Gillian Bradshaw - Island of Ghosts

The scream had come from the front of the house, and I hurried out into a columned courtyard to find the red-haired servant screaming again, Pervica running across the snow, and my own bodyguard, glittering in their scales, milling about the farm gate. In another instant I realized that one of the armored figures was Leimanos, and that he was leaning down from the saddle and clutching Cluim by the arm, shouting at the shepherd and hitting him in the face; and that Comittus was beside him, trying to restrain him.

“Leimanos!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”

He spun round in the saddle. “My prince!” he yelled joyfully.

“Ariantes!” shouted Comittus.

And the whole squadron galloped over. Leimanos swept Cluim up over the saddle and took him along, then reined in sharply in front of me and dismounted, leaving the shepherd to slip off dazedly on his own. Pervica, halfway across the yard, turned and began walking slowly back. The horses steamed and glittered, and I noticed Farna, tied behind Leimanos’horse.

“My prince!” said Leimanos, and he dropped to both knees in the snow in front of me and kissed my hand. “Thank the gods you’re alive!”

“I thank the gods indeed,” I answered, and pulled him to his feet. The rest of the bodyguard crowded round, shouting, slapping me and each other on the back, thanking the gods. Comittus, grinning and bouncing, pushed through them and shook my hand.

“But what were you doing to this shepherd here?” I asked, when they’d calmed down enough to let me speak. Cluim had picked himself up, and Pervica was wiping his face with a handful of snow. His face was blotched from the blows, his nose was bleeding, and he looked terrified.

“We found him outside the gate, and stopped him to ask the way,” said Leimanos, glaring at Cluim. “Then we saw that he had your dagger. We feared the worst, my lord.”

I shook my head. “I gave him the dagger. He found me lying nearly drowned in the river, and pulled me out. It is to him, and to this lady here whom he serves, that I owe my life.”

Leimanos gave an exclamation of dismay and went over to Cluim. The shepherd backed away hastily, but Leimanos knelt to him. “Forgive me,” he said, in Latin, in which he now had some fluency. “I did not understand. I thought you had killed my prince.”

Cluim still looked terrified. Comittus interpreted for him, and the shepherd nodded, but did not seem inclined to come any nearer. Leimanos took the dagger, which he’d thrust in his own belt, and offered it back. After a nervous glance around, Cluim snatched it hastily.

“My lord gave you that,” said Leimanos, “in gratitude for his life. And for his life, which I value above my own, let me add this.” He laid his own dagger at Cluim’s feet.

“And this,” said Banadaspos, taking the gold pin from his coat and putting it beside the dagger.

And the others in the bodyguard, all thirty of them, copied them, each adding something-a ring, a purse full of money, a gold torque taken from a Pictish chieftain-until poor Cluim was shaking his bruised head in bewilderment. He exclaimed loudly in British and pointed to Pervica.

“He says these should belong to his lady,” Comittus translated, then at once abandoned translation and gratitude together. “Deae Matres! Ariantes, I’ve never been so pleased to see anyone in all my life. As soon as you disappeared we realized you were the last man in Britain we could afford to lose. We’ve been going out of our minds with anxiety, and the men back in Cilurnum are ready to riot. We didn’t dare tell the fourth dragon you were missing, and Siyavak has been asking to see you: we had to tell him you’d gone back to the fort. If you’d died so soon after Gatalas, gods help us all! Priscus wanted to sack Gaius Valerius for letting you and Arshak leave Condercum without an escort, and he was cursing your soul to Hades for deciding to go hunting. Don’t worry, he’ll forgive you anything when he sees you alive. But I felt sorry for that poor miserable magistrate.”

“What magistrate?” I asked.

“The one who told the prefect of the First Thracians yesterday evening that a shepherd had reported finding a man in the river the day before, and was he possibly anything to do with us! We’d been turning the road between here and Condercum upside down all day, looking for you. The magistrate couldn’t remember anything about the report, and Priscus practically had him flogged. Fortunately, his clerk had made a record of it. We all set off at full gallop at first light to find you. The men wanted to set out last night, but we weren’t sure of finding the place in the dark. Thank the gods you’re well! The report said you were too weak to stand and very confused in mind.”

I nodded impatiently; I had just remembered that Leimanos should have been at Cilurnum. “Who is in charge at the fort?” I asked.

“Longus and Facilis,” replied Comittus promptly. “I hope there hasn’t been trouble!”

I groaned. “Leimanos!” I exclaimed, switching back to Sarmatian, “Who did you leave in charge?”

“Kasagos, my lord.”

“Kasagos! You know perfectly well that half the men won’t obey him because he’s Roxalanic! What were you thinking of?”

“I’m sorry,” said Leimanos, wretchedly. “I couldn’t endure waiting there, with you perhaps lying dead or injured in the forest, and neither could anyone else in the bodyguard. Our duty is to defend your life or die beside you. We’d rather die than live in the disgrace of having abandoned our lord.”

“We’ll all be disgraced if the dragon has been killing Asturians in the absence of anyone to control them! Give me my horse!”

I went over to Farna and began tightening the girth on her saddle.

“What are you doing?” asked Pervica, speaking for the first time since my men arrived. She turned anxiously to Comittus. “You don’t mean for him to ride to Corstopitum today?”

“Why not?” asked Comittus in surprise.

“Because it’s perfectly true that yesterday afternoon he was too weak to stand and believed that he was lying dead in his tomb. And he had good reason to believe himself dead: when I first saw him, I thought the same. I didn’t pull him back from the grave to see him catapulted into it from a horse’s back.”

I left Farna and came over to her. “Lady Pervica,” I said, “you need not fear that your efforts have been wasted. I can rest on horseback as comfortably as in a bed. And I must return to Cilurnum at once. My men need me.”

“To Cilurnum!” she said, frowning at me. “That’s even worse! It’s farther!” Then she caught her breath. “You’re the prefect at Cilurnum, aren’t you?”

“Not exactly. I am commander of the Sarmatian numerus there. My friend Lucius Javolenus Comittus here ought to be prefect, but is called a liaison officer instead. The titles have been changed because of our… notoriety.”

She didn’t smile. “And… they said you’re a prince? All these men are your subjects?”

“That was how it was when we were in our own country. Here it is different. I ask you to understand, though, why I must leave at once. My brother prince at Condercum died at Roman hands only a few days ago, and my men will have been very alarmed at the news that I was missing. I left Leimanos here, who is commander of my bodyguard, in charge of the rest of my company at the fort. But he believed his first duty was to find me, and has left the rest of the dragon under the command of those whose authority will not master them. I must return at once to reassure them.”

She caught her breath again, angry, astonished, and bewildered. “We can’t possibly accept all the gold your… your men have given us. It’s far too much, and I couldn’t justify keeping it. I don’t want money from you.”