A tight group of riders was battering its way across the path of the fleeing Alani. Their arms waved, their mouths were open, shouting unheard reproaches. A banner with a picture of a giant chained to a mountain flew above them.
Caught up in the insanity of the violence, Ballista laughed. Saurmag thought to halt the flight of the outflanking column. The Suanian had no hope of success. Instead, the gods were delivering him to Ballista.
‘With me! With me!’ Ballista angled through the dust and chaos towards the banner. Memories of a tiny underground cell, himself crouched naked, jagged rock cutting his flesh, overwhelmed him. The man who had had him flung into that place was a few paces away. Revenge was here for the taking.
Saurmag saw him coming. The Suanian pulled up, drew a blade. He was yelling at his men. Would he run? Would he fight? His indecision was evident.
Two riders, braver than their master, pushed past Saurmag.
Maximus reached them first. He went for the one on the right. Calgacus crashed his mount into the other. Ballista urged his mount between the duels. Saurmag was just ahead.
Another Alan surged into Ballista’s path. The nomad cut at his head. Ballista ducked under the swish of the blow. He thrust back, missed. He tried to keep moving, but the Alan was persistent. Ballista blocked another blow. Saurmag was pulling the head of his horse around. The little bastard was going to run.
A jarring impact — a searing pain in his right arm. Ballista had paid the penalty for his distraction. He could feel the blood running hot down his arm. The Alan cut at his head. As he took it on his own blade, Ballista felt the broken rings of mail cutting into his bicep.
Hampered by the wound, Ballista could only defend. His arm was stiffening, weakening. Watch the blade, watch the blade. He had to put Saurmag out of his mind, summon all his will to survive.
The Alan was pressing his advantage, his steel a living thing seeking Ballista’s life. There was nothing in the world except the flickering shine of steel. Watch the blade.
Another flash of light, from an unexpected quarter. The Alan rocked in the saddle. Maximus struck again, and the Alan — his head a thing of horror — toppled from the saddle.
The sound of the outside world rushed back, an almost physical blow in its confused immensity.
The Alani were fleeing; not just this wing, the whole horde. When panic grips an army, it is over in moments, completely irreversible.
Tarchon was in front of Ballista, grinning like a madman, like a devotee of some ecstatic cult. He was jabbering in his native tongue. He had a bloody sword in one hand, something heavy in the other. He held it out to Ballista like a proud child.
‘See, I bring you Saurmag.’
XXIX
Maximus had been drinking for three days. He had stopped the afternoon before, when Naulobates rode back into the main camp. Waiting for the Heruli to return from their murderous harrying of the Alani across the Steppe, Maximus had consumed indiscriminately vast quantities of fermented mare’s milk and wine, and had inhaled so much cannabis his lungs ached. And it was not just the drinking. He had never had more sex… with the possible exception of one time in Massilia.
He raised himself on one elbow and looked at the Herul girl sleeping. He drank some water and tried to put the events of the last few days in order.
The panic had swept through the Alani like a wildfire. The Heruli had tried to get to Safrax. They had failed. The king had a bodyguard of a thousand or so of his nobles. Unlike the majority of the Alani, they wore armour — mail, scale or lacquered — and rode big horses, some armoured like the men. As their enemies closed around them, they had drawn up in a circle and fought. They had sacrificed themselves to the last man — no quarter had been shown — to win their monarch a start. When the nobles were dead, the Heruli had pursued the fugitive monarch south for days. They had killed many, but Safrax had escaped. It was said he was in the foothills of the Croucasis mountains, rallying his remaining warriors to face the inevitable assault.
Ballista and the familia had not been asked to join the chase, and they had not volunteered. With the others, Maximus had ridden back to the northern camp. They had spent two days there while the women and children returned, driving in some of the flocks, then three days moving south to the main summer camp by the river. When they had got there, Maximus had started drinking. Now Naulobates was back, and there would be a feast.
Maximus drank more water. He slid back next to the girl, moved against her until she woke, then took her gently. It was one of the few things that made a man in his condition feel better, if only briefly.
Afterwards, she slept again. Maximus lay on his back with his arms behind his head. He did not feel good. He had slept badly, sweating out the alcohol. Strange dreams had troubled him; the hanged woman Olympias, the other women pulling down on her legs.
Maximus got up and dressed quietly so as not to wake the girl. As he left, he wondered what she was called.
The sun was up, but the heat of the day had not yet come down. The sky was a bowl of pure blue. There was a cool breeze off the water as he walked down to the river.
A gaggle of Heruli boys were playing by the bank. They called out happily. No-nose, No-nose. Bring me more drink. He picked up a stone, and threw it at them. It missed. They ran off, laughing. No-nose, No-nose.
His clothes and body stank; drink, sweat, women, smoke. There was food spilled down his tunic and a leg of his trousers. His hair was matted, and his head hurt. He felt queasy, his limbs uncoordinated and heavy. He stripped naked and waded out. The water was cold, a fine silt giving under his feet. He swam to midstream, and floated on his back, letting the current take him.
In the altered state after his debauch, he thought about Olympias. The pointlessness of the blur of the last three days oppressed him. He thought about love. Ballista had Julia. Old Calgacus had the Jewish woman. And he had endless women, but nothing near love. Now he was older, he often wondered who would mourn him. Ballista, of course; probably Calgacus; and definitely Ballista’s sons. He might have sons of his own, scattered across the world. Perhaps he had fathered a few more in the last three days. He remembered Ballista once telling him how the old Spartans had believed the more vigorous the fuck, the more vigorous the child. Perhaps he would leave behind some strong, healthy young Heruli warriors who would ride the Steppe. Vitality was the only patrimony they would get from him, but it was not to be underrated.
It was quiet, just the remote sounds of the camp audible. The riverbank was deserted. He watched a brace of snipe darting about downstream. Self-pity could creep up on him in this condition. Not all men were made to love women. Some — young Demetrius, the insane Hippothous — found pleasure in other men. That had never interested Maximus. In truth, he could not understand it. But he had to accept that he preferred the companionship of men to the cloying demands of women. Constructing fantasies about a woman he had barely known, and who had hanged herself on the grave of her husband, would do him no good.
He swam upstream, back to his clothes. He regarded the filthy things, then scooped them into a bundle. Naked as he was, the malodorous garments under an arm, his sword belt in the other hand, he walked through the camp up to the big tent he shared with Ballista, Calgacus and Tarchon. As he passed, Herul warriors laughed indulgently, the women and older girls giggled, and the children ran after him, calling out, No-nose, No-nose; more drink.
The sun was going down as they rode to the feast in the meadow. They splashed through the ford. A flight of cranes were over the river, the undersides of their wings scarlet with the light of the dying sun. Maximus was alongside Ballista and Calgacus. The rest — Castricius, Hippothous, Biomasos and Tarchon — clattered after in no particular order.