Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire

by Gordon Doherty

  Pavo sat by his side, handing him a cup. ‘Shapur? Aye, he could have.’

  Sura looked to him, his usual cheeky grin absent. ‘But we live on. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? We won’t die as old men, Pavo. One day we will perish like so many of our comrades have in these last years.’

  Pavo held his gaze, seeing the first hint of tears in his friend’s eyes. This man was as close to a brother as he had ever known. For all the world he longed to embrace Sura, but a gruff chorus of laughter from Zosimus and Quadratus nearby ruled that out.

  He looked to the hazy eastern horizon, slipping away as they voyaged upriver. He traced the leather bracelet Father had given him and recalled his dream from last night; Father in his prime, standing tall and bull-shouldered upon the green plains of Thracia, grinning broadly, happiness dancing in his eyes. A tear came to his eye now, too. He batted away the maudlin thoughts and grinned as his father had done.

  ‘Drink, Sura,’ he said, nudging his friend, ‘for tomorrow awaits us.’

  Sura’s pensive air lifted, and he grinned from ear to ear, laughing aloud. He lifted his cup and clacked it to Pavo’s, then the pair gulped on the cool, sweet ale.

  At the prow, Gallus’ thoughts swung this way and that. Behind closed eyes, he saw the grey, solemn faces of the hundreds who had died on this mission marching past him, gazing at him, their lifeless eyes asking him the same tacit question. Why do you live on?

  His fingers worked the idol of Mithras, trembling, the knuckles white as he saw Felix march in their ranks. He clenched his eyes closed even tighter, seeking to be rid of the vision. Then he saw the one thing that was worse. Olivia and Marcus, pale, gaunt, reaching out to him. He reached out in reply, a faint warmth touching his heart. Their lips moved, over and over.

  Why did you let us die?

  The words were like a blade to his heart. The vision evaporated and he saw just the tumbling waters of the Euphrates ahead. His mind was blank, utterly blank for just a few heartbeats. Then he thought of Carbo’s portentous words.

  Eventually, we all must face our past.

  When night fell on the tenth day of the voyage upriver, they disembarked at an unguarded, rundown timber jetty on the western riverbank, some eighty miles due west of Antioch. Two filthy limitanei without helms or mail waited there to welcome them back into the empire. These two advised that a turma of equites would rendezvous with them thirty miles inland to escort them back to Antioch. The pair also offered the returning legionaries some pungent, grey and greasy-looking stew from a pot bubbling over a fire, but the offer was not taken up. Instead, the party set off across the dusty plain at once, their legs fresh after many days on the triremes.

  Tribunus Varius and the sixty-eight surviving men of the Flavia Firma marched out ahead in a column. The five men of the XI Claudia followed, forming the sparsest of rearguards. Pavo, scalp and jaw freshly shorn, marched alongside Zosimus. Sura and Quadratus marched behind, and Gallus walked alone just ahead.

  ‘How far is the rendezvous, sir?’ Quadratus asked.

  ‘We’ll reach them by morning,’ Gallus called over his shoulder.

  As the night wore on, Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura sparked some heated debate about who had cheated whom at dice the previous day.

  Gallus barely broke his relentless stride as he cast an eye over his shoulder at this play-quarrel.

  ‘It seems they tire of peace already, sir,’ Pavo offered with a half-grin.

  Gallus did not reply. Pavo frowned. The tribunus had cut a laconic figure in these last days, and seemed even more restless than usual. He strode forward to walk level, steadying his nerves. ‘Sir, we are back in the empire now,’ he nodded back over his shoulder. ‘The Persians, the Savaran – they are no threat to us here.’

  At this, Gallus slowed a little, and his intense glower softened just a fraction. ‘The Savaran are the least of my concerns now.’

  Pavo. ‘Sir?’

  Gallus pursed his lips as if in consideration, then looked to him, the moonlight glinting in his eyes. ‘You found your father, Pavo, against all the odds. But in doing so, you lost him. Had we not set out to the east, he might have lived on.’

  ‘That is true. But it was worth everything,’ Pavo blurted out. The answer came straight from the heart. ‘Every step through the burning sands. Every lash of the whip in those mines. Every blade that scored my flesh. Father died saving me. He died a free man, knowing his son had walked the world to save him.’ A tear darted down his cheek before he could stop it. ‘I faced the past. The nightmares are gone.’

  Gallus’ gaze grew intense. ‘You faced the past and you found your father. Carbo faced his past and found some form of atonement in saving us. And that is what spurs me on, lad. The past. That is why I know where my next destination must be.’

  ‘Sir?’ Pavo frowned.

  Gallus beheld him earnestly for a moment. Words seemed to play on his lips.

  Then a shout pierced the night air.

  ‘The riders!’

  Gallus and Pavo looked up. A cloud of dust approached from the west, ethereal in the moonlight. This was more than just a turma of equites. Another three turmae rode with them, wearing white tunics, bearing gilded spears.

  ‘Candidati?’ Gallus gasped, stepping forward.

  ‘Aye, and equites sagitarii outriders too,’ Pavo frowned, seeing the scale-clad Roman cavalry archers riding wide of the main party to screen them from any ambush.

  The candidati slowed before the returning legionaries. The riders parted to reveal Emperor Valens, saddled on a black stallion. He was dressed in white, his shoulders wrapped in a purple cloak and he wore a battle helm crested with a magnificent purple plume. His expression was grave.

  ‘Tribunus Gallus,’ Valens barked.

  ‘Emperor!’ Gallus saluted.

  ‘The outrider you despatched reached me some days ago. Is it true? The scroll cannot save us?’ Valens asked.

  Gallus drew the scroll from his robe and handed it to Valens. ‘Regrettably so, Emperor.’

  Valens’ brow knitted as he scanned the scroll, then his eyes glazed over as he reached the last lines. ‘Then the east is at the mercy of Shapur.’

  ‘No, Emperor. I bear no treaty to confirm this, but I suspect Shapur will not encroach upon imperial lands in the coming years,’ Gallus offered. ‘He has enough troubles in his own realm.’

  Valens frowned. ‘You know this, how?’

  Gallus opened his mouth to speak, then glanced to Quadratus, Zosimus and Sura behind him, then finally to Pavo. ‘It is a long story, Emperor.’

  Valens’ mount shuffled in impatience and the emperor nodded, noting the condition of these men he had sent out east, months ago. ‘You will tell me about it as we ride back to Antioch and then when we set sail for Constantinople at haste.’ He clapped his hands and the candidati led forward a pack of five riderless mounts.

  Pavo noticed the tension in Valens’ words.

  ‘There is trouble in Thracia, Emperor?’ Gallus asked.

  ‘Aye, Tribunus,’ he said, his gaze darkening. ‘The Gothic War rages like never before. The barbarian tribes are pouring over the River Danubius unchecked . . . and the Huns come in their thousands. Our defences are creaking. Thracia and Dalmatia are on the brink. If those provinces collapse, then Constantinople itself is under threat.’

  A chill danced across Pavo’s skin. He glanced to Sura, Quadratus and Zosimus – each of them with families dotted around Thracia. He thought of Felicia, alone in Constantinople. As one, they looked to their tribunus.

  Gallus’ steely-blue eyes glinted in the moonlight. ‘XI Claudia, mount!’ he said, then cast a stern gaze to the moon. ‘Mithras, spirit us west at haste!’

  They journeyed throughout the night without rest. Pavo rode in silence, sadness lacing his blood as he felt Father slipping away into his memories. It was near dawn when he glanced down to the leather bracelet one more time. At that moment, he realised it was tied inside out. With a dry chuckle, he looped his moun
t’s reins around one arm, undid and inverted the bracelet and made to tie it on again. His fingers froze though, and his mount slowed, falling behind the pack.

  ‘Pavo?’ Sura hissed over his shoulder, slowing too.

  Pavo barely heard his friend. His heart crashed as if readying for battle as he read the faded words etched into the leather again and again. Father’s words.

  Numerius Vitellius Pavo, Hostus Vitellius Dexion. Every beat of my heart is for you, my sons.

  The End

  Author’s Note

  The latest of Pavo’s adventures took me on something of a research odyssey, one of the most pleasurable aspects of writing a novel. However, Sassanid Persia is not as richly chronicled as it deserves to be, so there were a fair few challenges in piecing together ‘Land of the Sacred Fire’ and blending the events of antiquity into the tale. Thus, there are a few aspects of the story that I think are worth clarifying.

  It could be said that the Roman Empire made a big mistake in the 2nd century AD. After decades of military exertions, they fatally crippled Arsacid Persia (also known as the Parthian Empire), and this left something of a power vacuum in the east. The Sassanid Dynasty rose to capitalise on this, and soon set about reforming the Persian Empire into a well-drilled, militaristic force. They disbanded the crumbling feudal structure and replaced it with something much more akin to the Roman model, with military regions, standing armies and levies, all answering through a chain of command to the Shahanshah. From Rome’s perspective, this was the worst possible outcome – as this reinvigorated Persia was a far greater threat than the one the empire had worked so hard to extinguish.

  Indeed, by 377 AD, times were desperate indeed on Rome’s eastern frontier and Sassanid Persia was strong. Emperor Valens frantically sought to conclude a peace with the Persians in order to safely withdraw the praesantal army from Persia and despatch them to Thracia to deal with the Gothic War. The lost scroll of Jovian and Shapur is a fictional premise but such a thing would have been the perfect answer to Valens’ problems. While the lost scroll is this author’s imagining, the treaty of 363 AD is very much historical fact.

  In the space of just a few days in June that year, Emperor Julian’s brash bid to conquer Sassanid Persia collapsed. Having crossed the Tigris, burning his fleet behind him lest it fall into Persian hands, he then marched upon the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon. The siege was a disaster. The Savaran appeared unexpectedly to relieve the besieged city, then harried and harassed Julian and his army all the way back to the banks of the Tigris. There, the Roman legions were surrounded and crushed, with Julian slain in the fighting. Within days, Jovian (the head of Julian’s household guard) was raised to the purple and his first act was to negotiate with Shapur. Unsurprisingly, Shapur started those negotiations with the upper hand, demanding the concession of Roman Mesopotamia – effectively stripping Rome’s eastern borders away – and it seems that Jovian was swift to concede. Crucially though, there also appears to have been some aspect of a lasting truce discussed, but the exact detail of the truce is shrouded in the mists of history. The 4th century historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, claims that a peace of thirty years was agreed. Modern historians are uncertain exactly what was agreed – Noel Lenski states that; ‘What the treaty did not officially sanction, it tacitly allowed through its ambiguities’. Geoffrey Greatrex claims; ‘The precise terms of the agreement of 363 … are unknown, and were clearly interpreted differently by Shapur and the Romans.’ What is certain is that Jovian should be commended for what he did achieve that day. From an almost impossible position, he managed to secure the safe release of his army and press Shapur into some form of truce. Even Jovian’s greatest detractors (such as Marcellinus) offer him grudging respect for this.

  In these negotiations, I have portrayed Shahanshah Shapur II as a fierce yet noble and wise leader, somewhat weary of bloodshed and political intrigue – crowned in utero, the man would have seen plenty of both. He was fifty-four on the day of the 363 negotiations, and I expect by then he would have grown tired of some of the strident and ruthless actions of his early reign, of which there were plenty. For example, although strife between the Roman Empire and Persia generally centred on the lands of Armenia and Mesopotamia, Shapur is thought to have once boldly demanded that Rome concede to Persia all lands east of the Strymon River in Macedonia! Also, in his early years as shahanshah, Shapur ordered that Arab warriors captured in battle should have their shoulders pierced, and ropes fed through the wounds so they could be led across the desert in the utmost misery. This is likely to be invective from Roman or rival Persian sources, but the imagery is certainly somewhat striking. Indeed, I was tempted to have the XI Claudia subjected to such misery in the scene after the desert battle when they are chained and forced to march into Persia. However, I resisted this temptation on the advice of my editor (who rightly pointed out that this would probably have rendered them incapable of lifting a sword or shield ever again).

  As for my portrayal of Emperor Valerian’s fate after his capture by Shapur I in 260 AD, it is almost certainly true that he remained in captivity in Bishapur whilst his legionaries were forced to build the new Persian city around him. The rumours of his grisly end – some say he was skinned, some say he was stuffed, others claim he was forced to swallow molten gold – come primarily from the eccentric Lactantius, a chronicler and imperial advisor born in the 3rd century AD. They may be apocryphal, borne of Lactantius’ disdain for the Persians’ virulently anti-Christian stance, but we will never know for sure. Certainly though, history has taught me never to underestimate just what dark deeds man is capable of.

  Concerning religion; Zoroastrianism is the proud, noble and ancient – perhaps the oldest of all – monotheistic religion of old Persia. In Sassanid times, the individual holding the position of archimagus would have been venerated almost as highly as the shahanshah himself. The archimagus and his magi were seen as an almost divine caste in Persian society. They saw to running the fire temples, leading the faith as descendants of Zoroaster himself and providing a guiding civic hand to Persian society – running trials and setting up courts and schools. However, as with any faith that lofts men into pseudo-monarchic posts, abuse of power is always a valid concern and one I have explored in my portrayal of the fictional Archimagus Ramak. I trust that the good-hearted Zoroastrians Pavo and his comrades meet along the way provide some balance in this respect.

  Regarding slavery; the Persian attitude to this was one of mild aversion. They had household slaves, but they also had a code of conduct: slaves were not to be beaten, they had ‘days off’ and they could aspire to freedom. However, theory and practice are seldom in harmony, and it is unlikely that those condemned to the depths of the salt mines would have been afforded these relative luxuries enjoyed by slaves on the surface. The mines of Dalaki are fictional, but a number of Sassanid-era salt mines have been identified around Persia, and it is likely that such mines would have existed in the salt flats near the Persian Gulf and at the hem of the Zagros Mountains where salt glaciers are abundant. It is thought that Roman prisoners of war were typically sent to these mines, despatched to work the land or put to building cities for their Persian masters.

  Concerning my depiction of the city of Bishapur, I feel I should point out that, although the fire temple and palace do sit adjacent (as can be seen in the aerial shots of the ruins), there was no discernable acropolis mount on which they sat. I have added this to aid dramatic tension and symbolise Ramak and Tamur’s air of aloofness over their subjects.

  Finally, some readers have questioned my portrayal of Emperor Valens as a sharp-thinking and studious man, particularly given the ill-light in which he is cast by some primary sources (primarily Marcellinus) who describe him as loathsome, cruel, boorish, bandy-legged and with a terrible stammer. I tend to cast a critical eye upon these accounts, most of which seem overly personal and less than constructive. Also, the majority of these were written after the catastrophic Battle of Adrianople in which Va
lens died and a grievous portion of the eastern legions were lost. Few chroniclers would have found favour in championing the dead emperor in light of this disaster, and I suspect a more accurate portrayal of Valens became buried under this unfortunate legacy. That is not to say that I believe Valens is all-virtuous – not by any means. He certainly displayed a propensity for warmongering and ruthlessness, as the brutal burnings of the Maratocupreni give testament to.

  There is much more I could discuss here (the first draft of this note was nearer fifteen pages long), but I hope this gives a flavour of the facts behind the fiction. If I have piqued your curiosity to read more of the history, all the better!

  So, with the Persian Frontier slipping into the sunset, the men of the XI Claudia must now turn their attentions back to the strife in Thracia. And Pavo and Gallus have more than just the Gothic war to think about. I hope you will be back to read the next volume in the series and I cannot wait to get started researching, planning and writing it! Until then, please feel free to visit my website where you can find out more about me and my work.

  Yours faithfully,

  Gordon Doherty

  www.gordondoherty.co.uk

  Glossary

  Acetum; A vinegar-like fluid, used for cleaning and sterilising wounds.

  Ahriman; The Zoroastrian dark spirit and antithesis of Ahura Mazda. Ahriman symbolises all that is evil, known in Zoroastrianism as ‘the lie’.

  Ahura Mazda; The lord of light and wisdom, Ahura Mazda is the highest divinity of Zoroastrianism and represents all that is good, known in Zoroastrianism as ‘the truth’.

  Ala (pl. alae); A unit of Roman cavalry, numbering anywhere between a few hundred and a thousand.

  Aquilifer; Senior eagle standard bearer of a Roman legion.