Island of Ghosts

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “You bastards don’t even entrench!” Facilis shouted at me, while I held Farna in the place I’d chosen for the main fire and waved the wagons round. “Listen, Ariantes, you’ll have the damned villagers in and out of here every hour of the day and night, and half of them are thieves! And what are you going to do about latrines?”

  “Lend us a few shovels, and we’ll dig a spur from the ones in the fort,” I replied, not looking at him.

  “You’re entitled to the commandant’s house, you know,” Comittus coaxed. “At least, we could share it. It’s a big house, and it has a hypocaust and a private bath-house with a steam room, and the last man there put in a very fine floor on the dining room…”

  “Comittus,” I said, “when I was in my own country and a prince, I did not have a big house with a mosaic floor. I do not need or want one now. Perhaps in the winter, if it is very cold, barracks and hypocausts may seem worthwhile. Not tonight.”

  “May I perish!” exclaimed Longus, exasperated at seeing all his preparations for us laid waste. “What sort of people have they sent us?”

  I looked at him. “They have sent you Sarmatians,” I told him. “We are accustomed to live in wagons.”

  “They’ve sent us a pack of raving lunatics! Who else would prefer filthy carts to good stone barracks blocks? Oh, now I know what the problem is! You’ve mistaken Cilurnum for the madhouse you escaped from!”

  The Asturians, and the villagers, laughed. My men heard it. They interpreted the comment to each other. I noticed Facilis’ face losing its red, swollen look as he became alarmed. He had called us similar things, and worse-but he was a senior officer, and knew exactly how far he could go, and in what circumstances. He would never have used language like that in front of an audience that understood.

  I looked at Longus thoughtfully. He’d climbed onto his horse to greet us, and he was armed and wearing a shirt of mail. But he was off guard. “You should not insult us, Flavinus Longus,” I told him quietly. “Remember we must work together.” I raised my hand to keep my men still.

  “I can say what I li-” began Longus.

  Farna leapt sideways at a touch of my heel, and I swept my lance out and across to knock the decurion off his mount backwards. I turned my horse almost on top of him, and drove the point of the lance into the earth about two inches from his shoulder. By the time he’d recoiled from it, I had my sword out and at his throat. “No killing!” I shouted in Sarmatian. It had been sudden enough that the Asturians were all still gaping, and my men had not yet tried anything on their own. But I could hear the sound of the bows being strung behind me.

  “You should not insult us,” I told Longus again. He looked up the sword blade into my eyes. His face had gone gray. “If you ask Marcus Flavius Facilis, he will tell you how we deal with those who insult us. You should not have said that, on first meeting us, in front of all your men and mine. It was foolish. But I am sure you would not have said it if you knew us better, and you regret it now.” I took my sword away from his throat and put it back in its sheath, then pulled my lance up and backed Farna away.

  Longus picked himself up, still looking gray. One of my men had caught his mount, and I nodded for it to be returned. It was probably just as well we’d had a small, manageable incident of this kind. The Asturians had obviously needed to have it pointed out to them that it was dangerous to speak to Sarmatians as they would to Romans. I was sorry to have humiliated Longus, but at least he was junior to me and would have to admit to himself, when he’d calmed down, that he should not have used that tone to the commander of another unit, however stupidly he thought I was behaving.

  “We swore to the emperor that we would fight for him,” I told the Romans. “We did not swear to sleep in tombs. We must already learn to patrol and guard, to stay in one place, to use money. We must learn another language and another way of life. This we can and will do. Flavius Facilis, we can build a palisade, if you want to keep people out of our camp; we can make adjustments. But you must forbear a little.”

  They gave in, though Facilis still muttered darkly about latrines, and we parked the wagons in the field, loosed the horses, and settled down into a new life.

  The first months we spent in Cilurnum were all I could have hoped for: quiet and monotonous. All my forebodings about trouble in the North seemed utterly misplaced. We could test the shape of our new position with very little to disturb us. The legate had given orders that the men were not to leave the fort-which we interpreted to mean not just the fort itself, but the village and fields attached to it-without the permission of the camp prefect. This was a measure to control us and protect the civilians of the region, but I was glad of it: it gave us a chance to learn the customs of the land before we entered it.

  The chief business of the fort was the collection of tolls. Cilurnum was the official crossing point for neighboring people with business on the other side of the Wall, and it also provided the main bridge over the north Tinea River. Every day a trickle of shepherds drove flocks through the gates, and on market days there would be a crowd of carts, all paying their copper to the men on duty to be allowed to cross.

  The fort was also responsible for manning six mile-castles-small fortlets that were built every mile along the Wall. The milecastles, in turn, manned the watchtowers, where the sentries could sit watching the sheep on the hills northward. We sent men out to the milecastles for ten days at a time, and rotated them squadron by squadron. The squadrons not on watch were assigned chores about the camp-though these generally did not take up much time, once the work of building a palisade for our camp and digging latrines had been finished. I suggested to Facilis and Comittus that we buy some flocks and herds of our own, which would not only keep us supplied with meat, milk, and woolens, but also give the men something more to do. I was told that Roman soldiers were not allowed to herd or farm the land. Instead, one had to invent work for them-drilling, extra patrols, competitions. It seemed ridiculous to me, but I had to go along with it, if only to keep my dragon from squabbling with the Asturians.

  If my men weren’t very busy, I was, and quarrels with the Asturians were the chief thing that occupied me. The Asturians, my troops reckoned, were perfect to quarrel with, much better than Gatalas’ men. Their spears were shorter, they couldn’t shoot, they didn’t wear nearly as much armor, and they weren’t as skillful on horseback as we were: they were opponents who could reliably be beaten. My men were soon swaggering at the very sight of the poor auxiliaries. It was amazing how little Latin they needed to start a fight. And there was trouble, as I’d anticipated, with drink and women-the fort village had a collection of taverns and two brothels. Still, it could have been worse. The Asturians were so clumsy that no one actually needed to kill them, and I was allowed to impose punishments on my followers myself, rather than yield them to the Asturians for floggings and forced marches. I explained to the men that this would change if the Romans thought they were out of control, but even so I had a constant struggle to keep the most imperfect peace. I had to disgrace some of my men by taking back gifts I had given them and bestowing them instead on the Romans they’d injured, and one man I had to dismiss from my bodyguard for provoking trouble.

  Longus was better at it than I was. Despite his mournful appearance, he had a keen sense of humor, and he told jokes against himself with a straight face and toneless voice that had his friends roaring. When I was faced with a quarrel, I could only give orders or administer justice: if he got to a quarrel in time, it dissolved in laughter instead of blows. Far from holding a grudge against me for knocking him off his horse the first time we met, he turned the incident into one of his favorite stories: “Next thing I knew, I’d fallen from my mare’s rump like a lump of manure, and Ariantes sticks the spear he did it with next to my neck, chunk! and looks along his sword at me with an expression on his face like he’s considering what bit to chop off first. I thought my last hour had come. Oh gods and goddesses, I thought to myself, get me out of this one and I�
��ll never say a word against carts again, so help me Epona, goddess of horseflesh. And then he says, very reasonable and soft-spoken, ‘You should not have insulted us,’ and you know? I couldn’t agree with him more; I want to nod, like that, but there’s this sword at my throat, and I’m worried a nod will have consequences, if you take my meaning..”

  I learned very quickly to value Longus. In fact, I liked all the men I worked with at Cilurnum, except Facilis, and even he no longer quarreled with me. Comittus had been friendly from the first, and once he’d agreed to take the commandant’s house and leave me in my wagon, we got on well. Bouncy and inexperienced he might have been, but he was able and intelligent underneath it, and understood what the British were thinking far better than the rest of us.

  After the first month or so, I sent Eukairios to live in the slaves’ quarters of the commandant’s house, as it was clear from his wistful look every time we left it that he far preferred stone walls to a wagon now that the winter was drawing in. Leimanos was unhappy with this: though he now quite liked the scribe, he still didn’t trust him. “I think he is loyal to you in his own way, my prince,” he told me, “but he’s a slave, with a slave’s courage. If the Romans order him to, he’ll tell them anything he knows.” But I wanted Eukairios to be content in my service. Besides, there were no secrets in the work I gave him: all the letters I had him write were to Romans. He had made an inventory of the goods I’d brought with me in my wagon, and reported that I had enough to buy the goodwill of the administration with plenty left in reserve, so we set out to arrange pay and conditions for the men to my liking, and distributed gold by the handful. In this I relied on Eukairios absolutely. He had an astonishing memory. Our language was his fourth, and he mastered it in only a few months and learned everything there was to know about the northern army at the same time. He knew who were the best officials to write to about what, and how much one should give them to make them friendly. I was satisfied at Cilurnum that autumn, despite the dragon’s quarrels with the ala. But that satisfaction was shattered by Gatalas.

  It was a chill, damp day early in December when I heard the news, and we’d had one of the ridiculous competitions. We’d divided into teams, with some Sarmatians and some Asturians on each team in the hope that this would reconcile them to one another, and played a game that involved much cantering about in full armor and the mud, hurling blunted spears-casting javelins was about the only thing the Asturians could do better than us. Now the men had gone off to steam away the mud and cold in the public bathhouse, and the senior officers were doing the same in the commandant’s bathhouse. Comittus and Longus sprawled along the benches; Leimanos, Banadaspos, and one of my captains, the dragon’s priest Kasagos, whom I’d brought with me, sat cross-legged with their eyes half-shut against the heat. (Leimanos and Banadaspos usually came on such occasions, and Kasagos’ squadron had distinguished itself in the game.) Facilis sat off to one side, elbows on knees, squat and silent. He had become the one who was out of place now, an aging foot soldier among the young cavalry officers, and he usually bathed, left, and went home before the rest of us. The exercise had gone well, and we were all tired but pleased.

  “We ought to finish up the day with a few drinks,” said Longus. “Or even a few drinks and a bit of action. Fortunatus has a couple of new girls.”

  “Any good?” asked Comittus.

  Longus rolled his eyes. “I like the Greek. Trufosa, she’s called. Little and dainty and hot as pepper-or so they say. I haven’t been honored yet. You ought to go, Ariantes. Fortunatus has said that if you come, you can have any girl you like, for free.”

  “So that my men will go to his brothel rather than the other one?”

  “I doubt it. They’re not short of Sarmatian custom as it is. Every time I’ve been in there recently, the place has been full of drunks weeping into their wine as they tell the girls about the beautiful horses they had to leave behind.” He clasped an imaginary cup in both hands, looked more mournful than ever, and began lamenting a lost horse in extravagant terms and a wickedly accurate Sarmatian accent. Kasagos and Leimanos laughed. Longus rolled his eyes, sighed deeply, and declared, still in a Sarmatian voice, “I miss my vife sometime, too.” Banadaspos, who hadn’t found the lament funny, realized at this that it was a joke, and laughed too. “No,” continued Longus, in his own voice now, “Fortunatus just wants to give his place a bit of class. Patronized by princes and senior officers! But a couple of the girls have said they’d be delighted to oblige you any time. Lupicilla still goes into floods of giggles at the thought of you knocking me off my horse. You really ought to come.”

  I looked at him tolerantly. “Thank you, thank Fortunatus, no.”

  If the goddess of love herself had appeared to me, naked and golden and smelling of myrrh, I would have fallen on my knees before her and begged her to give me Tirgatao. I wanted, I wanted desperately, but a man who’s parched with thirst cannot eat bread.

  The door to the steam room opened suddenly, and Eukairios came in. “My lord,” he said to me, “may I speak to you a moment?”

  I gestured for him to sit, but he remained standing. He glanced at the door, which he was holding open. I got up and went toward the changing room to get my clothes.

  Facilis picked his head up. “What is it?” he asked suspiciously.

  “A piece of news, Lord Facilis,” Eukairios answered politely. “If I may just speak with my master…”

  “Wait a minute, man. If it’s so important it can’t wait until your master’s out of the steam room, it’s important enough that the rest of us need to hear it too.”

  Eukairios looked at me nervously. “What has happened?” I asked him.

  He shook his head and closed the door. “In the post this evening there was a letter for me from… from a correspondent of mine in Corstopitum. It said… I am sorry, my lord. Your friend Lord Gatalas is dead.”

  “Dead?” I asked, in horror. “How?”

  “In a mutiny against the authorities,” Eukairios admitted miserably. “Apparently, two days ago he quarreled with the camp prefect of Condercum and with his liaison officer. He turned them out of the fort, so they went at once to the neighboring forts, collected troops, and marched back to Condercum. He came out of the fort this morning with just his bodyguard, thirty-two men. They thought that he wanted to negotiate with them-but he’d come out to die. He’d ordered the rest of his dragon in Condercum to surrender, but rode out to battle himself. He and the thirty-two killed four times their number, including the camp prefect, before they were killed themselves. The rest of his men have surrendered and are under arrest in Condercum.”

  “Marha!” I whispered. I bowed my head, blinking at it: Gatalas dead.

  “Why didn’t anyone tell us?” cried Leimanos, jumping furiously to his feet.

  “Don’t be stupid!” snapped Facilis. “It was over in two days. And no one would tell you anyway. You’d have gone to help him. A hundred and twenty Roman soldiers dead. Gods and goddesses! I tried to tell them!”

  I went out into the changing room and began to put my clothes on. “Leimanos,” I said, “we need to summon all the men.”

  “What do you think you’re going to do?” asked Facilis, pushing his way out after me.

  “You think it better that they hear this in the taverns?” I asked, fastening my muddy trousers. I picked up my shirt and glared at the centurion. “You need have no fear, Flavius Facilis. I will not throw away the lives of my men chasing vengeance. As for Gatalas, he revenged himself.” I pulled the shirt over my head.

  “Revenged himself for what?” demanded Facilis. “For being sent to a cavalry fort in pleasant country, well fed, well housed, well paid? A hundred and twenty Romans dead! And most likely because of a few words!”

  “It needed forbearance!” I returned. “He was willing to keep his oaths if he could trust his commanders.” I sat down and pulled my boots on. Banadaspos was weeping as he did the same; Kasagos was muttering a prayer for the dead; Le
imanos was dangerously silent. “Eukairios, as soon as I’ve spoken to the men, we need to write some letters.”

  Eukairios coughed. “The letter that told me this… it came with some dispatches. They arrived by special courier. That’s why I had to see you at once.”

  For a moment I couldn’t think what he meant. Then I understood: the dispatches had included orders to Comittus, Longus, and Facilis to arrest me, disarm my men, and confine us all to camp.

  I turned to the Romans. “If the dispatches tell you to do anything,” I whispered, “do not do it yet! Please. Give me a chance to calm things down. Longus, if my men hear of this in the taverns, they will set on yours and there will be bloodshed. I need to assemble the dragon and speak to them all tonight. Tomorrow morning we can sacrifice to Marha and read the divining rods, and also pray for our friends’ souls. After that you can do what you like. The men will be steadier and will not do anything foolish.”

  The three others were silent for a long moment. Then Longus said, “We weren’t going to read the dispatches tonight-were we, Comittus?”

  “No,” agreed Comittus, understanding at once, “no-we’ve had a tiring day, and it’s getting late. We were planning to have a few drinks and get some rest.”

  “And we can’t open them tomorrow morning, either,” Longus continued. “If you’re having some ceremony to worship the gods, obviously we ought to join in. The dispatches can wait until lunchtime.”

  I looked at Facilis.

  “May the gods destroy those dispatches!” he said. “I’m certainly not reading them tonight. I’m going straight to bed.”

  “I thank you all,” I said, warmly, then grabbed my coat and hurried out into the chill dampness of the night to assemble my men.