Gods and Legions (40 page)

'Turn them loose,' he said.

Sallustius stared. 'My lord?'

'You heard me. Turn them loose. Give them horses and a day's rations and let them go. They will bring to Ctesiphon news of the Emperor's strength and the fury of the Roman gods. And their very survival will be a permanent testimony to their cowardice.'

At this Nabdates himself spoke up.

'No, mighty Augustus,' he pleaded in courtly Greek. 'Kill me now.'

'Nonsense. Do it yourself. You are free to use the cliffs or ropes as you wish.'

'Augustus, I cannot face the Great King, or my people...'

But Julian had already turned away dismissively, making his way slowly down the street through the throngs of guffawing, drunken soldiers who slapped his back and reached for his hand. He picked his way carefully through the rubble of what had once been an elegant main thoroughfare, now completely demolished, roofs thrown down into the street, pots and furniture broken and hurled through the crumbled window frames. Everywhere were the dead – bodies cut and smashed, men's faces destroyed by bricks and stones, women lying naked, their pale bodies bloody and askew, violated and then fatally discarded through fourthstory windows. The Emperor kept his gaze straight as he shouldered through the mob of cheering and rampaging soldiers, showing no emotion at either the dreadful carnage or the evidence of his astounding victory, until he finally arrived at a small forum where a Persian-speaking Roman tribune was directing the collection of captives and plunder from all quarters of the city.

Even a town preparing for war, ostensibly hiding its valuables and sending its nobles to safe havens, contains booty sufficient as to make most soldiers' eyes glaze over, and doomed Maozamalcha was no exception. The pile was already large, and growing every moment as legionaries entered from every side street. Their arms were laden with gold and silver plate from the palaces and houses of the rich, rings and bracelets dripping with blood from the dead limbs from which they had been hacked, golden and marble statuary from the temples, and all manner of costly fabrics, silks, and linens, some unused and wrapped on their original bolts, others in the form of beautiful gowns and vestments still warm from the bodies of their final wearers. Girls and women huddled wretchedly around the heap of riches, keening and wailing in their misery, many swollen and bleeding if they had presented any resistance to their attackers, most of them still undamaged. The value of their beauty had been recognized by even the most brutal of their captors, whose craving for slave gold exceeded even the ache in their loins. A few young children had also been included in the group, having followed their female relatives and been spared by their own resourcefulness or the soldiers' mercy.

When Julian was recognized, the tribune and soldiers backed tactfully away from the plunder, and even the desolate females quieted their wailing to a slightly more respectful sob. It is known by all, of course, that the Emperor has first pick of the spoils, half of which belong to him, and after his lot has been separated the remainder is to be split among the rest of the army in accordance with rank and deed.

He walked solemnly around the gleaming pile, picking up a trinket here and there and, tossing it back onto the heap, reaching down to touch the chin of a weeping young girl and force her face up so he could inspect her more closely. An unusual vase caught his eye, and after holding it to the sunlight for a moment for a better view, he carefully set it upright in a more sheltered location. One ragged young boy and his older sister sat slightly apart from the others. The boy alone seemed to be untroubled, his large, limpid eyes fixed not on the Emperor, as were those of every other prisoner and bystander, but on the lips of the girl as she rocked back and forth, crooning softly in Greek an ancient Christian children's hymn.

The girl became silent as Julian stopped directly in front of them, yet the boy remained staring expectantly at his sister's lips, ignoring the presence of the Roman Emperor, the man whose troops had destroyed his city and killed his family. The boy did not move, even as the girl shrank back in fear at Julian's approach. Julian stared, wondering at the boy's audacity, or whether he was simply an imbecile. He called the Persian-speaking tribune over to him.

'Ask the boy who he is, why he alone is not afraid.'

The tribune looked down at the lad skeptically, and barked out a harsh command. The boy peered at him quizzically.

'That's not how you talk to a child,' Julian reprimanded him. 'Soften your voice, tribune, and question him. I am curious.'

The tribune stood stiffly for a moment, collecting his wits, and then in a voice only slightly less jarring continued his guttural interrogation. Julian sighed.

'My lord,' the girl mumbled fearfully, and as she looked up I could see why her voice had been so small, so tuneless, for her face was frightfully battered, her upper lip split to her nose from a blow. I reflected that with her beauty gone, she had little chance of surviving the distribution of spoils, and perhaps that was all for the better. 'My lord,' she said again in Persian that the tribune could barely hear, 'the boy is deaf and mute.'

'Ah,' said Julian as he looked more closely at the lad.

Suddenly, however, the child seemed to perk up, for looking straight at the tribune, whose lips he had read, he carefully and silently pantomimed his life – his father was a presbyter in the small Christian church – I reflected that he had most likely traveled abroad in his studies, hence the Greek rhyme – his mother was a weaver, he had a small sister, or perhaps a brother...

Julian watched, fascinated, as the boy's hands slowly and eloquently spun the story, many of the motions and concepts unrecognizable though all of them extraordinarily structured and deliberate. His eyes were still large and expressionless, but his lips silently formed the precise Persian words of his tale, imitating the mouthings of those around him who in the past had sought to communicate with him through his veil of silence.

'How old is he, tribune? Ask him. He looks about the same age my own son would have been.'

The officer barked out the question in a loud voice such as is used by ignorant folk who believe that speaking in such a way will allow them to be better understood by old people and foreigners. The boy carefully studied his lips, and before the tribune had even finished, the child held up six fingers, turning solemnly to Julian. He then began rapidly making other counting motions with his hands, which I took to mean his indication of the precise number of months and days since he had turned that age. The lad was clever.

The tribune glared, as if at a street mime in Rome mocking passersby at the taverns. Finally, weary and uncomprehending of the boy's gestures, the officer turned.

'Perhaps, Augustus, if you would care to point out which articles are of particular interest to you, I could set them aside. Some jewelry, or a fine virgin?'

Julian snorted with disdain. 'I have no need of virgins. Nor did Alexander or Scipio Africanus. It is enough to be victorious in war without staining some poor girl with my lust. My wants are few.'

Bending down to a small cedar box he opened it to find it laden with coins, gold
darics,
and silver
sigloi,
a veritable fortune, along with several precious stones and a number of loose pearls – the entire inventory of a jewelry merchant, perhaps, or the carelessly hidden life savings of a wealthy nobleman. He squatted down and absentmindedly picked through the hoard with his forefinger, occasionally lifting an item to his eyes for closer inspection and then placing it back in the box. He finally stood up, holding in his hand three coins, the smallest, oldest, and most worn of the lot. He turned to the tribune.

'I shall take these,' he said, 'for they come from the time of Alexander and the fact that they have not been melted down for new coinage is a sign from the gods that they have been preserved for me.'

The tribune stared at the tiny coins, and then glanced helplessly at the growing pile of plunder. 'And what else, my lord?'

Julian smiled. 'Just this,' he said, placing his hand on the young deaf-mute's head, and leading him away, 'for he speaks most eloquently in a language known only to the gods.'

As we marched out the next day, the army was shadowed and harassed by a ragged and half-crazed band of Persians. They were unarmed, and so had passed through our outlying scouts and sentries without challenge, playing the part of desert traders or merchants, but as soon as they approached within earshot of the Roman column they began setting up the familiar hooting and catcalls that had so annoyed us outside Maozamalcha.

'What in the gods' name is that?' wondered Julian aloud, and a Gallic guard rode over to the unlikely mob of tormenters to gain a better look at them.

He galloped back with a wry smile.

'Nabdates and his men, my lord. They say they aim to accompany us to Ctesiphon.'

'Tell them they are forbidden to follow us. Tell them to go away.'

The sentry rode back to the Persians. A moment later the jeering rose up even louder, and the Gaul returned, shrugging helplessly.

The entire day the Persians followed our every move, loudly insulting our fighting ability, our strength, and our grandmothers. Julian had them run off, but they returned. Two of them he ordered blinded, in the hopes that would frighten off the rest, but Nabdates calmly blinded two more of his own men in return, and they continued to laugh and jeer as they doubled up on the horses of their comrades, blood streaming from their empty sockets. Finally, as we prepared to make camp that evening, Julian sighed.

'I refuse to allow them to torture me all night with their infernal wailing,' he said resignedly.

Sallustius looked at him guardedly. 'What do you suggest?'

'Give them what they want.'

Sallustius ordered Nabdates to be ostentatiously thrashed and then burned alive, to which the poor man submitted with cries of thanks and praise to his gods. After a few hours of grief-stricken howling, the rest of his men were driven to the hills by Victor's cavalry, where they scattered and did not return.

Now nothing separated us from the great city of Ctesiphon.

V

I misspoke. There was nothing separating us from Ctesiphon except the Euphrates and Tigris, two of the largest rivers known to man. At this point of their flow, the enormous courses come within a mere several miles of each other, forming in their midst a rich region dedicated solely to the King's defense and pleasure, a fertile river island of smiling vineyards, bountiful orchards, and shade groves, dotted here and there with royal hunting lodges and reserves teeming with stocked game from all corners of the earth. Yet how to cross these two rivers and mount the steep heights of the left bank of the Tigris to the strategic location of Ctesiphon? And how to convey our valuable fleet across the land between the two flows? This, I confess, Brother, had kept me deeply worried ever since Julian had decided upon this route down the right bank of the Euphrates – in fact, I was not alone, for the Emperor's generals had been whispering their own fears concerning this very matter for weeks now. Only Julian and Sallustius appeared unconcerned about the approach to Ctesiphon; and so it should be, for only they had read their history.

Two centuries and a half before this time, when the Emperor Trajan had himself followed this precise path in attacking King Sapor's ancestor, he had had the foresight to bring with him a remarkable detachment of engineers, led by a hydrographic genius whose name has been lost to us, but whose works remain more enduring than those of Trajan himself. This man had seen from his study of the elevations and the lay of the land that a canal could be cut between the two rivers, diverting water from the Euphrates to convey ships to the Tigris. Indeed, Trajan had performed this very task, and though the great work had later been filled in by the Persians, a century later Severus reexcavated it in a similar effort. Again the Persians filled it in, this time blocking the water head with enormous boulders and disguising the actual course of the canal so that future generations would be unable to find it. They had not counted on Julian's persistence, however. After quickly assembling a pontoon bridge across the Euphrates, over which his entire army crossed, he captured and interrogated numerous peasants and farmers in the area. By doing so, he was able to ascertain the precise path where the soil was looser and more fertile than that of the surrounding river plains, and setting his own engineers to the task, they discovered the traces of the ancient canal and the boulders that had been rolled into place to block the flow.

It was an easy matter to dig it out again, once forty thousand men were put to work on it. A matter of a week of solid mudslinging, to which even Julian contributed his share, stripping naked and standing shoulder-deep in the enormous ditch like the lowliest slave, exhorting his men to haul the rubble and dirt of the generations for the glory of Rome. With a rush and a surge when the last boulder was removed, the mighty Euphrates immediately dropped two feet in depth downstream of the canal entrance and the enormous fleet sailed merrily upon a tide of muddy water to its junction with the Tigris, where it anchored scarcely two miles upstream and across from the city of Ctesiphon itself.

When he arrived at the Tigris in the lead vessel, festooned with the banners and standards of all his legions and lined with a ceremonial guard of burly legionaries, Julian was hardly able to concentrate on the task at hand. He gave scarcely a glimpse toward the massive walls of the city now visible just downriver, but rather focused an unrelenting gaze on the horizon to the northwest, anxiously anticipating the arrival of Sapor at the head of his hordes at any time. He prayed aloud that Sapor might have been delayed, or even defeated, by the forces of Armenia in alliance with his general Procopius, from whom he had not heard a word since the split of the armies weeks before.

'It's suicide,' Victor exclaimed, glancing at the other generals gathered in the tent to ascertain their support. 'Utter suicide!'

Outside, we could hear the cheers of the troops gathered on the near bank of the Tigris in the waning light of the early evening as the horse races continued. Julian had ordered a spontaneous series of games to celebrate our imminent arrival at Ctesiphon, hastily laying out a Coliseum-sized horse track, sandpits for the wrestling and boxing events, and a long, straight course along the shore for the footraces. He had gone so far as to delineate precisely where the spectators – the bulk of the footsore army – were to stand for the betting and lusty cheering of their comrades, carefully arranging it so that the blare of the trumpets and the roar of the excited troops would carry over the water to the left bank of the river, even to the city itself. He had also taken the precaution of posting military guards at discrete intervals along the water's edge to prevent spectators from gathering on that side to watch the events. He wanted the Persian garrison on the other side of the river to have an unimpeded view of the activity, and in this he was rewarded, for like low-caste Romans able to afford only the cheap seats at the games, the entire Ctesiphon garrison, some twenty or thirty thousand men, had gathered in ranks a quarter mile across the water, watching the proceedings with huge interest. They hauled stools and blankets to the water's edge and passed wine flasks among themselves, cheering on their favorites and audibly moaning when they lost, and in general behaving precisely as if they were guests – which they were, by personal invitation of the Roman Emperor. He observed it all with amused satisfaction.

Another deep roar drowned out Victor's comments in the tent. When it had subsided, Julian glared at the other generals, pointedly ignoring Victor's pessimism.

'Delaying,' he said dismissively, 'will not make the river any narrower, nor the opposite bank any lower. Time will only make the enemy's position stronger, their numbers greater. Our success cannot be achieved by waiting – we must act now. The enemy is relaxed, thinking our men will spend tonight in revelry. There is no better opportunity. Rome cannot wait.' He then turned away.

Sallustius stood up and made to leave. 'Unload the largest vessels,' he ordered the others, 'and form them into three squadrons. Keep the men reveling – the more noise, the better. It will keep the garrison off its guard. At midnight we move. Victor, you lead with five vessels. Directly across and a mile downstream. Take the beachhead silently to divide the garrison from the city. The rest of the fleet, carrying the army, will then join you, squadron by squadron. Now, move.'

The generals filed silently out into the evening's dusty heat, leaving Julian and me alone in the tent. He bent silently over his work for a time while I reviewed some notes, occasionally pausing to look up as some particularly raucous cheering wafted in through the door from outside. After a while he sat back against the frame post and stretched, rubbing his eyes wearily. Suddenly he stopped and gazed at me, as if having just noticed my presence.

'Caesarius,' he said, almost apologetically. 'Still the only man in the entire camp who will stay awake with me. Still the truest friend I have.' He grinned at me, and shook his head slowly.

I smiled back, but said nothing, and he noticed the air of hesitancy about me, my unwillingness to fully accept his olive branch, to repair the friendship that had been so deeply cracked at the palace the previous year. A shadow passed over his face, and his eyes grew troubled.

'And yet there is still that distance between us,' he said. 'That barrier, which I created, which I am unable to tear down. You still begrudge me my rudeness at that wretched banquet – Caesarius, if I haven't told you before, I will do so now: I am truly sorry for my behavior that night.'

I shook my head. 'It's not that – that is long past. But you're right, the barrier is there. I can't help but regret your hostility toward your past, to all things Christian, to—'

He interrupted my words with an exasperated sigh, standing up suddenly and walking to the side of his table, where he commenced pacing.

'Does it always come down to that, Caesarius? You still refuse to compromise, to even meet me halfway? I have outlawed no religion, I have thrown no man to the lions or the gladiators – is it not enough that I allow all sects to peacefully coexist within the Empire? Why must I kiss the feet of the Pope before you will be satisfied?'

'Because God does not coexist with other gods,' I said simply.

'No?' He whirled on me, his face flushed and excited. 'Caesarius, we have marched through the desert and conquered the lands of the most powerful king Persia has known in generations. We have destroyed every stronghold we have encountered along the way – all to the steady beat of our paeans to Ares, and with our hands washed in the blood of the sacrificial oxen. Surely, if your God were so jealous of other gods, he would not have allowed me such success in battle? Caesarius, Caesarius – be rational! By insisting that I worship as you do, that I enslave myself to your God, you mock me! You mock everything I have accomplished thus far!'

I remained seated where I was, gazing at him calmly as he resumed his agitated pacing against the short side of the tent wall. Then, as now, eloquent words did not come to my lips, and I resolved to take your advice, Brother, to speak simply and to utter only the truth.

'And for my part,' I said evenly, 'I see nothing but God's benevolence in allowing you such success. And yet you demand that I shift the credit for your glory to some long discredited Greek deity. If I were to change gods like the shifting of the winds, that would say very little for my character in your eyes, would it not? Would you have me convert to your gods at your merest word and whim? How would that reflect on me, or on your choice in comrades?'

He stopped his pacing again and stared at me a long moment, then relaxed and gave a low chuckle.

'For someone who has always claimed ignorance of the art of rhetoric, that was very well put,' he said grudgingly. 'So meanwhile, I am made to look the fool if you remain the token Christian in my court, yet I am damned for allowing a moral weakling if I insist that you convert. Either way it is I who loses. You strike me with an arrow fletched with a feather from my own wing.'

'I had no such intent. I have made no insistence on your beliefs. Why concern yourself with mine?'

'Ah, but you
have
made insistence, Caesarius,' he said, his eyes narrowing. 'Not in so many words, but in your expression. You accuse me every time you look at me. You speak to me, if at all, with the barest minimum of words. You walk away and hide during my sacrifices, refusing the place of honor set for you with my other advisers, leaving an unsightly vacant chair. Everything you do is insistence upon me.'

I stood up. 'Perhaps it is best, then, that I not attend you any further. I will provide my services among the camp surgeons.'

Julian reflected on this briefly, and then his face softened somewhat. 'No, I won't have you relegated to working with those sawbones. The problem is mine, Caesarius, and mine alone, if my own peace of mind is so disturbed by a single man of stubbornness in my midst. Your services are needed here.'

He resumed his seat, and the openness and yearning I had seen flicker briefly across his face were immediately removed, like the snuffing of a candle, to be replaced by a neutral, determined expression. I stood silently for a moment, waiting for him to say something more. He did not look up further from his work. His own silence, however, I took as a sign that my presence was no longer needed, and I slipped out the door.

The five vessels slipped quietly from their moorings, each carrying eighty picked men, their weapons and shields carefully wrapped to prevent clanking, their oars muffled with rags to reduce splashing. The troops remaining in the camp had been warned of what was to come, yet even as they sharpened their weapons and assembled in ranks on their own vessels, they continued to feed the hundreds of campfires lining the shore, and kept up the hoots and laughter of revelry, automatically and absentmindedly, shouting bets and curses to each other and singing bawdy songs that coursed their way across the silent, black river.

The five darkened ships pointed their prows straight into the river for fifty or a hundred feet until they were clear of the sandbanks along the edge, then eased downstream, aiming to land at a point reconnoitered stealthily just before dark, where the banks seemed to rise more gradually. No moon lit their way, for the night had been carefully chosen. Three scouts had swum the distance to the landing beach at dusk, each bearing a sealed jar containing a smoldering coal, and an oilskin packet containing dry kindling smeared with pitch. If any of the swimmers still survived after hiding submerged in the reeds for several hours, they would stealthily light a signal fire to guide the landing boats into place.

Julian stood among the fleet assembled at the shore, surrounded by his generals, staring intently into the darkness. The forced shouts and singing around us were intolerable, clashing and dissonant, for the tense moment cried out only for silence, for concentration. Across the river, at the Persian camp, all remained as before, fires burning gently down to coals, the occasional cries of the pickets calling the watchwords to one another in the darkness. I struggled to block out the harsh, irritating cacophony around me, focusing on other sounds and sensations, but my eyes could see only blackness as I peered down the river in the direction the ships had disappeared. My overly sensitized ears were tormented not merely by the revelry, but by the insignificant sounds of mere being and existence – the slow lapping of the water against the sandy bank, the soft squelching of the sandals of the man next to me as he rocked irritatingly back and forth on the balls of his feet.

Suddenly Julian stepped forward into the water.

'Look!' he said in a hoarse whisper. 'Is that the signal fire?'

Faintly, like nothing more than a spark thrown up from one of our own bonfires, I could see a tiny orange speck far across the water. It flickered for a moment, seemed to disappear, then suddenly grew larger as it made contact with the tinder and kindling, and its maker frantically blew it and added the pitchy wood he had painstakingly carried on his back. Within a moment it was visible to all, reflecting its twin in the rippling blackness of the water below it.