The Slave King

by Peter Darman

  He tossed the head on the ground, turned his horse and walked it away from the ramp, those on the walls remaining silent as they observed me being led away by the centurion.

  ‘I have arranged some entertainment for you, King Pacorus,’ said Atrax mockingly as he urged his horse to pick up speed, Tullus and Laodice accompanying him as he rode back to his camp.

  The centurion watched him go, contempt etched on his face, four of his men flanking me to ensure I did nothing untoward.

  ‘If you give your word you will not to try to escape, I will remove the noose around your neck, lord.’

  ‘I give you my word.’

  Despite having had no sleep since the night before and little food or drink, and bearing in mind my age, I felt remarkably alert, though achingly thirsting.

  ‘Some water if you would spare any?’ I asked.

  He nodded, uncorked the water bottle hanging from his belt and handed it to me. I tried to remember the words I spoke to my own soldiers during a lull in battle.

  ‘Don’t gulp, take small sips. If you gorge yourself, you will get cramps and use up all the contents at once.’

  It was easier said than done and I drank greedily. It took an iron will not to hand it back empty. The centurion replaced the cork in the water bottle and led us back to camp, the sound of high-pitched screams stopping me in my tracks.

  The centurion turned to me.

  ‘Please remember your pledge, lord.’

  We turned the corner to see a vision of horror I had not thought possible in a Parthian city. The men, women and children who had been captured earlier were being nailed to crosses laid flat on the street I had walked down, prior to them being raised up and the crosses fixed in place by holes dug in the dirt. Women squealed in pain as long, triangular-shaped nails were hammered into their wrists, writhing on the cross in a futile attempt to free themselves. But their arms were also held in place by ropes to ensure when they were hoisted up, the weight of their bodies would not cause their impaled wrists to be pulled apart. The ropes were not tied too tightly so the weight of the body pulling down on the arms would make breathing difficult.

  Soldiers were also hammering nails through feet into the upright part of crosses, so that victims’ knees were bent at approximately forty-five degrees. Once fixed into position the victim faced an agonising death. The legs gave out first, transferring weight to the arms, resulting in dragging the shoulders from their sockets. The elbows and wrists would follow a short time later. Consequently, breathing became difficult, eventually leading to suffocation. It was a degrading, disgusting way to die and I could not believe Atrax was inflicting it on his own people.

  I walked through the corridor of death with my head down, ashamed to be Parthian and even more ashamed to be unable to do anything. How I loathed Atrax in that moment and fumed with myself that I had allowed him to leave Irbil when Spartacus had wanted to take him to Vanadzor, there to be probably executed or left to rot away in a cell.

  A cross a few paces away collapsed on the ground, the poor wretch nailed to it groaning in pain as the shock shot through her already broken and lacerated body. In their rush to erect the crosses on each side of the street, Tullus’ men had failed to make the holes to hold them deep enough or had failed to pack enough earth around them once in place. As a result, heavy wooden crosses with people nailed to them began to keel over, adding farce to the scene of horror. The screams and pleas for mercy tormented my mind as I was escorted out of the city back to the camp of the individual I wanted to kill most in the world.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Let a mountain collapse when you present your fierce arms.’

  Notwithstanding the animosity Atrax felt towards me, he did not confine me to the now empty pen outside the camp but gave me my own tent for what I assumed would be my last night on earth. A simple circular affair with a cot, oil lamp, small desk and a chair, I could at least stand inside it and there was a carpet on the ground, albeit a trifle threadbare. I was served food, wine and given clean bedding, plus papyrus and a pen to write anything by way of last words to my wife. It was all rather civilised and as I sat at the table finishing off a slice of cheese, I reflected on whether I had any regrets. The deaths of Nergal, Praxima and Silaces still weighed heavily on my mind, but that was because they were recent and as I grew older I felt the loss of friends more keenly. I had been distraught over the deaths of Spartacus and Claudia in the Silarus Valley all those years ago, but my depression had soon passed. As a soldier, I knew that my trade often commanded a high price in blood and it was churlish to dote too long on the loss of those who had shared my profession. I could think of only one regret: that I had not seen my only grandchild, Peroz.

  I stared at the blank piece of papyrus on the table. There was no need to pen anything to Gallia. She was my first, my only true love. I did not need to write a letter to inform her of what she already knew. I smiled. A letter to Phraates condemning him for his duplicity, on the other hand…

  ‘Make way for the king.’

  I rolled my eyes when one of the guards keeping watch outside my tent opened the flap and Atrax walked in, Laodice and two of Tullus’ legionaries with him. I did not get up, which made him hesitate for a few seconds. He was not used to such open displays of disrespect. He saw the blank sheet of papyrus.

  ‘Lost for words, King Pacorus? It’s quite straightforward. Write a letter to Akmon begging for your life. I am sure it will sway him to surrender to me.’

  He was not wearing my armour, only a lustrous blue silk tunic, white silk leggings and soft red leather shoes. At his hip was the sword of Media’s kings with a dragon’s head pommel. I pointed at it.

  ‘Your grandfather would never have used that sword against his own people.’

  He chuckled. ‘I do not concern myself with the people, King Pacorus, I rule them. That is what kings do, or should do.’

  ‘And that is what King Akmon is doing,’ I replied, ‘and making a decent fist of it, by all accounts. As for pleading for my life, I am too old to start begging.’

  ‘You will change your mind when they start hammering nails into your flesh,’ smiled Laodice, who looked as though he had been dragged behind a horse for a few miles, in stark contrast to the expensive clothes and well-groomed appearance of Atrax.

  I ignored the wild man from Pontus.

  ‘Tell me, Atrax, when you have killed me and Akmon still holds the citadel, what will you do?’

  ‘Besiege him until he surrenders, of course,’ he replied. ‘Like an idiot, Akmon has given sanctuary to hundreds of Irbil’s citizens. They will soon consume all his food supplies, forcing him to surrender.’

  ‘After which you will murder him,’ I said, ‘because your actions today showed you are above all a murderer. Your grandfather would have been so disappointed.’

  I thought he was going to erupt but he managed to keep his rage in check.

  ‘You seem to forget one thing, King Pacorus.’

  ‘Please enlighten me.’

  ‘I have the support of King of Kings Phraates, King Polemon of Pontus and King Artaxias of Armenia, to say nothing of the encouragement of Octavian, the Roman leader.’

  I poured myself some wine and held up the cup to him.

  ‘Excellent wine. And you are right in what you say.’

  He looked down his nose at me in triumph.

  ‘Up to a point,’ I continued. ‘You are in fact no more than a mere foot soldier in a grand game of strategy being played out between Parthia and Rome. Your father and grandmother, though chiefly the latter, conspired with Mark Antony and then Tiridates to bring down Phraates. That being the case, I doubt if Phraates gives a fig for your claim to the throne of Media. He is more interested in clipping the wings of King Spartacus, which he will do if you depose Akmon.’

  ‘The letter of support from Phraates confirms he despises King Spartacus,’ gloated Atrax.

  ‘I doubt that. Why would he despise a man who has come to his rescue on nu
merous occasions, whose army acts as the northern shield of the empire? No, he merely wishes to remind King Spartacus that he is high king and the ruler of Gordyene is his servant, not the other way around.’

  I took another sip of wine, rather enjoying explaining things to Atrax.

  ‘Your army may have been raised in Pontus but it was paid for by Octavian, who wishes to send a message to Phraates that Rome will not tolerate one of its client kingdoms being raided by the Sarmatian allies of King Spartacus. You merely happened to be in the right place at the right time and fitted in with Octavian’s plans perfectly.’

  ‘You babble like an old woman,’ sneered Laodice, ordering wine to be brought for himself and Atrax.

  ‘I assume King Polemon wants his soldiers back after you have captured Irbil?’ I asked Atrax.

  He turned his head away, saying nothing.

  ‘I will take that as a yes,’ I smiled.

  ‘That will leave you with what?’ I continued. ‘Three thousand men, perhaps more? Not many to fight the combined forces of Gordyene, Hatra and Dura.’

  ‘Who are these people, lord?’ asked Laodice, revealing his ignorance concerning Parthia.

  I pointed at him. ‘You at least can return home to your hovels in the mountains, but for you, Prince Atrax, there will be no place to hide when the wrath of Dura, Hatra and Gordyene is turned on you. Do you think King Spartacus, a man not given to forgiveness, will show you mercy after killing his son? Do you think my daughter Claudia, a Scythian Sister who is now the chief adviser to Phraates, will rest until she has avenged the deaths of her parents? And do you believe King Gafarn will not unleash his army against Media when he learns you had his brother crucified?’

  I laughed in his face. ‘You have been well and truly manipulated, Atrax. You are a deluded fool who has conspired to bring about his own doom.’

  He struck me hard across the face with the back of his hand, pain shooting through my cheek, though the blow was not forceful enough to unseat me.

  ‘You will die tomorrow,’ was his terse departing comment, he and the others turning to leave me alone with my bruised cheek.

  I actually managed to grab a few hours’ sleep before trumpets sounded to announce the beginning of a new day for the mercenary army of Prince Atrax. A slave, his eyes cast down to avoid my own, arrived with water, soap and a towel to allow me to wash and shave, another bringing a fresh tunic. This was followed by breakfast, which was a frugal affair of figs and water. I heard the familiar sounds of centurions barking orders, soldiers grumbling and smelled the reassuring aroma of horses. I could have been in the camp of my own army but instead my hosts were foes and after I had been allowed a few moments after eating breakfast, Titus Tullus arrived at my tent with a century of men.

  ‘No rope, general?’

  He presented a splendid sight in his muscled cuirass and burnished helmet sporting a huge yellow crest.

  ‘No, majesty. Bearing in mind the service I undertook for you recently, I would request you to reconsider and ask Akmon to leave the citadel. A fine soldier and commander such as yourself should not end his days nailed to a cross.’

  I walked from the tent into the bright sunlight, closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.

  ‘Come, general, let us take the morning air.’

  A centurion held the reins of his horse as he walked beside me, the century of legionaries marching in step behind us.

  ‘I hope you live to enjoy what I assume to be the handsome amount you are being paid by Octavian, general.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, majesty, I’m doing just fine.’

  ‘I would advise parting company with Atrax as soon as possible. He will suffer a bad end, like others of his family.’

  ‘He’s an uncouth little bastard, I agree. But I have been paid a princely sum for this job and I always honour a contract, majesty. Once Atrax is sitting on his throne, I and the soldiers of King Polemon will be off.’

  We left the camp and headed towards the city’s northern gates, now flying a dragon banner, though it hung limp in the still air. He looked around at the lush landscape, islands of green orchards and vineyards in a sea of bronze ripening crops, probably never to be harvested.

  ‘When I first came to Parthia with Mark Antony and another hundred thousand Romans, I thought it was an uncivilised land filled with barbarians. We were unceremoniously chased out of Parthia after failing to take Phraaspa, you yourself commanding the army that did so. I returned with Mark Antony when the triumvir made an alliance with Media, though it is more accurate to say it was your sister who pulled the strings of that little arrangement.

  ‘Have to admit by that time Parthia had grown on me, strange to say, not least because it stands on an equal footing with Rome. No other power has ever achieved that.’

  He fell silent when we reached the street lined with the crucified civilians, all of them now mercifully dead, their torments at and end, or at least I could see none moving. The birds that always came to feast on living and dead flesh scattered on our arrival, the big black ravens with cruel beaks ideally suited to ripping at flesh landing on the roofs of buildings a short distance away. They would return at the first opportunity for such a lavish banquet was too tempting to resist. I refrained from staring at eye sockets pecked clean, distended purple tongues and smashed bones protruding from flesh. It was a scene of horror and I cursed Atrax for creating it.

  We arrived at my designated execution site: the open space near the foot of the ramp cut in the southern side of the stone mound on which the citadel stood. Above us a sea of faces stared down from the walls at the scene below, above them the sun shining in a clear blue sky. On the ground, a safe distance from the base of the mound to ensure he was not struck by arrows shot from the citadel, was Atrax. He was surrounded by a coterie of Median lords and Laodice and flanked by at least fifty horse archers. He sat on his horse gleefully watching me walk towards the cross laid on the ground. Behind him a century of Pontic legionaries stood in open order and were joined by the century that had acted as my escort, leaving me along with Tullus and three of his men, one holding a hammer and a bag of nails. The other two carried rope to fasten my arms to the crossbeam once my wrists had been nailed to the wood.

  ‘General Tullus,’ called Atrax, ‘your place is beside me.’

  The Roman was going to say something but merely nodded to me, turned and walked over to his new lord, a slave holding the general’s horse. As he gained the saddle Atrax nudged his horse with his knees, which walked forward to within ten paces of where I stood.

  ‘Your time has come, slave king,’ he said. ‘You friends have abandoned you and now justice will be served on you for the many crimes you have committed against my family and Media. Proceed.’

  He turned his horse to retake his place among his traitorous lords and mercenary allies, half a dozen trumpeters among the horse archers sounding a fanfare to herald the commencement of my punishment. The soldier holding the hammer gave me an evil leer and licked his lips, relishing the prospect of inflicting pain and torment on another person.

  Before collapsing into my arms.

  His two companions stood with mouths open, staring in disbelief at the arrow lodged in his back, before grimacing in pain when arrows struck them. They collapsed on the ground as more arrows hissed through the air to cut down horse archers on either side of Atrax. I threw the dead soldier aside and instinctively threw myself on the ground, looking up to see a line of archers nocking arrows and shooting them at the horsemen, or rather their horses. Who in the name of the gods were they? I saw perhaps thirty or forty, but though their arrows had wreaked havoc among the enemy horse archers, two hundred Pontic legionaries were now deploying to swat them away like flies. Only to halt as they and the horsemen with Atrax were blinded by a blaze of bright light.

  It was as if a hundred suns had suddenly appeared above. The effect was to shine dazzling light into the faces of the two hundred foots soldiers, as well as cause further mayhem
among the horsemen around Atrax. Wounded horses bolted hither and thither, their riders more concerned with trying to control their beasts than engaging the line of phantom archers that had wrecked their prince’s execution of the King of Dura. The latter was completely forgotten in the excitement.

  The archers suddenly rushed forward to flank me.

  ‘Stay down, majesty, are you hurt?’

  ‘No.’

  The archer reached into his quiver and shot an arrow, his comrades flanking him doing the same to shower the enemy with missiles and scatter the horsemen. The Pontic legionaries had halted in some disorder, centurions trying to restore ranks as they and their men were dazzled from above. I saw the commander of my rescue party smile to himself and then heard whistles and shouts, all coming from above. Still lying on the ground to avoid any arrows shot in my direction, I looked behind to see Titus Tullus grabbing the reins of Atrax’s horse to lead him away, those of his horse archers still in the saddle also wheeling about.

  ‘Kill Atrax!’ I shouted.

  Those around me directed their arrows at the fleeing prince but he was no fool and crouched low in the saddle to make himself a smaller target, and in any case his horse archers shielded him, at least three being hit and knocked from their saddles by arrows. The two centuries of Pontic legionaries had stopped advancing to turn left to follow the horsemen, marching in quick time to flee the area. I jumped up when I saw soldiers pouring from the gates of the citadel and race down the ramp.

  I punched the air when I recognised Akmon’s palace guard flooding down the ramp, behind them Bullus and his century of Durans. Behind them rode Akmon, his cataphracts and horse archers, and Gallia’s Amazons. It suddenly became dimmer, or at least not as glaringly bright, and I looked up to see the hundred suns had disappeared. The archers around me were still shooting, their arrows striking the locked shields of the Pontic soldiers who executed a splendid forced withdrawal while being shot at.

  Atrax had disappeared down the street lined with crucified civilians but Akmon’s horsemen were prevented from pursuing them by the appearance of more Pontic legionaries who had been deployed in the streets and buildings around the citadel but had been alerted by the commotion around the ramp. Their commander having deserted them along with their prince, they were unsure what action to take but the officers in charge instantly recognised the uniforms of their enemies and decided to block the street leading to the northern gates, the only route into and out of the city.