Island of Ghosts (21 page)

“She is a queen, by birth and by wisdom,” said Arshak, angrily. “Why shouldn’t she be one in fact as well? The Brigantes would rejoice to have her.”

“And the Pictish tribesmen who invaded?” I asked.

“They would rejoice, too? Someone had promised them that the Romans would be busy with a mutiny, Gatalas’ mutiny. But Gatalas is dead, and so are most of them.”

Bodica’s eyes had narrowed dangerously. “Gatalas was meant to succeed! He should never have ordered his men to surrender. I made a mistake, I didn’t speak to him myself. So he didn’t realize that we could succeed, and he tried to spare his followers what he thought was the inevitable finish. I won’t make the same mistake again; I am speaking to you. We can succeed; if we dare enough, we will! Still! As for the raid, it was you who stopped it, and that, too, was because you didn’t know.”

“No,” I said bitterly, “it was because we had peace in Cilurnum. You meant me to be under arrest there, suspected of being in league with Gatalas, but my Roman officers trusted me, and left me free. I do not like these plans of yours, Lady. They are too full of lies, and too ruthless with your allies. I would not trust myself and my men to your good faith any more than I would lead them on horseback into the ocean.” I swallowed the rest of the wine in one gulp and handed her back the cup.

She looked at me without expression. “You won’t join us, then? You won’t even hear the rest of what I have to say?”

I shook my head. I was aware of Arshak turning back to his horse and mounting. “I have no proof of anything,” I reminded them both. “And what you have said has been under the bond of guest friendship. If you like, I will swear on fire, as well, not to mention this conversation to anyone. You will then have to see to it that I get no proof: that is a fair contest. Good health, Lady.”

“You are on the side of the Romans, then?” said Arshak, his voice harsh with both pain and anger. His hand was on the shaft of his spear.

“I am on the side of my own men, who trust me to do what is best for them.”

“Traitor!” shouted Arshak, drawing his spear from its holder.

I touched Farna’s sides and sent her dancing backward up the road, and as I went I pulled my bow out of its case. Arshak yelled and lowered the spear. I turned Farna, stringing the bow, setting an arrow to the string, and cantered her onto the verge, going back toward the chariot. Farna reared as I stopped her, the arrow fixed on Bodica. “Let me go back to Corstopitum,” I called to Arshak.

“Fight
me
!” shouted Arshak, trying to get his horse in front of the chariot. “Not her! Me!” But I turned Farna about and kept the arrow fixed on Bodica.

“I do not want to fight you. If we duel, the survivor will be charged with murder, and his dragon will suffer trying to protect him: I will inflict that on none of our men. I have offered you a fair contest. Accept it now, and let me go.”

“Go, then!” said Bodica. She stood very tall in the chariot, her blue cloak draped close about her shoulders, but the hood fallen from her head, flung back proudly against my threat; she raised her hand. “Go if you can!”

I touched Farna and started back to the road, holding the bow bent and the arrow on the string. But before I reached the paving, something seemed to fall like a fog over my eyes. I felt dizzy. Farna’s hooves rang on the stones, and she stopped, sensing something wrong. My hands, holding the bow, seemed suddenly very far away. As though I were looking at them from a distance, I saw the bow slacken. My fingers fumbled at the string, and I dropped the arrow. Arshak lowered the spear and stared at me in consternation. Farna blew softly and shook her head, puzzled.

Bodica tied the reins of the chariot to the post, climbed down, and walked over to me. I couldn’t move. She pulled the bow out of my hands as though I were a child. I tried to rouse myself; I fumbled at my shoulder for my sword-hilt, but couldn’t find it. Bodica gave me a shove, and I fell. I lay on my back, looking at the side of my horse above me, steaming in the cold, and beyond that, the gray sky and the few light flakes of snow. Everything seemed remote, as though I were looking at it down a long tunnel.

“What have you done to him?” cried Arshak.

“Did you think we could let him go back?” she demanded in return. “His Romanizing has cost our people a thousand lives already, and he’d do worse, much worse, now he knows we’re his enemies.”

“I would have fought him,” protested Arshak. “He’s good, but I could beat him.”

“Everyone knew you left Condercum with him. If he were found killed by the spear—and, dear heart, I believe he would be if you fought him—everyone would know that you did it, and what would happen to us then?”

“What did you do?” Arshak repeated. “He’s a prince of the Iazyges: he deserved to die fighting.” But he sounded halfhearted now.

I thought, with a mind that was numb and fumbling like my hands, how she’d handed me the wine. It had been drugged. Not the wine, she’d drunk some of that as well, and Arshak. The cup, my cup, the cup she offered in the sacred bond of hospitality. Had she been sure I’d refuse to join them, or had it just been a precaution? How could Arshak accept it? I tried to get up. I twitched over to one side, and fell back.

“He deserves to die,” Bodica answered Arshak. “That he was a prince of the Iazyges makes his Romanizing worse. Go back to Corstopitum, but stop on the way and do some hunting. Take off your armor. Say you and he saw a quarry, a deer or a flock of partridges, on your way back from Condercum, and decided to see who could shoot the most game. Say you lost him in the chase, and thought he’d be back in Corstopitum. It will look like an accident.”

“But . . .”

“He betrayed you, my white heart! Don’t you see that? My husband approves of him, and wanted to promote him above you. He would have become an adviser on all Sarmatian affairs and your lord. He would have ended up handing you over to my husband, and I couldn’t bear that, I’d die. Go, quickly. I can deal with him.”

“If it has to be, let me help. It’s too much for you to bear alone.”

“No! The road’s empty now, but who knows when someone will come along? We mustn’t be seen together. Just help me to put him in the chariot: I’ll do the rest.”

Arshak picked me up by the shoulders, slung me over my horse, and led her over to the chariot. I was aware of it, through the mist, but I could not move. It was the most I could do to pick my head up a little, and then I couldn’t hold it. I was put in the chariot like a corpse and shoved under the bench seat. I was aware, in the dim scent of damp leather and wood, of Bodica and Arshak whispering good-bye, and then the chariot jolted into motion.

It rolled over paved road for some distance, and I struggled in the mist and darkness, half-unconscious, half-awake. When I could think at all, I wished, stupidly, passionately, and irrelevantly, that I had succeeded that time in reaching the Jade Gate. It was cold. After a time, I realized that we’d left the paved road and were bouncing along a rougher surface. Again I struggled to get up, and couldn’t. I twisted my head, and saw beside me the edge of Bodica’s gown, her feet in the expensive shoes of embossed leather, and a mud track beyond. The chariot turned, and the mud was replaced by grass, green winter grass with a light sprinkling of snow. The chariot stopped.

The world faded a moment, and I felt horribly cold and sick. Bodica hauled me out of the chariot and rolled me over on the grass, then went and did something with my horse, which I saw had been tied behind the chariot. She bent over me and unfastened the baldric for my sword, took it off, refastened it, and hung it from my saddle. Then she took the bow case out and put it in my hand. She knelt and looked in my face. “You can see me, can’t you?” she whispered. Her eyes were very bright and she was flushed and smiling. “I’ve given you the bow because they’ll think you were hunting. I’ve hung up the sword because you would have taken it off if you were wading out into the water to fetch something you’d shot.”

Water. I tried to move my head; after what seemed a long time, it shifted, and I saw the river, only a few feet away.

“Yes, there,” said Bodica, gleefully. “You’re going to drown. I’ve never drowned a man before. Only animals.” She giggled, sat down, and began taking her shoes off. “You believe that people who drown are damned, don’t you?”

I could not move or speak. Bodica leaned over me again, her face close to mine; she ran her hand up my arm and pressed my shoulder. “You’re strong, aren’t you?” she whispered. “A big strong warrior and a commander of men. And you’re going to drown like a helpless little puppy.” She giggled again, rubbing my shoulder like a lover, and then leaned closer still and kissed me, open-mouthed, hot and wet. It was peculiarly horrible. It was my death she kissed then, and her pleasure in it was somehow even worse than the thing itself.

She stood up, put her shoes and socks in the chariot, and pushed me with her bare foot; I rolled helplessly over toward the river. I closed my eyes. Tirgatao, I thought, just let me find Tirgatao when I’m dead. Marha, Jupiter, any legal or illegal god you like—let my people’s beliefs be wrong, and let me find Tirgatao and Artanisca.

Bodica gave me another push, and I rolled over into the water. She pulled up her skirts and stepped into the shallows after me, pushed once more so that I lay on my face. The last thing I was aware of was the weight of her foot pressing me down.

VIII

I
WOKE  IN 
the dark, smelling fire. I could not feel my own limbs, but the cold was like knives in my chest and stomach. I coughed and someone lifted me; I remember their skin seemed red-hot against my side. I tasted the river in my mouth and felt it, heavy in my chest. I struggled to toss it off, coughing, gasping, and vomiting, and the water gurgled in my lungs and ran from my nose. The other held me up, put a basin under my mouth, spoke soothingly, and at last, when the spasms stopped, set me down and drew blankets over me. I lay still, drifting numbly; slept; woke again feeling warmer. The fire-scented darkness still surrounded me. My hands and feet felt as though they were burning, my head ached, and I still felt sick. I struggled to move, and a woman’s voice said something, softly and gently, and a hand smoothed my hair away from my face. I relaxed.

“Tirgatao,” I said, feeling as though I were fitting back into life, like a sword into its sheath or a latch onto a door. I opened my eyes, trying to find her.

But it was not her. The reddish light of a fire showed me a woman beside me, but a strange woman with a long, oval face, hair indeterminately dark in the faint light, a gentle mouth, long hands. I stared at her for a while in bewilderment. “Where is Tirgatao?” I asked at last.

I spoke in Sarmatian, but the woman replied in another language. I looked at her blankly, and she said something else. I felt that I ought to understand the second time she spoke, but I could not, and I wept because I could not. The woman stroked my hair again, and said “shhh, shhh,” which at least I could understand. I lay still; after a while I went back to sleep.

When I woke again, it was lighter, and I felt less ill. There was still the smell of fire. I lay on my side, staring out at a wall. After a time, I put my hand against it, and felt that it was made of stone. Then I knew that I was dead and in my grave. I lay for a while, considering this without distress. It didn’t surprise me, but I couldn’t remember how I had died.

It suddenly occurred to me that if I were dead, I might find Tirgatao. I pulled myself up onto my hands and knees, looking around. The stone walls enclosed me, but there was a hearth on my left, with embers glowing redly under a gridiron. The packed earth floor was covered with dried bracken, and herbs and dried meat hung from the ceiling. I sat back onto my heels. I was on a kind of bed, with a blanket over me, and all my clothes were missing. I pulled the blanket around my shoulders and stood up. My knees were weak, and my bad leg almost gave under me; I staggered and put a hand against the wall to balance myself. There was a door in the far wall, and I started toward it.

A woman came suddenly through another door, on the other side of the hearth, and ran over to me, saying something in an unknown language. I remembered her as the one who’d been beside me in the dark. She caught my elbow, speaking to me and trying to lead me back to the bed.

“I must find Tirgatao,” I told her.

“You shouldn’t be up,” she said, in her second language—only now my mind understood it as Latin. “Do you understand me? You shouldn’t be up; you’re much too ill.”

“But Tirgatao . . .” I said, in Latin now. “I must find her. She was burned, not buried, but perhaps she is wandering the air, and will come in when I call her. Perhaps she is outside. Please, I must find her.”

“There’s no one outside,” said the woman.

I pushed her off and staggered to the door. I scrabbled with the latch a moment, then pushed it open. Beyond it was a farmyard, with chickens scratching in the fresh snow, and beyond that, white hills and dark leafless trees under a gray sky. I leaned against the doorframe, staring at it. It was all wrong. It was not my country at all. They’d buried me in the wrong place. “Tirgatao!” I called desperately, hoping somehow she could still hear me, “Artanisca! Tirgatao!”

“Please come back in and let me close the door,” said the woman. “You should not stand half-naked in the cold. You were chilled and very nearly dead when we found you.”

I let her close the door and lead me back to the bed. My strength barely got me back to it, and I collapsed on the floor beside it and wept bitterly, then coughed up some more water. “They burned her body,” I told the woman, when I could speak again. “That is why she is not here. And they have buried me in the wrong place, and now I cannot find her.”

The mouth lifted in a gentle, ironic smile. “It isn’t because you’re in the wrong place: none of the living can find the dead. You are alive.”

I stared at her incomprehendingly. She took my hand, turned it in hers, and ran her thumb up my wrist: the blue line of blood went white, then leapt forward again with the force of life. “You are alive,” she repeated softly.