The Curse of Babylon

by Richard Blake

  Eboric fell back and was beside me. ‘They’re on to us,’ he said with low urgency. ‘Rado thinks the only option is to go back on the path and make a dash for it.’

  I looked round and nearly shat myself. What had been the faintest and most ambiguous glitter was now the swift approach of a dozen riders. They were moving across the plain with long and easy strides, and weren’t above a mile away. The moon was behind them but I could see its stray reflections on their helmets and mailed breastplates. They weren’t coming straight at us, but were moving in a line that suggested they’d try to block our path. I looked behind. So far, it was just these pursuers. I grinned at the boy with an optimism I didn’t feel. The only thing in our favour was that we had no weight of armour to hold us back when it came to the chase.

  I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I was never an instinctual horseman. Killing, lying, scholarship, ruling – in all these and more, I’ve adorned three generations. The bond a rider has with his horse, though, wasn’t something I had from birth, or ever managed to acquire. Give me a fast ship any day, if there’s need to get about in a hurry. Even so, I kept up with the boys. I pushed my head down and pounded forward across the firm mud of the path. For a while, I was able to tell myself that we were travelling as fast as any Circus charioteer in full pelt. Surely we’d outrun the Persians.

  But these were highland cavalry. They were men who’d done a better job of keeping their empire free of nomadic invaders than we had. If that weren’t enough, they had a king whose displeasure was best avoided. They must have looked on us as I always have on anyone who’s tried arguing theology or finance or anything else with me. They were effectively on their home ground. Doubtless, the boys could have outrun them. But that would have meant leaving me behind and I don’t believe that crossed their minds. I didn’t dare unbalance myself by twisting round to look. Instead, I could soon hear them. Closer and closer came the sound of many hooves and of jingling harness. Time, I decided, to face up to the inevitable. I had my sword handy in its saddle sheath. Armour or none, I had no doubt I could cut a few of the riders down.

  ‘Rado, Eboric,’ I panted, ‘I command you to get out of here. Ride like the wind. I’ll hold them off.’

  I might as well have spoken in Persian. ‘When I turn left, follow me!’ Rado snapped. From any kind of distance, the hill had been imperceptible. But I felt the sudden lift as the horse turned upwards. It even seemed to move a little faster on the firm turf. The top of the hill was a long ridge. We turned right and continued on a narrow path. Uphill, their weight had told against the Persians and they’d fallen behind. The sound of their approach became fainter. For a while, I didn’t hear it above my own ragged breaths. But this was a trick we couldn’t play more than once. The ridge was leading gradually down and I could see no more hills. Rado had bought us a little more time. That was all.

  Even on the descent, I could feel that my horse was running out of puff. The beasts Rado had chosen were bred for endurance, not sustained speed. He and Eboric were light enough, or had the riding skills, to keep going a long way yet. The Persians were heavier, but had grown up with skills I could barely imagine. For me, it was a matter of counting the yards before my horse simply stopped.

  I looked about. We were still in open country. The moon was casting long shadows on every irregularity in the ground. But irregularities aren’t the same as places of refuge. What we needed was a rope bridge across a ravine or a narrow path leading up through rocks. Out here in the moonlight, we were as visible, and would soon be as easily reached, as a louse crawling across white skin.

  ‘I’m not going back!’ I told myself. I couldn’t go back – not to Chosroes in his likely mood. When my horse did stop – and that couldn’t be long now – I’d get off and fight. I had a sword. I had a knife. I had size and weight and strength. If those didn’t quite serve me, the most Great King Chosroes would see of Alaric was his severed head. I’ve never had time for the Stoics, with their endless talk of death as the quick way out of trouble. Instead, I’d go down fighting and, assuming such things exist, the shades of my barbarian ancestors could rejoice that I’d gone into the darkness sword in hand.

  ‘Stop!’ someone shouted in Greek. ‘Stop or I’ll kill you!’ Thinking absolutely nothing, I looked up from the horse’s mane. There were men running beside me. I was approaching a line of other men with spears pointing at me. A better rider on a bigger horse might have smashed his way through. But Rado himself was already surrounded. I saw him rear his horse up to trample anyone who came too close and I saw the glint of his short sword. But he was already stopped and more men were closing in on him. I couldn’t see Eboric. Before I could get my one sword out, I felt the jab of a spear point in my side. ‘Get off the horse,’ someone said. ‘Just get off. I want you on the ground – now!’

  I sat up and made a grab at the spear. Its bearer hadn’t expected that and I got it clean out of his hands. Holding it just below the metal point, I swung it about my head and managed to get the first man I saw on the shoulder. I threw it up in the air and grabbed it halfway along the shaft. Before I could use it properly as a weapon, two set of arms took me about the waist and pulled me from the horse. I fell heavily on the ground and lay there winded. My head was ringing and I could still feel the rhythm of the final gallop. I opened my eyes and was looking at two very young men. Both were pointing spears at my chest. I shut my eyes again and tried to think. I was a prisoner – that much was for certain. What I couldn’t work out was how the Persians could have got footmen all this way and why they all appeared to be Greek.

  One answer was the sudden and repeated whizz of arrows in the distance, followed by screams and babbled pleas in Persian. There was a terrified neighing of horses and shouted orders and laughter in more than one dialect of Greek.

  I opened my eyes and focused on the nearest of the young men. He pushed his spear closer against my chest. His moonlit face looked as scared as I felt. I smiled and spread my arms wide on the ground. ‘I am Alaric,’ I said slowly and firmly. ‘I am Lord Treasurer to the Emperor Heraclius. Please take me and my friends to your commanding officer.’

  For a moment, he pushed his spear closer still against me. All he had to do was panic or stumble and I’d be done for. Then, a slightly older man put a hand on his shoulder. He spoke softly and the spear was taken away.

  I smiled again. Arms still carefully outstretched, I sat up slowly. Rado was on his feet, arms raised, a spearman jabbing at him from either side. Held in a big man’s arms, Eboric was struggling like a landed fish. I got unsteadily to my feet. ‘No violence,’ I called in Latin. ‘These men are Greeks. ‘We surrender,’ I said in Greek. ‘You can put your weapons down.’ I glanced back along the ridge. A couple of hundred yards away, I could see dim figures darting about. They might have been finishing off any Persians who’d survived the arrows. Or they might have been bringing the horses under control. Our pursuers must have had their minds absolutely fixed on us. The interception seemed to have taken them as much by surprise as it had us.

  I turned to the slightly older man. ‘I don’t know who you are or what you are doing here,’ I said. ‘But you have my thanks. Now, can I please speak with the man in charge?’

  ‘Man in charge?’ an amused voice said behind me. ‘Why must it always be a man in charge? Women can do much more, I’ll have you know, than shuffle between cooking pot and bed.’

  A little earlier and I’d have jumped and looked dumbfounded. I was too worn out now, and too willing just to take things as they were. I turned and bowed to Antonia. Hard to tell in this light, but she looked rather less absurd here in men’s clothing than she had in Constantinople. ‘If only I had the authority,’ I said with grave irony, ‘I’d make you the new Commander of the East. Unlike your father ever did, you’ve just won a battle.’

  We laughed and fell into each other’s arms.

  Chapter 64

  Holding hands, we lay together on the grass. Once more, the sky was
the pitiless blue it has in the mountains. Now we’d finished with our lovers’ reunion, we were talking and talking, and still there was more to be said.

  ‘So, Shahin didn’t kill Timothy?’ I asked, cutting into a narrative that was nearly as disjointed as it was circular.

  Antonia sat up and began picking at the few daisies within reach. ‘Simon just about kept the peace,’ she said. ‘But every time he drank from the silver cup, or simply held it to his chest, Shahin seemed to go a little madder. By the time I killed that guard and ran away, he was seeing ghosts every night. The days were worse, of course – he was accusing everyone of wanting to stab him in the back to get the cup for himself. He’d sometimes scream so much, I thought he’d go into fits.’

  She stopped and began threading the daisies into a chain. The easiest part of her story to follow was after she’d got away. That was a straight adventure. There was the braining of her guard with a large pebble, followed by a half-hearted chase by men terrified of the dark. After this, she’d wandered through the low hills beyond Mount Larydia, before staggering into a village and raising the local militia. She was lucky that she hadn’t delayed her getaway – much longer and she’d have found herself in districts where the new law wasn’t in force. As it was, she’d pulled rank on everyone and put herself at the head of a small army. The rest you can gather for yourself.

  I blinked at the sun until I sneezed twice with great force and lay back happily on the warm grass. ‘You don’t know how far they’ve got along the Larydia Pass?’ I asked.

  Still pinching holes in the daisy stems, she shook her head. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that silly thing with the sun,’ she said. ‘It makes your face look mad. Even Daddy laughs at you for it.’ I frowned but said nothing. I waited for her to hold up the long chain and put it about her neck. ‘We’ve been taking a short cut these past few days to try and head them off. Shahin has sixty armed men with him. I now have fifty. It’s not enough for fighting but we can pick them off with arrows. We’ll need to get a move on, though, before he can make contact with the big Persian army you saw.’

  I sat up and kissed her. The daisy necklace suited her and I was reminded of how long we’d been apart. ‘I haven’t told you about the cup,’ I began. ‘It was only after you were taken that I discovered it was a gigantic fraud.’ Antonia looked sharply back at me. ‘It was always meant to fall into Shahin’s hands,’ I explained. ‘Within reason, the harder we made his job, the less doubt there would be of its real value.’ I stretched and gathered my thoughts. Best, I decided, to keep away from the details. Best too not to spell out that I’d come all this way for her alone. I knew I was only good at expressing passion when I wasn’t telling the truth. ‘The cup itself is worthless unless you believe in magic,’ I went on. ‘What matters is the alleged listing of military forces on the outside of its box.’ I got up and went over to where my saddlebags had been emptied. I fished about for the side of the box Theodore had left behind. I carried it back.

  ‘Don’t worry about the code,’ I explained. ‘But every block of characters is the name of a place in the Home Provinces, with a number after it to show the number of men stationed there. It shows preparations for an in-depth defence. Anyone looking at these numbers ought normally to be put off more than a spot of border raiding. However, I am the Lord Treasurer – and rather a good Lord Treasurer. I know every taxable unit in the Empire.’ I broke off and smiled. I thought again of the big map on my office floor – it should still be there as I’d left it. ‘Half a dozen of the fortified towns claimed here are heaps of overgrown ruins. Several other places would need to have more defenders than inhabitants. Taken generally, all the soldiers would need to be ghosts and their forts made from the morning mist. I’ve signed no orders to pay them or to maintain their defences. If the rest of the box is the same as this part of it, Shahin might as well be working for us. Timothy, by the way, is working for us.’ I decided not to talk about a silver coin that he’d almost certainly got from Priscus. ‘He’s come along to make sure the story gets believed. It wouldn’t be hard for me to think better of Timothy. But that takes nerve.’ I laughed. ‘In reality, the Home Provinces are without any regular forces at all. Everyone he hasn’t committed to holding back the Slavs, Nicetas has shipped off to Egypt. I’m told they have no kit for desert fighting and half are already dead of some local plague.’

  Eboric coughed politely and looked over the edge of the gentle dip in which we’d taken shelter. ‘Rado’s taken a full muster of forces,’ he said.

  I smiled at him and reached for my clothes. ‘Time for work,’ I said. I turned back suddenly and caught sight again of his face. A slight look of confusion there, I thought – perhaps too of jealousy. The bond between us could never be broken. He and Antonia had taken to each other from the start, and she’d welcomed him into the Imperial Family without so much as a raised eyebrow when told about the adoption. The bond could never be broken, but its nature was changed. Yes, so many changes, in so short a time – he’d need longer than he’d had to get used to them all.

  Herself confused, Antonia had been thinking. She pulled at her daisy chain and crushed it in her hands. ‘If the cup is a fraud,’ she said slowly, ‘what work is there left to do? Don’t we just let Shahrbaraz scrape the paint off his parts of the box and wait for the Persians to withdraw?’

  I shook my head. ‘You haven’t seen the size of the army he’s leading,’ I said. ‘Whoever prepared that box was expecting it to be carried off to Ctesiphon, where it would be looked at and argued over by men with some freedom of choice. So much care and plotting – so much killing and risk of death – and all for nothing. It won’t tip any balance now the invasion is under way. The army getting itself back in order on the other side of that mountain is big enough to roll over everything listed on the box – that and ten times more. Besides, you’ve got Chosroes nominally in charge – and he’s got the True Cross with him. The box really is as worthless a defence now as the cup would have been.’

  I stood up. ‘We’re no longer looking at a quick jump on Shahin. I’m afraid the new plan has to be a direct attack on that army before it can get out of the mountains. The militia you’ve commandeered is the Empire’s only hope. If we fail, the road to Constantinople will be wide open.’

  Antonia shut her eyes and thought. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said with sudden annoyance. I looked at her and blinked. I sat down again beside her. ‘I’ve missed two periods. A woman in one of the villages we passed by said I was surely with child.’ More annoyed still, she threw away the remains of her daisy chain. ‘How am I supposed to lead my men into battle?’ she asked.

  I waited till my voice was likely to be steady. ‘I trust you’ll not make any fuss when I send you off to Trebizond,’ I said. ‘Eboric will ride with you.’

  No question of jealousy, or even confusion, for Rado. A command of Greek I’d assumed was too basic to bother with testing was easily good enough for taking charge of the militia. I found him pointing with a stick at one of his pebble diagrams. He was surrounded by about a dozen boys and very young men. Behind him, more young men were trying on the Persian armour.

  He got up and saluted when he saw me approach. I suppressed a smile and saluted back. ‘What news, General Rado?’ I asked in Latin.’

  ‘Fifty men and boys,’ he said briskly. ‘All of them able to ride in some degree. Not much discipline in the Greek sense – but practised irregulars, and all eager to give the Enemy a bloody nose.’ He pointed at a boy with a blank face who was rocking from side to side on his haunches. About fifteen, he already had the wiry look of nearly everyone else up here, but, once you discounted the insane look on it, his face was still bordering on the pretty. ‘He was brought in a short while ago. The Persians are raiding now on this side of the pass, though for the moment only beyond the mountain. They rode into his village yesterday evening. It was the usual bloodbath. The boy got away because the priest shoved him under the altar and the church wasn’t burned. The far
side of the mountain’s crawling with foraging parties. It’s still safe this side because they can’t carry food back over the mountain paths. Or they might decide to come across for the killing. It’s hard to say.’

  I’d called him ‘General’ with slight irony. He’d taken the promotion at face value and with good reason. In his easy authority among the other boys and men, he was beginning to remind me of Priscus at his best. I looked at the pebble map. ‘We’ll need more than fifty,’ I said. Rado nodded. ‘Unless you think otherwise, we’ll need a couple of hundred men at least.’ I sat down beside him. Though no one about us could have known any Latin, I dropped my voice. ‘What little experience I have of these matters tells me that discipline is everything in a pitched battle. It’s then that you’re moving men about like pieces on a gaming board and you need every one of them to do as he’s told. But all we’re looking at is a sudden wild attack – rather like one of your own people’s raids. It needs to look enough like a probing attack to scare Chosroes into listening to Shahrbaraz. Then we pull back and wait. Assuming we can find more men, how do you feel about that?’

  Rado pursed his lips, almost managing not to look eager. ‘So long as they aren’t expecting us,’ he said, ‘and so long as we can go up another two or three hundred men, we’ll be good for one very sharp attack.’ He looked round. ‘None of these people has seen real action. Once they’ve seen their brothers and friends killed beside them, it won’t be so easy to manage a second attack.’ He thought a little, then let his eagerness show fully. ‘Have you seen some of them ride?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘It’s not bad for farmers. It’s mostly sheep and goats they raise up here. They need to be mobile.’ He stopped and looked again at his pebbles. ‘Your own plan is based on the assumption of an attack on foot. If we can get a few hundred horsemen this good, though, I’d suggest a frontal attack over rocky ground. My father – I mean my old father – once led an attack like that on a Greek army. It worked. But he said these things have to work straightaway. If the enemy doesn’t cave in, it’s up to you to ride off like the wind.’