Fire in the East

by Harry Sidebottom

  ‘Of course it is him,’ Acilius Glabrio replied. ‘Not that his looks have improved.’

  Ballista said nothing.

  ‘One of the soldiers recognized his seal ring,’ said Mamurra. The praefectus fabrum thought for a while. ‘And he wears the gold ring of an equestrian, the sword belt is fancy, the clothes expensive ... There were thirty silver coins near the body.’

  ‘Near the body?’

  ‘Yes, his purse had been cut from his belt, the coins tipped out on the floor.’ Mamurra handed over the purse.

  ‘Not robbery then.’

  ‘No, not unless they were disturbed.’ Mamurra slowly shook his head. ‘He was searched. The seams of his tunic and his sandals were slit. Searched but not robbed.’

  There were stentorian shouts, loud military oaths. Again the crowd, which was growing by the moment, reluctantly nudged apart. Through the narrow passage opened to the corpse strode Maximus and Turpio.

  ‘Well, he did not burn our artillery magazine,’ said Maximus straight away. All the group, except Ballista and Turpio, turned to look intently at the Hibernian. ‘Come on, it must have crossed everyone’s mind. Now we know he didn’t do it. He has been dead too long. By the look of him he was dead before we even reached Seleuceia.’

  All the time his bodyguard was talking, Ballista was watching Turpio. The latter’s usually humorous, mobile face was very still. He didn’t take his eyes off Scribonius Mucianus. Finally, very low, he said, ‘You poor bastard, you poor fucking fool.’

  Ballista got down on one knee by the corpse and studied it intently, starting at the head and working down, his nose inches from the corrupt flesh. Demetrius, his gorge rising, wondered how his kyrios could bring himself to do such a thing.

  ‘He was robbed of something if not of money.’ Ballista pointed at the ornate sword belt. ‘See — here and here, two sets of thongs which have been cut. These ones secured this purse.’ The cut ends he held up matched. He picked up the other thongs. ‘And from these hung a -

  ‘A writing block,’ said Turpio. ‘He always had a writing block with him, hanging from his belt. He was always fiddling with it.’ A wry smile passed across the ex-centurion’s face. ‘He was always opening it to do sums and write figures down.’

  ‘Was it found?’ Ballista asked. The centurion Lucius Fabius shook his head.

  ‘Would someone get me some water and a towel?’ Ballista didn’t look but heard someone moving away. Allfather, power is corrupting me, he thought. I give orders and expect them to be obeyed. I do not even know or care who obeys. The corruption of power is as certain as the natural corruption in this corpse.

  Steeling himself, fighting his natural repugnance, Ballista gripped the decaying corpse with both hands and rolled it over on to its face. He resisted the impulse to wipe his hands. Life in the imperium had taught him not to show weakness.

  ‘Well, at least it is easy enough to see how he was killed.’ Ballista pointed to a savage wound to the side and back of Scribonius Mucianus’s left thigh. ‘That brought him down. He had his back to his killer. Maybe he was running away. A sword cut from a right-handed man and, from the size of the wound, probably a standard military sword, a spatha.’

  A pitcher of water and a towel were placed on the ground. Ballista shifted to look at what was left of the back of Scribonius Mucianus’s head. The mess of congealed flesh and brains was totally black. Liquid oozed out. The wounds resembled coal tar and seemed to have its faint iridescence. Ballista was beginning to feel sick. He forced himself to tip water on the wounds, to wash them with his bare hands.

  ‘Five, six, seven ... at least seven sword cuts to the back of the head. Quite probably the same sword. What every master at arms likes us to do - get your man down with a leg wound, on all fours, on the ground, then finish off with as many hard blows to the head as it takes, as many as you have time for.’ Gratefully Ballista let one of his scribes, the one with the Punic accent, pour water over his hands. He thanked him and took the towel. ‘Who found him?’

  The centurion waved a legionary forward.

  ‘Gaius Aurelius Castricius, soldier of the Vexillatio of Legio IIII Scythica, century of Lucius Fabius, Dominus. We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready, Dominus.’

  ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘Dominus, in a side gallery of this disused tunnel. Dominus, down there.’ He pointed to some steps leading down to a black hole.

  ‘What were you doing down there?’

  ‘Ordered to search all the side passages and galleries, Dominus.’ The legionary looked vaguely embarrassed.

  ‘Castricius here had the skills for the job,’ his centurion interjected. ‘On account of his having plenty of experience in tunnels before he took the sacramentum, the military oath.’

  The legionary looked more embarrassed. No one went down the mines by choice. As a civilian, Castricius must have been convicted of something bad to end up there.

  ‘Well, Castricius, you had better show me where you found him.’ Telling Maximus to attend him and everyone else to wait above ground, Ballista followed the legionary. Just inside the tunnel they paused to light lamps and let their eyes adjust. The soldier was making small talk. Ballista was not listening; he was praying.

  This tunnel was worse, far worse, than the other one. The footing was rougher and more slippery. There were reasons it had been boarded up. Several times they had to climb over piles of rock fallen from the ceiling or collapsed from the walls. Once they had to crawl through a gap little wider than the northerner’s shoulders. It must have been hell getting the corpse out of here. Down and down. It was very dark. It was very wet. There was water underfoot, water running down the walls. It was like a living descent into Niflheim, Misty Hell, the bitter-cold realm of unending winter, the realm of the dead, where the dragon Nidhogg gnawed at the roots of Yggdrasill, the World Tree, until the end of time.

  ‘Here. I found him here.’ They were in an abandoned side gallery, a dead end, too low to stand up in.

  ‘Exactly where was he?’ Ballista asked.

  ‘Just here.’

  ‘What position was he in?’

  ‘On his back. Arms outstretched against the walls. Feet together.’

  ‘Maximus, would you mind lying down in the position of the corpse?’ Filthy as all three men already were, the bodyguard shot his dominus a look that suggested he minded quite a lot. Nevertheless, the Hibernian got down on the floor and let Castricius arrange him in precisely the right position.

  ‘Scribonius Mucianus was certainly not killed here. Maximus, would you get on your hands and knees?’

  The bodyguard looked as if he were going to make a joke, but decided against it. Ballista drew his spatha. He tried to mime a cut at Maximus’s head. The ceiling of rock was far too low.

  ‘It must have been hell getting the corpse down here,’ said Ballista. ‘It must have taken more than one man.’

  ‘Almost certainly. But maybe one very strong man might just have been able to do it,’ Castricius replied.

  Emerging into the sunlight, they were confronted by a ring of faces. At the front were the army officers, Mamurra, Acilius Glabrio and Turpio. They had been joined by the three caravan protectors, on the grounds that, as commanders of units of numeri, they were also army officers now. Behind them, still kept back by the legionaries, the crowd had grown yet bigger. It was fronted by the other councillors, Theodotus the hirsute Christian well to the fore. The ordinary people, the demos, were further back and further back still were the slaves. At any gathering, the people of the imperium tended to arrange themselves by status, as if they were at the theatre or the spectacles.

  ‘The poor fool, the poor fucking fool,’ said Turpio. ‘As soon as he heard of your appointment he started acting more and more strangely. Just before he disappeared, two days before I set out to meet you at the coast, he had taken to talking to himself. Several times I heard him mutter that now everything would be all right, he had found s
omething out that would make everything all right.’

  ‘What did he mean?’ Ballista asked.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Ballista was fighting the urge to leave his desk. He had a vague sense of unease, a strong feeling of restlessness. Several times in the past hour he had given way. Pacing about did no good. Yet it could have been worse. It was not as if he had received a nocturnal visit from the big man. Indeed, thankfully, the late emperor Maximinus Thrax had not made an appearance since that night on the Concordia off the Syrian coast. Did this undermine Julia’s Epicurean rationalism, her view that the daemon was nothing more than a bad dream brought on by fatigue and anxiety? Since Ballista had reached Arete he had been dog-tired, and no one could deny he had been under great stress - one of his chief officers missing then discovered murdered, the other insubordinate and insufferable; the loyalty of the leading locals questionable; the artillery magazine burnt down. And at least one murderous traitor loose in the city.

  It was the military dispositions for the defence of the town that were troubling him now. As a Roman general should, he had summoned his consilium, heard their opinions, taken advice. But ultimately the decisions were his alone. His plans had been finalized, making the best use of the pitifully inadequate manpower at his disposal, and were ready to be unveiled to his staff and put into operation. Yet he worried that he had missed something obvious, that there was some terrible logical flaw in them. It was ridiculous, but he was less worried that the thing he had overlooked would cause the fall of the town, lead to bloody ruin, than that the omission would be obvious to one of his officers straight away, that he would be exposed to the mocking laughter of Acilius Glabrio. A large part of him remained the barbarian youth of sixteen winters dragged into the imperium of the Romans. He still feared ridicule above all things.

  Ballista got up from his desk and walked out on to the terrace of the palace. The sky was a perfect Mesopotamian blue. It was winter, the sixth of December, ten days before the ides of the month. Now the sun had burnt off the early morning mist, the weather was that of a glorious spring day in Ballista’s northern homeland. He leant with his back to the wall of the terrace. From the river far below the sounds of the water carriers and the fish market, now all under military supervision, floated up. Nearer at hand, off to his left beyond the cross wall which separated the terrace from the battlements, he heard children playing. Turning to look, he saw four small children throwing a ball. One clambered up and stood precariously on the crenulations. Without thinking, Ballista started towards him. Before he had gone more than a few paces a woman in the flowing robes of the tent-dwellers snatched the boy to safety. Her scolding carried in the clear air.

  Ballista thought of his son. Marcus Clodius Isangrim he had named him. No one could object to the first two names: nothing could be more conventional than the first son taking the good Roman praenomen and nomen of his father. Julia, however, had objected as vociferously as only an Italian woman can to her son carrying a barbarian cognomen.

  Ballista knew that it was only their exquisite good manners, the manners that came with generations of senatorial birth, that had stopped Julia’s relatives sniggering at the naming ceremony. Yet it was important to Ballista. Fear ridicule although he did, it was important that the boy grew up knowing his northern heritage. As he had tried to explain to Julia, it was not sentiment alone that had decided the choice. The imperium used diplomatic hostages as tools in its diplomacy. At any time, if the emperors became dissatisfied with Ballista’s father, they would without a moment of hesitation uproot Ballista, send him back to the north and, backed by Roman arms and money, attempt to install him as the new Dux of the Angles. If Ballista were dead, they would send his son. Such things seldom worked out well, but neither Ballista nor his son would have any choice in the matter. So the boy was called Isangrim after his grandfather and he was learning the native language of his father.

  They called him Isangrim. He was very beautiful, his hair a mass of blond curls, his eyes a green-blue. He was three years old, and he was playing hundreds of miles, several weeks’ journey away.

  And what of his familia here? Bagoas had taken a bad beating. He would be laid up for some time. Calgacus had been right that the boy should be followed. It did seem that, in his naive way, the boy was playing at being a spy. It was lucky that Maximus had been there. Calgacus was tough, but it was unlikely that the old Caledonian could have dealt with four legionaries on his own. There were two particularly worrying features to the incident. First, the legionaries had been encouraged, at least indirectly, by Acilius Glabrio. Second, two of the equites singulares had watched and not intervened as the boy was dragged off. And what should Ballista do with Bagoas when he recovered? Yet another cause of an uneasy mind.

  The usual coughing, wheezing and muttering heralded the arrival of Calgacus.

  ‘That hot-looking Syrian girl you want is here. I said you were busy, but she said she needed to see you badly.’ The stress on ‘badly’ was accompanied by a lascivious leer of epic proportions. ‘I hope you can give her what she badly needs.’

  ‘Thank you for your concern. I will do my best. Would you show her in?’

  ‘Dressed as a boy she is, trousers and the like.’ Calgacus showed no sign of moving. ‘Turn her round and you can have the best of both worlds.’

  ‘Thank you for the advice. If you could show her in, you can get back to whatever appalling things you get up to in your own quarters.’

  The Caledonian moved off in no great hurry, muttering at his customary volume. ‘Whatever I get up to ... looking after you morning, noon and fucking night, that’s what I get up to.’

  Ballista drew himself to his full height. Chin up, shoulders back, he willed himself to appear attractive.

  Bathshiba walked out into the sunshine with Calgacus and one of her father’s mercenaries.

  ‘The Dux Ripae will see you now,’ the Caledonian said with some ceremony, and left.

  Bathshiba walked across to Ballista. The mercenary stayed where he was.

  ‘Ave, Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Egregius, Dux Ripae,’ she said formally.

  ‘Ave, Bathshiba, daughter of Iarhai,’ Ballista replied.

  ‘My father wishes to extend his condolences to you on the death of your officer Scribonius Mucianus, and to offer what help he can give in catching the murderer.’

  ‘Thank your father for me. Did he send you with this message?’

  ‘No. He sent Haddudad there. I told Haddudad I would come with him.’ She laughed, her teeth very white, her eyes very black. ‘People get very nervous confronting barbarians in their lair. Who can tell what they will do?’

  Ballista wished very badly to say something light and witty. Nothing came. There was just the hollow feeling of desire. As real as a waking dream, he pictured himself taking her arm, leading her back into the palace, to his room, to his bed, throwing her down on it, unbuckling her belt, dragging down ...

  She shifted on her feet and brought him back to reality.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No, I cannot stay long. Even with Haddudad here it would not be good for my reputation.’ There was a naughtiness, a hint of wantonness about her smile that further unsteadied Ballista.

  ‘Before you go ... there was something I wanted to ask you.’ She waited. ‘I saw a statue in the agora the other day.’

  ‘There are many statues there. Most set up by the grateful inhabitants of the town to celebrate the virtues of caravan protectors like my father.’

  ‘This one was of Anamu’s father. He was called Agegos.’ She did not speak. ‘The inscription said that Agegos was satrap of Thilouana. The island of Thilouana is in the Persian gulf. It is part of the empire of the Persians. It is ruled by Shapur.’

  For a moment Bathshiba looked puzzled, then she laughed a laugh of genuine amusement. ‘Oh, I see what you are thinking. You are wondering how loyal to Rome can a man be whose father was a satrap for the Persians.’ She laughed
again. ‘My father will be furious that I have thrown away an opportunity to blacken one of his rivals to the new Dux Ripae ... although he has been strangely pacific recently, even towards them.’ She thought for a moment then continued. ‘It is all perfectly normal for a caravan protector. The wealth of other rich men in the imperium ultimately depends on land. The caravan protectors own land around the villages to the north-west and across the river. They receive rents from their tenants, and from the properties they own in town. Although it is seldom mentioned, they lend money out on interest. But their real wealth comes from escorting caravans between Persia and Rome. To protect the caravans as they cross the frontier they need contacts, connections in both empires. They have many connections also with the tent-dwellers of the deep desert who acknowledge neither Persia nor Rome.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ballista. ‘But one thing puzzles me. How does this protection generate their wealth? The inscription spoke of Anamu’s father protecting caravans from his own resources.’

  ‘You have a lot to learn.’ She gave the big northerner a very different look from before, possibly a look of uncomplicated affection. ‘Possibly there is some truth in the image of the ... naive barbarian from beyond the north wind. My father and his like act out of the generosity of their souls. No merchant would dream of offering payment, and a caravan protector would be offended for it to be offered, but a suitable gift, a completely voluntary contribution, is quite a different matter. Merchants are grateful for protection.’

  They were standing close together. She was looking up at him. He began to lean forward. She stepped away, the look of mischief back in her eyes.

  ‘Don’t forget that you have a wife - and Haddudad has a sharp sword.’

  Winter advanced on the town of Arete.

  It was nothing like the iron-bound winters of the land of the Angles. There, the snows could lie heavy on the fields, over the huts of the peasants and the high-roofed halls of the warriors for months on end. Beyond the stockades the freezing fogs enfolded the improvident and the unwary. Men and animals died in the cold.