Quintus stepped up. ‘We have to go back, before we die in this wilderness.’
‘You served in the fleet.’ Valens attempted to sound confident, as if this was merely a discussion, not a direct challenge to his authority. ‘If you can plot a course across the trackless sea, you can guide us home from anywhere.’
The flattery seemed not to have swayed Quintus.
‘The mission has failed,’ Aulus said. ‘To go on is suicide.’
‘You are a Gaul,’ Valens said. ‘I thought the only thing you feared was the sky falling on your head.’
‘If we follow you,’ Aulus said, ‘you will get us all killed.’
The men stood, mulish and stubborn. A few had their hands on the hilts of their swords.
Mutinies were not unknown in the Roman army. Valens knew the stories of how others had dealt with them. Julius Caesar had dismissed entire legions with a word, just by calling the men citizens, not soldiers. That was hardly appropriate, and most likely Caesar had not been clutching a part-eaten bit of bacon. When rebellious troops had refused to return to duty, the imperial prince Germanicus had threatened to kill himself, had reached for his sword. A veteran had offered his own, saying it was sharper. This was no time for histrionics. No nonsense about going on alone. Humour and cajolery had failed and Valens lacked the means to punish – all that was left was a bare appeal to discipline and duty.
‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready. We all took the military oath again at Zeugma. Do you think the sacramentum is just empty words, a thing of no account?’
No one replied. Valens caught the eye of Zabda. Gods below, the Palmyrene had already tried to kill him once. Valens could not lose his nerve now.
‘Severus was your commander. Severus is dead. Now I am your commander.’
Aulus and Quintus looked to the others for support. The silence stretched.
‘At every command we will be ready,’ Clemens said, ‘no matter how insane the command.’ A wry look flitted across his careworn old face. ‘I have no doubt that Aulus is right, that none of us will return. But I am equally certain that Marcus Aelius Valens is the ranking officer.’
‘True words.’ Iudex, beaming like a baby, came and stood by Valens. ‘And travel enhances a man. I have always wanted to see the east, observe their customs, converse with their wise men.’
‘A man has to die somewhere,’ Hairan said. ‘One place is as good as another.’
It was over. Aulus and Quintus, deflated and anxious, looked at each other.
‘Saddle up,’ Valens ordered. ‘We move out in half an hour.’
The death of Severus meant a change in the order of march. Valens now rode with Iudex and Quintus at the head of the column. He ordered Aulus to take his place at the rear with Clemens. Let the mutinous quartermaster eat and breathe the dust kicked up by the animals.
Valens considered posting outriders, but Severus had been right, it would remove any pretence of being a merchant caravan. And anyway, there were not enough men. Best they stuck together, kept the intervals short between the animals.
They had not long rejoined the road when they encountered a party of travellers coming the other way. There were about forty of them – men, women and children – most on foot. They stopped and talked. Valens told them of the attack. An old man thanked him gravely in oddly accented Greek. The route was known to be dangerous. That was why they travelled together. They had waited at Resaina until they had enough numbers to set out for Carrhae. The old man said there was a caravanserai some thirty miles to the east. Valens thanked him, wished them a safe journey, and they parted.
Valens pushed the column hard for the rest of the day. There was no grumbling. Although they would not admit it, doubtless the men were as keen as their new commander to spend the night safely behind the walls of the caravanserai.
Night came suddenly in the high country. One moment they were in scorching sunshine, then the sun dipped below the crests, and darkness welled up from the ravines, flooded up the slopes, and engulfed them. They rode under the stars burning cold in the heavens.
‘I hope the tent-dwellers do not fall upon the camp of the old man.’ Valens spoke as much to himself as the others. ‘The travellers were ill-armed, and less than half of them were grown men.’
‘It was not Arabs who attacked us,’ Iudex said. ‘They were too well equipped, too well mounted. The nomads go half naked.’
‘Bandits?’
‘Deserters among them. A couple had the tattoos of their old units.’
‘They were like no bandits that I have ever encountered.’ Quintus had been quiet for most of the day. Evidently now he wanted the morning forgotten, and to get into favour with his new leader. ‘Once I was stationed south of the Danube. There are many bandits in the Haemus Mountains. Hunting them you get to know their ways. What bandits would make straight for four armed men, and ignore the baggage animals?’
The unanswerable question hung in the air as they rode through the darkness.
After a time the silence became uncomfortable. Valens gestured to the stars, asked Quintus to name the constellations. Glad to talk, the navigator pointed them out: the Little Bear, the belt of Orion, the Hyades.
CHAPTER 8
Mesopotamia
IT WAS LATE AND QUIET in the caravanserai by the time the mules had been unloaded and bedded down for the night, and now the others had finished seeing to their horses. He was alone in the stables. Standing well away from his horse, leaning his weight into the strokes, he brushed its coat, always following the natural direction of the hair. If grooming was neglected, a horse soon lost flesh and condition. Mange and lice were the sure and certain result of neglect. The other men were in the communal dining room. He preferred his own company.
Eventually he was finished. The hide of the animal gleamed like silk in the lamplight. He fussed its ears, looked into its great limpid eyes, spoke gently to it. The whiskers on its muzzle tickled his cheeks as it snuffled his face. Until tomorrow, my friend.
Taking the lamp, he stepped outside into the courtyard. It had already been the third hour of darkness when they had reached the caravanserai. The gates had been shut. The tall, blank walls dark and forbidding. They had shouted. The gatekeepers had been suspicious. The times were troubled. At long last, the bars had been lifted, the bolts drawn, the gates swung open, and the caravan had entered its nocturnal sanctuary.
He stood under the stars. Around him were the shadowed arches of the stables and storerooms. They were built against the outer walls. Above them a gallery ran around three sides of the upper floor, opening onto the rooms for travellers. He noted the two guards up on the flat roof. They were alert, pacing their rounds. The times were troubled indeed.
There were only two other trading caravans, neither large, and a small party of hardy voyagers cloistered here for the night. Their bales of merchandise and belongings were piled in the open, close by where their animals were stabled. The baggage and tack of his own group was neatly laid out. Valens had had the trade goods locked in a secure room.
Light and a muted noise spilled out from where the others were eating. With something akin to reluctance or distaste, he made his way across.
Inside it was smoky, smelt of roasted meat and stale wine. A couple of serving girls, their smiles false and resigned, moved around the patrons. Doubtless they would be busy later. Working in a place like this, they may as well go around with their skirts already hauled up.
Valens waved him over. With a gesture intended to be both polite and final, he declined, and walked to the bar. Ordering a big jug of strong wine, and a small plate of bread and cheese and olives, he turned and surveyed the room.
It was a tall, vaulted chamber. The only windows, shuttered now against the night, gave onto the courtyard and were overhung by the balcony. The place would be cool in summer, and the cooking fires would keep it snug through the cold Mesopotamian winter.
A thin, ascetic looking man was singing, unaccompanied
in a corner.
‘Blasphemy is a stealthy woman;
she commits adultery in the inner room.’
The words were in Aramaic. It was a local song, one designed to instil piety and morality. Beyond the Euphrates the hold of the Olympian gods weakened. The land between the two rivers was home to many competing faiths. Some followed Zoroaster, others the teachings of Mani. The city of Edessa was said to be rife with Christians. In the Island, as the inhabitants called Mesopotamia, true religion and every degraded cult all flourished alike, bound together by mutual animosity.
The innkeeper brought his dinner. Ignoring the jug of water, he poured a generous cupful of wine. A drink to drown sorrows and warm a frozen heart.
It had not been hard to find the bandits. Every band of brigands relied on informants to tell them who was setting out on the roads. All it had taken was a few nights in the waterfront bars in Zeugma, some discreet inquiries, and a handful of coins. A lot more coins had been necessary to secure their services. The bandits had earned their pay. Two of them were dead, but so was Severus. For a moment, in the heat of the skirmish, he had thought they would fail. He had been ready to strike the blow himself, but the treachery might have been spotted, even in all the confusion.
He refilled his cup.
Initially, he had thought that the death of Severus would be enough, but young Valens had surprised him. This morning, during the abortive mutiny, he realised the job was not yet done.
Murena had told him that the mission must fail. Not just fail, but vanish from the eyes of men. Had they returned to the empire, Murena might judge that he had not carried out his orders. The consequences of that judgement would be awful.
He took another drink.
Gods below, he hated that bastard Murena. Almost as much as he loathed himself. Yes, he was a frumentarius, a secret soldier. He had spied, played on the trust of others. He had delivered messages that brought summary execution. Once he had killed an unsuspecting man in cold blood. But he had never yet betrayed his own kind.
That bastard Murena! If only a man could be truly solitary, a misanthrope like Timon of Athens, living alone, shunning all human contact. A brave man could face his own pain and death. But everyone loved someone – parents, wife, children, some woman or boy. No man could endure the torture of a loved one. Once his beloved had been simply discovered, the threat had been more than enough.
The brigands had killed one man, not the mission. The gods knew, he did not want to, but now he must find other means.
The jug was empty. He called for another.
I was born as nothing
Shall be again as I was;
Humanity is nothing. Pour out
The pleasurable drug of choice, the wine
That is antidote to all our miseries.
CHAPTER 9
Arbayestan
TWO DAYS OUT OF RESAINA they left the road, and set out east into the wilderness. This was Arbayestan, the land of the Arabs; a harsh place of sand and rock, inhabited by no one except the nomadic tent-dwellers.
With no clear path to follow across the flat emptiness, they were guided by Quintus the navigator. On the second day, mountains loomed in the distance to the south. The Singaras range was a sudden wall of grey rock, fissured and cut by deep ravines, running parallel to their progress. Clouds hung over the crests, bringing a promise of rain that was never fulfilled. Away to the north, a hint of green along the horizon would have been taken for a mirage, if wildfowl had not marked it as wetlands. Where they journeyed, between the mountains and the marshes, there was nothing except bare rocks and rippled sand, dotted with desert shrubs blanched by the merciless sun.
Over their armour, they wore loose robes, bought in Resaina. Even so, the sweat ran copiously under their mail. The straps and fittings chafed their shoulders, their belts rubbed their waists raw. Some wrapped cloths around their helmets, most slung the stifling headgear on a horn of their saddle and wore a turban or a broad-brimmed hat. As the days went by, without conscious design, they came more and more to resemble their pretence of mercenary guards of a merchant caravan.
The evening was a blessed relief. With the animals rubbed down, fed and watered, all except the two on sentry duty were free to shrug off the heavy, stifling war gear, to sit and eat in the delicious cool of the night.
Yet it was at this, the best part of the day, that Valens felt most keenly the loneliness of command. In Rome he had been Deputy Tribune of the Horse Guards. He had been able to take problems to his senior, his cousin, and there had been officers of other units in whom to confide, as well as civilian acquaintances at dinner parties or in the baths. He wondered now if perhaps, after the death of his parents, he had strained the patience of his listeners. Misery had encouraged him to drink too much. Know yourself, the Delphic Oracle commanded. But in a city of a million souls there had always been someone – if only a passing stranger – to whom he could open his heart.
Oddly, his most pressing concern was not the mission itself, or even his own slim hope of survival, but the attitude of the men. Aulus, the ringleader of the attempted mutiny, remained scowling and aloof. Narses and Zabda, the two easterners from the waterfront bar in Zuegma, often came close to dumb insubordination. On the march, they muttered together as they shepherded the baggage animals; the bushy beard of the Persian and the wispy one of the Palmyrene both nodding. Decimus, the handsome master of horse, and Clemens, the old armourer, were punctilious in obeying orders, replied when spoken to, but seldom volunteered anything. At least Quintus, as if to atone for his role the morning after the death of Severus, was happy to talk, and Hairan, the third easterner, was affable to Valens as to everyone. And then there was always Iudex. His appearance might be slightly disconcerting, and his conversation sometimes unfathomable, but he liked to talk. Yet for Valens it was unthinkable that an equestrian officer should unburden himself to common soldiers under his command, even to those who appeared sympathetic.
They had eaten. Quintus was studying the moonless sky. Iudex was carefully washing his big hands. Clemens and Aulus were out on guard. The rest were already asleep.
Valens watched Iudex. His ritual ablutions complete, the bald man stood facing north. ‘Restrain my heart and mind from the turmoil of sin, and let me ascend on the road of peace.’ Iudex said the words reverently. With an agility surprising in such a large man, he got down on bended knee, then prostrated himself full length on the ground. ‘May I become perfect in mind, spirit and body, and through your power, Lord, may I conquer the deceitful demons of my soul.’
Iudex prayed seven times a day. On the march, he would pull his horse out of the line and dismount. Frequently he was left behind, out of sight. Soon after, his sky-blue cloak would appear as he cantered after the column. Resuming his station, his cherubic features were suffused with happiness.
The piety of this strange soldier unsettled Valens. No matter how bizarre the cult to which he belonged, Iudex had a god in which to believe, a beneficent power to look to for succour and guidance. Valens missed the faith of his childhood. He had never felt so alone as he did now. To avoid the temptation of opening a flask of wine, he walked over to talk to Quintus.
‘How do you plot a course by the stars?’
‘There is no great mystery.’ The navigator had large, thoughtful eyes in a delicate face set under wavy, swept-back hair. It gave him a look of youthful and sensitive intelligence.
‘I would like to know.’
‘We do not follow the stars which wander across the heavens. Instead, the never-setting pole star, the brightest in both the Bears, is the certainty that underpins all calculations.’
Valens looked where Quintus pointed.
‘And you see over there . . . the lower Arctophylax sinks, and the nearer to the horizon Cynosura dips, the further east we travel.’
‘You know exactly where we are?’
‘From the stars, and the height of the sun, I can judge with some accuracy how far we are from north
to south.’ Quintus smiled, almost apologetically. ‘How far east–west is a matter of reckoning, but if we keep going east we must come to the upper reaches of the Tigris.’
‘There is no true reckoning to be had from the stars.’
The interruption made Valens jump. For such a bulky man, Iudex moved very quietly.
‘They deceive mankind. It is in their nature.’ Iudex spoke with certainty.
‘What do you mean?’ Valens asked.
Iudex tilted his huge, hairless head to one side, as if pondering. Officer or not – was the questioner worthy of an answer? Eventually, he nodded.
‘The Living Spirit captured the demons of darkness. He flayed them, and stretched their skins to make the firmament. Their bodies he fixed as the planets and the signs of the zodiac. The stars have a malign influence on humanity.’
Quintus snorted in derision. ‘Your religion has addled your mind.’
Iudex spread his hands in benediction. ‘The Light shone in Darkness, and Darkness comprehended it not.’
A suspicion slipped into Valens’s mind. ‘You are not a Christian, are you?’
‘Thou shalt not kill, so the Christians say. Sometimes killing is necessary. It is the Lord’s will. I have no qualms.’
Valens was going to ask further questions about his beliefs, but Iudex forestalled him. ‘It is late. We should sleep. Our road is long. There will be better times to put your feet on the path to righteousness.’
*
In the blue light of pre-dawn, the clouds were gone from the peaks of the Singaras, dispersed by a rising wind out of the east. They watered and fed the animals first: three portions of oats to two of hay, chaff mixed in with the hay to stop them bolting the food unchewed. Some of the men gathered camel thorn for fires to warm their rations. The tough twigs spat and burned fast, and gave little heat. Valens ate his hard tack and bacon cold.
The needs of men and beasts satisfied, Decimus oversaw the loading of the mules. They worked in pairs. Everyone lent a hand – Valens teamed with Iudex. There was no opportunity to talk. Cinch – take – break – take. Like the liturgy of a religion, the responses echoed down the line. To properly train a muleteer was said to take a year, but the basics could be learnt in about a month. Frumentarii were resourceful, and these men knew what they were about.
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