Harry Sidebottom - The Wolves of the North

It was the third camp they had made on the banks of the Tanais; the first one on the southern bank. It was not easy to judge how far they had travelled in those three days. The longboats were sleek, and Hisarna’s Goths skilled oarsmen. But they had rowed with little urgency, and the river meandered extravagantly, its slow but implacable waters ever against them.

There had been a great sameness to their voyaging. The twists in the river conspired with the dense reed beds and the sparser trees to hem in lateral vision. Now and then, smaller branches joined or left the channel, opening glimpses of overhung, still backwaters, hazy with insects. Skeins of geese flew across the sedge. Once, a herd of wild horses had appeared on the floodplain, their chestnut coats so blazing in the evening sunlight as to become indistinct. Several times they passed blackened, abandoned settlements. Vegetation had almost completely overwhelmed those on the southern bank.

The Goths had planted the ends of the poles in the ground, angled them in and tied them together at the top. On this edifice they set about draping felted blankets. The gudja evidently was urging them to take care to overlap the woollens, tie them tight. Nearby, fresh wood on the fire cracked and sputtered.

Although almost everything about the nomads and the sea of grass filled Mastabates with revulsion, usually mixed with dread, the eunuch was glad the Urugundi Goths had adopted some nomadic ways. He was delighted to have been asked to join in a Scythian vapour bath. It was like stepping back into the past, like becoming a character in the writings of Herodotus. And Mastabates was not displeased for the excuse to be away from Amantius. Eunuchs were expected to keep together. After all, unable to start families of their own, they had no one else, except maybe the transient favour of a ruler. Who should know better than Mastabates that his colleague was not totally to be blamed for his high, effeminate voice, his blushing and sweating, even his womanly hips and breasts? All too often these things came with the condition. But Mastabates could not see that being cut must lead to an abandonment of all striving for male virtue. The relentlessness of Amantius’s tearful, womanish recriminations addressed to his runaway slave boy, the endless complaints about his stolen brooch, were beginning to sicken Mastabates. A eunuch did not have to give way to female lack of control or avarice. It would be good to be away from him for a few hours.

The gudja walked around and inspected the tent. It was complete. The outlandish priest signalled to the Goths at the fire. They kicked away the burning branches. Clouds of sparks swirled up in the heat, threatening the foliage overhead. From the shimmering heart of the coals, using long metal tongs with precision, they took up white-hot stones. These were placed in a metal dish raised on four legs. A Goth wearing leather mittens gripped the birch-wrapped handle of the dish. Most carefully, he carried it to the tent, got to his knees and manoeuvred his scorching burden and himself through the low opening.

With a courtly wave, the gudja requested the guests to enter the vapour bath. Ballista went first, his great barbarian bulk almost blocking the entrance. Maximus slipped through more easily. Dignitas suspended, Mastabates crawled in after him. He was glad he had adopted a normal man’s riding costume for this expedition: boots, trousers, short tunic. He even wore a short sword and dagger. Some might snigger to see a eunuch so accoutred, but it was both practical and made him feel a little more complete.

It was dark in the tent. Nervous of upsetting the smouldering dish in the centre, Mastabates clumsily crawled around to the right. He came up against the Goth who had carried the thing in, and tried not to show his uncertainty as he composed himself in a similar cross-legged pose. Ballista and Maximus sat beyond the Goth. Two or three more Urugundi entered, before the gudja brought up the rear. He placed a small Greek lamp by the cauldron, and laced shut the opening.

Straight away, the air in the tent was hot and close. Mastabates felt the perspiration pooling in his armpits, his crotch, running down his back. The stones, or the dish itself, ticked with the intense heat. Lit from beneath by the little oil lamp, the faces looked suitably out of the quotidian world.

The gudja produced a bag. It contained seeds. Mastabates knew what was coming. The seeds came from a plant which looked like flax, except that it was thicker stemmed and taller, much taller in Scythia. Mastabates knew more than Herodotus. But knowing is not experiencing. He stilled his nerves. There was a first time for everything. There must have been such a moment for the Goths. Since then, they had taken such a liking to the seeds one of their chiefs had rejoiced in the name Cannabas.

The gudja threw handfuls of the seeds on to the glowing stones. Dense, aromatic smoke — once smelt, impossible to mistake — billowed out; much more than any vapour bath in Greece. The thick fumes stung Mastabates’ eyes, caught in his throat, made it hard to breathe. Across the tent, the gudja was talking in the language of the north. Nodding — obviously following instruction — Ballista leant over the cauldron and sucked in great billows of smoke. The northerner held his breath for an unlikely time. Letting it out with a whoosh, he grinned. The Goths laughed. Maximus was next. An amphora of wine began to go round.

Mastabates inhaled in his turn. Holding the cannabis deep in his lungs was not unpleasant. When he exhaled, he coughed. It was surprising how little smoke emerged. A Goth patted him on the back, somewhat gingerly. Mastabates took a swig of wine — a strong, sweet Lesbian — and felt pleasantly numb.

On the other side of the tent, Ballista and Maximus were laughing. The Goths were laughing with them. Even the stern gudja had unbent a fraction. Mastabates envied their strong congeniality; their ease as men amongst men. He had not chosen to be a eunuch. Castration was illegal in the empire. Yet emperors, and some other rich Romans, desired eunuchs in their homes — to look after their women, among other, less salubrious things. Abasgia was not in the imperium. Its kings profited from the need: castrating and selling the boys most conspicuous for beauty among their subjects. To avoid revenge, they killed all the male relatives of the boys. Mastabates had not wanted to be a child cursed with beauty; not for himself, not for his family.

The man on his left passed Mastabates the wine. The Goth smiled. He was attractive. He looked like those statues from Pergamon of dying Gauls: barbaric, wild and frightening but rugged and virile, all man.

Mastabates smiled back at the Goth, drank, inhaled more of the smoke. He felt light-headed. Time had overflowed its channels, spread wide. Mastabates seemed to have been in the tent for hours and hours. He wondered if it would have been very different if he had been one of those castrated after puberty, or one whose stones had been crushed rather than cut. Some of them could get an erection. Certain women sought them out. Eunuchs of that sort could give pleasure without the danger of pregnancy. His friend Eusebius had been such a one. Poor Eusebius had not liked women. Poor Eusebius — he had returned to Abasgia, had been man enough to seek vengeance. He had not succeeded. He had just found death, a lingering, dreadful death.

Mastabates took more of the drug. If his sword had been able to stand erect, would he have played Ares rather than Aphrodite in bed? He could not help but giggle. It seemed ridiculous. He enjoyed taking the woman’s part in sex with men. It was not a physical failing that dictated his pleasures. Suddenly, the etiquette of the court washed out of him, and he laughed out loud. The whole idea of anyone ever worrying over an erection appeared absurd. How could such a momentary pleasure bear such weight of expectation, such a freight of concern and meaning? Mastabates let the fumes of wine and narcotic coil pleasantly through his mind.