Fire in the East (36 page)

The Romans had not made another big foray yet the Sassanids were unlikely to have been sleeping soundly in their tents. The very night of the main raid Antigonus had returned in the early hours from across the river. He had found the girl who had been raped. She was dead; she had been mutilated. Antigonus left her there but returned with a Persian head. Two nights later he had gone south by boat and returned with another head, wrapped in a Persian cloak. The next night he had slipped out of the northern wicket gate down by the river and this time returned with two heads. Finally, last night he had gone across the river again and brought back yet another grisly bundle. In a sense five casualties meant nothing in a horde probably 50,000 strong. Yet morning after morning the news of finding yet another inexplicably decapitated corpse in yet another place was bound to summon up the very worst fears in the Persian army: a traitor turning his hand against his friends or, worse, far worse, a daemon able to strike at will throughout the sleeping camp.

Ballista was pleased with his new standard-bearer. He took little pleasure in the ghastly trophies, but he solemnly unwrapped each one, solemnly thanked its bringer. Each one was a mark of revenge for both Romulus and the unknown girl. Antigonus had a gift for this sort of thing. Ballista was glad they were on the same side.

Beyond Antigonus’s nocturnal forays, beyond the normal activity of the besieged, the main activity of the seven days had been the construction of three huge mobile cranes. Every carpenter in the town had been seconded to work on them; likewise, every blacksmith had been forging the giant chains and implements they would deploy. With their completion, Ballista had the last major items necessary for when the Sassanids attempted to storm the town. Looking up and down the wall, the air already shimmering with heat where the large metal cauldrons hung over their fires, Ballista felt that he had done his best. He was far from sure that it was good enough, but he had done his best.

The sun was rising over Mesopotamia. A wash of gold splashed over the bright Sassanid banners, picked out their gorgeous costumes, the jewels in the headdresses. As one, every man in the vast host sank to his knees then prostrated himself in the dust of the desert. Trumpets blared, drums boomed, and across the plain rolled chants of ‘Maz-da, Maz-da’ as they hailed the rising sun.

The sun had now risen clear of the horizon. The chanting stopped, and the Persian army got to its feet. They waited in silence.

High on the battlements of the Palmyrene Gate, Ballista also waited and watched. The twenty-first day of April, ten days before the
kalends
of May: it was the
Parilia,
the birthday of eternal Rome. From the right of the Sassanid army, preceded by the Drafsh-i-Kavyan, the great battle flag of the house of Sasan, came the now familiar figure clad in purple riding a white horse.

‘Shah-an-Shah, Shah-an-Shah.’ A new chant rolled across the plain.

Shapur halted in front of the centre of the line. The great jewel-encrusted banner moved above his head, catching the sunlight, flashing yellow, violet, red. His horse stamped its foot, tossed its head and neighed, high and clear across the plain.

On the battlement Bagoas gave a small whimper of pleasure. ‘The sure sign. When the charger of the King of King’s does thus before the walls of a town, that place will surely fall.’

‘Silence, boy.’ Ballista would not have his slave spreading despondency. ‘It is an easy enough omen to create.’

‘What are they doing now?’ Maximus asked. A line of seven roped men were being driven towards the priests, magi, around the Drafsh-i-Kavyan. ‘This does not look good.’

Bagoas said nothing. He cast his eyes down. For once he looked rather shamefaced.

The men were wearing Roman uniforms. They were struggling, but being beaten forward. One fell. He was kicked back to his feet. They were driven to where a small fire was burning. A pot was hanging on a tripod, heating over the fire. The Romans were forced to their knees and held tightly. Their heads were forced back. One of the magi unhooked the pot from the tripod, lifted it free of the fire.

‘Gods below, the barbarian bastards.’ Maximus looked away.

The priest stepped over to the first of the prisoners. Two magi held the man’s head. The priest tipped the pot. The man screamed.

‘What is it?’ Ballista tried to keep his voice level. ‘What are they doing to them?’

‘Olive oil.’ Bagoas answered very quietly. ‘They are blinding them with boiling olive oil.’

A single trumpet call was picked up by innumerable others. The vast Sassanid horde stirred itself and began to form up for its slow advance.

Gangs of men began to push the
ballistae,
mounted on squat carts or moved on rollers forward, to within effective range, about 200 paces of the walls. From there the stone-throwers would aim to destroy the defenders’ artillery and knock down the battlements while the bolt-throwers swept Roman soldiers from the wall walks.

The mantlets were pushed to the fore. These would travel to within effective bow shot, about fifty paces from the town. Forming an unbroken line of reinforced wood, the mantlets were intended to shield both the Persian archers and the storming parties as they assembled.

Most ponderously of all, hauled by hundreds of men each, the three City Takers began to inch forward. These monstrous wheeled siege towers were made of wood but entirely clad in plates of metal and damp skins. Water was frequently poured down their sides from the top to try to prevent the enemy setting fire to them. They had
ballistae
on their upper levels, but these were only secondary to their main purpose. The City Takers were designed to creep up to and overtop the walls of the town, let down a drawbridge and release on to the battlements a mass of screaming warriors. As the drawbridges came down, a host of storming parties carrying ladders would burst forth in support from the line of mantlets.

Ballista looked at them. They were the key to the assault. Everything else would revolve around them. They were quite far apart. One was on the road, heading straight for the gate where Ballista stood. The others were aimed to hit the wall beyond, three towers away north and south. Travelling at about one mile an hour, in theory they could strike the wall in about half an hour. Ballista knew that was not going to happen. The City Takers would make many stops, to change the crews of men hauling them, to test, smooth and reinforce the ground ahead, as well as to fill in Ballista’s traps - if, of course, the latter were detected.

Ballista judged that the assault would probably not come until midday. Unfortunately, that would be good for the attackers in several ways. The morning sun would no longer be directly in their eyes as it was now. It would give plenty of time for the City Takers to reach the walls and for subsidiary attacks to be ready to go in on the other walls.

Clouds of horsemen had been spotted the day before on the other sides of the northern and southern ravines. Ballista had altered his order of battle, ordering 300 men, 100 mercenaries from each of the
numeri
of the caravan protectors, to join the defence of the dangerously undermanned north wall. It was odd that this weakness had been spotted by his
accensus,
the completely unmilitary Demetrius, not by himself nor any of his army officers. Sometimes one got too close to things. As Ballista’s people said: you could not see the wood for the trees.

Midday. The northerner turned the timing over in his mind. Midday. The time when Romans ate their first substantial meal of the day. Bagoas had told him that Persians ate later, towards late afternoon. At midday the Persians would not be hungry, but the Romans would. Ballista was about to issue orders to bring forward the time of the soldiers’ lunch when he saw something that might prove to be terribly important.

The distinctive figure clad in purple riding a white horse was on the move. Although now accompanied by a glittering entourage of the high nobility and client kings, there was no mistaking the high, domed golden helmet, the long purple and white streamers that indicated the King of Kings.

Ballista had been waiting for this moment, had been praying that it would come. In the Roman army, at the start of a siege it was customary for the commander to ride forward into range of the defenders’ artillery. It was a tradition that served two goals. At a purely pragmatic level, it gave the commander a fine chance to observe the state of the defences. At an altogether more intangible but possibly far more significant level, it allowed the general to rouse the spirits of his troops by demonstrating his studied contempt for the weapons of their enemies. A fine tradition, one which killed two birds with one stone. The only problem was that it sometimes killed the besieging general as well.

Until this moment Ballista had not known if the Sassanids held to a similar practice. Asking Bagoas had produced no useful answer - ‘Of course, Shapur, the beloved of Mazda, has no fear of the weapons of his foes.’ More and more the northerner wondered just how much or how little the Persian boy knew about war. Bagoas clearly came from the Persian elite, but was it becoming ever more likely that he was from a family of scribes or priests than one of warriors?

Shapur and his men reined in just outside artillery range. Animated conversation could be seen. The King of Kings was doing most of the talking. Informing his high-status audience of his view of the direction the assault should take, Shapur made wide arcs and sweeps with his arms, the streamers flying behind him.

Ballista stared intently not at Shapur but at two distinctive humps of stone left on either side of the road. The sides facing the wall were painted white. They marked 400 paces, the maximum range of his artillery. Come on, you cowardly eastern bastard. Come on, just have the balls to get within range.

Forcing his mind away, Ballista issued orders for the men to take their lunch no less than two hours earlier than usual. As the messengers moved away, the northerner realized with a nasty lurch that he had not issued the far more pressing orders for every piece of artillery to aim at the Persian king but not to shoot until the Dux Ripae gave the command. As the next batch of messengers moved away, Ballista was slightly reassured by the thought that their message most likely was redundant - it would be a very poor
ballistarius
indeed who had not already trained the weapon on the man on the white horse.

The trick of turning the washers, slackening the torsion and decreasing the apparent range of the weapons was an old trick, an obvious one. Had it worked? And even if it had, would the traitor have betrayed it? Was the Sassanid mocking him?

Shapur kicked on, and the white horse moved down the road towards the Palmyrene Gate. Past the whitewashed piles of stone, with his meteor trail of the powerful, Shapur came on.
Allfather, Deceitful One, Death-Bringer, deliver this man to me.

Ballista was painfully aware of the expectation surrounding him. The dead silence on the battlements was broken only by the small noises of well-oiled machinery being subtly adjusted as the
ballistae
tracked their target.
Wait until he stops moving. Do not snatch at this. Wait until the right moment.

Nearer and nearer came Shapur; closer and closer to the white-painted section of wall at 200 paces.

He stopped.

Ballista spoke.

Antigonus hoisted the looked-for red flag.

Twang - slide - thump: the great twenty-pounder by Ballista hurled its carefully rounded stone. A moment later it was joined by its twin on the gatehouse roof. Then, twang - slide - thump, twang - slide - thump: all the artillery along the western battlements joined in. For a couple of seconds the northerner admired the geometry of it all - the fixed line of the wall, the moving triangle of missiles all converging on the fixed point of the man on the white horse.

The rider in fur next to Shapur was plucked from his horse. Arms wide, the empty sleeves of his coat flapping, the man looked like a large six-limbed insect as the bolt threw him backwards. Towards the rear of the entourage two, maybe three horses and riders went down as a stone reduced them to a bloody shambles.

After the strike there was a shocked near-silence. Only muted sounds could be heard: the click of ratchets, the groan of wood and sinew under gathering pressure, and the grunting of men working frantically. The near-peace was broken by a rising roar of outrage from the horror-struck Sassanid horde.

Shapur took both sides by surprise. Putting spurs to his mount, he kicked it into a gallop straight ahead. Thundering towards the Palmyrene Gate, he pulled his bow from its case, took an arrow from his quiver and notched it. About 150 paces from the gate he skidded to a halt, drew and released the arrow.

Ballista watched its flight. With a superstitious dread he felt that it was coming straight for him. As they always do, it seemed to gain pace as it grew nearer. It fell just short and to the right of the northerner, clattering off the stone of the wall.

Shapur’s mouth was moving. He was yelling his outrage, his anger, but the words could not be made out on the wall. Two horsemen drew up on either side of the king. They were shouting. One went so far as to try to grab his reins. Shapur used his bow as a whip to knock the hands aside. The white horse was spun around and, with a shake of his fist, the King of Kings was racing back towards safety.

Twang - slide - thump: the artillery pieces started to speak again. At this distance, against a fast-moving target, Ballista knew there was next to no chance of a projectile finding its mark.

Back in safety, Shapur could be seen riding along the front of the line haranguing his men. They began to chant: ‘Sha-pur, Sha-pur.’ Along the walls of Arete spread a counter chant: ‘Ball-is-ta, Ball-is-ta.’

The Dux
Ripae
took off his helmet. The south wind caught his long fair hair and blew it out behind him. He waved to his men. ‘Ball-is-ta, Ball-is-ta.’