It was an informal consilium that advised Ballista on the banks of the Alontas: Maximus, Calgacus, Hippothous and Mastabates. The four slaves, Agathon and Polybius along with Mastabates’ Pallas and Hippothous’s Narcissus, had been left across the river in Cumania to keep an eye on their possessions. It left just young Wulfstan in attendance. He had been joined by the Suanian who had been fished out of the water. His name was Tarchon. Despite all the blood, he had not been badly hurt. Now he would not let them out of his sight. Through the translation of Mastabates, Tarchon had repeatedly thanked them for saving his life. As far as could be understood, the incident had apparently made them his blood brothers in some obscure but fierce Suanian way. Now his honour seemed to demand that he die for them. Tarchon looked forward to it with pleasure.
The consilium was over. Nothing for it but to carry on: rebuild the scaffolding, keep more on their guard. They dispersed. Watching the labourers get back to work, Ballista let Calgacus and Wulfstan change the bandages on his shoulder. The ragged wood had torn the flesh nastily. Having the splinters out had been excruciating. It still hurt a great deal. He had a black eye and a range of other bruises from his tumble in the river.
‘Pythonissa,’ Tarchon said, then some things which probably meant a lot in his own language but merely sounded vaguely positive to the others.
The riders were rounding the next bend in the gorge, coming up from the north, moving at a gentle canter. The girl was in front. She was riding a chestnut with a nice action. Her blond hair was uncovered. Otherwise, it would not have been easy to distinguish her at a distance. She wore a baggy tunic, rode like a man.
One of the baggage animals had a deadweight lashed across its back; two others had something heavy slung between them. Ballista quickly counted heads: twenty-three, what he thought they had started out with.
Pythonissa reined in. ‘ Kyria.’ Ballista greeted her in Greek. He bowed, blew a kiss from his fingertips. The things on the pack-horses were game. He felt relieved.
‘ Kyrios.’ She performed proskynesis from the saddle. In another it might have been offhand, in her it had an elegance. She looked around at the debris. ‘Accident or design?’ She appeared to have the laconic style of her brother Azo.
‘Sabotage.’
She nodded, as if it were to be expected. ‘Artemis smiled on us, we have a boar, a deer and several brace of partridge and snipe. If you have bread and wine, we can have a feast.’
The cooking was a drawn-out and rather fraught business. The language barrier separating Ballista’s Agathon and the various self-styled experts in field cooking in the train of Pythonissa simmered all afternoon, often threatening culinary disaster, if not physical violence. The linguistic and diplomatic skills of Mastabates were pushed to their owner’s exasperation. Yet when the sun went down, all was ready.
The majority were to eat where the food had been cooked, in front of their tents and shelters along the track, not far from the animal lines. Only the select were to dine in the little fort of Cumania: Ballista and the four citizens in his familia, Pythonissa and four of her leading warriors.
It was dim and fuggy in the circular second-floor room. The shutters were pulled back from the arrow slits, but little of the smoke from the torches escaped. Ballista remembered someone once remarking to him that civilization ended where candles and torches replaced lamps. Couches and low tables had been found or improvised. Ballista shared a couch with Pythonissa. Wulfstan and one of her eunuchs stood at the foot to serve them.
The first course was a soup made from dried peas heavily flavoured with cumin. It was a local favourite; the embassy had eaten it several times since reaching Colchis. Usually, Ballista enjoyed it. This evening he was distracted, trying to think of things to talk about with this strange girl. What came into his mind was crashingly inappropriate. Are you involved in many bloodfeuds? Have you poisoned many people? He pulled the bread into little pieces. Pythonissa herself was quiet, seemingly preoccupied. Left to the two of them, conversation soon would have ground to a halt.
Fortunately, the others made a better show. The four Suani spoke Greek. Maximus was his customary ebullient self. His hands waved and chopped as he elaborated ever more implausible stories. He had to gulp his drink whenever his flow of words allowed him a chance. Mastabates also did well. Paradoxically, he was so urbane he did not seem out of place in this rough fort in a wilderness of mountains. Little in these circumstances was to be expected from Calgacus, but he was polite enough when called upon to make an answer. Hippothous, however, was a disappointment. He spoke seldom; instead, he sat intently staring at one of the Suani. Allfather, Ballista thought, it better be physiognomy – if the Greek tries to fuck him there will be bloodshed.
The main course arrived. There was plate after plate of roast meat: venison and boar, partridge and snipe. Not boiling the game birds had been the essence of Suanian objections to Agathon’s cooking. There were few vegetables – just some cabbage and garlic – but more flat bread, and more, much more, goatskin-flavoured wine.
Ballista rallied a little. Pythonissa had asked him about the battle at Soli where he had defeated the Sassanid king. Ballista explained the overall strategy and the specific tactics in some detail. She gave every sign of being interested. Although warmed by the wine, he knew he was being humoured and led. But, far from minding, he felt grateful.
A burst of laughter from the Suani followed Maximus telling the inevitable joke about the young tribune at a remote fort and the camel. Things were going well. They were enjoying themselves. Even Ballista was beginning to relax. Then she asked him, with what might have been an arch look, about his capture of the Sassanid royal harem – was it very opulent, very decadent? She put a certain emphasis on the last. His words dried up.
Ballista preferred not to think about the things he had done in the purple shadows of that silken pavilion. Tipping wine on the altar to extinguish the sacred flame. The two servants – eunuchs – killed on a whim. His treatment of Shapur’s favourite concubine Roxanne. Afterwards, slumped half naked on the throne of the house of Sasan, drinking, the girl crying. Even Maximus, when he came in, looking aghast. Of course, Ballista had thought his wife and boys dead; he had not been in his right mind. But the memory was painful – his complete loss of self-control, his descent to what any Greek or Roman would see as his true bestial barbarian nature.
Seeing something was wrong, Pythonissa took up the conversational running. She talked to him confidingly about the ghastliness of her ex-father-in-law Hamazasp; his ignorance, alarming table manners, and extraordinary taste in women and not just boys but men. The latter was a subject Ballista did not want to dwell on, but he appreciated her flow of talk.
After some pears poached in wine – with an unusual aftertaste of goat – the serious food was over. Just some walnuts, cheese, honey, dried apples, roasted broad beans and yet more bread were put out to soak up the serious drinking.
The talk flowed around and over Ballista. He knew what was troubling him. It was her proximity. The way she spoke and smiled and moved; everything made him intensely aware of her physical proximity.
Eventually, Ballista was relieved to call an end to things. He stood, slightly unsteadily, wished them goodnight. The guests left. Ballista went to the top floor, which he had taken as his quarters. Wulfstan helped him out of his best tunic, put out a bowl of water, and left. Ballista was washing when Calgacus stuck his head around the door.