Parthian Dawn (63 page)

‘I will leave sufficient soldiers behind to act as a guard for the treasure, but it is imperative that it gets to my father’s city. You are one of the few who know about the city’s evacuation and you must not tell anyone else.’

He was delighted that I had entrusted so big a secret to him, though perturbed about what it meant for his precious treasure.

‘But, majesty, I, you, have a great deal of gold and silver stored here, and if word got out that it is being moved.’

‘That is why it must remain a secret, Rsan. Tell no one, not even your most trusted official. On pain of death.’

He went ashen faced, but then recovered when I laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Just keep it to yourself and liaise with Godarz, who also knows of my plan.’

Domitus came in unannounced and threw his helmet on Rsan’s table. ‘You need to keep that bitch under control.’

Rsan frowned at such rude behaviour but said nothing. He knew to stay clear of an angry Domitus.

‘What bitch is that?’ I asked.

‘Your sorceress, that’s who.’

‘Dobbai?’

‘Yes, and lucky for her that she has your favour, otherwise I would have slit her throat there and then.’

‘Calm down,’ I said, ‘and tell me what she has done.’

Dobbai usually restricted herself to the Citadel, occasionally going into the city to purchase herbs and spices for her concoctions, usually potions to cure Claudia’s teething problems and other minor ailments or to produce incense that she burned in her private quarters. She had endless arguments with Alcaeus concerning medicine and the treatment of illnesses. Alcaeus accused her of being a charlatan who took advantage of people’s fear and ignorance, while she accused him of being an ill-educated foreigner who had no business telling her about things he did not understand. But now she had commandeered a cart and driver and had visited Domitus’ camp, whereupon she had begun to order the soldiers to stop what they were doing immediately and seek refuge in the city, otherwise the desert sands would bury them. These men were battle-hardened veterans but they knew of Dobbai’s prophecies and her words had spread alarm throughout the camp like wildfire, much to Domitus’ fury.

‘Please go and get her,’ he said to me through gritted teeth, ‘otherwise I swear by Mars that I will cut her head off.’

So I rode from the Citadel to the camp where Domitus had confined Dobbai to his tent and placed her under armed guard. When I arrived she was sitting behind his desk, her hands resting on the polished surface. She leaned back in her chair when she saw me.

‘Where is your Roman pet, son of Hatra?’

‘Your words are not helping, Dobbai, we are preparing to march north.’

She shook her head. ‘You need to get everyone into the city, a storm is coming.’

‘Storm?’

‘I told you,’ she continued, ‘but you chose to ignore me.’

The day was hot and airless, like every other day of late, and the sky cloudless.

‘I have eyes, Dobbai, and the sky has no clouds. There is no wind, so I see no reason to believe that any storm is on its way.’

She rose from her chair and began pacing. ‘You have eyes but cannot see. As for your reason, it is deceiving you.’ She stopped pacing and looked at me, her expression one of almost pleading. ‘Do you trust me, Pacorus?’

A shiver went down my spine. She never called me by my name but she did so now. There was no mockery in her eyes, only a deadly seriousness that made me apprehensive.

‘I trust you.’

‘Then give the order to get everyone into the city. All the buildings must be boarded up and everyone must stay inside. You must give this order today or all will be lost.’

Reason told me that this was idiocy, that to disrupt our plans was foolhardy in the extreme. Yet my instincts screamed at me that it was the right thing to do. So I gave the order.

Domitus was at first enraged by my decision and then dumbfounded, but he carried out my order. I told Nergal to call in all his patrols as thousands of men and horses, and hundreds of carts and wagons filed into the city. The men were billeted in barracks in the city and Citadel, and fortunately there was enough room in the stables to accommodate the horses of the cataphracts, their squires and the horse archers, though it was a squeeze to say the least. But eight thousand foot soldiers could not be housed in the barracks, even with men sleeping on floors, and so they had to be billeted on the city’s citizens. I was thankful that two thousand more were safely housed in the forts that we had built up and down the Euphrates. The citizens grumbled but acquiesced — they had no choice — and the soldiers assisted each household in boarding up and securing the properties. The carts and wagons were stored in the city’s squares and along the sides of roads, and the supplies, spare clothing, tents, weapons and utensils they held were secured in homes, temples, offices and storerooms. Then the carts and wagons were themselves covered over with canvas.

In the Citadel itself soldiers were allocated to any spare rooms and bedded down in the feasting hall, throne room and even in the corridors. The Amazons filled the rooms next to our bedroom, though no one wanted, or dared, to bed down in Dobbai’s room. That night I held a grand meal in the feasting hall, though Domitus sat with a face like thunder and ate next to nothing throughout. He was close to despair, I think, and avoided my gaze all evening. Eventually he slammed his fist on the table and stormed out. I think he believed that I had taken leave of my senses and that we had let any chance of meeting the enemy at the border slip through our fingers. And then the storm struck.

Al-Dabaran
, they call it, ‘The Follower’, one of the great sandstorms that sweep down from the north, caused by a prevailing northwesterly wind that kicks up the fine desert sand and dust and carries them south. Where there had been quiet and no wind, suddenly there was a dark sky as a wall of sand descended on the city, accompanied by a howling noise and a fierce wind, a wind that at first rattled the shutters and doors and then, as it grew in intensity, produced a banging noise at though huge fists were hammering on the shutters and doors, demanding entry.

‘It is the storm demons,’ shouted Dobbai, ‘they wish to enter and spread their desolation.’

For five days the storm raged. Such was its fury that no one could venture outside, with visibility reduced to nothing and skin and clothes running the risk of being sand-blasted after even a few seconds of exposure. On the third day the wind increased in intensity, a ceaseless roaring noise surrounding the Citadel and driving everyone inside to distraction. I thought the roof and doors would be ripped off such was its rage. I saw fear in men’s eyes as the wind and sand assaulted our fortress. Claudia screamed and wailed and people began to pray to their gods. I too prayed to Shamash that He would spare us, or at least my wife and daughter. Even Domitus looked alarmed. No, not alarmed, helpless, something I had not seen in his eyes before. This in turn made me alarmed. Nergal held Praxima close and I held Gallia and Claudia, while Dobbai paced up and down, seemingly oblivious to the terror that was spreading among us. Only one person seemed truly unconcerned, happy even, and that was Surena, who held a pale Viper in his arms, her face buried in his chest. And then, after the fifth day, when our nerves had been frayed to breaking point, when we had despaired of getting solace from the pounding noise that filled our world, the wind stopped. There was suddenly absolute silence. At first I thought that my hearing had given out after the days of howling and roaring, but then Dobbai laid a hand on my arm.

‘It is over, they have returned to the underworld once more.’

We sighed with relief and embraced each other. Some fell to their knees, wept and thanked their gods. Domitus caught the eye of Dobbai and nodded in acknowledgement that she had been right. She nodded back. Then it was back to normality.

Domitus called together his officers and began the task of preparing the march north once more. Men were recalled from the outlying forts. Thanks to Dobbai’s warning the army and its supplies were unharmed, and soon men and materials were moving out of the Palmyrene Gate to assemble once more in camp. Shutters and doors had been pummelled by the storm and some roofs had been torn off, but in general the city was relatively unscathed. Then I remembered the stone griffin statue at the Palmyrene Gate. High and exposed, it would have taken a terrible beating from the sand and dust — if it was still there at all. I rode down to the gate and raced up to the battlements, to find the statue untouched. I ran my hand over its contours. It was as if it had just been carved; there was not a mark on it. How could this be?

It took two days before the army was ready to move. I was still concerned that the Romans had stolen a march on us but Dobbai scoffed at my worries.

‘You think the Romans were able to march through
Al-Dabaran
? They will be in a perilous condition. It will take them many days to recover from the punishment they have received.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘It is of no consequence.’

‘If it is of no consequence,’ I said, ‘then why did you bother to warn me of the storm?’

‘Because I am fond of your wife and daughter, son of Hatra, that is why. If anything happens to you then they will suffer, and I do not wish to see that. And the gods have not yet finished with you, so go and play at being a general.’

Byrd and Malik rode ahead as the army began its march from Dura, the legionaries marching six abreast and Nergal’s horse archers forming a flank guard for the foot, wagons and mules. Domitus, as always on foot, marched at the head of his men in front of the colour party carrying the gold griffin and the standard of victory. I rode at the tip of the army with Gallia and Orodes. Behind us came the standards of Dura and Susiana, and behind them Gallia’s Amazons. The cataphracts, their squires and camels were in the centre of the column, Domitus and his legionaries trailing behind. Nergal also had two hundred horse archers acting as a rearguard. I left five hundred foot and fifty horse archers behind at Dura, plus the Roman engineers that we had captured.

We marched north at a steady pace, covering around fifteen miles a day, and each day our numbers were increased when we linked up with one of Dura’s lords and his retinue. Many of their sons were members of my cataphracts and each day brought a happy reunion of father and son, sons in some cases. Each lord brought at least five hundred horse archers, so that by the time we reached the northern boundary of the kingdom the army totalled over twenty thousand men. How absurdly proud we all were, for we were unvanquished and rated ourselves among the best warriors in the empire. And we all also knew that our numbers were too few to take on the might of Pompey. We travelled under an intense clear blue sky, the army strung out over many miles as it hugged the Euphrates. Camels grumbled and spat, mules brayed and men sweated. Each night we slept in tents in a large camp erected in the Roman fashion, surrounded by a ditch and rampart surmounted by a wooden palisade, and each day it was disassembled ready for its erection on another site at the end of the march. As men spent between three and five hours a day disassembling the camp, Nergal sent his scouting parties far ahead into the surrounding desert, and ahead of them all rode Byrd and Malik.

We kept close to the Euphrates as we passed a mountain called the Jabal Bishri, a massive limestone and sandstone plateau with huge basalt outcrops that some said were fifty miles in length. We halted in the large expanse of land between the Jabal Bishri and the river, in the irrigated strip beside the Euphrates. At first I thought I might anchor one flank of the army on the river itself, as I had done at Dura last year, but Pompey had so many foot soldiers that he would be able to outflank our own legionaries with ease, and then herd them into the river while he fended off our own cavalry. So I decided to fight him inland on the plain, where at least our advantage in horsemen would keep his own cavalry at bay, and where the hard-packed dirt surface made excellent ground for charges and flanking manoeuvres. But eight legions against two was still sobering odds.

This was the furthest extent of Dura’s lands. Further north there were no fields or homes — just flat desert, the Euphrates disappearing into the distance.

On the final day of marching, with the sun beating down on us with relentless savagery, Surena came galloping up to the head of the column. Since the sand storm he had been in a ridiculously happy mood and today was no different. Like all of us he wore only his white baggy shirt and loose leggings and boots, a floppy hat on his head — helmets were carried on our saddles until the fighting began, unless you wanted to roast your brain. Gallia and her Amazons wore wide-brimmed floppy hats to keep the sun off their necks, and they let their hair fall freely about their shoulders. Some, such as Viper, cut their hair short to save them having to plait it when they donned their helmets, but Gallia and Praxima kept their hair long, which I was glad of. But it was Viper who was the topic of conversation today.

Surena halted his horse beside Remus and bowed his head. ‘Lord, I have happy news.’

‘Excellent, Surena. Have the Romans retreated?’

‘No, lord, I don’t know anything about them, but Viper has agreed to see me when we get back to Dura.’

I looked at Gallia on my other side, who rolled her eyes. ‘My congratulations.’

‘I knew I would win her round in the end. Bit of luck that storm blowing up when it did, though’

‘I’m sure the gods arranged it especially so you could woo her, Surena,’ I said.

‘Yes, lord,’ he beamed. ‘I was wondering, lord, if I might have some leave after the battle.’

‘Leave?’ The idea that he might be killed during the next few days had obviously not entered his mind.

‘Yes, lord, so I can take Viper to meet my people.’

I thought of the reed huts of his people, the marshes, the dried dung they used for firewood and the water buffaloes sharing the dry land with the villagers. ‘I’m sure she will enjoy what will be a unique experience. You have my permission. Now kindly rejoin the ranks.’