Parthian Vengeance (47 page)

‘Guests are expected to dress modestly, Pacorus, and keep their flesh covered.’

‘Malik will have no problems getting in, then,’ I remarked.

Malik had been invited because he had carried Rachel to safety on the back of his horse after we had rescued Aaron outside Jericho.

‘He will be one of the witnesses,’ she told me. ‘The other one will be Domitus, who carried Miriam to safety.’

We joined the other wedding guests in the fragrant garden as the dusk was approaching. We greeted Byrd and Noora who had come from Palmyra, Surena, who had also been a member of the party that had travelled to Judea, and Rsan. The other guests were the Jewish men and women who lived in Dura. We were asked by a Jewish man with a long grey beard to assemble under a great canopy that had been erected in the garden.

‘It is open on all four sides so that all may be made welcome,’ Gallia informed me. ‘The old man with a beard is one of their priests, a rabbi they call him.’

As we gathered under the white canopy Aaron and Rachel appeared in the roofed aisle supported by marble columns that surrounded the garden on all four sides. Both of them were dressed in white and beside them walked Miriam, also dressed in white, and Domitus, who was wearing a fine white tunic, a rich blue cloak draped over his left shoulder and arm and held in place by a gold broach, and blue boots. I scarcely recognised him!

‘The bride and groom wear white to resemble royalty and cleanliness of sin,’ said Gallia. ‘They will have fasted today and recited psalms together to ask god for his forgiveness for their transgressions. In this way they both enter their marriage fully cleansed.’

‘And starving,’ I added. She jabbed me in the ribs with a finger to indicate her disapproval of my levity.

The rabbi gestured to all of us beneath the canopy to come closer as the sky darkened and servants lit oil lamps hanging from the columns to illuminate the scene. Rachel’s face was covered with a veil, which Gallia explained was a sign of her modesty, while Aaron had a prayer shawl over his head.

‘It is a strange time of day to have a wedding,’ I whispered to her.

‘It is so the couple may see the stars and be reminded of the blessing their god gave to Abraham that his children would be as numerous as the stars.’

‘Who is Abraham?’

‘One of the first of the Jewish people to have lived on the earth, many thousands of years ago.’

Rachel and Aaron stood beneath the centre of the canopy and then Rachel circled him seven times.

‘In the teachings of the Jewish religion,’ whispered Gallia, ‘it is stated that god created the world in seven days. So Rachel circling Aaron thus ensures that their god blesses their union.’

After this had been completed Aaron produced a simple gold ring and gave it to Rachel. The rabbi announced that this symbolised that the pair were now married. I looked at Gallia and thought of our own wedding and everything that had happened before and since, and reached for her hand. The world was divided into many different religions and races but whatever language people spoke or gods they worshipped, in the end everyone was on the same quest – to find someone to share their life with.

My thoughts were interrupted by the rabbi’s deep voice reading the marriage contract, called a
ketubah
. This was a most curious part of the ceremony in which the rabbi read from a document that listed all the responsibilities the husband had towards his wife, after which it was signed by the groom and the two witnesses. The rabbi then recited a number of blessings that were repeated by the assembled congregation and then Aaron and Rachel, now minus her veil, drank from the same cup of wine as they held hands. The rabbi then took the prayer shawl that had been adorning Aaron’s head and wrapped it round the couple’s hands to symbolise their union before god.

After the ceremony we went into Rsan’s banqueting room and sat at tables where we were served chicken, lamb, fruits and wine. During the meal Aaron and Rachel served us portions of Jewish bread named
challah
, which Gallia informed me was made from eggs, flour, water and yeast. The bread was braided to resemble arms intertwined to symbolise love.

I sat next to Orodes as jugglers in bright clothing threw knives in the air in front of us and musicians played in accompaniment to the dazzle of flashing blades.

‘You think your father will fight the Armenians, Pacorus?’

‘No. He wishes to avoid war if he can. He seeks to overawe the Armenians with a show of strength.’

‘And you?’

I laughed. ‘I think the way to overawe them is to destroy their army and march on their capital.’

‘They have the Romans behind them,’ said Orodes with concern, ‘and there are Roman troops in Syria also.’

‘Their general Pompey, who we met at the Euphrates, has returned to Rome and disbanded his army, I hear. He had formed some sort of alliance with Crassus and another man named Caesar, but there are reports that Rome is divided between different factions.’

He looked confused. ‘What has this to do with the Armenians?’

‘If the Romans are preoccupied with internal politics they will be less focused on the east. That will hopefully make the Armenians more likely to see sense.’

‘The Armenians will know that the Parthian Empire is also riven with internal disputes, Pacorus.’

I pushed a piece of spicy chicken breast into my mouth. ‘That will need addressing after we have dealt with the Armenians.’

‘You still mean to attack Mithridates, then?’

I smiled at him. ‘Naturally. He still has to pay for trying to assassinate me, to say nothing of the deaths of Gotarzes and Vardan, and your father. And then there is the matter of you regaining your rightful place on the throne of Susiana.’

He took a swig of wine from his jewel-encrusted goblet then admired it, turning it in his hand.

‘No one has the stomach for such a fight, Pacorus, aside from you. Even your father shrinks back from making war on Mithridates and Hatra has one of the most feared armies in the empire.’

‘And what of Babylon?’ I asked him.

‘Babylon?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You have been spending so much time there of late that I was wondering if Axsen had made you the commander of her palace guard.’

He blushed and turned away. ‘I do not know what you mean.’

‘Will Axsen support Dura if I march east?’

He quickly regained his composure. I had no idea why he had become so flustered.

‘Babylon will support you but will not be able to lend you any troops for a campaign against Mithridates. Axsen has to look to her own defences first. Nergal is in a similar position, I fear.’

I nodded. ‘It will be only a matter of time before Mithridates and Narses attacks Babylon and Mesene. That is why we must strike the first blow.’

It was like a great game of strategy and the whole empire was the playing board. Mithridates had the active support of Narses of Persis and Sakastan, his co-conspirator, King Phriapatius of Carmania, King Vologases of Drangiana, King Cinnamus of Anauon, King Tiridates of Aria and King Monaeses of Yueh-Chih, the kingdoms in the eastern half of the empire. Dura was but a tiny speck compared to their vastness, but I had powerful friends, if not actual allies, in Hatra, King Musa of Hyrcania and above all King Khosrou of Margiana. And there was Mesene under Nergal and Axsen’s Babylon, while to the north stood the kingdoms of Media and Atropaiene ruled by Farhad and Aschek respectively.

Unfortunately for me both Musa and Khosrou were at this moment engaged in a great campaign against the wild peoples who lived on the vast steppes between the Caspian and Aral seas. They had mustered over one hundred thousand horsemen between them to stop the raids that had been increasing in intensity over the last two years. Dobbai had derided the notion that the nomads could be destroyed and thought Musa and Khosrou fools. Whether they were or not remained to be seen, but while they were occupied in the north they could not aid me.

Aschek and Farhad were old friends of my father and tended to go along with what Hatra desired, and at the present moment in time my father desired their presence at Nisibus to present a united front against the Armenians, another piece on the board of the great game of strategy that I was also a part of. And to the east, in Syria and Judea, were the Romans; while between them and Dura were Haytham’s Agraci. The game was finely poised at a temporary stalemate, but soon enough the pieces would be moving again.

‘They make a nice couple, do they not?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Are you listening, Pacorus?’

I smiled at Gallia. Of course I had not been. ‘Of course, my love.’

She leaned towards me and nodded at the top table where a lean poet with a wispy beard was reciting some rather long and frankly pompous verses to the newlyweds. They did not care because they were in love. He could have been reading the list of items for the feast, which would probably have been more interesting.

‘Of course they make a nice couple, they have just got married,’ I replied.

‘Not Aaron and Rachel. Domitus and Miriam.’

I sighed loudly. ‘Not you as well. Has Orodes put you up to this?’

She looked at me in confusion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I had him and Surena bending my ear about Domitus and Miriam and now you are harping on about them.’

‘First of all, I don’t harp on as you so quaintly put it. Harping insinuates idle and irritating gossip and I indulge in neither. On the contrary I make informed judgements on what I have observed.’

I drank some more wine. ‘Then I will tell you what I told them. Domitus, who by the way must be over fifty years old, is already married to the army. He’s set in his ways and that’s just the way I like it. He’s happy, I’m happy and that is that.’

‘I don’t think Domitus is happy at all,’ she replied. ‘He works so hard because it fills the loneliness in his life.’

‘This is Domitus we are talking about, the fiercest warrior on both sides of the Euphrates.’

‘He deserves to be happy,’ she persisted.

‘He
is
happy. He would tell me if he were not.

‘You know so little about the heart, Pacorus. Do you really think he would tell you, his lord and friend, that he craves love like the most humble and simplest man in the kingdom? And he is not the only one.’

This was ridiculous. ‘Don’t tell me, all my centurions are lonely.’

She sat back in her chair and raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Do not try to be clever; it does not suit you. Fortunately I have affairs in hand so you can concentrate on frightening the Armenians.’

She ran a finger down my scarred cheek. ‘That shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Is the marsh boy going with you?’

‘Surena? Of course. He is a fine commander, would you not agree, Orodes?’

Orodes cupped his ear to hear above the din of the wedding feast. ‘Agree with what?’

‘That Surena is an excellent commander.’

He nodded enthusiastically. ‘Most excellent, yes.’

‘Perhaps you should give him his own army, then,’ suggested Gallia.

I looked at her. ‘What did you say?’

‘Give the marsh boy his own army.’

My blood ran cold and I was taken back to the voice that had spoken to me in the Temple of Ishtar.

The one born in the land of water must be given his own army.

I said no more on the matter of Surena but as I sat there surrounded by laughter and merriment I knew that the first part of what the voice had told me, and I still refused to believe that it was Claudia, had come to fruition. I had followed Aaron to Judea and now the gold from the temple of Jerusalem was helping me to finance the army. But there was no other army for Surena to command, no kingdom of his own from which he could draw recruits. The idea was preposterous. Then again no more preposterous than a simple boy from the great marsh lands of what had been southern Mesene rising to become the commander of Dura’s horse archers.

Rather than drive myself to distraction with such thoughts I pushed them to the back of my mind, drank more wine, slipped my arm round my wife’s waist and enjoyed the rest of the evening. Two days later, nearly a year to the day since I had set out on the fateful campaign against Mithridates that had nearly resulted in my death, I once again led the army across the pontoon bridges that spanned the Euphrates. This time it headed north along the eastern bank of the river, a great column of foot soldiers, camels, wagons and horsemen that stretched over twenty miles. It was time to show our strength to the Armenians.

Chapter 11

It was spring once more and the days were bright but not hot, a slight northerly wind being enough to make the march comfortable and dispel the clouds of dust that always hung over our great column of iron-shod hooves and hobnailed leather sandals. Though we were in friendly territory the army assumed the usual marching order it adopted for every campaign. Far ahead of the army, in front and on the flanks, rode Byrd, Malik and their scouts – fifty hand-picked men who were answerable to those two alone and who were the eyes and ears of the army, their task to inform me of the enemy army’s whereabouts and its movements. Sometimes we didn’t see them for days but it comforted us all to know that they were riding far and wide to provide early warning of any threats. Most of them were Agraci like Malik though there were a few Parthians among their ranks. They dressed like desert nomads and like their horses were scrawny and unprepossessing individuals, but they could ride all day and all night and move like ghosts over any terrain and I thanked Shamash that they served me.

The advance guard of the army comprised five hundred widely dispersed horse archers who kept a lookout for any possible ambush sites on route, such as fords across rivers, woodland, canyons and the like. If they suffered any attacks they were to immediately break contact and fall back to the army where a plan could be formulated.

Next came the pioneers, a small contingent of surveyors and workmen who determined where the army would camp for the night and once at the site would mark out where the tents would be pitched, the stables sited and the ditches dug. These men were under the command of Marcus, as was the unit of engineers that came next in the order of march, whose task was to repair the roads and bridges along which the army was travelling.