by Peter Darman
‘Bullus was right about the flogging. Azar got off lightly. I have seen men’s backs reduced to bloody ribbons after a flogging.’
‘Akmon should remember who his friends are,’ said Minu.
‘Akmon has a kingdom to rule, which means keeping the loyalty of his lords. If he had allowed Azar’s transgression to go unpunished, it would have caused resentment among his young lords. She should not have kicked him.’
‘She is just a girl.’
He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘She is a killer, Minu, you and I both know that. What she did was wrong and unnecessary. Akmon would have had Laodice executed anyway. Will she be able to continue with our mission?’
‘Azar?’
He nodded.
‘She is tough, Talib, she will not want to quit now.’
‘Have you given any thought about trying again for a child?’
He saw the pain in her eyes and a hand instinctively go to her belly.
‘Not until we have finished the mission.’
‘About that. I was thinking that perhaps we should retire from military affairs when we return to Dura. I have money and Lord Byrd has assured me he will find me a suitable position should we do so. He has a mansion in Babylon, you know.’
Minu was shocked. ‘Leave the Amazons, leave Dura?’
‘Not in the immediate future, perhaps, but we should give the idea some thought.’
She stared into the candle’s flickering flame.
‘My father is a fisherman.’
‘I know that,’ he said.
She did not hear him. ‘When I was a small child, a barefoot urchin helping him repair his nets by the side of the Euphrates, I used to see the Amazons riding to and from the city, entrusted with the griffin banner of the king. I used to dream that one day I too would wear a helmet and mail armour and ride behind Queen Gallia into battle.
‘My father laughed at such a notion, saying that if I was a good girl I would marry a fisherman and raise a family of fishermen.
‘Even Amazons need to eat,’ he told me, ‘and there is nothing wrong in being the wife of a man who puts food on the king’s table.’
He said nothing as she fell silent and continued to stare at the yellow flame.
‘But I wanted more, Talib, more than to live my life by the side of a river and be a brood mare for a fisherman. So I fashioned my own bow from reeds and practised with it every day. I also learned to ride.’
Talib laughed. ‘Your father must be a rich fisherman to be able to afford a horse.’
Her face filled with sorrow. ‘He had no horse but the village headman did. When I was sixteen I went to him and asked if he would teach me to ride. He said yes.’
Talib was surprised. ‘He did?’
‘I made a trade with him. My body for his horse.’
‘What?’
She shrugged. ‘He was old and fat and had little stamina. It was a fair trade. But it allowed me to take the Amazon entrance test. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. It was hot and when I got to the Citadel my feet were dirty and sore, but when I walked back to my home afterwards, I felt like I was flying, not walking. I had passed and was provisionally accepted into the Amazons. The day I was presented with my weapons and armour was the happiest of my life.’
She laughed. ‘My father, much to my surprise, was delighted.’
‘He was?’
‘After I had explained to him how he and mother would benefit from a small pension if I was killed in battle, yes.’
‘Did you tell him about the headman?’
She turned away from the flame. ‘What would be the point? He was a means to an end. Look where I am now.’
He looked around at the stone hovel.
‘Not literally,’ she said. ‘I am not just an Amazon but also their commander. For one who had her whole miserable life mapped out for her, such a thing is a blessing, a gift from Shamash himself.
‘I can never see the Amazons not being a part of my life, Talib, nor Dura and its king and queen.’
At that moment he knew she would never leave Dura or its army, and he knew he would never leave her. How curious was life. He could have wealth and position beyond the reach of most men, but to make it a reality would entail leaving the one thing he treasured the most in the whole world.
‘Haya is pregnant,’ she announced without warning.
‘Does Klietas know?’
She was surprised by his question.
‘Why should he?’
‘It is his child, I assume.’
She nodded. ‘They have both let their emotions get the better of them. It is a problem easily solved. Saruke’s potions include mentha pulegium, which will make Haya abort her unborn child.’
‘Poor Klietas,’ lamented Talib.
‘Poor Haya, more like,’ hissed his wife. ‘She is the one who suffers the consequences of his thoughtlessness. You are forbidden to tell him. The last thing we want is him moping around like a man who has just been castrated. We still have work to do.’
Azar’s back was still black and blue in the morning and she looked deathly pale as the effects of the flogging began to take effect. But more applications of watered-down vinegar and the encouragement of the rest of the group meant she was at least able to sit in the saddle. But she spoke little and rode with her head down, wincing frequently as her vest brushed against the flesh on her back. Talib ordered regular stops when her back could be dabbed with fresh vinegar lotion and her flesh examined for signs of bleeding. Much to everyone’s relief, not least Azar’s, there were none. As Bullus had rightly stated: she got off lightly.
*****
Amyntas had sloped back to his capital with his tail between his legs. Around him were hundreds of Galatian lords who had escaped the slaughter at Melitene, though thousands of their fellow tribesmen had not been so fortunate. At the Cappadocian border some nobles departed for their hill forts scattered throughout Galatia, many absenting themselves without bothering to say farewell to the king who had led them to disaster. The majority were members of the king’s tribe, the Trocmi, and so stayed with their lord, but others who were from the other two tribes that made up the population of the kingdom – the Tectosages and Tolistobogil – were eager to desert the king who had led them to a seemingly unending list of disasters. Moreover, they had not failed to notice that whereas the majority of the nobles Amyntas had surrounded himself with to march to the muster at Melitene were from the Trocmi, the bulk of the foot soldiers he had led east were from the other two tribes. To them it appeared that King Amyntas was prepared to fight to the last Tectosages and Tolistobogil warrior.
There were no great cities in Galatia, no urban centres to rival Athens, Alexandria or Seleucia. The Gauls lived predominantly in villages, with lords living in nearby hill forts that provided sanctuary in times of war. The towns that did exist were modest and entirely functional, and like the villages that dotted the kingdom were constructed of stone. Amyntas and his Trocmi lords headed for the residence of the king and the tribal capital: the town of Tavium.
Tavium was an old settlement, a place first inhabited by the Hittites and afterwards by the Cimmerians, Persians and Greeks. Lying in a fertile plain and built on a low-rising hill, it was not only a strong defensive position, whoever ruled Tavium controlled the small tin, iron and silver mines located in the limestone mountains to the north of the town. But the wealth of the kingdom was the plethora of fertile plains where crops grew and livestock flourished, though the large losses in manpower fighting the Parthians in two disastrous campaigns meant farms would be short of labour to harvest the crops, which could lead to starvation in the coming winter months.
Amyntas was burdened with such thoughts when he rode into Tavium at the end of another hot day. There was no wind and the great boar banner, the symbol of Camulus, the God of War, that flew over the entrance to the town hung abjectly and limply on its staff, an entirely fitting image to accompany the return of the defeated king to his capita
l.
A strong stone wall surrounded Tavium and at its centre was the residence of the king: a fortified stone citadel surrounded by a dry ditch with sloping sides. The town was less than a day’s ride west of Corum, which had been put to the sword by the Parthians the year before, and the news of yet another defeat at the hands of the horsemen of the desert cast the inhabitants of Tavium into deep despair. Amyntas saw the sullen expressions, downcast heads and individuals dragging their feet as they went about their business, looking at him and his horsemen with blank expressions and vacant stares. The town was rank with despair.
At the citadel a tired and irritable Amyntas intended to immediately retire to his private quarters, bathe, be massaged and eat before retiring to bed. His lords had left him to ride directly to their homes, leaving him with his bodyguard, the commander of which informed him the council of druids awaited him in his audience chamber.
‘Tell them to come back tomorrow,’ said Amyntas, sliding from his horse and stretching out his tired arms.
A slave rushed forward to take his horse to the stables, around him his horsemen likewise giving the reins of their mounts to other slaves. The citadel’s courtyard was small, enclosed by the palace on one side, and stables, armoury and storerooms on the other three sides. To Amyntas, the walls appeared to be closing in on him.
‘It would be prudent to hear what they have to say, majesty,’ said his commander.
‘Prudent? The last thing I want is a group of druids bending my ear about their sacred groves or other such trivial matters.’
But the matter they wished to discuss with him was far from trivial. The chief druid, a man called Kastor with white hair and beard to match his white robe, his face gaunt and severe, stood in front of five other white-robed druids, all of them with tonsures and dour expressions. They said nothing when Amyntas entered the chamber, accompanied by the commander of his bodyguard, their lack of manners further souring his mood.
‘The tribal leaders wish to meet with you, majesty,’ said Kastor.
‘They wish to learn your plans to deal with the crisis the kingdom finds itself in,’ added another druid.
‘There are rumours the Parthians are going to do to Galatia what they did to Corum last year,’ voiced a third druid.
Amyntas walked slowly to his throne and flopped down on its hard wooden seat.
‘Wine,’ he ordered, his commander standing on his right side.
The throne room was not large, which meant the druids were only a few feet from where he sat. If not within touching distance, then certainly within reach of his war hammer. The tempting thought flashed through his mind. Priests were a double-edged sword: welcome allies when things were going well, irritants difficult to avoid or get rid of in difficult times. A slave offered the king a cup of wine on a tray. He took the vessel and drained it, tilting his head to indicate it should be refilled.
‘The Parthians have gone home, Kastor,’ he said. ‘Galatia is safe.’
‘But bankrupt,’ the chief druid shot back.
‘The kingdom’s finances are my concern, not yours,’ snapped Amyntas.
Kastor changed tack. ‘A meeting with the other two chiefs would soothe the feelings of unease currently circulating in the kingdom, majesty, and the druids would urge such a meeting.’
‘The gods need appeasing,’ said one of the druids, ‘if the kingdom is to prosper. A divided kingdom cannot stand.’
‘If the chiefs wish to see me, then they can come here,’ said Amyntas, drinking from his refilled cup.
‘In view of the heavy losses suffered by the kingdom in the past few months, majesty,’ said Kastor solemnly, ‘you and the other chiefs must travel to the sacred oak grove to appease the gods.’
It was a story familiar to every man, woman and child in Galatia, irrespective of what tribe they belonged to. Of how, two hundred and fifty years before, a mighty army of Gauls was invited by a king named Nicomedes who ruled a kingdom called Bithynia in the east to serve him as mercenaries in his fight against his brother. Three Gaul tribes – the Trocmi, Tectosages and Tolistobogil – accepted and marched east with their families. Once in the land of Bithynia, the Gauls helped defeat the enemies of King Nicomedes and were rewarded by a grateful ruler with land to the southeast of Bithynia, which became known as Galatia: ‘Gallia of the East’.
From their new homeland on the great fertile plateau they raided far and wide, occasionally suffering defeats and being caught up with the great conflict between Rome and Mithridates of Pontus. Galatia absorbed Greek and Roman influences but its culture remained unchanged. Galatia was not a unified kingdom under one ruler: the tribes sent senators to a great assembly where differences were thrashed out and decisions taken. It was an imperfect arrangement and minor conflicts often broke out between the tribes. But these were usually settled speedily and Galatia prospered. That all changed with the coming to power of two men who declared themselves kings of Galatia, ruling concurrently. One was Deiotarus, chief or tetrarch of the Tolistobogil, and the other was Brogitarus, leader of the Trocmi and the father of Amyntas.
When the two tetrarchs passed away, some say hastened on their way to the afterlife by Amyntas, he became sole ruler of Galatia, ruthlessly crushing any opposition and naming himself king. But even the fierce, loud warlord was wary of the druids.
Healers, mystics, teachers and poets, the druids wrote nothing down, preferring instead to pass on their knowledge orally. If they had been content to interpret dreams and heal minds and bodies, they would have posed no threat. But the druids were also religious leaders who had the ear of the gods, who interpreted the wishes and wrath of the immortals. The people feared and revered them in equal measure, and their support was crucial for any king who wished to rule a harmonious kingdom. They accompanied warriors on the battlefield, fortifying them with courage. For every Galatian knew that the human soul was immortal and if a warrior fell in battle, his soul would pass into the body of a new-born child. Thus dying was but a brief, inconvenient interlude, a mere interruption.
The Galatians built great bronze statues to their gods in temples of marble and stone, in which druids officiated, sermonised and kept a watchful eye on the people who came to worship there. Like all the peoples who lived in the east the Galatians had been influenced by the Greeks, who had settled there long before. They retained their own language of Gaulish but their nobles learned to speak Greek, adopted Greek customs and replaced the idols in the Greek-built temples with images of their own gods. But the druids of Galatia never forgot their roots.
Like their forefathers, they regarded the oak as sacred; indeed, the word ‘druid’ meant ‘knowing the oak tree’. They chose their sacred oak groves by looking for mistletoe on the trees, believing it had dropped from heaven and was thus a sign that the oak tree upon which it grew had been selected by the gods themselves.
Close to the gods, regarded as prophets who could tell the future, secretive and aloof, for generations the druids had enjoyed special privileges. They were exempt from taxes, they acted as judges, were exempt from military service and were free to travel anywhere within the lands of the three tribes. And the place where druids came together to hold councils and make decisions that affected the whole kingdom was called Drunemeton, ‘the oak grove sanctuary’, deep inside an ancient oak forest a day’s ride from Tavium.
The forest that contained the druid sanctuary was filled with ancient oaks, their bark deeply fissured to indicate they had stood for several decades. The mature trees had formed broad and spreading crowns with sturdy branches beneath.
The day after his return to Tavium, Amyntas and his bodyguard rode along the dirt track that snaked through the trees, the open canopies allowing rays of sunlight to penetrate through to the forest floor. It was light, airy and fresh, the ground dotted with clusters of bluebells and primroses. But as they ventured further into the forest the atmosphere changed. Where before birds chirped on branches and flew above the trees, they suddenly vanished. The
oaks, previously widely spaced with expansive branches, appeared closer together, clustered. The rays of sunlight became infrequent until they vanished completely, and the riders trotted along a track that resembled a tunnel of dark greenery.
Eventually they came to the great sacred grove itself, which was nothing more than a circle of oaks with a clearing in the centre. But the interlacing branches had created a cool central space into which the sun never shone. And even though it was summer, the grove was chilly. Amyntas slid off his horse and ordered his bodyguard to dismount. The other tetrarchs were already present, the reins of their horses and those of their bodyguards tied to ropes fastened to oaks outside the grove.
The air was heavy with gravitas for this was the place where all druid knowledge came together, a place consecrated as a temple and a place simultaneously of the physical world and the spirit world. Amyntas walked into the centre of the grove where Kastor stood with a group of his white-robed druids, other druids standing around the edge of the grove. The king gave cursory nods to the men standing at the head of the other two groups, like his bodyguard the warriors dressed in a mixture of mail armour, leather armour and light bronze breastplates. There was the tall Cavarus, the ruler of the Tectosages tribe, whose name meant ‘giant’ in Gaulish, and the squat, thickset Ortiagon, tetrarch of the Tolistobogil.
The bodyguards were armed with spears and swords and all wore cone-like helmets favoured by the Gauls. The warriors of the bodyguards also carried round shields decorated with spirals. Only Amyntas carried a two-handed hammer, which he swung lazily upwards before resting it on his shoulder.
‘Well, I am here. What do you want to get off your chests?’
‘This a sacred place, King Amyntas,’ said Kastor sternly, ‘there are formalities to perform before we address the matter at hand.’
Without taking his eyes off the king he clapped his hands and a druid carrying a torch came forward to light the small bonfire in the centre of the grove, the dry wood that had been drenched in oil erupting into flames immediately. Kastor closed his eyes.
