by Peter Darman
‘Make a note of the name,’ I instructed Almas.
The deputy governor reached into a saddlebag to pull out a small wooden tablet with a wax surface, which could be written on using a metal stylus. After it was inscribed, the wax could later by warmed and smoothed over for fresh notes.
‘How do you spell it?’ asked Almas.
Aref gave him a dumbfounded look. He was obviously illiterate.
‘Vazneh,’ he repeated.
‘Spell it as it sounds,’ I told Almas, walking back to Horns and hauling myself into his saddle.
I too reached into a saddlebag and pulled out a small leather pouch filled with drachmas. I tossed it to Aref.
‘For your help.’
He dropped the basket to catch the pouch, his eyes lighting up when he saw the contents.
‘You lucky bastard,’ said Cambiz.
‘Not luck, fate,’ I told him, turning Horns and digging my knees into his sides.
Now I had the information and could embark on my journey to kill two birds with one stone.
Chapter 3
The spring melt waters were now subsiding, but the current of the Euphrates was still strong and its level high. On the other side of the river, in Hatran territory, the land had been flooded. There were no farms on the other side of the river, the wealth of Hatra being the Silk Road that ran through the city, and the fertile lands to the north of the capital, specifically around the city of Nisibus. Happily, the waters had not breached the river defences built by Almas, but the dams and irrigation ditches that drew water off the Euphrates were working at peak efficiency, turning what once had been a desert into a thick belt of greenery stretching south from the city of Dura to a distance of nearly three hundred miles.
When both the king and queen left Dura, they were invariably escorted by a full complement of Amazons, the commander of whom carried my griffin banner. But as I was travelling alone and the trip would be short, the Ctesiphon leg, anyway, I decided to take an escort of horse archers instead.
‘I will be away for three weeks at most,’ I told Gallia as we relaxed on the palace terrace and watched the light drain from the world.
‘It is a fool’s errand, Pacorus. Even if Phraates was of a mind to keep Kewab in the empire, what could he offer him?’
‘The throne of Mesene,’ I replied.
‘Sanabares rules Mesene, Pacorus, and he is one of Phraates’ favourites.’
When Nergal and Praxima died their vision of a harmonious Mesene in which Parthians and the marsh people, the Ma’adan, lived peacefully side-by-side died with them. Sanabares was a rich noble from Susiana who believed marsh dwellers had no place within the Parthian Empire. He was by any standard totally unfit to rule one of the poorer kingdoms of the empire, which nevertheless had flourished under the rule of my friends. Those Mesenians who had no stomach to wage war against those who had become their friends and neighbours were now resident in my kingdom. Rather exile than fighting an unwinnable war in the marshlands of southern Mesene.
‘It actually makes perfect sense,’ I said. ‘Sanabares can be made the satrap of Babylon, Kewab can be made king of Mesene and the exiles from that kingdom can return home.’
She gave me a sympathetic look. ‘It makes sense to you, but to Phraates it would be seen as you questioning his authority and wisdom.’
‘You know as well as I do that Sanabares will plunge Mesene into ruin, just as Chosroes did all those years ago.’
‘It is amazing how history seems to repeat itself,’ she agreed. ‘Only this time we will not be marching to remove the incumbent King of Mesene.’
‘Not unless he marches against us first,’ I said.
‘And what of young Klietas?’ she asked.
‘I want to convince him to return to Dura, to his farm, which by all accounts is prospering.’
‘He made it quite plain he wished to leave the kingdom.’
I stood and walked over to the balustrade, peering at the mirror-like waters of the Euphrates below.
‘And we all know why he wished to leave the kingdom.’
‘Not all this again, Pacorus.’
Fishing boats were pushing off from the shore, lanterns hanging over the sides of their vessels to draw fish to the surface. There was no wind in the warm evening air, the sound of crickets filling the air and the moon shining like a huge silver ball in the night sky.
‘You should not have used Haya to entice Klietas to join your band of assassins. It was a cruel deception.’
She was unmoved. ‘The kingdom needed him.’
I turned to walk back to my chair, servants coming on to the terrace with lighted oil lamps to provide us with illumination, others bowing before taking away the nuts and figs we had been nibbling.
‘You are a good man and a just king, Pacorus, but sometimes justice and fair play are not enough.’
‘I disapprove of assassination.’
‘I rest my case,’ she smiled.
‘You have set a dangerous precedent,’ I cautioned.
‘By removing Dura’s enemies? I think not. Will Parthia lament the passing of Atrax or Tiridates, of Amyntas and Glaphyra? Of course, if you had handed Atrax over to Spartacus all those years ago, I would not have had to send assassins to kill him. And then perhaps Rasha would still be alive.’
She was toying with the stand of black hair hanging from her necklace, the same lock of hair she had cut from the dead body of Rasha after she had fallen on the Diyana Plain.
‘I do not regret any action I have taken, Gallia.’
‘In that we are the same,’ she replied. ‘Changing the subject, what will you do when you fail to persuade Klietas to return to Dura?’
‘You seem very certain with regard to what Klietas will do.’
She gave me a knowing smile, which I found intensely annoying. The female complement of the assassins had closed ranks and divulged nothing about what occurred during their mission. A sullen Talib had returned to Palmyra to report to Byrd, though when I questioned my old friend about what Talib had revealed, he had told me his protégé was a remote, haunted man. With Klietas gone, there was only one individual who could perhaps shed any light on why my former squire had abandoned a golden future.
‘Centurion Bullus, how are you?’
I had contacted Bullus’ cohort commander to request he be allowed to leave his unit to accompany me on the journey to Ctesiphon. He stood before me in the throne room looking immaculate in his mail armour, burnished greaves and gleaming helmet decorated with a magnificent white transverse crest in the crook of his arm. The helmet was over-sized to accommodate his large, shaven head, adorned with battle scars, his mail armour also generous to accommodate his broad shoulders.
‘Well, majesty,’ he replied.
‘Your commander has spoken to you?’
‘Yes, majesty.’
‘We will leave for Ctesiphon in the morning. And after we have visited the high king, I intend to go searching for Klietas.’
A trace of a smile creased his thin lips.
‘Something amuses you, centurion?’
‘It might be a long trip, majesty, seeing as no one knows where he has gone.’
I stood and stepped down from the dais.
‘Allow me to bring you up to date, Bullus. I have the name and location of Klietas’ village in northern Media.’
I jabbed a finger in his thick chest. ‘I wish to know why he threw away the chance to make something of himself, to rise in the world to become a prosperous farmer and perhaps, one day, a lord of Dura. But perhaps you can tell me.’
He stared ahead, unblinking.
‘I am just a simple soldier, majesty.’
‘We will see. Until tomorrow, then.’
He saluted, about-faced and marched from the throne room.
The following morning, he presented himself in the Citadel’s courtyard, along with twenty-five horse archers commanded by a young captain by the name of Navid, whose wispy beard was testament to his
youth. Sporaces, commander of Dura’s horse archers, had selected him specially, pointing out he was a rising star among the junior officers of his dragon.
‘He looks about twelve,’ I remarked to Sporaces beside me at the top of the palace steps. ‘Then again, every soldier in the army looks like a fresh-faced youth to me these days.’
My left leg suddenly crumpled beneath me and I was in danger of falling. Bullus jumped down from his horse and sprinted up the steps to grab my arm, Sporaces holding the other one.
‘Are you fit enough to ride, majesty?’ he asked.
‘Should I fetch a medic?’ asked Bullus.
The pain in my leg subsided and I was able to stand on my own.
‘I’m fine,’ I told them.
I gingerly walked down the steps to a waiting Horns, who was flicking his tail in irritation, clearly wanting some morning exercise. I caught sight of Navid and his men, who all appeared to be teenagers, staring at me with concern. I must have appeared ancient with my greying hair and hobbling walk.
‘Protect the king at all times,’ Sporaces told Navid in a loud voice so the others would hear. ‘Dura is depending on you.’
Navid and his men swelled with pride. The captain saluted.
‘Yes, general, you have my word.’
He spun in the saddle and pointed at two of his men, who wheeled their horses around and trotted from the courtyard.
‘Where are they going?’ I asked.
‘They will scout ahead, majesty, to give warning of any enemy,’ replied Navid.
I looked at Sporaces, who was smiling with satisfaction.
Horse archers tended to be lithe, sinewy men riding swift horses, unencumbered by armour such as the cataphracts wore. Their defence was to stay beyond the range of hostile horsemen armed with lances and swords, using feints, speed and intricate battlefield manoeuvres to outwit, confuse and run rings around an enemy. The Scythian bow gave them the ability to engage targets up to a range of three hundred paces, though Dura’s horse archers were trained to operate at much shorter ranges, working closely with the legions to move through formations of foot soldiers to deliver devastating volleys of arrows against both enemy horsemen and foot soldiers. But if horse archers were caught or cornered, they were easy meat for cataphracts or mounted spearmen.
Navid pushed his men hard and we covered at least twenty miles in the first two hours of our journey, crossing over the pontoon bridges near the city and hugging the eastern bank of the Euphrates south. The sun was soon quickly climbing into a cloudless sky to bake the earth and those travelling on it. At the rear of our column were six camels loaded with tents, fodder, food and other supplies, but they carried no extra arrows. We were visiting the residence of the high king, not embarking on a campaign.
Navid called a halt after two hours, leading his men and king into a stand of date palms, giving us the opportunity to dismount, rest and water the horses. He was clearly nervous concerning having the responsibility of protecting his king as he posted guards around the trees and sent scouts to reconnoitre ahead, behind and on the flank, an order I instantly countermanded.
‘We don’t need to send out riders in all directions,’ I told him. ‘Just post a couple of guards on foot at the edge of the trees. We don’t want to tire the horses, or your men, unnecessarily.’
He stood rigidly before me. ‘Yes, majesty. Apologies, majesty.’
‘Stand easy, Navid. Relax. We are not fleeing for our lives.’
Out of the corner of my vision I spied Bullus stretched out on the ground with his back against the trunk of a date palm, running a sharpening stone along the edge of his gladius.
‘You could do worse than follow the example of Centurion Bullus over there,’ I said. ‘He knows when to expend energy and when to save it.’
‘Yes, majesty,’ replied Navid, doing an excellent impersonation of a stone statue.
I wandered over to Bullus, indicating he should remain seated, flopping down beside him. We had shared many dangers together and though he was but one centurion among many, our adventure at Irbil had created a bond between us that made rank and social status irrelevant off the parade ground.
I pointed at Navid striding around the camp like a man weighed down with a mighty burden.
‘What do think of our young captain?’
‘He’s in the wrong army,’ he said casually.
‘How so?’
‘I’m sure he desperately wants to cover himself in glory before dying heroically. Shame for him Dura’s army has now retired from war.’
‘It stands ready to defend Dura and Parthia, Bullus, if required to do so.’
‘Has he offered to clean your sword yet?’ he grinned.
‘Who?’
‘Navid.’
‘No, why?’
‘He will, majesty. He won’t be able to resist getting his hands on a magical weapon.’
That night, after we had ridden forty miles and made camp beside the river, Navid did indeed offer to clean my sword. An offer I refused. I did not bother taking my command tent on the short trip, though I did draw the line at sleeping in the small eight-man calfskin tents used by Dura’s soldiers. Instead, I slept in a black goatskin Agraci tent pitched in the centre of our small camp. I invited Bullus to share my tent, knowing he would feel uncomfortable sleeping among horse archers, an invitation he gladly accepted.
On the third evening of our uneventful journey, sitting on stools outside the tent, staring into the flickering flames of the campfire, I began to probe Bullus on his excursion into Cappadocia. He was reticent at first, no doubt having been instructed by Gallia to keep his mouth shut. But a hearty meal of rice, meat from a gazelle brought down by Navid’s bow, and liberal quantities of wine, loosened his tongue.
‘Klietas was a lamb to the slaughter,’ he reflected. ‘He was ecstatic at first, he and Haya masquerading as a married couple.’
‘A married couple?’
He drank some wine. ‘All part of the ruse to allow us to move around Cappadocia more easily. They slept in the same tent and he got her pregnant, the idiot.’
I was confused. ‘Haya was pregnant?’
‘She got rid of it, some sort of potion concocted in that Sanctuary frequented by the Amazons. It broke Klietas’ heart. That is why he left Dura, majesty. He’s just a simple lad, at heart.’
He looked at me. ‘He’s not cut out to be a killer.’
‘Not like you, Bullus, eh?’
He shrugged. ‘We all have to make use of the skills the gods have blessed us with, majesty.’
We talked until the campfire was a pile of grey ash and the eastern sky turned red and purple as the dawn came to the world once more. He told me about the killing of Governor Cenk, which allowed Gallia to alert Ctesiphon of the enemy kings gathering at Melitene, of how they returned to Cappadocia where a bedraggled Atrax stumbled across their camp. Of how he was killed and his head and those of his companions were severed and put on stakes.
‘That upset Klietas, seeing as they were Medians like him.’
I was appalled. ‘I can imagine.’
‘Talib remembered a story told to him by Lord Byrd,’ said Bullus, ‘of how you had done the same in Cappadocia many years ago when your commander had been killed in battle.’
I was taken back to a time when I was barely out of my teens, when Bozan had been killed by the Romans in a battle. We had cremated his body on a pyre surrounded by the severed heads of our enemies mounted on wooden stakes. It seemed right then. I thought it gratuitous now.
He told me about the flogging of Azar and their capture after the murder of Glaphyra.
‘I have seen some gruesome things on the battlefield, majesty, but when the Amazons and their young versions pounced on that old woman, it sent a shiver down my spine.
‘I can imagine,’ I shuddered.
He stretched out his legs. ‘But I firmly believe the gods were with us, just as they were at Irbil. We were captured and then rescued by King Castus�
� bodyguard and hauled off to Vanadzor. Then a strange woman with large breasts saved us.’
I put down his words to the copious amounts of wine he had consumed.
‘Why did you need saving?’
‘King Castus wanted us dead.’
He told me why the dreadful Shamshir had been sent to search for Haya, thinking she would become his queen. But Castus found out about Klietas getting her pregnant and all thoughts of Haya becoming the Queen of Gordyene evaporated. And when Bullus described the busty woman, her male accomplice with pale skin and white hair, and their seemingly miraculous escape from Vanadzor, I knew he was telling the truth. I touched the lock of Gallia’s hair around my neck.
‘He’s an ungrateful little bastard,’ said Bullus. ‘Castus, I mean. We saved him and his kingdom from invasion and he tried to kill us all.’
‘He won a great victory at Melitene, Bullus.’
‘Kewab won that battle, majesty, those that were there told me so. He’s some talent, that one.’
‘That he is, Bullus. That he is.’
After four days we arrived at Seleucia, the great city on the west bank of the Tigris. Its population was around eighty thousand, and in the long years of peace enjoyed by the empire since the Roman defeat at Carrhae, and notwithstanding the hurricane that had swept through Parthia when Tiridates had attempted to seize the high crown six years ago, it had become a flourishing urban centre. Seleucia was also strategically important, being the gateway to the east of the empire. It had been founded over two hundred and fifty years before by Seleucus I, called Nicator – ‘The Victor’ – one of the successors of Alexander of Macedon who had conquered the world. Seleucus had gone on to establish the Seleucid Empire and the city named after him had walls that resembled the shape of an eagle with outstretched wings. Towers stood at regular intervals along their length. The main road through the city ran from the central gatehouse in the western wall directly east to the stone bridge spanning the Tigris, which was about four hundred yards wide at this point.
The city’s businesses were doing a brisk trade, the streets were teeming with people and the air was filled with the aromas of spices and incense. Seleucia was a Babylonian city, its most important temple dedicated to Marduk, the deity who guarded the kingdom and the city of the same name. I had Navid report to the guard commander at the western entrance to the city, who sent a rider to Ctesiphon to announce the King of Dura was approaching. Normally, he would have reported to the city governor first, but since the treachery of Governor Dagan, who had defected to Tiridates, Phraates had abolished the post.