The Wolves of the North Read Online Free Page B

nothing but a legal fiction. True freedom, like true slavery, is in the soul. The soul of a good man can never be enslaved. The cynic Diogenes in fetters was a free man. The Great King of Persia, sat in pomp on the throne of the house of Sasan, is unfree if he is a slave to his irrational passions: lust, greed, anger.’
    Again Hordeonius was silent. There was no love growing between the North African centurion and the
familia
of Ballista.
    ‘So, my dear Hibernian,’ Hippothous continued, ‘Marcus Clodius Ballista may have given you a papyrus roll, given you his
praenomen
and
nomen
, and with them Roman citizenship, but, I fear, you remain a slave – a slave to your bodily lusts, to endless amphorae of wine and cheap women.’
    Maximus laughed. ‘And you? Are you not a slave to pretty boys? I have heard you howl in the baths at the sight of a nice arse. Given his good looks, Calgacus here has not slept at all since you joined the
familia
. Always expecting the invasion, he is. Did I tell you how in his youth, in the bloom of his beauty, he caused a riot in Athens? Very dedicated pederasts, the Athenians.’
    As if stirred into action by the mention of his name, the elderly Caledonian spoke. ‘The slave Polybius ran from Panticapaeumbecause he tired of waiting for his freedom.’ Calgacus hawked and spat over the side of the ship. Then, in a muttering inflection, but at the same volume, he added, ‘Took you fucking long enough to free me, and the yappy Hibernian.’
    Ballista became very aware of young Wulfstan at his shoulder, very aware of the tensions in even the happiest
familia
in a slaveowning society.
    ‘Company.’ The voice of the
trierarch
rang out.
    Ahead, six ships with the distinctive double prows, fore and aft, of northern longships. They were pulling unhurried towards the
trireme
. The Goths were coming to them.
    Not by choice, Calgacus had seen the world. He had been with Ballista in Rome, in Arelate, Nemausus and the other fine cities of Gallia Narbonensis, sojourned in Asia at Ephesus and Miletus, lived in Antioch, the metropolis of the east. By comparison, Tanais, most north-eastern of all Greek
poleis
, was a shite-hole. Calgacus’s eyesight was not what it had been. Others had spotted the low town before it swam in his vision out of the vast, swampy delta of the river from which it took its name.
    First, the
trireme
pulled past an abandoned suburb. It was long abandoned. Trees grew through the remains of houses. What had been thoroughfares were blocked by mounds of rubbish overgrown with patches of marsh grass. The effect was of a juvenile deity’s rough plan of a mountain range, set aside through distraction.
    The quay was of new, raw-cut timber; the ramshackle buildings behind the same. The smell of sawn wood mixed with mud, fish and an undertone of burning. Oddly, a huge hill of ash and debris demarcated the harbour from the town proper. Calgacus’s eyes, blurred in the spring sun, took it in as best they could, the mean scale of the place. No more than a couple ofthousand inhabitants could huddle within its walls. A complete shite-hole.
    As they walked up, Calgacus saw that the stone walls were cracked, leaning here and there, in places fallen altogether. Rubble half filled the defensive ditch. Urugundi guards stood, bored, at the fire-scorched gates. They waved them through.
    Inside was worse. The street up to the
agora
had been cleared, but the lanes running off it were choked with the debris of collapsed houses. Fire-black beams poked up, mocking man’s transient endeavours. Thousands of tiny shards of amphorae crunched like snow underfoot. The town was deserted. The sack had been thorough and recent, no more than a few years.
    The
agora
had been scoured clean. Traders had returned; a surprising number of them had set up stalls. They called their wares: oil and wine from the south, hides and slaves, honey and gold from the north. The council house had been repaired. Incongruously, instead