Parthian Dawn

by Peter Darman

  ‘Welcome back to your home.’ She smiled at me and I held her again.

  Godarz and Rsan, standing to one side, stepped forward and bowed their heads.

  ‘It is good to see you, majesty,’ said Rsan.

  ‘And you,’ I said.

  ‘We have been hearing how you have been covering yourself in glory,’ Godarz grinned at me.

  ‘And collecting war wounds, I see,’ Gallia ran a finger over my scarred face.

  ‘It will heal though not disappear entirely, my love, or so Alcaeus informed me.’

  A cart pulled by two testy mules wheeled into the courtyard, escorted by Domitus and a score of his men. I pointed at Rsan.

  ‘Something to fill your treasury, Rsan. Go and look.’

  Both he and Godarz walked over to the cart as Domitus jumped on the back and unlocked the three chests that were sitting behind the driver. I noticed that Godarz and Domitus clasped each other’s forearms in greeting when they met. They had become good friends. Rsan whooped with joy when he was shown the gold, and even Godarz’s usually resigned face displayed excitement. Rsan instantly gave orders to his guards to take the chests into the treasury. I dismissed the cataphracts, whose squires took their horses to the stables. Praxima then dismissed the Amazons and kissed me on the cheek as she and Nergal disappeared into the palace to make up for the time they had been away from each other. I looked at Gallia stroking Remus and talking to him softly, her still lithe figure framed by her leggings and white armless silk tunic. No sign of her pregnancy as yet. A squire took Remus to the stables and I grabbed her hand and pulled her close. I felt my loins stir.

  ‘I’ve missed you.’

  Her eyes lit up. ‘Are you going to show me how much?’

  Afterwards, as she lay naked on our bed, she ran a finger down my scarred cheek. ‘Soon I will be fat and ugly and you will not want me.’

  I turned to face her. ‘I will never not want you, you are my reason for living.’

  ‘I will hold you to that.’

  ‘I think my father is angry with me.’

  She raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Have you given any reason for him to be angry with you?’

  I sighed. ‘He thinks that I lust for glory, and that we should not have given battle to Narses.’

  ‘And do you lust for glory?’

  I looked at her and knew that I could not deceive her. ‘Yes.’

  She smiled. ‘Perhaps he envies you and is angry with himself for feeling thus.’

  ‘Perhaps. I think he wishes that we were both back in Hatra under his protection.’

  ‘Or maybe he regrets not putting himself forward to be King of Kings.’

  I smiled. ‘His pride would never allow himself to admit that he has made a mistake. But yes, I think he does now see that perhaps he, and not Phraates, would have been a better choice. But what is done is done.’

  ‘And now you are Lord High General of the whole Parthian Empire, for a courier arrived from Ctesiphon announcing your appointment before you returned. What does it entail?’

  I rose from the bed and stood at the balcony doors, looking at the Euphrates below. ‘I do not know exactly, though I have a nasty feeling that I might become Phraates’ errand boy.’

  Early the next morning I rode down to the Palmyrene Gate. When I arrived I handed a guard the reins of Remus and then climbed the stone steps inside one of the towers on to the arch to look at the stone griffin statue. The sky’s purple and pink hues were giving way to blue as the sun began its ascent in the east, while spreading our before me to the west was the great desert plain. The legion’s camp was already bustling with activity, the men rising before dawn and then eating their breakfast of porridge, bread and cheese, before assembling for parade. It was at morning assembly that any notices were read out, and I had instructed Domitus to pass on my gratitude to the men for their professional conduct during the campaign that had just finished, and to inform them that each would be receiving a bonus of a week’s pay. The legion’s clerks meticulously recorded each legionary’s pay, the documents being held in the headquarters building in the Citadel. The whole legion was run along Roman lines. ‘War is business,’ Domitus once told me, and he was right. When I was a boy I used to think that conflict was all colourful banners, shining armour, mighty steeds and personal combat, but the reality was that victory depended on discipline, endless drill, the right equipment and cool leadership in the heat of battle. Bozan, my old tutor in Hatra, had drilled it into me that the key was to make sure you were prepared for war, and that required hours and hours of training and drilling. Train hard, fight easy. And he was right, and so was Domitus, and that’s why the Romans were so successful. They didn’t care how many men an enemy brought to the battlefield because they knew that every man in every legion knew his task and could carry it out in his sleep. As I watched a century march at double time out of the camp I smiled to myself. Drill, marching and instruction, day after day, month after month, year after year. It was the same with my cataphracts, who every day rode out to the training fields and spent hours honing their formations, obeying the horns that told them when to turn, when to charge and when to retreat. Dura’s lords were not disciplined, and though wild and recklessly brave, against determined opposition, such as a Roman army, they would fail. No matter, I now had enough gold to raise a force of my own horse archers and Nergal would be their commander.

  ‘Daydreaming, son of Hatra?’

  I was startled by the words, then saw the familiar dishevelled figure of Dobbai ambling towards me.

  ‘Your wife told me that you might be here.’

  ‘We missed you at the meal last night,’ I said.

  ‘Of course you didn’t. Two young newlyweds want to be on their own after being parted, so I made myself scarce.’

  She laid her hand on the griffin statue. ‘Afraid he might have been stolen?’

  ‘No, I like the view, and it is also peaceful. Most of the time.’

  ‘Don’t be churlish, son of Hatra, it does not suit you. We heard of your elevation to be chief warlord in the empire. Well done, though I had hoped to see the heads of Narses and Mithridates adorning the walls of the Citadel this morning.’

  ‘Unfortunately, they got away.’

  Her haggard visage frowned. ‘That is unfortunate, for you will have to fight them all over again. Cockroaches are difficult to kill, are they not?’

  ‘I met the wife of Phraates during my stay in Ctesiphon.’

  ‘Queen Aruna?’ Dobbai spat over the battlements. ‘She possesses the venom of a King Cobra and the malice of a demon from the underworld. She took a dislike to you?’

  ‘An instant one, as far as I could tell.’

  ‘You have won great victories but made powerful enemies. People may forget the victories but your enemies will not forgive you. What are you going to do with the gold that Phraates gave you?’

  I bristled. ‘That’s an impertinent question.’

  She pointed a talon-like finger at me and cackled. ‘Then have me flogged.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool. I will strengthen the army, if you must know.’

  ‘Very wise. You will need many warriors err long.’

  ‘I can command kings to send me warriors,’ I declared boldly.

  ‘You can command and they can ignore you. Trust only those who have sworn allegiance to you. Words are worth nothing.’

  ‘Narses and Mithridates cannot conjure up armies out of nothing. Even if they wanted to rebel again it would take them time to rebuild their forces. In any case, the other kings in the eastern part of the empire have sworn allegiance to Phraates.’

  She scratched her beak-like nose. ‘They have done so because they fear you, that is the only reason. But if you are pre-occupied then they can change their minds. You want my advice?’

  ‘Not really.’

  She ignored my words. ‘Send assassins to kill both Mithridates and Narses. Persuade Phraates to give you the throne of Persis and Orodes the crown of Susia
na. In that way you will secure peace in the empire.’

  ‘Flights of fancy,’ I said. ‘Even if I wanted Persis, which I do not, Phraates would not sanction it, and he would have me executed if he discovered that I had had his son murdered.’

  She smiled, her teeth black and foul, turned and shuffled away. ‘Very well, have it your own way. But war is coming, son of Hatra, war is coming.’

  Despite Dobbai’s dire warning the weeks that followed saw a return to normality. Peace within the empire meant a return of trade along the Silk Road and the flow of caravans through Dura to and from Egypt, with more money pouring into Rsan’s treasury. The lords returned to their estates and Gallia and I undertook a tour of my kingdom while she had the energy to do so and was not too fat to fit in a saddle. She declared that she would never be transported in a cart, so it was on horseback or not at all. So that summer we visited each lord in his stronghold. I took all my cataphracts with me, though neither they nor their horses wore any armour or carried the kontus. Instead, they all wore white tunics and brown leggings and carried bows and swords. They also left their helmets behind, as the facemasks would terrify the locals. It was a happy time, for the ranks of my cataphracts contained the sons of Dura’s lords so each stronghold we visited turned into a homecoming for an eldest son. A great feast invariably followed, at which drunken oaths of allegiance were sworn to me and Gallia, to the amusement of my wife. The other sons of each lord begged their father to allow them to serve in my cavalry. The number of volunteers thus swelled after each visit, especially at the feasts. As the hour grew late Gallia would retire to her quarters. She did not complain but I could tell that her pregnancy was sapping her strength. And so she slept and each lord silenced the music and noise, leaving his eldest son to talk of the campaign that he had just fought in. I always made sure that I was just a face in the crowd at such events, for each man had earned the right to tell his story of the battles that we had fought. Eager faces hungry for news gathered round as he told how we had defeated Porus and his elephants. The logs on the great fires crackled and hissed as a new version of the story was told every time. The elephants, tall as three horses and blood-crazed, charged our lines, only to die on the points of our lances as we abandoned all hope and met the giant beasts head-on. Others told of hundreds of elephants as far as the eye could see, each carrying archers and spearmen who fired thousands of arrows that bounced off our scale armour as we rode among the tusked animals, hacking at their legs with our swords. Occasionally I would catch the eye of our host, invariably surrounded by his lieutenants and giant hunting dogs at his feet, and he would smile at me. He knew the truth, that the elephants had been scattered by a herd of pigs, and so did I, and for that matter so did the storyteller and many of those present. It didn’t matter. I smiled back and we both enjoyed the fiction. Then there were stories of our victory over Narses, of our crazy charge into the massed ranks of the enemy, and for once the orator told the truth for there was no need to embellish the tale. The enemy did indeed fill the horizon and we were but few in number.

  The lords of Dura were hard frontiersmen, men given lands on the western bank of the Euphrates because only they had the courage and skills to conquer a wasteland filled with hostile Agraci. Dura had belonged to the King of Kings, and the wily fox Sinatruces had sent those who were uncontrollable and rebellious to do battle with the scorpions, snakes and Agraci. Only the strongest and most cunning survived, but those who did carved out their territory with blood and iron and had no time for court etiquette or politics. They still did not kneel to any king and I did not ask them to kneel to me, but I had earned their respect and they now gave me loyalty. And the peace with the Agraci had held, so now their lands were unmolested and turning a profit, which in turn was making them prosperous.

  For his part Haytham kept an iron grip on his people and prohibited any incursions into Dura’s territory. But old habits die hard and there was the occasional transgression, usually a raid to steal livestock. Haytham always found out and had the livestock returned, along with the severed heads of the thieves as proof that justice had been meted out. Such gestures were appreciated by Dura’s lords. For his part, after bidding Gallia and me a fond farewell, Malik returned to his people and took Byrd with him, though after a few days Gallia was harassing me to take her to see Haytham.

  ‘We could invite him here, Rasha too.’

  She was insistent. ‘No, I think we should visit him. It is only polite.’

  I suddenly realised why she was so keen to journey to Palmyra. ‘You want to see Byrd’s woman.’

  She avoided my eyes. ‘Nonsense, I had completely forgotten that he had one. In any case…’

  ‘Very well, my sweet, we will visit Haytham and satisfy your curiosity.’

  And so we did. I took Haytham a present of a pair of elephant tusks that had been hacked off a dead beast after we had beaten Porus. On the road I was struck how much traffic there was — camels carrying great loads, mules weighed down with wares and even travellers on foot. How different from the first time that we had made the same journey, when we took Haytham’s daughter back to her father.

  Palmyra was a great sprawling collection of tents around a huge oasis that had turned the arid desert green. There were hundreds of trees fed by the waters — palms, olives and pomegranates — and there must have been thousands of people living among the lush landscape.

  ‘We have set aside a large area to the south for the merchants and their animals, and we dug irrigation channels to provide men and their beasts with water, which we charge them for.’ Haytham grinned broadly. He was still an old thief at heart.

  We sat cross-legged on the carpets in his tent, eating roasted goat wrapped in pancakes, dipping them in delicious yoghurt and washed down by fruit juice. Rasha was cuddling up to Gallia as we ate and talked.

  ‘Is there any trouble?’ I asked.

  ‘Never,’ replied Haytham. ‘I make sure of that. I provide escorts from the edge of your territory all the way down to Petra if they so desire, but most of the caravans have their own guards and keep themselves to themselves.’

  ‘And you are happy with our agreement?’

  He nodded. ‘I have no complaints, and Malik does nothing but talk about you and your army. I think you are turning him into a Parthian.’

  ‘What do you know of Byrd?’ asked Gallia.

  Haytham rose and picked up some cushions and placed them around Gallia. He had obviously heard of her pregnancy. ‘Your scout? He’s a strange one. Doesn’t talk much but he and Malik have become good friends so he comes and goes as he wishes. He’s found himself a woman here.’

  ‘Gallia is dying to meet her.’

  ‘I am merely curious, that is all,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll ask Malik to bring them over tomorrow, if you wish.’

  Malik and Byrd had just returned from a journey to Syria, so I could pretend that my meeting with them was for reasons of strategy, though I doubt that anyone was fooled, especially as there was no reason for Byrd’s woman to be there. She was a dusky skinned individual of average height and slim build, wrapped in her dark brown Agraci robes, her hair braided under her shawl. She had dark brown eyes, almost black, with a slender nose and full lips. Her name was Noora and Gallia was delighted to meet her.

  ‘I am a friend of Byrd’s,’ Gallia said.

  ‘I have heard of you, lady,’ she looked at me. ‘And you too, sir.’

  ‘Please, call me Pacorus.’

  Byrd looked totally disinterested as Gallia took Noora by the arm and bombarded her with questions.

  ‘Sorry about all this, Byrd,’ I said, ‘you know what women are like.’

  ‘No matter, lord. It is good to see Gallia looking so well. One thing you should know, though. We heard stories of many Romani soldiers marching across the land from Greece into Asia.’

  ‘Going where?’

  ‘Armenia and Pontus.’

  That was indeed worth knowing. With reinforcements, Luc
ullus would be emboldened to make further incursions into Parthian territory, though first he had to destroy the remnants of his enemies in Pontus and Armenia. Perhaps that would keep him occupied and avert his gaze from Parthia. Perhaps, but I was still uneasy. Our stay in Palmyra was an extremely pleasant diversion, though, and I was pleased that Byrd had found a companion after his years of loneliness. Gallia wanted them both to come back with us to Dura to live in the palace, though the look of horror on Byrd’s face at such a prospect told me that he would be staying with Haytham and his people.

  ‘I hope I can still call on your services, Byrd,’ I said on the morning of our departure. ‘You are my best scout.’

  ‘Just send word, lord. I come.’

  We did take one person back with us, though — Rasha. She wanted to hear more tales of elephants and in any case Gallia loved having her in the palace, so that was that.

  I wrote to Phraates, Aschek of Atropaiene and Farhad of Media telling them about the reinforcements being sent to Lucullus, though I was rather surprised when I received a message back from Phraates telling me that Lucullus had sent a courier to Ctesiphon stating that Rome wished for peace with Parthia and looked forward to amicable relations between our two empires. There was no mention of Rome withdrawing from Gordyene, though. Phraates also informed me that Mithridates had appeared at his court and had begged his forgiveness for being ‘intoxicated’ by Narses and raising his sword against his father. Phraates had forgiven his son, of course, but had given the city of Susa to Orodes for safekeeping, retaining Mithridates at Ctesiphon to be the commander of the garrison and his ‘special advisor’, whatever that meant. At least Orodes now controlled the kingdom of Susiana and its army.

  ‘And Mithridates and his mother control Phraates, who controls his son, Orodes. So you see, Mithridates exerts a great influence over the empire still,’ said Dobbai as she sat with us on the palace terrace late one afternoon. The day had been stifling, but as the evening approached the heat had diminished and a light easterly breeze made the temperature pleasant. I watched travellers on the road from the east approaching Dura — people on foot, camels loaded with wares and mules pulling carts full of goods. I was always amazed at the volume of people on the road, but Egypt had an insatiable desire for silk and China had a seemingly never-ending supply of the material. And Parthia lay between seller and buyer and grew rich by dint of geography.