Island of Ghosts (33 page)

She took it slowly and unrolled it, then stared blindly.

“It is my name,” I told her.

“I can read,” she replied, sharply. “If you don’t want to marry me, say so plainly. Don’t make excuses.”

“Do not be a fool. I wanted to badly enough that I forgot to think, to take any precautions. I was stupid and made a serious mistake: we must do what we can to retrieve it now. You must not go back to your farm as my betrothed. Either we must marry at once or you must pretend to quarrel with me, say that the engagement is off, and go home as though you were angry.”

“And which would you prefer?” Some color had come back to her face, and there was a hint of anger in her voice.

“I would prefer it if you married me, of course. I would give you an armed escort back to River End, and you could send your people to safety, then return here.”

She stared at my face searchingly, then slowly relaxed. She dropped the lead sheet onto the carpet beside me and stared at it, as though only now was she able to take in all that it meant. “Who did this?” she demanded in a whisper. “You know, don’t you?”

I hesitated, then took her hands again. “I will tell you,” I said, looking into her face, “but you must tell no one else.”

I told her everything I’d heard or guessed about Aurelia Bodica from the time I arrived in Britain up to that moment. I told her hurriedly and angrily, and she sat and listened in silence. At the end she covered her face with her hands.

“I am sorry!” I said, wretchedly. “I should not have involved you, and I regret it.”

She leaned over and grabbed my shoulders, looking angrily into my eyes. “Don’t regret,” she commanded. “I love you. How can you regret loving me?”

“I do not,” I answered. “But I regret very much that I have put you in danger.”

“If you don’t regret loving me, then I will
not
pretend to quarrel with you and go home angry.”

“Then we must marry at once. I will try to find out what the legal situation is today. I am not a citizen, and it may need some special—”

“I won’t do that either! I’m not going to be chased about by these people, or send Cluim and the others away from their own home. I know a druid. He blesses our orchard every year, and we give him a basket of apples and a jug of mead made with our own honey. I will talk to him about this Aurelia Bodica and her vile cruelty, and see what he has to say for himself! Give me this!” She snatched up the cursing tablet. “I’ll take it to the temple of the Mothers. I’ve worshipped them all my life, and they’ve always been kind. This . . . this is wicked. Calling on the gods to commit murder is a crime against gods and men both.”

“No!” I said, now very alarmed.

“You know nothing about the old religion. This”—she hit the leaden scroll—“this is a twisted parody of it, a gall, a deformity. They have no business murdering anyone, and most of them know it. And I am not someone they could murder. Everyone knows me, Saenus’ widow Pervica. Everyone knows I honor the gods. They couldn’t string me up just because they hate you.”

“If they want this kingdom of the Brigantes, they would accuse you of treachery for opposing them.”

“
They
may want one, but ‘want’ must be their master. There are men, no doubt, who long for revenge on an enemy, or an escape from their debts; there are ambitious nobles who dream of holding power in their own hands instead of bowing to legates and prefects; there are druids who long for an end to persecution. There are probably enough of them in all that when they talk among themselves they think everyone supports them. But there won’t be any more general uprisings of the Brigantes, certainly not here near the Wall. We depend on the army here for our livelihoods: without the troops to buy our grain and our meat, the whole region would wither away. And an alliance with the Picts which involved giving them our farms to plunder—no, no, no! It’s as ludicrous as the idea of a princess of the Coritani calling herself queen of Brigantia. No. You’re not British or a farmer, or you’d realize at once that these people have no power in the countryside.”

“They had power enough to murder at least one man and go unpunished through fear.”

“Some townsman who’d done something to offend them! No. My darling, I’m far from saying that these people aren’t dangerous. I know about them, I know they are—but not to me. To you, yes, because you’re a foreigner and without a place here, and no one would risk offending them for your sake. But I can help you. I can talk to the people I know, the true followers of the old religion, not these visitors from the South. I think they’ll help. They don’t want the Selgovae and Votadini descending any more than the rest of us. All it needs is someone like me to ask them.”

“Pervica!” I said, horrified, “You must not!”

“You forbid it, do you?” she asked, her mouth setting.

“I have no right to forbid. But you must not. Even if you were right to be confident of your own safety from the druids, still you would not be safe. Arshak is a powerful and arrogant man, and totally lacking in caution. He is to go to Condercum after the festival, with the second dragon, his followers, and if he learned that you were stirring up trouble against his lady, he would kill you first and think of explanations for the authorities afterward.”

“He isn’t British. Does he speak British? Then he won’t know anything that’s going on in the countryside. And the people I mean to speak to won’t give my name away. Even if they don’t help, they won’t want me killed, and if they do help, they’ll take the credit for their actions themselves.”

“You cannot go back to your farm and . . . and spy for me. You cannot. You will be killed.”

“I can, I will, and I won’t be. I’m not going to abandon my property and my dependants, and you can’t expect me to. Would you, in my place? And I’m not going to sit in your wagon like a piece of baggage while you run stupid risks and make terrible mistakes through not knowing things I could easily discover. I’m British: I have more rights in the matter than you do!”

I got up and walked off a few steps and slammed my hand against the wagon. “And what if you are killed?” I asked her.

“What if you’re killed? That’s even more likely. I’m only incidental: you’re the one they want.”

“I have five hundred men at my command, and thirty in particular whose chief task is to preserve my life and honor. And even if they fail, I can face my own death.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “Don’t you understand?” she asked. “Perhaps you could face your own death—but I couldn’t. I never loved my husband. I liked him, I obeyed him willingly, because he was kind, because he loved me, but I could never give him either respect or love. When he died I thought I would spend the rest of my life in independence. I was content enough—until I went into my stable and saw you standing there, with Wildfire eating from your hand. Then I knew that I had never been alive at all. I don’t care if I die now, but I’m not going to live without you.”

I went back and knelt before her. “Pervica, please!” I said. “You have seen what I have done with your horse, how he is beginning to trust me, how he comes to me for protection from the cold, and expects me to feed him? If he came, and I beat him till he staggered, who would he trust then? Do not die, Pervica. It would destroy me.”

She put her arms around my neck. “I will not die,” she told me solemnly. “But I won’t do what you ask.”

XII

P
ERVICA  WENT  HOME
  that afternoon in exactly the situation I liked least—formally engaged to marry me, planning to continue on her own till the date set for the wedding, and totally determined to carry out her inquiries among her druidical friends. I loaned her a wagon to drive herself back, and I and the bodyguard escorted her all the way to River End, but my continued protests only made her angry. As Longus had remarked, she had a will of iron and she hated to be bullied. I was miserably aware that I had made my explanations to her very badly, driven as I was by my own memories.

When I’d seen her home I rode back to Cilurnum like a thundercloud. I found Kasagos and told him about the cursing tablet—the news was bound to reach the camp within a few days, and I wanted the protection of our own gods; the thing had unsettled me. He was predictably outraged. We sacrificed to Marha, and he lit a ring of fire about my wagon to invoke the god’s protection and keep back the power of the Lie. Then he counted out the divining rods, but their message was ambiguous and uncomforting. I snarled at the bewildered bodyguard, ignored the puzzled questions of my Roman and Sarmatian friends, and went off to work with my horses.

The only other person I spoke to about the tablet was Eukairios. I was afraid that the murdered man was his friend, killed for his inquiries on my behalf, and I sent him into Corstopitum to check.

He returned the following afternoon to report that his friend was safe and well: the sacrificial victim had been a carpenter once accused of using wood from a sacred grove. He said besides that a lead scroll that was supposed to be the famous cursing tablet had been found that morning lying on the altar of the Mothers in Corstopitum. One of the local druids was said to have erased the name on it and to have denounced the ritual murder that produced it as blasphemous. The local people were delighted about this—the victim had been a townsman, and it was widely believed that the murderers were Pictish druids enraged by the failure of the raid on Corstopitum. The marketplace was rustling with whispers, and many of the citizens were going to the temple of the Mothers to see the scroll and leave an offering to the goddesses. This was comforting in that it did not sound as though the countryside was eager to harm Pervica, but unsettling in that if the cursing tablet
was
lying on an altar in Corstopitum, it must be because Pervica had put it there, and made public her opposition to everything it represented.

The news of the ritual murder and the cursing tablet seeped into the rest of the camp the same day, brought by the first people to visit Corstopitum after the festival. As Facilis had predicted, everyone knew what had been written on the tablet. The general conclusion was the same as in the town: that it had been the work of Picts angry at their defeat. I could see, however, that Comittus in particular was extremely unhappy about it. He lost all his bounciness and looked upset whenever he saw me. Several times he tried to speak to me, but I was still in a very black mood and ignored his tentative questions entirely. I think he and Longus both realized then that I hadn’t shared their food or drink since the near-drowning. They were neither of them stupid, and the mutiny and the raid, the drowning and the curse, were obviously and suspiciously connected. Longus tried to talk, too—but I wouldn’t discuss it with him, either.

*   *   *

A
  FEW  DAYS
  later, on the second of January, I set out for Eburacum, as the legate had asked. I brought my bodyguard with me under Banadaspos, and Kasagos’ squadron as well, but left Leimanos in charge of the rest of the dragon. We took our wagons to sleep in. I brought Eukairios, both to have his help with the arrangements for the stud farms and also because he wished to consult his fellow cultists in Eburacum and hear their verdict on an alliance. Facilis came as well, muttering some excuse about legion business—though it was clear to me that he came because he wanted to pursue his own inquiries about Aurelia Bodica.

I also took along the stallion Wildfire. I’d had considerable success training the animal already, partly because he wasn’t used to being outside in cold weather and forgot his distrust of humans in his desire to come under the awnings and be warm. I’d just begun breaking him to the saddle and I judged it would be bad for him to interrupt the training for the time needed for the journey.

On the second day of the journey we met Arshak and his dragon, riding up the north road from Eburacum to their posting at Condercum. It was a cold gray day of intermittent snow, but the sun came out just before we met them and we saw the glitter of their arms in the light while they themselves were only a shadow on the road ahead. They’d spread out across the verges of the road, as we had ourselves, trying to spare the unshod hooves of the horses. Arshak was riding in the vanguard beneath the golden dragon of his standard. As we rode on toward him, he slowed, and when we were almost level, he stopped, and all his men halted behind him. I stopped as well, only a few paces from him, and we stared at each other for a long time in silence. I noticed that he was wearing his coat of scalps. His liaison officer, Severus, looked puzzled.

“Greetings,” he said at last. “I didn’t see you when you were last in Corstopitum. I wanted to tell you how pleased I am that you’re still alive.” He smiled.

I knew that smile: he’d given it to Facilis often enough. I thought of asking him if he had a cup of hospitality he wished to share with me—but there was no point baiting him. “Greetings,” I said, instead. “I’ll be pleased to meet you any time, now that we are to be neighbors.”

He smiled again and ran a hand caressingly down his spear. “You’re a true nobleman, in most ways,” he commented. “You’re bound to Eburacum, you and your”— his eyes raked Facilis—“your good friends?”

I nodded and gathered up Farna’s reins. “And you’re bound to Condercum. I won’t keep you—unless you have business with me now?”

His eyes lit, but he shook his head. “I wish I did. But not now. Still, I’m glad you didn’t drown. A prince of the Iazyges should die by the spear.”

“I will die as the god wills it, and by the hand he appoints,” I replied, “as you will yourself, Arshak.” He flinched slightly, as though the connection between gods and killing made him uneasy. “A pleasant journey to you,” I told him, and started my horse forward.

He moved his white Parthian aside to let me pass, and turned in the saddle to watch me as I rode on. When Facilis passed him, he smiled again and fingered the neck of his coat—then gestured for his drummer to give the signal, and continued on.

“Have you quarreled with Lord Arshak, my lord?” Banadaspos asked me unhappily, when our party was through the long coils of the dragon and on the clear road behind it.