by JD Smith
‘The next port will be Myra.’
‘Shall we stop and taste the local whores?’
‘We cannot stop at every port. We will never reach Rome.’
‘All right. Every other port then?’
‘The whores in Rome will be worth the wait.’
I could think on that promise and kill the hours aboard ship that I do not spend recounting my tale or sitting with the men, for I have long been without a woman’s gentle weight hollowing the bed beside me. Instead I think of the women I have been with over the years and those I have not because I could never be with a woman I did not know or trust.
Samira giggles.
‘You think me funny?’ I ask, unsure which part of my tale causes her amusement. She is happier today. There is a smile on her face and the sun is shining.
‘You look worried, Grandfather,’ she teases.
‘Worried? No, I am not worried. Only curious what it is you appear to understand that I do not?’
‘You still cannot see it, can you?’
Women and their riddles.
‘And now you look impatient,’ she says.
‘That I am, Samira. Will you tell me what makes you laugh, or must I wait until the sun has set?’
Her eyes soften and her voice hints of sympathy.
‘You still do not realise when Bamdad jests with you?’
I pause. She speaks the truth. His jests I do not always understand, and there are some I do not appreciate.
‘The boy in Tripolis was just that, a boy. We played in the mud as children and I mentioned him once to Bamdad. He teases you. And I am happy here as I was happy in Tripolis. It makes no difference. I am with you.’
Samira, always the voice of reason. Yet I do not believe she was happy in Tripolis, or perhaps she never knew anything else.
The boat drifts under the guidance of Rostram and the deck is for once quiet. The sea is empty of rage, a calm relief.
‘You have been in the company of many kings,’ Samira says.
‘I was unfortunate.’
‘Incredibly,’ she agrees, smiling. ‘But I do not think life treated you too harshly, living amongst the wealthy. Becoming wealthy yourself. Not many men could claim to rise from such poverty.’
I skim the years of my memory and concede I wanted for nothing of materialistic value after being taken into Zenobia’s world.
‘Oh, in some ways, that is true,’ I say. ‘In others, not so much. I was out of place and time. To find myself a soldier stood beside the Queen brought a great many worries and burdens. I had a perceived freedom. Inheritance from Julius.’ I pause and look around me. What is my life? What have I achieved? ‘I cannot explain, Samira. How ungrateful a man must I seem to not appreciate the good fortune in which I found myself? In part, I think I craved my early roots, my slavery. To be a boy and not have to make a choice, never have to question yourself or your person, never know what it is like to live with consequence. There is no responsibility in belonging to another.’
‘But freedom is everything. It is the dream of slaves.’
‘We are all slaves, Samira, in one form or another. Every man under the Empire’s rule is a slave to Rome. Every legionary is a slave to his centurion. The difference lies only in the master. One day you will know.’
‘We are slaves to no one. Rome has little governance over Syria now.’
‘Ah, but there you have it: slave to no one but terrorized by the Persians. Would we not be better under Rome’s protection?’
‘The old argument between Julius and Odenathus,’ Samira says, realising to what I refer.
‘Exactly!’
I see Rostram lean on the wheel. I have rarely been a jealous man, but my envy rises when I watch how Rostram and Bamdad and the other men travel through life. The way they can let go from time to time and live in the moment, no matter their past. Or maybe I am too blind to see the complexities of another man’s world. Samira might think us free, sat here on this ship with a light breeze blowing us onward, a beautiful pink sky turning the water a speckled purple, but I am still a slave to my oaths and I think part of me always knew I would never be free of them. And then I feel sick for the friendship I must break when I warn Samira of Rostram’s past.
‘You never believed Zenobia would give up Odenathus to Shapur? She loved him so much.’
‘Love means a lot less than you think,’ I retort, and my regret swells immediately. She knows enough to think love comes first and foremost, and I worry she puts too much faith in it. I feel the desire to put right in her mind the truth that when man or god choose to ignore it, love means very little. And I realise my bitterness. Something else I am a slave to where others seem not to be quite so shackled by the heart. I reflect that I have rarely made promises to people I do not love, and my feelings and care for those people have bound my oaths stronger than any two bloody palms sealing a pact.
Samira looks expectant, and so I say: ‘Love is both the thing we live for most, and our greatest undoing.’
‘It is complicated then?’ she replies, and her mouth twitches mischievously.
‘Slightly less complicated than politics, I assure you.’
My breath feels hard and painful in my chest. I am old. Old and tired.
‘Did you chase Jadhima across thirty years because he raped Zenobia?’ Samira asks.
I nod.
‘I hunted him and when I found him your father and I killed him, as you know.’
‘Zenobia asked you not to,’ she says in a quiet voice.
‘Vaballathus, your father, discovered what happened to his mother and he would not let the past crime go unpunished.’ As I speak I am aware of how much I want Samira to forgive me for taking her father into danger; for his loss. He encouraged our actions, persuaded me and fanned the flame in my heart.
‘And there was more,’ I say. ‘Jadhima’s rape of Zenobia was not the sole reason I was determined to kill the man.’
‘What other reason was there?’
I raise an eyebrow.
‘I will tell you. Soon.’
Samira rolls her eyes back at me.
I see her humour, her innocence, and I yearn for it myself. So many years. What would I change if I could go back and have my time again? Would I have determined not to go to court and end up on one battlefield after another? It still feels strange to be a warrior when I had spent my childhood a clerk in slavery. My sword sings through air as easily as my hand through oiled hair. I bear more lines of courage on my flesh than I have written calculations on scraps of vellum. I have commanded men and led them to battle, to victory or defeat. My callouses are born of walking and holding spear and shield and sword, not from scribing. And I have built on my arms and legs and chest the muscle that comes with training, and has not withered with age.
I would do it all again to have those years with Zenobia once more.
Samira glances to Rostram and as I follow her line of sight I witness him winking back at her. Then he catches my eye and looks away. The smile upon Samira’s face falls as he averts his eyes. She does not realise he has seen me watching.
He knows I disapprove.
CHAPTER 21
Samira – 290 AD (Present day)
Grandfather is speaking but I am no longer listening. I am looking at Rostram, his head turned from me, as if he pretends I am here one moment and not the next. Have I offended?
‘Samira?’
‘What?’
‘I do not mean to upset you,’ Grandfather says, ‘but it is better to keep a distance from him.’
It is too late for that, I think. I am drawn to Rostram in a way I cannot explain. I think of his embrace and I want it again today, tomorrow, the day after. I want to feel that closeness to a person, to him, all of the time. His wink made me the happiest of people, and the turn of his head the saddest.
My grandfather’s words are a hum in my ear as I see Rostram smile back at me, reassuring and warm.
‘Promise me nothing will
happen between you?’ I hear Grandfather say.
‘I do not understand,’ I reply. ‘What about Rostram is so wrong?’
‘He has a wife and three children already.’
The words thump into me like stones dropping into my stomach. There has been no mention of a wife or children in the weeks we have known one another. No man aboard ship has breathed word of them either. I am confused and full of sadness again, my emotions rising and falling to the rhythm of the ship riding the waves.
I look into Rostram’s face and he smiles back at me again, his soft brown hair pulled back in the breeze, and I want to call him liar but he has never uttered an untrue word. What do you call a man who fails to tell you of such things as he draws you in?
‘You know for sure?’ I ask. A silly question, but I have nothing else to say.
Grandfather nods.
‘They are estranged, but still he sends coin back to them when he can.’
I nod as if that confirms the matter and it is over. I nod as if my feelings have disappeared upon hearing the truth. I smile as if I am still as happy as I was when Rostram held me. And I say nothing as I think of the hours we spent together in his cabin last night and the whispers we spoke and the love we made.
CHAPTER 22
Zabdas – 262 AD
I had never seen the city of Nisibis before the morning of our army’s approach. I walked on foot, Zenobia beside me, Odenathus further back along the train of men, shouting orders, negotiating with messengers, keeping a weather eye on those under his command. The Persians had retreated at the sight of our combined army, Roman legionaries swelling our ranks and the hundreds of banners which fluttered on a late winter breeze. Sunshine cast dancing shadows on the sands, drying out the damp from the rain, attempting to penetrate the cold.
The King of the Persians was here, we thought, but we could not be sure.
For months we had pushed him back, chasing and harrying across our lands, keeping confrontation to a minimum. He had sacked and pillaged so much of Syria it was a wonder there was anything left to rape. But as each city had been taken and abandoned, so our people returned to make it good again, replenishing what had been lost. Odenathus had seen to it that no city was without provision, that each one would be as great if not greater than before the Persians took it. He gave them gold, for he was not short of it, and wagons travelled the Roman roads from Palmyra across the desert carrying food and clothes and everything required by people who had been left with nothing. The Romans would not have seen this done before Odenathus’ rule over the whole of Syria, but he made sure each citizen was restored, losses were made good, respect was shown to the dead, and in his wake Syria was the stronger for it.
I rolled my shoulders.
‘It is not as large as I imagined,’ I said of the city in the distance.
‘They say it was conquered by Emperor Septimius Severus, but you cannot conquer something which has been yours and lost. He simply re-took it, just as we attempt now,’ Zenobia replied.
The walls were low, beaten down over time by one siege after another, captured and recaptured, a place of perpetual war, belonging first to one side and then another. Pulled and pushed and torn.
Horns sounded behind us.
‘They are Roman horns,’ Zenobia said, turning.
I followed her as we rode back past the train of men and camels, back to where Odenathus sat atop a great white horse. He shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked into the distance.
‘I have sent scouts to see who approaches.’
We waited, our cloaks flapping in the wind, until an army emerged on the horizon, our scouts riding hard ahead of it, dust billowing in their wake.
They came to a halt before us, horses panting and frothing at the mouth.
‘Roman reinforcements. Aureolus sends his greetings,’ one said, and handed the King a note.
Odenathus broke open the scroll and read aloud:
Odenathus, Greetings!
It seems we have not met and yet I have heard so much about you. I broke Macrianus the Pretender and you saved me the trouble of chasing Ballista and Quietus across the desert. A shrewd move if ever I saw one. Greatly appreciated, of course. Emperor Gallienus will celebrate your loyalty when he next returns to Rome and has seen fit to bestow upon you the title Totius Orientis Imperato. You are to be his independent lieutenant in the east. Not quite as grand as the title of king, but I am told you have assumed that already.
Titles aside, you have done great service to Rome in your protection of the Syrian frontier and we hope you will continue to do so. Gallienus has ordered me to send you what remains of Ballista’s army now they have sworn allegiance to him (how easily men are swayed in the face of defeat) together with a good portion of my own cavalrymen. I will not come east myself for there is much work to do elsewhere, so it is with deep regret that I must put aside the pleasure of your acquaintance and that of your renowned wife for another time.
Use the men wisely. No one wishes to see another pretender to the throne rise from the ranks. Having to kill those who have previously sworn allegiance to our emperor is rather tedious at best.
With respect,
Manius Acilius Aureolus, Master of the Imperial Horses
‘Well, they are much appreciated and sorely needed, although never before have I known men to be sent so readily to support us here in the east,’ Odenathus said.
‘They are your reward for not marching with the pretenders,’ Zenobia replied. ‘And the title is yours for your decisive movement against Ballista and Quietus once Macrianus had been defeated. Gallienus favours you.’
Does he favour Odenathus or Zenobia, I wondered, yet I knew the answer. In reality it was Zenobia with whom he held a connection, and yet now he addressed Odenathus. I felt Syria shift beneath my feet, the sands moving and changing and the favour of the emperor reaching further than before, with soldiers offered and not begged for. Gallienus had shown interest in Zenobia before, he understood our cause. Now I sensed something more; a deeper respect for our region and our King.
A slight elation lifted my heart as I saw the Roman soldiers coming steadily closer, their features and their banners clearer. I turned back to the city of Nisibis and Odenathus and Zenobia. The look upon Zenobia’s face was more than triumphant. It was knowing. There had never been any doubt in her mind what would come, what would happen. She always knew which side to play, no matter her desires and her conscience, regardless of her ambition. She would bend and she would negotiate and eventually she would have everything she wanted.
The Romans joined our ranks, crossing the divide between our two armies, blending effortlessly with our men and swelling our army to a size much larger than before. Odenathus held complete control. Syrians and Romans alike were under his command. We were as one, a spear that would drive through armour with a point sharp enough to pierce the heart of Persia.
We slept that night with those men in our company. They brought with them food enough to last months as we lay siege to Nisibis and starve out the men who hid behind the walls, and my gratitude for Gallienus increased.
Nights passed; air cold upon my skin and the faint rustle of troops chattering and moving about our camp reassuring. This was a frontier I barely knew before. We were always in the open, always attempting to rebuff the enemy. That was until we pushed them back the year Zenobia gave birth to Vaballathus; the year we held advantage. We chased Shapur across the sands. Showed him we would not be hounded, that we could make a stand and we could fight as well as any army, any empire.
I looked up at Nisibis. Darkness shrouded the city. I could make out no soldiers on the ramparts or defence to speak of in the faint flicker of torchlight, although I was sure they were there, hiding, lurking, waiting.
Zenobia sat down beside me, her arm brushing against mine. I looked at her and I smiled the same boyish grin I always felt creep upon me when she was herself and we were alone and without politics.
‘You think Shapur t
o be in the city?’ I asked her.
‘I hope that he is,’ she replied.
She shivered and pulled her cloak tighter about her shoulders. It was unusual, for she never normally felt the cold, did not dress for warmth. Now she craved the heat the blanket and fire and our proximity might bring.
‘The night is chill and long,’ I said.
‘And it has only just begun.’
I knew her words held more meaning. We would be here for many weeks or perhaps months if we were to starve the Persians out of the city.
‘The people of Nisibis will grow hungrier as the Persians take whatever food lies behind those walls for themselves.’
‘And the people have no strength to overthrow the enemy and open the gates to us as Antioch did,’ Zenobia replied. ‘They are trapped.’
‘They will die before we can free them.’
‘What would you do?’
I paused before shaking my head. ‘I do not know. Breach the walls and many of our own men will die. What is the point of that?’
‘We free the people of Nisibis and we also defeat the Persians,’ she said.
‘We defeat them either way if they starve, yet we lose no soldiers.’
‘True.’
‘What says Odenathus?’
‘He wishes to arrange a meet.’
My heart plunged at the thought of it. Yet another meet. The years seemed to be full of them, moving from camp to camp, one meet after another, always exchanging pleasantries whilst knowing the other side only wanted to rip out your tongue. Gods, I thought, we would stand once more before Shapur and perhaps even Jadhima. See the face of the Persian King, his expression, and know he held memory of the King of the Tanukh forcing himself upon Zenobia.
‘What does Odenathus hope to achieve from a meet?’
‘Their surrender.’
‘The Persians will never agree to it.’
She frowned, looking out into the darkness as if it held answer or promise.
‘Does Odenathus expect you to attend the meet, to go without him as you did before?’ I asked.