Gillian Bradshaw - Island of Ghosts

This was no sword-fight. I grabbed the arm nearest to me in a wrestling hold and rose, throwing him over and onto his back with a thud, then turned, dropped to my knees on his chest, and put the dagger against his throat.

For a moment I thought he was going to try to rise anyway, but he didn’t. He lay still, gasping, and looked at me without expression. I wiped my nose with the back of my numb hand, and saw that it was streaming with blood. “What sort of fighting was that?” I asked.

“Shut up and get it over with!” he returned.

I took the dagger away from his throat and got up. “You did not even know how to hold a sword!” I said, still hardly able to credit it. I looked around for my sword, limped over to it, and picked it up. It was covered with dirt.

Quintilius sat up slowly, clutching his stomach, still gasping for breath.

“Look what you have done to my sword!” I told him, wiping my nose again.

Longus started to laugh. I felt a fool.

“Don’t you laugh at me!” Quintilius shouted-and gasped again. “Damn you!” He rubbed his stomach.

Longus offered him a hand to help him up. “I wasn’t laughing at you. You’re a brave man indeed, to fight Ariantes when you don’t even know how to hold a sword. He’s killed more men than you’ve got teeth in your head-ask his followers about it sometime. I wouldn’t fight him, and I’m a decurion. But I hope now you’ll admit that the lady has the right to say who is and who isn’t allowed in her own house. If you make him fight you again, he’ll probably insist on doing it blindfolded.” He pulled Quintilius to his feet and looked around for something to bandage the cut hand with.

Leimanos came over and took the sword away from me. He rubbed some of the dirt off and began examining it carefully for chips in the blade. Another of the bodyguard collected a handful of wool to mop up the nose-bleed. Then Pervica came over with a woollen rag instead. “You had better come into the house,” she said quietly. “It’s too cold to stand about in your shirt, and you should lie down with your head back.” I nodded and, pressing the rag to my nose and feeling a complete idiot, went back into the house.

A few minutes later I was lying on the carpet I’d brought, with my head back, and Quintilius was recovering on the couch while the rest of them stood about the dining table. Leimanos had found another use for the handful of wool, and was cleaning my sword. “People who cannot hold a sword have no right to expect a scepter-holder to fight them,” he said. He did not direct his comment to Quintilius, but he was careful to speak in Latin. “Herdsmen who cannot fight should keep silent before noblemen.”

“He is not a herdsman,” I said, through the rag. “He is a farmer. He owns land. Probably he has herdsmen working for him.”

“He fights with his hands, like an animal. I do not believe he even owns a sword.”

I shrugged, as well as I could lying down. “He owns a house, and probably he spends any surplus on it, instead of on swords. He owns a farm, and he spends his time working on it, and has no time to learn war, and expects other people to do any fighting that is needed. He is a Roman, Leimanos.

“ ‘Beyond the stars will stretch his lands

Beyond the paths of the sun and years

Where heaven-bearing Atlas stands

Turning the earth between his hands

On its axis of stars that burn so clear.’

“Or so say the Romans.”

There was a moment of silence. “Where the hell did you learn to quote Vergil?” asked Longus.

I didn’t answer. I felt foolish and depressed. My grand heroic gesture had ended in a fistfight, and I was realizing yet again the terrible gulf between the world we had inhabited before and the world we lived in now.

Pervica came and knelt beside my head. “Thank you,” she said. “You could have killed Cinhil and you took terrible risks to make sure you wouldn’t.”

“I would have been very ashamed to have killed a man who cannot even hold a sword,” I replied.

Quintilius made an inarticulate noise of anger and resentment.

“I… I have something that we found on the riverbank, that we thought was probably yours,” Pervica said, after a moment. “I think the water’s spoiled it, but I was meaning to give it to you. I’ll go fetch it.”

She left, and Longus took her place. “Can I just make sure that the nose isn’t broken?” he asked.

I lifted the rag and he inspected it. “No lasting damage,” he announced cheerfully. “You ought to wash your face: your beard’s full of blood.”

The bleeding seemed to have stopped, so I sat up and looked for something to wash my face with. Leimanos brought the bowl of water he’d been using to wipe the mud off my sword.

Pervica came back into the room carrying my bow case. “Is it yours?” she asked, holding it out to me.

I took it; as my hands touched it, I remembered Aurelia Bodica saying, I’ve given you the bow because they’ll think you were hunting- and her giggle as she pushed me toward the water. I sat still, staring at the water-stained red leather.

“What’s the matter?” asked Pervica.

“I remember drowning now,” I answered. I unlatched the case, opened it, and took the bow out to examine it.

“I’m afraid the water has spoiled it,” Pervica repeated.

“No. The case has an oilskin lining, see? It is quite dry inside. It must have floated downstream and washed ashore.”

“But the bow’s bent backward.”

I looked up and smiled. I’d forgotten that the Britons were unfamiliar with the recurved bow, with its layers of horn and sinew. There were no other units of eastern archers on this end of the Wall, and the native bows were weak and made entirely of wood. “They are always like that when they’re unstrung,” I explained. I slipped a string into the bottom nock, twisted the bow backward against my leg, and strung it. The string gave its sharp, buzzing hum as the bow pulled into its living shape.

“I thought you were hunting,” said Longus, puzzled.

“And?”

“So why was your bow in its case, unstrung?”

I looked up at him, then looked down at the bow. I bent it and unstrung it again, without answering. I put it back in its case. “Thank you,” I told Pervica. “They do not know how to make these here. My men can make them, but I think probably we could not get the best kind of glue here.”

“I’m glad it’s not broken,” Pervica said, smiling. Then she sat back on her heels and rubbed the top of the bow case with her thumb. “About the horse,” she said, watching her nail against the leather.

“Ah. I thought perhaps you might wish, after all, to keep him. He would be a valuable asset to the stud.”

“No,” she said, looking up and smiling at me again, “no, I can’t manage him. I’d like to give him to you.”

“If you kept him, you would have help with him. If you do not want to keep him, I must pay for him. I am far too deeply indebted to you to accept a gift.”

“You’re not in debt to me. That’s why I want to give him to you.”

“That is a woman’s reasoning. I do not understand it.”

“That’s a man’s arrogance. It’s perfectly clear. I’m out of debt, thanks to you, and I have a chance at real and honest prosperity. I won’t take anything more from you because of some imaginary blood debt. You gave me gifts today; I want to give one back.”

“You refused the gift I gave you.”

“You gave me the respect due a householder, Cinhil’s life-and a carpet. I didn’t refuse any of those.”

I smiled at her. “I am glad of anything I have done that pleases you.”

“Then take the horse.”

I wanted to laugh. “I will take the horse and train it for you, but you must keep it and the stud fees when the time comes to breed it.”