The Amber Road wor-6

by Harry Sidebottom

It was impossible to tell where the river began and the great estuary it formed with the Hypanis ended. From the height of the village, innumerable islets, reed banks and mudflats had spread out, creating a green labyrinth of channels and creeks, the open water often betrayed by only the glint of the sun. Down in the boats, hemmed in by feathery walls of reeds, visibility had seldom been further than a javelin cast.

  To minimize the chance of any encounter with the once-servile pirates infecting Hylaea, the Olbian guide had kept as much as possible to the bank on their left. He had had no time to talk. The silt shifted the shallows day on day. Each year, the river presented a fresh map of dangers and dead ends. Alert as a hunting dog, he had peered over the bow, calling directions to the helmsman in the stern. Ballista had sat behind him, silent with bad thoughts. Kill all his family, all those he loves.

  The first day had been calm. In the creeks, the current was imperceptible. But in their winding course, they made few miles. They had spent that night in another village. Mean dwellings packed behind ditches and ramparts, only the absence of a temple to Demeter distinguished it from the one at Cape Hippolaus.

  In the next four days they paddled against a headwind as well as the more noticeable flow of the river. Progress was slow. They passed more villages. These, they avoided. The cracked walls and smoke-blackened roof beams jagged against the sky marked them as places of tragedy and ill omen. Some of the burning was recent enough to leave its reek on the air. Three nights they camped on muddy islands, and once on a stinking peninsula full of cormorants and gulls.

  Despite the threats of barbarians and pirates, they were not alone on the river. Fisherfolk in dugout canoes slunk off into the shallowest backwaters at their approach. Four small trading vessels travelling in convoy and several rafts of logs being poled down to the Euxine had no option but to approach. They did so cautiously. The crews of the boats were armed and looked prepared to fight, even against the odds. Those on the timber were few, near naked, and ready for flight. A short swim and they would be hidden among the thick vegetation of the banks. As the distance narrowed, Greek voices were not enough — whatever their origins, the runaway slaves on Hylaea would know Greek — but the names of the great men of Olbia reassured. Health and great joy. The voyagers exchanged news. The gods be praised, no one had encountered anything worse than the mundane hazards of riverine travel. May the gods hold their hands over you. Both sides parted a little heartened, but somehow more isolated on the river after the meeting.

  The sixth day out, the guide took them over towards the bank on their right. The only channel of any reasonableness was there. The slaves from Hylaea had never been seen this far upriver. A hard day, and tonight once again they could sleep easy behind the walls of a strong village, where the inhabitants would keep watch.

  Practice had improved the paddling of the Romans. They were nearly as fluent as the Olbians. The wind had backed to the south-west. The sun shone, and the four boats sped along.

  There were redshanks and kingfishers. High above, Ballista saw a pair of sea eagles. Some way up the river, from beneath a weeping willow, a heron took wing, its long legs trailing. Ballista’s mood had lightened a little, but still ran on his family and death. Not his wife and sons, but his family in the north. ‘Some are no longer there for me to see,’ he had said to Castricius. His half-brothers Froda and Eadwulf would not be there. Froda was dead, and Eadwulf eating the bitter bread of exile with the name Evil-Child.

  Ballista, or Dernhelm as he was then, had known just fourteen winters. He had stayed with his father. Although sixteen, Arkil had remained at Hlymdale as well. The older sons of Isangrim had led the Angle longboats east against the Heathobards. There had been hard fighting and little booty. The Heathobards were renowned warriors. Yet the Himlings had the glory of the day. That night, in the tent of Froda, the brothers had celebrated as men of the north will. Oslac, always the quietest and most thoughtful, had left early enough to walk unaided. The others had drunk more, much more. Morcar and Eadwulf had quarrelled. None of the brood, except his full brother Oslac, cared much for Morcar. He was brave and clever, but always aloof and quick to sneer. Eadwulf had a temper; the slightest insult was known to enrage him. He had roared insults and threats at Morcar. Froda, the eldest, had told him to get out, come back when he was old enough to hold his drink. At the commotion, Eadwulf’s friend, Swerting, had rushed in and dragged him back to the tent they shared. Morcar had stormed off in the other direction. Froda was left alone.

  In the morning Froda was dead. His body was cruelly cut, and in the shambles was Eadwulf’s sword. Eadwulf was still unconscious when they came for him. Taken back to Hlymdale in chains, Eadwulf had sworn his innocence. He remembered nothing after returning to his tent. He would never have harmed Froda. Some enemy had taken his sword, left it to incriminate him, to bring dissension to the Himlings.

  Many believed Eadwulf. He and Froda had been close. But when questioned, at length Swerting had said he had got up in the night to relieve himself, and Eadwulf had not been in the tent. Having lost one son, the cyning Isangrim would not order the death of another. Before his seventeenth winter, Eadwulf went into exile, and men had started to call him Evil-Child.

  Ballista had worshipped Froda. Eadwulf had done the same. Open and kind, Froda had been a man when they were still little more than children. Eadwulf had a temper, but Ballista had never believed him guilty.

  Ahead, a flight of duck clattered up from the reed beds. Ballista idly watched them circle and stream away. The river was quiet when they had gone. There were no waders busy on the mudflats. Nothing but the splash of the paddles, and the water running down the sides of the boat.

  Eadwulf and Froda were gone, but there were others Ballista had waited more than half a lifetime to see again. The resentment he had felt when his father had sent him away into the imperium had long dissipated. Since then, Ballista himself had been forced to make hard decisions. His father would be old now, as would his mother. A sharp stab of anxiety came with that thought. It took a long time for news to travel down the amber roads from the north to the imperium. Given the outlandish places where Ballista had served in the last two years, it was no wonder he had heard nothing from the Suebian Sea. Allfather, let them both be alive. Other faces swam into view — nothing could have happened to Heoroweard. His friend was indestructible. Always stocky, after Ballista had left he was said to have grown very fat, earning himself the name Paunch-Shaker. And then there was Heoroweard’s sister. Kadlin would not be a girl any more. She was the same age as Ballista. Not a wild girl of sixteen winters, a girl with a look in her eye. She would be a mature woman. Twice married, with Starkad, her son by her first husband, and a son and daughter by Oslac. If Ballista had remained in the north, most likely he would have married her. It would be strange to see her as wife to his half-brother, more than strange. Oslac might not welcome his return. For different reasons, Morcar certainly would not.

  Ballista watched the willows slip past, their long fronds weeping down into the water, making dark caves along the bank. He wondered if any of the Angles would really welcome his return. He had been away a long time. Twenty-six winters in the imperium had changed him. He smiled. They were sailing past the woods of Hylaea, according to Herodotus, the scene of a particularly unhappy homecoming. Anacharsis the Scythian had gone south, travelled the world. He had lived in Athens, discussed philosophy with Solon. Although a barbarian, Anacharsis had been reckoned one of the seven sages of Hellas. On his return north, he had stopped at Cyzicus on the Hellespont. There he had witnessed the worship of Cybele. If the goddess granted him a safe journey, he had sworn to perform her mysteries in his native land. Back among his own people, Anacharsis had slipped away into Hylaea. Drum in hand, he had danced in honour of the Great Mother. His strange rituals had been observed. The Scythian king himself had killed Anacharsis. The moral was not hard to find.

  A movement among the trees, not an animal. A creak, not a rubbing bough. Ballista threw him
self sideways with an incoherent yell. As he hit the bottom of the boat, the arrows hissed through the air. One took the Olbian guide in the arm. He started to topple off the prow. Ballista grabbed him, hauled him back. Shouts and screams from the rear. A loud splash. More arrows, gouging white furrows from the gunnels, thumping into flesh.

  Ballista snatched his shield, got to his knees. Scrabbling over the floor, he brought the linden boards up. Barking his shins, he swung the shield out to cover the man on the bench behind him. More arrows whipped around them. At least two men were down. No one was paddling. The way was coming off the boat.

  ‘Keep paddling. Get us clear.’ Ballista realized it was his voice. ‘Paddle!’

  The small craft tipped to the right. Maximus and Tarchon were alongside him, their shields forming a ragged wall. The man at the steering oar was gone. The boat was dead in the water, listing badly.

  ‘Maximus, take the helm.’

  The Hibernian scrambled into the stern. An arrow plucked at his tunic.

  ‘Paddle, you fuckers! Get us out of here!’

  Ragged, with no cohesion, the crew stabbed the water. One misjudged his stroke, missed the surface, fell forward. A shaft slammed into Ballista’s shield, snapped his jaws shut. He bit his tongue, spat blood.

  ‘Paddle!’

  Maximus had the steering oar, shield held awkwardly across himself. The boat was moving, picking up speed. The arrow storm was easing. Ballista looked around his shield. Figures among the branches. Not many of them. A tall man in a white cloak, shouting. The following boat was almost up with them. Now the shafts swarmed around it, flicking up the water, sprouting from shields and woodwork.

  ‘Ahead!’

  Two low dugout canoes were pulling out from under a canopy of willows. Five men in each. Four dark men at the benches in tunics, one armoured man in the bows. Ballista scanned the surroundings. Nothing. No sign of another vessel. Just ten men — odds of four to one against them. They must be insane.

  ‘Maximus, take us straight at the first one.’

  The leading canoe had paddled out to block the channel. Its crew were bringing its bows around. Its companion was a little way behind.

  ‘Diocles, take the second.’

  The young Danubian shouted something back. His boat was clear. The bowmen had switched their aim to Castricius, the third in line.

  ‘Ram them.’

  Ballista hauled the wounded Olbian guide back, braced himself in the prow. His sword was in his hand. He had no memory of drawing it.

  The boats met bow to bow. The dugout was driven back, half under the surface. Shield up, the warrior at the front leapt for the larger vessel. Ballista surged up, brought his blade down, weight behind the blow. The shield shattered. Off balance, a foot in each boat, the warrior tried to thrust at Ballista’s stomach. Ballista smashed the metal boss of his shield into the man’s face. He fell into the river. His long blond hair fanned out as his mailshirt dragged him down.

  The other four had abandoned the waterlogged canoe. They swam like otters back towards the bank. Tarchon reached past Ballista, and fended the canoe away.

  ‘Paddle. Keep going.’

  Ballista looked back. The other dugout had thought better of it, and was nearly back at the shore. Now Heliodorus’s boat in the rear was running the gauntlet of the arrows, but would soon be clear.

  XIV

  The Borysthenes River

  After the ambush, they paddled hard for at least an hour. They would have stopped sooner, but all the landing places were on the bank to their right. Eventually, there was an island in midstream, still marshy, but solid enough to disembark.

  Maximus accompanied Ballista as he moved through the men. It would have been worse if there had been more archers, much worse if their attackers had possessed more than two dugout canoes. But it was still bad. Two crewmen were dead: a Roman from Ballista’s boat and an Olbian from that of Castricius. Ballista’s steersman was gone. If he was not dead when he hit the water, he was either drowned or captured. Nine had taken serious wounds; the guide and eight paddlers, four of them Roman and four Olbian. A couple of the latter looked certain to die. The uninjured did what they were able: hurriedly buried the dead, washed and bound the wounds of the living, gave them alcohol, spoke encouraging words. The barbed arrowhead embedded deep in the arm of the guide would have to wait until they reached the fortified village.

  Ballista rearranged the crews as best he could. All the five slaves were drafted to the benches. It remained to be seen how useful they would prove. One each of the Olbian paddlers from out of the boats of Diocles and Heliodorus was assigned to that of Ballista. The more experienced of the two took over the steering oar. It left nine men to propel the boats of Diocles and Heliodorus, and eight those of Castricius and Ballista. In the latter, Maximus and Tarchon volunteered to help. No one, least of all themselves, suggested Zeno or Amantius might help.

  In less than two hours they were ready to return to the boats. There was some debate about wearing armour. The fate of the warrior from the dugout weighed against the obvious protection. Maximus told the tale of his maternal cousin Cormac. Hard pressed by his enemies, Cormac had swum a loch in full war gear. It was not just any loch either, but one of the great ones on the west coast; a good mile or more. Ballista said not every man had the stamina or the limitless breath of a Hibernian hero, and Maximus had agreed that was true. Possibly influenced by the deed of his cousin, those with mailshirts — Ballista, Castricius, Tarchon and Diocles — had joined Maximus in donning them. This time, every fighting man made sure both shield and bowcase were to hand.

  Back on the water, Maximus felt a little put out. He thought he had managed the steering paddle well. If you could sail a coracle, as he had in his youth, you could handle any vessel. Admittedly, it was a bit smoother with the Olbian at the helm, but it was just a matter of a bit of practice. Maximus seldom thought about his home. Muirtagh of the Long Road he had been called then, not with any great seriousness. In those days he had not travelled far, but he had always told a fine story. Sure, he had travelled long roads since the cattle raid had gone wrong and he had been captured. Of course, if he had not been knocked unconscious, he would never have been taken. He had been sold to a Roman slaver, shipped to Gaul and resold into a gladiatorial troop. The latter had not been a bad time. At first he had been a boxer, then fought as a murmillo. He was good at killing, and the adulation of the crowd was good — that and the women it brought. He had won a fight in the great arena in Arelate the afternoon Ballista had bought him. The Angle had been on his way to Hibernia and needed an interpreter and bodyguard. Maximus had taught Ballista his language and fulfilled the latter function ever since. Back in Hibernia on that journey, he had seen High Kings made and overthrown. Indeed, he had near killed one himself. But their path had not led him to the far west. He would like to return home one day; not for ever, not even for very long. Just for long enough to kill his enemies, burn their homes and rape their women.

  They made slow progress. All were tired. The two slaves of Zeno and the eunuch’s pretty boy were of but little use. After no more than a quarter of an hour, they had been drooping, their paddles trailing in the water.

  It was near full dark, just a residual glow on the water, when they reached the village. Mudflats made the approach to the landing stage difficult. To give the guide his due, he remained at his post, and conned them through, despite the pain from his arm.

  The settlement was on the bank from which the ambushers had struck. But it was well fortified, and, on receipt of the news, the villagers mounted a good guard. Ballista, Zeno and the other men of any account among the mission were invited to dine with the headman.

  As there was no doctor, Maximus remained with the guide in the barn assigned as their lodgings. By candlelight, with care and much gentleness, he sawed through the shaft of the arrow, removed the fletching. As it was barbed, the arrowhead could not be withdrawn. Maximus gave the injured man drink and a leather belt t
o put between his teeth. Two Olbians held him down. Considerable force was needed to push the arrowhead through the arm to the other side. It was not a thing that could be hurried. Maximus had to make first one, then another incision to grip the arrowhead and work the slimy thing out. When it came free, the blood flowed fast. The guide grunted a few times, but bore it well. If he did not die from loss of blood, infection or some malign fate, this Olbian — Hieroson by name — could be thought a man of some regard.

  The meal was all but over when Maximus entered the house of the headman. The diners were talking over nuts and dried fruit.

  ‘If there had not been so many of them, they would never have dared such an attack.’

  Zeno sounded drunk. No one corrected his estimate of the numbers.

  Maximus was passed some food Ballista had saved. There was more to drink here than at Cape Hippolaus or the other place. Maximus still had some cannabis in his bag. If there were women later, reasonably clean women, this could all be fine.

  ‘The pirates have never been known so far upriver,’ said the headman.

  Ignoring the local, Zeno began to recite some Greek poem:

  ‘A howling …

  That brought tremendous Laestrygonians swarming up

  From every side — hundreds, not like men, like Giants!

  Down from the cliffs they flung great rocks a man could hardly hoist

  And a ghastly shattering din rose up from all the ships —

  Men in their death-cries, hulls smashed to splinters.’

  ‘There were not many of them,’ said Maximus.

  Zeno rounded on Maximus. The Greek’s eyes were unfocused, as if there were a different thought behind each of them:

  ‘One man. .

  Who knew within his head many words, but disorderly;

  Vain, and without decency.’

  Keep going, thought Maximus; every day takes us further from your imperium.