‘Brothers,’ Ballista said.
The men in the tent, Heruli and Roman, raised their cups and cheered. They drank their undiluted wine.
Ballista smiled. It would have been a mortal insult to reject the offer. A Herul could have only three blood-brothers. Ballista was unsure why Andonnoballus had done him this great honour. Perhaps it was politics; a move designed to bind him more closely to the Heruli in the fighting to come. It could be that Naulobates had instructed him to do it. Or perhaps Andonnoballus had read too much into the actions on the Tanais. It was hard enough to dissect one’s own motivation, let alone that of another from a different culture. Ballista himself was unsure why he had volunteered to lead the diversion. Still, the thing was an honour, and Ballista liked Andonnoballus well enough. At least, he could not prove worse than Morcar, his Angle half-brother.
‘Now you are my brother, you will come to the assembly as a Herul,’ Andonnoballus said.
Again no choice, Ballista thought. But he was altogether less happy with this aspect.
In every Heruli camp an open space was left clear of tents for the assembly. The third drum of the summoning was beating as Ballista arrived with Andonnoballus and the other Heruli. The crowd was dense, but parted a little for the son of the First-Brother and the great generals. Standing near the front, hemmed in by the elongated heads, dyed-red hair and swirling red tattoos — all so very alien — Ballista wished Maximus and Calgacus had been able to come with him. He felt alone, and the horror of confined spaces was tight in his breathing.
Naulobates climbed on to the open wagon.
Loud, almost truculent cries greeted him. ‘What do you want?’ ‘Why have you summoned the assembly?’
Naulobates raised his spear to quell the uproar somewhat. ‘I want your counsel.’
‘Ask what you want.’ ‘Spit it out.’ The tribesmen were more than boisterous. There was a hard, impatient edge to them. Many were drunk. Defeat had not improved their amenability.
‘Where is Aruth?’ Naulobates said.
Aruth stepped into the small open space before the wagon. He moved unwillingly, but he had no choice. If he had not, clearly the crowd, heated by alcohol and self-righteous indignation, would have turned on him. As it was, many of the tribesmen bayed and yipped at the sight of him.
Ballista had never really looked at Aruth before. He was a short, stocky man in middle age, with the elongated skull of the Rosomoni. He bore himself well. Only the rhythmic clenching of his right fist, emphasized by the red snake inked on the back of his hand, betrayed any nerves. He looked up, square into the face of the First-Brother.
‘Am I the elected war leader of the Heruli?’ Naulobates asked.
The crowd bellowed in the affirmative to the rhetorical question.
‘At the Tanais, did I command that any man who left the ranks would be killed?’
Again the crowd roared its assent.
‘Aruth led his men out of the line against orders,’ Naulobates said.
A babble of shouts rose. ‘Bastard, string him up!’ ‘To Hell with him, bend down the trees!’ ‘Kill the dog!’
Not all were for summary execution. ‘Let him speak!’ ‘He is a great warrior, a Herul; just sit him in a tree for the day!’ ‘No, he must be heard first!’ ‘Let him speak, it is his right!’
Naulobates raised his spear. A measure of quiet returned. ‘It is his right as one of the Rosomoni, as a Herul.’
Aruth gave a searching look at the front ranks, then fixed his gaze back on Naulobates. ‘I did not order the advance. The bandits rode out from the line. The farmers from the Rha followed, then the Eutes. I could not hold them.’
His voice was drowned by shouts. The majority were hostile. ‘Cowards blame others!’ ‘Take responsibility like a man!’ ‘Kill the bastard!’ ‘Throw him in the thorns!’
A few persevered for clemency. ‘It was not his fault!’ ‘Spare him!’
Here and there, scuffles broke out, as the tribesmen debated with their fists. The outnumbered adherents of Aruth were soon pummelled into submission to the general will. ‘Kill him!’ ‘Kill the dog!’ ‘Bend down the trees!’ ‘Tear him apart!’
Naulobates had the drum beaten. ‘I hear your counsel. I will pass sentence.’
The First-brother looked at the sky and brooded dramatically. Ballista wondered if Naulobates was communing with the world of daemons, or, at least, if that was the desired impression. The silence stretched. Aruth’s fist clenched and unclenched, the red snake flexing its coils.
Ballista, pressed unhappily against Andonnoballus, Pharas and Uligagus, found himself hoping Aruth would be spared.
‘Aruth,’ said Naulobates, ‘did not disobey the order. But he could not control his riders. Men died unnecessarily under his command. He shall be punished as an unintentional killer.’
‘The box, hang him in the box!’ the open, red mouths of the crowd chanted.
Crushed in the press, Ballista felt light-headed, slightly sick.
Naulobates waved his spear. ‘He shall be hung in the box from the high branches. He shall have three loaves and one jug of water. For nine nights and days he will hang. It is decided.’
The multitude echoed the sentence. ‘It is decided.’
Two men shouldered through the throng. They were battered and bloodied. One spoke for both. ‘We are Aruth’s brothers by the sword and the cup. What touches our brother touches us. We will share his fate.’
Naulobates nodded. ‘You are true Heruli.’ The assembly murmured its approbation.
The three men stood, shoulder to shoulder, as timber was brought out, and the hammering commenced.
Andonnoballus turned to Ballista. ‘For nine nights and days Woden hung in the tree. Sometimes the Allfather succours those who suffer the same.’
Ballista did not answer. His thoughts were roaming far away. The Heruli prided themselves on their freedom. Certainly in their assembly they seemed able to say what they liked. But was it any better than in the imperium? In the consilium of the emperor, fist fights were not encouraged and opinions tended to be expressed more decorously, but those summoned were meant to speak their mind openly. Yet both the First-Brother and emperor could ignore the counsel they received; ultimately, they made the decision.
A long time ago — when he was young — Ballista had thought freedom unproblematic. You either had it, or you did not. Either you were a slave, or you were free. Either you were a free man in Germania, or you lived in servitude in the imperium. His own enforced travels had undermined his childish certainty. Different peoples had different ideas about freedom. Freedom itself over time could change its meaning in one culture. He thought of the histories he had been reading on this mission. For the senators in the Res Publica written about by Sallust, libertas had meant the unfettered freedom to compete with each other openly for election to high office and the rewards they would then reap from exploiting their position. In the principate, as set out by Tacitus, libertas had narrowed down merely to freedom of speech under a monarch in everything but name, and freedom from unjust condemnation and the confiscation of estates. Yet, for both historians, most men had used libertas as nothing but a fine-sounding catchphrase devoid of real substance.
Ballista wondered how the vaunted freedom of his own people under the rule of his father would strike him now, if he were ever to return to the far north and the lands of the Angles. Perhaps the philosophers were right: the only true freedom was inside a man.
The hammering had stopped. The man condemned by the assembly, and the two condemned by custom and their own courage, did not have to be manhandled into the rough, slatted boxes. The water and the loaves were given to them and the cages nailed shut.
With much hauling and grunting, the cages were hoisted into the branches of a huge, spreading oak. The mood of the throng had turned to profound admiration. But the three men were left suspended between heaven and earth, their only possible salvation in the hands of a distant, capricious god.