Parthian Vengeance (33 page)

During the morning I received an invitation from Princess Axsen to attend her at her palace in Babylon and at noon rode with Gallia and Orodes and an escort of a hundred Babylonian horse archers to the city.

The signs of the previous day’s battle were all around as we rode to the city. The area in front of the Ishtar Gate and east of the city was filled with carts being piled high with the slain for transportation to great funeral pyres that were already roasting dead flesh. The sickly sweet smell of burning carcasses entered my nostrils and made me feel nauseous. I saw slain horses being hauled by their legs towards the raging fires and soldiers with fishhooks pulling bodies from the city’s moat. The buzzing of a plague of flies added to the horror of the scene as we trotted over the wooden bridge that spanned the moat and entered Babylon via the Ishtar Gate.

The gate itself, now over five hundred years old, was a most wondrous thing. More than forty feet high, it was made of bricks fronted with a copper turquoise glaze alternating with unglazed bricks covered with gold leaf. Either side of the arch itself were base reliefs of animals – lions, the symbol of the goddess Ishtar, horned bulls –
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– and dragons, the symbols of the god Marduk, the deity whose city this was. There appeared to be no damage to the gate itself or the surrounding walls, which suggested that either Narses intended to starve the city into surrender or he had attempted an assault against another sector of the walls.

We rode through the gate and onto a paved road that the commander of our escort informed me was called the Processional Way. In the centre of the road were laid great limestone flagstones, either side of them smaller red flagstones. The way itself was lined with the statues of one hundred and twenty lions made from glazed bricks.

We turned off the road when we reached the gates to the royal palace and entered the huge compound, which was surrounded by a wall of great height and strength with guard towers positioned along its circumference every fifty paces. We rode into a great paved square surrounded on two sides by barracks and stables. The large gatehouse behind us filled another side and a second gatehouse occupied the fourth side. We made our way across the square and through the second gatehouse to reach a second square that fronted the palace.

The palace guard stood to attention on the square to receive us, at least five hundred purple-dressed warriors armed with thrusting spears, wearing bronze helmets and carrying round wooden shields faced with bronze and bearing Vardan’s
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symbol. We dismounted and Mardonius walked over and bowed his head to all three of us as slaves took our horses to the stables.

‘Greetings King Pacorus, Queen Gallia and Prince Orodes,’ he said formally. ‘Princess Axsen awaits you in the palace. If your majesties would follow me.’

He strode purposefully in front as a guard of honour fell in behind us and we walked to the steps of the royal palace. There, standing at the top of the steps at the entrance to the palace, stood Axsen. About my age and shorter than me, she had always been a sturdy girl having inherited the physical characteristics of her father. Usually of a cheerful disposition, she mostly wore her long brown hair in two plaits. Today, though, she wore it free with black ribbons tied in it. Her round face was full of sorrow and her brown eyes were puffy from weeping over the death of her father. She looked like a lost and lonely child despite being surrounded by priests, slaves and her father’s commanders and advisers. My heart went out to her. Ignoring all protocol and royal etiquette, Gallia raced up the steps and threw her arms round her friend. The tall severe-looking priests, sporting thick, long black beards and adorned in red robes, frowned and mumbled disapprovingly among themselves, but Axsen hugged her friend and thanked her for her show of affection.

I bowed my head to Babylon’s princess, then stepped forward and embraced her.

‘I am truly sorry for your loss, lady.’

She managed a thin smile. ‘Thank you, Pacorus, your presence here is most welcome.’

Her voice was faltering and I could tell that she was having difficulty maintaining her royal composure. Alas, she had no husband or siblings with whom to share the burden of grief, only a multitude of servants and subjects.

Orodes stepped forward and went down on one knee before her. It was the first time that they had met.

‘Dear lady, I am but an impoverished prince and yet I pledge my sword to your service in honour of your father, a valiant and great king who has been taken from the world too early.’

They were fine words well spoken and touched Axsen, who extended her hand to Orodes so that he could kiss it. She stepped forward and gently lifted him to his feet.

‘Thank you, Prince Orodes. I have heard of your charm and great courage. Babylon is honoured to receive you.’

My father arrived with Gafarn moments later and behind them Nergal and Praxima. Like Gallia the wife of Nergal dispensed with royal protocol and embraced her friend warmly, again to the consternation of the assembled priests and advisers.

The palace’s throne room was vast, the intricately painted ceiling depicting the stars and moon and supported by a dozen thick stone pillars. The central dais on which two gold-inlaid thrones stood was fashioned from smooth slabs of sandstone and
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banners hung on the walls behind it. Sunlight flooded the room from square windows cut high in the walls and fires burned on great metal dishes on stands for the chamber was cool despite the bright sunshine outside. Guards stood at every pillar and around the dais.

Axsen led us across the throne room to a small antechamber behind the dais, guards opening the plain wooden doors to allow their princess and her guests to enter. The room was airy and bright, the walls painted white and the interior furnished with plush white couches piled with cushions. Axsen sat in a great cushioned chair and bade us sit on the couches opposite her. Mardonius stood on her right side. A stern-looking priest with a black beard stood on her left side. Next to him was a woman with a very low-cut white gown and bare arms adorned with gold jewellery.

Slaves bought us fine wine to drink and fruit, honey cakes and pastries to eat. The slats in the windows had been opened fully to allow air to enter as the doors to the room were closed. Axsen waved away a slave who offered her wine.

‘My friends,’ she said, ‘I thank you all for being here, especially you, King Varaz, whose army is the mightiest in the Parthian Empire.’

My father bowed his head to her.

‘I am only sorry that we should meet in such unhappy circumstances. Be assured that Hatra is first among the allies of Babylon.’

Axsen smiled and I saw a look of relief appear on Mardonius’ face.

‘Lord Mardonius you all already know,’ said Axsen, then gesturing to the priest and woman standing near her. ‘These are my father’s other chief advisers, who now serve me. Nabu, high priest of the Temple of Marduk, and Afrand, high priestess of the Temple of Ishtar.’

The pair bowed their heads to us as Axsen nodded to Mardonius.

‘Thank you, highness,’ he began. ‘We have made a tally of the losses suffered before the city yesterday. We have counted eight thousand enemy dead and two thousand Babylonians slain. Of our valiant allies, I believe that the losses of Hatra, Dura and Mesene are light in comparison.’

‘Two hundred dead,’ reported Nergal.

‘Seven hundred dead,’ remarked my father grimly, ‘most of them suffered when Narses attacked with his reserves.’

‘Most of my losses were suffered in the same way,’ I added. ‘What news of Narses?’

‘We received reports earlier that he and his forces had left Kish and are now falling back on Jem det Nasr,’ replied Mardonius.

The latter place was a small town near the Tigris.

‘Most likely,’ continued Mardonius, ‘he will retreat back over the Tigris.’

My father looked at me, no doubt thinking that I would urge a pursuit of Narses, but I said nothing. For one thing the funeral of Vardan had to take place first, and then Axsen would have to be made queen of Babylon. So I stayed silent.

‘Babylon has suffered grievously at the hands of Narses and Mithridates,’ said Axsen. ‘Many villages have been destroyed and their inhabitants killed or carried off into slavery. In addition, irrigation systems have been destroyed and livestock slaughtered. It will take many months before the kingdom returns to normal. Therefore I have no alternative but to seek to make peace with Mithridates. I am sorry, Pacorus.’

I smiled at her. What else could she do? Babylon had lost thousands of its citizens as well as its king, and Babylon also bordered Susiana.

‘You follow the course of wisdom,’ I replied. ‘It would be foolish to impoverish your kingdom further.’

Mardonius closed his eyes with relief and my father nodded approvingly. Mithridates and Narses would have to wait, though how I would be able strike against them now was beyond me. I toyed with my drinking cup, a delicate silver vessel inlaid with gold. If only Vardan had used his wealth to raise a larger army then perhaps he would not be lying in his private chambers being washed and prepared for his funeral. In the silence I thought I could hear the gods mocking me.

The next day dawned crystal clear and windless, the vivid blue of the sky a fitting backdrop to Vardan’s funeral. The whole of the city, which also contained the refugees from the countryside, turned out to see their king’s last journey on earth. He had ruled them for nearly forty years, most of them alone as his wife had died giving birth to Axsen. We slept in the palace the night before the funeral but I spent most of the night on the bedroom balcony staring across the city at the mirror-like waters of the Euphrates that were illuminated by a full moon.

Earlier in the day I had assembled Spandarat and the rest of the lords and told them to take their men back to Dura. Nearly twenty thousand men and their horses would soon denude the locality of provisions and I did not want to impoverish Axsen’s kingdom any further. My two thousand horse archers went with them. I watched them file out of camp before we visited Axsen: a long line of horses and camels winding its way north. Nergal likewise sent most of his horse archers south back to Uruk and Vistaspa ordered Hatra’s cavalry back to their homeland, he himself staying with my father’s bodyguard that had suffered no losses during the recent battle. Indeed, I heard that even in the fight with Narses’ reserve at the Ishtar Gate they had formed a cordon round my father but had even then seen no fighting. The Babylonians and Hatra’s other cataphracts were between them and Narses’ men.

‘What’s the matter? It’s late, come to bed.’ Gallia shook me out of my daydreaming.

‘I cannot sleep,’ I answered. ‘It’s all my fault.’

She sat down in the chair beside me.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Gotarzes, Vardan. They are dead because of me. If I had not made an enemy of Mithridates and Narses they would still be alive.’

She regarded me with narrowed eyes. ‘Do you really believe that? That if you had grovelled at their feet that Phraates would not now be dead, or Gotarzes for that matter?’

‘Vardan came to my aid and the price he paid was his own life,’ I said.

‘Oh, Pacorus. He aided you of his own free will, just as your father did.’

I was not to be consoled, though. ‘Dobbai was right. I underestimated them and Babylon has paid a heavy price.’

She laid a hand on my arm. ‘You cannot take on the troubles of the whole world and nor can you give up and allow Mithridates and Narses to win.’

I rose and kissed her on the forehead. ‘What would I do without you?’

‘Get yourself killed in battle. Now come to bed.’

But I slept little and my heart was heavy the next day as we accompanied Axsen and her priests, advisers, commanders, courtiers, aristocrats and their wives to Vardan’s funeral. My education as a prince had acquainted me with the rituals and religious beliefs of the different kingdoms in the empire. I knew, for example, that to Babylonians proper funerals were important to prevent the disgruntled dead from returning from the afterlife to haunt their relatives.

The great funeral procession began its journey in the royal palace and then headed for the Temple of Marduk in the centre of the city. Guards lined the route to keep back the multitude of wailing and weeping citizens who threw flowers at the coffin resting on a four-wheeled cart pulled by four black bulls whose horns were covered in gold leaf. A soldier of the palace guard led each animal by a gold chain attached to the bull’s nose ring. Even their tails were adorned with gold. These beasts would later be slaughtered to accompany Vardan on his journey into the afterlife.

Immediately behind the cart walked Axsen and behind her Mardonius and her senior advisers. After them came the visiting royal guests. I walked beside Gafarn, my adopted brother who had once been my slave but who now was a prince of the empire.

‘By the way,’ he said to me in a hushed voice, ‘I meant to tell you that Vata is to marry your sister.’

I had always thought that my younger sister, Adeleh, would end her days as a spinster. Happy and carefree, she had been pursued by a number of sons of Hatra’s richest aristocrats but had always declined their offers of marriage.

I was shocked. ‘I had no idea.’

Vata was my childhood friend and was the son of Bozan, formerly the commander-in-chief of my father’s army. He had led the expedition into Cappadocia that had resulted in his death and my transportation to Italy. Now Vata held the north of my father’s kingdom against external threats.

‘He visits Hatra often,’ said Gafarn, ‘and Diana always arranged that he and Adeleh would see each other when he did. She said they were both lonely souls and should be together. So she insisted that they both eat with us at every opportunity. You can only imagine the amount of food I had to consume to encourage their friendship to turn into love.’

‘It must have been torture for you,’ I grinned.

On this sombre day to receive such news was welcome indeed.

Behind us came Babylon’s aristocrats and their wives, the women wearing brightly coloured robes and headdresses inlaid with lapis lazuli, silver and gold. Many of them also wore bell-shaped amulets to ward off evil spirits. A small army of musicians accompanying us played harps and lyres and sang songs about Vardan and his greatness.