Fire in the East (8 page)

‘One, two, three, PUSH!’ Ballista realized that it was he who was shouting, trying to get the words out despite his aching chest, trying to make them heard above the terrible din of battle. ‘PUSH!’

At last, with a wrenching sound, the Concordia began to move. Slowly at first, then gathering way, she backed away from the Goth. Twang, slide, thump, the crew of the two forward bolt-throwers had the presence of mind to add to the problems of the Gothic crew. A three-foot artillery bolt punched through one Goth’s mail shirt and nailed him to the mast.

The barbarian vessel was unlikely to sink to the bottom. Wooden warships tended to become waterlogged, settle in the water and eventually break up. The Goths in the water or clinging to the wreckage could be left to drown of their own accord or, if there were time, used for target practice later. Either way, they were no longer of any account in this battle.

Ballista needed to know what the other Goth ships were up to. Peering from well behind his shield, he saw that the two unengaged vessels were already turning away. They were still almost half a mile away, and the
Concordia
had a tired crew. There was no point in thinking of giving chase. Ballista ran to look over the stern. The Goth ship they had raked had managed to redistribute its remaining oars and was trying to limp from the scene.

‘Helmsman, put us about a hundred and fifty yards away from that ship. We will call on them to surrender. But we will be ready to fight them.’ As his order was carried out, Ballista, with Maximus at his right shoulder as ever, moved along the deck, talking to the marines and deckhands; words of praise here, sympathy for the wounded there.

The
optio
who had been wounded early on made his report. There were just three dead, including the captain, but ten wounded, including the optio himself. All the casualties were marines except one. As he finished, he stood awkwardly, fidgeting with the bandage on his arm. Then Ballista spoke the words the
optio
had been praying for. ‘With the captain dead you will assume command of the ship as acting
trierarch
until you return to Ravenna.’

As the Concordia manoeuvred into position, Ballista reflected that it said a lot about Roman thinking on the respective status of the navy and army that the captain of a trireme was equivalent in rank to a centurion in the legions, yet a
trierarch
commanded nearly three hundred enlisted men and a centurion usually not more than eighty.

‘Surrender!’ Ballista called in German.

‘Fuck you!’ The Borani accent was strong, but there was no mistaking the words.

‘I am Dernhelm, son of Isangrim, Warleader of the Angles. I give you my word as one of the Woden-born that your lives will be spared, that you will not go into the arena.’

‘Go to hell! Mercenary. Serf. Slave!’

‘Think of your men.’

‘They have given me their oath. It is better that we die on our feet now than live a long time on our knees. Like you!’

 

For two hours the bolt-throwers of the
Concordia
bombarded the Gothic ship. Out of effective bowshot, the Goths could do nothing but wait. For two hours, the awesome force of the bolts pierced the sides of the ship and tore through the leather and metal that failed to protect the soft flesh within. Some bolts ripped through two men at once, grotesquely pinning them together.

When there was no danger of resistance, Ballista ordered the
Concordia
to ram the Goth amidships.

‘So many of them. They were brave men. It is a pity they all had to die,’ said Ballista as the
trireme
backed away from the wreck.

‘Yes,’ agreed Maximus, ‘they would have fetched a good price.’

Ballista smiled at his bodyguard. ‘You really are a heartless bastard, aren’t you?’

It was so frustrating. About half a mile to the left, Demetrius could see Cyprus, the island of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, sliding past. All his young life the Greek boy had wanted to visit her shrine there, but now there was no time to lose. It had been like this ever since the encounter with the Goths. It seemed to have energized Ballista. Fighting northern barbarians had stirred his blood in some strange way, made him keener to get at eastern ones. He had fretted away the four days on Syme that it had taken to repair the
Concordia
(the
hypozomata,
whatever that was, had needed tightening). Meanwhile, the dozen captives that had been fished out of the wreckage of the first Gothic boat were sold to slave traders. No promises had been made them; their future was not good. The
Kyrios
had paced the decks on the one-day crossing to Rhodes. His impatience was infectious, and when Cyprus appeared after three days, Maximus, Mamurra and Priscus, the acting
trierarch,
were pacing about as well.

During the crossing from Rhodes to Cyprus, the first time on the voyage when the
Concordia
had been deep out at sea, even the bookish Demetrius had realized that a
trireme
was a terribly crowded place. There was nowhere for the rowers to exercise or wash. They had to sleep at their benches. There was no provision for hot food. The routine whereby, if possible, a
trireme
came to shore twice a day - at midday for the crew to eat lunch, and again at dusk for them to take supper and sleep - now made complete sense.

The twin necessities of practicality and observing social niceties had enforced a two-day stop at New Paphos, the seat of the Roman governor of the island of Cyprus. He outranked Ballista and thus could not be ignored. The proconsul received them in a large house, well sited, towards the end of the headland, to catch any sea breezes. It had been an occasion of some formality, which had taken up much of the first day.

On the second day the travellers had each pursued their own duties or interests. Demetrius walked half a mile or so to the
agora
to buy supplies; the
kyrios,
accompanied by Calgacus, returned for more discussions with the proconsul of doings in the eternal city. Priscus and Mamurra fussed over the
Concordia.
New concerns with something called the
parexeiresia
had joined the ongoing worries about the
hypozomata.
Maximus went to a brothel and came back drunk.

The next day at dawn the
Concordia
pulled up her boarding ladders and left her mooring. The rowers took her out of harbour until a northerly air filled her sail and she stood away south-east from the island. Demetrius leant on the port rail by the stern. They were sailing away from one of the most sacred places in all the Greek world. Here, at the very dawn of time, Cronus had castrated Uranus and thrown his severed genitals into the sea. From the foam Aphrodite had been born. Somewhere just to Demetrius’s left was the rock which marked where she had stepped from the scallop shell and, naked, first set foot on land.

A mile or so inland, Demetrius thought that he could see the walls of her sanctuary. This had been Aphrodite’s first dwelling. It was so ancient that the cult object was not a statue made by man but a conical black stone. When taken in adultery it was here that Aphrodite had fled. Here, the Graces had bathed, anointed and dressed her, away from the anger of her husband and the laughter of the other gods.

Ballista said something that drew Demetrius’s attention back onboard: ‘So the great Greek historian Herodotus got it wrong.’ How could the
kyrios
sit and listen to this drivel? Zoroaster, who had founded this Persian religion, was often counted as a sage, but the teachings that were peddled now were nothing but superstition and charlatanism.

Ballista continued, ‘While he was right to say that a Persian boy’s education consists only of being taught to ride, shoot a bow and not lie, he misunderstood the last part. Being taught not to lie does not mean that no Persian is ever economical with the truth, never alters reality just a little. Instead, it is a religious teaching that one should turn away from “the lie”, meaning evil and darkness.’

Bagoas’s head bobbed up and down fit to bust; Demetrius’s heart sank further.

‘And “the lie” is the daemon Ahriman, who is locked in perpetual combat with the god Mazda, who is light, and who is represented by your sacred
bahram
fires. And in the final battle Mazda will win and, from then, the lot of mankind will be a happy one... But how does all this play out in this life?’

‘We must all struggle with all our might against Ahriman.’

‘That includes the king Shapur?’

‘Shapur above all. The King of Kings knows that it is the will of Mazda that, just as the righteous Mazda fights the daemon Ahriman, so in this world the righteous Shapur must fight all unrighteous, unbelieving rulers.’ There was a gleam of certainty and defiance in Bagoas’s eyes.

‘So warriors are well thought of by Mazda?’ Maximus, who had been sitting quietly with his eyes shut, giving every impression of being unconscious with his hangover, took up the questioning.

‘Know that the Aryans are one body. The priests are the head, the warriors are the hands, the farmers are the belly, and the artisans the feet. When the unbelievers threaten the
bahram
fires, the warrior who does not do battle and who flees is
margazan.
He who does battle and is killed is blessed.’

‘Margazan
?
’

‘One who commits a sin for which he deserves death.’

‘Blessed?’

‘One who goes straight to the first of the heavens.’

It was five nights later, the very last night of the cruise, the middle of the night, maybe about the third watch. Ballista lay on his back. He did not move. His heart was beating fast, and he was sweating heavily. There again was the noise by the door. Already knowing what he would see, he forced himself to look. The small clay lamp was slowly going out, but it still shed enough light to illuminate the tiny cabin.

The man was huge, both tall and broad. He was wearing a shabby dark-red
caracallus.
The hood of the cloak was pulled up, and its tip touched the ceiling. He stood at the end of the bed without a word. His face was pale even in the shadow of the hood. His grey eyes shone malevolent and contemptuous.

‘Speak,’ commanded Ballista, although he knew what would be said.

In Latin, with an accent from the Danube, the man said, ‘I will see you again at Aquileia.’

Gathering his courage, as he had many times before, Ballista said, ‘I will see you then.’

The man turned and left and, after a long, long time, Ballista fell asleep.

 

Ballista woke to the rocking motion and the mingled smells of wood, tallow and pitch: he was safe in his small, snug cabin aboard the
Concordia,
about to embark on the final day of crossing the open sea to the
trireme’s
ultimate destination, the port of Seleuceia in Pieria. Without conscious thought he knew that the wind was westerly, on the beam of the
Concordia
as she sailed north up coast of Syria. Surfacing a little from sleep, he wondered if Priscus was keeping the ship far enough out to sea, giving her enough leeway to clear the promontory of Mount Cassios.

Suddenly all comfort left him. The vague disquiets at the back of his mind coalesced into an awful memory.
Fuck. Ithought I had seen the last of him.
The sheet under him felt damp, clammy with sweat. He began to pray: ‘Allfather, One-Eyed, Worker of Evil, Terrible One, Hooded One, Fulfiller of Desire, Spear-Shaker, Wanderer.’ He doubted that it would do much good.

After a while he got up. Still naked, he opened the door, stepped over the sleeping Calgacus, went up on deck, and pissed over the rail. The early morning air was cool on his skin. When he returned to the cabin Calgacus was putting out his breakfast, and Maximus was eating most of it.

There was no point in asking, but he had to. ‘Calgacus?’ The Caledonian turned. ‘Did you see or hear anything last night?’ The ill-favoured old man shook his head.

‘Maximus?’

The bodyguard, his mouth full of bread and cheese, also shook his head. After washing the food down with a swig of Ballista’s watered wine, he said, ‘You look terrible. It is not the big fellow back again, is it?’

Ballista nodded. ‘Neither of you mention this to anyone. Anyone at all. The staff are jumpy enough ever since that bastard sneezed when we were setting off. Think how they would feel if they knew that their commander, their
barbarian
commander, came complete with his own personal evil daemon?’

The other two nodded solemnly.

‘It could be that the staff are jumpy because they know where we are going,’ suggested Maximus with a smile. ‘You know, the very high probability that we are all going to die.’

‘I am unfit,’ said Ballista. ‘Maximus, get our kit out. We need to practise.’

‘Wooden practice swords?’

‘No, naked steel.’