Maximus could tell Ballista was sober.
‘Back in Olbia,’ Ballista said, ‘Montanus and Callistratus thought the Goths might have established the runaway slaves on Hylaea as a diversion. The warrior in the dugout, the one who drowned, was a northerner; most likely a Goth.’
‘A Goth?’ Much of Zeno’s bluster had vanished. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘The leader on the bank wore a white fur cloak, like the Tervingi reiks outside the gate at Olbia.’
Maximus nodded. ‘And a gilded helmet — the same man.’ His eyesight had always been good.
‘Why would the Tervingi pursue us?’ Zeno sounded as if he wanted reassurance that such a thing was unlikely.
‘Perhaps they covet the gifts you carry from Gallienus to my people. Perhaps they would like revenge on the men who defeated them at Olbia.’ Ballista raised his cup towards Zeno. Maximus decided he might be drunk after all.
Tarchon joined the discussion. ‘Why fuckers be attacking with so few fuckers?’
‘My guess,’ Ballista said, ‘is the reiks rushed on ahead with a couple of men, collected those pirates he could find, and was using them to delay us, while the rest of his men caught up.’
‘How far behind are they?’ This was all surprising, and very unwelcome to Zeno.
Ballista shrugged. ‘The gods know.’
‘How long before we are out of the territory of the Tervingi?’ Zeno asked.
‘The lands of the Grethungi begin at the rapids,’ said the headman.
‘How far is that?’
‘Five, maybe six days rowing upstream at this season,’ said the headman. ‘You will be safe from the Tervingi there.’
In the morning, one of the severely hurt Olbians was dead. Less expectedly, so was one of the Roman crewmen. Ballista arranged for their burial. The wounded were to be left at the village. As they had seen, convoys of trading boats still ran to Olbia occasionally. Those that recovered could take their chances on one of them. From Olbia, the Romans should be able to get passage back to the imperium. They were to tell the captains of the ships they would be paid by the army at their destination. Ballista wrote a letter for each man authorizing the payment. He admitted to Maximus they might not be honoured, but he would not leave the soldiers money. They would just spend it on drink. Maximus went with Ballista to visit the wounded. Money passed hands here, from Ballista to their hosts, generous provision being made for their care.
As the morning wore on, Zeno fretted and complained. They had been entrusted with a sacred duty by the most noble emperor. The mission was of greater account than any individuals. The importance of the mission could not be overstated. Nothing should be done to endanger it. Gallienus would hear of any who did so. Time was of the essence. They should leave at once.
As far as he could, Ballista ignored Zeno.
Maximus had asked Ballista who was this Thersites from the Greek poem the night before. The answer — an ugly rabble-rouser among the men before Troy, justly beaten by his betters — had not further endeared Zeno to him.
Finally, through the headman, Ballista had called for volunteers from the village to fill the benches of the boats. Not one man had come forward.
Just before midday, when they went down to the boats, for the first time Zeno and Amantius had eagerly helped stow their own belongings.
For three days they journeyed north. Knowing the river well, Hieroson the Olbian guide had refused to be left behind. He led them back and forth from one bank to the other to use the ebb flows and as far as possible avoid moving against the main stream. The Borysthenes here had cast off the aspect of a marsh and revealed itself as a great river, although still filled with obstacles. They paddled around and between green flats that broke the surface, great rafts of lily pads and floating islands of pale reeds like misplaced fields of wheat. In the distance, hills came and went, but the banks never changed, an endless screen of reeds with mud at their feet, walls of dark-green trees beyond.
The majority of the paddlers fell into a rhythm. It was a rounded, smooth motion — reach, stroke, pause and twist the blade free — not too hard, soothing in its monotony. In the rear, the crew of Heliodorus’s boat was not so good. The two slaves, Amantius’s boy and one of Zeno’s, still splashed and floundered, contributing little but confusion.
The boats glided upriver. The Romans sang softly. The marching songs of the legions easily adapted to the tempo of these labours. They sang old songs about Caesar, Gaul and whores, but often they returned to a newer one in honour of Ballista’s friend the great general Aurelian.
Thousand, thousand, thousand we have beheaded now.
One man, a thousand we have beheaded now.
A thousand drinks, a thousand killed.
So much wine no one has as the blood that he has spilt.
Maximus knew both the song and its subject well. Such adulation was dangerous. Sometimes, he thought, only an outsider could see things clearly. In Rome there were only two places the love of the soldiers could lead: to the throne, or the suspicion of the emperor and an early death.
The first two nights they slept safe behind the walls of inhabited villages. The third, where the Borysthenes made a great bend to the east, they camped on a headland. The beach here was sandy, littered with pines fallen from the eroded cliff above. They made beds from the boughs. It was quiet. The river slid past. In the evening light its water had the thickness of milk.
As the sun came up they pushed out from the shore. Once on the river they saw their pursuers. The distant boats looked black, glimpses of white where the prows cut and where the paddles broke the surface. There were eight of them, about a mile downstream.
Maximus had been expecting them. He had never doubted the Tervingi would learn the identity of Vandrad. He had never doubted they would follow, do all they could to kill Ballista. It was a bloodfeud. The Romans knew all about revenge. They held ultio as a duty. But it was a pale shadow of a northern bloodfeud. They did not sing songs about it, did not pass it down generations beyond number. If these Tervingi killed Ballista, his father and his half-brothers must take vengeance, or each become a man of no account in the eyes of the world, a nithing in their own eyes. When Ballista’s sons came to manhood — if they were not too Roman — they, too, must seek out their father’s killers, them and their families. The sagas of the north were punctuated with the flames of burning halls.
There was no singing now. They paddled east. For the twelve hours of daylight they did not cease. They ate at their benches. They shat over the side, their buttocks bare to the wind and the cold slap of water. Their humour did not desert them. When the eunuch had to defecate, they called out: show us your prick, mind the fish do not get your balls. They hooted and jeered when Zeno had to haul up his tunic.
Maximus paddled with the rest. Blisters soon formed on his palms. They burst, and blood and clear pus smeared the handle of his paddle. His shoulders and arms felt as though they had been wrenched on the rack. He put it all from his mind as of little importance. Through the long morning he watched the bank, studied the river. On the water nothing but low islets of vegetation. Once he saw a herd of wild horses crashing away through the reeds on the shore to his left, but no convenient tributaries.
On the broad face of the Borysthenes there was nowhere to hide. By mid-afternoon Maximus was numb with repetition and fatigue. His whole body felt as though it had been flayed. He saw nothing but the shoulders of the man in front. At the end of each stroke this man half toppled forward. But he never fell. None of those at the benches despaired. Ballista and the helmsman reassured them the Tervingi were not gaining. Soon the night would take them in its embrace and conceal them.