The Lost Ten

by Harry Sidebottom

  The sky was paling. It would soon be dawn. It was time to begin the endlessly repeated routine of the day.

  Forcing himself not to groan, Barbad levered his old bones from his bed. Having found his slippers and robe, he shuffled quietly to the door. The boy was still sleeping, his dark curls spread across the pillow. The gaolers had given Barbad oil for the hinges. The door opened without a sound. Gently, Barbad pulled it shut behind him.

  Overnight, the coals in the brazier had burnt low. With infinite care, Barbad blew them into life. When they were glowing, he placed new coals by hand, one at a time, careful to make no noise that might wake the sleeping boy next door. The fire tended, he washed his hands, then set out the clothes that Sasan would wear that day. The Prince had three changes of costume. It was almost the only thing that demarked one day from another in the Castle of Silence. Once a month the supply convoy came, a wagon and half a dozen outriders climbing the trail to the main gate. Every time Barbad watched them from the high window with a mixture of excitement and utter dread. The former was a measure of the monotony of their existence. The latter, he knew, was rooted in his cowardice. When the order came from the distant royal court, it would not arrive in a supply cart. Instead it would be carried by a single rider travelling fast. A golden chain on the harness of his horse or dromedary would mark him as a messenger on the business of the King of Kings. A man not to be detained on pain of death.

  Barbad heard the key turning in the lock. It was nothing to fear, only the start of yet another monotonous day. A day just like all the others.

  The outer door swung open. A guard brought in a tray. Another guard stood on the landing. From his demeanour it was obvious that he had been stationed there for hours. When closed, the door shut out any noise. No footfalls could be heard. It was impossible to tell how often the guard was changed, yet Barbad was sure a soldier was always on duty.

  The guard placed the tray on a table and left. The door was locked again. He had not spoken a word. They never did. Even when Barbad made a request – for more oil or coals or whatever – they did not reply. Later the things might appear. Sometimes they did not. The books had never arrived. The warden of the Castle of Silence did not look like a man who would keep a library.

  On the tray was flatbread, cheese and fruit, a jug of wine and a pitcher of water. A meagre repast for a prince. Barbad tipped some of the wine into a bowl and set it on the brazier to warm. He had no fear that Sasan would be poisoned. When the order came, it would be something far worse.

  Three times a day the door opened. The food varied. Nothing else changed. They had long exhausted their one book of poetry. For long hours Barbad would tell the boy stories: Persian folktales, anecdotes from the many books of the Greeks, gossip from happier days. The latter was carefully selected not to upset the prince. The rest of the time they slept or stared out of the windows, watching the wheeling buzzards, seeing the occasional eagle, noting the play of sunlight on the crags and ravines. Sometimes Barbad wondered if he was going insane.

  Barbad had been cut just before his fourteenth birthday. It was when Ardashir, the father of Shapur, had seized the throne. Barbad’s family were of the old Persian nobility, and had been faithful supporters of the rightful king. To become King of Kings, the pretender Ardashir had murdered his own brother. It was given out as an accident: a building at Chumai on the road to Darabgerd had collapsed. Nothing but the will of the gods. The persecutions that followed were evidence of the lie.

  Many of those who had kept faith with the true king had fled into exile. Barbad’s family had not been so lucky. His father, his uncle and two cousins – all his adult male relatives – had been captured. They had been condemned to die slowly in the troughs. As a boy, Barbad had been ‘spared’ to watch. Then he had been cut. Even now his mind shied away from that day. He tried not to think of his pain, or the terrible suffering of those in the troughs.

  For years Barbad had harboured a dream of revenge. Like Hermotimus, he would castrate the man responsible for making him a eunuch, wield the knife on all those the man loved, take the manhood of every man and boy in his family, make Ardashir watch their agony and humiliation. Yet even as it had sustained him, he had known that it was no more than an idle fantasy. A eunuch scribe could never emasculate a King of Kings. Now it was too late. Ardashir was long dead.

  The wine was warm. Barbad diluted it with three parts water. With fussy precision, he arranged the boy’s morning meal. It was dawn. Almost time to wake Sasan.

  Barbad hesitated, reluctant to open the door on another interminable day. There had been no news for months. They knew nothing of the outside world. Confined to two rooms and a privy. No companionship but the silent and watchful guards. Nothing to see but the bare crags of the mountains. Any man might lose his mind.

  Nothing remained but duty. Sooner or later, Barbad would perform the last service for Sasan. He would save the boy from torture. The slender knife was still concealed. Before it was too late he would act. Barbad was ready.

  CHAPTER 14

  Adiabene

  THEY WATCHED THE ARABS FOR HOURS. Valens lay with five of the men in a shallow scrape about two hundred paces away. Decimus and Hairan were half a mile back, hidden in a wadi with the animals.

  Aulus had been right that the tent-dwellers would make no effort to cover their tracks. Their choice of campsite also indicated that they had no fear of pursuit. They had pitched their shelters at a watering hole which stood out prominently against the bare, rolling country. Their campfires were kindled in a stand of date palms. The light reflected from the undersides of the fronds, shining like a beacon in the dark.

  About the numbers of the nomads, Aulus appeared mistaken. Dressed alike in cloaks and boots, all wearing headbands holding back their long hair, they were hard to differentiate. They observed no order, but drifted about haphazardly. Valens had counted and recounted them. By his calculation, the group was twenty-five strong, each armed with a spear and a bow. One or two also had swords. They were too well armed and too many for an open attack in daylight.

  As the hours passed, and the evening turned to night, the soldiers observed the arrangements of the nomads. Their rough shelters were skins stretched over upright poles. They were open at the sides, and grouped around the fires. The camels were tethered at one side of the camp, the horses and mules at the other. The Arabs produced hunks of meat from sacks of skins. They cooked them in kettles over the flames. They ignored their usual drink of milk for the wine they had looted from the wagon. Amphorae went from hand to hand. Likewise, the woman was led from one shelter to another. None seemed to feel the need for privacy when they took her, confirming the nomads reputation for lechery. Most of the men raped her more than once. There was nothing the watchers could do to end her suffering and humiliation.

  Unaccustomed to the wine, which they drank unmixed with water, one by one the Arabs rolled themselves in their cloaks and went to sleep. Eventually there were just four left awake. They dragged the woman to the bough of a tree in the middle of the camp, tethered her there like another animal, then fell into a loud and heated argument. Roused by the noise, some of their companions also shouted. The outcome was that a young nomad, complaining vociferously, was deputed to stand guard.

  Valens measured the course of the moon by the tip of the tallest palm. When he judged that at least half an hour had gone by, he nudged Zabda and Iudex. It had been decided earlier that the three of them would venture into the camp. Zabda was a thief, accustomed to moving surreptitiously, and Iudex, for all his bulk, had the grace of a dancer. Valens did not feel that he could remain behind if he ordered men into danger. Aulus, Clemens and Narses would remain, bows ready to cover their return. Narses, it was agreed, was the best shot in the party.

  At first the sentry had walked the perimeter of the camp, stopping frequently to relieve himself. Once he had been sick. Weariness and the wine overcoming his duty, soon he had sat with his back to a palm tree. As the fires burnt low, i
t was impossible to tell if he was asleep.

  Zabda waited for a cloud to pass across the face of the moon, then got to his feet. Valens and Iudex rose up with him. All three had smeared dirt on their faces and hands. No words were spoken. As the shadow of the cloud shifted across the bare earth, they set off in its gloom. Valens noticed that, out in the open under the ambient light, his own dark cloak, and that of Zabda, stood out more than the sky-blue one of Iudex.

  They went in single file: Zabda, then Iudex, with Valens at the rear. Leading them in a wide detour, the Palmyrene made towards the camp using the cover of the horse lines.

  Although they had left their helmets, armour and the ornaments from their belts with the baggage train, Valens thought the noise they made enough to wake the dead. His heart was hammering, and his breathing coming in a short, loud panting.

  The horses stirred, hooves softly thudding. Ears pitched forward, the animals’ huge gentle eyes regarded the approaching men. Curious about their nocturnal movements, one horse called out to them. A restlessness ran through the herd. Going past the other men, Valens went to the nervous beast. As he got near, it jerked up its head and whinnied. Valens stopped. Its head came down. With infinite slowness he moved closer. Still suspicious, it stretched its neck, smelling this stranger. Valens leant forward. The horse’s muzzle snuffled over his face. Valens forced himself to relax, to betray no tension. He breathed in its nostrils, the horse calmed, a thoughtful, dreamy look in its eyes.

  Zabda stole past between the warm flanks of the horses. Iudex remained.

  Time slowed, as if held in the hand of a god.

  Valens found that he was murmuring very softly to the horse.

  Somewhere out in the desert a fox barked. Valens jumped. The horse ruckled down its nose. Now it was the solid presence of the horse reassuring the man.

  Valens peered around the huge head.

  In the flicker of the dying fires he could see the outline of the motionless sentry.

  Gods below, how much longer?

  As if the infernal deities heard the prayer, a patch of darkness rose up behind the palm where the young Arab rested. It lapped around the tree. A flash of silver in the moonlight. A sudden gasp of surprise and horror. A brief scrabble of boots in the dirt. And all was still again.

  None of the sleepers had wakened.

  The horse stiffened, scenting the blood. Valens leant a little of his weight against its neck.

  ‘We must go,’ Iudex whispered.

  Valens found himself reluctant to leave the illusory security of his equine companion.

  ‘Now.’

  Together, they ghosted into the camp. Like the epiphany of some dark god, Zabda was suddenly in front of them.

  They moved deeper into the encampment, down a narrow alleyway between two shelters. Drunken snoring came from either side. The smells of stale wine and rancid goat meat and unwashed men were heavy on the night air.

  Suddenly a man spoke. The words were incomprehensible but loud and distinct.

  Valens almost blundered into the back of Iudex.

  The three men stood motionless. Valens’s heart was beating so hard against his ribs that he was shaking.

  The Arab muttered again, this time slurred and evidently half asleep.

  They remained stock still, waiting for the nomad to fall back into a deep slumber.

  Valens looked around with loathing. The tent-dwellers huddled two or three to a shelter. He could almost touch the pair to his right. They lay on their backs, unconscious, without a care. Valens wished he could cut their throats, wished he had enough men that he could cut all their throats. The surge of hatred caused not so much by their cruelty to the woman, as by his own terror.

  Iudex touched his arm. They crept onwards.

  As they passed one of the fires, Valens was surprised by its warmth on his face. He had not noticed the chill of the night.

  A pot shard cracked under his boot. Again the three men froze. By the light of the low fire, the occasional tongues of flame, it looked like some macabre child’s game.

  Zabda gestured for them to continue.

  Valens went slowly, keeping his eyes down, searching for other fragments of discarded and broken amphorae. He placed each foot carefully, the outside of his boot first, in a sweeping motion, feeling for debris, before committing his weight.

  Looking up, he saw he was falling behind. A panic seized him that he would be left alone among these savages. Abandoning his caution, he rushed to catch up.

  They came out in the small clearing where the woman was tethered to a tree. She was unmoving.

  Zabda waved Iudex to keep watch one way, Valens the other, while he went to cut her bonds.

  Valens was facing the camel lines. The ungainly-looking beasts regarded him with what appeared to be contempt. Their jaws worked ceaselessly as they chewed regurgitated food. Their stench was overpowering. No wonder horses unaccustomed to them were said to become unsettled, even unmanageable.

  What was taking Zabda so long?

  The moon had tracked far across the heavens since they set out.

  Valens glanced over his shoulder.

  Zabda had severed the thongs that held the woman. He had a hand over her mouth, and was talking low and urgently into her ear. Her eyes were wide and very white in the near darkness.

  When he turned his head back around, against all expectation Valens saw the outline of a man just four or five paces to his front. Facing away from him, the nomad stretched and yawned. Gripping the scabbard in his left hand, Valens drew his sword with his right. The blade slid free with just a whisper. But it was enough.

  The Arab turned, although slowly, and without undue alarm.

  Valens hesitated to kill an unarmed man.

  Their eyes met, and the tent-dweller started with surprise.

  Still Valens could not bring himself to strike.

  The Arab opened his mouth to shout.

  Valens leapt forward, lunging with his sword.

  The nomad yelled as he tried to twist away. The edge of the steel sliced across his half-turned back. The Arab staggered, doubled up with pain. Valens raised his weapon, brought it down in a clumsy two-handed chop, like an unskilled woodsman cutting logs. The impact jarred up through his forearms as the heavy blade bit into the back of the skull.

  The camp was full of noise; the camels roaring with anxiety, men grunting and stirring, calling out questions.

  Zabda pushed past Valens.

  ‘You and Iudex hold them back.’

  The Palmyrene half carried the woman between two shelters off to the south.

  Iudex was at Valens’s side. The big man bent to pluck a burning brand from the nearest fire.

  ‘Stay with me,’ Iudex said. ‘Work together, keep our heads, and we will get out of this.’

  They backed down the alleyway after Zabda.

  Like a disturbed nest of vipers, the camp was stirring. Dark figures flitted here and there, gathered around the dead man. The camels bellowed and stamped.

  Iudex swung the smouldering branch through the air. After three or four passes, it blazed fiercely. He ran it along the skin covering one of the shelters. The dry skin caught. In moments it crackled with little licks of flame.

  Pounding feet warned them of the approach of the Arabs. Three of them, rushing down the alley.

  Training took over, and Valens brought his sword up into a guard, but he could not drag his eyes away from the glittering tip of the Arab’s spear. At the last moment, he leapt backwards, swatting ineffectually with his blade. The point of the spear missed. The nomad recovered his balance, and pulled back.

  To his left, Valens saw Iudex step forward. With a practised economy of movement, the bald soldier flicked the spears of his two opponents aside, and stepped inside their reach.

  Valens had no more time to watch. His assailant thrust again. This time he gave no ground. Balanced on the balls of his feet, he blocked the attack. The nomad’s momentum brought him crashing into Valen
s. Locked together, they tottered a couple of steps. The rank stink of the man was choking. Fingers stiff, Valens drove his nails into the tent-dweller’s bearded face. They missed the eyes, but raked the flesh. The nomad reared away, howling. With the strength of desperation, Valens thrust his sword into the man’s stomach. A split second of resistance, then the steel slid in easier than into the carcass of a chicken.

  The reek of hot blood and faeces filled the air.

  Still holding the torch in one hand, Iudex was standing over his two victims.

  ‘More coming,’ Iudex said.

  By the flickering light of the burning tent, they saw a throng of nomads filling the opening to the alleyway. It would be no time before they thought to work around the shelters, and take the two men from the rear.

  ‘Give me the torch,’ Valens said.

  Wordlessly, Iudex handed it over.

  Valens swished the brand until it flared again. He judged the distance, then, not pausing to think further, ran three or four steps forward. He hurled the torch overhand. It cartwheeled over the nearest tents, trailing sparks.

  The throw was good. The torch landed amid the camels, hitting one on the flank as it fell. Maddened by pain and fear, the beast wrenched the peg that secured its tether from the ground. It blundered into the next in the line. At once all the camels were roaring and struggling, boring into each other. One went down. As it went to get up, its legs fouled those still on their feet.