The Wolves of the North Read Online Free PDF Page B

off.
    ‘Videric and his men leave tomorrow,’ Hisarna said. ‘Dernhelm, your men and you will stay in one of my halls by the harbour, until boats are ready to take you up the Tanais river.’
    Videric the Borani spoke, hatred tight in his voice. ‘I am a guest in the hall of Hisarna, and would not go against my host. It will not be here, but between me and the slave the Romans call Ballistathere will be a reckoning. Let the high gods warlike Teiws and thundering Fairguneis bring the
skalks
Ballista before my sword.’
    Ballista replied, almost wistfully, ‘Wherever you go, old enemies will find you.’

III
    There was nothing to do but wait. Ballista did not much mind. It was an experience he knew well. Over the years, he had become used to its ways. Usually, he had been waiting for bad things to happen: for the centurion to take him as a hostage into the
imperium
, to be admitted into the pavilion of the emperor Maximinus Thrax, to be hauled before a murderous Hibernian chief with designs on the throne of the high kings of that island.
    When he was young, he had not been good at waiting. Often, he had prayed to the gods to make it end, or, conversely, to postpone the approaching event indefinitely. In those days, he had had a child’s or young man’s belief that his life had a purpose and a goal; that its course could be determined by his will. He had seen it like the trajectory of an arrow. If he were not the bowman or the arrow itself, he was at least the breeze that could affect the arc and influence where the shaft fell. Forty-one winters on Middle Earth had disabused him of such juvenile fallacies. His life meandered. He went where he was sent. In Greek tragedy, the characters were playthings of the gods. He was at the whim ofthe yet more immanent gods who sat on the thrones of the Caesars. There was no point fighting. It was best to accept it, and wait.
    There were worse places to wait. The hall was new-built, still clean, roomy enough for thirty-three men and two eunuchs. It reminded him of his father’s hall in Germania. There was little privacy, but Ballista knew his desire for it was unusual. The hall overlooked the harbour: both the
trireme
and the Gothic longships were gone. He watched the shallow draught merchant vessels come and go, listened to the scream of the gulls. Early the first morning, he sat looking at the mist coiling up from the broad, silty river. The trees on the far side grew straight out of the water. There were ducks and moorhens over there.
    Later that first day, a Gothic priest came. The
gudja
was festooned with bracelets, his long hair braided with amulets and bones and other, unidentifiable things. He was followed by a quite exceptionally hideous old woman, hunched and filthy beyond description. The priest said his name was Vultuulf; much beyond that, he was not inclined to talk. He brought livestock for them – some chickens, two pigs and four sheep – and grain: wheat and rye.
    By the second day, they had settled into routines to which their interests led them. The official staff, the herald and his like, kept to themselves; the interpreter apart even from them. The centurion drilled his men, stamping bad-temperedly along the quay. Maximus and Castricius each disappeared separately into the inhabited parts of the town, presumably searching for drink and women. Hippothous likewise, although Ballista assumed the human objects of his desire were different. The two eunuchs remained in the recesses of the hall, cloistered close together. Calgacus sat staring out at the river; Tarchon with him in companionable silence. The Suanian did not care to be far from one orother of Calgacus or Ballista since they had saved him from drowning in the Alontas river the year before. When drinking – for him a not uncommon activity – he was given to swearing blood-chilling oaths in very bad Greek concerning his readiness, eagerness even, to repay the debt by dying for them. All reckoned, Ballista