Island of Ghosts (44 page)

My scribe was certainly very shaken by the letter, understanding it as I had. I gave him the rest of the day off.

The second message, which Leimanos delivered to me about the middle of the afternoon, was from Arshak.

“He made no problems about the safe conduct,” my captain reported, “and he treated me honorably. He was pleased with your message, and said to tell you this: ‘Son of Arifarnes, I am glad to see that you haven’t Romanized away your courage. My blood is royal, and I will meet you as what I am. Meet me as what you were, and I will drink to my victory from your skull.’ ” Leimanos gave a snort of anger and contempt, then continued, “The Romans in Condercum, I’m certain, suspect nothing—though they’re unhappy with him, because his men quarrel with theirs and he does nothing to stop them. Half the dragon was confined to barracks when I arrived, and a man had been executed for dueling. When Arshak went to River End he’d slipped out without permission, and now they have the Dalmatian troops from Vindovala guarding all the gates. It was hard to breathe in that fort, my lord, the air was so thick with anger: I thanked the immortal gods for Cilurnum. The Romans were pleased to think that Arshak would go hunting with you. They’d heard that we manage things better here, and they hope you’ll convince him to behave less arrogantly. Arshak is perfectly happy to take precautions against his liaison officer discovering anything and has no argument with a delay to arrange things. He suggests twelve days, in fact, rather than ten, and we tentatively scheduled the meeting for the twenty-third of the month.”

I frowned at this. This patient caution was not like the Arshak I knew. I wondered if his allies had another scheme under way. Aurelia Bodica must feel threatened by the proposed druidical convocation and the investigations now being carried out in Eburacum and Corstopitum. She would certainly try to move quickly if she could.

“I would prefer ten days to twelve,” I told Leimanos. “Shall we say, eleven? I will send to suggest it to him—let Banadaspos take the message this time. Did you find a place for the meeting?”

“Not yet. We’ve agreed to look between Hunnum and Vindovala, about ten miles away from both of us, and to send a messenger when we’ve found somewhere suitable.”

“I hope he understands to send his messenger
carefully
The Romans here are less ignorant than the ones in Condercum. Facilis in particular is hard to fool. If he discovers that I’ve had any dealings with Arshak at all, he’ll suspect.”

“Arshak does know we have to be cautious, my lord. And he is very eager to fight you.” Leimanos looked me over anxiously, appraising my strength for the meeting. He was unhappy with what he saw. “I hope that your leg . . .” he began.

“If I have to use my leg, I am a dead man. I will rely on Farna’s.”

He didn’t like it, and I could see him remembering what I’d been like on our raids, comparing it with my crippled present. He sighed. “Yes, my lord.”

The third message arrived at night. I had just gone to bed when Eukairios came and knocked on the side of my wagon, and I got up to find him standing outside in the frost. It was the dark of the moon, and the campfire had died to embers: I recognized Eukairios only by his voice. With him was another man whom he introduced as Protus, his friend from Corstopitum, a scribe in the office of the municipal archivist.

I jumped down from the wagon, pulling on my coat. “I believe I am much indebted to you,” I told Protus, shaking his hand. “You sent Eukairios a letter, did you not, when Gatalas mutinied?”

“You’re not indebted to me for that,” he told me. “I’ve never been so glad of anything I’ve done in my life as I was of sending that letter. God must have helped me write it. If you and your men hadn’t arrived so quickly, the barbarians would’ve sacked Corstopitum. I’ve brought you another letter tonight, Lord Ariantes. I borrowed a horse and rode over with it when I’d finished my work, because the person who gave it to me said it was urgent. It came from Eburacum.” He set it in my hands. The wax seals were stamped with a curving pattern my fingers recognized as a dragon cloak pin. Siyavak.

I thanked Protus and asked him if he needed food (he did, and I had one of the bodyguard search out some bread and leftover stew for him) and a place to sleep (he said he must ride back to Corstopitum that same night, as he was expected at work in the morning). While he was eating the stew by the rebuilt fire, I lit an oil lamp and took Eukairios into my wagon to read me the letter.

It was everything I could have asked for. Arshak and Bodica had accepted Siyavak as theirs, and he knew names and places and points of assembly enough to damn them both. He set it out in a few lines, short, sharp, and deadly. The letter concluded,

Recent events have alarmed her. There is opposi
tion to her plans among the druids, and talk of a
convocation which she fears may condemn her. She
has decided to risk moving at once, before it can
meet. Arshak has been asked to mutiny on the
twenty-fourth of January, and there is to be an inva
sion of the Selgovae and Votadini at the same time.
She wants my dragon to mutiny on the same day;
she has allies within the legion
[and he gave names]
who will mutiny with us, and let us out of
the fortress if things go badly. There are also to be
uprisings in
[and he gave more names and places].
I have sent this in haste. If you act quickly, Prince,
they are in your hands, but if you delay, we are ru
ined. I will not mutiny, but if I speak defiance to her
openly, my life is ended. For the love of honor, act
at once! She is a witch and a servant of the Lie and
I am afraid of her. I was glad, the god knows it, of
the letter you left with me, and the man who writes
this letter has spoken comfort to me, but the night is
dark. I await your answer.

He had dated the letter the sixth of January, which was the day I’d left Eburacum; it was now the eleventh. The triumph was like a blaze of lightning. We could strike in force.

I dictated a reply on the spot:

Ariantes to Siyavak lord of the fourth dragon sends
greetings. Lord, by your courage and loyalty, Gata
las is avenged. Have no fear of me or my love for
honor. I will act at once, and our enemies will be
destroyed. For your part, continue your pretense
and allow yourself to be arrested with the conspira
tors, for thus you will be safe from their vengeance.
As soon as they are secure, you will be released and
honored for your loyalty in revenging your lord’s
death. This I swear on fire.

I signed the letter, sealed it, and brought it out of the wagon. I was so stiff with excitement and joy that I wanted to shout. Protus was just finishing his stew. (The firelight revealed him as a round-faced man a bit younger than Eukairios, plainly dressed and with identically ink-stained hands.) Leimanos and Banadaspos had both appeared, tousled and sleepy, from their own wagons, which were, of course, nearby. They were convinced that something was up and determined not to miss it, and they sat watching Protus sullenly: another of their lord’s foreign allies, involved in plans from which they had been excluded.

“I am indebted to you,” I told Protus. “You said you had borrowed a horse: may I give you one?”

He gaped. “I . . . I couldn’t keep a
horse
, Lord Ariantes! I don’t have the money or the place to put it. And I can barely ride.”

I went back into the wagon and fetched my last gold drinking cup—the others had all gone in bribes—and went to the supply of silver I’d put under the bed to keep handy. I filled the cup with silver and brought it out to Protus. “Take that, then, in token of my gratitude to you for riding over tonight,” I told him. “Another man might have left it until the morning. When do you ride back?”

“I have to go as soon as I’ve finished eating, sir,” Protus stammered, looking from me to the cup and back again. “I don’t dare be away from work in the morning. I’d be beaten for it. I . . . These are denarii! Lord Ariantes, you can’t mean—”

“I said it was a token of my gratitude. Do you think my gratitude is cheap? Here is an answer to the letter you brought; I ask you to see that it is sent with the same haste as the one you delivered to me. If you are leaving now, we will have your company on the road.” I turned to my captains and switched to Sarmatian. “Leimanos, Banadaspos, our enemies are in our hands, and they will be ruined before the month is out! Tell the bodyguard to arm: we ride tonight.”

They both jumped to their feet, sullenness vanished in triumphant delight.

“Tonight?” Eukairios echoed, in Latin, behind me.

“Tonight, and you as well,” I told him, switching back to that language. “If you can sleep now, I admire your coolness. Facilis is still in Corstopitum, and we will need his help. We might as well ride now as in the morning. Leimanos, I’m leaving you in charge of the dragon.”

“My lord . . .” began Leimanos, ready to protest.

“There won’t be any fighting,” I promised him, back in Sarmatian again, grinning. “They will die by ink and a few leaves of beechwood. I only want the bodyguard to protect my back. Eukairios, be sure you bring writing supplies. Leimanos, I’ll tell Longus where I’m going as I leave. Don’t bother Comittus about anything to do with this.”

“You said he was innocent!” objected Leimanos.

“And so he is—but he has friends who aren’t, and is it honorable to ask him to assist in their destruction? Do you know if Longus is in his house?”

“He said he was going to Fortunatus’ place.”

“Good. Someone point it out to me, and I’ll say good-bye to him there.” I clapped my hands. “To arms!”

A few minutes later we were galloping out from the camp, thirty-one armed Sarmatians and two rather stunned scribes. It was just over an hour later when we rode into Corstopitum.

We dropped a shaken Protus off by the municipal buildings, and rode up to the gates of the military compound shortly before midnight. The guards were initially alarmed to see us, but relaxed when I asked for Flavius Facilis: they knew he was investigating the druidic murder, and midnight alarms were to be expected in such a case. They admitted us, sent a message to the commandant’s house where Facilis was staying, and allowed us to stable our horses in the military stables. When we arrived at the commandant’s house, it was to find the lamps lit and Facilis and the prefect of the Thracians, Titus Ulpius Silvanus, sitting in the dining room looking anxious and sleepy, waiting for us.

“What the hell are you doing galloping into Corstopitum at this time of night?” was Facilis’ greeting to me.

“I have had some important news,” I told him. “But there is no need for all of us to stay awake for it. Lord Prefect, is there anywhere for my men to rest?”

I managed to send him off to sort out the barracks, and as soon as he was gone, I handed Facilis Siyavak’s letter.

The centurion read it with a look of growing disbelief, and when he’d finished, sat staring at it numbly. “Jupiter Optimus Maximus!” he exclaimed, and looked back up at me.

I ran my forefinger across my forehead and around the side of my head.

“Gods!” he agreed. “This will finish them! The other names you got were good: that Cunedda had kept a ring that belonged to that poor bastard of a carpenter he sacrificed, which pins the murder on him, and now that he’s dead, there’ve been people coming forward to inform. The countryside and most of the druids in the region have turned against his sect. I thought now we could start to put up a fight. But this! This is the Venus toss on the dice, and the other players are out of the game shirtless.”

“There is not much time,” I said. “We should move at once.”

Facilis nodded. “We need to write some letters.”

When Titus Ulpius came back in, yawning, we had the writing leaves out and were sharpening the pens. “What’s happened, then?” he asked.

Facilis looked at him reflectively a moment—then he handed the letter to him. The prefect began to read it in a mumble. He stopped yawning after the first line; after the fourth, he stopped mumbling and read silently. He looked up at Facilis, wide-awake and terrified. “Is this true?” he demanded.

“Yes,” replied Facilis steadily. “But you don’t need to take our word for it. When those bastards are arrested, they’ll find proof of the lot, I’m sure of that. We need to get them all at the same time, so that they can’t warn each other and hide the evidence. Best if it’s done just a day or so before the uprising’s scheduled to begin. You’re prefect of a cohort, Titus, you can help. I don’t have the authority to order what I need to, and nor does Ariantes.”

“But the legate . . .”

“We tell the legate.”

I made a gesture of caution, and the centurion turned on me. “You said you’d tell him when you had evidence, and by all the gods and goddesses, you’ve got it now. Nobody’s going to arrest you here, with your own men at hand, and once he’s arrested this lot, it will confirm everything. We tell the legate: you can dictate the letter yourself. But we tell the others, as well—the officers of all the forts involved—just in case he doesn’t, or can’t. And we write the governor down in Londinium.” He turned back to Titus Ulpius. “Do you have a license to use the post? Then we send a fast courier off first thing in the morning, to Eburacum first, and then to Londinium. We give him strict instructions that the letter to the legate is on no account to be given to him if his wife is present. Come on! Let’s get started!”

Letters. “Ariantes, commander of the Sixth Numerus of Sarmatian Horse, Titus Ulpius Silvanus, prefect of the First Thracian Cohort, and Marcus Flavius Facilis, centurion of the first order,
hastatus
of the Thirteenth Gemina, to Quintus Antistius Adventus,
legatus Augusti pro praetore
, governor of Britain . . .” “Ariantes . . . to Julius Priscus, legate of the Sixth Victrix, many greetings. My lord, when we spoke in Eburacum I swore that when I had evidence, I would give it to you. I have been informed that . . .” And letters as well to the prefects of half a dozen forts scattered around Brigantia, to the grain commissary, which was responsible for all intelligence operations, and to Marcus Vibullus Severus, Arshak’s “liaison officer” at Condercum. Eukairios and Facilis wrote; I dictated; Ulpius, subdued and frightened, signed.