by JD Smith
Panic stricken, I gripped her arm. ‘No, you cannot.’
Shapur laughed.
‘You have confirmed everything I needed to know. I do not accept your offer to stay in his place. Of the three of you, Palmyrene queen, you are the one to ensure Valerian Caesar will come. The one you care for most must stay behind.’ He pointed to me.
For the first time I saw Zenobia struggle between necessity and the bond we shared, unable to make the decision. Was I presumptive, I wondered? Did she care for me in a way that I cared for her, with the same care that I had shown as I sat at her bedside as she lay close to death? She had never shown such loss of composure before. She had always been willing to give whatever it took to succeed in her ambition; she had given her whole self to her father’s dream. But now I could see her torn, just as I had been torn when leaving Rome and Aurelia. She could not envisage leaving as two, not three.
Almost imperceptibly, I nodded and leaned closer to her, so my cheek brushed hers as I held her arm in a firm grip.
‘I trust in you,’ I murmured. ‘Bring the emperor, secure peace, do whatever you need to. I will remain here and wait for you.’
‘And if I cannot bring him? If he will not come?’ she hissed; her voice too low for the interpreter to hear and translate. For a moment, brief and unseen by anyone but me, the mask of surety and determination collapsed to reveal a girl, a little older than myself, afraid of losing a friend, her brother, afraid of where her determination and ambition led her; led us.
‘When have you ever failed? When have you ever been afraid of failure?’ I growled. I was angry at her then. That she had begun to collapse. As much as I sometimes wanted to see her weaknesses, to know her fully, to witness what lay beneath her hard exterior, I did not wish to see it now.
She looked down and took my hand in hers. Gripped it hard.
I gripped back.
Her cheeks flushed. She turned back to Shapur, all resolution returning.
‘I accept your terms. Harm him in any way, and you will have nothing.’
Shapur spoke loudly in his tongue and two guards entered, gripped my upper arms tight, and guided me from the tent.
As I left, Zenobia’s voice rang tight with anger. ‘You have my assurance, King of the Persians, now I want yours!’
CHAPTER 10
Zabdas – 260 AD
Whatever passed between Shapur and Zenobia once I left I do not know. I was led to a dank cage. Animal faeces coated the floor and urine stained the bars. This was to be our humiliation; that Shapur could do as he desired, that it was us who had sought him, and therefore it was he who held the power, he alone could do as he wished and we could do nothing to stop it.
The door opened and I was pushed in, out of sight, a hostage, my life held in the balance for that of an emperor. Two men stood guard over me as I retched at the inescapable stench and reflected how much my life was worth now. I had once been a slave to a dockside chief, worth only that of a good bookkeeper. Now I was held by the Persian king himself, known as the boy befriended by the queen of the east, her half-brother and confidant, and yet I was judged worthy of the life of an emperor by both Shapur and Zenobia. I was worth what she was willing to exchange to have me back. To Zenobia, I was worth Rome.
Day crawled into night and night back into day. The sun beat down on the cage until the bars were too hot to touch and my thirst became more than I could bear.
The guards brought water, dank and gritty; enough to keep me alive, nothing more. Scraps of food were pushed through the bars, and shame overtook me in the days I sat there, for feeling such gratitude to my captors.
Would my situation become Valerian’s fate? Would he see the inside of these bars as I did, hungry and thirsty, afraid of what would become of him? My stomach clenched with guilt as I thought of him devouring crumbs pushed through bars, his purple cloaked stripped from his back, kicked and spat upon, degraded beyond all measure. Then I thought of everything he had done, how his cowardice allowed cities of the east to be taken, and how he had been willing to sacrifice Zenobia because of his own jealousy, because he was afraid of her and of Odenathus, because he wanted to punish the king of Palmyra, that she might die, or that she could survive and secure him the peace he so desperately needed at the cost of our beloved Palmyra.
Was his life, the life of the emperor, the life of a Caesar, worth the safety of the kingdom of Syria? To Zenobia it was, and to Zabbai it was, because they knew they could not have left here alive, and they knew too that if Syria fell beneath Valerian’s vanity, then Rome would fall, too.
Another night slipped by. Had Zenobia reached our army? Had she managed to convince Valerian to meet with Shapur and seek terms? I prayed to the gods that she had, and had not let slip that it was a deception, and that she had not told Odenathus, for who knew what he would do in his loyalty for to Rome? I wondered too whether the trap had indeed been set, the location chosen, Valerian in unknowing agreement. Then my thoughts turned into fear. Perhaps Zenobia had not. Valerian might well have seen through the trap, discovered that Zenobia knew of his willingness to sacrifice Palmyra. And who knew if she had even made it back to our camp?
Two weeks of misery, of thirst and hunger and waiting. Two weeks since we had first entered the Persian camp, Zenobia, Zabbai and me. The sun was low and burning morning red. I was dragged from my cage, a place that had become my own, that I had begun to think I would never leave, and my hands were tied behind me, thin twine cutting deep. My body was weak and limp and hurt. I wore only a light, filthy tunic, my armour gone.
I slumped, the guards taking my weight.
‘Where are we going?’ I could not sound hostile. The hard edge that I had heard before in my own voice was no longer there, now it was empty and hollow.
Persian insults were grunted back, women and children stood close by, hissing and spitting, cursing, no doubt, in their foreign tongue. But I could do nothing, arms pulled back, wrists tied, enemy warriors dragging me to the edge of the camp.
A dozen more waited. They wore armour, but carried no weapons. I was bundled onto a horse, lashed wrists tied to the pommel so that I could not fall. I grunted in pain as I swayed, the twine cutting deeper, pain coursing through every muscle and bone.
A moment later we were joined by another rider. A heavy bulk sat atop a huge horse. The whole group dipped their heads in acknowledgement of this new rider, and I realised it was Shapur himself.
He did not look at me, nor did he speak with me. He wore chainmail armour, silks strapped atop, and on his head he wore a pointed helmet. Beneath his helmet jewels glinted, his beard covering the lower half of his face. He spoke quickly with his men, talk I could not understand, and we began to move, the bright standard of the Persian army floating overhead.
Did Valerian come? I wondered. A faint hope, a warmth I had not felt for many cold nights on the desert plain, was kindled within me.
We came to a halt. Two men kicked up dust as they rode away on horseback, one to our left, and the other to our right. The others waited. I hated waiting. I always hated waiting. Knowing that you might wait a heartbeat, a mere moment, or maybe hours or days. And I hated it most then, after weeks inside a cage in the Persian camp. I could take it no more. Sat atop a horse, the pain I felt unbearable, I was aware of the long moments, of the rocky hills to one side of me stretching upward to where nomads kept flocks, and on my other side woods creeping close, shadowing the land beyond. I was aware of it all, and yet time did not seem like the passage of a moment. I was aware, and I could feel, but I did not experience the beats of my heart and the breaths I took. My mind was muddied.
Everyone dismounted. The two men returned breathless, horses foaming white at the mouth. They nodded to the Persian king and words were exchanged. And again, we waited. Consciousness faded in and out. Blurs of movement before half-open eyes slipped and slid in the sands, and the redness of morning was hard.
I forced open my eyes, to keep them open, knowing something was there,
far in the distance, that it was not a blur, a figment of my imagination, the conjuring of thirst and hunger. From the hills to the east came a small company. The warriors around me prickled with tension. The group, a dozen perhaps, came nearer, closing the gap between us. Gradually coming into focus.
Ten, eleven figures riding camels and horses? I could not quite make them out. But then I saw the long hair of Zenobia, the waves reaching her waist, and the man wearing a purple cloak beside her.
They halted a few hundred paces away. With the aid of a soldier, Valerian dismounted. Zenobia jumped lithely from her camel. Zabbai, dressed full in leather armour, made a solid thud as he hit the earth. Attendants waited with the beasts as the company approached.
The emperor came with his own interpreter, though Shapur’s sufficed for both men.
‘I am told you are willing to discuss terms,’ Valerian said.
I looked at him carefully, my eyes open now, my attention more constant. He was thinner than I remembered, gaunt, his fear hidden beneath a thin mask of pride.
Shapur’s interpreter translated the Emperor’s words, and Valerian gave a curt nod. Beside him, Zenobia looked at me, as though asking unsaid forgiveness, regretting having left me in the Persian camp. I could not blame her. I had told her to leave me there, knowing she would return. And now I basked in her gaze, warm and sunlit. Her brow and thin mouth were taut with anguish. I returned a weak smile in an attempt to reassure her.
Shapur spoke. The emperor’s translator looked at his master with terror in his eyes and repeated: ‘The King of the Sassanian Empire says he does not think your offer of the Palmyrene Kingdom will be enough.’
Valerian scowled, his eyes suddenly panicked.
‘I laid out my proposition. If you did not accept, why did you agree to meet me?’
Again the words were translated into Persian, and Shapur smiled.
‘There has been another offer put to me. Far more tempting. Far greater than yours. One that I have decided to accept.’
Valerian opened his mouth, as if to speak, panic now laced with confusion. But a sound like thunder shook the ground, rolling across the hills, and the horses and camels stood there in the middle of the desert whinnied and paced.
A torrent of men on horses headed toward us. Hundreds of them. No screams or cries of battle rage. No banging of drums. Just the thudding of hooves and the faint chink of metal.
All sound ceased as we were encircled. Our fate, the fate of the emperor, now hung with Shapur. I realised my breath came quickly. But Zenobia was as calm as if she sat in the gardens of her father’s villa. She must have known this would happen, and yet I felt fear, not knowing if even now we would not leave alive.
‘Who are these men?’ Valerian demanded. Then, with a shaking voice, ‘What is this? We agreed, twelve men, nothing more.’
Shapur, with his hefty frame and unmerciful posture, stepped closer to the emperor.
‘You are Caesar Publius Licinius Valerianus Augustus? Emperor of the Roman Empire?’ He waited as his words were repeated in Latin.
Valerian, his face hollow and pale, nodded confirmation.
‘Palmyra would never have been enough. You caused much amusement amongst my people the day you sent a woman to plead her own city of marble for your own peace. You think to resist me, to repel my invasion, and when you realise you cannot, you think to throw scraps as if to your dogs in the hope that I might take them? You think that of us, Emperor of Rome? And yet you forget, I am no leader of warriors, no desert tribe. I have my own empire. I am a king of Persia, of the House Sasan. I am the King of Kings and I do not bow to your empire. I will give the people of Syria peace, but the price of that peace is your life. You are my prisoner.’
Valerian choked. ‘I am no one’s prisoner!’ Incensed, he spat at Zenobia, ‘Odenathus betrayed me.’ He started forward, his features contorted with loathing. ‘I am emperor of Rome, and he a client king. A man whom we had the good grace to allow to rule in these lands.’
He made to grab her, but she stepped back and looked him square in the face.
‘No. We were your people, your subjects. Odenathus was more loyal to you and to the Roman Empire than any man I have known. You found a good man in him, a trusted man. But you lost our faith with ill-judged decisions, with incompetence and pettiness. You would have given Palmyra to Shapur to save face, sacrificed those who are loyal to you. Even I know of Shapur’s generosity to his own, to those who would follow him, to the kings beneath him. He would not have stooped so low as to do what you have done to us. Even your own men, those loyal to Rome, have begun to turn against you. How do you think they,’ she jerked her head to the hundreds of warriors surrounding us, ‘went unnoticed by your own scouts; your own Praetorian Guard?’
I looked beyond Zenobia. Ballista, the Praetorian Prefect, the man whom I had seen in Valerian’s house as we spoke of seeking peace with Shapur. Only now he wore his armour and not an off-white toga. His helmet and red plume stood high on his head. And his eyes, shaded beneath the rim, were cold and hard and focussed on no one.
Valerian looked as if he had been struck. Two guards from the Persian company stepped forward, swords drawn. Valerian looked about him, one last glance at the small group that had once been his people.
‘Ballista!’ he shouted, but the man did not move. No one in the Roman company moved. Not one appeared willing to save their emperor’s life, and I realised suddenly how easily the empowered fall, how hard their landing must be. The greatest man in Rome betrayed by his own people. And for a moment I consoled myself with the knowledge of what he had done to his Christian people, for their belief, and for what he would have done to Palmyra.
Persian soldiers wrestled Valerian to his hands and knees. One brought a horse up beside him. Another soldier kicked his head until his face was down-turned and I knew I flinched, my own face throbbing in unison, just as Zabbai did. Zenobia, however, looked at him without emotion.
Shapur walked up to Valerian and placed a heavy booted foot upon the emperor’s back. Valerian tried to get up, to stand, but received another kick and I heard the break of his nose, perhaps of his teeth and jaw.
Shapur’s full weight forced Valerian’s back to curve further. Blood dripped from his mouth and nose, spattering the white sand as the King of Persia, the King of Kings, the son of Ardashir and founder of the Sassanian Empire, used Valerian, Emperor of Rome, as a stepping-stone to mount his horse.
I could have cried for the shame I felt then, that we, the Syrians, the Palmyrenes, had done this to a man who had been our own, to the emperor so respected by Odenathus; that we could have done it to any man. A man now defeated and broken and betrayed.
He allowed himself to be dragged to his feet and led away by the Persians. In one, sweeping moment he had lost everything: imperium, title, status, troops, family and country. He had lost his entire empire, and he had lost his pride. Everything had gone.
Shapur turned his beast and said to Zenobia, ‘You are a capable woman, Palmyrene Queen. You kept your promise.’
‘Will you keep yours?’ she asked, voice cold and without fear.
‘Our forces will begin to move in the next few days,’ he said dismissively. He went to turn away then seemed to check himself. He looked at her long and hard. His horse tossed its head from side to side in agitation.
‘If you had been another person, on another occasion, I would have killed you for the disloyalty you have shown your emperor. I cannot bargain with a woman or a man who would turn traitor as you have done. But I am unsure about you, Palmyrene Queen. You are different.
‘I do not let you or your friends leave here alive because of my word, or because you are a woman. No, I will let you leave because you are a true warrior. You knew the dangers awaiting you in my camp; I can see in your eyes the unknown and uncertainty, and yet you came anyway. You face what you are afraid of, and you know the consequences. You left behind the one you love, not knowing if he would live. And you did what you ha
ve done not for yourself but for your people, and so I cannot call you traitor, even though you are. If you were a man, you would be a warrior. Maybe I will call you warrior,’ he said, then paused so his words could be translated. ‘That will fit you well.’ He nodded, satisfied with himself. ‘To my people, you will be known as The Warrior Queen.’
Shapur waved me across to where Zenobia, Zabbai and the Roman soldiers stood. I almost wept with relief and with pain. Shapur laughed; the most animated I had known him. Zenobia half-smiled and I knew then that in this Persian king she had found something of an equal.
Shapur waved a hand overhead and the mass of Persian warriors began to disperse and we were left alone on the plain.
The wind plucked at my hair and my body was so tired I would not have stayed mounted but for the cord cutting into my wrists tying me to the horse. Zabbai crossed to me, cut my bonds and climbed on the horse behind me to help keep me upright.
‘We head back to our own camp now,’ he said. ‘Fear not, Zabdas, we will see you right.’
Zenobia averted her gaze.
‘There is much to be done,’ Ballista said, removing his helmet. ‘Not all of my men knew of what you intended and the news must be managed with care.’
Zenobia nodded and Ballista replaced his helmet.
They set off, and as Zabbai held the reins of my horse, guiding us back to our own people, I watched Shapur riding across the sands. He followed his men as they dragged Valerian behind them, heading for the Persian camp to decide the fate of an emperor, and I smelt my own freedom on the heavy, grey air.
CHAPTER 11
Samira – 290 AD (Present day)
I am leaning over the side of the boat, peering down at murky water and I glance up and I see my grandfather run fingers through white streaked hair beneath the heat of the sun. I squint at him, but he does not look at me, does not see the scorn still upon my face and my confusion.
