Empire of Dragons

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Domitius bit his lip, as he was wont to do to control his outbursts of temper, then said: ‘I am sure the boy will be treated as he deserves to be. But I want you to keep in mind what I’m about to tell you. If anything happens to him, anything at all – if he falls on the stairs or has an accident while playing, or swimming, or if he should fall ill, or even get a stomach ache from eating too much – I will hold you personally responsible and I will hunt you down and demand an explanation, wherever you may be.’

  ‘Do you dare to threaten me?’ shouted Gallienus. ‘Do you dare to impose conditions on your emperor?’

  ‘My emperor is a prisoner of the Persians and I am sure that you will ensure his return as soon as possible, that you will pay any sum for his ransom, as you yourself declared and solemnly promised. But if I don’t see Valerian coming back with his escort in a reasonable amount of time, I will hold you responsible for this also. Farewell.’

  He gave Gallienus no time to react, but turned on his heel and walked away between the lines of praetorians, holding his helmet under his left arm and his right hand on the hilt of his sword, as always.

  He left with his legion the next day amid the blaring of trumpets and the waving of standards, setting off down the road for Caesarea, and then on to Ancyra and Byzantium, heading for Sirmium, where the general headquarters of the Danubian army was, under the command of Publius Festus, a fine officer and brave soldier.

  Gallienus and Silva breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the rearguard of the Tenth Gemina disappearing round a bend, headed north. They left three regiments of the Second Augusta in Edessa and returned to Antioch with Metellus’s son.

  It was not easy to drag him away. He yelled that his father had promised to return and that he would wait for him; he wanted to be home when his father got back.

  One of Gallienus’s servants grabbed him by the arm and said, ‘Your father is never coming back. He’s surely dead by now.’

  Titus bit his hand and tried to run away, but he was caught and dragged off as he screamed, kicked and cried.

  From Antioch they sailed in midsummer to Ravenna and then Milan, where Gallienus established his residence.

  Titus was handed over to the palace master, who was in charge of educating him, but the little boy was completely unmanageable. He refused to eat and would see no one. He hid under his bed so as not to be found and tried continually to escape his prison, so that they finally had to post a guard to keep a watchful eye on him.

  Gallienus, already absorbed in affairs of state, was nonetheless worried about the boy, who was rapidly wasting away. He remembered the words of Lucius Domitius Aurelian well, and knew that Sword-in-Hand never made empty threats. He had the child’s pedagogue – a shrewish and authoritative old man – replaced by a fifteen-year-old slavegirl.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Titus as soon as he saw her.

  ‘I’m the person who’s been assigned to serve you. My name is Tillia.’

  ‘I don’t need anyone. Go away.’

  ‘It’s me who needs you.’

  Titus eyed her suspiciously.

  ‘I’d like to convince you to eat something.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Your appetite will pick up if you eat.’

  ‘I’m not hungry, I said.’

  ‘If I don’t convince you to eat, they’ll beat me. The palace master is an old son of a bitch.’

  ‘You got that right.’

  ‘And he likes hurting people.’

  ‘I’ll bet he does.’

  Tillia came close and sat down beside him. ‘I’ve brought you a cup of hot broth. I made it myself. You’ll like it.’

  Titus said nothing.

  ‘If you don’t eat, you’ll die. And when your father comes back, he’ll die of heartache. Is that what you want?’

  ‘They told me that my father’s already dead.’

  ‘They lied.’

  Titus lit up and opened his mouth to ask how she could say such a thing, and Tillia took the opportunity to spoon in a bit of broth.

  ‘How is it?’ she asked.

  The little boy replied with a question: ‘Why do you think they lied to me? I mean, about my father dying? And what do you know anyway? You’re only a slave.’

  Tillia gave him another spoonful of broth, taking advantage of the breach she’d managed to open in his defences, and answered, ‘Because your father is Commander Aquila. He’s a living legend. Everyone talks about him. And everyone says he’s been captured by the Persians, along with Emperor Valerian. His body was never found, although they did find the bodies of plenty of men who died that day in Edessa.’

  ‘Were you there too?’ asked Titus.

  ‘No. I came later, with Gallienus’s retinue, along with the cooks and the stewards accompanying the court. But it happened shortly before I arrived, and there were still soldiers going out to retrieve the bodies once the Persians had gone.’

  ‘Well, what difference does it make? If my father is a prisoner and a slave I’ll never see him again anyway.’

  ‘No, that’s not true. Gallienus has promised that he’ll pay the Persians a ransom to free the emperor. If the emperor is freed, he’ll surely come back with your father and the others who were captured with him.’

  ‘And when will this happen?’

  ‘Soon, very soon, I think. Surely they’re already negotiating.’

  ‘What if they don’t agree?’

  ‘People in power always find a way to agree.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. It’s funny . . . you sure know a lot of things for a slave.’

  ‘That’s normal. Slaves are not considered people and everyone speaks freely around us, as if we were statues, or pieces of furniture. Now, all you have to do is get your strength back, so that the day your father returns you’ll be able to give him a big hug.’

  Titus finished the broth and then, after Tillia had gone, went to the window and leaned his chin on the sill. He could see the busy scurrying of servants and soldiers in the courtyard below, which reminded him of the fortress at Edessa and the training palaestra where he had often watched his father practising with his sword and javelin. He remembered the caravans that would come from Dura and Damascus, from Palmyra and Thapsacus, from Nisibi and Ctesiphon: the gaily coloured fabrics, the engraved weapons, the glass and the gems, the decorated ostrich eggs, the peacock feathers, the exotic animals. He was homesick for Edessa and homesick for his parents – for his mother, whom he would never see again, and for his father, the hero he admired more than any human being he had ever met. He hoped deep in his heart that he was still alive and tried to imagine where he might be at that very moment; if he was hungry or cold, if his jailers were humiliating him. He watched as the sky darkened in the east and tried to calculate the distance that separated them, then he closed his eyes and tried to picture him, sitting under a palm tree maybe, or perhaps marching through immense faraway lands behind swaying camels. He sharpened all his little-boy senses to try to hear his thoughts and feel the affection he so badly needed.

  MILAN WAS HUMID and hazy, always covered by a shroud of fog that only rarely opened to allow a glimpse of the Alpine peaks in the distance. When Titus was allowed to go out with one of his tutors or guardians, he never found anything that really interested him, except for the pedlars’ stalls in the forum on market days.

  As time passed, Tillia became his only friend, but she was just with him when he was inside the palace. Outside he was always accompanied by men and always closely watched.

  One day, while he was in the garden with Tillia, he asked, ‘What is a hostage?’

  Tillia looked at him in surprise. ‘Where did you hear that word?’

  ‘One of my guardians used it, while talking to my tutor.’

  ‘But they weren’t talking about you.’

  ‘Oh yes, they were, I think. Why? Is it a bad word?’

  ‘No, not so bad. It means a special guest. A guest who’s treated well, but who can’t go o
ff whenever he likes.’

  ‘Then it was me.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. But it could be worse, believe me.’

  ‘Maybe. But I still really miss my parents. When do you think I’ll see my father again?’

  Tillia looked into his eyes. There was an intensity of feeling in them she had rarely seen in her whole life, a hope so strong that to disappoint him would be cruel and to deceive him, vile. She answered, ‘It’s hard to say. We don’t know where Emperor Valerian and his guard are being held prisoner. We don’t know how far away they’ve been taken, or how negotiations are proceeding. I’d say that we could reasonably expect from six months to a year.’

  ‘So long?’ asked Titus.

  ‘Time goes quickly, little one. If my predictions come true, we’ll be very lucky.’

  ‘But things might still go badly, mightn’t they?’

  Tillia touched his cheek. ‘Ill fortune does exist, I’m afraid. Look at me. I was born a slave and I’ve never met my parents. Still, I can’t tell you how much I miss them, how much I want them. Not a day or night goes by that I don’t try to imagine how they look, their voices, even only their names.’ As she spoke, she saw the little boy’s eyes misting and his whole face take on an expression of distress. She felt bad at the mere thought of what was going through his head and tried to find the words to encourage him. ‘But we must trust in the gods and in the virtues of men. Your father is a great man and so is the emperor, I’m told. Great men always take paths that ordinary men don’t think of. And you know what else? Good thoughts bring good luck. Isn’t there something that your father did, or something he said, that you can take as a good omen? You know what I mean?’

  The child drew a long sigh and was quiet for a while. Then he said: ‘Yes, there is something.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘That morning my father said he’d be back before nightfall.’

  ‘That’s a beautiful promise.’

  ‘But he didn’t keep it.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. It wasn’t his fault. It’s what you hope that counts, believe me.’

  She took him by the hand and brought him inside the palace, where his tutor awaited him for his usual grammar lesson.

  LUCIUS DOMITIUS AURELIAN reached Sirmium, in Pannonia, towards the end of August and he and his legion took up quarters in the vast camp built on the right bank of the Danube.

  Publius Festus, commander of the Danubian army, greeted him with great cordiality. ‘I would never have even hoped to receive such reinforcements. One of the best commanders of the empire! With a legion that’s never been beaten: the Tenth Gemina. I thank whoever had such a marvellous idea.’

  ‘It was Gallienus, on the advice of Cassius Silva.’

  ‘You don’t seem happy about it. Antioch would have been much better, I imagine, or Alexandria, but you’ll get used to it here. Although you won’t find many distractions. A game of dice with some centurion when you’re lucky.’

  ‘I don’t gamble,’ replied Domitius.

  ‘Right. So I’ve heard. Sword-in-Hand is an absolutely upstanding officer. The old-fashioned kind. As you see, your fame has preceded you . . . At any rate, the women are beautiful out this way and like a good tumble.’

  ‘Women are not the issue. When do we attack?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I asked you when we attack. I’d like to get this over and done with and go back to my base in Edessa. There’s much I have to do there.’

  Festus was appalled. ‘Legate, I don’t think you understand what’s going on here. Beyond the river are more than seventy thousand barbarians armed to the teeth and well accustomed to fighting on an endless plain on their untiring horses. We’re lucky that they haven’t crossed over and attacked our positions en masse. We have three legions in all – including yours – and if we had to fight on the open field we’d have no hope.’

  ‘I’m not saying we should send all our forces out at once. I’d like to ask you to let me resolve the situation. Me and my legion.’

  Festus shook his head incredulously. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it! It would be total suicide, and I will need you and your men if those barbarians ever do attack.’

  ‘So, then, what should I do, just sit here and wait?’

  ‘Wait, Legate, wait. And hope they don’t cross over to this side.’

  Lucius Domitius fixed his commander in the eye. ‘I’ve never waited for anything my whole life,’ he said. Then he got up, nodded briefly and left.

  4

  THE AUS DAIWA MINE was located in an isolated spot on the upland plains, in a completely barren area beaten by a ceaseless wind that never died down before dusk. A well, a couple of shacks for the miners, a mud-brick building for the guards and the armoury were the only structures apparent at first. Until one saw the gigantic mortar for crushing the minerals at the centre of a wide, open square. It was operated by a winch that pulled a rope held taut by a large pulley. The winch was driven by half a dozen bars, each of which was pushed by four men. When the hammer was raised to the highest point on the frame, the pin that locked the winch wheel in place was extracted, the outer wheel was released and turned backwards and the hammer fell hard on the rocks piled up at the base, crushing them. Then the winch was cranked up again, sighing, for another Sisyphean round.

  The kitchen was a simple open fire where the troops’ food was prepared.

  As soon as the caravan of prisoners from Edessa arrived, a jailer greeted them with shoves and kicks, lining them up in front of the shacks. His long lecture in Persian was translated line by line by another prisoner: a bony, toothless old man who said his name was Uxal.

  ‘This is the place where you will die. It doesn’t matter when, but it will be here. No one has ever managed to escape from this place: the closest village, as you will have seen as you arrived, is three days’ journey away. The next is seven.

  ‘If anyone is tempted to escape, he should know that he will be chased and recaptured within a few hours, and impaled in the middle of the square. Our executioner is highly skilled. He can insert a stake in a man’s body and run it through from one end to the other without piercing a vital organ, so that he will live for days.

  ‘Rebellion – any type of rebellion – will receive the same kind of treatment. Simple disobedience or the failure to produce the quantity of mineral required of each one of you will be punished with ten lashes or with three days at the stake with no food and no water. The quantity of rough stones to be produced each day is fifty pounds. At night you will be shackled. By day your chains will be removed so you can work better. The straw in the huts will be changed once a month. When one of you dies, the rest of you must throw the carcass into that crevasse over there.

  ‘This is all you need to know.’

  When he had finished speaking, the jailer opened one of the shacks and Uxal accompanied the new arrivals inside: twenty-three men in all, including the twelve Romans.

  The old man pointed out their straw pallets and fixed a shackle with a ring to one of each man’s ankles. He attached a chain secured to the floor with another ring and a padlock. Uxal fettered himself as well and handed the key over to the jailer, who went out and closed the door behind him.

  Uxal gestured for everyone to keep silent until the jailer’s steps faded into the distance, then spoke softly. ‘Now you can talk, but they mustn’t hear you outside. If they hear us, they’ll punish us, and I can assure you that that’s no laughing matter. Your lives are worth nothing here.’

  ‘How do you know our language?’ asked Metellus, who was near him.

  ‘As a boy I spent ten years in the service of a Roman merchant of precious stones who had a warehouse at Buprasium, in the gulf.’

  ‘How did you end up here?’

  ‘The merchant sold me to a Persian nobleman to pay off his debts, even though I was a free man! I could not stand being a slave and I tried to flee, and this is where they brought me.’

  ‘That means you can survive a long time here
,’ observed Lucianus. ‘You’re an old man.’

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ said Uxal. ‘I’m alive because they need me. I’m good at handling the turquoise. If nothing else, that son of a bitch who sold me taught me something that’s helped me to survive, if you can consider this living.

  ‘Now, let me explain a few things. Let’s start with the food: the miners eat only dry beans and fish meal, which is distributed once a day in the morning. For dinner there’s a bowl of murky soup with a revolting taste, whose ingredients I’ve never been able to guess. All the better, probably. Water is rationed because there’s very little of it. Don’t drink much during the day, when you’re sweating a lot. Drink in the evening, when it’s cooler, so your body can use it all. Sometimes the food never gets here because there’s been a sandstorm or for other reasons I’m unaware of. When this happens, the jailers eat and we don’t. Cockroaches can help you survive, and so can mice. I roast them on the coals from the forge and, let me tell you, they’re not at all bad. Otherwise you can eat them raw. You get used to it.

  ‘As far as your attitude: forget you are a man, forget you have a name, a country you come from, a family. Forget you have any honour or personal pride, or you’ll be dead before you know it. Never react to provocations, don’t ever look a jailer in the eye, don’t help a comrade who is ill. Any kind of group solidarity is seen as a threat, as a possible conspiracy.

  ‘These people, who watch us and punish us for nothing at all, often do so only because if something happens their punishment would be as bad as ours, or worse. The Persians have incredible imaginations when it comes to torture . . .’

  ‘I know,’ said Metellus. ‘I’ve read Ctesia’s Persian Memories.’