So this world dwindles day by day,
And passes away; for a man will not be wise
Before he has weathered his share of winters
In the world.
Still, Aluith, with some help from the other Herul Ochus, had finally taught Wulfstan to master the nomad release. The Angle was nearly as proficient as Datius and Aordus, the two ex-slaves now become Heruli who still rode with the caravan. How Wulfstan had envied them and the other two slaves; the ones gone north as messengers. Straight after the ambush, the three remaining Rosomoni had presented them with the shields which marked their freedom: just reward for their courage. As free Heruli warriors, the four inscribed tamgas of their own choosing on the small, round bucklers. What a contrast from Narcissus, promised his freedom by Hippothous but murdered before he was awarded it. Would it have been granted had he lived? And what a contrast from himself, riding in the charge which turned the day yet promised nothing, and given nothing.
Wulfstan himself would have given much — even an eye, as the Allfather had — to be Datius or Aordus. If Ballista eventually manumitted him, in the imperium he would remain reviled as a freedman. His subjection, the unthinkable things done to him, would be commented on and sniggered about. It would forever be a stain that could not be washed away. No Greek or Roman ex-slave could become a magistrate or serve in the legions. None of them could become a free warrior proudly bearing his own tamga on his horse and arms, like Datius or Aordus.
The smug self-satisfaction of the inhabitants of the imperium infuriated Wulfstan. The way they liked to equate the whole inhabited world with the part they tyrannized. The way they divided the world into their humanitas and all other peoples’ barbaritas. The way they understood all other peoples through writings hundreds of years old about totally different peoples who happened to inhabit vaguely the same part of the world. This lazy, retarded thinking would betray them one day. Wulfstan snorted. For all their literary ethnographic posturing, men like Hippothous and Castricius, or the dead eunuch Mastabates, would never understand the Heruli. Wulfstan doubted they would ever hear the names of Datius and Aordus, let alone understand what motivated them.
Aluith had said Wulfstan would make a good Herul warrior. Should he approach Calgacus? Ask the old Caledonian to intercede with Ballista for his freedom? If he were manumitted now, out here on the Steppe, he could ask Andonnoballus for permission to join the horde of Naulobates. He would happily submit to re-enslavement, if that was what it took. He would rather be a slave of the Heruli than of the Romans. Among the former, valour could win true freedom and a future untainted by the past. Among them, he could rise to the right hand of a king.
Such a course, however, entailed letting go his revenge. It meant men like Potamis, the trader at the rapids of the Borysthenes, and the others like him would go unpunished. And that could not be. Revenge was an honourable motive; none more so. Wulfstan would have his revenge. Afterwards, he might think of joining the Heruli.
Y ip-yip-yip. Wulfstan now recognized the different tones of the Heruli calls. This one was the alarm.
Yip-yip-yip. It was coming from the rear of the twin column. From his place in the lead wagon of the right-hand line, Wulfstan could not see anything. He leant way out to the side, hanging by one hand, the grass racing beneath him. Still, the following wagons and the dust obscured his view.
Pharas the Rosomoni cantered up. He gave concise orders to the driver in Sarmatian. The whip flicked out above the oxen. They broke into a shambling flat-out run, their great dewlaps swinging. Pharas spurred ahead, towards where Andonnoballus rode at point.
‘What is it?’ Calgacus’s misshapen old head appeared through the hangings.
‘Alarm from the rear.’
The Caledonian treated him to a withering look.
Wulfstan turned to the driver. He had to yell to make himself heard. ‘What trouble?’ Wulfstan dredged out the words in Sarmatian.
The driver was standing now, the better to ply his bullwhip. He jerked his head backwards. ‘Much dust… many riders… Alani.’
Riding well out to the front, Maximus was worrying about women and about the feelings of the Heruli towards him. Wearing his mailcoat — everyone was wearing their battle gear now — he was sweating heavily in the hot sun.
Maximus had not had a woman since the night before they left the town of Tanais. Three days up the river, three days waiting for the ox-carts and horses, and this was the twenty-first day out on the Steppe. Twenty-seven days without ploughing a field. That was nearly a month. He should have been ready to jump on anything; one of those female daemons with the nice tits — to Hades with the snake lower half, he could avoid going downstairs and concentrate on stopping her talking — or maybe even that hideous old Gothic witch. But, worryingly, he was not that desperate. He was almost used to the abstinence. Was this how the decline into impotence started? You just got used to not having it. He remembered Ballista and Demetrius talking about some old Greek writer who, when he could not get it up any more, described it as like being freed from a cruel tyrant. Maximus did not want that sort of freedom.
There were some yip-yip-yip sounds a long way to the rear.
Maximus was concerned if things would improve when they reached the camp of Naulobates. He had discovered that not all nomad tribes had the same attitudes to sex; far from it, indeed. One of them — he forgot which — would kill you if you fucked their women. But their wives might give you a view of the cave. Their explanation was that it was better other men could see it but it was unattainable than it was covered but easily reached. The men of another tribe — some eastern subjects of the Heruli — did not mind you sleeping with their wives, if they did not actually witness it. The Alani turned out to have many wives, but would disembowel you if you so much as looked at them. Now, the Heruli, or at least the Rosomoni among them — and they were quite open about this — had adopted the custom of one of the tribes they had subdued. Like the Agathyrsi, they now shared their women in common. They said it abolished jealousy; made them a true band of brothers.
The yip-yip-yipping had not stopped.
With true Steppe hospitality, the Rosomoni had no objection to honoured guests enjoying their women. Ochus, laughing and looking hard at Maximus, had said everything was good, provided the women did not find you too ugly. Which Maximus considered rich coming from a man with a head the shape of an upturned amphora. Anyway, he had already discovered from Andonnoballus that visitors were usually offered slave girls, whose opinions on male beauty were of no concern to anyone.
It was not female rejection that was troubling Maximus. If you propositioned almost every woman you met — and he had made it his life rule to do almost exactly that — you got used to a high rate of refusal. Although, of course, it only needed a low percentage to agree to get you a grind or two a day. No, what was bothering Maximus was practice. If you had not spoken a language for a long time, it was difficult to just pick it up again. Maximus could not remember going this long without sex. Would that prove as difficult as, say, speaking Greek after several months of not?
The yipping was closer, louder, more insistent. Maximus looked back towards the caravan. The wagons were moving much faster, probably as fast as the oxen could pull them. Dust was billowing up. In front and to one side of the two lines of wagons, a group of horsemen were talking. One or two more were galloping up.
Something was wrong. There was a threat Maximus could not see.
Before turning to ride back, Maximus automatically gazed all around. The plain rolled gently here, but not enough to hide more than one of those big mouse-like animals which had their burrows everywhere. The Steppe was empty, except for a group of three low kurgans a couple of hundred paces off to the left, and, about a mile and a half or more ahead to the north-east, a straggly line of dark trees. The latter had to mark an otherwise hidden stream of some sort. Beyond the trees, a line of lilac clouds rose on the horizon like a range of distant mountains in an otherwise perfectly blue and empty sky. As he wheeled his horse, Maximus saw movement among the trees. It ceased before he could focus.