Priscus was explaining it when Siyavak and Valerius Victor came in. Bodica gave a bright smile to Victor, which he returned, but a lingering, assuring smile to Siyavak-and I noticed that that, too, was returned. I decided I was right to have come to Corstopitum.
Both officers, and Bodica, joined in commenting on the scheme and suggesting modifications to it. Then we turned to the business of Siyavak’s supplies (too much grain, not enough meat and milk) and the legate’s wife smiled again, and said she hadn’t meant to distract anyone, she’d just heard that I was there and she wanted to be sure I was safe and well, and she’d go. She went, leaving us to draw up comparative budgets. I missed Eukairios.
I could not satisfy Siyavak: I was not satisfied with the supplies for my own men. However, we agreed on an arrangement that was as good as we could get, and as soon as we had, Siyavak excused himself. It seemed to me that for a man who’d been asking to see me, he was now in a hurry to get away from me. I also made my excuses to the legate, and left with him: I wanted to talk to him.
He tried to slip away, and said he needed to go to the stables to see how his troop’s horses were. I refused to be slipped away from, and said I would join him. He was not pleased, but endured it. As soon as we were private, in the same alley where I’d argued with Arshak, I asked, “Has the legate’s lady spoken to you?”
He stopped in midstride and whirled to face me. “What do you mean?” he demanded suspiciously.
“She has spoken to Arshak,” I said. “I wondered if she had spoken to you.”
“They’ve both said some things to me,” he replied. “Some things I agreed with.” He turned back and started on.
“Wait,” I called after him. “The rod that was sent to Gatalas.. ”
That stopped him and turned him around again. “Do you know who sent it?” he demanded, eagerly this time.
I shook my head. “But listen, Siyavak. Whoever sent it knew how to make divining rods and set them in a pattern. But they used British writing on the last rod to make their message clear: therefore, the sender is British, but familiar with our own people. Further, the sender was able to get the message into Condercum when there was tension in the camp without the Roman authorities being aware of it: therefore, the sender was not Pictish, despite being in league with the tribes, but was probably a person of some importance within the Roman army. The messenger who brought it said it came from Eburacum. The lady Aurelia Bodica was in Eburacum. She is a British princess and a legate’s wife. And she has spoken a great deal with Arshak, and could easily have learned, from him or from his diviner, how to construct her message. She was asking about such matters even on the road from Dubris.”
He let out his breath with a hiss. “She had no reason to do it! Why would she want my lord to die?”
“If she’s spoken to you, you know better than I. Is a mutiny against the Romans a thing that would please her?”
Siyavak walked back toward me, now frowning deeply. “Why?” he asked again. “She’s a legate’s wife. Why would she want to help raiders from outside the Roman border?”
This was a thing that puzzled me, too. She was an ambitious woman-but surely a legate’s wife not only has a position of power already, but has further scope for her ambition in advancing her husband’s career? Instead, it had seemed to me from the first that she wanted to use us for a purpose of her own. Why?
“I don’t know why,” I admitted. “I have no proof that she’s the one who did it, and without proof I’ve already said too much. But I think I can guess what she said to you. Perhaps she welcomed you, promised you her assistance in Eburacum, told you that the Britons are the natural allies of our people, far more than the Romans. And when you agreed and she saw that you hated the Romans, perhaps she hinted that we might not always be enemies of the Britons, but could join with them against a common enemy. She’s told you, certainly, that I’ve gone over entirely to the Roman side, and you should not trust me.”
I’d struck the mark: his frown vanished in a look of consternation. “And you haven’t?”
It hurt unexpectedly that he had believed it so completely, and I answered him more directly and passionately than I might have done. “I’ll tell you whose side I’m on,” I said. “I’m on the side of the sixth dragon. I’m on the side of my own people. They followed me on raids against the Romans, they followed me to war. Now everything we gained in raiding is lost, like the war, and we’ve become dead men to our own people, but they must follow me still, across the ocean to an island of ghosts. All that we had is gone, but as long as they and I both live, they are bound to me and I to them. I will do my utmost for them. If that means Romanizing, I’ll Romanize, as far as I need to. I have as much reason as any man living to hate the Romans, but I can’t choose my alliances from hatred. The honor and safety of my people is in my hands, and I would rather keep them secure than be revenged on any enemy-particularly an enemy we have all sworn on fire to serve.”
“But if we could make an alliance against the Romans?” Siyavak asked-whispering now. “A successful one?”
“With whom?” I asked. “With someone who told a lie that sent your lord to his death and which would have left me disgraced, and my men, most likely, killed mutinying? And I’ll tell you more: the Picts we fought here not ten days ago hadn’t just heard that there would be a mutiny on the Wall to distract the garrisons, they’d heard it well in advance. They’d had time to settle blood feuds and forge alliances between tribes. Whoever sent that message acted deliberately and with forethought, and chose to tell Gatalas nothing except the lie that killed him. I don’t trust allies who take no risks themselves but are very free with other people’s blood. I trust them even less if they are, as I suspect, headed by a woman who smiles sweetly at her husband when she lies to him and slips from his bed to plot with his enemies. She says she is our natural ally-why should we believe she’s truer to us than she is to the legate? It seems to me far more likely that she’s playing ‘divide and rule.’ When we and the Romans have killed each other, she’ll collect the spoils for herself. Look at what she does, Siyavak, not at her smiles, and think if you trust her then.”
Siyavak thought, and gazed at me in distress. “I’ve always hated the Romans,” he said, “and everything that’s happened since we came to Britain has only made me hate them more. When the lady Aurelia Bodica talked to me and hinted at revenge, it gave me hope. But you’re right. You’re right. Very likely it was her who killed Gatalas, and her alliance would only kill us all. But I’m not used to bridling myself with reason. I never was a scepter-holder.”
“You’re the commander of a dragon now,” I replied. “You and Valerius Victor. You’ll have to learn.”
“Help me,” he said wretchedly. “You’re saying that to revenge my lord’s death, I must fight the enemies of my enemies? Not just on the battlefield, but in secret? How can I do it?”
“By all the gods! You mustn’t even think of revenge yet. We don’t know for certain that she sent the message, and if you were found plotting to murder the wife of a legate, we’d all be punished. No, all I have said is that the alliance we’ve been offered is no alliance, but a death trap. Our only choice is what it always was: keep our oaths or die. And how can we lead our people to death? Your prince commanded you to surrender to the Romans so that you’d live: do you want to throw his last gift away?”
“No,” said Siyavak, soberly. “No-but it is my duty to revenge him.” He rubbed a hand wearily along his face. “And you’re right. It’s my duty to see that the others of my dragon stay alive and reach the good fortune the gods promised us. Both duties make me an enemy of Lady Aurelia. But I don’t know how to go about discharging either.”
I’d won, made him a servant of Rome, and I felt only grief and weariness. I leaned against the wall. “I don’t know any more than you,” I said, “but I must warn you: she’s won Arshak over, completely as far as I can tell-though you probably know that yourself. And you can add one more thing to what we know of her: she’s dangerous. Arshak and I met her on the way back from Condercum. I can’t remember now what she said or what came of it, but I do know that I didn’t agree with her-and I ended up in the river.”