A babble of shouts rose. ‘Bastard, string him up!’ ‘To Hell with him, bend down the trees!’ ‘Kill the dog!’
Not all were for summary execution. ‘Let him speak!’ ‘He is a great warrior, a Herul; just sit him in a tree for the day!’ ‘No, he must be heard first!’ ‘Let him speak, it is his right!’
Naulobates raised his spear. A measure of quiet returned. ‘It is his right as one of the Rosomoni, as a Herul.’
Aruth gave a searching look at the front ranks, then fixed his gaze back on Naulobates. ‘I did not order the advance. The bandits rode out from the line. The farmers from the Rha followed, then the Eutes. I could not hold them.’
His voice was drowned by shouts. The majority were hostile. ‘Cowards blame others!’ ‘Take responsibility like a man!’ ‘Kill the bastard!’ ‘Throw him in the thorns!’
A few persevered for clemency. ‘It was not his fault!’ ‘Spare him!’
Here and there, scuffles broke out, as the tribesmen debated with their fists. The outnumbered adherents of Aruth were soon pummelled into submission to the general will. ‘Kill him!’ ‘Kill the dog!’ ‘Bend down the trees!’ ‘Tear him apart!’
Naulobates had the drum beaten. ‘I hear your counsel. I will pass sentence.’
The First-brother looked at the sky and brooded dramatically. Ballista wondered if Naulobates was communing with the world of daemons, or, at least, if that was the desired impression. The silence stretched. Aruth’s fist clenched and unclenched, the red snake flexing its coils.
Ballista, pressed unhappily against Andonnoballus, Pharas and Uligagus, found himself hoping Aruth would be spared.
‘Aruth,’ said Naulobates, ‘did not disobey the order. But he could not control his riders. Men died unnecessarily under his command. He shall be punished as an unintentional killer.’
‘The box, hang him in the box!’ the open, red mouths of the crowd chanted.
Crushed in the press, Ballista felt light-headed, slightly sick.
Naulobates waved his spear. ‘He shall be hung in the box from the high branches. He shall have three loaves and one jug of water. For nine nights and days he will hang. It is decided.’
The multitude echoed the sentence. ‘It is decided.’
Two men shouldered through the throng. They were battered and bloodied. One spoke for both. ‘We are Aruth’s brothers by the sword and the cup. What touches our brother touches us. We will share his fate.’
Naulobates nodded. ‘You are true Heruli.’ The assembly murmured its approbation.
The three men stood, shoulder to shoulder, as timber was brought out, and the hammering commenced.
Andonnoballus turned to Ballista. ‘For nine nights and days Woden hung in the tree. Sometimes the Allfather succours those who suffer the same.’
Ballista did not answer. His thoughts were roaming far away. The Heruli prided themselves on their freedom. Certainly in their assembly they seemed able to say what they liked. But was it any better than in the imperium? In the consilium of the emperor, fist fights were not encouraged and opinions tended to be expressed more decorously, but those summoned were meant to speak their mind openly. Yet both the First-Brother and emperor could ignore the counsel they received; ultimately, they made the decision.
A long time ago — when he was young — Ballista had thought freedom unproblematic. You either had it, or you did not. Either you were a slave, or you were free. Either you were a free man in Germania, or you lived in servitude in the imperium. His own enforced travels had undermined his childish certainty. Different peoples had different ideas about freedom. Freedom itself over time could change its meaning in one culture. He thought of the histories he had been reading on this mission. For the senators in the Res Publica written about by Sallust, libertas had meant the unfettered freedom to compete with each other openly for election to high office and the rewards they would then reap from exploiting their position. In the principate, as set out by Tacitus, libertas had narrowed down merely to freedom of speech under a monarch in everything but name, and freedom from unjust condemnation and the confiscation of estates. Yet, for both historians, most men had used libertas as nothing but a fine-sounding catchphrase devoid of real substance.
Ballista wondered how the vaunted freedom of his own people under the rule of his father would strike him now, if he were ever to return to the far north and the lands of the Angles. Perhaps the philosophers were right: the only true freedom was inside a man.
The hammering had stopped. The man condemned by the assembly, and the two condemned by custom and their own courage, did not have to be manhandled into the rough, slatted boxes. The water and the loaves were given to them and the cages nailed shut.
With much hauling and grunting, the cages were hoisted into the branches of a huge, spreading oak. The mood of the throng had turned to profound admiration. But the three men were left suspended between heaven and earth, their only possible salvation in the hands of a distant, capricious god.
Publius Egnatius Amantius to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Censorinus, Praetorian Prefect, Vir Ementissimus.
Dominus, I doubt you will ever receive this despatch, or the others I have written. It is said the Alani will be upon us tomorrow. The Heruli lost the last battle, and there is no reason to think they will do better in this, which shapes to be the final one. It is most certainly a judgement of the gods on their disgusting customs.
Faithful to your orders, and in the vain hope that some deity will deliver it into your hands, I am prompted to write this last time to give one final piece of information I have gleaned. From a conversation I overheard between the Legatus extra ordinem Scythica and his Caledonian freedman Marcus Clodius Calgacus I learnt that Odenathus of Palmyra has sent ambassadors to Naulobates and the Heruli. I know neither the timing nor the purpose of this embassy, but it must give cause for concern as to the loyalty of the Syrian our sacred Augustus Gallienus has appointed Corrector totius Orientis.
It has been an honour to serve you, Dominus. I have no real hopes of returning safe to the imperium. Even if by some vagary of war the Heruli prevail tomorrow, it is an inordinate distance back to humanitas. And although the exigencies of war have driven it from all other minds, I have not forgotten the fate of my friend Publius Egnatius Mastabates and the others.
A Herul camp on the Steppe, some time in late summer.
XXVIII
Calgacus was unsurprised when Naulobates’ prediction came true. It had been two days since Aruth and his blood-brothers had been hoisted into the trees, where, their cages turning gently in the wind, they remained defiantly alive. The previous evening the scouts had reported that the Alani would reach the camp this morning. It was quite possible a daemon had told Naulobates. He had the look of one haunted by unworldly things. It was a look Calgacus had seen over the years in Ballista.
The torches were beginning to pale as Calgacus walked through the camp with Tarchon. The Heruli horde had ridden out long before dawn, and it was strangely quiet except for the lowing of oxen. Perhaps the beasts could sense the unease in the humans. Things would be decided one way or the other today.
Calgacus had got Tarchon to carry most of the food and drink for breakfast. The Caledonian’s right arm and shoulder were still strapped, and both his years and his war gear were heavy on him. It was a long walk. Rather than continue the futile retreat north, Naulobates had ordered the encampment put on a war footing. The hundreds of wagons had been set out in a great circle on the southern bank of the stream. They had been chained or lashed together, and any gaps barricaded. The thousands of draught oxen had been corralled in the middle. The non-combatants had gone. They had driven before them the horses, camels, sheep and goats to join the other herds in more distant grazing. The women and children were scattered in the vastness of the Steppe. Of course, should the battle be lost, it would only postpone their rape and enslavement, or rape and death, by a day or two.
It could be, Calgacus thought, that he was to witness t
he death of a people; an earthly prelude to Ragnarok, when the sun would be devoured, and the end would come for men and gods. But what could you expect when you travelled to the ends of Middle Earth with a man under a curse? Kill all those he loves. Let him wander the face of the earth, among strange peoples, always in exile, homeless and hated.
Since Naulobates had led out the fighting men, there were only a thousand or so souls to defend the two-mile perimeter of the camp. About two thirds were the wounded, the rest boys of thirteen or fourteen, fifteen at most. And, to the surprise of everyone, in the assembly last night Naulobates had ordained they were to be commanded by Ballista.
Many of the tribesmen had seemed deeply shocked. They had complained vociferously. He was not a Herul, not one of the brotherhood. He was the grandson of Starkad, the bloody-handed killer who had strangled their king, Naulobates’ own great-grandfather. Strangled him, but not before — gods below! — he had hacked off Sunildus’s penis and shoved it down his throat.
Calgacus had not known about the mutilation. He wondered if Ballista had known. He wondered if it was true. Folk memories were fallible. They changed to suit new circumstances, new needs. How could the Heruli have found out? Starkad had left no one alive on that desolate shore. And then it had occurred to Calgacus that he only believed that no one had survived the massacre because the Angles telling the story had said so.
Naulobates had dismissed the objections. It was universally acknowledged that no people were more skilled at defending a fortified position than the Romans. Had Ballista not been — for a day or two — emperor of the Romans? As for brotherhood, Ballista was brother by the cup and the sword with Andonnoballus. And as for the past, Starkad and Sunildus were a long time ago. It happened far away in a different country. As a sop to outraged tradition, he named an injured Herul called Alaric as the second officer of the camp.
Ballista had divided his command: the injured standing guard, spread thinly among the carts; the young inside the ring seeing to the oxen. He kept the Roman contingent with him. After walking the positions most of the night, he had taken his own station on a wagon in the southern arc of the laager. The one he had chosen was tall, and constructed entirely of wood. Come daylight, its roof should command a fine view.
Calgacus and Tarchon reached the wagon in the slate-grey light of the false dawn. There was a ladder. Calgacus climbed it, slow and stiff in his movements. At the top, he saw the dark shapes of five seated men. Muffled in their cloaks, they had the air of hooded crows.
Muttering, Calgacus put down the few containers he had carried. ‘It is no trouble at all. You fuckers just sit there. Let an old man do all the fucking work. Do not let it play on your conscience.’
Tarchon lugged up the rest of the things they had brought.
‘I thought you would never be back, not with all those baggage animals to bother,’ Ballista said.
Maximus got up and helped Tarchon pass around what had been brought.
Calgacus sat down where the Hibernian had been, next to Ballista. On his other side were Castricius and Hippothous. The second-in-command, Alaric, was beyond Ballista. When they had finished serving, Maximus and Tarchon hunkered down next to the Herul.
They all ate warm millet porridge and cold boiled mutton, drank fermented mare’s milk, and waited for the day.
‘I hope you do not mind me asking,’ Maximus said to Alaric. ‘Why have you not got a pointed head?’
‘I am not one of the Rosomoni,’ he replied.
‘Some of your tattoos — and very fetching they are indeed — are not red. I am thinking you were not born one of the Heruli.’
‘No.’
‘So what race were you?’
‘Taifali.’
‘No offence, but are they the ones that bugger the small boys?’
Alaric grunted.
‘Is that why you left?’
‘No, I killed a man.’
‘So what? Everyone has killed someone. Your men Hippothous and Castricius over there, they have probably killed dozens.’
‘The man I killed was my father.’ Alaric paused. ‘And both my brothers.’
The statement put a stop to conversation for a time.
It was quiet. The wind dropped and was backing towards the south. Yet it was still there, blowing across the measureless nomad sea, almost below the level of hearing, insidiously scratching and sighing through the dry grass.
Irrepressible, Maximus returned to questioning Alaric. This time his tone was less teasing, the subject perhaps less delicate. Were the Heruli not a fine tribe in which to be a man! How many women had Alaric enjoyed? Maximus had never known a better place for the women. Alaric was more forthcoming, and soon Tarchon joined in. By the tenor of their conversation, it seemed to Calgacus there could hardly be a girl beyond puberty one or more of them had not covered. Liars, all three of them, like most men.
Ballista leant close to Calgacus, put an arm around his shoulder, spoke softly into his ear. ‘I am sorry I have brought you all into this.’
‘You were ordered here. It was our duty to accompany you.’
‘I should have found us a way out before now.’
Calgacus gave a wheeze of laughter. ‘Oh, we are deep in the shite, and believe me, I have been looking for a way out, but I have not seen one.’
Ballista squeezed Calgacus’s shoulder, then stood, stretching until you could hear his joints crack. The big man sat down again to wait.
Maximus, Tarchon and Alaric moved on to discussing hunting dogs and horses. Say what you like about the Alani — and there was much to be said against them — they bred fine hounds. Maximus thought he would try to take a couple back with him. Hippothous and Castricius remained silent, wrapped in whatever clandestine and sanguinary thoughts motivated men like them.
The sun came up, a burnished plate of electrum on the horizon. The sky above the camp was empty, shining and translucent. But the wind had set in the south, and down there a storm was gathering, big black clouds trailing tentacles of night.
In the slanting clarity of the light, even Calgacus’s old eyes could make out the whole battlefield. It was demarked in the north by the camp and the stream. Three miles to the south, he could just discern the dark line of trees bordering a parallel stream. It would all be played out in this wedge of Steppe. It struck him as a small, nondescript place to host any such momentous event.
The horde of the Heruli was easy to see. It was assembled just fifty yards away. Despite all the herdsmen of the outlying flocks having been summoned, the losses from the first battle meant there were no more than fifteen thousand warriors. Unsurprisingly, no further reinforcements had arrived from the subject and allied tribes. The host was arrayed in three equal contingents, each ten deep and five hundred broad. On the left were the Agathyrsi and Nervii led by Artemidorus. The centre was held by Naulobates with the Rosomoni. Pharas on the right commanded what was left of the Eutes combined with the remaining Heruli.
The ponies were in ordered ranks. Through the gaps between the units, Calgacus could see the leaders and their aides walking about, their mounts held by handlers. The majority of the warriors were out of sight, sitting on the ground by the heads of their ponies. Above, banners cracked in the freshening air. Below, innumerable horse tails swished. The latter seemed always to be on the verge of forming some pattern, one that remained tantalizingly beyond comprehension.
Calgacus wondered how hard the Agathyrsi and Nervii would fight. They were not bound to the Heruli by bonds lasting generations like the Eutes. Calculations of flight, or accommodation with the Alani, if not outright desertion, had to have entered the thoughts of their leaders. Defeat bred desertion.
And the ambush of the hunt still nagged him. Someone had to have told the Alani where the Herul battue would end that day, and that someone had to have been a Herul. Naulobates was a reformer; in his own eyes, a visionary imbued with the divine. Not all men welcome either reforms or epiphanies.
The thoughts of b
etrayal pressed on, almost of their own accord. All that remained of the embassy that had left the port of Tanais was gathered around the wagon on which he sat. Somewhere near — no further than he could toss a bean — was the man who had mutilated the eunuch, the cruel bastard who had murdered young Wulfstan. Unless, of course, it had been the gudja, who was riding with Naulobates, or the soldier killed in the last battle. Or unless the killer had not been a man at all, but a daemon.
Calgacus was glad he was in full armour and that the big Sarmatian warhorses were hitched near the foot of the ladder.
The sun tracked up into the sky, and they waited. It got hotter, much hotter. So much for those Greek writers poor old Mastabates and the others had quoted who said it was always cold up here, and summer lasted but a few days. Calgacus had never liked the nights on the Steppe. The uncanny scale of it always made you feel insignificant, somehow pointless. But on the journey up in the spring he had enjoyed the days. He had taken pleasure in the bright colours of the flowers, in their varied scents. Now there was nothing but friable earth showing through scorched grass, and depressing clumps of brown knotgrass and grey wormwood. The only smell was dust and the bitter tang of the wormwood.
Calgacus again longed to be back in Sicily, back with Rebecca and Simon. The image of him with them in Tauromenium — under a warm Mediterranean sun, all happy — struck him with the intensity of a dream. Its very vividness made him weary.
A gust of wind advanced on them across the Steppe. It raised dust devils. Tall and swirling, they bore down with mindless ferocity, trailing great lateral branches before being torn apart. Behind them, the storm was building; malignant black thunderheads, pierced by points of flickering flame.
‘The scouts are coming in,’ Maximus said.
It took Calgacus some time to locate them. Four black dots, well spaced but converging towards the centre of the Heruli line, where the big banner with the wolves and the arrow flew. There was no point in asking the news they brought to Naulobates.
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