Fire in the East (28 page)

She shifted on her feet and brought him back to reality.

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘No, I cannot stay long. Even with Haddudad here it would not be good for my reputation.’ There was a naughtiness, a hint of wantonness about her smile that further unsteadied Ballista.

‘Before you go ... there was something I wanted to ask you.’ She waited. ‘I saw a statue in the
agora
the other day.’

‘There are many statues there. Most set up by the grateful inhabitants of the town to celebrate the virtues of caravan protectors like my father.’

‘This one was of Anamu’s father. He was called Agegos.’ She did not speak. ‘The inscription said that Agegos was satrap of Thilouana. The island of Thilouana is in the Persian gulf. It is part of the empire of the Persians. It is ruled by Shapur.’

For a moment Bathshiba looked puzzled, then she laughed a laugh of genuine amusement. ‘Oh, I see what you are thinking. You are wondering how loyal to Rome can a man be whose father was a satrap for the Persians.’ She laughed again. ‘My father will be furious that I have thrown away an opportunity to blacken one of his rivals to the new Dux Ripae ... although he has been strangely pacific recently, even towards them.’ She thought for a moment then continued. ‘It is all perfectly normal for a caravan protector. The wealth of other rich men in the
imperium
ultimately depends on land. The caravan protectors own land around the villages to the north-west and across the river. They receive rents from their tenants, and from the properties they own in town. Although it is seldom mentioned, they lend money out on interest. But their real wealth comes from escorting caravans between Persia and Rome. To protect the caravans as they cross the frontier they need contacts, connections in both empires. They have many connections also with the tent-dwellers of the deep desert who acknowledge neither Persia nor Rome.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ballista. ‘But one thing puzzles me. How does this protection generate their wealth? The inscription spoke of Anamu’s father protecting caravans from his own resources.’

‘You have a lot to learn.’ She gave the big northerner a very different look from before, possibly a look of uncomplicated affection. ‘Possibly there is some truth in the image of the ... naive barbarian from beyond the north wind. My father and his like act out of the generosity of their souls. No merchant would dream of offering payment, and a caravan protector would be offended for it to be offered, but a suitable gift, a completely voluntary contribution, is quite a different matter. Merchants are
grateful
for protection.’

They were standing close together. She was looking up at him. He began to lean forward. She stepped away, the look of mischief back in her eyes.

‘Don’t forget that you have a wife - and Haddudad has a sharp sword.’

 

Winter advanced on the town of Arete.

It was nothing like the iron-bound winters of the land of the Angles. There, the snows could lie heavy on the fields, over the huts of the peasants and the high-roofed halls of the warriors for months on end. Beyond the stockades the freezing fogs enfolded the improvident and the unwary. Men and animals died in the cold.

Winter in Arete was a different beast, gentler but capricious. Most nights in December and January there was a frost. On the days that it rained, many as the old year died but fewer after the solstice, it rained hard. The ground turned into a sea of mud. The air remained chill. Then the strong north-eastern winds would blow away the clouds, the sun would dawn in splendour, warm as a spring day by the northern ocean, and the land would dry - before it rained again.

In some ways life in Arete continued as normal. The priests and the devout celebrated the festivals of their particular gods - Sol Invictus, Jupiter, and Janus, Aphlad, Atargatis and Azzanathcona. Criers preceded the processions through the streets warning those of less, different or no faith to lay down their tools lest the priests and their deities catch the ill-omened sight of men at work on the holy day. Ballista had bowed to popular pressure and rescinded his edict banning gatherings of ten or more. He hoped that this concession might make the other stringencies he had introduced more bearable. Certainly this concession was welcome at the two great festivals of the winter, at the Saturnalia, the seven days of present-giving, gambling and drinking in late December when slaves dined like their masters, and again at the Compitalia, the three days in early January when extra rations, including wine, were issued to the servile.

As ever, the first of January, the
kalends,
saw the garrison and those provincials eager to impress the authorities renew their oath of loyalty to the emperors and their family. On the same day, new magistrates took up office, Ogelos replacing Anamu as
archon
in Arete. As ever, the soldiers looked forward to the seventh of January: pay day, with a roast dinner to follow the sacrifices - to Jupiter Optimus Maximus an ox, to Juno, Minerva and Salus a cow, to Father Mars a bull. As ever, rents had to be paid on the first of January; debtors fretted at the approach of the
kalends, nones
and ides of each month, when interest on loans became due; and the superstitious feared the unlucky ‘black days’ that followed.

Yet in many, many ways this winter in Arete was abnormal. Day by day the city became more like an armed camp. Under the slow but careful eye of Mamurra the physical defences of the town began to take shape. Gangs of impressed labourers tore down the proud tower tombs of the necropolis and teams of oxen and donkeys hauled the debris to the town. More labourers heaped the rubble against the inner and outer faces of the western wall, slowly shaping it into the core of huge ramps - the glacis and counter-glacis. Once padded with reeds and faced with mud brick it was hoped these ramps would keep the walls standing in the face of whatever the Sassanids could throw at them. As each area of the necropolis was cleared, further gangs of workmen started to dig the wide ditch that would hinder approach to the desert wall.

The interior of the town was likewise loud with activity. Blacksmiths beat ploughshares into swords, arrow points and the heads of javelins. Carpenters wove osiers and wood to make shields. Fletchers worked flat out to produce the innumerable arrows and artillery bolts demanded by the military.

In every home, bar and brothel - at least when there were no Roman soldiers within earshot - the abnormality of the winter was discussed. On the one hand, the big barbarian bastard was roundly condemned: homes, tombs and temples desecrated, the slaves freed, the free reduced to the state of the servile, civic liberties stripped away, the modesty of wives and daughters compromised. On the other, only the
Dux
offered any hope: perhaps all the sacrifices would prove worth while. Round and round the arguments went, down the backstreets and the muddy alleys from the little sanctuary of the Tyche of Arete behind the Palmyrene Gate to the stinking lean-tos down by the waterside. The citizens of Arete were both outraged and scared. They were also tired. The
Dux
was driving them hard.

The soldiers were also working hard. On New Year’s day Ballista had unveiled his dispositions for the defence of the town. No one, not even Acilius Glabrio, had laughed. The northerner had concentrated his manpower on the western wall facing the open desert. Here the battlements would be manned by no fewer than eight of the twelve centuries of Legio IIII Scythica and all six centuries of Cohors XX Palmyrenorum. The arrangement was that each section of battlement for two towers would be defended by one century of legionaries and one of auxiliaries. An additional century from IIII Scythica would be stationed at the main gate. At the extreme north of the wall only one century of Cohors XX would be available to cover the last four towers, but here the northern ravine curled round to provide additional defence and the towers in any case were closer together.

The other walls were far less well defended. The northern wall facing the ravine was held by only one century of IIII Scythica and two dismounted
turmae
of Cohors XX. The eastern wall facing the Euphrates would be guarded by the irregular
numerus
of Anamu, with one century of IIII Scythica seeing to the Porta Aquaria, the tunnels and the two gates down by the water. Finally, the garrison of the southern wall above the ravine would consist of the
numeri
of Iarhai and Ogelos, with just one dismounted turma of Cohors XX guarding the postern gate.

The real weakness of the plan was the small number of reserves - just two centuries of IIII Scythica, one stationed around the
campus martius
and one in the great caravanserai, and two turmae of Cohors XX, one guarding the granaries and one the new artillery magazine. At current levels of manning, that amounted to a mere 140 legionaries and 72 auxiliaries.

Yet the plan won guarded approval. Surely the main danger did lie on the western wall. It would be held by no fewer than 560 men from IIII Scythica and 642 from Cohors XX. The auxiliaries were bowmen and the legionaries expert hand-to-hand. They would be backed by twenty-five pieces of artillery, nine throwing stones and sixteen bolts.

The senior officers had been further reassured when Ballista outlined the additional measures that would be put in place when the glacis, counter-glacis and ditch were complete. The last two hundred yards to the western wall would be sown with traps. There would be thousands of caltrops, spiked metal balls. No matter which way a caltrop landed, a wicked spike always pointed upwards. There would be pits. Some would contain spikes, others the huge jars which had been requisitioned, filled with the limited stockpile of naptha. Stones to drop on the enemy would be stockpiled on the walls. There would be cranes equipped with chains, both to drop the larger stones and to hook any Sassanid rams which neared the wall. Large metal bowls of sand would be heated over fires. At the siege of Novae, white-hot sand had proved nearly as effective as had the naptha at Aquileia.

 

On the sixth of January, his plans well in hand, Ballista decided he needed a drink. Not an effete Greek or Roman
symposium,
but a proper drink. He asked Maximus if he could find a decent bar - does the Pontifex Maximus shit in the woods? - and tell Mamurra that he was welcome to join them. It was the day after the
nones
of January, one of the ‘black days’, but Ballista had not grown up with the superstitions of the Romans.

‘This looks all right.’ Ballista ran his eyes over the bar. The room and the girls looked clean. On the wall opposite him was a painting of a couple having sex balanced on two tightropes. The girl was on her hands and knees, the man taking her from behind and drinking a cup of wine. He looked out at the viewer with a complacent air.

‘I chose it because I heard that Acilius Glabrio had ruled it off limits for his legionaries,’ said Maximus.

‘Why?’ Mamurra asked.

‘Oh, because when he comes here he likes some privacy to be buggered senseless by the barmen,’ replied Maximus.

Mamurra looked owlishly at the Hibernian before starting to laugh. Ballista joined in.

A pretty blond girl with big breasts, few clothes and a fixed smile came over with their drinks and some things to eat. Maximus asked her name. As she bent over, the Hibernian slid his hand down her tunic and played with one of her breasts. He tweaked her nipple until it was erect. ‘Maybe see you later,’ he called after her as she left.

‘Poor girl. Working here must be like walking round with her tunic pulled up, endlessly being pawed by bastards like you,’ said Ballista.

‘Just because you’re not getting any,’ Maximus replied. ‘Not even from Bathshiba.’

‘Do you want to talk about Massilia?’ Ballista’s words closed the exchange and the three men drank in silence for a while.

‘Right, let’s talk about the two things we have to talk about. Get them out of the way so we can relax.’ Ballista paused, and the others looked expectantly at him. ‘Who do you think killed Scribonius Mucianus?’

‘Turpio,’ Maximus replied with no hesitation. Ballista looked sharply at Mamurra, who quickly swore he would not speak of this conversation to anyone else. ‘He had motive: Scribonius was blackmailing him. He had opportunity: he was Scribonius’s second-in-command. The timing fits: on Turpio’s own account Scribonius
disappeared
two days before Turpio left to meet us. And without Scribonius around to mess up his story, Turpio has done well. Rather than being punished he has been promoted to Scribonius’s position. We have not traced the money Scribonius embezzled; Turpio probably has that too. He’s a five-to-one on certainty.’

‘If he did it, he had an accomplice,’ said Mamurra. ‘It would take at least two men to drag a body down there.’ Seeing the look Ballista was giving him, Mamurra continued, ‘After you left, I got Castricius to take me.’

‘But in the days before he was killed Scribonius talked about having found out something that would make everything all right,’ said Ballista, ‘maybe something to make me overlook his corruption and his running his unit into the ground. It would have to be something so important that someone would kill to keep it a secret. They killed him and searched his body to check he had nothing on him to implicate them. They took away his writing block. The evidence was written there.’

‘We only have Turpio’s word for the last mutterings of Scribonius,’ said Maximus. Ballista acknowledged this and asked the Hibernian to check if anyone in Cohors XX could confirm Turpio’s account, and to be discreet, very discreet.

‘Right, what about the other thing? Who burnt down our artillery magazine?’

‘Bagoas.’ Again there was no hesitation before Maximus spoke. ‘All the legionaries and some others are saying that it was Bagoas.’

‘And do you think he did it?’

‘No. He was with Calgacus at the time. Sure, the Persian boy hates Rome - although not as much as he hates tent-dwellers - but he does not see himself as an underhand saboteur. He sees himself as a scout - one brave man venturing alone into the camp of his enemies, collecting information, ferreting out their deep secrets, then returning openly in a blaze of glory to the bosom of his people to point out where to place the battering rams, where to dig the mines, how to overthrow the walls.’