Fire in the East

by Harry Sidebottom

  ‘Who did you dig this out of?’

  The doctor swallowed hard. ‘A soldier from the numerus of Ogelos, Kyrios, one of the conscripted townsmen.’ The man stopped. He was sweating.

  ‘Why did he come to you?’

  ‘Two of his fellow soldiers brought him, Kyrios. They had taken him to the doctor of the numerus, but he was drunk.’ The man stood straighter. ‘I never drink to excess, Kyrios.’ He beamed at Ballista. He was still sweating.

  ‘And did you find out where he was when he was hit?’

  ‘Oh yes, his friends told me. They said that he had always been unlucky. He was not on the wall, not even on duty. They had been drinking in The Krater all evening. They were on their way home, back to the tower just east of the postern gate. They were crossing that bit of open ground when, whoosh, out of the darkness, the arrow came down over the southern wall and hit him in the shoulder.’

  ‘Did he survive?’

  ‘Oh yes, I am a very fine doctor.’ His tone betrayed his own surprise at this outcome.

  ‘I can see that.’ Ballista stepped towards him again. This time he came right up to him, using his size to intimidate. ‘You will not mention this to anyone. If I hear that you have ...’ He let the threat hang.

  ‘No, no one, Kyrios, no one at all.’

  ‘Good. Give the soldier’s name and that of his friends to my secretary and you are free to go. You have played the part of a conscientious citizen very well.’

  ‘Thank you, Kyrios, thank you very much.’ He virtually ran to Demetrius, who had his stylus ready.

  There was a loud tearing sound of something big travelling fast through the air followed by a huge crash. The doctor visibly jumped. A fine trickle of plaster came down from the ceiling. The artillery duel had been going on for six days now. Clearly the doctor had no desire to be as near to it as this requisitioned house close behind the western wall. As soon as he had gabbled the names of the soldiers, he turned and fled.

  Demetrius folded his writing block and hung it back on his belt. He picked up the papyrus again and studied it. To give him time, Ballista walked across the room and poured some drinks. He gave one each to Mamurra, Castricius and Maximus, put one down near the secretary and, sitting on a table, began to sip his own.

  There was the awful sound of another incoming artillery stone, another crash, and again a fine drizzle of plaster. Mamurra commented that one of the Persian stone-throwers was overshooting. Ballista nodded.

  At last Demetrius looked up. He smiled apologetically. ‘I am sorry, Kyrios. I cannot make out the code. At least not straight away. Most codes are really very simple - you substitute the next letter in the alphabet for the one you mean and the like; sometimes even simpler: you make a small mark by the letters that are meant to be read, or you write them at a slightly different level from the others - but I am afraid that this does not seem to be so simple. If I may I will keep it and study it when I have no other duties. Maybe eventually I will unravel it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ballista. He sat and drank, thinking. They all sat in silence. At intervals of about a minute there was another crash and more plaster drifted down to add to the fine dust which covered every surface.

  Ballista once more felt the lack of Antigonus; he would have been ideal for what Ballista wanted done. Mamurra was already too busy; Ballista wanted Maximus with him ...

  ‘Castricius, I want you to talk to the three soldiers. Find out exactly when and where the man was hit. Swear them to secrecy. Threaten them a little to make sure they do not talk. You had better be quick talking to the wounded one before he dies of some infection.’

  ‘Dominus.’

  ‘Then pick three of the equites singulares and have them keep a discreet watch on the area. It is too much to hope that one of them will be hit by an arrow with a coded message tied to it, but I want to know who they see in that part of town.’

  Again the standard-bearer simply said, ‘Dominus.’

  ‘Anyone hanging around there might be our traitor looking for the message he was expecting but never received. At least now we have positive proof that we still have a traitor among us.’

  A crescent moon hung low on the horizon. Above, the constellations slowly turned - Orion, the Bear, the Pleiades. It was the fifteenth of August, the ides. Ballista knew that, if they were still alive to see the Pleiades set in November, they would be safe.

  It was deadly quiet on the battered south-west tower of Arete. Everyone was listening. Usually it seemed unnaturally quiet in the evening when the artillery duel ceased for the day but, now, as they strained to hear one particular sound, the night outside the tower was full of noise. A dog barked somewhere in the town. Nearer at hand a child cried. Faint noises drifted across the plain from the Sassanid camp: the whinny of a horse, a burst of shouting, snatches of a plaintive tune picked out on a stringed instrument.

  ‘There, do you hear it?’ Haddudad’s voice was an urgent whisper.

  Ballista could not hear it. He turned to Maximus and Demetrius. In the dim light they both looked uncertain. They all continued to strain their ears. The night grew quieter.

  ‘There, there it is again.’ The voice of Iarhai’s mercenary captain was even softer.

  Now Ballista thought he half heard it. He stilled his breathing. Yes, there it was: the chink, chink sound Haddudad had described, gone as soon as the northerner heard it. He leant out over the parapet, cupping his hand to his right ear. The sound was gone. If it had existed at all, it was covered by the noise of a Persian patrol making its way along the southern ravine. The scatter of stones dislodged in the near darkness, the creak of leather, the clang of metal on metal - all rang loud. They must have reached a picket. The listeners on the tower heard the low challenge ‘Peroz-Shapur’ and the answer: ‘Mazda.’

  Ballista and the others shifted their positions and breathed deeply as they waited for the patrol to pass out of earshot up on to the plain.

  The volume of the night resumed its normal elusive texture. An owl hooted. Another answered. And in the silence that followed, there it was: floating up from somewhere’ down in the ravine towards the plain, the chink, chink, chink of pickaxe on stone.

  ‘You are right, Haddudad, they are digging a tunnel.’ Ballista listened some more until somewhere behind him in the town a door opened and a burst of laughter and raised voices obliterated any other sound.

  ‘We should send out a reconnaissance party. Find out exactly where it starts. Then we can estimate the route it will take.’ Haddudad still spoke in a whisper. ‘I would be happy to go. I can pick the men in the morning and go tomorrow night.’

  ‘Thank you, but no.’ Ballista had been about to call for Antigonus. Then he remembered. He thought for some moments. ‘We cannot wait until tomorrow night. If we make any preparations for a scouting party the traitor may find a way to warn the enemy. Our men would walk into a trap. No, it must be tonight, now. I will go with Maximus.’

  There was a collective intake of breath, then several voices spoke at once. Quietly but determinedly Demetrius, Haddudad and his two sentries in their different ways said that this was madness. Maximus said nothing.

  ‘I have made my decision. None of you will speak of this. Haddudad, you and your men will stay here. Demetrius, go and find me some ashes or burnt cork and meet Maximus and me at the southern postern gate.’

  Haddudad and his men saluted. Demetrius hesitated for some time before going down the steps.

  By the time Demetrius had fetched the camouflage from the requisitioned house that served as military headquarters and reached the postern gate, Ballista had told the plan to Cocceius, the decurion in command of the turma of Cohors XX stationed there. Ballista and Maximus were going to leave by the gate. It was to be left open until dawn. Then it was to be shut. It was not to be opened again unless the Dux Ripae and his bodyguard appeared before it in daylight, when the guard could be certain they were alone. In the event of them not returning, Acilius Glabrio was to assume com
mand of the defence of Arete. Ballista had written a short order to this effect.

  ‘Sure, is that not enlisting the wolf to be your sheepdog, thinking as you do that he himself might be the traitor?’ Maximus had said in Celtic.

  ‘If we do not come back, I think we will be past caring about that,’ Ballista had replied in the same tongue.

  Ballista prepared himself. He took off his helmet, mail coat and the two decorations on his sword belt - the mural crown and the golden bird that had been a parting gift from his mother. He tied his long fair hair in a dark cloth and, as he always wore black, had only to rub his face and forearms with burnt cork. Maximus took rather longer. He gave the many ornaments which festooned his belt to Demetrius, with a graphic threat of what he would do if the Greek boy lost any of them. As his tunic was white, he stripped it off and got help darkening his torso, heavily muscled and much scarred. With a minimum of fuss they stepped through the gate.

  The two men stood just outside for a while, letting their eyes become accustomed to the light of the stars and the sliver of moon. Ballista punched Maximus softly on the shoulder. The Hibernian gently punched him back, his teeth flashing white in the darkness. A path, paler than the rock around it, snaked away down into the ravine.

  With no words, they set off, Ballista in the lead, Maximus falling into step behind. They had known each other a long time; there was no need for any discussion. Maximus knew that, as was the custom among the tribes of Germania, Ballista on reaching puberty had been sent to learn the ways of a warrior with his maternal uncle. He had been a renowned war leader among the tribe of the Harii. Since Tacitus had written his Germania, the fame of the Harii as night fighters had spread far beyond the forests of the north. By preference, they fought on pitch-dark nights. With their blackened shields and dyed bodies, their shadowy and ghoulish appearance struck fear into the hearts of their enemies. Tacitus went so far as to claim that ‘no enemy can endure a sight so strange and hellish’. Maximus knew that there were few more dangerous men in the dark of the night than his dorninus and friend.

  After a time the path turned to the right towards the plain and, still descending, ran along the flank of the ravine. Now Ballista and Maximus were among the tombs of the Christian necropolis. Above and below the path were the black entrances to the natural and manmade caves where the worshippers of the crucified god buried their dead. Ballista stopped and made a signal with his hand. Together they climbed up the side of the ravine to the nearest mouth of a cave. Some three feet in, the tomb was sealed with a wall of mud bricks. Still without speaking, the two men squatted down, leaning their backs against the wall. They listened and watched. Twinkling watch fires could be seen at the top of the far side of the ravine. Now and then sounds wafted across, so low as to be at the limit of hearing. From the floor of the ravine nothing could be seen or heard. The sounds of tunnelling had disappeared.

  After what to Maximus seemed a very long time, Ballista rose to his feet. Maximus followed suit. Ballista turned to the wall, fumbled with his clothing and urinated on the wall.

  ‘Do you not think it might bring bad luck, pissing on their tombs?’ The Hibernian’s voice was very quiet.

  Ballista, concentrating on missing his boots, was slow to answer. ‘Maybe, if I believed in their one god. But I would rather piss here in the darkness than out there in the open.’ He rearranged himself.

  ‘If I was frightened I would not do this,’ said Maximus. ‘I would go and till the soil, or sell cheese.’

  ‘If you do not know fear, you cannot know courage,’ replied Ballista. ‘Courage is being afraid but doing what you have to do despite it - you could call it male grace under pressure.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Maximus.

  They set off again down to the path.

  Just discernible in the dim light, other narrow paths ran off to either side. Ballista ignored the first two to the left heading downhill. He stopped at the third. After looking all around to try to judge how far they had walked, he took the left-hand turning. They were still descending but were now travelling back towards the river. As they neared the bottom of the ravine, Ballista stopped more frequently. Eventually, he signalled that they were to leave the path and climb straight down the face of the ravine.

  Maximus’s boot dislodged a small avalanche of stones. Both men froze. There was no alarm. Far off in the distance a jackal barked. Others of its kind joined in. Ballista had judged the risk of making a noise while climbing on hands and knees, swords slung behind their backs, less than that of walking straight down one of the paths. If he had been in command of the Sassanid guard, he would have placed a watch where the paths reached the floor of the ravine.

  They reached the bottom with no further incident. Without pausing, Ballista set off to cross to the southern wall of the ravine. There was no time to lose. They already knew that Persians carrying no lights sometimes patrolled here. Holding their swords away from their bodies, they moved at a slow jog.

  As soon as they reached the opposite side they began to climb. The cliff face here was steeper. They moved slowly, searching for handholds. They had not been ascending long before the gradient lessened. Ballista signalled a halt. They lay on their backs, looking all around, listening hard. There it was again, coming from their left, from further up the ravine towards the plain, the chink, chink, chink of pickaxes on stone.

  Crabwise they crawled along the cliff face, taking the greatest care where they put their hands and feet. Without being told, Maximus could appreciate Ballista’s thinking. The entrance to the mine would be in the north face of the ravine, tunnelling towards the wall of the town. The attention of any sentries should be directed the same way. By crossing the ravine Ballista had in effect put them behind the enemy lines. With luck, no one would notice them as they approached from an unexpected direction.

  Maximus was concentrating so hard on not making a sound that he failed to see Ballista’s signal and bumped into him. There was a grunt from Ballista as a boot kicked him in the calf and a sharp intake of breath from Maximus. They made no other noise as they waited.

  With infinite caution Ballista half turned and gestured down and across the ravine. Equally carefully, Maximus turned. The entrance to the Persian siege mine was about halfway up the northern face of the ravine. It was lit from within by torches or lamps. In their glow the black silhouettes of miners flitted back and forth, casting grotesquely elongated shadows. The sound of pickaxes was clear. Men working pulleys and winches to remove the spoil could just be made out at the lip of the mine. Instantly, Ballista’s mind was full of memories of the distant north, stories of dwarves scheming mischief deep in their rock-hewn halls. He wondered what thoughts were in Maximus’s mind. Probably what was usually there - women and drink. The men toiling at the pulleys ceased work and, abruptly, some form of screen was pulled across the mouth of the tunnel.

  Ballista looked away into the darkness towards the river until his night vision returned. Then, using the faint chinks of light which escaped from the screen and the looming dark outline of the town defences, lit by just a few torches, he tried to estimate the exact position of the mine. He took great pains over this; distances are harder than ever to judge at night. He could sense that, beside him, Maximus was eager to go, but he took his time. There would be no second chance. Eventually, he patted the Hibernian’s arm and signalled their withdrawal.

  Crabwise again, they inched back along the cliff the way that they had come. Ballista was taking extravagant care. He feared that the relief of being on the homeward journey might lead him into a false move. When he judged that they were roughly where they had climbed up, he signalled to Maximus and they descended. This time, on reaching the floor of the ravine they waited, their senses probing the darkness. Across the void the great southern wall of Arete stood out black against the skyline. It was lit here and there by a torch. Their light and warmth beckoning, the massive solidity of the wall and towers gave Ballista a pang to be safe inside once more. He
shrugged it off. Inside, his war was one of endless bureaucratic book-keeping, list after list of men and supplies. Out here in the darkness was the true way of the warrior. Out here his senses were fully alive, stretched to their limits.

  Nothing threatening could be seen on the floor of the ravine. Nothing heard, and nothing smelt. Ballista gave the sign. As before, they set off at a slow jog.

  The two men were halfway across when they heard the approaching Sassanid patrol. They froze. The sides of the ravine were too far to make a run for it. There was nowhere to hide. The noises were getting louder: the crunch of stones under numerous boots, the slap of weapons against shields and armour.

  Leaning very close to his bodyguard, Ballista whispered. ‘There are too many of them to fight. We will have to talk our way out of this. You had better not have forgotten your Persian.’ The Hibernian did not reply, although Ballista was sure that he was grinning. The Persian patrol was emerging from the darkness that lay down towards the river, a dim blur, darker than its surroundings.

  Suddenly, without warning, Maximus stepped forward. In a low voice but one pitched to carry he called ‘Peroz-Shapur.’ A surprised silence succeeded the noises of the advancing Sassanids. The patrol must have stopped. It had not been expecting to be challenged at this point. After a few moments a voice, slightly uncertain, called back, ‘Mazda.’ Without hesitation, Maximus called in Persian, ‘Advance and identify yourselves.’ The noises of armed men moving resumed.

  Now the dark blur began to be recognizable as made up of individual warriors. Ballista noted two on either side detaching themselves from the main body and fanning out. Admiring as he was of Maximus’s bold stroke, he did not intend to trust his life to the Hibernian’s talking. When the patrol was about fifteen paces away, Ballista stepped to the front and called, ‘Halt there. Identify yourselves.’