The Christians were helpful as soon as their decision was made, even Dark Eyes, though it was plain he was reluctantly going along with the majority. They provided the name of someone who could write letters for Siyavak, a password and means to contact this person, and promised that any letter he wrote would be passed swiftly and secretly to me. Then the Romanizer produced a set of wax tablets. “We drew this up last night,” he said. “It is a list of people we know to be druids, together with their hiding places, and officials known to be sympathetic or bribable. But before I give it to you, you must swear not to show it to the authorities. Most of these people are innocent of any crime, and many of them abominate the practices of the extreme sects-but any of them would suffer cruelly if their sympathies were known.”
I put my hand over the fire and swore that I would not betray the information to the authorities, but only use it to defend myself and to collect evidence against the plotters, and I was given the tablets. I thanked the Romanizer with some warmth.
“No, we must thank you,” he returned. “You’re the one running the greatest risks in this contest. We will pray for your safety.”
I was contented when I rescued my horse from the goat shed and rode back along the cabbage-scented alleyway. My allies seemed both efficient and reliable. Eukairios was very silent. When we were riding back through the gates of the fortress, however, he gave one of his sudden dry chuckles, and I gave him a questioning look.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. But his eyes were dancing.
“I did something you think is funny?” I asked resignedly.
He chuckled again. “The way you sat there on the floor, my lord, the perfect picture of a noble savage, telling Senicianus that you’d lost count of the number of men you’d killed! He was so shocked I thought he’d fall off his seat. I thought you’d lost them all, I really did. But it worked: they could see that you were being completely honest with them, and they realized that they could trust you.”
I snorted. “I was not trying to be amusing. And you must not go about telling people that I am a peacemaker. It is a disgraceful thing to report of the commander of a dragon.”
He chuckled again. “Not to Christians. But I will keep my mouth shut in future on that shocking truth.”
I looked at him with affection. There he sat, a small dark man in his forties, perched clumsily astride my red bay carriage horse and grinning at me. Riding, the cost of horse fodder and size of stud farms, the Sarmatian language: he had struggled valiantly to master them all. By rights he ought to hate me. He had been given to me very much against his own wishes, snatched away from home and friends and forced to adapt himself to a world nearly as alien to him as it was to me. “What would you do if I freed you?” I asked him.
The grin vanished. We were crossing the bridge from the city to the fortress now, and for a long minute we rode in a silence stirred only by the soft clopping of the hooves of our horses. “Would you do that?” Eukairios asked, in a strained voice.
I stopped my courser. “If you would agree to stay in my service, as a paid secretary, yes. But if you would go back to Bononia, no. I am sorry, but I cannot afford to lose you.”
He clenched his hands together on the reins and stared at me in consternation. “I hated Bononia!” he exclaimed. “I found that out within ten days of leaving it. All the stupid petty rules, and the short rations and the beatings if I complained or made a mistake; the way my supervisor loaded me with other people’s work and took the credit for mine. I loved my friends there, who supported me and cared for me when times were bad, but I was utterly wretched. But I didn’t even realize that until it ended; if you’ve staggered a long way under a burden, you don’t really know how heavy it is until you put it down. I’ve been very happy working for you. Hadn’t you realized that?”
I thought he had not been unhappy, but this astonished me. I shook my head.
“I would be very glad to go on working for you, my lord, very glad, in any circumstances.”
“If you want your freedom, then, you may have it,” I told him. “You know my people do not keep slaves. You can… How does one go about freeing a slave?”
He laughed out loud, a laugh that ended in something very like a sob. “ ‘She may sing, but we are dumb,’ ” he said, quoting verses in a voice suddenly harsh with both triumph and extraordinary pain.
“ ‘Oh, when will my spring come?
When will I be like the swallow, and renew my tongue?
By silence my song has perished, and Phoebus looks aside.
Thus Amyklai raised no alarm, and by its silence, died.
Whoever’s never loved, love tomorrow; love tomorrow, whoever’s loved before.’
“I can draw up a document for you.”
I had a sudden conviction that he had quoted those lines before, in the days when he had talked back to his superiors and been beaten for it. He had watched love passing him by then, and cried out for the spring of freedom that came now, too late. It was as though the solid rock of my own identity shivered, and I reached at the unimaginably foreign state of what I might have been if I had been born a slave.
What Eukairios cried in that moment was for himself, and I had no business intruding into it. “Then do so this afternoon,” I ordered. “But now we must hurry or we will be late for our appointment with the legate.”
We left the horses in the stable yard, which reassured my men, who were fretful as heifers that have lost their calves. We were not late arriving for the meeting with Priscus, which was just as well, since we were very late leaving. To my relief, the legate made no reference to the events of the night before and began at once to discuss the arrangements for the other dragons instead. We’d talked for a couple of hours and written a few letters when the legate’s secretary stuck his head round the door and announced that Siyavak and Victor had come, as ordered. Priscus told the secretary to admit them-in just a minute.
“I want to extend the plan for the horses to their numerus,” he explained. “But I don’t want any talk about the other Sarmatian troops in front of Siyavak. It will be some time before the Fourth Sarmatians live down their previous commander’s mutiny, and it would be better if they didn’t know how many other Sarmatians there are in Britain or where they’re posted. Do you understand me?”
I nodded, though I was taken aback. I had, of course, noticed that I was being trusted with knowledge, but I’d assumed that the information was no longer considered sensitive. It was obviously not as sensitive as it had been, but still too delicate for Siyavak’s attention. I was being rewarded for my Romanizing. Priscus gestured to his secretary to let the others in.
Siyavak looked tired and strained. I thought he was pleased to see me, but he would not look at me for long and sat at the opposite end of the room. I wished that I could talk to him: I had no idea whether he was still my ally, after all this time spent with Bodica. We discussed how many horses the fourth dragon could spare as brood mares and afterward some other business that affected both our companies, until the secretary stuck his head around the door again and said that it was time for the dinner party. It seemed we were all expected to be there-except, of course, Eukairios.
“Hercules!” exclaimed the legate. “Is it five o’clock already? Well, we’d better go then. Not polite to keep a lady waiting!” He stamped out the door. Victor hurried after him, trying to discuss some bit of legion business that had been pushed aside before, and Siyavak slipped out behind them. I paused to say good night to Eukairios and arrange to meet him in the morning, and started after the others. When I stepped into the corridor, I found Siyavak waiting.
“I thank the gods!” he whispered hoarsely. “I was beginning to think I’d get no chance to speak to you at all.”
“Are you safe?” I asked him.
“For the time being. She thinks I’m drunk with admiration for her, like the rest. Have you thought of a way for us to communicate? I don’t dare speak long now: if we come in to this dinner together, she’ll notice.”
I took a deep breath, prayed to Marha, and gave him the name and password that the Christians had given me that afternoon. “That is a man who can write letters for you,” I said, “and send them secretly. He’s a kind of ally-but I beg you, make no mention of him to anyone. He’s a member of an illegal cult, though a different one from the druids, and he’d die for his faith as much as they would for theirs if his allegiances were known. But do you want to arrange a meeting with me now?”
“I want to, oh gods! — but it’s not wise, Prince. She has spies everywhere in this city, and I’ve seen what she does to people who betray her. I must go now, or she’ll become suspicious.” He pressed my hand and hurried ahead, and I followed, slowly, dreading it.
There were seven of us at the dinner: Siyavak and Victor; Priscus and Bodica; myself and Facilis-and the centurion I’d met the night before, Publius Verinus Secundus, who turned out to be fort prefect for Eburacum. We were seated in the three places in those pairs, with Secundus sharing a couch with me and Facilis, on our host’s right. (I took my sword off and hung it on the arm of my couch when I arrived.) Bodica looked more beautiful than ever, dressed in a gown shot with the silk we’d given her husband, her hair arranged very simply with a few gold hair combs. But, to my surprise, she was in an obvious and appalling temper. The reason soon emerged: her hairdresser had gone missing.
“The silly little slut’s still gone!” she was telling her husband while the slaves were showing me to my place. “She’s been missing since this morning now, and you said it was nothing to worry about! I told the duty officer to keep an eye out for her on the gates-I’m sure the little bitch is hiding somewhere, and means to run away for good. She knows I was angry with her and she’s trying to get out of being punished. When I catch her, she’ll-”
“Now, now,” said the legate soothingly, “you know she had that baby recently. It disturbs the minds of even freeborn ladies, losing a baby, and she’s just a feeble-minded girl. She’s probably just panicked and run off to cry over it.”
“But look at my hair!” protested Bodica. “I don’t dare let that idiot Vera curl it, she never gets it straight, and now we’ve got all the officers here and it’s twenty years out of fashion!”
“My dear, you look lovely as ever,” Priscus said gallantly, taking her hand and escorting her to the couch, “and I’m sure the officers agree with me. Gentlemen don’t notice fashion nearly as much as you ladies seem to think we do, and who cares for curls when the hair and face are so charming without them?”
We all agreed, and Bodica, though still seething, settled down to her part as hostess. I remembered how Facilis had been enraged by Bodica’s treatment of this slave girl before, and glanced at him. He reclined stolidly on the other end of the couch, looking expressionlessly at nothing in particular. The slaves handed us our cups of wine.
We talked harmlessly about the wine and the food and what we’d done during the Saturnalia through the first courses. I deliberately spilled my first cup, managed to wipe my plate off before eating from it, served myself the appetizers from the opposite ends of the serving dishes, and then ate as little as I decently could. Facilis noticed, of course, but said nothing. Bodica noticed as well, and gave me a sweet smile and a dangerous glare. I assumed that the wine was safe: it was served, as always, from a common mixing bowl, and the slave had no opportunity to slip anything into my cup alone. I was aware, halfway through the main course, that I was probably drinking too much of it. But I was hungry-the meeting with the Christians had caused me to miss my lunch-and very tense, and the slaves kept refilling my cup as fast as I emptied it.
When the main meal was finally over, Priscus swung his legs off the couch, sat up straight, and gave all of us a benevolent smile. “Now,” he said, “to what I really wanted to discuss this evening. Ariantes, who is trying to kill you?”
I stared at him, shocked by the suddenness of the bolt after the earlier lulling silence. I wished I’d left the wine alone.
“Don’t try to pretend you don’t know what I mean,” Priscus said, when I’d sat stupidly for so long that it became awkward. “You have an enemy: who is it?”
“My lord legate,” I said at last, “I have told you I trust your goodwill. Why should you believe that I know?”
He snorted. “This whole affair reeks of conspiracy so badly they can smell it in Londinium. The commander of the fourth numerus was sent a message purportedly from this very fortress, a piece of Sarmatian paraphernalia with British writing which made him mutiny. At just that time the Selgovae and Votadini staged a major raid, and prisoners interrogated afterward revealed that they’d been forewarned of the mutiny-by an unknown person whom they believed to be a senior officer of this legion. You, who stopped the raid, went to look at the treacherous message and reconcile the rest of the men to Roman service, and you very nearly never came back. Your good friend and brother prince, Arsacus, who was with you, says it was a hunting accident; you claim to remember nothing about it. But you had no business going in the water with a bow case if you were after a boar, as Arsacus says, and if you were after wildfowl, why was your bow found unstrung in its case?” I glanced quickly at Facilis, who looked away; Priscus noticed. “Yes, of course I’ve talked to him about it!” he snapped. “Him and others. A man is then murdered near Corstopitum, and a cursing tablet with your name on it is shoved in his mouth. You come here, and the house in which you’re thought to be sleeping is set on fire as soon as you arrive-the house that was the house of your friend and brother Arsacus, which he could easily have prepared for you. Come on! I’ve been patient, man, I think highly of you, I think I understand your motives for silence-but I’m not a damned imbecile! You know something, somebody else knows you know, and you’d better spit it out before the somebody’s efforts succeed!”
He was not a damned imbecile: he’d pieced more together than I’d realized. I even wondered for a moment if he was right that Arshak had prepared the house for me. He had wanted to set fire to it-but that was impossible: when I’d met him on the road there’d been no suggestion that he was contemplating such a cruel and alien method of murder. It was much more likely that Bodica’s friends had done it. If they’d told him they wanted to burn it after he’d left, he would have been pleased and asked no further questions. And I was still afraid to accuse the legate’s wife, particularly here in this fortress where she had spies “everywhere”-though a glance showed me she’d gone still and was watching me in terror.
“No Sarmatian would murder by arson,” I told Priscus. “My brother Arshak favors the spear, but even if he would dishonor himself with murder, he would not use fire. It is sacrilege to pollute Marha’s image with death. That is a Roman custom. And the man killed at Corstopitum was not killed in any manner familiar to my own people.”
Priscus was silent a minute, blinking, as he had when I first informed him of the cursing tablet.
“I can’t believe you’re right to be suspicious of Arshak, Tiberius,” Aurelia Bodica put in, rushing the words, her eyes dark. “He’s not the conspiring sort; you must have seen that. He revels in killing, yes, but he’s not a planner.”
Priscus grunted and stood up. “Very well,” he said, picking up a lamp from the stand in the corner. “It’s pretty clear that there are Britons involved. Very well, maybe Arsacus wasn’t guilty of that particular effort; maybe he’s not guilty at all, though if he isn’t, I don’t see why you’re keeping your mouth shut, Ariantes. It makes a lot of sense that you’d try to settle Sarmatian quarrels in Sarmatian ways: you’re vulnerable to accusations of Romanizing even without informing on a fellow commander. But maybe I’m wrong.” He set the lamp down on the table in front of me. “Put your hand over this and swear your people’s oath on fire that you believe Arsacus is innocent and you don’t know who’s trying to kill you or why.”
I stared at him, appalled. “Sir,” I said at last, “if I have suspicions, I have no evidence. And I have no wish to be accused of slandering eminent Romans without evidence. When I do get evidence, you may be sure I will tell you of it.”
He glared at me. “Eminent Romans, is it?” he asked. “Eminent Romans and Arsacus, or eminent Romans alone?”
I put my hand over the flame of the lamp; it made a spot of gold warmth on my palm. “I swear that when I told you I did not remember what happened on the way back from Condercum, I was telling the truth,” I said. “I swear that I believe Arshak to be innocent of the arson, and of the murder in Corstopitum.” The spot of warmth was becoming uncomfortably hot. I struggled to remember what else I could truthfully swear to, couldn’t think of anything, and took my hand away.
“That’s a long way short of what I asked you to swear,” observed Priscus.
There was one other thing I could swear to. I put my hand over the flame again. “I have not lied to you, my lord, nor broken the oath I swore at Aquincum in any way; on fire I swear that now.” I put my hand down and held on to the arm of the couch; my fingers were starting to shake. “If you like,” I added, “I will have my scribe write an account of what I believe to be the truth of these matters, and should my enemies’ efforts succeed, you may have it.”
“That’s not good enough! What are you afraid of?” demanded Priscus. “Do you think I’d let you be murdered while the business was investigated?”
“I have told you, sir, I have no evidence and no witnesses to call, and without them, I cannot speak.” I climbed to my feet, unsteadily-I felt as though I’d been riding hard all day. “May I go and rest, Lord Legate? I did not sleep well last night, and I am tired.”
Priscus swore, glaring at me. Facilis got up and straightened his cloak. “I’ll walk him back to his friends, sir, with your permission.”
“You won’t get anything out of him,” growled Priscus. “Ariantes, you are disobeying a direct order from your commander in chief. That is rank insubordination and punishable. Are you going to tell me the truth-or do I have to send you to prison?”
I said nothing. I stood there with the wine ringing in my head, looking at him. I was horribly aware of my sword, hanging from the arm of the couch, its hilt a few inches from my fingers. It would solve nothing. Prison for insubordination or prison for slander, death and disgrace either way. And what would my men do then?
Verinus Secundus, who had sat stony-faced through all of this, stirred and spoke for the first time. “But supposing he’s right, sir?” he asked. “The kind of murder there was at Corstopitum-there’s a lot of that, even in the legion. I’ve heard the lads whispering. We can trust his own men not to kill him, but if we put him in prison, who’s to guard his guards?”
Priscus grunted. After a moment, he nodded, and gave me a gesture of dismissal. I picked up my sword, slung it over my shoulder, and limped out, followed by Facilis.
When we were in the street outside the commandant’s house, and alone in the cloudy moonlight, I stopped and turned on Facilis angrily. “Why did you tell him?” I demanded. “Do you know what would be done to me in a prison? Do you know what my men would do if I were put in one?”
“He’s not putting you in one,” Facilis replied. “And what was I supposed to say when he asked me? He may be a cuckold, but he’s no idiot. He doesn’t suspect her yet, but he will, and why should we suppress evidence to slow him down? But I didn’t come along with you to talk about this. Ariantes, I need your help.”
“My help! Marha!” I turned on my heel and began to stalk off. Now that I’d escaped, I was furious, with the legate, with his wicked murderous wife, with the Romans in general and myself for Romanizing, and particularly with Marcus Flavius Facilis, for making himself my ally and then going some way to betraying me. And I had no idea what would happen next, whether I’d be allowed to leave Eburacum without confessing what I knew, whether I’d live another day.
“Your help!” agreed Facilis, running after me. “Look, that girl..”
“What girl?”
“Vilbia. Bodica’s little slave. I’ve got her in my house.”
“What!” I stopped again, and Facilis stopped, facing me, panting a little.
“I’d said a few kind words to her on the way from Dubris,” he said, “and she turned up at my door last night, the poor little bitch, clutching her baby, and she cried, and she begged me to save the brat and to protect her from her mistress. May the gods destroy me in the worst way if I don’t. I’ve got to get her out of the fortress somehow, and that wagon of yours is the best way I can think of. Nobody’s going to look for her in that.”
“With a baby?” I asked incredulously. “I thought Priscus said she had lost one.”
“She bore a healthy son eight days ago, but her mistress had no use for a baby and tossed it out. The little bastard was the only thing the poor girl had to love in all the world, and she slipped out of her slave’s cell, all bloody from childbirth, and crawled through the streets at night, and found the baby on the dung-heap before it froze, and wrapped it up warmly, and hid it. She’s been running to it every night, to feed it and care for it, but she’s had to leave it in the day to look after that witch’s hair. The little bastard didn’t thrive on the treatment, of course, particularly in this cold weather; in a few days it was clear he’d die without better care, and the girl couldn’t stand it. She ran to me because of a few kind words. May the gods destroy me in the worst way if I give her back!”
“Bodica threw a baby, a healthy, living child, on a dung-heap to die?” I asked in horror.
“Oh gods, Ariantes! They all do that. What else do you do with a slave brat if you don’t want it?”
“Marha! Romans!”
“The baby won’t make much noise,” he said. “It’s a feeble little thing now, and even when it cries you can barely hear it-but she doesn’t let it cry. You don’t need to worry that it would give her away.”
“I will take her out in my wagon,” I said, and began to walk on. “If I am not allowed out, I will see that she escapes somehow. I have allies who might help.”
“You’re allowed out. You’re allowed out tomorrow. Did you really think he was going to imprison you? Hercules! Don’t be an idiot. With a conspiracy boiling away in his half of the province, stirrings across the border, and suspicions attached to all his British senior officers, the last thing he wants is more trouble with your people. And he’s seen a lot more of Sarmatians than he had last September: he knows that if he tried to imprison the prince-commander of a dragon, any dragon, he’d have to imprison his bodyguard as well, and half the men at least, and that would mean a major military operation. He can’t afford that. Besides, you’re the loyal, responsible one: who’s going to help him manage the next four thousand Sarmatians if anything happens to you?”
I stopped again and stared at him. “I do not understand you Romans at all,” I complained. “Why did he threaten to imprison me if he had no intention of doing so?”
“To let you know that he was seriously annoyed with you, of course. You bastards hate lying so much, you don’t understand how we use it. When he asked you to swear that oath, it never even occurred to you to lie, did it?”
“I have never sworn falsely in my life! And with a curse hanging over my head, how could I afford to?”
“That’s what I mean. You’ve Romanized full tilt since you got to Britain, but you’ve been pretty damned careful how you Romanize. So I can put the girl in your wagon?”
“Yes. If I can leave tomorrow, I will do so. You should bring her tonight.”
He beamed at me and clasped my hand. “Thank you. I knew I could rely on you. I’ll bring her at the second watch, when it’s quiet. You’re going to have to tell your men to expect us. With things as they are, anybody they find creeping up to their precious commander’s wagon in the dead of night is likely to be chopped to pieces. Will they accept it? You don’t need to say who I’m stealing the girl from.”
I nodded, then shook my head in bewilderment and began walking again. Just before we reached the stable yard, I thought to ask, “Who is the father of this baby?”
“How would I know?” asked Facilis. “Some guard or groom or slave who said something nice to her once, and dumped her when she got into trouble. She’s not interested in him at all, just the brat.”
When we reached the wagons I told my men that Facilis would come back in the middle of the night, bringing a stolen slave girl and her baby, and explained to them that Romans kill unwanted slave children. They were as horrified by this as I was, and stunned to think that Facilis, whom they still disliked, had the courage and piety to defy his own people’s laws and save them-particularly when they counted off the months and saw that the baby couldn’t possibly be his. For their part, they would have been willing to help even if their commander hadn’t been there to require it, and they grinned at Facilis and slapped him on the back, which disconcerted him.
I slept soundly that night, and woke quickly when the cautious knock sounded on the side of my wagon. I got up, picking up my sword just in case, and found Facilis and Banadaspos standing outside the door, with a shape huddled in a cloak between them. The wagon’s awning was stiff with frost, and rang when my hand brushed it. The moon had set, and it was dark and bitterly cold.
“This is Lord Ariantes,” Facilis whispered to the faceless girl. “He’ll take you out of the city in his wagon tomorrow morning.”
“But… but,” the girl whispered back, soft-voiced and stammering, “but this is the man my lady wishes to kill! She’s tried twice to kill him, and cursed him with death!”
Even in the dark, I saw how Banadaspos stiffened, and I groaned. His Latin had become fairly fluent, and he’d had no trouble understanding. “Banadaspos!” I ordered him quickly, speaking in Sarmatian. “You must not repeat to the others what she just said.”
“My lord,” he shot back, “whose slave was she?”
“If I’d wanted you to know, I’d have told you. I want no trouble between you and the Romans.”
I should have known it was useless to try to avoid the confrontation. “You’re treating us shamefully!” Banadaspos exclaimed furiously, so loudly that there was an answering stir in the wagons around us, as my men woke up and started listening. “You’ve quarreled with Arshak, and the Romans have tried to murder you, and you treat us, your bodyguard, as though we had no right to know anything about it! You go slipping off into the city with Eukairios instead, and plot there with strangers. I am your man, and have been since I took my first scalp. How well I have served you, no one knows better than you yourself. I’ve always been proud of my commander, and prouder to think that I was entrusted with your life. I’ve never been guilty of any disloyalty. I swear it on fire, none of us have! You’ve got no right to treat us like this!”
“Banadaspos!” I exclaimed, jumping down from the wagon and catching his shoulder. “Yes, I have a Roman enemy who’s tried to murder me. And I know you and all the bodyguard are proud and courageous, and would be ashamed to cower before Roman authority when your prince’s life was at stake. That’s the reason I’ve told you nothing. I’ve been afraid where your pride and your courage might lead you-and your loyalty, which I know and trust absolutely.”
“Who is this enemy?” Banadaspos demanded-and then answered himself. “A woman, the girl said. A Roman inside the fortress walls. And a friend of Arshak, whom you’ve quarreled with. The legate’s lady.” He glared through the night at my face. “When she came today, I thought she seemed to hate you, but I put it down to her anger at seeing you manage a horse she’d ruined. Twice, the girl said; twice she’s tried to kill you. Once by water and once by fire. My lord, you should have told us.”
Those responsible for keeping you alive have rights in your life. I could not answer Banadaspos at all, and I stood there helplessly, ashamed, exasperated, and exhausted. At that minute there was a feeble snuffling cry from the shapeless cloak around the girl, and she jumped and clutched something under it.
“Oh, please!” she said, turning to Facilis. “He’s hungry, and it’s cold. Please, find me somewhere else to go! I’m afraid to stay here, with a man my lady’s cursed with death.”
“Your lady’s curses haven’t hurt Ariantes,” Facilis told her soothingly. “He’s a good man, and has invoked the protection of his own gods. And I don’t know how else to get you out of the city, darling, if you don’t go in his wagon. They’re watching for you at the gates, and your lady was in a very ugly mood when I saw her this evening.” She was silent, cradling the now feebly wailing bundle under her cloak. “That baby will die if you don’t get out of the city with him,” Facilis told her, his voice so gentle I wouldn’t have recognized it.
“Oh! Oh yes.” She was tearful now. “I’m sorry, Marcus Flavius, I don’t mean to cause trouble. I’m sorry, Lord Ariantes. I do thank you for helping me.”
I sighed, offered her my hand to help her into the wagon, and followed her into it. I’d already cleared a place for her on the opposite bunk. “You may sleep there,” I told her, taking her hand and letting her feel the bed in the deep darkness inside the wagon. “Do you have what you need for the child?”
“Yes, sir.” I could hear her moving in the dark, sitting down, unpinning her tunic to give the baby her breast. The weak snuffling cry stopped abruptly and was replaced by the sound of sucking.
“Stay there quietly, then. It would be better if you do not leave the wagon once it’s light, though my men all know you are here and can be trusted. You can lie on the floor of the wagon, under the bunk, and pull a carpet over you if you are afraid of discovery.”
“Yes, sir. What if I need to… uh, use the latrine?”
“You will have to get out of the wagon for that, and find somewhere in the stable yard. Try not to do it after dawn, and I will try to see that we leave promptly. I will be back in a few minutes: I must speak to my men.”
“I’m so sorry. I’ve upset your friend, haven’t I? I shouldn’t have said anything; she told me never to say anything about you to anyone. But I’ve finally got away from her, and I was so surprised when Marcus Flavius said who you were, and I’m so tired. She cursed you…” The girl trailed off. “I’m sorry,” she finished miserably.
“It is for the best,” I told her. “Rest quietly. We will allow no one to harm you or the little one.” I climbed down from the wagon.
Banadaspos was still there, and others of the bodyguard were joining him. Kasagos and his squadron were up as well: they were all whispering together, explaining to each other what had happened. “.. the legate’s lady…” I caught, “… a witch, a follower of the Lie… fire… her slave… Arshak… no accident…” Facilis was slumped wearily against the side of the wagon. I ached to go back to bed, but I could only stand still and wait for what my men had to say to me. At least, I told myself, it’s Banadaspos, and not Leimanos. The claim the commander of my guard had on me was just that much greater than his deputy’s, and my failure to tell him anything just that much more shocking.
The murmured explanations stopped. “My prince,” said Banadaspos, stepping forward and speaking for them all, “who are your enemies?”
I told them what Bodica was and what she wanted. They listened in silence, though I could tell that they were all very angry, and when I’d finished, they remained silent.
“I do not want a battle with the Romans now,” I said flatly. “My fellow azatani, I relied on you even though I kept secrets from you. You know how I’ve taken you with me even to exercise my horses. Perhaps you thought I was taking precautions against the Picts: now you know better. I trusted you with my life no less than I ever did before-but I didn’t trust you to stay patiently quiet when I was threatened, and that is what is needed. You must show me now that I was wrong to doubt your restraint.”
“What can we do?” asked Banadaspos, now anxious as well as angry.
“What you were doing before,” I replied. “Keep my enemies’ knives out of my back, defend me from the Lie by your prayers and your honesty, and wait. I have hopes now that we’ll get evidence against our enemies, evidence that will ruin and disgrace them. I’ve made alliances and I hope they’ll bear fruit. But if we strike now, we’re the ones who’ll be disgraced, dying at the Romans’ hands with the world reproaching us as oath-breakers and slanderers. I know you’re angry with me, but I both beg and command you: be patient, and keep this quiet!”
“My prince, you can’t blame us for being angry,” said Banadaspos. “Without you, we might as well drag our standard in the mud for all the honor we’d get from anyone. If it hadn’t been for you, we’d have arrived in Cilurnum disarmed and scarcely better than prisoners, and we’d have stayed there when Gatalas mutinied instead of winning the glory of a victory. We’d have lost our wagons, like the other dragons, and we’d have to eat grain and beans like the Romans. We’d be paid shabbily and grub about in debt, and everyone would treat us with contempt. Even the Asturians would boast in front of us! We’ve gloried in how much the legate esteems you, sending for you to advise him on the other dragons; we’ve reveled in the knowledge that even when the other dragons do get the same wages and advantages as us, they owe them to our prince, not their own. And now we learn from a slave that your enemies have nearly murdered you without our even knowing-twice! It disgraces us, my lord, it disgraces us immeasurably. Give us another chance to prove our worth. Please, my prince, though we’ve failed you, trust us now!”
I was astonished. I looked around the group, and when I could see no hint of disapproval for what Banadaspos had said, I was stunned. I had Romanized full tilt, as Facilis had said, but always with a glance backward, painfully aware how far I’d come, anxious that I was leaving my people behind. I should have realized that my men had, as always, followed me every step of the way. In August, for their commander to be summoned by a Roman legate as his esteemed adviser would have been something to be ashamed of; now, not six months later, it was something they gloried in, something they would boast about in front of the other dragons. And probably even in the other dragons, the boast would be treated as real and not an empty sham. They had all seen clearly where honor lay among the Romans, and like true Sarmatians, they’d run after it. I felt ashamed of myself for my stupidity in underestimating them-and I felt acutely and utterly ridiculous.
“My dear friends and kinsmen,” I said, “in all the time you’ve followed me, you’ve never failed me once, let alone twice. You are my glory and my pride, and my chief concern all along has been for your honor and safety, compared to which my own life is a small matter. As I said before, I have no doubt whatever of your loyalty, your courage, or your strength, and I’ve relied on you to preserve my life from the moment I knew it was in danger. All I ask of you now is that you wait with me quietly for evidence that will satisfy the Roman authorities as to my enemy’s guilt. I want no violence, and I want no rumors spread. If we move without proof, the contest is lost. This very night I refused to answer the legate himself when he asked me my enemy’s name: don’t give away what I kept secret. Swear to me now, all of you, that you’ll stay quiet about this until I give you leave to speak.”
“May I speak to Leimanos?” asked Banadaspos, after a moment’s hesitation.
“To him, and to the rest of the bodyguard,” I conceded, “but to no one else.”
They swore it, all of them, stretching out their hands over the embers of the evening fire. Kasagos and his squadron looked smug, and I could only hope they really would stay quiet when we were back in Cilurnum, and not hint to the rest of the dragon that they shared a secret from which the other squadrons were excluded. But at least there’d be no crisis in Eburacum tonight, and I could go back to bed-though not, I found, to my own bed.
“My lord, you must not share a wagon with your enemy’s slave,” Banadaspos declared firmly, as soon as he’d sworn the oath. “Even if she was honestly asking for help when she went to Facilis, it might occur to her that if she murdered you, her mistress would forgive her anything. I will sleep in your wagon tonight, and you take my place in mine. It will be safer, anyway, for you to rest where we can guard you.”
I thought it quite absurd to suggest that Bodica’s poor frightened little slave would put down her baby and knife me, but I owed the bodyguard some respect, and I yielded meekly. When I went over to my wagon with Banadaspos to explain to the girl, Facilis, whom I’d almost forgotten, picked himself up.
“Settled ’em?” he asked me.
I nodded.
He gave a snort of amusement and rapped on the side of the wagon. “Are you still awake, Vilbia?” he asked.
“Yes, Marcus Flavius,” came the sleepy reply.
“Ariantes won’t be in the wagon tonight. His men want him in another wagon where they can keep an eye on him and be sure he’s safe. The one who’ll be sharing this wagon with you is called Banadaspos-so you don’t even have to be afraid of curses. Is that all right?”
“Oh! Oh yes, thank you.”
“Good night, then. I’ll see you tomorrow, on the road.” Facilis turned to us and added, in an undertone and to Banadaspos, “The poor little bitch has suffered enough. I hope I can trust you not to take advantage of her.”
“Do not insult me,” Banadaspos whispered back, stiffening.
“Sorry,” said Facilis. “Just my slave-owning suspicious Roman nature.” He turned to go.
“Marcus Flavius,” I said, and he turned back and gave a questioning grunt.
“Perhaps I do not understand how you Romans use lying,” I told him, “but I have just understood that, as liars go, you are a consummate one.”
“To what do I owe that tribute?” he asked.
“We said nothing in Latin about Banadaspos sleeping in the wagon. And you have assured us all the way from Aquincum that you speak no Sarmatian.”
He was silent a moment, then gave a bark of laughter. “The trouble with you, Prince,” he said, in the most villainously accented Sarmatian I’d ever heard in my life, “is that you do not allow a poor lying centurion to make a mistake once, even in the small hours of a cold night. Sleep well.”