The Red Serpent

by Robert Low

  Chapter Eight

  The tree was a twisted torture, a bent and wrinkled crone all knobbed with old galls and mostly bare of leaves, so that it seemed to claw out of the ground. It crouched malevolently in the middle of a festering marsh, studded with tussocks and pools, pinging with insects.

  The Zonius River – the Golden River – flowed out into the Hyrcanian Ocean here and the distant green, steep-gorged line of it marked the good land round the Wall from the drab dust of the north. Much like all the other golden objects we have been led to, Drust thought, its shine is less bright than promised and much like every map he had ever known, it was not the only name this river had. Sarnois was another and Atrak yet a third.

  The surviving crew of the ship had been reluctant to come too close – their new leader, a Persian called Mazarbak, pleaded the draught and the possibility of grounding, but Kisa said it was because they feared this place.

  ‘It’s supposed to be a trade place,’ Sib argued. ‘I have seen this before on the fringes of lands – look, there are the remains of old signals that there are folk wanting to buy and sell.’

  He was right – there were weathered scraps of faded cloth and other items hanging from the tortured branches and Mazarbak confirmed that trade had been carried out here, circumventing the Red Serpent taxes and bribes.

  ‘Not lately. Not for some time,’ he added, squinting at the shoreline. ‘The Tschol have seen to that.’

  The Tschol, Kisa explained, was a large name for a lot of peoples of the Land of No Return – the Red Hawk tribe, the White Stallions, the Bones of the Earth and others. The names made people hunch in their necks and peer warily left and right. This was the land of wolves, of giant tigers and creatures that were, perhaps, even worse – so bad they needed to be kept behind a Wall.

  ‘Ha,’ said Kag when this was slithered out. ‘We have been over such a Wall – remember? And the worst beasts we found when we got there were…?’

  ‘Ourselves,’ Sib muttered, and Kag smacked his hands together like a lawyer making a fine moment in a speech; others winced at the noise.

  ‘None of these folk sound friendly,’ Sib added. ‘And where is Manius? Or Dog?’

  All Kisa had been told was ‘follow the river’. Mazarbak and the remaining crew had been grateful that their ship wasn’t burned to the waterline and promised to return in thirty days and wait two. If no one came, they could sail away. If there were people waiting, they would carry them to safety and receive gold in reward. They had seen the gold – Drust had dug it out of a secret place while ransacking Atakan’s sleeping place.

  They watched the ship slide into haze, slapping insects and wondering what they ate when the Brothers of the Sands were not around. Then they sorted out what gear they had, which wasn’t much. Atakan had provided hard leather breastplates and helmets, they had their own worn weapons, some food and a riverful of water.

  ‘All in all,’ Quintus declared, grinning, ‘we aren’t so badly off.’

  ‘You are a man of simple tastes,’ Praeclarum answered, slapping something to a bloody smear on her upper arm.

  Ugo stood looking at the tree – Stercorinus prowled it as if it was a live enemy. Bones hung from the branches, a belt with a rusted buckle, skeins of dead flower-chains. It dripped with dusty old skins – a lion, Drust saw, touching the dry-rotted thing with wonder. There was a knife long rusted to shards, and newer bits too – a lump of amber on a cord, a horse amulet, the intricately carved bone handle of a broken knife. They knew god-places when they saw them and moved quietly here, hushed and reverent; the affair of the blue stones had shaken them, though none would admit it.

  ‘I saw such trees as these when I was toddling,’ Kag said, squinting up at the clawed branches. ‘Along the Arda river. Once I saw a carved horse, maybe put there by one of the tribals, and I took it. My da made me put it back; he knew it was wrong and an insult to the gods and the locals.’

  ‘Smart man, your da,’ Praeclarum answered. ‘What was he?’

  ‘Legionary. 13th,’ Kag answered, short and hard, with a look that told Praeclarum he wanted no more talk on it.

  The line of the river was a burst of eye-watering green after the soulless grey-blue of the sea and the endless dusted tan of the land. It was mountainous here and covered with trees, the river slid and snaked over rocks – further up towards the hills, Drust knew, it would dance and spray.

  This side of the ocean was the land the Greeks called Hyrcania, Kisa told them. ‘Varkana, the land of wolves,’ he added, his unease flowing from him like heat. ‘Even the Great Iskandr walked softly and eventually built the Wall they call the Red Serpent to keep these people away from decent folk.’

  ‘Well, how far do we have to go?’ Ugo asked, looking at the green-choked gorge up ahead.

  ‘Not as far as the Great Iskandr,’ Kisa declared and Kag laughed.

  ‘He fell off the edge of the world, no doubt.’

  ‘He was poisoned,’ Kisa corrected sternly. ‘By his own.’

  ‘That’s the East for you,’ Quintus said, hefting a pack and adjusting it for comfort on his shoulder. ‘The further to the east you go, the more you meet the secret dagger and poison rather than a decent harena fight.’

  ‘A little trust goes a long way,’ Kag added and the others echoed him, the rut of his sayings well worn now.

  ‘The less you trust, the further you get.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Drust said and drew out a scroll from inside his tunic, the seal on it broken. Everyone saw Kisa’s face drain.

  ‘This also came from Atakan’s squirrel-hole,’ Drust said. ‘I want it read out now so that we all know where we stand. It is written in Latin and none of you reads well enough to get it all, so listen.’

  He cleared his throat.

  To Lucius Julius Aurelius Sulpicius Severus Uranius Antoninus, Decurio –

  Greetings from Kisa Shem-Tov.

  First Hour of Creation Day, 978 anno Urbis conditae, at the port of Kesht on the Hyrcanian Ocean – may the God of my fathers render this country desolate, though He will not have much to do.

  Thusly has God taken pity on me and delivered me to safety after such adversity as would take more rolls of papyrus than I possess to detail. Which rolls, Your Honour, are running low. Also, if these folk are going on it may be impossible to ensure safe delivery of these messages – already I am not certain if these sons of pigs I am entrusting epistles to will obey the writ of the Emperor. As you know, I was not supposed to come this far but have been forced to it and so carry out your instructions to relay all of interest regarding these amphitheatre performers.

  Well, it fell to me to overhear the one who calls himself Drust and the abomination of womanhood named Praeclarum speaking close in the dark, where they thought no one could hear, while we waited for the tide to take the ship from the port.

  They spoke of Drust’s lost comrades, this Manius and this Dog, and were sure this in itself was not the reason for the journey, while the fetching of tigers was a laughable ruse. Your Honour will remember me bringing this up at the time and though the Shayk swallowed it, these so-called Brothers never have. I have not been taken into Your Honour’s confidence regarding the true reason for the journey, which is placing me at some risk – these people, particularly the leader, this Drust, have threatened harm to my person unless I tell them all I know.

  This Drust noted that good men were already wavering and that Fortuna seemed to have deserted them, but they had good hopes for a new enterprise, one which we are about to sail on. It is, Your Honour, little more than a pirate raid, and nothing to do with the business at hand, while putting us all in danger.

  Then the woman said that their Brotherhood was stronger than any chains and no matter that rescuing two of their own was not the real reason they had been sent, it was real for everyone here. This seemed to please Drust, for he held her hand a while.

  I do not know what they will think when they arrive at the Place of the God Tree, where
they are to seek out their missing comrades – it is a dangerous land and I remind Your Honour of the risks I am taking in this enterprise and look to have Your Honour’s consideration for it.

  Signed by my hand,

  Kisa Shem-Tov, Your Honour’s servant and vigilant Watcher.

  There was no silence, just the opposite – the loud hiss of Kag’s dagger coming out of its sheath.

  ‘Abomination?’ growled Praeclarum. ‘And I did not hold his hand. I mean, I did, but not…’

  ‘Do not hurt me!’

  Kisa’s squeal cut them all off, save for Kag, who was growling incoherently, his blade at the little man’s throat. Drust knew that one small movement would set life flowing out that could never be put back and he said so.

  ‘Did you forget what was said when we left Singara?’ he asked. ‘The part about being in this together?’

  From somewhere deep came a flare of little-used courage, a fire that burned hot, but very briefly. ‘I am no ex-slave, no brother to any of you. I am a frumentarius and should not be here – yet you dragged me along,’ Kisa spat. ‘At least now you know I work for the State.’

  ‘You work for Uranius,’ Drust corrected, ‘which is not necessarily the same thing.’

  ‘How many of those have you sent?’ Quintus demanded and everyone saw the part they had missed.

  ‘Three. One from Singara, two from Kerch.’

  Kag dragged his head back with a wolf growl. ‘You fuck. You flap-sandalled Stupidus…’

  ‘Ease,’ Drust said sharply, seeing blood spurt. Kag gave a last grunt of disgust and hurled the little man from him into the dust, where he lay a moment, then got slowly to his feet and began patting himself off. Blood slid greasily down his neck and started to dry in the heat.

  ‘Now we know how the Persians got on our trail,’ Drust pointed out and Kisa blanched; it was clear he hadn’t thought of it. Then everyone saw the sick flicker in his eyes at the knowledge he had killed Darab and the others.

  ‘You too if you had been there,’ Sib added with a sneer. ‘Still – after how they beat you, it was a good, cold revenge, eh?’

  ‘I did not know that,’ Kisa answered shakily. ‘I did not want…’

  ‘If you are leaving tracks,’ Kag muttered, looking round as if to see silver-faced helmets and galloping men, ‘you are being followed.’

  ‘We should kill him here,’ Sib said flatly. ‘Leave him at this god-tree as an offering to any who will help us now. Let the trouser-wearers find him when they follow his nice directions.’

  Drust pointed down the river and told him to go and make sure of the trail ahead; he did not like the hate in Sib’s voice and did not want it slathering everyone with a poison that would make them do something rash.

  He pitied the sailors of the ship now; if they went back to Kerch, they’d find Persians waiting and would tell all they knew. There would be no one waiting in thirty days and a strong possibility that messages would be sent along the Red Serpent, spilling men after them. They might risk the tribes of the Land of No Return to get us, Drust thought. And if so – why are we so worthy of it?

  ‘We should wait and ambush them,’ Ugo declared when Drust pointed all this out. ‘Then we will find out why they hunt us.’

  Praeclarum laid a hand on the big man’s thick forearm. ‘There will be a lot of them and even if we win and keep one alive, all he will tell us is that his commander ordered it.’

  Ugo admitted that with a nod. ‘Some of us will die in a fight like that,’ he added.

  ‘Not me,’ Stercorinus answered. ‘This is not the place I am fated to die.’

  ‘If your god speaks the truth,’ Quintus added. ‘I am no priest, but I know how gods work and the truth is something like forge-iron to them – they like to beat it into new shapes. This blue-stone business proves it – we should never have had such trouble over raiding them. Let’s hope Rome’s gods are more powerful than the ones in this land, else we are fucked.’

  They hefted packs and moved on, slapping the insects until they had got to where a wind, hot and fetid as the breath of a dragon, blew the stingers away. They could stop and rest in the shade of cool trees that hissed, watching the sunlight dance on water.

  Sib came in, loping silent and clutching something caught up in the bag of his cloak. He brought them out one by one and tossed them to individuals.

  ‘I have found the gold of the Golden River,’ he declared with a bitter smile.

  They stared at the knobbly yellow fruit and knew them at once. ‘Etrogim,’ Drust said, turning it over and then putting it to Praeclarum’s nose for her to smell. She did and smiled.

  ‘Too bitter to eat,’ Sib said. ‘Mostly rind and what little flesh there is has a weak, dry flavour – but it is good in cooking and for sweetening the breath, in small doses. Worth a fortune in the City, but not for that – when one has drunk deadly poison, a brew of this upsets the stomach and brings up the venom.’

  ‘You can see how that might be useful up on the Palatine,’ Quintus laughed.

  Praeclarum cut one and sucked, thinking mainly of the breath sweetening – the taste made her gag and spit and it burned her gums. Everyone laughed.

  ‘This is what they trade,’ Kisa added, desperate to be helpful, to be useful and not be left for dead in this place. ‘The tribes along here. There is a city, so I am told, though I do not know where. It is, I had heard, at the mercy of raiders from the north of here and may have been abandoned long since.’

  ‘So you say,’ Sib replied viciously.

  ‘I do say,’ Kisa spat back in a spasm that surprised everyone, as was the reverence in which he turned the knobbed yellow fruit in his hands. ‘This is holy to us, so we know it well. On the fifteenth day of Tishrei is Chag HaAsif, and this is one of the four species used in ceremony.’

  ‘You worship this yellow fruit?’ demanded Stercorinus. ‘And scorn me for my god?’

  ‘Did you see any sign of the people who grow this?’ Drust interrupted, but Sib shook his head.

  ‘This is wild.’

  ‘It came from orchards,’ Kisa said firmly. ‘My home is across the water from here and this is where we went to trade for etrogim.’

  ‘With whom?’ Kag demanded, but Kisa shook his head.

  ‘I was too young to know. Anyone who would sell. We brought them good weave and decent pelts in exchange.’

  Sib took water and went out again, gnawing on bread. They did not have much of that, or anything else, but when the shadows grew they dipped into the trees at a point where they could get down to the water and made camp.

  They risked a fire for it, hoping that being down from the plain would hide the light of it and also because they could make the gruel they knew well. Hot porridge, laced with whatever they could scavenge, braided them together and Praeclarum went from one to the other with her oils and unguents. They were almost out of farro grain, wine was a distant memory, but worst of all the oil was running out so they had none to spare for keeping leather from drying out and going brittle, or rubbing on chafes and bruises.

  ‘Where does it hurt?’

  Inevitably, the answers were all the same – feet, legs, back. Ribs on the right side – that was Ugo, a legacy of being smacked by the biggest beast anyone had ever seen, a bull. A neck – that was Kag. Everyone had pain, deep bone aches and fiery twinges, a legacy of a life spent in hard training and muscle-racking spasms of frantic fighting. Of hard knocks and bone-breaks and, though Drust did not like to admit it, the age that fed on it year on year. Kisa’s beaten face had faded and returned to a semblance of normal; Drust’s ribs still twinged.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Praeclarum would ask and inevitably the weary answer she’d get back would be the same one, every time. I feel like Milo. Eventually, of course, she asked.

  Only the old ones remembered Milo, Drust told her. He owned a taberna called the Inn of the Brutii. It was a plaster-peeling dump with a painted sign on the wall of two toga-clad men with blond curls, each holdin
g up the hand of the other and surmounted by laurel wreaths. The brothers Marcus and Decimus Brutus, who had wanted to give their father the greatest funeral Rome had ever seen and had, so the legend went, invented the idea of fighting in the ring.

  Opposite it was a painting of a beautiful and clearly high-born woman riding the cock of an appreciative gladiator and looking lovingly at him while she did it. She looked like a dutiful wife and the myth in that was as true as the one about the brothers Brutii.

  The Brutii was always full of charioteers and gladiators, a lot of them past their best – Milo was a former primus palus, the best of the best. He had spent twenty years in the sands, had had his name on cups and dishes and scrawled on walls – whenever he fought, crowds doubled and he had made it to the rudis, the wooden sword that said he was free.

  What had he got out of it? A scabby taberna in the wolf’s den of Subura, one leg that dragged, a right eye that never stopped weeping and no teeth. The high-porridge diet, when training stopped, had bloated him, the unworked muscle had added to it and the added weight seized his overstrained joints so that he moved like a cripple. Drust and the others went there to see themselves in years to come, same way they went to the boxer on the Quirinal.

  Now, Drust told Praeclarum, it comes nearer and nearer each day.

  He got up, feeling stiffer than before after remembrance of Milo, and climbed up to the edge of the trees, to where the sun was a half-aureus on the edge of the world, a semi-circle of Jupiter’s genius, gazing balefully over the green scrub and gnarled trees until they dribbled out where the water didn’t reach. Stercorinus was a little way away, his sword stuck in the ground and the shadow of it long, like a sundial. Perhaps he prayed or perhaps he measured time, Drust did not know, but the latter was an exercise in futility – the desert made its own time and they lived in it now as if nothing else existed.

  He wondered where Manius and Dog were and fought sleep, his head nodding, until he woke with a start to feel the heat, see the shadow. He did not need to see her face to know it was Praeclarum.