Like me, and like Leimanos, she liked the dream and was cheered by it. Flavina, who remained with us the whole time I was there, to guard Pervica’s reputation, was also impressed by it, particularly Tirgatao’s instructions to Pervica to tease me. “But that’s exactly the sort of thing someone might really say!” she exclaimed. “Did she tease you?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Always. We first met when she beat me in a horse race, and she always said that I married her to get the horse.” I realized as I spoke that it was the first time since she died that I’d been able to think of Tirgatao without being tormented by the image of her burning, to remember her as she was, laughing and alive.
Flavina giggled. Pervica put her hand over her mouth. “What happened to the horse? Did you bring it with you?”
It was an unfortunate question. “Ask the Second Pannonian Cavalry,” I replied bitterly.
“The Sec… What do they have to do with it?”
“It was Tirgatao’s favorite horse, and she had it at our own wagon when she was killed. The Second Pannonians drove it off with the rest of the cattle.”
“Oh!” said Pervica, going white. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t even know… I thought she’d died naturally. You hadn’t said.”
I hadn’t said, to her, and stared a moment in amazement, realizing suddenly how little we knew of each other. I would have to tell her one day how Tirgatao had died. But there was enough death about without darkening the day with that now.
It was Flavina who broke the uncomfortable silence. “It’s hard to remember that you used to be…” she began, then stopped herself. “I was going to say, ‘on the other side of the Wall.’ But it was the other side of the Danube, wasn’t it? Gaius says your men are always boasting of what they did on raids. It just seems very odd to think of you doing that.”
“It seemed the natural thing at the time,” I replied.
“Why?” asked Pervica. She, too, must have realized how little we knew of each other, because she leaned forward a little on the couch, watching me intently. “I can’t imagine raiding seeming natural to you.”
“Things are different on the other side of that river,” I told her. “My reasons for raiding seemed good to me at the time. I needed goods, and there they were across the Danube. Everyone always praised the daring and skill of any commander bold enough to go and take them, and I needed a reputation in war even more than I needed goods.”
“Why did you need goods and a military reputation?” asked Pervica.
“Oh, that is complicated!”
“Go on!” She was smiling now. “Tell me!”
I hesitated, then yielded and spread my hands. “My father, Arifarnes, had an enemy called Rhusciporis, with whom we had a dispute over grazing rights in the summer pastures. The king, of course, does not like his scepter-holders to have disputes with one another, as it weakens the nation, but he does not like to offend any of them that are powerful. He would not adjudicate the matter, and it dragged on and on. Then one day Rhusciporis attacked my father when he was out inspecting the herds of a dependant, and they fought. Rhusciporis triumphed and took my father’s head for a trophy. My father had no brothers to inherit from him and no sons but me-and I was out of the country. With no one to hold the scepter, my family had to agree to accept a blood price for my father’s life, and made a compact of peace with his murderer. They could not even demand the head back: Rhusciporis kept it, and made the skull into a drinking cup, which is a custom of ours with enemies who matter to us. When my mother and sisters had sworn the peace, Rhusciporis took the matter of the grazing rights back to the king, and the king decided in his favor-I was still out of the country, and anyway, I was barely eighteen at the time, so he had no concern about offending me.”
“Where were you?” asked Pervica.
“I was beyond the Caspian Sea when my family’s messenger found me and called me back. I’d been planning to ride with my companions as far as the Jade Gate of the Silk Country.”
“Why?” she asked, dizzy with the distance. “Why so far?”
I laughed. “This story grows longer with every question. For glory! I was mad for glory when I was young. I wanted to fight a griffin in the mountains of the North and steal its gold; I wanted to ride the horses of the sun, and rescue a princess from a tower of iron. I wanted to do anything great, daring, and splendid. I was impatient with the world, and wanted more than it offered me. And at any rate, I wanted to see more of the world than my own country. We had traveled slowly, taking time to see everything, and my family’s messenger caught up with us without difficulty, but still, it took months to come home.”
“I’ve never been further from Corstopitum than once to Eburacum,” Pervica said, in a low voice.
“It is easier for my people to travel than it is for yours,” I said. “When we set out for the Jade Gate, we brought our wagons, and flocks to support ourselves, and asked grazing rights from the people we journeyed among. It was not very different than moving from spring to summer grazing grounds. And we were among Sarmatian tribes as far as the Caspian Sea, and after that among the Massagetae and Dahae, who understand our language.”
She nodded, then suddenly gave me a radiant smile. “You’ll have to tell me. I want to hear everything about it. The Jade Gate of the Silk Country! It sounds like a song.”
“I never reached it,” I said-and remembered the morning when I turned back, how I stood in the dry scrubland beyond the Caspian and strained my eyes to catch the shadow of the distant mountains of the East, and saw only the sun rising bloodred over an endless plain. I had dreamed of those mountains, and I’d known then that I would never see them. I wept as much for that as for my father’s death-though I’d loved him.
I bowed my head at the memory and went on. “When I returned and received the scepter, I found that the fortunes of my family were staggering. We had lost dependants along with the grazing rights, and many of our people were trickling away to other lords, thinking that the luck of our inheritance had failed. It was clear to me that I needed to obtain honor and a reputation as a leader in war, and that I needed wealth in goods and in flocks, both to encourage the waverers to return to us and to reward those who were still loyal. I could obtain everything I needed if I crossed the Danube. Everyone relied upon me to go. So I did. I wanted glory, anyway.” I was silent, thinking of where I, and other daring raiders like me, had brought us all.
“What happened to Rhusciporis?” asked Flavina, after a minute.
“When I was successful, I got the grazing rights back, or most of them. I made presents to the king from the spoils of my raids, and asked him to adjudicate again, and he decided in my favor, and made Rhusciporis return my father’s skull as well. I taunted Rhusciporis with my successes, and my followers swaggered before his just as they now swagger before the Asturians. But we never fought. We had sworn peace. He died in the war.”
I hesitated. I knew that Pervica was deeply unhappy about the planned duel with Arshak, and I wanted to explain to her why it was necessary. A Sarmatian woman might have been eager for me to revenge the insult to her dignity, but even if she hadn’t been, she would never have questioned the need to do it. But to Pervica the whole duel was unnecessary and senseless, and it hurt me to think how she would feel if I died in it. “You see,” I went on, slowly, “honor is everything to us. It was the fact that we had glory, not the gifts, that made the king decide for us. Here if a man is appointed to command a troop of cavalry because he bribed the legate, and if he is corrupt and cowardly, still he will be obeyed, because the soldiers respect their discipline. You have an altar to discipline in the chapel of the standards and you worship it as though it were a god. But our people know nothing of that. They expect their commander to bring them honor. If he is weak, they will still try to take pride in him, because their honor is bound to his and they wish to be proud-but if he brings them disgrace, they will begin to desert him, though they will grieve very bitterly over it and reproach themselves as disloyal and reproach him for making them so. Our honor is dearer to us than our blood, and to lose it kills us.”