Companions (The Parthian Chronicles) (16 page)

Hail Anu!’

The citizens and priests answered with their own acclamation of the Sky God and then Rahim raised his arms to still them as the flames began to consume the bodies of the fallen and the heat warmed our faces.

‘Anu maketh fear in all things,’ shouted Rahim. ‘He is the clay which is the flesh of all existence. He is the pointing hand and the hand outstretched for mercy. He is the teacher of all. From Him all the oceans of the world gain their power. From Him all is both growth and decay. He is the eye that perceives and the mouth that names. He is the cause of all, the beginning of creation. By Him all things reproduce themselves. He is the cycle of all and the signs therein. He is one; there is no other beside Him.

‘Great Anu, we thank you for sending King Pacorus and his army to Your city in its hour of need.’

Rahim halted his speech to allow polite applause to ripple through the crowd, while the Durans and Exiles rapped the shafts of their javelins against the backs of their shields. When the commotion had died down Rahim spoke again as the pyre became an angry fireball.

‘Great Anu, we also give thanks for Your wisdom in sending us Surena, a man of the Ma’adan.’

Great applause and cheering came from the crowd at the mention of Surena’s name. I looked at Gallia and smiled but she just rolled her eyes.

‘Such is Your wisdom, Anu,’ continued Rahim, ‘that you fashioned a saviour from a people that were once Uruk’s enemies, and in doing so have united the people of Mesene and the Ma’adan of the marshlands into one tribe, united behind King Nergal and Queen Allatu. Hail Anu!’

The crowd began chanting ‘hail Anu’ as Domitus leaned towards me.

‘I told you Surena always comes up smelling of roses.’

The next day, as the wounded were treated, horses groomed and examined for any wounds, Domitus sat with his officers in one of the palace’s offices and made a list of those who had been killed, wounded or had distinguished themselves in battle. The latter was always of intense interest among the different branches of the army, not least because of the rivalry between the Durans and Exiles and horse archers and cataphracts. However, though Domitus always reported to me with pride the names of those who had displayed heroism above and beyond the call of duty, he was even prouder when he reported that there were no instances of cowardice.

‘It proves that hard training pays dividends in battle,’ he always used to tell me. ‘If every drill and trumpet call is second nature to a soldier, so familiar that he can do it in his sleep, and he has faith in his commanders and equipment, then the battle is already half won. But do you know what is the cement that holds men together in the furnace of combat?’

I shook my head.

‘Loyalty.’

‘To me?’ I enquired.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he scoffed. ‘Loyalty to the men standing next to him and behind him. Men fight and die for their friends, not for kings or consuls.’

The death of the garrison commander during the siege had de facto made Rahim the governor of the city in Nergal’s absence. It was a role he slipped into easily enough. He was, after all, the spiritual leader of the kingdom and so assuming secular power was a natural step. But it was only for a day because Nergal and Praxima returned to Uruk with a small escort on the second morning following the cremation of the fallen.

The first we knew of their arrival was when a panting soldier arrived at the palace from the city’s eastern gates with news that the king and queen were approaching. Surena ordered the garrison to immediately stand to arms and parade on the square in front of the palace, and issued the same order to his Ma’adan. Gallia left us to assemble the Amazons while Domitus suggested that an honour guard from the Durans and Exiles should also greet their arrival. I agreed and walked with him to the barracks where my men were quartered. It was fortunate that because Chosroes was a tyrant he had recruited many guards to ensure his safety, which were housed in barracks in the expansive palace compound in the northeast of the city, adjacent to the Royal Orchard where Chosroes had hunted. The soldiers that Nergal had left behind to guard the city had comprised four hundred of Surena’s Ma’adan and five hundred spearmen and archers of the garrison.

Rahim and fifty of his priests arrived sweating and panting at the palace moments before Nergal and Praxima rode through its entrance. They rushed to the top of the steps where I waited with Domitus, Gallia, Byrd and Malik. On one side of the square stood two centuries of Durans and the same number of Exiles, alongside them fifty of my horse soldiers and the Amazons. Opposite stood Surena in front of his Ma’adan and two hundred men of the garrison. There was absolute silence when the returning rulers trotted through the gates of their palace. The garrison’s signallers blew their horns and the Durans and Exiles their trumpets as Nergal and Praxima vaulted from their saddles and bounded up the steps. Ignoring all protocol they embraced Gallia and me and then Domitus, Byrd and Malik.

Rahim’s eyes widened in shock as he beheld me and my friends touching the king and queen’s semi-divine bodies. Rahim knew that Nergal and Praxima were not gods but he and everyone else who lived in the kingdom believed that they had been sent by Anu to rule over them. The ancient tablets held in the shrine at the summit of the ziggurat told of the arrival of Nergal and Allatu at Uruk, showing the former to be a man with the legs of a cock and the latter having the head of a lion. The fact that Nergal had long, gangly legs and Praxima red hair was confirmation that they were indeed sent by Anu. That and the fact that the tablets also foretold Nergal arriving at the city at the head of an army, which he had done as the commander of my horsemen.

Rahim’s priests fell to their knees and placed their foreheads on the stone tiles as the high priest bowed his head.

Gallia had tears in her eyes as she held Praxima. It had been my idea to make her and Nergal rulers of Uruk but I often had pangs of guilt about doing so. Gallia and Praxima had forged a close friendship in Italy and both had survived the slave revolt to make their home at Dura. When I had stormed Uruk and installed her and Nergal on its throne I had also deprived my wife the company of one of her closest friends, the other being Diana. Now both lived far from Dura.

‘Get up, all of you,’ Nergal commanded the priests. ‘This is a great day.’

The holy men rose as one but kept their heads bowed in the presence of their king and queen.

After he had embraced us all Nergal gestured to Surena to attend him. He left his Ma’adan and bounded up the steps, bowing to Nergal and Praxima when he reached them.

‘I received your message, Surena,’ said Nergal, ‘it greatly cheered us. I thank you for assuming command of the garrison in the hour of the city’s need.’

‘It was Surena who saved Uruk, Nergal,’ I said.

‘What King Pacorus says is true, divinity,’ added Rahim. ‘Commander Surena led the garrison and his detachment of Ma’adan with great valour, guided as he was by Anu.’

‘We are in your debt, Surena,’ said Nergal. ‘Take off that helmet so we can see your face. What reward would you have me grant you, saviour of my city? Name it and it shall be yours.’

Surena took off his bronze helm and bowed his head to Nergal and Praxima, then at me. He turned his head to glance at the Amazons drawn up in their helmets and mail armour.

‘Great king, I would ask that I be allowed to go back to Dura with my wife.’

Domitus laughed. ‘Ha, bet you didn’t expect that, did you Nergal? You thought to give him a high command and big house in the city but all he wants is to go home holding his wife’s hand.’

He pointed a finger at Surena. ‘I hope you’re not going soft, boy.’

Anger flashed in Surena’s eyes but he held his ire in check.

‘If the general wishes to pitch his sword skills against my own he will find me more than accommodating.’

‘I think we have all had our fair share of fighting these past few days,’ I said firmly.

Praxima, always intoxicated by the thought of impending violence, laughed.

‘I would like to see which one would triumph. Domitus the master, or Surena the rising star.’

‘There will be none of that,’ commanded Nergal. He looked at Surena.

‘Your wish is granted, Surena, for it would be cruel to separate you from Viper any longer. Go back to Dura with the gratitude of the people of the Kingdom of Mesene.’

Wearing a wide grin Surena returned to his soldiers as Nergal and Praxima declared that they were retiring to the palace to rest and satisfy their hungers. The parade was dismissed and the soldiers returned to barracks. Nergal and Praxima asked us to take breakfast with them even though we had already eaten.

‘You will eat with us too, Rahim,’ said Nergal.

So we again sat at the breakfast table in the company of our newly returned friends. The largest chamber in the white-walled palace was the great vaulted main hall that led to the throne room. But the domed dining hall, though still substantial, was smaller and more intimate, with a white marble dais at one end, upon which the table of the king and queen was set. As at Dura a corridor linked the dining hall to the kitchens. After they had washed and changed their clothes Nergal and Praxima invited us all to sit with them at the top table. Rahim found eating in close proximity to the son and daughter of the gods and the informality between them and us most uncomfortable.

Servants brought figs, fruit, bread, cheese, boiled eggs and yoghurt from the kitchens and laid the platters on the table. They served fruit juice from silver jugs as Nergal told us what had happened before we arrived.

Before he did I heard Praxima tell Gallia that the palace’s servants were all free men and women who had been hired by the chief steward. She may have been a merciless killer on the battlefield but she never forgot that she had once been a slave and, like me, had no desire to see others reduced to such a miserable existence.

Nergal tore off a great chunk of bread as Domitus nibbled on a piece of cheese.

‘Surena has proved he is worth his weight in gold to Mesene. When he came here he and I visited the Ma’adan to speak to their elders.’

‘That must have been interesting,’ said Gallia.

Domitus finished his cheese and picked up a date. ‘I hope you didn’t get raped by a water buffalo.’

Malik smiled but Rahim’s face wore a deep frown.

‘Having Surena with me eased communications considerably,’ continued Nergal. ‘I told the elders that they would be free to graze their beasts on dry land and go about their daily lives unmolested, while Surena said that he would be raising a contingent of warriors from among the Ma’adan to serve me.’

‘That must have gone down well,’ said Domitus.

‘Afterwards I sent a hundred water buffalo and a thousand fishing nets to the Ma’adan as a sign of my good faith,’ said Nergal.

‘A most wise decision, divinity,’ smiled Rahim, nibbling on a grape.

‘Soon after that groups of Ma’adan young men came to the city saying that they had come to fight for Surena,’ said Praxima.

‘Bare foot, dressed in rags and half starving, a most unprepossessing sight,’ murmured Rahim.

‘So what did you do with them?’ asked Domitus.

Nergal drained his cup of fruit juice. ‘We fed them, gave them new clothes and trained them to be soldiers. Train hard, fight easy, Domitus, just as we did at Dura.’

I was surprised. ‘And the garrison’s soldiers and the city’s citizens accepted the Ma’adan among them?’

Rahim answered for his king. ‘The people of Mesene are loyal to Anu and His chosen ones. The coming of their divinities was foretold many centuries ago. It is not for us to question their decisions.’

At that moment I realised what the source of Nergal’s authority and power was. It wasn’t his army, which in truth was a poor relation of the fighting forces that could be mustered by the other kingdoms of the empire. It was Uruk’s priests. Rahim and his subordinates told the citizens that Nergal and Praxima had been sent by Anu and no one questioned the holy men of the White Temple. And if Mesene was suddenly welcoming the Ma’adan instead of hunting them like animals, then who were mere mortals to question the will of the gods?

‘It was the Ma’adan who alerted us to a great fleet of boats carrying soldiers heading towards Mesene,’ said Praxima, tossing back her long red locks.

Nergal dipped a piece of bread in a pot of honey. ‘On the Tigris. So we took Kuban and three thousand horse archers raised by the lords of the kingdom east to intercept them.’

Kuban was a squat, hardy warrior from the Kingdom of Margiana, which was ruled by King Khosrou. He and a thousand others had originally been sent by Khosrou to fight for Gallia, so taken had the king been with my wife when he had met her at the Council of Kings at Esfahan. After fighting with distinction at Dura Gallia had gifted Kuban and his men, now numbering eight hundred, to Nergal and Praxima to stiffen their army. They rode hardy horses of the northern steppes and were armed with bows, swords, daggers and long spears – and were ruthless.

‘We intercepted and slaughtered the invaders,’ stated Nergal, ‘cut them down when they left their boats.’

‘It was easy,’ said Praxima.

Nergal shoved the honey covered bread into his mouth. ‘Too easy. In fact we had been deceived for the force on the Tigris was nothing more than a decoy to allow the main invading force to travel up the Euphrates and attack Uruk.’