Avenger of Rome (39 page)

‘Now!’

His sandal slipped on something slimy and he glanced down. Below his feet was a red smear and a shattered skull with half a face and he remembered the pink haze as the great boulder from the catapult made its first impact. A certain cadence in the screaming told him
that
the boulders and the rocks and the great barbed arrows were still doing their work among the ranks ahead, but otherwise his whole being was concentrated on the weight behind the shield, the thrust of his arm and the threat from above and below.

‘Now!’

With every word of command, each man in the Roman line took a step forward as he pushed with his shield. And with every step the men in front of them howled and died. A Roman legion was a killing machine and this was the killing machine at its most efficient, against the unarmoured and the unled; warriors who individually might be champions but in the claustrophobic crush beyond the shields were reduced to mere cattle to be slaughtered. A tortured, bearded face appeared below Tiberius’s shield and he smashed his iron-shod
caliga
down on it, smashing the teeth, turning the nose to pulp and crossing the eyes. Yet the force beyond the shield was becoming stronger, each step more difficult to take, even with the weight of the men behind him. Tiberius guessed that somewhere beyond the Parthian infantry cavalry were being used to stiffen the line, the weight of the horses and the threat of death if a man took another step back bolstering the resistance of men who did not want to fight. If that continued, the Roman line would stall, and logic and experience said that eventually, when strength failed, a stalled line became a retreating line and then men died, in their hundreds and their thousands. Corbulo’s face came into his head, the features drooping with exhaustion, but the eyes hard and unyielding. The face created conflicting emotions inside him. He had come to the east with a very definite opinion of this man and a single-minded determination to do what needed to be done, yet proximity to greatness had eroded his certainty until he was confused and disorientated. He knew that somehow he must rediscover that certainty if he was to do what he had to do. The thought gave him a new surge of energy and he thrust forward and killed another man. How many? It did not matter, because Corbulo could not fail.

And suddenly it happened.

A drum beat a frantic rhythm. The weight behind the shield faded away. A horn sounded a familiar but unlikely call and the Roman line
stopped
, dazed and uncertain whether to hold their line or to charge after an enemy who had retreated a dozen steps and thrown down their spears.

An armoured warlord in a green cloak urged his horse through the centre of the gaping Parthians holding a green branch high.

Corbulo had won.

XLIV

FROM HIS POSITION
by the largest of the three grave mounds raised over the Parthian dead, Valerius marvelled again at the size of the force Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo had defeated. They were the last stragglers of Vologases’ great army, but they streamed past in their thousands and tens of thousands, spears on their shoulders, heads down and shoulders drooping, sharing the King of Kings’ ignominy. Ignominy, but not humiliation.

Corbulo had been insistent, on pain of death, that the contents of Vologases’ personal baggage train, his wardrobe, his library, his vast treasures of gold, silver and precious stones and his travelling harem of two hundred concubines, must be left untouched.

While the stink of death still hung heavy over the battlefield, the King of Kings had sat upon his lion throne of pure gold and his painted face had remained impassive as Corbulo dictated his terms. But those terms had been surprisingly lenient. The Parthian army could withdraw with its arms and its banners and its honour intact. There was no shame in having been defeated by a force with superior firepower and territorial advantage, the general stressed. This had been an unfortunate misunderstanding and they must give thanks to the gods that the casualties had been so light. Vologases’ scorpion eyebrows had twitched at this description of a battle which
had
cost him the flower of the Parthian aristocracy, including some of his most important political allies. The ten thousand peasant levies who died were of less consequence. Corbulo would exact no tribute, beyond the expenses of the campaign, but he would take hostages from the great Parthian families, Gev, Suren and Karin. His only demand was that Vologases withdraw immediately beyond the Tigris and take his army back to Ctesiphon. The Roman forces would remain in place until the withdrawal was complete. There would be no repercussions from Rome, Corbulo assured him, and the hostages would be released the moment King Tiridates returned to Artaxata, the Armenian capital.

Valerius had listened to his general with increasing admiration. Corbulo had explained his strategy when they had met in the shocked aftermath of the truce. ‘Better a wounded enemy who walks away than a trapped one with nothing to lose. If you cannot destroy your enemy, Valerius, you must leave him with a way out. His generals did not want this fight in the first place; now all they want to do is return to their estates and their wives’ beds. But Vologases is a king and a proud man. If I humiliate him, or push him too hard, he may feel that the only way to regain his honour is to continue the fight.’

The King of Kings’ interpreter had whispered the terms in Vologases’ ear and after a moment’s hesitation the Parthian ruler had accepted with the slightest incline of his broad head. Only the dark eyes betrayed the loathing he felt for the man who had thwarted him three times in his bid to extend his empire to the north.

After a mostly sleepless night, when it had felt as if he was camped beneath a giant boulder in a thunderstorm, Valerius had woken to find the Parthians already breaking camp and Vologases’ armoured vanguard crossing the bridge of boats across the Tigris which had brought them here. The Romans waited another week while Hanno and his scouts shadowed the retreating forces. When he was certain they were gone for good, Corbulo paraded the remnants of his army around him in a great hollow square. They had started the campaign twenty thousand strong; now, with the battle fought, the dead buried and the wounded already on the way back to Zeugma, they counted
fewer
than sixteen thousand. They were bloodied and bruised, but they knew they had made history and they held their standards high.

‘Soon we will be going home.’ Corbulo’s shouted words were greeted with a ragged cheer. ‘You have fought, and you have fought well, as I knew you would. You have never let me down. I hope that, in turn, I have never failed you. Behind us we will leave the graves of the men who will not be returning with us. You have all heard the stories. Of men like Claudius Hassan, newly promoted decurion of the Third Thracian
ala
’ – Valerius had a vision of the dark smiling face telling of his ambition to carve a life in Rome – ‘who gave his life rescuing his comrade from the Parthian host.’ Hassan had taken a spear point in the armpit, but stayed in the saddle long enough to get wooden-toothed Draco to safety. ‘If he had lived he would have had the silver spear of valour. Instead, all he has is our thanks, and the knowledge that his deed will never be forgotten. As long as there is a Tenth Fretensis or a Fifteenth Apollinaris, none of their deeds will ever be forgotten. They are the honoured dead. I honour you as the valorous living … and I promise that you too will be honoured. I have sent couriers to Antioch with word of your deeds to be forwarded to Rome.’ He read out a long list of names and Valerius suppressed a grin as he saw Tiberius, in the front rank of the Tenth, straighten to his full height at the news that he had been recommended for a gold torc. ‘I know that
phalerae
and gold crowns mean much to you, but I also understand that the lack of plunder from our expedition will disappoint you.’ A groan went up from the assembly and Corbulo smiled. ‘You would not be human if it did not. However, forgoing Vologases’ gold was as crucial a part of our victory as the sacrifice of our friends.’ He allowed a long silence as the legionaries contemplated the personal cost of defeating the Parthians. ‘Yet I have decided you cannot go unrewarded. Every man who fought will receive from my own funds a payment amounting to one tenth of his annual wage.’

The roar that greeted the announcement split the hills and sundered the skies and Valerius knew that if Corbulo had asked these men to follow him through the gates of Hades and over the Styx they would have fought their way into the Otherworld with their bare hands for
him
. He held his breath, because it would have taken just one cry of ‘Corbulo for Emperor’ to unleash a wave of popular support that would carry him all the way to the threshold of Rome. But these were Corbulo’s soldiers and the iron discipline of their commander had been bred and beaten into them. There was no shout.

On the return march, with the Parthian threat reduced, Valerius spent less time in the saddle and often walked with Tiberius and the men of Corbulo’s personal guard who were now under the young tribune’s command. It amazed him how quickly the common soldiers were able to put the terrors of the battle behind them. When they weren’t talking about women and wine and what they would spend Corbulo’s bonus on, they sang traditional marching songs like the obscene ‘March of Marius’, which had more than twenty verses and chronicled the sexual exploits of a legionary from one end of the Empire to the other.

Tiberius was more subdued, the childlike exuberance overwhelmed by what he had seen and endured during the long hours of the Parthian arrow storm. The boy had become a man. Valerius knew only too well the horrors that visited in the night after a battle. The half-remembered glimpses of a human slaughterhouse: splinters of white bone against raw red meat, the obscene pink blue sheen of spilled entrails, or the fool’s grin on the face of a severed head. The hair’s-breadth escapes from death that hinged on the glint of a sword blade or an enemy spear point. The dead men who demanded why he had lived and they had not. These, as much as his wounds, were a soldier’s baggage of war.

As they marched together he tried to lighten the mood by talking of anything but the campaign, but Tiberius seemed obsessed by the notion of duty.

‘I felt sorry for the Parthian horses,’ he said, in a voice that was flat and emotionless. ‘But I knew I had to kill them. Some of them were beautiful and reminded me of Khamsin, but they died just the same, because it was my duty.’

‘If you hadn’t killed their horses, the Parthians would have killed you,’ Valerius pointed out. ‘War is about finding the enemy’s weakness and using it against them. The foot soldiers Serpentius and I faced didn’t want to fight us, but they had to be made to fear us or we
would
still be fighting yet, or more likely scattered across the plain with our guts hanging out.’

‘So you did your duty.’

‘As you did yours, Tiberius, and I will lose no sleep over it.’ He covered the lie with a smile.

‘But what if you were given an order you knew was wrong?’

‘I thought we had already discussed that? There is no right or wrong, only discipline. Discipline is what makes us what we are, Tiberius, Roman soldiers. That was what your father taught you, was it not? He might have been harsh, but he was right. Only discipline and your example kept your men in line as they died under the Parthian arrows. Without discipline we would all be dead and Vologases would be on his way to Artaxata and Armenia would be lost to Rome for a hundred years.’

The young man still looked pensive. ‘But what if there was a conflict between duty and loyalty?’

Valerius was bone weary and the question made even less sense than what had gone before. ‘No order is given without a purpose, Tiberius.’ The words came out more harshly than he intended. ‘Hesitation only kills the men you fight beside. Disobedience means your own death. If you are given an order, don’t think about it. Only obey.’

Tiberius darted an agonized glance at him, but Valerius’s gaze was fixed on the horizon. If he had looked, he would have seen the firm jaw set and the young tribune nod.

So be it. He was a soldier. He would do his duty no matter how wrong it felt or how distasteful that duty would be.

XLV

THE NEXT DAY
the army of Corbulo reached one of the great supply dumps their general had prepared for the return march. For the first time in two weeks food and water were plentiful and the men not on guard duty were given an unprecedented two days without drill or training. The grateful satrap of Tigranocerta had sent two thousand
amphorae
of fine wine in thanks for his deliverance. Corbulo ordered a ration to be served to every man, but the legionaries and auxiliaries found the sweet Armenian brew less to their taste than the leaded tavern vinegar they were more accustomed to.

Valerius spent the evening with the general, but Corbulo was a disappointing companion compared to the man who had approached the battle with such mercurial energy. It was as if victory had stolen something from him, or diminished him in some way. Even the diabolical challenge of Caesar’s Tower couldn’t energize him and eventually he shook his head and with a tired smile suggested that Valerius should seek some better company. Valerius returned to his tent, but he found sleep difficult to come by. A chill wind from the north cut through the worn leather and made his missing hand ache. For a while he lay and endured the ghosts of the past, but when Domitia’s face reminded him that there were some things even courage and resolve could not make attainable, he rose and wrapped himself in a thick woollen cloak.

The moment he left the tent, Serpentius fell into step by his side. Valerius looked at him a certain way, but the Spaniard only shrugged.

‘Just because you’ve covered yourself in glory doesn’t mean your enemies will suddenly disappear. Everything’s too relaxed for my liking.’ He cocked an ear and Valerius made out the shouts of laughter from around the camp. Nearby, a legionary fashioned a melancholy tune on a whistle and someone crooned a love song. An argument flared and faded away in a few seconds. Normally the centurions and decurions would be moving among the men demanding silence, but clearly they had been lulled by the same post-battle euphoria as their troops. ‘I’ve seen it often enough in the arena. A fighter is celebrating victory over one opponent and forgets the man behind who’s about to put a spear through his backbone. It isn’t pretty.’