I let go his hand. Let me say that sometimes, between people, there is a spark of understanding. It can lead instantly to love, or friendship; to treaties, to alliances, to marriages. This man was clear-eyed and honourable. I would have staked my life on it. Gwan said his name was Collam.
We passed a few minutes looking at each other’s war gear. His scale mail was beautifully wrought: the scales were fine, the size of a man’s thumb or slightly smaller, and I’d say, as a bronze-smith, that there were four thousand of them in the whole tunic. His helmet was superb: very different from the helmets I made, and he took mine, put it on and moved like a fighter, trying it, while encouraging me with motions to try his.
I found his interesting — airy, open. The cheeks were hinged, the bowl was shallow, the neck curved down like my father’s to meet the armour at the back, like the tail of a shrimp or lobster, except without the articulation. There was a narrow brim over the eye, which, even late on an autumn day, kept the sun from my eyes.
Collam made a motion and grinned. He had bright blond hair and enormous moustaches — I don’t think I’d ever seen a man with so much moustache.
‘He wants to trade,’ Gwan said. ‘My father is his sister’s husband’s brother — does that make sense? We’re not close, but he’s a famous warrior and his words are true.’
I hadn’t needed Gwan to tell me that. I loved my helmet — I had made it with my own hands. It fitted me perfectly, and I trusted it.
But when you can’t give something away, you are a slave to it. And generosity is one of the virtues. Besides, his helmet was a magnificent piece of work — the eagle on top was an artwork.
I grinned. ‘Tell him it is his.’
We fed him. The farmers came back at dusk, when they saw their lord sitting on one of our stools, drinking our wine, and we bought pigs and grain. We also bought some dried fruit and meat.
I was so interested in Collam that I lost track of Brach, and so did Gaius. Collam was the sort of man that Gaius loved, and he sat with us. The Latins are not entirely Keltoi, but they have many words in common, and Gaius’s Keltoi was far better than mine, good enough that he could almost converse without Gwan. I missed Sittonax, and I missed Daud.
Play it as you will; it was morning — the night passed uneventfully — when we discovered that Brach was missing. Collam came down to the riverside with his corps of charioteers and cavalry to see us off. I was in my armour, watching the men load the barges and keeping an eye on Gwan, while Seckla and Gaius searched the fields and woods around our camp. Seckla could track. So could a number of the herdsmen.
When Collam came up, we embraced.
‘He asks if you’d like to sell any of your tin,’ Gwan said.
He was on the main tin route, but then, of course, he was wearing ten pounds of the stuff in his harness. His war band probably ate bronze.
‘How much do you want?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘One pig,’ he said. Eighty pounds. The value in Marsala would be almost eighty ounces of gold. Twice that in Sicily.
Gwan turned to me. ‘He won’t — well, trade, precisely. If you give it to him, he will make you gifts of equal value. This sort of thing frustrates the Venetiae-’ He smiled.
But I had approached Collam as a warrior. So we were bound to behave like heroes.
Fair enough: I’d been a hero before. Herodikles had a team of men who had just wrestled a pig of tin to the riverside. I waved to stop them from loading it into Herodikles’ barge.
‘Yours,’ I said in passable Keltoi.
That was one-eightieth of all our profits. I was going to look like an idiot if he didn’t give me something in return.
He went and lifted it — by himself. He grunted, grinned and put it in his chariot, and the leather and rawhide stretched, and the whole light vehicle sank a little into the riverbank. The charioteer looked as if he might cry.
I said, ‘I’m missing a man — a Gaul, lent to me by the Venetiae as a guide. He has wandered off. And I would like to know anything you know about this party of armed men.’
Collam nodded when this was translated. And Gwan grew pale and looked at me.
In Greek, I said, ‘Gwan, I suspect you were told to betray me. Yes?’
Gwan couldn’t meet my eye.
‘Do you want me to tell this famous warrior that you are a hireling of the Venetiae? That you have been paid to lead me to an ambush?’ It wasn’t quite a shot in the dark.
‘They have my father,’ he said.
‘Gwan, the world is not always as dark as it seems. When Detorix knows that I am gone away south to Marsala and won’t return, he’ll release your father. Or you can come and find me, and I swear by the immortal gods I’ll come back with thirty warriors and take your father back.’
Gwan looked at the ground. Collam asked him something — asked him what was wrong, I think.
He looked at Collam and spoke for a long time.
Collam grew angrier and angrier.
It can be very difficult as an alien in another culture. Coming upon the Keltoi from the sea, it was easy to assume that the Venetiae were typical of the breed — indeed, that they were the lords of the whole people. I had fallen into this trap, and that morning, on the Sequana, I realized that I knew almost nothing of the Keltoi. Collam was no more like Detorix than Detorix was like Tara. Briseis and Euphoria and Aristides and I are all Greek, and yet four more different people could not be imagined. One wants to typify a people, but they are always too diverse to be typified.
At any rate, Collam began to ask questions, and Gwan hesitated to answer, and I began to suspect that Collam was going to injure or kill Gwan on the spot.
‘What’s the problem?’ I asked.
Gwan went on talking to Collam.
I stepped in between them. ‘Speak to me,’ I said.
‘He is angry because… my father had no right. He says my father had no right.’ Gwan was on the edge of tears.
Collam was shouting. His charioteer had his hand on the knife at his belt.
I put a hand on Collam’s arm. ‘Tell him I’ll fix it,’ I said.
Collam looked at me.
‘He says, what business is it of yours?’
Warriors are all alike, in too many ways. Most of those ways are dark, but not all.
‘Gwan, are you my man, or do you serve the Venetiae?’ I asked.
Gwan met my eye. ‘Yours, my lord.’
‘Then tell Collam that I say, “Gwan is my man. I will see to his father’s debt”.’ I offered Collam my hand.
Collam listened. He took two or three deep breaths, and took my hand.
I thanked the gods that I had just given him a small fortune in tin. It had to sway him; he had to accept that I was an aristocrat like him, not a venal river trader.
He drove away in his chariot, and I doubled the guard and told Seckla and Herodikles to hurry the loading. And I took Gwan aside.
‘You’d better give this to me straight,’ I said.
Gwan shrugged. ‘I’m supposed to leave you at the first portage,’ he said. ‘That would be tonight or tomorrow night.’
‘And then what?’ I pressed.
‘My father’s people will put together a caravan of donkeys and horses to go across the hills to the next river,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what happens next. But I can guess.’ He looked miserable. ‘I think they will ambush you in the hills. Or perhaps-’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps my people will ambush you.’
I nodded. ‘I think you should come with me, all the way to Marsala. Take a share of the profits and come back and buy your father’s freedom.’ I looked into his blue eyes. ‘You really think your people want to fight me and two hundred of my men?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
When we had most of our boats loaded, a pair of heavy wagons came down to the waterside, and two chariots. Collam leaped off the lead chariot as it drove by and landed cleanly on his feet. He was a pleasure to
