The Amber Road (18 page)

Each vessel had a local steersman and was paddled by ten men. The two bringing up the rear were crewed by Olbians, but the leading pair had the remaining men of the
Fides
at the benches. Used to rowing, the Romans were finding it difficult to adjust to paddling facing forwards. As the vessel on which Amantius was an unwilling passenger came about, it yawed and dipped alarmingly, the green water all too close to the edge. He clung on tighter, his chubby knuckles whitening.

The boats could take only four passengers in addition to their crew. The mission had been distributed among them. Ballista, Maximus and Tarchon rode in the first with the guide. Amantius had been assigned to the second with Zeno, the Danubian peasant Diocles and a slave. Castricius and the insolent-looking Egyptian soldier Heliodorus commanded the last two, each accompanied by two slaves.

Amantius was not just uncomfortable and anxious, he was simmering with resentment. Zeno had insisted Amantius travel with him, in case he should have sudden need of a secretary. The imperial envoy now lounged on a cushion at the rear by the helmsman, Diocles next to him in the place of honour. Amantius had been brusquely ordered to the front with one of Zeno’s slaves. Amantius’s own boy had been sent off to the last boat. It was as if Zeno were determined to remove the last shreds of
dignitas
from the imperial eunuch.

At least the weather was fine. Here the current ran smooth and strong, and there was little labour for the crew. Off to the right, in the creeks between the islets an unruffled calm prevailed, the surface as still and dark as polished wood. Trees grew out of the water, their bare trunks like the masts of a drowned fleet. The mudbanks were alive with wading birds, busy and completely indifferent to the passing boats. Amantius relaxed a little, his mind turning over ideas of the transience of humanity, its helplessness in the teeth of fate.

On the left the muddy shore slipped by, overgrown with reeds and trees. And there, at the river’s edge, stood an enormous creature. Glossy black, it had the form of a bull, but was near the size of an elephant. Massive, double-curved horns overhung the water. Was this the auroch, the great beast of the northern forests of which Caesar had written? Amantius would have liked to ask, but he was not going to demean himself by calling down the boat to the steersman, let alone talking to the slave or soldiers at hand. As they passed, the beast lifted its head. Drops of water fell from its muzzle as it regarded the boats.

The Hypanis bore the boats along. The channel was broader here, other faster-flowing branches joining it from the right. Behind Amantius, easy on their benches, the crew sang an obscene marching song about the needs of a young widow. The sun sparkled on the placid water. Amantius thought of the bull from the sea sent by Aphrodite to bring death to Hippolytus for scorning her mysteries.

A warning shout from ahead. The boat in front was turning hard to the left. The crew – urgent, but all out of time – thrashed the river with their paddles. The voice of the steersman came across the water, taut with anxiety.

Gods, the barbarians could not be upon them already.

Amantius was thrown sideways as the boat heeled to the right. His stomach hit the side. The water was no distance from his face. Fearing his own bulk would overturn them, he levered himself back. The vessel tipped the other way. Amantius found himself entangled with Zeno’s slave. Water slopped around his slippers. In a lather of terror and fury, Amantius fought free of the servile embrace.

Back upright, he held on to the bench beneath his thighs for dear life. On an even keel, the boat was ploughing towards the eastern bank. The air was full of spray and grunted curses as the inexpert crew sweated to drive it faster.

Almost too scared to look, Amantius sought the peril from which they fled. At first he could not comprehend what he saw. It was as if the river god himself had turned against them. The channel running in from the east was full. A mass of timber stretched almost from bank to bank. Low in the water, but incalculably heavy and bearing down fast, it would crush the frail vessels in its path without pause.

Inexplicably, there were men standing on top of the logs. They had poles in their hands, and ran about like ticks on the hide of a hippopotamus. They were shouting and gesturing.

Amantius looked ahead. The bank seemed far away. He looked back at the monstrosity bent on overwhelming them. It was much nearer, travelling fast. The boat was going so slowly. How could Hygeia have spared him from the barbarians only to deliver him to this? Had the rings and the cloak not been enough? He would give more. Most High Mother, accept my last treasure. Take the bracelet, my last link to the sacred court of the Caesars. Spare my life. Save me from the fishes and a watery grave.

With no warning, the boat grounded. Amantius was hurled forward. His head cracked against a piece of wood. He sprawled on the floor. ‘Hygeia, all the gods, do not let me die.’

Men were laughing. The crew were thumping each other on the back. The raft of lashed-together logs was drifting past. The men on it were polling it clear of the bank. They called out jokes.

‘A hazard of navigating these rivers,’ the steersman said. ‘They float the timber down to the Euxine, sell it to merchants. Good timber. Good for shipbuilding.’

In the stern, Diocles was smiling, but Zeno was white-faced.

‘We get going,’ said the steersman. ‘Follow them down.’

XI

The Estuary of the Hypanis and Borysthenes

On that day the expedition encountered four rafts of timber being floated down to the Euxine. None was as alarming as the first. Apart from them, they had the river much to themselves all the way to Cape Hippolaus. There were fishermen out, but at the sight of four unknown boats, they rowed into overgrown creeks and were lost to sight.

Ballista enjoyed the journey. It was good to be on the water in a small boat very like the ones of his childhood on the shores of the Suebian Sea. The weather remained set fair. A gentle southerly breeze got up and ruffled the surface. It was warm in the spring sunshine. There were no clouds. In between the islands with their reeds and trees, the low, grey line of the western shore could be seen two miles or more away. There was a pale-blue band above it, straight as if drawn with a pencil; a white-blue sky above that.

The Hypanis was rich. Resting happily in the prow, Ballista saw perch, bream and carp. There were many catfish. Once, a huge pike, solitary in its ferocity, came to investigate the boats, before flicking away to find sanctuary under a bank. He had been told there were sturgeon, but he saw none. Great gaggles of geese and ducks bobbed on the water. The shallows and mudflats were crowded with waders; high-stepping, beaks darting, tireless in their endeavours. When the boats came too close, the birds took wing, filling the air with their noise.

The eastern shore was thick with reeds. Alder and willows grew among them. There were birch, oak and poplars behind. Animals moved through the vegetation, coming down to drink; herds of deer and wild sheep, lumbering bison.

Amidst this plenty the signs of man were few. They passed only two Olbian settlements. They were sited on high bluffs. They looked down on the river from cliffs which were banded with pink and grey rock. Both villages were small, circumscribed by ravines and heavily fortified in stone. Their inhabitants could not be blamed for such prudence. But Ballista noted the area of cultivation around them was narrow. There was little terracing, no vines and few domestic animals. When the boats approached, those cattle that were grazing were driven up towards the walls.

The water level was high. The lower trees were half submerged. Bleached branches swept downstream had tangled on promontories. The winter must have been hard further north in the cold interior of the continent. Ballista remembered the winters of his youth on Hedinsey. In the bleak midwinter the snow could drift so high that only the smoke of their hearths revealed the outlying farms around his father’s hold of Hlymdale. In such a place it was easy to believe in Fimbulvetr, the winter of the world before Ragnarok, easy to believe the sun would never rise again, and that all except one man and one woman were destined to die.

They reached their destination at sunset. Cape Hippolaus thrust out into the waters as sharp and firm as the beak of a ship. It was gloomy at the landing place. A broad cloak of clouds had formed and trapped the evening redness in the west.

There was no one to greet them. They hauled the boats out of the water, took out what they needed, and set a guard. In near-darkness they climbed the broad stone steps.

At the top the gate was shut. No torches burned, but men could be sensed watching from the wall. There was the sound of metal scraping on stone. Some of the Romans shifted uneasily, their hands reaching for the reassurance of their sword hilts.

A voice challenged them in Greek: Who came in the dark to Cape Hippolaus and the Temple of Demeter?

The Olbian guide announced himself, detailed those with him and what they were about. The names of the first
archon
Callistratus and the
strategos
Montanus were well received.

Inside, torches flared, and at no long interval the gate swung open. Men in leather and horn armour emerged.

‘Health and great joy.’ The headman introduced himself and those considered of note in the village. He seemed predisposed to make much of Ballista and Castricius. News of the heroic defence of Olbia had not long reached Cape Hippolaus; it was an honour to welcome the saviours of the city. Zeno intervened. With the barest nod to civility, the imperial envoy demanded entrance. By the
mandata
entrusted to him by the most noble Augustus Gallienus, and in the name of Claudius Natalianus, governor of Moesia Inferior, within whose province this place lay, food and lodgings should be provided, suitable in both quantity and quality.

Ballista thought there were many things that were dislikeable about Aulus Voconius Zeno. Some, above all his cowardice, were damning. Others, such as his endless, often inapposite quotations from Homer and his pretence of contempt for all later Greek literature, let alone anything in Latin, were merely tiresome. But his sanctimonious pomposity could put all the rest in the shade. Back in Cilicia, Zeno had abandoned his province and run like a deer. But he had left Ballista a letter whose carefully crafted sentences stressed how the departed governor’s actions had been dictated by good faith, piety and devotion to duty and should be emulated by others. Years later, the phrases still rankled.

They were led through alleys so narrow they had to walk in single file. They came out into a tiny square. The torchlight revealed a small temple on one side, what probably passed for a
Bouleuterion
opposite, and a stone-built house on each of the others. The council chamber and one of the houses were made over to the expedition, the occupants of the latter being summarily evicted. Ballista thought there were winners and losers in politics in this remote village, just as there were in the imperial
consilium.

The headman, who rejoiced in the title of
Archon
, invited Zeno, Ballista and Castricius to dine at his home, which turned out to be the other house facing on to the square. Provisions and firewood would be sent in to the rest. There was a well in the square.

Between the inevitable eggs and apples – respectively hard-boiled and dried this time – the meal was made around a none too large, cold leg of mutton with cold, once-dried peas. The bread was from the day before. But there were fresh, plain, grilled fish.

They drank a little well-watered wine from clay beakers and ate off a mixture of pottery. Most of the crockery was red; some pieces grey. Not all had been turned on a wheel. Ballista noticed the rings on the fingers of the locals were iron or bronze; their brooches were inlaid with beads of glass or paste. Most striking were the tallow candles – there was not a lamp anywhere.

Conversation was uncomfortable. Zeno made no attempt to speak or hide his disdain. He seemed to take the poverty of the villagers of Cape Hippolaus as a personal affront. Given the air of suspicion with which he regarded everything around him, including every morsel he ate and those who offered them to him, it was possible he thought it all subterfuge. Perhaps he thought the villagers secretly as rich as Croesus, with caches of treasure buried under the floors. Perhaps he resented them passing this poor fare off on him, certain they had hidden larders groaning with delicacies.

Ballista and Castricius put themselves out to be charming. They responded at length, although with some modesty, to the hosts’ questions about the siege. Unsurprisingly, this did nothing to improve Zeno’s mood.

The end of the dinner brought little in the way of relief. Zeno had taken the
Bouleuterion
for himself. The secretary Amantius was to attend him; their slaves would look after them. Zeno required no more than a bodyguard of ten of the Romans commanded by Diocles. Even with six men watching the boats, it left more than thirty crammed into the requisitioned house. When Ballista and Castricius returned, they found a small area of floor had been reserved for them to sleep. A slave had made Ballista a bed of almost clean straw.

Ballista knew he would not rest easy. He had always had a horror of confined spaces. One by one, the others started snoring. Ballista lay in the dark, tired but tense. Iron-eyed, sleep rejected his embrace. He should have checked the defences. The headman had told him a watch was always set, but he should have checked. Ballista imagined the Tervingi out there in the night; blades in their hands, revenge in their hearts, they scaled the wall, slid through the alleyways.

Most men would have been unable to leave the crowded house without a commotion. Ballista, like most sons of warriors in the north, had been brought up partly by his maternal uncle. Heoden was King of the Harii. They were night fighters. Thanks to Tacitus, their skills were known even within the
imperium
. Stepping quietly, feeling with the outside of each foot before putting his weight down, Ballista left. At the click of the latch, a couple of men stirred, but none woke; not even Maximus. Outside, Ballista slung his sword belt over his shoulder.