This whole venture had been meant to be an education for him, an apprenticeship. Well, he had learnt one thing about the trade of merchant: it wasn’t for him. He shuddered. People had died along the route, good people quite probably, although he’d never really got to know the Nasamoneans. Then there was his uncle’s disappearance. What would his mother say when he got back to say that he had lost Uncle Gaius? Not that he really was his uncle, of course. He wasn’t even an Egyptian. But he was family all the same, in some obscure, amorphous way.
Claudius Mercator had been talking to Osorkon. Vabalathus was listening intently, as if trying to decipher the Garamantian’s Punic. The discussion didn’t seem to be getting very far. At last, Claudius Mercator flung up his hands and crossed the cell to sit on his paillasse in deep dudgeon.
His discontented gaze fell upon Menander. ‘How is the Greek?’ he asked tenderly. Dido, Vabalathus, and Osorkon were talking on the far side of the room.
Menander looked up. ‘Not good,’ he said in his rumbling voice.
Claudius Mercator came to sit with them. ‘You can see that we can’t stay here,’ he said. ‘We have to escape.’
‘No one is disputing that,’ said the slave. ‘It is only the means that are questionable. In short, how should we escape?’
Claudius Mercator shook his head. ‘We got away last time, you remember?’
Amasis hadn’t heard much about the merchant’s previous journey to this country, certainly not that he had been forced to escape. ‘What happened?’
‘Last time,’ said Claudius Mercator, ‘my companions were captured when we entered the city in disguise. We got here, of course, and spent some time living in the city at a lodgings house, but our disguise was penetrated. We were captured, but with Menander’s aid I and a few others escaped. Sadly the rest were killed before we could escape, including the Garamantes who had helped us.’
Amasis looked hopefully at the slave. ‘How did you escape?’
Menander grunted. ‘I was sold as a slave in Garama,’ he explained. ‘The merchant bought me while he was living here, along with other merchandise that he lost after his Garamantian friends were betrayed. I had my own friends in the city, among the slaves, and they assisted our escape by creating a diversion. But we were imprisoned in another place than this, one less secure than the king’s own dungeon.’
‘They were waiting for you,’ said Amasis to Claudius Mercator. ‘It was foolish of you to go before the king after your previous experiences.’
‘How could I have been recognised?’ the merchant asked feebly. ‘Last time I was here, my body was stained dark brown and I wore Garamantian clothes. Besides, the king did not meet me... You should see the market, lad!’ he enthused suddenly. ‘The riches of this country are unbelievable. Gold dust, natron, carbuncles…’
‘Slaves,’ said Menander.
Claudius Mercator nodded. ‘The most priceless jewel of all,’ he said, ‘or so I thought when you aided my escape. Now I have brought you back here and we will meet the deaths we escaped last time. All the wealth of this land will mean nothing to me if I lose my life.’
‘I did not travel to Alexandria and back with no reason,’ said Menander. ‘Not to face death again, that is. I assure you, master, we will escape. We will not die here.’
Tears glistened in Claudius Mercator’s eyes. He gripped the slave’s brawny biceps and smiled in appreciation.
‘That sounds good,’ said Amasis. ‘So how are we going to escape?’
When no one answered, he looked round the cell. It was belowground, under the palace, and there were no windows. Only the barred gate led out into a dank, torch-lit, subterranean passage where the warriors stood, torchlight glimmering upon their dark limbs and sharp spear points. Menander followed his gaze.
Claudius Mercator studied the slave expectantly. He had grown used to relying upon his Ethiopian companion, and expected him to solve all his problems. Amasis hoped the merchant’s faith was not ill founded. He wanted to escape, he wanted to go back home, he never wanted to travel again. He would train as a scribe, like his Uncle Ozymandias had wanted. It had sounded a dull life when it was first suggested to him, and he had thought he wanted anything but boredom.
But now that he had seen excitement, he had seen deserts and mountains and barbarian tribes, sandstorms and battles, imprisonment and starvation, all he wanted was to spend the rest of his life cross-legged on a reed mat, writing with a reed pen on a sheaf of papyrus. What he wrote didn’t really matter, but as long as no excitement was involved, that was fine by him.
He looked across the cell. The others had crowded round the barred gate and were speaking to the guards in low voices. Osorkon was doing most of the talking, but Dido and Vabalathus made their contribution from time to time, which the Garamantian chieftain translated. Vabalathus glanced at the others, eyes hooded.
Amasis reached out and tapped Claudius Mercator on the arm. When the merchant tore his expectant gaze away, he nodded in the direction of the others and said, ‘What do you think they’re up to?’
Claudius Mercator followed his gaze, and his eyes narrowed. ‘That’s a very good question,’ he said. ‘I think I should go and speak to them.’
He shuffled across the room. Amasis took another look at Menander, who seemed to be deep in a trance, then heard a groan from Demetrius. He went to tend to the sick old man.
Claudius Mercator returned with Vabalathus at his side. The merchant was grinning with relief, the Arab looked haughty. Dido followed, still talking to Osorkon.
‘We’re getting out of here!’ Claudius Mercator said excitedly.
Menander awoke from his trance, Amasis looked up from mopping Demetrius’ brow. ‘Of course we are,’ said the boy, looking distastefully at Vabalathus. ‘But how?’
‘With the aid of these warriors,’ said Vabalathus, looking at him as if he was an idiot.
Amasis scowled over at the spearmen. ‘They’re going to help us?’ he asked. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘Osorkon may have lost standing, but he still has friends among the warrior caste,’ said Claudius Mercator, ‘and they are angry that he has been imprisoned. Rebellion is brewing.’ He gave Menander a look. ‘We don’t need your aid any more,’ he added.
Menander raised an eyebrow. ‘How do you know you can trust them?’
‘Just what I was thinking,’ said Amasis, but no one listened to him. He went back to tending Demetrius.
Dido came to join him a while later.
‘What do you think about this escape attempt?’ she asked quietly.
He looked up in surprise. She hardly ever spoke to him. He found this hulking, tall woman quite frightening, even though he suspected that she and his uncle were lovers.
‘Well,’ he began, ‘I don’t want to die here.’
Dido shook her head. ‘Nor do I,’ she said, looking around her. ‘But I don’t trust them.’
‘Who?’ Amasis asked. ‘The guards?’
She bit her lip. ‘The guards, Osorkon. Vabalathus.’
‘Vabalathus?’ Amasis hissed. ‘He’s on our side, surely.’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘You know he’s learnt to speak Punic?’
Amasis was impressed. He could only speak Egyptian and Latin. ‘That was quick,’ he said.
‘I don’t know if he picked it up along the journey,’ said Dido, ‘or spoke it already. It’s similar to Arabic in many ways, of course. But now he speaks it fluently with Osorkon, and I seem to have been frozen out.’
‘You think they’re plotting something?’ Amasis’ head ached with all this intrigue. ‘But what can they be planning other than escape?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Do you really think those guards are going to help us get away?’ he added.
‘They’ve been promised wealth,’ said Dido. ‘A share in our profits.’
‘What is a promise of wealth worth,’ Amasis breathed, ‘if it comes from a man who has nothing? If we get away, Claudius Mercator will enrich them as soo
n as he’s become rich himself…? It makes no sense. I don’t believe it.’
‘Claudius Mercator is willing to believe it,’ said Dido. ‘And so is Menander, which seems strange. That Ethiopian is a man who knows more than he says.’
‘But you don’t believe it,’ said Amasis.
She shook her head. ‘Do you know where they intend to execute us?’ she murmured.
‘I don’t,’ said Amasis. ‘Where?’
‘In the temple of Tanit,’ she told him. ‘Where Claudius Mercator tells us he saw the Veil.’
‘You’ve lost me,’ said Amasis. ‘Are you saying you want to get into the temple? Why? Why not just escape, if it’s possible?
‘What do you think, Menander?’ he said, turning to address the slave, who was back to tending Demetrius.
‘Little good will come of implicating ourselves in palace intrigue,’ he said. ‘And yet we cannot passively wait until they take us away and kill us. I say we take the chance, slim though it may be.’
Claudius Mercator overheard, and clapped him on the back. ‘I’m glad you see things our way,’ he said. ‘The guards will allow us to escape just before the relief guard comes. In the confusion the changeover creates, we will be able to get away.’
Dido moved closer to Amasis. ‘It’ll be a disaster,’ she said. ‘I say we wait for a better opportunity.’
Amasis looked down at Demetrius’ sweat soaked face. ‘We’ve got to get out of this cell,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get Demetrius away.’
‘You think they’ll let you bring a feverish old man on this escape attempt?’ she asked. ‘He will slow everyone down. They won’t put up with that, they don’t care about him. Demetrius will stay here, mark my words. And I’ll be staying with him. What about you, boy? Will you abandon the old man?’
Amasis gave her a piteous look. He couldn’t leave here without the Greek. He couldn’t leave the old man here to die. Could he?
He peered at Demetrius again. The old Greek was shivering violently, and sweat was pouring from his brow. Amasis bit his lip. The Greek scholar wouldn’t last long without medical help. But what could a young Egyptian lad do except wipe the sweat from his brow?
He reached forward to do precisely that.
—21—
Phazania, 22nd December 124 AD
Flaminius sat on a convenient rock in the cave mouth and watched the troglodyte warriors practising in the meadow below. The banks of the stream and the nearby grassland swarmed with the small dark figures, all practising battle formations and tactics in which he had instructed them. Further off, their cattle herds were grazing under the watchful eye of some of the women. Big horned cattle, just like the ones he had seen outside the Garamantian villages.
Melanthus appeared from the cave, wheezing and hobbling along with the aid of his club, his consort and several other women accompanying him, one of them the woman whose son Flaminius had saved. The troglodyte tyrant was smiling.
‘My warriors have shown great improvements since you began training them,’ he commented. ‘Now they will be better able to levy tribute from my subjects, the Garamantes.’
‘You mean you still aren’t willing to consider an attack on Garama?’ said Flaminius. ‘You just want me to take your warriors on a cattle raid?’
Wheezing and grumbling, Melanthus sat himself down on a nearby rock, arranging the women round him.
‘We won’t attack Garama,’ said Melanthus. ‘The walls are too high, it is too well defended. Even were you to show us how to build siege engines and war machines of the kind you describe, we are too few to prevail against the so-called king of the Garamantes. That rebel!’
Flaminius looked away. Building siege engines would be impossible with existing resources, even if he possessed any real knowledge of siege warfare. And the troglodyte tyrant might be a deluded megalomaniac in many ways, but he was canny enough to realise that his subjects would be committing suicide if they were to attack Garama. Flaminius couldn’t ask that of them. But it left him stuck here, in the middle of nowhere.
When Melanthus asked him to train his warriors in the most up to date of military tactics, Flaminius had agreed with some misgivings. The tyrant was little more than a brigand, using his power over his people, and the natural defences of his enclosed little world, to prey upon the Garamantes simply to enrich himself and reaffirm his power, justifying his raids with this fantasy that he was a ruler with rebellious subjects who owed him tribute. How much of this was old fashioned hypocrisy, and how much the crazy tyrant had persuaded himself that it was true, Flaminius did not know for certain.
But Flaminius had his own agenda, his own secret mission. He had accepted this irregular commission, bringing a scruffy band of cave dwelling Ethiopian barbarians up to date on modern fighting techniques, in the hopes that he could persuade them to march on Garama, providing him with an opportunity to steal the Veil of Tanit. At first the language barrier had been a problem, since they understood nothing of Latin and he could make out nothing of their squeaking and clicking. But they had a kind of sign language, and his tribunes seemed to be picking up something of his vocabulary.
‘Where do you want to make your first attack?’ he asked, turning back to Melanthus. ‘Your legion is as well trained as it could be in such a short space of time. Luckily, they are good fighters already, and all they needed was a bit of Roman discipline and direction.’
Melanthus was still pretending he had never heard of the Roman Empire. Like Amasis, the troglodyte tyrant was full of tales of Alexander the Great, and had wanted his warriors fighting in phalanxes. Flaminius had quietly overruled him. Now the troglodytes were arranged in centuries and cohorts. Although they were a few cohorts short of a maniple, Flaminius was strangely proud of his barbarian legion.
‘You will take them into the desert to scout out the cattle herders,’ Melanthus told him. ‘Camp at one of the less frequented oases. When sufficiently fat herds are sighted, strike fast, strike well. Slay as many rebels as you can, take as much tribute as possible, pen the cows in the sand near the oasis, then return to reconnaissance and repeat the process.’
‘That will mean taking a lot of water and supplies,’ said Flaminius doubtfully. ‘How long do you expect us to survive out in the desert?’
Melanthus shook his head. ‘As long as it takes to levy the tribute, which has been set this year at two hundred head of cattle, or the equivalent in merchandise. Preferably cattle.’
‘It could take months to gather that many.’ Flaminius intended to be back in Alexandria by spring at the latest. ‘And my legion is to spend all that time out in the desert? What about supply lines? Will this small valley even be able to provision them for so long a campaign?’
‘My warriors,’ Melanthus emphasised the pronoun, ‘are masters of desert survival. It is all they know. It is their life. Many hail from more arid valleys than this. They live on snakes and lizards and scorpions, can find water in the most parched land. They need no supplies, they can live off the land.’
‘Impressive,’ said Flaminius. ‘If the Romans knew their secrets not even the Libyan Desert would remain unconquered.’ He noticed Melanthus’ expression. ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said reassuringly. ‘I don’t think Rome has any designs on your country. All she’s interested in is making money… Thinking of which, we still haven’t really discussed my fee.’
‘You will be paid by results,’ Melanthus replied evasively. ‘A proportion of the tribute you gather.’
‘So you said,’ Flaminius snapped. ‘But what proportion?’
‘Look!’ said Melanthus, pointing down at the meadow. ‘They prepare for the mock battle.’
The women flocked forwards, clicking excitedly. The one whose son Flaminius had rescued—he still couldn’t pronounce her jaw-cracking name—took his hand in a delicate little paw and led him to a better viewpoint. He darted a resentful glance at Melanthus. The tyrant had wriggled out of committing himself.
His priority was to achieve his
mission. All this was no more than a distraction. But even if the tyrant planned to cheat Flaminius out of his payment, he was at least providing food and shelter. Even willing concubines, it seemed, he thought, as the woman laid her head in his lap, although he wasn’t sure his tastes ran to troglodytes—however pretty.
His thoughts turned to Dido. Where was she now? And the others? Were they still “guests” of the Garamantian king? Had Claudius Mercator secured a profitable trade deal, or was his head rotting on a stake on the city walls? And what of Amasis? Had the boy been recaptured or had he escaped into the desert? Either way, Flaminius thought darkly, he was probably dead.
The two battle lines of troglodytes met in the centre of the meadow, practice spears thrusting, warriors jostling back and forth. One side began to give ground, and Flaminius noticed Melanthus peering doubtfully at him. The other side pursued, but as the wings of the apparently broken line came round to surround their opponents, it became clear that it was that old tactic, the feigned retreat. Soon one side was completely encircled by its foes and victory was assured.
‘So the Carthaginian Hannibal defeated Rome,’ Flaminius told the tyrant. ‘We learnt from experience, however, and went on to make our city mistress of the world.’
The two sides separated and another encounter was fought. One side fled before the other, turning from time to time to make lightning attacks then retreat again before the enemy could get to grips. This time, Flaminius had drawn upon the tactics of Fabius Maximus, Fabius the Delayer, who had defeated the Carthaginian invader using guerrilla raids and surprise attacks, avoiding pitched battle, gradually whittling down the foe.
The troglodyte woman snuggled up to him, squealing in excitement. Affably, Flaminius smiled at her, but his thoughts turned once more to Dido.
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