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Authors: Gillian Bradshaw
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Natalis sends me to you. He said you needed a scribe.”
I have never forgotten the shock of that afternoon. Eukairios was very good at his work. We went over the list of supplies, and it was all wrong: it contained vast amounts of wheat, which we weren’t used to, and no cheese or dried meat, which we were. There was no wood to mend the wagons, should one break; there was the wrong kind of horse fodder; there was no felt to patch the awnings and not enough leather to bind them—it was a useless list altogether. And Eukairios knew exactly what to do to put it all right. All the afternoon it went on, me saying, “What we need is . . .” and Eukairios answering, “That would take us over budget, Lord Ariantes, but what we could do . . .” and me saying, “Can you really do that?”
Letters. “Ariantes, commander of the sixth numerus of Sarmatian cavalry, to Minucius Habitus, procurator of the imperial saltus , greetings. My lord, we require a hundred barrels of salt beef from the imperial estates to be shipped to Dubris under authority of the procurator Lord Valerius Natalis . . .” “Ariantes . . . to Junius Coroticus, shipping agent, greetings. The procurator Valerius Natalis requests that you provide a ship to the port of Durobrivae of the Iceni to transport a hundred barrels of salt beef . . .” “Ariantes . . . to Marcius Modestus, head of the fleet workshops in Dubris, greetings. The procurator authorizes you to allot us a hundredweight of oak staves and two hundredweight of beechwood planking . . .”
“And now, Lord Ariantes,” Eukairios would say, “you put your mark there , and I write ‘Unlettered’ here , and we seal it thus , and we can send it off first thing tomorrow.” Take a thin leaf of shaved beechwood, mark it with ink, fold it and seal it with wax, put it on a dispatch vessel—and men a hundred miles away who’d never heard of Sarmatians would roll barrels of salt beef onto a ship that had appeared to move them, take them to a warehouse in Dubris that was expecting them, and have them stacked waiting for us when we appeared. Letters are wonderful things.
After that, Eukairios was assigned to me every day until I left Bononia myself, on the last transport. To say I found him useful is as misleading as it is true. I had carefully planned and prepared troop movements in the past—I’d organized raids and gathered the men of my dragon to fight the war. But always I’d relied on those I knew, drawn on my own resources and those of my dependants, and done without records. The freedom of the pen, which can run backward in time to take account and forward to draw up a budget, which can speak directly to unknown persons far away, was intoxicating. It terrified me that I liked it so much, that, within two days, I was waiting impatiently for Eukairios to arrive in the morning, depending on him to come so I could do my own work. It infuriated me that I should depend on a Roman slave, and I looked forward to leaving him and Bononia behind. But I dreaded being left voiceless, while around me the letters flew and Romans spoke to Romans about my people, and we stood like mute and bewildered children in an alien world.
In the end I set sail from Bononia with Eukairios—and with Valerius Natalis, and with Flavius Facilis. Eukairios came because we were finishing some accounts; Natalis, because he was returning to his preferred base at Dubris—but Facilis was an unpleasant surprise. We had seen very little of him once the crossing began, and I’d thought that he’d given up his charge of us and was preparing to return with his legionaries to Aquincum. I found that instead he’d been writing to the legate Priscus, offering his services as an expert on Sarmatians. I could not ask him why. I suspected, even then, that it was not because he had any straightforward plan for revenge, but because he felt his business with us was unfinished. He meant to finish it and make sure we would not forget him,
I have never forgotten the shock of that afternoon. Eukairios was very good at his work. We went over the list of supplies, and it was all wrong: it contained vast amounts of wheat, which we weren’t used to, and no cheese or dried meat, which we were. There was no wood to mend the wagons, should one break; there was the wrong kind of horse fodder; there was no felt to patch the awnings and not enough leather to bind them—it was a useless list altogether. And Eukairios knew exactly what to do to put it all right. All the afternoon it went on, me saying, “What we need is . . .” and Eukairios answering, “That would take us over budget, Lord Ariantes, but what we could do . . .” and me saying, “Can you really do that?”
Letters. “Ariantes, commander of the sixth numerus of Sarmatian cavalry, to Minucius Habitus, procurator of the imperial saltus , greetings. My lord, we require a hundred barrels of salt beef from the imperial estates to be shipped to Dubris under authority of the procurator Lord Valerius Natalis . . .” “Ariantes . . . to Junius Coroticus, shipping agent, greetings. The procurator Valerius Natalis requests that you provide a ship to the port of Durobrivae of the Iceni to transport a hundred barrels of salt beef . . .” “Ariantes . . . to Marcius Modestus, head of the fleet workshops in Dubris, greetings. The procurator authorizes you to allot us a hundredweight of oak staves and two hundredweight of beechwood planking . . .”
“And now, Lord Ariantes,” Eukairios would say, “you put your mark there , and I write ‘Unlettered’ here , and we seal it thus , and we can send it off first thing tomorrow.” Take a thin leaf of shaved beechwood, mark it with ink, fold it and seal it with wax, put it on a dispatch vessel—and men a hundred miles away who’d never heard of Sarmatians would roll barrels of salt beef onto a ship that had appeared to move them, take them to a warehouse in Dubris that was expecting them, and have them stacked waiting for us when we appeared. Letters are wonderful things.
After that, Eukairios was assigned to me every day until I left Bononia myself, on the last transport. To say I found him useful is as misleading as it is true. I had carefully planned and prepared troop movements in the past—I’d organized raids and gathered the men of my dragon to fight the war. But always I’d relied on those I knew, drawn on my own resources and those of my dependants, and done without records. The freedom of the pen, which can run backward in time to take account and forward to draw up a budget, which can speak directly to unknown persons far away, was intoxicating. It terrified me that I liked it so much, that, within two days, I was waiting impatiently for Eukairios to arrive in the morning, depending on him to come so I could do my own work. It infuriated me that I should depend on a Roman slave, and I looked forward to leaving him and Bononia behind. But I dreaded being left voiceless, while around me the letters flew and Romans spoke to Romans about my people, and we stood like mute and bewildered children in an alien world.
In the end I set sail from Bononia with Eukairios—and with Valerius Natalis, and with Flavius Facilis. Eukairios came because we were finishing some accounts; Natalis, because he was returning to his preferred base at Dubris—but Facilis was an unpleasant surprise. We had seen very little of him once the crossing began, and I’d thought that he’d given up his charge of us and was preparing to return with his legionaries to Aquincum. I found that instead he’d been writing to the legate Priscus, offering his services as an expert on Sarmatians. I could not ask him why. I suspected, even then, that it was not because he had any straightforward plan for revenge, but because he felt his business with us was unfinished. He meant to finish it and make sure we would not forget him,
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