Island of Ghosts (14 page)

I  
W O K E  I N 
the middle of the night to the sound of sobbing. It pulled me from deep sleep, and for a moment I could not remember when or where I was. “Artanisca?” I said, sitting up. “Artanisca, love, I’m here. Don’t cry.”

The sobbing stopped abruptly, and as it did I realized that it had not been a child’s sobbing, but the hard, painful gasping of a man. I remembered Eukairios.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” came the slave’s voice out of the darkness, still rough with grief. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

I dropped onto my back again and stared up blindly into the blackness. “No,” I said. “I am sorry that you grieve so for Bononia.”

“I didn’t mean to complain,” he told me. “You have been very kind. It was a great consolation to me to be able to say good-bye, and to have my friends’ prayers supporting me as I set out. I do thank you. But it’s . . . foreign to me. It will get better in time. I’ll learn the language.”

He was speaking to encourage himself. “Yes,” I said. I closed my eyes, willing myself to be still.

“What does ‘artanisca’ mean? It is what you said just now, isn’t it?”

I was silent for a long minute. “It is a name,” I answered, at last. “My little son. He is dead.”

“Oh!” After a moment, “I am sorry, my lord.”

“Yes.” I pressed my hands against my face, trying to stop my own tears at the thought that Artanisca would never wake me in the night again, never; Tirgatao would never get up to pluck him from his cradle and place him between us, round and warm, and slide her slim arm around my back, leaning her head against my own. Never, never, never.

“What do your people say of the dead?” I asked, saying something, anything, rather than gaze into that black chasm. “Do followers of your cult burn them, like the Romans, or do they lay them in the earth?”

“Either, my lord,” Eukairios said, after a surprised pause. “Bury if we can, burn if we can’t. We believe that if we have died in faith, it doesn’t matter how our bodies are treated.”

“But you believe in immortality.” I remembered Natalis on the ship, mentioning the cult’s disgusting rituals done in private houses at night, to give immortality.

“We believe that one day this earth will shed its skin like a snake, and be renewed; that it suffers now like a woman in labor, but when its pain is ended there will be joy. Then all things will be made new, and the dead rise from ashes or the grave, and all that was broken will be made whole.”

“You believe that the bodies of the dead can return from ashes?”

“If they were made once in their mother’s womb, they can be made again from the earth, or smoke, or ash. What matters is what they were when they lived, not what was done to them afterward.”

“My people believe that when fire destroys the body,” I said, “the soul is destroyed too. Fire is holy, and death pollutes it.”

“If you think fire is holy, shouldn’t it purify death?”

“That is not what we believe of it.”

We were silent for a little while. I imagined Tirgatao burning, and the pain was so great I couldn’t breathe. I spoke. I had to, even though I was weakening myself before, of all people, a miserable slave. “My wife’s body was burned,” I said, “and my little son’s as well. They were in the wagons. The Romans came—the second Pannonian cavalry. Tirgatao took Artanisca and jumped out of the wagon, hoping to run with him to safety, but she was heavy with our second child, and slow; they saw her. She had her bow, and shot at them; they told me she killed one man. The rest fell on her with swords and killed her. Then they killed Artanisca. They were angry because we had made them suffer in the war, and because she had killed one of them. They looted the wagons and set them on fire. They cut her body open, and tore the child from her womb, and hurled it on the fire. I pray to all the gods it was dead! They took a horse’s head, and put that in her womb, and flung her on the fire, like that, and Artanisca after her. Another woman who had hidden in a well saw it all. I was wounded on the field, five miles away; I was lying in the mud all the while, not conscious. When my men came to find me next morning, they did not tell me what had happened. I asked and asked for Tirgatao, and they said she was not there. I thought she had been sent to safety.”

I heard the floorboards creak as he moved. “Christ have mercy!” he whispered.

“I do not believe a crucified Roman would help it.”

“But you believe fire is holy, and your god, Marha, is holy and good?”

“That is what my people believe.”

“Then . . . then surely, fire for your wife and child would be release, not destruction?”

“Perhaps,” I said. “The Romans burn their dead to release the soul. Perhaps they are right. I hope they are right, and you also.”After a moment I added, thickly, “It is the thought of Artanisca that hurts me most, when she was already dead, screaming beside her body. He was two years old. I think of him crying, and of her burning. I was helpless to prevent it, and helpless to revenge it, and I am helpless still. Do not repeat anything of what I have just said. To anyone.”

“God forbid!” he said vehemently. “I’d as soon tear a man’s skin off and wear it round the camp.”

“My people do that sometimes.” I felt very tired now, and ashamed. But the chasm had moved away a little, and I could breathe again. “I am sorry, Eukairios, that I have made you suffer too. I have seen enough suffering this year to wish to see no more of it. But if you should mention what I have said, I would have to kill you. A commander must be strong.”

“You don’t need threats, my lord, to make me be silent.”

Not because I must be strong, but because he knew I was weak. It was a strange feeling, being pitied by a slave. It should have made me angry, but didn’t. It was comforting, to have another human being in my wagon, not be alone; comforting to be able to grieve without fear. “Good night, then,” I said, beginning to drowse off.

“Good night, my lord.”

I  
D I D  N O T 
want to meet his eyes next morning. But he walked up to me while I was saddling Farna, and asked, in the dry quiet voice he’d used in Bononia, whether I wanted any letters or accounts done. I asked him a question about how the Romans handled accounts, and he began explaining it. Comittus appeared while he was still explaining, and joined in the explanations. The talk was interrupted by our setting out, then resumed and continued for a while on the road. I was aware, as Comittus and I rode back to the place beside the legate, that Eukairios had turned his attention to the man who was driving my wagon and was trying to learn a few words of Sarmatian.

“He’s a good scribe,” observed Comittus. “Natalis did well by you.”

“Yes,” I answered. Natalis had done very well by me—or perhaps very badly. I could not treat the man as a slave now. Property does not wake up crying in the night, or pity the tears you shed in return. I might grow to hate the man because he knew my weakness—or we might end up friends. How we would manage remained to be seen.

“I suppose I ought to learn some Sarmatian, too,” Comittus said, thoughtfully.

I looked at him appreciatively. “I think the men will learn Latin. But a few words from you in their own tongue would please them.”

“I’ll try and learn some, then,” he declared, eagerly. “Though I must say I’m glad you speak Latin as well as you do. Your Latin is much better than the others’—a little formal, maybe, but it’s educated Latin. Where did you learn it?”

“My father had a . . . I do not know the word for it. A client or tenant; a man whom he permitted to farm some land where he had grazing rights, in return for some of the produce. There were a number of these people near the Tisza River, at the winter pastures. This one was educated. At any rate, my father used to remit a part of the tribute from this man in exchange for Latin lessons for myself and my sisters. He wished us to speak educated Latin. Nobles of our nation try to learn some Latin, but we have little opportunity to practice it, in our country, and only use it for trading, or raids. I had a better teacher than most.” I didn’t add the other truth about my Latin, that it was good because I’d enjoyed the lessons and gone to talk to the old man even when I hadn’t needed to. I’d always been ashamed of that. “He used to read us poetry,” I said instead.

Comittus laughed. “ ‘Arms and the man I sing, who first from the walls of Troy’?”

“Yes, he did read us that.”

“Did you like it?”

I shook my head. “We have our own songs of heroes, which are bloodier, and more to our own taste. But I liked some of the other things he read us. Did you grow up speaking Latin?”

He flushed slightly. “Yes, of course! That thing Gaius said, that ‘Brittunculus’ gibe—that was just a joke. I’m as much a Roman as he is. My family’s had the citizenship since my grandfather’s day.”

“I meant no offense. I was wondering if I should learn some British.”

He relaxed again. “Ah. The fact is, British
is
my first language—though I learned Latin before I could read.” He added it so hastily that I suspected he had learned Latin in order to read.

“Is Javolenus a British name?” I asked.

He looked astonished. “No, of course not. No, he was a procurator when my grandfather got the citizenship—the first Javolenus, I mean. Why did you think it was?”

“You said you had a British name, and Comittus sounded Latin to me,” I answered.
“Comitia, comites,
comitatus . . .”

“That’s only got one
t
sound in it. Completely different word.” He gave me one of his sudden confidential grins. “At home they call me Comittus all the time; I’m only Lucius in the army. If you like, since you’re not a Roman either, you can call me Comittus as well.”

I nodded, and wondered if he realized how much he had just given away with that little word “either.”

On the third day after leaving Dubris we arrived outside Londinium. Priscus wanted a day to conduct some business with the governor in the capital, but he did not want to take us into the city. He commandeered a house for himself and his lady, in a field with a clean stream in it about a mile south of the city, and next morning left us camped in the field while he rode in. He took a dozen of his dispatch riders but left the rest, and the century, under the command of Flavius Facilis and with instructions to keep an eye on us.

Eukairios asked permission to go into the city as well. “I could buy some tablets and some ink and writing leaves,” he said. “And I’d like to look up some friends—with your permission, Lord Ariantes.”

“You have friends in Londinium?” I asked. “Are there Christians there as well?”

He jumped, then gave an apologetic smile. “I forgot that you know. I wouldn’t say the name, my lord, not so loudly! I was told a few names, and . . . and a password. I hoped . . .”

“See them if you wish. And buy the things. Buy yourself some better clothing, too. How much money do you need?”

He glanced down at his tunic with a surprised expression, as though the threadbare gray-brown patched thing were perfectly respectable. “How much better do you want it to be?” he asked.

I shrugged. “You know what a nobleman’s slave should look like better than I. Buy what is fitting to my position.”

He took a silver denarius for his writing supplies and twenty-five for new clothes.

“Is there anything else you wish to buy?” I asked him.

He stared at me a moment, then gave a sudden dry chuckle, stopped quickly in embarrassment. “You really don’t know anything about slaves, do you, my lord?” he said. “I took a few sestertii more than I’m likely to need—and
I’m
honest.”

I handed him three more sestertii. “Honesty is rewarded,” I said. “Do you need to borrow a horse?”

He took the coins with pleasure and pushed them quickly into his purse. “Thank you very much, my lord! But you’ve forgotten that I can’t ride.”

It was still hard for me to remember that
anyone
could not ride. “Well then, walk—and enjoy Londinium. Stay in the city tonight, if you wish, but be back tomorrow morning.”

When he was gone I went to the center of the camp, and I was there, discussing business with Arshak and Gatalas, when Aurelia Bodica came driving up in her little chariot. She had no attendants with her, not even her driver; she guided the white stallion herself, turning it neatly around the wagon shafts and past the tethered knots of horses, and drawing it to a smart halt in front of us. Her blue cloak had fallen back from her shoulders, her cheeks were flushed with the wind, and her eyes were dancing. “Princes of the Sarmatians!” she called, smiling at all of us. “I have come to ask you a favor.”

Arshak instantly leapt forward and offered her his hand to help her down from the chariot; Gatalas, just a second behind him, had to content himself with catching the stallion’s reins. “Lady Aurelia,” Arshak said, smiling at her, “you need ask no favors, since we are yours to command.”

“Oh, thank you, Lord Arshak! I’ve decided that I’d like to go into the city, and I need an escort. My husband has already gone, of course, and taken all the tribunes, so I’ve come to ask you if you could provide one.”

“It would give me honor,” replied Arshak at once. “I and my bodyguard will escort you.”

“Lady Aurelia, your husband wished us to remain in the camp,” I intervened. “Have you told the camp prefect what you want?”

She smiled at me, her eyes sparkling. “I have not. I know perfectly well what Facilis would say—‘You can’t trust Sarmatians; I’ll give you a dozen legionaries.’ But I’d much rather have an escort of Sarmatians. Legionaries are dull. If I went in with them, everyone would think I was a centurion’s wife. But if I go in with Lord Arshak and his bodyguard, the whole city will be out on the streets staring, particularly if you put all your armor on. Please do put all your armor on! Why shouldn’t we show off to the capital a bit? Don’t worry about my husband being angry, Lord Ariantes. He won’t punish you for leaving camp if you go with me.”

Gatalas laughed. I cursed inwardly. From the way Bodica had phrased it, it sounded as though I were afraid of her husband. Perhaps she thought I was.