by Ian Ross
Marcellina came to an abrupt halt between the pillars, took in the scene and drew a sharp breath, looking away quickly.
Flavius Ablabius was lounging at the shaded end of the pool, arms spread over the marble rim to either side of him. He was naked, his shoulders and chest thick with black hair. Beside the pool was a gold dish of ripe figs.
‘Greetings, domina!’ he said, and smiled. ‘Hope you don’t mind the informality. It’s really too hot today. Perhaps you’d care to slip off your gown and join me, hmm? The water’s refreshingly cool… There are some fish in here somewhere, and they give one the most interesting sensation!’ He had a cup of iced white wine beside the dish, and took a sip from it.
‘I think I’ll stay as I am,’ Marcellina said.
She had been introduced to the Praetorian Prefect when she first arrived at Antioch in the spring, but had never spoken with him privately. Seeing him now, she realised that Flavius Ablabius was just a grossly inflated version of a type of man she had met often enough. A man in love with prestige and authority, and eager to demonstrate it by humiliating others. She tried to keep her expression neutral, and not recoil.
‘You wished to talk about something?’ the prefect asked. His pretence was maddening. There was only one reason for Marcellina to have come here.
‘Eminence,’ she began, keeping her eyes raised. ‘As you know, my husband Aurelius Castus has gone to defend the eastern cities against the Persian invasion. And yet we now hear that the field army has retreated to Hierapolis. You alone have the authority to order them to advance again. I believe you must do so, for the security of the empire.’
‘Must?’ said Ablabius with a frown. He selected a fig from the dish, lifted it daintily and put it in his mouth.
‘That is to say…’ Marcellina said, her voice faltering. ‘I’m asking you…’
‘Asking?’ Ablabius said, chewing.
Marcellina felt the colour rising to her face. Anger tightened her throat, and she forced herself to remain in control of her temper. An impassioned outburst now would accomplish nothing. She swallowed down the bile of her disgust.
‘Eminence, I am… begging you.’
‘Ah!’ the prefect said. He smiled as he took another sip of wine. ‘You know,’ he went on, ‘your husband is a very rash and foolish man. Rushing off into battle like that… The Caesar Constantius left very firm instructions that the army was not to move except on his orders. You know this?’
‘I know this.’
Marcellina also knew that Castus had humiliated the prefect in public before he left Antioch. Her husband had never been the wisest of men, but she wished she had been there to witness it. She wished Castus were here now, to make this smug bureaucrat quail in terror.
‘Yes, he really is a very foolish man, your Aurelius Castus,’ the prefect said. ‘A very old man too. Too old for a position of such responsibility. Much older than you, I think.’ He raised himself slightly, the water lapping around his hairy chest. ‘You’re not that old at all, are you?’ he enquired, peering at Marcellina. ‘What are you, forty-five, I would guess? And you’ve kept your figure admirably. I admire that in a mature woman. I’ve known many of the wives of our senior officials in my time…’
‘Eminence,’ Marcellina broke in, grit in her voice. ‘This is a serious matter.’
‘And I am a serious man,’ Ablabius told her. ‘I may be able to reconsider the military situation, but it will take much thought… While I think, perhaps you might try one of these figs? They are seriously delicious!’
Marcellina looked at the dish of fruit, which lay on the rim of the pool. The figs were split at the top, their dark skins peeled back to reveal the moist pink flesh within. Ablabius took another, then raised his hand and beckoned her closer. Marcellina felt a sudden chill down her spine. The slaves standing around the margins of the bathing court were not looking at her, and the steward with his ivory staff had withdrawn out of sight.
‘Come closer,’ the prefect said. ‘Why are you frightened? It’s only a fig…’
And he’s only a man, she told herself. Only a man… I can walk away from this whenever I want. But the fear was real now, a cold kick at her breastbone. How accustomed she had become to safety and security in the years since she had married Castus. But now she was alone, and all the fears of her past crowded her mind. The terrors of war and death that she had thought so safely banished. She had to play his game, she knew.
Slowly, barely drawing a breath, she paced around the margin of the pool, following the line of pillars until she stood close to him. Ablabius looked up at her with a glazed smile, and she wanted to kick the gold dish right in his face.
Instead she lowered herself carefully onto her haunches, stretched out her arm and took a fig from the dish. As her fingers closed on the soft fruit, Ablabius moved faster than she could have anticipated, his hand flashing out, spattering water, and seizing her wrist in a tight grip. Marcellina tried to pull away, but his fingers dug into her flesh and she was paralysed.
‘Now,’ he said, his smile chilling, ‘perhaps we could enjoy ourselves a little? You might begin by massaging my back...’
A noise came from the far end of the court, the scrape of hobnailed boots on tile. Ablabius glanced towards the intrusion, his grip slackening, and Marcellina pulled away from him and scrambled clear. As she stood up, her head reeling, she saw three men enter the court through the arches of the gazebo, trailed by the steward. Two were soldiers, in dust-stained travelling cloaks. The third was a square-faced man in a patterned tunic and the red belt of the imperial service.
‘What’s this?’ Ablabius demanded. ‘Theodas, what’s the meaning of this intrusion?’
The steward raised his hands helplessly. The man in the patterned tunic stood at the far end of the pool, thumbs hooked in his belt. Marcellina felt she recognised him from somewhere, although her mind was still whirling.
‘You there!’ the prefect shouted to the newcomer. ‘You can’t just march in here unannounced! Do you know who I am?’
‘Flavius Ablabius,’ the man declared. ‘I come direct from Constantinople with an order from the emperor, Constantius Augustus. You are hereby dismissed from your post as Praetorian Prefect, with immediate effect.’
Ablabius slid down in the pool, the water lapping his bristly shoulders. He opened his mouth to speak, but could not form the words.
‘Furthermore,’ the man went on, ‘we are ordered to escort you from here to your estates in Bithynia, where you are to remain pending the decision of the emperor as to your future.’
‘But…’ Ablabius managed to say. ‘This isn’t possible! I…’
‘No more words,’ the man snapped. ‘We leave at once. Prepare yourself.’ At his nod of command, the two soldiers advanced down either side of the pool. Their studded boots grated on the tiles.
Barely conscious of moving, Marcellina slipped out of the court and paced quickly back through the house. The slaves and attendants appeared dumbstruck; none said a word to her as she snatched her shoes and cloak and went outside. Now that the moment had passed, she felt the fear and disgust she had been suppressing rise more keenly. In the front portico she paused, one hand pressed to her brow. A hard shudder ran through her body, and she felt sick.
‘Domina,’ a voice said. Marcellina turned and saw that the man in the patterned tunic had followed her from the house. ‘I apologise for any interruption,’ he said. ‘But you should leave now, and say nothing of this.’
‘Of course,’ she replied. Suddenly she remembered his face. ‘You know my son-in-law, I think,’ she said. ‘Laurentius, of the Notaries?’
‘I do,’ the man said, his expression growing less grave. ‘And perhaps I remember you too… Constantinople, back in April?’
‘That’s right. You’re with the Notaries as well.’
‘Eucharius, domina,’ he said with a slight bow. ‘Tribunus Notariorum.’
‘What’s happened?’ Marcellina asked, dropping her voice
.
Eucharius tightened his lips, staring into the sun-drenched greenery of the garden. He looked as though he would refuse to tell her, but then he frowned and shrugged. ‘Events,’ he said. ‘Very bloody events.’
‘Constantius is definitely the emperor now?’ It was hard to believe; Marcellina had seen the young Caesar when she first came to Antioch, and he had seemed a rather petulant child.
‘Oh, yes,’ the notary said. ‘Him and his brothers, most likely, although they still have to meet and decide how that’s going to work. But the fourth Caesar, Dalmatius, is dead. Murdered by the palace guards ten days ago, along with his father and his brother, and more than a dozen of their supporters. Ex consuls and prefects among them. They’d only just arrived in the capital for Constantine’s funeral.’
‘Constantius ordered this?’ Marcellina asked, barely above a whisper.
‘Officially speaking,’ Eucharius said, grimacing, ‘it was a spontaneous action by the guards, the Schola Gentilium and others. But unofficially… yes. Our new emperor certainly knows how to take care of business.’
Marcellina felt chilled. After what had happened in the bathing court, this news was doubly horrifying. The world seemed ruled by callous tyrants.
‘As for Ablabius,’ the notary said, ‘he’s just too dangerous to keep in office. Constantius must have associated him with Dalmatius’s party, even if he doesn’t have any direct evidence as yet. But he will, no doubt.’
‘And Constantius is returning here? Back to Antioch?’
The notary shook his head briskly. ‘No, he needs to meet his brothers first, to negotiate the division of power. And just before I left Constantinople there was news of a Sarmatian invasion across the Danube; the army’s already marching for Thracia and Moesia, and the new emperor’ll march with them. You won’t see him here for a good few months yet, I’d say.’
‘But what of the Persians?’ Marcellina asked, her thoughts reeling. ‘Doesn’t the emperor care about the invasion?’
‘Nobody knows of it in Constantinople,’ Eucharius told her, shrugging. ‘Or they didn’t when I left. As far as Emperor Constantius knows, the eastern frontier’s still tranquil.’
‘And so who governs in his place?’ she asked him. ‘In the east, I mean?’
Eucharius just widened his eyes. ‘No idea!’ he said. ‘There hasn’t been time for any other arrangements. So for now I suppose the Comes Orientis holds the senior position here. A man called Dracilianus, I think.’
At the name, Marcellina’s hand went to her throat and she glanced away quickly, before the notary could see the distress in her eyes.
‘Dracilianus,’ she whispered, as her horror turned to dread. ‘May God save us all…’
XX
At the sound of the trumpets, tongues of flame burst upwards from the roofs of the warehouses and workshops, and the troops began to stream back towards the bridge. Within moments, the whole of the eastern suburb was wreathed in black smoke, the circuit of walls and the mass of the attacking enemy obscured from view. Many of the retreating soldiers were wounded; others carried wounded comrades on makeshift stretchers. In rough bands of four or five they staggered back across the bridge towards the shelter of the city.
Castus stood on the walkway above the arches of the Gate of the Sun. For the last four days he had watched as Gunthia and his five hundred Gothic auxilia had defended the arc of walls around the suburb on the eastern bank of the river, against everything that Shapur had flung at them. Incredible they had held out so long. But now the casualties among the defenders had grown too great, and rather than reinforcing them further Castus had ordered the suburb evacuated and the surviving men pulled back across the river. They had burnt everything that remained behind them.
‘There he is,’ Sabinus said, leaning across the wall parapet. The tiny figures spilling from the burning buildings had formed into a close phalanx behind a wall of locked shields at the far end of the bridge. As Castus squinted he could make out Gunthia among them.
‘Come on, come on,’ he was saying under his breath. As the smoke eddied, the men on the wall could see the first Persian infantrymen scrambling across the breaches in the wall and pouring into the open spaces between the buildings.
‘Should we order them to run while there’s time?’ Sabinus asked.
Castus shook his head. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’
Over the last two days, the engineers had demolished the arches of the bridge. Now only a narrow platform of planks spanned the remaining masonry piers. Trying to cross it at a rush could bring the whole structure down. Instead Gunthia was holding his position, waiting until the last of his injured warriors had escaped to safety before retreating, one step at a time, the perimeter wall of shields shrinking as the men at the rear moved back across the plank bridge.
‘Cavalry,’ Sabinus said, pointing. ‘They must have got the gates open.’
Sure enough, horsemen were advancing though the haze of smoke. Mailed Persian lancers, cataphracts on armoured horses. They came on at the trot, slowing to form up as they saw the knot of Gunthia’s men still holding the bridgehead in tight formation.
Castus watched with clenched teeth, sweat rolling down his face. The sun felt like it was directly overhead, the heat brutal. In the smoke and the flames from the burning warehouses the scene appeared to warp and shimmer.
‘Ready the artillery,’ Castus said.
The walls of Nisibis bowed inwards to either side of the Gate of the Sun, following the curve of the riverbank. The ramparts flanking the gate overlooked the bridge and the approach road at an oblique angle, and Castus had ordered most of the artillery from the eastern wall concentrated there. Even with the bridge gone, he needed to show the Persians that an attempt to repair it and storm the gate would be costly.
From either side he heard the ratcheting click of ballistae being spanned, the artillerymen turning the windlasses that would draw the slides back against the pressure of the torsion drums.
‘All ready and loaded, dominus!’ the artillery chief cried.
A billow of smoke swept the rampart, making Castus’s eyes water. He blinked away the smart, and saw the last of Gunthia’s men breaking formation and running back across the bridge. At once, the Persian cavalry surged forward in pursuit.
‘Range!’ came the shout from the tower.
‘Loose,’ Castus said.
The signaller raised his flag, and at once the crack-crack-crack of the ballistae sounded all along the ramparts, a massed volley of iron-tipped projectiles hurtling down at the leading Persian riders. Dust sprayed up from the road, hazing the shapes of tumbling men and horses. Already the artillerymen were reloading, sweating as they spun the windlasses.
From directly below him, Castus heard the crash of timbers. Gunthia’s men were destroying the plank bridge behind them. On the far bank, the solid formation of cavalry had disintegrated into a chaotic mob. But already more horsemen were riding to reinforce them, some pressing forward towards the ruined bridge. Castus stared, hoping to spot Zamasp among them.
‘Onagers,’ he said.
Another signal, and a heartbeat later he heard the earth-shaking thump of the huge torsion catapults from just behind the wall. Projectiles arced overhead, flickering black against the blazing sky. Most of the onagers flung huge pottery urns, packed with small stones; as the missiles plunged down and struck the ground they burst apart, spraying fragments in all directions. Watching with bared teeth, Castus saw one Persian cataphract struck by a direct hit; horse and rider vanished in a fountain of dust and spattering blood. All along the wall the defenders were cheering, archers shooting at long range at any Persians who strayed close enough.
A warm breeze shifted the curtain of smoke and revealed the enemy falling back from the bridgehead. Bodies of men and horses lay strewn across the road and the open space of the riverbank, where the huts and shelters had once stood.
‘You seem to have turned a retreat into a victory,’ Lycianus said
in a dry voice, joining Castus at the rampart. ‘You think they’ll try and repair the bridge?’
Castus shook his head. ‘Not any time soon.’
Gunthia came up the steps to the gatehouse rampart, saluting. He looked exhausted, his face dirty and his beard crusted with dried blood.
‘All back, dominus,’ the Gothic leader said. ‘Bridge down.’
‘You did well,’ Castus told him, clasping his shoulder. ‘Now get some rest.’
Crossing to the far parapet, he gazed westwards along the line of the colonnaded main avenue, towards the opposite gateway just over half a mile away. While Shapur had been directing most of his attention so far at capturing the suburb, the Persian king had enough men to launch simultaneous attacks at several points on the perimeter.
In the six days since the enemy had first thrown their noose around the city, there had been assaults from the south and the north. Castus knew that the Persians were probing for weak spots, and was determined that they would find none. He had ordered a system of flags, to communicate along the lines of the main avenues between the gateways, and from the walls in between. If the Persians attacked anywhere, he would know about it soon enough. No signal showed above the western gate, and none was relayed from the four-sided arch at the centre of the city. But the pressure of constant vigilance was wearing at his nerves and sapping his strength.
Down through the stifling gloom of the gatehouse interior, Castus crossed the street and walked towards the main city baths, half a block to the north. At the beginning of the siege, he had requisitioned the baths to serve as the central hospital. The huge chambers were cool enough, and well ventilated, but as he stepped through the entrance portals he tried not to choke at the cloying stench of blood and mortifying flesh. Flies swarmed in the shadows and whirled in the shafts of light falling from the high windows.
