The Wolves of the North (34 page)

At dawn, a bull was brought forth. Naulobates had killed it with an axe. He had skinned and butchered it himself. His wounds had constrained his movements. Others had built the fire, wheeled out an enormous cauldron, erected it on a tripod and
filled it with water. Naulobates had put in the joints, and lit the fire.

While the smoke billowed, Naulobates had spread the hide of the bull. He sat cross-legged on it, his hands held behind his back, like a man bound by the elbows.

The first day, when the meat was cooked, one by one the leading men of the Heruli had come. There were ten of them. Andonnoballus, Uligagus, Artemidorus and Aruth were among their number. Each had taken a portion of meat and eaten it. Having finished, each placed his right boot on the hide and pledged to bring one thousand horsemen of the swift Heruli to the gathering.

The following days had seen the great men of the tributary and allied tribes pledge men according to their numbers and ability. There had been chiefs from many peoples. First had come the Eutes, the grandsons of men who had followed the Heruli down from the Suebian sea. Second had been the Agathyrsi, their swirling blue tattoos as intricate and dense as the red patterns that blossomed on the skins of the Heruli. Next had been the fabled Nervii. They wore the skins of wolves, and were said once a year to change into those terrible animals. After these had come the leaders of tribes along the Rha river – Ragas, Imniscaris, Mordens – all the way to the Goltescythae of the northern mountains.

After the chiefs came less reputable men. These lean, scarred warriors were from no recognized tribe. Each had a
comitatus
of no more than a dozen at most behind him. The uncharitable might call them bandits. Naulobates did not. He spoke to them with courtesy. Their men helped bring the number of his war band to near twenty thousand.

Seven days Naulobates had sat upon the hide. He had not moved from it. On the hide he had slept. On it he had eaten the food men brought him, and defecated in the bowls they took away.

Ballista had been there throughout, watching. Although it might
put himself and his
familia
at risk, he had resisted the unspoken pressure to place his right boot on the hide. He was the envoy of the Roman emperor. He was an Angle; the grandson of Starkad, who had driven the Heruli from the north. He may have been used to start this war, but he had no intention of fighting in it.

The sun was sliding down in the west. The ritual would end at dusk. Ballista reflected on it and on the strangeness of the Steppes.
Let him wander the face of
the earth … among strange peoples.
Some things among the nomads had proved to be exactly as Greek and Latin literature had led him to expect. The Agathyrsi and the Heruli painted themselves and shared their women. Other things had turned out very differently. Herodotus had written that the nomads blinded their slaves. Far from mutilating them, the Heruli offered them brotherhood, if they showed valour.

The sky was the purple of a bruise that goes down to the bone. No one had placed their boot upon the hide that day. But the crowd was not diminished. It had about it a curious, unfulfilled demeanour.

Ballista had read in Lucian of the sitting on the hide. But Lucian had been writing of the Scythians of at least two centuries earlier. Had the ceremony survived on the Steppe, surviving changes of peoples, somehow hibernating and waiting for the Heruli to adopt it? Or had Naulobates himself also read of it? Certainly, he and his son Andonnoballus had read many books. Had Naulobates also read Lucian, and decided the long-dead, maybe fictional ceremony would fit very well into his God-given reforms? It was too simple merely to think how literature reflected life; to judge how accurately a book captured reality. It could all go the other way. Things in books could alter the real lives of individuals and peoples.

A stir in the crowd broke the path of Ballista’s thoughts. ‘He is come,’ someone nearby said, ‘the Iron One.’ A thickset figure emerged.

Hisarna, son of Aoric, King of the Urugundi, scooped up a little morsel of meat from the stew and chewed it. He unsheathed his father’s famous sword
Iron
and placed his right boot upon the hide. In his melodious and gentle voice, he pledged ten thousand Gothic warriors.

Between Hisarna and Naulobates passed the look of men whose deep-laid plan has come to fruition, unspoilt by neither gods nor men.

The Steppe was dry by late July, the grass yellowing and beginning to wither. The passage of nearly twenty thousand men and over forty thousand horses could not be hidden or disguised. The dust rose up around them like thick smoke, as if one of the great cities of the
imperium
, Ephesus or Antioch, was burning. The wind arched it high across the southern sky. There was no way the Alani could fail to know they were coming. Even if the gods struck blind every spy and scout they possessed, the noise of the army carried several miles downwind, and a man with any fieldcraft could put his ear to the ground and feel the reverberations further away still.

The army of the Heruli and their allies was spread over miles of grassland. They rode in four units: a vanguard under Uligagus and three parallel columns under Aruth, Artemidorus and Naulobates himself. All the Heruli and the Agathyrsi had a couple of spare ponies. Some of the Nervii and Eutes also had remounts, but very few of the warriors from the sedentary tribes along the Rha river and none of the bandits were so well equipped.

The strategy of the horde, lengthily and furiously argued over
in the assembly, in the result could not be simpler. They would ride south-west to the Tanais, follow the river when it bent to the west and, at about the point the Roman embassy had disembarked, join with the levies of Hisarna, King of the Urugundi. The united force would march south to the Hypanis river and on to the Croucasis mountains. As they went, they would spread out and round up the herds of the Alani and burn their tents. Somewhere between the Tanais and the Croucasis, the Alani must turn and fight.

Ballista and his
familia
rode behind Naulobates. It had not been an invitation that countenanced refusal. Ballista had tied a silk scarf around his face. The dust still clogged his mouth and nostrils, gritted his eyes. Riding in his mailshirt, the sweat coursed down his body. The straps and weight of his armour chafed. The heat, dust and discomfort did not lighten his mood. He had no wish to be here.

Once Hisarna had appeared at the ceremony of the sitting on the hide, it was obvious the Roman mission had failed. A few days later, when granted an audience, Ballista had requested Naulobates’ permission to return to the
imperium
. For a time the First-Brother had regarded him with those unnerving grey eyes, before saying he was disappointed Ballista had not put his right boot on the hide. Nevertheless, Naulobates considered the Romans should remain to witness the war which had been caused by their presence. Besides, Naulobates had added enigmatically, at some point he wished to discuss with Ballista the old days, the days of their grandfathers. The prospect of discussing Starkad with any Herul, let alone Naulobates, was not encouraging.

Ballista very much wished not to have any part of this expedition. The whole thing seemed ill-conceived. The Alani would know Naulobates and Hisarna were coming. The majority of the Urugundi warriors would be on foot. When the Heruli joined with them, the combined army would move slowly. If he were
Safrax, the King of the Alani, he would move his herds up into inaccessible glens in the Croucasis, and block or set ambushes in the passes through the foothills that led to them. The latter should not demand many men, leaving the majority of the Alani cavalry free to harass the invaders or, more boldly, to counter-strike at their dependants. And, of course, there were said to be some thirty thousand Alani warriors. If they could catch either the Heruli or the Urugundi before they met on the lower Tanais, the Alani would outnumber them by at least three to two.

On the fourth evening, they made camp with the Tanais on their right. At this point, the river still ran south. It was broad here, riffling over wide bars of sand and shingle. After they had seen to the horses and eaten, there was little to do. There was no baggage train to worry about. All the horde, even the First-Brother, did without tents and slept on the ground. Drunkenness, gambling and fighting among the horde were banned on pain of death. Given the well-known inventiveness of Naulobates with capital punishment, the prohibitions had proved highly effective – only about a dozen men so far had had to be staked out, disembowelled or otherwise killed.

As the heat drained out of the day, Ballista went down through the wide band of trees to the river to swim. Maximus and Calgacus did not stir, but Tarchon insisted on accompanying him. Remember the boy Wulfstan, the Suanian said. Ballista would rather have been alone, but did not argue. Sometimes Tarchon respected the desire for silence.

Skeins of geese and ducks were over the river. The water held that strange luminescence which rivers can keep after the sun has gone down. Ballista stripped off his mail and clothes and walked naked into the river. He waded out, relishing the chill, clean bite of it on his skin. When it was deep enough, he swam a few strokes. He dived under the surface and came up blowing and wringing
the water out of his long hair. After a time, he climbed out and dried himself with a towel Tarchon had brought. He got dressed, but could not be bothered to put his war shirt back on.

They sat side by side in silence. Ballista savoured the smell of the water and the vegetation, and listened to the wildfowl. Their sounds often reminded him of his youth. He thought of his father and mother. What an age they must be now. They had seemed old when he left, but in reality his mother could only have been about the age he was now, perhaps younger. Would he ever return and see them? He thought, far less fondly, of one of his half-brothers. Morcar would not welcome his return. For the first time in months, possibly years, he thought of a girl called Kadlin.

It was good here down by the river. By this time of year out on the Steppe at night the nightingales no longer sang, and the quails and corncrakes no longer called. If you were away from the noise of a horde of men and beasts, there was nothing but the ceaseless sighing of the wind. It was as if the sun had burnt the joy, if not the life, out of the plains. Ballista very much wanted to get away from the sea of grass.

Ballista fiddled with the straps of his mail. In the old days, if there had been even an outside chance of a threat, he would have put it straight back on. Years before, a centurion had told him – it was back in Novae on the Danube, when the Goths were outside the walls – that almost all soldiers became fatalistic, if they lived long enough. At first it was a good thing; they could look beyond preserving their own hides. But then they stopped taking basic precautions; became a danger to themselves and others. The centurion had claimed there were two ways of thinking behind it. Having run repeated dangers, some soldiers thought their luck had run out, there was no point in caring, because they were as good as dead, no matter what. Others fell under the delusion that nothing could touch them, certainly not kill them.

Ballista had no intimations of immortality. Equally, he saw no reason he should die here, rather than in any of the other bad places in which circumstances had placed him. He thought of his sons, the two best reasons to fight his way back. And he had Maximus and Calgacus with him. He loved the two men and knew it to be reciprocated. There was no reason the three of them would not get out of this, as they had of so much else.

When they did get out, perhaps he might be allowed to retire to his estate in Sicily. The mission had failed – far from attacking the Urugundi, the Heruli were their closest ally again – but there was war on the Steppe. While it lasted, it should prevent the tribes raiding the
imperium
. Unless other tribes intervened, it should free Odenathus to fight the Persians, and Gallienus to march against Postumus in Gaul. That must have been why Gallienus had sent him here. Perhaps the emperor would let him retire at last. It would be good to live in peace. When they were home, he would free Rebecca and the boy Simon. It would please old Calgacus. The things that would please Maximus were all too easy to imagine.

As he stood to get into the mailshirt, he heard the urgent triple rhythm of a horse being ridden fast. A challenge was called by a sentry, and the correct password given. The rider asked and was given directions to Naulobates. Ballista struggled into his war gear, and with Tarchon walked back up into the camp.

Few had found sleep easy after the news the scout brought had spread through the horde. Ballista had slept for a couple of hours. It was strange, being in the camp of an army going into battle the next morning but having no duties and not being involved in anxious last-moment counsels. Yet he still felt bone-tired, and his eyes were scratchy with fatigue.

Ballista had a good view. With his
familia
, and those that remained of the trained fighting men of the Roman embassy – just
nine riders including himself – he had been summoned to attend Naulobates. There were other dignitaries present: the
gudja
, as ever shadowed by the aged
haliurunna
, two nobles of the Taifali from the west, and three chiefs of the Anthropophagi from somewhere far in the north.

Naulobates had taken station on a low fold in the ground to the rear of his army. Ballista sat on one of the big Sarmatian horses and surveyed the battlefield. Visibility was improving. The sun was up, and burning off the last of the low river mist. Below and immediately to his front was Naulobates’ own unit, acting as a reserve. These were the elite, all Heruli, many of them Rosomoni. The five thousand were strung out, side by side, and just two deep. Each man was backed by at least four tethered remounts. Ballista’s view was of lots of standards stirring above a sea of swishing horse tails.

The main army was about two bow shots beyond, divided into three more units of about five thousand each. To the right, their flank on the belt of trees by the Tanais, were the warriors of the tribes from the Rha. The various bandit chiefs were with them, and the whole was stiffened by the nomad Eutes. The Herul Aruth was in command. In the centre stood the rest of the Heruli under Uligagus. The left was held by the Agathyrsi and the Nervii. They were led by Artemidorus. These units were more compact, arrayed five deep in a formation Naulobates had referred to as ‘the thorn bushes’.