by Ian Ross
Was hour was it? Glancing up, he saw the moon low in the sky, just above the rooftops. It must be nearing dawn. Then he was in the deep trench of the street, and darkness closed around him. All across the city there was the noise of heavy wooden shutters slamming down, iron bolts rattling as the citizens secured their shops and houses. Fugitives were running from all directions, apparently in complete confusion, crying out in Syriac and Greek and scattering as they heard the noise of the hooves on the cobbles.
‘Save us!’ a woman cried. ‘Save us – the Persians will murder us all!’
As he rode, Castus realised that he was charging towards a scene of combat with no armour, no weapon but a sword. So be it. Better to go down fighting at the first rush if the city was lost. Better not to have to contemplate surrender. Up ahead he could make out soldiers in the street, gathered on the corners with weapons in hand. They let out nervous cheers as he passed, but none seemed to know what was happening.
Reaching the end of the street, Castus galloped into the broad colonnaded avenue that led from the Edessa Gate. He slowed at once. The street to either side of him was filled with milling troops, shields and spears catching the weaving torchlight, the air resounding with shouts and cries. Castus gripped his sword, drawing it partway from his scabbard.
Then, with a sharp jolt that rocked him in the saddle, he realised what he was seeing.
The shouts were not cries of fierce battle, but cheers of jubilation.
Blinking, he stared at the shields around him. Some blue and others yellow, all with a design of radiating black acanthus leaves. The emblems of the Tenth and Seventh Gemina legions.
He threw back his head and cried out with joy and relief.
‘Excellency!’ somebody was calling from the crowd. ‘Magister!’
Egnatius and Lycianus rode up beside him. Egnatius was slack-jawed and grinning in amazement.
A man in a helmet was pushing his way through the throng. Castus recognised the blunt face of Barbatio, the centurion he had appointed to command the Tenth.
‘Excellency,’ Barbatio said again, saluting. ‘Apologies it took us so long to get here. We marched double pace through the night, then broke through their piquets at the charge. Lucky the sentries at the gate recognised our signal!’
‘Well done,’ Castus said, grinning as he leaned from the saddle and seized the man by the shoulder. ‘How many are with you? Where’s Mucatra? Is he following?’
Barbatio’s face closed, and he gave a tight shrug. ‘Just us, dominus,’ he said. ‘My own detachment, and Mamertinus with his men of the Seventh. We lost a few coming in, and my boys are dead on their feet!’
Straightening up, Castus saw the exhaustion on the faces of the soldiers. Some had dropped to kneel in the road, braced on their shields. Other staggered to the pavements under the colonnades to sit, heads in hands. People were running from all sides now, bringing flasks of water and wine, and the soldiers tipped back their heads and drank like men who had been parched for days.
Slowly the exultation was dying away, replaced by dulled fatigue. Castus sat in the saddle, exhaled quietly and tried not to show his disappointment. For a moment he had almost believed that they were saved.
*
‘The snake!’ he yelled. ‘The filthy Thracian dog!’ Enraged, Castus kicked at a stool, and sent it crashing into the corner of the room. The five officers just looked at him, too tired to share his anger.
Valerius Mucatra, it turned out, had ignored Castus’s order to advance rapidly in his support. Instead, so Barbatio reported, the army commander had halted his troops at Edessa, shortly after receiving Castus’s message, and then turned them around and marched back towards Hierapolis, burning the boat bridge over the Euphrates behind him. He may even have retreated all the way to Antioch by now.
‘Fucking coward,’ Egnatius muttered, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. In the grey dawn light, all of the men gathered in the meeting chamber of the Strategion appeared haggard, their faces dark and hollow after a sleepless night.
‘When we got the order to retreat, we thought it must be a mistake,’ said Mamertinus. ‘The rider who brought it seemed dubious himself.’
Mamertinus was a Spaniard, and had served nearly thirty years under the standards. He was only a campidoctor, a drillmaster, but he had temporary command of the light troops of the Seventh Legion. Both he and Barbatio had been marching at the van of Mucatra’s column, a day ahead of the main force. Both had taken the decision to ignore the order, and push their men onwards instead. It had been an incredible feat; Diogenes had commented that even the great Julius Caesar could not have moved so rapidly. But they had only nine hundred men between them; their troops were exhausted, and after fighting their way through the Persian siege lines they would need days to recover their strength.
‘I’ll have barracks and provisions arranged for you,’ Castus told both officers. ‘See that your men have all they need, and as much rest as they can get. I’m giving both of you temporary promotions to tribune as well. You’ll join my military council.’
‘Appreciate it, dominus,’ Barbatio said. He appeared too weary to say more.
Mucatra too, Castus guessed, would be getting a promotion soon enough. He did not doubt that the decision to pull back had been prearranged. Dracilianus must have told Mucatra to retreat at the first opportunity. Now, with Castus besieged in Nisibis, Dracilianus could move his own man into supreme command of the army. Sour bile rose in his throat, and he swallowed it down. One day, he thought, one day, if the gods grant I escape this place…
Clattering footsteps, a cry from the vestibule, and a soldier appeared at the door. He gave a hurried salute. ‘Excellency – message from the sentries at the Singara Gate,’ he said, gulping the words. ‘The Persians want to talk.’
‘Talk?’ Castus inhaled slowly, raising his eyebrows. Then he nodded curtly. ‘Egnatius, Sabinus and Lycianus,’ he said, ‘come with me. The rest of you return to your commands. Hopefully this won’t take long.’
He took his time preparing, splashing his face with cooled water and waiting while Vallio strapped on his polished cuirass and arranged the heavy general’s cloak around his shoulders. Then, with his plumed helmet clasped under his arm, he marched from the Strategion and down the slope towards the agora. The sun was just above the eastern ramparts, and it glared in his face. Already he was starting to sweat.
As he walked, he distracted himself with calculations. Barbatio and Mamertinus’s reinforcement, were prime soldiers, but Castus’s fighting force in the city still numbered less than four thousand. The militia ought to double that amount, but they could only be trusted to hold the walls at best. He was turning the numbers in his mind as he noticed the group of civilian dignitaries waiting for him at the base of the church steps.
‘Magister,’ said Vorodes, stepping forward. ‘We’re told that the Persians are requesting negotiation. As representatives of the citizens, we ask that we attend with you.’
‘It’s customary,’ the defensor, Dorotheus, added. ‘And in keeping with the dignity of our magistracies.’
Castus peered at them, trying to hide his instinctive sneer. Civilians, he thought, were never welcome at a time of war. Several of the elders of the Boule and the high priests were with them.
‘The Persians don’t want to negotiate,’ he said. ‘They want us to surrender, and I’m going to refuse. This is a matter for the army.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Vorodes said with a quick tight smile, ‘as curator of the city and high priest of Baal Shamin I should accompany you.’
‘I too will come,’ a cracked voice said.
Castus looked up and saw the bishop, Iacob, clambering down the steps with his young assistant at his side. He stifled a groan.
‘I must represent the Christian congregation of Nisibis!’ the bishop went on.
‘Follow if you like,’ Castus told them all. ‘But stay back, and don’t speak. This isn’t going to be a polite conference.�
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As he walked on past them, he told Egnatius to make sure the city dignitaries were kept at a safe distance. ‘Particularly the bishop,’ he hissed.
Further down the colonnaded avenue that led south towards the gates, Castus picked up a guard of legionaries as he passed the military castrum. A large mob of civilians were following behind the city officials, and Egnatius ordered his cavalry troopers to block the street fifty paces from the gates themselves and keep back the crowd.
Leaving the dignitaries waiting beneath the gate arches, Castus jogged up the narrow stairway of the flanking tower. The soldiers on the roof stepped back smartly as he emerged, red-faced and heaving breath, and walked to the parapet. At the sight before him, Castus sucked air through his teeth.
The Persians had once more assembled in their encircling ranks, a line of shields four or five deep stretching all around the circuit of the city walls. Behind them, on the flat ground to the south, stood twenty massive war elephants, all with fighting towers. The beasts shifted, raising their trunks. Beyond the elephants, on a low dusty hill crowned with old tombs, King Shapur had set up his standard. Castus could just make out the king, seated on a high throne beneath his banner, ringed by guards and ministers.
And ahead of them all, with fifty mounted archers to back him, was Zamasp.
The Persian commander sat patiently as his magnificent horse pawed the ground. A rider behind him carried a green branch on a pole – where they had found it in that arid and fire-blackened land Castus could not guess.
‘They have prisoners too, dominus,’ the centurion commanding the gate detachment said. ‘Took them at Singara, I’d reckon.’
Sure enough, ahead of the horse archers stood a score of men in unbelted tunics, Roman soldiers, with rope halters around their necks. They were Zamasp’s security; if anything happened to him, the men would die.
‘I want all your artillery loaded and aimed at the road,’ Castus told the centurion. ‘Archers on the ramparts, and on the outer wall too. But nobody shoot unless I give the order myself – understand?’
The centurion saluted, and after one last glance Castus dropped back down the steps.
‘Open the gates,’ he cried, and Egnatius repeated the words. The huge bronze-studded doors jolted as the locking bar was lifted, then groaned slowly open. Castus strode forward, down the paved ramp beneath the gate arches and out into the killing ground between the inner and outer walls. Vorodes and the other councillors followed, looking far more nervous now.
‘Close the main gates behind us,’ Castus told Egnatius. ‘If anyone tries to break through, kill them.’
Across the cleared expanse of scrubby grass between the walls, Castus reached the outer gateway. He glanced up, and saw the archers and slingers already lining the narrow rampart above him. Then he gave the signal, and the outer gates swung open. He walked out into the bright sunlight beyond the walls.
The roadway from the gate ended at the brink of the dry moat, only a few paces from the arch. In times of peace a wooden bridge crossed to the far side, but it had been pulled back inside the gatehouse now. Castus walked forward until he stood at the brink, planting his feet wide and gripping the hilt of his sword. The moat was sheer-sided, twelve feet deep and cut into solid rock, the bed lined with jagged stones. Too wide for a horse to leap, but narrow enough to talk across it. And down here, whatever was said would not be heard by too many of the men on the inner wall or the civilians in the city behind them.
Castus waited in the hot sun while Zamasp approached. The Persian rode slowly, making his horse step high in a prancing and aggressive gait. The branch-carrier and a few of the mounted archers followed him. When he reached the far side of the moat, Zamasp tugged on the reins, and the horse kicked and pawed at the dust. The bridle trappings, and the gold and silver embroidery on the man’s coat, glittered in the brilliant light.
‘We meet again, Roman!’ Zamasp cried.
Castus just inclined his head.
‘I bring greetings in the name of Shapur, the Immortal, King of Kings, Lord of Iranians and Non-Iranians, of the race of the gods! My king is merciful. If you surrender this city to him now, he will spare all within it. Even you, old man! Surrender, and submit to the rule of Iran-Shahr, and all shall live in peace.’
Castus said nothing. Sweat was streaming down his back.
‘Do not be foolish!’ Zamasp cried, raising his voice to address also the crowd of civilian councillors in the gate arch behind Castus. ‘Or, if you insist on foolishness, do not sacrifice the lives of every man, woman and child in this city! None can stand against the might of Shapur!’
‘Nisibis belongs to Rome,’ Castus said. ‘Tell your king he can’t have it.’
Zamasp grinned, and his horse circled at the brink of the ditch, arching its neck. ‘Then Shapur will take it!’ he yelled. ‘And when he has taken it, he will kill any with arms in their hands. The rest will be marched back to Persia as slaves, never to see their homes again. The walls of Nisibis will be torn down, every house and temple levelled to the ground! The very name of your city will be forgotten by mankind. Nisibis will become… a pasture for sheep!’
Castus’s face twitched into a crooked smile. ‘Tell your king,’ he said, ‘that he can break his army against our walls if he dares. Nisibis will be the graveyard of the Persians!’
‘Ha, foolishness then,’ Zamasp shouted. ‘So be it! You will be guests in the House of Falsehood, and made to consume scorpion and frogs!’
He kicked at his horse, dragging on the reins so the animal reared and spun on its back hooves, kicking dust and stones down into the moat. Riding a few steps away, he turned in the saddle and stretched upwards, calling to the men on the wall ramparts. ‘Your emperor is dead! Constantine is dead! He has joined his master, the Prince of Lies. And soon, men of Rome, you will dine with him in hell!’
Castus set his jaw, then glanced back with a start as he heard a parched cry from behind him. Iacob had staggered forward from the gate arch, arms spread wide.
‘Spawn of the devil!’ the bishop yelled after the retreating Persian, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘Unnatural offspring of Satan! The Almighty will smite you down! For the Lord our God protects Nisibis!’
Zamasp spurred his horse straight into a flat gallop away down the road. Castus let out a breath, watching him go. But when the Persian commander reached his mounted guard he slowed, snatching a spear from one of his men. With his face set in a mask of fury he turned, his horse kicking, and then galloped back towards the gate once more.
Castus stood still, watching the Persian as he rode closer. Zamasp leaned back in the saddle, raising the spear to throw. Gasps and cries from the men gathered under the arch as they shrank back, but Castus forced himself not to move. The Persian rode right to the far brink of the moat, and only then hauled back on the reins. With a wild cry he hurled the spear.
The weapon arced across the ditch, and Castus set his muscles to avoid flinching as it passed only a handspan from his head. He heard it strike the paving of the road beyond the threshold of the gates as the councillors scattered.
He blinked, and sweat broke and ran down his face.
Beneath the arch, Vorodes and the other councillors had recovered from their fright and emerged from where they had been cowering behind the gates. The spear lay on the paving between them. Iacob stooped and picked it up. Castus could see that the head and the top of the shaft were bright with fresh blood.
‘A message!’ the bishop said. He was holding the bloodied spear before him like a trophy. ‘The Persian devils have declared war upon us!’
Part 3
XIX
Antioch, June AD 337
An hour’s ride south of the city, the road climbed a spur beneath a hedge of flowering hawthorn, and from the carriage Marcellina saw the valley opening before her. Villa terraces appeared between the groves of tall bay trees and dark cypress, with pillared gazebos and the domed roofs of bathhouses. In the dells beneath the sacr
ed enclosure of the Temple of Apollo, cool waters rushed between banks of ferns. This was the suburb of Daphne, the hot-season retreat of the wealthy of Antioch.
It was a beautiful sight, Marcellina had to admit, and a balm to the eyes after the heat and dust of the city. But it angered her that the elite should be relaxing in these shady arbours while other men marched across arid plains and fought in desperate battles far away.
She could have been living near here herself; Hormisdas had offered the use of his country villa. But Marcellina had preferred to remain in the city, close to the news coming in from the east. If only everyone had been as assiduous, she would not have had to make this journey up into the hills. But Flavius Ablabius, Praetorian Prefect and, in the absence of any higher authority, virtual ruler of the eastern empire, had chosen to move his court to Daphne. And it was Ablabius she needed to see.
The driver turned the carriage into a lane that curved away from the road and passed through the dappled shade of the trees before coming to an end at a gateway with little ornamental towers on either side. Marcellina climbed down from the carriage, feeling the sun’s heat on her shoulders. She arranged the shawl around her head, then nodded a greeting to the pair of house slaves who had come to conduct her inside.
Ablabius kept a discreet sort of establishment. There were guards, and plenty of attendants, but they were mostly out of sight. As she followed the slaves along the garden pathway, under a box trellis hung with flowering vines, Marcellina noticed the figures stationed amid the greenery around her. Messengers came and went frequently, she knew, keeping the prefect well informed of all that happened in his domains. She had used that messenger service herself to request this meeting, and Ablabius had taken a leisurely amount of time granting it.
In the cool of the pillared atrium she waited while the house slaves removed her cloak and exchanged her shoes for soft slippers. A steward appeared, holding an ivory staff, and bowed from the neck as he gestured for her to follow him. The interior of the house was lined with marble, filled with the gentle sounds of fountain water and the distant trilling of songbirds. Marcellina followed the steward around the walkways of the central garden court, then to the left through a double arched gazebo into a pillared enclosure. In the centre, open to the sky, was a bathing pool. Sunlit steps entered the water at the nearer end. At the far end, in the shade, the pool ended in a curve of smooth marble.