Gillian Bradshaw - Island of Ghosts

“That Sarmatian commander!” the centurion shouted back. “The one that arrived today! If he’s yours, help!”

I caught the end of the beam as they swung it back. “I have a slave…” I began-but didn’t finish, since the legionaries swung the beam. I leaned with them into the stroke: the door held. We struck again, and it gave. A wave of heat so great that it seared the lungs struck our faces; I saw the inside of the house incandescent, the walls dressed with fire, and the remains of something black across the door. The man nearest the door screamed soundlessly and flung himself backward, and his friends caught him and drew him away coughing and choking, his hands burned and his hair singed.

“If anyone’s still in there, he’s dead,” the centurion declared, as we retreated. He looked at me again. “What were you saying? Is that your commander’s house?”

“It was meant to be mine,” I said, staring back at it, “but I did not use it.” I looked at the centurion. “Someone had blocked the door. There was something across the inside.”

“Someone did the whole damned thing!” he returned. “I’ve never seen a good stone house go up like that, and the first lad to get here said the smoke reeked of lamp oil. And the windows were bolted on the outside. Did you say you were meant to be in there?”

I nodded, staring at the house. The roof was collapsing now, but the legionaries still hurled their buckets of water. “My slave may be in there.” Burned alive. Murdered by fire, and burned.

“But no Sarmatian commanders? And no one else? Just a slave?”

I shook my head.

“Well, thank the gods for that!”

There was a stir in the now thick crowd that had gathered in the street, and I noticed Julius Priscus pushing his way into the mob, his crimson cloak askew and his sandals unlaced; he was staring at the flames. I started toward him. The centurion of the Sixth began by following me, but confronted with a wall of backs, pushed in front and cleared a path with his vine staff.

Priscus heard him coming and turned, his face grim- then he saw me, and his eyes flew open in amazement.

“Ariantes!” he exclaimed, and reached over to grasp my hands. “Thank the gods! However did you get out of that… that Phlegethon?”

I was not sure who or what Phlegethon was, but his meaning was clear enough. “I was never in it, my lord. I prefer my wagon. But my slave may be in there.”

“Well, for once I’m pleased with your savagery!” exclaimed Priscus, ignoring my reference to a slave. “Publius Verinus”-to the centurion of the Sixth-“what happened here?”

“Clear case of arson, sir,” the centurion replied smartly. “One of my lads was coming back from a night out, and he smelled smoke as he passed it-and said it reeked of oil. He saw fire through the cracks in the shutters, and tried to open the door, but it was locked. By the time he’d raised the alarm, the whole place was ablaze. When we battered the door down, we found that someone had put something right across it. The shutters were bolted, too, on the outside.” He gave me a level look. “Somebody wanted to kill the commander here pretty badly.”

A wall of the house collapsed, its stones cracking explosively. The fire, though, seemed to be dying now under the constant stream of water from the buckets. It must have burned everything in the house that could burn. I prayed silently that that did not include Eukairios.

Priscus gave me the same level look. “Who wants to kill you?”

I was silent for a moment, struggling with myself. The name of his wife was in my throat, choking me. I had a friend who had, perhaps, just died horribly, and whose life was considered a thing too inconsequential even to discuss. I wanted badly to revenge him. But I could not say Bodica’s name: I still had no proof. Besides, I didn’t know for certain that Eukairios was dead. He’d preferred staying in his friends’ houses in the past, and might well be comfortably asleep in the town outside the fortress gates. “There was… an object found near Corstopitum,” I said at last. Someone was bound to tell Priscus this if I didn’t. “A lead scroll, pushed into the mouth of a murdered man found hanging from a tree in a sacred grove. It had my name written on it. The general conclusion was that it was the work of some Picts, resentful of their defeat.”

Priscus drew in his breath with a hiss and blinked at me several times.

“There are no Picts in the middle of a legionary fortress at night,” declared the centurion of the Sixth. “They might, just, slip into the town, though even that’s pretty unlikely this far south-but they’d never get over the walls of the fort.”

“No,” I said, giving him the level look back. “So it must have been a Roman. And why the Romans would wish to kill me, I do not know-though my men, and the men of the fourth dragon, will doubtless think of a reason. With your permission, Lord Legate, I think I must go back to my men now, or they will be alarmed.”

Priscus caught my arm. “There’s nobody under my command who wants to kill you,” he said harshly. “May the gods destroy me if it’s false! You’re the one we can work with, and worth all the other Sarmatian officers put together.”

“Sir, I do not doubt your goodwill. But it would be better if you did not use such terms, as it would offend the other officers. May I go reassure my followers?”

He let go of me, and I bowed and walked off.

I was halfway back to the wagons when I heard a shout behind me, and I turned to see Eukairios running toward me through the moonlight, waving both hands wildly. I gave a cry of relief and ran toward him.

“Thank God!” he said, and, “I thank the gods!” I exclaimed, at almost the same instant. I caught him by the shoulders and shook him, to make sure he was really there and not ashes in the burned house. I was smiling so hard my face hurt.

“The house is burned down,” I told him. “I was afraid you were inside it.”

He shook his head. “No, I was staying at a friend’s in the town. But I heard the alarm, and came to see what was happening. I didn’t think you were in the house, but I wasn’t completely sure. Was it.. was it arson?”

I nodded.

“Everyone thought you were there. Everyone except your own men.”

“Yes. I do not know what to say to the legate. It is clear now that it must have been a Roman who arranged it: only army people are allowed in the fortress at night. They will think of the message that was sent to Gatalas. They will start guessing. But we still have no evidence, and how can I speak without it? It would be easy for them to kill me, if I were arrested here. Something in the prison food while I awaited trial for slander, another fire-nothing would be easier. Marha! I do not know what to say.”

I started back toward the wagons, and Eukairios fell in beside me. “You’re very upset about it,” he remarked. He sounded surprised.

“I am very glad you are alive,” I told him, beginning to recover myself. “I thought you were dead and your body burned.”

He stopped a moment. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, yes-of course.” He hurried to catch up with me again, and we walked on together, as though we were members of one household. We arrived back at the wagons, where my men were gathered in an anxious knot that broke in shouts and exclamations of relief when I appeared.

The following morning Eukairios was eager to go back into the town: he hadn’t finished arranging matters with the Christians when the fire started. “I spoke to the… the presbyteroi of the ekklesia yesterday,” he said. “The elders of the assembly, that is. They’ve prayed about the alliance. They are mostly Brigantians, and they don’t want to see a rebellion or an invasion of the northern tribes-but they’re not quite sure. They want to meet you.”