Rome 3: The Eagle of the Twelfth (4 page)

Nevertheless, the king of Hyrcania’s wide face was composed in lines of evident regret as he eased his supreme ruler free of the gold trappings that held him fast.

Holding the body across his arms as he might carry a child, or a woman, he stepped his horse neatly backwards; a man born to horsemanship. The other kings stepped with him in a ring of royal mourning, each man gluing his shoulder tight to the next, for now was not a time to stand out from the crowd.

Ranades IX, of course, already stood out; the murder had taken place on his land, in his kingdom, by a man invited to his court: Pantera.

I felt the moment when seventeen kings turned their attention our way. I kept still only because Cadus held me, but Cadus himself was cursing under his breath, invoking gods and their progeny with a vicious invective that two years in his legion had yet to teach me.

Pantera was not cursing. Pantera, in fact, was leaning
forward
on his saddle, watching the kings with a kind of weary patience, as if he had better things to do, more interesting places to be. Two or three of the men opposite recognized the look and began to shout suggestions about how his death might be made as deeply interesting – and lengthy – as possible. Under Ranades’ stare, they fell silent.

‘Let the Nubians come forward.’ Gilded by a new authority, Ranades’ voice lifted over the shouts of his peers.

The forty Nubians hurried to his bidding, although for the first few yards they carried with them the kingfisher pavilion. Enough of them had died for letting it dip below waist level for the rest to have carried it into living fire and died holding it, had they been so ordered.

Ranades took a patient breath. He had grey eyes, the colour of iron, restless as the ocean, with not a shade of doubt in them that I could see.

‘Set down the pavilion. Bring only the trestle. Our lord must be carried to the palace. You may not touch him. There must be furs, somewhere, on which he can lie?’

He looked around, his gaze already glancing over the other kings as over lesser men, and it became apparent that they had missed their first opportunity, and that, did they not act swiftly, all authority would leak from the dead man to this one, living, who was giving all the orders when the others gave none.

Three of the younger men, contemporaries of the dead king, caught each other’s eyes and, as one, stepped their horses smoothly back out of the royal group.

They had features sharp as foxes beneath their beards, and were clearly related. Their eyes had the same vulpine slant, but their cheekbones were neither as high nor as distinct as those in Hyrcania, where men from the king downwards had cheekbones jutting sharp as bridges beneath their eyes from which the rest of their face hung as an afterthought.

They wheeled their mounts, these fox-faced men with their black beards and hate-filled eyes, and pushed them at me, at Cadus, and at Pantera, the trader-archer who had slaughtered the King of Kings, and so signed his own death warrant.

Yet who still carried his bow, and had at his hip a quiver full of arrows, several of them fletched in black.

As one who lives a whole life between heartbeats, I saw him nock one, and draw his bow to its fullest.

‘Which of you first?’ Pantera asked, and smiled.

The three bearded men hauled their horses to a mouth-destroying halt.

‘Do you
dare
—’ asked the first. The blue tern on his horse’s brow-harness marked him as Monobasus, king of Adiabene, a province to the south and west of Hyrcania.

Pantera arched one brow. ‘I have killed a usurper, a traitor to the King of Kings, a pretender to the throne that was not rightfully his. Do you wish that I had not? Be careful what you say. There are many others present and they are all listening with interest.’

It was his calm that held them in the first moments. I had heard that voice before, and it set the small hairs upright down the length of my spine. I was relieved that Pantera was not speaking to me.

Covertly, I looked at him. In the spirit of wild detachment that had taken hold of me, I wanted more than anything else to know if Pantera’s heart was beating as hard as my own.

It could not be, I concluded, because Pantera was holding a Scythian war bow at full draw with the arrow perfectly steady. But the knuckles of both his hands were green-white in the cold light and I saw a ribbon of sweat slide down the line of his jugular vein, to vanish beneath the folds of the lamb’s wool cloak. He may not have been strung tight as I had imagined in the morning, but he was nowhere near as calm as he made himself seem.

‘The King of Kings is dead,’ said the king of Adiabene hoarsely.

‘The King of Kings can never die,’ Pantera said with careful patience. ‘And in this case, he certainly has not done so. My lord? It may be timely now for you to reclaim your throne.’

He cast his voice over his shoulder, north, to the ever-moving sea, and there, from amongst the huddle of cooks and pot-boys and serving-men, a figure stepped forward.

He was taller than any of the servants, and, now that he removed the cap that had hidden it, his stone-grey hair was full and flourished to his shoulders; the hair of a man who has fed well through his life, who has never had his head shaved to show his servitude. His bearing was tall and vigorous and as he walked through them the slaves and servants fell to their knees and pressed their brows to the turf.

Very shortly afterwards, the seventeen client kings slid down from their horses and did likewise. King Ranades IX of Hyrcania was not first, but he was most assuredly not last. He dropped the body he had been holding as a man might drop a dead snake, and his brow touched the turf and stayed there while the man they had believed to be dead these past eight months walked past to mount the bay mare.

Thus it was that Vologases, King of Kings, lord of all life, supreme ruler of the Parthian empire, may the gods for ever venerate his name, returned to reclaim the throne from the son who had done his best to usurp it.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

ONE MONTH TO
the day later, I stood in the royal pavilion and watched a mass of armoured horsemen flow across a valley.

Bright as the polished moon, afire under the early sun, alive with rippling silk in every colour known to the Parthian empire, the heavy cavalry of Parthia, nearly five and a half thousand men, rode their horses at a hand canter from the mouth of a gorge to its blunt end amidst the mountains.

The earth rolled beneath them. Birds fled from the skies. It was said that the King of Kings could command the weather, that he ordered sun for himself, except when his subjects needed rain for their crops, and that he sent hail and snow, mud and thunder to plague his enemies. I stood less than a spear’s throw away and watched him, as he watched the display of his army, and I believed every word of it.

Three hundred at a time, they rode by us, clad in chain mail that chimed softly over the echoing beat of their mounts’ feet. As they passed the pavilion, they turned to face us, and even the hardened warriors of the Hyrcanians gasped the first time, for every man
and every horse
was masked in polished iron, so that the men were silver-faced but for their
eyes
, which were black behind the gaps in the masks, and the horses were monsters, inanimate and terrifying, and I, who had never seen their like, felt my innards churn.

A thousand by a thousand by a thousand, they rode by, and now the last phalanx of three hundred horsemen came to take – perhaps to retake – their oath.

At their rear, a man shouted an order. Another blew a horn, not a curled one, such as we use to control our legions, but a long one that stretched to the high sky.

Three notes sounded, and the galloping men wheeled left in a single block, so that they were riding straight away from us. Another blast, and they turned left again, and another and they were riding straight for us, and this time I saw their twin-headed axes, which could kill a horse with a single blow – we had seen it done, earlier in the day – I saw their lances, the mythical
kontos
, ten-foot poles with long-swords affixed to the ends that might both slash and stab the enemy. Rumour said they had daggers on their butt ends, so that the riders might pierce a man beneath them should they have need. I could not see that they would have need.

They came at us, spear-swords levelled, and even though we had been subject to this seventeen times already I still flinched when I saw the eyes of the front rows flare white at the edges before the trumpet blasted one final time and, in the finest display of horsemanship I had ever seen, they brought their horses to a level halt.

Their leader stepped his horse forward. The silks at his waist and neck, I saw, were blue, and the sign on the funnelling banner behind him was a blue seabird; a tern.

Monobasus of Adiabene took off his helmet and the same fox-faced, death-eyed king who had wanted to kill us in the forest on the afternoon of what was now known as the Day of the Traitor’s Death looked out at us.

Bowing to his King of Kings, he raised his right hand. ‘We give our lives in the service of the King of Kings. Adiabene is ready for war, whenever it comes.’

He had a good, carrying voice, if somewhat nasal in its tones. Vologases inclined his head. He looked more massive now, as if kingship had given him layers of his own personal armour. ‘Parthia is grateful to her sons for their sacrifice, and will honour their memory if death takes them on the field of battle.’

It was the same that had been said, by both sides, seventeen times before. All the eighteen client kings were here, for Tiridates had found that he could, after all, leave Armenia for the celebration of his brother’s return to power. Each had brought three hundred cataphracts, the heavy cavalry of Parthia, so feared by her enemies.

Earlier, we had seen the lighter cavalry, and before them the horse-archers, who had shot their deep-bellied bows in the eight directions at targets in front, at angles on either side, behind. Having seen them with my own eyes, I can vouch that what men said was true: they could shoot a dozen arrows in the space of a long, slow breath, and do it as easily backwards as forwards.

Monobasus of Adiabene led his horsemen away in a jingle of mail and harness-mounts. A small brass gong sounded to end the display. The King of Kings rose. His courtiers rose with him, and then fell to their knees, brows pressed to the canvas beneath our feet. I was with them, Pantera on my left, Cadus on my right. I felt the swirl and play of silks as Vologases, King of Kings of all Parthia, walked down from his dais. His son, now dead, had used a litter to move amongst his subjects. Men respected his father more for rejecting it.

I felt him walk by, and then stop. An order was given in a language I did not know. The silks passed us, and the faint
smell
of frankincense, which was burned to keep the king free from ill intent.

A shadow remained over us. I looked to my right and saw a courtier bend and speak to Pantera. ‘Be at the palace in the hour before dusk. The King of Kings will speak to you then.’

I bit my lip and offered a prayer to the local gods, begging that this might not be the final audience that saw us chained and impaled on spears in the market square for our actions on the Day of the Traitor’s Death.

‘I must leave this place and return to Parthia. Before I go, there is the matter of the bay mare on which the traitor was mounted. She has shown herself to be ill-favoured by the gods. She cannot remain here.’

Vologases let his words roll across the floor. His voice carried an authority I had never yet heard from any man. Even Corbulo, Rome’s greatest general, who many, even then, said should have been emperor, did not sound this comfortable with power.

Nobody answered; the King of Kings had not yet asked a question. I remained on my knees with my brow pressed to the oak boards. Cadus and Pantera held my either side. Neither of them moved. Together we three contemplated the fate that had befallen the traitor whom Pantera had killed.

There had been no pyre for the king’s late son; his corpse had been left to lie in the forest as food for the wolves and carrion birds. It was the worst thing they could do to a man who had paid with his life for his treachery, for here even the stillborn children were given fire to carry them to the gods; even the women who died on the cartwheels pushed into the sea were drawn back out at low tide, and burned.

Nobody was left to the wolves, except this prince who had thought to usurp his father’s throne and whose name was now unspeakable, whose own sons were … gone, and their
mothers
with them. No pyres had been lit for them, either.

The mare on which the traitor had been seated at the time of his death was, obviously, no longer considered the best horse in Parthia. It was amazing that she had not been served as stew at one of the banquets. There had been many banquets; an entire month of banquets without pause. I found it best not to think of those, nor the wine that had flowed as each minor king outdid his peers in celebrating his supreme ruler’s return.

But the mare … she was young, and fit, and exceptionally fast. I knew her breeding and what would be lost to the world were she to die. I began to think how I might find a way to speak.

Pantera thought faster, and had more authority. Quietly, he said, ‘If my lord might permit me to suggest an answer to the problem?’

I held my breath. The air did not fold about us. None of the nine men standing guard about Vologases skewered Pantera with a lance.

‘You may speak,’ said the King of Kings.

‘It is necessary that I travel west again, soon; perhaps tomorrow. I could take the mare with me and sell her and return the gold – for she will fetch gold, I have no doubt of that – return that gold to your gracious majesty. In this way her worth will return to your majesty while she herself will not.’

‘So you are leaving us.’

There was accusation in that flat, heavy statement, and a hint of a question. Or perhaps a request. Looking to my left, I found that Pantera had raised his head and was sitting back on his heels, still kneeling, but facing the king.