by R. W. Peake
To his credit, Hirtius didn’t waste any more time, tacitly accepting Dadarshi’s word by turning and ordering Silva, “You need to pick five,” he stopped, “no, make it ten good men to go to Susa and tell Caesar about all this, that Kambyses is in command, or his brother…”
“Intaphernes,” Dadarshi supplied.
“Yes, Intaphernes, and that he’s up to something. My guess is that Dadarshi is right, that he’s going to try and take Ctesiphon back.”
Silva saluted, repeated the orders as was the custom, then spun his mount about with an ease that even a born horseman like Dadarshi appreciated, and was gone in a spray of dirt and dust as he went galloping away.
“We’re going to follow them,” Hirtius said this more to himself, “and wait for Caesar to decide how to deal with this.”
It wasn’t that it was a bad plan; the mistake was that Kambyses, expecting this reaction, and having learned a great deal about the inner workings of Caesar’s army and the habits of his officers, had sent a significant number of his own troops away from his column, spreading out in a human net that made it impossible for any messengers sent by the Romans trailing him to reach Caesar, and in sufficient numbers that, even if Hirtius had dispatched a full turma, it wasn’t likely that any of them would escape. This was the cause for Caesar remaining completely uninformed about this important change in the enemy’s movement, and would cause great problems in the near future.
By the estimates given by his subordinates, his Praefectus Fabrorum, and his own experience, the combined total of which more than a century’s time worth of knowledge in such matters, Caesar had scheduled his assault on Susa for the beginning of autumn, some five months after their arrival, and a bit less than four months after his encirclement of the city had been completed. This meant that Caesar’s army had little more to do than sit and watch for any movement from the defenders of the city, or for signs of the relief column that was rumored to have departed, not from Istakhr but Sostrate, the Romans having learned of this change of location by Phraates. Only the senior officers of Caesar’s army knew that this was, in fact, true, meaning that there were a few tense days as, without divulging why, the Primi Pili cracked down on their men, particularly those assigned to the outer entrenchments. This served as an example of how, despite Caesar being somewhat different, the upper classes equated a lack of education with a lack of intelligence, as if the men wouldn’t be able to deduce that the probable cause of this sudden rise in the level of alert was because the Parthian king was sending help to his city.
“Why does he think we’re all idiots?” Pacuvius grumbled to Mardonius as they stood on the rampart of the section of outer wall assigned to the last three Cohorts of the 10th. “Besides, those goat fuckers wouldn’t be coming from this direction anyway! They’ll be hitting those cunni in the 28th over that direction,” he jerked his thumb in a generally southern direction, “not all the way up here.”
Mardonius, rather than answer, heaved a sigh; he had stopped counting the number of times his tent mate had made this complaint. Although, he thought wryly, at least he does vary it a bit, which couldn’t be said for Curius, another tent mate whose wits were barely adequate for service in a Legion. Curius was famous for, among other things, hearing a colorful phrase from a comrade, then not only adopting it for his own, but repeating it with such monotonous frequency that he only desisted after the threat of a beating by his exasperated comrades. And, as the fates would have it, Curius was standing just a few paces down and within earshot.
More to distract himself and to continue practicing his Latin, Mardonius gently teased the one, and so far, only Roman he considered a true friend. “Those ‘goat fuckers’ know every fold and crease of this land,” he indicated the area in front of their position, “so if they want to get past the cunni in the 28th, they could do it with their eyes blinded.”
Pacuvius shot him an amused glance, “‘Eyes blinded,’ eh? Now, why in Hades would they want to blind themselves just to sneak past us?”
Mardonius flushed; he was easily embarrassed by his struggles with the Roman tongue, and his tone was defensive as he said, “No! Not they would blind themselves!”
Unable to think of the term, the Parthian mimicked tying something around his head in the area of his eyes.
“Ah!” Pacuvius laughed, although he had known all along what the Parthian meant. “You mean ‘blindfolded’.”
“’Blindfolded’?” Mardonius tried the unfamiliar word, but in another demonstration of the difference not only in the words of their native languages, but in the different manner in which each culture looked at the world, he asked, truly puzzled, “How can you fold your eyes?”
“No, you idiot,” Pacuvius hooted, but when he began to try and explain verbally, he realized with some chagrin that, when taken literally as Mardonius had, the word was somewhat nonsensical. Inspired, he pulled his neckerchief from around his neck and said, “Watch.” Then, exaggerating the movement, he folded the cloth into a narrower strip before lifting it and placing it over his eyes. “See?” Pacuvius said triumphantly. “Blind. Fold.”
Although Mardonius did understand immediately, neither could he resist a chance to pay Pacuvius back, so when his comrade, believing he had made his point, began to remove the blindfold, the Parthian reached out and stopped him, and hoping he still sounded genuinely puzzled, asked, “But wait. Would it not then be ‘foldblind’, since you have to fold it before you use it to blind your eyes?”
As Mardonius hoped, this startled Pacuvius by forcing him to actually think about how some common terms weren’t exactly as straightforward as they seemed. Why did they say it this way? he wondered. But, as he thought about it, temporarily distracted as Mardonius had intended, the Parthian silently moved around his comrade to stand behind him, while Pacuvius stood there, mouth open as he tried to think of an answer to the question.
Finally, Pacuvius gave up in frustration, reaching up to remove his neckerchief as he said irritably, “What does it matter? That’s just how you say the fuck…”
Blinking at the return of the sunlight, Pacuvius stared at the empty spot where Mardonius had been, but while he spun about fairly quickly, realizing he had been duped, the men around the pair, who had been watching with grins, began roaring with laughter, hooting, and mocking calls to Pacuvius.
“You goat-fucking bastard,” Pacuvius grumbled, giving Mardonius a shove that was mostly playful, but he was also irritated at being made a fool of so easily, knowing that he wouldn’t hear the end of this for some time.
“If you girls have time to laugh when you’re on watch,” the gravelly voice of their Centurion Cyclops cut through the laughter, “then I’m not working you hard enough, am I?”
As Cyclops knew it would, this ended the mirth, the men instantly turning back to face north, out across the vast expanse of flat ground, waiting for something to happen. Which meant they didn’t see his seamed face break into a grin as he continued on his tour of his Cohort, shaking his head at the manner in which men passed the time, waiting for something that was unlikely to happen. And, he thought wryly, we’ve only got another three months of this to go. At least, this was what he and the other Centurions believed.
The first indication of trouble for Caesar’s army was when the regularly scheduled resupply train didn’t arrive on time. This wasn’t all that unusual, meaning that another two days after its scheduled arrival passed before he sent out part of the single ala of cavalry he had retained to work as scouts, with orders to search for the missing wagons. Those men subsequently vanished, leaving no trace, and without sending any word back to Caesar before they did. Within a full watch of Caesar expressing his belief aloud that they had been ambushed, the Primi Pili in the northern camp had been joined by their counterparts in the other camps and were hurrying to the praetorium, where the Legates and Tribunes were already there.
The Centurions were of one like mind, and that was anger, which was expressed by Aulus Mus of the 15th.
“Caesar, why are we hearing from our men that we’ve somehow got a huge Parthian army in our rear starving us out?”
While Caesar was known by the men of his class for giving his rankers more leeway; indeed, many of his contemporaries insisted that his “coddling” of his men, and “indulging” his Centurions in particular set a bad precedent, this wasn’t something that he could turn aside with a soft word.
“Because I don’t know exactly what’s going on, and until I did, I wasn’t going to bother you with something that might be from a trivial cause,” he snapped, but if he had thought this would be enough to quiet his Primi Pili down, he had miscalculated their mood.
“The disappearance of our rations isn’t exactly a trivial matter, Caesar.”
Pullus didn’t match Mus’ tone, but there was a quiet, forceful quality that did more to convey to Caesar just how troubled his officers were than Mus’ words.
Caesar took a breath, then exhaled it before replying soberly, “No, Pullus, it isn’t. And,” the words threatened to catch in his throat, but at this moment, he didn’t need agitated Primi Pili on his list of worries, “I should have sent word as soon as I heard. I…apologize.”
Mus opened his mouth, his thick eyebrows plunging downward towards each other, an expression that Pullus and the other Primi Pili knew signaled that the Primus Pilus of the 15th wasn’t ready to let go of his aggrieved sensibilities, but Pullus, using his spot slightly behind Mus and shielded from Caesar’s view by the Centurion’s body, reached and clamped down, hard, on Mus’ arm. Consequently, the only thing that escaped his mouth was a startled yelp of both surprise and pain, but while he glared up at Pullus over his shoulder, Mus was no fool and correctly interpreted the signal, saying nothing.
“So,” Spurius, as he tended to do, spoke up at the right time, “what do we need to do now, Caesar?”
“The first thing I need to do is find out where Hirtius and the rest of our cavalry is, and,” Caesar’s mouth thinned in a bloodless slit that his men knew meant he was angered or troubled, “why they didn’t alert me that the Parthians who left Sostrate weren’t coming here.”
Pullus exchanged a troubled glance with Spurius, but it was the oldest Legate who was the first to voice the worrying question. “Caesar, how do you know that these Parthians in our rear are the ones from Sostrate?”
That Caesar didn’t hesitate in his reply informed his officers this had occurred to him as well, admitting, “I don’t, Ventidius. But if they’re not…” He made a gesture, holding both palms upward as he shrugged. “…where did they come from?” There was no answer from the others, and he went on, “Because there hasn’t been a word, not a whisper that there was another of their spads out there somewhere. Besides,” Caesar shook his head, “where would they come from, if not Sostrate? They,” he pointed in the general direction of the Parthian entrenchments, “came from Merv, and that’s at the farthest edge of their kingdom.”
As every man present knew, this was all true; there hadn’t been the hint of a rumor that the Parthians had yet another pool of manpower somewhere out in their vast kingdom, mainly because so much of it was uninhabitable for more than very small groups of people, almost always clustered around a source that was as precious as gold: water. Nevertheless, given their combined level of experience, each of them was acutely aware that, when it came to warfare, it was the prudent warrior who was always prepared for the unexpected, which meant this was a possibility that couldn’t be discounted.
This was what prompted Balbinus to broach a subject that, despite every man present knowing it was a sore one for Caesar, was still a crucial question.
“Could it be Artavasdes and the Armenians?”
There was a sudden sharp intake of collective breath from the others, most of them reacting to this idea that hadn’t yet occurred to them, but while Caesar’s expression darkened, his tone indicated that he took this question seriously, answering Balbinus, “I suppose it could be, Balbinus.” He paused, his brow furrowed as he considered this for a moment, then dismissed it, saying, “But they would have to march past Ctesiphon to do so, and I know Octavian has been diligent in sending out mounted patrols. There’s no way to hide what would have to be a large force of mounted men. So,” he concluded, “no, I don’t believe it’s the Armenians, Balbinus.”
“What do we do, Caesar?”
The general considered Pollio’s repetition of Spurius’ question, not that he hadn’t been racking his brain from the moment he realized the probable meaning of the disappearing cavalrymen.
“If,” he spoke slowly as he thought through the problem, “this is the Parthians from Sostrate who are now in our rear, our first priority is to locate Hirtius and the cavalry.” Although he didn’t want to articulate it, he forced himself to consider aloud, “And if they’ve been wiped out, we’re going to have to suspend our plans for assaulting Susa and devote our attention to this new threat.” Turning to Lepidus, who despite his many detractors, particularly among the Centurionate, had done a competent job as quartermaster, Caesar asked, “What is our supply status as of this moment, and assuming that the resupply has been completely destroyed?”
Lepidus thanked his household gods that he had anticipated the question and already had his wax tablet open, although he didn’t need to consult it as he answered, “As you know, Caesar, you have insisted on a week’s cushion in the event of something like this happening. But,” he hesitated, not relishing being the one to give his general the bad news, “that was the case two days ago, when the resupply should have arrived.”
“So we have, what, six days left?” Caesar asked, and Lepidus nodded confirmation.
This caused Caesar to hiss in frustration, but while he didn’t think much of Marcus Lepidus, this wasn’t the man’s fault. I should have insisted on two weeks, he thought ruefully. I became too complacent about how quickly we could be resupplied from Ctesiphon.
“Before I make any decision,” he finally announced, “I need more information. I need to find Hirtius first. Until then, I expect you to keep your men under control. And,” he finished grimly, “we go on three quarters rations, effective immediately.”
Caesar’s Primi Pili had come to the praetorium worried; their state of mind was, if anything, worse than before as each of them thought through what they needed to do with their respective Legions. After the Centurions were gone, Caesar was alone with his Legates, and only then did he allow his real state of mind show.
“If there’s a Parthian force in our rear, and it’s anywhere near the size I’m afraid it is, I can’t afford to send the cavalry that’s left here out to find Hirtius, because they won’t stand a chance.” Thinking for a moment, he turned to one of the clerks who always hovered in the background and ordered, “Send for Decurions Serranus and Caudex immediately.” Once the man hurried away, Pollio and the others watched Caesar, though none of them uttered a word, which Caesar interpreted correctly, explaining, “Remember that they have a few Parthians riding for us now. I plan on using them to go find Hirtius, but avoid whoever’s out there, since none of our men know the land as well as they do.”
This certainly made sense, but Caesar’s generals were clearly skeptical, and it was Ventidius who spoke for them when he asked, “How do we know that we can trust them? They may go straight to the enemy and tell them everything they know. Especially,” he warned, “if they get caught by a Parthian patrol. They’ll probably claim they were deserting us and looking for their friends, if only to save their skin.”
“It’s a risk,” Caesar acknowledged, but when he countered, “Does anyone have any other idea?” there was a silence around the table, as each in their own way and at their own speed deduced what Caesar had moments before, that they were simply out of other options.
Aulus Hirtius was in a quandary eerily similar to that being experienced by Caesar, now that he had determined that the Parthian army from Sostrate was not merely taking a circuitous route to swing around Susa to hit the Romans from
the north. It had been two days since he sent a second group of riders, with one of the Parthians salted among the ranks to act as guide, and still no response had come from Caesar, a fact that couldn’t easily be explained away. The only likely cause was that his couriers had been intercepted by the Parthians, meaning that Caesar was almost certainly uninformed that he now had a force in between the army and Ctesiphon. According to Dadarshi, Hirtius and the bulk of his men were now on the eastern side of the Tigris, about sixty miles almost due west and a bit north of Susa, while the Parthian spad was perhaps three miles distant. More accurately, it was the camp the Parthians had made the night before, yet now that it was a full watch after dawn, they had shown no inclination to move. Nevertheless, while their numbers were daunting, Hirtius wasn’t fooled into thinking he was observing the entire Parthian force. Somewhere between Hirtius’ men and Susa, using their intimate knowledge of the ground, there was a part of this enemy army that was set up like a wall between Caesar at Susa and his cavalry Legate. Now, it seemed as if the Parthians were planning to stay in one spot for…who knew how long, while Hirtius sat staring at what appeared somewhat like a blob of ink dropped on the horizon. That they hadn’t resumed towards Ctesiphon, as Hirtius had become convinced was this commander’s intent, was gnawing at him, but it was also what Dadarshi had pointed out that was even more troubling.
“Lord, see how they have encamped themselves on the edge of that low ridge?” When Hirtius nodded, the Parthian continued, “That ridge is the closest those bad lands come to the river. From there, they can see anyone approaching for many…” Dadarshi paused then, but it was as he tried to recall the unfamiliar word the Romans used to measure distances, finally coming up with, “…miles.” Pointing in a more easterly direction, Dadarshi shook his head, answering Hirtius’ question before he asked it, “And I would not think of trying to use that bad ground to try and approach from the east. It gets much worse and while either I or another Parthian could guide you, it would be too dangerous. There are…” Once more he struggled, then had to use his hands to form what to a Roman looked like the letter “V.” “…dry water places that would keep us hidden, but they are very narrow at the bottom, with no room to turn around or do anything if they attack us from above.”
