'Listen to the boy, Dominus. He is telling the truth,' Cocceius said.
The intervention attracted the full attention of Acilius Glabrio. Now the young patrician's anger was palpably genuine. Turning from Demetrius, he approached the decurion. 'Have I not warned you? Inside now.'
Cocceius dared a final appeal. 'But Dominus, the Dux… we cannot just abandon him out there.'
Forgetting the sword at his side, Demetrius bent down and picked up a rock.
'Are you disobeying a direct order, Decurion?'
Demetrius felt the rock sharp and gritty in his hand. The curls on the back of Acilius Glabrio's head shone in the torchlight.
'Ave, Tribunus Laticlavius.' A voice came from beyond the torchlight.
Acilius Glabrio whirled round. His sword rasped from its sheath. He crouched, his body tense.
Two ghostly figures, blackened and streaked with dust, emerged into the circle of light. The taller pulled a cloth from his head. His long fair hair fell to his shoulders.
'I must congratulate you, Tribunus, on your diligence. Patrolling the ramparts in the dead of night, most admirable,' Ballista said. 'But now I think that we should all go inside. We have much to discuss. We have a new danger to face.'
XV
Ballista went to take a last look at the Persian siege ramp. He peered out from behind the makeshift parapet. Virtually every day the Sassanid artillery smashed the parapet to pieces. Then that night the defenders rebuilt it.
Despite the thick cloud of dust the progress of the ramp was clear enough. The Persians had begun work thirteen days before the kalends of August. It was now nine days before the kalends of September. Counting inclusively, that was thirty-six days' work. In thirty-six days the ramp had inched forward some forty paces and been slowly lifted up almost to the level of the parapet of the town wall. The ditch in front of the wall, which had taken the defenders such trouble to dig, had been packed with rubble. A gap like a canyon still separated the ramp from the defences. But the canyon was only about twenty paces wide, and it was partly filled by the defenders' own earth bank up against the wall. When the canyon was filled the Sassanid storming party would have a final approach over a level land bridge some twenty-five paces wide.
The progress of the siege ramp had been bought at the cost of the back-breaking labour of thousands. Every morning in the grey light of pre-dawn the Persian vinae, the mobile shelters, were pushed forward and joined together to form three long covered walkways. Under these, lines of men laboured to bring up the earth, rubble and timber that those at the front, protected by stout screens, dropped down into the space before the ramp. At the sides of the ramp more workers, again protected by screens, levered and mortared into place the mud bricks which formed the retaining walls.
The ramp's progress had been bought at the cost of the lives of many, many men in the Sassanid ranks. Soon after work had begun Ballista had sited the town's four twenty-pounder artillery pieces behind the wall in line with the ramp. Several houses had been demolished to create the new artillery emplacement. Those property owners that could be found had been promised compensation – should the town not fall. Every morning the vinae had to advance on the same lines, and then stay in place throughout the long day. Every morning the ballistarii in charge of the twenty-pounders, having checked the settings of their weapons, could fire blind at a high trajectory over the wall, reasonably confident that, sooner or later, with help from the spotters on the wall, one of their smooth round stones would hit one of the vinae at terrifying speed; would smash its wood and leather and reduce to a sickening pulp the men labouring in the illusory safety beneath.
As soon as the look-outs on the wall shouted, 'hit, hit,' the defending bowmen would emerge from the shelters they had dug in the base of the town's internal glacis, sprint up to the battlements and pour a devastating hail of iron- and bronze -tipped arrows into those Sassanids exposed as they feverishly worked to repair or reposition the vinae.
Ballista had ordered that the two six-pounder artillery pieces sited on the towers at the threatened stretch of wall concentrate on the bricklayers working on the ramps' retaining walls. The ballistarii in charge of these had a clear line of vision. The screens could not withstand repeated impacts. Here again, over time, the slaughter was immense.
The Sassanid artillery had done what it could to destroy its counterparts. But so far they had been unable seriously to curtail the havoc caused by the defenders. Ballista had had to replace both the six-pounders and most of their crews twice, and one of the twenty-pounders had been smashed beyond repair. There were no further reserves of stone-throwers. Yet the volume of shooting had been little reduced.
As Ballista watched, a six-pound stone moving almost too fast to see crashed into one of the screens shielding the bricklayers. Splinters flew, a cloud of dense dust erupted, the screen seemed to buckle, yet it remained in place. Another one or two of those and that will be another gone: more dead reptiles, and another delay.
Ballista ducked back behind the parapet. He sat down, resting his back against it, thinking. Every night the Sassanids withdrew to start again the next morning. Why? Why did they not work through the night? They had the manpower. If Ballista had been their commander they would have done. The northerner had read somewhere that under the previous eastern empire, that of the Parthians, there had been a reluctance to fight at night. Maybe it was the same with their Persian successors. Yet they had been digging the mine from the ravine at night. Possibly it took something special to drive them to it. It was a mystery – but war was one long series of inexplicable events.
'I have seen all I need for now. Let us go down.' Crouching, Ballista moved to the stairwell in the roof of the tower, and down the stairs. He walked the few paces to the northern of his two mines. Castricius was waiting just inside. Ballista waved his entourage in first: Maximus, Demetrius, the North African scribe, two messengers and a couple of equites singulares.
'We can talk here.' Ballista sat down. Castricius squatted down next to him, Demetrius near by. Ballista noted the solid-looking lintel, the thick pit props. It was not too bad here, just near the entrance. The oppression of the enclosed space could not overwhelm him when it was but three or four steps from the open air.
On the other side of the mine a line of men passed baskets of spoil from hand to hand out of the tunnel.
Castricius produced several scraps of papyrus, all covered in his scrawled writing. He expounded with admirable clarity and brevity the course of his tunnel. It was under the wall, under the outer glacis, and was scrabbling like a mole towards the Persian siege ramp. Consulting one piece of papyrus after another, he outlined his projected needs for pit props and slats to hold up the sides and roof, lamps and torches to light the work, and various incendiaries and their containers for the ultimate purpose of the mine. As Ballista approved the figures, Demetrius wrote them down.
Castricius went to check on progress; Ballista sat in silence where he was. A Sassanid missile thundered into the wall above. A fine shower of earth fell from the roof. Ballista, from wondering if the opposite pit prop was slightly off centre, found himself thinking about Castricius and his changes of fortune. He must have committed a terrible crime to have been sent to the mines. He had survived that hell, which spoke of uncommon resilience; he had joined the army (was there a regulation that should have prevented that?); finding the corpse of Scribonius Mucianus had brought his knowledge of mines to the attention of his Dux; being one of the three survivors of the ill-fated expedition of the young optio Prosper had won him the post of standard-bearer to Ballista. Now, for a second time, his experience of the mines had aided him, bringing promotion to acting centurion to dig this tunnel.
Another stone hit the wall; more dust drifted down. From this mine and the mutability of fortune, Ballista's thoughts moved along unconsidered back roads to the question of treachery. Demetrius had not been able to unravel its secrets, but the mere existence of the coded message attached to the arro
w showed that there was still at least one traitor in the city of Aretc – or, at least that the Persians thought there was still a traitor active in the town. Ballista was sure they were right.
What did he know about the traitor? Almost certainly, he had murdered Scribonius Mucianus. He had burnt the artillery magazine. He had tried to organize the burning of the granaries. He was in communication, albeit sometimes interrupted, with the Sassanids. Clearly the traitor wanted the city to fall. Who could want such a thing, such a very monstrous thing? Could it be one of the townsmen, one of those who had lost their homes, family tombs, temples, slaves and all the liberties that were most precious to them because of the defensive measures Ballista had put in place? And hadn't he played his own part? How far could one go before destroying the very thing one was trying to protect?
If it was one of the townsmen, it was a rich one. Naptha cost a lot of money; it stank: only the rich could afford it, and the luxury of space to conceal its noxious smell. If the traitor was a townsman, it had to be one of the elite, one of the caravan protectors – Anamu, Ogelos, even Iarhai – or one of the other town councillors, like that ever-smiling Christian Theodotus.
But was it a townsman? What of the military? Ballista was very aware that Maximus still mistrusted Turpio. Not without reason. The humorous-faced Turpio had a past of proven duplicity. He had done well out of the death of his commander, Scribonius Mucianus. Despite Maximus's urgings, Ballista had never pressed the matter of what it was that Scribonius had used to blackmail Turpio. Maybe he would say one day, but Ballista very much doubted that Turpio could be forced to tell. On the other hand, Turpio had done well throughout the siege. His raid into the heart of the Persian camp had called for exceptional courage: one might say that he had earned the right to be trusted. But yet again, as Maximus had reminded him, courage is useful for a traitor – and so is being trusted.
Then there was Acilius Glabrio. Ballista knew that he was prejudiced against him, extremely prejudiced against the tribunus laticlavius. The crimped hair and beard, the supercilious manner: the northerner disliked almost everything about him. He knew that the young patrician detested serving under a barbarian. If Turpio was the traitor, it would be for money or to prevent his ultimate exposure as the killer of Scribonius – so money again. But if Acilius Glabrio proved to be the traitor, it would be about dignitas, that untranslatable quality that gave a Roman patrician a reason to believe in his superiority, a reason to exist. Ballista wondered if serving under an eastern monarch would be better for the dignitas of a Roman patrician than the humiliation of obeying the orders of a northern barbarian. In a certain light, the easterner could be thought less of a barbarian than a savage from the northern forests like Ballista.
Although Castricius was now in charge of this mine, the watch was being maintained on the area of town where the arrow with the coded message had struck the unfortunate soldier – who had, of course, died a few days after the doctor had extracted the arrow. Four equites singulares, whom Ballista could ill spare, kept up a more or less discreet observation. So far it had yielded nothing of use. As was to be expected, both Acilius Glabrio and Turpio had been seen on their rounds. All three of the caravan protectors had properties in the area. The Christian church ofTheodotus had relocated there.
Castricius returned. Again he squatted down, and again they talked of timber and olive oil and pig fat, of distances and density and momentum.
'Thank you, Centurion, thank you very much.' At Ballista's words, Castricius swelled with pride. He stood up sharply, but he was too old a hand to crack his head on one of the beams. He saluted smartly.
Stepping outside was like stepping into an oven. The heat sucked the air out of Ballista's lungs. Everywhere were shifting clouds of dust. The northerner could taste it gritty in his mouth, feel it sifting down into his lungs. Like everyone else he had a persistent cough.
As they walked to the southern mine there was a cry from the wall of 'baby on the way.' Most of the party threw themselves to the ground; Ballista and Maximus remained on their feet. The others might interpret it as coolness in the face of danger, but the two men knew that this was not true. Both stared upwards, thinking that if the missile were heading their way, they might get just a glimpse of it and have a split second to hurl themselves out of the way.
With a terrible tearing sound the stone ripped through the air above their heads and with a roar plunged into an already ruined house. A further cloud of dust rolled out.
Mamurra was waiting at the entrance to the other mine, which was hard up against the southernmost tower of the desert wall.
'Dominus.' His face broke into a smile.
'Praefectus.' Ballista smiled back. They shook hands then kissed on the cheek, slapping each other on the back. They had grown to like each other. Mamurra knew that, as far as the Dux Ripae was concerned, his conscience was absolutely clear. Nothing that he had said or written about him was unfair or malicious. The big barbarian was a good man. You could rely on him to do the right thing.
Ballista looked with distaste at the entrance to the tunnel – the big, roughly worked beams, the uneven floor, the jagged rock walls, the precarious hang of the roof. He stepped inside. The darkness stretched away in front of him, half-lit here and there by an oil lamp in a niche. It was strangely quiet in this mine after the noise of the other one.
'How goes it?'
'Good, so far.' Mamurra leant against a beam. 'As I said we would, we have dug deep; under the wall, the external bank, and the ditch. We have taken the tunnel out to about five paces beyond the ditch. There we have dug a short crosswise listening gallery. I found some old bronze round shields in one of the temples. I have put them up against the wall and have men listening at them.'
'Did the priests object?'
'They were rather unenthusiastic. But then, there is a war on.'
Although a slave should never initiate a conversation with the free, Demetrius could not contain himself. 'You mean it works? I had always thought that it might be just a literary conceit of the ancient writers.'
Mamurra's grin grew wider. 'Yes, it is an old trick, but it works. They amplify sound well.'
'And have you heard anything?' Ballista asked.
'Oddly, no, nothing at all. I am reasonably sure that if they were tunnelling near by we would have heard their pickaxes.'
'That must be good news,' Demetrius said. 'Either there has been a cave-in and they have abandoned their mine or it has wandered far off course and they are nowhere near our wall.'
'Yes, those are two possibilities,' Mamurra looked thoughtful, 'but unfortunately there is a third.' He turned to Ballista. 'When you and Maximus told me where their tunnel started out there in the ravine, I assumed – I think that we all assumed – that its purpose was to undermine the foundations of our southernmost tower, collapse it so that no artillery from there could interfere with their siege ramp. Now I am not so sure. It may well be more dangerous than that. Maybe they intend to dig clean under our defences and let their troops come up behind our wall. If so, they are waiting for the ramp to be near completion before they excavate the last part of the tunnel so that they can attack from two places at once.'
The whole party was silent, imagining an inexhaustible flow of Sassanid warriors pouring across the siege ramp while another erupted from the ground; imagining the sheer impossibility of the task of trying to stem both at once.
Ballista patted Mamurra on the arm. 'You will hear them coming. You will catch them.'
'What then?' Demetrius volubly clutched at this comfort. 'Will you smoke them out, throw bees or scorpions into their tunnel, release a maddened bear?'
Mamurra laughed. 'Probably not. No, it will be the usual – nasty work in the dark with a short sword.'
The arrow was coming straight for his face. With a convulsive twist, Ballista jerked himself back into cover. The side of his helmet hit the crenellation, the cheek piece scraping along the rough stone. He felt a muscle pull in his back. He
had no idea where the missile had gone, but it had been far too close. He exhaled noisily, trying to will his breathing back to normal. Behind him he heard a low sob.
Keeping low, on his hands and knees, Ballista scrambled to the man who had been hit. It was one of his messengers, the one from the Subura. The arrow had gone in by the collarbone. Only the feathers still stood out. The man had his hands curled round them. His eyes were uncomprehending.
'You will be all right,' said Ballista. He ordered two of his equites singulares to carry the man to a dressing station. The guardsmen looked dubious at this fool's errand but obeyed anyway.
Back behind the parapet, Ballista steadied himself. He counted to twenty then peered out. There was the Persian ramp; there was the void between the ramp and the wall. But now the gap was less than five paces wide. From underneath the screens at the front, seemingly almost close enough for the defenders to touch, earth and rubble, the occasional tree trunk, fell into the drop.
It would be today. Even if he had not seen the Sassanid troops massing at the far end of the covered walkways he would have known that it would be today. The Persians had clearly decided not to wait for the ramp to touch the wall but to use some kind of boarding bridge. The race was on. One way or another it would be decided today.
Ballista looked round. The messenger's blood was already soaking into the brickwork, a film of dust dulling the bright-red pool. Ballista nodded to those with him and, again keeping very low, crawled to the trapdoor. Maximus, Demetrius and the three remaining equites singulares clattered down the stone stairs after him.
Castricius was waiting at the entrance to his mine. With no formalities, he told them to get ready.
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