Island of Ghosts (30 page)

“If you kept him, you would have help with him. If you do not want to keep him, I must pay for him. I am far too deeply indebted to you to accept a gift.”

“You’re not in debt to me. That’s why I want to give him to you.”

“That is a woman’s reasoning. I do not understand it.”

“That’s a man’s arrogance. It’s perfectly clear. I’m out of debt, thanks to you, and I have a chance at real and honest prosperity. I won’t take anything more from you because of some imaginary blood debt. You gave me gifts today; I want to give one back.”

“You refused the gift I gave you.”

“You gave me the respect due a householder, Cinhil’s life—and a carpet. I didn’t refuse any of those.”

I smiled at her. “I am glad of anything I have done that pleases you.”

“Then take the horse.”

I wanted to laugh. “I will take the horse and train it for you, but you must keep it and the stud fees when the time comes to breed it.”

She did laugh. “Take it now, and we’ll talk about that when the time comes!”

W
HEN  WE  LEFT
  an hour later, it was with the stallion Wildfire tied beside the packhorse. To my delight, we also had Pervica’s agreement to visit Cilurnum for the forthcoming festival. Longus, to my great surprise, came up with a widowed mother and married sister in the fort village, and offered Pervica hospitality on their behalf. It seemed that the sister was planning to drive to Corstopitum to shop two days before the feast, and could meet Pervica there, escort her back to Cilurnum, and host her in complete respectability over the holy days. This guaranteed, Pervica was delighted to come. Quintilius protested, but feebly. I was enormously contented, and took pains to tell Longus that I was grateful for his help, and glad after all that he had come.

We were just leaving the farm track and turning back in to the main road when Facilis hailed us, and we saw him trotting toward us. We stopped and waited for him to join us.

“What happened to your face?” he asked me, as we started together down the road.

“He got into a fight with one of the lady’s friends,” Longus answered for me. “Oh gods and goddesses, it was beautiful!”

“What happened to the friend?” asked Facilis, in alarm.

“Cut hand. Ariantes was never going to kill him. I, and more importantly, the lady, didn’t want him to.”

Facilis grunted. “Stupid to fight at all, then.”

“It was the other man’s idea. Oh gods! I’m glad I came! Marcus, it was beautiful. This friend was a big solid landowner, Quintilius son of Celatus by name, and it turned out he’d loaned a lot of money to the lady’s husband and she’d been sweating blood to repay it. Reading between the lines, he hoped he could marry her and collect a tidy little property as well as the pretty widow. She thanked him for his patience about the money, but he wasn’t the sort that lets go easily; he’d taken advantage of the debt to bully her and badger her just as much as he could. When she saved the life of our noble friend here, though, his grateful bodyguard showered her with gifts enough that she paid off the whole debt, with half as much again left over. It was the last thing the landowner wanted. He was there when we arrived, taking the final discharge of the debt, warning her about the lusts and treachery of barbarians, and promising her his matrimonial protection yet again.”

“You do not know this,” I said, taken aback.

“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” asked Longus. “Leimanos, don’t you think it’s true?”

“I had not thought of it,” said Leimanos, frowning. “But yes, it is true.”

“You are inventing it,” I insisted.

“I’m not inventing a word!” exclaimed Longus. And he went on to tell Facilis about the painting and the conversation and the quarrel. “Quintilius was so beside himself with fury and frustration,” he concluded, “that he said yes, he certainly did want to fight—provided our friend shed his armor. Well, he was out of the armor quick as boiling asparagus, out in the yard, swore all the bodyguard to keep hands off the landowner, and loaned the man his sword. It was a nasty moment for me, I can tell you. And it got worse: instead of borrowing another sword for himself, he borrowed a little dagger. A dagger against a long sword! I started imagining five hundred enraged Sarmatians at Cilurnum swearing vengeance, and I was scared sick. But, Marcus—this is the best part—Quintilius had never held a sword in his life! He waved it about in the air like a pruning hook, and when he’d had his hand cut, he abandoned it altogether and punched Ariantes in the nose.”

Longus began laughing again. “You never saw anything like it. None of the Sarmatians could believe it. Leimanos here was purple with indignation and the rest of them were howling. It was an unnatural act. After all, the gods gave us hands to hold swords with, not to hit each other! Well, Ariantes ended it after that: he threw Quintilius down, sat on him, and put the dagger at his throat, just to make it absolutely clear that he could kill the fellow any time he liked—though that had never been in doubt. Then he got up again and picked up the sword, which the poor sod had used to hack the earth, and said, ‘Look what you have done to my sword!’ ” Longus had a wicked knack at imitating, and I imagine his impersonation of me, bewildered, indignantly wiping a nosebleed, was devastatingly accurate.

Facilis started laughing, and Longus joined him. “You were funny!” Longus told me. “Gods, you were!”

Leimanos tried to look offended—prince-commanders of a dragon, especially your own, aren’t supposed to be funny. But after a moment, he began laughing too. Another of the bodyguard rode up and asked him why, and he sobered quickly and said, “Flavinus Longus was saying how that herdsman fought, waving our lord’s sword like a pruning hook.”

At that, the bodyguard laughed too.

“So what did this Quintilius do?” asked Facilis.

“Not much he could do. Leimanos was announcing that commoners who didn’t know how to hold a sword shouldn’t expect the privilege of being chopped up by noblemen. And to tell the truth, I think that Quintilius had realized what a lunatic thing he was doing as soon as he had a look at the sword, and would have backed out then, if he could have: he certainly wasn’t eager for a rematch, particularly when I told him of our friend’s bloody reputation. No, Quintilius just sat and moped the rest of the time we were there.”

“And the lady?”

Longus grinned. “The lady Pervica is exactly what you might expect,” he declared, with great satisfaction. “Top quality from head to toe, a young widow of twenty-five, graceful, soft-spoken, and sharp enough to run a legion. She also, unless I’m much mistaken, has a will of iron. She doesn’t like being bullied and she wouldn’t have married Quintilius if he were governor of Britain. But she’s already made up her mind on a certain subject, and her only hesitation is whether the subject means it, or whether he’s just grateful. She’s had enough of other people relying on her gratitude, and has no intention of playing that game herself. I won’t say more, because the lady’s coming to Cilurnum for the festival; she’ll be staying with my sister, and I’m sure you’ll meet her. I think she may be about for some time to come.” He turned the grin on me. “Has it crossed your mind, Ariantes, that she won’t want to leave a good stone house to come live in a wagon?”

“We can settle that when the time comes,” I said contentedly. I thought privately that I’d sleep well even in a house, if I were sleeping beside Pervica.

XI

M
Y  MEN  RECEIVED
  their first pay packet the day Pervica arrived at Cilurnum, two days before the festival. All the other troops on the Wall had been paid already: our pay was late because of all the negotiations. The amount we were finally given was the standard auxiliary pay—two hundred denarii a year—plus an allowance for one and three quarter horses, with another extra amount for the upkeep of our armor. It was less than I’d wanted, but, it must be said, a considerable advance on the first offers and more than the Asturians were getting. The usual half had been deducted to pay for rations, and another variable amount for horse fodder and replacement of equipment. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the total had been backdated to the time we left Aquincum: it was a substantial amount. Moreover, the captains were given seventeen times the basic rate of pay, an even more substantial amount, and one that could help smooth over any short-term troubles with debt. Since arriving in Cilurnum, we’d bought anything that needed buying with whatever money or valuables we’d taken with us, and I’d been watching the first stirrings of trouble with shopkeepers and moneylenders. Now we were in the clear again. With the pay we were also given a notice from the legate, relaxing one of the restrictions on us: the men could now apply to me for permission to leave the fort, in groups not smaller than three nor larger than sixteen, and could stay away up to three nights if that permission were granted. This meant that they could go hunting or ride into Corstopitum to spend their money, and otherwise behave more like free men than prisoners.

I drew the dragon up and made a severe speech warning the men against moneylenders and the dangers of getting into debt, then brought them all into the chapel of the standards in the fort headquarters, where the clinking bags were handed out beneath the impassive gaze of the statue of the man we’d sworn our oaths to at Aquincum. The men went off in a proper holiday mood to prepare for the Sada feast.

I found their excitement depressing. Six months before we had scarcely known what money was: now, even the slowest man in the dragon had been able to understand instantly that he earned more than the Asturians did. I was tired and irritable when I limped back to the chapel of the standards to check over the final accounts with Eukairios and the Asturians’ treasurer, who had the key to the strong room. It was late in the afternoon by then. Halfway through the accounting, I noticed another pay box under the table, and I heaved it up and shoved it across at Eukairios. “What is this for?” I asked him. He answered, with a smile, “The commander’s pay, my lord.”

“Oh,” I said. Eukairios went on copying pay chits into two registers. I sat beside him, ready to countersign the pages with the scrawled dragon mark I’d been using since Bononia. “How much is it?” I asked, after a minute.

Eukairios set down his pen and laughed. He shook his head, picked up the pen again. “I’ll have to tell that one to Longus,” he said.

“You’ll have to tell me what?” said Longus himself, striding into the chapel.

Eukairios put down the pen again. “Lord Flavinus, I have written, at my master’s dictation, some sixty or seventy letters about the dragon’s pay and allowances. He’s given presents to officials in the legate’s office, the governor’s office, the grain commissary, and the treasury. He has, as you know, come up with complicated schemes to pay for the horses. We’ve worried over the price of glue to mend bows and the cost of a blacksmith’s furnace. Would you have thought there was any detail of this troop’s finances he didn’t know about?”

“No,” said Longus—expectantly.

Eukairios pointed at the box. “The commander’s pay.”

“Isn’t it thirty thousand a year?”

Eukairios started laughing again. I looked at him in exasperation. I was not in a mood for jokes. “You should not laugh at me,” I told him.

He sobered quickly. “It is thirty thousand a year, my lord, as Lord Flavinus Longus said. Fifteen thousand now. Item: fifteen thousand denarii for the commander’s pay, here.” He flipped a page in his ledger. “You countersign there.”

I countersigned and picked up the box containing fifteen thousand denarii. It was very heavy. Quite suddenly I loathed it, and hated the tomblike, stone-walled chapel, the standards along the wall, and particularly the statue of the emperor with his preoccupied, philosophical face. I had been a prince, and owned herds and flocks; I had led raids, and traded with the East; I had held a scepter and judged the disputes of my dependants. Now I was a hireling. I wanted to hurl the box at that smug statue—but that would be sacrilege and treason. I put down my wages again.

“Put it back in the strong room for now,” I ordered Eukairios.

“Yes, my lord.” He put down his pen again and got up to obey, and I noticed that he looked even wearier than usual. He had, of course, done most of the work for the payday, checking over the accounts, keeping the books, writing out the five hundred pay chits that now had to be copied over in duplicate. “Wait,” I ordered, and he stopped. I unlocked the box, picked up a stack of the coins, and counted out a hundred of them, the same amount as my men had been allotted for their first six months’ basic salary. “A financial detail you also were unaware of,” I said, pushing the money toward him. “The commander’s scribe’s pay.”

I was unprepared for his reaction. He went white, then red, and stared at me as though I’d insulted him. He didn’t touch the money. “You can’t do that,” he said at last.

“Why not?”

“You don’t pay slaves!”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I shrugged. “I have chosen to pay you. If you do not wish to keep the money, dispose of it as you wish.”

He picked up the coins with shaking hands. “All my life,” he whispered, “all my life . . .” He looked up, blinking at tears, and seemed suddenly to register the amount. “No, you mustn’t give me this much, my lord. It would offend the men of the dragon if I got as much as they do. Here . . .” He pushed three little piles of ten coins back toward me, then fumbled them into the box himself, closed it, and locked it. He looked at the seven piles remaining on the table and nodded. He wiped his eyes. “All my life,” he said again, “I’ve been on the supplies ledger, not the pay ledger. Item one scribe, item rations for same.”

“Does it make much difference?” asked Longus impatiently.

“Yes,” said Eukairios, still staring at the money. “Yes, it does. It’s almost like being free.” He looked back at me and smiled shakily. He was beginning to recover himself. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I thought—I hoped—since you’re generous, you might give me a denarius for the Saturnalia. I never expected this at all. I’ve never been paid before.”