The Wolves of the North wor-5

by Harry Sidebottom

  Maximus had no trouble settling into the life of a temporary nomad. Given some of the places they had been forced to sleep over the years, this was close to luxury. The tent was about thirty foot across, and each man had ample room for his bed roll. It was constructed of a framework of curved poles, over which felt hangings were stretched. An ingenious arrangement of cords allowed the hangings to be raised independently of each other to admit whatever breeze was blowing. The Heruli had brought food, a joint of mutton, strings of horsemeat sausages, and lots of their fermented mare’s milk. Maximus was developing a taste for the latter, and Calgacus, although still hampered by his arm, cooked the former outside.

  You could not fault the hospitality of the Heruli. The very first evening they offered their guests some slave girls, attractive ones at that. For whatever reason — they muttered something about privacy — Ballista and Calgacus declined. Which was fine by Maximus. With what he deemed consideration, he took Ballista’s along with his own down to the riverbank. He chose what he thought was a secluded spot. Despite his long-enforced celibacy, everything went fine. After a time — a creditable time, if he said so himself — when it was finished, he discovered he had been wrong about the seclusion. A group of three Herul women washing clothes had appeared near by. They had giggled. Far from seeming shocked, Maximus had thought they looked rather impressed.

  The following day, things had improved still more. In the tent, Ballista had immersed himself in reading. Unfortunately, he had taken to reading out and elucidating passages from Tacitus’s Annals. Neither Calgacus nor Tarchon making a particularly receptive audience, the comments had ended up directed mainly at Maximus. After a brief time, to escape the relentless political insights and literary sleights of hand, Maximus had gone out.

  Walking quite at random through the camp, Maximus had come to the market. It was surprisingly large. After he had paid some duty to a Herul official, a trader had been authorized to sell him a large amount of cannabis at a reasonable-seeming price. Strolling back, turning over in his head ways to consume it without bothering to build a special tent, he had run into one of the Herul women from the river. He had struck up a conversation with her. She spoke Greek. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he had decided to test the encouraging stories about the sexual mores of the Heruli. At first he thought he had misjudged things horribly. She had just stared at him, an inscrutable expression on her face. Even he had been surprised when, almost wordless, she had taken him straight to her tent.

  Although there had been male belongings — among them a gorytus, a hunting spear and a couple of fine swords — they had a packed-away, unused air. Nevertheless, the woman had hung the bowcase outside. She had closed the hangings, spread bedding, removed her clothes and gestured for him to lie down with her. Something about her very brisk practicality — that and possibly her bizarre dyed-red hair — had set him aback. But he had persevered — thinking about those two blondes in the brothel in Arete had helped — and after a time things went better. Afterwards they had talked a little, but she had looked sad, and told him to leave.

  Now, on the fourth morning, Maximus was thinking about her. From the other side of their tent, Ballista was delivering what amounted to a lecture on the moral corruption of living under an autocracy as analysed by Tacitus. Calgacus was outside, cooking, his movements awkward because of his arm. Tarchon had vanished. Unable to account for the woman’s sadness, Maximus was wondering if it would be a good idea to visit her again.

  Andonnoballus appeared at the entrance. They invited him to enter. Calgacus came in too. Maximus got them all a drink. At least, Maximus thought, it should call a halt to the drone about politics.

  ‘When will Naulobates grant us another audience?’ Ballista asked.

  ‘The answer to your request was unambiguous,’ Andonnoballus said.

  ‘There are other things, beyond the ransoms, we would discuss, preferably alone with the king.’

  ‘I am sure he will receive you again soon. Although the work of a lawgiver consumes his time. He does not spare himself, and he has been called away the past two days.’ Andonnoballus looked serious. ‘The tauma of Naulobates has brought back word that the deity prefers Naulobates be called not King but First-Brother.’

  ‘It is not an easy thing to change the laws of a people,’ Ballista said. ‘Solon, the great Athenian, went abroad when his reforms were complete. Sulla, the Dictator of Rome, retired into private life. When he introduced the rule of the emperors, there were attempts on the life of Augustus.’

  Andonnoballus shot Ballista a hard look. ‘There is no question of such with the First-Brother. The reforms are God-given. All Heruli are united in support.’

  ‘Yet people are accustomed to their old ways, often they resist…’

  ‘There is no resistance. Those who objected showed they were not true Heruli.’

  ‘Tell me about the reforms, especially about the women,’ Maximus said quickly.

  The conversation had been heading into uncomfortable places. It was unlike Ballista to be so tactless. It was almost as if he had been sounding out the loyalty of Andonnoballus to his father’s regime. For a nasty moment, Maximus wondered if Ballista had received further instructions from Gallienus’s court, instructions beyond the unlikely task of trying to turn the Heruli against their Gothic allies. Something pricked his memory, then disappeared again. ‘Tell me about the women,’ he said with an open, affable smile.

  Andonnoballus laughed. ‘Outsiders always want to know about the women.’

  ‘You all have your women in common?’ Maximus asked.

  ‘As in Plato’s Republic,’ Ballista said.

  ‘Not at all, it is far better than Plato imagined,’ Andonnoballus said.

  This was safer ground altogether. Although Maximus suspected that Plato might prove even less entertaining than Tacitus. The young Herul was obviously setting himself for some weighty discourse.

  ‘Plato abolished marriage, the home and the family. He took babies from their mothers. The guardians of his ideal polis were to be mated like hunting dogs, although the occasion would be called a festival. Who got to mate was decided by lot. To ensure only the best mated, the lots were to be fixed. It was cruel, unnatural and all based on deceit.’

  ‘And yours is better?’ Ballista said.

  ‘Without doubt. What is more natural than the family? The deity instructed Naulobates that men should continue to marry, should have a tent and possessions of their own. How could a warrior live on the Steppes without his herds? Their number are the measure of his valour. But to ensure harmony, to make us a true band of brothers, no husband objects if another man enjoys his wife. As paternity must be uncertain, every Herul regards every child as if it were his own.’

  ‘How do you avoid incest?’ Ballista asked.

  ‘It is a large tribe. You do not lie with the daughters of women you had around the time of the girl’s conception.’

  ‘So the Rosomoni are descended through the mothers?’ Ballista asked.

  ‘Not altogether. Only exceptionally will a Rosomoni woman lie with a man who is not Rosomoni.’

  ‘What sort of exception?’ Maximus was interested now.

  ‘If he is a great warrior, or for some other unusual reason.’

  Maximus grinned and got up. ‘Sure, that helps me make a decision. I will be off to see the Rosomoni woman I saw the other day.’

  ‘What is her name?’ Andonnoballus said.

  ‘Olympias.’

  A strange look crossed Andonnoballus’s face; not disapproving, let alone hostile, more compassionate. ‘Enjoy, but always remember, pleasure is fleeting.’

  ‘Not that fleeting,’ Maximus said complacently.

  Outside, walking between the neat rows of tents and wagons, Maximus remembered the thing that had snagged at his memory earlier. He had meant to tell Ballista the other day, when Olympias had said it. They were the second embassy of foreigners in the camp this summer. King Hisarna of the Urugundi had ridden
out two days before they had arrived.

  He was back in Ephesus. Lost in the alleys of the potters’ quarter. It had rained. The stucco on the close, blank walls was running with water. Thick mud squelched under foot. In the band of sky visible the stars raced to their extinction.

  He crouched in the shallow recess of a doorway. Doubled up, gasping. The door was barred. He did not dare knock. The labyrinthine alleys played with the sounds. The baying of the mob came first from one direction then another. Each time, it was closer. If only he had not lost his way. If only he could get down to the Sacred Way, achieve the sanctuary of some holy place in the civic agora.

  The mob rounded the corner. He could not run. They closed on him, their eyes as pitiless as the dying stars.

  He woke, his heart racing, sweating heavily. It was dark in the tent. He forced himself to peer through the gloom into the further recesses. Only the humped shapes of his contubernales sleeping like brute beasts. No sign of the daemon. Just a dream then. Thank the gods for that.

  He had made a mistake, had misread the signs. Just once, but that was enough. The daemons of those justly slain did not walk. The little girl in Ephesus had been innocent. Since her daemon had appeared to him, he had ensured another such could not happen. The mutilations kept any unjustly killed from seeking revenge. When time was pressing, licking and spitting the blood and wiping the blade on their heads should prove enough. Jason had not been haunted by Apsyrtus. If a murderer of the innocent stood on sacred ground, the gods sent madness and disease. He had been in temples. He was healthy and sane. To rid himself of her, he needed purification. But the ritual called for things he could not obtain. If not a priest, it demanded at least privacy and a suckling pig. Neither had been available as they crossed the Steppe, and neither were to be had here among the Heruli.

  He lay thinking about the words of Naulobates. After the meadow, out of hearing of the Heruli, the others had sniggered nervously. They were fools. He had no doubt the daemon of Naulobates was as real as that of the dead boy Wulfstan. As real, and as deadly. If he continued his work here among the Heruli, most likely he would be caught. His own fate was of little consequence. But if he were killed, his work, the task the gods had entrusted to him, would end. He should do no more while they were under the eye of the daemon Naulobates called Brachus. When they departed it would be different. Then he could act again.

  Of course, it would pain Ballista when he killed the man. Ballista did not see the soul of his friend. But it could not be helped. The gods had made their Hound, their Scourge. If he let the man live, much evil would follow. For a long time he had been unsure, but now he knew he needed to kill him as soon as he could. Perhaps there might yet be a chance while they were still here. Some moment of confusion, the chaos of a battle or the turmoil of a hunt, when the daemon of Naulobates would be distracted. No man lives when the gods want him to die.

  The day after Andonnoballus’s visit, Ballista walked through the ordered tents and wagons up to the market. Calgacus and Maximus went with him. Tarchon again had disappeared on some business of his own.

  It was eight days before the kalends of July, and very hot. Heruli sat in the shade; some under the parked wagons. There were more men now that the warriors with Uligagus had returned. Camp discipline was good. Each dwelling was a stone’s throw apart from its neighbour. There was little rubbish to be seen and, despite the heat, there were none of the noxious smells one might have expected from a camp of this size.

  The market was large, busy and tightly controlled. There were Heruli overseers everywhere, inspecting the traders’ permits and collecting taxes on their sales. An extraordinary array of goods was on offer. From the Rha river and the north there was honey, wax, wood and arrows, sheep and cattle, slaves, and many types of fur: sable, ermine, marten, squirrel, fox, beaver and rabbit. There was much amber, some an unusual yellow. From the east, caravans had travelled incalculable distances, bringing silks and spices. Out of the imperium to the south had come wine and raisins, olive oil and some fancy metalwork, most of it weaponry. Trade was brisk. There was no shortage of gold among the Heruli. Not just the Rosomoni wore silk.

  Ballista was inspecting some river fish: how fresh were they, and how far had they come from the Rha river? Maximus was regaling Calgacus with an improbable account of his sexual performance the night before. And then she asked if I minded if her sister joined us. They did not see the messenger arrive. He was just there in their midst. The First-Brother wished to see them now.

  Walking back down, Ballista reflected it was just as well. The sooner they were dismissed and on their way back to the imperium the better. Once Maximus had remembered to tell him Hisarna of the Urugundi had been closeted with Naulobates, it was obvious the Roman mission had no hope of success. Hisarna had got the gudja to bring them slowly, by a round-about route, while the king himself had come straight to confer with Naulobates. The alliance between the Heruli and the Urugundi was as tight as it had been when they sacked the town of Tanais.

  Naulobates was holding court in the meadow. The place itself was the same, an unsettling mixture of rural idyll and killing field. The cooling breeze that moved the verdant foliage and sweet grass also turned the black, fly-blown hunks of human flesh strung in the branches. No living miscreants were perched in the treetops this time.

  Naulobates was in the same wooden chair. His leading men sprawled on the grass about him. Castricius and Hippothous were standing a little to one side. In front of the Heruli First-Brother, and the object of everyone’s attention, was a strange-looking individual. He was swarthy and had curly black hair. He wore a sky-blue cloak, and yellow-and-green-striped trousers. In his hand was a long ebony cane. Ballista had seen someone similar somewhere before.

  ‘The envoy of the Roman emperor, Marcus Clodius Ballista, better known to my people as Dernhelm, son of Isangrim, son of Starkad, of the Angles.’ Naulobates waved Ballista to join the other members of the embassy. As the Heruli were seated, Ballista sat down too. Those with him followed. None of the Heruli complained. The elaborate introduction, Ballista thought, had to be for the benefit of the man in the striped trousers.

  ‘This is Mar Ammo.’ Naulobates pointed. The First-Brother seemed in an expansive mood, excited even. His eyes gleamed strangely. ‘Mar Ammo has come from the domain of Shapur the Sassanid king. He is a missionary from Mani, the self-styled Seal of the Prophets. He is going to tell us the Gospel of Light.’

  A snigger ran through the assembled Heruli. Naulobates’ tone had been one of disbelief. The missionary seemed unabashed. Ballista was unsure he would have stood up to it so well. Perhaps the man in the odd trousers had not noticed the decomposing body parts, or perhaps his faith sustained him.

  Ballista remembered where he had seen a similar man. It had been in the town of Carrhae, four years earlier. A warm spring dawn, on the top of the citadel, Ballista had been hauled before the Sassanid king. Cledonius, the old ab Admissionibus of the captive emperor Valerian, had been with him. To Shapur’s left, among the priests, had stood another man with an ebony cane and the same clothes.

  ‘You say you speak the language of the north,’ Naulobates said.

  The missionary bowed.

  ‘Tell us how Mani claims to know the truth about the deity.’

  The missionary squared his shoulders. ‘Mani is the paraclete of Truth, the very spirit of truth. When he was a boy, at the end of his twelfth year, his divine twin first appeared to him. The twin, his syzygos, drew him aside and told him he must remain unblemished and abstain from desire. Yet the time was not right for him to appear, for he was still young. When the paraclete turned twenty-four, his syzygos returned. Now was the time for him to appear and call others to his cause.’

  Ballista had attended the consilium of enough emperors to know how to mould his face into a mask of interested attention, while his thoughts roamed far away. He wondered why Naulobates had summoned him and the others. It could be he wished to demonstrate to them, and throu
gh them to Gallienus and the Roman world in general, his piety and the power of his intellect. Ballista had no doubt Naulobates would cross-examine the missionary. Who would — in Naulobates’ eyes — win the exchange was not in doubt. It would have all the lack of dramatic tension of a Socratic dialogue as imagined by Plato. Perhaps Naulobates also thought it would nicely illustrate the geographic spread of his power — men came to him from the Sassanid realm.

  ‘Equipped with his five sons, as if in readiness for war, the First Man came down to fight the darkness. However, the Prince of Darkness fought back.’

  The missionary had moved on to telling an incredibly complicated story concerning a war between the Father of Greatness of the Realm of Light and the King of Darkness. This struggle between good and evil was ongoing, and fought at a cosmic level and within every man. It had a confusingly large cast and, Ballista thought, would have been much improved with better battle scenes and a good chase sequence. The only sex appeared to be a few cases of daemonic premature ejaculation.

  The missionary droned on. The sons of the First Man, somehow or other, had sacrificed themselves into the darkness. But, unsurprisingly, redemption appeared to be on its way.

  Perhaps, Ballista thought, this display was all the other way around. Perhaps Ballista and the Romans were the ones on show to the missionary from the Sassanid kingdom. See, you easterners, how the Romans honour Naulobates and the Heruli.

  Ballista’s thoughts gathered pace. Perhaps they were on show to others as well. It could be that the Roman embassy, above all Ballista himself, had been slowly trailed across the disputed grasslands in the hope the Alani would attack, and thus give the Heruli and the Urugundi a just cause for war. The Alani had broken whatever oaths had secured the peace on the Steppe. In the eyes of the gods, the world and themselves, Naulobates and Hisarna would be justified in their fight. Look, they could say, they attacked the Roman ambassador Ballista. It was sacrilege. Yet here he is in our midst, the living proof of their perfidy and our pious desire for revenge.