Pervica had one very surprising piece of news from her druid acquaintance. It seemed that the druids of the North had held their convocation and that, with Cunedda dead and the rest of the extreme sect in fear, the whole meeting had swung over to her friend Matugenus. Instead of being branded a heretic lover of Rome, he was a hero of the true religion. The meeting had denounced “those who betray their own people to foreign plunderers out of hatred of their enemies,” and voted that human sacrifice of an unwilling victim was blasphemous. The followers of the old religion all over the North were delighted with Matugenus, and Matugenus was enormously pleased with himself. Through Pervica he sent me a message saying that he would pray for my swift recovery, and offering me the friendship of his order.
That was immediately after the rebellion was crushed. A few days later we heard that the grain commissary, less careful than Facilis, was arresting any druids they could find and torturing them until they confessed to having some part in the conspiracy. Unlike Facilis, the commissary struck blindly. They had no list of druids, only the reports of their own informers. They didn’t take many men, but they did grab everyone whose name was reported to them. Matugenus’ name was on everyone’s lips-and he was among those taken.
Pervica went to Facilis and told him that Matugenus was innocent, that he’d led the opposition to Cunedda. Facilis told me that he knew that from others and had said as much to the intelligence officers, but that the only interest they took in it was to ask him who his informants were: for him to intervene again would be no help to Matugenus, and could put more lives at risk. There was nothing we could do.
The governor of Britain, Quintus Antistius Adventus, arrived in Eburacum to decide what to do about the mess of the northern army on the eighth of February. The summons for me to go there had come some time before, on the third. I was carried down in a horse litter, much to my disgust. I told everyone that I had ridden seven hundred miles from Aquincum with my leg in a splint, so I could perfectly well ride a mere seventy-five or eighty to Eburacum, but everyone disregarded me completely. The doctor in Corstopitum said I must not put any strain on the bone, that my riding with it in a splint had done it considerable damage before, and that the only good thing about it breaking again was that now it could at least set straight. Even my bodyguard sided with the doctor, and Facilis gleefully pointed out that I was under arrest and had no choice about which way I traveled. So I went to Eburacum lying on my back in a litter, like a Roman senator’s wife.
Facilis rode along beside me, with Longus, a squadron of Asturians, and a cavalry cohort from the First Thracians under Titus Ulpius Silvanus. Eukairios and Pervica came as well, Pervica driving her farm cart and Eukairios riding my red bay, but all of my own men were left at home. Facilis promised them that the arrest was only a formality, but said that even so, a man charged with murder really could not go to trial with a bodyguard and several squadrons of armored horsemen at his back. They protested angrily at this. I had to have all the captains summoned to the hospital, so that I could command them to obey their oaths. The Romans promised them that no one was likely to execute me, reminding them that the arrest was just a formality. Eventually they yielded, though sullenly. I charged Leimanos and Banadaspos with making sure they behaved with grace during my absence. Comittus also stayed behind, partly because the fort required at least one senior officer, but also, I think, because he didn’t want his own connections inspected at Eburacum.
When I arrived in Eburacum, I was put in the fort hospital-again to keep me out of the prison-while my friends found lodgings in the town or squeezed into fort buildings already crowded with the governor’s staff. The next morning a party of soldiers in old-fashioned strip armor and cap helmets marched into my room carrying a sedan chair and asked if I were Ariantes, commander of the Sixth Numerus of Sarmatian Horse. I agreed that I was.
“Then we’ll take you to see the governor,” said their spokesman. “We’re with the Second Numerus of the Consular Guard. He’s sitting in judgment now, and your case is next.”
I looked down and rubbed my knee, trying to collect myself. I felt very nervous and unsure of myself, now that it had come to the point. I did not believe that the authorities particularly wanted to punish me for killing Arshak, now that he had been exposed as an oath-breaker. On the other hand, duels between commanders were not something that the Roman state would want to encourage. They might punish me with demotion to make an example of me to the next eight dragons. They could even conceivably execute me. I was glad that my bodyguard had been left behind in Cilurnum, but I wished I had a friend with me now.
“Do you want to change?” suggested the leading consular guardsman, misunderstanding my hesitation. “If you have Roman dress, we’ll give you time to put it on.”
I had my own clothes, and my friends had seen to it that they were clean. I put on my best shirt to see the governor, and pinned my coat loose across my shoulders. I had a new hat-black, with gold embroidery-but for weapons I had not so much as a dagger, and I felt exposed and ashamed. It was worse when the guardsmen brought up the sedan chair for me. “I will walk,” I told them.
“We were told you couldn’t,” said their spokesman. “Just sit down in it, sir. I don’t want to get in trouble with the doctors. The governor must have finished the last case by now, and they’ll all be waiting for you.”
I sat down in the sedan chair. I felt utterly ridiculous.
The governor was seated at the tribunal in the great hall of the headquarters of the Sixth Legion. The courtyard outside was full of his personal guard, and the hall itself was so full-with his staff, with officers of the legion, with prefects of all the auxiliary forces of the North-that it was hard to see any known face among all the faces. I noticed Julius Priscus, though, standing behind the tribunal. He looked shrunken and aged since our last meeting, and he stood with his shoulders slumped. His eyes met mine as I was carried in, and his mouth twisted. He looked away. Everyone else in the room seemed to be staring at me.
The guardsmen who were carrying the sedan chair set it down, and I stood up, balancing on my good leg. The governor sat with his hands on his knees, looking down at me. He was a middle-aged Numidian, grizzled brown and dark-eyed, and in honor of the military occasion he was wearing gilded armor under his gold-fringed crimson cloak. The emperor’s statue watched with a preoccupied frown from the chapel of the standards at the side of the hall.
I saluted the governor. “Greetings, my lord Antistius Adventus!” I said. “Greetings to you all.”
The governor clear his throat. “You are Ariantes, son of Arifarnes, commander of the Sixth Numerus of Sarmatian Horse?”
I bowed my head in agreement.
“You have been accused of murdering the commander of the Second Numerus, Arsacus son of Sauromates.”
“I killed him, my lord, in fair combat,” I corrected him.
One of the governor’s staff coughed. “Were you aware that he was plotting a mutiny?”
“I was.”
“Was the fight perhaps connected in some way with that mutiny?” the same staff member prompted.
“We had chosen different sides, sir,” I said carefully. “He wished to fight, and took steps to provoke me.”