Fire in the East

by Harry Sidebottom

  Anamu led them into a U-shaped room containing about forty men, the councillors of Arete. ‘Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Egregius, Dux Ripae, welcome.’ Anamu sat down where his name was inscribed in the first tier. Only larhai and Ogelos the priest of Artemis were already seated there. Many of the other names in the front tier had been defaced. Obviously, politics was a deadly business in this town. These three survivors were the men who really mattered. Yet it would not be safe to discount the other councillors. Ballista saw that most of the priests who had met him at the gate sat as councillors, including the hirsute Christian priest.

  It was quiet. Motes of dust moved in the sunlight. Ballista began to speak.

  ‘Councillors, you must prepare yourselves for very great sacrifices. The Sassanid Persians are coming. Next spring they will advance up the Euphrates. They will be led by Shapur, the King of Kings himself. As the people of Arete massacred his garrison last year, he will stop at nothing to take the city. If he succeeds, the living will envy the dead.’ Ballista paused. ‘I have been sent by the emperors Valerian and Gallienus with full powers to ready Arete for defence. We can hold out until the great Valerian brings an imperial field army to our aid. But it will be difficult. I will need your unquestioning help. You can be sure that if we do not all hang together, we will all hang separately on the cross of crucifixion.’

  It had been a long, long day. Ballista found it hard to believe that he had seen Arete for the first time that morning. He sat sideways on the low wall of the terrace. The Euphrates was 250 feet below him. There were groves of tamarisk and the occasional date palm on this side; on the other cultivated fields stretched almost as far as he could see. A pair of plovers chased each other over the river. Julia would love it here. Bathshiba would too.

  ‘I will have a drink, thank you.’

  Maximus poured the watered wine and put the jug down carefully. He sat on the wall, one knee bent, facing Ballista. Neither felt the need for formality when alone.

  ‘It is not good, your palace.’ Maximus gave the word a strange emphasis and smiled. ‘It is a death trap.’ He took a drink. ‘The first courtyard is all right, just the one great gate. The second has no security at all. There is a gate in the north wall for the stables, a gate in the south for the kitchens, and doors connecting back to the first courtyard and through here.’ He nodded at the private apartments of the Dux. ‘The doors are not the real problem. The walls are low, easy to climb. There is open ground to the south but buildings come right up to us on the north. In at least three places you could jump from one roof to another.’ He took another drink and picked up an olive.

  ‘Demetrius.’ Ballista waved the young Greek over from where he had been waiting politely across the terrace. ‘Help yourself to a drink, and sit down.’

  The boy sat cross-legged on the floor.

  ‘We must get some furniture out here.’ As Ballista spoke, Demetrius produced a hinged wooden writing block and, with a stylus, wrote in the wax. ‘So how does it look?’

  Demetrius produced a piece of scrap papyrus. He studied his neat small writing. ‘Overall, fine, Kyrios. In fact, we have too many provisions, far too much wine. We do not have enough papyrus but, apart from that, we have no worries about quantity or quality. The problem lies with the cost. I will make enquiries in the agora before we pay out a denarius to the archon, that man Anamu.’

  ‘That’s easterners for you,’ said Maximus. ‘They know an illiterate northern barbarian eats like a pig and drinks like a fish, and then they cheat him.’

  The Greek secretary looked slightly pained. The three drank and ate in silence.

  Ballista watched a boat make its crossing from the far bank. The current was very strong and the boat had set out a long way upstream to compensate. The two oarsmen pulled hard, taking the opportunity to rest when they could get into the shelter of one of the islands. They set off again. The angle looked right to bring them to the main jetty at the foot of the steep steps up to the porta aquaria, the water gate.

  From the doorway came a strangled coughing, the closest thing to a formal introduction Calgacus could manage. Mamurra took it as such, and walked out from the portico.

  Ballista got off the wall. ‘Praefectus.’

  ‘Dominus.’ They shook hands.

  ‘Please give me your report.’

  ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’ Mamurra stood very straight. ‘I have chosen twenty men from Cohors XX to be your equites singulares, your horse guard. Ten for the nightwatch, ten for the day. I have posted two at the main gate, one each at the stable and kitchen gates, and another at the door to your apartments. The remaining five on duty are to be in the guardroom opening off the first courtyard. When off duty the men remain billeted and the horses stabled where they were.’

  ‘It is good, Praefectus.’

  Mamurra stood more at ease. ‘All your staff are settled into the servants’ quarters in the southern range. They have been fed. It has been a long journey. I gave all except one messenger leave for the night. I hope that is all right.’

  Mamurra declined a drink when offered one by Ballista. He left and Ballista asked Calgacus to fetch Bagoas; he could sing some songs from his homeland to pass the evening.

  One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste

  One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste -

  The Stars are setting and the Caravan

  Starts for the Dawn of Nothing - Oh, make haste!

  The words of the Persian boy’s song carried out into the immense Euphrates twilight. Even Demetrius and Calgacus, who could not understand a word, enjoyed it. Each was bound to his fate, like a dog to a cart. They were all a long way from home.

  Across the moonlit city a man sat in a tightly shuttered room. Often he looked up from what he was doing to check that he was still alone.

  If reading was a rare skill, almost entirely confined to the upper classes and a tiny minority of specially educated slaves, how much rarer was the ability to read in silence. Granted, as he followed his moving finger his lips formed the words, and he mumbled now and then, but he was proud of the accomplishment. In any case, his occasional mumblings were largely inaudible - and just as well, given his reading matter.

  He knew he should not be so proud of his skill but at least he never boasted about it. Circumstances ruled it out: self-regard could jeopardize his mission.

  He tipped the broken pieces of wax into the small metal bowl and placed it on the brazier. He opened the hinged wooden writing tablet. It was empty of wax. The words were written directly on to the bare wood. He re-read them for the third time.

  The northern barbarian sent by the emperors has arrived. He brings no troops. He talks of Valerian arriving with an army next year. He does not say when. People do not believe him. He does not expect to be attacked until next spring. The rains are late this year. When they are over, if it were possible to gather the army early and bring it here, it might arrive before the defences are ready. Was it not in February that the King of Kings crushed the Roman aggressors at Meshike, may the town now be known forever as Peros-Shapur, and killed the war-loving emperor Gordian III? In any event, I will unravel their sly secrets, unsettle their minds, and point my fingers at the weak places in their walls.

  With an old stylus, he stirred the now molten wax. With a pair of tongs he picked up the bowl and poured the wax into the recess in each of the leaves of the writing tablet. Putting the bowl aside, he smoothed the surface.

  He knew that many would call him traitor, many of those close to him, those he loved. Only a few would understand. But what he was doing was not designed to win passing praise from his contemporaries. It was a work to last for all time.

  The wax had set. He took a new stylus and began to inscribe the blandest of letters in the smooth, blank surface.

  My dear brother, I hope that this finds you as it leaves me. The rains are late this autumn...

  VII

  Demetrius woke up and reached fo
r his writing materials. He was anxious not to forget anything, but at the same time it was important to get things right. He looked at the water clock. It was conticinium, the still-time, when the cocks have stopped crowing but men are still asleep. He wrote, ‘the fourth watch,’ then, more precisely, ‘the eleventh hour of the night’. Time mattered in these things. Then, ‘vultures ... agora ... statue’. These aids to memory fixed, he relaxed a little and lay back on the bed.

  He began to reconstruct events from the beginning. He had walked into the agora. But which agora? There had been a lot of people there, dressed in many different ways - Greek tunics and cloaks, Roman togas, the high, pointed hats of Scythians, the baggy trousers of Persians, the turbans of Indians - so no real help with the location there: large numbers of foreigners travelled to many of the great cities of the imperium these days.

  What had struck him most was that none of the people had paid any heed to the vultures wheeling above. Dangerously close to sleep again, Demetrius followed his line of thought. The Persians laid out their dead to be eaten by carrion - crows, ravens, vultures. Would that mean that they venerated vultures (they were the instruments of their god’s will), or had an overwhelming horror of them?

  The vultures had been circling above the statue in the middle of the agora. The statue was gold; it glittered in the sun. It was big, possibly larger than life, but then it depicted a big man. He was nude, in the pose of a doryphoros, a spear-carrier. The muscles of his left arm were tensed as he held a shield away from his body, those of his right more relaxed as he loosely held a spear close to his side. Most of his weight came down through his right leg, the left being slightly advanced, the knee bent. Nestling below the iliac crest, the ridge which marked the junction of midriff and thighs, the penis and testicles were small and neat enough to speak to a Greek of an admirable, civilized self-control. In several ways the statue veered from the canon laid down by the great sculptor Polykleitos. The figure was more heavily muscled; it stood more solidly on the ground.

  Demetrius wrote, ‘Gold statue in middle of agora, portrait of Ballista, in pose of spear-carrier, not totally Polykleitan.’

  Demetrius lay still for a few minutes, turning the dream over in his mind, weighing up the positive and negative omens. But it was best not to prejudge things: so often the interpretations of professional dream-diviners confounded expectation. Not today, but as soon as he could, he would find one in the agora of Arete.

  ‘Good morning, Dux Ripae,’ said Acilius Glabrio. The young patrician’s vowels made it sound as if it were a title to be found among one of the remoter tribes of the Hyperboreans.

  ‘Good morning, Tribunus Laticlavius.’ ‘I’m afraid we are a little early.’ Ballista and his party had set out early. They had walked slowly through the town but had deliberately arrived at the parade ground ahead of time. ‘If your men are not ready ...’

  The young tribune did not falter. Indeed, he smiled. ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’ He waved Ballista and his party towards the reviewing stand with a proprietorial air.

  They walked the 150 or so yards in silence. Ballista took his rightful place in the centre at the front on the raised tribunal, Acilius Glabrio and Mamurra theirs, to the right and left respectively. Maximus stood behind Ballista’s left shoulder, Demetrius his right. Ballista had also brought the senior haruspex, both heralds, three scribes and four messengers, as well as five of his equites singulares, and Romulus, as ever bearing the white draco, which stirred in the light breeze.

  There were four soldiers in attendance on Acilius Glabrio. While one was sent off to give the men the order to begin their display, Ballista studied the tribune out of the corner of his eye. The young patrician wore his hair long. Swept back from his brow, it was teased into artful curls which fell either side of his ear and down to the nape of his neck. His beard was trimmed short, except for a pronounced ruff at its lowest extremity. Ballista much admired the younger emperor Gallienus - but not those who almost slavishly copied the imperial hairstyle and beard.

  A blast of a trumpet, and the two cohorts that made up the Arete detachment of Legio IIII Scythica marched in step on to the parade ground. Each entered separately from the right in a long column 4 men wide and 120 deep. They halted, turned smartly towards the tribunal, saluted and called out as one: ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

  Ballista’s first impression was one of confident and understated proficiency. A quick calculation indicated that the detachment was up to its full strength of 960 men. As far as he could see, all the legionaries were fully equipped: metal helmet or the like, mail body armour, oval shield, heavy wooden practice javelins and swords. All the shields had protective leather covers; no fancy crests bobbed above the helmets. No martinet had tried to impose complete uniformity on the men - helmets differed slightly in style, some favouring a mail coif instead. This was a unit dressed for war not for an imperial palace.

  As soon as the new Dux Ripae had returned the salute, both cohorts moved into a more open order. The nearer unit turned away and, at a command, the two marched through each other. Then, each cohort pivoting on a centurion, they reconfigured themselves from two lines facing the tribunal into two lines stretching away. It was all most handsomely done.

  Acilius Glabrio leant forward on the wooden rail and yelled, ‘Are you ready for war!’ Almost before he had finished nearly a thousand men roared back: ‘Ready!’ Three times the call and the response then, nearly without waiting for the signal, the centuries of the left-hand cohort re-formed themselves into testudo formation; six close-packed tortoises of eighty men, shields held to front, flanks and rear, and close as roof tiles overhead. The shields slammed together not a moment too soon. The front rank of the right-hand cohort ran forward and hurled a volley of untipped javelins. As their javelins were still arcing through the air, the second rank ran past them to hurl their weapons in another neat volley. Again, and again. There was a deafening rolling noise as volley after volley of javelins thumped into the heavy leather-covered shields. A trumpet blast, and the roles were reversed. Another faultless display.

  There was a pause, the two lines facing one another. Then they began the barritus. Low at first, shield over mouth for reverberation, the roar built to an unearthly sound. The barritus, the war cry of the Germans adopted by the Romans, always brought the sweat to Ballista’s palms, made his heart beat faster, always reminded him of the things he had lost with his first home.

  As the sound hung in the air, the two cohorts launched into each other. The weapons might be heavy wood, without metal points or edges, but they could still hurt, maim, even kill when wielded with skill and intent.

  The signal was given, and the two sides pulled apart. Medical orderlies removed the dozen or so legionaries with cracked ribs, broken limbs or injured heads. Then the cohorts moved smoothly into a close-ordered phalanx sixteen men deep facing the tribunal. One of Ballista’s heralds stepped to the rail and shouted at the completely silent ranks: ‘Silence! Silence in the ranks for Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Egregius, Dux Ripae.’ The legionaries remained silent.

  Ballista and the legionaries looked at each other. The legionaries held themselves with a shoulders-back, chest-out swagger. They had done well, and they knew it. But Ballista sensed they were curious. He had seen them in action now, while they knew nothing of him beyond rumour. It was quite likely they shared Acilius Glabrio’s prejudice against northern barbarians.

  ‘Milites, soldiers’ - Ballista had thought of calling them commilitiones, fellow soldiers, but he detested officers who shamelessly courted popularity: ‘fellow soldier’ was a title that had to be earned on both sides - ‘Milites, there are many things against you. There are many excuses for poor drill. It is always difficult for a vexillatio detached from its parent legion. It is away from the example and rivalry of the rest of the cohorts. It is not under the experienced eye of the legion’s commander.’

 
If possible, the ranks of the legionaries were even more silent. To give him his due, Acilius Glabrio’s patrician calm did not waver.

  ‘In your case, none of these excuses is necessary. You did everything asked of you in exemplary style. The barritus, in particular, was outstanding. Many do not know the importance of the battle cry, especially when facing unseasoned troops. How many untrained Persian peasants driven into battle by the whips of their masters will stand against your barritus? Well done! I am impressed.

  ‘Raised by that great Roman warrior Mark Antony, Legio IIII Scythica has seen action all over the imperium Romanum. From the frozen north to here in the fiery east, Legio IIII has seen off the enemies of Rome. Parthians, Armenians, Thracians, Dacians, Sarmatians and countless hordes of Scythians have fallen to her swords. The long and proud history of Legio IIII Scythica is safe in your hands. We will see off the reptiles that go by the name of Sassanid Persians.’

  Ballista concluded: ‘All except essential details, to be determined by your commander, will take a day’s leave. Enjoy yourselves - you have earned it!’

  The legionaries cheered, moved smoothly into one column of fours and, saluting, marched past the tribunal and out of the campus martius.

  It was now almost the third hour. Ballista had ordered that the tribune Gaius Scribonius Mucianus should lead Cohors XX on to the parade ground at that time. Ballista had been dreading this part of the day; he did not know what he would do if his orders were disobeyed. In an attempt to convey an air of unconcern, he studied the campus martius. It was separated from the civilian city behind him by a six-foot wall, more of a barrier to trespassers than a deterrent to an attacker. To his left it was bounded by the inside of the western wall of the city. These were both nice clean lines. The other two were messier. To his right the boundary was a large barracks block, the principia, and a temple to a local deity called Azzanathcona which he knew had been taken over to serve as the headquarters of Cohors XX. But in the far-right corner, Acilius Glabrio’s residence, a requisitioned large private house, stuck out into the parade ground. It was not the young patrician’s fault that it was there, but somehow it was another reason to dislike him. On its final boundary, the campus martius petered out before it reached Arete’s north wall. Here Ballista could see the large temple to the local god Bel, smoke rising from the eternal fire in the courtyard. To its right was the first of the towers in the northern wall, the one with the postern gate. It was odd that the wall was colonnaded there but nowhere else.