by Robert Low
‘Palmyran,’ Quintus muttered. ‘Or something. He is not right, that one.’
‘He kills well,’ Ugo growled, looming up and leaning on his axe. There was blood on his face and his sleeve, but it wasn’t his. ‘All these are his.’
A score or more were scattered, everyone with raggled necks and no heads. Kag and Praeclarum came up – still mounted, Drust noted – and Kag indicated some of the riders galloping to and fro.
‘They are from the caravanserai,’ he said. ‘Not your usual Army horse neither.’
They were not. They were mailed, with crested helmets and white cloaks; Drust felt a belly-flip of unease at that, seeing that these were escort horses for some Stripe.
‘Did we win?’
‘They ran,’ Praeclarum said, then frowned. ‘Did you fall off? Are you hurt?’
Drust did not want to be embarrassed by any more grins from the others, so he flapped one hand to dismiss it, then stiffened as a group of mounted men rode up to them, skidding to a halt in a shower of dust. When it cleared, he saw through his squint that a giant had climbed off a horse which, big and black though it was, seemed relieved at losing the weight.
‘20th Palmyra,’ the giant said, cocking his head to one side. ‘Timely and bravely done – how many are you?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, but went to the lolled body of Scarface, his blood a scummed paste that the giant did not care to avoid. He will ruin those nice boots, Drust thought. Expensive wine-coloured leather with gold, the sort a serious Stripe would wear.
The giant bent and grunted, then came up with a small leather pouch, torn from Scarface’s neck; Drust knew that there would be a signaculum in it, a small lead tablet that detailed the rank and unit of the legionary who wore it. It would be the last thing even a deserter would throw away.
‘Alexandros,’ the giant said after a cursory glance. ‘Legionary of the 3rd Parthica. Fucker.’
He turned and stared at Drust, who tried not to blink and failed. It was not the size, though, that was impressive – even Ugo was not as broad or tall – it was the face, which seemed carved from a block of rough stone, the nose broad and flattened, the chin solid as a farmhouse. Most of it was a browline that was all one long awning above eyes that might have been kind once, but were now glaring from under this hood. It was a club, that face, and the owner used it to beat anyone he stared at into the ground.
Drust did not allow himself to be beaten, but he was suddenly conscious of what the giant was seeing – a broken-nosed face, broad and full-lipped, framed with a cropped beard and close-cropped hair. Eyes slightly liquid, a little popped, with that fret at the corners which told those who understood how many distant horizons they had stared at.
The giant studied him, then stretched out one hand, placing the flat of it on Drust’s breast; it practically covered it like a breastplate, and even lightly done gave off a strength Drust wanted to recoil from.
‘No signaculum,’ he grunted, while Drust’s bowels fought against turning to water.
‘Not on a patrol such as this, yer honour,’ he managed to croak.
‘Maximinus,’ the giant said. ‘Praeses Mesopotamiae.’
Assistant governor of the province. Drust floundered, managed his name and an added ‘yer honour’, then his dry mouth clamped.
‘Attalus send you out?’ he demanded.
‘Uranius,’ Drust managed. ‘Patrol. Singara. Roads clear…’
‘Uranius,’ Maximinus repeated thoughtfully, rolling the name round in his mouth as if chewing it to shreds. There is something there, Drust thought… but the giant had turned, was waving for a trooper to bring the horse.
‘I heard there was rebellion in Dura. Legionary uprising.’
Drust managed to shake his head. ‘Nah, your honour. Bit of a riot at some Games – one of their own decided to take on gladiators and lost. The 20th sorted it out.’
The giant levered himself onto the horse, which seemed to sink a little, then grinned as he took up the reins. Drust had never felt so sorry for a beast before.
‘Good unit, the 20th. You will proceed with my grain wagons to Singara – Sempronius here will help you with food and water. I will mention your exemplary performance here to Attalus – and Uranius.’
Then he clattered off, dragging a trail of troopers and dust. The one left behind, presumably Sempronius, spat in the dust and blew out his cheeks.
‘My men will help round up your beasts. That was timely, mark you.’
‘Who was that?’ Ugo demanded, and Drust could see he was measuring himself against the giant and coming up short. Sempronius saw it too and laughed.
‘You have met the Thracian. Maximinus Thrax they call him, but not to his face. Assistant governor of Mesopotamia.’
‘If he had been in the harena,’ Quintus noted, ‘he’d have been a big hit.’
‘He’s the one Uranius warned us to keep away from,’ Praeclarum muttered in Drust’s ear, and he remembered it as soon as her words were tumbled out. Well, too late now, he thought.
‘Kag, Quintus – get Stercorinus cleaned up and quiet or we’ll never get the camels back here.’
* * *
‘You encountered Maximinus Thrax?’ Narseh-dux said. ‘He is riding the line, it appears.’
‘Riding the line?’
‘The defences,’ Kisa interrupted. ‘Mesopotamia has garrisons…’
He became aware of Narseh’s glance and fell silent under it. The Persian took a date from the dish and popped it in his mouth, worrying the stone out of it as he chewed. He was a large man with a large beard and a matching laugh, who wore blue, sleeved robes over white and had thick fingers which bore the old, pale marks of rings which had been cut off when they grew too tight.
He spat a stone sideways and Drust waited, knowing it was always best to wait when questions crowded at your teeth. He sat on cushions on a woven hemp mat on the cooled floor of a dim room, listening to the banging of pots and bowls, the calls of street vendors, the bray of a donkey.
There were conversations, too muted to hear, and Drust knew this had been measured, so that the room, a square on top of a square on top of a square, had slat-shuttered windows for the breezes, but was too far above the courtyard for any conversations to be overheard.
It had been a long, hot journey, painful with every jolt of the grumbling camel. Praeclarum had done her best with her ointments, but too much had been done to him for it to be easily alleviated. Then there was Stercorinus; it had taken five bucket-sluices from the well to wash the blood from him and even then the garrison eyed him warily as he stood in a pink, muddy slush with his filthy loincloth and his sword.
They’d asked him what had happened. Drust told him he was supposed to have cut the animal tethers, not dashed off to lop off heads – and what had that been about anyway?
‘Destiny,’ Stercorinus said dully, and Kag grabbed the man’s matted beard, snarling close to his face.
‘You disobey again, you streak of ugly shit stain, and I will show you destiny…’
Drust had had the loincloth stripped off him and found him a tunic and Persian trousers. Stercorinus had put up no argument, but had balked when the shears came out for his beard and hair; they’d given up on it in the end.
Narseh-dux clapped his hands and Drust shifted a little to ease his blazing side, which made Kag glance over and question with his eyes. Drust shook his head, but closed his own eyes, trying to let the pain and weariness flow away from his tired limbs, trying to focus his mind. A camel bell’s cracked clank and the harassing bark of dogs made him give up.
A slave appeared with a box, four fingers square all round and the length of a good arm, and handed it to Narseh-dux, who made a show of placing it on the low table, opening it and removing what looked like a scroll. Drust saw Kisa stiffen just a little, like a dog scenting rats, but it was nothing to do with the sudden strong waft of sandalwood.
‘See here,’ Narseh-dux declared, grinning brownly as he unroll
ed the affair and took two small polished stones, shiny black, out of the box to weigh down the edges. They all peered at a meticulously drawn map.
‘This is the line,’ Narseh-dux said, tracing an invisible one with a fat finger, joining up dots one by one. ‘This is Singara – the Roman camps are a long spit from this caravanserai and contain the 1st and 3rd Parthica.’
He tapped the map. ‘You would think that a great security, two legions of Rome, but it is not, for they are scattered in pieces all along the line, from fortress to fortress – here at Resaina, at Nisbis and elsewhere. Also, the garrison at Resaina killed the commander of the 3rd not more than a week ago, when he would not take the purple they offered him. Those who tried to rebel then fled. Some have joined the House of Ardashir of Sasan in his fight against the old order. Some have become bandits, joining with the desert tribes.’
Drust and Kag exchanged looks; this was quality news and a measure of the man who offered it. Drust caught that Kisa’s eye did not miss the signal – here was a man who knew a great deal, and if he knew it, Shayk Amjot knew it.
‘There are desertions everywhere,’ Narseh-dux went on, ‘which will help you – everyone is concentrating on watching his neighbour. Maximinus is galloping up and down cracking heads to put a stop to it all, but the same is happening all over – Flavia Firma, the Scythian, all the legions are unhappy, unpaid and unfed.
‘This is the way you should go – out to Nisbis,’ Narseh-dux said, then offered his grin to Kisa. ‘This one will calculate how many camels it will take to reach the Red Serpent – but no one knows what you will find there.’
‘Is it manned?’ Kag demanded, and Narseh-dux shrugged, began rolling up the map. Drust saw Kisa’s face grow cold, as if the sun had abandoned him.
‘It has always been manned,’ Narseh-dux replied, ‘but now no one knows how well or where is weakest.’
‘What lies beyond it?’ Drust asked, and the fat merchant beamed and nodded.
‘A good question. They are wolves – you know it as Hyrcania, but the true name is Verkana, land of wolves. The peoples there are grassland riders – Tschols and Saka and others. In the mountains further east they are horseless, but both use bows to great effect.’
‘How do we cross this Wall?’ Kag demanded, and the merchant shrugged and closed the box.
‘That is your affair. I have instructions only to provide camels and herders and guards – and this.’
He drew a fat purse from inside his robes and dropped it heavily on the table, where it made a sound that brought Kag’s lips up in a smile that showed teeth. Narseh-dux was grim.
‘I did this once before – purse, camels, men – for those other two, the one with night in his eyes and the other – may the gods keep me safe – with the face of death. They have never been heard of again and so I think it will be with you.’
‘It is not your money nor camels nor men, o wise one,’ Kisa said, and Narseh-dux scowled.
‘No, blessings be for that,’ he declared, folding his fat hands over his massive belly. There was no chest that Drust could see, but he marvelled at the breasts, which seemed as plump as any woman’s.
‘One hundred and forty amphorae for three days,’ he added. ‘Eight hundred and forty-eight pints of wine.’
‘Eight hundred and forty,’ Kisa corrected quietly. ‘It makes a total weight of 1561 librae. You can get all that on five camels. I have calculated, with fodder and food for herders and guards, for the packloads of trade goods – eighty-three camels. Eighty-five to be safe.’
‘Trade goods?’ Drust demanded and Kisa spread his hands.
‘Wool, linen, glass, some tinware… the usual poor trade items along these roads. Rome’s goods do not match the worth of silk and gems and spices, so we are also known for carrying coin, mostly gold.’
Kag chuckled. ‘This is why you will come with us.’
Kisa’s face went white and his eyes almost rolled up to match it. ‘My part ends here,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I have no instruction or desire to go further.’
‘You may believe so,’ Drust said, and Kisa heard the tone, saw the faces, and everyone else saw him look for a way out.
‘Do not run,’ Narseh-dux said quietly to him. ‘I am thinking it would not be an idea much liked, by them or the Shayk, my master.’
Then he smiled and clapped his hands for slaves to bring wine and food, beaming like some well-loved old uncle.
‘The bandits are too weak to attack such a train as yours,’ he said soothingly to Kisa. ‘And the Sasan are too busy trying to take over the old Empire. You will have a pleasant walk to Hagmatāna, then north to the Red Snake, where your honours’ glib tongues and bribes will see you through.’
Everyone agreed. Drust said nothing. Kisa trembled and ate little.
* * *
Drust said nothing for three days after they left Singara, then in the glimmering dim of a lamplit tent, after the camels had been bedded, meals eaten, guards posted, he called Kisa and Kag and the others.
He had no sandalwood box and no carefully notated map, just the gritted sand between mats, but he drew swiftly.
‘We turn north tomorrow,’ he said and Kag nodded, knowing why – if you are leaving tracks, you are being followed. Kisa opened and closed his mouth once or twice and Drust leaned closer to him.
‘We head for the western shores of the Hyrcanian Ocean, leave the camels and take ship to the other side.’
‘Sail round the Wall,’ Ugo growled admiringly.
‘Like every clever raider who ever came down from the north on Britannia,’ Quintus added, grinning.
‘Leave the camels?’ Kisa managed. ‘How will we get back?’
‘Pick them up on our return. Or buy more.’
‘And the trade goods?’
‘Sell them. Buy a boat if we cannot find one to carry us.’
Kisa’s face writhed with arguments, each one discarded when the flaw was seen. Drust did not give him time to find one that worked; he put his face closer still to Kisa, who drew back and then looked at the shadows of the others, which now seemed like a fence to him.
‘From now,’ Drust said grimly, ‘we are all brothers in this. Whatever you were ordered to do, Kisa Shem-Tov, you had better forget it. It has taken me a time to get to it, but I saw your look when Narseh-dux unrolled that map and when he threatened you with the Shayk. You work for Uranius. You are supposed to go back to him and… what? Tell him which way we took? Steal that map?’
Kisa seemed to tilt a little, like a bag of grain that had spilled. He passed a hand over his face as if cobwebs had fallen on him.
‘Narseh-dux is not clever enough to have made such a map. Shayk Amjot made it and probably has more, all handed out to his agents who will update them with new information when it becomes known. The Shayk probably knows as much about Rome’s defences here as the Palatine does – this was Uranius’s concern.’
‘What of Maximinus Thrax?’ Ugo wanted to know and they all knew he was obsessed with the man now. Not often a giant meets his like, Drust thought, but even so…
Kisa waved a dismissive hand. ‘He is what he appears – a brutal man sent by the Emperor to keep weak and greedy people from being forced into taking the purple by the disaffected. Like the commander of the 3rd Parthica. Maximinus does not know who to trust and yet must keep forces sharp against the Persians – he has until these Sasan people clean out the old crew.’
‘And Uranius?’ demanded Kag.
Kisa sucked in a breath, then let it out. ‘Is the Emperor’s man. Some people do not care for family ties.’
They waited and Kisa eventually gave in. ‘Lucius Julius Aurelius Sulpicius Severus Uranius Antoninus,’ he said and stopped, waiting.
Praeclarum got to it first. ‘Severus,’ she said and Kisa nodded.
‘He’s kin to the Emperor?’ Kag demanded furiously and Kisa nodded.
‘Distant, but of the family. He is sampsigeramus – you know what that is?’
‘A
priest of the Sun God,’ Stercorinus said blankly. ‘Emesan.’
‘Why would you work for Uranius?’ Sib chimed in, though he was more curious than angry. ‘You are a Jew, who are always stiff-necked about their religion. And you work for a priest of the Sun God?’
Kisa looked from one to the other and it seemed to Drust as if his face unlocked, then he fumbled round his neck, pulled out a bag and brought out the lead lozenge inside. Drust read it and looked at the little Jew.
‘You are a frumentarius.’
Quintus flung up his hands. ‘Jupiter’s hairy arse – a spy for the Army. Spying on Uranius? On us?’
Kisa said nothing, but Drust filled in the blank of his face.
‘On Uranius, because he is the current boy-Emperor’s creature and a priest of Elagabalus – the god, not the strange boy who was Emperor until they dragged him off. He thinks you work for him, but you are a creature of the Hill. You spy on us because of Dog who is also a priest of Elagabalus the god of Emesa, if he is anything at all these days. Some folk do not care for that – they have had enough of pouring blood on a black stone in the Temple of Jupiter.’
‘That’s why Dog was chosen for this,’ Quintus said, seeing it suddenly. He sat back, grinning. ‘He always has a fat cock for boy-emperors of the Severan family. Gods above and below, that lot never ends – all the men are chanters at the Sun and all the women are called Julia. They are everywhere.’
‘Chosen for what?’ Drust demanded and everyone stopped speaking and stared. Kisa spread his hands.
‘I do not know,’ he said bitterly. ‘Uranius does but he will not tell me, a mountain Jew, and besides, he thinks I am simply his paid man.’
He leaned forward meaningfully. ‘But not tigers. Not that.’
Chapter Six
Ugo leaned on his big axe on the edge of a yellow mound of sandy soil, squinting at the bit of his axe and frowning. His face was a mask, painted with a sickly paste made from dust and sweat and blood; his beard was clotted.
Sib hawked up as much moisture as he could, then swilled it round and tried to spit out the dust in his mouth.