by JD Smith
The day drew on and the sun began to penetrate the blanket above us. A winter warmth. Flames licked my stomach and throat and mouth. My bowels felt loose and I trembled inwardly, feeling dread so hot I thought I would faint.
Too soon and the enemy were in sight.
A boy, a girl, and a soldier. We rode upon camels, alone on the plain, toward the Persian army. We were three; they a hundred thousand or more. So littered with tents, the lands before us were a dirty streak on the horizon. I thought of being flayed alive and shivered; pondered whether it truly was too late to turn back as my camel led me inexorably onward.
Men on horseback emerged from the distant camp.
Zenobia held her head high, a sudden chill breeze causing her eyes to narrow as we watched our enemy approach. I touched the hilt of my sword, mirroring Zabbai, felt the weakness of my grip and knew the fear of not being able to hold the iron.
The party that greeted us was not small; a dozen or so. It was too late to turn back now. We were at their mercy. The future was beyond our control. We had no choice but to submit.
We stopped, and the group fanned out around us, moving, never pausing, constantly unnerving. They wore none of their encompassing armour, but thin silk shirts, and more about their face keeping dust from hostile eyes. I stared back, my face set defiant, knowing better than to show the fear churning my stomach.
‘Sapor?’ Zenobia demanded. Of all the tongues she could speak fluently, Persian was not one of them, but she said the word with confidence.
One man rode close to her. The others watched, their eyes amused, their posture low and yet more menacing for it. The Persian raked Zenobia with his gaze. She wore a thick cloak against the cold, yet the dark skin of her calves showed beneath her silks and fleeces, revealing a hint of what lay beneath.
After a few moments the Persian shouted something to the men behind him, who laughed, then he whooped in turn.
Zabbai half drew his sword, the blade hissing with the promise of death and a lifetime of skill. The laughter ceased. A tense anticipation overcame me as the leader moved across and pulled down the silks covering his face. He was young and with that youth came arrogance. His wiry beard twitched and a snarl appeared as he regarded Zabbai. He drew his own sword, looked about to press it to Zabbai’s throat, but he turned to Zenobia. I tensed, heart racing and thumping and tight. He held the point a finger’s breadth from her face. His horse stamped in agitation, but the blade did not waver. Zenobia did not move. Her expression remained as impassive, the steel caressing her cheek.
‘Sapor,’ she said again.
Her voice carried on the silence of the plain, air ringing clear until only an echo of the word remained. She held out her hand to me. I looked back, a moment of confusion, then retrieved the message I had stowed in the saddlebag. I handed it to her and she took it, her eyes fixed on the man who held cold metal to her cheek as she pressed it upon him, lips tight, no trace of fear to be found.
The Persian’s expression darkened, but he did not take the scroll immediately. Finally, he snatched the emperor’s words from her hand and offered it to another man, who urged his horse forward and accepted it. He prized open the seal and scanned the text before handing it back.
They muttered between them, words low and in their foreign tongue.
Sweat dripped down the side of my face.
Zenobia caught my eye but looked away again, expression fixed. Zabbai glowered at the men surrounding us, face hard and without amusement, a challenge in itself.
Orders relayed between the Persians. Disagreement and hostile words. Then the leader of their group seemed to have his way and the others fell silent.
He bowed slightly, spread his arm, palm up, in mock gesture. I urged my camel on. The Persian horsemen positioned at our rear and flanking, their leader in front.
‘What did you say to them?’ I asked Zenobia.
‘Shapur. Just his name. They knew the scroll was from the emperor. The leader was afraid that if he killed us, his king would know. He did not wish to risk the wrong decision.’
‘And if his king does not wish to see us when we arrive, he will kill us anyway,’ I said.
A Persian hissed and no more was said.
A few moments and the enemy camp grew clear, emerging from the sand, distinct and sharp and more terrifying than I could have imagined. And then we were amongst them, surrounded by their dirty, bearded faces, and my heart beat a fast rhythm. This was never a fair fight or a test of skill. Zabbai strode by my side but no general could save us now. Perhaps not even words, even if they were those of a woman, could see us safely home. This was suicide, and I could see no way to survive. I saw only red. Crimson, weeping flesh, stripped and torn from men, their screams loud in my ears, the cries of messengers that Odenathus himself had sent here, and the skies shaking with pain. I had seen one man; bones and muscle and sinew drying in desert heat, eyes staring up from lidless sockets, teeth rotting in a lipless mouth. Bile had risen in my throat at the sight. And I had seen it many times since, nothing could block the vision of it from my mind, and it would never leave me.
I took in the sight of the Persian camp, swallowed; cursed our being here. It was vast. I had seen it only at a distance before: far-off specks of firelight on another shore, in a distant land, a land that had once been ours but far enough from me not to inspire the fear I felt in these moments. Now, surrounded by it, walking into the heart of the enemy, I felt swamped by a tide of dangerous water much larger than the small pool our own army had become.
The camp went about its business, the warriors repairing armour, cooking food, brawling and talking and taking little notice of three strangers hidden amidst a group of their own warriors. Then we came to a large tent near the centre of the camp, its colours far brighter than those around it, taller than most, larger than any other.
The leader of the group raised a hand, gesturing for us to stop. He spoke a few words to his companions, and entered the tent.
We waited.
An age passed, time slow, as if it were not moving at all. Zenobia’s face grew hard and irritable, until the man finally reappeared. He spoke to his comrades in their foreign tongue, but it did not hide the crispness, the annoyance, in his tone.
His men ushered us into a smaller tent to the right of the larger one, bare inside, only a faint light penetrating the darkness.
Zenobia edged toward the entrance and parted the opening to see beyond.
‘What do you see?’ Zabbai asked.
‘I can see little,’ she murmured. ‘There are guards.’
‘How long do you think they intend to keep us in here?’ The enclosed space filled me with uncertainty, the cramped darkness prickling sweat.
She shrugged, as if it did not matter, as if she could not care. ‘For as long as it takes Shapur to have the scroll translated.’
For a heartbeat I forgot the scroll, before recalling that Zenobia had handed it to the Persian warrior. I wondered myself what it said, what words the emperor had written to the king of the Persians, and the bargain he attempted to strike. We were there to find peace, another mission to secure the safety of our country, only this time we were at the mercy of Shapur and not Rome. This time we faced our enemy and not our friends, and this time we could only hope that they would agree to peace, whereas before I had expected only rejection when we sought reinforcements.
We sat for hours, until the sun began to fade and the tent took on a cold gloom. No food or water was brought to us. Our camels had been taken upon our entering the camp, containing all our supplies. And yet Zenobia appeared, as always, unconcerned. She did not speak, nor did she complain. She sat as serene as the goddess Selene, the whites of her eyes and the white of her teeth glowing in the darkness. Her back straight, her chin high, her eyes half-closed.
I felt only apprehension and dread.
Darkness fell entirely and we could no longer make out one another’s forms. Only then were the tent flaps flung open, and we were floo
ded in bright yellow light. I squinted, struggling to see the person holding the torch, a voice barking a command in Persian.
We rose to our feet and followed the figure with the torch whose voice had been so coarse and deep. Outside the tent darkness had not quite consumed all. Men still roamed between tents. Campfires were lit with more warriors huddled around, and women and children too.
A sickly feeling came over me as I heard the Syrian tongue. I turned quickly, searching for the source, as if the familiarity of the sounds would save us.
But I saw women and children chained together. Their faces and limbs were broken and bloody. They crouched in the dirt. One woman stroked a boy’s hair with fingers cracked and bent. I looked past the blood and thought the boy a little like Bamdad. His family? Had they survived the fall of Antioch for this? To find themselves in chains? I paused, wanting to approach and ask, to know if they were indeed his family, his wife and children, but I was pushed on.
We headed for the large tent. I trembled with nervousness, struggling to breathe, not knowing if any words would see us leave alive. Zabbai walked beside me, his expression grim.
Zenobia ascended the steps onto the platform first. It set the tent higher than all the rest, higher than an elephant. She did not look back. She did not shake or show any sign that she was afraid. She simply walked into vast tent and I followed.
CHAPTER 8
Zabdas – 290 AD (Present day)
We pass riverside towns and villages as we journey as far as we can by boat, onward to Hama. A few places I have seen before; recognised from years ago, but others I do not. It is peaceful, even though I know this is my last mission, that I must deliver Jadhima’s fate in Rome. This is the journey that I have always been destined to make, no matter what has gone before and in between.
I have family with me. Those I have known in recent years: Samira, Bamdad, even Rostram and the hardness that has taken and consumed him. Only we soldiers know the fate which befell him those long years past. Only I know why he took to a slave ship and this life on the river.
Sadness hangs as I think of those who are dead and gone. I have seen old men perish and I have seen young men die. I have watched children taken by illness and men fall on the edge of a blade. I think of Samira’s father, Vaballathus; my son-in-law. I think of him most. Of his dying in my arms, his life taken by Jadhima, King of the Tanukh, as we searched for our own revenge. Yet as Vaballathus’ life bled out on the sands, staining the earth a deep red, I took Jadhima and then I sought nothing. I cannot now let death consume me, as it has done before. I took Jadhima’s life as if he were a piece of fruit and I sliced his head from his neck and it was done. Finally, he was dead, and at last I had fulfilled every promise I had ever made. Except this last one: to deliver news of the Tanukh king’s fate.
The riverbank drifts by, the river named after grandeur, yet I see nothing grand. I see little houses built far enough away that they will not flood if the banks swell, protected by sandbanks, ready to be washed away and rebuilt. And I see the sides of the valley, rocky and grey.
I wonder how different life would have been, how much of the decimation of the east would not have occurred if I had never come to Palmyra as a boy. But I know that nothing would have been different. How could it have been? I was just a boy turned soldier turned general. The struggle between Rome and the Persians would have continued, and Syria was sure to be quashed by it, or to surface above, and with Zenobia ever present, the country would rise.
And if I had not come, if Julius had never found me at the docks of Yemen, I would have still been a slave. An old slave. Dead now after a lifetime of toiling in desert heat, worked to the bone, tired beyond my years. I would never have known the beautiful city that was Palmyra. I would never have known the love of a father, or experienced what it was like to have a family again. Never fought in the ranks of our Bedouin warriors, and not known the sights and the smells and fears and the joy I have experienced. I would never have had my beautiful baby girl and granddaughter in turn. I would not be telling this story.
I watch froth covered ripples float by, looking beyond into the deep murky green of the river. I will continue to tell Samira everything she is required to know, everything I have promised.
She stands on the deck looking out, and I know she is trying to envisage my life. I can taste it at times, in certain foods, in the air and the grit in my food. Or I smell it; the sudden scent on another that so reminds me of Julius, Zenobia, Aurelia and a thousand others I brushed against in my youth, and the perfumed oils familiar to each of them.
Every time I see a girl with golden hair I feel a jolt, a reminder of the young woman who gave herself so wholly to me. For every man with proud posture and hair slicked smooth back with oil, I am teased with memories of the man I came to know as my father, of Julius. Sometimes I see Zenobia in a village, a market place, on her knees in a temple praying to Selene or to Bel. I walk up to her and lay a hand upon her shoulder, say her name, just a whisper on the warm air, bringing her to life. But then she turns and I find it is not her, and the illusion breaks. I dream, too. Real, vivid dreams of a life past or the impression of a day that never truly occurred, then I wake. But I force myself to close my eyes and continue the dream, knowing it is not true, and that I can never live those years again.
It is easier amongst friends. Beside Bamdad and with Samira and those familiar to me, especially now Vaballathus is gone. They distract me from my thoughts, even though our mission is always on my mind, pushing me forwards, carving into the future what is meant to be.
I see what must be done, and it is an easy task; not physically enduring. Still I know there is an element of closure in my written words. Parting with the story of Zenobia is as if I am free of it. Free of what happened.
Bamdad approaches. His eyes are hard. He is angry with me.
‘Why in the name of the fucking gods have you told Samira about me?’
I smile. I cannot help it. Bamdad is angry but he is only angry because he is a part of the story, part of the history of these lands, and he is afraid of what I might tell Samira, who looks up to him as she looks up to me. She is fond of him, and he is concerned he might lose that.
‘You were there,’ I say. ‘You know what happened. What I have told her.’
‘You will tell her everything, then?’
I do not answer. Bamdad knows much, but not all. My eyes ache and I rub them and take a deep breath. I stretch to the sky, tiredness taking hold, my limbs stiff and my mind dulled by a busy day aboard the boat.
‘I will tell her everything. She should know.’
‘If you must, make sure you are kind to me,’ he says. ‘Don’t make me look like a fool.’ He strides away.
I look back at Apamea, almost lost from view, a small blur on a fading horizon. The towns and villages are sparse the further we travel. I feel eyes upon us, watching our every move, even in this desolate place. I am unnerved. There is something out there. I could say it is the scavenging nomad tribes that induce my paranoia, but I know it is not. There is a price on my head; the man who killed the king of the Tanukh.
A soldier keeps a keen eye on the horizon, for there is always an enemy, always a revenge to exact, a man wanting to draw blood. I had thought us safe, away from Palmyra, a small company, but I know that we are not.
There was a time, many years ago, when I did not feel threat from those people I call my own, my countrymen; my brothers. We were warriors feared by our enemies, respected by the citizens of Syria.
I look to the riverbank either side of the boat and up at the steep slopes of the valley, and see a glimmer, the sort of light that metal might reflect. The kind I use to send signals when preparing for battle. And I know then that someone else is out there watching, waiting. I could call them out and stand my ground, hunt them as they hunt us, for I am not afraid, but I cannot fight what I could not see, and I would rather move on, head for Rome, and leave them far behind.
Samira sits with
my men on the bow of the boat, watches them struggle to fight one another, training as they have done all their lives; even now, when no army exists in this barren land but for the men I left in Palmyra. These men aboard ship were once warriors, the elite of the Bedouin, men who had seen more war than sand.
Rostram, how I remember him, a warrior I have known almost his whole life. He is perhaps thirty-five years now, age and battle not as apparent on his flesh. He duels with Kairash, his friend. Kairash wields two blades of curved steel, catching the light with each movement, knowing that he will not beat Rostram, for Rostram is arrogant and rightly so. He is one of the strongest, quickest, most favoured warriors I have known. He moves much faster than Kairash, slipping and sliding along the deck, avoiding the blades, chuckling with grim certainty. He turns and cuts, turns and cuts again, slicing and whistling with his own two blades, and all the while Kairash parries with brute strength.
‘Rostram will win.’
I sit next to Samira. She is watching them, intrigued by the training which yields itself to another grudge match between two old friends.
‘He has won twice already,’ she admits as blades ring and the dozen men of the crew shout encouragement, willing them both on, not caring who wins, spoiling only for a good fight.
‘That is why no bets are taken,’ I say.
Samira appears thoughtful. She has not taken her eyes from Rostram. But then she says: ‘When Zenobia lost her child and she lay close to death, did you really believe she would die?’
I consider for a moment. ‘If I am honest, no, I did not. I feared she would, but I cannot say that I ever truly thought she would die. She was strong, much stronger than anyone I have known. Her will was greater than most. But at the time I was young, I was selfish, and I was afraid.’
‘You admit a great deal,’ she says. ‘You tell me this story, and everything of your youth.’
For a moment I do not know what to say. I anticipate questions, but not comment on my character. What I did then, perhaps, but not who I am now.