In the morning, there was a slight choppy swell running from the west, nothing bad, but enough to make the ships fret at their anchors. Ballista had them all move into the shelter of Crambusa, as far as that was possible. Orders were given that no more than one-third of the rowers from each ship, one bank of a trireme, were to be disembarked on the islet at any one time.
Ballista and his comites spent the time looking over at the hills to the north-east of Corycus. Nothing moved on the scrub-covered slopes. The coast road was empty. A lone cormorant worked a patch of water. As he watched the long-necked bird, Ballista noticed the lack of gulls. Back home in the north, the air would have been thick with them, wheeling and screaming around the fleet.
Back home. Now Julia and the boys were dead there was nothing to stop him returning to Germania. Except, of course, when it became known, a messenger would come from the imperium demanding his father hand him over. And his father, the good of his people always coming first, would have to agree. The cost of non-compliance would be too high – the end of subsidies, the strong likelihood of a Roman-sponsored revolt – failing that, even armed intervention by the legions.
Anyway, what would Ballista find in the north? It was twenty-two years since he had left. Much would have changed. Would he still be welcome in the halls of the Angles? It was unlikely that his half-brother, Morcar, his father’s heir, would be overjoyed to see him. And Ballista knew that he himself had changed. Twenty-two years in the imperium, five years of high command. He was now Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Ementissimus, Praetorian Prefect, no longer Dernhelm, son of Isangrim. Maybe the smoke in the halls, the parochial concerns, would stifle him. The imperium changed everything it touched.
‘There.’ Maximus pointed.
Around the headland, about three hundred paces from the town walls, were the standards. Below them, a line of legionaries. Castricius, dependable as ever, had come.
‘Time to go.’
The Lupa won her anchor. Oars dipped as one, its ram sliced through the swell. Spray flicked back into Ballista’s face.
There was no artillery in Corycus. The trierarch had his orders to take them right into the western harbour. Beyond the mole, the water was nearly still. The great galley came to a halt about a stone’s throw from the dock.
A short wait, and a tall standard appeared: an abstract shape in red, a little like a sword, on a yellow cloth. Below it stood a man in steel and silk, with long black hair.
‘I am Marcus Clodius Ballista, Praetorian Prefect. Draw me a bath and prepare me a meal. I have come to offer terms of surrender to the framadar Zik Zabrigan.’
‘Fuck you, and your terms,’ the Persian on the wall jeered. ‘Oath-breaker. You will not wash or eat here, you arse-fucking cunt.’
Things were thrown from the wall. Ballista and the men on the prow ducked behind their shields. The missiles fell short. Some splashed in the water; others exploded on the dock. Clouds of white powder puffed up: flour, or salt.
‘You have your answer,’ Zik Zabrigan shouted.
The Lupa backed water, turned and left.
‘Arse-fucking cunt,’ said Maximus.
‘Anatomically interesting, but certainly inventive,’ conceded Ballista.
‘Sure, but they were quick to reach a good judgement.’
Calgacus ushered Valash forward.
‘Joy of Shapur,’ said Ballista, ‘we need your explanation.’
Unlike the others, the Persian was not laughing. ‘Vulgar abuse. Unseemly in the mouth of a framadar but to be expected at a siege.’
‘No, I meant the other thing – the bags of white powder.’
Still Valash did not smile. ‘Salt. They condemn you as a perjurer. Persians swear on salt.’
‘The oath I took to Shapur was in the Greek fashion.’
‘They are Persians. They will assume you took the oath in the form they know. As your Herodotus said: everywhere, custom is king.’
‘Just so,’ said Ballista.
As the sun arced up across the sky, they took to waiting again. This time, their attention was on the hills directly behind Corycus.
Over his shoulder, Ballista heard Calgacus telling Maximus an unlikely story: ‘When Archelaos of Cappadocia ruled Corycus, he had a beautiful daughter.’
‘Did she have big tits?’
‘Huge – anyway, there was a prophecy that she would be bitten by a snake and die. Now, worry almost drove the king out of his mind. So he built her a palace on this islet of Crambusa – not a snake in sight. Safe as you like.’
‘Sure, she must have been lonely – a hot-blooded girl, all alone, in need of company.’
‘Certainly. Now one of her admirers – a far better-looking, better-set-up man than you – sent her a present, a basket of fruit from the orchards below Mount Taurus. But hidden among the apricots was an asp.’
‘Fuck you, and your stories. I am not in the least scared of snakes. Never have been. And, anyway, we are not on the island.’
The two men bickered on amiably.
When the sun was at its zenith, the hills shimmered with heat, and the white, limestone walls of Corycus were almost painful to look at. When it was time to eat, Ballista gave an order for Hippothous the Cilician to join them.
As they had left Sebaste, an insignificant fishing boat had smuggled Hippothous out to them. He had been desperate to avoid Trebellianus and, it seemed, with good reason. Hippothous, on his own account, was one of the leading men of the upland town of Dometiopolis. His story, if true, was alarming. When those Persians now in Corycus had ventured inland, he claimed, they had been guided by Lydius, one of Trebellianus’s boys. They had passed by Germanicopolis, leaving Trebellianus’s hometown untouched, and had fallen instead on Dometiopolis.
Hippothous was sandy-haired, more refined than the average rough Cilician. Yet Ballista had no doubt he was cut from the same cloth as Trebellianus. All these men were trying to turn the calamity to their own advantage.
‘You have claimed that the Persians handed some of your fellow citizens over to Lydius,’ said Ballista.
A look of distaste passed over Hippothous’s face. ‘Handed them over, and then watched, laughing, as the Cilicians carried out their disgusting sacrifices. They hang the victims, men and beasts, in a tree. They cast javelins at them. If they hit, the god Ares accepts the sacrifice.’
‘And if they miss?’
‘They get a second throw.’
‘I take it you do not agree with your countrymen’s religious practices.’
‘Oh no,’ said Hippothous. ‘I am not Cilician by birth. Mine has been a long and tragic path. I was born in Perinthus, the noble city close by Byzantium. My father was on the Boule. When I was young, I fell desperately in love. Hyperanthes was nearly my age. Stripped for wrestling in the gymnasium, he was like a god. And his eyes – no sidelong glances or fearsome looks, no trace of villainy or dissembling.’
As they ate, Hippothous told them a tale of love, lust, subterfuge, murder, flight, shipwreck, loss and exile – a tale worthy of a Greek romance.
‘Probably from a fucking Greek romance,’ muttered Calgacus.
‘Do you think Trebellianus will come?’ Ballista asked.
‘Oh yes,’ said Hippothous. ‘These Persians are witnesses to his treachery. He will want them dead.’
An hour or so after lunch, the trierarch called them. From the prow of the Lupa, they looked at the hills. Through the heat haze, the thin woods above Corycus seemed to be moving. Trebellianus and his men had come.
‘Let us go and talk with Zik Zabrigan again.’
This time, the framadar offered no physically implausible abuse. Totally cut off by land and sea, aware that the main Persian army was far away, defeated and in retreat, he had to accept the game was up. Although suspicious, his attitude, as they stood between their forces on the seaward end of the mole, was reasonable.
‘Lay down your arms, give up your booty and any prisoners, surrender yourselves into my hands and, desp
ite your outrages, your lives will be spared.’ Ballista sounded implacable.
‘Spared for what?’
‘I will give you better terms than are customary. The emperor Alexander Severus settled Persian prisoners as farmers in Phrygia. But your men do not strike me as suited for a bucolic life. If they will swear the sacramentum, they will be enrolled into the Roman army. They will be split up into different units, but I will give you my word they will not be called upon to fight against their own people.’
Given Ballista’s record, it was quite commendable of the framadar to accede with no hesitation. The salt was produced, hands clasped, the right words spoken.
Up on the tower above the docks, the tension was getting to Ballista. So far, things had been reasonably smooth, but the handover was tricky. There were many things that could go wrong. Ordered to remain outside the town, Trebellianus had protested civilly enough, his men more truculently. At any moment they might swarm forward to get at the Persians, maybe even sack the town itself.
Ballista had hurried Castricius’s soldiers up on to the walls. The legionaries were under military discipline, but they had no love of the Persians and civilians were always a tempting target. Estate guards could turn brigand; in fact they often did.
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 mo
re 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.’
Warrior of Rome III Page 20
