The Amber Road

by Harry Sidebottom

  Ballista and Castricius put themselves out to be charming. They responded at length, although with some modesty, to the hosts’ questions about the siege. Unsurprisingly, this did nothing to improve Zeno’s mood.

  The end of the dinner brought little in the way of relief. Zeno had taken the Bouleuterion for himself. The secretary Amantius was to attend him; their slaves would look after them. Zeno required no more than a bodyguard of ten of the Romans commanded by Diocles. Even with six men watching the boats, it left more than thirty crammed into the requisitioned house. When Ballista and Castricius returned, they found a small area of floor had been reserved for them to sleep. A slave had made Ballista a bed of almost clean straw.

  Ballista knew he would not rest easy. He had always had a horror of confined spaces. One by one, the others started snoring. Ballista lay in the dark, tired but tense. Iron-eyed, sleep rejected his embrace. He should have checked the defences. The headman had told him a watch was always set, but he should have checked. Ballista imagined the Tervingi out there in the night; blades in their hands, revenge in their hearts, they scaled the wall, slid through the alleyways.

  Most men would have been unable to leave the crowded house without a commotion. Ballista, like most sons of warriors in the north, had been brought up partly by his maternal uncle. Heoden was King of the Harii. They were night fighters. Thanks to Tacitus, their skills were known even within the imperium. Stepping quietly, feeling with the outside of each foot before putting his weight down, Ballista left. At the click of the latch, a couple of men stirred, but none woke; not even Maximus. Outside, Ballista slung his sword belt over his shoulder.

  The moon was low, but the eyes of Thiazi and the other stars shed enough light. It was quiet up on the walls. Ballista saw no sentinels. There were cliffs on three sides of the village. Good walls of unmortared stone at the top. The citadel was tiny. On its landward side the wall was fronted by a deep ditch. A wooden bridge crossed over to the lower settlement. Down there the dwellings were much wider spaced, more like farms than town-houses. Another deep ditch and similar walls encircled them. Motionless, Ballista peered through the darkness at the outer wall. There was a chill to the wind. He should have brought his cloak.

  A movement on the wall. Gone as soon as he saw it. Opening his eyes wide to admit all the light there was, Ballista looked a little to one side of where he had spotted the movement. His own breathing filled his ears. There it was again. Now he had it. A man walking the rampart. Without hurry, and with no attempt at concealment, the figure moved along the battlements. Ballista watched until he was certain it was a watchman. He relaxed. There should have been more than one, but it was good the guard did not carry a torch.

  Ballista thought of walking the palisades at Hlymdale with his half-brothers, Froda and Eadwulf. They had been older; Froda by nine winters, already a man. He remembered the creak and jingle of Froda’s war-harness.

  A noise, close at hand. Ballista turned, drew his sword. A footfall in the dark, a croaking raven, a chance encounter with your brother’s murderer – Calgacus had been fond of listing things not to be trusted. It had done the old man no good. Ballista’s blade glinted cold in the starlight.

  Soundless, like some dark elf or dwarf, the short, hooded figure approached.

  ‘Who walks the night?’

  ‘A friend.’ Castricius pushed back his hood. ‘Sleep eluded me, too.’

  They leant on the parapet, watching the stars slip their moorings and race to their doom.

  ‘How long is it since we met?’

  Ballista thought. ‘Coming on ten years. We were young then.’

  ‘Already old in the ways of the world.’

  Ballista laughed softly. ‘Maybe you more than me. Why were you in the mines?’

  ‘It is a long story, for another time.’

  ‘Ten years is a long time.’

  Castricius turned his small, sharp face towards Ballista. ‘The daemon that watches me has been strong. Yours, too.’

  ‘My people do not have that belief. Three old women – the Norns – spin our fate.’

  Castricius smiled and turned away. ‘Back in Arete there was much talk before you arrived. The men of Legio IIII Scythica said our new barbarian commander had been born in a mud hut.’

  Ballista said nothing.

  ‘We knew you were a hostage, but we had no idea of the power your father wields in the north.’

  ‘Most inhabitants of the imperium know little of the world outside. All barbarians are much alike.’

  ‘Your family rule over many peoples. They must be fine warriors.’

  ‘The north breeds hard men.’ Ballista shrugged. ‘But much of the rise of the Himlings was down to love, or at least marriage.’

  Castricius looked back at Ballista, waiting for more.

  ‘There were rival families, but we have held the island of Hedinsey time out of mind, since the first Himling, Woden’s son. My great-grandfather Hjar took a Waymunding woman for his first wife. She brought him the island of Varinsey. His second wife was from the Aviones, and he married his sister to the chief of the Chali. It brought him influence on the mainland, on the Cimbric peninsula. His son Starkad extended that. He married women from the Varini and the Reudigni, and gave his sister to the king of the Farodini.’

  Ballista stopped. ‘These are just strange names, meaningless to you.’

  ‘We are bound for the north. I am not Zeno. My daemon will protect me, but it is good to know the sort of people I must move among,’ said Castricius.

  ‘My father Isangrim has had many wives; a Langobard, a Bronding, a Frisian. My mother is from the Harii. Many peoples of the islands and shores of the Suebian Sea pay him tribute.’

  ‘All that without fighting?’

  Ballista grinned. ‘No, there was much fighting. Hjar sailed east and never returned. Starkad died in battle. But the most important fighting was not in the north. About a century ago the divine Marcus Aurelius wore the purple. In the great wars, when the Marcomanni and other tribes crossed the frontier, the emperor offered Hjar friendship. Hjar sent warriors south to fight for the Romans along the Ister. Hjar himself attacked the lands of the emperor’s enemies from the north. In return, Marcus sent Hjar money and swords. You could say the emperor created the power of the Himlings.’

  ‘And now one emperor wants to turn that power against another,’ countered Castricius, grimly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ballista.

  ‘It will be good for you to see your family,’ said Castricius.

  ‘Some of them,’ Ballista said. ‘Some are no longer there for me to see.’

  XII

  Rome

  The bride stepped over the threshold out from her father’s house. It was a blustery evening, the wind whipping up from the Tiber. The whitehorn torches guttered. In their light her tunic was dazzlingly white, her scarf and shoes a hectic red. She looked beautiful, and very young, no more than her fourteen years.

  Gallienus thought she looked both relieved and apprehensive at the same time. He imagined the relief would have come from having negotiated the archaic ceremonies inside without faltering. She had remained motionless as her hair had been parted with a bent iron spearhead, rusty with the blood of a slain gladiator. She had been seated on the fleece of a freshly slaughtered sheep, eaten spelt bread, salt cake and other unaccustomed things. She had spoken the ritual words – ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia – the meaning of which eluded the speculations of those better educated than her. The mistress of the ceremonies had placed her right hand in that of her husband, and the guests had repeatedly wished the newly-weds good luck: Feliciter, Feliciter. Finally she had offered a pinch of incense and a libation of wine to the lares, and so said farewell to her household gods. The cause of her apprehension was obvious to all. Her old nurse, all the women of the household, would have told her, reassuring or teasing in their intent, what would happen to her later.

  The girl was taken from the arms of her mother. A young boy took each o
f her hands, supporting her on either side. Gallienus thought he could do with some support. He had been drinking hard inside the house. A different wine in every glass. His head was buzzing, inappropriate thoughts insinuating themselves. The will of an emperor is law. He could do as he likes. It was all too easy to imagine a Caligula or Heliogabalus pulling the wives of other men from the dining couches, taking them out, having their pleasure, then returning to discuss their performance with their stony-faced husbands. Gallienus felt a stirring at the perversity of the thing. He pushed the thought down. He was not a Caligula or Heliogabalus, if for no other reason than the brevity of their reigns. Both had been killed after but a brief season of misrule, and no one could say their killers acted unjustly. Gallienus had worn the purple for well over a decade. Virtue was more than its own reward.

  The band struck up. As the procession set off, the throng lining the street raised the shout: Talasio! Talasio! Well fed, full of free wine; the plebs’ ignorance of its meaning was no impediment to their enthusiasm.

  Gallienus took Salonina’s hand. Together with his wife, he promenaded at the head of the family, just behind the bride. Weddings made everyone think of sex. Perhaps there would be time to claim his conjugal rights before he left tonight. Recently, on the few occasions he had visited her bedchamber, Salonina had been reluctant. She had paraded the Platonism of the teachings of Plotinus: the body was a prison, its pleasures to be scorned as demeaning and unworthy. Things might improve now the aged sage was deep in Campania spending Gallienus’s money making the Laws of Plato a living reality in Platonopolis. Anyway, to Hades with the lukewarm joys of the marital bed. Gallienus’s German concubine Pippa waited for him in Mediolanum. Pippa, his glorious Pippara, only feigned reluctance to heighten the pleasure. He would take the bitch bent over a table, as soon as he arrived, still in his riding boots. The journey north would take several days. If his needs became too insistent, there was always Demetrius. Beautiful as he was, the Greek youth was really too old now. Perhaps instead there was that new, slut-eyed little Syrian boy who helped him dress.

  Having descended from the Palatine, the procession had made its way through the Forum Romanum. It halted at the Temple of Concordia Augusta. Beneath the marble gaze of Pax, Salus and Concordia herself, the newly-weds offered a libation and prayer to the harmony of the imperial house.

  Gallienus thought the symbolism could not be missed. The marriage of the son of the emperor’s half-brother Licinius to the daughter of his cousin Flaccinus made public demonstration of the unity of the house of the Caesars. In fact, Gallienus had always considered his half-brother rather slow. But Licinius had done well enough when the Alamanni had reached the suburbs of Rome itself the other year. He was reliable. That was more than could be said for Flaccinus. On a routine punitive raid to burn a few villages, his cousin had been captured by one of the tribes north of the Ister. Clementius Silvius, the governor of the provinces of Pannonia, had done nothing. It had been left to a young tribune called Probus to rescue a member of the imperial house from the savage Quadi and restore something of the dignitas of Rome. The initiative had been well rewarded; Probus now rode in the imperial entourage as one of the protectores.

  Whatever the shortcomings of some of its men, the stability of the dynasty was exhibited to the world by this marriage. No matter what further trials it might undergo at the hands of a malignant fortune, it was well stocked with heirs beyond young Marinianus, the emperor’s one remaining son.

  Tears pricked Gallienus’s eyes. Outside Greek tragedy, had any family been so afflicted? Gallienus’s father remained in eastern captivity. Reports said Valerian was shamefully treated. Whenever the Persian king came out to ride, the frail old man who had been emperor of Rome was forced to his hands and knees. There in the dirt, Valerian was forced to hear vile words and to take the boot of his conqueror on his shoulders. The cruel gods had reduced the ruler of the Oikoumene, their own vice-regent on earth, to no more than an animate mounting block. Yet it was not that which brought the tears to Gallienus’s eyes. His eldest son, Valerian the Younger, had been on the Ister in the care of the protector Ingenuus when he died. The doctors had blamed a fever. Rumours had whispered of darker causes. The subsequent rebellion of Ingenuus lent them credence. No doubt shrouded the fate of Gallienus’s second and favourite son. No more than a terrified child, far from home he had been betrayed, hauled out and butchered. His body desecrated, the shade of Saloninus could know no rest. The cruelty of the gods was infinite. As he did every day, almost every hour, Gallienus tried to force away thoughts of the last moments of his son.

  The procession retraced its steps through the forum, between the tall, shadowed façades along the Sacred Way.

  Hymenaee Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaee.

  So far the nuptial songs were seemly enough. This one had been composed for the occasion by Cominius Priscianus, a Studiis to Gallienus. Of course, it had been previously performed in private for the approval of the emperor. It was a reworking of a poem by Catullus; the story of Theseus and Ariadne, with a more uxorious hero, and a happier outcome.

  Henceforth let a woman believe a man’s oath, let all believe a man’s speech can be trustworthy.

  Its conceit barely stood up to public scrutiny. Despite repeated betrayal – despite Ingenuus, Regalianus and all the others; despite even Postumus – Gallienus wanted to believe the oath of at least some men could be trusted. He had given charge of the eastern provinces to Odenathus the Lord of Palmyra, had given him the high office of Corrector Totius Orientis. The Palmyrene had sworn oaths of loyalty. He had taken the war to the Persians, had burnt their capital, Ctesiphon. Now despatches from the frumentarii claimed Odenathus’s wife, Zenobia, was urging him to strike for something higher. Gallienus had sent imperial mandata east. The governors of Syria Coele and Egypt, Fabius Labeo and Theodotus, were to return to the imperial court. Virius Lupus was to move from Arabia to replace Fabius Labeo. New governors had been sent from Italy to govern Arabia and Egypt. If Odenathus acknowledged imperial authority and allowed the appointments to go ahead, probably all was well. If not, next year the field army would have to march east, and the long-meditated revenge on Postumus would be postponed yet again. Another two campaigning seasons would have passed and Saloninus remain unavenged. Gallienus prayed to his special companion Hercules, to all the gods, that Odenathus remain true to his word. In the chill wind, the emperor’s tears were cold on his face.

  As the procession snaked up to the Palatine, mannered verses gave way to traditional songs; ripe figs were plucked, fields ploughed and swords found their sheaths. Attendants threw nuts to the crowd and the choir sang of the joys of the night, the daring joys of the next day. The contest awaited: Eros was the umpire, Hymen the herald, the bed the wrestling ground.

  Bawdy songs failed to return Gallienus’s thoughts to pleasures of the flesh. Postumus had sent an agent to Rome to suborn Placidianus, the Prefect of the vigiles. Placidianus had remained loyal. When Gallienus had first come to the throne, what happened in the cellars of the palace had turned the young emperor’s stomach. The years had hardened him. The previous night he had watched the torture of the agent with an equanimity approaching pleasure. On the wooden horse, under the terrible steel claws, much had been revealed. One thing had been most providential. It was common knowledge that Bonosus, the commander of the rebel Legio III Italica Concors in Raetia, was a notorious drunk. Yet Bonosus was trusted by the usurper Postumus because he was a Spaniard. Now Gallienus had learned the Spanish estates of Bonosus were all mortgaged, his patrimony squandered. In the dead of night a cloaked horseman had ridden north. Venutus was said by Censorinus to be the most resourceful centurion among the frumentarii. Dressed as a sutler, or wine merchant, Venutus would approach the impecunious Spaniard. If Venutus failed, most likely he would find himself at the mercy of Postumus’s torturers. His agony would yield nothing – Censorinus had given assurances the centurion knew nothing of grave importance – and his mere presence might serve
to sow doubts in the mind of Postumus about the loyalty of his commanders in Raetia. And that would be most timely. For, although next to no one knew it, Gallienus and his field army would be in Raetia within two months. Postumus traded in treachery, and – the gods willing – treachery was the coin in which he would be paid. The evidence extracted in the cellar implied Bonosus was not the only supporter of the child murderer whose loyalty might not be above suspicion. Even Postumus’s Prefect of Cavalry, Lollianus, might repay discreet blandishments.

  They had reached that part of the palace given over to the household of Licinius. The torch which had led the procession was thrown. Sparks streamed as it tumbled through the night air. A bold onlooker caught it and gained the promise of long life. The bride wreathed the door posts with wool and rubbed them with oil and wolf fat. The latter was hard to obtain, but Gallienus had declared the traditions of the ancestors should be observed at an imperial wedding and parsimony was out of place.

  Attendants carried the bride over the threshold. While she was taken off to touch fire and water in her new home, Gallienus led his wife into the atrium. The other guests followed. They stood around the marriage bed set for the genius of the bridegroom and the similarly incorporeal juno of the bride. A slave offered drinks to the imperial couple. Chosroes of Armenia presumed upon his royal status to approach and speak to Gallienus. He had been expelled by the Persians more than a decade before, but the last king of the Arsacid dynasty was a useful bargaining tool. Politics might dictate Chosroes was treated as if he were a reigning monarch, but the Roman emperor felt under no obligation to listen at all closely to his platitudinous conversation in oddly accented Greek.

  Gallienus gestured for another drink. He sensed the disapproval of Salonina and felt a flash of anger. What cares did the woman have to carry? How to spend money? Which philosophical sect to patronize? It was as if she had forgotten the existence of their murdered son. Gallienus had not forgotten, drunk or sober. The gods willing, this summer the first acts of his revenge would fall on Postumus. They would fall on the child-killer both in Raetia and at the same time from a less expected direction. Admittedly, the previous expedition Censorinus had sent into the far north had disappeared without trace. But the centurion Tatius had not impressed Gallienus, and the titular leader of the mission, a fat equestrian called Julianus, a collector of amber, had been like an actor in a bad mime. Ballista was a different proposition. Although some in the north may not welcome his return, Ballista was a princeps among his own people. Gallienus had known him since they were young, knew his capabilities. Things would have been easier if the previous mission had not failed, but Gallienus could imagine no one more likely to succeed among the Angles than Ballista.