Another chunk of timber was swirling down towards them. Ballista scrambled back – the curious, slow high- steps of a man in water. Not enough time. He hurled himself backwards. He went under, the water rushing in his ears, eyes blurred. As he came up, the shattered end of the beam caught him on the left shoulder. The pain was intense. There was blood in the water. He held the wound tight with his right hand.
‘Come on.’ Calgacus was with him.
‘I am fine. Help me get him.’
They waited, timing it, while other debris scoured the space between them and the injured Suanian.
‘Now!’ They spoke at once. Five, six stumbling steps. They had him, a hand under each armpit, dragging. They made no attempt to keep his head above water – drowning was the least of his problems in those few moments to the riverbank. They were there – crawling out, spitting, spluttering.
XXIV
Sabotage. There could be no doubt. It had been sabotage. They squatted on their heels in the dust and inspected the evidence – the neat cuts where several of the support beams had been sawn part way through, and the contrasting tortured ends where the wood had twisted or snapped.
‘Not too skilled,’ Ballista said. ‘They could have sawn through fewer beams and had a greater certainty of collapse.’
‘Sure, that is good,’ Maximus said. ‘No need to confine our suspicions to the trained carpenters.’
‘Two dead, two more likely to die, another dozen hurt; it will be bad for the spirits of the workers,’ Mastabates said.
Calgacus snorted; a horrible sound mingling contempt and derision.
‘Was it an attempt to kill you?’ Mastabates asked Ballista.
It was Hippothous who answered. ‘It is not likely. Ballista has been up on the scaffolding – we all have – but not continuously. The odds were exceedingly against him – any of us – being anywhere near it when it fell.’
‘Then who benefits by sabotaging our mission?’ Mastabates went on to begin to scout answers to his own question. ‘The Caspian Gates are designed to keep out the Alani.’
‘I have not seen any nomads around,’ said Maximus.
‘Would we recognize them?’ Ballista shrugged, then the pain made him wish he had not. ‘A lot of the Suani dress like men from the steppes – the caps with lappets, the furs, those animal-style buckles and clasps. I am still enough of a northerner to find it hard to tell one of these easterners from another. A Hellene such as Hippothous would be no better – worse probably. Apart from Mastabates, do any of us know enough of the language of the Suani to notice an unusual accent?’
‘It is against Sassanid interests for us to do well.’ Mastabates tried another tack. ‘Those bushy-bearded mobads hanging around Polemo would be in a good position to organize something like this.’
Everyone nodded at the truth of the words.
‘But it could be something more local, more personal,’ the eunuch continued. ‘Iberia is only a few valleys away. We all heard Pythonissa remind you that old King Hamazasp still hates you.’
This time Ballista remembered not to shrug. ‘A reciprocal thing,’ he murmured.
‘Of course, it could be something yet closer to home.’ Mastabates’ thoughts pressed on. ‘The eldest two sons of Polemo of Suania have met violent deaths. Members of that family do not die in their beds, nor does any dynasty in the Caucasus. Everyone in the mountains is enmeshed in feuds. If you have eyes to see, it is evident that the princes Azo and Saurmag hate each other. And who could tell what the girl Pythonissa wants – a priestess of Hecate, said to be skilled with poisons, angry, frustrated, a latter-day Medea.’
It was an informal consilium that advised Ballista on the banks of the Alontas: Maximus, Calgacus, Hippothous and Mastabates. The four slaves, Agathon and Polybius along with Mastabates’ Pallas and Hippothous’s Narcissus, had been left across the river in Cumania to keep an eye on their possessions. It left just young Wulfstan in attendance. He had been joined by the Suanian who had been fished out of the water. His name was Tarchon. Despite all the blood, he had not been badly hurt. Now he would not let them out of his sight. Through the translation of Mastabates, Tarchon had repeatedly thanked them for saving his life. As far as could be understood, the incident had apparently made them his blood brothers in some obscure but fierce Suanian way. Now his honour seemed to demand that he die for them. Tarchon looked forward to it with pleasure.
The consilium was over. Nothing for it but to carry on: rebuild the scaffolding, keep more on their guard. They dispersed. Watching the labourers get back to work, Ballista let Calgacus and Wulfstan change the bandages on his shoulder. The ragged wood had torn the flesh nastily. Having the splinters out had been excruciating. It still hurt a great deal. He had a black eye and a range of other bruises from his tumble in the river.
‘Pythonissa,’ Tarchon said, then some things which probably meant a lot in his own language but merely sounded vaguely positive to the others.
The riders were rounding the next bend in the gorge, coming up from the north, moving at a gentle canter. The girl was in front. She was riding a chestnut with a nice action. Her blond hair was uncovered. Otherwise, it would not have been easy to distinguish her at a distance. She wore a baggy tunic, rode like a man.
One of the baggage animals had a deadweight lashed across its back; two others had something heavy slung between them. Ballista quickly counted heads: twenty-three, what he thought they had started out with.
Pythonissa reined in. ‘ Kyria.’ Ballista greeted her in Greek. He bowed, blew a kiss from his fingertips. The things on the pack-horses were game. He felt relieved.
‘ Kyrios.’ She performed proskynesis from the saddle. In another it might have been offhand, in her it had an elegance. She looked around at the debris. ‘Accident or design?’ She appeared to have the laconic style of her brother Azo.
‘Sabotage.’
She nodded, as if it were to be expected. ‘Artemis smiled on us, we have a boar, a deer and several brace of partridge and snipe. If you have bread and wine, we can have a feast.’
The cooking was a drawn-out and rather fraught business. The language barrier separating Ballista’s Agathon and the various self-styled experts in field cooking in the train of Pythonissa simmered all afternoon, often threatening culinary disaster, if not physical violence. The linguistic and diplomatic skills of Mastabates were pushed to their owner’s exasperation. Yet when the sun went down, all was ready.
The majority were to eat where the food had been cooked, in front of their tents and shelters along the track, not far from the animal lines. Only the select were to dine in the little fort of Cumania: Ballista and the four citizens in his familia, Pythonissa and four of her leading warriors.
It was dim and fuggy in the circular second-floor room. The shutters were pulled back from the arrow slits, but little of the smoke from the torches escaped. Ballista remembered someone once remarking to him that civilization ended where candles and torches replaced lamps. Couches and low tables had been found or improvised. Ballista shared a couch with Pythonissa. Wulfstan and one of her eunuchs stood at the foot to serve them.
The first course was a soup made from dried peas heavily flavoured with cumin. It was a local favourite; the embassy had eaten it several times since reaching Colchis. Usually, Ballista enjoyed it. This evening he was distracted, trying to think of things to talk about with this strange girl. What came into his mind was crashingly inappropriate. Are you involved in many bloodfeuds? Have you poisoned many people? He pulled the bread into little pieces. Pythonissa herself was quiet, seemingly preoccupied. Left to the two of them, conversation soon would have ground to a halt.
Fortunately, the others made a better show. The four Suani spoke Greek. Maximus was his customary ebullient self. His hands waved and chopped as he elaborated ever more implausible stories. He had to gulp his drink whenever his flow of words allowed him a chance. Mastabates also did well. Paradoxically, he was so urbane he did not seem out of place in this rough fort in a wilderness of mountains. Little in these circumstances was to be expected from Calgacus, but he was polite enough when called upon to make an answer. Hippothous, however, was a disappointment. He spoke seldom; instead, he sat intently staring at one of the Suani. Allfather, Ballista thought, it better be physiognomy – if the Greek tries to fuck him there will be bloodshed.
The main course arrived. There was plate after plate of roast meat: venison and boar, partridge and snipe. Not boiling the game birds had been the essence of Suanian objections to Agathon’s cooking. There were few
