The afternoon breeze from the Black Sea had brought its customary showers and vapours up to Suania. They had softened the outlines but somehow magnified the bulk of the Croucasis mountains above. It was warm enough, but all those waiting were damp through and through.
The procession came into sight around a turn in the track. The ox was pulling its sledge stolidly up the hill. It was led by the old priestess, her women attending her. More women walked behind. There was music. The only man in the procession rode the sledge. He wore a garland of spring flowers on his head; more were twined around his limbs. He looked serene – they often did, at this stage.
The young woman looked away from the approaching procession and at the trees bordering the track: mainly beech, but also birch, maple, alder and pine. Until her all too brief time away, she had never really noticed the thick woods of her childhood in Suania. Since she had been back, more than six years of disappointment and frustration, the endless trees oppressed her.
The procession passed, heading out to the centre of the broad upland meadow where the crowd waited. These rites of Selene were a recent innovation. The man was a temple slave of the goddess. He had vanished. A year ago to the day, he had been found in the high forests, wandering, frenzied, uttering prophesies. The old priestess and her helpers had taken him in their charge, binding him in the sacred fetters lest he hurt himself. Throughout the year they had tended him, bringing him the choicest delicacies, bathing him, putting out for his rest the softest mattress and coverings, taking care of all his animal needs.
The young woman’s mother had imported the rites from her native Albania, changing them as she did so, appointing the aged priestess. Her mother had been strong. If only she were still alive. Then things would have been different these last six years and more – very different – and the young woman knew she would not have been forced to such desperate measures.
In the middle of the meadow, Polemo, king of Suania, sat on a high throne. He was resplendent in white: cloak and turban, both shot through with golden thread, studded with jewels. There was a large crowd below him, the majority of the three hundred councillors of the synedrion, many leading warriors. The young woman saw her three surviving brothers, standing tall and straight. The youngest turned and smiled. The scar on his cheek added to his presence. There was a man – one who did what his heart told him; no remorse, no compunction. If he had not been her brother… if they had belonged to another dynasty, the Ptolemies, say, of ancient Egypt… he could have been the true partner of her greatness.
The young woman was mounted. Half a dozen of her own armed retainers on horseback around her, she sat apart. She was a priestess herself, but of a different, darker goddess. There was no place in this ritual for any women, except those who served the moon goddess Selene. Certainly no place for one dedicated to the bitch goddess, triple-faced Hecate.
The ox was taken from its traces. The crowd shifted to encircle the participants. Sat on her horse, the young woman had a good view of all, could easily see over the heads of the men. The old priestess raised her hands to the heavens, invoked Selene, daughter of the Titans, chariot driver, lover of Endymion. Two men stepped forward. Quick as a swallow, one stunned the ox with a blow from the back of an axe. The other slashed the razor-sharp edge of the sacred lance deep down one side of the beast’s neck. The ox threw its head up. Blood pumped on to the grass. The men jumped back. In its agony, the ox paddled around in a tight, stamping circle. Its windpipe severed, it blew pink, frothy arterial blood from its nostrils and mouth. The beast collapsed. The attendants moved in again. They finished it off, rolled it on to its side, slit its belly and – plunging their arms in – drew out the ropes of intestines for divination. The aged priestess bent over the steaming coils. She considered them quietly. Then she announced all was propitious.
The next sacrifice still stood calmly. At this point, some of them began to fear, even to try and break free. Usually, however, the drugs kept them docile, as the goddess wished. The young woman knew all about drugs, every root and potion in Suania and beyond.
Gently, the young slave was led to the middle. His garland of flowers had slipped a little, but he was not struggling. He looked at the body of the ox, at the blood soaking into the lush green turf, with what appeared to be mild curiosity. The crowd was hushed, expectant. Unlike the young woman, they did not notice the two horsemen ride out of the trees.
The crone again raised her hands to the heavens, and began to call on the moon goddess in all her many names and sonorous titles.
The young woman watched one of the horsemen pass his reins to his companion and dismount. Despite the warmth of the spring afternoon, he was wearing a voluminous fur cloak. He walked, with a strange lack of urgency, to behind where her three brothers stood.
The old priestess finished. A man stood forward. The point of the sacred lance was still crimson. Now the victim seemed to become aware of his position. He raised his hands in a confused, placating gesture. It had no effect. The spear point took him in the stomach. He doubled up around it. His hands clawed at the shaft. He fell, screaming. The crowd leant forward, engrossed. In every dying twitch and gasp the will of the goddess was being revealed.
The late arrival stood for a moment behind the three brothers. Only the young woman paid him any attention. He pushed back his cloak. The naked steel was in his hand. He steadied himself. Three short, quick steps. He rammed the wicked sword into the unprotected back. Another voice screaming in agony.
The stabbed man fell to his knees. The tip of the blade protruded from his stomach. The murderer, hands empty, stepped back. Distracted by the writhing agony of another, those around were slow to understand. Only the youngest brother reacted. He spun around, drawing his sword. The killer took a step back, as if surprised. The youngest brother brought his blade up. The killer turned and started to run. He made just three or four steps before retribution found him. A wild, swinging blow. It caught him on the side of the head, half severing his jaw. Blood and teeth sprayed. He went down. The youngest brother was on him, blade chopping.
‘There!’ The young woman pointed. ‘The accomplice, do not let him escape. Kill him!’
Her retinue of armed men booted their horses. The accomplice sawed his reins, dragged his horse’s head around. All too late. The others were all about him. He toppled to the ground in a red mist, already hacked beyond salvation.
The young woman looked over at her youngest brother. He was standing over the assassin. Sword dripping, covered in gore; he was panting. No longer the least of four boys sat at a teacher’s feet, she thought. Now her youngest brother was a man. He had come a long way in the last two years – they both had. Sealed and countersealed in blood, she said to herself. The oracle drifted back into her mind. The ox is wreathed; the end is near, the sacrificer to hand.
PART TWO
The Kindly Sea
(Ephesus to Phasis, Spring-Summer AD262)
To Phasis, where for ships is the furthermost run.
XIV
The problem of leave-taking, for a man with an imagination like Ballista’s, was that each instance might turn out to be final. Standing on the quayside at Ephesus, he was waiting to say farewell. Offhand, he could not number the times he had endured such scenes. Rome, less than two years after he had married Julia, ordered north to summon Valerian, the journey that had ended at the battle of Spoletium and with a new dynasty on the throne. Rome again, Isangrim just three, when Ballista was sent east to defend Arete. One after another, the recollections jostled. The gaol in Emesa, when, leaving Julia terrified, Isangrim and Dernhelm crying, he had been hauled off to the malignant Quietus in the temple of Elagabalus. The memories went back to childhood; back beyond the awful day the imperium had reached out, in the form of the garlic-reeking centurion, and taken him from his native people, from the hall of his father and the embrace of his mother.