The Rise of Zenobia (Overlord Book 1)

by JD Smith

  ‘And you do not decline.’

  ‘I do not object to serving Syria. And Odenathus and I, we may not be as close as we once were, and we may not share the same opinions, but I respect him a great deal. The pressure he is under from Rome increases daily. There was a time when they would listen and send aid, secure and protect our frontier. Now they do nothing. Odenathus struggles to maintain the borderlands from invasion, and each day more slip into Persian control. As such Odenathus has become increasingly paranoid, and I cannot blame him. He does his best by his country, but he will not listen to advice, even from me.’

  Julius’ face hung with grief. Kind eyes sparkled, heavy with regret.

  ‘If he does not want your opinion, why does he ask to see you?’

  Ebony swamped the sky. Cool winds brushed warm sands, and whistled across our fire. Behind us shadows danced wild. I stifled a yawn and pretended to scratch my nose. Sleeping camels, the rustling of nature and our low voices were the only sounds on the plain.

  ‘I have been wondering that myself.’

  CHAPTER 5

  Samira - 290 AD (Present day)

  I put down the parchments my grandfather allowed me to read. I am almost afraid of the secrets they might reveal, and his past I do not know. No mention yet of my father. I long and fear his name written in my grandfather’s hand, of finding more than I wish to, and stepping through memories in life he would never share.

  Tempted to flick forward, I lay down history upon a table and sit back. Grandfather has already written twice what I have read. A writer, I think. How strange. He writes still, on the other side of the room, hunched large and cumbersome over a desk, calloused, dry hands holding a stylus. I try to remember if I have seen him sit and write before. I have, I think, but when? Some time ago, this I know.

  ‘How far are you now?’ I ask.

  He looks up, as if I speak another tongue, then seems to understand the question.

  ‘I am not writing Zenobia’s tale now,’ he replies. ‘A letter only.’

  ‘Did you go to Palmyra, with Julius?’

  ‘I did,’ he mutters.

  ‘And meet the king of Palmyra?’

  ‘You will have to keep reading if you wish to know.’

  I look down at his words and know my tired eyes cannot read more.

  ‘Or you could go to the market, fetch food for the commander’s wife. She would appreciate that.’

  ‘When do we leave for home?’ I say instead. I am eager to return, to be away from the city my grandfather loves so much, back to the sea and salt air. Here I am surrounded by my father’s death, citizens apologising as if it is their fault, so that I no longer step outside.

  I cannot bear sorrow, the sadness in the eyes of my grandfather, the sickness I feel when I imagine my father laughing and jesting, their arguments and hot words.

  ‘Do you miss him?’ I ask.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My father.’

  My grandfather continues writing for a time, deliberate concentration, avoiding my question. I think he might not answer, until finally he pauses and turns to face me.

  ‘Samira, I am sorry, but I cannot bring him back. He is gone from us now. Gods know I would gladly exchange places with him, and he might return to you, but he would never listen. He was just like his mother. He thought he was right, that his way, the path he chose, could not be wrong. And now he is dead. Of course I miss him, little one. Of course.’

  His eyes shine and he rubs his face with his hands and his scars are deeper than ever and I feel my own brow crease with concern.

  ‘You look tired,’ I say.

  He smiles.

  ‘We will not return home.’

  Fear runs through me, the thought of staying here, the place my father died, a sudden dread.

  ‘You cannot consider staying in Palmyra. You said yourself, if you stayed, Rome would know, that they would sack the city. It is why we live in Tripolis! Ever since I was a child, it has been my home. Please, grandfather, I do not wish to stay here.’

  I go to him and kneel beside him and place my hands upon his own. I am thinking of the memories I have, of my father and I racing the tide, of grandfather frowning at my attempt to fish, because it is taboo. Of him and my father returning home, their armour dirty and marked; my cleaning it.

  ‘No, Samira, we will not stay here.’

  His large, rough hands turn and he grips my own.

  ‘Then where?’

  He lets go my hands and turns back to his writing.

  ‘To Emesa,’ he mumbles.

  The city of pretenders, I think.

  It is a chill morning as we wait inside the city gates, white blanket sky and the taste of rain. Citizens fill the streets to bid farewell to the man who killed the king of the Tanukh. I cannot help but smile at his embarrassment and his incapability to accept, despite his being a general.

  A general no more.

  I see in his eyes and his expression as he looks out at the city of Palmyra that he does not intend returning here. He is pining for it already, these crumbling walls, the memories he only now begins to share.

  I scuff my sandals on the cobbles and wait. Bamdad has yet to arrive and grandfather wishes to bid him, above all, farewell.

  ‘Stay,’ the city’s commander begs.

  He is afraid of the enemies he might face without my grandfather’s presence, of a force as great as the Tanukh, who now lie defeated in mass graves a few miles south.

  Grandfather shakes his head.

  ‘I leave my men with you for now. They will protect your city.’

  ‘Where do you go?’

  ‘West.’

  Slipping and sliding our way toward Emesa. West. What for and what then?

  Bamdad pushes his way through the crowds. He wears his sword and his armour beneath a cloak.

  ‘You are needed here, Bamdad,’ Grandfather says.

  ‘And you cannot travel across Syria alone,’ he replies. ‘And I fancy too well the trip. Stretch my legs. Bit of an adventure, don’t you think, Rubetta?’

  Grandfather scowls at that. He does not like it when Bamdad uses me to change his mind. Then he nods. I am surprised, that he changed his mind without hesitation.

  Bamdad says, ‘Very well then,’ but looks unsure.

  A day and a night and I walk along the remains of Emesa’s outer walls: stone no higher than my knee. I think of my lessons and of the city’s past, giving birth to some of Rome’s most influential leaders: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; Julia Domna ... But it is no longer a large, empowered city, not even a shade of what Palmyra is now.

  ‘Was it never as wealthy as Palmyra?’ I ask Bamdad.

  ‘Palymra worshipped trade, Emesa worshipped the gods. Here, the priest kings ruled.’ He smirked. ‘They hailed the sun god, Elagabal.’

  ‘Grandfather wrote of Elegabal,’ I say.

  ‘He wrote?’

  ‘Indeed, he is documenting the fall of Palmyra.’

  Bamdad laughs, his teeth shining bright in the sun.

  ‘What tickles you?’ I ask, already unable to help but smile with him.

  ‘I never thought Zabdas would relive the past. This is Vaballathus’ doing. His death brings change in Zabdas.’

  ‘Do you know the story he tells?’

  ‘I lived it, just as he did. We made Rome tremble.’ He stands on the rocky stones and wobbles to demonstrate. ‘Bel’s fucking balls, they didn’t know what to do with us.’

  ‘Bamdad!’ my grandfather calls. ‘Samira does not need to hear a soldier’s tongue.’

  ‘Samira is thirteen. She would have heard a lot worse in our day.’

  I look out at the hills and try to picture the buildings that once stood amongst the rocks and envisage how much marble and stone has disappeared, how much has been taken in the years since this city fell, since the days my grandfather walked these sands as young as I?

  ‘Almost twenty-two years have passed since I last entered this city,’ Grandfather says.
‘I thought I would remember it better, but it has changed too much.’

  ‘Just rocks and dust and emptiness now,’ Bamdad replies.

  ‘Julius was a kind man,’ I say, thinking back to the story, wondering, secretly, what Bamdad knows that my grandfather has not written down, what I do not yet know. I catch him rolling his eyes, and he winks.

  ‘He was a generous man.’

  ‘Did you know him?’ I ask Bamdad.

  ‘No, but I heard Zabdas profess his greatness plenty.’

  Grandfather stops walking.

  ‘What is wrong?’ I ask.

  ‘The remains of Elagabal’s temple. I sought refuge here more than once. This way.’

  We climb steps onto a terrace. From here the entire city is mapped out and unkempt. Grass protrudes through wall cavities and disintegrating colonnades. We skirt round and down into the centre of the temple, all lifeless gloom bar the fading footprints of habitation here and there. Grandfather walks across what I think to be a main hall, where feast, prayer and gifts might once have been offered to the gods. No statues, but pedestals upon which they have sat here and there. I feel a flutter inside me, but I am unsure what it is. It is this city, I think, and wonder at its greatness, what it would have been to belong to a place of such splendour. I did not feel it in Palmyra, the palaces, temples, baths taken over, remoulded, re-used. But I feel it here. She echoes with the sounds of a bustling market, dozens of priest-kings, nobility born and a life my grandfather once knew.

  He removes his pack, bends down behind a great pedestal. Where Elagabal himself sat? And scratches at the earth with his bare hands.

  ‘Here,’ Bamdad says, ‘use this.’ He offers him a knife and together they dig down, almost four hands deep, and stop.

  ‘What is it? What have you found?’

  ‘This is one of many promises I have sworn over the years. One I intend to keep.’

  He pulls from the ground a pouch. He opens it and tips the contents out into his hand.

  ‘Let me see it,’ I say, and move closer. A gold ring with a clasp the shape of a hand holding a stone nestles in his palm.

  ‘Here.’ He turns the ring to reveal marks on the inner band.

  ‘Are they Egyptian? I cannot read them.’

  ‘It says: “God of the People, Protector of the East”.’

  ‘Why is it here?’

  ‘Because many years ago I dug this very earth and buried it.’

  ‘Who does it belong to?’

  Grandfather smiles, a fond smile, full of warm memories.

  ‘To the person who fought, above all others, to defend this ground, this country, from her enemies.’

  ‘But who does it belong to?’ I say.

  Bamdad sighs.

  ‘To a woman.’

  CHAPTER 6

  Zabdas - 253 AD

  Julius and I rode hard, no sign of Teymour, the cumbersome cargo miles behind. Julius talked of his family, each detail a little piece of his longing for home.

  ‘One of my daughters looks a little like me, but the other is the image of her mother. She is turning into a great beauty,’ he said. ‘Both, however, have my wife’s spirit.’

  ‘How did you meet her?’ I asked.

  ‘In Egypt. I have told you much of my family and little of myself.’ He sighed and closed his eyes briefly, swaying with the camel’s rhythm. ‘I have been many things in my life. I do well, I think, as a merchant, but there is much of me that cannot forget being a soldier.

  ‘I began life here, in Syria. My father was also a merchant, a prosperous man, and he drove trade hard, fulfilling Rome’s need for grain, silk and spice. But I saw no excitement, no challenge; no thrill. I was too young to know trade as anything more than the passing of goods across land. I had no desire for it. And so I went where I felt honour lay: I joined Palmyra’s army, serving Rome and the Empire.

  ‘I trained each day, from before the sun rose until it set again. I did not feel satisfied until I was the best I could be, I suppose. And I became a stratego, a general, of the Palmyrene army.’

  Julius the General. I could scarce understand why he was no longer the proud soldier he had once been.

  ‘Before I earned the title of stratego, I travelled on campaign into Egypt. We had been ordered there by Rome to man the transport of grain in and out of the country. I fell for a girl so sumptuous in her gold paints and jewels that I could not resist her. She was a temptress, put before me by the gods. I have done many things in my life with a clear head, knowing fully the decisions I have made and why I have made them, but like many, I became love’s servant when I met her, and when I think back on that time I do not believe I was fully in control of myself. She listened to me in a way I had not experienced before. I had mentors, of course, but mentors do not listen, they teach, you are there to learn from them, not to express yourself. But Meskenit, she listened in a way that made me want to tell her every thought, every idea, every belief. I became fired by our similarities.

  ‘Where most of our army bedded the women and left them with child, returning home to Syria and their wives or lovers, I did not. I could not leave Meskenit, but nor could I stay in Egypt. I had to return to Syria, to show her the splendour of what we had, that it was a match for the buildings of Egypt, and dared hope she would love the sands of my home as I did.’ Julius’ face creased. ‘She in turn fell for my military bearing and my high rank, and left her life of finery to return with me.

  ‘I made her a vow, though, Zabdas. I promised I would one day bring her luxury to rival that of Egypt. And I never did.’

  ‘But as a general you must have been wealthy.’ Julius’ clothes, the cargo he had purchased, his command over men, all proved this. ‘And you have shown me a great kindness. In what way did you fail her?’

  ‘You, Zabdas, are the one who is too kind.’ He shook his head, as if I did not understand. ‘Indeed, I have given her much — much more than you have ever known — but nothing compares to the riches she knew in Egypt. She was of the blood; of royal descent. Meskenit lived in palaces larger than you or I can ever dream; bigger, even, than those of Palmyra and Rome. I was forever afraid that she would one day return to Egypt, and I would be faced with the choice of staying in Syria, or going with her ...’

  I wanted ask him which he would have done, but thought better of it. I did not think he knew himself. A strange determination rested in his eyes, the set of his mouth, the care with which he chose words.

  ‘I care for Meskenit in ways I believe many husbands and wives do not,’ he went on. ‘And yet we were punished for our happiness. I fathered three boys and none survive.’

  With watery eyes, Julius turned his head and twitched the camel’s reins. I felt my throat constrict. Ahead of us, rolling sands showed no sign of life, and still I felt the presence of our destination on warm winds.

  The day dragged. We barely slept the night before and every click of his tongue indicated Julius was impatient to reach home. My head lolled once, twice … Jolted awake I opened my eyes. A blurred dark mass hung on the horizon ahead.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Home.’

  Town gates opened and the keeper bowed deep. People stopped to lower their heads in acknowledgment of our arrival, and Julius mirrored them. I had never seen anything like it; for a single man to hold such a place in hearts. Firouz held authority, but not this, not respect. Here were smiling faces, not cowed and frightened people bowing in fear of retribution. We sailed and rode many miles together as equals, and now I was cast in shadow, unnoticed.

  We pushed our way through streets full of gossip and transactions. Ahead, Julius turned to speak. ‘It is a small place, Zabdas. Everyone knows everyone,’ he explained, as if embarrassed by the attention we had received.

  ‘Have you always lived here?’ I asked.

  ‘Ever since I returned from Egypt. It is a good place to watch children grow.’

  The buildings thinned and the houses became larger and more ornate, the air free
of market noise and the streets uncluttered by people, stalls and animals. We walked through gardens, past fountains, the tinkling noise rhythmic. Olive trees stood tall on marble paved streets, offering fruit. Is this what Palmyra looks like? I wondered.

  We came to a house that was as perfect in its form as Julius himself: symmetrical in frontage, each column standing proud and strong. Flowers clung to the walls, breathing life into the stone. Outside, children ran, screeching playfully, chasing, pausing, watching. Up a half dozen steps and between columns, I discovered a handsome garden. Pedestals with busts of men and women and more with plants of deepest green dotted the courtyard, and in the centre water flowed down layers of stone, pooling at the bottom, a mirror to reflect sun and stone, to capture and multiply the effect, and in turn carry it down to troughs either side of the walled oasis.

  Julius leant toward me and whispered with a pride I could never claim to have experienced, ‘Welcome to my home, Zabdas.’

  A tumultuous squeal of excitement and the moment was disrupted as two girls ran to greet Julius. The girls kissed him, then parted and immediately I knew the woman standing before us to be Meskenit. I shrank back, an intruder upon a private moment.

  ‘My love,’ he said, ‘the gods know I have missed you.’

  ‘And I you.’ She kissed him, brief but sure.

  Julius urged me forward. ‘Meskenit, I have found him. At long last, I have found him, this is Zabdas.’

  My aunt, I thought. How alike might we be? But I could not see myself in her ageing features, the high, prominent bones in her face. She regarded me, her expression stern, hard, even, her eyes glowing black. Then she glanced to Julius and I noticed her uncertainty. She let out an audible breath, and moved forward to embrace me.