Hippothous reached for some water on the table. He was annoyed that his hand was unsteady. He saw Maximus smile. You had better watch yourself, barbarian bastard, Hippothous thought savagely, I might yet mark you down for death.
‘Polemo,’ continued Mastabates, ‘is important to Rome in two ways. First, as a check on the kings of Iberia and Albania, in case they should be misguided enough to throw in their lot with Shapur. Second, Polemo holds the Caspian or Caucasian Gates, the best pass through the central Caucasus. It keeps the nomadic hordes of the Alani away from civilization. There is a fort in the pass, but it is said to be in grave disrepair – hence our opportunity for the Vir Ementissimus Marcus Clodius Ballista to bring his experience as a siege engineer to win the favour of the king.’
‘Now, as to the forces available to Polemo …’
The eunuch began to explore Polemo’s military capabilities (large) in conjunction with the byways of his soul (devious, if not warped). Hippothous’s attention wandered. He was running a cold sweat, felt sick. Fragments of the night before floated through the wine fumes clouding his thoughts. Castricius teasing Ballista about a girl from Arete, called Bathshiba or some such Syrian name: how had he not fucked her? Maximus joining in: tits and arse that would have made even Hippothous here change his position. It was shocking the informality Ballista allowed. But, then, they were all really barbarians; Rutilus was nothing but a Thracian, and Castricius a Celt from Nemausus; generations of Roman rule had hardly civilized them at all.
Deep into the comissatio, long after the food, drink flowing, the conversation had turned maudlin. That poor bastard Mamurra. He had been a Roman officer. For some reason, which the drink temporarily had removed from Hippothous’s memory, Ballista had left him to die in a siege tunnel in Arete. The others who had been there – Castricius, Maximus, Calgacus – had vehemently and repetitively denied that Ballista should blame himself – there was nothing else he could have done. That was it – if Ballista had not collapsed the mine, the Persians would have poured into the town, killed everyone. That poor, square-headed bastard Mamurra – sure, what a very square head he had – the squarest head you ever saw, like a block of fucking marble it was. They had moved from misery to childish hilarity in a moment, wine sloshing from their cups. Mamurra was destined to die, not like Castricius. Nothing could kill him. Sent to the mines, the little bastard survived; volunteered for a night raid, only three survivors, sure enough one of them was Castricius; the Sassanids massacre every living thing in Arete, but not the little man. Castricius had risen to his feet, struck a mock-heroic pose: it was all true, even the spirits of death dare not touch me.
Hippothous felt his gorge rising. He looked around the headquarters – a sea of faces, the eunuch still talking. By the Graces, do not let me throw up. It would be too humiliating. Practise physiognomy: take your mind off your physical condition. Which one? Not Ballista: Hippothous was reserving judgement on him. Not Calgacus or Maximus: one too ugly, the other too disfigured – leave them for a later date. Hippothous thought physiognomy was easier with children, before a face became weathered by time and accident. Experience writes its story on the face, but chance – a broken nose, a scar – confuses things. Certainly not one of the eunuchs: he was feeling sick enough without dwelling on those monstrous, disgusting creatures. Castricius: he would do – little Castricius the survivor.
Slim lips in a small mouth, indicative of cowardice, weakness and complicity. The lower lip protruded, a sign of tenderness and a love of well being. But a sharp, pointed, small chin, meaning badness entering into evil, also boldness and killing. A thin nose, showing the presence of great anger. And, now Hippothous studied him, he saw that Castricius had beautiful eyes. There was nothing redeeming about that. A man with beautiful eyes was treacherous, concealing what was in his heart; also, he was bold, had potency of spirit and strength in action. Castricius was a complex case, but a bad, dangerous man. That was what physiognomy was for, to guard against the vices of the bad before having to experience them.
A real master of the science could go much further than generalities of that man is bad, that one good. A real master could read the specific actions that both had been and would be committed by any man. If Hippothous studied hard, devoted his mind to the science, he felt he might achieve that god-like mastery.
A question from Ballista brought Hippothous back from his physiognomic studies. ‘Mastabates, at Heraclea you spoke of a problem at the Suanian court – the widow of the Iberian prince I killed.’
‘Yes, Pythonissa. Despite her name, she is a priestess not of Apollo but Hecate. With her husband dead, there was no place for her in Iberia. She had produced no children and was not needed for the succession. Hamazasp has a brother, Oroezes. He in turn has grown sons, and they are married with sons. Pythonissa was sent back to her father. He proposed marrying her off to the ruler of the lice-eaters. She is a wilful young woman, said to be skilled with poisons. She would not accept the marriage, thought it beneath her. Pythonissa wished to marry her own father-in-law, old Hamazasp, become queen of Iberia, and breed an heir to the throne. Even Suanian sensibilities, such as they are, were revolted by the idea. So she remains, a discontented woman at the court of Polemo.’
Ballista grunted. ‘What of the rest of the royal house of Suania?’
‘We know of no other evident difficulties. Polemo has two surviving sons, Azo and Saurmag. They had a good Hellenic education. There is nothing to suggest a problem.’ Mastabates smiled. ‘Polemo had two other sons. They both died violent deaths, one recently. Nothing surprising there. It is hard to find a subject of Polemo that does not have at least one or two murders to his name.’
XXII
From the fort at Sarpanis to the Caspian Gates, as a bird would fly, Ballista guessed, was not more than one hundred miles. It had taken them fifteen days, and the village outside which they were now halted was still one short stage – maybe five, six miles – from the fortified pass.
Of course, no one in their right mind ever tried to travel in a straight line in hill country, let alone in mountains. Paths sometimes switched from low, clinging to the valleys and water- courses, to high, the shoulders or even the ridgeways. They often made wide detours around ravines or particularly severe slopes, as they tried to thread their way from one pass to another. Yet it was not so much the terrain that had detained them as the natives.
The travelling party was small, ten in all: Ballista himself, Hippothous, Maximus, Calgacus, and Mastabates, with just five servants – the boy Wulfstan; Agathon and Polybius, the slaves Ballista had bought at Priene; Hippothous’s Narcissus; and the eunuch’s man, who was called Pallas. Such a number needed only a small baggage train; the diplomatic gifts they carried were expensive but readily portable. Little was called for in the way of food, fodder or lodgings. Yet the difficulties in procuring these things had been legion. The Roman cursus publicus did not run out here. In this debatable zone of influence, rather than direct rule, it was uncertain if they were still in the imperium or not. Certainly, flourishing purple-sealed diplomata in Latin did not produce animals, men or materials. To achieve anything, coins had to appear, a surprising number of coins. The locals wanted old coins. Given the radical debasement of precious metal in recent imperial coins, that was to be expected, but they seemed to take caution to excessive lengths, preferring coins minted more than two and a half centuries before, in the reign of the first Augustus. Significantly, they were quite happy to take eastern coins, recent Sassanid ones as well as those from the previous dynasty, the Parthians.
Finding the right coins and enough of them had been merely the beginning. Local horizons were narrow. The owners would only let their animals go so far – two, maybe three valleys – then new ones had to be hired. The beasts never turned up on time, sometimes never arrived at all. When they did, either the animals themselves or the price had changed. It was the same with porters for the sections where the locals insisted that the going was too bad for animals,
and little different with supplies. The majority of the negotiating fell on Hippothous, with Mastabates translating. The Greek often looked as if he wanted to kill someone, but then, to some extent, the irritation infected everyone. For sure, the delay was shared by all.
Yet when they were moving, out in the country, the early days of the march had been glorious, even uplifting. It was a land of rolling wooded hills and valleys; birch, beech and laurel, with white rhododendrons underneath. There were mists and showers, usually in the afternoons. Sometimes the latter were heavy, but both alternated with soft, warm sunshine. Broad, defined tracks, dappled in sunlight, ran alongside clear, babbling streams.
The villages had been another matter. Walled compounds clustered together, seemingly as much in suspicion of each other as for defence. Each was surmounted by one or more stone towers, tapering and forbidding. There was mud everywhere. Hairy pigs, geese and mangy dogs wallowed in it, or wandered, snapping and posturing in mutual hostility. There were children everywhere. They were half or totally naked, indescribably dirty, faces often bestial. Sometimes, they would ignore the arrivals, carry on playing noisy games involving stealing what little the others might possess. At other times, they joined the adults in silence, their dark stag eyes watchful, all unwelcoming.
The lodgings obtained – an upper room of a tower, the floor of a barn – matched the young in filth. The thick, dark smoke from the fires of moss and pine chips did nothing to discourage the biting insects. At least the food, although monotonous, was wholesome enough: roast mutton or pork, boiled fowl, the meat on flat bread, washed down with goatskin-tasting wine.
Further into the mountains, there were fewer trees: here a sheltered slope of firs, there an upland pool ringed by maple and beech, the occasional, isolated birch. But up there the flowers had come into their own: thick tangles of cream rhododendrons shot through with purple, and banks of yellow azaleas perfuming the air. Underfoot, the turf was enamelled with lupins, bluebells and cowslips.
There were still habitations in the higher reaches. But the party had mainly passed by those lonely, closed-in towers, stark up on their ridges. The locals had likewise ignored them. Ten heavily armed travellers – now the slaves were armed too – might have been a bit too tough a target. The party had camped where seemed good in the open: flattish spaces, as far as possible, with a view all around. It had been cold in the tents, and every night some lost sleep, as a watch had to be set.
It was healthy. So Ballista had claimed. Clean, fresh air, aromatic fires of rhododendron stalks and roots, trout caught by hand in the backwaters, flatbread toasted on the blades of their daggers. Ballista’s slave Agathon was developing into a fine camp cook. Hippothous had not been convinced. The most elementary knowledge of medicine indicated that water from snow and ice was very bad for one; the light, sweet, sparkling part vanished when frozen and did not return. Drinking from these icy upland streams could only lead to gravel in the kidneys, stones, pain in the loins, and eventually rupture. Only Calgacus seemed to give his gloomy prognosis much credence.
One morning, the thick, thick mist had lifted suddenly, and there was the big mountain, still far away, seen beyond a jumble of boulders and between the green shoulders of its lesser brethren, but incredibly massive, snow covered and solitary. ‘Strobilos,’ the guide had said. ‘Where Zeus chained Prometheus.’ The mountain shone in the sun. In a moment, the mists had returned, and it was gone.
In the clinging, grey vapour, they had been walking up from a deep, green basin. A vague, tall shape shambled down out of the fog. Ballista and the others stopped. Bears were said to be common. They had drawn their weapons. Maximus had actually grunted with anticipation. The fog swirled. In it, the bear had started singing. Realizing it was a man, their guide had said something incomprehensible, and made the sign of the evil eye. The man came forward. Even by the standards of the mountain men, he was ragged and soiled. His body was emaciated. He was bleeding freely from several cuts and abrasions. His clothing appeared to consist of a stained, torn sack. The man had looked closely into Ballista’s face. There was no comprehension in his eyes. He stank. The guide had given the creature food, spoken gentle things to him. ‘One taken by the moon goddess Selene,’ the guide had explained. ‘When the servants of the goddess find him, he will live like a lord for a year.’
‘One year?’ Ballista had asked.
‘One year.’
‘And then?’
The guide had not answered.
They had left him where he was, and continued to climb. Their breath plumed. There was much snow still lying at the top of the pass. They descended via a steep slope of shale. Near the bottom, the mist had lifted again. There were yellow flowers in the grass. Ballista looked back. The locals had been avaricious. A Caucasian pony, even a nimble-footed horse could have made the crossing. No need for two guides and a dozen porters.
In front of them was the upper course of the Alontas river. It braided itself in many tiny channels across a broad, flat valley bottom. The rivulets twisted and turned. Banks of mud and stones were left exposed, each neatly curved, as if by the hand of a skilled potter. They were grey amid the prevailing lush green. The valley walls were precipitous and high. They were green, but bald, not a tree in sight. Here and there, they were riven by deep gullies. On the side of one, not far ahead, clung a grey village. There were horses and cattle grazing the flat pastures below it. It offered a chance to get in the saddle again, and the pleasure of dismissing all the grasping guides and porters.
A mile or so beyond the village, and the valley had turned. Another long valley, and then another turning. In the distance, more valley walls, higher and higher, fading from green to blue to misty grey. The ten small figures on horseback were dwarfed by the immensity. It did not matter; from that point, they had known all they had to do was follow the river and it would lead them to the Caspian Gates.
The Suani warriors were waiting for them here outside the last village before the Gates. There were thirty of them, mounted, spread out. They completely blocked the width of the valley floor. Some of the horses were in the various streams, hock deep. These drank or stamped and shook their manes as the mood took them. The men were well armed. Mail showed under the empty-sleeved Caucasian fur coats they wore loose over their shoulders. Some had metal helmets. Each had a lance or javelin in his right hand and a targe strapped to his left arm. From each saddlebow hung a combined bow case and quiver. They sat their horses well. They looked tough, if wild and ill disciplined.
Ballista wondered just how much danger he and the others were in.
The Suani rider with the most elaborate embroidery on his coat and on the gorytus suspended from his saddlebow paced his mount forward. ‘Which of you is Marcus Clodius Ballista, the envoy of the basileus Gallienus?’ The young man spoke in Greek. His words were moderately polite, but his tone arrogant, bordering on hostile.
Ballista nudged his horse out of the group.
‘Dismount.’ The order from the Suani was peremptory.
‘Who are you?’ Ballista kept his voice very level.
‘I am Azo, son of King Polemo of the Suani. My father is in the village. He is with the synedrion. They are expecting you. It will be best for you if you have brought the tribute.’
Ballista did not reply. He swung down from the saddle, indicated for the others to do likewise. He told them to break out the first two parcels of gifts. Calgacus was to stay behind with the horses and the remainder of the baggage, Agathon and Polybius with him. The rest were to accompany Ballista.
Azo and some of the Suani dismounted. Those now on foot set off up into the village. The others stayed where they were.
Dikaiosyne the village was called, ‘justice’ in Greek. When Ballista had asked why, Mastabates admitted he had no idea. The place had another, native name. The eunuch had not known what that meant either. Ballista did not think it the moment to question the Suanian prince Azo on etymology. They walked up in silence.
The
first buildings began a good way up from the floodplain. They were built on a thirty-degree slope. Dikaiosyne was backed by a sheer rockface, which reared up several thousand feet. Above the settlement there was snow in every declivity. They trudged up the usual muddy alleys formed by the blank outer walls of compounds. Hairy pigs grunted out of their way. Dogs barked.
They emerged into the village square. It was full of people, some two or three hundred, stood in an inverted U, the open side towards the newcomers. Ballista tried very hard not to appear surprised; tried to take in his surroundings. The square was wider than most; small alleyways opening off from the otherwise featureless walls all around. It had at its centre not an old oak tree, but an oversized circular well. Next to the well was an eastern type of altar with a lit fire.
It was easy to pick out King Polemo from his advisors and subjects. He was seated in the middle on a high throne. A dark-bearded, sharp-faced man in middle age, he wore a cloak and turban, both white with gold thread, both a little grubby. His sword belt, scabbard and red boots were set with what looked like pearls. By one of his hands stood a younger, lighter-coloured, less impressive version of himself – that must be Saurmag, the other prince. On the other was a tall, blond, statuesque young woman – the troublesome daughter Pythonissa, the priestess of Hecate.
The members of the synedrion of Suania stood in the front rank. The councillors tended to be tall, well-formed men with aquiline, attractive, if hard, faces. In their dress they followed their king: a mixture of western styles – tunics, trousers and boots not unlike an unarmoured Roman officer; with barbarian – eastern turbans or nomad caps with lappets. From what could be seen, the warriors in the rear ranks appeared to favour cheaper, rougher versions of the same. None of them seemed to have an obsession with the baths.
The Caspian Gates Page 23