ran over and caught the other side of the stallion’s halter, while I stroked the damp neck and whispered to the animal. I heard the rattle of a carriage crossing the yard, but was far too busy to pay any attention to it—until I heard Bodica’s voice, very close, saying, “Having trouble with your horse, Lord Ariantes?”

Wildfire neighed again and tried to rear. I put my coat over his head, but he still shifted, trembling and snorting.

“I think perhaps he remembers you,” I told Bodica, not looking up. “If you will please move away, Lady Aurelia, I can put him back in the stables.”

I led the horse past her without looking at her, only vaguely aware that she was sitting in her chariot and watching me. Wildfire calmed a little as I brought him into the stable. I put a blanket over him, and asked Banadaspos to walk him up and down and give him a drink of water when he was cool. Then I went back into the yard.

Bodica was still there, standing and leaning on the chariot rail now, letting the flower-bordered edge of a new white cloak drape elegantly over the painted side. “I think you’re right,” she told me, smiling. “I believe I did own that horse once. But he turned vicious and I sold him. I didn’t know you were interested in secondhand animals.”

I had wondered before if the stallion had ever been hers. While there are plenty of people to mistreat animals, few could afford to abuse such a fine one, and she obviously liked driving large and powerful stallions. “Most creatures turn vicious if they are punished unreasonably,” I told her. “Did you wish to speak to me, Lady Aurelia?”

“My husband and I wanted to invite you to dinner tonight, Lord Ariantes,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I hope you can come. We would be most offended if you couldn’t.”

I set my teeth. I’d been afraid of this, and had tried to think of a good excuse not to share a meal with my commanding officer. I’d been unable to. I would simply have to hope that she would not poison me at her own table, where her husband might discover it. “I am honored,” I told her, bowing my head. “I will come.”

“Good!” she said, and sat down again, “We’ll expect you about five o’clock then.” Her driver shook the reins, and the chariot moved off. I watched the white stallion trot smartly out of the yard, and wondered how long it would be before he “turned vicious,” too.

E
UKAIRIOS  RETURNED  ABOUT
  the middle of the morning and said that the Christians had agreed to a meeting, though they wanted it to be discreet. I was still angry and anxious when I set off with Eukairios for this. Eukairios wanted to go as inconspicuously as possible, and he asked that I not wear my armor. I very much disliked the feeling of setting out with my back unprotected. (Eukairios also considered it conspicuous to go on horseback, but I told him that Sarmatian princes do not walk, and I would be even more conspicuous if I did—though I took my courser instead of Farna.) I did not bring any of the bodyguard, of course. They were very unhappy at this, since they understood that someone had not only tried to murder me the night before, but chosen a particularly horrifying method for it, and they guessed now that the cursing tablet had not been the work of any Pict. They were deeply offended that I should leave them behind at such a time, and they protested angrily and swore to their loyalty. In the end I had to issue a flat order that they stay behind and keep quiet, and they watched me ride off very resentfully.

We trotted through the east gate of the fortress, then down the road and into the marketplace—like Corstopitum, Eburacum had grown from a mere army base into a proper city. Despite the cold weather, the market was busy, and the people there all looked at us twice. Eukairios glanced at me nervously and shook his head. “Couldn’t you have worn some other coat?” he whispered. “That red one is very conspicuous . . .”

“I have no plain coats,” I replied. “Your friends were the ones who wanted this meeting.”

Eukairios sighed. “Yes, my lord,” he said, very tense and unhappy now the time had come. “Well, we’ll have to go round the back, and then I’ll have to go on ahead, and make sure it’s clear, and get someone to hide the horses somewhere . . .”

We had to do as he said—out of the market, down a street, through an empty alleyway, into an even narrower back alley that smelled of boiled cabbages. Then I had to wait with the horses by a rubbish heap while Eukairios vanished into one of the houses ahead, and came back a little while later with a frightened girl, who whispered that we could put the horses in the shed with her goats. I looked at her remotely and said nothing. If the Christians decided not to help, after all this ridiculous performance, I was going to be seriously angry. But I tied up my courser in a shed in a back garden beside two nanny goats, and followed Eukairios through the back door of a private house. We emerged in a kitchen, very low and smoky, and were ushered through it into a middle-class dining room. The room was warm and bright, heated by a brazier, and the winter sun shining through the glass windows made watery patterns upon the red and white tiles of the floor. There were three men there, all in their forties. Two wore the gray-brown tunics and trousers and checked cloaks one could find on any man in the marketplace, and the third, who was clean-shaven, wore Roman dress. All three came over to me when I entered and shook hands, with me and with Eukairios.

“Lord Ariantes,” said the one in Roman dress. “Thank you for coming. I’m sorry we can’t give you our own names: it’s probably better that you don’t know them.” He sat on the middle couch of the three dining places, and gestured to the couch on his right. “Please, sit down.”

If an army officer had said that, I would have taken off my sword and made some effort to sit or recline in the usual Roman fashion. But I wasn’t going to make myself uncomfortable for a pack of cultists. I sat down on the floor in front of the couch he’d indicated, with my good leg crossed under me and my bad one pulled up before me, adjusting my sword so that it didn’t pull on the baldric. The two other Christians gave me an odd look, then sat down on the central couch beside their spokesman, watching me with wary curiosity. Eukairios, after a moment’s uncomfortable hesitation, sat down behind me.

“Our brother Eukairios,” said the Romanized Christian, “has explained to us that there may be a plot to make this region, Brigantia, our home, rebel against the provincial government. He’s said that someone is trying to involve Sarmatian troops like the one you command in mutinies, and has actually called in the Selgovae and the other Pictish tribes as invaders to occupy the army so the rebellion can succeed. He says further that the person at the center of this plot is . . . a lady reputed to be a follower of an extreme druidical sect, who wants to make Brigantia a druidical kingdom, with herself as queen. He says that while you know of this plot, you have no other witnesses or material evidence for it, and that your word alone would not be sufficient to convince the authorities. Is that a fair summary?”

I was relieved to have it all set out so clearly and unemotionally, though the open discussion of the details made me feel even more exposed than riding through the marketplace without armor had. “Yes,” I agreed.

“And he says further that you want our help for two purposes: first, to keep in contact with a friend of yours in Eburacum who is trying to discover the details of the plot; and secondly, to make use of our knowledge of, and contacts with, the druids.”

“That is so.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then one of the other Christians asked bluntly, “Why should we help you?”

“Because,” I answered, “you are British, and Roman, and, I think, Brigantian, and the kingdom that this plot would produce would be unwelcome to you on several counts.”

“The present government does not love us,” the other replied. He was a serious, dark-eyed man. “We are persecuted in every corner of this empire, and treated like sheep to be slaughtered. Our kingdom is not of this world, and we have no business interfering in the counsels of princes and legates.”

“And if the Selgovae and Votadini came up to this city and began to sack it?” I asked. “Would you interfere with them?”

“We would not shed their blood,” said Dark Eyes solemnly. “We would oppose them, and die in the name of Christ our Lord.”

“That wouldn’t do our neighbors any good!” replied the other British Christian, before I could say anything. “Nor our brothers and sisters, nor our wives and children! We are Brigantian, as he said: why shouldn’t we defend our home? And the man is asking us to carry letters, not to shed blood.”

The Romanizer held his hand up. “Not in front of our guest!” he said. “Lord Ariantes, our brother Eukairios has vouched for you in the strongest terms, and said that you are kind, generous, and a peacemaker. He says that by helping you, we might prevent a cruel and bloody rebellion. We know . . . something . . . of the people involved in this affair, and we’re inclined to believe him. But your people also have a very evil reputation, and it’s hard for us to . . . How shall I put it?”

“Make an alliance with a Sarmatian.”

He grinned at me quickly, and suddenly I liked him. “Well, yes,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought a dragon was the natural ally of a flock of doves.”

I spread my hands before me. “Granted. But I already have as an ally a Roman who before was a bitter enemy. If I can make an alliance with the eagles, I can make one with a flock of doves.”

“Eagles have more in common with dragons than doves do,” said Dark Eyes. “They are both killers.”

“Eukairios said he was a peacemaker,” said the Brigantian champion.

“He doesn’t look it,” said Dark Eyes. “Sitting there on the floor with his sword on his back and his hand on his dagger! And the stories I’ve heard say he’s killed dozens of men with his own hands.”