Maximus was glad it was all over, glad they were about to move from this daemon-haunted place of suffering. As he swung up into the saddle, Andonnoballus and Pharas came trotting over. There had been no opportunity for much talk with them since the relief. Both greeted Ballista and his familia. Andonnoballus looked as if he would say more, but he did not.
‘How long were your Heruli scouts watching the Alani attack the laager?’ Ballista said.
Andonnoballus smiled. ‘You knew they were there?’
‘I thought there were men upstream in the riverbed,’ Ballista said.
‘They had been there some hours. They were waiting for the other columns to get into position.’
Maximus had known nothing of the scouts. He watched Ballista’s face. It was closed, angry.
‘Why did it take so long for the relief column to get here?’ Ballista said.
‘Naulobates rules over wide lands. It takes time to gather a large force.’ Andonnoballus’s voice was smooth.
‘Naulobates could have sent fewer men sooner.’
‘He wanted to ensure he apprehended all the Alani. He decreed their punishment was to be complete and terrible.’
‘Nomad horses ride like the wind,’ Ballista said.
Andonnoballus paused. ‘When the messengers reached the camp, Naulobates was… away.’
‘Away?’
‘Naulobates is…’ Andonnoballus looked Ballista hard in the eye, daring him to mock. ‘Naulobates is not like other men. He communes with the divine. Sometimes he enters the world beyond.’
‘Your father travels in the world of daemons?’ Ballista said.
At his words a sudden stillness settled on the two Heruli. Andonnoballus looked at Pharas. The older warrior shrugged.
Andonnoballus asked, ‘How did you know he is my father?’
‘You Heruli pride yourselves on your brotherhood, your equality, but the older warriors all deferred to you. And occasionally one of them would forget himself and call you Atheling.’
Andonnoballus laughed. ‘You are no fool. But then you would not be, you are a grandson of cunning Starkad.’
‘Wait,’ Maximus said. ‘If you Heruli have your women in common, how can anyone’s father be known? I thought that was the point.’
‘It is,’ Andonnoballus agreed, ‘but it is a recent innovation of my father’s. Many things have changed in the last few years. Naulobates is a law-giver like Scythian Zalmoxis or Spartan Lycurgus. He is refashioning the customs of the Heruli. Through him, the gods are creating perfection on earth.’
‘Well, we shall be honoured,’ Ballista said, straight-faced. ‘It is not every man that gets to enter perfection.’
Andonnoballus gave him a measuring look. ‘It is time to go.’
They rode out past the remains of the laager, past the still smoking large pyre, and past the three stakes. The bones of the Roman staff who had once hung there were now travelling in panniers to their final resting place. Three new men were impaled on the stakes. The Alani chiefs were still just about alive. Above them, the horsetail and tamga standards flew.
Maximus and the others forded the watercourse, and rode away to the north.
Wulfstan looked up at the night sky. The moon was waning and the stars were bright — the eyes of Thiazi, many thousands of others and, brightest of all, the toe of Aurvandil the Brave; all placed there by the gods to bring comfort, to watch over man.
It was quiet in the sleeping camp. The wind sang softly through the ropes of the tents. Down in the horse lines, beasts shifted and coughed in their sleep.
Wulfstan’s arm hurt. He and Tarchon had been ordered to hold the breach that the Alani had hacked in the makeshift defences between the first two wagons back at Blood River. After Ballista and the others had moved on, the Alani had tried to break in again. Wulfstan had dropped the first with an arrow. Tarchon had near-beheaded the second with his sword. But, shields up, the next two had forced their way through. One went for Tarchon. Before the other could attack, Wulfstan had thrust the point of his sword at the centre of the nomad’s embroidered tunic. The Alan was too quick, too experienced — just too strong. He had turned aside the blade, as if Wulfstan were a small child, and riposted in one movement. The steel had sliced open Wulfstan’s right bicep. Wulfstan had dropped his sword. He had not been able to stop himself. His left hand had clamped to the wound. Doubled up, it would have been all over with him. Tarchon struck with the speed and sureness of a cat. The Alan he had been fighting was still falling when the Suanian cut down Wulfstan’s would-be killer.
They had been ordered to hold the breach. They had done that. Wulfstan’s arm was the price they had paid. After the fighting, the gudja and the haliurunna had cleaned, salved and bound the wound. The hideous old crone had muttered strange incantations over it. That had been four days ago. It still hurt like poison. The last two days riding had not helped. Yet Wulfstan almost did not care.
After they had made camp and eaten the previous night, Ballista had summoned what remained of the Roman mission. With his own money, he had purchased the two slaves from the three surviving soldiers at a more than generous price. Good to his word, he handed both his new slaves a papyrus roll recording their manumission. One of the soldiers had tacked up some felt into a pair of pointed caps. The new freedmen accepted these symbols of freedom gladly. There was amusement, as neither pileus came close to fitting.
Wulfstan had joined in the laughter, but it was what had happened next that still left him near uncaring of his injury, that still had his heart singing. With no ado, Ballista had called him forward and handed him two papyri. One ended Wulfstan’s slavery, the other awarded him the toga virilis. Wulfstan had found it difficult to comprehend. He had dropped to his knees, kissed Ballista’s hand. He was raised up. In a matter of moments, he was both free and a man. The thoughts still rang loud in his head, drowning out nearly all else.
It was a quiet night. Wulfstan knew he should go to sleep. There would be another long day in the saddle ahead of them. But his arm did not make sleep easy to come by, and his heart was too full. He listened to the peep-peep of a night bird and the strange whistling of the marmots in their hollows out on the Steppe. Another sound, closer altogether.
Wulfstan whirled around. His hand went to his hilt. The pain made him wince.
A tall figure emerged from the shadows. It pushed the hood back from its long head.
Wulfstan relaxed.
It was Andonnoballus.
‘You are up late,’ the Herul said in the language of the north.
‘As are you.’
‘I had to check the sentries,’ Andonnoballus said. ‘You?’
‘I could not sleep.’
‘Have you given much thought to what you will do with your freedom?’
‘Some.’ Wulfstan did not want to say more.
‘The Romans would say you still had a duty to Ballista, now he is your patronus.’
‘I owe him a debt, but I do not care what the Romans might say.’ Wulfstan himself thought his tone sounded immature, almost petulant.
‘Aluith said you would make a good Herul.’ Andonnoballus smiled.
Wulfstan was quiet for a time. ‘Before I came into the familia of Ballista, things happened which call for revenge.’
‘Even if it can be achieved, it will not undo the past,’ Andonnoballus said.
‘Some things demand revenge.’
‘None among the Heruli would know whatever those things might have been. Among us, under the rule of Naulobates, a man can rise high irrespective of what he was before.’
‘I would still know,’ Wulfstan said.
Now it was Andonnoballus who paused before replying. ‘Revenge is a two-edged sword. It can damage the man who takes it as surely as those upon which it is inflicted. It can become a disease that spreads, infecting everything a man does, everything he thinks. It might be you will not be truly free until you are free of the desire for revenge.’