Seduced by Her Rebel Warrior

by Greta Gilbert

  Atia considered the value of this dusty camp. If the profit on a single camel load of frankincense was worth six hundred denarii—the equivalent of two Roman soldiers’ salaries for a year—then the camels carried what amounted to the price of legions on their backs.

  Though the camels themselves did not know it. They were snorting and groaning beneath clouds of flies, their hooves stirring up dust. Atia had never seen such a confluence of beasts and burdens in all her life.

  ‘Why do they not enter the city?’ she asked.

  ‘Rekem is holy ground,’ explained Rab. ‘Before the Romans came, the only camels allowed in the city were those bearing offerings for the Great Temple. Now the only camels allowed are those bearing the Roman tax payments.’

  Rab gestured to a group of Roman soldiers making their way through the crowded space. ‘Those are the tax assessors,’ growled Rab. ‘They calculate the value of each load and send twenty per cent to the Legate’s offices inside the city.’ Rab spat angrily upon the ground. ‘Before the Romans came, there were double this number of camels.’

  Their group took a sharp turn and Atia craned behind herself for one last glance at the sprawling caravanserai. And it was as if instead of walking away from the camels, the camels themselves were receding, as if time itself were leaving them behind, until all she could see was a blur of colours behind a layer of hot, wavering air. And then even that disappeared and their mighty groans faded.

  The air was still as they made their way steadily down the wadi leading to Rekem’s entrance. Massive geometrical rock formations began to appear alongside their route—towering house-sized squares that looked like the building blocks of giants.

  ‘These are Dushara blocks,’ Gamilath explained. ‘Tombs carved in homage to our faceless god.’

  Atia could hardly take her eyes off the eerie house-sized monuments. Their angles were perfectly square, as if fashioned by a divine hand.

  They rounded a bend and Atia’s breath caught in her throat. ‘Can we stop the camels?’ she choked. Yamlik stopped their small caravan and Atia gazed up at a towering edifice unlike any she had ever seen. Instead of resting on a base of rock, this splendid temple had been carved into the rock itself.

  The bottom portion of the structure looked much like a Greek temple, while the top looked entirely Egyptian—complete with towering obelisks.

  Obelisks! The sacred spiked pillars seemed perfectly at home above the Grecian columns, as if the two cultures often merged in such ways.

  Atia had heard about such stone-carved monuments all her life, yet she still could hardly believe her eyes. It was one of the most wondrous things she had ever seen. An architectural chimera. Beautiful and strange.

  Rab wore a delighted smirk. ‘My father was just a boy when that monument was carved. But come, we have not yet even entered the city,’ he said.

  They continued down the wadi until they arrived at a natural cleft between two massive rock formations—like a gateway to another world. Donkey carts and pedestrians were moving in and out of the massive slot as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘This is Bab al Siq, the gateway to Rekem,’ said Yamlik. ‘The camels are allowed no further.’

  The travellers dismounted and said their goodbyes. As Gamilath and Livius embraced, Livius whispered something into Gamilath’s ear. Gamilath was shaking her head as she tied Livius’s camel behind her own. ‘I did not hear that,’ she said and gave him one last, long look before turning away.

  Livius was wiping his eyes. ‘So much dust in this damned desert,’ he said.

  ‘We will find a way to get you back to her,’ Atia said.

  Livius pasted on a grin. ‘I am afraid I have five more years left of soldiering to do before I can even think of such a thing,’ he said. ‘I told her not to wait for me.’

  ‘We will find a way,’ vowed Atia, though she could hear the resignation in her voice. To leave the Roman army before the end of twenty years was like disobeying the Governor of Arabia: one simply did not do it.

  Atia gazed at her wrapped palm. ‘We must remove these now, Husband,’ she told Rab, ‘lest we tie our own nooses.’

  They had just removed the wraps and tucked them away when she heard a familiar voice. ‘Friends!’

  Her breath caught in her throat. She turned and there he was, marching towards them in full armour: the demon himself.

  ‘Plotius,’ she said. Behind him marched six soldiers. Only six? Atia wondered. Had there not been ten when they parted?

  ‘We have been waiting for you for days,’ Plotius said. ‘I was beginning to think you had perished in the desert.’ He removed his crested helmet and flashed a wicked grin. ‘Imagine my relief when you came lumbering into camp on those ridiculous camels.’

  ‘Well met, Plotius,’ said Atia as she attempted to conceal her shock. Against the odds, Plotius had made it to Rekem. But how had he done it? She glanced at his hip belt and saw the answer to her question, for attached to it was the box that had likely contained her dowry. It appeared that he had bought his way to Rekem, just as he had vowed he would. Let him explain that to the Legate, she thought.

  ‘I did not expect to see you here, Plotius,’ she said.

  ‘You did not expect it or you did not wish it?’ Plotius gave Rab a glance.

  ‘Where are the other soldiers? I count only six here.’

  ‘They died with honour,’ said Plotius.

  Atia’s heart squeezed. ‘How?’ She closed her eyes, not wanting to hear the answer.

  ‘We found the rebel camp and attacked them at night. Killed at least fifty of the dirty Arabs.’ Plotius clapped one of his soldiers on the back and laughed. ‘We got our revenge, did we not, Soldier?’

  ‘Yes, Commander,’ the young man said.

  Atia felt ill. For the first time in weeks, she craved the tears. She closed her eyes and let the craving transform into anger. ‘You killed fifty rebels and lost four of your own men and you are laughing?’

  ‘I am laughing in triumph, stupid woman. There is nothing more honourable than to die for Rome.’

  ‘You are a savage,’ she said and spat upon the ground.

  Now he was laughing even harder. ‘You are going to regret that, Atia,’ he said. He took her roughly by the arm. ‘Now come. I promised your father that I would deliver you to the Legate and that is what I intend to do.’

  ‘Unhand me,’ said Atia, yanking herself free. Rab stepped between them.

  ‘If you dare touch her again, Plotius, I will rip off your arm,’ he said. The two men stood eye to eye. Atia saw Plotius reach for his sword.

  ‘Stop!’ Atia shouted, pushing between them. ‘There will be no more violence! We will enter the sacred city and fulfil our mission, then go our separate ways.’

  ‘I would not count on parting ways so soon,’ said Plotius. He gave Atia a significant look, then stepped backwards and bowed. ‘After you, my Queen.’

  Atia’s vision grew blurry with anger. ‘I am not your Queen,’ she said and set off down the Siq at a near run.

  It wasn’t until she was well down the limestone road that she noticed her surroundings. She peered up at the massive stone blocks on either side of her and felt a rush of awe.

  Where on earth was she?

  This was more than just a slot canyon, she realised. It was a towering temple, a miraculous confluence of time and stone.

  And it was cool. She slowed her pace and marvelled at the perennial shade created by the towering monoliths on either side of her. Birds danced between them, their black wings evanescent shadows against the ancient browns and pinks.

  ‘Praise Dushara,’ said a man in Nabataean. A small group was huddling around an unfinished rectangular carving in the rock. She peered over the men’s shoulders and caught sight of a recently sacrificed goat.

  The men were dipping their fingers
into the animal’s blood and splattering it on to the blank façade. The stone was not unfinished, Atia realised. It was perfectly complete. While the Nabataeans personified the gods of other cultures, they rarely depicted their own. The men were simply praying to their faceless god.

  ‘Praise Dushara,’ she echoed. She perceived the soft trickle of water somewhere near. The sound was so subtle and peaceful—as if the water was flowing through the rock itself.

  And so it was, for two small channels appeared to have been carved into either side of the cliffs. The miniature canals flowed along at eye level and when Atia peered down into one she beheld a miracle: pure, clear water. She crossed the road and peered into the other channel and beheld a clay pipe. Drinking water, she thought—just like the pipes that served the finest domas in Rome.

  Atia had scoffed when Rab had told her that the Nabataeans ‘cultivated’ water, but now she was beginning to understand what he meant. She imagined a giant cistern high in the hills where the water ‘farmers’ collected their crop of rain.

  They rounded a corner and came to the end of the Siq and several of the soldiers gasped. Atia stopped in her tracks. Rising before them was a monument so magnificent that Atia could hardly believe it to be real. Glowing in bright yellows, reds, and blues, the plastered, painted, columned façade seemed to decorate the desert with glory.

  Statues posed at each of its two levels: visions of fearsome Amazons, winged Victories, Greek gods and a cornucopia-bearing goddess that defied definition. They all presided over the towering columned hall, which seemed to Atia to be the most beautiful monument in all the world: Queen Chuldu’s Tomb.

  Rab came up beside her and she had to fight the powerful desire to take his hand.

  ‘That is the tomb my grandfather built for my grandmother,’ he said under his breath. ‘He loved her very much.’

  Plotius pushed past Rab, bumping him out of the way and taking a position beside Atia. ‘There will be plenty of time to gaze upon the tombs later,’ he said and she wondered what he could possibly mean.

  She could not dwell on the question, for as they continued deeper into the city there was simply too much to see. There were tombs everywhere, each with a more elaborate façade than the last. There were hundreds of them. Big ones and little ones. Plain and colourful, spare and ornate. There seemed to be no stone surface left untouched by the holy monuments.

  Atia gazed and gawked. The city itself seemed to be a kind of temple, a grand celebration of those who once were. Atia stared up at a terrace area where a cluster of especially elaborate façades loomed. She caught Rab’s stare. Behold the wonder and the glory of Rekem, he seemed to say. Do you understand now why I cannot let it go?

  They followed the sacred way ever downwards past a massive Roman-style theatre with benches carved directly into the rock.

  Just beyond the theatre a host of bare-chested workers were standing on a high wooden platform supported by poles that had been burrowed into the rock. They were chiselling away at a half-completed façade.

  ‘So that is how they do it,’ remarked Atia.

  ‘From the top to bottom,’ said Rab. ‘They move their scaffolding downwards until a pile of rubble forms beneath them, then they stand on the pile.’

  ‘Where are the slaves?’ asked Plotius.

  ‘Nabataeans do not keep slaves,’ stated Rab.

  ‘But there are many tribes that inhabit the Nabataean backcountry, are there not? The Thamuds, the Safaites, the Lhyanites. One would think—’

  ‘The Nabataeans are not invaders, nor are we enslavers,’ interrupted Rab. ‘Not like you Romans. We are traders. We labour beneath the same sky as everyone else and we are all equal before the gods.’

  Plotius scowled, but Atia felt her spirit swell. Was this what it felt like to be proud of one’s husband?

  ‘You seem happy, Atia,’ said Plotius. ‘Does the city of stone please you?’

  ‘More than I ever could have imagined,’ she said, catching the glint of Rab’s eye in the sunlight.

  Slowly the high cliffs subsided and the tombs gave way to a sloping area full of houses, shops, and—incredibly—trees. Date palms and figs and verdant acacias lined a canal running parallel with the street, their roots suckling at the remarkable, unbelievable gift: water in the desert.

  They crossed beneath an arch and Atia had to blink as she beheld another miracle: a park. A lush, green park with mature shade trees and stretches of grass. There were meandering pathways, lovely pergolas and benches that seemed meant for lovers.

  At the centre of the expanse was a large blue pool with an elegant pavilion at its centre. The artificial island was connected to the shore by several flat footbridges that appeared to float atop the placid waters. Atia spied a group of giggling children running across one of the bridges.

  The Nabataeans are geniuses, she thought.

  She glanced at Rab, but his attention was consumed by the building adjacent to the park. The massive marble columns and wide entryway of the giant structure told Atia that it could be none other than the Nabataean royal palace.

  Or the old royal palace, as it seemed. Now men in Roman togas were ascending its high stairs and Roman soldiers stood sentinel at its entrance.

  Plotious led their group up the stairs and into a sprawling open-air reception hall flanked by a massive triple colonnade—the largest Atia had ever seen. Atia stopped to admire the sheer grandeur of the space, which rivalled anything she had seen in Rome.

  ‘In my father’s time, this part of the palace was an agora,’ whispered Rab as Atia passed by him and Atia caught the wistfulness in his voice. ‘During the day, merchants sold their wares in the cool of the shade here and at night it would be transformed for royal banquets.’

  Atia tried to imagine the space filled with torches and revellers instead of Roman soldiers. It was a difficult vision to conjure, for it seemed that the legion had made the old palace the centre of its activities. There were soldiers everywhere. They buzzed about like flies, some cleaning their armour, others jousting with swords and others absorbed in more quotidian tasks: cutting hair and mending tunics and even playing dice.

  But as their group journeyed across the great hall, Atia paid no mind to the throngs of soldiers, for her attention was riveted by the columns sustaining the colonnade. It was neither the columns’ size nor their elegance that captured her eye, but the massive stone heads adorning their capitals, their wrinkled trunks bending gracefully into themselves. Elephants.

  A realisation struck her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The elephant heads mocked him from above—proud and strange. He had not been inside the palace since that terrible night thirteen years before and had almost forgotten about his father’s stone elephants, constructed early in his reign.

  Rab paused beneath one of the columns, fighting his emotion.

  ‘Rab, I must tell you something about the elephants,’ said Atia. ‘I have had a revelation. I—’

  Plotius stepped between them. ‘What must you tell him about the elephants?’ he asked.

  Atia tensed. Rab could see her mind working. ‘That they are...they are Indian elephants and not African,’ said Atia.

  ‘And how do you know this?’ asked Plotius.

  ‘Their skin is wrinkled,’ replied Atia. ‘And just look at the size of their ears.’

  Plotius was distracted long enough for Rab to toss his quick-witted wife a wink.

  ‘Why does it matter what kind of elephants they are?’ asked Plotius. ‘You are trying to delay. Come.’

  Plotius motioned to the soldiers and they climbed another set of stairs and set out across the threshold that had once been Rab’s father’s throne room. On the dais where his father’s throne used to be, a giant bust of the Emperor Hadrian loomed.

  They passed the small Greek theatre where his father used to meet with the popula
r assembly and stepped past the temple where his father used to make offerings to Dushara. Rab spied a statue of Jupiter where the stone block for Dushara used to be and felt a pang in his heart.

  Behind the temple lay a series of rooms in which his family used to dwell. Now they were occupied by Romans and Nabataeans sitting in client chairs fanning the hot air.

  ‘Wait here,’ said their escort and he entered Rab’s old bedroom. When he re-emerged, he motioned to Plotius. ‘Legate Julianus will see you now.’

  Their entourage filed into the room as their escort announced them. ‘Honourable Commander, these travellers have been sent by Governor Severus himself. They bear an urgent message for you.’

  A stocky, sharp-eyed man a little older than Rab stood up from behind a large desk and bowed to the visitors. Seeing Plotius’s face, he quirked a brow. ‘Well met, Plotius,’ he said. ‘It has been a while.’

  ‘Indeed it has,’ said Plotius, moving around to grip the Legate’s arm. The two men exchanged a meaningful look, though Rab could not discern if they were friends or foes.

  ‘Please, sit,’ said the Legate, gesturing to a group of client chairs in front of his desk. As Plotius, Atia and Rab took their seats, Rab noticed a beautiful sober-faced Nabataean woman standing behind the Legate. She slid Rab a glance.

  ‘This is my translator, Shaquilath,’ said the Legate, motioning to the woman. ‘And behind you are my guards, Rufus and Gaius.’ Rab glanced at two large scowling guards standing against the adjacent wall. They hovered just behind Plotius’s own guards, who had formed a kind of phalanx behind the chairs. The Legate sat back, apparently at his ease. ‘Now tell me, with whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?’

  As Plotius opened his mouth to speak, Atia was already introducing herself. ‘I am Atia Severus, daughter of Governor Severus, and this is Rabbel, son of Junon, our guide. We come to you with a letter from my father.’ Wasting no time, she reached into her rucksack and passed the sealed letter across the desk.