Lion of the Sun wor-3

by Harry Sidebottom

  And then there were the problems posed by the Persians themselves. The easterners had been very reluctant to be parted from their horses. Now they were far from keen to be herded aboard the six big transports. They had no knowledge of the places to which they were being sent. One thousand of them were bound for Egypt — the Roman garrison there was large enough to keep a check on them. The others, in four units of five hundred, were to be shipped to Cyprus, Rhodes, Lesbos and Lemnos. They could be effectively contained on the islands. There were religious objections also. Magi were forbidden to travel by water. A solution had been found for the five priests in the Persian ranks. The root cause was the prohibition on Magi soiling water with human waste: they had been issued with big amphorae with stoppers. How they disposed of the contents at their destination was their own concern.

  Some of Trebellianus's Cilicians had advanced down the hill. They were shouting, demanding admittance, hammering on the gate with the pommels of their swords. If more followed, it could be serious.

  'Dominus, a liburnian has come from Antioch. There is a messenger.'

  'Not now, Calgacus.'

  'Yes, now. You need to hear him now.' The old Caledonian was grinning like an idiot.

  Maximus shouldered Calgacus aside. Inexplicably, the Hibernian was crying.

  'Ballista — your boys — Julia — they are alive — in Antioch.' Julia looked away across the atrium. From the corridor to the main door came the tap, tap, tapping of the mosaicist replacing the horrible image of the deformed dwarf which someone had defaced. Julia was not sure why she felt put out. It was not Ballista's reaction when reunited with his sons. Even a senator of the old Res Publica would have broken down and cried, would have gone first to them.

  Surely it was not the children. Admittedly, Isangrim had continually interrupted her account of their escape. But the boy was rightly proud of his behaviour, above all of stabbing the Sassanid with his miniature sword. Carefully schooled by her, he had not mentioned her torn clothing. And it was not Dernhelm repeating words at random, squeaking intermittently with pleasure. However, she did have to admit to a flash of irritation when Isangrim pre-empted her telling of her ingenious ploy of scattering the gold from her purse to distract their pursuers by the postern gate. Ballista had made that worse, smiling and saying it was clever of her to remember his doing the same with his gold mural crown at the riot in the hippodrome the other year. Men, they always had to take the credit for themselves.

  No, it was not the children. It was something about Ballista. He looked haunted, or maybe merely hangdog. No, not really either of those. It was more that he was distant, strange. He had even seemed reluctant to give Isangrim his little sword back.

  Julia listened as Ballista finished his tale of what had happened to him and the armies. Like married men often do, he spoke to her through their children. She knew it gave him licence to edit the story.

  So he had put the Persian prince and his companions ashore somewhere south of Tarsus. He had given them horses, arms, money and a letter of safe conduct. No, he did not know if they had made it, but it was quite likely. Shapur had forced the Cilician Gates. The Roman force under Ragonius Clarus had given up its pursuit almost before it had begun. North of the Taurus mountains, Tyana had been the first of many cities taken by the Persians. A group of them had split off to sack Cybistra, Barata, Laranda and Iconium. The main body of men under Shapur had gone on to seize Caesarea Masaca — a heroic defence by the retreating Demosthenes had come to nothing in the face of treachery. From there they had ridden to Comana. The two groups reunited at Sebasteia; the Persians had marched south. As they rode by the governor of Cappadocia, Pomponius Bassus had not stirred from behind the walls of Melitene. The governor of Osrhoene, Aurelius Dasius, had shown more spirit. But then, the King of Kings was said to have bribed him and his men to let them pass Edessa, back into the safety of Mesopotamia.

  'It may not be as safe as Shapur thinks,' interjected Julia. 'Rumour has it that since you defeated the King of Kings, revolts have broken out in the east of the Sassanid empire, around the Caspian Sea and beyond. And, closer to home, Odenathus has marched north from Palmyra to oppose Shapur in Mesopotamia.'

  Ballista looked up sharply. 'So the Lion of the Sun has finally declared for Macrianus and Quietus?'

  'No,' said Julia. 'He has declared for Rome against Persia. But not for any emperor. Did you know the Sassanid still has Valerian with him?'

  Yes, Ballista had seen the pathetic figure of the captive emperor at the battle of Soli.

  'If Odenathus defeats Shapur, frees Valerian, or captures him…' She did not finish the sentence. There was no need. If he held Valerian, the Lion of the Sun could deal as an equal — more than an equal — with Macrianus's sons or Gallienus.

  'My old friend Mamurra never trusted Odenathus.' Thinking out loud, Ballista had retreated into his distance.

  Julia very much wanted to be alone with her husband. Imperiously, she dismissed the others and led him to their bedchamber.

  Physically, he was fine, but even as they made love, his mind seemed somehow elsewhere. She decided to approach this indirectly.

  'Where is Demetrius?'

  For a time he was silent. 'I have a new secretary; a Greek called Hippothous. I sent Demetrius away. To the west.'

  Again Ballista fell silent.

  She waited.

  'It was a bad time.'

  She regarded him calmly. Of course it had been a bad time. You do not win two battles against the Sassanids at a symposium. He had thought his family slaughtered.

  'It is over now,' she said.

  'Is it? The oath I made to Shapur?' His voice was flat: 'Not to your face, no fear, not to any miscreant's Will Justice strike the fatal blow; but soft And slow of tread, she will, in her own season, Stalking the wicked, seize them unawares.'

  'Euripides,' Julia said.

  'I have been reading a lot of him; often his Medea. It is confused in my mind.' Again, he recited quietly: 'Soft and slow of tread… The sins of the parents on the children, the gods turn.'

  Julia remained silent.

  'Jason and me — both oath-breakers. Why were his sons killed and not mine? Or is the divine vengeance delayed? "Soft and slow…"' Ballista's voice trailed off.

  'The gods do not exist.' Julia's voice was crisp, decisive. 'Even if they do, they are far away, and have no interest in mankind. They do not care.'

  She paused for Ballista to respond. He did not.

  'Even if they were real and did care, punishing the children of the wicked would be more ludicrous than a doctor administering medicine to the son of a sick man.'

  Ballista appeared to be only half listening. 'There is the proverb: the mills of the gods are slow in grinding, but grind fine.'

  Stubborn and superstitious as her barbarian husband could be, Julia had never seen him quite so given over to morbid, god-haunted introspection. 'Nonsense,' she snapped. 'Even if the gods existed and troubled themselves with the affairs of men, there would be no punishment on you or your children — because you have done nothing wrong. Jason was forced into his oath to Medea. If he had not taken it, she would not have helped him and he would not have won the golden fleece. You were forced into your oath to Shapur. If you had not taken it, you would have shared the fate of Turpio. Oaths under duress count for nothing.'

  At last, Ballista seemed to have come back from wherever he had been. 'Then why did Jason's sons die?'

  'Medea killed them because he abandoned her.' Julia smiled. 'There is a lesson there.'

  Ballista also smiled, if grimly. Then he leant over and spoke close to her ear. 'I took another oath, a voluntary one to myself. Should I keep it?'

  Despite herself Julia felt apprehensive. 'What?'

  'To kill Quietus.'

  Julia was very still, thinking hard. At length, she spoke. 'Yes. You will think yourself less of a man if you do not. And it may be the only route to safety.'

  Ballista nodded.

  'But,'
whispered Julia, 'it will not be easy. You must wait your time.'

  Again Ballista nodded.

  'And, Quietus alone is not enough. You must kill the entire family.'

  PART FOUR

  Conservator Pietatis (The West, the Alps, the city of Cularo, Autumn, AD260)

  'For those whom fate has cursed Music itself sings but one note — Unending miseries, torment and wrong.'

  Euripides, Women of Troy, 120-21

  When the heavy hangings were drawn briefly back, it let a chill blast of wind from the mountains into the council house at Cularo. The lamps and the sacred fire guttered. The air smelled of autumn. The campaign season was almost over. Soon the army must retreat back through the Alps to Italy or be trapped when the first snows blocked the passes. The emperor Gallienus had to accept that his revenge must wait until next spring — at least until next spring.

  The two men who had entered stood, letting their eyes grow used to the bright lights. One was Hermianus, the ab Admissionibus. The other was a messenger from the Danube. The latter carried a small but heavy leather sack. Knowing what was in the sack, Gallienus supposed he should be pleased. But he was not.

  Sat on the high throne, Gallienus tried to lighten his mood by enumerating what had gone well this year. In distant Africa, the revolt of Celsus had been crushed. The pretender was dead. So were his backers, Vibius Passienus, the governor of the province of Africa, and Fabius Pomponianus, the Dux of the Libyan frontier. It was good that the governors of Mauretania and Numidia, Cornelius Octavianus and Decianus, had stood firm. But it had been close to genius on the part of Gallienus's female cousin to take those Franks, some of the Bavares who had crossed from Spain and been defeated by Decianus, and enlist them to destroy the uprising. At a stroke, and only at the cost of some land confiscated from Celsus, a dangerous band of barbarian raiders had been converted into a significant military asset. She had done well. At the idea of his family, a horrible thought tried to swim up into Gallienus's mind. He forced it down, pushed on with the good things.

  On the Danube, the revolt of Ingenuus had also been crushed. In that case, by Gallienus himself. There had been a glorious victory outside Mursa, another triumph for the comitatus, the emperor's new mobile cavalry force, another success for the tactic of feigned retreat. Let old-school senators grumble that it was un-Roman. They were wrong. It was ideal for cavalry. The Romans had always adapted the useful methods of their enemies.

  Of course, as soon as Gallienus and his comitatus had left for the west, there had been another revolt. But the messenger now approaching the throne had the final proof that Regalianus, the governor of Pannonia Inferior, had shared the fate of Ingenuus.

  The Danube frontier was solid again. Untrammelled by over-rigid adherence to Roman tradition, Gallienus had opened negotiations with Attalus, king of the Marcomanni. Now, in exchange for some land in the province of Pannonia Superior, that fierce German ruler protected the peaceful cities and fields from his hairy kinsmen further north. And there was Pippa. To cement the treaty, Attalus had given his daughter to Gallienus. A German only took one wife, unless he was important and it was necessary to take more than one. Who could be more important than the emperor of Rome? In Pippa's eyes, she was his second wife; in Roman terms, she was a concubine. But what a concubine. Gallienus let his thoughts run over her body — tall, well built; she was blonde, too — one of his favourite types. A virgin when she had arrived, once broken in she could not have turned out keener on what the old emperor Domitian had called 'bed-wrestling'. Pippa, Gallienus's sweet barbarian Pippara, was just how he liked them. Once the duties in this council house were concluded, Gallienus could enjoy an afternoon of pleasure. Sex and drink always took his mind off things.

  The messenger was getting up from performing proskynesis. Gallienus indicated for him to show what he had brought.

  The man put the sack down on the floor, fumbled with its tight lashings. A foul smell emerged.

  Standing, the messenger pulled the head out by the hair. Blackened, wide-eyed, lips drawn back from its teeth by the onset of decay, it looked like an image of Medusa. Regalianus, senator of Rome, descendant of the old Kings of Dacia — that was the end of him.

  Gallienus regarded the loathsome thing dispassionately. He wondered if head-hunting was a native tradition of the Roxolani, the Sarmatian barbarians he had set on Regalianus. They were nomads, eaters of flesh, drinkers of milk. He remembered that they let their women ride to battle with them. But he was not sure about the taking of heads. Possibly one of the officers he had seconded to them, Camsisoleus or Celer Venerianus, had informed them of the correct Roman protocol for the corpses of men who had dared to assume the purple and then lost.

  The living emperor stared at the dead pretender. What to do with the head? Send it to Rome — a pungent message to any senators entertaining thoughts of treason? Put it on a pike here to encourage the army?

  'Sic transit gloria mundi.' Gallienus's voice was level. 'Take it away, and give it proper burial.'

  Still holding it by the hair, the messenger shuffled away backwards. The ab Admissionibus Hermianus ushered him out.

  Gallienus could see no reason to waste time in a futile show of open discussion. The senators present might expect it, but neither the high military commanders nor the heads of the imperial bureaux would be put out.

  'Comites,' Gallienus began, 'winter is almost upon us. The punishment of the renegades and murderers in Gaul must wait until next year.' He forced himself to smile. 'The Res Publica must survive a winter without Atrebatic cloaks.'

  There was polite if sycophantic laughter.

  'In two days, the comitatus will break camp and re-cross the Alps to winter quarters in northern Italy around Mediolanum. Let everyone see to his duties and make it so.'

  As one, the members of the consilium saluted. 'We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.'

  As he processed out into the autumnal streets, dark thoughts surged into Gallienus's mind. It was not Regalianus's severed head he wanted but that of Postumus. He had trusted the governor of Lower Germany. Postumus had won a minor victory over a band of Franks returning from Spain. Silvanus, the Dux of all the limes along the Rhine, had justly demanded Postumus hand over the booty. Instead Postumus had used it to bribe the men under his command. Legio XXX Ulpia Victrix had acclaimed Postumus emperor.

  Gallienus would have let Postumus live. Clementia was natural to him. He had sent a laconic message from Italy which left a way open: 'What are you doing? Behave! Do you seek battle?' The sanctimonious insolence of the reply — 'Do not come north across the Alps, do not put me in a position of fighting Roman citizens' — had infuriated Gallienus. Yet Gallienus had tried again — 'Let it be settled by single combat.' Postumus's answer had been even more galling: I am not a gladiator, nor have I ever been one; rather I have served those provinces which you ordered me to save. I was elected emperor by the Gauls; and I am content to rule those who chose me of their free will. I will help them according to the best of my counsel and capacity.

  The snide implications and the self-righteous tone were maddening. But all Postumus's words palled into nothing beside his actions — his hideous, hideous actions.

  Postumus had marched on Colonia Agrippinensis, where Silvanus watched over Gallienus's young son, the Caesar Saloninus. The evil Batavian bastard Postumus had invested the city. Food had run short. Scared, overawed by threats, the cowardly citizens had bargained for their safety. They had secured it — at a price. Silvanus and Saloninus had been handed over in chains. Saloninus, Gallienus's golden, beautiful boy, was killed out of hand with his guardian. What terrors must have gone through his young mind before the sword fell?

  Gallienus had vowed to Hercules that Postumus would die — Postumus, his family, friends, every soldier in Legio XXX, and every man, woman and child in the town of Colonia Agrippinensis.

  Gallienus had thought that Hercules had listened. The war of retribution had begun well. It ha
d been late to start a campaign, but they had crossed the Alps before the traitors knew they were coming. And then, another betrayal. Genialis, the faithless acting governor of Raetia, had declared for Postumus. He threatened their rear. With the comitatus away to the west over the Alps, there was nothing to stop Genialis crossing the mountains and invading Italy from the north. Gallienus had been forced to halt at Cularo. Now he would have to retire to Mediolanum. Next year, he would have his vengeance.

  But would it be next year? In the east, Macrianus the Lame had prospered. From the Aegean to Egypt, every Roman province had acknowledged his sons, Quietus and Macrianus the Younger, as emperors. Next year, the old cripple Macrianus must make his play for Rome. Much of his field army was composed of detachments from the armies of the west. They would demand to return home, force his hand.

  Thanks to the successes of Ballista in Cilicia and Odenathus in Mesopotamia, the Sassanids would be quiet next year. There was unrest in the eastern reaches of the Persian empire. By the Caspian Sea, the Cadusii and the Mardi were said to be in open revolt. Macrianus would march west and Gallienus would have to postpone his revenge on Postumus to meet him.

  Only one man could stop Macrianus marching in the spring: Odenathus. The Lord of Palmyra had fought the Persians, but he returned ambiguous answers to Gallienus's smuggled letters. He had yet to declare for his rightful emperor or the young pretenders in the east. So much rested on the enigmatic Lion of the Sun.

  Gallienus thought of his old friend Ballista. He had listened to the Angle's secretary, Demetrius. He had not harmed the young Greek. There was no advantage in it, and the boy was handsome. Demetrius was to remain at court. Gallienus's spies had informed him of the reappearance in Antioch of Ballista's wife and sons. His old friend was trapped again in the service of Macrianus. Gallienus felt no ill will towards Ballista, but the northerner could not be allowed to lead Macrianus's army to the west. He was too good a general. It was not a problem. All it would take was for one of the frumentarii under Rufinus, Gallienus's new Princeps Peregrinorum, to speak to one of those serving under Censorinus, the spymaster his father had been so misguided to trust. Hand over a report of Demetrius's words along with Ballista's ring, with its image of Cupid winding a siege engine, and Macrianus would do the rest.