Carrhae (17 page)

I said my farewells to an emotional Diana that afternoon in her private chambers in the palace, young Pacorus in attendance. The son they had named after me was seven years old now and had inherited his father’s slender frame and his mother’s amiable disposition. We were soon joined by Gafarn, Nergal, Praxima and Gallia, the latter embracing her friend and telling her not to worry.

‘Now that Pacorus is lord high general I will not worry,’ she said.

‘I hope I will be able to repay your faith in me,’ I replied.

‘I wish I was coming with you,’ remarked Praxima, ‘to kill Mithridates, I mean.’

‘Do not worry,’ I assured her, ‘there will be enough killing to go round before long.’

‘Will you see your sisters before you leave?’ queried Diana. Ever the peacemaker.

‘No,’ I stated flatly. ‘But I would advise you to encourage Adeleh to join Aliyeh when she goes back to Irbil to get them both out of the way.’

‘Adeleh would never leave her mother and Hatra,’ said a horrified Diana. ‘This is her home.’

I sighed. ‘Her home was Nisibus, but she lost that when she encouraged Vata to fight the Armenians, and am I right in thinking, Gafarn, that she pestered you to march against Tigranes as well?’

Gafarn looked uncomfortable but said nothing.

‘I will take your silence as confirmation of this. Clear heads and hard hearts are what are needed at this time. Sentimentality will get us all killed.’

‘Thank you Pacorus,’ said Gallia, ‘we are not a group of your officers.’

‘More’s the pity,’ I mumbled.

Later I sent a courier to Dura to alert Domitus to my intentions and to order him to bring the legions over the Euphrates and head for Seleucia. I also told him that Nergal was marching to the city to reinforce Haytham in the event of the Romans once more advancing from Emesa. Gallia informed me that she and the Amazons would also be travelling back to Dura with Nergal and Praxima.

‘You could stay here,’ I said as I finished a letter to Surena informing him of the decisions taken at Hatra.

‘I would only come to blows with your sisters if I did and that would upset your mother and Diana, so it is best I return home to be with the children.’

That afternoon we both went to see my mother in her garden. We found her sitting in the pagoda with a ghost from another time. My mother, dressed in a simple white gown with her hair gathered behind her head held in place by a large gold clip, was cleaning the fingernails of a woman we had brought back with us from Italy.

‘Rubi?’ Gallia scarcely believed her eyes as the ghost turned to look at the strangers who approached her.

She had been a slave whom we had rescued near the town of Rubi in Italy, after which Gallia had named her. The Roman slave catchers had cut out her tongue and so the only sounds she could make were grunts and hisses. She recognised Gallia instantly, jumped out of her seat and threw her arms round my wife.

‘Hello Rubi. It is good to see you.’

‘Rubi,’ snapped my mother, ‘please come and sit down.’

Rubi looked at my mother with a hurt expression and then slunk back to her chair and held out her hand to my mother.

‘How are you Rubi?’ I enquired.

She saw me and hissed, baring her teeth.

‘Don’t upset her, Pacorus,’ said my mother.

Slaves standing at the edge of the pagoda positioned two chairs near my mother for us to sit in as others brought fruit juice and pastries.

‘How has she been?’ Gallia asked my mother, smiling at Rubi.

‘She likes it here, among the flowers and trees. I have the Sisters of Shamash bring her here as much as possible.’

The Sisters of Shamash were an order of virgins who had pledged their lives to the Sun God. In addition to their religious duties they cared for the mad, orphans and cripples who were brought to the gates of their walled sanctuary positioned behind the Great Temple.

‘You are leaving, then?’ said my mother.

‘The affairs of the empire demand my attention, mother.’

She smiled at Rubi. ‘Well, when you return you must bring my grandchildren. I have not seen them in an age.’

‘We will bring them soon,’ promised Gallia.

We sat with them both as my mother finished cleaning Rubi’s fingernails. She immediately went back to the flowerbeds and began pawing at the earth with her hands. My mother shook her head.

‘Poor Rubi, she doesn’t understand.’ She sighed. ‘It seems like yesterday when you brought her here. So much has happened since then. Things have never been the same since Sinatruces died.’

‘Sinatruces?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she rebuked me, ‘he was the king of kings and since his death things have taken a turn for the worse.’

‘I hope things will return to as they were, mother.’

She frowned at me. ‘Don’t be absurd. Things can never be as they were. I hope you have not brought any more Agraci here. People took a very dim view of it.’

We left her in the company of Rubi and returned with sad hearts to our quarters. The death of my father had affected her deeply and I worried that she was losing her mind. She was like a lost soul and there was nothing I could do.

We left Hatra the next day, Gallia and the Amazons riding west with Nergal and Praxima towards Dura while I journeyed south with my horsemen to rendezvous with Domitus in southern Hatra, at a spot on the Euphrates some one hundred miles southwest of Dura and around eighty miles from Seleucia. We had heard from Babylon that Axsen was safe in the city and had sent troops of the garrison to reinforce Mardonius at Seleucia. I was not unduly worried about Orodes’ wife – Babylon’s walls were high and were surrounded by a deep moat. Narses himself had twice tried to storm the city and had failed. Seleucia was a different matter, though. Its defences were average at best and Marcus’ machines had done much damage to them during our recent assault on them.

The road was devoid of caravans and the small mud-brick forts that my father had established throughout his kingdom were also standing empty. Their garrisons had been sent north to the city. Just as the old year was dying so the Kingdom of Hatra appeared to be ailing – an indication that the empire itself was in a fragile state.

I rode at the head of our column of horses and camels in the company of Vagises, Scarab and Vagharsh, who carried my griffin banner in its wax sleeve. Ahead and on our flanks rode parties of horse archers to ensure we did not run into any of Mithridates’ soldiers, who were no doubt plundering far and wide anything of value. Beyond them Byrd’s men scouted our route. In his and Malik’s absence they became even more elusive and distant. Their commander, a gruff Agraci warrior with a thick black beard, rode in every night to report to me. He told me that that the land was empty and there was no sign of the enemy. Hardly surprising: we were moving in a southwesterly direction towards the Euphrates.

I had been tempted to strike southeast with just my horsemen to try and catch Mithridates before he reached Seleucia but the reports sent by Herneus at Assur estimated Mithridates’ army to be around fifty thousand strong – too many for four thousand horsemen to fight.

‘We should have killed Mithridates at Susa,’ complained Vagharsh bitterly. ‘We march to deal with him instead of fighting the Armenians.’

‘Mithridates is the biggest immediate threat,’ I said. ‘His return to the empire may encourage the eastern kings to waver in their allegiance to Orodes.’

‘He may flee to the east anyway,’ remarked Vagises, ‘to be among his allies.’

‘He may,’ I agreed, ‘but I believe he will wish to stay close to the Romans and Armenians. If the Armenians and Romans defeat Orodes they will sweep into Hatra and Babylonia to link up with him. Then the Romans will have another client king and Parthia will be no more. No wonder they provided him with a substantial army. The costs of furnishing him with so many men are as nothing compared to the riches they will gain if they seize the empire.’

‘One thing I do not understand,’ said Vagises. ‘Why didn’t they wait until Crassus arrived with his army to improve their chances of victory?’

‘Roman vanity,’ I replied. ‘I remember Byrd telling me that the Roman governor of Syria, Aulus Gabinius, is an avaricious man. Therefore he wishes to achieve glory and riches before Crassus arrives.’

‘Scarab, did you ever see the Roman governor of Syria?’ I asked him in Greek.

‘He visited the king at Emesa a number of times, lord.’

At least he had stopped calling me ‘divinity’!

‘He is a man who likes rich living.’

‘Which is why he wants control of the Silk Road,’ I said. ‘I should thank him, really.’

Vagises and Vagharsh, who both understood Greek, looked at each other in confusion.

‘That’s right,’ I continued, ‘for if Aulus Gabinius was a rational and modest man he would have waited for Crassus to arrive so the Romans would have his troops in addition to his two legions.’

‘You will be visiting Antioch in person, then, to convey your thanks?’ joked Vagises.

On the fourth night we made camp eight miles north of the Euphrates. Though the men pitched their tents in neat rows we did not have any entrenching tools with us and so were unable to dig a surrounding ditch and build a rampart. Though we were in Hatran territory it felt odd not to be surrounded by a wall of earth and so every third man was always on guard duty. The squires and veterinaries attended to the horses and camels and Strabo’s small logistical corps allocated fodder for the beasts.

It had been another uneventful day and at the end of it I was sitting in my tent in the company of Vagises while Scarab was in a corner rubbing lanolin into my leather cuirass to preserve it. Though the climate of Mesopotamia is generally hot and dry, the sweat from my body and the dust in the air meant it had to be cleaned every night to stop it rotting.

‘I never thought we would be fighting Crassus again,’ mused Vagises, staring into his cup of water.

‘Nor me. But at least we will be fighting him on our own ground instead of in Italy.’

‘He’s a cruel bastard,’ spat Vagises. ‘He had six thousand crucified after Spartacus was killed.’

‘Afranius!’

He looked at me quizzically. ‘What?’

‘Afranius,’ I replied. ‘There’s a name that has come tumbling from the past. You must remember him, surely? A fierce Spaniard who dreamt of marching on Rome and took command of the remnants of the army after Spartacus’ death in the Silarus Valley.’

Vagises racked his brains for a few moments and then nodded. ‘I remember him – hair cropped, stocky, full of anger.’

‘I hope he died with a sword in his hand and not nailed to a cross.’

‘We all hope for that,’ said Vagises darkly.

Outside I heard hooves on the ground and horses snorting and then the guards opened the tent’s flap to allow two dust-covered individuals to enter. We stood up as they pulled aside the head cloths covering their faces and smiled.

‘You didn’t think we would let you fight Mithridates on your own, did you?’ smiled Malik.

I laughed and embraced him, then Byrd, and told Scarab to serve them water as they took the weight off their feet. They took off their headdresses and stretched out their limbs.

‘Hard ride?’ I enquired.

‘Byrd has some welcome news,’ said Malik.

Byrd took a gulp of water. ‘Romani not invade Parthia. Aulus Gabinius is heading for Egypt.’

I looked at him and then Malik in disbelief.

‘It is true,’ said Malik. ‘The Romans are invading Egypt instead of Parthia.’

I could not believe it. ‘Why?’ was all I could utter.

Byrd smiled. ‘Gold. Egyptian pharaoh offered Romani governor ten thousand talents to put him back on his throne. My sources in Antioch report Aulus Gabinius has forsaken Mithridates and hurries south.’

I slapped Vagises on the arm and then remembered Dobbai’s ritual at Dura. Pure coincidence I told myself. And yet…

‘What about the legion at Emesa?’ I asked.

‘Already marching towards Egypt,’ said Byrd. ‘Pharaoh Ptolemy friend of Pompey and Romani. A few years ago he was forced into exile in Rome after his people rebel. Now he bribe Aulus Gabinius to get back his throne.’

Ten thousand talents was a huge amount of gold. I had heard stories of the fabulous wealth of Egypt and how its rulers covered their pyramids with gold, but I thought they were myths. Clearly not. But whatever the truth, Egypt’s pharaoh had unwittingly done Parthia a great favour.

‘Dura already knows the news,’ reported Malik, ‘so Nergal and his army are also marching with Domitus.’

With the Roman threat to Palmyra and Dura removed there was no need for Nergal to remain in my city. His additional numbers would be welcome in the fight against Mithridates.

Four days later, having arrived at the Euphrates, we linked up with Domitus, the King of Mesene and the Amazons. Our combined forces now totalled twenty-four thousand fighting men as we struck west towards Seleucia. The army marched at a rate of twenty miles a day since we had Marcus’ machines with us in case we needed to storm the city. They were loaded on slow-moving wagons pulled by oxen. I prayed that Mardonius still held out.

I had tried to dismiss from my mind the notion that Dobbai’s ritual was responsible for the Roman withdrawal from Parthia but Domitus was having none of it. The day was hot and windless and in the early afternoon we had dismounted to save the horses’ stamina. We had made good progress during the morning but now our pace slowed as the sun beat down on us from a clear blue sky. As usual a pall of dust hung over our long column as we trudged towards Seleucia.

‘Looks like that old witch Dobbai has used her magic to good effect,’ said Domitus, sweating in his helmet.

‘You really think that, Domitus?’ I asked.

‘Of course, how else can you explain the Romans withdrawing?’

‘It is a coincidence,’ I assured him, ‘nothing more.’

‘A very convenient one,’ said Gallia.

‘What did Dobbai say about it?’ queried Domitus.

‘She said that the gods give but they also take and that we should have a care,’ replied Gallia.

‘Strange about those statues, though,’ reflected Kronos.

‘What statues?’ asked Nergal.