The Slave King

by Peter Darman

  ‘No,’ she agreed, ‘that was Rasha. But you did threaten Spartacus when he intimated he would seize Queen Parisa and her children. And you did invite Akmon and Lusin to your sixtieth birthday feast. And we all know how that ended.’

  After a morning in the Headquarters Building in the stifling heat, my head was beginning to throb and I had no appetite to argue with her.

  ‘My head tells me to invite Spartacus and Rasha and not his estranged son and daughter-in-law, not that Gordyene’s rulers will come.’

  ‘Probably for the best,’ she said, ‘we don’t want an incident at the wedding, especially as Phraates will be there. Claudia must hold great influence at Ctesiphon to persuade him to come here.’

  I continued walking into the palace. ‘Everything has come full circle. Dobbai’s protégé has taken her place beside the high king, just like she did when Sinatruces ruled Parthia’

  I stood in the doorway to the throne room and stared at the griffin banner hanging limply on the wall behind the two thrones.

  ‘I have no son.’

  ‘Pacorus?’

  ‘Who will rule Dura when we are gone?’

  I suddenly felt very old. Sensing my despair, she gripped my arm.

  ‘There are a few years left in you, yet. Besides, if Eszter and Dalir have a son, he will be the heir to the throne.’

  I sighed loudly. ‘That would see the kingdom bankrupt within a generation and the gods alone know what would happen to the army.’

  She jabbed me in the ribs and walked into the throne room.

  ‘I know who you really want as your successor, though you will not say it.’

  I followed her. ‘Who?’

  She spun and rolled her eyes. ‘Your namesake, of course, the living demi-god who is satrap of Elymais, though doubtless he could become that kingdom’s ruler if he desired it. Not that he would, of course, his manners and character being beyond reproach. Well, I hate to disappoint you but Prince Pacorus is the heir to Hatra’s throne, not Dura’s. I did not realise our daughters were such a disappointment for you.’

  ‘They are not,’ I insisted, ‘but I must confess Dalir being the crown-prince does not fill me with relish.’

  She frowned. ‘How you underestimate Eszter, Pacorus. I have no doubt she will be the power behind the throne, just as Isabella is in Sakastan and Claudia is at Ctesiphon.’

  ‘And Gallia at Dura?’ I teased.

  She winked and grinned. ‘Naturally.’

  We walked to the door at the rear of the chamber giving access to the palace’s private quarters.

  ‘Well, then, I would welcome your assistance with negotiations regarding the marriage contract between Dalir and Eszter.’

  ‘That should be straightforward enough.’

  I laughed. ‘You forget who I am negotiating with.’

  As in all societies, marriage was of vital importance because it not only ensured the continuation of the family, the bedrock of all civilisations, but also contributed towards social stability. What was society but a vast collection of families, each operating according to a framework of rules and regulations passed down from generation to generation? Good citizens were not created and raised by kings but by husbands and wives. Marriage was therefore one of the most important institutions in the civilised world.

  The marriage process itself could be rather torturous and in the more traditional parts of Parthia, such as Babylon and Seleucia, negotiations between families could drag on for months and were usually conducted by third parties, who invariably took the opportunity to line their own pockets. The marriage contract between Dalir and Eszter would be simpler and quicker, or so I hoped.

  Kalet, Dura’s chief lord, roisterer, raider, loyal warlord and a man who could be sadly lacking in the social graces, arrived that afternoon. As usual he was dressed in black flowing robes, his head covered with a shemagh, half a dozen men similarly attired accompanying him when he trotted into the Citadel’s courtyard. He was a frequent visitor to Dura and well known among the army’s senior commanders, as well as the city’s inns and brothels, his wife having died when Dalir had been a but a boy. The duty centurion ordered the visitors’ horses to be taken to the stables before escorting Kalet to the palace terrace, his companions being shown to the barracks in the courtyard.

  Ashk, the palace’s chief steward, showed him to his chair beneath the large awning that provided welcome shade. Kalet gave me a slight bow of the head and a wink at Gallia before flopping down into the chair and snatching a cup of water proffered by a servant. He whipped off his shemagh and tossed it on the floor before emptying the cup.

  ‘Your sword, lord,’ said Ashk.

  ‘What?’ snapped Kalet.

  ‘You must surrender your weapons,’ I told him.

  Kalet groaned, stood, unbuckled his belt and handed it and the scabbard attached to it to Ashk. He also took a dagger from his boot and another from inside his robe, handing both to my steward.

  ‘How long have we known each other?’ asked Kalet.

  We took our seats opposite his.

  ‘Rules are rules, Kalet. How are you?’

  He flopped back down in the chair and clicked his fingers at the servant to indicate she should refill his cup.

  ‘Hot. Any wine?’

  ‘Perhaps we should leave alcohol until after the contract is agreed,’ I offered.

  He came straight to the point. ‘Bride price still tent talents of gold, then?’

  I nodded. I had demanded the bride price of ten talents of gold, the equivalent of a ton of the precious metal, in the aftermath of our victory at Battle of Ctesiphon. For a desert lord it was a huge sum and though Gallia had pressed me to lower the amount, I had stuck firm. Whatever Eszter was, and she was certainly a wild child of the desert, she was still a royal princess and should command a bride price commensurate to her position.

  ‘It’s on its way,’ he smiled.

  I looked at him and then Gallia, both of us wondering how he had acquired such a tidy sum.

  ‘Never thought you were the type to judge a man by his appearance, lord,’ he grinned. ‘Just because I don’t wear fancy clothes, don’t mean my purse is empty.’

  ‘Well, subject to the bride price arriving safely at the Citadel, we are happy for the marriage to proceed,’ I said.

  ‘What about the dowry?’ he shot back. ‘No marriage will take place until I am happy with the dowry.’

  ‘You are unhappy?’ quizzed Gallia.

  ‘No offence, princess, but business is business.’

  Ever since the days of Spandarat, my desert lords had nicknamed Gallia ‘princess’, owing to her days fighting for Spartacus when she had been a princess of the Senones tribe. Her forthright manner and usefulness with a variety of weapons had immediately endeared her to Dura’s wild lords and their feral retainers, and she had reciprocated their affection and respect.

  ‘Five hundred camels,’ I offered.

  It was perhaps overly generous, but such a number would allow him to sell them on and recoup some of the gold, which he had probably stolen anyway.

  ‘I was thinking of the same number of horses, lord.’

  ‘Five hundred horses?’ Gallia was stunned.

  ‘Can a price be put on a daughter of Queen Gallia?’ Kalet said nonchalantly.

  ‘It can,’ I told him, ‘and that price is two hundred horses or five hundred camels.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you would throw in one of your fancy swords on top?’ he said casually.

  ‘You are right,’ I replied, ‘I would not. Those fancy swords, as you call them, cost a gold bar each, though I dare say I could arrange for one to be made for you if you paid Arsam, my chief armourer, the required amount of gold.’

  ‘It would take many months to make one,’ said Gallia. ‘The metal to create an ukku blade comes from India, and we would have to negotiate with the Satavahanis to acquire an ingot.’

  Kalet had already lost interest. ‘Two hundred horses it is. I can pick them
out myself, of course?’

  ‘I will notify the head of the royal stud farms you will be paying him a visit.’

  Kalet rubbed his hands, spat in his right palm and held out his arm. Gallia laughed when I spat in my own palm and shook his hand to seal the deal. Thus was Eszter officially betrothed to Dalir.

  ‘What shall we call each other?’ asked Kalet, a servant pouring wine into his goblet. ‘Now that we are family, I mean?’

  ‘You can carry on calling me “lord”,’ I told him.

  He downed the wine in one and held out the goblet to be refilled.

  ‘Always bear in mind the old saying, Kalet,’ I said, ‘you can choose your friends, but you are stuck with your family.’

  ‘But we will welcome Dalir as a son,’ smiled Gallia, ‘and will look forward to greeting our grandchild in the near future.’

  I asked Aaron to come to the palace terrace when a score of burly warriors arrived at the Citadel that afternoon, as Kalet had promised, with a dozen camels in tow. The saddlebags of the beasts carried gold coins – ten talents’ worth – which Aaron could not stop grinning at when the saddlebags were dumped at his feet on the terrace. My treasurer had brought two clerks with him, who immediately set up a pair of scales and began recording the number and weight of the coins. Kalet’s men, bored and thirsty, were escorted to the banqueting hall where they were watered and fed. As they departed the master of horses arrived, a man with a long nose and narrow neck to give him an equine appearance. I told him to take Kalet to the royal stud farm, located some twenty miles south of the city, where he was to select two hundred horses, the bride price for Princess Eszter. After they had departed I queried Aaron on the provenance of the gold.

  He picked up one of the coins, a beautiful piece showing the bust of my friend Orodes on the obverse side, wearing a tiara, the reverse showing a beardless archer wearing a cloak and seated on a throne. Around him was the inscription: King of Kings, lord of all Parthia.

  ‘Judging by their pristine condition, majesty, I would say they have never been in circulation, at least not until now.’

  ‘Kept in a vault somewhere, then?’

  He turned the coin over in his hand, admiring the metal and rubbing his fingers over the engraving.

  ‘The vault in Ctesiphon?’ I asked.

  Aaron placed the coin back in one of the chests he had ordered be brought to the terrace.

  ‘Difficult to say with certainty, majesty.’

  ‘Indulge me.’

  ‘Most probably,’ he said.

  Gallia smiled at the row of chests.

  ‘Will you be able to find room in the treasury vault for all this, Aaron?’

  ‘There is always room for more gold, majesty,’ he replied sternly, ‘though the kingdom will need every ounce to pay for the princess’ wedding, and the visit of the high king, of course.’

  ‘I don’t want the Kingdom of Dura to be perceived as parsimonious, Aaron,’ I said. ‘The eyes of all Parthia will be studying us while the high king is here. For forty years Dura has let its army do all the talking. But now I want the world to know this kingdom is not the abode of barbarians and gruff soldiers; rather, it is a place where civilisation and learning have also taken root.’

  How I was to regret those words.

  Chapter 2

  With three months to go before the wedding and visit of Phraates, Dura became the centre of much activity. The guest list took on a life of its own and I worried that the banqueting hall, which could seat up to five hundred people, would prove inadequate to host the small army that had been invited, to say nothing of the entourage of the high king that would inevitably follow Phraates to my city. Rsan and Aaron, usually so parsimonious and careful when it came to official costs, suddenly became much more relaxed about royal expenditure. I found myself signing authorisation papers to purchase banners, lots of banners. Banners showing a red griffin on a white background, the horned bull of Babylon on a purple background and other banners showing an eagle holding a snake in its talons. They were the symbols of Dura, Babylon and Susiana respectively and were to be flown throughout the city to welcome Phraates, who was the ruler of Babylon and Susiana. He had also been the ruler of Persis but that was now the domain of King Silani, formerly the commander of the high king’s bodyguard.

  Chrestus baulked at the suggestion all legionaries on duty should wear red and white plumes in their helmets, though he acquiesced when Aaron promised he would not quibble over his quartermaster’s demands up to and immediately after the high king’s visit. Chrestus got his replacement weapons and armour and Rsan got his plumed soldiers.

  Dura was built as a frontier outpost, its ochre mud-brick walls, towers and Citadel constructed with strength in mind, not beauty. That strength had withstood Agraci war bands, Roman legions and Parthian armies with ease, the siting and construction of the city entirely functional, with no regard for aesthetic qualities or ornamentation. It was above all a military stronghold that proclaimed strength and endurance from its position atop the rock escarpment by the side of the Euphrates. It was a far cry from the ornate palaces and their gardens found in such cities as Babylon, Seleucia, Hatra and Susa. Or so I thought.

  Equine training always took place in the early morning, just after dawn when the air was fresh following the cool of the night, the sun still rising in the east. The training fields to the west of the city became hubs of activity, though the absence of Sporaces and his horse archers and Azad and his cataphracts meant they were unusually quiet, save for the Amazons. By the time the sun was warming the earth to herald another blisteringly hot day, both riders and horses were making their way back to barracks to enjoy a hearty breakfast.

  I pulled up Horns and dismounted from his saddle, Gallia beside me, as the Amazons trotted into the courtyard behind us. On the palace steps the palace steward was nodding his head as the tall, olive-skinned man beside him was pointing to the four corners of the courtyard. A stable hand took Horns and Gallia’s mare and we walked up the steps, the two stopping their conversation and bowing their heads.

  ‘This is Adel, majesty,’ Ashk informed me, ‘sent from Hatra by your brother, King Gafarn.’

  Adel reached inside his tunic and pulled out a papyrus scroll, which he handed to me.

  Pacorus

  As you are to be blessed with a visit from Phraates himself, I thought Dura could do with brightening up. This is Adel, one of my most talented gardeners. He can work miracles, which is just as well as Dura is an arid wasteland. We look forward to seeing the fruits of his labours.

  Gafarn

  I handed the note to Gallia.

  ‘Dura is not Hatra, Adel. There are no springs here to bring forth water to nourish greenery.’

  The gardener scratched his beard and nodded.

  ‘I was warned by the king that conditions might be challenging, majesty.’

  ‘But Adel has some interesting ideas, majesty,’ said Ashk, ‘and Lord Aaron has agreed to release funds for the additional staff.’

  ‘What staff?’

  ‘Two hundred gardeners, majesty,’ answered Adel.

  I was astounded. ‘Two hundred, for what?’

  ‘To turn your Citadel and palace into an oasis of green, majesty,’ he informed me.

  I knew the rudiments of garden design from my youth at Hatra, which had some of the most impressive royal gardens in the empire. But Hatra was fed by underground springs that brought cool water from the earth to fill ornamental ponds, create fountains and waterfalls and nourish the trees, flowers and shrubs all year round. Dura was blessed to be next to the Euphrates, a river that never dried up and gave life to the kingdom. But the city sat atop a rock escarpment and water had to be fetched from the river below. Water carriers were employed by the crown to ensure a constant supply of the precious liquid to the city, but no provision was made for the watering of trees and shrubs, which were considered a waste of precious resources. So the city and Citadel were devoid of foliage. That changed with th
e arrival of Adel and his gardeners.

  He set about his task with gusto and soon the Citadel’s courtyard was bursting with wooden tubs and terracotta pots filled with small cypress trees, which were associated with the mythical Life Tree and were assumed to have healing powers. I must confess I found Adel an interesting character, a man who had devoted his whole life to creating paradise on earth, or at least a manmade interpretation of that blessed place.

  I estimated him to be in his late fifties, his face and arms turned dark brown by years spent outdoors in the sun, which had made his skin leathery and his face deeply lined. I had to admit the addition of greenery to the courtyard, far from being intrusive, was a welcome contribution and pleasing to the eye. We stood at the top of the palace steps as his small army of gardeners watered the ornamental junipers, cypress, rowan, pine and aspen, sweating under a merciless Mesopotamian sun.

  ‘I will have to organise watering rotas to ensure the plants do not wither in the heat. Still, at least your palace now has the four elements, majesty.’

  ‘Four elements?’

  ‘Since earliest times man has sought to create paradise on earth by harnessing the four elements: sky, earth, water and plants.’

  He pointed to the heavens. ‘We have sky, the earth we stand on and now water and plants.’

  ‘It is very different from Hatra.’

  He nodded. ‘Hatra is a living paradise on earth, an oasis of greenery and life in the middle of a barren desert and yet Dura is closer to the gods.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘In all palaces, it is traditional to construct a large pool in the front space of a royal garden to reflect the image of the palace and the sky,’ he told me, ‘to cement the realm of the earthly to the heavenly. Here at Dura, the Euphrates, the great giver of life created by the gods themselves, fulfils the function of binding the realm of the earthly to the heavenly. That is why this city is beloved of the gods.’

  ‘My father did not think so when he first learned I had been made its ruler,’ I remembered.

  ‘I never knew your father, King Varaz, majesty, though I was privileged to speak to your mother on occasion. She was a keen gardener.’