The Caspian Gates wor-4

by Harry Sidebottom

  After the Mouth of Hades, they rode up to the tomb of Tiphys, the helmsman of the Argo. This was set high on Cape Acherousias, backed by a sacred grove of plane trees. The monument itself held little interest, but it commanded a magnificent view. Pummelled by the wind, leaning into it, Ballista revelled in the fury of the storm spread out before him, howling all around him. White-topped, great waves rolled down out of the murk. They crashed and roared on the rocks below. The spume, flung high, was snatched away. At the foot of the cliff, the sea had turned yellow. With some terrible, insentient anger, the wind scoured the headland and thrashed the plane trees, wrenching and torturing their branches, threatening to cast them down, god-loved or not.

  ‘We should go, Kyrios.’ The guide had to cup his hands and yell to be heard. Ballista laughed. The man was frightened. He was a coward. Ballista knew himself neither. He had descended to the Hades of the Greeks and Romans; had mastered his fear. Now, the reek of it was purged from him in the fierce embrace of this clean northern storm. At such rare times, his very own vitality made immortality, in Valhalla or elsewhere, seem certain.

  ‘ Kyrios, the trees, the horses… it is dangerous.’

  Blinking the rain out of his eyes, Ballista smiled at the man, and turned to leave.

  Like most towns, and many villages in the empire, Heraclea had an official rest house of the cursus publicus. In his room in the mansio , Ballista was drinking warm, spiced wine with Mastabates. The conditum tasted good. They had a brazier. It was snug, comfortably fuggy. Outside, it was still atrocious.

  A tap on the door, and young Wulfstan’s head popped round. ‘That ferret-faced little fucker Castricius is here; big, ginger Rutilus with him.’ The boy spoke in the language of the Angles. He was much recovered.

  ‘They might understand,’ said Ballista.

  ‘These Romans and Greeks only learn each other’s language.’

  ‘Show them in.’ The boy had a point.

  ‘At once, Atheling.’

  Ballista was finding it good to be addressed again by his title among his own people.

  Mastabates bowed, blew a kiss to Castricius and Rutilus.

  Ballista jumped up and embraced the newcomers. The northerner was glad to see them. Castricius was the older friend – all the way since the siege of Arete – and the more demonstrative. Yet Ballista owed much to both. At Zeugma, Castricius had saved Calgacus, Maximus and Demetrius. At Emesa, without the actions of the two, Ballista considered it unlikely that either himself or Julia and the boys would have survived. Such profundities aside, they were good company. Ballista was easy with them.

  There were only two couches. Castricius got on one with Ballista. With just the faintest unease, Rutilus climbed on the other with Mastabates. Wulfstan brought more cups, more conditum.

  ‘Mastabates here was about to tell me something of where we are going,’ said Ballista.

  ‘In the Caucasus they live off roots and berries, and all fuck outdoors like herd animals,’ Castricius stated.

  ‘You have read your Herodotus.’ Mastabates’ words were smooth, complimentary.

  Castricius’s small, lined face broke into a grin. ‘No, just what I hear.’

  ‘Even Maximus would be pushed in this weather,’ said Ballista. ‘Possibly Mastabates might give us a more informed view. Please start with the Albanians. It might help if Castricius loses some of his presuppositions before he tries to bend the king’s daughter over in a field. It might hamper our diplomacy.’

  Mastabates bowed, unsmiling. ‘Albania is well watered. There is grass in the pastures all year round. The soil is fertile. But the Albanians lack foresight. They use wooden ploughshares, and only prune their vines every fifth year. Even so, they would be rich, if they did not bury all their wealth with their dead. Yet, oddly, once buried, the dead are never spoken of again.’

  Typical of a Greek, thought Ballista, to start with the land; it is always the land that shapes the people.

  ‘The Albanians favour a Cyclopeian lifestyle; living apart, each making his house where he will. They are a handsome race, large bodied. Most are shepherds but, despite that, they are not particularly ferocious.’

  ‘How many men can they put in the field?’ Castricius was nothing if not a long-service soldier. ‘How do they fight?’

  ‘It is said they resisted Pompey the Great with over eighty thousand warriors; more than a quarter of them mounted. They use javelins and bows, but some have armour and fight at close quarters. Often they are aided by the nomads from beyond the Caspian Gates.’

  ‘And they are ruled by a king?’ Ballista asked.

  ‘Yes, the king is Cosis. Second in honour to him is his uncle, the high-priest Zober.’

  Rutilus broke in. ‘Tell me about the Iberians I will meet.’

  Mastabates paused, as if choosing his words from a well-stocked store. ‘They are different; to some extent, more civilized. They have tiled roofs and public buildings. There are four castes in Iberia: the royal family, the priests, the warriors and farmers, and the royal slaves. The next in line to the throne, the pitiax, commands the army and dispenses justice. King Hamazasp has no son, so his younger brother Oroezes is pitiax.’

  Castricius laughed. ‘Hamazasp has no son because our Ballista killed him at Arete.’

  Ballista remembered the twang, slide, thump of the artillery piece, the long, steel-tipped bolt hurtling away, punching the young man from his horse; arms, legs, the long, empty sleeves of his coat, all flapping like a six-limbed insect. And he remembered Hamazasp. Himself a prisoner; Hamazasp coming into the cell under the palace at Edessa. He pushed down the thought of what had happened, what Hamazasp had nearly done to him; pushed it far down. But if he met the bastard again…

  Mastabates was answering a question from Rutilus. ‘… armed like Persians, the ones from the mountains more like Scythians. There are fewer of them than the Albanians, but still tens of thousands.’

  ‘Finally, what of my Suani?’ Ballista asked.

  ‘Very dirty people, no less filthy than the Phtheirophagi. They have to import grain from the lowlands. But they are not poor. They pan the mountain streams for gold. There are gems as well. They are ruled by King Polemo. He is advised by a council of three hundred they call the synedrion. There may be a problem at court. King Polemo’s daughter was married to the prince of Iberia you killed. As a widow, she has returned to her father’s domain – she is called Pythonissa.’ The eunuch gestured in a way that had regard for Ballista’s martial prowess in killing members of foreign dynasties while at the same time accepting the difficulties such behaviour brought.

  ‘The king and his nobles are said to command two hundred thousand warriors. The Suani control the heights of the Caucasus. They are the foremost people of the mountains for courage – and for treachery. There is nothing they do not know of poison. One of them, they dip their arrows in and even the smell makes men suffer.’

  ‘You are very well informed.’

  Mastabates dipped his head. ‘I have read the Greek geographer Strabo with attention.’

  ‘I thought you were from those parts.’

  ‘Nearby. I am from Abasgia.’

  Ballista laughed. ‘Let me guess, the imperial court has sent you with me to Suania, and one of the Suani with Felix to Abasgia.’

  A shadow passed across Mastabates’ handsome face. ‘No, Kyrios, all four of us eunuchs are from Abasgia.’

  No one else spoke. Mastabates continued. ‘Some time ago, the rulers of the Abasgi found a new source of income. They began to search among their subjects for the most beautiful young boys. They have them castrated, and sell them to you Romans.’

  ‘And how…’ Ballista’s question petered out.

  ‘We were young, very young. It was a long time ago.’

  Ballista noticed Rutilus cross his legs.

  Mastabates rallied, keeping his voice very neutral. ‘We know we are viewed as ill omened. If a man sees one of us first thing in the morning, he should return indoors
, for that day will not go well for him. Composite, hybrid, monstrous, alien to human nature – many hold that eunuchs should be excluded from temples and public places.’

  There was an embarrassed silence.

  ‘The very contempt in which we are held by the many is our source of strength. We look to each other. Rulers give us their confidence. They look to us for unalloyed loyalty. Unable to have wives and children, who should a eunuch lavish his affection on, if not the ruler, the one who protects him from common brutality?’

  ‘Yet is it not a life of regrets, without certain pleasures?’ Ballista spoke gently.

  Mastabates smiled. ‘It is my pleasure to serve as Aphrodite served Ares.’

  Rutilus moved slightly away.

  ‘But it would be wrong to think of us all as weaklings. A gelded horse is still fit for war; a castrated bull does not lose its might. Even if it is true that some of us may be a little less endowed with bodily strength, on the field of battle, steel makes the weak equal with the strong.’

  XVII

  At dawn on the fifth day, Boreas finally gave over. High above, ragged dark clouds still scudded south, vanishing inland over the mountains. Yet down in the port of Heraclea all was calm. Ballista watched a pale, washed-out sun glitter in the puddles on the dockside.

  The crew of the Armata were sullenly preparing her for sea. Great sluices of water fell unexpectedly from the storm canvas as it was removed. Fat drops fell from the rigging on to the oarsmen as they settled themselves on their benches. If only, some muttered, she were a fully decked trireme. ‘Bugger that,’ others replied. ‘Easier to get trapped when she goes down.’ ‘Silence, fore and aft,’ roared her officers.

  Felix made the libation to Apollo, protector of travellers. Bruteddius ran his eye over all. The bow officer, rowing master and helmsman were at their stations: prow, midships and stern. They indicated they were ready. Bruteddius gave the order. The cables slipped, the Armata was heaved off from the wharf. Oars outboard. Ready? Light pressure. Row! Slowly, the vessel gathered her way, turned, and pointed her bronze ram out to the Kindly Sea.

  The storm had left the surface of the sea muddy, with a quantity of flotsam. There was a swell. It demanded a shorter than usual stroke from the rowers. They were slow to make the adjustment, poor at keeping time. A run of four days ashore had done them no good. Bruteddius had considered attempting the passage to Sinope in one sailing. He had talked to local skippers. It would be a long day, very long and very hard; from well before dawn to after dark, if not to the next dawn. Yet he was told it was not impossible. He had settled on Amastris instead, just sixty or so miles. There was but one good harbour in the long stretch between Amastris and Sinope, and his men were not in good condition. What could you expect? Volunteers they might be, soldiers notionally, but in origin they were nothing but a bunch of soft freedmen and easterners; Greeks and Egyptians. A few days’ drinking and whoring in a backwater town, and they were all out of sorts and as weak as women.

  The voyage to Amastris passed without incident. No wind got up, so the men had to row all the way. No bad thing to knock them together again. They laboured hard past the tomb of Sthenelos. They took no more notice of the mouth of the river Kallichoros, where the god Dionysus danced, or that of the Parthenios, where the goddess Artemis bathed. They were unaware when they hauled the ship from the territory of the Bithynian Thracians to that of the Paphlagonians. And all the while the enormity of the sluggish sea stretched on their left.

  Not long after the time for the midday meal, the Armata pulled into the neat, sheltered oval of the galley harbour at Amastris; pulled in most gladly. No one appeared happier to disembark than Felix. Ballista followed him down the boarding ladder. The elderly senator’s joy was palpable. True, Felix had not been doing physical work. Far from it: a comfortable chair had been provided for him to view the tomb of the hero as they went by. After that, he had retired to the tiny cabin in the stern, declining all invitations to see rivers associated with divinities – unless there were an epiphany, that day, they were just rivers to him. Nevertheless, he was evidently glad to be back on terra firma. Ballista imagined that the consular was looking forward to some food and a drink, then a relaxing afternoon. These, followed by a massage at the baths and a good dinner, should suffice to restore his spirits. Ballista had some sympathy with the general idea.

  Felix stopped so abruptly that Ballista almost barrelled into his back. A man had run out from between two warehouses. He was thin, in thin clothes; both hard worn. He ran straight at the senator. Two men, better set up, ran out after him. Belatedly, it occurred to Ballista that social precedence had left Felix’s four bodyguards at the top of the boarding ladder. Ballista moved to intercept the thin man. He was too late. The man slid to his knees, and grabbed Felix around the thighs. The senator tried to step back; the man’s arms pinioned him. If Rutilus had not caught Felix from behind, he would have fallen.

  ‘Asylum, Kyrios, grant me asylum,’ the man pleaded.

  ‘Do not listen to him.’ His pursuers, overawed by the maiestas of Rome, embodied in the elderly ex-consul, had pulled up short.

  ‘In the name of Caesar, grant me a hearing, Kyrios.’ The man clung to Felix like a shipwrecked sailor to driftwood.

  ‘He is a slave, a runaway,’ one of the others said.

  ‘No, I am a free man, a Roman citizen, wrongly enslaved. Grant me a hearing, Basileus.’

  Felix, his vanity flattered by being called a king, placed a hand, almost in benediction, on the cowering man. ‘I shall hear the case at the start of the second hour tomorrow. The plaintiff will remain in custody until then.’

  One of the bodyguards, a legionary detailed from Legio II Parthica , had fought his way off the ship and now took the man away.

  The second hour of the next day, the seventh day before the ides of May, found Ballista seated next to Felix, as one of his five assessors, in a pleasant portico overlooking the agora.

  The thin man was asked the prescribed questions: Name? Race? Free or slave?

  ‘Melissus, son of Charillus, Kyrios; from Erythrinoi, a village in the territory of Amastris. I am a free man, unjustly taken into slavery.’

  He was given a chance to tell his story.

  ‘I am a fisherman. I was out in my boat, the Thalia, when the Borani came. They captured me. The barbarians burnt my Thalia, just for their pleasure. They took me with them. When they went ashore for fresh water at the mouth of the Parthenios, I escaped.’

  The men who claimed to own him started to voice their disagreement. Felix silenced them with a look.

  ‘I had nothing but a tunic on my back. As I walked towards Amastris, I fell in with these men. At first, they spoke gently to me. When they had lulled me, they had four of their followers grab me. They bound me, beat me. With cruel humour, they renamed me Felix. They were laughing, joking it was a lucky name for a lucky slave.’

  His captors ill-omened naming decided the case there and then. But Felix went through the formalities. The man’s supposed owners were allowed a chance to state their case. Fully aware of how the wind was set, they made a very poor job of it. Witnesses appeared on both sides. Those for Melissus made far the better impression.

  Felix made a show of consulting his assessors. Ballista, Rutilus, Castricius and two young, well-born friends of Felix gave their unanimous opinion. Then the consular delivered his judgement.

  ‘Melissus, son of Charillus, of the village of Erythrinoi, is to be restored to freedom. The men who have so inhumanely preyed on a fellow citizen in misfortune are to be stripped and beaten. Their property is confiscated: half to the fiscus of our dominus Gallienus Augustus, half to Melissus, son of Charillus. Let the sentence be carried out now.’

  Straightaway, eight burly soldiers from the stationarii based in Amastris seized the men, dragged them out into the agora.

  Even before the first whip fell, the condemned were screaming.

  ‘Cowardly Graeculi,’ said Felix.

  The wo
rds, even the screams, were cut across by a new voice, loud in its desperation: ‘ Kyrios, hear my petition. I too have been wronged.’

  Wearily, Felix said, ‘Who spoke? Bring him forth.’

  And so it started: an endless series of complaints, all different, but all having one thing in common. When the barbarians came, I hid in the hills, returning I found my neighbour had taken my goat, field, wife… When the barbarians came, in the chaos, my fellow citizen attacked my boat, home, daughter… When the barbarians came, my fellow townsman joined them, pointing out roads and houses, sharing in their depredations. When the barbarians departed, they left behind my silver bowl, my statue of Athena… My friend recovered it, but now will not return it to me.

  All through the long day, Ballista listened to the stories of woe. He thought of the famous description by Thucydides of the breakdown of society during the civil war in Corcyra. He thought the coming of the barbarians might be worse; to domestic bad faith and betrayal was added the horror of the unknown.

  A very small part of him felt an atavistic pride – this is what we northerners can do to you feeble men of the south. He suppressed the thought as unworthy. He concentrated on his dominant emotion, a genuine pity for peaceful men and women whose innocence had been no shield. Yet he did not suspend his critical faculties, trying hard to discern the victims from the liars and opportunists. A false accusation, if successful, brought the same rewards as a genuine one.