Island of Ghosts

by Gillian Bradshaw

  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 did not 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.

  “Your husband’s anger does not concern me, anyway,” Arshak told her. “I am pleased to escort such a noble and beautiful lady, and I wish to see the city myself. Ariantes and Gatalas will remain here to look after the men, yes?”

  “No,” said Gatalas, “I will come too. I will leave Parspanakos” (the captain of his bodyguard) “in charge of the dragon, and I will take ten men.”

  I hesitated. I did not want to go into Londinium: I’d never liked cities, I didn’t want to leave my followers unsupervised, and I’d resolved to avoid Aurelia Bodica. On the other hand, she thought I was afraid. Besides, if I didn’t go and the other princes did, their troops would have yet another thing to hurl in the faces of my men-particularly after Aurelia Bodica’s comment. “I will come as well, then,” I said. “I do not wish to fail in the respect due to a legate’s lady.”

  “Of course,” she said, tossing her head. “So I shall ride into Londinium with three princes of the Sarmatians to escort me, one of them the nephew of a king! There are not many women can boast of that!”

  So we all accompanied the legate’s lady to Londinium, each of us with ten men from our bodyguard. Aurelia Bodica wanted to visit a temple and she wanted to go shopping. She had the length of silk Arshak had given her husband, and she wanted some of it unraveled and rewoven with linen thread, so that it would go further: Londinium, apparently, was the best place in Britain to have this done. She chatted pleasantly as we approached the city, about this, about the shops and the temples-but as we came up to the bridge that crosses the Tamesis River into the city, the talk became more serious.

  “Londinium,” she said, stopping her chariot just before the long wooden span and gesturing at the city beyond-the quays with the ships drawn up to them, the warehouses, the house roofs huddled behind. Across the river and to our left was a larger building with an elaborate facade. “That’s the governor’s palace,” Bodica said, pointing to it. “Tiberius will be there now.”She shook the reins and started the chariot forward again. “But you can’t see the bridge from the palace. All the windows look inward. Very Roman, I think, to study your own imported magnificence rather than the circumstances of the province around you. Look there!”

  She pointed along our bank of the river, to our left. There was a cross fixed in the mud by the waterside, with a tattered mass of flesh and bone sagging from it. A few birds fluttered about it, pecking.

  “They often leave the bodies of criminals there,” Bodica told us. “As a warning. You can’t see them from the governor’s palace, either. When my ancestress, the queen of the Iceni, sacked Londinium, she hung up the bodies of… Roman nobles… along the same bank. Hundreds of bodies.”

  Arshak’s face sharpened. “She sacked the Roman capital, this queen? She had many followers?”

  “Oh, very many! In those days the whole island longed to throw off the Roman yoke and live free under its own kings and queens. We were a race of noble warriors then, like your own people.” As we rode into Londinium she recounted the story of Queen Boudica of the Iceni: how an unjust Roman official had ordered her to be flogged and her daughters raped; how she’d raised the South against the Romans and sacked the two greatest cities; how finally she had been defeated in a fierce battle; how she’d taken poison rather than grace a Roman triumph. It was a tale of courage and desperate heroism, and I was moved by it despite myself.

  “That was a long time ago,” Bodica finished quietly. “More than a century now. The British horse has been broken to the yoke now, and pulls the cart quietly-except in the North, where it still frets a little. I expect that, in time, your own people will be yoked beside it.”

  We all stiffened at that. “Our people have never been conquered!” Arshak said fiercely.

  “But you’re here,”she pointed out-sadly.

  “We are the price our people paid for a truce. My uncle is still king of the Sarmatians. The emperor hates him, but the emperor had to make terms with him nonetheless. Our nation is noble, not one of slaves.”

  Bodica bowed her golden head. “At times,” she whispered, “I wish my own people could say the same.”

  Her voice was soft and sad-but there was a look in her eyes that contradicted that softness. It was like that of a wrestler who’s found his opponent’s weakness. Arshak noticed nothing: he was plainly enjoying himself. As we rode off the bridge into the city, the citizens did indeed run out into the street to stare at us, and he preened himself in their gaze. Bodica began to ask him about his own battles against the Romans, and soon the talk was of struggles and scalping. Gatalas was less happy, but largely because he had fewer scalps to boast of. I was not happy at all. My old distrust was back, stronger than ever, and I wanted only to get away.

  “You’re very silent, Lord Ariantes,” Bodica said at last. “You’ve said barely ten words together to me since Durovernum. Have I offended you?”

  I bowed my head. “Not in the least, Lady. You have shown me much honor.”

  “Are you keeping quiet, then, because you don’t like boasting? From all I’ve heard, you’ve done as much damage to your enemies as Lord Arshak, if not more.”

  “Our brave raids against the enemy,” I said harshly, “provoked a terrible war in which our people suffered defeat. I see no point in boasting of it.”

  The eager, satisfied, warlike look vanished from the faces of my listeners. The lady frowned; Gatalas became sullen; Arshak looked angry.

  “I am proud to have fought for our people!” Arshak declared. “We were defeated, but we have never been conquered!”

  The Romans didn’t want to conquer us, I thought. They had no way to govern a people without cities. If we hadn’t raided them, they would have kept the peace; because we had, they’d considered not conquest, but extermination. It was our own greed, for goods and for glory, that brought ruin on us, and that the ruin had not been greater was due as much to a Roman rebellion in the East as to our own courage. But I couldn’t say that to Arshak without offending him.

  “What good does it do us to recall this now?” I said instead. “We have all sworn on fire to serve Rome, and if we remember how we fought her, i
t will only make it harder for us.”

  “Is servitude what you want?” asked Bodica.

  I had my answer to that this time. “Our heirs in our own country are free. For ourselves, it does not matter: we are dead men, all of us.”

  “You don’t look dead to me,” commented Bodica, smiling again.

  “We’re only dead in our own country,” replied Arshak, smiling back at her. “Here beyond the stream of Ocean, even Ariantes will have to come back to life in the end, little as he wishes to. Be gentle, Lady: he isn’t used to living with defeat. None of us are.”

  “But why should you think that here beyond the ocean, freedom and glory have become luxuries you can’t afford?” Her smile was still directed at me, but her eyes had slid over to meet Arshak’s.

  “I don’t,” said Arshak vehemently-and suddenly they were allies. A part of me cried out its agreement with them, and urged me to join them, to accept the hinted offer now, quickly, before it was too late. I think I would have if I’d had only myself to decide for, despite the oath I’d sworn at Aquincum. I had five hundred others, though, who would be bound by my agreement, and because of them I could not choose rashly. Besides, I had, still, the sense that we were being played upon. Bodica was no more a Sarmatian than Facilis was, and enmity to Rome did not make her our friend.

  When Bodica had visited her temple I excused myself, saying that there ought to be at least one senior officer in the camp-though I left five men with her to make it clear that I was not afraid of the legate. The other five and I started back.