by R. W. Peake
“Do not let Gobryas see that,” Kambyses had said sternly, “and deliver it only to Bodroges.”
Ophis was loyal to Kambyses, but he had been intensely curious about what was written on this piece of parchment; that he was illiterate ironically worked in his favor. Therefore, what mattered more than the contents was in delivering the message to the proper recipient, which prompted him to stick the parchment meant for Bodroges under his foot, lodging the message between it and the leather sole of his shoe, then he began by approaching the Roman fortification on his belly. Crawling, much like his namesake, Ophis approached the Roman dirt wall, stopping only when he was close enough to distinguish the forms of the Romans who were standing on the dirt rampart, staring out into the darkness. Never taking his eyes off of them, he continued wriggling forward, their only distinguishing characteristic being that they were a more solid dark color compared the slightly lighter background. Before he had crawled two hundred paces, though, the ground was bathed in the silvery light of the almost full moon that was rising now, and this caused him a moment of doubt, as he seriously considered abandoning his attempt. That, he understood after a moment’s thought, would mean his certain death, provided he returned to Kambyses; of all the things that could be said about the Parthian, that he possessed a forgiving nature wasn’t one of them. So, he reasoned, the choice is between a certain death, probably very painful, and a probable demise that would at least come swiftly if he was discovered. Consequently, he resumed his painfully slow progress towards what he could now see as the high dirt wall, atop which there was a palisade of sorts, although now that he was close, he dismissed it as much of a challenge since it was little more than packed dirt; before he could face it, however, he had to lower himself into the ditch.
Slithering head first, he drew his dagger and jabbed it point first into the wall of the ditch as far down as he could reach, but when he did, there was the distinctive clinking sound as the iron struck an embedded rock. In the deathly silence, to Ophis’ ears, it sounded incredibly loud, and his body involuntarily tensed as he waited for what he was certain was inevitable, a cry from a sentry, followed by a general alarm that alerted every Roman within hearing distance. When none came, he still waited, except now it was to allow his heart and breathing to slow down, until he finally felt back in possession of himself enough to reach down, take a firm grasp of the dagger’s hilt, then slide his body forward, down into the ditch. There was an instant of a sense of weightlessness before his body swung down, followed by the inevitable impact as his center of balance shifted when his legs and torso fell, but he had a firm grasp of the dagger so the jerking impact didn’t yank it out of his hand. When he peered down into the depths of the ditch, it had been practically impossible for him to determine just how deep it was, yet he felt certain it was more than ten feet. By reaching down and burying the dagger at least two feet below the lip of the ditch, then swinging his body down, with his arm extended above his head, he frantically tried to feel the bottom of the trench, extending his toes downward, but they didn’t come into contact with anything solid. This left him with very few options; he could simply let go of the dagger and drop straight down however far he had to go, but then he would be deprived of his only weapon, although if he was required to use it, he was essentially a dead man. However, just the thought of being without it forced him to consider the possibility of him dropping to the bottom of the ditch, then leaping back up, grabbing the dagger, and yanking it from the dirt wall, in essentially one motion. Like the first option, this didn’t appeal because, frankly, he doubted that he could leap high enough once he let go, which led him to the third and final choice. It was at this moment that Ophis’ slight build and low weight actually played to his advantage, and despite his appearance, he was deceptively strong, a product of the rough-and-tumble life he had been forced to lead before being caught by Kambyses’ father. Taking a breath, he pulled himself up, using the dagger’s hilt as his sole point of leverage, until it was directly below his chin. Without hesitation, knowing his strength would fail, he pulled his legs straight up until he felt his knees against his chest, then again without wasting an instant of time, he put his feet against the dirt wall, then pushed away while keeping hold of the dagger. Thankfully, it pulled out cleanly, but while he tried to turn his body, much like a cat does when it is dropped from any height so that it lands on its four feet, Ophis was only partially successful, landing heavily on the dirt floor of the ditch on his side, knocking the wind from his lungs in an explosive whooshing sound that, again, he was certain would be heard. Unknown to Ophis, the Parthian spy was the recipient of a fortunate series of circumstances, because under normal conditions, the bottom of a Caesarian ditch would have been sown with all number of cunningly disguised traps, where small pits were dug with hardened wooden stakes, or iron hooks embedded in blocks of wood were waiting to trap an enemy. But, because of the dearth of wood available to Caesar and his army, the general had been forced to choose to forego this elaborate but effective series of traps, which was how Ophis landed in the bottom of the ditch with the only damage being having the wind knocked from him. Despite this, the Parthian began moving as soon as he recovered his senses, although it was still while he was struggling for breath, but with the moonlight, and his position away from the outer edge of the ditch where he had landed, he knew it was a practical guarantee that he would be spotted. So, rolling over onto his stomach, he frantically scuttled across the bottom of the ditch to the edge directly beneath the rampart, and only then did he pause to suck air into his lungs.
While he recovered, he examined the next challenge, though he was heartened to see that it wouldn’t be quite as difficult, thanks to the sharpened wooden stakes that were embedded into the dirt wall. These would certainly make a straightforward assault more difficult, with hundreds of men carrying ladders and ropes rushing across the bottom of the ditch, while being assailed by the men above with their javelins and whatever other missiles these Romans used. But for a single, stealthy man like Ophis, he used the stakes as a step up, each of them embedded deeply enough that they easily supported his weight, although standing on the highest one, he was still a few feet from the top. Using his dagger in the same manner, he pulled himself up with his right arm, then thrust his left up above his head, thankfully feeling the edge of the top. Ignoring the pain that came from digging his fingers into the ground, feeling his nails threatening to tear loose, he pulled himself up with his left, just enough to relieve the pressure on the dagger, which he withdrew from the wall, then reached above him and jammed the point back into the wall just below the top. Then, he was out of the ditch, lying on the narrow lip of ground between the edge of the ditch and the start of the earthen wall, once more trying to catch his breath. From a physical standpoint, scaling the earthen wall wasn’t nearly as difficult because it wasn’t perfectly vertical like the ditch, but Ophis knew every inch he moved forward and upward increased the danger of detection almost tenfold. This was why it took the Parthian a full third of a watch to pull himself up the earthen wall, always careful to keep his body pressed firmly against the hard-packed dirt. Once at the top, he moved in increments of inches, slowly raising his head so that only his eyes and the very top of his head peeked above the surface of the rampart, which unlike the outer part of the wall, was covered in the squares of sod that had once been the topsoil of the area of the ditch.
Although the Romans had certainly restricted the use of torches, once Ophis could see into the area between the contravallation and the inner trench, he was able to plot a path that would take advantage of the inevitable gaps between the large northern camp, which as he had planned, was to his left, and the smaller satellite camps that housed the Cohort who was guarding this section of the wall, off to his right. He hadn’t been perfect; his first order of business was to slowly move laterally, towards the smaller camp, and again, although he didn’t know it, his cause was further aided by the lower number of small towers that Caesar favor
ed as an integral part of his defenses. In fact, if Ophis had been facing fortifications like those Vercingetorix encountered at Alesia or Pompeius Magnus at Dyrrhachium, even a man as skilled in stealthy movement as he was would have found it impossible. Fortunately, at least for Ophis and the Parthian cause, what confronted him was daunting, dangerous, but not impossible. Once he moved to what he considered the proper position to cross the rampart, it was a matter of timing the movements of the sentries on the walking posts, an example of how Romans and their fondness for order and doing things in a certain way could actually be exploited as a weakness. The only time Ophis moved quickly was the moment of crossing the earthen rampart, and even then, he did so like a crab, scuttling across with his belly a bare inch above the dirt. Using a fortuitous shadow, cast by the lone tower and made possible by the angle of the moon, he took a moment to gather himself and examine the next phase of his movement. Moving from a shadow to a depression in the ground and back to shadow in the four hundred paces between outer and inner fortification, it took Ophis two parts of a watch to reach the base of the earthen wall facing Susa.
Ironically, Ophis began to breathe easier, knowing that for all intents and purposes, once he was on the other side of the inner wall, and out of the ditch, the most dangerous part was over. This confidence stemmed from the simple fact that Ophis knew the ground around Susa at least as well, if not better than anyone currently living, because over the years, while the Parthian had been scrupulous about not stealing valuable items from the Parthian court, he hadn’t been as circumspect when it came to the property of the courtiers and sycophants who were a constant presence around the king. Subsequently, he had developed the habit of leaving the city at night, and finding spots to secrete his stolen property, not willing to run the risk of it being found on his person in the event that one of those whose valuables he had purloined would point at him as a suspect. This was why, once he slithered across the inner earthen wall, then down into the ditch, he moved, still stealthily, along the bottom of the ditch, heading in the direction of the large western camp. There was a dry watercourse that led to the walls, but it wasn’t a naturally occurring one; it was an abandoned channel of some sort, the purpose of which Ophis neither knew nor cared, other than it being the perfect way to get close to the Susa walls. He didn’t need to see it to know that it was there, nor that the Romans would have seen it as well, meaning that it was most likely one of the areas that whoever was guarding that area paid particular attention to as a likely avenue of a stealthy attack by the Parthian defender. What they didn’t know was that there was a runoff trough that intersected with the abandoned channel, at an angle that also was oriented towards the ditch, but it terminated about thirty paces short. All Ophis had to do was find the right spot, climb out of the ditch, and move over that thirty paces of open ground before rolling into the trough. Once he was there, he knew that he was essentially safe, from the Romans anyway, although a part of him was acutely aware of the painful irony, both in a literal and figurative sense, of dying at the hands of a Parthian sentry, just a few paces away from safety.
First, he forced himself to return his mind to the more pressing challenge, and it took him two times of using his dagger to lever himself up the wall, moving with agonizing slowness now that he was so exposed, then trying to determine exactly where he was in relation to the trough. Dropping down after the second time, although he had spotted the small landmark for which he was looking, a partially buried rock that was shaped like what people said the pyramids of Egypt looked like, his confidence had ebbed. Simply put, he didn’t know if he was strong enough to pull himself up for a third time, even if it would be the last; both his arms were aching abominably, and he had finally torn off two nails of his left hand in his attempt to grab a lasting purchase on the ground. Crouching at the bottom of the ditch, he spent long enough to notice that the shadow he was using was shrinking with an alarming rapidity as the moon rose higher in the sky. Realizing that he had to move and whether he was sufficiently recovered or not was beside the point, he gritted his teeth, then turned to face the dirt wall, whereupon he jumped up and plunged the dagger into the soil. Although he was able to pull himself up again, it was with a slowness that was both physically and emotionally agonizing before, at last, his chin drew level with the hilt and, once more, he extended his left hand, blindly groping for the lip of the ditch. His fingers found it readily enough, but this time, when he dug his fingers into the ground, there was a bolt of pain in the fingertips where there was no longer nails to protect the tender flesh underneath that it made him gasp aloud. Whether or not this was what caused what happened next, or it was his movement itself, Ophis would never know, but what he clearly heard above his own panting was a sudden shout from behind him. Ironically, it was precisely what he needed, because the sudden stab of fear that struck him gave him the burst of energy necessary to frantically scramble up and over the lip of the ditch. For an instant, he lay on his back, panting, then a blur crossed his vision, followed so quickly by a thudding sound to his right, which caused him to glance over to see, no more than an arm’s length away, a javelin seemed to have magically sprouted from the ground. This prompted him to roll over, narrowly missed by a second javelin that slammed into the ground where he had been lying an eyeblink before with enough force that he felt the vibration through his body. His initial plan had been to move stealthily the thirty paces to the beginning of the trough, which he could see but now seemed impossibly far away, except that before he gave it any conscious thought, he was erect and his legs were pumping furiously as he ran for his life. Javelins were frightening enough, but then something similar shot past his front, and while it was shorter, it moved with such speed that, even running, he felt the disturbed air of its passage. This caused him to break stride, just long enough for another one of those vicious things to streak past, this time the iron head catching just enough of the moonlight that it appeared to be a grayish-silver blurred line.
Returning to full speed, even in the darkness, Ophis saw what he was certain were a dozen missiles that sliced through the air all around him, including one scorpion bolt that struck the ground at an angle, then caromed upward, narrowly missing what would have been a gruesome disembowelment by a matter of inches. Despite being several feet away, the Parthian launched himself, leaping for the safety provided by the gouge in the flat ground, but whether it was because of the moonlight or he was faced with the exhaustion of the energy provided by his stark terror at being discovered, he landed heavily on the ground several feet short. The impact jarred him, though he didn’t stop moving, scrambling on all fours for the scant and fleeting safety of the dry watercourse, which he reached even as another scorpion bolt narrowly missed him. However, it wasn’t the closeness of the missile that he heard as much as a deep, crashing sound that prompted him to look in the direction from where the sound had come, and he saw that the large wooden ramp that had been in the vertical position was no longer visible, the sign that it had just been dropped. The meaning wasn’t lost on him; there would be Romans rushing across that wooden ramp, intent on hunting him down and stopping him from delivering his message. This was serious, but Ophis wasn’t any more alarmed than he had been an instant before; all he had to do was beat them to the spot where they would be within range of the Crassoi manning the rampart of the outer defenses of Susa. And, although he was only conversant with the Romans who had found themselves working for Parthia, he knew enough about them to understand that they would have weapons of the same style, and presumably, the same range as those belonging to Caesar’s men. Realizing that speed was now paramount, he began sprinting, moving along the narrow runoff, heading for the larger abandoned channel. What Ophis had no way of knowing was that he wasn’t the only messenger risking his life that night, and the consequences that resulted from both the Parthian and Roman couriers ultimately being successful in their endeavors would have implications that would reverberate throughout the entire known world.
Chapter Six
“We’re going to attack the outer fortifications. Tonight.”
As always, Caesar’s flair for the dramatic had an impact that was immediate and commensurate with the implications that stemmed from his words.
“Why?”
“Why tonight? What’s happened?”
Caesar held up his hand to answer the questions, completely unsurprised that it was Pullus who discerned that there had to have been some change in circumstances.
“As you all know by now, a Parthian spy managed to slip past our defenses,” he began, but while he didn’t make any specific mention of where the infiltration had occurred, the attention of the entire assembly of officers turned to where the Primi Pili, Felix of the 6th and Aquilinus of the 7th, were seated, perhaps coincidentally since they had arrived together, next to each other, and their faces turned roughly the same shade of red at the scrutiny. That the 6th had the responsibility for the section of the contravallation, while the 7th the circumvallation, where Ophis managed to penetrate, meant that both men felt equally responsible. Although it hadn’t been Caesar’s intention to censure the two, at least publicly, he recognized that he no longer needed to take them aside for a private reprimand, so he said, “However, although he evaded us and made it to safety, I’m actually confident I know what information this spy was trying to get to the Parthians.” The low buzz of whispers and the fidgeting as men speculated with each other instantly stopped, but whereas Caesar might normally have delayed relaying this news, time was of the essence. “Because,” he continued, “at approximately the same time, a rider arrived at this camp, from Hirtius and the cavalry. And,” he did pause for a moment this time, but it was because he was trying to frame his thoughts about which order to give the men the news, deciding on, “he has sent word that the relief force that left Sostrate and cut off our supply line has begun moving. And,” he said grimly, “it’s heading this way.”