Fire in the East (60 page)

Odenaethus:
Septimius Odenaethus, Lord of Palmyra/Tadmor, a client ruler of the Roman empire.

Ogelos:
A
synodiarch
(caravan protector) and councillor of Arete.

Otes:
A councillor of Arete, a eunuch.

Philip the Arab:
Marcus Iulius Philippus, Praetorian Prefect under Gordian III, became Roman Emperor AD244-249.

Priscus (1)
:
Optio,
second-in-command, of the
trireme Concordia.

Priscus (2):
Gaius Iulius Priscus, brother of Philip the Arab.

Prosper:
Gaius Licinius Prosper, a young
optio
serving in Legio IIII.

Pudens (1)
: Centurion of Cohors II of Legio IIII.

Pudens (2)
: A lumpen Macedonian soldier who ends up as standard-bearer to Ballista.

Romulus: A trooper of Cohors XX appointed standard-bearer to Ballista.

Sampsigeramus:
King of the Roman client kingdom of Emesa and high priest of Elagabalus.

Sasan:
Prince, ‘the hunter’, a son of Shapur.

Scribonius Mucianus:
Gaius Scribonius Mucianus, Tribune commanding Cohors XX.

Seleucus:
Pilus Prior, First Centurion, of Cohors II of Legio IIII.

Sertorius:
Nickname given to a
frumentarius
from the Iberian peninsular, serving as a scribe on the staff of Ballista.

Shapur I:
(or Sapor) Second Sassanid King of Kings, son of Ardashir I.

Suren:
A Parthian nobleman, the head of the house of Suren, vassal of Shapur.

Theodotus:
A councillor of Arete, a Christian priest.

Turpio:
Titus Flavius Turpio, Pilus Prior, First Centurion, of Cohors XX.

Uranius Antoninus:
Lucius Iulius Aurelius Uranius Antoninus, from Emesa, pretender to the Roman throne AD253-254.

Valash:
Prince, ‘the joy of Shapur’, a son of Shapur.

Valerian (1)
: Publius Licinius Valerianus, an elderly Italian senator elevated to Roman emperor in AD253.

Valerian (2)
: Publius Cornelius Licinius Valerianus, eldest son of Gallienus, grandson of Valerian, made Caesar in AD256.

Vardan:
A captain serving under the Lord Suren.

Verodes:
Chief minister to Odenaethus.

Vindex:
A trooper in the
equites singulares
of Ballista, a Gaul.

Zenobia:
Wife of Odenaethus of Palmyra.

 

 

 

Read on for a taster of the next instalment in the
Warrior of Rome
series

They were riding for their lives. The first day in the desert they had pushed hard, but always within their horses’ limits. Completely alone, there had been no sign of pursuit. That evening in camp among the muted, tired conversations there had been a fragile mood of optimism. It was smashed beyond recall in the morning.

As they crested a slight ridge Ballista pulled his horse to one side off the rough track and let the other thirteen riders and one pack horse pass. He looked back the way they had come. The sun was not up yet, but its beams were beginning to chase away the dark of the night. And there at the centre of the spreading semi-circle of numinous yellow light, just at the point where in a few moments the sun would break the horizon was a column of dust.

Ballista studied it intensely. The column was dense and isolated. It rose straight and tall, until a breeze in the upper air pulled it away to the south and dissipated it. In the flat, featureless desert it is always difficult to judge distances. Four or five miles away, too far to see what was causing it. But Ballista knew. It was a troop of men. Out here in the deep desert it had to be a troop of mounted men; horses or camels, or both. Again, the distance was too great to make an accurate estimate of the numbers, but to kick up that amount of dust there had to be four or five times as many as rode with Ballista. That the column of dust did not incline to left or right but seemed to rise up completely straight showed that they were following. With a hollow feeling Ballista accepted it for what it was - the enemy was chasing them, a large body of Sassanid Persian cavalry were on their trail.

Looking round Ballista realized that those with him had stopped. Their attention was divided between him and the dust cloud. Ballista pushed them out of his thoughts. He scanned through 360 degrees. Open, slightly undulating desert. Sand with a thick scattering of small and sharp, dun-coloured rocks. Enough to hide a myriad scorpions and snakes, nothing to hide a man, let alone fourteen riders and fifteen horses.

Ballista turned and walked his mount to the two Arabs in the centre of the line.

‘Riding hard, how long will it take to reach the mountains?’

‘Two days,’ the girl replied without hesitation. Bathshiba was the daughter of a caravan protector. She had travelled the route before with her late father. Ballista trusted her judgement but he glanced at the other Arab.

‘Today and tomorrow,’ Haddudad, the mercenary, said.

With a jingle of horse furniture, Turpio, the sole surviving Roman officer, reined in next to them.

‘Two days to the mountains?’ Ballista asked.

Turpio shrugged eloquently. ‘The horses, the enemy and the gods willing.’

Ballista nodded. He raised himself up using the front and rear horns of the saddle. He looked both ways along the line. He had their undivided attention.

‘The reptiles are after us. There are a lot of them. But there is no reason to think they can catch us. They are five miles or more behind. Two days and we are safe in the mountains.’ Ballista felt, as much as saw, the unspoken objections of Turpio and the two Arabs. He stopped them with a cold glance. ‘Two days and we are safe,’ he repeated. He looked up and down the line. No one else said anything.

With studied calm Ballista walked his horse slowly to the head of the line. He raised his hand and signalled them to ride on. They moved easily into a canter.

Behind them the sun rose over the horizon. Every slight rise in the desert was gilded, every tiny depression a pool of inky black. As they rode their shadows flickered far out in front as if in a futile attempt to outrun them.

The small column had not gone far when a bad thing happened. There was a shout, abruptly cut off, then a terrible crash. Ballista swung round in the saddle. A trooper and his mount were down; a thrashing, tangle of limbs and equipment. The man rolled to one side. The horse came to a halt. The soldier pulled himself on to his hands and knees, still holding his head. The horse tried to rise. It fell back with an almost human cry of pain. Its near fore leg was broken.

Forcing himself not to check the dust cloud of their pursuers, Ballista rattled out some orders. He jumped down from his mount. When endurance is at issue it is vital to take the weight off your horse’s back at every opportunity. Maximus, Ballista’s slave-bodyguard, tenderly coaxed the horse to its feet. He talked to it softly in the language of his native Hibernia as he unsaddled it and led it off the path. It went with him trustingly, hopping pathetically on its three sound legs.

Ballista turned his eyes away to where his body servant Calgacus was removing the load from the one packhorse. Peevishly, the elderly Caledonian slave redistributed as much of the provisions as he could among the riders. Muttering under his breath he placed what could not be accommodated in a neat pile. He regarded it, measuring it for a moment, then pulled up his tunic, pushed down his trousers, and urinated copiously all over the abandoned foodstuffs. ‘I hope the Sassanid fuckers enjoy it,’ he announced. Despite their extreme fatigue and fear, or maybe because of it, several men laughed.

Maximus walked back, looking clean and composed. He picked up the military saddle and slung it over the back of the packhorse, carefully tightening the girths.

Ballista went over to the fallen trooper. He was sitting up. The slave boy Demetrius was mopping a cut on the man’s forehead. Ballista began to wonder if his young Greek secretary would have been so solicitous if the soldier had not been so good looking, before, annoyed with himself, he closed that line of thought. Together Ballista and Demetrius got the trooper back on his feet -
Really, I am fine -
then up on to the former packhorse.

Ballista and the others remounted. This time he could not resist looking for the enemy’s dust cloud. It was appreciably closer. Ballista made the signal and they moved out past where the cavalry horse lay. On top of the spreading pool of dark red arterial blood was a foam of light pink caused by the animal’s desperate attempts to breath through a severed windpipe.

For the most part they cantered, a fast, ground-covering canter. When the horses were blown, Ballista would call out an order and they would dismount, give their mounts a drink, not too much, and let them have a handful of food, bread soaked in watered wine. Then they would walk, leading rein in hand, until the horses had something of their wind back and the riders could climb wearily back into the saddle. With endless repetition the day wore on. They were travelling as fast as they could, pushing the horses to the edge of their stamina, at constant risk of fatigue-induced accident. Yet every time they looked the dust of their unseen enemy was a little closer.

During one of the spells on foot, Bathshiba walked her horse up alongside Ballista. He was unsurprised when Haddudad appeared on his other side. The Arab mercenary’s face was inscrutable.
Jealous bastard,
thought Ballista.

They walked in silence for a time. Ballista looked over at Bathshiba. There was dust in her long, black hair, dust smudged across her high cheekbones. Out of the corner of his eye Ballista watched her moving, watched her breasts moving. They were obviously unconstrained under the man’s tunic she wore. He found himself thinking about the one time he had seen them: the rounded olive skin, the dark nipples. Allfather, I must be losing my grip, Ballista thought. We are being chased for our lives through this hellish desert, and all I am thinking about are this girl’s tits. But Allfather, Fulfiller of Desire, what fine tits they were.

‘Sorry, what was that?’ Ballista realized she had been talking to him.

‘I said - Why did you lie to your men?’ Bathsiba’s voice was pitched low. Above the rattle of equipment, the heavy footfalls and laboured breathing of men and horses, she could not be heard beyond the three of them. ‘You have travelled this way before. You know we will not be safe when we reach the mountains. There is only one path through the high country. We could not be easier to follow if we were unrolling a thread behind us.’

‘Sometimes a lie can cause the truth.’ Ballista grinned. He felt oddly light headed. ‘Ariadne gave Theseus the ball of string to find his way out of the labyrinth when he went in to kill the Minotaur. He promised he would marry her. But he abandoned her on the island of Naxos. If he had not lied Ariadne would not have married the god Dionysus, Theseus would not have had a son called Hippolytus, and Euripides could not have written the tragedy of that name.’

Neither Bathshiba or Haddudad spoke. They were both looking at him strangely. Ballista sighed and started to explain. ‘If I had told them the truth - that the Persians may well catch and kill us before the mountains, and even if we get that far they will probably kill us anyway - they might have given up and that would have been the end of things. I gave them some hope to work towards. And who knows, if we get to the mountains we might make our own safety there.’

Ballista looked closely at Haddudad. ‘I remember the road passes through several ravines.’ The mercenary merely nodded. ‘Are any of them suitable for an ambush?’

Haddudad took his time replying. Neither Ballista or Bathshiba spoke. The Arab mercenary had served her father for a long time. They knew he was a man whose judgement was worth having.

‘The Horns of Ammon, not far into the mountains - a good killing ground.’

Ballista signalled it was time to remount. As he hauled his tired frame into the saddle, he leaned over and spoke quietly to Haddudad. ‘Tell me just before we reach the Horns of Ammon - if we get that far.’

Night falls fast in the desert. One moment the sun is high in the sky, the next it is dipping out of sight. Suddenly one’s companions become black silhouettes and the dark comes crowding down. The moon was not up yet, and, even if the horses had not been fit to drop, it was not thought safe to continue by starlight.

Just off the track they made camp in near total darkness. By Ballista’s order there were only three shuttered lanterns lit. They were positioned to face west, away from the pursuers, and when the horses were settled they were to be extinguished. Ballista rubbed down his mount, whispering quiet, meaningless endearments in the grey gelding’s ears. He had bought Pale Horse in Antioch the year before. The gelding had served him well. He was very fond of the big-hearted animal. The smell of hot horse, as good to Ballista as the scent of grass after rain, and the feel of the powerful muscles under its smooth coat soothed him.

‘Dominus.’
The voice of a trooper leading up his mount broke Ballista’s reverie. The soldier said nothing else. There was no need. The man’s horse was as lame as a cat. As they so often did when needed, Maximus and Calgacus appeared out of the dark. Without words the elderly Caledonian took over seeing to Pale Horse and the bodyguard joined Ballista in checking the other horse. They walked it round, made it trot and inspected its feet. It was hopeless. It could go no further. With a small jerk of his chin Ballista indicated to Maximus to lead it away.

The trooper held himself very still, waiting. Only his eyes betrayed his fear.