Carrhae (3 page)

I cleared my throat. ‘In case you had not noticed I am in the middle of important business.’

Dobbai gestured to one of the waiting couriers, who looked at Rsan in confusion.

‘Come here, boy,’ she snapped. ‘Take no notice of the tallyman.’

Rsan glowered at her then turned to face me. ‘Majesty, I really must protest.’

I held up a palm to the courier. ‘These riders carry letters that concern the affairs of the empire, Dobbai.’

She looked at me with pursed lips and held up the parchment. ‘
This
is also important, son of Hatra, and must reach its destination speedily.’

Rsan was now beside himself with anger at being treated so disrespectfully in front of everyone and gestured to the two guards standing by the closed doors to the chamber to come forward. He pointed at Dobbai.

‘Escort her to the palace’s private wing.’

Dobbai spun on her heels to face the approaching legionaries.

‘Touch me,’ she said, ‘and your balls will wither to nothing and maggots will grow in your bellies.’

The two men, veterans of many battles, froze and looked at each other and then at me in alarm, while beside me Gallia suppressed a giggle. I frowned at her before waving the guards back to their posts.

‘May I enquire the nature of the important business that is contained in the despatch you are holding?’

Dobbai turned to face me, a self-satisfied smug look on her face. ‘You may enquire and I may choose to ignore you. But suffice to say that it will be to your advantage in the coming struggle with your enemies.’

She again waved forward one of the couriers and I shook my head at Rsan who was about to protest. Dobbai handed the man the parchment and leaned towards him to whisper something in his ear.

‘The post station in Neh will know where to send it once it has reached there.’

‘Neh!’ I said loudly. ‘That is at the other end of the empire. What possible business can you have in Neh?’

Dobbai ignored me and continued speaking to the courier. ‘Go now and may the gods protect you.’

He bowed his head to her and then walked from the hall, the guards closing the doors behind him as he left. Dobbai grimaced at Rsan and wandered back towards the private wing of the palace.

‘Are you going to say anything further on this matter?’ I asked.

‘I would,’ she replied, ‘only you have more pressing matters to attend to.’

I looked at Gallia and shook my head. Dobbai disappeared behind the door at the rear of the throne room leading to the wing that contained our sleeping quarters just as muffled voices came from behind the closed doors of the main entrance. They swung open to reveal the figure of Byrd.

Rsan looked nonplussed as my chief scout strode towards the dais and halted before me. His swarthy face and slovenly attire were covered in dust and it was obvious he had been in the saddle for hours. He nodded at Gallia and then me.

‘Romani are going to invade Haytham’s kingdom,’ he announced without emotion.

I stood up and gestured for him to sit on my throne.

‘When?’ I asked.

He slumped down into the high-backed chair.

‘Two weeks,’ he replied. ‘My office in Antioch told me of this and I inform Haytham. He gathers his forces to meet Romani at the border.’

I pointed at the guards by the doors.

‘Go and find General Domitus and request his presence here, Lord Kronos as well. Rsan, where is Aaron?’

‘In the treasury, majesty,’ he answered.

‘Get him too.’

I ordered water to be fetched for Byrd as we waited for Domitus and the others to arrive. The scribes sat at their desks looking at each other in confusion as I began pacing in front of the dais mulling over this most unfortunate development. Gallia brought me back to the present.

‘Are you going to answer Gafarn’s plea for help, Pacorus?’

I stopped pacing. ‘Hatra will have to look to its own means for the present, my sweet.’

However, while I waited I did dictate a letter to Gafarn and another to Orodes informing them of Byrd’s news and that it would now be impossible for Hatra’s army to march north until the threat that had appeared in the west had been dealt with. Rsan returned with Aaron ten minutes later and twenty minutes after that Domitus and Kronos appeared. Byrd was still seated in my chair as the clerks and couriers filed out of the chamber and the doors were closed behind them. Domitus nodded to Byrd.

‘I take it you have not summoned us here to announce that you have renounced your throne and Byrd is now king.’

‘The Romans are about to invade Haytham’s lands,’ I said.

Domitus nodded thoughtfully. ‘How many men?’

‘Two legions,’ replied Byrd, ‘plus light troops and horsemen. They will cross border in two weeks.’

Byrd told us that Haytham had summoned his lords and their followers to join him at the border.

‘Which is where?’ asked Kronos.

‘Around a hundred miles west of Palmyra.’

Domitus looked alarmed. ‘Haytham intends to engage the Romans in battle?’

Byrd nodded then shrugged. ‘He is Agraci king. He cannot look weak to his people.’

Domitus ran a hand over his cropped scalp then looked at me. I knew what he was thinking. Brave though Haytham’s warriors were, they would be no match for trained Roman legions. It could be a bloodbath.

‘I tried to tell Haytham that Romani are fearsome soldiers,’ said Byrd despairingly, ‘but he no listen.’

‘Unless he gets lucky he will fail,’ remarked Domitus.

‘Haytham did not send me, Pacorus,’ said Byrd, ‘but I ask you to support him in this war.’

I looked at him and then Gallia and remembered the first time that we had met the Agraci king, when we had taken his daughter Rasha back to her father following her incarceration at Dura. There had been only four of us on that journey – Gallia, Byrd, Haytham’s daughter and myself – that had taken us deep into Agraci territory lying to the west of Dura. He could easily have killed us all, especially me, a Parthian, one of the implacable enemies of his people. But he had allowed us to live and from that time friendship had grown between Dura and the Agraci. Since then Haytham had come to my aid twice: once when I had faced the Roman Pompey and a second time when Narses and Mithridates had me cornered like a rat. What’s more Malik, Haytham’s son, was a close friend who had accompanied me on many campaigns and Rasha was like a daughter to me. Haytham was my friend and ally and I would not desert him.

‘Dura will assist Haytham, Byrd, have no fear.’

Gallia smiled at me approvingly.

‘Is that wise, majesty?’ queried Rsan.

‘Haytham is Dura’s friend, Rsan,’ I answered. ‘He has come to my aid more than once. What sort of man would I be if I deserted him now?’

My governor brought his hands together in front of his chest.

‘Indeed, majesty, but with Hatra in peril is not your first duty to your brother, a family member and a fellow Parthian?’

‘Hatra’s army is strong, Rsan,’ I assured him, ‘but Dura cannot tolerate the Romans occupying Palmyra, which is only seven days’ march from this very chamber.’

But Rsan was not thinking about strategy or the Romans.

‘There may be some who might criticise your decision to favour the Agraci over your own people, majesty.’

Gallia crossed her arms and fixed Rsan with her unblinking eyes. ‘And who would they be, Rsan?’

My governor suddenly looked most uncomfortable. ‘Not I, majesty, of course not.’

‘Of course not,’ remarked Domitus dryly.

‘But the courts of other Parthian kings may be surprised that you would support Haytham instead of your brother.’

‘I have never been interested in the opinions of other courts, Rsan,’ I replied, ‘especially as a good number of them have spent the past few years trying to destroy me. As for Gafarn, the walls of both Nisibus and Hatra are strong and Gafarn can muster tens of thousands to fight the Armenians. It will avail us little if we defeat the Armenians only to see Dura captured by the Romans, who will then use this city to launch a full-scale invasion of the empire.’

Byrd stood up, walked from the dais and embraced me. ‘Then I can tell Haytham that the army of Dura will be marching to reinforce him, Pacorus?’

I smiled at him. ‘Yes, my friend, you can tell him that we are on our way.’

Rsan was shaking his head but my mind was made up.

‘It will take us a week to get to Palmyra,’ said Domitus. ‘How long did it take you to get here, Byrd?’

‘Just under four days.’

Domitus was most concerned. ‘Which means that Haytham will leave Palmyra in two days if he is going to give battle at the border. We will never catch him up.’

‘We might,’ I answered, ‘if we take horse archers only.’

All this time Aaron had been standing near Rsan observing the proceedings and probably wondering why he had been summoned. But now I turned to him.

‘Aaron, what news have you heard from Alexander and his Jewish fighters?’

Dura had been instrumental in providing weapons to Jewish fighters in Roman-occupied Judea, for which we had been paid handsomely in gold. They were led by a prince named Alexander Maccabeus, a man who dreamed of freeing his homeland from Roman oppression but who had been heavily defeated last year and his men scattered. He himself still lived, though, and while he did so the flame of rebellion still burned in Judea.

‘I heard from him three months ago, majesty,’ said Aaron. ‘He is holding out in the hills of eastern Judea.’

‘Good,’ I said, ‘please write to him again today, asking that he attack the Romans in Judea with all the strength he has. Anything to divert Roman eyes from Palmyra.’

After resting and taking refreshments Byrd rode back to Palmyra on a fresh horse and I sat down with Gallia, Domitus and Kronos to work out a plan. Despite their protests I decided to take Vagises and his horse archers, who could ride at a moment’s notice. Gallia wanted to accompany me but I told her to muster the lords and their men and to follow me to Haytham’s capital after she had done so. The legions and cataphracts would remain at Dura. Taking the horse archers would enable us to cover thirty miles a day at least, meaning we would reach Palmyra in five days.

I set off the next day with two and a half thousand horse archers and a thousand camels carrying spare arrows. Gallia sent a summons to all the lords to attend her at the Citadel with every horse archer they could raise. In this way I hoped to muster an additional twenty thousand riders to support Haytham. In addition to spare quivers the camels carried waterskins, food and fodder for the horses, the humped beasts themselves being quite able to subsist on their bodies’ reserves until we reached Palmyra.

We rode over thirty miles the first day and nearly forty on the second, camping at night under the stars with only our cloaks to sleep in. It felt strange not resting for the night behind a ditch and rampart surmounted by stakes as was the custom in Dura’s army, but we posted guards every ten paces and at any one time half the men were standing to arms, being relieved every two hours. The days were hot and dry, particularly on the third morning when we broke camp before dawn and rode for five hours before resting the horses for three hours, then commencing our journey once again for another three hours. As we neared Palmyra I noticed the reduced amount of traffic on the road, a sure sign that conflict was imminent. The trade caravans of the Silk Road had a sixth sense when it came to discerning trouble and acted accordingly. Thus the number of caravans travelling through Dura on their way to Palmyra and then on to Syria and Egypt would diminish to nothing until after hostilities had ceased. They would travel north to Hatra instead, though as that kingdom was soon to be embroiled in war traffic might cease altogether.

On the fifth morning we spotted the Jabal Abu Rujmayn, the imposing mountain range located due north of Palmyra, and two hours later ran into an Agraci patrol five miles east of the great oasis settlement. It comprised half a dozen elderly men wrapped in black robes, their black face tattoos faded on their leather-like tanned skin. Their commander, a tall, gangly individual with piercing hazel eyes, bowed his head to me.

‘Greetings, lord. We were expecting you.’

Byrd had obviously arrived before us. ‘Where is your king?’

‘He has taken a great host of warriors west, lord, to fight the invaders.’

I closed my eyes. We had arrived too late. I prayed to Shamash that Haytham would not engage the Romans until we reached him. Perhaps there was still time.

‘Prince Malik accompanies his father?’

He smiled to reveal a set of perfect white teeth. ‘Yes, lord. He hopes to slaughter his father’s enemies.’

Hopefully Malik would temper his father’s eagerness to immediately attack the Romans.

‘We are to escort you to the governor’s tent, lord.’

‘The governor?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, lord, the king left Byrd as chief of Palmyra in his absence.’

Vagises took the companies to one of Palmyra’s great watering holes that were filled by springs bringing the precious liquid from deep in the earth, making the surrounding desert bloom. I accompanied the grizzled old Agraci warrior to the middle of the settlement where Byrd’s tent was pitched, riding through a multitude of canopies and a site that was seething with activity. At least Haytham had not ordered the evacuation of Palmyra. Not yet.

My escort left me at the entrance to Byrd’s tent where a servant took Remus, my stallion, from me and another escorted me inside the expansive goat hair structure. I waited for my presence to be announced and then Noora, Byrd’s wife, appeared, embracing me and welcoming me to her ‘modest’ home, which in truth was grander than Haytham’s own tent.

‘Byrd is most unhappy, lord,’ she said to me in hushed tones as we entered the main compartment where my friend was seated on a heap of cushions on the carpeted floor. ‘He wanted to go with Haytham and Malik but the king insisted that he stay here to rule Palmyra in his absence.’

He rose and we embraced.

‘It is a great honour that Haytham has bestowed on you,’ I said.

‘I no governor,’ he sniffed, ‘I should be with him and Malik.’