“There has been trouble with this cult in Gaul?” I asked, after a moment.
“They executed a pack of the cultists in Lugdunum,” Natalis admitted, “and some administrators in the South have called for a purge. I’d intended to shift Eukairios to Dubris anyway. But I’d rather give him to you. I do believe you’d find him useful.”
I was silent for another moment. I, too, believed I’d find the scribe useful. It was against all the customs of my own people to keep any slave, and I didn’t like the sound of this cult at all-but I needed the man to write letters for me. I wouldn’t know how to buy or hire another scribe. I had no idea how much a good scribe would cost, and I suspected that I’d need all the money I’d brought with me to secure a good position for my men. “Thank you, Lord Valerius Natalis,” I said at last. “I accept him.” I got to my feet. “But let me give you a gift as well, in gratitude for your efforts on our behalf.” I unfastened the gold pin from my coat. It was dragon-shaped, set with rubies, and about as long as my middle finger. “This I have worn as prince-commander of a dragon of Sarmatian cavalry,” I said. “Very few Romans have ever held one of these, my lord Natalis. Perhaps the emperor alone. I trust you will keep it and remember my people kindly.” I set it in his hands.
Natalis went pink with pleasure. “You have quite outdone me in your generosity, Lord Ariantes! Thank you, thank you very much indeed!” He took his own brooch off and pinned his cloak with mine instead. He fondled it a minute, running his fingers along the curves of the gold. “I will certainly remember you with friendship.”
I’d thought that morning of giving him one of my horses; I saw that I’d been correct to offer instead this, which a Sarmatian would have valued less. I was relieved. I had another pin-in fact, I had a wagonful of valuables I had brought along especially for bribing Romans-and it would have been hard to part with any of the horses. “As I shall remember you,” I told Natalis. “But you must excuse me now, my lord. I ought to stay with my horses to make sure they come to no harm. I could not easily replace them.”
Eukairios was sitting beside the horses with his cloak over his head. When I came up he pulled it off his head again and rubbed his face. The hold was only dimly lit by the light that came in down the gangways, but I could still see well enough that he’d been crying. “Wh-what happened?” he asked me. It was a sign of how distressed he was that he omitted my title.
“I accepted you,” I told him. After a moment I added, to defend myself against his misery, “He would have sent you away from Bononia anyway.”
“To Dubris?” When I nodded, he rubbed his face again. “I didn’t realize he knew,” he said wretchedly. “I always thought no one in the office knew.”The one great daring secret of his drab little life, as Natalis had called it, had proved to be no secret at all, and he was trembling with the shock of it. “He told you I was a Christian?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. And had you ever heard anything about us?”
“No. But I understand that it is illegal.”
“It’s all lies, what they say,” Eukairios declared bitterly. “Wicked lies. People have died for them, tortured until there wasn’t any sound flesh to use the irons on, but it’s all, all lies. We don’t”-he looked up and met my eyes directly-“we don’t hold incestuous orgies and feast on human flesh. We are forbidden to shed blood; we are told to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. If I had any choice in the matter, my faith wouldn’t allow me to work for the regular army, let alone for a man who decorates his horses’ bridles with men’s scalps and drinks from a Roman skull. God help me.”
“I do not have that cup anymore,” I said. I was touched by his defiance, the more so as he’d never referred to the scalps or the skull story before. In Bononia he had been attentive and deferential, and warmed to friendliness with his own efficiency. “I will not require you to shed blood, Eukairios, or to do anything else your faith forbids. I only want you to write letters.”
He rubbed his face again, then, giving up on suppressing the tears, buried it in his hands. “God help me,” he said again, thickly. “I thought I’d stay in Bononia for the rest of my life.”
“Were you born there?” I asked, both to calm him and because I felt I should know more about him. “Your name is not Latin.”
He understood what I wanted. “My name’s Greek. I’m not,” he said, still thickly but with his usual precision. “Many gentlemen think it adds a touch of elegance to a household to give Greek names to the slaves. My mother was a cook in a gentleman’s house in the countryside, thirty miles from Bononia, and our master had me educated and sold me as soon as I was old enough and trained enough to be valuable, when I was fourteen. The office bought me. That is the only other time I’ve changed hands. I never expected to be sold again-or given away.” His voice was growing thicker again. “I have my other clothes in Bononia, and a couple of books, everything I own. I haven’t said good-bye to anyone. I thought I was going back tomorrow.”
“Then go back, collect your things, say your good-byes, and return,” I said. “I will ask Valerius Natalis to send you on his dispatch vessel. You know yourself that we must load the supplies for the journey to Eburacum and plan the itinerary; we will not leave Dubris for another two days. That should give you time.”
“You’re not worried I’d run off as soon as I got home?”
It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I am not used to slaves,” I admitted. “I have never owned one before. Would you run off?”
“It would be against my religion,” he said, taking his face out of his hands and glaring. “If you’re not used to slaves and won’t keep foreigners in your wagons, what are you going to do with me?”
I sighed. “I suppose I will have to let you stay in my wagon, at least during the journey, although it is against our customs.” I winced inwardly at what Arshak and Gatalas, and my own men, would think of it. The fear still twisted in the back of my mind, the terror that I would be turned by the Romans and used against my own people. I had to have the use of letters, though, to defend them. “You will have to ride in it, too, at least at first-though I hope it is not against your religion to learn to ride a horse. When we reach Eburacum, we will see what else can be done.”
There was a long minute of silence. Eukairios sat staring at his hands. The ship rolled, and one of my horses-the courser, who was always a high-strung animal-neighed nervously and kicked. I slid into the stall beside him and coaxed him into calmness again with my hands and voice. When I slipped out, Eukairios had stopped staring at his hands and was looking at me doubtfully. What sort of treatment could he expect from a master such as myself-a barbarian prince who’d killed Romans freely in the past, and now not only owned him, but owned a secret that could cost him his life?
I pitied him. “I am sorry, Eukairios,” I said, again answering the misery. “You do not want me for a master, and I do not want to be the owner of a slave. But you know yourself that I need someone to write letters for me; for the sake of my men, I need it. Serve me faithfully and I will deal with you justly and without treachery, and reward you, as soon as I may, with your freedom. This I swear on fire.”
I meant to keep my oath. But I knew it would be a long time before I rewarded him with his freedom, and a part of me hoped that he’d forget his religious scruples and run off as soon as he set foot in Bononia.