‘Only a fool expects loyalty from a slave,’ Hordeonius said.
Maximus looked away as the centurion settled into another lengthy diatribe against the servile; tactless at the least, given the life story of several in earshot. Some movement beyond the southern bank caught Maximus’s eye. It was gone before he could take it in.
‘The only argument against branding all of them is that the bastards would realize their numbers. Even cowards draw audacity from numbers.’
There it was again — something moving on a low hill among the trees. More than one thing, keeping among the shadows well back from the riverbank.
‘The old Spartans had the right idea with their helots — let the young go out and hunt some of them down; kill a few, and keep the rest in perpetual fear.’
A break in the cover, and Maximus saw them clearly for a moment. Three riders, clad in furs and pointed hats, trotting their nomad ponies.
‘Yes, I have seen them,’ Ballista said softly. ‘Alani?’
‘Alani — three of them, shadowing us.’ Maximus’s eyesight was sharp.
‘The gudja has seen them too,’ Ballista said.
The Goth was looking out over the black water.
‘He does not appear too concerned,’ returned Maximus.
‘No, not at all.’
On the benches behind them, Castricius was arguing with Hordeonius. ‘Slavery changes nothing, Centurion. A fool with any education knows there is a spark of the divine logos in all of us. Now, me, when I was in the mines, my good daemon did not desert me.’
Maximus leant close to Ballista, spoke in his ear. ‘Now let me get this right. We are on our way to deal with the chief of the bloodthirsty Heruli. To get to him, we have to travel for days past the grazing lands of the almost equally bloodthirsty Alani, whose king’s invasion of Suania we defeated last year at the Caspian Gates.’
‘Safrax,’ Ballista said. ‘The name of the King of the Alani is Safrax.’
‘Fine,’ Maximus said. ‘Now, I am thinking, your man Safrax, when not bothering his herds, will be sitting in his tent brooding on the horrible revenge he will be taking, should his gods be kind enough to put us in his hands.’
‘Most likely.’ Ballista nodded.
‘And in the tent with him will be that nasty little shit Saurmag, dripping poison in his ear. For, by the look of him, the Suanian princeling is unlikely to have forgiven us for removing him from the throne of his native land.’
‘The Suanian royal house do not appear much given to forgiveness,’ Ballista said.
‘And just beyond the Alani, up in the mountains of Suania, will be Pythonissa, the priestess of Hecate you fucked and left, and who cursed you and all you care for in no uncertain terms.’
‘Delicately put.’
‘And then we have just run into Videric and his Borani, who are very hot for their bloodfeud against you. And now are who knows where.’
Ballista put an arm around Maximus. ‘Never fear, little one, I will keep you safe from the nasty men.’
‘Grand.’
‘Anyway, think how the fates favour us. The other Gothic tribe who hold bloodfeud against us are nowhere near — the Tervingi live hundreds of miles away to the west.’
‘Excellent,’ Maximus said. ‘I feel wonderfully reassured. Looked at in that light, what on earth or below could possibly harm us?’
Publius Egnatius Amantius to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Censorinus, Praetorian Prefect, Vir Ementissimus.
If you are well, Dominus, it makes my heart rejoice.
Your agent found me as we were leaving Panticapaeum. Thank the gods, he was discreet. Indeed so discreet that at first I took him for a most importuning sutler. He gave me your new instructions, and departed with the confidential reports I compiled for you last year in Albania and Suania. I had the temerity to include an unasked-for account of conditions as I found them in the Kingdom of the Bosporus over the winter. As argued there, I believe Rhescuporis V could be returned to complete obedience to Gallienus Augustus for but a modest stipend. After all, it was nothing but money that attached that impecunious monarch to the pretenders Macrianus and Quietus — may their names be forgotten. Yet I must stress again both the powerlessness of Rhescuporis externally and the suspicion of intrigue within his own house.
As it was last year in the Caucasus, I have no way of despatching these reports to you from the field, so will keep them safe until our return. I must confess that when I received your new instructions I prayed to all the traditional gods that you were ordering me home. Although I was born in the wilds of Abasgia, I have lived in Rome since my early childhood. I know no life except that of service at the sacred court of the Augusti. Consider too that I am a eunuch, and our condition renders us less robust than other men. It is my earnest request that on our return from the sea of grass, I be summoned by your magnanimity back to the safety of the Palatine to bask in the glory of our Augustus Gallienus.
Amantius put the stylus aside. He smoothed out his voluminous white robe and stretched out his feet in their soft slippers. Was the request too blatant? Did it come too soon in the letter? Should he sweeten it with an allusion to Homer? Censorinus often quoted Homer — but as often got the poetry wrong. Censorinus was a suspicious man, and if he thought he detected mockery the consequences would be too horrible. Amantius left it as it was, took up the stylus and wrote at some length his impressions of the embassy’s meetings with the two tribes of Maeotae and with Hisarna of the Urugundi.
Amantius could not stop himself ending the missive with complaints:
The Legatus extra ordinem Scythica does not keep the discipline looked for among an embassy of Rome. When we left Panticapaeum it was discovered that one of Marcus Clodius Ballista’s personal slaves had run. At Tanais, my own slave ran, taking with him a most valuable brooch. The Legatus turned down — and in public, in the hearing of all — my just and reasonable request that a search be made for the runaway. Furthermore, when the haruspex found the entrails were not propitious, the legatus had them thrown in the river, and instructed the Gothic priest sent by Hisarna to embark upon some dreadful barbaric ritual.
In camp, the second night on the Tanais river, fourteen days before the kalends of June.
V
Mastabates watched some of the Urugundi warriors constructing a tent. They had cut six saplings and were trimming and stripping them. The gudja was overseeing the work. For once, that hideous crone was not with him. Other Goths were feeding an already blazing fire. The smells of fresh-trampled earth and woodsmoke were strong; still exotic, faintly unsettling in the sheltered nostrils of the palace eunuch. A life in the scented corridors and colonnades of the palace was not easily abandoned.
It was the third camp they had made on the banks of the Tanais; the first one on the southern bank. It was not easy to judge how far they had travelled in those three days. The longboats were sleek, and Hisarna’s Goths skilled oarsmen. But they had rowed with little urgency, and the river meandered extravagantly, its slow but implacable waters ever against them.
There had been a great sameness to their voyaging. The twists in the river conspired with the dense reed beds and the sparser trees to hem in lateral vision. Now and then, smaller branches joined or left the channel, opening glimpses of overhung, still backwaters, hazy with insects. Skeins of geese flew across the sedge. Once, a herd of wild horses had appeared on the floodplain, their chestnut coats so blazing in the evening sunlight as to become indistinct. Several times they passed blackened, abandoned settlements. Vegetation had almost completely overwhelmed those on the southern bank.
The Goths had planted the ends of the poles in the ground, angled them in and tied them together at the top. On this edifice they set about draping felted blankets. The gudja evidently was urging them to take care to overlap the woollens, tie them tight. Nearby, fresh wood on the fire cracked and sputtered.