Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) (20 page)

Captain Ishmah led a force of well over 5,000 mounted archers and cataphracts, and carried the King’s banners in case there was any doubt about whose name they rode in. With Crassus, the Roman menace dispatched, the countryside was largely at peace and so no effective protection was given to the slaver’s encampment. Volodates and his officers were more content to enjoy the considerable diversions offered within the encampment’s walls than the defenses without.

And so the army of King Orodes rode in through the front gate unopposed and unannounced. Ishmah and his men fanned out through laneways awash with mud. Arriving at the rows of tents pitched for Volodates’s men and surprising them, many threw down their bows and lances, but some were killed anyway as an example to the rest. Here and there throughout the slave camp, others among Volodates’s men offered resistance, realizing that their lives would not be spared after surrender.

But before cries of death were raised throughout the camp, Captain Ishmah surprised Volodates in his harem. The two officers once being close friends, the favorite of Surenas was allowed to remove himself from the women beneath him and have himself washed and dressed by his harem. When Volodates was presentable, Ishmah gave himself entrance to the quarters once more.

“Tell me. What of Spāhbed Surenas-Pahlav?” Volodates inquired, wasting no time.

“He is in heaven or hell, depending on whom you ask,” said Ishmah.

“The King put him there?”

Ishmah shook his head. “His own men fired the arrows.”

“How is that possible?”

“You will have to ask them.”

“They still live?”

“Only those who volunteered to carry the King’s banner.”

Volodates examined his friend’s face. “And if I refuse?”

“You loved Surenas.” Ishmah poured himself a cup of wine.

“All his men loved him. He was noble and fair. Can you say the same of the King?”

“I would be careful, Volodates. The King would not like to hear you speak of him in this way and I wear the King’s ears in this tent.”

“The spāhbed was a loyal servant to the King. Why would he be killed?”

“Kings don’t justify their reasons to servants.”

“If you know, then on the friendship we once had, build an answer upon it.”

Ishmah drank the cup down and licked his lips. The wine was excellent. “Between men such as you and me, I would call it jealousy. The name of Surenas will ring through the ages, once the circumstances of the defeat of the Roman proconsul are known. In so doing, the spāhbed achieved immortality along with the gods. But he did so by snatching it from Orodes, who gave him not the permission to be a conqueror or a god. That prerogative was the King’s, and the King’s only. But as I say, I am sure it was not jealousy but the reasoning of Kings, which is far above your understanding or mine.”

“Why are you here, King’s ears?” Volodates asked, the anger in him having risen into his face, which radiated heat.

“To claim the King’s property – the ten thousand slaves harbored here. And to entreat the men who followed Surenas’s banner to willingly follow Orodes instead.”

“Fighting at night without the sun’s illumination will see you damned by the gods.”

“There were so many braziers lit within the camp,” Ishmah responded, “it was as if night had been banished.”

Volodates shook his head at the captain’s audacity. “I can do nothing about the slaves, Ishmah, but where jealously leads I follow not. And if I could give you some advice, it would be to follow
my
lead.”

A blade flashed from Volodates sleeve, placed there by a woman from his harem. Ishmah, startled, took half a step backward. But Volodates chose not to use it on the breast of the King’s captain and relative. Instead, he plunged it deep into his own chest, hoping to find his heart with its point. But the blade missed its mark, glancing instead off a rib. And so Volodates, alive but as good as dead, sank to the floor and dark blood slowly pooled around his quaking body.

Ishmah left the quarters of his former friend after slaughtering his harem, angry with himself for allowing Volodates to be dressed without the hindrance of a search. A guide was found to lead Ishmah to the residence of the slave master.

Found dressed as a woman, Farnavindah was asleep among painted boys and intoxicated with enough wine to prevent him being roused to conscious. So the King’s captain had him stripped and thrown in the river with a cord tied to an ankle with which to drag him back onto shore. Two dousings were enough to raise the man from his stupor, but a further ten were undertaken for the pure enjoyment of the men.

*

Some of the legionaries were already awake when Rufinius stirred, his mind vacant of all thought, other than what he had experienced the night before. Why the slavers had brought the men and the women together might have been a mystery to him, but the intensity of Lucia moving beneath him was a memory that he could hold onto.

The men who remained behind in the pens now knew why Rufinius, Libo, and several others had been drawn aside, and much ribaldry had ensued upon their return. Appias, at least, suggested reasons to make sense of it: that wet nurses were worth far more on the market, as were pregnant slaves. If that were so, Rufinius thought, he and his fellow Romans truly had achieved the status of cattle, which hurt his soldier’s pride. But then, he reasoned, perhaps there was a chance that he and Lucia would again be paired to help build the slave master’s profits and a private smile was born at the thought. Rufinius’s speculations continued in this vein. Maybe this might be how he could suggest to Farnavindah that the debt he spuriously owed for the killing of Nonus’s man might be repaid. Rufinius would gladly lay with Lucia indefinitely.

“Primor, did you hear the commotion in the camp beyond last night?” Fabianus asked him.

Rufinius came out of his reverie. “I think I was part of it, optio,” he said with a grin.

“No, later. Long after you returned. There was much shouting. We left you asleep but I can tell you with every assurance that the world beyond the walls has changed. I know not for the better or worse.”

*

Farnavindah had recovered some of his bearing now that he had dried and changed his clothes and there was no longer a cord tied around his ankle. Perhaps he’d been lucky to survive at all, the slave master thought. Many numbers of Volodates’s men were slaughtered during the night. The advantage of surprise had been with the men who fought beneath the King’s orange and white banner. How many died was hard to say, though his men had cleared almost a thousand corpses from the reed beds before their putrefaction could sour the water the encampment itself depended on.

A few hours of consideration had unburdened Farnavindah’s heart of fear.
He
was the master here, Babylon’s finest purveyor of slaves. Only he, Farnavindah, could turn the 10,000 slaves held in the pens into mountains of gold drachmas for whoever owned them, which made him valuable. Surely this was all that mattered. And it was this particular thought that brought him to the vexing question of the moment: who owned the slaves now? The King, or one of his vassals. If the latter, which one? The slave master took a seat with some ceremony at the table on its raised platform, the huge hairless bodyguards with their staring painted eyes arraying themselves on either flank.

Farnavindah waited on the man known as Captain Ishmah to appear. There was not long to wait. The captain rode down the camp’s main artery, leading a hundred of his own slaves and vassals, the now familiar orange and white-striped banners snapping in the breeze and the soldiers’ polished fish-scale armor catching the light, so that small reflected suns danced off the steaming pools of water left from the previous night’s storm.

A distant peel of thunder distracted Farnavindah. Clouds that were gray darkened nearby skies. Another boom rolled through the camp. Farnavindah knew that it would be raining hard up river. With the water that came down during the night, soon the level would be high enough to launch the barges. Once the river flowed, so would profit.

The captain brought his magnificent white steed to a halt before Farnavindah’s raised platform. The animal reared its head, chewed at the bit in its mouth and then bit the neck of another horse beside it, causing some nervousness among the other animals. Pushing down on the saddle the officer raised himself up on the steed’s back and, in a clear voice, announced: “In the name of King Orodes, I take possession of all slaves and their baggage previously claimed by Spāhbed Surenas-Pahlav, who is a traitor and who has dishonored the nation of Parthia.”

Farnavindah raised an eyebrow. The question uppermost in his mind had been answered and replaced with another. Surenas, the hero of so many stories told to children, was known to have been a close friend and confidant of the King of Kings. What had transpired to end the relationship in so much blood? Could Surenas really have betrayed Parthia? Farnavindah usually made it a rule to ignore the intricacies of politics. Why start now?

One of the captain’s men hopped down from his nervous mount and brought the slave master a clay tablet. Farnavindah examined the King’s mark upon it. The change in ownership was official.

The captain produced another tablet. “And this is an order for the purchase of five thousand slaves, the price to be agreed upon with our friend and ally, the Kingdom of Northern Xiongnu.”

The rows of Parthian archers parted to allow the passage of a small band of unusual-looking men, with their high cheekbones and deep set eyes. Obviously, they had traveled from a very distant land. All wore beards, which were unkempt and grew thick and grizzled to their chests. They wore padded vests and boots made from animal skins that looked every bit as barbarian as the men who wore them. Just as unusual were their horses: short-legged but broad of belly, with disproportionately large heads and leather boots strapped on their hooves to protect them. Their coats, also, were ragged and overgrown. But the animals seemed as one with their riders and exuded an air of stamina. Their leader, a man with the countenance of a killer, wore a long red beard speckled with gray that hung down the front of his padded tunic and was ornamented with various silver runes of unknown significance. He rode ahead of the band and reached into a fold of his tunic, removed a bag, and handed it to another older one-armed barbarian who dismounted, walked to Farnavindah, and bowed low.

To the slave master’s surprise, this barbarian addressed him in Pahlawānīg, the Parthian tongue. “Lord, here is the currency we wish to trade with, if you are amenable.” He handed the bag to Farnavindah. The slave master loosed the drawstring and tipped half a dozen enormous pearls and an equal number of polished ovals of orange carnelian and violet amethyst into his hand.

Shocked by the size and quality of the gemstones and pearls, the slave master could not keep the flash of delight from his face. The barbarian negotiator agreed with Farnavindah’s private thoughts. “Yes, Lord, these are stones worthy of a king.”

Farnavindah cleared his throat. “They are pleasing enough, but more quantity will be required for the purchase of five thousand of the finest infantry soldiers in all the world – for that is what you want, am I right? Slave soldiers?” Farnavindah congratulated himself on his insight.

The negotiator spoke to his leader, the man with the bearing of one who had sent many souls to heaven, and the two of them conducted a curt discourse in a sharp, guttural language completely foreign to the Parthians. Captain Ishmah, bemused, shifted in his saddle.

“Lord,” the one-armed barbarian known to Captain Ishmah as Bataar addressed Farnavindah, “speaking for my master, General Saikan, we have heard much about the Roman legions from King Orodes. With soldiers such as these, the city of Rome has cast its dominion over half the world. If true, then these legionaries will surely be feared in our small corner of it. However, as every man knows, when deals are made the quality of the merchandise is always talked up by the seller to increase the price.” Farnavindah was on the cusp of protesting when the old barbarian held up his hand. “But we would like to suggest a solution to what will undoubtedly be fierce bargaining.”

Farnavindah was wary. “I am listening …”

“It is said the Romans outnumbered your army four to one, and yet it was Parthia that left the field of battle victorious,” Bataar continued. “Let us reverse the odds this time. Pit one legionary against four Parthian swordsmen, the captain’s finest, in close order combat. If the Roman wins, we will pay four times the market value for one thousand of the five thousand slave soldiers we wish to buy. The value for one man we know to be around two thousand drachma, including your commission. So up to a quantity of a thousand men, we will pay four thousand drachma for each man.”

“And if our swordsmen should win?” asked Farnavindah, tantalized, but also looking for the reverse side of this coin.

“If the Roman loses, we will purchase one thousand of them for 
half 
the normal price – a thousand drachma per man.”

The slave master hesitated – the stakes were high. “And this extra two thousand drachma you will pay per slave if the Roman wins – this will find its way into
my
coffers?”

“Yes,” said the one-armed barbarian. 
“It is you who accepts the risk.”

Legends boasted of the Roman capabilities with the sword. Were they truly that good? 
Farnavindah searched for Ishmah’s approval. “Does the captain agree to this wager?”

Ishmah nodded without hesitation, confirming prior knowledge of the bargain. That in itself concerned Farnavindah – the captain had nothing to lose!

“My Lord Saikan promises you that this is a gamble he hopes to lose, for Xiongnu could find much use for five thousand swordsmen who could hold their own against twenty thousand.”

Farnavindah’s greed bested him. He would make two million drachma on those first thousand legionaries. Was there a chance that he could push the deal still further in his favor if he won? These barbarians obviously had more pearls than good sense. “Strike the price at two thousand and two hundred drachma per man for the remaining four thousand men and I consent to it. That is if Captain Ishmah will be happy to bear witness.”