Fire in the East wor-1

by Harry Sidebottom

  'This looks all right.' Ballista ran his eyes over the bar. The room and the girls looked clean. On the wall opposite him was a painting of a couple having sex balanced on two tightropes. The girl was on her hands and knees, the man taking her from behind and drinking a cup of wine. He looked out at the viewer with a complacent air.

  'I chose it because I heard that Acilius Glabrio had ruled it off limits for his legionaries,' said Maximus.

  'Why?' Mamurra asked.

  'Oh, because when he comes here he likes some privacy to be buggered senseless by the barmen,' replied Maximus.

  Mamurra looked owlishly at the Hibernian before starting to laugh. Ballista joined in.

  A pretty blond girl with big breasts, few clothes and a fixed smile came over with their drinks and some things to eat. Maximus asked her name. As she bent over, the Hibernian slid his hand down her tunic and played with one of her breasts. He tweaked her nipple until it was erect. 'Maybe see you later,' he called after her as she left.

  'Poor girl. Working here must be like walking round with her tunic pulled up, endlessly being pawed by bastards like you,' said Ballista.

  'Just because you're not getting any,' Maximus replied. 'Not even from Bathshiba.'

  'Do you want to talk about Massilia?' Ballista's words closed the exchange and the three men drank in silence for a while.

  'Right, let's talk about the two things we have to talk about. Get them out of the way so we can relax.' Ballista paused, and the others looked expectantly at him. 'Who do you think killed Scribonius Mucianus?'

  'Turpio,' Maximus replied with no hesitation. Ballista looked sharply at Mamurra, who quickly swore he would not speak of this conversation to anyone else. 'He had motive: Scribonius was blackmailing him. He had opportunity: he was Scribonius's second-in-command. The timing fits: on Turpio's own account Scribonius disappeared two days before Turpio left to meet us. And without Scribonius around to mess up his story, Turpio has done well. Rather than being punished he has been promoted to Scribonius's position. We have not traced the money Scribonius embezzled; Turpio probably has that too. He's a five-to-one on certainty.'

  'If he did it, he had an accomplice,' said Mamurra. 'It would take at least two men to drag a body down there.' Seeing the look Ballista was giving him, Mamurra continued, 'After you left, I got Castricius to take me.'

  'But in the days before he was killed Scribonius talked about having found out something that would make everything all right,' said Ballista, 'maybe something to make me overlook his corruption and his running his unit into the ground. It would have to be something so important that someone would kill to keep it a secret. They killed him and searched his body to check he had nothing on him to implicate them. They took away his writing block. The evidence was written there.'

  'We only have Turpio's word for the last mutterings of Scribonius,' said Maximus. Ballista acknowledged this and asked the Hibernian to check if anyone in Cohors XX could confirm Turpio's account, and to be discreet, very discreet.

  'Right, what about the other thing? Who burnt down our artillery magazine?'

  'Bagoas.' Again there was no hesitation before Maximus spoke. 'All the legionaries and some others are saying that it was Bagoas.'

  'And do you think he did it?'

  'No. He was with Calgacus at the time. Sure, the Persian boy hates Rome – although not as much as he hates tent-dwellers – but he does not see himself as an underhand saboteur. He sees himself as a scout – one brave man venturing alone into the camp of his enemies, collecting information, ferreting out their deep secrets, then returning openly in a blaze of glory to the bosom of his people to point out where to place the battering rams, where to dig the mines, how to overthrow the walls.'

  'The boy must be nearly recovered from the beating,' said Mamurra. 'What are you going to do about him when he is up and about?'

  'Either make sure he does not escape, or help him on his way making sure he takes the intelligence we want the Persians to have with him.' Ballista took a long drink before continuing. 'Well, if he did not burn the artillery, who did?'

  This time Maximus did not jump in. He remained silent, his quick eyes darting from one to the other of his companions. Mamurra's mouth stayed tightly closed. His massive, almost cubic head tipped slightly to the right as he studied the ceiling. No one spoke for quite some time. Eventually Ballista started trying to answer his own question.

  'Whoever it was wanted our defence to fail. They wanted the Persians to take the town. So, who here in Arete, soldier or civilian, might want the Persians to take the town?'

  'Turpio,' Maximus said again. Seeing the scepticism on the faces of the other two, he hurried on. 'Somewhere out there is evidence – evidence he cannot suppress – that he killed Scribonius. He knows this evidence will come to light at some point. So Turpio prefers the promises of a new life under the Sassanids to the certainty of ultimate disgrace and death under Rome.'

  'Wel!… it is possible,' said Ballista, 'but there is nothing to support it.' Mamurra nodded.

  'Right, if you do not like Turpio, I give you Acilius Glabrio, patrician and traitor.' This time both Ballista and Mamurra smiled straight away.

  'You just don't like him,' said Ballista.

  'No… no, I don't like him – I cannot stand the odious little prick – but that is not the point.' The Hibernian pressed on. 'No, no… listen to me' – he turned to Ballista – the point is that he does not like you. Our touchy little aristocrat cannot bear to take orders from a jumped-up, hairy, thick, unpleasant barbarian like you. The Sassanids play on the little bugger's vanity, offer to make him satrap of Babylon or Mesopotamia or something, and he sells us all down the river. After all, what do a bunch of ghastly barbarians, Syrians and common soldiers matter compared with the dignitas of one of the Acilii Glabriones?'

  'No, you are wrong.' For once there was no pause for reflection before Mamurra spoke. The great square face turned to Ballista. 'Acilius Glabrio does not dislike you. He hates you. Every order of yours he has to obey is like a wound. He wants to see you dead. But he would like to see you humiliated first. I agree with Maximus that he could be behind the fire – but not that he would go over to the Persians. What is the point in being an Acilius Glabrio if you are not in Rome? Possibly he wants to hamstring your defence of this town. Then, when you have been exposed as a stupid blundering barbarian – sorry, Dominus – he steps in to save the day.'

  'It could be,' said Ballista. 'But I can think of about forty thousand other potential traitors – the whole population of this town. Let's be honest, they have little reason to love us.'

  'If the traitor is a townsman, we need only look to the rich,' said Mamurra. 'The fire was started with naptha. It is expensive. Only the rich here in Arete could afford it. If the traitor is a townsman, he is on the boule, the council.'

  Ballista nodded slowly. He had not thought of that, but it was true.

  'And who are more important on the council than the caravan protectors?' Maximus interrupted. 'And all three of them have links to the Sassanid empire. And now all three of them are entrusted with defending the walls. We are all completely fucked, fucked beyond belief!'

  The blond girl came over with more drinks. Her smile became more fixed than ever as Maximus pulled her on to his lap.

  'So,' said Ballista, turning his gaze to Mamurra, 'a rogue officer or an alienated councillor – we don't know which.'

  'But we know that it has only just begun,' Mamurra added.

  'If it were you, what would you do next?' Ballista's question hung for some time as Mamurra thought. With an ease born of practice the blond girl giggled like she meant it and parted her thighs to admit Maximus's hand.

  'I would poison the cisterns,' Mamurra finally replied. There was a long pause. In the background the girl giggled again. 'I would contaminate the food stocks… sabotage the artillery.' Mamurra was speeding up. 'I would make sure I had a way of communicating with the Sassanids, then one dark night I would open a ga
te or throw a rope over an unguarded stretch of wall.' The girl sighed. 'Oh, and there is one other thing that I would do.'

  'What?' said Ballista.

  'I would kill you.' Obsessio (Spring-Autumn AD256)

  XII

  '"Beware the ides of March."' The telones shook his head sadly as he watched the cavalcade pass. "Calpurnia turned in her sleep and muttered… beware the ides of March."'

  After the last horseman had jingled out from under the tall arch of the western gate, there was an unnatural silence, as if everything were holding its breath.

  'What the fuck are you on about?' The boukolos often sounded put out when confronted by things outside his limited experience.

  'That is poetry that is. That old centurion, the one who was always drunk, always quoting that he was… you know the one, the Sassanids got him somewhere downriver, cut his balls off, and his cock- shoved them down his throat.' The telones shook his head again. 'Poor bastard. Anyway, today is the ides of March. The day Julius Caesar was murdered by some of his friends. Not a good day to start out on something, not what you would call a day of good omen.'

  Just beyond the Palmyrene Gate Ballista had halted his small mounted force to reorder for the march. Two equites singulares were put on point duty in front, and one at each side and the rear. The northerner did not intend to be surprised if he could help it. Ballista would lead the main body with Maximus, Romulus and Demetrius. The two scribes and two messengers would ride next, then the five servants leading the five packhorses. The other five equites singulares would form the end of the column. Ordered like a miniature army, scouts out and baggage in the middle, the force was as ready as it could be for any trouble-not that trouble was expected.

  This was a straightforward tour of inspection. The small fort of Castellum Arabum, garrison to twenty camel-riding dromedarii from Cohors XX, lay to the south-east, some thirty miles as the crow flies, some forty-five by road. Castellum Arabum was now the furthest south of Rome's possessions on the Euphrates. It was the tripwire that was intended to warn of the coming of the Sassanids. No enemy had yet been seen. Local experts assured Ballista that it took time for the Sassanids to assemble their forces in the spring; they would not come until April, when there was grass for their horses and no danger of rain ruining their bowstrings. No hostile encounters were expected on this trip: two days' easy ride down, a day to look at the defences and make a speech to hearten the dromedarii, and two easy days' ride back.

  As the men on point duty rode off to take up their positions, Ballista looked back at Arete. Bricklayers still plied their methodical trade, facing the earth, rubble and layers of reeds that formed its core but the great glacis that fronted the western wall was in essence complete. The 500 paces that separated Ballista from it was now a wasteland. Scattered low piles of broken bricks and smashed stones were all that remained of the once proud tower tombs of the necropolis.

  Looking at the wasteland he had created, Ballista wondered what he should feel. A good Roman would probably be meditating on something like the immutability of fate. To his surprise, Ballista's main feeling, rather than pity or guilt, was one of pride: I, Ballista son of Isangrim, did this – look on my works and tremble. He smiled to himself. Everyone knows we barbarians enjoy destruction for its own sake. And maybe not just us. He half-remembered a line from the AgricoLa of Tacitus: 'Rome creates a desert and calls it peace.' Tacitus had put the words into the mouth of a Caledonian chief called Calgacus. Isangrim's sense of humour had not deserted him all those years ago when naming the Caledonian slave who would look after his son.

  The point men were in position. Ballista signalled the advance. The small column set off at a walk towards the south. The cool of the night was giving way before the early morning sun. Only down in the ravines and on the surface of the river was the mist still clinging. Soon it would be hot – or hot by northern standards.

  The road was unpaved but, created by millennia of caravans, it was mainly broad and easy to follow. For the most part it kept on the plateau away from the river. Sometimes it even diverted quite some distance inland to go round the ravines that ran down to the Euphrates; at others it descended into these wadis, sometimes climbing straight out the other side, sometimes following the floodplain until the gradient allowed it to climb back to the plateau.

  Down by the river they stopped for lunch in the shade of a grove of wild date palms. It was peaceful in the dappled sunlight, listening to the river slip by. Ballista had ordered that the scouts remain on the look-out above them on the plateau. After he had eaten the cold pheasant, bread and cheese that Calgacus had packed for him, he lay back and closed his eyes.

  It was good to be out in the country, slightly stiff and tired after a morning in the saddle. It was good to be away from the endless interruptions and irritations of organizing the defence of Arete. Sunlight coming through the palm fronds made shifting patterns on his eyelids. The south wind was getting up; he could hear it moving through the stands of tamarisk. But even in this almost idyllic setting his mind would not rest. Castellum Arabum had a garrison of twenty. It was too few to mount a defence, and more than was needed for a look-out post. He had inherited this arrangement from the previous Dux Ripae. So far he had not found time to visit Castellum Arabum. Now, maybe it was too late to start altering things.

  Ballista sat up and looked around at his men. They should start moving. Again it struck him how easy it was to slip into other people's ways of doing things. Twenty-three men and twenty-eight horses just to transport him to look at a small fort less than fifty miles away. Like the garrison of Castellum Arabum, the column was the wrong size. It was too small to fight off any determined Sassanid war party and too large to move quickly. The size of Ballista's entourage, somehow without any intention on his side, had expanded to fit Roman expectations. A Dux on the move needed scribes, messengers, guards. It was lucky he had not found himself saddled with a masseur, pastry cook and a hairy Greek philosopher as well. Ballista felt he should have ridden down to Castellum Arabum with just Maximus and Demetrius. Moving fast, they could have kept away from any trouble. It would be a foolish tent-dweller who decided to try to rob Maximus.

  The tethered horses had eaten their hay and were either sleeping or desultorily searching the ground for anything edible. The sun was hot but in the shade of the stand of trees it was still cool. The men were resting or lying down talking quietly; there was all the time in the world. Ballista lay back down and shut his eyes. A sudden childish fantasy came over him. Why not just saddle Pale Horse, slip away and all alone ride west, never to return to the bustling irritations of Arete? But straight away he knew it was impossible. What about Maximus and Demetrius – and Calgacus? And then the big question: where would he go? To sit in his sun-drenched garden on the cliffs of Tauromenium or to drink by the fire in the high-roofed hall of his father?

  At length it was Romulus who started them moving again, pointing out somewhat reproachfully that now they would not reach the ruined caravanserai that marked the half-way point by nightfall. Ballista said it did not matter. Maximus loudly and repeatedly said that it was a blessing in disguise: such places were undoubtedly crawling with snakes; the open air was far, far safer.

  The afternoon followed the pattern of the morning, the river to the left, the wide emptiness of the sky and the land, the broad road along the plateau always unrolling to the south. As in the morning, sometimes they followed the road down into ravines, the horses' hooves sending showers of stones ahead, sometimes the road climbed straight out again, and sometimes it took its time, meandering down to the river and running along the floodplain, through the tamarisks and date palms, until a suitable opportunity appeared to regain the plateau.

  The low winter sun was throwing long shadows to their left, making strange elongated beasts of horses and riders, when something happened. It started quietly. Maximus leant over, touched Ballista's knee and jerked his head back in the direction they had come. Ballista pulled his mount round to
one side to see better. The cavalryman on rear point duty was in sight. He was a long way off but rapidly catching them. He was galloping, although not flat out. The south wind was making the dust his horse kicked up stream out behind them. The column came to a halt. Realizing he was observed, the cavalryman gathered the ends of his cloak in his right hand and waved them in the air, the usual signal for Enemy in Sight.

  He was still some way off. They waited, all eyes not on the cavalryman but looking beyond him to see what might appear. The five equites singulares with the column fanned out into a line. Behind them the servants waited phlegmatically with the pack animals. The scribes and messengers talked rapidly among themselves. They all looked very frightened, except the scribe with the Spanish accent, who waited as impassively as any of the soldiers.

  Nothing had shown itself by the time the cavalryman brought his horse to a halt before Ballista.

  'Dominus, Sassanid light cavalry, bowmen – about fifty or sixty of them – about three miles away.'

  'Which direction are they heading?'

  'They were coming from the west, down from the hills to the river.'

  'Did they see you?'

  'Yes.'

  'Did they chase you?'

  'Not straight away. They waited until their lead group had reached the river, then they started to follow me, but at a walk.'

  'Lead group?'

  'Yes, Dominus. They were split into five groups stretched out over the three or four miles between the hills and the river.'

  'Had they seen the rest of us?'

  'I don't think so, Dominus.'

  Allfather, but this looks bad, thought Ballista. Everyone was looking at him, waiting. He tried to block them out and think clearly. He looked around. Still nothing to be seen.

  The man on point to the left, the east, was only a couple of hundred paces away; beyond him was the cliff down to the river. To the west the scout was about 400 paces out. Straight ahead to the south neither of the scouts could be seen, but the fresh wind was carrying a wide line of dust towards them from some miles away.