Perhaps, Ballista thought, this display was all the other way around. Perhaps Ballista and the Romans were the ones on show to the missionary from the Sassanid kingdom. See, you easterners, how the Romans honour Naulobates and the Heruli.
Ballista’s thoughts gathered pace. Perhaps they were on show to others as well. It could be that the Roman embassy, above all Ballista himself, had been slowly trailed across the disputed grasslands in the hope the Alani would attack, and thus give the Heruli and the Urugundi a just cause for war. The Alani had broken whatever oaths had secured the peace on the Steppe. In the eyes of the gods, the world and themselves, Naulobates and Hisarna would be justified in their fight. Look, they could say, they attacked the Roman ambassador Ballista. It was sacrilege. Yet here he is in our midst, the living proof of their perfidy and our pious desire for revenge.
‘Enough!’ Naulobates’ high voice cut through the missionary’s recommendations of celibacy and vegetarianism and other joyless things that would make God happy.
‘Poor Mani,’ Naulobates continued. ‘He means well. But he is like a promising student who listens to philosophers when drunk. No matter how he tries, the words elide and confuse him.’
Naulobates smiled, with an air of avuncular forbearance. ‘And he is naughty, very naughty. He denies he was born a slave boy called Corbicius.’
‘That is a calumny spread by his enemies,’ Mar Ammo said. ‘His father was Pattikios, a citizen of Ecbatana, and his mother, Marmaryan, a descendant of the Arsacid royal house of Parthia.’ The missionary did not lack courage.
Naulobates fixed him with his strange eyes. ‘Have you seen the syzygos of Mani?’
‘No.’ The missionary looked uncomfortable.
‘I have.’ Naulobates sighed. ‘How it fled from my Brachus! But no matter where it went in the other world, Brachus followed. Brachus caught him, as the gods caught Loki. For nine nights and days Brachus tried to enlighten him. But the fumes of wine still clouded his understanding.’
‘The Seal of Prophets does not touch wine.’ The missionary really had the courage of his convictions.
Naulobates wagged a finger.
The missionary subsided into silence.
‘You will stay with me,’ Naulobates said to Mar Ammo. ‘You will learn the truth. Mani has shown you some aspects. All deities are aspects of the One. Mani was right, the Kingdom of Light is in the north, and working the soil is for lesser men. Yet, in his stubborn drunkenness, he failed to see that the kingdom was already to be found here among the Heruli.’
The missionary looked horrified.
Naulobates clapped his hands. ‘Tomorrow we will give a practical demonstration of a field where Mani is very misguided. We will go hunting. It is time for a royal battue.’
XXIV
Two hours before dawn, Ballista and Maximus got dressed in the dark. They had laid out their hunting clothes and equipment the night before. They did not talk and were as quiet as could be managed. They woke Calgacus anyway. He cursed them as clod-hopping, clumsy bastards making enough din to raise the fucking dead. Neither the Caledonian’s injured arm nor being told the previous evening that he was to remain in the camp had done anything to improve his habitual waspish temper.
It was cold outside, with a chill bite to the wind. Ballista pulled on a thick leather coat, stamped his feet. Tarchon led up two of the Sarmatian horses. Working as much by feel and habit as sight, Ballista and Maximus tacked up and slung their weapons and gear. The breath of the horses was sweet in their faces. Tarchon held the bridles as each mounted.
They waited as Castricius and Hippothous emerged from the next tent. Biomasos brought round their horses. Soon the four who had been invited to join the hunt were in the saddle. They said farewell to Tarchon and the interpreter, and reined about to set off.
The dim form of Calgacus emerged from the tent. ‘A creaking bow, a croaking raven, a yawning wolf, a grunting wild boar; never be such a fool as to trust such things.’
‘We will take care,’ Ballista said.
‘A coiled snake, a burning flame, a flying arrow.’
‘Enough.’ Ballista clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth, and his horse walked on. He grinned in the darkness. The old Caledonian was getting protective like a nursemaid. He had noticed it in himself: the older you got, the more you worried.
Men were stirring all through the camp. Ballista and the others joined a stream of warriors walking their horses southward between the tents.
Out on the plain, several large fires had been lit. The ceaseless north wind pulled sparks away high into the night sky. Standards flew upwind of the fires, and the Heruli assembled in their stations. The royal hunt was a great undertaking. A division of four thousand riders had already left the afternoon before under the command of Andonnoballus. In all, another thousand would follow this morning with Naulobates.
Ballista and his familia joined those under the banner of three wolves pursuing a tamga that resembled three circles pierced by an arrow. Ballista greeted Pharas, but the Herul looked distracted and only nodded. It was slightly offhand, but the twenty or so men waiting to ride with the First-Brother were all quiet. The clicking and cracking of the fire sounded sharp over the creak of leather and the jink of bridles.
Naulobates trotted into the circle of firelight. He was flanked by Uligagus and Artemidorus, the former slave from Trapezus. Behind them rode Mar Ammo. The Manichaean looked thoroughly miserable. Naulobates raised his hands to the dark sky and intoned a prayer to Artemis and an eclectic range of other more obscure deities of the chase. Nomads did not make libations. His words ended, Naulobates made the signal, and they moved off south into the Steppe.
The sun was not yet up, but the sky promised a good day. The wind had dropped a little, lost much of its cold edge. To the east, the horizon was a band of pale blue-gold. Above it, fanning out from the south-east, were ribbed, purple-gold clouds, as solid as dunes in a desert. High above, gaps in the clouds showed a heaven of pure aquamarine. A flight of birds, half a dozen black shapes, gave a sense of scale, of the sheer majesty of it all.
They were riding at an easy canter that ate up the miles. At the head of the small column, Naulobates was bare-headed, laughing. Uligagus and Artemidorus also looked happy. Pharas, the other Herul with them, appeared rather more subdued.
The sun came up. Naulobates halted and, bowing in the saddle, blew it a kiss from his fingertips. His proskynesis performed, Naulobates called Ballista and his familia to ride up with him. The Heruli fell back, but Naulobates indicated for the Manichaean Mar Ammo to stay.
‘Everything I know about hunting was taught to me as a child by my father’s friend Phanitheus. He spared me no criticism, held nothing back. He was a warrior feared across the Steppe, a mighty hunter, and a stern teacher. His vigour remained in him a long time. It was only two years ago it deserted him, and obviously it was time for him to die.’ Naulobates shook his elongated head sadly. ‘I still find it hard to believe he did not face it better.’
There seemed little to say to this.
After a while, Naulobates brightened. ‘But, just as a good death does not necessarily redeem a bad man, so the reverse must hold true. I remember the time Phanitheus beat me for forgetting the hunting spears. What a beating that was. He did not spare himself.’ Naulobates laughed happily.
Again, this did not invite any obvious rejoinder.
‘Were you beaten much as a child?’ Naulobates suddenly asked Mar Ammo.
‘No more than is usual,’ the Manichaean said.
‘Hmm, perhaps you should have been beaten more. When Mani was Corbicius, he was beaten regularly. Did him a lot of good. It might do you some.’