A porter ushered the party inside in response to their knock and Demetrius and Bagoas were swept along as Ballista and Mamurra were led deeper into the house.
The dining room was a mixture of east and west. Underfoot was a typical Greek or Roman mosaic depicting the remains of a meal: fish and animal bones, nut shells, olive stones, discarded cherries. Persian rugs hung from the walls. Elaborate metal lamps cast a soft light. Braziers warmed and perfumed the room with cinnamon, balsam, myrrh.
There was just one sigma couch, a semicircle with settings for seven, with one table in the middle. Four men stood drinking conditum, warm, spiced wine. One was the host, two Demetrius did not recognize, and one was Acilius Glabrio.
'Welcome to my house, Ballista and Mamurra.' Iarhai held out his hand.
'Thank you for inviting us.' They smiled and shook his hand.
Ballista turned to Acilius Glabrio. 'Tribunus Laticlavius.'
'Dux.' Neither smiled.
Iarhai offered the new arrivals a drink, which both accepted, and introduced the other two men. Demetrius marked them down as umbrae, shadows, clients of the host. 'My daughter said that we were not to wait for her, that she would join us soon.'
Both Ballista and Acilius Glabrio brightened visibly. Demetrius's spirits sank.
'Tell me, Dux, how do you find our weather?' Iarhai smiled.
'Wonderful. I am surprised that the eupatrid senators of Rome do not all abandon the Bay of Naples and begin to build their shamefully extravagant holiday villas here.' As he said the words Ballista regretted them. Acilius Glabrio would not take kindly to a barbarian laughing at the patrician classes. He turned what he hoped was an inoffensive, open smile on the tribune. He was met by a face like a blank wall. It seemed that every time they met they disliked each other more. Would Acilius Glabrio's attitude extend to disobeying orders? Surely he wouldn't desert or turn traitor like Scribonius Mucianus?
'Salted almonds?' Iarhai stepped between the two men. 'Some fool once told me that if you eat enough almonds before drinking you never get drunk.'
Mamurra joined in. 'I once heard that if you wear a certain gem you also never get drunk – an amethyst possibly?' The uncomfortable moment passed.
'Let us go to the table.' Iarhai took the highest place on the far left and indicated where the others should recline, Ballista next to him, an empty place reserved for Bathshiba, Acilius Glabrio then Mamurra. The two umbrae occupied the places of least honour.
The first course was brought in. By the standards of the rich of the imperium, and there could be no doubt that the host was one of their number, the food was unostentatious. Salted anchovies hid under slices of hard-boiled eggs, there were snails cooked in white wine, garlic and parsley, and a salad oflettuce and rocket- nicely balanced: rocket was thought to be lubricious, lettuce antaphrodisiac.
The diners ate. Demetrius noted that, while the others were being quite abstemious, Ballista and Iarhai were drinking hard. Arrive late, when the lamps are lit; Make a graceful entrance – Delay enhances charm
As he recited the fragment of Latin poetry, Acilius Glabrio rose gracefully to his feet.
Bathshiba stood, backlit in the doorway. Even Demetrius had to admit that she was stunning. She was wearing a thin robe of white silk which clung to and emphasized her full breasts and hips. Demetrius knew she would be almost irresistible to Ballista. The other men scrambled to their feet, none with the grace of Acilius Glabrio.
Bathshiba gave the young patrician a dazzling smile, her teeth very white against the dark olive of her skin. As she walked to the couch her breasts swayed, heavy yet firm, obviously unfettered under the robe. She graciously allowed Acilius Glabrio to give her his hand as she took her place, smiling a smaller smile at Ballista to her side.
The main course was, again, almost aggressive in its simplicity: wild boar, lamb meatballs, cabbage dressed with oil, marrow with a pepper sauce and local flat bread. Two musicians, one with a lyre, the other a flute, began to play softly. Both looked vaguely familiar to Demetrius.
For a time, Bathshiba's arrival made the conversation falter slightly. Her generous cleavage and olive skin obviously attracted both Ballista and Acilius Glabrio, yet the northerner seemed to be finding it hard to think of much to say. After only a short while, he resumed his conversation with Iarhai about the relative endurance levels of the camel and the horse. Acilius Glabrio, on the other hand, was thoroughly enjoying himself. Attentive, light-hearted and witty, he clearly thought himself any girl's ideal dinner companion. Although the conversation was in Greek, he could not resist the occasional sally into Latin verse: Wine rouses the heart, inclines to passion: Heavy drinking dilutes and banishes care In a sea of laughter, gives the poor man self-confidence, Smoothes out wrinkles, puts paid To pain and sorrow. Then our age's rarest endowment, Simplicity, opens all hearts, as the god Dissipates guile. Men's minds have often been enchanted By girls at such times: ah, Venus in the wine Is fire within fire!
The final course showed the same almost flamboyant restraint that had marked the previous two: dried fruits, Damascene prunes, local figs and dates, pistachios and almonds, a smoked cheese, and some poached pears and fresh apples. The wine was changed to a sweet dark Lesbian.
Demetrius did not like the way things looked. If anything, Ballista and Iarhai were drinking even faster now. There was an awkward glint in the eye of his kyrios and a mulish set to his shoulders. Clearly he was annoyed by Acilius Glabrio's ease with Bathshiba. The young patrician was liable at any moment to bring out the worst in the northerner. In all honesty, the gathering frequency of the tribune's recitation of Latin poetry was beginning to irritate Demetrius too. After each display the young patrician sat back with a smile which suggested that he was enjoying a private joke. He carefully avoided naming the poet. His audience was either too polite or too reluctant to show its ignorance to ask. Like the majority of educated Greeks, Demetrius claimed ignorance of Latin literature in public while privately knowing a great deal about it. He knew the poetry, but for the moment could not quite place it.
An exaggerated run on the lyre ended a tune and drew Demetrius's attention to the musicians. He suddenly realized who they were: they were not slave musicians at all, they were two of Iarhai's mercenaries. He had heard them play at the campfire. With mounting apprehension, the young Greek looked round the room. Iarhai's four slaves were all older, capable-looking men. And they weren't slaves – they were mercenaries too. Although he could notbe sure, the two umbrae relaxing at the table could well be two officers of the mercenary troop. Gods, he could kill us all in a moment. A scene in Plutarch came to mind: Mark Antony and Octavian are dining on Sextus Pompey's flagship, and the pirate Menas whispers in the admiral's ear, 'Shall I cut the cables and make you master of the whole world?'
'Demetrius!' Ballista was waving his empty cup impatiently and the Greek boy snapped back to the present. Iarhai and Ballista were happily drinking together. Why would the protector of caravans want the northerner dead? Even Sextus Pompey had rejected the offer: 'Menas, would that you had acted, not spoken about it beforehand.'
… don't waste precious time – Have fun while you can, in your salad days; the years glide Past like a moving stream, And the water that's gone can never be recovered, The lost hour never returns.
Acilius Glabrio leant back, a half-smile playing on his lips, his hand fleetingly brushing Bathshiba's arm.
Ovid. Demetrius had it. And the poem was 'The Art of Love'. The pretentious swine. Acilius Glabrio had been reading it only yesterday – so much for his scholarship. So much for his smug little smiles. Demetrius remembered how the passage continued: You who today lock out your lovers will lie Old and cold and alone in bed, your door never broken Open at brawling midnight, never at dawn Scattered roses bright on your threshold! Too soon – ah, horror! – Flesh goes slack and wrinkled, the clear Complexion is lost, those white streaks you swear date back to Your schooldays suddenly spread, You're grey-haired.
The passages Aci
lius Glabrio had recited had been a series of snide jokes at the expense of the other diners, whom he undoubtedly thought far too ill-educated to detect him.
How did that passage about arriving late go on? Plain you may be, but at night you'll look fine to the tipsy: Soft Lights and shadows will mask your faults.
Demetrius could not say anything to anyone at the moment. Indeed, if he did tell a drunk Ballista the results might well be catastrophic. But at least he had unravelled the smug Roman patrician's sly little secret.
Iarhai made a signal, and wreathes of fresh roses and bowls of perfume appeared, symbols that the time for eating was over and the time for serious drinking and toasting about to start. Demetrius placed a wreath on Ballista's head and put his bowl of perfume by his right hand. After anointing himself, Ballista gestured the young Greek to stand closer. The northerner took the spare wreath which Iarhai had provided for just this reason and placed it on Demetrius's head. He then anointed the boy.
'Long life, Demetrius.'
'Long life, Kyrios.'
'A toast' – Acilius Glabrio had not thought enough of his slave to anoint or wreath him – 'a toast to our host the synodiarch, the caravan protector, the strategos, the general. The warrior whose sword never sleeps. To the man who waded ankle-deep in Persian blood to free this city. To Iarhai!'
Before the company could drink, Iarhai turned and glared at the young Roman. The synodiarch's battered face was twisted with barely suppressed anger. A muscle twitched in the broken right cheekbone.
'No! No one shall drink to that in my house.' Iarhai looked at Ballista. 'Yes, I helped end the Sassanid occupation of this city.' His lip curled in disgust. 'You are probably still too young to understand,' he said to the northerner, 'that one probably never will understand' – he jerked his head at Acilius Glabrio and paused. His eyes were on Ballista but he had withdrawn into himself. 'Many of the Persian garrison had their family with them. Yes, I waded ankle-deep through blood – the blood of women, children, babes in arms. Our brave fellow citizens rose up and massacred them, raped, tortured, then killed them – all of them. They boasted they were "cleansing" the city of the "reptiles".'
Iarhai's gaze came back into focus. He looked at Bathshiba then at Ballista. 'All my life I have killed. It is what a synodiarch does. You protect the caravans. You talk to the nomads, the tent-dwellers. You lie, cheat, bribe, compromise. And when they all fail, you kill.
'I have dreams. Bad dreams.' A facial muscle twitched. 'Such dreams I would not wish even on Anamu and Ogelos… Do you believe in an afterlife, a punishment in an afterlife?' Again his gaze became unfocussed. 'Sometimes I dream that I have died. I stand in the grove of black poplars by the ocean stream. I pay the ferryman. I cross the hateful river. Rhadamanthys judges me. I have to take the road to the punishment fields of Tartarus. And they are waiting for me, the "kindly ones", the demons of retribution and, behind them, the others: all those I have killed, their wounds still fresh. There is no need to hurry. We have eternity.' Iarhai sighed a great sigh then smiled a self-deprecating smile. 'But perhaps I have no monopoly on inner daemons…'
The patrician drawl of Acilius Glabrio broke the silence. 'Discussing the immortality of the soul. This is a true symposium, a veritable Socratic dialogue. Not that I ever suspected for a moment that after-dinner conversation in this esteemed house would resemble that at the dinner of Trimalchio in Petronius's Satyricon.' Everything about his manner suggested that was just what he thought. 'You know, all those dreadful jumped-up, ill-educated freedmen talking nonsense about werewolves and the like.'
Ballista swung round heavily. His face was flushed, his eyes unnaturally bright. 'My father's name is Isangrim. It means "Grey-Mask". When Woden calls, Isangrim lays down his spear, offers the Allfather his sword. He dances and howls before the shield wall. He wears the wolfskin coat.'
There was a stunned silence. Demetrius could hear the oil hissing in one of the lamps.
'Gods below, are you saying that your father is a werewolf?' Acilius Glabrio exclaimed.
Before the northerner could answer, Bathshiba began to recite in Greek: Hungry as wolves that rend and bolt raw flesh, Hearts filled with battle-frenzy that never dies – Off on the cliffs, ripping apart some big-antlered stag They gorge on the kill till their jaws drip red with blood
… But the fury, never shaken, Builds inside their chests.
No one in the imperium couldfail to recognize the poetry ofHomer.
Bathshiba smiled. 'You see, the father of the Dux Ripae could not be in better company when he prepares to fight like a wolf. He is in the company of Achilleus and his Myrmidons.'
She glanced at her father. He took the hint and gently indicated that it was time for his guests to depart.
The rains confounded local knowledge. The first rains of the winter always lasted three days; everyone said so. This year, the rains lasted five. By mid-morning on the sixth day the blustery north-east wind had blown away the big black clouds. The washed-out blue sky brought the inhabitants of Arete into the muddy streets and quite a large number found their way to the palace gates. They all arrived claiming it was vital that they saw the Dux. They brought reports, complaints, requests for justice or help. A section of the cliff in the northern ravine at the far end from the postern gate had tumbled down. A row of three houses near the agora had collapsed. Two men who had been foolish enough to try to row across to Mesopotamia were lost, presumed drowned. A soldier of Cohors XX had been accused of raping his landlord's daughter. A woman had given birth to a monkey.
Ballista dealt with the flood of petitioners, at least to the extent of ordering the arrest of the soldier and, sending a messenger ahead, at midday he set out to meet Acilius Glabrio at the north-west tower, by the Temple of Bel, to begin a tour of inspection of both the artillery and the walls of Arete. He was accompanied by Mamurra, Demetrius, Maximus, the standard-bearer Romulus, the senior haruspex, two scribes, two messengers and two local architects. Five troopers of the equites singulares had been sent on horseback to clear the area outside the walls.
Ballista was not looking forward to this meeting. If only he had kept quiet at Iarhai's dinner party. What had made him admit that his father, Isangrim, was a warrior dedicated to Woden, a warrior who at times felt the battle madness of wolves? Of course, he had been drunk. Possibly he had been affected by the confession of Iarhai. Certainly he had been angered by the supercilious attitude of Acilius Glabrio. But these were excuses.
It could have been worse. It was not a secret like the visits of the ghost of Maximinus Thrax. If he blurted that out, people would either think that he should be shunned because he was haunted by a powerful daemon or that he was completely insane. Further admitting to emperor-killing, even if the emperor you killed had been universally hated, was frowned on by reigning emperors. It might test the tolerance of even so mild and well disposed a pair of rulers as Valerian and Gallienus.
Ballista climbed the stairs and walked out on to the fighting platform at the top of the tower.
'Dux Ripae.' There was a barely suppressed smirk on Acilius Glabrio's face, but Ballista's attention was on something else. There, in the middle of the windswept platform, its covers off, stood a huge artillery piece, a ballista. It was a lifelong fascination with such weapons that had won the northerner his name.
Ballista knew that Arete possessed thirty-five pieces of artillery. One was stationed on top of each of her twenty-seven towers. The Palmyrene Gate and the Porta Aquaria each boasted four; two on the roof and two shooting through portholes on the first floor. Twenty-five of the weapons shot a two and a half foot bolt. These were anti-personnel weapons. Ten shot stones. These were primarily intended to destroy enemy siege engines but could also be used to kill men. All were crewed by legionaries of Legio IIII.
The northerner had chosen to begin his tour here because this tower housed one of the biggest ballistae. A rectangular frame of iron-reinforced hardwood some ten feet wide held near each end a torsion spring of t
wisted sinew, each as high as a very tall man. Inserted into these springs were the bow arms. The stock, some twenty feet long, projected back from the frame. A slider dovetailed on to it at the rear of which were catches which caught the bowstring. Two powerful winches pulled back the slider and bowstring, forcing back the bow arms. The missile was placed in the slider. A ratchet held the slider in place, and a universal joint allowed it to traverse easily from side to side, and up and down. The soldier took aim, and a trigger unleashed the awesome torsion power of the springs.
Ballista happily let his eyes run over the dark polished wood, the dull gleam of the metal. All ballistae worked on the same principles but this was a particularly fine example. A beautiful and deadly piece of engineering, this enormous weapon hurled a carefully rounded stone ball weighing no less than twenty pounds. Arete had three other such massive engines; two on the roof of the Palmyrene Gate and one on the fourth tower north of there. Arete's six other stone-throwers threw six-pound missiles. All except one covered the western wall, the wall which faced the plain – for it was across the plain that any enemy siege engines must approach.
Acilius Glabrio introduced Ballista to the crew – the one trained artilleryman, the ballistarius in charge of the piece, and his unskilled helpers: four winch men and two loaders. They seemed delighted when Ballista requested a demonstration shot. He pointed out a rock some 400 yards away, towards the limit of the machine's range. It was all Ballista could do not to take over as they spanned and lay the weapon.
Twang, slide, thump went the artillery piece, and the missile shot away. The stone shone white in the eight or nine seconds it was airborne. A fountain of mud showed where it landed; some thirty yards short and at least twenty to the right.
'What rate of shooting can you maintain?'
The artilleryman did not attempt to answer Ballista's question but looked rather helplessly at Acilius Glabrio. The latter for once looked vaguely embarrassed.
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