The pyre was going up fast. Already the framework was assembled, and both the platform and ramp put in place. Now the trimmed branches were being added, doused in oil and other flammables.
Ballista watched and thought of old age and debility, and death.
… Today and tomorrow
You will be in your prime; but soon you will die,
In battle or in bed; either fire or water,
The fearsome elements, will embrace you,
Or you will succumb to the sword’s flashing edge,
Or the arrow’s flight, or terrible old age;
Then your eyes, once bright, will be clouded over;
All too soon, O warrior, death will destroy you.
If the norns had spun him that long a life, what would his clouded eyes regard in old age? He thought fondly of the villa in Tauromenium. He saw himself sitting on a bench in the garden down by the gate, a fruit tree shading him from the Sicilian sun. Isangrim and Dernhelm were with him, full grown, tall and clean-limbed. Their golden hair shone in the shadows. The Bay of Naxos spread out below them. Perhaps their sons played at their feet.
No sooner was the idyll in his mind than it was replaced by another image. He saw himself seated on the great throne in his father’s high hall. The smoke from the fire drifted among the eaves. His warriors feasted and drank on the benches; their arms glittered with the rings he had given them. A bard sang of his grandfather Starkad, of all the war leaders of the Angles back to the Grey-eyed Allfather, Woden himself.
Yet it was hard to see his sons in the north they had never known. Impossible to imagine Julia, the daughter of a long line of Roman senators, being content as the wife of a northern chieftain. And, of course, he had older half-brothers. Morcar would die rather than see Ballista in their father’s place. If Ballista had not been taken as a hostage into the empire, they would have fought.
Ballista’s thoughts shied away to generalities of old age. The ancient Spartans had given the condition high accord. They had been guided in everything by the Gerousia, a council of ex-magistrates serving for life. The life of their polis had been dictated by a small group of elderly men, a strange, decrepit gerontocracy. The Romans also seemed to hold old age in high esteem. Many of them chose to have their portrait busts looking lined and wizened, showing them grown aged in hard service to the Res Publica. Some were given a senility in marble that they lacked in reality. But not all Romans wanted to appear old, and Sparta was not what it once had been. Perhaps neither the Greeks nor the Romans had ever lived up to their ideals of respecting old age. If they had, what need would there have been for countless philosophers to advocate the virtues of such veneration?
The pyre was almost finished. The Heruli were setting out rich brocades and cushions on the platform, carrying up food and drink, and weapons. Their slaves and the Sarmatians were busy spreading kindling. It would not be long now.
Among Ballista’s own people, advanced age got a man a voice in the assembly. Yet only if his younger deeds were remembered as worthy. Powerful kinsmen aided the esteem given to the elderly, but mainly if their kin were young warriors. Things were worse with other peoples. Apparently, among the Alani, those men who did not die in battle but reached old age were confined to the wagons. There they lived the lives of women or children; the objects of bitter reproaches, despised as degenerate and cowardly.
Ballista, however, had never encountered anything quite as terrible as the practice of the Heruli. Certainly, the gymnosophists of India did much the same. Calanus had mounted the pyre in Babylon under the eyes of Alexander. Zarmarus had done the same in Athens, watched by the emperor Augustus. But the Indian philosophers had acted as their own wisdom and conscience dictated. Their euthanasia had been voluntary, not enforced by social expectation. And no one had been assigned the awful task of assisting them.
It was time. Philemuth was brought out of his tent.
Ballista wondered if he would rather have remained inside, even if it meant being reviled.
Philemuth walked unsteadily to the foot of the ramp. Two other Heruli helped him up it.
Andonnoballus came over to Ballista. The northerner felt sick.
‘You know what to do,’ Andonnoballus said.
Ballista knew. It had been explained to him. It could not be done by a kinsman or a slave, and all the Heruli present were Rosomoni or servile. Andonnoballus had said it was an honour to be asked. When they reached his camp, Naulobates would think well of him for doing it. Ballista knew he had no real choice.
When the other Heruli had descended, Ballista walked to the ramp and climbed to the top of the pyre. He had killed many men, but none like this.
Philemuth lay, slightly propped up on the expensive cushions. His hands rested on the hilt of his sword on his chest. His whip and gorytus were close by him. His shield and other arms, jugs of drink and bowls of food were placed around. The Herul’s face was waxen, his eyes fixed on the sky.
Down below, the Heruli began to clash their swords on their shields. An insistent chant rose up. There was a smell of fresh-lit torches.
Philemuth said something.
Ballista could not hear. He leant down.
‘It takes courage,’ Philemuth said.
Ballista was unsure to which of them he referred.
Philemuth spoke again. ‘I will not trouble you — now or later. Tell Ochus and Pharas I will see them soon.’
Ballista nodded.
‘Make it quick and clean.’
Ballista drew the dagger from his hip. Do not think, just act. The often repeated mantra ran through his thoughts. He had killed many, far too many, men. One more made little difference. Do not think, just act.
Ballista knelt by Philemuth’s head. He passed his palm over the Herul’s head, hoping he would close his eyes. As gently as he could, he lifted Philemuth’s beard and chin. Do not think, just act.
Ballista cut the old man’s throat.
Philemuth’s hands grabbed for the blade. His body jerked up. The blood pumped, thick and very red.
After a time, Philemuth stopped moving. The flow of blood slowed. It seeped from the dark wound, down the tattooed neck and on to the sodden brocade.
Ballista disengaged the hands from his own. He stood up.
When he reached the bottom of the ramp, Ballista walked over to his familia. Calgacus put an arm around his shoulder.
Still chanting, the Rosomoni approached the pyre, torches in hand.
Despite his care, Ballista noticed there was blood on his clothes. The dagger was still in his hand.
The pyre was burning strongly. Great clouds of grey smoke from the green wood billowed high into the sky, visible for miles across the open Steppe.
The eunuch Amantius sat back and pulled his robe free where it was caught tight across the protuberance of his stomach. He shifted his soft haunches, and reread what he had written. It started conventionally and calmly enough.
Publius Egnatius Amantius to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Censorinus, Praetorian Prefect, Vir Ementissimus.
If you are well, Dominus, I can ask the gods for no more.
After three days in the third camp on the river Tanais the ox-wagons promised by Hisarna arrived.
Amantius scanned the bulk of the letter. It contained a brief description of the caravan provided by the Goths, and a lengthier discussion of early impressions of the Heruli, the latter far from good. With something of a flourish, it conveyed the more surprising information of the murderous family history between Ballista and the Heruli. As he neared the end, Amantius began to read more closely.
So while the Heruli have so far shown no overt hostility, two extremely disturbing developments must be brought to your attention. First, the collapse of disciplina which I mentioned in my first report has gone much further. Many members of the embassy pass much of their time in drunkenness caused by consuming vast quantities of the fermented mare’s milk of the nomads and in inebriation brought on by adopting the barbarians’ habit of inhaling cannabis. I regret to inform you the lead in this is taken by none other than the Legatus extra ordinem Scythica himself. With every day Marcus Clodius Ballista appears to be sloughing off his acquired layers of Romanitas and reverting to his barbaric nature. Early today he went so far as to kill a man in some ghastly nomad ritual of enforced euthanasia. The maiestas of Rome could be brought no lower.