by Peter Darman
‘And may I remind you, King Pacorus, that I am king of kings of the empire. I grow tired of hearing of King Castus. And you should be more grateful. You wanted me to find a position for Kewab and I have done so, eager to appease your prickly sense of honour.’
He lies like the rest of us breathe.
‘But, highness…’
He stopped me dead. ‘But nothing, King Pacorus, the matter is closed for discussion.’
So that was that. Castus had effectively bribed Phraates and the high king was more than happy to swell his already bulging treasury with more gold. I was going to suggest he donate the reparations being paid by Gordyene to alleviate Media’s woes, but though better of it.
A smile replaced the high king’s frown. ‘Now, to other matters. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the Romans. Negotiations with them are entering a critical stage, King Pacorus. I hope to have my son back beside me in a matter of months.’
‘I pray for that, highness.’
‘Which is why I want you to handle the negotiations from now on.’
‘Me?’
‘You are a logical choice, considering your vast experience of dealing with the Romans. And Dura is next to Syria where the final details concerning the exchange of the eagles for my son will be thrashed out.’
‘But surely, you have emissaries and legal experts to do that?’ I pleaded.
He dismissed the notion with a flick of his hand.
‘I want someone who can impress the Romans, someone they will respect. And that someone is you, King Pacorus.’
‘But…’
He showed me a palm of his hand. ‘It is not a request; it is a plea from one father to another.’
What could I say? He was the consummate manipulator, and in truth I did feel sorry for him. No father, not even the devious master of an empire, should be denied the company of his only child.
‘It would be an honour, highness.’
‘Excellent. Now, I am going for a ride in my chariot. You should get yourself one, King Pacorus, they are most gratifying to one’s sense of worth.’
He walked briskly to the steps from the battlements, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I looked to the east and no longer saw the army heading for Carmania, only a vast expanse of yellow-ochre desert.
‘This is the culmination of your career, Pacorus,’ I said to myself. ‘You are to be the high king’s errand boy.’
Epilogue
To my dear friend Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
The current peace that exists between Parthia and Rome has come about after years of bloodshed, destruction and mutual distrust between our two great empires. I know that you are as desirous to establish a new age of peace and cooperation between our two peoples as am I, and to nourish and encourage trade, cooperation and diplomatic resolutions to disputes, rather than recourse to war.
This being the case, I write this letter begging a favour of you, one that will benefit both Rome and Parthia. Following the defeat and ejection from Media of the Roxolani tribe of the Sarmatian race, which invaded Parthia at the invitation of King Castus of Gordyene and his wife Yesim, whom I believe your friend and ally, King Polemon of Pontus, is well acquainted with, my husband is leading an army with the intention to chastise the rulers of Gordyene.
As you will know, the Aorsi tribe of the Sarmatian race has long occupied the northern lands of Gordyene, having been invited into the kingdom by the late King Surena. The Aorsi have proved an irritant not only to other Parthian kingdoms but also to Armenia, having conducted cross-border raids into the lands of King Artaxias for many years.
Your own ambassador to Pontus, Gaius Arrianus, having suffered at the hands of King Castus in the same base manner as my husband, I believe a punitive expedition against the Aorsi would go some way to satisfying Rome’s desire for vengeance. Such a campaign would be largely free of resistance, as most Aorsi warriors will be in the south of Gordyene, preparing to face my husband’s own invasion of that kingdom.
With the caveat that any Roman expedition into Gordyene must not result in the territorial integrity of that kingdom being adversely affected, I can assure you that Dura, and indeed Parthia, would raise no objection to retribution being visited upon the Aorsi.
I remain your friend and ally
Gallia, Queen of Dura
Titus Tullus rolled up the letter after finishing reading it, handed it back to Gaius Arrianus and shook his head.
‘I told you she was a hateful, spiteful bitch, ambassador. I trust Agrippa treated her idea with the contempt it deserves?’
Gaius Arrianus tapped the rolled papyrus on the table between them. Tullus’ villa was a most pleasing residence, with splendid views of the Black Sea, well ventilated and richly decorated.
‘On the contrary, Agrippa has fully embraced Queen Gallia’s notion. He has requested that you command the army that is forming at Melitene even as we sit here in your well-appointed home.’
Tullus eyes narrowed. ‘What army?’
‘Four legions and a thousand Gallic horsemen. Agrippa thought their addition would add a touch of irony to the expedition, seeing as Queen Gallia is a Gaul.’
‘What does King Polemon say about this, seeing he is the one who pays me?’
‘He fully supports what Rome desires, and Rome desires someone answers for the gross insult against its ambassador, to say nothing of the wrongs committed against the commander of King Polemon’s palace guard. It is quite simple, Titus. You will lead the army from Melitene, take as many slaves as you can from northern Gordyene, leave behind as much devastation as possible, and return before the leaves on the trees have turned brown. The sale of the slaves should pay for the campaign, and your bonus.’
Tullus’ ears pricked up. ‘Bonus?’
Gaius feigned ignorance. ‘Apologies, I clean forgot. Agrippa is prepared to pay you ten talents of gold from his own purse to command the expedition.’
Tullus felt a tingle go down his spine. Over a quarter of a ton of gold was a tidy sum, and almost made up for the weeks he spent as a prisoner of the bitch Yesim and then her bastard husband Castus.
‘I agree, ambassador,’ said Tullus, ‘though I insist on keeping a few slaves for myself, to sell here in Sinope when I return. I’m not getting any younger and I have to start thinking about my retirement.’
Gaius raised an eyebrow and looked around the luxurious, expansive office.
‘It must be hard for you, Titus, what with penury constantly breathing down your neck.’
Tullus rubbed his hands together. ‘Shall we say I can keep a thousand slaves?’
‘We will say you may retain a hundred slaves for you own uses, general. The rest will be going to Rome, or wherever Agrippa deems fit. All slaves will first be transported to Melitene where I will be personally overseeing their quartering and onward shipment.’
‘I would like my bonus paid up front,’ insisted Tullus. ‘Just in case friend Agrippa buggers off back to Rome before I get back.’
Gaius was aghast. ‘Are you casting aspersions on the honour of a friend of Augustus himself, a man who has held the posts of consul, governor of Gaul and aedile?’
‘If he pays me what he promised, then I will respect him. Everything else is just piss and wind.’
Titus Tullus might have been a grasping murderer, a man who relished war and the carnage and butchery associated with it, but he was also a professional. He trusted only his own instincts and they told him to be wary of venturing into Gordyene. He assembled his band of former legionaries and rode with them to Melitene where he found four legions and an ala of horsemen. The legions were composed of evocati – soldiers who had retired but who had voluntarily re-enlisted again at the invitation of Agrippa – but they were all well-armed, equipped and supplied with enough food for three months’ campaigning.
To ensure the campaign would proceed as smoothly as possible, Tullus hired scouts with an intimate knowledge of northern Gordyene to accompany the army, which marched two weeks before th
e army commanded by Pacorus of Dura crossed into southern Gordyene.
It was a pleasant campaign. The weather was mild and there was no shortage of water and fodder for the horses in northern Gordyene. But most pleasing of all was the lack of opposition. The hateful Gallia had spoken the truth: the able-bodied men were all away in the south fighting King Pacorus. That left the old, the women and the children, plus a smattering of warriors to watch over the inhabitants of the villages littering the valleys of the lands immediately south of the River Araxes. Rich lands, fertile lands, full of game, flocks of sheep, crops and civilians, and in that glorious summer also full of Roman soldiers.
The campaign was methodical and the tactics old and well tested. Scouts would detect the location of a village, which would be surrounded by detachments of horsemen as dawn was breaking. Cordoned off, the settlement was then assaulted by legionaries, the horsemen remaining outside the buildings to prevent any escapees from fleeing and warning nearby villages. The legionaries would then quickly storm the huts and barns, kill any who offered resistance and capture the rest.
To the Romans, and indeed everyone else in the civilised world, slaves were most valuable as adults, when they were at their physical and mental peaks. However, as the majority of adult males were away in the south, Tullus had to make do with women, girls, boys and infants. Not that these groupings were not valuable, far from it. Rather, they did not command the highest prices in the slave markets. Price was determined by age, sex, physical strength, general health, attractiveness, skills, intelligence and education. Then again, boys and girls were easy to transport after capture, and would grow into men and women and the latter would bear future slaves.
After a month of rapid marches, Titus Tullus had captured several thousand Aorsi slaves. He then ordered an about-face and marched back to Melitene, hugging the southern bank of the Araxes as his swollen army headed west. The army marched slowly so as not to fatigue the slaves trudging along in shackles on foot. He even allowed mothers with infants to travel on the carts. He had only penetrated a relatively short distance into Gordyene, but he was satisfied he had achieved enough. He had avoided a battle with King Castus, he had captured thousands of slaves, and he had left behind a land littered with destroyed villages and crucified Aorsi, albeit mainly the old, who were valueless as slaves.
Tullus selected the hundred slaves he would personally profit from carefully. He had attended enough slave markets to know the categories that commanded the highest price. They were slaves of great beauty and deformed men and women, specifically dwarfs, Rome’s rulers having a predilection for surrounding themselves with human novelties. With the pick of the slaves, ten talents of gold as a bonus and King Polemon paying him a handsome salary, his life was certainly better than a few months previously when he had been detained in an animal pen while a ‘guest’ of the Pontic hill people. He had subsequently been dragged to Vanadzor where he had unexpectedly encountered King Pacorus, an enemy he liked and respected more than many men he called allies, which had led to the King of Dura’s wife making this lucrative campaign possible. It was certainly a strange world and the fate that entwined the lives of men was even stranger. But Queen Gallia was still a hate-filled bitch.
The slaves were transported to Melitene without difficulty, notwithstanding a few perishing on the way, either from fatigue or being crucified to provide an example to the rest to keep in line. They were duly handed over to the safekeeping of Gaius Arrianus, who arranged for their onward shipment to Rome. Tullus’ selected hundred captives were sold in Melitene’s slave market where they fetched a handsome sum. In a magnanimous gesture, he distributed the profits between his colleagues, the men who made up his close-knit band of former legionaries who had marched hundreds of miles with him when in Roman service, before trading their hob-nailed sandals for leather riding boots as Tullus rose in rank and they shared in his good fortune.
Once back in Cappadocia, the evocati legions were sent back to Syria where they were disbanded. Tullus and his colleagues journeyed back to Sinope via Kayseri and Corum in Galatia, now a Roman province. The more direct route north from Melitene to Trabzon on the coast of Pontus was avoided – Tullus having no wish to be the guest of the kingdom’s hill tribes a second time.
He was glad to see Sinope, the city he was pleased to call home, and one he never thought he would see again following his capture by Yesim, another hateful bitch who had become the Queen of Gordyene. He said farewell to his colleagues at the city gates and rode to his mansion alone. His walled, gated residence was located on the western side of the peninsula on which Sinope had been built, overlooking the shimmering turquoise Black Sea below. As the commander of Polemon’s Palace Guard, half a dozen of its soldiers were permanently billeted in the small barracks in the mansion’s grounds, two being on sentry at the gates at all times. The pair snapped to attention when he appeared on his horse, one of them opening the gates to allow their commander to enter.
He trotted into the courtyard where a stable hand rushed forward to take his mount. He dismounted and strode towards the entrance to his home, the head slave of the household appearing between the two marble columns framing the mansion’s entrance.
‘Welcome home, master,’ he smiled.
Acacius was an old Greek who had been a slave for most of his life. Educated by his first master when he had been a boy, he had always been a house slave, tutoring the children of his subsequent masters and earning himself a reputation for being loyal and trustworthy. He ran Tullus’ household in the general’s absence, being responsible for the day-to-day affairs of the general’s businesses, which included vineyards outside the city and a stake in a silver mine near Trabzon.
Acacius ushered forward a boy carrying a tray holding a cup, in which was wine. Tullus took it, emptied it, placed it back on the tray and washed his hands in a silver bowl filled with water held by another slave. He wiped his hands on a towel draped over the slave’s arm.
‘Anything to report?’ he said to Acacius.
‘Nothing of note, master. I have left a report of the accounts of the household and your business interests on your desk.’
‘I will read it later. Please arrange a bath and massage.’
After washing away his aches and pains and being gently massaged into a blissful slumber by a young Greek slave with firm hands, he retired to his bedchamber for the afternoon. Normally, he would take a female slave with him, but today he was too tired. After a couple of hours’ sleep, a gentle breeze ruffling the lace curtains at the open shutters to the bedroom to keep the temperature pleasant, he woke and walked to his office. Slaves cleaning the mosaic floor stood and bowed their heads as he passed them. He was now a wealthy man with commercial interests that were flourishing, thanks to the patronage of the king. On the way back from Melitene he had been mulling over an idea, and on seeing his mansion again he had made up his mind. He would retire. He was done with war and killing. He liked both, but on the battlefield there was always a chance an arrow, spear or slingshot would strike him down, and then who would spend all the money he had accumulated?
He entered his office, walked around the desk and pulled out his chair. And froze. There, on the upholstered leather seat, was a gold brooch. He stared at it for a few seconds, two thoughts running through his mind. Was it poisoned and who put it there? He saw the design and a chill ran down his spine. It was a griffin, the symbol of Dura, and he knew it was a warning. That he could be reached at any time, and anywhere. He had long suspected Queen Gallia had assassins, even though it had never been proved. But here was the evidence, though he would never be able to prove it. He would get a kitchen slave to remove it. That way he would see if it was laced with poison. His mind was made up: he definitely would retire, sooner rather than later. He took comfort from the fact that if Queen Gallia wanted him dead, he would already be so. Still…
‘Hateful bitch.’
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