Island of Ghosts

by Gillian Bradshaw

  Victor remained at Condercum to supervise the fourth dragon. He offered us some Roman cavalry as escort, but Arshak declined the protection of men who detested us, and I agreed with him. Arshak and I set out back to Corstopitum on our own. It had turned colder, and there were a few flakes of snow drifting from a slate-colored sky. I was tired-I hadn’t slept much in the stone barracks block-and the world of camps and war seemed more confining and oppressive than ever. I didn’t want to put my armor on that morning; the weight and the sound of it set my teeth on edge. I packed it behind my saddle. No need to get it wet, I told myself, and my coat and hat were warmer. Arshak, who’d armed for the journey despite the snow, eyed me contemptuously.

  We rode off in silence along a road that was almost entirely empty. We had not spoken to each other since his reference to Tirgatao, and now he sat on his horse with his head bent, eyes fixed on the animal’s mane in a hot manic glare. We’d ridden the better part of ten miles along the military way, and had passed the fort of Vindovala, when Arshak suddenly sat up straight and turned the glare on me.

  “You struck me in the face at Corstopitum,” he said.

  “I did,” I told him. I’d had time to calm myself again, and I knew how to answer him. “I ask your pardon for the blow. But you mentioned a thing that’s like a hot iron in my heart, and you can’t be surprised that I was angry.”

  A little of the glare faded. “Do we have to be enemies?” he asked, almost pleadingly.

  “We’re not-are we?” I returned.

  “You’ve taken the side of the Romans.”

  “We both swore at Aquincum that that was our side.”

  “It isn’t! It never was! It can’t be!”

  “Then whose side is our side? The side of the people who sent that message to murder Gatalas?”

  He drew in his breath with a hiss and looked away. What were they doing to us? he’d asked. Gatalas dead, me Romanizing, and himself.. He hadn’t said. He’d known, though, that what was happening to himself was terrible. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, in a frozen, unnatural voice.

  I was afraid that if I said anything more, I would have to fight him, and that would be disaster however it ended. So I said nothing.

  We rode on for another mile, and were nearing the turn down to the old road and Corstopitum when we heard a jingle of harness ahead of us and Bodica’s chariot turned onto the military way in front of us.

  She was alone. The blue cloak she wore was pulled over her head against the cold, and she held the reins under it: for a moment the white stallion trotted toward us driven by a shapeless, faceless shadow. Then it stopped, the horse shivering under the yoke, and waited while we rode on toward it.

  Just before we reached it, Bodica loosened the hood and turned into a lovely woman again. “There you are!” she announced, smiling prettily. “I thought I would take the horse out for some exercise, and perhaps meet you on your way back from Condercum. I wanted to talk with you.”

  Arshak said nothing. He dismounted, strode up to the chariot, and handed her the divining rod with the marks on it.

  Her smile vanished. She turned the rod in her fingers, then shook her head and handed it back to Arshak, saying something I couldn’t quite hear. “Can we stop and talk?” she asked, more loudly, looking at me earnestly with those vivid blue eyes. “I’ve brought some hot wine against the cold.”

  “Lady Aurelia, greetings,” I said. “I thank you, no.”

  She looked at Arshak. “We need to talk,” she told him. “We all do. Didn’t you speak to him?”

  He nodded. “Ariantes, stop with us a minute.”

  I looked down at them both and gathered the reins. The sudden openness about the fact of their conspiracy frightened me. I wished I’d put on my armor after all. But there was an obvious question to ask, and I had to ask it.

  “Lady Aurelia,” I said, “was it you who sent Gatalas that rod?”

  She simply stared at me, neither nodding nor shaking her head, neither smiling nor frowning. “I’ve come here to speak to you,” she said. “I would have spoken before, but you avoided me.” Then, deliberately, she turned away and took a flask wrapped in a blanket out from under the bench seat. “I hope that I’m speaking to a friend. Let me treat you as one. I offer you hospitality, and we will all hold what we say under the sacred bond of guest friendship. Then, no matter what comes afterward, we’ll know each other’s minds.”

  I walked my horse closer to the chariot but did not dismount. Now it had come to it, I did not want to know. If I knew, I would be at odds with Arshak, perhaps with all my people.

  “You said we were not enemies,” said Arshak.

  I was bound to hear his explanation. I sighed and nodded. Bodica pulled two cups from under the seat and poured the wine; it steamed slightly in the chill air. She handed one up to me, took a sip from the other, and handed it to Arshak. I took a sip; it was tepid, rather than hot, and had been sweetened with honey.

  “You can’t love Rome,” said Bodica.

  I said nothing.

  “You’re a very able man,” Bodica coaxed, “and a prince in your own right. Why shouldn’t you serve the kingdom of the Brigantes instead of the masters of a city in Italy?”

  “There is no kingdom of the Brigantes,” I replied.

  “But there could be! Rome used to govern hundreds of square miles beyond that wall there, but it was abandoned because it became too costly to keep. If Brigantia became too costly to keep, they’d abandon that too. Don’t you see that we’re much more like you than the Romans are, that your natural alliance is with us? We don’t worship money, kill men in the arenas for pleasure, or murder women and children when we make war.”

  “Your ancestress, the queen of the Iceni, murdered women and children when she made war,” I replied, “or so I have heard. You exaggerate your likeness to us. And you are not Brigantic. Your ancestors were kings and queens, but of southern tribes. You would have no rights in any kingdom of the Brigantes if one did exist, and I do not believe you plan to set up an independent Brigantic kingdom with someone else as queen.”

  “She is a queen, by birth and by wisdom,” said Arshak, angrily. “Why shouldn’t she be one in fact as well? The Brigantes would rejoice to have her.”

  “And the Pictish tribesmen who invaded?” I asked.

  “They would rejoice, too? Someone had promised them that the Romans would be busy with a mutiny, Gatalas’ mutiny. But Gatalas is dead, and so are most of them.”

  Bodica’s eyes had narrowed dangerously. “Gatalas was meant to succeed! He should never have ordered his men to surrender. I made a mistake, I didn’t speak to him myself. So he didn’t realize that we could succeed, and he tried to spare his followers what he thought was the inevitable finish. I won’t make the same mistake again; I am speaking to you. We can succeed; if we dare enough, we will! Still! As for the raid, it was you who stopped it, and that, too, was because you didn’t know.”

  “No,” I said bitterly, “it was because we had peace in Cilurnum. You meant me to be under arrest there, suspected of being in league with Gatalas, but my Roman officers trusted me, and left me free. I do not like these plans of yours, Lady. They are too full of lies, and too ruthless with your allies. I would not trust myself and my men to your good faith any more than I would lead them on horseback into the ocean.” I swallowed the rest of the wine in one gulp and handed her back the cup.

  She looked at me without expression. “You won’t join us, then? You won’t even hear the rest of what I have to say?”

  I shook my head. I was aware of Arshak turning back to his horse and mounting. “I have no proof of anything,” I reminded them both. “And what you have said has been under the bond of guest friendship. If you like, I will swear on fire, as well, not to mention this conversation to anyone. You will then have to see to it that I get no proof: that is a fair contest. Good health, Lady.”

  “You are on the side of the Romans, then?” said Arshak, his voice harsh wit
h both pain and anger. His hand was on the shaft of his spear.

  “I am on the side of my own men, who trust me to do what is best for them.”

  “Traitor!” shouted Arshak, drawing his spear from its holder.

  I touched Farna’s sides and sent her dancing backward up the road, and as I went I pulled my bow out of its case. Arshak yelled and lowered the spear. I turned Farna, stringing the bow, setting an arrow to the string, and cantered her onto the verge, going back toward the chariot. Farna reared as I stopped her, the arrow fixed on Bodica. “Let me go back to Corstopitum,” I called to Arshak.

  “Fight me!” shouted Arshak, trying to get his horse in front of the chariot. “Not her! Me!” But I turned Farna about and kept the arrow fixed on Bodica.

  “I do not want to fight you. If we duel, the survivor will be charged with murder, and his dragon will suffer trying to protect him: I will inflict that on none of our men. I have offered you a fair contest. Accept it now, and let me go.”

  “Go, then!” said Bodica. She stood very tall in the chariot, her blue cloak draped close about her shoulders, but the hood fallen from her head, flung back proudly against my threat; she raised her hand. “Go if you can!”

  I touched Farna and started back to the road, holding the bow bent and the arrow on the string. But before I reached the paving, something seemed to fall like a fog over my eyes. I felt dizzy. Farna’s hooves rang on the stones, and she stopped, sensing something wrong. My hands, holding the bow, seemed suddenly very far away. As though I were looking at them from a distance, I saw the bow slacken. My fingers fumbled at the string, and I dropped the arrow. Arshak lowered the spear and stared at me in consternation. Farna blew softly and shook her head, puzzled.

  Bodica tied the reins of the chariot to the post, climbed down, and walked over to me. I couldn’t move. She pulled the bow out of my hands as though I were a child. I tried to rouse myself; I fumbled at my shoulder for my sword-hilt, but couldn’t find it. Bodica gave me a shove, and I fell. I lay on my back, looking at the side of my horse above me, steaming in the cold, and beyond that, the gray sky and the few light flakes of snow. Everything seemed remote, as though I were looking at it down a long tunnel.

  “What have you done to him?” cried Arshak.

  “Did you think we could let him go back?” she demanded in return. “His Romanizing has cost our people a thousand lives already, and he’d do worse, much worse, now he knows we’re his enemies.”

  “I would have fought him,” protested Arshak. “He’s good, but I could beat him.”

  “Everyone knew you left Condercum with him. If he were found killed by the spear-and, dear heart, I believe he would be if you fought him-everyone would know that you did it, and what would happen to us then?”

  “What did you do?” Arshak repeated. “He’s a prince of the Iazyges: he deserved to die fighting.” But he sounded halfhearted now.

  I thought, with a mind that was numb and fumbling like my hands, how she’d handed me the wine. It had been drugged. Not the wine, she’d drunk some of that as well, and Arshak. The cup, my cup, the cup she offered in the sacred bond of hospitality. Had she been sure I’d refuse to join them, or had it just been a precaution? How could Arshak accept it? I tried to get up. I twitched over to one side, and fell back.

  “He deserves to die,” Bodica answered Arshak. “That he was a prince of the Iazyges makes his Romanizing worse. Go back to Corstopitum, but stop on the way and do some hunting. Take off your armor. Say you and he saw a quarry, a deer or a flock of partridges, on your way back from Condercum, and decided to see who could shoot the most game. Say you lost him in the chase, and thought he’d be back in Corstopitum. It will look like an accident.”

  “But…”

  “He betrayed you, my white heart! Don’t you see that? My husband approves of him, and wanted to promote him above you. He would have become an adviser on all Sarmatian affairs and your lord. He would have ended up handing you over to my husband, and I couldn’t bear that, I’d die. Go, quickly. I can deal with him.”

  “If it has to be, let me help. It’s too much for you to bear alone.”

  “No! The road’s empty now, but who knows when someone will come along? We mustn’t be seen together. Just help me to put him in the chariot: I’ll do the rest.”

  Arshak picked me up by the shoulders, slung me over my horse, and led her over to the chariot. I was aware of it, through the mist, but I could not move. It was the most I could do to pick my head up a little, and then I couldn’t hold it. I was put in the chariot like a corpse and shoved under the bench seat. I was aware, in the dim scent of damp leather and wood, of Bodica and Arshak whispering good-bye, and then the chariot jolted into motion.

  It rolled over paved road for some distance, and I struggled in the mist and darkness, half-unconscious, half-awake. When I could think at all, I wished, stupidly, passionately, and irrelevantly, that I had succeeded that time in reaching the Jade Gate. It was cold. After a time, I realized that we’d left the paved road and were bouncing along a rougher surface. Again I struggled to get up, and couldn’t. I twisted my head, and saw beside me the edge of Bodica’s gown, her feet in the expensive shoes of embossed leather, and a mud track beyond. The chariot turned, and the mud was replaced by grass, green winter grass with a light sprinkling of snow. The chariot stopped.

  The world faded a moment, and I felt horribly cold and sick. Bodica hauled me out of the chariot and rolled me over on the grass, then went and did something with my horse, which I saw had been tied behind the chariot. She bent over me and unfastened the baldric for my sword, took it off, refastened it, and hung it from my saddle. Then she took the bow case out and put it in my hand. She knelt and looked in my face. “You can see me, can’t you?” she whispered. Her eyes were very bright and she was flushed and smiling. “I’ve given you the bow because they’ll think you were hunting. I’ve hung up the sword because you would have taken it off if you were wading out into the water to fetch something you’d shot.”

  Water. I tried to move my head; after what seemed a long time, it shifted, and I saw the river, only a few feet away.

  “Yes, there,” said Bodica, gleefully. “You’re going to drown. I’ve never drowned a man before. Only animals.” She giggled, sat down, and began taking her shoes off. “You believe that people who drown are damned, don’t you?”

  I could not move or speak. Bodica leaned over me again, her face close to mine; she ran her hand up my arm and pressed my shoulder. “You’re strong, aren’t you?” she whispered. “A big strong warrior and a commander of men. And you’re going to drown like a helpless little puppy.” She giggled again, rubbing my shoulder like a lover, and then leaned closer still and kissed me, open-mouthed, hot and wet. It was peculiarly horrible. It was my death she kissed then, and her pleasure in it was somehow even worse than the thing itself.

  She stood up, put her shoes and socks in the chariot, and pushed me with her bare foot; I rolled helplessly over toward the river. I closed my eyes. Tirgatao, I thought, just let me find Tirgatao when I’m dead. Marha, Jupiter, any legal or illegal god you like-let my people’s beliefs be wrong, and let me find Tirgatao and Artanisca.

  Bodica gave me another push, and I rolled over into the water. She pulled up her skirts and stepped into the shallows after me, pushed once more so that I lay on my face. The last thing I was aware of was the weight of her foot pressing me down.

  VIII

  I woke in the dark, smelling fire. I could not feel my own limbs, but the cold was like knives in my chest and stomach. I coughed and someone lifted me; I remember their skin seemed red-hot against my side. I tasted the river in my mouth and felt it, heavy in my chest. I struggled to toss it off, coughing, gasping, and vomiting, and the water gurgled in my lungs and ran from my nose. The other held me up, put a basin under my mouth, spoke soothingly, and at last, when the spasms stopped, set me down and drew blankets over me. I lay still, drifting numbly; slept; woke again feeling warmer. The
fire-scented darkness still surrounded me. My hands and feet felt as though they were burning, my head ached, and I still felt sick. I struggled to move, and a woman’s voice said something, softly and gently, and a hand smoothed my hair away from my face. I relaxed.

  “Tirgatao,” I said, feeling as though I were fitting back into life, like a sword into its sheath or a latch onto a door. I opened my eyes, trying to find her.

  But it was not her. The reddish light of a fire showed me a woman beside me, but a strange woman with a long, oval face, hair indeterminately dark in the faint light, a gentle mouth, long hands. I stared at her for a while in bewilderment. “Where is Tirgatao?” I asked at last.

  I spoke in Sarmatian, but the woman replied in another language. I looked at her blankly, and she said something else. I felt that I ought to understand the second time she spoke, but I could not, and I wept because I could not. The woman stroked my hair again, and said “shhh, shhh,” which at least I could understand. I lay still; after a while I went back to sleep.

  When I woke again, it was lighter, and I felt less ill. There was still the smell of fire. I lay on my side, staring out at a wall. After a time, I put my hand against it, and felt that it was made of stone. Then I knew that I was dead and in my grave. I lay for a while, considering this without distress. It didn’t surprise me, but I couldn’t remember how I had died.

  It suddenly occurred to me that if I were dead, I might find Tirgatao. I pulled myself up onto my hands and knees, looking around. The stone walls enclosed me, but there was a hearth on my left, with embers glowing redly under a gridiron. The packed earth floor was covered with dried bracken, and herbs and dried meat hung from the ceiling. I sat back onto my heels. I was on a kind of bed, with a blanket over me, and all my clothes were missing. I pulled the blanket around my shoulders and stood up. My knees were weak, and my bad leg almost gave under me; I staggered and put a hand against the wall to balance myself. There was a door in the far wall, and I started toward it.