by Peter Darman
The saved horse archer, utter relief across his face, raised a hand to Klietas in thanks. The former squire smiled back, only for his expression to change to one of horror when a bearded brute wearing leather armour swung his sword and severed the archer’s head with a single blow. A fountain of blood shot from the headless corpse, joined by another effusion of blood when Yasmina’s arrow pierced the hill man’s groin. He yelped in pain, fell to his knees clutching his skewered genitals and died when Azar put another arrow into him.
‘Protect the king.’
They heard the shouts of Akmon’s bodyguard, which had formed a ring around the ruler of Media, facing outwards with shields in front and swords in hand. The initial attack had killed and wounded dozens of horse archers, their squires and a few cataphracts. But the latter were the cream of Media and they did not buckle under the onslaught, much less against men poorly armed and equipped. Men armed only with axes, spears or even clubs soon came to grief against soldiers skilled in the use of sword, mace and axe and protected by scale armour, helmets and shields. And the return of the horse archers earlier despatched to reconnoitre ahead and on the flanks assisted the Medians. Like Talib and his group, they too halted at the edge of the village and began shooting at the swirling mass of hill men between the huts, arrow after arrow striking torsos wearing no armour. Until there were just a few hill men left.
‘Cease shooting.’
Akmon, bare headed, his long face streaked with sweat, in his right hand his father’s sword, pushed his way through his bodyguard to order the returning horse archers to lower their bows. He did so because the last group of hill men, or at least those not fleeing across the meadow towards the trees, stood in the centre of the carnage in a tight circle, at its centre a tall man with wild hair: Laodice. There were perhaps a dozen of them, all wearing armour of some sort and armed with swords, indicating they were chiefs. Their weapons were decorated with Median blood, though their tunics and leggings were also stained with their own blood.
Akmon pointed his sword at Laodice.
‘Throw down your weapons.’
Laodice walked forward to face the King of Media across a carpet of dead.
‘You are going to kill me, anyway, so shove your demand up your arse. I spit on you, your family…’
The arrow went into his neck, the point and half the shaft exiting the rear of his windpipe. Laodice said nothing further before toppling forward to fall flat on his face on a dead horse archer. An enraged Akmon turned to discover who had disregarded his order, to see a grinning Azar with an empty bow. Yasmina squealed with delight and shot one of the chiefs for good measure, the arrow going into his right eye socket, killing him instantly. The chiefs, outraged their leader had been killed, charged at the teenagers, but the arrows of Talib, Minu, Klietas and Haya prevented them getting even close. Dura’s professionals did not miss from such close range. Minu smiled with satisfaction; another of the queen’s enemies was dead.
Less pleased was Akmon and the young lords of his bodyguard, one of which paced over to Azar and grabbed her arm.
‘You dare disobey the king.’
She lashed out with her boot to kick him in the jaw and send him tumbling to the ground. He leapt up, drew his sword and was about to thrust the point through her belly, but thought better of it when he saw the loaded bows of Minu, Haya, Yasmina and Klietas pointed at him.
Everyone forgot about the dead Laodice as Akmon walked slowly to put himself between his young lord and the Durans.
‘Lower your bows,’ commanded Talib, glancing at Bullus who had jumped down from his horse and drawn his sword. ‘And put that away.’
‘I demand justice, sire,’ said the lord.
‘And you shall have it,’ promised Akmon. ‘Put away your sword.’
The groans of the wounded were the only sounds as the young lord, his eyes full of rage, slowly sheathed his sword, Azar curling a lip at him as he did so.
‘You will be flogged,’ Akmon told her, wiping the sneer off her face.
Minu jumped down from her horse and walked slowly over to Akmon.
‘I beg for mercy, majesty,’ she said in a hushed tone so no one else would hear. ‘Her transgression was committed in the heat of the moment.
‘I accept that, Minu,’ replied Akmon, ‘but I cannot allow an insult against one of my bodyguards to go unpunished.’
Minu moved closer. ‘Have you forgotten that it was the Amazons who came to your aid when your crown was in danger?’
She looked past him to the young bucks of his bodyguard.
‘How many of these fine nobles fought beside you in Irbil when Atrax was knocking at its gates?’
‘Few enough,’ he agreed. ‘But if I am to rule a united kingdom, I must be seen to support Media’s nobles. Small actions are the cement that binds a kingdom together, Minu.’
‘She is just a girl,’ she implored him.
He was unmoved. ‘Perhaps you should have thought of that before you brought her here.’
He stepped away from the Amazon and turned to his bodyguard, pointing at Azar.
‘This girl has assaulted a lord of Media, the punishment for which is either death or amputation of the hand or foot that struck the noble.’
Azar swayed in the saddle, going deathly pale.
‘However, mindful that the Amazons came to Media’s aid in her hour of need, I will show mercy and so sentence the offender to thirty lashes.’
There were mutterings of disappointment among the cataphracts, which Akmon stamped on immediately.
‘This is my decision and any who disagree with it will receive sixty lashes for their insolence.’
Azar was ordered to dismount, the teenager looking around at her comrades for support. Minu, stony faced, stood beside an equally unhappy Talib but did not interfere as two horse archers grabbed Azar’s arms and led her to the entrance to one of the huts, all three stepping over and around dead bodies as they did so. Klietas jumped down from his horse and followed Minu and Talib as the now-shaking Azar was tied to the roof beams of the hut. He looked at Haya but she was staring directly ahead, as was a furious Yasmina, whose fingers were on the handle of her dagger in its sheath. Bullus grabbed her arm and shook his head. She yanked away her arm but refrained from touching the weapon again.
Another horse archer, a tall man with broad shoulders and thick forearms, walked forward with a whip in his hand.
‘Wait,’ commanded Akmon.
The soldier bowed his head and held out the whip when ordered to do so. The instrument comprised a wooden handle to which was attached three leather thongs. Akmon examined the leather strings to ensure there were no pieces of metal or bone attached to them, which would reduce Azar’s back to a bloody mass very quickly. Satisfied the thongs were just leather, he handed it back to the soldier, having a quiet word in his ear to impart his precise instructions. The man nodded, stepped back and bowed his head.
Azar was stripped of her civilian garb but was allowed to retain her silk vest, which was worn by all members of the Amazons and Daughters of Dura, to preserve her modesty. By rights she should have been stripped naked but Akmon did not have the desire to see a tethered naked teenage girl suffer, much less to seeing her body mutilated. A semi-circle of cataphracts gathered around their king, the offended noble wearing a disappointed expression that the girl was still being shown far too much clemency.
‘Begin,’ ordered Akmon.
The soldier made a couple of dummy strikes with the whip, the leather thongs making a swishing sound as they cut through the air. Azar was trembling now, the dread of what was to come filling her mind. Her sobs were a short, staccato sound, as though she had hiccups.
Thwack!
Azar screamed as the soldier landed the first blow on her back. Klietas flinched and bit his lip. Yasmina’s friend screamed in response to each blow, the soldier taking his time to land accurate strikes. Klietas began to shake with rage and wanted to kill the man, but in truth the flogger was hig
hly skilled and was saving Azar from serious injury. That she shrieked and screamed was to him irrelevant. He was a master at his art of inflicting pain in varying degrees. He knew that the severity of injuries resulting from flogging was influenced by the equipment being used, how hard the victim was struck, and whether he or she remained clothed.
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
Every six or seven seconds he landed blows on Azar’s silk-covered back, and Klietas flinched with every blow. Haya was shaking with a supreme effort not to break down in a flood of tears, while Minu and Talib were deathly pale as they watched the punishment being meted out. Only Bullus seemed untroubled. The veteran centurion had seen many men flogged in Dura for infractions and he knew, as did the flogger, that if the victim was allowed to keep his or her tunic or vest on, the skin would not be broken, though there would be substantial bruising that would take at least two weeks to heal. He also knew that if the skin was unbroken, the weals left by the beating would eventually heal without leaving a scar.
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
Azar shook uncontrollably as the leather bit into the silk on her back, the soldier aiming the blows on her upper back, either side of the backbone. There was little meat on the teenager, so he was careful to avoid injuring her spine, which has a thin covering of flesh. He was also careful to avoid ‘wrapping’ the leather thongs around her shoulders and torso. In truth, he was a master practitioner at work, though only Bullus among the Durans appreciated his ‘work’. When he had landed the final blow, Azar hung limply from her bonds, mentally and physically exhausted and barely conscious.
‘It is done,’ said Akmon, turning and walking past Talib and Minu.
Klietas and Haya rushed forward to cut Azar free, the teenage collapsing into their arms. Yasmina was looking daggers at Akmon and his lords.
‘We will make camp away from this place,’ said Talib.
Klietas uncorked his water bottle and held the top to Azar’s lips to allow her to take a few sips. Haya emptied her own water bottle over Azar’s face and head to revive her. Bullus knelt beside the flogged girl.
‘You got off lightly.’
Chapter 13
In contrast to the year before, Castus did not unleash his army on an orgy of destruction in the area around Melitene. Indeed, such was his delight at winning the battle on the plain and getting back the gold he had ‘lost’ previously, he kept his foot soldiers and horsemen confined to camp, save for parties of mounted scouts sent out daily to ensure no Roman legions suddenly appeared in the south to once again rob him of his just desserts. But no legions appeared and the transport of the gold from the town to the Parthian camp continued uninterrupted. The wagons took a wide detour to the south so avoiding the ghastly scenes on the plain to the east of the town where the battle had taken place, and which was now a feast for crows, vultures, rats and other scavengers, to say nothing of the plague of flies that infested the rotting corpses.
Castus had sent parties of Immortals back to the battlefield the day after the fight to retrieve the Parthian dead to give them a decent cremation. And in what he regarded as a magnanimous gesture, he invited the defeated kings to send their own soldiers to the site to organise the burning of their own dead. They refused outright. For varying reasons, not least because they now had few soldiers.
Archelaus, King of Cappadocia, was a broken man. In the space of twelve months he had seen his kingdom invaded twice by Parthian armies. The coalition he had been a part of had been worsted at Corum, beaten at Kayseri and annihilated at Melitene. Tens of thousands of Cappadocians had been slaughtered in battle, and hundreds more civilians had died of the plague in Kayseri in the aftermath of King Castus’ actions at that city. To compound his misery, the kingdom’s gold reserves had been dented by the bribing of the Parthians to leave Cappadocia the previous year, and further depleted by having to pay King Castus an additional amount of gold to vacate his kingdom a second time. His prayers to Zeus had gone unanswered and so he had slunk away to Kayseri, a king who had been humiliated, defeated and made to look a fool in his own kingdom. He was so grateful for Gaius Arrianus’ offer to install Titus Tullus as governor of Melitene to ensure ‘a shield against Parthian aggression’, that he did not realise that this was in reality a reduction of his power and prestige.
Melitene’s palace was quiet now. The corridors and rooms were no longer filled with burly Gauls, Pontic lords, Parthian nobles or Cappadocian officials, most of Archelaus’ courtiers having departed with their king. The stables and palace had formally been cramped and noisy; now they appeared more roomy and quiet. But it was the silence that followed defeat and despair.
Gaius Arrianus sat on the chair that had acted as King Archelaus’ throne and pondered, tapping his fingers on the ornate wooden arms. Pontic legionaries with yellow crests in their helmets guarded the doors to the chamber. Behind him hung a large blue banner decorated with an apricot, other banners hanging on the walls, an empty wooden dais in front of each standard. He watched Titus Tullus approach, supremely martial in mail armour, silver greaves, yellow cloak and gleaming helmet adorned with a large yellow crest. The guards snapped to attention when he passed them and strode to the dais, halting and saluting Gaius.
‘It suits you, ambassador. The throne, I mean.’
Gaius gave him a wry smile.
‘The Parthians have departed?’
Tullus nodded. ‘Left earlier, along with their gold. So we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief.’
The former centurion looked around at the banners.
‘We should get rid of all of these. Burning them would be best.’
‘That would be disrespectful to our valued allies, general. Have them sent back to their owners.’
Tullus pointed at the horse standard of Aria and the dragon banner of Media.
‘What about those?’
‘Send them to King Castus with my compliments. He can do with them as he wishes,’ answered Gaius.
‘He will burn them.’
Gaius gave a slight nod. ‘He probably will. But as a young king recently blessed with a great victory, he will appreciate the gesture.’
‘Who cares what that young pup thinks? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about repairing the damage he has done?’
‘Damage, general? What damage?’
Tullus was initially lost for words.
‘You should take a short ride to the east, ambassador, and look upon tens of thousands of corpses rotting in the sun and being eaten by every animal known to man. If you can stand the stench, that is.’
‘War is a bloody business,’ agreed Gaius, ‘but all in all, I believe we have achieved a most favourable outcome.’
‘We have?’
‘Both Tiridates and Atrax are dead,’ said Gaius with satisfaction, ‘which will satisfy King Polemon. Melitene is now a Roman town, which means we can keep a close eye on the young king of Gordyene, and Cappadocia will now more than ever be reliant on Rome for protection. Most satisfying.’
‘You forgot about Galatia and Armenia,’ said Tullus.
King Amyntas had returned to his homeland with what remained of the army he had brought to Melitene, which comprised the noble horsemen that had escaped the carnage inflicted by the Parthians. He had left twelve thousand of his Trocmi tribesmen dead on the battlefield. The Armenians had been luckier, the majority of King Artaxias’ horsemen having been able to save themselves when they fled the battlefield with their king. The same was true of King Polemon’s horsemen, though it had been unfortunate to say the least that they had not only abandoned the ten thousand hill men on the battlefield, but also their king and his son. Whether Polemon would take any retributive action against those who had deserted him remained to be seen, though the instrument of any severe punishment – Titus Tullus – would remain at Melitene until Gaius Arrianus could organise a Roman replacement from Syria.
‘Armenia, or at least its king, has indicated he is not averse to establishing friendlier relations with Ro
me,’ said Gaius. ‘We have hopefully planted the seeds of a future alliance.
‘As for Galatia, I fear our friend King Amyntas may face hostility when he returns to inform his people that thousands of their husbands and sons have not returned with him.’
*****
Talib and the other Durans left Akmon and his horsemen immediately after Azar had been cut down from her bonds, Minu informing the King of Media that the Amazons never forgot an insult against them. Despite her pain, Azar insisted she was fit to ride and so they cantered south away from the village, retracing their steps until they came to another, smaller settlement beside a fast-running stream. While Bullus and Klietas prepared huts and lit fires and Haya and Yasmina stood guard, Minu administered medical treatment to Azar’s blue and purple back, gently dabbing it with a mixture of water and vinegar. Azar had no more tears now and her face registered only venom as the commander of the Amazons applied the treatment. Simple but effective, diluted vinegar increased the flow of blood to the injured area, thus aiding the healing process. The treatment had to be repeated every six hours but at least there would be no scars to spoil her young flesh.
After the horses had been rubbed down, fed, watered and stabled in the village barn, and the evening meal had been prepared and eaten, Talib and Minu retired to their hut, neither of them in the mood for sleep. The interior of the hut was austere, with no furniture and only a piece of hide to cover the entrance, which one had to crawl through to gain entry. But the stone walls were stout enough and insulated with mud and straw, and the thatch on the roof was thick. There was a small square window fashioned in the wall to allow smoke to escape when a fire was lit in winter, for eastern Cappadocia was gripped by snow and ice in the coldest months.
The single candle that burned in the hut, casting the interior in a ghostly glow, illuminated Minu’s face. Talib, his back against the wall, looked at his wife.