Forever Shores (11 page)

‘As you were, guards,' she says. ‘You heard him.' Gaianus blinks but halts, puts a hand on his companion's shoulder. Of course, they, Longinus, the eunuch, all remember nothing. Zenobia moves her head from side to side, not shaking it, but seeming to search for some explanation of what confronts her. She looks down at the blood which still stains her clothing, attempting to reconcile two realities in her mind. ‘Leave this chamber. All of you, leave. You too, Longinus. Leave me with the sorcerer.' Guards and the eunuch exchange disbelieving glances. Longinus begins to protest, but obviously thinks better of it. ‘Leave,' Zenobia says. ‘I must be left alone with this man. I know that he will not harm me. Can't you hear me? Leave, I said.' And, hesitating, they do finally leave.

‘I am very weak,' Simeon Africanus says. ‘What you saw has taken away some of my own life. But you will help me. Are you brave enough to nurse a wolf? If you wish to destroy Aurelian and reshape the future of Rome, step over here, come to me, Zenobia.'

She winces at being addressed simply by her name, but she walks cautiously to him. ‘What do you want?'

‘Hold out your arm to me, slowly. That's right.' He takes her small hand. ‘Without this I will die.' Her skin is exquisite, dark, soft, high-veined, her palm sword-callused. He paws the underside of her wrist with its network of blue veins. Beneath his fingers, blood seeps slowly from the pores of her skin. He takes the bleeding wrist to his mouth, sucks lasciviously, as her entire body stiffens in outrage. But he feels the strength return. Blood of a woman who is nearly a goddess! So much power from so little blood … He will always remember this. A few seconds is enough. Simeon removes his mouth from her wrist, wipes over the wrist with the palm of his hand, and the bleeding stops. ‘Now,' he says. ‘I am much stronger. All the same, I must sleep. When I have done so, let us consider this latest epistle from Aurelian.'

‘Come to my personal chamber at dawn. You will be allowed in. We can discuss it.'

‘As you wish … my Queen.'

The braggart Aurelian has written in Greek, styling himself, typically, as Imperator of the Roman world and recoverer of the East, calling upon Zenobia and her allies to surrender. ‘Your lives will be spared,' the letter says, ‘but only on conditions. You and your children will live wherever I and the noble Roman Senate appoint as a place for you. Your jewels, gold and silver, your silks, your horses and camels and other animals are to be forfeited to the treasury of Rome.'

‘He forgets himself,' says Zenobia. ‘I am still well placed to survive this siege. My strategoi are seasoned and clever. There are many allies who abhor Aurelian more than they fear me. The Shahanshah of Persia has promised to send me an army.'

‘And is the city loyal?'

‘It is. The people still love me. My children, especially Vaballathus Athenodorus, and my other kinsmen in Palmyra still trust me, even though I am, as men say,' sardonically, ‘
just
a woman.'

‘Have you replied to the Imperator?'

‘I have drafted a reply,' says Zenobia. ‘It is here. I have written in Syriac, for my Greek is not as learned as the Imperator's. But Longinus can translate and embroider it so that it becomes far more elegant.' She lowers her voice confidentially. ‘The outside world thinks of us as merchants turned warriors. They're right. But Palmyra has also become, with Alexandria, the most scholarly city of the world.'

‘May I see what you've written?'

The future cracks; Simeon Africanus has begun to interfere.

She hands over the parchment and he takes it, reads aloud. ‘From Zenobia, Queen of the East, to Aurelian Augustus. Conquest must be gained by deeds of valour, not by the pen. Would my ancestor Cleopatra have submitted upon receiving such a letter? Like her, I would rather stand and die a Queen than kneel and live. You are not invincible. Most who have died in this siege have been Romans, not Palmyrans. When aid arrives in the city you will put away your arrogance.'

‘It lacks some polish,' she says. ‘Longinus can add that.'

‘It's an excellent response, my Queen. But let me make one suggestion of my own: tell Aurelian that he has set himself against the Sword of God.'

Each day they continue the fight from their battlements. Palmyra's fortified walls are laid out in a semi-circle about the city, incorporating even a section of the splendid oasis lake. At all points the walls are augmented by mighty catapults and other engines of war, which hurl boulders and Greek fire upon the besiegers. The Romans reply with arrows and spears, and they form their testudos, their shielded tortoise formations, to undermine the walls. So far, they are frustrated. Each day they are repelled from the stones of the city. It is true that few Palmyrans have yet died.

But that changes. The Romans bring out siege ladders to scale the walls, and the Palmyrans are soon hard-pressed.

The combat goes badly despite the efforts of Simeon himself, the courage of the Palmyrans and the might of the city's walls and engines. Aurelian has an inexhaustible supply of men from the vast territories of Rome. His army is made up of a mixture of Dalmatian cavalrymen, now required to fight without their horses, regular infantrymen drawn from the empire's Gothic legions, and contingents of Easterners—Mesopotamians, Syrians, Palestinians—some of them armed with heavy clubs and staves rather than swords.

While the Palmyrans are great archers, horsemen and dromedarii, their morale suffers when they are so outnumbered and cooped up in the city day after day. And, most importantly, they suffer in the desert heat, even though born to it. Somehow, the terrible heat of the spring sun drains away their strength without affecting that of the Romans. Indeed, the longer the day goes on and the sun shines, the fresher and more encouraged the Romans seem to become, until late afternoon, when the sun begins to wane; it is as if the sun itself is fighting for them.

Each day, Simeon feeds upon the sweet veins of Zenobia; though she is obviously still repulsed, she allows him this, knowing he is by far the most dangerous of all her warriors. Her courage and resolve fascinate and enchant him. Seemingly, she will do anything to overcome the might of Aurelian and Rome.

There is one way Simeon can perceive to end the conflict quickly. Aurelian is foolhardy enough to enter himself into the midst of the melee at the city walls; he does not seem to care that he puts himself in danger. If Simeon can reach him in the press of the fighting, Aurelian must die. Surely then, isolated on enemy territory far from Rome, any new Imperator elected by the legion will wish to retreat from the East to deal with rivals.

Simeon conserves his strength. Even without sorcery, he is a formidable warrior, fluid, strong and skilful with the scimitar. Early one afternoon, the Romans launch a full-scale assault, wheeling up their towering siege ladders. Simeon sees Aurelian close by on the city wall. He and a group of his followers are in the middle of the south wall, above the city's agora and banqueting hall. Shouting goes up, and the clash of iron and bronze. Smoke pours forth where Greek fire is hurled at the invaders. Heavy stones are thrown down from the walls and clang on the Roman testudos, which bend and grunt but do not break up. Palmyran swordsmen, led by grizzled Septimius Zabda, young Vaballathus and Zenobia herself, attempt to drive back the climbers and isolate those who have already stepped on the parapet. In the din and the rushing chaos, Simeon finds himself facing a pair of club-wielding Palestinians. They are dark, brawny, sweaty fellows, doubtless two of the heroes of Immae. There Aurelian's Palestinian infantrymen bruised and crushed Palmyra's armoured cavalrymen, who were confounded when resisted by strong-armed brutes wielding clubs that could smash bones, even through coats of mail. Simeon treats them warily; Zenobia has described to him the deceptive speed and accuracy with which these clubs can be swung.

He slips away, moving to his right toward a stairwell that leads down to the porticoed laneway of the city. He lets the Palestinian clubmen pursue. He feints at their heads with his scimitar as they come closer, then slips away again. It is hot and sticky in his bronze mail. His two enemies are bare-armed and full of roaring energy. The sun beats down, glaring and intolerable, making Simeon feel strangely nauseous in the pit of his stomach, even as the clubmen rush after him, their massive shoulders and upper arms gleaming and slick with sweat.

For all that, they cannot catch him. He melts away from them, then
into
their embrace, his scimitar slicing quickly across the line of their throats before they comprehend what has happened. Both fall, one with his throat slit wide open, choking quickly and dying, but the other very much alive, if hurt. He has taken only a shallow wound in the side of the neck, missing the main blood vessels. All the better. Simeon returns his scimitar to its chain-linked belt, falls bodily upon this living prey before he can recover himself, drags him kicking and protesting back behind the press of the fighting.

The fellow has dropped his club, but he tries to wrestle with Simeon for his life, clutching and pushing and kicking. The man's energy is uncanny. How can he retain it in this heat and even as blood drains from him? They grapple and slip in dirt and blood, almost falling onto the city's weathered steps. Hysterical strength tests Simeon; arms squeeze against him like thick, tightening cords of nautical rope, yet Simeon's own inhuman strength prevails—as they struggle, kneeling, the sorcerer's shoulder presses into the Palestinian's chest, long arms about the thick waist. Simeon pushes, grimacing and snarling with the strain, until he feels the sudden slackness, and hears the anxiously awaited crack of bones breaking. His hands find their way into the shallow wound on the man's neck, opening it up with the smallest effort of blood sorcery, tearing away skin and garments as he stretches the bleeding area, deepening it, hands digging through muscles and arteries and veins. Then his mouth finds the delicious wound; blood pumps out freely and Simeon drinks it hungrily. The man was a warrior and a hero. His blood is strong.

Simeon jostles his way back to battle, rejuvenated, covered in life-giving blood. More Romans fall beneath his scimitar. Today is the day. He faces Aurelian.

The self-styled recoverer of the East appears startled to be descended upon by this bloodied effigy, man or demon. But then, astonishingly, he smiles! Dirt and gore mar his lined face and his simple armour. He is not overly tall and he must be all of sixty years of age, yet there is an animal vitality about him. He does not appear to sweat in all this heat and he stares coldly into Simeon's dreadful blood-smeared face. Aurelian holds his short sword, point upwards, like a duellist with a knife.

Time stops. Aurelian is frozen with the rest of the besiegers and the besieged. His hour has come to die; but when Simeon tenses to pounce at the Imperator something goes wrong—his scimitar appears to turn and struggle in his hand like a venomous snake. Simeon is feeling dizzy and faint as if with sunstroke; a spirit is fighting him, possessing his sword, draining his strength. He finds himself reeling in the wrong direction,
away
from the Imperator. His sorcery is shattered. Aurelian comes to life. And the sun has grown huge, an ocean of liquid yellow fire across the whole sky, seeming to burn like the Christian hell.

Aurelian rushes bull-like at Simeon, who finds he is able to flow out of the Imperator's way, but not to retaliate. Aurelian smiles grimly. ‘Your time has gone, creature of blood,' he says in gruff Latin, ‘whatever you call yourself. I am the future. The priests of Sol Invictus chose me to restore the world for Rome. I am under their protection and that of their deity.' He plods forward stolidly and thrusts quickly with his sword, striking Simeon in the side but not breaking through his shirt of bronze mail. ‘Sol Invictus is the world-conquering god. Did you believe that your ancient sorceries could prevail against his?'

Desperate fighting goes on all around. In the uproar of the battle, Simeon is not sure how much of this he actually hears and how much he reads from the movements of Aurelian's lips or even his thoughts. Swords clash, the black blade again seeming to fight against Simeon and
for
the Imperator, jerking about in his hands, seemingly wishing to avoid Aurelian or his sword and aiming itself for Simeon's unprotected lower leg. It is all he can do to avoid wounding himself.

Palmyrans and Gothic legionnaires struggle by close to them, and in the fray Simeon is parted from the Imperator. But now he knows how difficult it will be to kill Aurelian. Even with this warning of Aurelian's powers, he is not sure that he could ever do it.

Victory is no longer assured.

Like a hollow skull, defeat laughs mockingly at Palmyra.

Nonetheless, only isolated besiegers obtain any foothold upon the city parapets, and they are forced to retreat. The siege continues.

If Zenobia had sufficient forces she could attack at night, but she is greatly outnumbered and must fight behind Palmyra's fortifications. Aurelian has the advantage unless reinforcements arrive.

Simeon has made a terrible mistake in allowing himself to become obsessed with Zenobia, who seems to wince from him as one might from some loathsome shaggy beast, even as she continues to use him. When the Romans finally take the city, as they must do next time they mount a full attack, she will have no use for him, except as one of the men she can blame for leading her,
a mere woman
, astray. He will need all his powers simply to escape the doomed city. Perhaps, with her phenomenal beauty, Zenobia can still reshape the future sufficiently to have her own life spared if she is captured by the Imperator. Perhaps. But for her to be enchained, led in triumph, violated by the army, and in the end most likely beheaded, is an evil Simeon cannot allow.

They meet in the Temple of Zeus-Bel, beside Palmyra's peaceful lake, to make their preparations. Evidently, Aurelian has been able to cut off Zenobia's reinforcements from Persia and Armenia, from the Saracens, the Blemmyae and others. The siege is unrelieved, and the city's finest soldiers are dead. But Zenobia is undaunted. She and Longinus have devised a last plan. If she could escape to Persia or Egypt where she still has rich and powerful friends, her kingdom might yet prevail. The new Shahanshah, Hormizd, is only a shadow of his father, sharp-minded and great-bodied Shapur, who ruled among the Sassanids for thirty years. But if the wealth and population of the Sassanid empire could be combined with Zenobia's undoubted military prowess, even Aurelian would be halted in his ambitions. Again, there is mighty sorcery available in Persia among the Shahanshah's Magi. If this could be directed to the right ends, the priests of Sol Invictus might find that their god is not, after all, unconquerable.