by Peter Darman
He hauled himself into the saddle. ‘I would not do it. In that moment, I realised I am not my father. He was born with a talent for violence and war, but I do not wish to spend my life butchering people.’
I stood and watched them fade into the desert haze and reflected on his words. I thought about all the men who had died in the campaigns I had waged. How many tens of thousands had died at my hands over the years? Were kings and generals really nothing more than butchers? I reflected on this during the ride back to Dura, that and wondering what would be Malik’s reaction when he discovered his nephew was living in Palmyra.
‘Hopefully he will not arrest him and send him back to Gordyene,’ I said aloud.
‘What?’ asked Gallia.
‘I was just thinking about Malik and what he will do about Akmon and Lusin.’
‘Why should he do anything?’ said Claudia.
‘He might ship them off to Gordyene.’
‘I doubt he cares either way,’ surmised Claudia. ‘What are the family squabbles of a kingdom hundreds of miles away to him? A more pertinent question is what will be the reaction of Spartacus when he discovers you did not inform him of his son’s presence at Palmyra. Perhaps he will chop off your head with his new sword, father.’
I pulled up Tegha. ‘Haven’t you got a meeting of the witches to attend?’
She gave me a smug smile. ‘No, father, I’m all yours for the foreseeable future.’
I nudged Tegha ahead. ‘Marvellous.’
Chapter 2
We rode into the courtyard and stopped in our tracks at the sight of an elephant standing on the cobblestones. A party of Durans stood around the edge of the courtyard, javelins ready, and a nervous Rsan, walking stick in hand, stood at the top of the palace steps wearing a deep frown. I dismounted from Tegha and handed his reins to a stable hand with an idiotic grin, who bowed his head before taking my horse to the stables. The horses of Gallia and Claudia were likewise taken away, the Amazons dismounting to follow them to the stables. Two yellow-clad handlers were feeding the elephant date palms. It suddenly raised its trunk and trumpeted loudly. I skirted the great grey beast that must have been over ten feet tall and dashed up the steps. Rsan bowed.
‘A present from the King and Queen of Sakastan, majesty. It arrived this morning.’
I looked back at the elephant, which suddenly deposited a great heap of dung on the cobbles. Rsan smiled politely. Something was wrong.
‘Is everything as it should be, Rsan?’
‘Yes, majesty.’
He was hiding something, so I walked back down the steps to take a closer look at the beast. It had a large head, short neck, large ears and short, powerful legs. Its white tusks were around six feet in length and I reflected it must have taken it many weeks to travel from Sakastan to Dura. If only the king and queen could have travelled with it. But the incursions of Kujula meant Salar and the other eastern kings of the empire were fully engaged securing their kingdoms from the Kushan threat.
I walked over to one of the elephant’s handlers feeding it palms, the smell of the dung reaching my nostrils. Gallia and Claudia followed a couple of paces behind me. Both handlers were dressed in the uniform of Sakastan’s army: baggy yellow leggings, loose-fitting tunics and leather caps on their heads. They also had yellow shemaghs wrapped around their faces so only their eyes were visible. One suddenly removed his face covering spinning to face me.
‘Happy birthday, father.’
Gallia squealed with delight when she recognised Isabella, the other ‘handler’ removing his headgear to reveal a beaming Salar.
‘How can this be?’ I said in astonishment.
Gallia, tears in her eyes, held her second daughter close and I embraced Salar. I also wrapped my arms around Isabella and the elephant trumpeted again. The greeting between the King and Queen of Sakastan and Claudia was more formal, Isabella kissing both of Claudia’s cheeks and Salar kissing her hand. Clearly the death of Sigal’s newborn was still raw. A fear shot through me. Had Sakastan fallen and were my daughter and son-in-law refugees?
‘Sakastan is safe?’
‘Safe and secure,’ Salar assured me.
In truth, they both looked well and free from the worry that had stalked them in the aftermath of the terrible events of their wedding day and the war that had followed.
I forgot about the dilemma of Akmon and Lusin so glad was I to see our daughter and her husband. We went straight to the palace terrace to learn more about their secret journey to Dura. Kewab sent regular dispatches from the east concerning the incursions of Kujula, so I was kept fully abreast of the situation along the empire’s eastern border. But we were under the impression that the constant threat of Kujula and his Kushan raiders had prohibited Salar and Isabella from leaving Sakastan altogether.
Salar pulled out a piece of rolled papyrus from his tunic.
‘I was instructed to give you this personally, father.’
He handed it to me. Before I read it, I noticed the seal was that of a cobra.
‘Instructed by whom?’
‘Kujula,’ said Isabella. ‘He also sent you a present.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ smiled Claudia, ‘a wicker basket with a cobra inside, ready to strike at the first person stupid enough to lift the lid.’
Isabella gave a curt ‘tsk’, her unblemished brow creasing into a frown.
‘Nearly right,’ smiled Salar, nodding to Ashk who instructed a male servant to come on to the terrace. He was carrying a tray, upon which was a beautiful gold statue of a cobra with red rubies for eyes, hood flared and ready to strike. I stood to admire it, stroking the precious metal.
‘Beautiful,’ was my only comment.
‘You should not keep it in the palace, father,’ advised Claudia, ‘such a powerful totem from an enemy will bring bad luck.’
The servant placed the tray on the table around which we sat, bowed his head and withdrew, as did Ashk. I retook my seat and broke the wax seal on the papyrus.
To my dear friend and valiant enemy, King Pacorus of Dura.
As I have informed the King and Queen of Sakastan, my forces will make no aggressive moves against their kingdom while they are away celebrating your sixtieth birthday. For a man whose profession is war, to reach such a milestone is a great achievement and it is only right that all your children are present to celebrate it with you.
Please accept the small gift the king and queen brought with them and be assured it carries no ill intent. It is merely one friend wishing another well and good fortune in the years to come. Please give my regards to your beautiful wife Queen Gallia. My sister, Queen Rana, and I would like to invite you both to visit the Kushan Empire if ever you are visiting the eastern regions of Parthia. It is my fervent hope we can once again sit down together and enjoy each other’s company rather than face each other across a battlefield.
Your friend
Kujula
Emperor of the Kushan Empire
I passed the letter to Gallia who rolled her eyes. She had little time for sentimentality, especially between enemies.
‘May I see?’ asked Claudia.
I nodded, Gallia handing her Kujula’s note. She raised an eyebrow.
‘He’s still your enemy, father.’
‘I will keep the gold cobra,’ I said, ‘for to refuse such an expensive gift would be the height of bad manners. Let’s hope he keeps his word about not attacking Sakastan.’
‘We would not have come if we believed he would break his word,’ smiled Isabella.
It was so good to see them both that we forgot about the war in the east, enjoying each other’s company and eating and drinking too much. But the next day I walked with Salar into the city with a small escort of Durans while Isabella and Claudia rode out to the training fields with the Amazons. He had made a strange request – to visit the brothel where his father and mother had first met – though he had never expressed any interest in seeing the whorehouse during his previous visits to Dura. As we walked down hard-ba
ked mud streets, people staring in astonishment at us, he told me about how Phraates had ignored pleas for assistance from him and the other eastern kings, especially Tiridates of Aria. It had been Aria that had been hit the hardest by Kujula’s troops, horsemen penetrating as far as the capital Farah itself before being repulsed by Tiridates and Kewab. The latter had been of immense help in assisting the forces of Aria, Drangiana and Yueh-Chih, but he could not be everywhere and Kujula was clever in sending separate columns to raid Parthia. One, perhaps two, could be intercepted and defeated, but there were always more to wreak havoc and destruction. Sakastan had escaped relatively lightly but the other kingdoms had not been so lucky.
‘Tiridates has taken the lead in lobbying Phraates to mount a campaign against the Kushans,’ he told me, ‘but the high king’s only response was to appoint Chief of Court Ashleen to handle his eastern affairs. You know him?’
‘I know him.’
‘He treats me and the other kings like small children, reminding us the high king sent Satrap Kewab to bolster our armies. But Kewab commands only ten thousand men and there are tens of thousands of Kushans.’
‘What about Margiana and Hyrcania?’
The kingdoms of the aged King Musa and King Khosrou could raise substantial forces to lend support to the rulers defending the empire’s eastern frontier. Indeed, Khosrou and I had taken part in a brief foray into Kushan lands in the aftermath of the deaths of Peroz and Roxanne.
Salar looked glum. ‘The rumour is Kujula bribed the steppe nomads to attack those two kingdoms. Whatever the truth, they are both hard pressed at the moment.’
I suspected the rumour was true. Kujula was an excellent strategist and the Kushan Empire was rich. Bribing the nomads of the northern steppes to keep Carmania and Hyrcania occupied while he made war on the eastern kingdoms made sense. The simple answer was for Phraates to mobilise an army and mount a punitive expedition into Kushan lands. He would be unwilling to call upon those kingdoms that had recently supported Media, of course, but he could still raise a large number of soldiers from those realms he directly controlled: Babylon, Susiana and Persis.
‘We are here, majesty.’
The commander of the escort pointed at the impressive two-storey building with twin oak doors fronting the street that was just off the city’s main square. I had not seen it in years, the last time being the night I escorted Roxanne, Peroz and a young Spartacus from its intoxicating interior to the palace. Domitus had been with me when we had averted a disturbance when Peroz had taken exception to his beloved being the entertainment for a group of rough-looking foreigners, or so I remembered. In the cold light of day, the brothel did not appear so grand or inviting: the doors cracked and the plaster on the walls peeling. The sign above the doors depicting a scantily clad buxom woman reclining on a crouch was also in need of renovation.
Despite its less than prepossessing appearance the establishment was doing a brisk trade, men entering and exiting the premises even at this early hour. Gallia was always uneasy about the presence of brothels in the city, but she accepted that the men who staffed the caravans that travelled through the kingdom had need of female company when they broke their journey. And the city’s brothels reaped a rich reward from these lonely, lustful men. The city in turn benefited from the taxes levied on the whorehouses, which in turn contributed to the upkeep of the army.
I gazed at the brothel and remembered the formidable woman who had run it, and indeed had once headed the city’s guild of prostitutes. Samhat had been her name and I wondered if she still lived.
‘Do you want to go in?’ I asked Salar.
‘I just wanted to see it. My father never held it against her, you know. Being a whore, I mean.’
‘He loved her.’
‘She was a good wife and mother.’
I nodded. ‘She was.’
‘Tiridates wishes to be high king.’
His words were so out of place and unexpected that at first I did not appreciate what he had said, just nodding absently as I thought of the formidable Samhat. Then his words sank in.
‘Phraates is high king and is supported by all the other kings.’
Salar took one last look at the brothel before spinning on his heels to walk back to the square.
‘It has not gone unnoticed that you and several other kings stood in the way of his desire to crush Media and remove King Darius.’
‘That was a purely family affair,’ I said. ‘Besides, Tiridates will find no support from Dura, Hatra, Mesene or Elymais for his ambitions. In any case, Kewab has never indicated that Tiridates thirsts for the high crown.’
‘It is an open secret in the east that he does,’ was his retort.
I did not reply but comforted myself with the knowledge that as long as Kujula threatened in the east, Tiridates would have neither the resources nor the time to indulge his fantasy of becoming high king. My immediate concern was whether the Kushans would be able to topple Tiridates or the other eastern kings, but Salar assured me Kewab’s expertise and mobile army were holding Kujula at bay. For the moment.
‘But to resolve the matter fully,’ he told me, ‘Phraates needs to show himself in the east at the head of a large army to indicate he fully supports me and the other kings who defend his eastern frontier.’
‘He will, he will,’ I said without conviction.
Phraates was the topic of the day when we returned to the Citadel because a herald had arrived from Ctesiphon with news that the high king now had an heir. Gallia informed me when I was washing the dust from my face in our bedroom.
‘Who is the mother, do we know?’
‘Does he know,’ she replied caustically, handing me a towel.
‘Don’t be unkind. This will be good for the empire, though unless he has married in secret his son will be a bastard, which is rather unfortunate.’
‘Poor child, having Phraates as a father. It is enough to make one weep.’
I tossed my tunic on the floor and put on a clean one. It was barely midday and the sun was already roasting Dura with a vengeance.
Gallia looked at the discarded tunic on the floor.
‘That will walk over to the laundry basket and jump in all by itself, will it?’
‘What? Oh, I forgot.’
‘You are getting lazy in your old age.’
I walked over to her and straddled her on the bed, pinioning her arms on the sheets.
‘There is still life left in the old dog, yet, my Gallic princess.’
She did not resist but gave me an alluring smile. Even after all these years my desire for her had not dimmed, though the same could not be said for my physical and mental capabilities. I lowered my face to kiss her lips, which parted to allow her tongue to enter my mouth. I felt my loins stirring as I pressed myself into her, releasing her arms so she could wrap them around me. I caressed one of her breasts and then let my hand descend to her groin as we continued to kiss. There was a knock at the door.
‘Majesty.’
‘Piss off.’
Another knock. ‘Your presence is urgently required in the courtyard, majesty.’
Gallia pushed me away. ‘What is so urgent?’
‘King Nergal and Queen Praxima are in the courtyard, majesty.’
Gallia jumped up from the bed. ‘Show them to the terrace, we will be out shortly.’
I winked at Gallia. ‘We will resume this conversation later.’
She composed herself. ‘I look forward to it. But you will probably fall asleep if the hour is late.’
We both hurried to the terrace to greet them. Together with Diana and Gafarn, Nergal and Praxima were our oldest friends, a couple that had shared our travails and triumphs since the dark days when we had all been slaves in Italy. We laughed and whooped like children when we saw them, Nergal as usual tall and gangly when not in the saddle and Praxima all wild red hair. We huddled in a group in the middle of the terrace, Gallia and Praxima holding each other close, Nergal and I grinning like idiot
s at each other.
‘Bring wine and food,’ I commanded, though Ashk had already organised seating, shade and refreshments before we arrived.
So delighted were we to see them that we failed to notice two individuals standing apart from us, near the stone balustrade. It was Nergal who alerted us to their presence.
‘Pacorus, we have brought two others to share your special day.’
The strangers removed their shemaghs to reveal two good-looking Greeks, a man and a woman who bowed their heads to me.
‘By the gods,’ I exclaimed, rushing over to envelop both in my arms, ‘this is indeed a great day. How long has it been since we last met?’
‘Thirty years?’ grinned Hippo.
‘Longer,’ smiled Cleon.
Gallia ran over to embrace Hippo, kissing her on the cheek before hugging Cleon. I remembered our visit to the city of Ephesus where we became involved in a rebellion against its Roman overlords. We escaped with our lives and brought back to Parthia a young couple in love: the high priestess of the Temple of Artemis and her lover Cleon, Greek radical and leader of the insurrection that saw Ephesus enveloped in violence. At the time I was fighting King of Kings Mithridates whose forces occupied the Grecian city of Charax, positioned in the Persian Gulf. I ejected those forces from the city and wanted to place Hippo and Cleon on its thrones. But the city of Greeks had no king and instead elected its leaders. Notwithstanding this, the young lovers wished to stay and make a life in Charax, which they did, Cleon’s military talents helping him to become the commander of the city’s army.
They were both in their early fifties now I estimated, Hippo still having full lips and piercing brown eyes but was no longer slim. Giving birth to three children had widened her hips and being the wife of one of Charax’s leading citizens meant she enjoyed a good life, with the attendant lavish feasts and rich food. But she was still a striking woman and my eyes involuntarily fell to her shapely breasts. Cleon had also packed on a few pounds in the intervening years but was still swarthy.
‘Let us sit,’ I said.
Under the awning we reminisced about our adventure in Ephesus long ago and I enquired as to the health of their three children, a daughter and two sons.