by Peter Darman
‘Mithridates would be an idiot to return to Parthia. Death awaits him if he does.’
Scarab looked at her in alarm; this foreign woman who was both beautiful and fearsome. He did not know what to make of her. Then again, neither did most of the empire.
She looked at him. ‘Where is your family, Scarab?’
‘I lived with my parents, who were also slaves, in the house of their master in Egypt before I was sold to a merchant from Emesa. That was many years ago, highborn.’
She observed the still wriggling scorpion on the end of her dagger. ‘Perhaps one day you will return to Egypt, to free them from bondage.’
She rammed the dagger into the ground, cutting the scorpion in two.
‘I prefer to stay in Parthia, holiness.’
The next morning the company that Orodes had sent to Hatra returned with news that the Armenians were not laying siege to the city and that King Atrax and a force of Medians had arrived to strengthen the garrison. A wave of relief swept through me and I hugged Gallia because it also meant that Surena in Gordyene, to the north of Atrax’s kingdom, must have halted the Armenian invasion of his land. And Atrax would never have left his kingdom if neighbouring Atropaiene was still under threat, which meant that Aschek must have at least halted the enemy forces threatening his realm.
It took us just over two hours to reach Hatra, a detachment of cataphracts sent by Gafarn linking up with us a mile from the city walls. I was surprised that it was not Vistaspa who commanded these men but was informed by the officer in charge that the leg wound he had suffered at the Battle of Susa had still not fully healed.
If I had been heartened by the news of Atrax’s arrival in the city I was shocked when we reached Hatra and rode from its southern gates to the royal quarter in the north. The city had always been a bustling, thriving place but now it was filled with refugees with fear in their eyes. With listless expressions they huddled in doorways or gathered in cowering groups on the streets as they observed us ride past. I hardly recognised this place that had once been the western shield of the empire.
‘How long have these people been here?’ I asked the commander of our escort.
‘They arrived following the loss of Nisibus, majesty,’ he answered. ‘For a week the road to the north was filled with refugees fleeing the Armenians.’
‘How many?’
‘Thousands, majesty. The king has established makeshift camps in the city’s squares but as you can see, others are living on the streets.’
Hatra was watered by springs supplying sweet water from the earth so its citizens would never die of thirst, but its one hundred thousand inhabitants required large amounts of food each day to subsist, and thousands more mouths to feed would quickly exhaust the city’s food supplies. By the time we reached the palace in the north of the city my spirits had been deflated.
Our horses were taken from us at the palace steps and we were immediately taken to the throne room where Gafarn awaited us. If the city had appeared downcast the atmosphere in the throne room was close to despair.
The cavernous chamber had been cleared of courtiers and slaves and only a few guards remained along the walls and at the doors. The latter were closed as we paced across the marble tiles, our footsteps echoing around the room as we approached the dais. Ahead a downcast Gafarn and a pale Diana were seated on their thrones, while standing to their right were Atrax, Aliyeh and Adeleh, who looked forlorn and lost. On the other side stood the gaunt and frail Assur, chief priest at the Great Temple; Kogan, commander of the city garrison, now in his late sixties; and Addu, the city treasurer. Next to him stood a grim-faced Herneus, governor of the eastern city of Assur who nodded to me, and another, slimmer man with a thick black beard and long black hair. He was dressed in a rich scale armour cuirass, long-sleeved white shirt, brown leggings and boots. I had never seen him before.
When we reached the dais Gafarn and Diana stood and with the others bowed to Orodes, their high king. Gafarn then nodded to Kogan who ordered chairs and refreshments to be brought for us, Diana giving up her throne so that Orodes could sit on it as befitting his status. She sat in a simple wicker chair that was placed beside Gafarn while the rest of us settled into our chairs in front of the dais, though not before we had embraced both Gafarn and Diana. Nergal and I also embraced our friend and companion-in-arms Atrax. I also hugged Adeleh and tried to be warm towards Aliyeh but she waved me away. Always aloof and serious, my sister had turned into a calculating and icy queen who forgot little and forgave nothing. She had never forgiven me for the fact that her husband, the King of Media, had a permanent limp, a disability she blamed on me for supposedly encouraging Atrax to fight the Romans. The result had been his defeat and impediment.
Slaves brought us cool water to slake our thirsts as Gafarn began by thanking us for coming to his aid. He appeared withdrawn, weighed down by the burden of ruling such a great city and I wondered if he was finding it all too much. He smiled thinly at Assur who stepped forward and asked us all to rise and bow our heads.
‘Great Shamash, Lord of the Sun,’ the high priest began, ‘smile down on this Your city, and those who protect it and Your great temple. Unworthy though we are, grant us the wisdom and the means to drive back the godless heathens who have invaded Your lands and threaten those who love and fear You. In this time of strife we ask for Your divine help and deliverance. For only You can give us the strength to repel the foreign invaders.’
He turned, bowed his head to his king and returned to his position as we resumed our seats.
‘Hatra is in great danger,’ stated Gafarn flatly. ‘We lost ten thousand men at Nisibus when Prince Vata was most tragically killed.’ He smiled sympathetically at Adeleh. ‘And a further five thousand when we engaged Tigranes only a few days ago to the north. Now the hordes of Tigranes stand ready to assault this great city. Had it not been for your arrival, my lords, his soldiers might already be scaling its walls.’
‘Where is Tigranes now?’ enquired Orodes.
‘He has pulled his army back to the northeast, towards the Tigris,’ answered Gafarn.
‘He needs to be near a water source to maintain his multitude of men and animals,’ added Atrax.
‘He has requested a meeting with me,’ said Gafarn bitterly.
I looked up. ‘Meeting, why?’
‘To dictate surrender terms, no doubt,’ he replied.
‘You must never surrender, brother,’ spat Adeleh. ‘You must crush this Armenian upstart, this mountain dweller whose presence in our lands defies our father’s memory.’
‘We will not surrender, of course not,’ said Gafarn.
‘You should march against him again, brother,’ said Adeleh, ‘and this time you will have other kings beside you.’
I looked at Adeleh and suddenly it all made sense. I wondered why Gafarn had not waited until we had arrived and now I knew: Adeleh had obviously pestered him into attacking Tigranes to exact revenge for Vata and the result had been a cheap victory for the Armenians.
‘If only some had come earlier,’ said Aliyeh, looking at me, ‘then Prince Vata might still be alive and northern Hatra still free.’
I bristled at her insinuation. ‘If you have something to say, dear sister, then say it.’
‘When the Armenians invaded Hatra, you chose to help the Agraci filth first ahead of your own family. And now my sister is a widow and the enemy are nearly at the gates of this city, all because of you.’
Orodes and Atrax were aghast at her words and Gallia was fuming, while Nergal and Praxima looked distinctly uncomfortable.
‘You should have come sooner, Pacorus,’ said Adeleh. ‘Vata was your childhood friend.’
‘You waste your words, sister,’ hissed Aliyeh. ‘Our brother has become Haytham’s pet and takes orders from Palmyra, not Ctesiphon.’
At a stroke she insulted both Orodes and me by insinuating he was a weak high king who had no control over his empire. I jumped up.
‘Enough! I did not c
ome here to be insulted by you. One day you will talk your head off your shoulders.’
Atrax then rose slowly from his chair. ‘You forget yourself, Pacorus. Aliyeh is a queen and should be treated as such.’
Aliyeh smiled maliciously at me. ‘It is quite all right, Atrax. Pacorus has spent too long in the company of the Agraci and has adopted their manners and customs, it seems.’
Gallia leapt up and pointed at Aliyeh. ‘And you need to learn some manners.’
Aliyeh looked at Gafarn, a hurt expression on her face. ‘Are you going to allow me to be spoken to thus in the palace where I grew up? My father would not have allowed such a thing.’
‘Do not speak of my father,’ I warned her.
Gafarn raised his hand. ‘Can you all please compose yourselves and sit down. This is no time for a family squabble.’
Aliyeh regarded me contemptuously. ‘Is he a member of our family? I sometimes wonder.’
‘And I often wonder how such a spiteful, mean and nasty woman could be the daughter of my parents.’
‘If you insult my wife once more,’ said Atrax, ‘I will have no choice but to draw my sword against you, Pacorus, though I would rather die a thousand times before I did so.’
‘You are a true friend and man of honour, Atrax,’ I said, ‘and because of that I will withdraw from this assembly since I can see that my presence offends some among it. For I would rather cut off my own sword arm than raise it against you.’
I bowed my head to him and then Orodes, turned on my heels and walked towards the doors. Orodes and Gafarn called after me to stop but I ignored their pleas. Gallia likewise took her leave and came to my side.
After we had left the throne room we went to search for my mother, finding her in the garden she had tended so lovingly for years. She was kneeling in front of a bed of red chrysanthemums when we walked slowly up to her and halted. Sensing our presence, she stopped her digging and turned and smiled. I was shocked by her appearance. Her long black curly hair was now streaked with grey and she had lost a lot of weight so that her arms were thin and her face somewhat gaunt. Her brown eyes were full of pain and sorrow and my own eyes misted as I ran over to her and held her tight. She began to cry but then stiffened and released me, composing herself before she walked over to Gallia and embraced her.
‘How are you, mother?’ I asked.
‘Worked off my feet, Pacorus. I have been trying to bed in these chrysanthemums but there are never enough hours in the day.’
I smiled. ‘You have a small army of gardeners to help you.’
‘Oh, they are competent enough but flowers require loving care for them to flourish. Your father is always telling me…’
She stopped and held a hand to her mouth, then turned away from us and went back to her digging. I knelt beside her.
‘I am sorry about father. I wish it had been me in his place.’
She cupped my face with her hand. ‘No, Pacorus. It was his time. He died fighting for what he believed was proper and just and I think events have proved him right. Orodes is a good man.’
‘Yes he is,’ I agreed. ‘And Gafarn is a good king.’
‘Your brother thinks that you should be King of Hatra but I told him many years ago that the gods decided you should take a different path.’
She put down her trowel and stood.
‘Gallia, dear, you are looking very well. Did you bring my grandchildren?’
Gallia looked at me in alarm. It was as if nothing existed to my mother beyond this garden and the Armenians and Romans were mere figments of our imagination.
‘We left them in Dura, mother,’ replied Gallia, linking her arm in hers, ‘but we will bring them very soon.’
And so we walked with her under cypress trees, willow and date palms; along paths between ponds filled with carp and goldfish; the sweet fragrance of jasmine and myrtle filling the air. White doves flew around us and peacocks displayed their plumage. It was a place of serenity and beauty where one could forget the horrors of the outside world and the creeping doom that was approaching Hatra; a sanctuary that my mother had escaped to and in her mind would never leave.
The armies of the kings had made their camp to the north of the city and that was where Gallia and I slept that night, happy to be away from the poisonous barbs of my sisters. Adeleh I could forgive because of her grief but Aliyeh had incensed me.
‘I have a mind to ride back to Dura in the morning,’ I said to Gallia as we sat outside our tent waiting for Scarab to return from the field kitchens with our evening meal.
‘Orodes and Gafarn need you. We must present a united front against the Armenians.’
I scraped at the earth with the heel of my boot. ‘She never used to be like that, Aliyeh I mean. She was always serious and somewhat aloof but never scheming or malicious.’
‘Power has corrupted her,’ mused Gallia.
‘No doubt she has been bending Atrax’s ear about launching an attack against the Armenians to avenge Vata.’
‘You do not think we can defeat the Armenians?’
I shrugged. ‘If we fight them it must be on our own terms, not theirs. At the moment Tigranes is strong and has inflicted two successive defeats on us. He and his army will be confident that they can do so again. On the other hand, if we wait his strength will only increase when the Romans reinforce him. The next few days will be crucial.’
Scarab returned with freshly roasted goat and chicken, plus wine that Gafarn had sent from the city earlier. I told him to eat with us but I could tell he was most uncomfortable because he hardly ate anything and watched both of us all the time, offering to refill our cups after we had sipped from them and generally acting like a slave. Old habits die hard and it would take him a while to adjust to his new life.
The ending of the day was far more agreeable than its earlier part when Nergal and Praxima arrived with a hundred of their horse archers dressed in red kaftans, over which they wore scale armour cuirasses and helmets on their heads. Scarab fetched two more stools so our friends could sit with us while their men dismounted and I told them to go and get themselves something to eat.
The sun was casting long shadows and the sky was now turning orange and purple as the day waned and evening approached. Scarab threw more sticks on the fire and served our guests wine. Praxima found it difficult not to laugh as he bowed and called her ‘divinity’.
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘you are correct to address them so, for to the people of Mesene they are gods.’
Scarab looked most impressed by this news and bowed even lower, averting his eyes from theirs as he retreated from our presence.
‘Where did you get him from?’ asked Nergal.
‘We picked him up during our recent meeting with the Romans,’ I said. ‘He was a slave and now he’s my squire.’
‘There is a meeting in the palace tomorrow, Pacorus,’ said Nergal, changing the subject, ‘to discuss how we are going to deal with the Armenians.’
‘Sending my eldest sister to batter them with her tongue would be a good start,’ I suggested.
‘The Armenians need to be stopped,’ said Praxima, ‘else they will swallow up all the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates.’
She was right. Tigranes stood on the verge of victory and there appeared very little that we could do about it. I thought back to that night when Dobbai had performed her ritual. Where were the gods; had it all been in vain? Perhaps I had been wrong to put any faith in a rambling old woman.
I smiled at Praxima. ‘Tigranes thinks he has already won, no doubt, but that may be his undoing. His aim is to march south beyond Hatra but cannot while the city is still Parthian, for to do so would leave a mighty hostile citadel in his rear. He must take the city if he is to advance further.’
‘The Armenians have no siege engines,’ said Nergal.
‘But the Romans do,’ added Gallia, ‘and if they join with Tigranes then Hatra will be in great danger.’
‘Not necessarily, my sweet,’ I
replied. ‘Hatra’s walls are strong and high and the nearest water supply is over fifty miles away, at the Tigris. Not only that, a besieging army would have to fend off forces sent from Media, Dura and Babylon. What Tigranes needs to achieve is to crush us in battle in the hope that a demoralised Hatra opens its gates to him in submission.’
‘That will never happen,’ growled Praxima.
I stood and went over to her and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Perhaps we should make you the city governor, then Hatra could hold out for a hundred years.’
She threw back her head and laughed, shaking her mass of long red hair, then instinctively sprang to her feet and clutched the hilt of her sword, as the calm of the night was interrupted by shouting. I turned to see three of my horse archers approaching on foot, two of them holding the arms of a tall, well-built youth with long black hair.
‘Let go of me, barbarians. I am a prince and will have you flogged for your insolence.’
‘And I’m the King of Babylon. Now be quiet,’ said the unimpressed officer in charge.
We all stood as the group approached and the officer saluted, holding a sword in a scabbard in his right hand.
‘Apologies for the interruption, majesty,’ he said to me, jerking a thumb at the boy. ‘A patrol found this one trying to enter our camp. He says you are his uncle.’
I looked at Gallia and smiled at Nergal and Praxima and then waved the two guards holding the youth forward. The fire illuminated his square jaw and thick neck and the fire in his eyes reminded me of his mother.
‘You can let him go,’ I said to the guards, ‘he is family.’
He yanked his arms free and then glared at the officer holding his sword.
‘That’s mine,’ he snapped.
I held out my hand to the officer who passed me the sword. He bowed then he and his men left us. I drew the sword from its scabbard. It was a beautiful piece, finely balanced and exquisitely made. The long, straight blade was double edged and the hilt comprised a steel cross-guard, a grip wrapped in leather strips and a silver pommel in the shape of a horse’s head.