by M C Scott
‘Then I will keep to it. I, too, am a man who knows the value of his oath.’
Rising, Vologases grasped Pantera by the shoulders and raised him ungently to his feet. They were of a height, but where Pantera was slim as whipcord the king was a bear with bull’s shoulders, a man born to wield an axe in war. His fists held Pantera upright. I could not tell if the Leopard’s feet were touching the ground.
‘Tell your Corbulo to keep his troops on his side of the river and I will keep Parthia’s heavy cavalry and horse-archers on mine. In this way might our empires be neighbours in peace.’
The king’s hands snapped open. Pantera rocked down on to his feet, and, with a tumbler’s elasticity, converted what might have been a stumble into a bow. ‘His majesty is wise as the eagle, fierce as the bear in protection of his people. I will convey to General Corbulo your message. If it is in my power, I will bind him to keep his side of the bargain.’
‘It won’t be in your power,’ Vologases said sourly. ‘Like all his kind, he is ruled by greed. And now he is ruled also by a mewling boy-child in Rome, who sings for the entertainment of others. There will be war. But not this year and perhaps not next. Leave now; we tire of your company. Take the bay mare and do with her what you will. We wish no recompense for such a gift.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I DON’T UNDERSTAND,’ I said. ‘Vologases is as much an enemy to Rome as his son was. His brother is on the throne of Armenia and General Corbulo is about to start a war against him.’
We were no longer in the foul Hyrcanian inn; we were, in fact, no longer in Hyrcania, but in a tavern that spanned three storeys, a day’s ride into Armenia, which nation, as I had had just pointed out, was currently ruled by Tiridates, brother to Vologases, whose men were assiduous in their care of us, as ordered by the letters of safe passage provided by the King of Kings.
These letters had provided not only our safety but also our luxury as we travelled; this inn was not the first to offer us its best rooms, but it was the first in which armed men had not shared those rooms with us, in order to ‘ensure our safety at all times’. They had backed off now, just as had the snow that had harried us all the way to the border.
If the King of Kings could control the weather, he had done so well, for it had followed us faithfully until we had departed Hyrcania and begun to travel through Media Atropatene and Adiabene. Then the snow had dropped back and the sun had found its heart and spring had come, bringing snowmelt, and mud, so that there were times when we would have preferred the ice and snow. Armenia, such as we had seen of it so far, was little different.
I sat on the end of the bed tugging off my sodden riding boots and let fly the questions that had been held inside since we had taken our leave. ‘What on earth were we doing back there besides trying to get ourselves killed?’
‘Demalion, we’re alive.’ Pantera’s voice was unusually clipped, as if his patience had finally run to an end. ‘If we were trying to get ourselves killed, we three would have managed it, I think. Two officers of the Fifth and a spy trained by Seneca could manage that much at least.’
He was sitting by the open window of our room, facing west, to the old sun. As ever, he kept his back to a wall and his face to the door and the Scythian bow with the raven arrows at his side; he had never yet let it go, except when required to by the King of Kings.
He was resting now, turned away from us with his chin on his fist and his elbow on the edge of the window, and so did not see the mix of confusion and resentment on my face. Still, he must have sensed it. ‘Cadus, tell him,’ he said tersely.
Cadus was sitting on the bed nearest the door, teasing a stone from the sole of his riding boot with his belt knife.
I turned on him. ‘Well? Plainly you know everything I don’t.’
Cadus tossed his knife loosely on to the pillow. Seeing him smile was like watching stone crack after frost; like having a friend return who had been lost. I don’t think he’d smiled once all the time we were in Hyrcania. Smiling now, he said, ‘Vologases is only an enemy of Rome if we make him into one.’
‘But he put his brother on the throne of Armenia in direct defiance of Rome! What’s that if not an act of war?’
‘It’s expediency. Armenia is a part of the Parthian empire and Vologases has the right to choose its king. If he fails, he will not be King of Kings for long – he has enemies inside his empire as much as he does without. General Corbulo thinks that Vologases can be persuaded to deal with Nero; he will be allowed to keep his brother on the throne, but only if Tiridates comes to Rome himself and asks for it nicely. That way, Nero can hold a Triumph, claim a great victory and not have to spend any more money in the east, at a time when the western borders are a sponge soaking up gold in the defence of Britain. Quite why anyone would wish to pour money into a swamp surrounded by sea, full of women who fight like harpies, is beyond me, but that’s why we’re here, you and me and Pantera: it’s all about saving money.’
Cadus laid his boots to one side and began to remove his riding trousers, revealing thighs that would have made an ox blush, and very white skin. For his size, he was well made, and he had no difficulty balancing on one leg as he donned clean woollen trews. He glanced over his shoulder at Pantera. ‘Am I right?’
‘Close.’ Pantera spoke without turning.
‘But Vologases will attack the legions,’ I said. ‘He’ll have to: the war council has met. If he goes back on that, they’ll think him weak and he’ll have another half-dozen traitors vying for his throne.’
I sighed and hunched my shoulders. I had thought we were in Hyrcania because Rome wanted a war. All the way across Armenia I had been preparing my report for the officers of my legion. I had new dreams in which I handed my notes to Corbulo himself, and was made flag-bearer of my century for my trouble. On the good nights, I became aquilifer, and carried the Eagle of the Vth Macedonica into battle. If I were going to be forced to march with the legions, at the very least I could march at the front, or so I had thought.
‘Are you saying there will be no war?’ I said, and heard in my voice a new hope; if peace broke out, who would have need of soldiers? Particularly those who would prefer to be herding horses. A cloud lifted that I had not known lay on me. I saw images of horse herds, and Macedonian mountains, and my mother welcoming home the unconquering hero.
Pantera threw me a bitter smile. ‘Don’t pack your bags yet. That’s not what I was saying. If you want my honest opinion, I think war is a certainty; Nero doesn’t have the self-control to keep his generals in check. But the fighting can perhaps be delayed if Vologases faces internal strife. To that end, I sincerely hope there is at least one king who’ll be trying to take his place before spring. That is what we have been working towards— What?’
I was shaking my head; he must have seen it from the corner of his eye.
‘Nobody’s going to turn on Vologases this year.’ I was scathing, which I had never dared before, but his tone had stung me. ‘There are no sons left with any ambition and Ranades, who has the power, won’t turn on him: the king of Hyrcania loves him like a brother and is loved in his turn. There’s nobody left except—’ I bit the edge of my thumb, thinking. ‘The fox-faced king? Monobasus of Adiabene? You think he’ll attack Vologases this winter?’
‘Very good.’ Pantera’s voice was heavy with irony. ‘The king of Adiabene is … intimate with Ranades’ second son, who has just seen a way by which he might make himself at the very least king of Hyrcania, if not King of Kings. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ranades found himself on the wrong end of an arrow in the hunt one day soon. And his replacement might find he had pressing business in Cstesiphon.’
‘Where?’
‘The Parthian capital. Where Vologases has his winter palace,’ Cadus answered. He finished pulling on his trews and crossed the room to lay one ham-fisted hand on Pantera’s shoulder. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asked. ‘You’re moody and you’re baiting the boy when he doesn’t deserve it. That’s
not like you. Did the messenger say something you didn’t like?’
The messenger … a short man with a hard-driven horse had met us on the track in a section of forest and spoken to Pantera as they squeezed their horses in opposite directions past the same fallen tree trunk. If they had shared four words they were short ones. If written messages had passed between them … that wasn’t impossible, I thought; something small could have been transferred from palm to palm as they rode. I tried not to look shocked.
‘What will you do if Vologases brings his heavy cavalry against your legion?’ Pantera asked, rising. He sounded serious. He looked serious. ‘If Demalion can stop planning his escape for a moment and accept that the Fifth is his legion, then the two of you might wish to consider this: Vologases has five and a half thousand cataphracts; you have seen them. He has as many light cavalry, who are still more heavily armed than anything of Rome, plus the horse-archers. The legions of the east have legionaries and minimal cavalry. What would you do if you were set against him?’
Run, I thought, but did not say it. To my left, Cadus poked his tongue into the gap between his front teeth, as if exploring it helped him to think. ‘There are ways for men on foot to fight horses,’ he said warily. ‘Even the cataphracts.’
‘Think on them,’ Pantera said brusquely. ‘I’m going out.’ He pushed past us, out of the room and out of the inn.
We stood at the open window and watched him say something short to the guards and snatch the bay mare from the grooms. He mounted alone, neatly, hard, fast, with anger written on every line of his body. The mare tried to rear and he kicked her forward, cursing. He did not use her wrongly – I could not have forgiven him for that – but he let his rage be known and she left at a flat-eared gallop, heading out beyond the safe road to the unprotected forest.
It was the first and only time I saw Pantera lose his temper. I was only glad he had taken it away from us. I did not envy any bandits that thought him fair game, for he still had his bow, and I had no doubt that he would kill without thought any man who came against him.
Cadus and I stood together until the trees swallowed the sound of his passing, then Cadus turned away from the window, cracking his knuckles. His face was unreadable. In Pantera, that was usual; in Cadus it most assuredly was not. If I had not been certain that Cadus, at least, took only women to his bed, I would have thought myself caught in the heart of a lovers’ quarrel.
‘What do we do?’ I said, lost.
‘We sit here and work out the ways a legion of five thousand can stand against a mounted army of twice that number of cavalry and survive. When he’s in that mood, we need to have some good answers before he comes back.’
‘And then will he tell us what the messenger said?’
‘He’ll tell us when he’s ready, but only if he thinks we need to know. Don’t think about that. Just sit there’ – Cadus nodded to the bed – ‘and do what he said; pretend you’re in the front row when we’re set against the Parthians and you want to stay alive. For a start, tell me anything you’ve been taught about the ways infantry might win against cavalry.’
CHAPTER FIVE
WE HAD A plan ready by dusk, and laid it out for Pantera on his return, using our daggers and boots to show the cataphracts in their chain mail with their ten-foot spear-swords and our belts to show the layout of the legions.
Whatever his earlier temper, Pantera had recovered his good humour and approved our plan, suggesting minor alterations that we might consider. He joked with us, which was a novel experience, and we laughed, all three together; and in that spirit, with the excitement of battle almost upon us, we left the inn the following morning and travelled on.
The following days passed in a haze as we crossed Armenia from east to west, leaving the old volcano to our right and Lake Van to our left and then traversing the Taurus Mountains.
Each day, the spring grew stronger, the grasses greener, the flowers brighter. And each day, we studied the topography as if we were the forward scouts for the legions with Vologases’ army a day behind, hunting us down. After a while, it began to feel true and Cadus and I searched out the places for lookouts, the open plains in these high, unfriendly mountains where a cohort, or three, or an entire legion, might hold a pass against an advance. We planned our anti-cavalry manoeuvres until we could recite them in our sleep. Only when we reached the western border where Armenia met Cappadocia – in effect, where Parthia met Rome – did we begin to relax.
That night, Pantera bought us wine, and we toasted our time together. I had lost my resentment, my envy, my bitterness. I was grateful to him for taking me out of a winter’s quarters where I would have spent half of the six months marching over the mountains and the other half digging encampments in waist-deep snow. I told him so, and that I was taking back to the Vth Macedonica all I had learned.
And that was when he set his beaker down and looped his hands round his knees and I remembered the inn on the eastern border, and the messenger, and Pantera’s temper.
‘What?’ I said.
Cadus answered for me, slowly, testing. ‘We’re not going back to the Fifth, are we? That was the message?’
‘That was the message.’ Pantera looked down at his thumbs. ‘It was signed by the emperor; there is nothing I can do to countermand it. If it makes you feel any better, they’re sending me to Britain, which, as you so rightly observed, is a swamp surrounded by sea and full of women who fight like harpies.’
‘Perhaps the emperor thinks you can save him money there as you did here.’ I looked down at the table as I spoke, and drew whorls with my fingertip in a puddle of spilled wine. I felt a kind of tugging grief in my chest and charged my voice to sound cheerful. ‘If you can do what you did in Parthia, they’ll make you a hero when you come back to Rome.’
‘If I come back,’ Pantera said. ‘The chances are never high. But even if I do, spies are never heroes. We do our work unseen, behind men’s backs.’
‘What of us?’ Cadus asked.
Pantera raised his head. He was too much a man of honour not to meet Cadus’ eyes, and mine. He said, ‘I am to leave you here and cross overland. You are to journey as swiftly as you may to Raphana where—’
‘Not the Twelfth?’ My hand splayed flat, loudly. The puddle of wine smeared across the table. I may have resented the Vth on principle, but I knew they were one of the most honoured legions in the empire and had some pride in that. The XIIth was quartered in Raphana with the IVth Scythians and both legions were universally despised.
I read the answer in Pantera’s eyes, and his regret, which did nothing to make me feel better.
‘I recommended you for promotion,’ he said. ‘It didn’t occur to me they’d move you. They need good men in the Twelfth to strengthen its heart, and you are both that. At least you are accorded your worth. You’ – he nodded to Cadus – ‘will become first centurion of the sixth cohort, with pay to match.’
First centurion. It had a good ring to it. Of sixty centurions in a legion, only ten were first of their cohorts, paid twice as much as the rest. And you might think that the sixth cohort was a long way down the line, with only four below it, but in reality, the layout of battle meant that the sixth was the veteran cohort, manned by the best of men, who held the rear line in battle and never retreated. If the legion had such men. From what we had heard of the XIIth, its men were worth less than sheep, but even then, you would have to suppose that some must be better than the others.
Pantera’s gaze was turbulent, but Cadus met it squarely and I saw his chin go up. He was the fourth generation of his family to enter the legions: his great-grandfather had fought for Octavian when the Vth Macedonica had first been formed, and then for Antony. His grandfather had died in service as a centurion. His father had enlisted at eighteen and been raised to camp prefect before he retired. Cadus himself had joined a year younger, lying about his age, and been made centurion by the age of twenty-five. He was a man to polish mud and make it shine. I realized how
much I would miss him. Both of them. In an act as unlikely as any that whole six months, I closed my eyes and prayed to join him at least in his cohort, if not his century.
I didn’t see Pantera’s face, but heard him speak from the darkness beyond my closed lids.
‘Demalion,’ he said, ‘will be scribe and clerk to one Aulus Aurelius Lupus, centurion of the first century, second cohort. I suggested also that he be the cohort’s courier, and that he be allowed to keep his horses.’ There was a gap. I had my eyes shut still. He said, ‘Demalion, I’m sorry.’
I was too numb to hear the care in his words, although I thought about it afterwards. At the time, all I could think was that the second cohort was a disaster; weakest of any legion. The new men were put there, the dispensable ones, left to die in the front line of battle, at no cost to anyone. If they survived, then they could move to a new cohort soon after. Small consolation, then, that I might be courier as well as scribe, allowed to keep my horse, to ride when others walked, a promotion that excused me from the outset from the duties every man hated: digging and filling the latrines, digging the ramparts at each new camp, setting and breaking the tents.
But still … the second cohort. The second. In the XIIth. I thought my heart would break.
I heard the slide of linen on skin and snapped open my eyes. Pantera had reached into his tunic. As he brought out his hand, he opened his palm to reveal a small scroll, like the manumission papers of a slave, only smaller. This he held out to me.
‘I’m giving the bay mare to you,’ he said. ‘She will make you a good courier if you are offered the position. Think about that. Nothing is set in stone, and with the Twelfth in Syria, well behind the battle lines, you can carve your own niche to fit what you want of it.’
I took the scroll and Pantera stood, as an officer dismissing his men; he had been that to us. ‘If you bear yourselves in service as well as you have with me, the Twelfth will lose its reputation for ill-luck long before Vologases decides to wage his war. And if you can drill the manoeuvres we have planned into your men until they can do it without thinking, you’ll come to love the feel of battle, and the men you fight with. Nothing is as bad as it seems.’