Empire of Dragons

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘I . . . don’t understand . . . weren’t you told that Valerian had died?’

  Shapur tried to contain his rage and turned to a man whose presence Artabanus had just noticed. The king motioned for him to speak.

  The man stepped forward from the shadows and explained. ‘Yes, Valerian died, but there were ten men with him who have disappeared. A cavalry unit entered the camp, alerted by the strange silence that reigned there. They found most of the prisoners locked up together in the same shack, but the ten Romans were missing, and their weapons are missing from the armoury. We’ve searched for them everywhere, but haven’t found the slightest trace. An old convict who had been in the camp such a long time that he acted as an assistant to the guards has also disappeared.’

  Artabanus drew closer. ‘What about the armed guards?’

  ‘Dead. Killed.’

  ‘The prisoners somehow managed to get hold of their weapons, killed the camp guards and escaped. Where is the mystery?’ asked Artabanus.

  ‘There were more than thirty guards, well armed and well fed, and there were only ten of them, prostrated by forced labour and malnutrition. They don’t even look like human beings any more when they’ve been in the camp that long. What’s more, the outskirts of the camp are garrisoned by over three hundred men on horseback who control every way out. And not one of them saw a single thing.’

  ‘I don’t believe in miracles,’ said Artabanus. ‘They must have gone somewhere and they’d better be found, or the man in charge of the camp will pay the consequences.’

  ‘The guard in charge of the camp was killed,’ explained the messenger, ‘but the head of the external garrison has launched an exhaustive search. He’s requested reinforcements from the closest units and is combing the area inch by inch. Most of the land is barren and deserted. There’s no place they can hide. We’re sure to find them, My Lord. Our commander says that he’s certain the hunt will be successful. In any case, he wants our lord the king to know that he is not responsible for their escape. The chief guard was to blame for having underestimated the Romans’ resolve and he’s paid for that with his life.

  ‘It is very probable, My Lord, that at this stage they have already been captured. I left Aus Daiwa ten days ago, as soon as we realized the Romans had escaped. I would not be surprised if another messenger arrived very shortly to tell you that the runaways have been caught.’

  Shapur, livid with anger, said nothing: an evident sign that the vizier was expected to take care of the inconvenient matter.

  Artabanus gestured for the messenger to follow him. ‘Our lord and sovereign has been sufficiently disturbed by your impudence. Come with me and we shall try to make sense of this heap of nonsense.’

  But the messenger was reluctant to move.

  Shapur ordered him to come closer. ‘What more is there? Don’t make me lose my patience!’

  ‘My Lord, I must give you more bad news. The guest with the piercing eyes has also escaped.’

  ‘What?’

  The messenger replied, trembling, ‘At nearly the same time. He had asked to visit a Zoroastrian monastery and was accompanied there by our men, but then somehow he managed to slip out of their sight. The priests had no idea of where he was and when the guards realized he had disappeared it was too late. We have alerted all of our garrisons, from here to the Ocean. He doesn’t stand a chance.’

  Shapur seemingly no longer had the energy to lose his temper. He gestured for the messenger to shut his mouth and called Artabanus. ‘Send a group of couriers as soon as possible to warn our friend to be on guard. He must be told that our guest has fled, and may reappear when he least expects it. Inform him that there was surely a conspiracy involved in his escape, and that he should watch his back. Ensure him of our utmost support in searching for the fugitive, who will be captured as soon as possible, and so on and so on. We cannot afford to lose his friendship. It is with him and with his government that our most important commercial agreements are to be forged in the coming years.’

  ‘Have no fear, My Lord, your message will arrive before any other.’

  ‘I’m counting on you,’ replied the king. ‘You are the only one I can trust. How is the work at Persepolis proceeding?’

  ‘Very well, Majesty, the work is almost finished. And what a wonder it is! An enormous bas-relief showing Valerian on his knees begging for mercy in front of Your Majesty on horseback, in the splendour of your glory. The inscription celebrates your deeds in Persian, Parthian and Greek.’

  ‘Excellent. Go now, there’s no time to lose.’

  Artabanus bent low in a deep bow, took the messenger’s arm and went out into the corridor.

  As soon as they had left the audience chamber, he pushed him roughly up against the wall and hissed, ‘The truth, if you want to leave this palace alive.’

  The man lowered his eyes and said, ‘I left after two days of incessant searching within a range of seven parasangs from the Aus Daiwa camp.’

  ‘Seven parasangs? They couldn’t have covered that much land in two days, given the condition they were in.’

  ‘Several patrols went out even further, but they found no one, not a trace, not a sign.’

  ‘They vanished into thin air, then, as the king was saying.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Excellency. We turned over every stone and searched every caravan within a range of seven parasangs and we found no one. The men on the second ring of guard towers never left their posts and yet they didn’t see a living soul go by.’

  The vizier took his hands off the man and ordered him to follow him to his private study. ‘If they didn’t find them far away, they must look for them closer, understand?’

  ‘What do you mean to say, Excellency? We inspected the camp inside and out.’

  ‘Were the other prisoners interrogated?’

  ‘Yes. They said that the Romans locked them up in a shack and that they had no idea where they were headed.’

  ‘Now, listen to me well, if you don’t want to end up impaled. Go back to the camp and have all of the sheds, the mine tunnels and the guard routes searched thoroughly. They cannot have disappeared. They may be hidden very close by, waiting until you stop looking before they start moving. Find them and bring them here, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Excellency.’

  ‘And get news to me about the guest with the piercing eyes as soon as you manage to locate him. I have to account for him as well.’

  ‘Very well, Excellency.’

  ‘Leave immediately and send me good news as soon as possible, about both one and the other.’

  ‘I will do so, Excellency,’ babbled the messenger, white as a sheet.

  ‘Move, then. You don’t have a moment to lose.’

  The man went off in great haste. Artabanus, back on the balcony of his private apartments, saw him gallop out of the southern gate of the palace and disappear in a cloud of dust.

  The vizier immediately summoned the man in charge of the courier service and handed him a message that would have to travel as fast as the wind.

  8

  METELLUS WAITED FOR his comrades to return with the supplies and for darkness to descend to the bottom of the gully before he widened the hole in the mine wall and finally emerged.

  He raised his eyes and saw the sky teeming with stars. He saw the Milky Way crossing his narrow field of vision between the two walls of the deep gully like a bridge of light and he felt tears surge up and wet his cheeks and his breath swelled in his chest like the first breath of his existence, as if he had been born a second time.

  He bent down and sank his hands into the dry sand and the pebbles smoothed by the water and the wind of countless seasons. He breathed in the fragrance of a horse-mint bush and brushed the blossoms of a hard little broom plant growing out of the wall. He had the marvellous sensation of seeing and touching the world for the first time.

  The suffering of these dreadful years, the loss of his wife, the separation from his son, the death
of his comrades and of the emperor: everything seemed to fade away in the sweet air of freedom. He realized that his life had been given back to him, and that he would do anything to defend it. He felt strength and invincible power: he was sure deep down that he could face any trial in life after such a miracle. He felt that he would be able to bend events to his will by means of a new and indestructible determination.

  He did not find the stink of death that he had expected, because omnipotent and ever-changing nature had already dissolved the corpses, transferring their substance into other substances, into other ways of being: wild animals, the sun, the wind, the dust . . . In the distance he could see, in the reflected glimmer of the limestone walls, the gleaming white of scattered bones. The bones of so many unlucky wretches, the bones of his companions who had come to die in a distant and desolate land.

  Those first instants of regained freedom were so intense that Metellus lost his sense of time and when Quadratus’s hand landed on his shoulder he felt as if he was waking from a dream.

  ‘Commander . . .’

  He turned to look at his men: they were hairy, emaciated and bore the signs of their inhuman imprisonment on their bodies and souls, and yet a magical light shone in their eyes, a mad light, capable of piercing the black of night. The light of victory over death, over darkness, over desperation.

  He embraced them one by one, stared into their eyes burning with emotion and tears, and with every embrace the clanging of breastplates sounded, iron against iron. The embrace of diehard soldiers, ready again for anything, for they had endured it all.

  But in that same instant Metellus realized that basking even for a short time in that indescribable joy could mean the end of everything they had achieved. ‘Now we have to mask the breach we’ve opened in the sandstone wall. You, Publius, you’re the thinnest of us. You go back inside and wall up the opening, leaving only just enough room for you to get out. We’ll do the rest from the outside. But let’s eat first, and drink. We need to get our strength back.’

  ‘Slowly,’ said Martianus. ‘We’re no longer accustomed to eating our fill. It may be dangerous to load up our stomachs. Once in Pannonia we freed a prisoner who had lived on nothing but raw turnips for three months. He gobbled down a big chunk of bread with salted pork, and before we knew it he was dead. Be sure to chew every bite to a pulp before you swallow it. Drink in small sips. As soon as you feel satiated, stop. You’ll eat less food, more often. If you listen to me, you’ll save your skins and build up strength. If you go into a feeding frenzy, you’ll die.’

  Uxal handed out the supplies that he’d taken from camp: barley bread, pulses, walnuts. And water.

  Publius went to work immediately to camouflage the breach and then completed the job from outside with extraordinary skill, continuing to smooth the inner surface with clay for as long as he could get his arm through the hole. He then closed it up with a stone of perfect size. He had been part of the murarii for many years and their legendary skill in masonry had remained with him.

  At that point they held council. Metellus questioned Uxal, the only one of them who had any knowledge of their surroundings. ‘We owe our freedom to you, Uxal, and now our fate still lies in your hands. What can we do? What direction should we take?’

  Uxal answered with a certain emphasis, conscious of the role he was assuming. ‘My advice is to stay put where we are.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Exactly what I said. They’re going to unleash every single man they have to hunt us down in every corner, track or trail. They’ll ransack every caravan and every caravanserai for miles in every direction. When they finally get it in their heads that they aren’t going to find anything searching far and wide, they’ll come back to search the vicinity, but they won’t think of looking for us underground, and even if they do, they won’t find anything. At that point, we’ll make our move and we’ll get as far away as possible. Need I say more?’

  ‘No, that’s perfectly clear,’ admitted Metellus. ‘But will it work?’

  ‘Do we have a choice?’

  ‘No, I’d say not.’

  ‘This place is as safe as we can get because it’s contaminated for them and they have a sacred fear of it. It will also give us a chance to recuperate and get into shape for a long march.’

  ‘What about our weapons?’ asked Balbus. ‘What will we do with them?’

  ‘My first impulse is to say hide them, leave them here, but that’s not necessarily the best choice. A group of armed men commands respect, and having weapons puts you in a position to negotiate or to enforce your will. You can even decide to hire yourselves out as escorts or guards. If the situation is favourable, that is.’

  ‘I don’t see us meeting up with any favourable situations for at least a ten-mile range,’ commented Antoninus. ‘But our armour can be disassembled into segments, and the coats of mail don’t take up much space. We’ll have to leave the shields behind. They’re just too bulky.’

  ‘We’ll do that, then,’ said Balbus, ‘if everyone agrees.’

  ‘When we’re ready to start our march,’ continued Uxal, ‘we’ll need some pack animals. Not too far from here there’s a pool of water that never dries up, and there’s a group of wild asses that go there to drink. I’d see them often from up on high when I came out to dump the waste. We could make a trap. They would be a good means of transport for us and a way to carry our supplies and the weapons.’

  Metellus turned to Septimius and Lucianus. ‘You were good hunters, as I recall. Find some way to build a few traps so we can catch these asses.’

  The two men nodded.

  ‘We’ll just have to keep them tied up for a few days and feed them with the forage that grows around here. They’ll follow us like lambs. We’ll be able to make ropes by braiding the fibres of this plant that grows between the rocks,’ suggested Uxal.

  Metellus looked over at Antoninus: he was the right man for the job, an engineer from the fabri corps. He gave a nod.

  ‘What then?’ asked Metellus.

  ‘We’ll travel down the gorge,’ said Uxal, ‘until we find water, and we’ll continue until this dry gully turns into a stream and then a torrent. We’ll go on until we find a confluence. It won’t be an easy march, but at least we’ll be out of sight and we’ll be using an itinerary that the scouts on horseback won’t be able to follow. If I’m not mistaken, west of here flows the Khaboras, which has its source at a beautiful oasis where it will be much easier either to lie low or to find a way out, acting as an armed escort for a caravan, for instance. Those caravans go everywhere, all the way to the heart of Asia. At a day’s march from the oasis, we’ll be able to board a ship on the river and reach the shore of the Ocean. There, I’d say, we’ll finally be safe and each of us can go his own way.’

  ‘How can we repay you?’ asked Metellus.

  ‘You already have. As I speak I’m a free man, I’m breathing in this splendid evening air and I’m surrounded by friends. Even if this were my last night on earth, it would have been worth it. But you can take your time thanking me. Lots of things can happen between here and the Ocean shore.’

  ‘True,’ replied Quadratus, ‘but you’re right about one thing: it will have been worth it. I’ve only just realized that dying as a free man is just as important as living.’

  ‘Remember,’ Uxal started up again, ‘we’ll be doing all this by night. There mustn’t be any trace of our passage the next day or they’ll track us down in no time. If they were to find us, we’d have no choice but to seek death. If that should ever happen, you must promise me that the first blow of your swords will be for me. If they catch me alive, there’ll be no end to my suffering.’

  Metellus held out his hand. ‘You have the word of a Roman officer,’ he said. ‘It’s worth more than an oath.’

  ‘Good. And now let’s look for shelter for when the sun comes up. Two of you go up the gully, another two go down. The first to find adequate shelter will come back to tell the others. Don’t make a
sound; don’t so much as breathe! If they find us, we’re dead.’

  Metellus sent Quadratus and Antoninus downstream, Balbus and Septimius in the opposite direction.

  It was Septimius who first found a cavity behind a rocky spur, well hidden by a slab of limestone. ‘When I was a boy,’ he said, ‘I’d spend the summers up at my uncle’s house in the mountains. I’d love searching for caves. I wouldn’t miss a single one! Come on. This one’s nice and big.’

  His comrades followed him as silently as shadows and slipped into the crevice that let them into the cavern. There was dry sand on the floor and they all lay down, exhausted by the prolonged tension, the physical strain and the violent emotions of that long day. Metellus was first to stand guard, flanked by Uxal, who didn’t want to leave him alone.

  ‘You don’t trust me?’ asked Metellus, amused. ‘Do you know how many hours I spent on guard duty in the legion?’

  ‘In the legion you were healthy, well fed and strong as an ox. Now you’re a real wreck, and you desperately need to sleep. You’d be nodding off in less than an hour if I left you alone.’

  ‘And you won’t nod off?’

  ‘Old men don’t sleep much. And we like to talk . . . It’s a lovely night, Commander Aquila. That’s your family name, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, you don’t say! The name of a true soldier, by Jupiter! What else could you have become with a name like that?’

  ‘We say nomen est omen: your destiny is written in your name.’

  Uxal changed the subject and looked back up into the sky. ‘Look at all those stars . . . what a wondrous sight! And to think it’s the same sky we had over our heads in camp.’

  ‘Right, but who ever saw it? When we came up from the mines, we were so exhausted that we’d collapse as soon as we finished that vile soup.’

  Uxal pointed at a skeleton stretched out a short distance away between two boulders. ‘Who could that be?’

  ‘What does it matter? One of the many who died in that inferno.’