‘I led them here. After the battle on the ice.’
‘You were a captain?’
‘Of sorts, for a time. No longer. They honour me still, though I have not earned the right.’
‘For that I am glad. That I lived to know that you earned a captain’s mark.’
Bahadur fell silent, and did not speak for a long time. Once more the forgetful motions, his finger tracing the rich patterns of the rug beneath them, the drawings of monsters killing horses, men killing monsters. Hunters and hunted, the path of life and death and rebirth. The story of their people, told over and over again.
And when he spoke again, it was not to his wife, nor to Kai. It was to the Roman.
‘Have you ever been close to your Emperor?’ said Bahadur. ‘Talked to him, as we are talking now?’
‘No,’ Lucius answered. ‘I saw him, once. But I never had the honour of speaking to him.’
‘Honour, is it?’ Bahadur shivered once. ‘Perhaps for you. I wish that I had died, rather than be honoured in that way. To know what I know now.’
‘You spoke with him?’ said Kai.
‘Yes. Many times. Though not as men speak with men. It was as if… as if I were some dog of his.’
Arite said: ‘It is a message that you bring from him?’
‘It is,’ said Bahadur. ‘I thought of all the ways that I might say it, when I came here. I thought that I knew, but now…’ The words trailed away.
‘They mean to make the peace cost us,’ said Kai. ‘We all know that. You—’
‘You do not know what Rome is!’ And Bahadur was shouting then, the words ringing like the sound of sword against shield. ‘You think he is some angry chieftain come to make war with you,’ he said, ‘from some border tribe stirred up by a bloodfeud? You think to give them tribute and offer an honourable peace between worthy warriors?’
Arite reached out to him, a tentative hand on his, and he snatched it away as though he had been burned. ‘Do not touch me,’ he said. ‘Do not paw at me as though I am a sick child.’
‘Tell us, then,’ said Kai. ‘What message do you bring?’
‘There are no terms but these. That we submit to him and make ourselves his slaves, give them rulership over our lands and our people. Or they will destroy us all.’
Silence, then. Only the sounds of the camp – from somewhere close, the laughter of a playing child, the hiss of a cooking fire, the sharp whispers of an argument between lovers. What a thing it was, to know the ending of the world before any others. To see the rest of one’s people go about the day unknowing, when nothing that they did mattered any more.
‘You might as well have said that they meant to reach out and stop the sun in the sky,’ said Kai. ‘They cannot do it.’
‘They can. They think us wild children, playing with sticks. Or starving wolves that harass their sheep. You would kill those wolves any way that you could, would you not? Track them to their caves and strangle the puppies, and you would think it a good day’s work. And so it is with them, and us.’
‘Then how do we defeat them?’
‘You cannot. I think that only Rome could defeat Rome.’
‘What would you have us do?’
‘Lie down and die. Or beg for their mercy. It is all the same to them. It is all the same to me.’ And Bahadur covered his face – not to weep, but to pull and claw at it, as though it were a mask he sought to lift away. Arite began to reach towards him once more, but, this time, checked her hand halfway.
‘You must rest,’ she said. ‘The chieftains will speak of it, and decide what to do. In the spring, we shall send our messengers—’
‘No. I have but a few days here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I have to return. That was what he told me. And if I do not go back, then that shall be his answer. That he will have to destroy us all.’
Kai understood then, every little pause that Bahadur made, how hesitant and forgetful he seemed. It was not the mark of a man who had lost his wits, but of one trying to fix the memories in his mind. To not let any gesture or moment pass by unobserved and unnoted. To do the impossible, to take his home back with him to the west.
‘He will not do such a thing for a single prisoner,’ said Kai.
‘He will do it. He can do it. I tell you again, you do not know what Rome is. Who this man is. They have their own honour of a sort. No, not honour. But revenge. They know much of that.’ He choked then, hacked and coughed and spat upon the ground, reached a trembling hand back to the skin of wine. After he had drunk, he wiped the wine from his lips with the back of his hand, and licked that dry. Then he spoke again: ‘They would burn a whole nation to nothing. Salt their fields and destroy their treasures. Melt gold away as though it were dung upon a fire. For no profit, nor to protect themselves. Not to honour the gods. But simply because they said that they would.’
Kai let his gaze drift to the Roman, for the man had gone quite still. ‘Could this be true?
‘If he says that he will do it,’ said Lucius, ‘then he will. The Emperor does not lie. The soldiers love him for that. Always, they are lied to by their masters. But he does not lie, even if he means to send men to their deaths.’
‘And do you have an oath that you can swear, that I might believe what you say?’
‘I swear it upon the names of my ancestors,’ said Lucius, ‘and the gods of my people.’
‘Something other than that. Strong oaths, but…’ Kai hesitated, licked his lips. ‘Do you have a daughter? For I would swear by my daughter. By Bahadur, or Arite. Can you swear in the same way?’
Nothing, for a time. Then: ‘A wife and a son, both long dead. A sister – taken in a raid across the water. Dead now, I think, or a prize for some chieftain’s bed. But I shall swear by them all if that will make you believe me.’ The Roman went to place a hand over his heart, and then, leaned forward to touch the sword at Kai’s hip, placing one finger upon the point and swearing in the way of the Sarmatians.
‘I accept the oath,’ Kai said. ‘And now I ask you this – can they do it?’
‘It would be a great risk to them. But they can. The other border tribes are beaten. There is no trouble at home that might draw the Legions back. If it remains quiet elsewhere… then yes, they can do it.’ The Roman hesitated. ‘Will your people surrender?’
‘To be slaves? No. They shall die,’ Kai said simply.
‘And what if they could remain warriors?’
Bahadur snarled at this. ‘To fight beside our conquerors?’
‘You have fought beside the Romans in the past.’
‘As equals, not slaves. And this Emperor would not allow it. He said so, and he does not lie.’
‘He may not have a choice.’ And Lucius was carving in the dirt with his fingers then, marking another map into the ground. ‘We are surrounded by enemies on every side. Now there is peace, but it is never long before another war upon the border. Always, some senator at home wishes to take his chance at the purple and make himself Emperor. And when that time comes, the Emperor shall not let eight thousand heavy cavalry rot by serving wine and ploughing fields.’
Silence between them for a time. Then Kai said: ‘Always the hunt, always the war. I do not trust to much, but I trust to that. There may be a chance.’
Arite spoke then, to her husband. ‘How much time do you have?’
‘I was delayed in the swamplands,’ said Bahadur, ‘lost the spare horse they gave me to a broken leg. The Roman horses are so weak… I have a day or two, perhaps. I have so little time left. I must have an answer by then.’
On his feet once more, Kai felt his head swim with the motion – the feeling of nausea, like one deep into the wine, or upon the eve of a battle.