I didn’t answer. “May I speak with you both?” I repeated.
“Certainly, certainly,” said the procurator, though looking at me rather doubtfully, as though I were a wild animal-which, after Facilis’ account of us, was hardly surprising. “Uhh… will you come in… um, Lord Ariantes?”
I knew, when I heard that Lord, that he would listen to me. Perhaps he didn’t like being pressured by Facilis and wanted to try his own plan; perhaps he was genuinely afraid of bloodshed; perhaps it was simply that we were both noblemen. For whatever worthy or unworthy reason, I would be heard. Facilis realized it as well, and began to go crimson. “Thank you, Lord Procurator,” I said, bowing my head. I walked round the courtyard to the door and found my way in.
The room was a dining room. It had a mosaic floor, painted walls, and the couches had feet of ivory. The light from the lamps on the gilded stand glowed on the polished table, where a glass wine bowl stood half-empty with two silver cups beside it. I held my hands at my sides, afraid to touch anything: my clothes were stiff with dirt. I’d been in such a room before only when a raiding party I’d led had sacked some rich man’s villa in Pannonia. The cups there had sometimes been gold, though.
Facilis had swollen like a bullfrog and was glaring at me. “How long were you out there listening?” he demanded again.
It would be no use talking to him. He must have been aware where the path he’d been urging would have led. I wondered if there was any one in particular of the “lads” who died in the war whose death he held against us-he was old enough to have had sons. I turned to the procurator instead. “Lord,” I said, “I have come to tell you that my people are afraid to cross the ocean.”
“You’ve come here to announce the mutiny?” snarled Facilis, rigid with indignation. “Sir-”
The procurator raised his hand for silence, then nodded to me to continue.
“When we surrendered at Aquincum,” I told him, “we swore oaths to obey the emperor. We do not wish to break them. But we cannot see any island out there, and we do not entirely trust the good faith of the Romans: we know that the emperor wished to exterminate us. We have never seen the sea before, nor have we been farther in a boat than across the Danube, and our religion holds that those who die by water must expect a wretched fate in the afterlife. Some of us are saying now that we have been betrayed, and we would do better to die on land. Some of us are desperate.”
“Lord Ariantes!” exclaimed the procurator, in amazement and distress. “Let me assure you, we haven’t the least intention of harming your troops! I am the man responsible for seeing them ferried safely over to Britain, and I would be disgraced if there were serious trouble: it’s the last thing on earth I want! And Marcus Flavius Facilis here was charged with seeing you safely to your journey’s end: he, too, would be disgraced if any harm came to you.”
“Lord Procurator,” I said, “I am sorry, but you cannot give any assurances that my people would trust. But I do not want serious trouble, either. If you would be disgraced, we would die, and die for nothing if you are acting in good faith and this island of Britain is indeed across the ocean, just out of sight. Now, I have suggested to the others that I cross the ocean myself first, if that is agreeable to you, and then return to report on the island, if it is there. They would believe me where they would not believe you, and if I can prove to them that they have not been betrayed, they agree to embark when you wish.”
“Arshak and Gatalas agreed to this?”Facilis demanded incredulously.
“They agreed,” I said. “Why would they want to die in Bononia?”
The procurator beamed. “Is that all it needs?” he asked. “Of course, Lord Ariantes, of course I accept your suggestion! I can send you across on a fast galley first thing tomorrow morning.” He looked at Facilis triumphantly. “I should have had this man arrested, eh? All Sarmatians are unreasonable, eh?”
Facilis looked bewildered. “What are you playing at, Ariantes?” he demanded.
“I am not playing at anything, Flavius Facilis.”
“Come on! I know you hate all Romans. What kind of game is this?”
“I am a servant of Rome,” I told him. “I accepted that servitude to buy my people’s freedom, and I could hardly go on living if I hated all Romans. Why should I wear out my heart? With any luck, you can go back to Pannonia in a few days, and I can go to my posting in Britain. I will not lie awake, regretting that you live. I intend to forget about you completely.”
All the journey, he’d gone red when he was angry. He had shouted and sworn and hurled insults. He’d spoken of Arshak’s hatred with relish. I hadn’t expected him even to pay attention to my declaration of indifference. But he went pale-or rather, yellow-gray, leaving the red in uneven blotches of broken veins across his cheeks-and he stared at me without saying a word. The pupils of his eyes contracted until he looked almost blind. I’d seen that look before, on the faces of men who’ve gone mad, in battle or grief. The crimson rages had been nothing: this was serious. I backed away.
“You killed my son,” said Facilis, in a choked voice. I stopped with my hand on the door. “You killed my only son and you intend to forget about me completely?”
He had his sword out. I didn’t dare move.
“Centurion!” cried the procurator. “Centurion! Put that weapon away!”
Until that moment I had never understood how powerful Roman discipline could be. Facilis stood rigid for a moment longer, fixed on me with that insane passion of rage-and then he began to shake. His head snapped away, and he fumbled the sword back into its sheath. “You stinking Sarmatian bastard,” he whispered. “It might have been you that did it. It might have been any of you.” He rubbed his face with one of his thick hands, and I saw that he was starting to cry. Coarse, cruel, miserable old man. I wanted, stupidly, to console him. But he was right: if his son had died in battle, it might have been me who did it. It might have been several thousand others, but it might have been me. So how could I console him?
“I am sorry, Facilis,” I said after a moment. “I also have dead to mourn.”
“You!” he exclaimed in disgust. “Sorry! Don’t make me sick! You bastards started that war.”
That was true, too, as far as it went. I turned to the procurator and said-quickly, so as to get out-“My lord, I will go tell my fellows that you are arranging for me to cross the ocean in the morning. Good health, my lord.”
And so the next morning I set out for Britain.
II
The sun was shining again, and the water sparkled in the light when I came down to the quay; on the sea’s plain, the waves curled whitely in the breeze. I smelled the sea for the first time then, salt and alien, and for all my bold offers, I was afraid. The procurator had arranged for me to travel in his dispatch vessel, a small bireme that carried letters and messages between the base in Bononia and one on the British coast opposite, a place called Dubris. It was a quick, light galley with one large sail and fifty oars arranged in two banks: it was shallow-decked, thin-skinned, and seemed to be held together only by a few bits of rope. When I stepped down into it I felt it shiver under my weight. The flimsy thing seemed to me quite certain to sink. But my fellows and all my men were watching me, so I waved to them, called “I’ll see you tomorrrow!” and tried to look confident as I searched for a place to sit. My leg wound had left me limping and clumsy, and I bumped into the rowing benches. The captain hurriedly ushered me to the back, out of the way, and arranged me beside the steersman. One of the sailors began to beat time on a small drum, the ship was loosed from the dock, the oars dipped into the water, and we slid out across the blue-green waters of the harbor. I clutched the ship’s side until my fingers ached, desperately praying that it wouldn’t sink.
It didn’t, of course. It was accustomed to make the voyage every few days, and the crossing was a matter of such routine that the sailors found my fears ludicrous. (I was seasick, and they found that funny, too.) They sealed up the lower oar-ports when we were well out to sea to keep out the waves, pulled up a corner of the sail to hold a straight line against the wind, and galloped cheerfully over the salt water in less than five hours. It was still early afternoon when I saw Britain for the first time: a row of cliffs, white above a blue sea, and beyond them, green hills; then the city of Dubris, with its lighthouse overlooking the deep harbor, and its streets climbing up the steep hill behind. The bireme brailed up its sail, let out the lower bank of oars again, and splashed up to the quay amid the shrieking of seagulls and the shouting of men.
I sat in the stern watching even after the vessel had been made fast. The oarsmen gathered their packs and
