Amantius was not just uncomfortable and anxious, he was simmering with resentment. Zeno had insisted Amantius travel with him, in case he should have sudden need of a secretary. The imperial envoy now lounged on a cushion at the rear by the helmsman, Diocles next to him in the place of honour. Amantius had been brusquely ordered to the front with one of Zeno’s slaves. Amantius’s own boy had been sent off to the last boat. It was as if Zeno were determined to remove the last shreds of dignitas from the imperial eunuch.
At least the weather was fine. Here the current ran smooth and strong, and there was little labour for the crew. Off to the right, in the creeks between the islets an unruffled calm prevailed, the surface as still and dark as polished wood. Trees grew out of the water, their bare trunks like the masts of a drowned fleet. The mudbanks were alive with wading birds, busy and completely indifferent to the passing boats. Amantius relaxed a little, his mind turning over ideas of the transience of humanity, its helplessness in the teeth of fate.
On the left the muddy shore slipped by, overgrown with reeds and trees. And there, at the river’s edge, stood an enormous creature. Glossy black, it had the form of a bull, but was near the size of an elephant. Massive, double-curved horns overhung the water. Was this the auroch, the great beast of the northern forests of which Caesar had written? Amantius would have liked to ask, but he was not going to demean himself by calling down the boat to the steersman, let alone talking to the slave or soldiers at hand. As they passed, the beast lifted its head. Drops of water fell from its muzzle as it regarded the boats.
The Hypanis bore the boats along. The channel was broader here, other faster-flowing branches joining it from the right. Behind Amantius, easy on their benches, the crew sang an obscene marching song about the needs of a young widow. The sun sparkled on the placid water. Amantius thought of the bull from the sea sent by Aphrodite to bring death to Hippolytus for scorning her mysteries.
A warning shout from ahead. The boat in front was turning hard to the left. The crew — urgent, but all out of time — thrashed the river with their paddles. The voice of the steersman came across the water, taut with anxiety.
Gods, the barbarians could not be upon them already.
Amantius was thrown sideways as the boat heeled to the right. His stomach hit the side. The water was no distance from his face. Fearing his own bulk would overturn them, he levered himself back. The vessel tipped the other way. Amantius found himself entangled with Zeno’s slave. Water slopped around his slippers. In a lather of terror and fury, Amantius fought free of the servile embrace.
Back upright, he held on to the bench beneath his thighs for dear life. On an even keel, the boat was ploughing towards the eastern bank. The air was full of spray and grunted curses as the inexpert crew sweated to drive it faster.
Almost too scared to look, Amantius sought the peril from which they fled. At first he could not comprehend what he saw. It was as if the river god himself had turned against them. The channel running in from the east was full. A mass of timber stretched almost from bank to bank. Low in the water, but incalculably heavy and bearing down fast, it would crush the frail vessels in its path without pause.
Inexplicably, there were men standing on top of the logs. They had poles in their hands, and ran about like ticks on the hide of a hippopotamus. They were shouting and gesturing.
Amantius looked ahead. The bank seemed far away. He looked back at the monstrosity bent on overwhelming them. It was much nearer, travelling fast. The boat was going so slowly. How could Hygeia have spared him from the barbarians only to deliver him to this? Had the rings and the cloak not been enough? He would give more. Most High Mother, accept my last treasure. Take the bracelet, my last link to the sacred court of the Caesars. Spare my life. Save me from the fishes and a watery grave.
With no warning, the boat grounded. Amantius was hurled forward. His head cracked against a piece of wood. He sprawled on the floor. ‘Hygeia, all the gods, do not let me die.’
Men were laughing. The crew were thumping each other on the back. The raft of lashed-together logs was drifting past. The men on it were polling it clear of the bank. They called out jokes.
‘A hazard of navigating these rivers,’ the steersman said. ‘They float the timber down to the Euxine, sell it to merchants. Good timber. Good for shipbuilding.’
In the stern, Diocles was smiling, but Zeno was white-faced.
‘We get going,’ said the steersman. ‘Follow them down.’
XI
The Estuary of the Hypanis and Borysthenes
On that day the expedition encountered four rafts of timber being floated down to the Euxine. None was as alarming as the first. Apart from them, they had the river much to themselves all the way to Cape Hippolaus. There were fishermen out, but at the sight of four unknown boats, they rowed into overgrown creeks and were lost to sight.
Ballista enjoyed the journey. It was good to be on the water in a small boat very like the ones of his childhood on the shores of the Suebian Sea. The weather remained set fair. A gentle southerly breeze got up and ruffled the surface. It was warm in the spring sunshine. There were no clouds. In between the islands with their reeds and trees, the low, grey line of the western shore could be seen two miles or more away. There was a pale-blue band above it, straight as if drawn with a pencil; a white-blue sky above that.
The Hypanis was rich. Resting happily in the prow, Ballista saw perch, bream and carp. There were many catfish. Once, a huge pike, solitary in its ferocity, came to investigate the boats, before flicking away to find sanctuary under a bank. He had been told there were sturgeon, but he saw none. Great gaggles of geese and ducks bobbed on the water. The shallows and mudflats were crowded with waders; high-stepping, beaks darting, tireless in their endeavours. When the boats came too close, the birds took wing, filling the air with their noise.
The eastern shore was thick with reeds. Alder and willows grew among them. There were birch, oak and poplars behind. Animals moved through the vegetation, coming down to drink; herds of deer and wild sheep, lumbering bison.
Amidst this plenty the signs of man were few. They passed only two Olbian settlements. They were sited on high bluffs. They looked down on the river from cliffs which were banded with pink and grey rock. Both villages were small, circumscribed by ravines and heavily fortified in stone. Their inhabitants could not be blamed for such prudence. But Ballista noted the area of cultivation around them was narrow. There was little terracing, no vines and few domestic animals. When the boats approached, those cattle that were grazing were driven up towards the walls.
The water level was high. The lower trees were half submerged. Bleached branches swept downstream had tangled on promontories. The winter must have been hard further north in the cold interior of the continent. Ballista remembered the winters of his youth on Hedinsey. In the bleak midwinter the snow could drift so high that only the smoke of their hearths revealed the outlying farms around his father’s hold of Hlymdale. In such a place it was easy to believe in Fimbulvetr, the winter of the world before Ragnarok, easy to believe the sun would never rise again, and that all except one man and one woman were destined to die.
They reached their destination at sunset. Cape Hippolaus thrust out into the waters as sharp and firm as the beak of a ship. It was gloomy at the landing place. A broad cloak of clouds had formed and trapped the evening redness in the west.