The Charioteer: A Roman Adventure Story by Jemahl Evans

Author:Jemahl Evans [Evans, Jemahl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2021-09-22T22:00:00+00:00

16

Cosmas was enjoying their time in Tashkent. The city fascinated him: a melting pot of cultures and peoples, Bactrians and Sogdians mostly, but there were Indians who Cosmas questioned incessantly about their homeland; Persians from Ctesiphon, and Sericans from Kashgar as well as steppe tribesman everywhere. After the race, Theo sent him and Beremund down to the market to find saddles with hoops for the Goths. Cosmas led the tall Goth and Uba through the warren of alleyways and stalls to a Sogdian trader Rat had met previously.

‘We want ten saddles,’ Cosmas told the trader as Beremund inspected the leather. ‘Ten, you understand?’ The Rat held up his grubby digits and pointed to the saddles. Uba spoke briefly in Sogdian and the man nodded happily.

‘Does he understand?’ Cosmas asked the boy.

Uba nodded.

‘These are no big enough,’ said Beremund in broken Latin.

‘What?’

‘The saddles too narrow for our horses backs.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Of course it matters.’

Rat sighed, neither his nor the Goth’s Latin was good but he knew there would be complaints if he just ignored Beremund. He turned back to the Indian trader. The next fifteen minutes was spent trying to explain to the Indian that they needed specially made saddles. Eventually the trader understood and sent a boy back with them to the house to measure up the horses. The price was high but not extortionate, and Cosmas handed over some coins and promised the rest once the new saddles were made. They walked back to the house in silence; conversation was difficult for Beremund and Cosmas was uninterested in the coarse barbarian.

Even the boy seems to be turning into a Goth, thought the Rat.

Uba was flourishing under Theo and the bucellarii. They had cut his hair into a Germanic style with a topknot, and dressed him in a spare tunic and lamellar cuirass. The warriors all sparred with him to train him to the sword and Godda was teaching him to ride. Cosmas’s jibes that the lad was too old to become a Goth simply spurred them all on to prove Rat wrong. They turned into a square with a fountain; the Romans’ house was down a small road on the other side. There was the usual gaggle of local women and children at the fountain gathering water for their hearths and gossiping, but there were also some strangers in the mix. Four Immortals dressed in mail coats and bearing weapons were chatting and laughing with the Sogdian locals.

‘Just ignore them,’ said Cosmas to the others.

They moved around the fountain to avoid Naghi’s men, but one of the men nudged the others and the Persians moved to intercept them.

‘Bugger,’ said Rat, as Beremund’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword in case of trouble.

The four Persian warriors came straight up to them standing in front of Rat and blocking their way home. Cosmas gave a bow to their leader.

‘We are just passing masters, I am certain Naghi would not want any trouble?’ he said to them in Persian.

The leader ignored Rat and squared off against Beremund, speaking fast and gesturing to the tall Goth.

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