Island of Ghosts

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “I don’t know why,” I admitted. “I have no proof that she’s the one who did it, and without proof I’ve already said too much. But I think I can guess what she said to you. Perhaps she welcomed you, promised you her assistance in Eburacum, told you that the Britons are the natural allies of our people, far more than the Romans. And when you agreed and she saw that you hated the Romans, perhaps she hinted that we might not always be enemies of the Britons, but could join with them against a common enemy. She’s told you, certainly, that I’ve gone over entirely to the Roman side, and you should not trust me.”

  I’d struck the mark: his frown vanished in a look of consternation. “And you haven’t?”

  It hurt unexpectedly that he had believed it so completely, and I answered him more directly and passionately than I might have done. “I’ll tell you whose side I’m on,” I said. “I’m on the side of the sixth dragon. I’m on the side of my own people. They followed me on raids against the Romans, they followed me to war. Now everything we gained in raiding is lost, like the war, and we’ve become dead men to our own people, but they must follow me still, across the ocean to an island of ghosts. All that we had is gone, but as long as they and I both live, they are bound to me and I to them. I will do my utmost for them. If that means Romanizing, I’ll Romanize, as far as I need to. I have as much reason as any man living to hate the Romans, but I can’t choose my alliances from hatred. The honor and safety of my people is in my hands, and I would rather keep them secure than be revenged on any enemy-particularly an enemy we have all sworn on fire to serve.”

  “But if we could make an alliance against the Romans?” Siyavak asked-whispering now. “A successful one?”

  “With whom?” I asked. “With someone who told a lie that sent your lord to his death and which would have left me disgraced, and my men, most likely, killed mutinying? And I’ll tell you more: the Picts we fought here not ten days ago hadn’t just heard that there would be a mutiny on the Wall to distract the garrisons, they’d heard it well in advance. They’d had time to settle blood feuds and forge alliances between tribes. Whoever sent that message acted deliberately and with forethought, and chose to tell Gatalas nothing except the lie that killed him. I don’t trust allies who take no risks themselves but are very free with other people’s blood. I trust them even less if they are, as I suspect, headed by a woman who smiles sweetly at her husband when she lies to him and slips from his bed to plot with his enemies. She says she is our natural ally-why should we believe she’s truer to us than she is to the legate? It seems to me far more likely that she’s playing ‘divide and rule.’ When we and the Romans have killed each other, she’ll collect the spoils for herself. Look at what she does, Siyavak, not at her smiles, and think if you trust her then.”

  Siyavak thought, and gazed at me in distress. “I’ve always hated the Romans,” he said, “and everything that’s happened since we came to Britain has only made me hate them more. When the lady Aurelia Bodica talked to me and hinted at revenge, it gave me hope. But you’re right. You’re right. Very likely it was her who killed Gatalas, and her alliance would only kill us all. But I’m not used to bridling myself with reason. I never was a scepter-holder.”

  “You’re the commander of a dragon now,” I replied. “You and Valerius Victor. You’ll have to learn.”

  “Help me,” he said wretchedly. “You’re saying that to revenge my lord’s death, I must fight the enemies of my enemies? Not just on the battlefield, but in secret? How can I do it?”

  “By all the gods! You mustn’t even think of revenge yet. We don’t know for certain that she sent the message, and if you were found plotting to murder the wife of a legate, we’d all be punished. No, all I have said is that the alliance we’ve been offered is no alliance, but a death trap. Our only choice is what it always was: keep our oaths or die. And how can we lead our people to death? Your prince commanded you to surrender to the Romans so that you’d live: do you want to throw his last gift away?”

  “No,” said Siyavak, soberly. “No-but it is my duty to revenge him.” He rubbed a hand wearily along his face. “And you’re right. It’s my duty to see that the others of my dragon stay alive and reach the good fortune the gods promised us. Both duties make me an enemy of Lady Aurelia. But I don’t know how to go about discharging either.”

  I’d won, made him a servant of Rome, and I felt only grief and weariness. I leaned against the wall. “I don’t know any more than you,” I said, “but I must warn you: she’s won Arshak over, completely as far as I can tell-though you probably know that yourself. And you can add one more thing to what we know of her: she’s dangerous. Arshak and I met her on the way back from Condercum. I can’t remember now what she said or what came of it, but I do know that I didn’t agree with her-and I ended up in the river.”

  He stared. “I thought perhaps Arshak had fought you,” he said, after a silence.

  “You believed that Romanizing has made me so feeble I’d lose without either of us putting a mark on the other?”

  “No,” he answered, flushing a bit, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think at all. Then how…?”

  “I can’t remember. But I don’t think the details will make a great difference. The god warned us in Bononia to beware of lies and deceits, and we must take that warning to heart. It seems to me that if you’re not going to join her, you have two choices. The first, the course I will follow myself, is never to see her privately, never to accept any gift from her, and to distrust every message you receive that she might have tampered with-and you’ll have to be suspicious of Arshak as well, since he’s firmly behind her banner.”

  “And the second choice?”

  “Let her believe that she’s won you over, discover her plans, and expose them. That’s the way you’d get your revenge without harming your men. But you’d have to lie to her. She might either discover it, and kill you-or she might win you over in fact.”

  When I saw his eyes light, I knew which choice he’d make. But I’d known that he’d choose the more dangerous path if it offered him revenge. It was the path I’d both hoped and feared he’d choose-hoped, because he could learn things that would let us destroy our enemies; feared, because I was letting him take a course of danger and dishonor that I’d been too proud to take myself.

  “Do you think I’d go over to her if she’s guilty of Gatalas’ death?” he demanded impatiently.

  “I think you hate the Romans, and she’s very persuasive. She might be able to convince you of something you wanted to believe.”

  “I am not blind or stupid,” he said bitterly. “I heard her before in a fog, without thinking, but when a thing’s been pointed out to me, I can see it. I will watch facts now, not pretty smiles. No. I will get revenge. But…” He stopped, then nerved himself. “But you must help me. I feel as though I’m riding an unknown plain without landmarks, and I don’t know which way to turn to reach my goal. You must advise me.”

  I’d never expected him to humble himself that far, and I blinked at it. He went on quickly, in a low voice, “I don’t know how to govern myself, let alone command a dragon subject to the Romans. You’re a scepter-holder and you’ve learned to use the Roman roads. You must advise me, Lord Ariantes.”

  I said nothing for a minute. It was not that I didn’t want to advise him, but I didn’t see how I could.

  “I know!” he said, misunderstanding my silence. “I’ve insulted you, now to your face and before in my own thoughts. But I’ve thought from time to time as well that the sixth dragon was lucky in its commander, and I beg your pardon.”

  “I have nothing to pardon,” I answered, touched by it. “You served your own prince honorably. But how can I advise you if you’re in Eburacum, under Bodica’s eyes? For you to consult me would put your life at risk. But if you want my advice, I’m here. We’ll talk through what we can here and now, and I’ll try to find another way for you to reach me in future.”

  We talked for some time, first in the alleyway, th
en at the back of the stables, and parted in the end warmly. I’d been quite right in my first judgment of the man, that he was both intelligent and loyal. I could only pray to the gods that he was intelligent enough to deceive Bodica, and loyal enough not to be turned by her.

  When Siyavak had left the stables, I remained for a while, sitting on a bale of straw with my head on my knees, rubbing my sore leg. I was tired-not perhaps as exhausted as I’d been the day before, but still, deeply and immeasurably tired. I’d made no arrangements to spend the night in Corstopitum, and my bodyguard were planning to meet me back in the stables around the middle of the afternoon. The thought of the ride back depressed me; the thought of arranging accommodation in the town for the ten I’d brought with me depressed me as well. I was trying to work up the strength to do one or the other when I heard a polite dry cough, and picked up my head to see Eukairios standing in front of me.

  I smiled, so pleased to see him that I surprised myself. He smiled back: I hadn’t seen him smile like that before, and it transformed his drab, weary face into something quite different.

  “I met Banadaspos in the town,” he said, “and he said he was to meet you here, so I came looking for you. I’m very glad to see you alive, my lord.”

  “The gods have been kind to me,” I answered. “But where have you been? I asked for you at headquarters and at the commandant’s house, but they did not know where you were.”

  “I’ve been staying with a friend in the town. But I packed my things when I heard you’d arrived, and I’m ready to leave whenever you want to.”

  “Readier than I am, then. Eukairios, I am tired.”

  He hesitated, then said cautiously, “You look very tired, if I may say so, my lord. Well, should I take my things back to my friend’s? I’m sure you have a standing invitation to stay at the commandant’s house.”

  “I have, my bodyguard has not. And the town is overcrowded, with all the troops here. They might be sent to the servants’ quarters, or somewhere else that would offend them. No, better to ride back tonight. I need to find my armor. Then we can set out as soon as the others arrive back here.”

  Eukairios sat down carefully on the straw beside me. “Banadaspos was fetching your gear from the armory, my lord. He told me about it when I met him just now. Why don’t you go somewhere and rest for a bit?”

  I was relieved to hear it. “Why go somewhere?” I asked, leaning back into the straw.

  He gave his short, nervous laugh, and I looked at him questioningly.

  “Your notion of what dignity demands is so different from a Roman’s,” he explained. “A Roman noble might swallow a dozen insults which a Sarmatian would kill for, but he’d be outraged at the suggestion he could rest in a stable.”

  “That is what houses are for, is it?” I asked. “Dignity, dignity.”

  “And comfort.”

  “For some.” I remembered Pervica, her house and her barn, and I smiled again. I began to tell Eukairios about River End Farm and about my plan for the horses. “Do you think she would be interested?” I asked.

  “If the set price for the horses was good, I would think so,” he replied. I could see him calculating it in his head: budget horse fodder; budget vet’s fees; take gross income from the foals at probable set price; take net. “It would be a good steady income,” he concluded, “and there’d be a good chance of extra, as well, since the army officials coming and going would probably buy the wool from the sheep too, and other farm produce as well. Yes, a sensible woman would be very pleased with it.”

  “Good.”

  We were silent for a few minutes, me lying back with my eyes half-shut, contented now, Eukairios still sitting primly with his feet tucked under him. Then the scribe said, hesitantly, “I was glad to hear that you succeeded in calming things at Condercum. May I… may I ask what caused the trouble there?”

  I explained. When I came to the markings on the rod, he caught his breath. “I’d… heard a little bit about this. I’d been wanting to talk to you when you got back, only you didn’t come back. My lord, I was very frightened, and I could only pray for your safety. What did these markings look like?”

  I sat up: he sounded like he knew something. “Not like Roman writing,” I said. “The lines were not joined up, and there were no curved lines. It was more sticklike.”

  “Like this?” he asked, and he bent over and made a series of markings in the dirt of the stable floor.

  “Yes,” I said, staring at them, “Exactly like that. You know that kind of writing?”

  “A little.” He rubbed the markings out with his foot. Like Victor, he didn’t seem to like the look of them. He sighed, staring at the rubbed earth, then looked up suddenly and met my eyes. “Have you ever heard of the druids?”

  “No.”

  His mouth twisted. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have. They’re… another illegal religion.”

  “Like yours?”

  “No. Oh no. Not ‘like’ at all. But… we know of each other. We’ve shared hiding places with them, and the names of officials who could be bribed; we’ve exchanged information about arrests, journeys, boats that could smuggle a passenger to safety. I think we both know that if the other group became legal, it would be an enemy, but we’re both threatened with death for our faith, and that creates a bond, even unwillingly. The druids think we’re atheists and we think they’re addicted to sorcery, but we help each other.” He paused, then went on, “They are the old priesthood of the gods of the Celts. Britain was the center of their cult. That writing is the kind they use.”

  I had a feeling like the moment in a hunt when you sight the quarry. I knew that a number of things I hadn’t understood were about to be explained. “If they are the priests of an old religion, why are they illegal?” I asked quietly.

  “Because they are enemies of Rome.” Eukairios looked at me levelly and spoke in a steady voice, though his shoulders were hunched with tension and his hands locked together in his lap. “They were enemies of Rome before there was a province of Britain, before there was a province of Gaul. When Italians first fought Celts, the druids cursed them, and they’ve been cursing them ever since. Britain was always the center of their cult, the place they came to study their sacred mysteries, and when Britain first became a province, the druids took shelter in the West and preached rebellion. The Romans marched on them and slaughtered them, together with their wives and their children. That was about a century ago, and they and all their schools have been banned throughout the island ever since. It’s not true elsewhere in the empire. In Gaul they’re perfectly legal-but in Gaul they’re not the same. The ban hasn’t destroyed them. I’ve sometimes thought that their power is greater as a thing of whispers and shadows than it ever would be if they were legal, as they are in Gaul. They even send out emissaries to the Gaulish druids, whom they regard as heretical, telling them to mend their ways.”

  He fell silent for another long moment, then went on painfully, “I met one of them in Natalis’ house in Dubris, a man called Cunedda. He’d been an emissary to Gaul, and once I gave him some information about a ship which probably saved his life-he was being hunted by the authorities at the time. We were very surprised to see one another, but when he learned that I had become your slave, he was pleased. He knew who you were, my lord. He asked me my name-I never told him that when we met before-and then he asked what it means. When I said that it means ‘well timed,’ he said, ‘I accept the omen! I pray that this meeting is well timed indeed.’ He wanted me to arrange a meeting with you.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, my lord. I… didn’t know what you would do if I did, how you’d answer him. I didn’t want to betray him to the authorities, but I didn’t want to get mixed up in anything seditious, either. I made excuses and hoped he’d go away. But I met him again in Eburacum, and then again here, in Corstopitum. He was growing impatient, and said that you were avoiding those who might help you. My lord, he has an ally in the legate’s house.”r />
  It was everything I’d thought. “Aurelia Bodica,” I said.

  The hunched shoulders slumped with relief. “You know, then.”

  “I had heard nothing. But it fits.”

  “I saw her with him, in the legate’s house when I was billeted there, my lord. I left the house to avoid them. I was afraid, I… You see, I wouldn’t do what they wanted, wouldn’t arrange the private meeting, and it would be so easy for her to destroy me; all she would have to do would be to tell her husband that I’d stolen from her. I went into the town and stayed with my friend. I told him about her and about Cunedda, and he told me what he’d heard about the lady from his

  … contacts. It’s the same here as it was in Gaul: the Christians and the druids exchange the names of people who are sympathetic or bribable, or hiding places which the authorities know nothing about-though, of course, the druids are very much more powerful here, in their homeland, and the Christians are very weak. The lady is known to be eager to protect the priesthood of the old gods, and is thought to be devoted to one of the most extreme sects. My friend said that there’s been a lot of tension just in the past year, with the druids pushing the limits of official blindness, and he found it very easy to believe that an extreme sect has been growing in influence. I was very alarmed. I realized that I’d been a fool not to speak to you about it before, and I asked Banadaspos to let me know when you got back. Only you didn’t come back.

  “I was very frightened. I asked around at the stables and I found out that the lady Aurelia had had herself driven out of Corstopitum, to visit a shrine of the god Silvanus. I rode out to the shrine myself, and I learned that when she’d arrived there, she turned her slave and her driver out of the chariot and drove on alone. There were troops searching the road for you by then, so there was nothing I could do but ride back and pray. I thank God that you are still alive! That’s not the end, though. Yesterday morning, when I was here in the stables looking after the horse you lent me, Cunedda came in looking for me. He gave me this message: ‘Your master refused to listen to us. It’s true that he still lives, but he will not live long. Before this season is ended he will die, and die not by any human hand but by the power of the sacred ones. You will see it and believe.’ ”