‘How long is it since we met?’
Ballista thought. ‘Coming on ten years. We were young then.’
‘Already old in the ways of the world.’
Ballista laughed softly. ‘Maybe you more than me. Why were you in the mines?’
‘It is a long story, for another time.’
‘Ten years is a long time.’
Castricius turned his small, sharp face towards Ballista. ‘The daemon that watches me has been strong. Yours, too.’
‘My people do not have that belief. Three old women — the Norns — spin our fate.’
Castricius smiled and turned away. ‘Back in Arete there was much talk before you arrived. The men of Legio IIII Scythica said our new barbarian commander had been born in a mud hut.’
Ballista said nothing.
‘We knew you were a hostage, but we had no idea of the power your father wields in the north.’
‘Most inhabitants of the imperium know little of the world outside. All barbarians are much alike.’
‘Your family rule over many peoples. They must be fine warriors.’
‘The north breeds hard men.’ Ballista shrugged. ‘But much of the rise of the Himlings was down to love, or at least marriage.’
Castricius looked back at Ballista, waiting for more.
‘There were rival families, but we have held the island of Hedinsey time out of mind, since the first Himling, Woden’s son. My great-grandfather Hjar took a Waymunding woman for his first wife. She brought him the island of Varinsey. His second wife was from the Aviones, and he married his sister to the chief of the Chali. It brought him influence on the mainland, on the Cimbric peninsula. His son Starkad extended that. He married women from the Varini and the Reudigni, and gave his sister to the king of the Farodini.’
Ballista stopped. ‘These are just strange names, meaningless to you.’
‘We are bound for the north. I am not Zeno. My daemon will protect me, but it is good to know the sort of people I must move among,’ said Castricius.
‘My father Isangrim has had many wives; a Langobard, a Bronding, a Frisian. My mother is from the Harii. Many peoples of the islands and shores of the Suebian Sea pay him tribute.’
‘All that without fighting?’
Ballista grinned. ‘No, there was much fighting. Hjar sailed east and never returned. Starkad died in battle. But the most important fighting was not in the north. About a century ago the divine Marcus Aurelius wore the purple. In the great wars, when the Marcomanni and other tribes crossed the frontier, the emperor offered Hjar friendship. Hjar sent warriors south to fight for the Romans along the Ister. Hjar himself attacked the lands of the emperor’s enemies from the north. In return, Marcus sent Hjar money and swords. You could say the emperor created the power of the Himlings.’
‘And now one emperor wants to turn that power against another,’ countered Castricius, grimly.
‘Yes,’ said Ballista.
‘It will be good for you to see your family,’ said Castricius.
‘Some of them,’ Ballista said. ‘Some are no longer there for me to see.’
XII
Rome
The bride stepped over the threshold out from her father’s house. It was a blustery evening, the wind whipping up from the Tiber. The whitehorn torches guttered. In their light her tunic was dazzlingly white, her scarf and shoes a hectic red. She looked beautiful, and very young, no more than her fourteen years.
Gallienus thought she looked both relieved and apprehensive at the same time. He imagined the relief would have come from having negotiated the archaic ceremonies inside without faltering. She had remained motionless as her hair had been parted with a bent iron spearhead, rusty with the blood of a slain gladiator. She had been seated on the fleece of a freshly slaughtered sheep, eaten spelt bread, salt cake and other unaccustomed things. She had spoken the ritual words — ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia — the meaning of which eluded the speculations of those better educated than her. The mistress of the ceremonies had placed her right hand in that of her husband, and the guests had repeatedly wished the newly-weds good luck: Feliciter, Feliciter. Finally she had offered a pinch of incense and a libation of wine to the lares, and so said farewell to her household gods. The cause of her apprehension was obvious to all. Her old nurse, all the women of the household, would have told her, reassuring or teasing in their intent, what would happen to her later.
The girl was taken from the arms of her mother. A young boy took each of her hands, supporting her on either side. Gallienus thought he could do with some support. He had been drinking hard inside the house. A different wine in every glass. His head was buzzing, inappropriate thoughts insinuating themselves. The will of an emperor is law. He could do as he likes. It was all too easy to imagine a Caligula or Heliogabalus pulling the wives of other men from the dining couches, taking them out, having their pleasure, then returning to discuss their performance with their stony-faced husbands. Gallienus felt a stirring at the perversity of the thing. He pushed the thought down. He was not a Caligula or Heliogabalus, if for no other reason than the brevity of their reigns. Both had been killed after but a brief season of misrule, and no one could say their killers acted unjustly. Gallienus had worn the purple for well over a decade. Virtue was more than its own reward.
The band struck up. As the procession set off, the throng lining the street raised the shout: Talasio! Talasio! Well fed, full of free wine; the plebs’ ignorance of its meaning was no impediment to their enthusiasm.
Gallienus took Salonina’s hand. Together with his wife, he promenaded at the head of the family, just behind the bride. Weddings made everyone think of sex. Perhaps there would be time to claim his conjugal rights before he left tonight. Recently, on the few occasions he had visited her bedchamber, Salonina had been reluctant. She had paraded the Platonism of the teachings of Plotinus: the body was a prison, its pleasures to be scorned as demeaning and unworthy. Things might improve now the aged sage was deep in Campania spending Gallienus’s money making the Laws of Plato a living reality in Platonopolis. Anyway, to Hades with the lukewarm joys of the marital bed. Gallienus’s German concubine Pippa waited for him in Mediolanum. Pippa, his glorious Pippara, only feigned reluctance to heighten the pleasure. He would take the bitch bent over a table, as soon as he arrived, still in his riding boots. The journey north would take several days. If his needs became too insistent, there was always Demetrius. Beautiful as he was, the Greek youth was really too old now. Perhaps instead there was that new, slut-eyed little Syrian boy who helped him dress.
Having descended from the Palatine, the procession had made its way through the Forum Romanum. It halted at the Temple of Concordia Augusta. Beneath the marble gaze of Pax, Salus and Concordia herself, the newly-weds offered a libation and prayer to the harmony of the imperial house.
Gallienus thought the symbolism could not be missed. The marriage of the son of the emperor’s half-brother Licinius to the daughter of his cousin Flaccinus made public demonstration of the unity of the house of the Caesars. In fact, Gallienus had always considered his half-brother rather slow. But Licinius had done well enough when the Alamanni had reached the suburbs of Rome itself the other year. He was reliable. That was more than could be said for Flaccinus. On a routine punitive raid to burn a few villages, his cousin had been captured by one of the tribes north of the Ister. Clementius Silvius, the governor of the provinces of Pannonia, had done nothing. It had been left to a young tribune called Probus to rescue a member of the imperial house from the savage Quadi and restore something of the dignitas of Rome. The initiative had been well rewarded; Probus now rode in the imperial entourage as one of the protectores.