There was a new purpose and a better routine to the day. At first light, sacrifices were made to Prometheus and Heracles. Respect for local sentiment meant that nothing was ever offered to Zeus or Athena. The workers were fed hot bread with cheese. This was prepared by native cooks at fires on the side of the road. To spare the inhabitants of the fort from being choked by smoke, Agathon cooked their breakfast with the others, then carried it across the stepping stones. Their favoured deities and their stomachs placated, the workers went to their assigned places. Lunch was a simple affair – more flat bread, this time with soup or millet porridge – taken where they toiled. An afternoon’s work, another set of sacrifices, and the Suani were free to pass the evening with more eating, drinking and singing their sad songs by their fires.
The sixth morning found Ballista on the battlements as the sun hit the peaks above the gorge. He had a panoramic view over the dark river, the road, the sawing camp fires and the as yet quiet half-built fortifications. Pythonissa was much on his mind. For years, he had amazed his friends and, if he were honest, himself, with his fidelity to his wife. Maximus had never been able to understand it at all. Not even on the many occasions, inevitably when they were drinking, when Ballista had tried to explain the true reasons. Apart from Roxanne – and he felt nothing but guilt about that – he had not had another woman in part because he loved his wife but also because he had developed a strange superstition. He had somehow convinced himself that if he had another woman, the next time he was in combat he would be killed. Almost every fighting man he had ever known had a talisman he hoped would keep him safe – the belts of Roman soldiers were covered in the things. Ballista had clutched his uxorious faithfulness to himself like a sealskin amulet, a rabbit’s foot, or some such trinket. But at Soli he had taken Roxanne, and he had not died at Sebaste, or in any of the other places where the spirits of death had hovered close, not in Galilee, Emesa, Ephesus or Didyma. Things had not been right between him and Julia, not since he had returned from Galilee. He had no idea why. Yes, he supposed he felt guilt, but man was not built for monogamy. Celibacy was bad for the health of man or woman. Julia was far away. And Pythonissa was… wilder than any girl he had known, wilder than any of the whores of his youth. He drifted into a reverie about her body, the things she did.
Across the river, something was wrong. Shouting, a crowd gathering by one of the camp fires. A man was staggering, flailing about. It was Agathon. Ballista went to the trapdoor, climbed down the ladder. He grabbed his sword belt from his quarters, carried on down.
Calgacus met him on the floor below. ‘Agathon…’
‘I know – stay here, post a guard, shut the door after us.’
The others were on the second floor. ‘Maximus, come with me. The rest of you stay here.’
As Ballista and Maximus went down the outer steps, Tarchon joined them. There was no shaking the Suanian. The heavy oak door slammed behind them. Ballista wondered if they should have taken the time to put on their mail coats.
When they reached the other side, they had to shoulder through a dense throng of onlookers. Agathon was on the ground. He was clawing at his eyes, his body jerking. He had fouled himself. The Suani watched him with expressionless black eyes. Ballista and Maximus knelt either side, gripped him hard, restrained him. A final convulsion and Agathon died.
In the complete silence, Tarchon got to his knees and cradled the head of the dead slave. He put his face very close to but not touching that of the corpse. Tarchon sniffed. He said something in his native tongue, then one word in Greek: poison.
XXV
The killing of Agathon changed things. Ballista and the familia now habitually went fully armed. By day, pickets were posted. At night, Cumania was shuttered and bolted. A watch was kept. All food and drink for the familia was kept in the fort, where it was prepared by Polybius and Wulfstan. It had been brought home to them that they were far from help, hemmed in by wild mountains and any number of potential enemies. At least Cumania was virtually impregnable. A siege mentality was fast developing.
Yet the construction proceeded well. The Suani outside the fort seemed unaffected by the poisoning. Seen so much of it, Maximus suggested. The dressed stones of the gate went up tier by tier. The wooden walkway over the river was completed. There were practical difficulties tying it into the natural rockface to the west, but nothing Ballista could not resolve.
It was seven days before the kalends of August, fifteen since Agathon had been murdered. Nothing else bad had happened. The fortifications were nearly ready. Ballista thought they might be finished by the kalends. It was all in hand.
The messenger arrived mid-afternoon. He came from the south, had a letter for Ballista. It was in Greek, in a woman’s hand. She hoped it found him well, asked if the gemstone had helped, thanked him for entertaining her so well. He had no doubt it came from Pythonissa. She wanted him to ride down to the house she had in Dikaiosyne that night. For discretion, it was better he came alone.
With the exception of Maximus, the familia was unanimous that he should not go. It was madness. The letter might not be from her. Even if it were, it could be a trap. From her or not, the situation was too dangerous. Someone in these ghastly mountains wanted them dead. These Suani were not to be trusted.
Ballista was determined. He would go. If so, they said, he could not ride alone. Even Maximus joined in the chorus. These mountaineers would cut a lone stranger’s throat soon as look at him. Ballista relented: he would take one man. The Suani Tarchon, in the little Greek he had picked up, demanded that he accompany the kyrios: blood oath, he had sworn blood oath, very happy to die. Words failing him, he mimed covering his head, sneaking along. Maximus was having none of it: all these years, and he was not going to be elbowed aside by some filthy fucking goat boy who probably did not know one end of a fucking sword from another.
Ballista exercised tact. He reminded Tarchon that Calgacus had also saved him. The blood oath was to the old man as well. Tarchon must stay and keep him safe; if that failed, he could die happy for him. With much doubt in his eyes, Tarchon agreed. Maximus would accompany Ballista. They would return the following night. On the day they were away, Calgacus would command. Everyone must take their orders unquestioningly from him. No Suani, with the exception of Tarchon, were to enter the fort. Did they all understand?
Not long after dusk, when the sky in the west was still purple, three men in native costume crossed the stepping stones over the Alontas and went to the horse lines. They tacked up, mounted and rode south.
At first they rode in silence. The night darkened, the heavens were painted with stars. It was good to be out of the fort, away from the pass. It was good to be riding at night. The Alontas rattled away past them, the horses stepping quietly. Sometimes they pricked up their ears, looked out into the darkness at things the men could not see.
When the rock walls rolled back and the country opened they felt like talking. Maximus untied the folds of the native turban that had been covering the lower part of his face. ‘Do you think I will catch something from this?’
‘Almost certainly: lice.’
They spoke in the language of Maximus’s home.
‘Are you thinking it is altogether wise us risking our lives just so you can fuck her?’
‘Muirtagh of the Long Road would never do anything like that.’
‘Never in six lifetimes. Do you think she might have a maid or two?’
‘No, just the eunuchs. But I am sure they will be grateful for your attentions.’
They crossed a stream joining the Alontas. Water splashed up in the starlight, stones clinked under the horses’ hooves.
‘You remember that night we dressed up to walk the walls at Arete?’
‘When that soldier said Ballista’s bodyguard was one of the ugliest fuckers he had ever seen?’
‘That is the one. Then there was us as fishermen at Corycus.’
‘Sebaste.’
‘What?’
‘It was Sebaste.’
‘Wherever, gods below it took me days to get rid of the smell. And that time at Ephesus you had me blacked up as the king of the Saturnalia to start a riot.’
