by R. W. Peake
His comrade had been contemptuously dismissive, snorting, “Bah! That? You know that isn’t what I’m talking about. My father hit me harder than that when I dropped the firewood!”
It was true, certainly, and Darius didn’t say anything more, feeling he had done his part in upholding Parthian honor, such as it was. Certainly, none of the nobles who continually prowled up and down the rampart, avidly listening for any kind of talk that could be construed as disloyal or defeatist could take exception to his words.
So, Darius had reached the conclusion that these Romans couldn’t be defeated, and yet he was leading his small force away from Istakhr in preparation for supposedly resisting the Roman advance. His reasoning for doing so was straightforward enough; he knew that enough of the men following him hadn’t reached that conclusion yet. Making a public pronouncement that he didn’t intend to commit suicide to defend Parthia, but instead planned on allying with the Romans would threaten his leadership of these men. Most of them he trusted; the core group of men whom he had returned with from Susa he felt confident would follow his lead no matter what, if only because he knew very well that their sentiments about Roman invincibility aligned with his own. And, he acknowledged, he felt fairly confident about those men of his class who had joined his force after he returned to Istakhr and essentially seized power, despite the fact that they hadn’t seen Roman might with their own eyes. That left those men who had been part of one of the households of the minor satrapy who had remained behind, but while he considered it, Darius realized that eliminating them would not only cause more problems than it was worth, he would also lose his most experienced fighters, and most of the few heavily armored horsemen under his command. So, for the time being, Darius had decided to perpetuate the idea that they would be fighting against the Romans; things had been going so well for him, it imbued a confidence that he would know when the right moment came, and when it did, he would know what to do. The one thing he would never share was that, while the basis for his decision was in his belief that Parthia’s defeat had already occurred, and nothing he or any man could do would change that, there was another motive, a more personal one. Darius hadn’t given up on the idea of avenging Gobryas, but he also concluded that the chances of cutting his way through however many men surrounded Bodroges would prove nonexistent, and it would make his task easier to do it from within. And, in a further sign that the blood of Gobryas ran through his veins, Darius had resolved to bide his time, insinuating himself into the Roman army as so many of his former comrades had, choosing the moment to strike that allowed him to achieve his goal, but not jeopardize his standing with the Romans. It would take months, maybe even a year, but Darius was going to murder Bodroges. That would come later, however; now, he led his small army out of Istakhr, heading south to a spot that he knew, a place where there was abundant water, a protected valley, with a narrow passage through a mountain range that could be defended by a veritable handful of men.
Darius did exactly what Kamnaskires had predicted when he sketched out the map in the dirt, leading his force, now numbering a bit more than three thousand mounted men and almost a thousand infantry, south to the underwater city of Gur. Setting up a semi-permanent camp on the edge of the lake, he sited it on the southern side, although the actual defensive positions he intended to take were on the opposite, northern side, specifically the hill that blocked the entrance into the valley. What Kamnaskires hadn’t told Caesar, because he hadn’t actually seen the terrain and was working off only what he had been told, was that the hill that blocked the entrance into the valley didn’t straddle two entrances. While it was true that there was a declivity on the eastern flank of the hill, the low space was occupied by the river that had been used by Alexander to flood the city, back when it had been ruled by the Persians. That meant there was effectively only one way into this valley, and because of the orientation of the ridge that resumed running on an east/west axis, the path between hill and ridge was less than a half-mile wide, and Darius could position part of his force on the southern slope of the ridge, shielded from view until anyone approaching from the north was literally within a few hundred paces away. On the hill itself, Darius ordered the digging of a line of entrenchments, something that normally would have been met with resistance from his men, but the example of those created by the Crassoi at Susa had proven their utility; besides, given how few of the men under his command were from the nobility, those who might have refused to pick up a spade quickly recognized that to do so would arouse the ire of their comrades. This didn’t mean that there weren’t questions about why Darius deemed them necessary, but his explanation made perfect sense.
“When the Romans come, there’s no way for them to see our men over there on the slope of the ridge,” he had pointed across the narrow floor of the pass, “but there’s also no way they can miss us here on this hill because there’s no cover.” This was certainly true; both the ridge and hill were bare rock. “So they’re going to try and knock us off this hill, and when they do, we need to be prepared for it.” Explaining further, he led the men who served as his officers up the northern slope of the hill, indicating the reverse side as he said, “We’re going to have the horses held here, and the archers we put here will share the entrenchments with our spearmen. When the moment’s right, they’re going to run up and over the hill to mount their horses. And that,” he had given his men the kind of grin that he knew affected people he was trying to persuade, “is when we will come down on their heads, from both sides, and we will make it rain, but with our arrows, not water.”
While Darius was slightly disappointed, he was not altogether surprised when his plan was met with what could only charitably be called enthusiasm; he was expecting that what resistance there was would come from one of the former bodyguards and he was rewarded when one of them, Dotarzes, asked bluntly, “Then what? Surely you don’t think that will stop them, do you?”
“No,” Darius admitted, “not for long. But I believe that it will cause them to pull back and become cautious. That’s when we slip away south to the Mand River, to the spot we discussed before we left Istakhr.” At this, he turned to the man who commanded his spearmen, a member of his own class who had been with him at Susa, his name Cyrus, reminding him, “Remember that the instant we launch our attack from horseback, you must pull back over the hill, then hurry around the ridge to the east and get on the lake side before you start heading for the Mand. That will give you a head start, but your men are going to have march faster than they ever have before.”
Cyrus assured him that he and his men would perform their role, but he gave Darius a playful punch on the arm as he taunted, “You just make sure that you and your horse lovers hit what they are aiming at.”
For the briefest instant, Darius felt a flare of anger at the presumption of Cyrus in touching him; fortunately, he stifled this, reminding himself that, just because he was Gobryas’ bastard, that didn’t mean he was noble, and that a large part of his hold over these men was that he was insistent on a level of equality that was practically unheard of in Parthian society.
Don’t forget why they follow you, Darius, he warned himself, so he returned the punch with a shove, answering in the same jocular tone, “The less talking you do, the deeper that trench will be.”
He said it with a smile, but Cyrus immediately nodded his head, then turned and trotted back to where his men, along with their archer comrades, were busy digging in the hard ground, with the rest of the officers moving with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Everything Darius had told them was true…to a point, but his real reason for those entrenchments was less about protecting his men than it was that, when he stood on the hill looking north, he saw that the spot he had chosen would be visible from the longest distance away. While he certainly wanted to protect his men, he had no intention of fighting the Romans, but he knew he had to carry out the ruse to the last possible moment. By placing these entrenchments so high up the slope, something that a man experi
enced in such matters would never do, and a fact of which Darius was aware, he wanted the Romans to see Darius and his men at the first opportunity. In essence, he was gambling on something that he had seen at Susa; the Roman general Caesar always preferred to talk first before fighting. What Darius hoped was that Caesar would correctly interpret what Darius truly intended, and by the end of the first day, a scout came galloping through the gap, finding Darius to report that the Romans had moved from Istakhr and were now following their trail.
“They should be here in two days,” the scout reported, and normally, he would have been right in his assessment, but this was Caesar.
Pullus, along with the other Primi Pili, marched with the expectation of ambush, an expectation that grew almost by the mile from Istakhr. The fact that the city was empty of fighting men only exacerbated that feeling, but it was also at Istakhr that they first heard the name of the mysterious satrap who had held his forces aloof from any contact with the advancing Romans. The mystery only deepened when neither Bodroges, Artaxerxes, nor Teispes could think of any Parthian noble named Darius, and when they questioned the citizens of Istakhr, they proved remarkably close-mouthed, to the point that Bodroges approached Caesar about using more aggressive methods to extract information about the identity of this Darius. Caesar refused, although he was as curious as his Parthians to know more about this man who nobody knew. The only thing that seemed to be accepted was that Darius was not from the nobility, or if he was, it was from such a minor branch of one of the houses in the Istakhr region that he was unknown to be a member. Only once did Bodroges overhear one of the citizens muttering something about the former satrap Gobryas, who he had slain by his own hand, but he didn’t overhear enough to make any sense of it, which was just another frustration.
“It might even be one of the bodyguards of one of the houses here,” Bodroges had offered, displeased with himself for not being able to instantly provide Caesar with the information he needed, and with Caesar for refusing his request to put some of the people to torture to find out. “Someone who is so obscure that the people here don’t think he’s noble.”
For that, Bodroges admitted to himself, was the true cause of his ire. As enlightening as his time with Caesar had been when it came to matters of class, he was still a Parthian noble, and one of a high-ranking house at that, so it was practically an article of faith that men of lesser bloodlines were incapable of providing leadership, although he did his best to quash these feelings when they arose. Usually, he forced himself to think of Titus Pullus and the rest of the Roman Primi Pili as a reminder that, no matter how strongly one may believe something, that belief didn’t always make it so. But, as he was learning, it was difficult to erase more than twenty years of conditioning in the span of months, so it was the thought of this Darius being baseborn that rankled him more than the fact that he didn’t know anything about him. Teispes, on the other hand, seemed more amused at the idea that this man, who he instantly discerned from the few comments about him made by the people of Istakhr, was from their own class and not his, and finally, Bodroges asked him why.
“I learned in Merv that the way we think about men of lesser blood wasn’t always correct,” he told Bodroges on the first day out of Istakhr in pursuit of Darius. “Orodes sent me with the men of the Crassoi to make sure they obeyed and didn’t try anything foolish like trying to escape. And at first,” he admitted, though his one good eye remained staring straight ahead, “I viewed them the same way we view our own peasants, as little better than brute labor who would be used as fodder for our fights against the bandits and the Tokharoi, and by doing so make it easier for our own noblemen and retainers to defeat our more powerful enemies.” When he fell silent, Bodroges thought this was all he was going to get from the other man, who was never known for being talkative, but then Teispes resumed, “But after I watched Caspar and the other Centurions, and how quickly they adapted to their circumstances, I understood then that they were intelligent men. And,” at this, he gave Bodroges a direct look with his one eye, a piercing gaze that made Bodroges uncomfortable, “I saw how courageous they were. Not just in battle, but in what they were forced to endure on our march to Merv. We treated them worse than dogs, and yes, many died, but most didn’t. It made me realize that they were not animals, they were men. Real men.”
When Teispes stopped, Bodroges correctly sensed that he was done talking, and they rode in silence for more than a mile before Bodroges spoke as if to himself, “So, we would be wise not to underestimate this Darius, whoever he is.” He turned to Teispes, saying quietly, “That’s what you’re telling me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Teispes answered tersely.
Then, there was nothing more to say, at least until they found this Darius and his men.
The dust cloud appeared a day earlier than expected, igniting in Darius a flicker of doubt about his strategy, but he quickly snuffed it out, reminding himself that he had seen Roman might with his own eyes. They were unbeatable; this was a simple, if unpalatable truth, and it was this truth that he reminded himself he must keep foremost in his mind over the next day, recalling how, when he had been at Susa and they had seen the towering cloud of dust by the approaching army, it had still taken until the next day before they actually arrived outside the walls. Calling together his subordinates, he reminded those men who had been at Susa of this fact, then had them mingle with the rest of the men, assuring them that there would be no fighting this day. The most tangible problem posed by Caesar’s speed was that it curtailed his preparations by a day, and the rest of the time was spent with men hurrying about, finishing the list of tasks that Darius had provided for them. The entrenchments had been dug, but about two feet down, they had run into bedrock that their tools simply couldn’t penetrate, so he sent them out to find rocks of the right shape and size to stack into a makeshift parapet. It was flimsy, certainly, but if all went well, it was for show anyway, although Darius didn’t say as much to any of his men.
There was another working party down on the valley floor, working on smoothing out the ground, removing those rocks that protruded and filling in the holes, eliminating dips in the ground that might cause their horses to stumble. The men skilled in making and fletching arrows were working feverishly to supply the “rain” that, again, Darius hoped wouldn’t be needed, but if it was, then far better to have them and not need them than the other way around. Mainly, however, Darius was trying to keep the men busy, knowing how corrosive waiting for what was coming could be to the nerves, especially when what was coming was Caesar’s army, conqueror of all of Parthia. For his part, Darius was everywhere, exhibiting the kind of leadership that had made his ascension so much easier than it could have been, his men seeing and understanding it for what it was.
Moving from one working party to another, his eye frequently moving to the dust cloud, never far from his side was his half-brother, the one who, by Parthian law, was the rightful heir to the satrapy of Istakhr and the surrounding region. Since it had been this way since their departure, the men had grown accustomed to the sight of the nine-year-old boy, trotting faithfully behind this older half-brother who even he could see was the mirror image of their father when he had been young, seemingly unaware that he was, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner and a hostage. When Darius had informed the mother of the boy, who was also named Gobryas, of his intention to take the child with him when they departed Istakhr, he could see she hadn’t been fooled by his insistence that it was for the boy’s protection, but as he also knew, neither could she do anything to stop it. With the lower part of her face obscured by a veil, Darius had seen in her eyes the naked fear and the plea in them not to harm her son. What would have shocked her, and frankly surprised Darius, was that look in her eyes had actually affected him deeply; yes, he initially had every intention of disposing of young Gobryas at the earliest possible moment. But, as the days passed, he continued finding excuses not to do so; the fact that the boy, unaware of his half-brother
’s true intentions, worshipped him in the manner of many little brothers was something that Darius had never experienced before, being an only child, and he found it a heady, and pleasing brew. For the first few days, he had told himself that he was waiting for the right moment, aware that there were still men who viewed him with suspicion, but by the time Caesar announced his pending arrival in the form of that dust, he hadn’t entertained the thought for several days. Now, he was doing what had become a routine matter, explaining to young Gobryas exactly what each working party was doing, and why, and patiently answering the boy’s endless question. But it was the moment when Darius found himself worrying about where the safest place for young Gobryas would be when the Romans appeared that rocked him to his core, and he realized that, while he was willing to do almost anything to achieve his aims, there was a limit, and it was sitting beside him, listening avidly to what Darius was saying. It was a strange feeling; while Darius certainly felt kinship with the men of his drafsh who he had fought beside, and he loved his mother unreservedly, he had never experienced anything like this, and he found it quite unsettling. Pleasant, but unsettling. None of this inner turmoil was betrayed by his demeanor or the manner in which he was behaving, but in a strange way, it did help pass the time, so that when, shortly before sundown, a shout went up from many voices at once, and Darius turned to the north, shading his eyes against the glare created by the orb hanging just above the horizon, he was surprised to see the sudden winking of the light off the metal bits belonging to what looked like a single, dark line on the northern horizon.
“They’re here!” he heard someone shout, but his first thought was for Gobryas, and he glanced down at the boy whose eyes were wide, not with fear, but excitement.