by Peter Darman
‘My name is Pacorus and I am the new king of Dura. You will all be released immediately and are free to go back to your families.’ Though they said nothing, I detected a palpable feeling of relief in the room. Some of them looked at each other and nodded.
One of them, about my age with a dark complexion, held up his manacled wrists. ‘What about these?’
‘What about these, majesty, I think is the correct term.’
He looked me with narrowed eyes, then relaxed. ‘Apologies, majesty.’
‘No apologies are necessary. The chains will be removed now, though I hope that you will all stay tonight as my guests.’
My offer was met by silence, but their mood improved when two anvils arrived and two burly blacksmiths with thick forearms broke their fetters, attending to the Agraci girl first. And the room slowly filled with chatter as they sat down at the table and helped themselves to the food that was ferried from the kitchens. Most of them cast glances at Gallia, who was feeding the girl small pieces of fruit and bread from a plate. The girl still said nothing.
‘Is she mute?’ I asked.
‘I doubt it,’ she hissed, ‘she’s probably terrified. I’m going to take her to our private apartments, give her a bath and get her into some clean clothes.’
‘What about me?’
‘What about you?’ she sniffed. ‘I’m sure you are capable of finding a place to sleep tonight.’ I kissed her on the cheek and she led the young girl from the hall.
Once the former captives had had their fill, Nergal escorted them to one of the barracks where they could sleep for the night. Afterwards he came back and we sat together at the table while the servants cleared away the mess. Praxima had disappeared with Gallia and the child, but not before she had threatened to ‘cut the balls off Prince Mithridates’ if she ever met him.
‘I apologise for Praxima, Pacorus.’
I passed him a cup of wine. ‘Why? I feel the same way, spoilt little brat. He has created a disastrous situation and now he has run back to his father. I should send Praxima to fetch him back and then she can carry out her threat.’
‘Not how you expected to begin your reign.’
I shrugged. ‘No matter, tomorrow is another day, and Domitus and the legion will be arriving.’
Nergal finished his wine and stood up. ‘You might be needing them. Goodnight, Pacorus.’
‘Goodnight, Nergal.’
Rsan approached wanting to make conversation, but I bade him goodnight and he left me alone with my thoughts. My limbs ached from the journey and I realised that I still had my armour on. I took off the cuirass and laid it on the table along with my sword and belt. Collecting them up I went to find a room to sleep in while my wife attended to the daughter of an Agraci king. It was a strange start to our new life.
The next day, having slept in one of the bedrooms in the palace’s private chambers, I rose early and took breakfast on a large terrace overlooking the Euphrates more than a hundred feet below. The palace was sited on the eastern edge of the Citadel atop the cliff that rose up sheer from the riverbank. There was a small, narrow island in the middle of the river, and on the far side the other bank was Hatran territory. At the foot of the cliffs was a small harbour, from where Mithridates had made his flight no doubt.
Gallia and our young guest joined me soon afterwards. My wife wore a simple white gown with sandals on her feet. Her hair, unplaited, shone in the morning light. Slaves fussed around us, serving us fruit, pastries and cool water. Gallia sat beside me with the child next to her. The little girl looked far healthier than last night, with her hair combed and her face washed. She too wore a simple white dress, though I noticed she still bore red marks around her ankles where the fetters had been.
‘You two look well.’
‘Yes,’ Gallia smiled at the child, ‘she is pretty, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose.’
The child nibbled at a peeled orange as Gallia stared out over the river. ‘Our bedroom also has a terrace with a similar view. Magnificent, isn’t it?’
I cut a slice of melon with a knife. ‘Hopefully tonight I can see for myself.’
‘It’s a very large room,’ said the girl.
‘So,’ I said, ‘you can speak.’
The girl smiled to reveal perfect white teeth. ‘Of course.’
Gallia put an arm round her shoulders. ‘What is your name?’
She finished the orange and picked up a wafer smeared with honey. ‘My name is Rasha.’
‘That’s a lovely name,’ replied Gallia.
‘It means young gazelle.’
‘My name is…’ I did not finish my sentence before she interrupted me.
‘You are Pacorus and your wife is called Gallia, and you rescued her from a fire-breathing dragon in a land on the other side of the world, and you got back home on a white stallion who has wings.’
Gallia laughed. ‘Who told you such things?’
Rasha finished eating her wafer and picked up a fig. ‘The slaves told me. They used to sneak me food even though I wasn’t allowed any. Was the dragon big?’
I nodded gravely. ‘Big and ferocious, and he had huge claws and breathed fire that singed my hair, and my battle with him lasted all day and all night, but I jumped on his back and killed him with my sword.’
Her eyes were alight with excitement. ‘And was Gallia chained to a rock?’
I faked sorrow. ‘She was, chained and helpless. But fortunately I came to her rescue.’
‘What a gift you have for fairy tales, Pacorus.’ Gallia observed with a raised eyebrow.
‘Did you ride your horse here?’ asked Rasha.
‘Yes, he’s in the stables. Would you like to see him?’ She nodded enthusiastically.
So after breakfast we walked through the palace to the stables, Gallia jabbing me sharply in the ribs on the way.
‘Helpless was I?’
Rasha helped to groom and feed Remus, though she was disappointed to discover he had no wings. I told her that he had taken them off as they were very heavy, and in any case he didn’t need them now he was home.
While Gallia took Rasha off to meet her Amazons, who were grooming their horses near the stables, I had the sons of the lords given back their mounts. They assembled in the courtyard as I stood with Nergal on the palace steps and bid them farewell. I told them that I was sorry for their mistreatment and hoped that we would meet again in happier times. I also told them that their fathers would not have to pay any increased taxes. There was nothing else to say. The gates were opened and twenty unhappy and resentful young men rode from Dura.
‘At least you freed them,’ said Nergal.
‘I had hoped to meet them and their fathers in more auspicious circumstances.’
‘Well, I’m sure their ire will subside once they are back with their families.’
‘Let’s hope so, Nergal, let’s hope so.’
My mood failed to improve as Rsan briefed me on the state of the royal finances. The treasury was empty due to Mithridates’ failure to collect any taxes and his penchant for extravagance. I saw no evidence of this in the palace, but Rsan informed me that the prince had had all the gold ornaments and statues shipped back to Susiana before my arrival along with his harem.
‘His harem!’
‘Yes, majesty, a dozen women he had purchased from slave traders. They too went back with him to Susiana.’
‘Talking of slaves, all those in the Citadel are to be freed immediately.’
Rsan looked alarmed. ‘Freed, majesty?’
‘That is correct. They can stay if they wish, in which case they will be paid for their services, but they are all free to choose.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘It is quite simple, Rsan, I was a slave once, and I will not have any man or woman endure what I have experienced. See to it.’
In the afternoon the legion arrived and Domitus and Godarz presented themselves at the palace. And as they took nourishment on the palac
e terrace where I had taken breakfast earlier, I briefed them on what had happened thus far.
‘You let me take a couple of centuries and hunt the bastard down. We’ll bring him back and you can have him crucified on the far bank, over there.’ Domitus was as blunt as ever. He spoke in Latin, a language Rsan could clearly understand, for his mouth was open, aghast at such a proposal.
‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘I am sorely tempted. But I like his father and his grandfather is King of Kings, so I will forego that pleasure.’
Domitus belched loudly. ‘Pity.’
I gestured for Rsan standing by the door, to sit.
‘Rsan here is the treasurer, though he tells me the treasury is empty. Rsan, this is Godarz, who is the new governor of the city.’ Rsan bowed his head to Godarz, who nodded back.
Rsan became less sombre when Godarz informed him that a large sum of drachmas would be filling the treasury forthwith, just as soon as it was offloaded from the carts. I instructed Domitus to house two centuries in the Citadel, with a further cohort stationed in the city itself. There were some twenty-five towers on the circuit wall surrounding Dura. Each was capable of holding a dozen men. In addition to the large gatehouse at the Palmyrene Gate, all of them needed to be garrisoned.
The legion’s camp was established half a mile west of the city among the rock and iron-hard earth of the desert. As it was to be a permanent fixture, I ordered that a mud-brick wall be erected around its perimeter. The men would still be living in tents, but each cohort would be rotated between living in the camp and garrison duties in the city and Citadel, which would provide a variety of living conditions. The score of men from the original garrison I gave to Rsan as a treasury guard. They were under the overall command of Domitus, who took up residence in the headquarters building in the Citadel, but I did not want to dismiss them lest they took to banditry, and in any case I wanted to assure Rsan that he still had a place in the new regime. It was not his fault that the city’s former ruler had been a tyrant.
The city curfew was abolished and life for Dura’s citizens began to return to normal. Brick-making for the legion’s camp provided immediate additional employment for the citizens and trade in food and animals showed signs of recovery. This was most important, for without markets there would be no taxes for the treasury, and without taxes there would be no money to provide weapons and armour for the legion. Blacksmiths, farriers, veterinaries and armourers all had to be fed and housed.
Five days after our arrival at Dura I was returning to the city from the training fields — a barren stretch of earth near the legion’s camp — in the company of Gallia. While the legionaries practised drills, throwing javelins and becoming proficient with their swords, the horsemen honed their archery skills. The Amazons trained with them. We were both covered in grime and our tunics were soaked in sweat as we walked our horses back to the city. It was approaching noon and the heat of the day was stifling with a raging sun in a clear blue sky.
There was no traffic on the road west from Dura that snaked past the legion’s camp and out into the desert, to where the Agraci waited.
I drank from my waterskin, the liquid warm and unedifying, and then passed it to Gallia. Epona was lathered in sweat, as was Remus, and they were both breathing heavily from their exertions.
‘I would like to chop off the hands of Mithridates,’ she said casually.
‘Praxima wants to cut off his balls, you want to slice off his hands and Domitus wants to crucify him. There won’t be much left of him afterwards, that’s for sure.’
‘Arrogant little puppy, he has caused us many problems.’
‘He certainly has,’ I replied, ‘but at least I can put one thing right. I think it’s time Rasha was returned to her father.’
‘I agree,’ she said, wiping sweat-matted hair off her brow. ‘But who will take her back. Everyone fears these Agraci.’
‘I will,’ I said.
She turned to look at me with those blue eyes I loved so much. ‘Are you mad?’
‘I don’t think so, but I want to meet this king, so perhaps if I take his daughter he will not kill me outright.’
‘And perhaps he will.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, ‘it’s decided.’
‘Then I am coming with you.’
‘What?’
‘Either we go together or Rasha stays here’
I looked away from her into the empty desert.
‘There,’ she continued. ‘now it’s decided.’
Rsan was appalled at the idea of us going into the desert without an army, as was Godarz, while Domitus advised against it. Nergal just looked shocked and shook his head continually, but I told them that the matter was not up for discussion.
‘I will take Gallia and Byrd, and the child.’
‘You will not return, then,’ announced Godarz.
‘If that happens, my friend,’ I said, ‘you will become king. All those present will bear witness to my wish.’
‘At least let me go with you, Pacorus,’ said Nergal, his eyes full of pleading.
‘I will think on it. We will leave tomorrow.’
I told Nergal that he would be staying at Dura.
Chapter 5
The new day dawned bright and sunny with a light breeze blowing from the west. Rasha was in a good mood and was even more talkative than usual. There was now no resemblance to the frightened, haunted little wretch we had first seen when we arrived at Dura. In her place was a pretty, inquisitive and intelligent girl who skipped around the palace. She always accompanied me when I went to the stables to groom Remus, and in truth I became quite fond of her. But it was Gallia who was the focus of her affections, and whenever she and her Amazons rode out of the city to the training fields Rasha went with them. As to be expected of a child of nomads, she was at ease in the saddle and could ride as well as any adult. She had her own room in the palace, next to ours, and everyone liked having her around, even the normally stern Domitus. So it was quite poignant when the morning came for her to leave us. After the garrison had mustered just after dawn Gallia, Byrd and I mounted our horses in front of the palace steps alongside the waiting Rasha. Byrd was his usual seemingly disinterested self, though his horse looked remarkably well tended and fed — no doubt Godarz’s influence. When I had asked Byrd to accompany us into the desert he had accepted in a nonchalant fashion, and merely shrugged when I told him that we might not be coming back. Those who were assembled to see us off — Godarz, Nergal, Praxima, Rsan and Domitus — appeared not the least calm. Even the iron-hard Domitus was frowning with concern.
‘Are you certain about this, majesty?’ queried Rsan.
‘Quite certain,’ I answered.
And so we trotted from the courtyard, through the Citadel’s gates and west down the main street of the city through the Palmyrene Gate into the desert, Byrd out in front. Many people fear the desert and in truth it is an unforgiving environment, hot during the day and bitterly cold at night, the abode of snakes and scorpions. The parched white bones of dead animals lying in mute testimony to the desert’s harshness. But the desert is also beautiful and serene. The wide-open spaces and lack of people allowing one to think and be at peace with its vastness. Its yellow and brown hues, the lush green of its oases and the stark outlines of the many outcrops give the desert a unique appearance that I always found invigorating. In truth I loved the desert and found journeying through it gave me an inner calm. I think it was the quiet, the absolute silence that pervades the desert that made me react to it the way I did. Even Rasha fell silent after the first morning.
We encountered no traffic on the track that wound its way west towards the oasis settlement of Palmyra, once a thriving trade centre but now the capital of the Agraci. This would have been the same route that Mithridates had taken during his abortive campaign against them, and the road the few survivors used in their flight back to Dura. I prayed to Shamash that we would not suffer the same fate.
That night we cooked
and ate a brace of rabbits that we had brought from the city. Byrd found us some firewood from an abandoned wagon that we passed during the afternoon, and we sat around the fire as it cast our faces in an eerie red glow. Byrd had questioned us lighting a fire, but I told him that we were not on a scouting mission. The night was cool and so Gallia wrapped Rasha in a blanket and put a woollen cap on her head.
Rasha gnawed the meat from a small thighbone and then looked at Gallia. ‘Can I visit you again?’
Gallia smiled. ‘Of course, if you wish.’
‘Good. I like my room, and when I visit you I can put some of my own things in it.’
How innocent the world seemed through the eyes of a young child. I saw Byrd staring at Rasha. I wondered if he was thinking of his own family, now long dead, and his former life. If he was he never said. The next day he rode beside me with Rasha between Gallia and myself. On our right, in the distance, sat a long, squat limestone plateau, while on our left was an expanse of sand and rocks. A glint of light caught my eye and I squinted towards the plateau.
‘We are being watched,’ said Byrd casually.
‘By whom?’ asked Gallia.
Byrd nodded towards Rasha. ‘By her people.’
We saw nothing untoward for the rest of the morning and by noon it felt as though the sun was cooking us in a giant stone bowl, so we laid up in the lee of an outcrop forming part of a granite ridge extending to the north. We unsaddled the horses and used the saddles as back supports as we rested in the shade. I caught sight of a lizard scurrying between the rocks while overhead a buzzard glided effortlessly in the sky. After two hours we saddled the horses to continue our journey. The first hour was uneventful. Once again we appeared to be the only people in the barren landscape. But then I caught sight of a group of riders that suddenly appeared on our left flank, around a quarter of a mile distant. Their black shapes on black horses shimmering in the haze. Byrd rode up to me.