by Peter Darman
We made good progress south, following the course of the Tigris as it made its way to the Persian Gulf. Keeping to the eastern bank we made at least thirty miles each day, so on the third day we were on the northern border of Mesene. The land either side of the river was green and full of birds and animals. I saw warblers, white-tailed eagles and babblers. The area from here south was dotted with large and small lakes and marshlands — great swathes of wetlands that were inhabited by the Marsh People. I had heard that they lived on small slivers of dry land above the waterline and fashioned their homes from the reeds that they harvested from the waters. They also crafted boats from reeds, which they used to travel throughout the wetlands, or so I was told. From our position on the eastern bank of the Tigris the marshes on the other side of the river appeared vast and limitless, continuing on into the distance.
It was now nearly three weeks since I had left Dura and I knew that the Romans would be near my city, if not already before it. I also knew that Domitus and Nergal were on the other side of the Euphrates by now, ready to spring their trap when I returned. But I worried that my father might request their assistance further north and my mind was filled with thoughts of my two commanders marching north while the Romans assaulted Dura. I went cold at the thought of Gallia and Claudia trapped in the city. But surely Godarz would send them to safety; perhaps they were both already in Hatra? One thing I knew: I had to get back to Dura as quickly as possible.
‘Highness.’
I was torturing myself with different scenarios when the commander of my escort shook me out of my daydreaming. Riding beside me he was pointing at dark shapes ahead, which were shimmering in the heat.
‘Ready,’ I shouted, and we all reached behind to pull our bows from their hide cases fastened to our saddles. We instinctively pulled arrows from our quivers, strung them in the bowstrings and formed into line. The shapes grew larger and I recognised men on horses, a long column of them. I held up my hand and halted the others. I peered at the approaching horsemen, who had made no attempt to change their formation or pace. Indeed, I wondered if they had seen us at all. Then two from the front of the column detached themselves and began riding towards us. As one my men raised their bows and pointed them at the two figures approaching. As they got nearer I could see that neither had any weapons in their hands, and the leader held his right arm aloft. The two then slowed their horses, a brace of mangy looking brown mares, to a walk and they both raised their arms above their heads to show they meant us no harm. I signalled to my men to lower their bows and I returned my arrow to its quiver and slipped my bow back in its case. The two riders halted in front of me and bowed their heads.
They were both dressed like nomads, with baggy brown trousers and light brown shirts with the sleeves rolled up to above their elbows. Their bows were slung over their shoulders and on their heads they wore linen hats.
‘Greetings, majesty,’ said one, a swarthy man with a long moustache and untidy beard, ‘my name is Kaspar. I was sent by my king, Chosroes, to escort you south.’
He led a company of ragged riders, one hundred men dressed in similar attire to their commander. One carried a long staff from which hung a banner sporting the viper symbol of Chosroes.
‘How long until we reach the rendezvous?’ I asked Kaspar who rode beside me.
He smiled at me, his teeth as brown as his shirt. ‘Not long, majesty. Two hours at most.’
‘How many horsemen has your king sent to the rendezvous?’
Once again he smiled like an imbecile. ‘Many companies, majesty, enough to do you honour.’
Eventually we reached a collection of mud-brick huts located a mile from the Tigris, a desolate place that was deserted as far as I could see.
‘We are here, majesty,’ said Kaspar, who halted his horse and nodded to himself.
‘I see no horsemen,’ I said.
‘They will be here, majesty, that I promise. Would you like to rest out of the sun?’
It was certainly hot and my tunic was drenched with sweat, but I was more annoyed that there were no troops waiting for me. But then, this was the army of Chosroes and it was probably futile to get annoyed with Kaspar, so I gave the order to dismount and led Remus over to one of the water troughs while others gathered round the well in the centre of the village and hoisted up the bucket to quench their thirst. My men took off their helmets and I did the same. It was midday now and the sun was burning the earth, made worse by the lack of any wind. Once Remus had finished drinking I led him over to the shade of some stables located behind one of the buildings. Kaspar followed me and tethered his mare next to Remus.
‘Where are the villagers?’ I asked.
Kaspar lowered his head. ‘I do not know, majesty.’
I turned away from him and stared at his men and mine intermingling in the centre of the village. ‘Well, I hope we will not be here long. We have a long journey north ahead of us.’
I suddenly felt a sharp pain on the side of my head and then all was black.
Chapter 14
I slowly came out of unconsciousness to discover that I had been propped up against a wall of one of the village huts with my wrists tied behind my back. At length I regained the focus in my eyes, the side of my head throbbing with pain from where I had been struck. I leaned back against the wall, my wrists burning from the cords that had been wrapped tightly around them. I had been stripped of my cuirass, belt, sword and boots. My mouth and throat were parched, though mercifully I was out of the sunlight. I squinted in its intensity, and then saw with horror the bodies of dead men arranged in a neat row a few feet in front of me. I recognised them as the corpses of my escort, each of which had been stripped of their weapons and armour but not their white tunics. Like me they had also lost their boots. I closed my eyes and prayed to Shamash that they had had quick deaths and that He would be merciful to their souls. Then someone spat on me, causing me to open my eyes.
‘Wake up, majesty.’
I looked up to see Kaspar standing before me. He had shed his own ragged attire and replaced it with the items he had stolen from me. I recognised my boots, cuirass, helmet, belt, my spatha in its scabbard and my dagger fastened to the right-hand side of his belt.
‘How do I look?’ He raised his arms to invite me to admire him.
‘Like a thief,’ I answered, which earned me a vicious kick in my stomach.
‘You should be more polite to me, as you are no longer a king.’
He drew my sword and admired the handle and blade. ‘Maybe I should kill you now and save my king the trouble.’
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘Then you can be a murderer as well as a thief.
He replaced my sword in its scabbard and kicked me again, causing me to bend forward in pain. For good measure he also slapped my face hard with the back of his hand. He then stepped back and stood before me with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He looked ridiculous with his ill-fitting helmet and cuirass that was too large for his scrawny torso. Nevertheless, he wore the look of a man who had suddenly won a great fortune in a game of chance. Behind him his men were squabbling over the weapons and clothes of my dead escort, whose corpses were now swarming with flies attracted by the freshly spilt blood. One or two were coming to blows and Kaspar turned and watched the fracas with amusement. Eventually, after a few split lips and black eyes, his men settled down to drinking from their waterskins. Soon most of them were sitting on the ground or leaning against walls, laughing loudly and boasting, and I assumed that the liquid they were drinking was wine not water. Kaspar went among his men and helped himself to their drink, then returned to face me once more.
‘Wine?’ He spat the contents of his mouth onto me then grinned as his men fell about laughing.
I must have been tied there for at least two hours, during which time several of Kaspar’s men stumbled over and directed kicks and punches against my body and face. They split my left cheek and my lip, and soon my face throbbed with pain and blood was running down
my neck. As most of them were by now very drunk many of the blows missed their target or were administered half-heartedly, but enough connected to send spasms of pain shooting through my body. Kaspar thought the whole exercise hilarious and he roared his approval and encouragement to his men. My right eyebrow was now cut and blood began tricking into my eye. My breathing was heavy and I was thirsty, so very thirsty. One of Kaspar’s men stood before me and emptied the contents of his bladder over my bowed head, then spat on me before he walked away. Then another sauntered up and grabbed my urine-soaked hair, yanking it back so force me to look up at him. With his other hand he pulled a dagger from his belt.
‘Let’s lop off an ear. He don’t need two, do you your majesty?’
He leered at me, his breath stinking of wine. I stared into his eyes, unblinking. I was not going to give him the satisfaction of begging him not to disfigure me.
‘Now don’t you worry, your majesty, this won’t hurt me a bit.’
He laughed aloud and then suddenly released my hair. He straightened his body, coughed and then crumpled on the ground in a heap, an arrow in his back. Seconds later horsemen thundered into the village. Kaspar and his men staggered to their feet as more and more horsemen appeared around them, all of them horse archers with arrows in their bowstrings. Whoever these soldiers were they were superbly equipped and mounted. The horse archers of Dura wore no armour, but these men were attired in scale armour — short-sleeved leather garments reaching down to the thigh and covered with rectangular metal scales arranged in horizontal rows, with each row partly overlapping the row below. Most scale armour was made with iron segments but these men were wearing bronze scales, and on their heads they all wore steel helmets with leather neck guards and embossed metal decoration.
Kaspar’s men now stood and grouped around their commander, looking in confusion at each other, and at their dead comrade lying at my feet. I coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood at him. Then I heard the shrill sound of a cavalry horn being blown and yet more horsemen rode into the village. These were cataphracts, each one wearing armour of bronze scales like the archers, though unlike the archers their horses wore armoured skirts that covered their shoulders and hindquarters, though not their necks or heads. The cataphracts slowed and then halted, and from among them rode a large man on a beautiful black steed whose head and neck shone in the sunlight. One of cataphracts dismounted and held the reins of the horse as its rider jumped to the ground. He was dressed in a suit of scale armour of alternating bronze and silver scales that glittered in the sunlight. He was a tall man with wide shoulders wearing a long-sleeved red tunic beneath his armour, baggy red trousers and a steel helmet inlaid with gold leaf whose cheek guards were tied together. The man unfastened the thick leather thongs and removed his helmet. My heart sank and I prepared for death, for Narses himself stood before me.
The King of Persis turned his large round face to gaze down at me. Despite him being Parthian I was surprised at how fair his skin was, and his hair appeared golden in the sunlight. He also saw the dead soldier lying nearby. He pointed at it.
‘Remove this piece of carrion.’ Two of his men did so as the King of Persis regarded me, then strode over. Like Kaspar had done he too folded his arms in front of his chest, a look of contempt on his face, a glint of triumph in his brown eyes.
‘King Pacorus. We meet in far different circumstances from the last time we encountered one another.’
I looked at him with my one eye that remained open, as the other had closed due to the swelling around the wound to my eyebrow.
‘I would get up and greet you properly, but as you can see I am tied up and do not have my sword.’
His lip curled into a wicked smile as he unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to a subordinate who stood behind him. He then squatted beside me.
‘You smell disgusting. Still, I’m sure you will be made more presentable for your performance in Uruk.’
‘Uruk?’ Uruk was the capital of Mesene and the residence of King Chosroes.
‘Yes, boy, you are to be executed in the palace square so all may see what happens to those who cross me, even the famed young general from Dura who vanquishes his foes. How great will be the fear that I will create when people see your head on a spike.’
‘You would not dare?’
‘Would I not?’ he sneered. ‘I did tell you when we met last year that affairs between us would be settled, and so it has proved to be. But unlike you, I will not let my chance slip between my fingers.’
‘Kill me now, then, and have done with it.’
He looked genuinely hurt at my suggestion. ‘Kill you here, among a collection of hovels in this piece of wasteland? I think not. The death of a king should be witnessed by a multitude so the tale of it will be spread far and wide. And your death will be slow and painful, to give you time to reflect on your insolence towards myself and King Mithridates.’
I chuckled. ‘So Mithridates is still betraying his father?’
‘He betrays no one,’ he said curtly. ‘Once we have destroyed those kings who had the temerity to stand against us, we will keep Phraates as high king, as a sort of figurehead. But the real power will be in other hands. And I will make Parthia strong and feared.’
‘You will fail.’
Narses stood up, held out his hand and was handed back his sword. He buckled his belt. ‘The things that I dislike the most about you, Pacorus, are your ridiculous sense of loyalty and notion of honour. These things have held you back. You could have been the most powerful man in the empire, perhaps King of Kings yourself in a few years. You have a talent for winning battles, I grant you that, but you are sadly lacking when it comes to statecraft.’
‘You mean treachery?’
He smiled. ‘There you go again, talking nonsense. You seek to make the world a better place, to create heaven on earth. But you live in a fool’s paradise. You are blind to the realities around you. Take Chosroes, for example, a man eaten away by jealously. He rules a dung heap and is a pauper among kings, and so I offered him another kingdom if he would but join me, and such is his lust for riches that he readily agreed. I call individuals like him useful idiots. And to think, your father thinks of him as a friend, which is doubly ironic since the kingdom I promised Chosroes was Hatra.’
‘You will never take Hatra.’
Narses tilted his head to one side. ‘How long can a city hold out against a whole empire? Even now my army is marching with that of Chosroes to lay siege to Babylon. One by one your father’s allies are falling. Balas is dead, Farhad and Aschek are broken. So you see, there are none to stand in my way.’
At that moment two of Narses’ men threw Kaspar at their king’s feet.
‘You are the commander of this rabble?’ asked Narses.
Kaspar rose unsteadily to his feet and bowed his head, clearly still the worse for wear. ‘Yes, highness.’
Narses pointed at me. ‘This prisoner is to be taken to Uruk at once. You will commence your journey immediately, and to ensure that he gets there alive a dozen of my soldiers will accompany you and your men on your journey. Now go. Your appearance offends my eyes.’
Behind him the cataphracts and horse archers of Persis were bellowing and cursing at Kaspar’s men to get their horses saddled. The men of Mesene, feeling the effects of too much drink, were sluggish and resentful, but eventually they managed to saddle their horses and clamber onto the backs of their mounts. Kaspar sat on Remus and pulled his own horse beside him. He had attached a rope around my neck that was secured to his saddle — my saddle. He looked at me with bloodshot eyes, grinned and then yanked the rope, causing me to lose my balance and fall flat on my face. As I still had my hands tied behind my back I got up with difficulty, spitting dirt from my mouth as I did so.
Narses rode up to me as his men cantered from the village.
‘Until we meet again in Uruk, then.’
Then he and his men were gone and I began my journey to Uruk. It was late afternoon now an
d I comforted myself with the belief that we would probably not be on the road for long, not if Kaspar’s men were anything to go by. I stumbled along in the centre of the column, and could see that several of his men were already dozing in their saddles, their chins resting on their chests and reins wrapped around their arms for support. I also saw others lean over to the side and vomit onto the ground. These men were truly the slops of humanity, and I felt ashamed that I had allowed my men to be slaughtered and myself taken by such poor soldiers.
We had not travelled two miles, hugging the bank of the Tigris with a great marsh lying on the other side of the river and disappearing into the distance, when a great herd of water buffaloes suddenly appeared. The beasts with their grey-black coats, their huge heads sporting great backward-curving, crescent-shaped horns ending in sharp points, were nearly the height of a man. Either side of the lumbering beasts herdsmen whacked the animals with sticks, causing them to bellow and grunt with irritation. Within minutes the water buffaloes had collided with Kaspar’s horsemen and chaos ensued as horses and buffaloes intermingled. The men from Persis were highly indignant and shouted curses and threats at the herdsmen to get their beasts out of the way, to no avail. Each water buffalo must have weighed two thousand pounds, and from what I could see there must have been at least fifty of them. Soon they had ambled over to where I stood behind Remus, and I had great difficulty in keeping my feet as buffaloes walked past and threatened to gash me with the ends of their horns. Kaspar’s men, in stark contrast to the soldiers of Persis, did nothing but shrug, carried on dozing in their saddles or laughed at the vain efforts of Narses’ soldiers. Despite my dire circumstances I too found it amusing, but then my instincts told me that something was wrong and the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand up. I looked around and saw the herdsmen gently tapping the beasts, but they were not trying to get them past the horsemen; rather, they were deliberately herding them to get among the column of riders. And then I noticed that there suddenly seemed to be a lot of herdsmen, dozens in fact. Most strange. Then all hell broke loose.