The Wolves of the North Read Free

waves. Thelittle Bosporan
liburnian
forged ahead, its double banks of oars flashing, spray flying. It turned to the south-east. The
trireme
followed, angling across the sea towards the low, dark land. Ballista looked out at the unprepossessing sight, dark thoughts in his head.
    The
trierarch
, a short, stubby centurion with a beard, walked to the stern. ‘Almost there,
Domini
.’ He spoke in Latin to Ballista and Castricius, as the envoy and his deputy. ‘We will make Azara in a couple of hours.’ He smiled. ‘I give you joy of it. Apparently the locals call the place Conopion – Mosquito-town.’
    When the ship slipped into one of the many channels of the Lesser Rhombites river, Hippothous was struck by the stillness. The wind was gone. Reeds and sedge pressed in on both sides. The water was black and heavy, glossy in the lowering sun. The creak and splash of the oars, the clicking and chattering of insects and birds, both seemed thin and insubstantial against the oppressive quiet of the delta.
    The
trireme
rowed in the glassy trail of the
liburnian
, until both were manoeuvred to rest stern on against a dilapidated jetty at the foot of a low, overgrown rise. The Maeotae were waiting for them in arms. The isolated wooden look-outs they had passed jutting up out of the water obviously gave notice of the arrival of men as well as shoals of fish. These tribesmen belonged to a tribe of the Maeotae called the Tarpeites: fishermen on the coast, farmers inland, said to be brigands in both elements. There were a hundred or so of them, dirty, poorly armed, but obviously dangerous in their barbarian irrationality.
    The marines on the
trireme
and the auxiliary soldiers escorting the embassy held themselves very still, weapons to hand. All told, there were about forty Roman fighting men.
    The sun was going down, but it was warmer away from the open sea. Hippothous slapped at the insects settling on him and watchedthe Bosporan ship run out its boarding ladder and the
navarchos
disembark. The grandly titled commander of the fleets of the Great King of the Bosporus talked for some time with the tribesmen. There was an amount of gesticulating. The armed men on the Roman vessel grew bored, put up their weapons, leant on their shields and the gunwales, talked under their breath. Hippothous did not relax. He had not survived a lifetime of violence as bandit, Cilician chief and, for the last few years,
accensus
to Ballista, only by luck. The post of secretary usually did not involve much violence, but in the
familia
of Ballista it was almost the norm.
    Finally, the talking ended. Some tribesmen trotted off into the trees which grew up the hill. The
navarchos
waved for those on the
trireme
to come ashore. The herald the imperial authorities had attached to the envoys at Panticapaeum went first down the gangplank. At the bottom, the
praeco
called out in a stentorian voice in Latin: ‘The
Legatus extra ordinem Scythica
Marcus Clodius Ballista,
Vir
Perfectissimus
, and his deputy, Gaius Aurelius Castricius,
Vir Perfectissimus
.’
    Both men had held high prefectures, which had ranked them each as
Vir
Ementissimus
. Hippothous noted they had been demoted. The
praeco
had not done that on his own initiative. But Castricius had been Prefect of Cavalry under two pretenders, one of them, briefly, Ballista himself. And it was not Roman practice to send men of the highest ranks as diplomatic envoys to the barbarians, especially not on missions from which they may well not return.
    When the envoys had clattered down to the shore with their entourage and eleven-man escort, an individual slightly less grubby than the majority stepped out of the horde of Tarpeites.
    ‘Pericles, son of Alcibiades,’ he announced himself in heavily accented Greek. ‘Come, I take you to the palace of the king.’
    Hippothous did not let himself smile.
    Led by Ballista, they followed the barbarian with the ludicrously Hellenic name and patronymic up the path. It was dark