Gillian Bradshaw - Island of Ghosts

“Do you want to change?” suggested the leading consular guardsman, misunderstanding my hesitation. “If you have Roman dress, we’ll give you time to put it on.”

I had my own clothes, and my friends had seen to it that they were clean. I put on my best shirt to see the governor, and pinned my coat loose across my shoulders. I had a new hat-black, with gold embroidery-but for weapons I had not so much as a dagger, and I felt exposed and ashamed. It was worse when the guardsmen brought up the sedan chair for me. “I will walk,” I told them.

“We were told you couldn’t,” said their spokesman. “Just sit down in it, sir. I don’t want to get in trouble with the doctors. The governor must have finished the last case by now, and they’ll all be waiting for you.”

I sat down in the sedan chair. I felt utterly ridiculous.

The governor was seated at the tribunal in the great hall of the headquarters of the Sixth Legion. The courtyard outside was full of his personal guard, and the hall itself was so full-with his staff, with officers of the legion, with prefects of all the auxiliary forces of the North-that it was hard to see any known face among all the faces. I noticed Julius Priscus, though, standing behind the tribunal. He looked shrunken and aged since our last meeting, and he stood with his shoulders slumped. His eyes met mine as I was carried in, and his mouth twisted. He looked away. Everyone else in the room seemed to be staring at me.

The guardsmen who were carrying the sedan chair set it down, and I stood up, balancing on my good leg. The governor sat with his hands on his knees, looking down at me. He was a middle-aged Numidian, grizzled brown and dark-eyed, and in honor of the military occasion he was wearing gilded armor under his gold-fringed crimson cloak. The emperor’s statue watched with a preoccupied frown from the chapel of the standards at the side of the hall.

I saluted the governor. “Greetings, my lord Antistius Adventus!” I said. “Greetings to you all.”

The governor clear his throat. “You are Ariantes, son of Arifarnes, commander of the Sixth Numerus of Sarmatian Horse?”

I bowed my head in agreement.

“You have been accused of murdering the commander of the Second Numerus, Arsacus son of Sauromates.”

“I killed him, my lord, in fair combat,” I corrected him.

One of the governor’s staff coughed. “Were you aware that he was plotting a mutiny?”

“I was.”

“Was the fight perhaps connected in some way with that mutiny?” the same staff member prompted.

“We had chosen different sides, sir,” I said carefully. “He wished to fight, and took steps to provoke me.”

“You might have taken steps to inform your Roman liaison officer, or your camp prefect,” put in a different man, this one an army commander in the red cloak and sash of a prefect.

I had no intention of discussing Comittus and his druidical connections. “I had informed both of them,” I said instead, politely, “of the conspiracy against Roman power in this region. I had informed them, and the legate, and you, my lord governor, and all who were concerned, of Lord Arshak’s involvement in that conspiracy, as you all know. But I was provoked, as I said, to fight him. And I thought also that for him to die at the hands of the Roman state would be crushing to his people, to mine, and to those of our nation who have yet to arrive in this province. He was the nephew of our king. Moreover, it seemed to me very likely that many lives would be lost overcoming him, for he was a powerful man and a brave one, and would have fought his arrest. I therefore fought him privately, and the gods granted me victory.”

“You are a loyal servant of the emperor?” asked the first prompter.

“I am faithful to my oaths,” I replied.

My prompter turned back to the governor. “You notice that he was aware of everything that the centurion told us?” he asked. “That this man Arsacus would have been an immense embarrassment to us if he had been arrested and executed, and that many Roman lives would have been at risk in any attempt to arrest him? Isn’t it far better that this loyal commander killed him in a duel?”

“Yes, I did notice it, Quintus Petronius,” answered the governor, testily. “But I’m still not going to give him a gold crown for it. I agree that it was a mercy of the gods that this fellow Arsacus was taken out quietly and in a way that his followers don’t too much object to, but dueling remains a practice I do not wish to encourage in the British army. Ariantes son of Arifarnes, it’s plain that the man you killed was a rebel and traitor and that you killed him largely because of it, and I therefore have no hesitation in proclaiming you innocent of murder. But I cannot give you the reward you may have expected, because of the manner in which you killed him. In future, you must respect Roman discipline.”

I bowed my head to hide my surprise. I heard someone laugh over to one side, and I glanced round to see Longus and Pervica, squeezed in the door that led from the courtyard, watching me, in Longus’ case, with delight.

“However”-and the governor smirked, and began to speak in a peculiar booming voice which I later realized was the way they’re taught to talk in rhetorical schools-“it is clear that the province of Britain owes you a debt for the prompt way in which you reported this treason to the authorities, for your tenacity of purpose and loyalty when faced with threats against your life, and for the encouragement you gave to Siau…”-he had trouble with the name-“Siauacus, the commander of the Fourth Sarmatians, in his brave and loyal service in uncovering the conspiracy. Moreover, I have taken note of the high regard in which all your junior officers hold you, and the tributes paid to your administrative ability by the procurator of the fleet and the former legate of the Sixth Victrix. In respect of the services you have rendered us-but not the killing-I have decided to award you the silver spear, the medals, and the armbands normally given to honor valor. In appreciation of your proven loyalty and abilities, I have decided to do away with the need for a Roman liaison officer in your case and to allow you the supreme command of all the troops at Cilurnum, including the five squadrons of the Second Asturian Horse. As a temporary measure, I would also like you to take charge of the Second Sarmatian Horse.”

My head was swimming, and I was afraid my leg would give way. “My lord,” I said, spreading my hands helplessly, “that I cannot do. They are Arshak’s men, and I am their lord’s killer. They will not revenge it, because it was fair combat and they had sworn to abide by its result-but they would not obey me. I suggest that you allow Siyavak to choose one of the squadron captains as commander of the dragon, and appoint him jointly with a Roman.”

The governor frowned, looking offended-then shrugged. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll resolve that matter later. In the meantime, Ariantes, I wish to offer you, in the emperor’s name, a reward greater than any of those I have mentioned so far: the citizenship of Rome.”

I bowed my head again, to conceal my feelings. The citizenship of Rome. I, become a Roman. Become a countryman of Tirgatao’s murderers. I did not want it.

But the governor had taken my gesture as one of awed consent, and he smirked as he instructed one of his staff to draw up the papers. Another staff member was already sorting out a memorandum about the next case, and the audience whispered to each other about it and about the business they had just seen finished. I asked if I were free to go. I was told I could, impatiently, by the officer who’d been annoyed with me about dueling, and I began to limp heavily out of the hall. Longus and Pervica pushed their way in through the door and forced me back into the sedan chair. After a moment, the consular guardsmen picked it up and carried me out.