The Lost Ten

by Harry Sidebottom

  ‘Now!’

  Iudex loosed as he shouted. His arrow plucked a rider to the floor.

  Like creatures from the underworld, Clemens and Zabda rose from concealment. While their bows still twanged, they reached for another shaft.

  For a moment Valens watched, as if at the arena, a spectator detached from his surroundings.

  Two more tent-dwellers howled in pain.

  The ache in his arms brought Valens back. He drew his bow, fingers back by his ear, tracked a nomad, and shot. The arrow missed. Automatically his fingers found the fletchings of another. This time the arrowhead punched into the haunches of a horse. It screamed as it spun around. Its rider lost his seat, went crashing to the earth.

  Without thought Valens sent arrow after arrow into the wheeling mass.

  Recovering from the shock, the tent-dwellers were dropping their unwieldy lances, and yanking their own bows from where they hung over their shoulders. Some may be down, but they were still ready to fight. Although the Romans were in cover, and had the advantage in being on foot to aim, they remained outnumbered by at least four to one. They would lose any prolonged exchange. The first surprise had not broken the Arabs. A more drastic gamble was needed to drive them from the field.

  Valens felt a near-compelling reluctance to quit the shelter of the rockslide.

  Let us be men. It was all or nothing.

  ‘Horses!’

  Letting his bow fall, Valens turned and scrabbled back over the natural barrier. The sharp rocks grazed his hands and arms, tore at his legs.

  Decimus was mounted, with difficulty holding the reins of the other four horses. Agitated by the din of battle, the sounds of their own kind in pain, the animals sidled and showed the whites of their eyes.

  Valens hurled himself into the saddle. His mount tossed its head, fighting against the bit.

  Freed from managing the led horses, Decimus was cutting the ropes of the corral.

  ‘Close up!’ Valens unhooked his shield from one of the saddle horns, drew his sword.

  Zabda came knee to knee one side, Iudex the other.

  Clemens went to form the tip of the wedge with Decimus.

  ‘Hit them as one.’

  It had to be now. Any hesitation and the nomads would get over the confusion of the ambush.

  They clattered around the end of the landslip at a canter.

  Hades, there were a lot of the enemy.

  Decimus pushed into a gallop.

  There were many tent-dwellers, but they were in no order.

  The Romans smashed into their ranks like a stone from a siege engine.

  At the heart of the wedge, Valens followed Decimus’s armoured back, Iudex and Zabda on either flank. Then, without warning, the formation was dispersed, and he was alone.

  A nomad thrust from his left with a knife. Valens just got the edge of his shield in the way. A splinter of wood stung his cheek. The motion of his mount took him clear.

  Another Arab struck from the right. This one had a sword. Too slow, Valens parried. The tip of the blade skidded over his mailed chest. Links of mail snapped. Only the four horns of the saddle gripping his thighs kept Valens on his horse. Instinctively, without looking, he slashed backhanded. A satisfying impact ran up his arm. A howl of agony rang loud in his ears.

  A tent-dweller on a camel blocked his way. Valens kicked the heels of his boots into the sides of his mount. It leapt forward. But a moment before impact, the camel threw up its great, ugly head and roared. Unnerved by the alien beast, Valens’s horse refused. Shying violently, it tripped over its own legs, fouled. Fighting for balance, the horse stumbled a few steps, but it was going to fall.

  Releasing sword and shield, Valens grabbed the two front saddle horns, levering himself up. As the horse went down, he jumped clear. The earth rushed up at him. He landed hard, face down. For a terrible moment he thought the horse would crush him. The wind knocked out of him, he felt the enormous weight of the beast thump down right beside him.

  As the horse thrashed trying to regain its feet, Valens fought to get up, to drag breath back into his lungs. A hoof caught him in the side, it smashed him sideways and back down. Chest and ribs searing with pain, Valens got to his knees, tugged out his dagger.

  With a lurch, the horse was up. Before Valens could grab the reins, it was gone. The Arab, impossibly high on the camel, towered above him, drawing his bow.

  Somehow Valens forced himself upright.

  The nomad aimed at his chest. Mail would not stop an arrow at twenty paces. Valens was unshielded. There was no cover in reach. Hopelessly, he began to shuffle forward, dagger in hand. The tent-dweller was too far away.

  His assailant smiled. Steadied his arm, focused on his target.

  Die on your feet, like a soldier. Wracked with pain, Valens put one foot in front of the other. He would never make it.

  A blur of movement in the periphery of his vision.

  Intent on his prey, the Arab saw nothing.

  A flash of steel. A spray of bright blood. The nomad stared with amazement at the fountaining stump where his left arm had been.

  Another neat blow, and Zabda cut the Arab from his mount. Braying, the camel padded away as Zabda reined to a halt. But another nomad loomed behind the Palmyrene, with a lance still in hand.

  As Zabda grinned and saluted, Valens opened his mouth to shout a warning. But with no air in his lungs, he could make no sound. He pointed wildly.

  Zabda started to turn. The tip of the lance speared into his back. Valens ran to the Palmyrene’s aid, all pain forgotten. The force of the blow had driven the lance deep into Zabda’s body. As the Arab tried to recover his weapon, the two horses circled in a macabre dance. Held by the saddle, Zabda’s body jerked as his killer wrenched at the lance.

  Plunging his dagger into the nomad’s thigh with his right hand, Valens seized his cloak with his left. Throwing himself backwards, he used his weight to haul the man from his mount. The wounded Arab landed on top of him. Valens rolled out from underneath. His fist found a stone. The tent-dweller shouted something, perhaps a plea for mercy. Valens smashed the stone into the man’s face. Through broken teeth, the nomad shouted again. After a time he merely made incoherent noises, then fell silent as Valens beat him to death.

  A shadow fell across Valens. The sun must be high in the sky. Numbly, he straightened up. His hands and arms were red with blood. He was unarmed, but beyond fear or hope.

  ‘They have had enough,’ Iudex said.

  Valens looked around, as if observing events that had little bearing on himself.

  It was true. Having dropped their lances at the onset of the ambush, the half-naked tent-dwellers, for all their advantage in numbers, had lost the will to continue to face the swords and unbridled ferocity of the armoured and trained Roman soldiers. Some riding two to a mount, they streamed back down the canyon.

  ‘At least a dozen of them are dead.’ Iudex’s face was seraphic with pleasure. ‘Clemens and Decimus are finishing off their wounded. Both have slight cuts, but we have only lost Zabda.’

  Valens gazed around until he saw the Palmyrene.

  ‘The tent-dwellers will not return today, probably never. Blood feud will only drive them so far.’ Iudex spoke slowly, as if to an infant. ‘But we should not tarry.’

  Valens knew Iudex was right. There was so much to be done.

  ‘Get me a horse,’ Valens said.

  While Iudex did that, Valens went among the carnage to find his weapons and shield. Slowly, he managed to gather his thoughts.

  He was ready when Iudex returned.

  ‘Signal Narses and the others to come down from the heights. Clemens can make sure there are no survivors. Send Decimus back for the woman and the other horses. Round up the spare horses, put Zabda over one – we will bury him when we are clear of this place – then meet me at the mouth of the canyon.’

  Without waiting for an answer, Valens mounted and rode away.

  CHAPTER 18

  Matianer />
  THE VILLAGE THAT WAS HOME TO AL-ZABBA, the woman also known as Lucia, was not large, but obviously prosperous enough. Although remote in its upland valley high in the Taurus Mountains, there was a good road. From springs at the base of the nearest cliff, ice-cold water bubbled forth to irrigate fields of grain, and gardens growing pears, apples, plums and apricots. On the higher slopes, above the springs, were extensive vineyards. Higher still were lush meadows for pasturage and forests of poplar and walnut well stocked with game.

  The house in which the feast was held was built of stone. Its main room was tall and cool. They sat in a circle, cross-legged on rugs and cushions. Lucia had warned the Romans that it was ill-mannered to point the soles of your feet at another guest.

  From Valens’s left Lucia translated the conversation of the guest to his right. The farmer was waxing lyrical about the hardiness of the black grapes. Apparently they lay buried under deep snow in the winter, and flourished in the hot dry summer without any watering whatsoever. Certainly the wine they produced was sweet and strong.

  They were eating lamb and chicken with flatbread and salad. A musician was playing a stringed instrument a bit like a lyre. Serving girls kept their cups filled, and the cook – his mouth ostentatiously covered, so as not to breathe on the food – made sure their plates were never empty.

  The Romans had been well received. There had been mourning for Lucia’s murdered husband, but the Romans had been praised both for taking vengeance against the tent-dwellers, and returning his widow unviolated. Hairan and the other Aramaic speakers had given an edited version of her rescue, which – praise the gods! – it was said had been carried out before the nomads could defile her. A compound had been allocated to the Romans, and this feast in the house of the village headman was in their honour.

  Unaccustomed to the cross-legged posture, Valens’s legs were beginning to ache. His loquacious fellow diner moved on to describing in great detail how the lamb was rubbed with a sour and bitter gruel and thickened buttermilk, and how the best-tasting chicken had to be fed on hemp seed and olive oil and made to run. While nodding attentively, Valens’s thoughts began to roam.

  It was ten days since they’d left the canyon. There had been no more sight of the tent-dwellers. Presumably their casualties had cooled their commitment to the demands of blood feud. At the end of the first day the Romans had come to a hamlet in the foothills. There they had buried Zabda, and bought all the provisions available. Even so, they had been on short rations for the next couple of days until they reached a more substantial settlement. By then they were high in the mountains.

  They had forded fast-flowing mountain streams, moved through the gloom of deep ravines, and edged along tracks that clung to the sides of vertiginous precipices. When there was a fork in the path, Lucia had guided them unerringly. For several days she had led them almost due south, away from their destination, before turning up yet another river valley to the north-east. They had met a few travellers, and the occasional shepherd and charcoal burner. But without the woman they could have wandered for months in that rocky fastness.

  Now they had reached her home, and here she would stay. Valens had instructed Hairan to hire a guide from the headman for their onward journey through the remaining mountains, and down to the territory of the Mardoi and the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. There were merchants in the village who had travelled the route. The expedition had plenty of money in Persian coins, and Hairan was amiable in all the many languages in which he was fluent. Valens did not think that the request should prove a problem.

  The diners fell silent, even Valens’s talkative neighbour, when the musician began to sing a high plaintive song. Unable to understand a word, Valens looked at Hairan and the headman. The two were flanked by the local Zoroastrian priest and a huge bear of a man, who seemed to be the chief of the headman’s guard. The leading man of the village kept a numerous body of armed retainers. Despite its idyllic setting, this was still the wild uplands, where every man carried a weapon and had to look to his own protection.

  Although still hundreds of miles from their goal, the expedition had done well to get this far. Through all their tribulations only three men had been lost: Severus, Quintus and Zabda. The ten men had become seven. Courage and ingenuity, and a large measure of luck, had ensured their escape from the nomads. For the moment they were safe. While they were fierce, even savage, hospitality was said to be the main virtue of those who lived in these mountains.

  Yet some nagging doubt lurked in the dark corners of Valens’s thoughts. So many bad things had dogged their steps: the bandits, the dust storm, the tent-dwellers. Of course, he had brought the last down on their heads. Unless you believed in magic, and Valens did not, the storm was just chance. But the more he considered them, the bandits were different. In the Greek novels he had read, the brigands often chose their victims with care. They did not just wait for whoever came along. In one of the stories, an accomplice in the town informed the outlaws who was setting out on a journey. Was it Chaereas and Callirhoe or Leucippe and Clitophon? In his memory they had all merged into one over the years. The column had hardly left Zeugma before the bandits struck. That could well be chance. But something Quintus had said afterwards had stuck in Valens’s mind. It was their behaviour. They had not gone for the rich pickings of the mule train, but attacked the armed men and killed Severus. In retrospect, the killing of the commanding officer seemed almost as if it were deliberate.

  And later, in Adiabene, there was the matter of the water bottle dropped in the flight to the River Lykos. It had given Valens the idea to lead the tent-dwellers into the ambush. At the time he had been angry, put the discarded item down to carelessness. But had someone before himself been leaving a trail for their pursuers?

  Yet why would anyone in the expedition seek to betray them? Of course all, except himself, were frumentarii. They lived in a world of treachery. If there was a traitor, who could it be? Zabda would have been his main suspect. The Palmyrene was a thief, mistrusted by the others, especially by Hairan. Before they had set out, Zabda had drawn a knife on Valens in that bar. But Zabda had given his life to save him.

  Nothing had gone wrong since the canyon. Perhaps the traitor was biding his time.

  The singer ended, the audience applauded quietly, and the serving girls brought in the sweetmeats.

  Perhaps there was no malign hand at the heart of the column. Bad things just happened. Most likely it was all a figment of his own imagination.

  As the gourmet on his right was addressing himself to the pastries with a zeal that precluded conversation, Valens turned to make himself agreeable to Lucia. She encouraged him to take a delicacy flavoured with apple juice, honey and cardamom.

  ‘You must be relieved to be back at home,’ he said.

  She smiled, although without much conviction.

  ‘And your late husband’s brother will take you as his wife.’

  ‘Yes.’ The smile faded.

  ‘It is not our custom in Rome, but each people have their own.’

  She did not reply, but it did not take a physiognomist, or some other expert in the human psyche, to see she was less than delighted.

  ‘The family are not poor. You will have a good home.’

  She looked scornful. ‘Our customs require that three times a day a wife kneels before her husband and asks him what is his wish, and how she can make him happy.’

  She spoke with such bitterness that Valens glanced at their neighbours.

  ‘Only the merchants in the village speak Greek,’ she said. ‘These are farmers.’

  ‘Among us a woman is subject to the authority of her husband,’ Valens said. ‘Some say the greatest praise of a woman is that she is never mentioned.’

  ‘Among you, a husband does not lend his wife to the beds of any he chooses.’

  Valens had no answer to that.

  ‘The priests preach that if the god Mazda had been able to find any other creature to bear children, he wo
uld not have created women.’

  Again Valens was silent.

  Lucia took a deep breath. Obviously she was preparing to change the conversation. She smiled again.

  Until this moment Valens had never really looked at her. On the journey there had never been time. He had been too tired, there had been too much to be done. If anything, she had been a self-inflicted encumbrance. Now he saw her as if for the first time.

  She was not beautiful. Her nose and face were too long, her black hair, parted in the centre and dragged back behind her ears, was too flat and without lustre. But there was a knowing intelligence in her dark eyes, and her mouth hinted at a hitherto unnoticed playfulness and sensuality.

  Aware of his appraisal, she was unflustered, and spoke as if she had read his thoughts. ‘The priests give many instructions to men concerning a wife. Her stature must be neither too tall, or too short, her head and neck well formed, her fingers long, and her waist slender. They go into great detail. Her limbs must be soft and smooth, her buttocks rounded, her breasts like quinces, and her body milky white to her toes.’

  Valens knew she was teasing him, but could think of nothing to say.

  ‘Even her pillow talk is regulated. In bed she must have good words for her husband, but never talk shamefully.’

  Valens took another pastry to avoid answering.

  ‘My late husband was an avaricious fool. Obviously he lacked religion, as he enjoyed shameful talk.’

  As if summoned to rescue Valens from this unexpected flirtation, Hairan came over.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Hairan said.

  ‘Lucia can be trusted.’

  Hairan flicked a glance at those sitting nearby.

  ‘They have no Greek,’ Lucia reassured him.

  Only partly mollified, Hairan spoke quietly. ‘The headman says that no villager will act as our guide. They are scared to venture away from the settlement alone. It is the fault of a djinn.’

  ‘A djinn?’ Valens said.

  ‘A malevolent spirit, like a daemon. Several locals have vanished. The djinn took them.’