Island of Ghosts (5 page)

“Aurelia Bodica,” cried Comittus, “this man caught your horse, but it kicked him on an old wound when he caught it. Do you think we could find Diophantes? I think he needs a doctor.”

The blue gaze sharpened. Aurelia Bodica ignored Comittus and stared at the scars. “It looks as though someone tried to chop off your leg with an axe,” she said, in a dispassionate, assessing voice.

“With a Dacian long sword,” I corrected her.

And suddenly the memory of it came over me with a terrible clarity: my horse falling in the mud, and the swordsman screaming and running at me as I rolled free, holding his sword two-handed above his head. His face was white, and there was a smear of blood down the side of it; his teeth as he screamed were like dogs’ teeth. I tried to scramble away, and the sword came down; I screamed, tried to roll over and get to my feet, and the sword came down; I rolled onto my back again, trying to get my own sword up, and the sword came down. Then somehow I managed to strike his sword with my own from a sitting position, and knocked it out of his hands. Then someone else hit me in the back, I was thrown forward onto my face, and the next thing I remember clearly is lying in the mud, soaked with blood, too cold for pain, and watching the moonlight silver the bronze eye-guard of the dead warhorse before me.

I pushed Comittus’ hands away from my leg. “I do not need a doctor,” I told him. “It is sore, but not serious.”

The apple seller plonked herself down and offered me a handkerchief of threadbare linen. “You can use this for a bandage, my lord, and I’ll get you a nice piece of raw beef to put on it. That’s the best thing for a bruise.”

“Thank you for the bandage,” I said, taking it and tying it around my leg, “I do not need the beef.” I pulled my trouser leg down and got my good leg under me, then rose cautiously to my feet. Everyone in the marketplace had crowded round to look at me. The white stallion had been tied to a post at one side. I felt an idiot.

“Do you want the fifteen denarii for catching the horse?” asked Comittus.

“I do not catch horses for money,” I said, straightening my coat and looking about for my hat.

“I didn’t think you did, somehow,” said Comittus cheerfully, “but I thought I’d offer. Can I buy you a drink, then? Would you care to come to dinner? You practically saved my life.”

I spotted my hat under the red-faced man’s foot, and limped painfully over. “My hat,” I told him, looking at it pointedly. He moved over at once, picked it up, and tried to dust it off. I took it from him and rubbed it clean on his cloak. He spluttered angrily, but couldn’t quite bring himself to protest: he knew he’d acted stupidly. Besides, I was a few inches taller than he and might have been dangerous. I pulled the hat onto my head.

“We’re staying at the naval base,” Comittus told me. “I escorted Aurelia Bodica to the temple of Minerva, just out of town, and we’d stopped for her to do some shopping when the horse got loose. I don’t have much space in my quarters at the base, but there’s a very good tavern just outside it . . .”

“I thank you, no,” I said. I turned to the apple seller. “Have the apples delivered to the naval base, to the house of Valerius Natalis. Say that Ariantes bought them, and they’re to be shipped to Bononia tomorrow.”

“You’re Sarmatian, aren’t you?” said Aurelia Bodica suddenly.

I turned back to her and met her eyes for a moment. “Yes,” I said. For a moment I was tempted to introduce myself—“Ariantes son of Arifarnes, scepter-holder and
azatan
of the Iazyges of the Sarmatians, prince-commander of the sixth dragon.” But what was the point? The titles would mean nothing to her, and I was not a scepter-holder or prince now: I was the commander of a troop of Roman auxiliary cavalry.

“Are you really?” exclaimed Comittus excitedly. “Then we’re comrades! We’ve come down from Eburacum to meet you!”

“What?” I demanded, staring at him.

“My commander, Julius Priscus, is legionary legate of the Sixth Victrix in Eburacum, and commander in chief of all the forces in the North. We were told to come down to Dubris to meet three troops of Sarmatian cavalry which were expected from Bononia. I’m going to be in command of one of them.”

“You?” I asked, in confused disbelief. “How, ‘in command’?”

“Well . . . as prefect of the
ala
, you know. The troops will have their own officers—I suppose you’re one of them—but I’ll be in charge, as they won’t . . . that is, I’d heard you wouldn’t be very used to Roman ways.”

I stared at him, appalled. My imagination suddenly shaped another picture of him, etched with a ferocity I hadn’t felt for months, and precise with details only too familiar: Comittus lying on the cobblestones with my spear in him, and my dagger’s edge running across his forehead, around the sides of his head, and lifting the curly brown scalp away from the reddened skull. How could any Roman, let alone this one, be in charge of my men—my dependants, my followers, my own people? And if the Romans expected to appoint some of their own people as prefects, what did they plan to do with Arshak, Gatalas, and myself? Second-in-command, joint command, what?

Even a joint command would end in disaster. Here I was, determined to safeguard my followers by keeping the peace with our Roman masters—and I ached to scalp the first Roman colleague I met. What would my officers do? Or my fellow commanders? I thought of Arshak and his coat of Roman scalps. This Comittus was as cheerful and bouncy as a puppy. Members of the equestrian order often begin their careers by serving as military tribunes on the staff of a legion. They don’t need any previous military experience, and I doubted Comittus had supplied any. He would manage Arshak about as well as the red-faced man had managed the white horse, and the result could easily be death and grief all round. Someone in Britain had miscalculated badly. Perhaps, like the procurator Valerius Natalis, they thought we were conquered barbarians.

I found that my hand was on the hilt of my dagger, and I made myself rub it slowly, trying to banish the images of blood. “I think perhaps we had better have dinner together,” I said quietly. “Perhaps I might speak with your commanding officer, as well. What you have said . . .” I shook my head. “Javolenus Comittus, if you had said that to Arshak, that ‘I will be in command,’ I think he would have taken your life.”

Comittus looked bewildered. The woman, Aurelia Bodica, smiled. “Is this . . . Arsacus . . . your commanding officer?” she asked.

“He is my fellow officer, Lady,” I said, “but senior to me in honor, being of royal blood.”

“Is he here in Dubris too? We hadn’t heard that any of your troops had even arrived in Bononia yet.”

“We arrived in Bononia yesterday afternoon, Lady. The others are still there. I came over on my own this morning. The others will follow when I have told them all is well.”

“I see.” She smiled again, very prettily this time. “I’d thought perhaps we could all have dinner together this evening, Sarmatian and Roman officers together, and you could explain to us how we should manage your troops. Instead, I’m afraid it will have to be you and four Roman legionary officers . . . What did you say your name was?”

“Ariantes.”

“
Lord
Ariantes? I’m afraid I can’t even invite you to dine out, because my husband and I are also staying at Natalis’ house. But I hope you will share a meal with us, and I will invite the tribunes as well—I’m inviting you now, Lucius Javolenus! You can tell us all about your people’s customs and how we can avoid offending them.”

I thanked her and agreed. Comittus thanked her too. She smiled again and said she would have to rush back to arrange the dinner party, wished me good health, and set off back up the road. Comittus collected the horse and followed her.

My leg was still too painful to allow me to walk any distance. I limped back to the fountain and sat down on the rim. The curious crowd at last tired of gaping at me and began to take down the market stalls and pack up for the day; even the apple seller excused herself. I supposed that it was not really surprising that Bodica had guessed I was Sarmatian, given that she knew we were expected and I had mentioned Bononia. Yet I had felt something strange in that stare, and in the smile when I referred to Arshak killing the tribune. It unsettled me. I wondered how much authority she held. It was odd that Comittus had called her by her own names: she should have been Aurelia Julii, after her husband. Was it really so clear to everyone that she wasn’t Julius’ Aurelia, but her own? And the name itself was an odd one for a woman of rank. When they acquire Roman citizenship and Roman names, many people retain their own name as their last and take the family name of the Roman they received the citizenship from, often the emperor. The obvious “Aurelius” was the man I’d met at Aquincum, or perhaps his predecessor. But that would make the citizenship of Bodica’s family very recent, and she didn’t carry herself like an upstart. And even without that puzzle to trouble me, I was staggered at the task of trying to explain the Sarmatians to four Roman officers at a dinner party. If I couldn’t convince them to change their plans, though, there’d be a mutiny in Britain even if there wasn’t one in Bononia. I might even lead it myself. I could not
—could
not—yield command of my own men to some ignorant and inexperienced young Roman.

The white horse trotted down the street again, this time pulling a flimsy little chariot of painted wood and leather. Bodica was sitting on the bench seat while a groom drove, and Comittus rode behind on a flashy but shallow-hocked black stallion. Bodica noticed me and waved as she went by, and Comittus turned his horse aside.

“Is your leg really all right?” he asked, stopping in front of me. “If it isn’t, you can ride Thunder back to the base. Here, I’ll walk.” He slid off the black and offered me the bridle.

I looked at him for a moment. I do not like borrowing anything, but I doubted that I could walk the distance without straining the wound, and I’d had enough trouble with it already. (Riding’s no strain. I have ridden while asleep.) “Thank you,” I said, and took the bridle.

“I’ll give you a leg up . . .” he began—but I was on top of the horse by then. I checked how it was trained, remembering to use my knees in the Roman fashion, instead of my heels as I would with my own horses. Comittus looked as though he had expected to instruct me on the horse, but thought better of it. “Well,” he said, and swallowed. “If you want to ride him to Natalis’ house, just give him to one of the orderlies when you get there and tell them I’m in the north barrack block; they’ll return him.”

I looked at him for another moment. It had been a kind gesture to offer me his horse. He’d been trying to make friends. “I do not know where Natalis’ house is,” I confessed. “I have not yet been there. If it is agreeable to you, Javolenus Comittus, perhaps you could walk with me and show me the way.”

He brightened and agreed at once.

“What did you mean when you said this Arsacus would kill me for saying I was in command?” he asked as soon as we set off.

“Was it unclear?”

“No, but . . . what’s wrong with saying it?”

“Arshak’s troops are Arshak’s men. He is . . .” I groped for a Roman parallel. “He is their patron, they are his clients. Their families also were clients of his father, and his father before him. You are a Roman—until this summer, an enemy. How would your clients feel if things were reversed? If they were marched out into the plains among the Sarmatians, and then told that you, their patron, were no longer their patron, but that they must look instead to a Sarmatian prince who knew nothing of their ways and could not even speak their language? Would they not refuse? And Arshak is the nephew of a king, and will not want a Roman tribune to interfere with him. He is not a patient man.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of it that way.” After a moment, he asked earnestly, “So what should we do?”

“Could you not call yourself an adviser? Or a mediator? Or a . . . liaison officer, who speaks for the legate, but leaves the command to us?”

“I could! That’s all I will be, really.” He began to brighten again. “That’s all right, then! Though I hope I’m not appointed to . . . liaise with . . . this Arshak. If there are three troops of you, and he commands one while you command another, who commands the third?”

“Gatalas. I do not know that you would find him easier to liaise with than Arshak, Javolenus Comittus.”

“Call me Lucius. So if I’m lucky, I liaise with you.”

“If you choose to view it that way.”

“I do,” he announced, grinning.

He was undoubtedly right to prefer me to Arshak or Gatalas. “How far is it to Eburacum?” I asked.

He was perfectly happy to tell me about Eburacum and his journey from there, and did all the talking the rest of the way.

Natalis’ house at the naval base in Dubris was even larger and finer than his house in Bononia. I slid off the horse, thanked my companion, and wished him good health—though I called him Lucius Javolenus, not Lucius. I couldn’t bring myself to use his first name alone, not while my mind still teased me with the image of his scalp hanging from my bridle. When he’d ridden off, I went in and introduced myself to the slaves.

The dispatches I’d voyaged with had contained a letter about me to the steward of the house, and I’d been expected even before Bodica had appeared to arrange a dinner party for me: the slaves were polite, despite my smell of dirt and horses. I gave directions about the apples and remembered to ask for someone to go to the ship to explain to the captain why I wasn’t waiting there. The steward escorted me up the stairs to a bedroom overlooking the courtyard, murmuring that Lord Julius Priscus and his wife were expecting me in an hour, after I’d had time to wash, and would I like a bath?

I wanted to clean myself, particularly if I was to dine with these important Romans, but the Roman custom of immersing oneself in hot water was still alarming to me. I asked about a steam bath, and was told that only the public baths, outside the base, were equipped for that. I settled for some oil, and cleaned myself as well as I could with that and a strigil. There was nothing I could do about my clothes; after the long journey, I didn’t have any clean ones, even in Bononia. I combed my hair and avoided the mirror on the bedroom table.