Triumph in Dust

by Ian Ross

  Hardly daring to breathe, Castus pressed himself against the side of a merlon and watched. Did the Persians really intend to attack the walls by night? They must know the tower was vulnerable, so close to the inner rampart. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps the gods might favour them yet.

  A loud creak sounded from the tower, and the noise of grinding debris as the structure shuddered to a halt.

  ‘They’ve grounded it!’ Castus cried, hammering his fist on the wall beside him. In the half-darkness he could see men seething around the base of the tower, overseers yelling to the labourers to free the obstruction. But it would take time – many hours – before the tower was mobile again. And Castus intended to use those hours well.

  ‘Dominus,’ Oribasius said, joining him at the rampart. ‘My men are ready. They have what they need. I request permission to lead them myself.’

  Castus knew that the prefect had waited a long time for this opportunity. But could he be trusted to fulfil his duty, after failing so badly at Zagurae?

  ‘Father,’ Sabinus said quietly, kneeling beside him, ‘I want to go as well. I don’t ask for command, just a chance to take the fight to the enemy.’

  ‘No,’ Castus said. ‘You remain here.’

  Sabinus opened his mouth to protest, and Castus grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘Remain here!’ he repeated. ‘That’s an order.’

  He understood Sabinus’s desire; his first thought had been to lead the night attack himself. If he had been twenty years, or even a decade, younger he would have considered it. And the thought of having a more trustworthy and capable man as leader was a strong temptation. Was he only refusing because Sabinus was his son?

  ‘Go now,’ he told Oribasius, before his doubts could take hold. ‘Ready your men at the postern below the Edessa Gate. I’ll send word when it’s time. And may the gods guide you.’

  XXII

  Sentry fires glowed along the rampart. With any luck, Castus thought as he looked down from the tower of the Edessa Gate, they would dazzle the eyes of the Persians watching the wall. The firelight illuminated the upper reaches of the grounded siege tower, which rose out of the gulf of darkness below the wall, looking impossibly close. The shaggy hides that clothed it, and the spiny bristle of arrows that covered its upper section, gave the thing a truly monstrous appearance. Lamplight gleamed around its base, showing through gaps in the protective screens; men were working down there, hammering and digging to level the ground ahead of it, ready for a final assault at dawn. And beyond the walls, the darkened plain flickered with the night fires of the Persian horde.

  Castus wondered what King Shapur was doing now. Was he asleep, or did he remain wakeful, alert and anxious, through the long passages of the night? As he paced the walkway, he thought too of Marcellina, far away in distant Antioch. Did she even know where he was?

  A quick shudder ran through him, although the night was warm. On the ramparts the defenders were raising a steady stir of sound: some of them singing, others sharpening weapons or talking. Nothing that would seem unnatural, perhaps – but it might help to cover any noises from the darkness below.

  Running footsteps, and Iovinus appeared at the head of the steps. The Protector saluted quickly as he caught sight of Castus.

  ‘Give the word,’ Castus told him quietly.

  The man dropped out of sight. No turning back now.

  With his senses primed, he listened carefully for the creak of the ironbound postern door in the gate arch beneath him. Loud, drunken-sounding singing came from the rampart walkway, covering all other sound. His shoulders were tight with nervous tension, and he paced to the parapet and back again, suppressing the urge to glance down into the darkness; he did not want to attract the attention of any sharp-eyed Persian observer.

  Long moments passed. The night seemed to vibrate with sound, but there was only silence in the deep gulf of darkness between the walls. Oribasius would be taking his men out through the postern quickly and quietly, forming them up in the cover of the projecting tower just to the north. From there it would a three-hundred-yard dash to the Persian breach and the base of the siege tower. Oribasius’s party were all legionaries, men of the First Parthica; they would have their faces blackened, their shields covered and their weapons and equipment muffled. One in every five men would be carrying a smoking firepot, another a heavy basket of pitch-soaked tow, naphtha and turpentine. A supremely combustible mixture, and very hard to extinguish.

  His nerves prickled, and he sensed rather than heard the mass of men assembling below the wall. He could almost detect the acrid smell of the incendiaries. How many Persians guarded the tower? There was only space in the breach for a few score, but more would be inside the tower itself and potentially many more on the causeway outside the walls. Oribasius’s troops would have to burst through the cordon of screens, capture the breach and hold it for long enough to set fire to the tower. Cursing to himself, Castus realised that he should have sent more men. He should have appointed a better officer to lead them. He should have…

  A scream from the darkness, then the clash of iron and the dull thunder of collapsing hide screens. Taking two steps to the parapet, Castus stared down into the black gulf between the walls, desperately trying to make out what was happening. But he could see nothing; under the waning half-moon the twin lines of ramparts and the upper section of the tower were lit by a pale radiance, but the space below them was lost in shadow. Sparks danced, and the flickering light caught the flash of blades. Castus could hear the braying of the Persian trumpets, the yells of the officers mustering their troops to defend the breach. Men were fighting down there. Men were dying, and Castus could only stand braced against the parapet, watching with gritted teeth.

  ‘Iovinus,’ he called, and the Protector appeared from the stairhead. ‘Send Sabinus to me.’

  ‘Sabinus?’ the man replied, baffled. ‘But, dominus, he’s…’ He gestured towards the darkened battle at the foot of the siege tower.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought you knew… He went out with Oribasius and the attack party.’

  ‘Gods!’ Castus snarled, hurling himself away from the parapet. He was two paces from the stairs when Iovinus blocked his way.

  ‘Dominus, you can’t go out there! Your place is here… I’m sorry!’

  For a heartbeat Castus wanted to strike the man, heave him aside, run down the steps and out into the darkness. But Iovinus was right, and he knew it. With a wild cry of anguish Castus gripped his head in both hands. How could Sabinus have disobeyed him? How could his son have thrown himself into such a desperate attack?

  Staggering back across the tower rampart to the parapet, he recognised his hypocrisy. He would send other men’s sons out to die, but not his own. The realisation did nothing to ease the pain in his heart. Merciful gods, protecting gods… watch over him. Bring him back safely…

  Fire burst in the darkness, blooming out from the base of the tower. The flames illuminated an infernal scene, throwing vast dancing shadows across the city walls. Figures whirled in the fiery glow, blades rising and falling, spears clashing. Castus saw shields raised in the firelight, then saw them battered down. The noise of the fighting was a constant muffled roar, cut through with screams of rage and pain. The men on the ramparts were cheering, yelling encouragement to their comrades fighting below them. The flames lit the upraised faces starkly, and Castus could feel the wave of heat even from his position on the gate tower.

  ‘I’m going down,’ he told Iovinus. ‘Come with me – I need to wait just inside the postern.’

  He jogged down the cramped stairway in hot darkness, then strode out into the stone-flagged passageway just inside the gate arches where the narrow tunnel from the postern opened. Men were already stumbling back in, many of them wounded. The first few wore only loincloths, whip-scars on their backs. Some of the Roman prisoners the enemy had been using to push the ram, Castus realised. Soldiers followed them, their blackened faces streaked with runnels of sweat. Their
shouts echoed in the confined space.

  ‘Centurion,’ Castus cried, seizing a passing man. ‘Where are the two officers? Did they return with you?’

  ‘The prefect’s dead, dominus,’ the centurion said, expressionless. ‘I saw him fall when we first attacked their perimeter. Two men went to help him, but the bastards had already done for him.’

  ‘And the other officer? Flavius Sabinus?’

  The centurion shrugged, too stunned to reply, and Castus let him go. Quite possibly few of the men in the party would have recognised his son anyway.

  He stayed in the gate passage as the remains of Oribasius’s command straggled back. They were not followed; the Persians were too busy trying to quench the flames around their tower. With every figure that came staggering in through the postern Castus’s hopes flared, and then died.

  ‘Forty-six men returned, dominus,’ Iovinus reported. ‘Nearly thirty liberated prisoners. Sixty-five men dead or missing.’

  Dead or missing. The words punched into Castus’s soul. No, he could not allow himself to believe it.

  ‘Shall we pull back the guards and close the postern, dominus? Quite a few hostiles gathering out there…’

  ‘Yes,’ Castus heard himself say. ‘Yes, close it now.’ Deadness in his heart, stilling the wild panic of his blood. If my son is lost I cannot live… I cannot go on…

  Shouts from the tunnel, animating the men waiting in the passage. A last band of fugitives were piling back in through the postern, just before it was closed. Iovinus was counting them in, others rushing forward with flasks of water and wine as the new arrivals dumped their weapons and shields on the flagstones.

  The last two came staggering from the mouth of the tunnel, carrying a third man between them. Castus could hardly bring himself to look at the injured figure. Only when the two had laid the body on the ground and stepped back did he take a pace towards them. He cried out at once and dropped to his knees.

  Sabinus’s face was a mask of blood. The front of his tunic was blackened, and he had burns on his neck and up his left arm. But he was alive, his chest moving as he breathed.

  ‘Water!’ Castus yelled, his hoarse voice echoing under the gate arches. ‘And call for the surgeon! Bring Nicagoras from the hospital!’

  Iovinus was beside him, drawing him to his feet as the medical orderlies gathered around Sabinus with their salves and bandages. ‘Dominus, there’s nothing you can do here,’ the Protector said. ‘Come back up to the rampart – you should see what they’ve done.’

  Moments later, Castus hauled himself from the stairhead and out onto the rampart of the gate tower. The air was fogged with smoke, and acrid with the smell of burning, and the sky above the walls was lit a garish orange.

  The great siege tower was a pillar of flame. The fires that Sabinus and his men had lit in the base of the structure had roared upwards, consuming the dry timber and the rawhide cladding. As Castus stood at the parapet and watched he saw burning figures leaping from the topmost storeys, where they had climbed to escape the blaze.

  A vast creak and a crackle of bursting wood, and the tower sagged. Sheets of fire curled upwards into the sky, showering sparks across the wall ramparts. Heedless of the few arrows that still spat from the darkness, Castus climbed up onto the parapet and stood braced between the merlons. The blaze illuminated him, and he felt the heat washing over his body. His lips tightened into a savage grin, and he drew his sword and raised it above his head as he watched Shapur’s Bastard dying in flames.

  *

  ‘Truly war is a grisly business,’ the curator said, holding a cloth to his mouth as he gazed out from the rampart in the greyness of dawn.

  ‘Good thing too,’ Castus told him.

  Vorodes gave him a puzzled glance.

  ‘If it wasn’t so grisly, all sorts of fools would want to get involved.’

  The curator laughed oddly, unsure if he was joking. His son was with him, sixteen-year-old Barnaeus; the youth gazed at Castus with an expression of mute wonder.

  Castus certainly did not feel like joking. The blackened wreckage of the siege tower was still pouring smoke, and the walls were wreathed with the fumes of the fire. The sky above them was smeared a dirty grey. When he peered across the parapet, Castus could see the dead bodies heaped over the smashed rubble, some of them partly burnt. The ground was a mire of broken rubble, charred timbers, blood and ash. He had already sent out a party to locate and retrieve the bodies of the slain Romans. They had found Oribasius among them too, his body covered with wounds. All of them on the front; the prefect had redeemed himself with a true soldier’s death.

  It had been a small victory, and a costly one, but it had humbled the pride of the Persian king. Beyond the broken wall and the smoking wreckage, the mantlets had been dragged back towards the enemy siege lines. As if, Castus thought, the burning of the tower had demoralised the attackers into a hasty retreat. Shapur’s pavilion was gone too, and a distant wailing came from the Persian encampments as they mourned their dead. Perhaps they would make another attempt at the breach, but not for some time. Once the last fires died down, Castus thought, he would send men to repair the wall with rubble and charred beams.

  He closed his eyes, and exhaustion massed in his skull. With a quick shudder, he forced himself to wakefulness. He needed to return to the Strategion; he had ordered Sabinus to be taken there, and he had to check on his son before he could allow himself to rest. The sun appeared behind him, sudden and dazzling above the eastern walls, and the scene of destruction was lit with golden light, the swirling smoke turned into a glowing blue haze.

  ‘I didn’t just come to inspect the damage, I’m afraid,’ Vorodes said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I have… a request, I suppose. An invitation, if you like.’

  ‘An invitation from who?’

  ‘The elders of the city, and the defensor, and others. They wish to meet with you, at noon today in the Bouleuterion, if you have the time.’

  Castus felt he would never have the time for such things. But he remembered what Diogenes had told him a few days before. If there were men in the city hatching plots against him, he wanted the chance to confront them face to face.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he said, then yawned massively, and strode away down the rampart walk.

  Sabinus had been taken to one of the inner chambers of the Strategion; not the room where Romulianus had died nearly two weeks before, but a smaller one close to Castus’s own bedchamber. Nicagoras, the Greek doctor, was still there when Castus arrived.

  ‘The wounds upon his body are mostly superficial,’ Nicagoras said. ‘I’ve spread a poultice on his burns, and dressed the other injuries as best I can. But his eye, I’m afraid, is ruined. A shame, such a handsome young man…’

  Castus pulled up a stool to the couch where his son lay. Sabinus’s face was washed of blood, but his head was wrapped in a thick linen bandage that covered his left eye. He stirred as Castus sat down, and his other eye flickered open.

  ‘Father,’ he said, his voice weak and hoarse. ‘I disobeyed you.’

  ‘Why?’ Castus managed to say. The word almost choked him.

  Sabinus tried to laugh, and his chest heaved as he winced in pain. ‘Pride,’ he said. ‘All my life I wanted to… prove myself to you. Show that I could act for myself. But you held me back…’

  ‘I thought you were the one who was supposed to be protecting me!’

  ‘Did we succeed at least? Is the tower gone...?’

  ‘You did well. Rescued some prisoners too. We’re safe for a few days more, I reckon.’

  Sabinus smiled, and his eye closed. Castus could see that he was in great pain, but was trying not to let it show. In silence, he wrestled with his thoughts, trying to find the right words. But he had never been good at expressing his feelings. Clearing his throat, he laid a palm briefly on his son’s shoulder and then stood up.

  ‘Check on him whenever you can,’ he told Nicagoras as he moved for the door. ‘See he has everything h
e needs.’

  ‘And what of your own needs, excellency?’ the doctor replied. He peered at Castus’s glowering face. ‘You appear very red in the features, if I may say so. For a man of your age, this exertion is most dangerous. It would be unfortunate if our commander in chief were to fall to some ailment…! Might I examine you, and determine your state of health at some point?’

  ‘Another time,’ Castus said, and left the chamber.

  All over the city, he thought, there were men suffering and dying in agony. But he only cared about one of them. He felt his heart hardening inside his chest.

  *

  The Bouleuterion of Nisibis stood on the oval agora just below the citadel mount, opposite the theatre and the main church. Castus had been in there once or twice to speak with Vorodes, but never on an official visit. Now he strode through the bronze-plated doors, Iovinus and a party of Armigeri troopers behind him, and found the elders of the council assembled in the hall in dignified state to receive him. Sixty men, sitting on the semi-circle of banked seats. All rose as he entered.

  ‘Domini,’ Castus addressed them in a gruff shout. ‘I only have moments to spare. Our enemies do not wait upon our convenience.’

  It was the magistrate, Dorotheus, who remained standing as the others took their seats once more. ‘Excellency,’ he announced. ‘We thank you for accepting our invitation. May I say, on behalf of us all, how much we rejoice in your defence of our city!’

  A chorus of congratulatory mumbles rose from the assembly. Castus knew that none of the men here had stood upon the ramparts the day before. Most were too old, of course, but the younger ones had found substitutes. The chamber reeked of perfume, barely covering the tang of stale sweat – with water rationed in the city, even the wealthy had been going without daily baths. But as they sat fanning themselves, the councillors looked only mildly inconvenienced by twelve days of siege. Civilians, Castus thought, with an instinctive sneer of contempt. He was tired, after only a few hours’ sleep, and in no mood to listen to pleasantries.