Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS)

by John James

  ‘But that’s the trouble,’ he told me. ‘You can’t get free men to do it, not in merchant ships. Has anyone tried using slaves? You must have done it, down there in the Mediterranean. You can always teach us a thing or two about the use of manpower.’

  ‘It’s not worth it,’ I assured him. ‘I’ve not seen it done in ships, but when you have a gang on a mill, pushing the windlass around all day, you have to keep them chained night and day, and you have the most dreadful trouble with sanitation. If you do that in a ship, you’ll have the slaves dying off like flies.’

  He agreed, and added: ‘Besides, if you’re boarded, with slaves you have fifty or sixty men you can’t arm. Real rowers fight.’ He changed his tone. ‘Look! It’s getting a bit thinner up there.’

  It was, too. In another half-hour, it was quite clear and there we were, not half a mile out of Rutupiae. There was enough breeze to hoist the sail and start unshipping the sweeps – we had been rowing due south, as it happened – and so we slid in past the guardship. They shouted that we had been lucky to get in, that Starkadder Eightarms was cruising in the fog. The Berts murmured to each other that it wasn’t him, that they knew the sound of his oars, they’d pulled them themselves often enough, he never took anything off this coast, he wanted always to be safe inside the Empire, this would be some Black Dane masquerading. One of the Berts said it had smelt more like Irishmen to him, but the others all laughed at him and asked who had ever heard of Irishmen so far east as this.

  At least the guardship didn’t think we were pirates.

  ‘They know us well enough,’ Fat Bert told me. ‘There’s many a time we’ve brought in merchant ships that we’ve rescued from wicked pirates that boarded them at sea, and an act of valour that is: half the value of ship and cargo is what the Port Captain’s authorised to pay. Course, you have to be careful in the retaking that nobody gets hurt, and you’ve got to make sure that the merchant men don’t capture any pirates in their enthusiasm, and you have to have two ships before you think of it, but a very virtuous way of dealing it is.’

  We had the sweeps rigged again, to pull us round between Rutupiae Island and the mainland, so that we could lie off the jetty. The customs came off to us in a small boat, and had a cursory walk around. They were expecting me – there had been a clerk from our family’s agent in London waiting for me for some days. They were very willing to take me ashore in their boat, while the Berts worked the Gannet round and into Londinium. I said a tearful farewell to them – they couldn’t think how they would ever get such an enjoyable and profitable and wholly legal commission again.

  Cicva and I took our bags and left. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Rutupiae. There’s nothing to see on the island, only the customs post. Every ship going up into the Thames, or farther north up the east coast, had to come in there for clearance, otherwise they’re not allowed to unload. There’s no real town, except for the usual little cluster of small houses and a tavern or two outside the walls. Nothing to see? Yes, there is. Over everything is the great monument to the Emperor Claudius, marking where He first slept the night on British soil. His Sacred Majesty, three times life-size, stands on an eighty-foot arch of white marble, and out from under it leads the road that passes through Eboracum to the Wall. It is a beautiful gleaming sight. There’s not a square foot of marble that is left plain. It is all covered with the most exquisite carving. There are episodes from the Conquest, and from the Triumph, with supplicant Britons and chariots and camels and troops in campaign dress on one side. The other side has the full regimental titles and badges of all the units taking part, each with a group of various ranks in their dress uniforms. There’s none of this monotonous white wall for you there, that’s old-fashioned stuff. Just think, in two thousand years it will still be there, dominating the sea just as it does today.

  I would have liked to spend an hour examining the details, even though Cicva obviously didn’t like to see what to her must have been a symbol of national humiliation. However, the little clerk who had met us wanted to get us through the formalities of entering the province as quickly as possible. Of course, with him to vouch that I was who I was, and being who I was, it only took a few minutes to get past all the officials, and the main sensation was caused by the fact that I had a sword, and that I actually had a permit with me. The clerk was just explaining to me and to the officials that he had rooms ready for us in the village, when there was a sudden commotion in the doorway of the office, and there stood Gwawl, swearing in a mixture of Latin and Gaulish and British in a way which put me off wondering how he had got there so quickly. And there was the Port Duty Police Officer standing there listening to him as though he were being told the essential and total truth about the nature of the universe. Well, I know there’s a lot to be said for equality under the Law, but there are limits, especially for people of my importance.

  Gwawl swore at us so much that the Duty Police Officer told him to moderate his language. It’s never good tactics to antagonise the Police over trifles. A serious offence it’s easy to get away with, once you’ve established a price, but with a little disorderly conduct, where you can’t easily conceal it, why, they have you at once.

  Gwawl let off with a stream of accusations of how we’d tricked him into going on our ship, and then stolen all he had, clothes, money, everything, and set him adrift naked – ‘No, not naked,’ said Cicva. ‘You had my apron on’ – and that quite spoilt his flow. Anyway, he said, he’d been set adrift, in a skin boat, to die of thirst or be eaten by sharks or whales or sea-serpents. Was it our fault (and I agreed, privately, no it wasn’t) that he had got ashore and been able to sell his boat for rags to cover his nakedness and then begged his way all along the road from Dubris to Rutupiae?

  At this point he paused for breath, and I managed to start talking. I assured the Duty Police Officer that this fellow had been only the usual kind of trickster, with all his capital in flashy clothes. He had wiled his way into our ship with a promise to pay later, and then settled down to cheat the poor sailors out of all they had by indescribable manoeuvres with the dice. But in that he had failed, and unable to pay for his losses he had stolen a boat, a good one, and made off with it in the fog. So I demanded that the Port Authorities should immediately undertake criminal proceedings against him for boat stealing, and in any case, with such an important and valuable cargo clearing, and with one of the most important merchants of the Empire passing through, why weren’t the Port Captain and the Officer Commanding the Garrison here as well?

  The clerk wanted to go off to Durovernum, and warn our agent, who had a villa there and would be waiting for us, and bring him back to Rutupiae (in the morning, probably, I thought) to bail us out of jail where we would by then probably have spent the night. I told the clerk pretty sharply that he ought to be quiet, because if anyone was going to spend the night in a cell it was to be him as a surety for our answering any charges, and there was no likelihood I would hesitate to sacrifice my bail. In any case, why wasn’t the legendary Leo Rufus here waiting for us, instead of wasting his time at Durovernum?

  In any case, I insisted on the two officers being brought, and when they came, I saw that my luck was in. I would not even have to use family influence. Most of these officials at the ports are officers from regiments of native cavalry, themselves coming from outside the Empire, and now, too old to command a squadron any more, they are granted Citizenship and a peaceful retirement in a post like this. Of course, the really stupid ones don’t get these jobs.

  I’d begun to guess when I heard the Duty Officer speaking Latin, and when the two senior officers arrived I saw that I had been right. They were both Germans, born somewhere beyond the Rhine, Thuringians I should say, and I took it as a direct sign from Apollo that the Garrison Commander had his arm in a sling and a bandage about his wrist.

  A gift from Apollo? But I no longer served the Unconquered Sun. Long, long ago now He had released me from His service, and I no longer practised the healing a
rt, the art that I had learnt in the Temple in the days when I was a whole man and still had both my eyes. No, I had left His service, and in the years since I had healed no one. But here I stood to face the two senior officers, in my grey cloak with the hood thrown back a little to show my hair all crusted white with the salt, and my good eye flashing, and my bad one covered with a patch, as I always had it at sea, or on the road. I had little option, dressed thus, but to play the part I was cast for: but it was a great mistake, I know now, to deal thus in healing after I had been dismissed from Apollo’s service, and I am sure that it was the cause of all the trouble I had later.

  Gwawl stepped forward and began to make his complaints again, and Cicva interrupted and offered to buy his horse-blanket – at least, she said that if he had five more like it she would give him a copper sestertius for the half-dozen, and in any case where was the rest of the money he must have got for that valuable and well-built boat, made to last a thousand storms on the Western Sea, or had he been cheated out of it?

  Meanwhile, I walked over to the two senior officers, and I undid the bandage on the Garrison Commander’s wrist. When I felt that the bone was only pulled out and not broken, I tried to remember which way to jerk, and I said the charm I had so often said in the North long ago:

  Blood to blood,

  Bone to bone,

  Strength to the sinew,

  Skin strong as stone,

  Oak strong as ash,

  Elm at the end,

  Earth over all.

  Nonsense, really, but it did the trick with those half-romanised German officers, looking so civilised, but savages at heart, and all the time worrying about whether their sons will pass for Romans born, or whether they’ll always show that touch of the tow-brush. The charm did it, that and the smell of the pig fat that all good Germans remember from their mothers’ faces, and that they play too clean to bother with when they come within the Empire to make their fortunes. And the quick twist of my hand on the bone of the wrist, and Apollo helping me, whatever he did afterwards. It set the bone to rights, and both senior officers looked at me, and the Port Captain said:

  ‘What do you want of us, Allfather?’

  ‘Allfather? I know of no Allfather’ – for this was the name that the Germans gave me when I was in the North, and it had brought me enough trouble all along the Amber Road, I wanted no more of it. ‘I am only a simple traveller, and men within the Empire call me Photinus.’

  After that, they treated me like someone important, even more important than a leading member of one of the richest trading families of the Empire, travelling incognito. I was someone they shared a secret with. The Port Captain pointed at Gwawl and asked:

  ‘What do you want us to do with him? Shall we charge him formally, or would you prefer us to kill him – privately, that is?’

  ‘No,’ I told them. ‘Why should I hurt a poor, helpless, demented fool? You see, he even believes his own lies.’

  I ordered our clerk to give Gwawl a silver denarius, one of the new kind, one-horse and half copper, and that he had in turn to borrow from Cicva. It was one she had palmed from Gwawl’s purse before she had let the sailors have it in exchange for the boat: and he knew it by his own toothmarks, and it made him swear more. But plainly there was nothing more that he could do there, and so he went away. I thought, though, that we hadn’t seen the last of him, and no more we had.

  Then I told the clerk we were more than ready to go and see the rooms he had for us in the inn, and if they weren’t the best in Rutupiae, he would be in trouble. The Garrison Commander, however, put in a word, rather diffidently:

  ‘Excuse me, All – that is, Simple Traveller – but there is no need for you to go to an inn. If you would be so gracious as to be our guest for the evening, in our mess – there are fifteen of us here tonight, all men of honour and breeding, and you shall have good food, real German food that you’ll like, not that Mediterranean stuff, all soaked in oil.’

  I accepted, graciously of course. I told the clerk to escort Cicva to an inn, and see that she had room fit for a princess, or there would be no knowing what would happen to him in the morning. I drew the girl aside and told her:

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re free now, but you’ll have to stay with me for a few more days till we can find a magistrate and make it legal. So don’t get into any trouble tonight, because your legal position, and mine for that matter, might be a little ambiguous.’

  Off they went in a rowing boat, and off I went with the two senior officers, but I called in at the Port Chancery before I reached the baths, and I borrowed the services of a couple of the official copyists. They would have to work all night to do what I wanted. It’s a wonderful thing to have influence – or credit; influence comes cheaper in the end.

  I must say, that handful of officers lived well, even if there were only fifteen of them in a house built to hold thirty at least, and still staffed on that scale with cooks and waiters. The bath had all the normal amenities, and I went in to dinner with my body oiled and scented, and my hair and beard combed Greek fashion, but in a toga, as befitted a Citizen born.

  All the officers were Germans, born outside the Empire, and with twenty or so years of service apiece. So we had a real German dinner, only we reclined in the comfortable Roman way. I hadn’t had a real German meal for years, nor did I again for years. We had hot and cold sausages of all kinds, and rye bread, and strong dark barley beer. Then, after we had sung all the traditional songs like ‘Cole, the Bastard King of Britain’, the guardship captain stood on the table and recited the latest border poem – ‘Pictish Nell’, it was called. Well, I mean, one party is just like another wherever it is.

  But these were all elderly gentlemen, and so there were no games or fighting after the drinking. The place to see that is where there are old men and young men together, where the old men push the young men into it, to break their heads and spoil their clothes. Old men are too wise to try it, and the young men think of the expense, but can’t say no to their seniors. Instead, here, the officers on early call went off to bed, and the duty officer went on his rounds, and only half a dozen of us were left to talk a lot and drink a little.

  I said I was surprised to find so many men of their age and seniority living like this in a mess, not one of them married or even keeping women in the town – the law on marriage for the Army has got so complex in recent years that nobody is quite sure what is illegal any more. They all laughed.

  ‘We’re all married, more or less,’ one of them said. ‘We’ve all got families, legitimate or not, in Durovernum, and fine houses there too. We do five days here, and then three off there. It’s a nice town, is Durovernum.’

  It must be, I thought. It’ll be worth spending a few days there before I move on if it’s full of neglected wives. Then I remembered Phryne – it was getting harder and harder to remember Phryne – and I reminded myself that I was going to behave properly in Britain, even without hyena’s hair. I asked what the Brits were like.

  ‘Not too bad,’ the Port Captain told me. ‘If you don’t mind the taste of butter and the smell of goose grease. The ones down here are not too bad, more like the Germans, but it’s west of Londinium you meet the real Brits. We never saw much of them, in the Army. They look after themselves, with their own local assemblies and senates, and as long as they pay the wheat tax and do everything according to Roman laws, we don’t interfere. The worst thing they can do is take their law suits to the Druids, like they used to before we came. That would really undermine our system, so the order is strict – kill a Druid at sight, we’re supposed to. There hasn’t been a Druid seen down in the South, not for twenty years.

  ‘But they’re not bad, the Brits, except the ginger ones. The red-haired men are killers, and as for the women – why, I wouldn’t touch a red-haired woman, not for all the Gold in Ireland.’

  ‘Much Gold in Ireland?’ I asked, all innocence.

  ‘Up among the Demetae you want to go for Gold. Th
at’s where the mines are. But it’s no place to go if you want to keep alive. A lot of the Demetae still follow the old King, Pwyll, and we’ve never caught him. I did four months up at the mines there – no, don’t laugh, it wasn’t what you think. I had a turn as Guard Commander, and I didn’t ask for another. Plenty of Gold up there, but what a place. I tell you, it rains four hundred days in the year. There’s only one future for that country. They want to catch all the rain in buckets – they’ve got plenty of buckets, they worship a bucket. Then they can build an aqueduct across the channel, and across Gaul, and down into Africa, and they can pour all their rain into it and sell it down in Africa. And I tell you, if they thought it would show a profit, I think the Brits would do it. So mean they are up there, a man will walk five miles to have a look in your mirror to save wearing out his own.’

  ‘But Ireland?’ I pressed.

  ‘Well, they talk about Irish Gold,’ said another officer. ‘But nobody’s ever seen any. There may be copper, I’ve seen that come in. When I was supporting the Second Legion up there at Isca—’

  ‘Supporting?’ someone interrupted. ‘Picking up, more likely!’ It was lucky there was nobody from the Second in the room or there would have been some horseplay after all.

  ‘When I was at Isca, I was telling you, we used to have Irish coming in in skin boats, selling dogs, mostly. I’ve never seen men as poor as the Irish.’

  ‘Poor?’ put in the unit accountant, who had been most helpful in getting the copyists to put everything aside to do my work. ‘There are some Brits who are so poor, they can’t afford charcoal or firewood to cook on. They burn the very stones out of the ground for fuel.’