He forced his mind to focus on the matter of water supply. Almost every building with any pretensions to size in the city of Arete boasted a cistern into which the carefully collected rainwater was channelled. This was all very good as a reserve but, on its own, it would never hold out for more than a few weeks. High on its plateau, the town was way too far above the water table for wells of any sort. Its main supply of water had always arrived, and would always arrive, on the backs of donkeys and men, via the steep steps that led from the banks of the Euphrates to the Porta Aquaria or a series of winding passages and tunnels cut into the living rock. While the eastern walls were held, those that reached out into the Euphrates from the foot of the cliff, this supply could not be denied. These walls were short, each either side of a hundred paces. The approaches to them, along the floors of the ravines, were difficult and completely open to missiles from the main walls of the town. It should be safe enough, but it was to inspect it all that the angry northerner now set his feet.
Ballista climbed down the steps from the Porta Aquaria. He looked around the narrow plain between the cliffs and the water. He studied the entrances to the tunnels: two had gates and three were boarded up as unsafe. He considered the short walls and was reassured to note how each was dominated by a tower overhead on the circuit wall. Finally, he ran his eye over the wharves and those boats present. Back at the top, puffing slightly, he issued his orders.
No one was to draw water from a cistern without official authorization. All water used was to come up from the Euphrates. Guards were to be set on all the major cisterns in military buildings, and also on those in the caravanserai and the major temples. A century of Legio IIII was to be based in the Porta Aquaria. Among other duties to be assigned later, its men were to oversee the bringing up of water and the security of the tunnels. Those deemed unsafe were either to be repaired or securely sealed.
It was to the tunnels that Ballista, with serious disquiet, now turned. Lamps were produced, bolts drawn and a gate to one of the supposedly safe tunnels opened. Hoping that his extreme reluctance was not obvious, Ballista stepped into the rectangle of darkness. He stopped for a moment just inside, waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. A short flight of steps ran away from him. Each one dipped in the centre where generations of feet had worn it down. After about a dozen steps the passage turned sharp right. Ballista repeated the line that had got him through many bad things: do not think, just act.
Stepping carefully, he walked down the steps. Turning the corner, he was confronted by another short flight of steps and another right-hand bend. Past this things changed. Underfoot, the steps gave way to a slippery ramp which fell abruptly away. Putting out a hand to steady himself, Ballista found the walls rough and streaming with moisture. No light from the gate penetrated this far. Ballista held up his lamp, but the passage seemed to stretch on for ever. Out of sight something squeaked and scuttled away.
Ballista very much wanted to get out of this tunnel. But he knew that, if he turned round, by nightfall every man under his command would know that their new big tough barbarian Dux was afraid of confined places. Suddenly the air round the northerner’s head was full of wheeling and flitting black shapes. As quickly as it had appeared the colony of bats vanished. Ballista wiped the sweat from his palms on his tunic. There was only one way that he could get out of this horrible tunnel. Gritting his teeth, he pressed on down into the cold, clammy darkness. It was like descending into Hades.
Ballista was tired, dog-tired. He was sitting on the steps of a temple at the end of Wall Street at the south-west corner of the town. Just Maximus and Demetrius were still with him but neither were talking. It was nearly dusk. It had been a long day.
Every day has been long since we got here, Ballista was thinking. We have been here only eight days, the work has barely started, and I am exhausted. What was it Bathshiba had said when he first saw this place? ‘Is it worth it?’, or something like that. Right now, the answer was no and it always had been in Ballista’s mind. But he had been sent by the emperors, and no would lead to death or imprisonment.
Ballista missed his wife. He felt lonely. The only three people in this town whom he could call friends were also his property, and that created a barrier. He was very fond of Demetrius; years of shared dangers and pleasures had drawn Maximus and him close together; Calgacus had known him since he was a child. Yet still, even with these three, there was the constraint of servitude. He could not talk to them as he could to Julia.
He missed his son. He felt an almost overwhelming, almost unmanning ache when he thought of him: his blond curls, so unexpected given his mother’s black hair, his green-brown eyes, the delicate curve of his cheekbone, the perfection of his mouth.
Allfather, Ballista wished he was at home. As he formed the thought he wished that he had not. As night follows day, the next insidious thought slid unwanted into his mind: where was home? Was it Sicily - the brick-built, marble-inlaid house high on the cliffs of Tauromenium? The elegant urban villa whose balconies and gardens gave views of the Bay of Naxos and the smoking summit of Aetna, the home that he and Julia had made and shared for the last four years? Or was home still far to the north? The big thatched longhouse, painted plaster over wattle and daub. The house of his father, built on rising ground just inland from the sand dunes and the tidal marshes where the grey plovers waded and the kleep kleep call of the oystercatchers sang through the reeds.
A middle-aged man wearing just a tunic and holding a writing block turned into Wall Street. When he saw Ballista waiting, he broke into a run.
‘Kyrios, I am so sorry to be late.’
Ballista was dusting down his clothes. ‘You are not late. We were early. Do not trouble yourself.’
‘Thank you, Kyrios, you are very kind. The councillors said that you wanted to be shown the properties on Wall Street?’
Ballista agreed that it was so, and the public slave gestured at the temple on whose steps the northerner had been sitting. ‘The temple of Aphlad, a local deity who watches over the camel trains. The interior has recently been repainted at the expense of the noble Iarhai.’ The man walked backwards up the street. ‘The temple of Zeus, Kyrios. The new façade was provided by the generosity of the pious Anamu.’ They reached the next block without the slave turning away from Ballista. ‘Private houses, including the fine home of the councillor Theodotus.’
You poor bastard, thought Ballista. You are a slave of the council of Arete. These people own you, probably don’t even know your name, yet you are proud of them, of their houses, the temples on which they lavish their wealth. And that pride is the only thing that gives you any self respect. The northerner looked sadly down Wall Street. And I am going to take it away. In a couple of months, by the kalends of February, I will have destroyed all this. All will be sacrificed to the great earth bank to shore up the defences of Arete.
A legionary hurtled round the corner. Seeing Ballista, he skidded to a stop. He sketched a salute, and tried to speak. He was out of breath, and the words would not come. He gasped in a lungful of air.
‘Fire. The artillery magazine. It’s on fire.’ He pointed over his left shoulder. The strong north-east wind was blowing the leading edge of a pall of thick black smoke over the many roofs of Arete, straight at Ballista.
IX
Ballista pounded through streets filling with excited people. Swerving round the crowds, pushing past them, Maximus and Demetrius ran with the northerner. The already out-of-breath legionary soon fell behind.
By the time he reached the artillery magazine Ballista’s lungs hurt, his left arm ached from holding the scabbard of his long spatha away from his legs - and the building was well ablaze. Mamurra and Turpio were already there. The strong north-eastern wind which had been drying out the rain-sodden land was fanning the fire, driving it remorselessly onward. Flames were licking out of the barred windows and around the eaves, sparks flying high then being whipped dangerously away towards the town. Turpio was o
rganizing a work party to clear a fire break and douse the houses to the south-west. Mamurra had a chain of legionaries passing material out of the doomed magazine. To encourage the men, he was conspicuously running the same risks they were, darting in and out of the southern door.
Ballista knew he could not expect his officers and men to do what he would not. He followed Mamurra into the building. It was so hot the plaster was peeling from the walls and; on the beams above their heads, the paint seemed to be bubbling and boiling. Scalding droplets fell on the men below. There was little smoke in the room, but that was probably deceptive. The fire was surreptitiously outflanking them, creeping high, unseen, and into the cavities of the walls. At any moment the beams could give, the roof come crashing down, trapping them, choking them, burning them alive.
Ballista ordered everyone out, shouting above the inhuman roar of the fire. He and Mamurra fled only when the last legionary reached the threshold.
Outside, all busied themselves moving the rescued stores to a position of safety upwind. Then they watched the fire rage. The building did not collapse immediately. Sometimes the fire appeared to be dying down, before bursting forth into ever more destructive life. At last, with a strange groan and a terrible crash, the roof gave way.
Ballista woke to a beautiful morning, clear and crisp. Wrapped in a sheepskin, he watched the sun rise over Mesopotamia. The vast bowl of the sky turned a delicate pink; the few tattered shreds of clouds were silvered. Pursued by Skoll the wolf, as it would be until the end of time, the sun appeared on the horizon. The first wash of gold splashed over the terrace of the palace of the Dux Ripae and the battlements of Arete. At the foot of the cliff the wharves and whispering reedbeds remained in deep blue shadow.
Ballista had had only a very few hours’ sleep but, surprisingly, they had been deep and restful. He felt fresh and invigorated. It was impossible not to be full of well-being on such a morning - even after the disaster of the previous evening.
Behind him, Ballista could hear Calgacus approaching across the terrace. It was not just the uninhibited wheezing and coughing, there was also some very audible muttering. Unshakably loyal, in public the aged Caledonian was silent to the point of being monosyllabic about his dominus. Yet when they were alone he presumed on a lifetime’s acquaintance to say what he pleased, as if he were thinking aloud - usually a string of criticism and complaint: ‘Wrapped up in a sheepskin ... watching the sunrise ... probably start quoting fucking poetry next.’ Then, at the same volume but in a different tone, ‘Good morning, Dominus. I have brought your sword.’
‘Thank you. What did you say?’
‘Your sword.’
‘No, before that.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Beautiful morning. Puts me in mind of Bagoas’s poetry. Let me try some in Latin:
‘Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! The Hunter of the East has caught
The Great King’s Turret in a Noose of Light.
What do you think?’ Ballista grinned.
‘Very nice.’ Calgacus’s mouth pursed thinner, more shrewish, than ever. ‘Give me that sheepskin. They are waiting for you at the gate.’ His mutterings - ‘time and place ... not find your father spouting poetry at the sunrise like a lovesick girl ...’ - diminished in volume as he retreated into the palace.
Ballista walked with Maximus and Demetrius to the burnt-out shell of the magazine. Mamurra was already there. Possibly he had been there all night.
‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’ The praefectus fabrum saluted smartly. His face and forearms were black with soot.
‘How does it look?’
‘Not good, but could be worse. The building will have to be demolished. Almost all the artillery bolts are burnt. All the spare fittings for the ballistae - washers, ratchets and the like - are buried under that lot.’ He ran a hand across his face, the gesture of a tired man. ‘But all the shaped stones for the ballistae were stored outside, so they are all fine. I am going to have ropes rigged to try and pull the walls down outward. We may be able to salvage some of the metal fittings, some of the metal tips of the bolts - depends how hot the fire got in there.’ Mamurra paused, took a long drink of water and tipped some over his head. The soot ran, leaving strange black streaks. ‘Anyway, not quite the total disaster someone wanted.’
‘You are sure that it was arson?’
‘Come with me.’ Mamurra led them to the north-east corner of the building. ‘Don’t get too close to the walls. They could come down at any moment. But have a smell.’
Ballista did, and his stomach turned. He saw again the pole slowly beginning to turn, the amphora above his head start to tip, remembered the screams, and the other smell - the smell of burning flesh.
‘Naptha.’
‘Yes, once you have smelt it you never forget. Not if you have seen it in action.’ Mamurra pointed to a small, blackened ventilation louvre high up in the wall. ‘I think they poured it in there. Then probably threw a lamp in.’
Ballista looked around, trying to picture the attack in his mind: Last hour of daylight; no one around. One man, or more? And would he have run or tried to mingle with the gathering crowd?
‘There are witnesses. Two of them.’ Mamurra pointed to two men sitting unhappily on the ground, guarded by two legionaries. ‘They both saw a man in the street of the sickle-makers running away to the south-east.’
‘A good description?’
Mamurra laughed. ‘Yes, both excellent. One saw a short man with black hair wearing a rough cloak, and the other saw a tall man with no cloak, bald as a coot.’
‘Thank you, Mamurra. You have done very well. Carry on and I will be back when I have talked to the witnesses.’
The two men looked cowed and resentful. One had a black eye. Ballista well knew the mutual antipathy between Roman soldiers and civilians, but he was surprised by the stupidity of the troops. These two men had come forward to volunteer information. By some misplaced process of guilt by association, they had been bullied, possibly beaten up. There was no way they would help in the future.
Ballista, having asked Maximus to go and fetch him some fresh water, spoke gently to the civilians. Their stories were as Mamurra had said. It was just possible they had seen two different men. There was some uncertainty about timing. But it was equally likely that they just remembered things differently. Neither had recognized the man. The questioning was leading nowhere. Ballista thanked them and asked Demetrius to give them a couple of antoniniani each.
Ballista returned to Mamurra. ‘Right, here is what is going to happen.’ He spoke quickly, confidently. ‘Mamurra, have this building torn down and rebuilt about twice the size, with a wall round it and plenty of guards. There is nothing like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.’ Mamurra smiled dutifully. ‘You are also going to form and command an independent unit of ballistarii.The twenty-four specialist ballistarii already in Legio IIII will be transferred to you, as will another ninety-six ordinary legionaries. Each ballistarius will be responsible for training four legionaries. By the spring I expect a unit of 120 specialist ballistarii.’ Mamurra started to say something, but Ballista cut him short.
‘Also by then I expect your men to have built, tested and sited another twenty-one bolt-throwers - there is room for two bolt-throwers on every tower that now contains just one. You can requisition any civilian labour, carpenters, blacksmiths that you need. Select the legionaries yourself. Don’t let Acilius Glabrio pass off his worst cases on you.’
A slow grin spread across Mamurra’s square face.
As Ballista walked away, Maximus spoke quietly to him in Celtic. ‘If your young patrician did not hate you before, he sure will now.’
The telones, seeing them coming down the main street, knew that this was no time for jocular anecdotes, about philosophers or anything else. Certainly it was no time for officiousness, l
et alone extortion. The boukolos straight away started to herd a family of tent-dwellers and their donkeys out of the way, roughly pushing animal and human off the road, cursing them foully for dawdling. Warned by an urchin who ran errands for them, the contubernium of ten legionaries hurriedly stopped playing dice and tumbled out of the guardroom. Pulling their equipment into order, they came to attention.
The Dux Ripae gently pulled up his horse. He held up his hand, and his entourage of four halted behind him.
The customs official watched the northerner look over the Palmyrene Gate. Gods, but he was huge; huge and fierce, like all his kind.
‘Good day, Telones,’ said the barbarian in good Greek, an agreeable expression on his face. He repeated the affable greeting to the boukolos and the legionaries, then indicated to his men that they should move on, and rode out of the city of Arete.
‘Nasty-looking brute, isn’t he?’ The telones shook his head. ‘Very nasty. I wouldn’t like to cross him. Savage temper - they all have.’
About half a mile from the gate, where the necropolis ended, Ballista reined in Pale Horse. He studied the tower tombs. There had to be at least five hundred of them. Apart from at Palmyra, he had never seen anything like them. Each stood on a square stepped plinth as tall or taller than a man. Above the plinth was a first storey, two or three times as tall again, decorated with plain columns sculpted in relief. Looming above this were another two or three storeys, each resembling a flat-roof house and diminishing progressively in size.
The dead were placed in niches in the walls inside with the precious possessions they would take to the next world. Grieving relatives entered via the sole door and ascended an internal staircase up to the roof to eat a funeral meal. The sealing of the niches and the securing of the tomb were left to the undertakers.
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