Carrhae (51 page)

‘My destiny is to serve you, majesty. That is what the gods have decreed and it is unwise to ignore their wishes. Therefore I pledge my life to your service.’

‘Sounds like slavery to me,’ grinned Domitus, who then eyed Spartacus, ‘a bit like marriage.’

‘What about your family, Scarab?’ I asked, ‘would you not like to search for them. Being free means that you can travel back to Egypt and find them.

He shook his head. ‘I was sold into slavery when I was an infant and do not know the location of the market where I was sold. I have no knowledge of my family.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said.

‘It is the will of the gods,’ he replied casually. ‘You have known your family, majesty, and Spartacus his, a great blessing. And you, lord general,’ he asked Domitus, ‘do you have knowledge of your parents?’

I smiled knowingly. Scarab might as well ask a stone by the side of the road to explain its ancestry for Lucius Domitus never spoke of his past.

‘My mother was a kitchen slave, a cook, in the villa of a Roman patrician in Capena, near Rome. The man was very rich and had been a commander of a legion, a legate, and had been richly rewarded for his services by a grateful Senate. My mother was the daughter and granddaughter of slaves so she told me and had been purchased in the slave market by her master, a white-haired man named Quintus Sergius.

‘You are probably thinking that I was born to slave parents but you would be wrong. My father, if you can call him that, was the son of Quintus Sergius, a tribune who took a fancy to the good-looking slave girl in the kitchens and raped her, though others might say he seduced her. I believed my mother in the matter. He returned to Spain where he was killed soon afterwards but his father knew the truth and when she gave birth to me he treated her kindly, giving her light duties in his household and ensuring that her son prospered. She was still a slave of course and he would never admit that the slave baby she bore was his grandchild, but the guilt he felt over his son’s actions compelled him to attempt to atone for the great affront done to my mother, and I think that in me he saw a memory of his son. He was quite old when I was born and his wife was older and so they would never have any more children.

‘I grew up a kitchen slave but one who was taught to read and write. Quintus Sergius also told me stories of Rome’s wars and life in the legions and was delighted when I said that I wanted to join the army. And so, on my seventeenth birthday, he gave me a formal
manumission
, which meant I was free and became a Roman citizen. As a citizen I could join the army and with my former master’s letter of recommendation my acceptance was assured. My mother did not wish me to leave, of course, but he had filled my head with notions of glory and adventure and I could not wait to wield a sword and kill Rome’s enemies.

‘I can still see her, standing near the villa’s entrance in her apron with the other slaves as I rode with Quintus Sergius to the nearby legionary barracks. It was a bright spring day and the air was full of the aroma of pine and I thought myself very special riding next to a war hero to follow in his footsteps.

‘I never saw my mother again though she wrote to me often. Two years later Quintus Sergius himself wrote to me saying that she had died of a fever. So you see, Nubian, like you I have no family except those I call family who live in Dura.’

I nearly fell off my horse. In all the time that I had known Domitus I had never heard him divulge this information.

‘I am glad that Quintus Sergius died before I was condemned to the silver mine,’ Domitus continued. ‘It would have upset him greatly and I did not desire that. He was always good to my mother and me and I owed him a great deal. If he is watching me now I hope that he is pleased with the army I have helped to create.’

‘He will be,’ I assured him, ‘for you have created the finest army that Parthia has ever known and its reputation and history will be lauded by generations of Parthians to come.’

Domitus looked at Scarab and then nodded towards me. ‘The king is such a dreamer.’

It took a month for the hill men to reach Dura – two thousand scruffy, poorly dressed and equipped men, many of whom had no footwear. They were led by Gourlay and escorted by five hundred of Orodes’ horse archers to ensure they did not indulge in rape and pillage on their journey. Most of them were armed with a variety of axes, spears and long knives and only Gourlay rode a horse, the same pitiful beast that he had ridden when he had escorted me to Zand’s village. It looked as though it was about to collapse and expire but it must have been hardier that I thought because it had survived the journey to Dura.

It stood next to Remus with Gourlay on its back as I inspected his ragged band the day after they had arrived at Dura. Domitus had insisted that the hill men be quartered in a tented compound erected ten miles south of the city. He did not want them in the city or the legionary camp but in their own enclosure where they could be more easily confined. He was mounted on my other side and wore an expression akin to a father who has just found out that his youngest daughter was pregnant by a travelling salesman. Nevertheless, Gourlay informed me that they were all single men in their late teens or early twenties who were eager to fight and kill so they could return to their tribe as great warriors. I kept silent regarding the fact that most of them would probably meet their deaths at the hands of Roman soldiers.

‘Miserable bunch,’ mumbled Domitus contemptuously, fortunately out of earshot of Gourlay.

‘You have done well, Gourlay,’ I said. ‘They are a fine group of young men.’

Domitus suppressed a laugh.

‘Thank you, majesty,’ said Gourlay. ‘All of them are eager to slit a few throats to show their keenness.’

‘I can believe that,’ muttered Domitus.

Marcus supplied their tents and cooking utensils and sent daily food deliveries to the new camp to bulk up the hill men, many of whom looked as though they had not eaten in weeks. And to prevent boredom setting in while I waited for Alexander to arrive from Judea, each morning they were taken out into the desert on a long route march. This caused an immense amount of grumbling among them at first, but their resentment was assuaged by what awaited them on their return. Domitus complained that I was indulging them but I believed that if they at least looked like soldiers then they might act like them and not a bunch of bandits. So they first received new tunics to replace the flea-infested rags they wore – which was another reason Domitus did not want them mixing with the rest of the army. Next they were issued with two thousand pairs of sandals, which they would need when they were in the barren, rocky hills of Judea.

Dura was fortunate in that its armouries not only produced weapons and armour but also contained equipment that had been captured from the enemy during the army’s campaigns. Thus I was able to issue the hill men with an assortment of helmets, spears and swords that gave them a more martial appearance. In addition, Gourlay selected a hundred of them who had experience of archery to be issued with bows and full quivers. An archery field was built near their camp and each day the bowmen practised shooting arrows at straw targets. A month after the hill men had arrived Alexander came to Dura.

Before I had left for Susa I had asked Aaron to write to Alexander to invite him to Dura where he would receive reinforcements. I gambled that as a Jewish patriot he would be eager to acquire reinforcements for the fight to free his homeland. I did not tell him that I was sending fighters to Judea purely for my own interests, but then Alexander would probably have guessed the motive behind my offer. But he came anyway.

Aaron rode with a party of horse archers to Palmyra to bring him back to Dura and when the party returned I had the army drawn up in front of the city in salute. Alexander Maccabeus may have been a fugitive living in the hills but he was still a prince of Judea and an enemy of Rome and that made him my friend and ally. The cataphracts wore their scale armour with pennants fluttering from every
kontus
; the colour parties of the Durans and Exiles stood to attention grouped round their sacred emblems; the legionaries had white plumes in their helmets and the mounted horse archers of Vagises and Peroz clutched their bows. Gallia was beside me with the Amazons behind in their full war gear as Aaron and Alexander rode up to us in front of the Palmyrene Gate.

The prince was riding a well-groomed brown mare and was wearing a rich white tunic edged with blue, blue leggings and leather boots. But as he halted his horse a few paces before me I was shocked by how he had aged. His shoulder-length hair was thinning and streaked with grey and there was grey in his beard. His cheeks were sunken and his brown eyes had a world-weary, haunted look about them – clearly the years of fighting the Romans and living in the hills had taken a great toll. When I had first met him I estimated his age to be similar to my own but now he looked like an old man.

‘Greetings, King Pacorus,’ he said. ‘Your army is a most impressive sight.’

‘Welcome to Dura, Prince Alexander,’ I replied, holding out a hand to Gallia. ‘This is my wife, Queen Gallia.’

He bowed his head to her solemnly and she returned the compliment.

‘You must be tired after your journey,’ I said to him, ‘but before we retire to the city I have something to show you.’

I raised my right arm and Gourlay and his hill men, who had been positioned behind the Exiles, marched forward towards the city gates. Alexander turned in his saddle as the fully armed hill men, organised into hundred-man companies, advanced and then halted two hundred paces from us. I had to admit that they looked very different from the threadbare wretches who had marched from the Zagros Mountains. Each warrior now wore a new tunic, a helmet on his head and sandals on his feet. A regular supply of wholesome food had bulked them up so they presented a threatening appearance. Alexander looked at them in confusion.

‘A gift from the Kingdom of Dura to the Jewish people,’ I said. ‘Soldiers for you to take back to Judea to continue the fight against the Roman occupiers.’

A broad grin spread over his face as he admired his new army.

‘You are most generous, majesty,’ he said.

‘Judea’s enemies are our enemies, Alexander, and Dura will never abandon its allies. These men will reinforce your own troops to allow you to take the fight to the enemy.’

He turned back to face me. ‘They will be most welcome for I have few soldiers of my own left.’

His careworn demeanour returned.

‘I hope Ananus and Levi are well,’ I said. They were two of Alexander’s lieutenants whom I had encountered in Judea.

‘They are both long dead,’ he said glumly.

We rode in silence through the city to the Citadel where Alexander was shown to his quarters in the palace. I had toyed with the idea of letting him stay with Aaron and Rachel but that may have been construed as a slight. I wanted to promote the perception that Alexander was a powerful ally rather than demean him, even if the truth was that he was currently no better than a hill man.

Alexander’s mood had improved by the time he attended the feast I gave in his honour at the palace that evening. He sat next to me on the top table along with Gallia, Miriam and Domitus and Aaron and Rachel. I had also invited a Jewish priest, a rabbi, who said prayers before we ate, and who stayed to partake of the lentil stew – a traditional Jewish dish – which the kitchens had prepared, along with roasted beef, goat and mutton. Two days later Alexander left Dura with Gourlay and his hill men, along with two hundred mules loaded with food, spare weapons, clothing and cloaks. After they had left I rode to the Palmyrene Gate, and standing next to the stone griffin I watched the column of men and animals disappear into the west. I prayed to Shamash that He would let the hill men taste victory before they died.

Affairs at Dura continued as normal: the armouries produced weapons and armour, the caravans travelled east and west and the army drilled and prepared for the coming war. I was in frequent contact with both Orodes and Phriapatius, though none of my letters to Surena in Gordyene were answered. Orodes wrote that he had also received no answer to his request that Surena visit him at Seleucia. I did hear from traders who were travelling through Dura that their fellow merchants who had been in Gordyene had informed them that Surena was rarely in Vanadzor, preferring the company of the wild men of his northern borders, who were constantly raiding Armenian territories. I had toyed with the idea of asking Gafarn to send Silaces to Gordyene to speak to Surena, but when I mentioned it in a letter to Gafarn I received a message back that Silaces and his men could not be spared.

There was better news from Phriapatius who reported that he had assembled forty thousand men at Persepolis as part of his Eastern Army, ready to reinforce us when the Romans invaded. However, he stated that most of the men in this force were his own Carmanians, the other eastern kings having been reluctant to send him any troops because they did not wish to weaken their own armies. And from Khosrou and Musa came news of unending war with the nomads of the northern steppes, the vast land between the Caspian and Aral seas.

‘Mithridates started a fire that cannot be extinguished,’ remarked Dobbai as I finished my summary of events in the empire to Dura’s council.

‘That is a pity,’ said Domitus, looking at the map of the empire hanging on the wall of his headquarters, ‘we could have done with some of their soldiers.’

Dobbai scoffed at him. ‘The kingdoms of Margiana and Hyrcania are a thousand miles distant whereas the Romans and Armenians are but a stone’s throw away. Even if they could provide assistance it would arrive too late to be of any use.’

‘What of Gordyene?’ asked Domitus.

‘I have received no word from Surena though I have heard that he still raids Armenia.’

‘He will never stop killing until he himself gets what he desires,’ said Dobbai.

Domitus exhaled loudly and looked out of the window while everyone else looked at her in confusion.

‘And what is that?’ I asked.