I looked up at the bright stars. I really wasn’t another Leonidas. I was an English semi-bandit with a thick layer of civilian piled on top of that. Eboric was young and silly. I could expect him to see me as a hero. But Rado could see right through me. How he could have gone calmly back to his tent to sit playing with another of his pebble maps, was beyond me.
‘Stiff upper lip,’ I whispered in the darkness. ‘Stiff upper lip.’ Once more, I found myself speaking in English.
Chapter 66
We shed our first blood about noon the following day. Our guides were leading us out of sight through some low hills, when we came on several dozen mounted and unmounted Persians. I won’t say they were actually dripping with Greek blood. But they were close by a village we’d skirted, where every gust of smoke carried over on the breeze smelled of burning meat. The swagger of the footmen and the squealing laughter of them all, told us enough of what they’d been about.
My own inclination was to wait and see if they’d noticed us – and, if they hadn’t, simply to watch them go past. But Rado was already taking out his sword. ‘Get them. Kill them. Strip them,’ he rasped in his functional Greek. ‘No prisoners. None to get away.’ Before I could open my own mouth, he was galloping straight at them, every one of our horsemen close behind him.
It was brutal work, but complete and mostly silent. I cut down one of the horsemen as he tried to escape past me. It was an impressive kill, requiring me to dodge away from his own sword blow, and then skewer him through the side of his throat. Still sitting up and holding his reins, he was dead before I had my sword out of him. But I don’t think anyone was watching. Mine had been the only horseman to survive the first rush of our assault. By the time I was beside Rado again, all attention was on the footmen.
‘Gag them!’ He commanded. ‘Kill slow, but gag them.’
They did both, though with an emphasis on the slow killing. Icons held up to witness the torments, the priests who didn’t join in darted about, exhorting the men to greater excesses. Rado looked on impassively as the banks of a stream now swollen to a small river turned red with gore and was covered with parts cut from the bodies of the living. He raised his voice above the desperate, choking buzz of men who’ve had stones rammed into their mouths to keep them from screaming. ‘This is how they fight their war against us,’ he said. ‘Will you complain if we fight back?’
I might have commented on his shift, in under a day, from speaking of Greeks in the third person to talk of ‘us’ and ‘we’. Instead, I looked about for Antonia. She was holding hands with Eboric and watching as one of the captives had his eyes scooped out. ‘The punishment is just,’ I said flatly.
I was saved from the embarrassment of puking up my lunch by the arrival of one of our scouts. He rode straight in from the south and cried a happy greeting when he saw the blood his people were shedding. I looked carefully at the message scrawled by one of the priests on a piece of linen. I moved closer to Rado. ‘Shahin’s been lecturing Timothy and Simon in Greek about the arrangements,’ I said in Slavic. ‘There’s to be a dawn meeting at the junction of the two passes. He’ll present the cup to Chosroes. After a speech from Shahrbaraz, the army will be called to order and marched along the Larydia Pass.’
Rado smiled. ‘Then we attack at dawn,’ he said. ‘They’re plainly not expecting us. Even if we don’t persuade them to turn back, we can make it look as if your cup and its box are worth fighting to recover.’
He fell silent and looked again at the stomach-turning slaughter beside the stream. As if reading my thoughts again, he put his hand on my arm. ‘The punishment is just,’ he reminded me. ‘This isn’t a war between mercenaries. When Greek swords are sheathed this time, there will be nothing left over for the slave markets.’
I nodded. This was what I should have seen when I first called him ‘General’ Rado. It was also clear demonstration to men who’d never seen violence on any collective scale that here was an enemy who could be beaten. And the weapons we’d taken would be useful, and the bigger horses. It would take far longer than we had to train our people to fight in armour. But we must have taken fifty swords.
I cleared my throat. ‘When they’re dead, we can dump them in those bushes,’ I said.
It took a while before they were all dead. Afterwards, laughing and splashing each other in the stream, our men turned the waters back to a dull pink.
The rest of the day went well. No one who saw us lived to pass on the news of our approach. And many did see us. Some fought back – and we lost twelve men to death or serious injury. But our own losses only served to settle nerves and to shape us into a more cohesive force. Most of the Persians we came across, though, were too tired, or too drunk from beer or killing, to do more than throw down their loot and beg for a mercy that didn’t come. Our initial recruits were running out of patience for slow torments. Not so the local survivors. They fought with little skill, but made up for this with a reckless ferocity that gave us ten of our twelve losses. After the fighting was over, they could have been taking lessons from Chosroes in the infliction of pain. They didn’t even join in the retaking of the booty.
As the afternoon wore on, crude spears were entirely replaced by swords and shields and fighting axes. Our newest recruits now had their choice of horses, and many of the others were able to retire their own horses to carrying the supplies we’d seized. Though small, there was no doubt we were an army. Rado and I rode at its head. Behind us, as if that were their appointed place, rode Antonia with Eboric. Behind them were the priests, some holding their icons aloft, others carrying Persian battle clubs. Behind them, silent but for the occasional chanting of one of the more bloodthirsty Psalms, rode the men.
In England, I’d often joined with bandits. In the Empire, I’d seen regulars in action. I hadn’t imagined anything in the way of what I saw unfolding from one encounter to another. No one could mistake our men for other than irregulars. But they were irregulars made into ruthless and effective killers by a combined passion to defend what was theirs, and revenge for what they’d lost, and now by a swelling religious mania. Any feeling I’d had, that I was leading men to a meaningless death, was at least temporarily washed away in the cataracts they opened of Persian blood.
Antonia summarised things as the sun began to sink lower in the sky. ‘Why did you spend so much money for Daddy,’ she asked, ‘on hiring barbarian mercenaries? It can’t be just because he’s a shit leader that every army you gave him ran away at once. Is arming the people part of your plan to beat the Persians?’
‘Yes,’ I lied. The truth was that I’d been pushing the militia idea for local defence, and because I’d never got over a barbarian’s disgust at the thought of an unarmed people. One day of this and I’d have been mad not to arrive at the idea of a whole army – offensive as well as defensive – made up of armed farmers.
Or perhaps I wasn’t lying. I couldn’t say how often I’d been through Herodotus, or how much I despised the standard commentaries on him. It wasn’t because, in some blurry sense, the ancients had been more noble than us, or because the matchless eloquence that inspired them hadn’t required years of hard study and forgetting of their own language before they could understand it. They’d sunk their differences and come together to fight like cornered rats against the Persians because, each and every man of them, they’d had something to lose greater than their own lives. What I’d enabled probably had been in my plan from the start. I just hadn’t dared put it in one of my memoranda to the Emperor.
We’d spoken in Latin. Rado now broke in. ‘Give us ten thousand more like these,’ he said, ‘and we’d burn Ctesiphon to the ground in two years.’
I smiled. ‘It might take a little longer than two years, though,’ I said. Being me, I also thought of the money we’d save.
The previous night, camped on the mountain path, had been one of nervous apprehension. This evening, in a hollow above the Larydia Pass, we might already have been a victorious army. I had to del
iver a long speech, filled with warnings and descriptions of what we’d soon be facing, before I could bring everyone back to sobriety. I was helped by the closeness of the main enemy. Since late afternoon, I’d been taking messages from our scouts about its approach. Still in no apparent order, it was gigantic enough to have got my clerical spies writing in words and tone lifted straight out of Revelation. Now, with rising force, the wind blew from the east. Seven or eight miles weren’t enough to dissipate the clatter of drums and cymbals, or the shriller sounds of the thousand eunuchs in full voice.
Before the darkness fell entirely, I set off with Rado for some reconnaissance of our own. We led our horses into the pass and walked with them over moderately smooth ground. The moon was past its best and a return to patchy cloud gave us a poorer view of the coming day’s fighting ground than I’d have liked. Bearing in mind my ability to commit whole books to memory on one reading, and a generally powerful memory, I’ve always been surprised, where not ashamed, of my vagueness over the details of topography. But, for all his public deference, I was there to accompany Rado, not the other way round. He took me on a slow zigzag along the pass, stopping every now and again to pay special attention to some feature of the ground, or to dwell on the slope of some downward approach.
The junction of the two passes covered about the same area, and was about as smooth, as the Circus in Constantinople. The remains of several stone buildings and the bigger parts of a crude statue suggested how important the junction had been in very ancient times. A brief flash of moonlight from behind the clouds showed deep notches over the statue base. I had little doubt this was a kind of writing and no doubt that I’d not be able to read any of it.
‘This is where we’ll hit them,’ Rado whispered. I turned from looking at the statue. It was covered in writing, and this was broadly similar to the scripts I’d seen in the ruins of Babylon. This was a natural place to put on a show and I was sure this had to be the place where Shahin would present the Horn of Babylon, together with its supposedly more precious container, to Chosroes. All the chief Persians who’d come along with the Great King could behold and wonder. It was in this broad space that what sounded a slow and chaotic approach could be mustered into a regular march towards the coastal plain.
‘We can hide ourselves a half mile behind Shahin,’ Rado added. ‘We can ride forward in silence. When I give the signal, we can pull together into the formation we’ve practised and sweep forward. If it all goes right, we’ll hit them like a mailed fist into a eunuch’s belly. We can kill a few hundred of them before pulling back. When their own cavalry try to follow, the archers above can let fly. If there is no pursuit, they can move forward and rain death in places we can’t reach. After we’ve pulled back, we regroup and attack again elsewhere. That’s how my people do it. It will have to do. Whether it’s enough . . .’ He broke off and shrugged.
The noise of music from the big pass became louder and more continuous, and was joined by a long burst of cheering. I looked about me. I could forget the size and smoothness of where I was. What suddenly seemed more important was the height and steepness of the rocky walls surrounding it and the frequently rocky ground of the Larydia Pass. Once we’d shown ourselves, it would be a matter of conquer or be crushed.
We’d seen enough of things down here. All that now remained was to take ourselves along the upper ridge. We needed to see what cover there was for our archers and how easily men could be sent up to attack them. We were leading our horses back the way we’d come, when there was the scrape of boots on the rough ground ahead of us.
One of the two men approaching us was Shahin. ‘You say His Majesty has seen my report?’ he asked in an anxious whine. ‘That means he knows the actual situation in Constantinople. I do urge him to reconsider his plan for tomorrow. Alaric was in total control when I left Constantinople. The only way he could have been here was at the head of a Greek army. That means everything must be known to the Intelligence Bureau. I suggest we should cut the ceremony. Why not let me hand everything over tonight in private? We can then keep moving cautiously forward.’
‘Be silent, Shahin!’ the Grand Chamberlain trilled. ‘The Great King knew that Alaric was lying from the moment he arrived here. At no time was His Majesty deceived. He was but playing with the blond barbarian.’ Not moving in the shadows, I hoped the horses would keep quiet. The Grand Chamberlain was passing by in his chair not a dozen yards away. Shahin hobbled along beside him. The guards were heavily armed and looked as if they were expecting trouble.
The big eunuch twisted round, making his carriers stagger a little as they fought to keep the chair steady. ‘The Great King has been assured in a dream that Alaric came alone and that there is no Greek army. If His Majesty believes us to be perfectly safe, will you dare say otherwise? I think not!
‘Now, I have delivered your instructions for dawn tomorrow. I will not advise you to follow them to the letter, regardless of your own misgivings. I take it for granted that you know this already. I also will not carry back such misgivings as you may have expressed. You may regard this as a personal favour for which I shall, in due course, expect a return.’
With that, he motioned Shahin to stop and reached forward to prod his carriers to hurry him on to the main camp.
Rado was keeping the horses remarkably quiet. But it was soon plain that Shahin wouldn’t simply turn and traipse back to his own camp. For a while, he stood unmoving in the middle of the pass. Then, instead of going away, he walked over and looked up to the far side.
‘Alaric,’ he shouted, ‘I know you’re up there!’ He looked quickly to where the Grand Chamberlain might still be in hearing. He switched into Greek. ‘Alaric, the silver cup has given me heightened awareness of all things. I can feel that you’re up there. You’ve got the girl. There’s nothing more you can do here. Take yourself and your household slaves back to Constantinople. Go now, or you’ll get us all killed!’
For a while longer, he continued looking up into the darkness. At last, with a loud sigh, he turned and began walking slowly away to the right.
As soon as everything was silent, we got ourselves to one of the gentler slopes. ‘What was that all about?’ Rado whispered as we paused halfway up.
‘I think Antonia was right about his being touched in the head,’ I replied. ‘Other than that, Shahin was uttering a convenient lie. Since he’s unable to produce her as a trophy, he’s decided to suppress any mention of Antonia. That means he needs another reason to explain our presence. Either he admits that we did follow him out here, or he puffs up the efficiency of our intelligence services and says I’m here with an army. As for Chosroes, he’s keen to save face – even to the point of bending reality to fit his image of himself.’ I sniffed. I looked at Rado in the darkness and hoped he was aware of my smile. ‘That’s a frequent weakness of those at the top, by the way. It’s never easy to get the truth out of people who are scared of you. Add to that an unwillingness to see things as they really are, and you explain the trouble with any form of settled government but a constitutional republic.’
But this was no time for lectures. I took the reins of my horse again and waited for Rado to go ahead. There was little I could tell him about the military arts. One thing I did know, however, better than most generals I’d met. But perhaps he’d long since guessed one of the chief reasons behind my liberal scheme of household management. Between attacks of cold feet, my opinion of General Rado was rising into the sky.
Chapter 67
Our reconnaissance along the top of the pass took us above the Persian camp. The army had moved forward a couple of miles since the dying away of the rain, but looked as chaotic as ever. It was getting late and the moon was already far up in the sky. The front part of the camp was ablaze with light. The singing eunuchs showed no evidence that they’d soon be going to bed.
As you might expect of Chosroes, the evening entertainment was mostly executions. In defiance of his people’s established worship of fire, he was roast
ing men alive in iron cages suspended over bonfires. Search me who the poor buggers were. Prisoners brought back from the foraging raids? The engineers who’d made such a balls-up of his night palace? Human offerings to the shade of Urvaksha? Young Babar and anyone else who’d upset him in the past few days? You decide. The cages were a fair distance away and there wasn’t much to be seen through the smoke but the occasional glimpse of a thin, capering body. The screaming was enough, though. Not even the thousand eunuchs could obliterate that. His Majesty had to be down there in one of the better viewing positions – roasting alive was one of his favourite punishments – but I couldn’t see him.
Rado was marching up and down, now peering over the edge, now stamping his feet near the edge. The path along the top was narrower than on the other side. Looking up, there was nothing to be seen in the dark. But I knew some of the high points rose a couple of hundred feet above where we were standing.
‘Here, what are you doing?’ someone called in Persian from the shadow of an overhanging rock. He stepped out, pulling his clothes down and wafting a shitty smell through the night air. He hadn’t seen Rado – he was busy in what looked like the act of embracing a boulder – and stepped closer to me. ‘State your business, stranger,’ he said in the tone of a customs officer.
‘I’m Alaric,’ I said earnestly. ‘You may know me as the barbarian spy who nearly murdered your King the other night. I’ve come back to spy on you.’
Honesty’s a fine policy, especially when it shocks a man into not going at once for his sword. I took hold of his shoulders and head butted him in the face. I lifted him into my arms as if he’d been a sleeping child and tossed him over the edge. With the general racket down in the pass, no one could have heard his scream. No one seemed to notice his impact on the now dry floor of the pass.
The Curse of Babylon Page 49
