The Amber Road Read Online Free PDF

one you want. Take him.’ The Latin pleas meant nothing to them.
    They pulled him to his feet, bound his hands behind his back, a rope around his neck. Like a haltered animal, they led him off down a forest track.
    They offered him no cruelty, just kept him moving. Occasionally they spoke to each other in grunts he could not comprehend. After a time the woodland changed. Birch and aspen gave way to oak. Julianus could smell open water. The works of man appeared. Not the shaded walks and marble statuary of humanitas . Here and there, in no discernible order, stark poles. On each a skull, dog, horse or human.
    At the heart of the sacred grove was a clearing, yellow flowers in the grass. The sun glinted on water through a tangle of alder scrub on the far side. Men were waiting there, clustered around a massive idol. The deity was seated, hands in lap. A carved bird perched behind each shoulder. The god was scarred, blind in one eye.
    The one who called himself Unferth the Amber Lord stood in front of the god. His constant shadow, the Young Lord, as ever with him. The hunters pushed Julianus to his knees before them. The one-eyed divinity looked down implacably over them all.
    A whimper drew Julianus’s attention. Giton, his boy, his beloved, was there. Muddied, huddled off to one side, but alive, seemingly unhurt. The boy was not looking at Julianus, but above his head. Julianus followed his gaze across the open ground. Tatius was alive – naked and bloodied, hung in the high branches of an oak.
    ‘Punishments should fit the offence.’ The voice of the Amber Lord boomed strangely from behind the metal face mask of his helmet. ‘Those who offend against the people should be made a public example. Deeds of shame should be buried out of the sight of men, stamped down, trodden deep.’
    That he had no idea of the meaning did nothing to lessen Julianus’s terror. He thought his bladder would give way, shame him.
    ‘Take them.’
    Julianus was hauled to his feet. Too frightened to make a sound, he heard Giton pleading. Julianus was manhandled, half dragged down a path through the alders. He lost his other sandal. The rope was cutting into his neck. Reeds then open water ahead. The sky very big above. Bare feet scraping, he was pulled along a wooden walkway out into the marsh at the edge of the lake. He heard a scream, cut off by the sound of something heavy hitting the water. Urine ran hot on his thighs.
    No, no, I never wanted any part of it.
    The men seized him. Thrown forwards, he landed face down in the mud. He twisted, came up spluttering. Hands still tied behind his back. The wattled hurdle loomed over him. He screamed. The hurdle pressed down. The mud and water rose. Julianus held his breath. The water was in his eyes, his ears. Everything went dark. At last, he had to breathe. The water rushed into his throat. He started to die.



Part One
    OIKOUMENE,
     
    (Spring AD264)
     

The Town of Olbia to the North of the Black Sea
     
    Some damaged walls and any number of ruins. Ballista’s first impression of Olbia was not favourable. The pilot who had come aboard at the Castle of Alector as they left the Euxine had negotiated the long, marshy confluence of the Borysthenes and Hypanis, skilfully avoiding both the shallows and the many rafts of logs being poled downstream, and then taken them up by the far channel of the latter river. Now he was threading their way across through the numerous islets and mudflats. There were duck and geese on the water. Its margins were teeming with waders. Progress was slow, and the passengers on the trireme had plenty of time to view the remote outpost of Hellenism and empire.
    ‘Another shitehole,’ said Maximus.
    ‘Yes,’ Ballista agreed with his bodyguard.
    A citadel on a cliff dominated the south of the town. The narrow pediment of a temple and a jumble of other roofs jutted above its curtain wall and rectangular towers. At the northern foot of its slope, quays, slipways and sheds