Island of Ghosts

by Gillian Bradshaw

  The world went red and black for a moment, and I heard behind me the angry roar of my men. Disbelievingly, I put my hand to my nose. Quintilius staggered to his feet. I covered my head just in time to keep the next bare-fisted blow out of my eyes. My left arm went numb. I struck upward with the dagger, blindly, and at the same time shoved toward him. Both the dagger and my shoulder hit something. He grunted; I dropped my arm, saw that the dagger had only sliced his sleeve but that the shoulder had caught him in the stomach.

  This was no sword-fight. I grabbed the arm nearest to me in a wrestling hold and rose, throwing him over and onto his back with a thud, then turned, dropped to my knees on his chest, and put the dagger against his throat.

  For a moment I thought he was going to try to rise anyway, but he didn’t. He lay still, gasping, and looked at me without expression. I wiped my nose with the back of my numb hand, and saw that it was streaming with blood. “What sort of fighting was that?” I asked.

  “Shut up and get it over with!” he returned.

  I took the dagger away from his throat and got up. “You did not even know how to hold a sword!” I said, still hardly able to credit it. I looked around for my sword, limped over to it, and picked it up. It was covered with dirt.

  Quintilius sat up slowly, clutching his stomach, still gasping for breath.

  “Look what you have done to my sword!” I told him, wiping my nose again.

  Longus started to laugh. I felt a fool.

  “Don’t you laugh at me!” Quintilius shouted-and gasped again. “Damn you!” He rubbed his stomach.

  Longus offered him a hand to help him up. “I wasn’t laughing at you. You’re a brave man indeed, to fight Ariantes when you don’t even know how to hold a sword. He’s killed more men than you’ve got teeth in your head-ask his followers about it sometime. I wouldn’t fight him, and I’m a decurion. But I hope now you’ll admit that the lady has the right to say who is and who isn’t allowed in her own house. If you make him fight you again, he’ll probably insist on doing it blindfolded.” He pulled Quintilius to his feet and looked around for something to bandage the cut hand with.

  Leimanos came over and took the sword away from me. He rubbed some of the dirt off and began examining it carefully for chips in the blade. Another of the bodyguard collected a handful of wool to mop up the nose-bleed. Then Pervica came over with a woollen rag instead. “You had better come into the house,” she said quietly. “It’s too cold to stand about in your shirt, and you should lie down with your head back.” I nodded and, pressing the rag to my nose and feeling a complete idiot, went back into the house.

  A few minutes later I was lying on the carpet I’d brought, with my head back, and Quintilius was recovering on the couch while the rest of them stood about the dining table. Leimanos had found another use for the handful of wool, and was cleaning my sword. “People who cannot hold a sword have no right to expect a scepter-holder to fight them,” he said. He did not direct his comment to Quintilius, but he was careful to speak in Latin. “Herdsmen who cannot fight should keep silent before noblemen.”

  “He is not a herdsman,” I said, through the rag. “He is a farmer. He owns land. Probably he has herdsmen working for him.”

  “He fights with his hands, like an animal. I do not believe he even owns a sword.”

  I shrugged, as well as I could lying down. “He owns a house, and probably he spends any surplus on it, instead of on swords. He owns a farm, and he spends his time working on it, and has no time to learn war, and expects other people to do any fighting that is needed. He is a Roman, Leimanos.

  “ ‘Beyond the stars will stretch his lands

  Beyond the paths of the sun and years

  Where heaven-bearing Atlas stands

  Turning the earth between his hands

  On its axis of stars that burn so clear.’

  “Or so say the Romans.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Where the hell did you learn to quote Vergil?” asked Longus.

  I didn’t answer. I felt foolish and depressed. My grand heroic gesture had ended in a fistfight, and I was realizing yet again the terrible gulf between the world we had inhabited before and the world we lived in now.

  Pervica came and knelt beside my head. “Thank you,” she said. “You could have killed Cinhil and you took terrible risks to make sure you wouldn’t.”

  “I would have been very ashamed to have killed a man who cannot even hold a sword,” I replied.

  Quintilius made an inarticulate noise of anger and resentment.

  “I… I have something that we found on the riverbank, that we thought was probably yours,” Pervica said, after a moment. “I think the water’s spoiled it, but I was meaning to give it to you. I’ll go fetch it.”

  She left, and Longus took her place. “Can I just make sure that the nose isn’t broken?” he asked.

  I lifted the rag and he inspected it. “No lasting damage,” he announced cheerfully. “You ought to wash your face: your beard’s full of blood.”

  The bleeding seemed to have stopped, so I sat up and looked for something to wash my face with. Leimanos brought the bowl of water he’d been using to wipe the mud off my sword.

  Pervica came back into the room carrying my bow case. “Is it yours?” she asked, holding it out to me.

  I took it; as my hands touched it, I remembered Aurelia Bodica saying, I’ve given you the bow because they’ll think you were hunting- and her giggle as she pushed me toward the water. I sat still, staring at the water-stained red leather.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Pervica.

  “I remember drowning now,” I answered. I unlatched the case, opened it, and took the bow out to examine it.

  “I’m afraid the water has spoiled it,” Pervica repeated.

  “No. The case has an oilskin lining, see? It is quite dry inside. It must have floated downstream and washed ashore.”

  “But the bow’s bent backward.”

  I looked up and smiled. I’d forgotten that the Britons were unfamiliar with the recurved bow, with its layers of horn and sinew. There were no other units of eastern archers on this end of the Wall, and the native bows were weak and made entirely of wood. “They are always like that when they’re unstrung,” I explained. I slipped a string into the bottom nock, twisted the bow backward against my leg, and strung it. The string gave its sharp, buzzing hum as the bow pulled into its living shape.

  “I thought you were hunting,” said Longus, puzzled.

  “And?”

  “So why was your bow in its case, unstrung?”

  I looked up at him, then looked down at the bow. I bent it and unstrung it again, without answering. I put it back in its case. “Thank you,” I told Pervica. “They do not know how to make these here. My men can make them, but I think probably we could not get the best kind of glue here.”

  “I’m glad it’s not broken,” Pervica said, smiling. Then she sat back on her heels and rubbed the top of the bow case with her thumb. “About the horse,” she said, watching her nail against the leather.

  “Ah. I thought perhaps you might wish, after all, to keep him. He would be a valuable asset to the stud.”

  “No,” she said, looking up and smiling at me again, “no, I can’t manage him. I’d like to give him to you.”

  “If you kept him, you would have help with him. If you do not want to keep him, I must pay for him. I am far too deeply indebted to you to accept a gift.”

  “You’re not in debt to me. That’s why I want to give him to you.”

  “That is a woman’s reasoning. I do not understand it.”

  “That’s a man’s arrogance. It’s perfectly clear. I’m out of debt, thanks to you, and I have a chance at real and honest prosperity. I won’t take anything more from you because of some imaginary blood debt. You gave me gifts today; I want to give one back.”

  “You refused the gift I gave you.”

  “You gave me the respect due a householder, Cinhil’s l
ife-and a carpet. I didn’t refuse any of those.”

  I smiled at her. “I am glad of anything I have done that pleases you.”

  “Then take the horse.”

  I wanted to laugh. “I will take the horse and train it for you, but you must keep it and the stud fees when the time comes to breed it.”

  She did laugh. “Take it now, and we’ll talk about that when the time comes!”

  When we left an hour later, it was with the stallion Wildfire tied beside the packhorse. To my delight, we also had Pervica’s agreement to visit Cilurnum for the forthcoming festival. Longus, to my great surprise, came up with a widowed mother and married sister in the fort village, and offered Pervica hospitality on their behalf. It seemed that the sister was planning to drive to Corstopitum to shop two days before the feast, and could meet Pervica there, escort her back to Cilurnum, and host her in complete respectability over the holy days. This guaranteed, Pervica was delighted to come. Quintilius protested, but feebly. I was enormously contented, and took pains to tell Longus that I was grateful for his help, and glad after all that he had come.

  We were just leaving the farm track and turning back in to the main road when Facilis hailed us, and we saw him trotting toward us. We stopped and waited for him to join us.

  “What happened to your face?” he asked me, as we started together down the road.

  “He got into a fight with one of the lady’s friends,” Longus answered for me. “Oh gods and goddesses, it was beautiful!”

  “What happened to the friend?” asked Facilis, in alarm.

  “Cut hand. Ariantes was never going to kill him. I, and more importantly, the lady, didn’t want him to.”

  Facilis grunted. “Stupid to fight at all, then.”

  “It was the other man’s idea. Oh gods! I’m glad I came! Marcus, it was beautiful. This friend was a big solid landowner, Quintilius son of Celatus by name, and it turned out he’d loaned a lot of money to the lady’s husband and she’d been sweating blood to repay it. Reading between the lines, he hoped he could marry her and collect a tidy little property as well as the pretty widow. She thanked him for his patience about the money, but he wasn’t the sort that lets go easily; he’d taken advantage of the debt to bully her and badger her just as much as he could. When she saved the life of our noble friend here, though, his grateful bodyguard showered her with gifts enough that she paid off the whole debt, with half as much again left over. It was the last thing the landowner wanted. He was there when we arrived, taking the final discharge of the debt, warning her about the lusts and treachery of barbarians, and promising her his matrimonial protection yet again.”

  “You do not know this,” I said, taken aback.

  “It’s true, though, isn’t it?” asked Longus. “Leimanos, don’t you think it’s true?”

  “I had not thought of it,” said Leimanos, frowning. “But yes, it is true.”

  “You are inventing it,” I insisted.

  “I’m not inventing a word!” exclaimed Longus. And he went on to tell Facilis about the painting and the conversation and the quarrel. “Quintilius was so beside himself with fury and frustration,” he concluded, “that he said yes, he certainly did want to fight-provided our friend shed his armor. Well, he was out of the armor quick as boiling asparagus, out in the yard, swore all the bodyguard to keep hands off the landowner, and loaned the man his sword. It was a nasty moment for me, I can tell you. And it got worse: instead of borrowing another sword for himself, he borrowed a little dagger. A dagger against a long sword! I started imagining five hundred enraged Sarmatians at Cilurnum swearing vengeance, and I was scared sick. But, Marcus-this is the best part-Quintilius had never held a sword in his life! He waved it about in the air like a pruning hook, and when he’d had his hand cut, he abandoned it altogether and punched Ariantes in the nose.”

  Longus began laughing again. “You never saw anything like it. None of the Sarmatians could believe it. Leimanos here was purple with indignation and the rest of them were howling. It was an unnatural act. After all, the gods gave us hands to hold swords with, not to hit each other! Well, Ariantes ended it after that: he threw Quintilius down, sat on him, and put the dagger at his throat, just to make it absolutely clear that he could kill the fellow any time he liked-though that had never been in doubt. Then he got up again and picked up the sword, which the poor sod had used to hack the earth, and said, ‘Look what you have done to my sword!’ ” Longus had a wicked knack at imitating, and I imagine his impersonation of me, bewildered, indignantly wiping a nosebleed, was devastatingly accurate.

  Facilis started laughing, and Longus joined him. “You were funny!” Longus told me. “Gods, you were!”

  Leimanos tried to look offended-prince-commanders of a dragon, especially your own, aren’t supposed to be funny. But after a moment, he began laughing too. Another of the bodyguard rode up and asked him why, and he sobered quickly and said, “Flavinus Longus was saying how that herdsman fought, waving our lord’s sword like a pruning hook.”

  At that, the bodyguard laughed too.

  “So what did this Quintilius do?” asked Facilis.

  “Not much he could do. Leimanos was announcing that commoners who didn’t know how to hold a sword shouldn’t expect the privilege of being chopped up by noblemen. And to tell the truth, I think that Quintilius had realized what a lunatic thing he was doing as soon as he had a look at the sword, and would have backed out then, if he could have: he certainly wasn’t eager for a rematch, particularly when I told him of our friend’s bloody reputation. No, Quintilius just sat and moped the rest of the time we were there.”

  “And the lady?”

  Longus grinned. “The lady Pervica is exactly what you might expect,” he declared, with great satisfaction. “Top quality from head to toe, a young widow of twenty-five, graceful, soft-spoken, and sharp enough to run a legion. She also, unless I’m much mistaken, has a will of iron. She doesn’t like being bullied and she wouldn’t have married Quintilius if he were governor of Britain. But she’s already made up her mind on a certain subject, and her only hesitation is whether the subject means it, or whether he’s just grateful. She’s had enough of other people relying on her gratitude, and has no intention of playing that game herself. I won’t say more, because the lady’s coming to Cilurnum for the festival; she’ll be staying with my sister, and I’m sure you’ll meet her. I think she may be about for some time to come.” He turned the grin on me. “Has it crossed your mind, Ariantes, that she won’t want to leave a good stone house to come live in a wagon?”

  “We can settle that when the time comes,” I said contentedly. I thought privately that I’d sleep well even in a house, if I were sleeping beside Pervica.

  XI

  My men received their first pay packet the day Pervica arrived at Cilurnum, two days before the festival. All the other troops on the Wall had been paid already: our pay was late because of all the negotiations. The amount we were finally given was the standard auxiliary pay-two hundred denarii a year-plus an allowance for one and three quarter horses, with another extra amount for the upkeep of our armor. It was less than I’d wanted, but, it must be said, a considerable advance on the first offers and more than the Asturians were getting. The usual half had been deducted to pay for rations, and another variable amount for horse fodder and replacement of equipment. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the total had been backdated to the time we left Aquincum: it was a substantial amount. Moreover, the captains were given seventeen times the basic rate of pay, an even more substantial amount, and one that could help smooth over any short-term troubles with debt. Since arriving in Cilurnum, we’d bought anything that needed buying with whatever money or valuables we’d taken with us, and I’d been watching the first stirrings of trouble with shopkeepers and moneylenders. Now we were in the clear again. With the pay we were also given a notice from the legate, relaxing one of the restrictions on us: the men could now apply to me for permission to leave the fort,
in groups not smaller than three nor larger than sixteen, and could stay away up to three nights if that permission were granted. This meant that they could go hunting or ride into Corstopitum to spend their money, and otherwise behave more like free men than prisoners.

  I drew the dragon up and made a severe speech warning the men against moneylenders and the dangers of getting into debt, then brought them all into the chapel of the standards in the fort headquarters, where the clinking bags were handed out beneath the impassive gaze of the statue of the man we’d sworn our oaths to at Aquincum. The men went off in a proper holiday mood to prepare for the Sada feast.

  I found their excitement depressing. Six months before we had scarcely known what money was: now, even the slowest man in the dragon had been able to understand instantly that he earned more than the Asturians did. I was tired and irritable when I limped back to the chapel of the standards to check over the final accounts with Eukairios and the Asturians’ treasurer, who had the key to the strong room. It was late in the afternoon by then. Halfway through the accounting, I noticed another pay box under the table, and I heaved it up and shoved it across at Eukairios. “What is this for?” I asked him. He answered, with a smile, “The commander’s pay, my lord.”

  “Oh,” I said. Eukairios went on copying pay chits into two registers. I sat beside him, ready to countersign the pages with the scrawled dragon mark I’d been using since Bononia. “How much is it?” I asked, after a minute.

  Eukairios set down his pen and laughed. He shook his head, picked up the pen again. “I’ll have to tell that one to Longus,” he said.