Fire in the East

by Harry Sidebottom

  One man waited at the head of the column. There was nothing showy about him or his mount, but it was obvious that he was in charge.

  ‘You are larhai?’

  ‘Yes.’ He spoke quietly, in a voice that was used to being heard the length of a camel train.

  ‘I was told that you were a merchant.’

  ‘You were misinformed. I am a synodiarch, a protector of caravans.’ The man’s face backed up his words. It was deeply lined, the skin coarse, blasted by the sand. The right cheekbone and nose had been broken. There was a white scar on the left of the forehead.

  ‘Then where is the caravan that your hundred men protect?’ Ballista looked round, as much to check that none of the mercenaries was moving as for rhetorical effect.

  ‘This was not a journey to help the merchants. It was to fulfil a vow to the sun god.’

  ‘You have seen Sampsigeramus?’

  ‘I came to see the god.’ larhai remained expressionless. ‘Sampsigeramus is why I needed the hundred men.’

  Ballista did not trust Iarhai one inch. But there was something about his manner which was appealing, and mistrusting the prancing priest-king struck Ballista as a good thing.

  larhai smiled, a not altogether reassuring thing. ‘A lot of you westerners find it hard to believe that the empire allows the nobles of Arete and Palmyra to command troops. But let me prove that it is so.’

  At a gesture, one of the riders moved forward, holding a leather document case. It took Ballista a moment to realize that it was a girl, a beautiful girl dressed as a man, riding astride. She had very dark eyes. Black hair escaped from under her cap. She hesitated, holding the case out.

  They are not sure if a northern barbarian can read, thought Ballista. He pushed aside his irritation (Allfather knew he had practice). It could be useful if they believed he could not. ‘My secretary will tell us what they are.’

  As she leant across to hand the case to Demetrius, her tunic pulled tight across her breasts. They were bigger than Julia’s. She looked more rounded in general, a touch shorter. But fit from riding.

  ‘They are letters thanking larhai for guarding caravans, from various governors of Syria and some from emperors - Philip, Decius, others - Iarhai is sometimes referred to as strategos, general.’

  ‘I must apologize, Strategos. As you say, we westerners do not expect such a thing.’ Ballista held out his right hand. Iarhai shook it.

  ‘Do not mention it, Dominus.’

  It was not just the girl that had made Ballista decide that he would ride with larhai in the lead; it was Turpio’s discomfort in his presence.

  The white draco of Ballista and the elaborate flag of larhai, a semicircle with streamers, a red scorpion on a white background, flew over the head of the column. The green signum was halfway down, where the eighty mercenaries ended and the sixty men of Cohors XX began. larhai had sent ten of his men ahead as an advance guard, while another ten had been despatched as flanking guards.

  ‘Tell me about the weather at Arete,’ said Ballista.

  ‘Oh, it is delightful. In the spring there are gentle breezes and every little depression in the desert is filled with flowers. One of your western generals said the climate was healthy - apart from dysentery, malaria, typhoid, cholera and plague,’ answered larhai.

  The girl, Bathshiba, smiled. ‘My father is teasing you, Dominus. He knows that you want to know about the campaigning season.’ Her eyes were jet-black, confident and mischievous.

  ‘And my daughter forgets her place. Since her mother died I have let her run wild. She has forgotten how to weave, and now rides like an Amazon.’

  Ballista saw that she was not only dressed but also armed like her father’s men.

  ‘You want to know when the Persians will come.’ It was a statement. Ballista was still looking at her when larhai again began to speak.

  ‘The rains come in mid-November. We may be lucky and reach Arete before they fall. They turn the desert into a sea of mud. A small force like ours can get through, if with difficulty. But it would be much more difficult to move a large army. If that army was encamped before a town, it would be impossible to get supplies through to it.’

  ‘For how long will Arete be safe?’ Ballista saw little point in denying what they clearly already knew.

  ‘The rains tend to stop in January. If it rains again in February it means a good growing season.’ Iarhai turned in his saddle. ‘The Sassanids will come in April, when there is grass for their horses and no rain to ruin their bowstrings.’

  Then we must survive until November, thought Ballista.

  It was the improbability of Palmyra’s location that first struck Mamurra. It was a completely unlikely place to find a city. It was as if someone had decided to build a city in the lagoons and marshes of the Seven Seas at the head of the Adriatic.

  It had taken six days to get there from Emesa, monotonous days of tough travel. There was a Roman road, and it was in good repair, but the journey had been hard. Two days climbing up to the watershed of the nameless range of mountains, four days coming down. In the first five days they had passed through one hamlet and one small oasis. Otherwise there had been nothing, an endless jumble of dun-coloured rock echoingback the noise of their passage. Now, suddenly, on the afternoon of the sixth day, Palmyra appeared before them.

  They were in the Valley of the Tombs. Horses, camels and men were dwarfed by the tall, rectangular tombs which lined the steep sides of the valley. Mamurra found it unsettling. Every town had a necropolis outside it but not of towering, fortress-like tombs like these.

  As Praefectus Fabrum, he was kept busy sorting out the baggage train, trying to stop it becoming entangled with the seemingly endless traffic heading to town. Most of the traffic was local, from the villages to the north-west, donkeys and camels carrying goatskins of olive oil, animal fat and pine cones. Here and there were traders from further west bringing Italian wool, bronze statues and salt fish. It was some time before he had been free to look at Palmyra.

  To the north-east were at least two miles of buildings, row after row of ordered columns. Gardens stretched a similar distance to the far corner of the walls to the south-east. The city was huge, and it was evidently wealthy.

  Its walls were mud-brick, low and only about six foot wide. There were no projecting towers. The gates were just that - simple wooden gates. On the heights to the west the walls did not form a continuous barrier. Rather, there were isolated stretches of wall intended to reinforce natural barriers. A wadi ran through the town, and the gardens pointed to a water source within the walls, but the aqueduct that ran from the necropolis would be easy enough to cut. Slowly, and with care, Mamurra came to the conclusion that the defences of the city were not good. He had once been a speculator, an army scout, and every abandoned identity left its mark. Mamurra was proud of this insight; the more so as he could not voice it.

  There was a great hubbub at the gate but eventually they moved inside. The men and animals were allocated their quarters and Mamurra went to find Ballista. The Dux was standing waiting with Maximus and Demetrius.

  ‘His name is Odenaethus,’ the Greek boy was reminding Ballista. ‘In Greek or Latin, he is known as the King of Palmyra. In their native dialect of Aramaic, he is the Lord of Tadmor. He speaks perfect Greek. It is thought that he put at least thirty thousand horsemen in the field against the Persians three years ago in the time of troubles.’

  Iarhai, together with that wanton-looking daughter of his, approached on horseback. Mamurra and the rest mounted. Ballista requested larhai to guide them to the palace of Odenaethus, and they set off, progressing slowly through the busy colonnaded streets lined with shops. They were a riot of colour. The smell was overpowering but not at all unpleasant, exotic spices mixed with the more familiar odours of horse and humanity. They negotiated a fine square, passed an agora and a theatre, and arrived at the palace, to be ushered in with courtly grace by a waiting chamberlain.

  Apart from stepping forward w
hen presented and then stepping back again, Mamurra had no part to play in the reception of the new Dux Ripae by Odenaethus, King of Palmyra, so he was able to focus on the people playing their parts. Odenaethus made a brief formal speech of welcome: great distances had been unable to diminish Ballista’s martial reputation ... all confidence for the future now he was here, etc, etc. Ballista’s reply, after an equally fatuous beginning, ended with a polite but unambiguous request for troops. Odenaethus then dwelt at length on the unsettled nature of the east since the Persian invasion - brigands everywhere, the Arabs, tent-dwellers stirring up to a fury of avarice; he was devastated, but all his men were employed holding, and only just holding, the peace in the desert.

  It was hard to number the things that Mamurra disliked about Odenaethus, the Lord of Tadmor, and his court. You could start with the king’s carefully curled and perfumed hair and beard. Then there was the delicate way he held his wine cup with just thumb and two fingers, the embroidered stripes and swags of his clothes, the soft, plump cushions he sat on, again thick with patterns, reeking of perfume. And, if anything, his court was even worse. The chief minister, Verodes, and the two generals were outfitted as copies of their lord, and the latter had virtually identical ridiculous barbarian names, Zabda and Zabbai. There was a simpering little son who looked like he should be selling his arse on a street corner and, to add insult to injury, both sitting there as bold as could be, were not only a eunuch (probably some sort of secretary if he was not part of the entertainment) but a woman (a sly-looking bitch called Zenobia - Odenaethus’s new wife).

  ‘It must be because it is in the middle of nowhere,’ Mamurra quietly said to Ballista. The reception was over. They were outside again waiting for their horses.

  ‘What must?’

  ‘This, place.’ Mamurra waved his hand around. ‘Palmyra is as rich as Croesus. Has fuck all in the way of defences, and is held by a bunch of effeminates with fewer balls than their eunuchs or women. Its safety must lie in it being in the middle of nowhere. If you ask me, it is a good thing they are too scared to give us any troops.’

  Ballista paused before speaking. ‘I think that is exactly the conclusion I would have come to if I had not spent so long talking to Iarhai. Now I am not so sure.’

  Mamurra did not reply.

  Ballista smiled. ‘Cohors XX was originally raised here, and still draws most of its recruits from here. They seem tough enough. Then again, there are larhai’s mercenaries. Some are recruited from among the tent-dwellers, the nomads of the desert, but the majority come from here or Arete. Both towns have a tradition of mercenary service - for the Romans and for others.’

  The horses were led up. As they mounted, Ballista continued, ‘You and I expect warriors to look like warriors, a grizzled Roman or a hairy northern barbarian. Maybe in this case appearances are deceptive. Maybe not all easterners are cowards.’

  ‘I am sure that is the way it is.’ Mamurra was not sure. But he would not dismiss the idea out of hand. As was his measured way, he would mull it over.

  In truth, Ballista’s thoughts had been ranging wide when Mamurra’s words had pulled him back. Ranging in many, many directions but always circling back to the refusal of the king of Palmyra, and before him the refusal of the king of Emesa, to supply troops. It was not that these Syrians were afraid to fight; they had fought three years before. It was that they did not want to fight. Why? Palmyra and Emesa depended for their wealth on trade passing between Rome and her eastern neighbour. They were poised between Rome and Persia. To refuse Ballista’s request was in effect to refuse the request of the Roman emperors. Had they decided to incline to Persia? And then there was the confidence with which they turned him down, almost as if there could be no reprisal by the Roman emperors, nor even any lingering ill will. Had the emperors covertly told them that they could refuse Ballista’s request? Did they all expect Ballista to fail?

  The three frumentarii were in the sort of environment they liked, a backstreet bar. It was dark, dingy and secure. Their cover was in place. To anyone glancing in they looked like two scribes and a messenger having a few drinks, only a few, because their dominus had ordered yet another dawn departure. Tomorrow they would set out on the last leg of their long journey to Arete.

  The frumentarius from the Subura placed three coins on the table. ‘What do you think?’

  From the three antoniniani three not all that dissimilar profiles of men wearing radiate crowns stared fixedly off to their viewers’ right.

  ‘I think that the rise in prices is appalling. But, working on the theory that a girl charges about a soldier’s daily pay, you should still get a good-looking one for that,’ said the Spaniard.

  The frumentarii all laughed.

  ‘No, Sertorius, you sad fuck, I wanted you to look at the heads on the coins, and think where we have been.’ The Roman picked up one of the coins. ‘Mariades, a rebel based in Antioch.’ Then the other two. ‘Iotapianus and Uranius Antoninus, two more rebels, both based in Emesa. And where have we been? Antioch then Emesa. Our barbarian Dux has taken us on a tour of the sites of recent revolutions. He is seeing if there are still embers of revolt.’

  They drank in silence for a time.

  ‘Possibly we should go in the other direction. Arete to Palmyra to Emesa gives you the western end of the shilk road,’ said the North African.

  ‘So what, Hannibal?’ The Roman was as sharp as ever.

  ‘The revenues from taxing the shilk road could fund any sort of uprising.’

  ‘I am still not convinced that there is a silk road,’ said the one from Spain.

  ‘Oh, don’t start all that again, Sertorius. You really do come up with some ludicrous theories. The next thing you will do is claim that this barbarian is not up to something. And we all know he is, that he is plotting treason because, otherwise, the emperor would not have assigned all three of us to this case.’

  Unseen behind the curtain, a fourth frumentarius watched and listened. He was pleased with what he heard. His three colleagues were perfect - an object lesson in the dangers of frumentarii working as a team: the rivalry, the hothouse atmosphere that forced the growth of ever larger, ever more ludicrous conspiracy theories. To give them credit, perhaps they were all playing a duplicitous game. If one of them came up with a conspiracy plausible enough to convince the emperors, he would not be so stupid as to wish to share the glory of its discovery, let alone the advancement and material benefits that would follow. In any case, they were still perfect in another way: the Dux Ripae almost certainly suspected there were frumentarii on his staff, and if he searched, he would find these three long before they found him.

  Praeparatio

  (Winter AD255-256)

  VI

  The distance as the crow flies from Palmyra to Arete was a matter of some debate. Turpio thought it only about z2o miles; larhai considered it nearer 150. It mattered little. Both accepted that it was far further by road- and what a road. It made the previous journey from Emesa to Palmyra seem like a gentle ride in an ornamental Persian game park, one of those parks the Persians called a paradise. The first three days were not too bad, a Roman road running north-east, with a village to stop at every night. On the fourth day they turned due east and, from then on, they followed an unmade caravan track. It took them three days to come down from the mountains. Then they were in the desert.

  Despite his years in north Africa, Ballista, like so many northerners, expected a desert to consist of miles of golden sand dunes, something like a larger version of the beaches of his childhood but without the sea. The desert here was nothing like that. There was sand, but the dominant feature was the multitude of rocks, sharp, hard rocks lurking to lame animals, and under the rocks were scorpions and snakes waiting to wound humans.

  The caravan crept from well to well. It averaged probably little more than ten miles a day. Every day was the same as the last. In the saddle before sunrise, then man and beast sweating in the heat of the day. Every -mile or two a halt w
ould have to be called as an animal went lame or lost its load. The silence was broken only by the footfall of the animals, the creak of leather and the occasional mechanical curse from the men.

  The seemingly endless repetition of the days put Demetrius in mind of Sisyphus, punished in the underworld by having to roll a huge stone up a sharp incline every day only to see it bounce back down again. Ballista thought of Skoll the wolf who chases the tail of the sun. Maximus worried a lot about snakes.

  On the sixth day a range of steep hills appeared in the distance ahead. They were almost there: Arete could be seen clearly from the crest of the hills. Ballista set off at a fast canter, ahead of the column. Maximus, Demetrius and a newly appointed standard-bearer, a Palmyrene who on joining the Roman army had taken the ludicrously Roman name of Romulus, spurred after him. The draco he held snapped and whistled in the air.

  Ballista sat on his pale horse on the summit and looked down at the city of Arete. It was about a mile away, and 300 feet below him. From this vantage point he could see into the city and make out its chief features. His first appraisal was quite encouraging.

  On the far side, to the east, at the bottom of what appeared a steep cliff, the Euphrates. It justified its reputation as one of the great rivers, one of the limes imperii, the limits of the empire. It was enormous, as big as the Rhine or the Danube. Like them, it did not run in just one course. There were several islands in it, a largish one quite near the town. Yet so broad was the Euphrates that there was no realistic chance of the enemy crossing it without amassing a huge number of boats or building a bridge. Either way would take time, could not be hidden and could be opposed.