Parthian Vengeance (64 page)

She sneered at him and then stomped off. I made to follow her but Vehrka grabbed my shirt.

‘I have two more young daughters, very fertile, should you wish for a new queen.’

‘A most generous offer, lord, but I could never leave my queen.’

‘Women are put on the earth to bear children, nothing more. When they can no longer do that then they become worthless. Think on my offer and visit my camp some time. It would be a great honour for one of my daughters to bear the sons of a famous warlord such as yourself.’

He looked at Gallia walking away from us.

‘But come alone next time.’

After Malik’s departure we too left Palmyra and headed back to Dura, and a month later we were in Babylon for the wedding of Orodes and Axsen. Gallia was very happy during this time as the marriage meant that she could be with Praxima and the rest of the surviving Amazons once more. Viper had risen to be Gallia’s second-in-command now, a position that never failed to amuse me, as she still resembled a teenage girl with her small breasts and lithe figure. She rarely heard from Surena, none of us did, but both Vata and Atrax sent me frequent messages that they had regularly supplied his men in Gordyene so at least he was still alive. He had been in the kingdom for nearly a year now and I was considering recalling him; after all, twelve months was long enough for a husband to be separated from his wife, and Gallia did not wish Viper to go to Gordyene and live like ‘a beggar among a bunch of thieves’ as she so eloquently put it. But all that could wait until after the wedding.

I was delighted to discover that the city of Babylon had been transformed since the last time I visited it. The refugees had been persuaded or coerced to return to their villages and the streets and buildings had been cleaned and repaired. The stench that had hung over the buildings had also disappeared and the spring melt waters of the Euphrates had washed away much of the debris that had clogged the river. The area around the city where the armies had conducted the two recent sieges was still largely flat and barren, but at least the replanting of crops and trees had begun. In addition, both my father and Nergal had sent additional troops to Axsen’s kingdom to strengthen its garrisons. Seleucia was still occupied by the soldiers of Mithridates and pointed like a dagger at Babylon but there was nothing that could be done about that at the moment. However, Mardonius reported that there had been no hostile activity along the Tigris.

I met with him, Orodes and Nergal one morning when the old commander took us on a tour of the city’s defences. Like most Parthian kingdoms Babylon had a city garrison comprising spearmen and archers, though Mardonius also commanded a large detachment of slingers. The spearmen who guarded the walls and gates of the city were dressed in purple trousers, purple tunics that covered their arms and ended just above their knees and wore turbans on their heads. They carried wicker shields, six-foot-long spears and long knives. Adequate for defending Babylon’s high walls that were protected by a deep moat, they were poor battlefield troops. Still, they had defeated two sieges so I commended the commander of the Marduk Gate when we encountered him. It was the same officer I had met following the second siege. He had looked gaunt and tired then but now he was well fed and full of energy and showed off his men to me enthusiastically. All their spears had whetted points and their uniforms were spotless.

‘The soldiers of the garrison appear reinvigorated,’ I said to Mardonius, who was now walking with the aid of a stick. Out of politeness I did not inquire if it was the result of a wound or old age.

‘We have the arrival of Prince Orodes to thank for that,’ he smiled at Orodes.

‘You are too kind,’ replied Orodes. ‘I have merely assisted when I can.’

‘Word is,’ said Nergal, ‘that the lords in Susiana and in the kingdoms in the east of the empire are unhappy with Mithridates and his lord high general. They have lost many sons and subjects these past two years.’

‘So has Babylon,’ remarked Mardonius grimly.

All of us present knew that a third invasion of Babylon would probably finish the kingdom for good. Though the Silk Road ran from Seleucia through the Kingdom of Babylon the dues raised from the caravans were insufficient to pay for the rebuilding of Axsen’s realm. The only way that would be possible was to capture the royal treasury at Ctesiphon, and that meant in turn taking Seleucia first, which meant plunging the empire into a fresh war.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘at least Babylon has Mesenian and Hatran troops on its territory to reinforce its own army.’

I had sent Marcus and a contingent of engineers to Babylon at the turn of the year to assist in the rebuilding of the irrigation systems that had been damaged during the last siege. The next day I found him standing on the edge of one of the many canals that emanated from the Euphrates. He looked like a vagrant dressed in his wide-brimmed floppy hat and dirty tunic. He was surrounded by a score of workers carrying spades and picks. I waited until he had finished briefing them and then walked over when they had dispersed.

‘You look like a poor farmer, Marcus.’

He raised his arm in salute after the Roman fashion. ‘Yes, sir, though master dredger would be a more accurate description.’

He took off his hat and wiped his crown with a cloth for it was a hot day.

‘How is it going?’

‘Slowly. The damage done to the irrigation system can be repaired easily enough, but some of these canals are over a thousand years old so people tell me. The farmers and villages cannot hope to maintain such an old system efficiently. I have suggested to the queen that she establish an irrigation corps to maintain the whole system.’

He pointed at the river and then moved his arm to encompass the surrounding countryside.

‘Weirs and diversion dams are what we need to create reservoirs to supply canals that can carry water far into the countryside. That and a small army of dredgers to prevent the new canals and the old ones from silting up.’

I was impressed. ‘You have been busy.’

‘The queen and Orodes have accepted my ideas. I like her and she’s clever.’

‘In what way?’

‘To build a new irrigation system and raise the manpower to maintain it on a permanent basis will be expensive, so she approached her high priest.’

‘Nabu?’

‘Yes, that’s him,’ he replied. ‘Face like a caravan dog chewing a wasp. Anyway, he has agreed to fund the project from the temple treasury.’

I thought that highly unlikely. ‘He has?’

‘Of course, more irrigation means more crops, which means more tribute for his temple. These religious types are all the same: as long as their temples are full of worshippers paying tribute they are happy enough.’

Nabu appeared to be positively beaming during the time preceding Axsen’s marriage to Orodes. The city was a blaze of colour with painted statues of horned bulls along the Processional Way, purple flags flying from the temples and palace, and a great stream of people flocking to his temple to offer their gifts to Marduk. In the days before the ceremony the huge palace compound was filled by the arrival of other kings and their retinues. My mother and father arrived with Gafarn and Diana, plus Diana’s young son and the boy Spartacus. Vistaspa and my father’s bodyguard camped outside the city, as did the retinues of Atrax, Aschek and Nergal. I think Axsen found it all a bit overwhelming but Orodes was the perfect host, welcoming the kings and their wives and making time for all of them.

The day before the wedding my father invited Gallia and me to a family meeting in a wing of the palace that had been set aside for him. It was the first time in years that my sisters and I had been all together in one place. Adeleh was still smiling as she hugged Gallia and then me, happy in the knowledge that the next wedding she would be attending would be her own. Aliyeh, now Queen of Media, was polite, aloof, serious and icy in equal measure in contrast to her husband who was gracious and friendly. Aliyeh blamed me for the fact that her husband walked with a limp and thought me a bad influence on him. Gallia also knew what Aliyeh thought of me and the greeting between the two was uncomfortable to say the least. After their curt embrace, Gallia threw her arms around Diana.

We sat on couches as slaves served us wine and food and we smiled politely at each other. After a while, though, the atmosphere became oppressive.

‘This is nice,’ said my mother, trying to lighten the mood as Gallia and Aliyeh stared unblinking at each other.

‘How are the Armenians, father?’ I asked.

‘Quiet, thanks be to Shamash.’

‘We should have settled affairs with them last year, then they would be even quieter.’

‘We do not need more war, Pacorus,’ said Aliyeh. ‘Media needs peace to repair the damage visited upon it last year, which also claimed the life of its king.’

‘Of course, I meant no offence, Atrax,’ I said. ‘We all grieve for your father.’

My father nodded gravely and my mother wiped away a tear. They had been good friends of Farhad. My father looked at me.

‘Hatra has been hearing stories from Gordyene, of an undeclared war being fought within its borders. Do you know anything of this, Pacorus?’

I felt distinctly uncomfortable. He obviously knew something, but how much?

‘Gordyene is Armenian,’ I replied evasively.

My father smiled knowingly. ‘Then let me ask you another question. Do you know of a man named Surena, who appears to share the same name as one of your commanders that accompanied you to Hatra last year?’

I saw Atrax blush and shift uncomfortably. My father looked at him and then at me. I felt my cheeks burning.

‘I see that you do. You play a dangerous game, Pacorus, and were it not for the fact that you aided me last year I would order you to recall this adventurer, this bandit, who fights on my eastern border. Hatra wants no war with the Armenians.’

‘And neither does Media,’ added Aliyeh, speaking for Atrax and out of turn.

Gordyene lay to the north of Media, just across the Shahar Chay River.

‘If the Armenians are occupied in Gordyene they will not trouble Hatra or Media,’ I answered.

‘Do you not think that you should have consulted Hatra and Media before you launched your private war, and Atropaiene for that matter?’

‘I quite agree,’ added Aliyeh.

‘Be quite, Aliyeh,’ snapped Atrax.

‘Can we all try to be civilised?’ implored my mother. ‘This is the first time we have all been together in an age. I will have no more talk of war, Varaz, and that goes for you too, Pacorus.’

So we sat picking at sweet cakes and pastries and indulging in polite conversation about children, weddings and the weather, all the time Aliyeh glaring at me, Gallia glaring at her and my father regarding me with suspicious eyes.

The wedding was an altogether more enjoyable affair, the streets full of cheering and happy people and Babylon’s finest attired in bright colours and dripping with gold and silver jewellery. The road from the palace to the Marduk Temple was carpeted with flowers and garlands and on either side had been placed silver altars heaped with perfumes. Cages on wooden plinths held leopard and lions, which roared with anger as small children with sticks tried to poke them. We walked from the palace to the temple, the crowds being kept at bay by ranks of purple-clad spearmen who lined the route. The sun shone in a clear-blue sky and white doves released by the sensual followers of Ishtar flew over us as we followed the royal couple to the temple.

Axsen and Orodes both wore long purple robes as they led the procession, Nabu walking a few paces in front of them, a great white and gold mitre on his head and jewels entwined in his beard. Axsen had strips of gold in her hair and gold on her fingers, but both she and Orodes walked barefoot to the temple on a strip of rose petals that had been painstakingly laid out earlier by a host of palace slaves. The bride and bridegroom each wore a gold necklace with pendants of amethyst to protect against nightmares, thieves, hail, locusts, plagues and infidelity; red coral to ward off evil; and rubies to safeguard them against evil and the dangers of storms and floods.

I walked with Gallia, Praxima, Nergal, Gafarn and Diana. It was good to be in the company of old friends and I felt relaxed and happy. Though our time in Italy seemed like yesterday we had all aged to a lesser or greater degree, me most of all I think. Gafarn’s thin frame had padded out somewhat since he had been my slave, too many palace feasts no doubt, though he certainly looked more regal with his neatly cropped beard. Diana looked remarkably similar to when I had first met her on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius and had effortlessly slipped into the lifestyle of a Parthian princess. Ahead of us my father and mother were walking with Atrax, Aliyeh and Adeleh, the young Spartacus ambling along with them, his long black hair around his broad shoulders.

‘I can see his mother in him,’ said Gallia.

‘That is what I tell everyone,’ agreed Diana, ‘but Gafarn only sees his father’s frame.’

‘It’s hard to miss,’ I added. ‘He must be as tall as I am now. How old is he now, thirteen?’

‘He will begin his training as a squire in our father’s bodyguard next year,’ said Gafarn. ‘Four years after that he will be a cataphract. Diana and I have great hopes for him.’

‘You think he will make a good soldier?’ I asked.

‘He is his father’s son,’ replied Gafarn. ‘He does not take to discipline readily, but if he can cure his headstrong nature he will make an excellent soldier.’