The Kingdom That Rome Forgot

by Gavin Chappell

  As he climbed hand over hand, the echoing splashing of his pursuers came from directly below, followed by shouts. They had reached the shaft, seen his swaying figure proceeding up the rope. Did they have bows? He would be safe from arrows, he realised; the bow strings would be too wet to be of use if they did. Did they have throwing spears?

  He glanced down. All he could see were dark shapes in the foaming water, upturned faces, eyes and teeth glinting in the weak moonlight as they observed his progress in a grim silence. They made no attempt to follow, but after all, how could they hope to? He was climbing the only rope. When he finally reached the top, he would haul it up behind him so they couldn’t use it to follow him, and he and his master together would make their escape.

  But why hadn’t his master replied? What had happened up on the surface? Had the merchant already run, abandoning his slave as he had abandoned everyone else? Menander couldn’t believe that. He had helped the master escape last time, tended to him, waited upon him, helped him as a slave should help his master.

  When he first became a slave, he had resolved to make a better job of slavery than he had of his earlier life. He had vowed to serve his master. And his master had responded in kind. But now… had he been abandoned?

  And in that case… was he finally free?

  At last he reached the head of the shaft. Still his pursuers waited below him in the water, showing no sign of trying to climb after him. Above was only the short stone lined shaft to the top, and the coping stones of the wellhead. Still hanging from the swinging rope by one hand, Menander reached up to seize hold of the rough stone. He got a firm grip, then let go of the rope with his other hand, holding onto the bast rope with only his knees and ankles, and grabbed another stone.

  Now he hauled himself into the stone walled shaft by main strength, teeth gritted, his already aching shoulders a blaze of agony. Keeping hold on one side, he let go of the other and reached upwards, finding purchase further up the shaft wall. In silence broken only by occasional grunts that escaped him and went echoing down the well shaft, he hauled himself up to the level of the coping stones, thighs still clamped around the rope, until the cold, stinging, sand-filled wind hit him as his head appeared over the top of the well. Cautiously, he peered out upon the desert night.

  The dark shapes of date palms stood on every side. He could smell their sweet, resin scent that he remembered from his childhood. The air was very cold and the wind was moaning. Except for that, it was silent. A slender crescent moon hung in the sky.

  His eyes narrowed. A huddled shape lay upon the ground in the open between the well and the surrounding palms.

  His blood ran cold. ‘Master?’ he hissed. ‘Is that you?’

  The shape stirred feebly, turned towards him. Menander shook with horror. An arrow jutted from its chest.

  ‘Go back!’ came Claudius Mercator’s voice, once so strong and vibrant, now a breath of the desert wind. ‘Go back! It’s a trap!’

  ‘I cannot,’ Menander said. ‘The guards are waiting for me. And you are hurt.’

  Climbing out, he hurriedly approached his master. Kneeling, he inspected the arrow.

  There was a rustle from the surrounding trees. Claudius Mercator waved a hand desperately and feebly in their direction. Menander looked up to see dark figures stepping out from cover. Warriors, spearmen, archers. Garamantes. And one Arab.

  ‘Your escape attempt has failed,’ Vabalathus said with a laugh. At his side was a big Garamantian who looked like Osorkon. ‘You are surrounded. If you try to run, slave, like your master did, these archers will fill your stinking black hide with arrows.’

  The Garamantes echoed his laughter.

  Claudius Mercator tried to speak. Menander leaned closer to hear him. ‘…traitor…’ the merchant was muttering. ‘…why? ... would have made you rich as Croesus…’

  ‘What is the fool saying?’ Vabalathus shouted.

  Menander looked up. ‘He asks why you betrayed him, when he would have made you richer than even your avarice could desire. I assume you made a deal with the guards. Was Dido in on this? Was that why she remained behind?’

  Vabalathus shook his head. ‘She knew nothing of this. I don’t know why the big slut stayed behind. Maybe she lusted after that catamite! Or did she want to bed the Greek after his death? Yes, I would have had my share of the profits, if the merchant had not botched the whole venture.’

  Still talking, he stalked forwards. ‘But now the guards have foiled this escape attempt they will explain to the king that it was with the connivance of Osorkon and myself. We will then know his favour, and I shall palaver for the trade concessions myself. Demetrius is dead or might as well be. Flaminius has vanished into the desert. And now Claudius Mercator himself breathes his last. The diviner said that only one of us would return, and that will be me.’ He raised a clenched fist. ‘I will be the richest merchant of all!’

  Menander sprang upon him like a lion, seizing him and whirling him round to shield himself and Claudius Mercator. The Garamantes were training their bows on the small group.

  ‘No!’ shouted Vabalathus. ‘Don’t shoot!’

  Menander saw Osorkon gesture to the archers. He let go of Vabalathus and flung himself down to cover Claudius Mercator.

  The air whistled. Vabalathus shrieked, and his twisted figure, riddled with arrows, crumpled and fell to the sandy ground.

  Menander hauled Claudius Mercator to his feet, slung the man over his broad back, and turned towards the well in time to see another Garamantian warrior climbing out of it. He cursed, realising he had forgotten to haul up the bucket rope behind him. They wouldn’t have been able to escape that way anyway.

  He turned and ran. The Garamantes reached for more arrows from their quivers but before they could fit them to their bows, the Ethiopian charged straight through them, knocking two or three off their feet before vanishing into the shadows of the trees. Arrows hummed through the air but there was nothing to suggest they had hit their mark.

  Osorkon shouted angrily, and gestured for the Garamantes to run for their parked chariots.

  —24—

  Phazania, 21st December 124 AD

  Flaminius was sleeping in a dugout roofed with freshly cut saplings when he was woken by a troglodyte scout.

  He sat up, dashing the sleep from his eyes, and tried to work out what in Jove’s name the fellow was jabbering about. One problem with being retained as commanding officer for a barbarian war band was the fact that they couldn’t understand him and he couldn’t understand them. A definite communications problem. Back in the legions, when he was an auxiliary tribune, the barbarians had been taught basic orders at least, and they couldn’t get on in their troop if they didn’t speak fairly decent Latin, if not Virgilian standard…

  ‘An attack?’ he guessed. He asked again in the crude sign language they had devised, but the troglodyte drew back his head in the gesture that amongst these people meant a negative. He led Flaminius outside.

  After a day or two of raiding they had retreated to an area of rocks below the cliffs within sight of a walled city. Flaminius understood it to be Garama itself. Lowing cattle were penned nearby, audible if not visible in the darkness, and the ground was pockmarked with the troglodyte’s dugouts, which they excavated like jerboas while on the march. Now these burrows showed peering faces, drawn by the distant rumble of chariots.

  ‘Garamantes!’ Flaminius cursed.

  They were too close to the inhabited areas, and yet how were they to carry out their mission if they remained in the desert? Already they had had been pursued from one settlement by Garamantes in chariots. The troglodytes had run like lizards, so fast they reached the rocks before the chariots could get more than a few of them. Flaminius had only escaped when two of his barbarian legionaries sacrificed their own lives. He could still picture their mangled forms, crushed under the chariot wheels.

  He ran to the bottom of a rock, scrambled up it followed more deftly by two troglodytes. At the top
they looked out across the starlit desert. Very far away, a low black line against the starry horizon, the walls of Garama were visible. Between the city and the camp amongst the rocks stretched a wide waste of blackness. By day it was a plain of sand and rocks, with occasional settlements, lying between the city and the mountains. By night it was impenetrable darkness, although tonight there was the slightest sliver of a moon, but it had vanished behind a cloud. It was from the plain that the sound of the chariots came.

  ‘They know where we are,’ Flaminius muttered. He had taken to talking to himself, surrounded as he was by people who squeaked rather than spoke and understood not a word he said. ‘We’ll have to do something about that.’

  Down from the rock he leapt, the two troglodytes following, and went to marshal his legion in the open space beyond their dugouts. With signs, he indicated that he was taking a vexillation out to scout.

  Moments later, he was at the head of a band of spear carrying troglodytes, marching out from the cover of the rocks and into the dark, cold, desert night. Sand crunched beneath their naked feet, but otherwise they went in utter silence.

  The night was still except for the growing rumble of chariot wheels. And something else, drawing closer and closer—sprinting feet? Someone running, not caring who heard, or perhaps too desperate. Was it another troglodyte, maybe one of his legion cut off from the others, pursued by the foe, trying to get back to the camp?

  He was about to lead his scouts in that direction when the moon came out from behind a cloud and at once the desert was bathed in silver. And he saw a sight that he would never forget.

  Racing across the plain were six or seven chariots, crewed by burly Garamantian warriors, their spear points shining in the moonlight. Running just ahead of them was a figure that seemed strangely deformed and monstrous until Flaminius saw that it was a man carrying another man in his arms. The Garamantes were hunting him.

  He gestured to his warriors. With a wailing yell, they charged down from the rocks.

  The chariots rumbled on across the plain. Flaminius doubted they had noticed the suddenly appearing interlopers, so intent did they seem on their quarry. The chariots sped across the plain, the troglodytes raced towards them.

  Flaminius gave the sign to halt and his legionaries formed up into two lines. First the forward line then the rear flung flint tipped javelins. Two flights of missiles hissed through the air, shrilling like geese above the marshlands of the Nile Delta. They passed over the desperately running figure and sank down towards the chariots.

  At once it was chaos and confusion; some javelins speared charioteers, others brought down galloping horses. The chariot line broke, some chariots collided. Some came to a screeching halt.

  Flaminius gave another sign, and the two lines of troglodytes flung their second javelins. He had equipped them like the legions of Caesar’s day, with two javelins for missile weaponry, and hand axes instead of short swords for hand to hand fighting. More Garamantes fell.

  It was too much for most of them. As the running figure reached his saviours, several surviving Garamantes steered their chariots round and galloped back towards the distant city.

  The running man halted, gasping for breath. He seemed to be at the edge of his exertions. Swaying on his feet, he placed his burden gently down in the sand, then rose to face Flaminius. The crescent moon shone on his dark face.

  To the Roman’s perplexity, Flaminius’ troops flung themselves down at the newcomer’s feet.

  ‘Get up!’ he barked, bewildered. ‘Jove curse you, get up!’

  Three of the chariots that had remained swooped up, archers loosing arrows as they came. The newcomer turned in horror, but the troglodytes rushed forward to protect him. Several leapt aboard the chariots and began to fight the Garamantes.

  Flaminius strode up. He had lost control of his troops, but it seemed to be a small matter. Who was this man? They had bowed before him as they had before Melanthus. And who was the other person, the one who he had carried so far and under such difficult conditions?

  Flaminius stumbled over the huddled form, and bent down to investigate it. His eyes narrowed.

  ‘Claudius Mercator?’

  He looked up and the other man turned from where he had been watching the troglodytes fight.

  ‘We must get my master to safety,’ Menander said. Flaminius stared at him in silence.

  The troglodytes trailed back from the chariots. Some had killed the warriors, others had killed the horses, cutting steaks from their steaming carcasses. Horse meat was nutritious and tasty, Flaminius knew, but as a cavalryman he regarded it as a waste of good horseflesh. He tried to communicate his disapproval to his troops but they paid him no attention.

  Menander went to the jubilant warriors and began clicking in their barbarous tongue.

  ‘Those Garamantes will come back with reinforcements,’ Flaminius said after Menander fell silent and some of the troglodytes picked up the unconscious Claudius Mercator. ‘We have a camp among the rocks with more men.’

  ‘They told me.’ Menander led Flaminius after the troglodytes. ‘We’ll have to leave this area and return to the hills. Osorkon’s future depends on bringing my master back to the king. But I do not know if Claudius Mercator will survive. Some fool shot him.’

  The broken shaft of an arrow projected from the merchant’s chest.

  ‘What has been happening since I last saw you?’ Flaminius asked, but Menander seemed not to hear him. Feeling as if he had just lost his command, Flaminius followed the others.

  Back in the camp, Menander sat down beside Claudius Mercator’s sleeping form, which lay in a sandy hollow, tended to by troglodytes. They had lit a fire to keep him warm and were feeding it with twigs from the thorn bushes that grew sparsely in the area. He recovered consciousness gradually.

  Flaminius knelt beside him.

  ‘It’s young Flaminius!’ the merchant wheezed. ‘We were going to Garama together, weren’t we?’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Flaminius. He still had a mission to complete. But he didn’t think Claudius Mercator was going anywhere. ‘Your slave seems to be getting on well with these barbarians I met.’

  Claudius Mercator peered blearily at Menander, who was surrounded by admiring troglodytes. ‘So he is,’ the merchant muttered. ‘He helped me escape, you know.’

  ‘Escape what?’ Flaminius asked. ‘Escape who?’ A thought struck him. ‘What of the others? What of Dido—and Amasis?’

  ‘Your catamite is safe,’ Claudius Mercator said reassuringly. ‘He stayed in the dungeons with Dido and Demetrius. He wasn’t fool enough to put his mouth in the lion’s maw.’

  ‘What of Vabalathus?’ Flaminius asked. ‘And why was Osorkon pursuing you?’

  He listened in dismay to the merchant’s story. Claudius Mercator had to pause several times to regain both his breath and his scattered wits. At last Menander took Flaminius to one side.

  ‘Even with the best physicians Alexandria can provide, my master does not have long to live,’ he said. ‘Please permit him to spend his last moments in peace.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Flaminius, ‘but maybe you could answer a few questions of mine?’

  Menander raised an eyebrow. ‘Of course,’ he said.

  Brutal as it might sound, Claudius Mercator had only himself to blame. Flaminius was more concerned about completing his mission. Oh, and freeing Amasis from the Garamantes, of course. No small matters, either of them.

  Flaminius and Menander sat together in the lea of a rock. About them the troglodytes were preparing for the march south into the hills. Several of them remained at Claudius Mercator’s side, tending him in accordance with the slave’s orders.

  ‘You seem to have lot of influence in these parts,’ Flaminius said wryly. ‘Of course, you’re an Ethiopian yourself, aren’t you? No wonder you speak the language. I can’t get my tongue round it.’

  ‘Indeed I am,’ said Menander. ‘I was born in the mountains south of here, on the road to A
gysimba. That is where my people have their home country. But it is a hard, harsh land, and we came north into the Garamantian kingdom in hopes of better pickings. That was when I was sold into slavery.’

  ‘So you are of the same tribe? I had never guessed. You seem a lot, well, better fed. More like Melanthus. Do you know him?’

  A troglodyte ran up. Menander addressed the newcomer in clicks, and he replied volubly. Frowning, Menander turned to Flaminius. ‘My master wishes to speak with you. Follow the warrior.’

  Flaminius rose. ‘Very well,’ he said, heavy hearted. The troglodyte led him to where the merchant lay in the flickering light of the camp. All around, the troglodytes were waiting with the patience of Egyptian idols.

  ‘Are you able to make another journey?’ Flaminius asked, crouching down beside the merchant. ‘It seems your slave has influence amongst these people. We’ll be getting you back to the safety of their caves. The Garamantes can’t get there in their chariots, and the ravines are a labyrinth fit to baffle Theseus. We’ll be safe for the time being, although we’ll need to get into the city later—to rescue the others, apart from anything. I suppose they’ll do what they can for you there.’

  Claudius Mercator shook his head. ‘I’m at the end of my last journey, sir,’ he wheezed. ‘I won’t make another, not in this life. Such a shame. I had plans, you know. Every venture I made, I told myself that I would buy lands and estates with the profits, but the self-same profits ran through my fingers like the desert sands. And so I must needs set out on another expedition.’

  ‘Financed by other people,’ said Flaminius ruefully. ‘And they always wanted paying.’

  ‘I paid them,’ the merchant protested. ‘I paid them out of the profits. Sometimes I miscalculated the profits, I’ll confess. I’m not a seer! I can’t foretell the future.

  ‘The diviner at Ammonium,’ he went on. ‘He was a true prophet when he said only one of us would return. I hoped that it would be me. I suppose we all had the same selfish thoughts. But it was not to be. All because Vabalathus betrayed me. Well, he got his just deserts.’ He looked sad. ‘And now, so have I. All but one of us will return. Will it be you, Flaminius? Will it be Dido? Or your catamite?’ He shook his head. ‘It won’t be me.’