by Manda Scott
Their eyes met. Something that had been settled was settled no longer. Breaca said, “You still have to go to Mona. You should have left with the dawn.” A day ago, it had been all that mattered, the only source of pain.
“I can’t go now. The elders will understand. With Bán gone, I am the only healer. I will return home with the wounded. When everyone is mending, then I will leave.”
“Alone?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Airmid turned away and then spun back, wearily, as Breaca caught at her shoulder. “Leave it. It’s not your business. You can’t come. You won’t come. You made an oath and that’s an end to it. The elders will decide who—”
Breaca said, “It was a mistake. I renounce it.”
The moment hung around them, carelessly. Airmid blinked. “What?”
“It was a mistake, a child’s dream made in ignorance and preserved in pride. You knew that, everybody knew it. It has taken me too long to learn it.”
“But—”
“I renounce it. Here, before the gods, I renounce the false oath of my childhood and pledge instead that I will travel to Mona as warrior, protector and friend to Airmid, dreamer of Nemain.” It made a change in the day to see Airmid smile.
The grey mare had come close without being called. Breaca mounted and helped Airmid up behind. The others began to ride north, moving slowly for the comfort of those on the litters. She said, “It will take me all summer to persuade Hail that Bán has gone and he must follow me instead. Do you think the wounded will be well enough for you to leave them by the autumn?”
“Probably. Those that live.”
“Good. We will go then, you, me and the hound. We’ll be in Mona before the first snows of winter.”
III
SPRING A.D. 39-SPRING A.D. 40
CHAPTER 16
The night was too warm and the room lacked air. The darkness groaned to the unsettled sleep of a dozen men. A pot of stale urine sat in the corner, the smell of it overlaid by the thin, sour stench of vomit. Bán lay naked on a pallet, sweating greasily. He ached for the chance to bathe, for the lash of river water on his skin, for the piercing cold and the scouring cleanliness that it brought. On other nights he would have escaped into sleep, or made the attempt. This night, he lay awake watching the walls and the visions came at him as they had done in the fevers. A smiling Iccius was crushed under a rock fall; Breaca died on Amminios’s spear. Both rose and came towards him, pleading with him to cross the river in their company and join his people in the realms of the dead.
He resisted; Iccius was not dead and Breaca had died on the blades of the war eagles, not a spear. Amminios had said so when Bán first woke on the ship to Gaul and Iccius had confirmed the tale in private later, telling of that moment when the war eagles had fallen on the Eceni in overwhelming numbers so that there was no doubt that all the defenders had been slain. Bán would dearly have liked to have joined them. In the first months in Gaul he had thought of little else, planning the many different ways in which he could induce Amminios to kill him and so travel that last step into the arms of his family. It was Iccius who had stopped him; the child was Bán’s responsibility and he could not have left him to suffer alone as Amminios’s plaything. Once, when things were worst, he had considered killing them both, but the gods did not look kindly on a warrior who took his own life to no purpose and Bán’s own heart would not allow him to kill Iccius, even to keep him from harm.
Bán explained all of this to the phantoms as he had done many times before, promising that he would die as soon as the opportunity presented itself, but only when it could be done with honour. They backed away, shaking their heads in sorrow. He stared hard at the plastered wall until he could see it through their bodies. It was a long time since the ghosts had held the power to frighten him. Even his mother could come and go now and he felt her presence as a gift. It had not been so in the beginning; they had come to him first in full daylight in the hold of Amminios’s ship and the terror they wrought had been worse than the pain from the wound in his head. Bán had spent days cowering in the bilges, pleading with them to leave, and so had failed to kill Amminios when there might still have been the chance. Other visions, more vividly painful, had followed the early floggings of slavery and the brand they had burned onto his upper arm after the first time he had tried to escape. The wound had become infected in the days after the event and the flesh around it had melted to leave a putrid, stinking ulcer, and Bán believed his wish to die might have been granted had Iccius not sold himself to one of the grooms for the price of a salve and herbs for a poultice and had risked further beatings to nurse his friend through to sanity and health.
That had been a mistake. Amminios might have known the depth of care that bound Bán to Iccius but until that moment Braxus, the Thracian overseer, had not. Amminios owned them in law, kept them as toys for his amusement, his daily proof that in the greater game of Warrior’s Dance he had not lost, but Braxus was the one who truly owned the measure of their days. The overseer was a hard man who measured pain as he measured the barley gruel he fed to his charges, carefully and with forethought. He had measured Bán well in the time after the brand-wound had healed. When the young warrior had escaped a second time, it was Iccius who had suffered the branding, although he had been with one of the men and could not possibly have taken part in the flight. They had taken more care with the iron so that the letter stood out, the A of Amminios permanently imprinted on the thin flesh of the boy’s upper arm.
After the third escape, Iccius had been mutilated beyond repair, with Bán forced to watch. Two men skilled in the gelding of bulls and horses had brought sharpened knives and heated plates and three other slaves, similarly cut, to hold the boy still. Braxus himself had held Bán, speaking in his ear the things they would do next if Bán only gave him the opportunity and the excuse.
There had been no escapes since then. For nearly two years Bán had passed his days taking orders from men he despised and his nights lying alone, nursing a need for vengeance that kept at bay the need to die.
The visions came and went and he watched them with little interest, fighting off the pull of sleep. There was no sleep this night. Iccius had been summoned to Braxus’s presence and had not yet returned. The child had never asked for anything, but Bán had set it on himself as a sworn duty since the first time he had understood what was happening; whenever the summons came, he would keep himself awake through the night, until dawn if necessary, so that there was a shared bed to come back to and safety and an embrace that offered no pain.
A horn sounded far in the distance: the night watch of the legions, marking time outside the walls. Durocortorum was not a legionary town, but it served as a billet for passing detachments. In the summer, the officers and men crowded through in their thousands—for trade, for exercise, in transit along the broad roads east to the German border or north to the coast. Now, with autumn looming, the units were fewer; a single detachment consisting of an officer and a few dozen cavalry had arrived two days ago and chosen to pitch its tents outside the walls rather than take beds in town. Word said they had come for the horse fair and had gold to spend in profusion. Other better regulated rumour said that the new emperor, Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, known to his men as Caligula, was due to visit in the spring and that the troops were organizing the advance preparations.
Iccius had heard the truth from Braxus: that Gaius was intent on subduing the free tribes who held the east bank of the Rhine and was recruiting local Gaulish tribesmen to act as scouts and screening forces. That was more believable. It was well known that the mighty Caesar would rather throw away every able-bodied man in Gaul than lose one more Roman life to the tribes who had already wiped out the three legions sent by Tiberius’s esteemed predecessor Augustus.
Bán smiled in the dark. He had heard a great deal about the tribes of the eastern Rhine and their ferocity in battle. He turned back towards the plaster wall where the visions clamoured for his attention. When he gave it,
they rode the wave of his thoughts. The shapes that assailed him became vast, blond-maned warriors wielding swords that could cleave a horse in two and still cut on through the rider. In his mind, a dozen of them set on a single man, slicing his guts from his corpse, leaving him to die the dreamer’s death with the crows taking his eyes first and his heart last. The face of the victim changed as he died: lean, lupine features broadened in the cheekbones and the chin grew stronger; a hooked nose became broken and bent to one side; red hair became mud-brown and curled back on itself. In the last breath of his life, pale yellow eyes darkened to oak and Amminios, son of the Sun Hound, became fully Braxus of Thrace, overseer and slave.
The horn sounded again; another watch closer to morning. Soon after, the cockerels crowed. Bán rolled over to face the dawn. A line of faint light beneath the door grew slowly brighter. A greying of one corner of the ceiling showed where a handful of roof tiles had been dislodged and not yet replaced. A blackbird woke, scolding in the same tone as its cousins had done in the woods of the Eceni. Somewhere beyond the walls of the villa, a foal called a greeting to its dam in the universal tongue of all young everywhere and suddenly the morning was alive with breathtaking, crippling memories of home. It happened most days; if Bán were going to weep, it would be now. He stared, wide-eyed, at the gap in the ceiling and made himself listen, and not feel.
Without warning, the door swung open. Iccius stood on the threshold, a small figure in a linen shift not yet outgrown. He had been growing fast when they gelded him but had barely made a hand’s breadth since.
“Iccius.” Bán whispered the name, not wanting to wake the others. He sat up and held out his arms. The child walked to him as if he were dreaming, eyes level and unseeing, arms straight at his sides. In the beginning, he had been like that every time. Later, there had been occasions when he had come back able to speak and share memories. The regression did not bode well for the rest of the day.
“Come and lie down. Let’s get rid of the tunic. Shall we do that?”
At times like this, it was best to treat him as someone very young. Bán slid the tunic over the tousled blond hair and folded it at the end of the bed. The linen smelled of rosewater and cedar smoke. Underneath, the boy stank of sweat that was not his own and another man’s semen. His skin was alabaster white with a greyish tinge and that, too, spoke badly for the day ahead. Sometimes he had good colour and could smile a little. This morning, the only colour was in the blue hollows beneath his eyes and the handprints that showed on his ribs where he had been held overtightly by a man who did not care what damage he did. The worst bruising was internal and invisible, and Bán would not be able to judge the severity of it until they walked together to the stables. In the beginning, it had been crippling, rendering the child useless to anyone but the cooks. They had set him to cleaning pots at the cistern where he could kneel close to the water and not have to move. More recently, if they talked about it, he had said he felt nothing.
“Would you like a drink? Here…” The beaker that stood by the pallet had been poorly thrown by an apprentice, leaving it ill-shapen with a crack down one side. Holding it carefully, Bán poured water between slack lips and watched for the swallow. In the first days, that, too, had been impossible.
“Good. Now these. I saved them for you.” They were grapes and he had stolen them from the kitchen—a flogging offence. Fear shone in Iccius’s eyes, then a memory of a smile. He ate them one at a time, savouring the sweetness. A wash of colour returned to his cheeks. His eyes warmed and brightened, not to what they had been before the gelding—that was never to be expected—but to something better than when he had walked through the door. Bán hugged him gently, holding him close until he could feel the beat of another heart overlaying his own. Small, strong hands closed over his shoulders and Iccius laid his cheek on Bán’s shoulder. It was a signal between them that it was all right to talk.
“Was it just Braxus?” Bán whispered still. He thought that at least one of the others in the room was awake, but they could share the pretense of privacy.
He felt Iccius nod on his shoulder. “Yes.”
That was something. “Did he give you any news?”
“Some. You know Braxus—no-one comes or goes from Durocortorum but he knows about it.”
“What of the Romans camped outside the gates?”
“What he said before was right: They’re recruiting for a new wing of auxiliary cavalry.” Iccius repeated it exactly, having learned the words, and followed with the flicker of a smile, knowing he had momentous news. “They have come with an order to buy two hundred and fifty horses. Amminios wants all of them to be from his farms. He has given his word to the magistrates that he will provide them.”
“Two hundred and fifty?” Bán forgot to whisper. Men woke, belching and demanding quiet. He lowered his voice. “What will they do with so many?”
“Ride them, what else? There are five hundred mounted warriors to each wing. They will get all of the men and half the horses here. The rest of the horses have been sent up already from Spain. They are in Germany now, being trained by the horsemen who ride already with the legions.”
It was good news and better with retelling, but Bán’s mind was already elsewhere, scouring the paddocks that surrounded the villa. “We don’t have more than eighty ready for sale.” The horses were not his but he felt them to be so. He counted on his hands in bunches of ten. “We could do eighty-five if we were really pushed but the last half-dozen would be two-year-olds, not fully broken. They would not be safe for cavalry.”
“Amminios has ordered all the three- and four-year-olds sent down from the farm at Noviodunum and others brought up from Augustobona. With them, we will have the full number.”
“Then the Fox will be here. That’s good.” He gripped Iccius by the shoulder, feeling more cheered than he had done. “Are you to go to the horse fair? Can we go together?”
“No. I can’t go.” It was said tightly, with a slight clenching of the hands. Everything Iccius did was controlled now, as if he was afraid that real movement might betray him.
“What? Is it Braxus? Did you not please him?”
There was no answer, which was answer enough. Then a small fist clenched at his shoulder, suggesting more. “It’s not only that. I have to help in the kitchens this afternoon.”
Bán felt his stomach tighten. He said, “That’s all right. You like the kitchens. And you can help me with the yearlings this morning. That will be good, too.”
“Maybe.”
“Who is coming that you are needed in the kitchens?”
He knew the answer. Iccius’s reticence had told him. By asking, he held it at bay that moment longer. Then Iccius said, “Amminios is on his way down from Noviodunum with the horses. The visiting prefect—the Roman officer who is buying them—is invited to dinner. He has ordered that we both be in the serving party.”
“Gods, no.” It was Amminios’s favourite game, to show off his “barbarian savages, tamed to domestic service.” Bán’s head swam and the visions came back, stronger. Dead Iccius stood in front of him, more vividly than the Iccius he held alive in his arms. In Eceni, so the others could not understand, he said, “I will kill him.”
He had said it before, and had meant it then, too. Just as last time, Iccius’s vast blue eyes looked up into his. Tears floated on the rims. “Then you must swear to kill me first. Bán, please, swear it.”
The child was close to panic. His fingers gripped with the desperation of one dangling over an abyss. Bán held him tightly until he felt a small grunt of pain. When he let go, Iccius said again, “Do you swear it? Swear you will kill me. You must!”
“No.” He pressed gently over the bruised ribs, trying to ease away the hurt. “I could never kill you, you know that.” He bit his lip. The visions pressed closer, asking for blood. They would not leave unless he gave them something. He said, “I swear not to kill Amminios while you live. Will that do?”
There were no words,
but it seemed that it would. The hands relaxed their grip on his shoulder and the moment passed. They had walked this circle so often before. If Amminios were to die and there was the slightest shadow of suspicion that his death was not a natural one, every slave in the house would be tortured for information and then crucified, up to and including Braxus. It was the law. In the days after Iccius’s gelding, when it had seemed he might not survive, Bán had stood beneath a full moon and sworn to his ghosts and to Nemain that he would kill Amminios and live long enough afterwards to see the Thracian nailed to the wood. Braxus, somehow, had known it and had ridden the three miles to town himself to bring back the healer to see that the boy lived. She had worked well and the wounds had healed cleanly, but Iccius’s soul had fled and only half of it had come back to live amongst them after.
Bán hugged him again, more peacefully. “It is better for you when Amminios is here,” he said. “Braxus will leave you alone and there will be more horses to care for. We can spend the days in the stables and forget about everyone else. Come on. If we are up first, we can let the horses out into the paddocks. It’s always good to watch.”
The morning foreshadowed the rest of the day. The clear skies of dawn clouded over early and the fresh breeze brought a light drizzle that strengthened later to stinging rain. Even so, the horses were at their best. It was a year after his capture before Bán realized that Amminios had taken every word of their conversation on horse breeding and was making it happen. The red Thessalian mare and the dun colt, now grown to adulthood, had formed the foundation of the new stud. The mare had thrown three foals since the landing. The first—the one she had been carrying when they were captured—had not been the white-headed colt of Bán’s dream but it was breathtakingly beautiful none the less. Its hide was perfectly black, streaked at irregular intervals with long, lean patches of white, like liquid moonlight poured on polished jet. Its conformation was close to perfect; the chest was wide between the forelegs to give good space for the heart and lungs, and when it stood its legs were clean-boned and straight with a perfect angle at hock and stifle. It was born in a thunderstorm on the night of the full moon, and Bán had felt the gods gather to watch as he had sat in the pouring rain and given the colt its first lick of salt from his hand.
