Triumph in Dust

by Ian Ross

  ‘The enemy are invading Mesopotamia,’ Castus said, lowering his brows. ‘So I’m going to drive them out. Or do you expect Roman soldiers to cower in their billets while the Persians overrun our frontiers, sack our cities and enslave our people?’

  A low growl of agreement came from the officers and men behind him. A few soldiers in the crowd cheered and yelled. Castus noticed the tribune of the Armaturae standing behind Ablabius, looking very unsure of himself.

  ‘And if your ragged force is defeated in the field, what then?’ Ablabius shouted, turning as he spoke to address the mob of soldiers. ‘You leave the road to Antioch wide open! The capital of the eastern empire itself, defenceless before the barbarians!’

  Shouts from the soldiers; some of them raised their fists, and a lump of rotting fruit came arcing out of the darkness to spatter across the paving at Ablabius’s feet. The prefect flinched, taking two steps backwards.

  ‘The army is under my command,’ Castus said, raising his voice as he gripped the hilt of his sword. ‘And I intend to do my duty and lead them against the invaders. If you believe the Persians will turn back, you’re wrong. If you believe you can negotiate with them, you’re wrong. The enemy is in the field, prefect. Stand aside!’

  This time the cheering from around him was an angry roar. Castus hid his smile. He knew that soldiers would always back a military man over a civilian, and they loved to see the haughty ministers of the palace humiliated.

  ‘I shall write to Constantinople at once,’ Ablabius called out as he retreated towards his litter, the guardsmen forming up to protect him. ‘I shall write to the Caesars!’

  ‘Do that,’ Castus said. By the time any reply reached him, the issue would already have been decided on the battlefield.

  A few men slapped Castus on the shoulders as he pushed his way between them. He felt very tired suddenly, the ache in his head redoubling; he needed a bath, and he needed to see Marcellina. The smoke of the torches was getting in his eyes.

  ‘And so it begins,’ a quiet voice beside him said.

  Dracilianus had sidled his way through the crowd, dressed in a plain cloak and hood. The gang of armed palace slaves that surrounded him were similarly inconspicuous. Castus glanced at him, raising one eyebrow.

  ‘I can’t say I’m happy that you’re taking the army east at such a critical moment,’ Dracilianus said. ‘But you’ve manage to greatly discomfort his eminence, and that pleases me immensely!’

  ‘Leave me out of your political games,’ Castus said from the side of his mouth. ‘I’ve got proper work to do.’

  ‘I won’t oppose you in that,’ Dracilianus replied. ‘You’re right: the Persians are the greater threat, for now. But be sure to beat them quickly, won’t you? We may need you back here before long!’

  XV

  First light. Dust billowed in the greyness of morning on the plain outside Antioch, mingling with the smoke of the cooking fires. Trumpet calls sounded in the murk, and the shouts of legion centurions and cavalry centenarii as they assembled their men. The troops billeted in the city had marched out to join their comrades from the military camps, and now the entire force was mustering, ready to begin the arduous march eastward. Christian priests attached to some of the units were leading their men in dawn prayers, and the fumes of their incense blended with the surrounding haze.

  Castus rode slowly between the scattered formations. His head felt heavy and his limbs ached; only nine hours had passed since the meeting of officers, and he had slept for only three of them at best. Now the short summer night was gone, and he was back in the saddle. He heard cheers and shouts of acclaim from some of the troops as they saw the bold purple draco waving in the dusty air above his retinue. It was not Castus himself they were cheering. Not the old warhorse general who had bullied them into harsh training all through the months of winter and spring. They cheered what he represented: the commander who would lead them to victory, and bring them out alive once the battles were won.

  Among the assembling ranks of infantry, Castus spotted the standard of the Tenth Gemina legion detachment. Beneath it stood Barbatio, the stalwart young ordinarius centurion he had promoted to temporary command the previous autumn. He drew in his reins, and the officer saluted briskly.

  ‘All your men fit to march?’ Castus asked.

  ‘Have been for months, dominus!’ Barbatio replied, and his broad face split in a grin. Some of his men groaned and laughed.

  ‘I’ll see you in Edessa then!’ Castus called back, smiling as he nudged his horse forward. As he moved away he was sure he heard the muffled chant, ‘Knucklehead! Knucklehead!’ Amazed, he glanced back, but heard only laughter. It had been many years since anyone had called him that.

  Moving between the blocks of troops, speaking here and there to an officer he recognised, Castus picked out the standards and the shield emblems, and made a quick assessment of the state of each unit. Better than he could have hoped: the army appeared in good shape; the men mostly looked eager enough. He saw one soldier saluting him as he passed, and recognised him too; the man had been one of those punished by Mucatra the previous autumn, and made to stand in humiliation outside the camp dressed as a prostitute. Now he and those who had stood with him were proud soldiers again, or so it appeared. There had been no more desertions, no more absences. It had been a hard winter, but the effort had paid off.

  As he surveyed them all, Castus felt strangely moved. He was about to lead these men into war, all eighteen thousand of them, against a far superior force. Many would die. And all of it was his decision. Their lives were in his hands now. And yet he felt so old, so tired already at the thought of what was to come.

  Shaking his head angrily to dispel the thoughts, he returned to join Egnatius and his cavalry vanguard. The tribune had his men assembled, nearly a thousand troopers standing by their horses in formation all along the verge of the road. Each man carried a bundle of fodder and a ration bag on his saddle; they were riding light, no baggage mules or camels. Castus had sent orders to every station along the route of march to have food, fodder and remounts prepared for them. In four days they should reach Edessa; then, Castus knew, they would discover what Shapur and his Persian army were doing.

  Cries from the troopers at the head of the column. Castus turned, and saw that the sun had appeared above the eastern horizon, a huge red disc burning through the haze. All across the plain soldiers were turning and raising their arms in salute, crying out blessings to the rising sun. Castus felt a surge of exhilarated pride; there were still plenty in the army who revered the old gods, and custom at least had not been outlawed.

  Slipping down from the saddle, he stood with Egnatius and a band of his officers, closed his eyes to the red glare and lifted his arms. ‘Sol Invictus,’ he chanted. ‘Unconquered Sun. Your light between us and darkness!’ And he added a prayer of his own. ‘Preserve us from the fury of the enemy, Lord of Heaven. Bring us victory and a safe homecoming…’

  A line of carriages was approaching along the road from the city. Castus did not expect any of the palace officials to come out and watch the army depart; these were the wives and families of the senior commanders, come to bid them farewell. He moved a few paces away from Egnatius and his men and waited.

  Pharnax arrived first, riding up on a pony, his scarred face dark with glowering anger. ‘So you’re off to fight battles without me again, eh?’ the ex-gladiator said, leaning across the saddle horns. ‘Leaving me to mind the womenfolk. A man might feel offended!’ Then he grinned.

  ‘I need you back here,’ Castus told him, stepping closer and seizing the Numidian by the arm. ‘There might be trouble in Antioch over the coming month. Watch over Marcellina and Aeliana, and keep them safe.’

  ‘Don’t worry, brother,’ Pharnax said. ‘Nothing gets past me, as well you know!’

  But now Castus could see the carriage drawn up on the far side of the road. As he walked towards it, the drapes parted and he saw his wife and daughter inside. Marcellina c
limbed down and stood waiting. Castus halted, a pace away from her, and she reached out and caressed his cheek, then scratched lightly at the silvery stubble of his beard.

  ‘Well,’ she said with a sorrowing smile. ‘Everything I feared has happened!’

  ‘Not everything,’ Castus told her. ‘Not yet. Have some faith.’

  Then he gave a low groan and stepped forward, pulling her into his embrace. She kissed his neck, then pressed her face against his chest. ‘Come back to me,’ she said. ‘Come back alive.’

  They had argued bitterly the night before. Marcellina had raged in her grief, blaming him, and then blaming herself for allowing him to come to the east in the first place, allowing him to re-enter the world of war. And he had raged back at her, frustrated and guilty, knowing she was right, that she had always been right. But their anger could change nothing. Their reconciliation, when both were too exhausted to fight any more, could not change anything either.

  Aeliana was sitting in the carriage, her nursemaid beside her, and Castus went to the girl and hugged her tightly. Then he looked at her face, and smiled as he saw that she was not crying. But she was frightened all the same.

  ‘What will happen now the emperor’s dead and you’re going away?’ she asked. ‘Who’ll protect us from the barbarians, and the… the others.’

  ‘Which others?’ Castus asked, still trying to smile.

  ‘There are men who want to harm us. I keep dreaming about it. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, darling. You’re right to be worried. But Pharnax is here to keep you safe, you and your mother. And I’ll be back soon.’

  Her chin trembled, and she curled her fingers around his big scarred hands.

  ‘Listen,’ he told her, leaning closer. ‘If anyone ever threatens you, or tries to harm you or your mother in any way, I’ll come right back and kill them for you!’

  Aeliana looked startled for a moment, then she nodded. ‘Do you promise? Whoever they are?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I promise.’ Then he gave her another hug and kissed her brow.

  There was little more to say. Marcellina would not remain to watch him depart; they embraced again, and then Castus stood with clenched jaw as he watched the carriage taking them back to the city.

  ‘Ready to go, Father,’ Sabinus said as he strode back to join his officers.

  Castus checked his horse’s tack and girth straps, and then heaved himself up into the saddle. Diogenes was riding down the line, wrapped in an old brown cloak.

  ‘This is your last chance, you know,’ Castus called to him. ‘You don’t have to come with us.’

  ‘Oh no, I want to come,’ Diogenes replied. ‘I have an idea that I bring you luck somehow. Besides, I’d appreciate the opportunity to see the eastern cities again.’

  His cloak shifted, and the three-legged dog scrambled free; it jumped from his saddle to roll and stagger upright in the dust, yapping.

  ‘You’ve still got that awful-looking animal with you?’

  ‘Of course!’ Diogenes said. ‘I could hardly leave him in Antioch. The other hounds would oppress him, I think. And I consider him a lucky totem, you might say.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Castus muttered. ‘You’re becoming strangely superstitious in your old age!’

  But then the sound of trumpets shattered the morning, one answering another all across the plain. The troopers of the Equites Armigeri, the Armeniaci Sagittarii and the Stablesiani vaulted into their saddles and spurred their horses onto the road, and the column began to move.

  Cheering came from the infantry ranks, lost in the sunshot haze. As he rode forward, into the glare of dawn, Castus heard the thunder of spears battering a rhythm on shield rims, then the familiar massed cries, the call and response of old Roman military tradition, booming across the plain.

  ‘Are you ready for war?’

  ‘READY!’

  *

  Through the furnace heat of the day and the breathless cool of the night they rode eastward. It was the same route that Castus and his men had taken months before, at the end of winter. Many of the smaller towns and villages along the way had heard nothing of the Persian invasion, and the people stood and peered in bemusement as the powerful column of cavalry thundered past them. But in Beroea and Hierapolis the news had already arrived. Panicked civilians were streaming west, back towards Antioch, as if they expected the Persian cataphracts to start charging through their streets at any moment.

  After three days they crossed the Euphrates by the bridge of boats at Caeciliana, and two days later, after a fast ride across the flatlands of Osrhoene, the column reached the walled city of Edessa.

  And it was at Edessa, in the upper chamber of the governor’s residence, that Castus received the first premonition that fate had already destroyed his hastily constructed strategy.

  ‘He did what?’

  ‘Marched them east, excellency, towards Nisibis and Singara.’ The superintendent of the armoury fabrica was one of the few military officers left in the city. All the rest had gone with their troops, on the orders of the Dux Mesopotamiae, Romulianus.

  ‘He doesn’t even have authority over the garrisons in this province!’

  ‘No, excellency, but with our own commander away at Circesium there was nobody here who could countermand the order. I believe Dux Romulianus was intending to assemble a field force at Nisibis…’

  Castus let out a loud cry, pressing his hands to his head. This was exactly what he had ordered Romulianus not to do. He should have guessed, he thought, that the ambition and resentment of the Dux Mesopotamiae would lead him to try and seize the initiative, and make a hero of himself.

  ‘So he intends to confront the entire Persian army in the field with his garrison troops alone?’

  ‘A delaying action, I think, was mentioned…’ the fabrica superintendent said in a nervous tone.

  With a shout of fury, Castus slammed his fist on the table and stalked across the room; Romulianus should have been holding a position that Castus could reinforce, not throwing his men away in a vainglorious counter-attack in the desert somewhere. Setting his jaw, exhaling fiercely, he crossed to the window and stared out to the east, and then to the south, willing the appearance of dust clouds along the straight highways, the first sign of marching troops coming to support him.

  But the following day brought no word of reinforcements. Lycianus rode in from the south, but he had fewer than a hundred of his own Saracen horsemen with him.

  ‘What about Hind and her symmachiarii?’ Castus demanded as the weathered old scout commander made his report.

  ‘Nothing!’ Lycianus said with a thin sneer. ‘What did you expect? That the tribes would take orders from an inexperienced girl they suspect of murdering their last king? They’ve scattered to the desert – you won’t see them again.’

  ‘You blame me for that?’ Castus asked quietly, stepping closer.

  Lycianus glared back at him, his eyes very blue in his tanned face. ‘I told you that you were making a mistake, dominus,’ he said coldly. ‘But the decision was yours.’

  Castus shrugged. Perhaps Lycianus had been right all along. Perhaps all of them were right – Sollemnis, Mucatra, even Ablabius… He was very weary suddenly. But the worst news was yet to come.

  It was evening when the horseman arrived from the east. A solitary biarchus of the Equites Mauri Illyricani, he was wounded and his mount half-blown, but he delivered the message from his tribune before slipping from the saddle. Sabinus brought the message to the upper chamber of the residence, and Castus read it without taking a breath. The words were ragged, scratched violently into the wax, but the phrases were correct and clear. He waited, struggling to focus his mind, then summoned Egnatius, Lycianus and Diogenes.

  In the shadowed dining chamber of the residence they sat on the facing couches. A slave brought cups of wine and water, while Sabinus read the message.

  ‘I regret to report…’ Sabinus said, halting as he tried to make out the has
tily scribbled script, ‘… a disastrous engagement which took place on the morning of the seventh day before the ides of June between the vanguard of the army of the Persian King Shapur… and our own forces under the command of his excellency Romulianus, Dux Mesopotamiae…’

  ‘By all the gods,’ Egnatius said in a harsh whisper. ‘It’s happened already!’

  ‘The enemy, in overwhelming numbers,’ Sabinus went on, ‘launched a highly disciplined attack on our troops at Zagurae, and in spite of our gallant resistance, the majority of our force… numbering fourteen thousand infantry and cavalry, was either captured or completely… annihilated. The camp, containing all of our provisions, together with the fortress of Singara, was taken. Only a few of its defenders escaped and are now retreating towards Nisibis.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Lycianus demanded. ‘Nothing more about the current position of the enemy? What of Romulianus – is he alive or dead?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Sabinus said, closing the leaves of the tablet. The blood seemed to have drained from his face. Castus knew that he looked the same himself. He felt as if all his strength had deserted him.

  ‘Friends,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady and not betray the plunging dread that filled his mind. ‘You all know the situation. You’re my military council now. What course of action would you advise?’

  From a long while none of them said anything. Egnatius picked up the tablet, peering at it as if he could discern some additional meaning in the words. ‘It seems to me,’ he said at last, looking up, ‘that our only choice is to retreat. Nisibis won’t hold out long with only a handful of defenders, nor will Edessa. If we fall back on Mucatra’s main force, destroy the boat bridge at Caeciliana and take up a position on the west bank of the Euphrates, we can hold off any Persian attempts to get across.’

  Castus nodded. It was one of the options he might have debated with himself. But the notion of retreat did not appeal to him, and he doubted that Mucatra would receive him with any respect after so undeniable a failure. He turned to Lycianus.