Praise for
‘Makes you feel as though you are there’
BETTANY HUGHES, THE TIMES
‘Harry Sidebottom’s epic tale starts with a chilling assassination and goes on, and up, from there’
MARY BEARD
‘An amazing story of bloodlust, ruthless ambition and revenge’
KATE SAUNDERS, THE TIMES
‘An extraordinarily vivid take on the ancient world. Think of The Killing crossed with Andy McNab crossed with Mary Beard, and you’re there’
DAVID SEXTON, EVENING STANDARD
‘Ancient Rome has long been a favourite destination for writers of historical military fiction. Much the best of them is Harry Sidebottom’
SUNDAY TIMES
‘Swashbuckling as well as bloody, yet curiously plausible . . . a real gift for summoning up a sense of place’
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
‘The best sort of red-blooded historical fiction – solidly based on a profound understanding of what it meant to be alive in a particular time and place’
ANDREW TAYLOR
‘Absorbing, rich in detail and brilliant’
THE TIMES
‘Sidebottom’s prose blazes with searing scholarship’
THE TIMES
‘Superior fiction, with depth, authenticity and a sense of place’
TLS
‘A storming triumph . . . wonderful fight scenes, deft literary touches and salty dialogue’
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘He has the touch of an exceptionally gifted storyteller, drawing on prodigious learning’
TIMOTHY SEVERIN
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Historical Afterword
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Letter from Author
Copyright
To Michael Dunne
16th December 1958–17th August 2017
CHAPTER 1
The Castle of Silence
NO ONE HAD EVER RETURNED from the Castle of Silence.
The dark tower, with its tall outer wall, was set on a narrow crag, high in the Elburz Mountains. The remote fortress-prison was impregnable. A prisoner who passed through its gates was never heard of again. Even to mention his name was a capital crime. The Greeks called it the Place of Forgetting.
Barbad the eunuch studied the horrible scene. At first, in the foothills, they had journeyed up through forests of beech and oak. Deer had grazed in the glades. The convoy had shared the road with shepherds driving their flocks to the upper pastures in the spring sunshine. Now they were in a different world. The only trees were stunted junipers, the only living creatures the buzzards that rode the chill winds that scoured the jagged grey precipices. In the distance, the highest peaks were still capped with snow.
Barbad sat back, let the curtain fall on the window of the cart. The cold cut into his aged skin, made his old bones ache. He looked across at Prince Sasan. The boy sat upright and still. His dark eyes betrayed no emotion. Barbad was proud of him. The boy had been raised to ride and shoot and abhor the dark Lie of faithlessness. Nothing had prepared the boy for this. It was not his fault. No blame should have attached to his father. Prince Papak had not been faithless. Barbad knew the truth. Barbad had been there, seen everything with his own eyes.
*
The hunt had been far to the south, on the borders of the great marsh by the Persian Gulf. The court had been staying in Babylon. When Shapur the King of Kings went hunting it demanded the preparations of a military expedition. Thousands accompanied his progress. There were kinsmen and dignitaries, courtiers, priests, the royal harem, scribes and entertainers, foreign envoys, soldiers, innumerable servants and an army of huntsmen.
The hunting ground was spacious and well stocked. It teemed with geese and ducks. Wild boars rootled in its thickets. But the Master of the Royal Hunt had promised Shapur a lion – the king of beasts for the King of Kings. Not just any lion, but a huge, scarred and wily old male. The beast was said to have killed two royal slaves.
Barbad did not hunt, not since he was cut all those years before. His place was with the other eunuchs and the women. As Chief Scribe to Prince Papak, a brother of the King of Kings, Barbad had joined the royal harem. They were stationed on a low rise. It was shaded by trees, but commanded a fine view. Shapur, flanked by his brothers and some of his many sons, had taken his stance just below them.
The King of Kings was gorgeous in purple and gold. As he had laughed and drunk with the princes, his kohl-lined eyes and very white teeth gleamed. Only slightly less elegant, his kinsmen, Papak among them, had shared his good humour. Their cup-bearers and fan-bearers and those soldiers carrying their weapons had waited with silent deference.
From far off came the sounds of the beaters working their way through the undergrowth in a great semi circle, driving the game towards the royal party.
Even in the shade, it had been hot. There was no wind, and the air was close. Spring came early this far south. Barbad had seated himself on a folding stool. At his age, it was a trial to get up from a rug spread on the ground. Around him the eunuchs and concubines drank cool wine drawn from great barrels packed with snow transported from the distant mountains. They ate sweetmeats, and chattered. Clad in bright silks, they resembled a flock of exotic yet domesticated birds.
Barbad had watched his master Prince Papak for a time, then he had dozed.
A terrible noise startled him awake.
The deep-throated roar of a lion caused the women and eunuchs to give shrill yelps and squeals of alarm. The guards had tried to quiet the harem. There was a net backed by spearmen at the foot of the hillock. They were perfectly safe. Barbad had ignored the commotion around him, concentrated on the hunters.
Shapur, bow in hand, had stepped ahead of his kinsmen. Tall and straight, arrow nocked, he looked the essence of majesty. Alone and brave, calmly facing the onslaught, this was what it meant to be a king.
Prince Papak had been a couple of paces behind, slightly to one side. A slender hunting spear with a crossbar at the base of its long blade was in his hands. Some of the other royal kinsmen had spears, more held bows. None would intervene unless it was absolutely necessary. It was the right of the King to take the first shot. The king of beasts was not the quarry of other men. It was reserved for the King of Kings, and Shapur’s skill with a bow was legendary.
All the attention of the hunters was on the cover. Barbad had followed their gaze. Fifty paces beyond Shapur was a wall of reeds. Although there was not a breath of wind up on the low hill, here and there the feathery heads of the reed bed shifted.
Barbad found he was on his feet, straining forward, like a hound in the slips.
The lion roared again. The ascending vibr
ation reverberated in Barbad’s chest, had seemed to shake the air. And then the reeds parted.
It was a mature male lion, tawny, lithe and young. The feral stench had reached those on the hillock. A eunuch whimpered.
The beast looked back at the undergrowth. The beaters must be close. Their shouts, and the rattle of spears on shields, put up wildfowl at no great distance.
The lion turned to those who blocked his path. Its blank eyes focused on the man that stood nearest and alone.
Shapur half drew his bow.
The lion gathered itself, roared a third time.
The King of Kings pulled the bowstring back to his ear, aimed.
For a moment all was still. The noises of the beaters, the clatter of the wings of the flighting birds, seemed far away.
Shapur’s arm trembled slightly with the strain.
The lion launched itself forward. Almost quicker than the eye could follow, Shapur’s arrow had thumped into its chest. The beast staggered, but bounded again. The second arrow caught it in the windpipe. This time it crumpled on landing. But this was a fierce lion. A bloody pink froth bubbling from its mouth, it crawled on its belly towards the figure that had caused it such pain.
Shapur handed the bow to one of his sons. The King drew his long, straight sword. With graceful steps, he walked to the lion. The beast’s lifeblood was fast draining away, its muzzle red with gore. Its roar of defiance was now a choking cough.
Straddling the back of the lion, Shapur turned to face his entourage. He flourished his blade, then, with the skill of long practice, plunged the steel down between the shoulder blades in the killing blow.
‘Hail the Mazda-beloved Lord Shapur!’ The high-pitched cries of the harem joined the deep shouts of the hunters.
As Shapur basked in the applause, Barbad noticed the tips of the reeds moving.
‘King of Kings, descended from the Gods, famed for his courage!’
Against all courtly etiquette, Papak rushed forward towards the King.
‘May the Gods . . .’ The chanting had faltered.
Again the reeds parted.
This lion was old, slab-shouldered and powerful. A long white scar ran down its flank from its mane to its haunches. In its eyes was the cunning of a man-eater.
Unaware of the threat, Shapur half turned, affronted, as Papak darted past.
With no preliminaries, the man-eater leapt. Its acceleration defied its enormous bulk. At the third bound, it was on Papak. There was no time to take the proper stance, but the Prince somehow thrust out his spear. The momentum snapped the shaft, flattened Papak, sent him tumbling like a child.
Thrashing and sliding, the lion crashed to the ground almost at the feet of the King. Curling, the lion tore at its own hide with teeth and claws. It ripped jagged wounds in its own flesh as it struggled to get at the white-hot agony embedded in its vitals, at the steel which was robbing it of life.
The face of the King of Kings was a mask as he looked down at his brother, bruised and battered in the dirt. Without a word, Shapur had sheathed his sword, and stalked away.
The hunt was over.
*
The evening was mild. A gentle breeze blew through the tamarisks and trees. The stars were clear in the vault of the heavens. Yet in the pavilion of Prince Papak the atmosphere had the tense stillness before thunder.
Barbad attended as his lord was bathed, and his wounds tended. There were two gashes and much bruising, but Papak was not seriously injured. There was little talk while the prince was served his dinner, less while he was put alone into his bed. No one, not even young Prince Sasan, had talked of the lion. No one voiced the question in every mind. Would the King of Kings reward Papak for his bravery, or punish him for his presumption? Like the rest, Barbad kept his opinion to himself.
The answer had not been long in arriving.
With his advancing years, Barbad slept little and badly. In the middle of the night he heard the tread of the boots of the guards surrounding the tent. Barbad had retired still wearing a tunic. Now he tied a sash around his waist, pulled on slippers and a cloak, and hurried to his lord’s bedchamber.
As was to be expected, Prince Papak had awaited his fate with a calm fortitude. He summoned his son, and the senior members of his household. In the soft lamplight, he spoke to them quietly. Not words of reassurance, but of courage and faithfulness. Respect the will of the Gods and abhor the Lie.
When the soldiers entered, Barbad felt his heart pounding in his chest. Wherever he looked was steel and leather, bearded and cruel faces. Yet it was done with respect – no violence or insult was offered. They shackled Papak with chains of silver, as befitted his princely status.
And then the officer had read out the decree of the King of Kings.
Even then Prince Papak retained his composure. Looking into Barbad’s eyes, he had spoken quietly to his eunuch. ‘Do your duty. Serve my son until the end.’
Barbad had bowed his head.
That very night young Prince Sasan and Barbad began their long journey to the distant province of Hyrkania and the Castle of Silence.
*
The final ascent was steep. Some of the outriders got down to put their shoulders to the wagon. When it reached the gate, they put wedges under its wheels.
Barbad and Sasan were ordered to get out.
The wind fretted at Barbad’s cloak. All around were dizzying cliffs. The only sound was the thin mewing of the buzzards overhead.
The captain of their guard called up to a sentry on the battlements. His voice was small in the immensity of the mountains, the words almost snatched away by the wind.
One of the sentries left. Another told them to wait. The gate remained shut.
Chilled to the core, Barbad felt his courage failing. The Greek doctors at court claimed that the heart of a man shrank as he aged, ended up no bigger than a child’s. Barbad was very old. In the summer he would be seventy-five. If he survived that long. A eunuch was not expected to have the courage of a whole man.
Noticing Barbad shivering, the boy touched his arm reassuringly.
Rallying, Barbad smiled back. Sasan was only ten. A brave boy.
Turning his head so Sasan would not see the tears in his eyes, Barbad studied the fortress. The outer walls were of dressed stone. The masonry was close fitted and smooth, its surface impossible to climb. On the journey, Barbad had entertained thoughts of escape. They had been nothing but fantasies. The guards had been watchful. Like his father, Sasan had been shackled with silver chains. In any case, how could an elderly eunuch and a young boy hope to escape? Where would they go? To the savage nomads of the northern Steppe? To the Romans far off in the west? Without money or friends, they would reach neither.
At last the gate opened. It was heavy, bound with iron.
As Barbad and Sasan walked into the dark gatehouse, the boy took Barbad’s hand. His skin was warm and smooth in the old eunuch’s grip.
Shafts of light from holes in the ceiling penetrated the gloom. The clomp of the draught horses’ hooves and the squeal of the wagon wheels followed them, echoing back from the walls. Another gate was open at the far end, and they passed into the light of the courtyard.
The castle was larger than it appeared from outside. The curtain wall ran in a rough oval, following the irregularities of the crag. There were buildings against the inside of the wall: barracks to the right, stables and storerooms to the left. Directly ahead a smaller postern stood opposite the main gate, wedged between the barracks and the inner tower. The latter was circular, four storeys high. It had no openings at ground level. Higher, the few windows were small, little more than arrow slits, too narrow for a grown man to fit through. Stone steps were built against its face, climbing from right to left up to a door on the first floor. At the top of the steps, the warden of the Castle of Silence stood waiting.
Naduk, the zendanig, was a huge man with a broad red beard that spread across his chest. Barbad had seen him before at the royal court. As bef
itted his gloomy occupation, Naduk always wore dark clothing. No zendanig was ever loved, but such was the air of menace that hung about Naduk, even in the entourage of the King of Kings, men shrank from his presence.
Barbad and Sasan ascended the steps. The boy went ahead, walking calmly, holding himself straight. Again the young prince’s courage threatened to rob Barbad of what manliness the knife had left.
‘Welcome, Prince Sasan, son of Prince Papak, of the House of Sasan.’
The warden’s eyes were cold and black, like pebbles in a stream. His words were polite but there was no compassion in his voice.
‘Your accommodation is on the upper floor.’
‘You are most kind,’ Sasan replied.
Naduk turned and led the way. The guards brought up the rear.
By the time they reached the top of the tower, Barbad’s old legs were aching, his chest tight.
A heavy door, bound with iron like the outer gate, stood at the head of the stairs.
‘Your food and drink will be brought.’ Naduk gestured them through. ‘Your fetters will be removed.’
The door closed behind the boy and the eunuch. They heard the key turn in the lock.
There were two main rooms: a day chamber and a bedroom beyond. A tiny privy, built into the wall, opened off the living room. The rooms were well furnished: rugs on the floor, hangings on the walls, braziers burning, the furniture almost opulent.
The boy opened the shutters. Fresh masonry showed where iron bars had recently been embedded across the slit window. Sasan looked out.
The cold mountain wind whistled in, made the braziers glow.
Barbad unpacked their meagre possessions: some clothes, slippers, a book of poetry, Sasan’s favourite toy – a stuffed lion. They had not been allowed to bring cosmetics or medicines, or writing materials, nothing sharp. Their belts and laces had been removed. The rooms contained no cutlery; none of the hangings had a sash.
Against all etiquette, Barbad sat on a divan unbidden and considered.
The warden had been courteous. He had used Sasan’s name and title, those of his father as well. The silver fetters would be removed from the prince’s wrists and ankles. Perhaps the future was not without hope. Perhaps the King of Kings would show mercy.
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