The Wolves of the North (13 page)

Calgacus was oblivious, still deep in conversation. His eyes were still, fixed, but his forehead and eyebrows were contracted as he listened to the Herul. It was the revelation Hippothous needed. As Polemon had written, when you saw eyes of such a type,
Know
that he is a hated man and an enemy
, and, if they were combined with a frown,
Judge him for perfidy and cunning
.

Hippothous leant back. At last his judgement was made, scientific in its exactitude. He took a drink. He felt rather drained, but it was no time to rest.

Despite the subdued, even apprehensive, mood of the meal, Maximus was yapping away; hands moving, bird-like head nodding. Hippothous found it difficult to get past the missing end of the Hibernian’s nose; the scar was distractingly reminiscent of a cat’s arse. He took another drink, tried harder.

What was left of Maximus’s nose implied that it had once spread. That sign of fornication and a love of sexual intercourse could not have been more apt. The hair on his head was black, cropped short but thick. Its darkness indicated cunning and deception, in thickness it resembled that of a savage wild animal. The hair of his eyebrows was long, almost touching the temples, signifying much desire and the nature of a pig. Maximus wore a short beard, little more than stubble, but it was more luxuriant on the neck. The untrained viewer might think this nothing more than an indolence in shaving. The physiognomist knew better. It showed power, strength, even magnanimity, like a lion. But, as ever, the eyes were the key. They were never still, always moving fast, and that pointed to lack of truth, to wicked conjecture, and all the way to true evil.

A Herul slave came out of the darkness to Philemuth. It was time for the scapulimancy. The slave carried the shoulder blades of three sheep; he passed them to the nomad. Everyone, even Maximus, was quiet. The bones were very white; scraped, possibly boiled clean. Philemuth turned them in his hands. Everyone knew the question Philemuth was putting to them. He was asking his gods:
Should I die?

At length Philemuth handed the bones back. Using tongs, the
slave placed them one after another in the heart of the fire. The flames licked white around them. The shoulder blades would crack in the heat. If but one cracked cleanly lengthwise, the answer to the question was yes.

No one spoke as they waited. Beyond the sounds of the wind and the fire an owl called in the immensity of the Steppe. Hippothous wondered what deities drew near across that dark ocean of grass. The Heruli worshipped many gods; none gentle or mild.

‘Hunh.’ Philemuth grunted, then coughed. The slave went forward and retrieved the bones. They were black now. He placed them on the ground to cool.

Philemuth sat cross-legged. His fate was decided, waiting to be discovered, but he showed no impatience. Once, he doubled up coughing. But he forced himself upright again, motionless.

A horse snickered out in the darkness. Philemuth gestured. The slave gave him the first shoulder blade. Philemuth peered close at it, lips moving as if reading a book. He took his time, then he put it aside. Three fine cracks were discernible running across the bone.

A gesture, and the slave gave the next one into Philemuth’s hands. The Herul spent less time studying it. Before he put it down, Hippothous could see the round flakes that had burnt off, the fine patina of cracks covering the whole surface.

Philemuth seemed to barely glance at the final shoulder blade. He put it down on the grass, and stood up.

Hippothous saw the clean break running lengthwise.

Philemuth walked out of the circle of firelight into the darkness.

‘No, no.’ The young Herul Aluith was laughing, although not unkindly. ‘You draw the arrow like this.’ He leant out of the
saddle, across between the horses. Wulfstan could not understand how he did not fall.

Aluith again guided Wulfstan’s fingers in the strange nomad draw: the thumb pulling the bowstring back, right forefinger locked against the thumbnail, the whole hand twisted to the left so the knuckle of the forefinger held the arrow in place.

‘Now, try again.’

Wulfstan booted his mount into a canter. Although gripping as hard as he could with his legs, the young Angle bounced precariously. It felt very unsafe with no hands on the reins. The horse picked up speed. The Steppe rattled by all too fast. The sack stuffed with straw came nearer. Wulfstan nudged the horse on to a slightly different approach. Concentrating hard, as Wulfstan nocked the arrow, he remembered to place the shaft to the right of the bow. The string cut into his thumb as he drew – everything about this nomad way of doing things seemed wrong. He tried to aim. The motion of the horse made it impossible. He was almost on top of the target. He released. The arrow flew well wide. Grabbing both the reins and the tuft left low down on the mane for that purpose, he pulled the horse around in a wide circle. He trotted back again, dispiritedly.

As soon as the wagon train had got going that morning, Ballista had asked the Heruli if they would teach him and some of his men how to shoot at the gallop in the nomad style. Andonnoballus, Pharas and young Aluith had agreed, seemingly delighted to demonstrate their skills. Seven had assembled for instruction. The centurion Hordeonius had claimed his auxiliary light-horse bowmen were already more than well trained. The
gudja
had smiled disdainfully. No one had suggested asking the Sarmatian drivers.

Irritatingly, Ballista, Maximus and Hippothous had grasped the basic technique in a reasonably short time. Castricius and Calgacus
had taken rather longer. The latter never came anywhere near real proficiency. The Suanian Tarchon had given up altogether. Now, only Wulfstan was still trying. He was very hot and tired. He had been at it all morning.

It was good of Aluith to remain behind, good of him to teach a slave in the first place. When the idea was raised that morning, Wulfstan had been prepared to beg Ballista to be allowed to use a horse and try. No opportunity to learn was to be spurned. When free, he would need all the killing skills he could possess. Wulfstan had been pleased Ballista had granted his request without demur. He had ridden ponies often before he was enslaved. The big Sarmatian warhorses – and he was on his third this morning – were very different. Guiding a horse just with your legs was difficult, but drawing a bow with your thumb, not your fingers, and trying to aim the arrow all at the same time was quite impossible.

‘You must relax. A horse trained by a Sarmatian is not as good as one trained by a Herul, but it still knows what to do. Just point it in the general direction. Pull the bow back smoothly, try to hold the position I showed you earlier; think of it as an extension of your arms. Let me demonstrate again.’

In one fluid motion, Aluith pushed his mount into a gallop and withdrew bow and arrow from his
gorytus
. He made high
yipping
noises as he raced across the Steppe. The bow curved back. An arrow sped towards the target. As it thumped home, another left the bow, then another. Aluith spun the horse around in its own length. Thundering back through the dust of his own making, he shot another three shafts into the sack.

Wulfstan spat. The bitter taste of wormwood was in his throat. He grinned ruefully. ‘How?’

‘It comes naturally, when you have learnt as a small child. Now you try again.’

Gamely, Wulfstan nocked another arrow. His thumb hurt. The blisters had burst, and they were bleeding. He squeezed the barrel of the horse with his thighs. As it set off, Wulfstan felt momentarily light-headed. The grass accelerated under him; bright flowers flashed by. The sack seemed to blur in his vision. The pressure of the string cut into his thumb. Wulfstan felt dizzy. He released the bow. The arrow went nowhere near the target. He reined the horse back to a standstill.

In the distance, the horizon shifted. It and the sky ebbed away. They were retreating faster and faster, dragging the Steppe after them. The grasses, the wormwood shrubs, the bright dots of flowers were racing away. Wulfstan felt it pulling at him. There was a great heaviness in his body, behind his eyes.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘No, I do not think so.’ Wulfstan was on the ground.

Aluith cradled Wulfstan’s head, put a flask to his lips. Wulfstan coughed it up.

‘I am sorry. I forgot some outlanders do not like fermented mare’s milk. I will get something else.’

Wulfstan lay back, closed his eyes again.

‘Try this.’ Aluith lifted Wulfstan’s head once more, put another flask to his lips. It was watered wine. Wulfstan drank. He sat up, opened his eyes. The Steppe had stopped moving.

‘You have been out here a long time. I should have made you drink more,’ Aluith said.

‘No, it was not that. It was … strange. The Steppe seemed to move.’

‘Yes, it can do that; even to those born here. The spirits try to pull you to them. Many die from it.’

Aluith, squatting on his haunches, took Wulfstan’s hands, looked at the deep cut on his thumb. ‘You have tenacity. You put aside the pain. You would make a good Herul.’

‘How? I am a slave.’ There was no disguise to the bitterness in Wulfstan’s voice.

‘Herul just means warrior. Our slaves fight alongside us.’

‘You do not blind them?’

Aluith laughed. ‘You have seen them. Why would we do something so stupid? If a slave shows courage, he wins his freedom. Of course, he cannot become one of the Rosomoni, but he becomes a Herul.’

‘Rosomoni?’

Aluith touched the bright-red hair on his elongated head. ‘You are born one of “the Red ones”, the brothers. But several of Naulobates’ leading Heruli warriors were slaves. One was even a Greek slave taken out of Trapezus – imagine that.’

Wulfstan drank some more.

‘We should get back,’ Aluith said.

Wulfstan went to remonstrate.

‘We will practise more tomorrow. I will get you a ring for your thumb.’

The Herul helped Wulfstan to his feet, on to his horse; whistled for his own, and jumped into the saddle.

They rode back together in silence. Wulfstan’s thoughts were full of new ideas of slavery and freedom.

Ballista was riding with Calgacus and Maximus, as he had been for several days. Always travelling, never arriving; the Steppe stretched on without limit. Time stagnated. It took an effort to remember it was only eleven days since the discovery of Mastabates’ body, only fourteen since they set out on to the alien world of the Steppe.

As they trudged into the east,
kurgans
would appear in the distance. Slowly, the barrows got closer, were passed, and left behind. Watercourses were stumbled upon, each one somehow a surprise. The ox-wagons were braked down hard into the streams, hauled up the other side. Occasionally there would be a glimpse of white up ahead in the distance, a fixed point in the shimmering sea of green. Not until they were on top of it could the travellers tell if it was a boulder or a blanched skull. A lot of cattle and other creatures had died out here.

Ballista watched a lapwing swooping and diving around the head of the column, screaming outrage and distress at the threat to its unseen nest.

‘At least we have not seen hide nor hair of the Alani since the river,’ Maximus said.

‘That means shite,’ responded Calgacus. ‘The dust, the campfires; making only ten miles a day – we could not be easier to follow. There could be any number of the bastards out there tracking us.’

‘Child’s play,’ Ballista agreed. His mood was as glum as any. ‘The main body could hang back miles away. Have a couple of scouts watch our dust cloud from over the horizon; nothing to stop them riding in to have a closer look in the dark.’

‘Not at all,’ Maximus said. ‘A couple of horsemen on their own would not last a night out there alone – the daemons would get them.’

Both Ballista and Calgacus gave him a dubious look.

‘The plains are crawling with daemons and other foul, unnatural creatures. Ochus the Herul told me so.’

‘And you believed him,’ Ballista said.

‘And why not? Your long-headed fellow was born out here. He should know.’

Calgacus made an unpleasant grating, coughing sound – what passed for laughter.

‘Go on, laugh, you old fucker,’ Maximus said. ‘See if you are still laughing when one of them is pulling your guts out, drinking your blood.’

‘Like a retarded fucking child,’ Calgacus muttered.

‘Ochus said that your Gothic witches, like that old bitch with the
gudja
, go out and copulate with them, breed more of the things. At Ragnarok, a whole horde of them – daemons, half-daemons, all sorts – will come out of the Steppe, kill everything in their path.’

‘I think they might be one of the lesser things to worry about at the end of days,’ Ballista said. ‘Especially once the stars have fallen, the sun has been devoured, and the dead risen – there will be a lot on our minds.’

‘Say what you like, you would not catch me out there at night on my own.’ Maximus was reluctant to give up the otherworldly threat of the Steppe. Something about the strangeness of the landscape encouraged credulity.

‘Fine bodyguard you are,’ Calgacus said.

Maximus rounded on him. ‘You miserable old bastard, only the other day you said the killings might be the work of a daemon.’

‘Aye,’ Calgacus agreed, ‘but I was thinking of a real one, not a silly story. You know as well as me, ever since Ballista here killed Maximinus Thrax, he has been haunted by his daemon. When the other mutineers cut off his head, denied him burial, they condemned the dead emperor to walk. It might have been half a lifetime ago, but Maximinus has eternity.’

Ballista considered this. He had told very few people of the terrifying nocturnal apparitions: Calgacus and Maximus, his wife, Julia, his one-time secretary young Demetrius, and a friend, Turpio. The last was dead.

‘I do not think so,’ Ballista said. ‘It has been months since Maximinus troubled me. When he appears, the daemon offers no violence – just the threat he will see me again in Aquileia. We could hardly be further from northern Italy.’

‘It might be the two of you have forgotten, but we have been cursed by a priestess of Hecate,’ Maximus said. ‘Pythonissa summoned the dark bitch goddess and all her creatures up from the underworld against us.’