‘You have to take me with you.’
‘We do not.’
‘If I go with you, there will be no outcry. But if you leave me here, the whole of Persia will be on your tracks.’
Valens said nothing.
‘You see, I know why you are here.’
‘We are merchants.’
‘No, you have been sent to rescue . . . someone . . . from the Castle of Silence.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Zabda told me before he died.’
CHAPTER 21
To the Caspian Sea
THE RIDER WAS WAITING AT the head of the pass, where the track ran between towering crags on one side and a vertiginous ravine on the other.
Although it was too far to make out the individual, Valens knew it was her.
‘It is not an ambush,’ their guide said. ‘This is a dangerous place, but brigands would lie concealed up on the heights.’
No, thought Valens, not an ambush for us, but a most unwelcome turn of events for you.
They plodded up the long rise. The horses were weary, and their heads were down as they negotiated the incline. It was late in the afternoon, and it had been a long day’s ride since they left the village at dawn. They would make camp beyond the pass.
So far the guide had not attempted to lead them astray. That treachery would be planned for deeper into the wild mountains that barred the passage from the Tigris to the Caspian. The brother of Lucia’s dead husband was a merchant, and he spoke Greek. He had an abrupt manner and an untrustworthy face. Did not some philosophers say that all trade involved cheating? Merchants bought goods cheap to sell them at a profit. On this journey, the man had a more deadly deceit in mind.
Short of the top, Valens looked along the column. As usual, Hairan was out in front, on point. The track here was wide enough for three horses abreast. The guide rode between Valens and Iudex, with Narses following. Behind them Decimus led the four spare horses carrying the provisions. They had bought two new animals in the village to join the bell-mare and the sole survivor of those with which they had set out. The new beasts were not yet accustomed to the routine, and were playing up. Decimus was a fine horseman, and controlled them with patience and firmness. Clemens and Aulus brought up the rear. At each stop in the day Valens had altered the order of march, so that all except Hairan and Decimus shared in the discomfort of riding at the tail through the clinging dust raised by those in front.
‘What are you doing here, woman?’ The guide was startled and furious.
Lucia sat her horse across the path. Hairan had gone on ahead.
‘Exposing your treachery,’ Lucia said.
‘What are you talking about?’ The guide pushed his horse alongside hers.
‘Your secret is uncovered.’
‘Have you no shame?’
‘Do not talk to me of shame. Your brother was a man. You are a snake.’
‘My brother was weak, always too soft on you.’ He raised his fist. ‘You will learn obedience.’
Before the blow could land, Iudex grabbed the guide by the scruff of the neck and hauled him almost out of the saddle.
‘You pollute the light in your soul,’ Iudex said, before his huge hand released its grip.
The guide landed hard, but was on his feet in a moment, groping for the hilt of his sword.
‘Not a good idea,’ Valens said, nudging his mount between the guide and the woman.
Looking up at the grim-faced men, all defiance left the guide. ‘Take the bitch, if you want her. She can entertain you all. She will enjoy being on her back. Good riddance – only our customs forced me to marry the whore.’
Iudex swung down, and threw his reins to Narses. With brisk efficiency, he disarmed and searched the guide.
‘Where did you plan to abandon us?’ Valens said.
‘Never! I would not do such a thing.’
Iudex cuffed the man. The guide staggered.
‘I have done you no wrong.’
Iudex hit him again, but this time he punched him hard in the kidneys.
From where he had crumpled to the ground on his knees, the man looked up. ‘It was not my idea. The headman forced me to take an oath. He would have killed me otherwise.’
‘What did he make you swear?’ Valens said.
‘To take you into the uninhabited wastes, to steal your precious things, leave you to die. But I was going to tell you.’
‘Are there others following us?’
‘No, just me. But I would never have done it.’
‘And what shall we do with you now?’ The question had been much on Valens’s mind. He had reached no conclusion.
The man spread his hands in supplication. ‘I will tell him that I have done what he told me, that you are lost, that you will never find your way out of the mountains.’
‘And when he asks for the jewels?’
‘I will say they were too well guarded. It is revenge he really wants, revenge for the retainer you killed.’
‘You will tell him that we are a day’s ride away,’ Iudex said, ‘and he will send riders after us.’
‘I would never do such a thing!’
‘Not a man like you.’ With one fluid motion, Iudex drew his sword and struck. There was a sound like someone breaking the carcass of a chicken or some other roast fowl as the blade bit into the man’s skull.
Lucia gasped.
‘You said you would be happy to see him dead.’ Iudex smiled. ‘Consider yourself divorced.’
‘You should have waited for my order,’ Valens said.
‘Then it would have been on your conscience,’ Iudex replied. ‘Mine is clear.’
Iudex cleaned his sword on the dead man’s tunic before sliding it back into its scabbard. He took the purse from the belt, gathered the guide’s sword and knife, and handed them to Lucia. ‘Do you want his rings?’
Holding the things she had been given, as if unsure of what to do with them, Lucia shook her head.
Iudex went back and crouched over the corpse. With his dagger he severed two of the fingers, which, after he had removed the rings, he tossed aside.
‘In the strict letter of the law, all manubiae goes to the Emperor,’ Iudex said, again wiping the blade on the dead man’s clothes. ‘But this booty is a long way from Rome. They might fit you, Narses. You like pretty things.’
The Persian caught them in mid-air and, grinning, examined them before slipping them on his fingers.
Iudex regarded the man’s boots. ‘Shoddy local workmanship. You would have thought a well-travelled merchant would have owned better.’
Valens thought he ought to reassert his authority. ‘Get rid of the body.’
‘The dead tell no tales.’ Iudex took the man by his unwanted boots and dragged him to the precipice. The ruined head left a trail of gore on the track. A shove and he was gone.
*
Lucia was as good as her word, and she guided them unerringly. Sometimes they went down in the twisting valley bottoms, where fast streams rushed over pebbles worn round and glassy by the ages. At others they switch-backed up scarred slopes to follow narrow paths along the crests. They came to an wide upland plain with a saline lake. The surface of the water was as smooth as marble and alive with shell ducks and avocets. Its beaches were white with the salt, and its rocks also encrusted, as if thick with the droppings of seabirds. Here the villages were more substantial than the isolated hamlets of the heights. The inhabitants were cautious of the armed men, but accepted Persian coins for what produce they could spare. In this region they were able to purchase replacements for two of the horses that had gone lame. Well mounted and fully provisioned, again they climbed, this time to yet higher ranges, where snow lay on the highest summits.
The season was changing. The sun still shone, but with less ferocity. At night in the mountains the temperature plummeted. Some evenings it rained, and afterwards the air brought the tang of autumn. Valens had lost track of time. He thought it was towards the end of
September. As they had gone on, somehow the customary man-made divisions of time – the days and the months – had lost their hold. They had been replaced by the endlessly repeated routine of the march: the four watches of the night, first light and seeing to the horses, feeding themselves, breaking camp, setting out at a walk, then a trot, the first halt to check the girths and relieve themselves, all the way through to making camp again, bedding down the horses, eating their rations, and falling into their bedrolls.
Lucia fitted into the routine. None of the men bothered or importuned her. They seemed, if anything, to have adopted her as something between a cherished pet or a mascot. And, of course, they all knew that without her they would be lost.
Once, not long after the killing, Valens had asked her what she intended to do. She had replied that if the gods did not provide, she was not without resource. The future had not been discussed again on the journey.
Finally, she led them to a river running east. At first it was fast and shallow. Descending, it gathered volume from smaller streams. The rock walls fell back, and it meandered, wide and deep, through a green valley of its own making. Isolated tall outcrops of banded rock testified to its power and its changes of course over time.
When the wind was in the east, it brought the smell of the sea.
Then they came to the bridge.
There were actually two bridges. The older was rickety and wooden, undoubtedly made by the population of the settlement on the far bank. The other was under construction. Its masonry piers jutted from the water, and the first two were spanned by well-proportioned arches of dressed stone. It caught the men unawares. They had viewed its like innumerable times, but had never expected to see such a thing here.
The warriors were waiting a hundred paces in front of the bridges. A dozen horse archers, commanded by an officer in elaborate, chased armour. They had their bows in their hands, but they sat their horses easily, confident in their numbers and skill in the face of these ragged, travel-worn horsemen coming down from the hills.
The sight of them gave Valens an unexpected shock. These were the first Persian soldiers they had seen since entering the realm of the Sassanids. Somehow, in the mountains, although hundreds of miles into enemy territory, Valens had almost forgotten they were in lands ruled by Shapur, the King of Kings. In a sense he had been right. Both empires, Roman and Persian, claimed to rule the mountainous regions within their borders. Yet neither exercised any lasting control. Occasionally they might send in a punitive expedition to burn a few villages. Otherwise, providing the inhabitants paid at least some nominal taxes, and did not too often plunder the neighbouring lowlands, the authorities left them alone.
A worrying thought struck Valens. What if the headman of Lucia’s village had sent a fast messenger along some other path? Were these soldiers waiting specifically for them? He was relieved that Hairan would do the talking.
They reined in. Valens forced himself to relax, keep his hand away from the hilt of his sword. His tense posture was mirrored by the rest of the party, and he wondered if the Persians would sense their unease.
Hairan alone seemed unaffected. The Hatrene nudged his mount up to that of the officer, greeted him with effusive formality.
The officer answered with reserve.
Hairan gave him the document written by the eunuch at the border. When he had read it, the officer spoke sharply. Valens had picked up enough Persian to gather that there was something missing or wrong with the document. With a courtly gesture, Hairan produced one of the little cameos, and presented it to the officer. Mollified, the officer slipped it into a purse on his belt.
The main business satisfactorily conducted, the officer surveyed the others. His gaze lingered first on Lucia. Hairan spoke rapidly, and Valens heard his own name and the word Antioch. The officer glanced over, said something dismissive, then turned to Narses. He snapped a question. Narses answered with a bow. The Persian replied, laughing unpleasantly. Valens caught the word Cilicia. Narses’s face went rigid, but he said nothing.
The officer gave Hairan some more instructions, then waved them through.
Those labouring on the stone bridge stopped and stared at the riders when they came close. Dressed in work tunics, the majority were fair skinned, several sunburnt. Valens regarded them in turn, with a sad and mounting certainty. Hairan led the column across the native bridge. Its boards rattled under the hooves of their horses.
When they were trotting towards the settlement, Valens asked what had been said.
Hairan stroked his long moustaches, much amused.
Before he could answer, Narses broke in. ‘The officer said I looked Persian. When I told him that I was of the clan Suren, he said my mother must have been some Cilician slave lucky enough to be raped by a Persian warrior, the impudent ill-bred fucker.’
‘Very proud, these Persians,’ Hairan said. ‘He also asked about Lucia. I said she was no slave girl, but the wife of our esteemed leader, Marcus Aelius Valens, the merchant from Antioch. He said you were lucky not to have been at home when the Persians sacked the city.’
‘Narses is right, he is a very impudent fucker.’
‘And he also said there was no accommodation free in the village, and we must camp outside. Finally he told us not to talk to the prisoners working on the bridge, I think you can work out why.’
* * *
Valens went into the settlement with Aulus and Hairan to buy provisions. Aulus was the quartermaster, and none of the others could haggle, seemingly in any language, as well as Hairan. As had become usual when the party was divided, Valens left Decimus in charge of the camp. The horse master was a sober and reliable man.
When they had made their purchases, Valens thought they could do with a drink. Hairan was always amiable company, and Valens’s relations with the previously mulish Aulus had been much improved after their experiences with the ‘daemon’ in the caves.
As in every village, there was a tavern opening onto the square. The afternoon was cool, with a hint of rain in the air. They left the animals loaded with food and fodder tethered to the rail outside. The bar was small and dark and rudimentary, and smelt of stale wine and old cooking. A bored-looking, slatternly girl stood behind the rough-jointed wooden bar. There were only two customers, sitting side by side at a table by the stairs at the rear of the room, facing the door. One was an older man, the other much younger. Both wore clean and respectable tunics, trousers and boots. On the right forearm of each was a tattoo.
‘You are a long way from home, brothers,’ the older man said.
Although, since the bridge, he had half expected such an encounter, it took a moment before Valens realised that the man had spoken in Latin.
‘And you, brothers,’ Aulus replied.
Perhaps the drink had been a mistake, Valens thought. The Persian officer had warned them not to fraternise with the prisoners. Well, it was too late now. To Hades with the Persian.
‘Health and great joy,’ Valens said. ‘Let us get you a drink.’
‘That would be most civil.’
Without being asked, Hairan went to the bar and spoke to the girl.
Before Valens and Aulus sat down, the two men got up and shook their hands.
‘Marcus Julius Priscus, sometime prefect of the camp of the Third Gallica,’ the older man said. ‘This is Titus, my nephew. He was just sixteen, a new recruit.’
‘Marcus Aelius Valens, a merchant out of Antioch. This is Aulus, and over there is Hairan. They are caravan guards.’
The older man raised an eyebrow. ‘If you say so.’
The introductions made, they all sat down together.
‘Where were you taken?’ Valens asked.
‘Beyond Edessa with Valerian.’
‘Not good.’
The old soldier shrugged. ‘The campaign was ill-fated from the start. After we crossed the Euphrates at Samosata, the first rations issued were lentils and salt, the food of mourning, offerings to the dead.’
&nbs
p; The girl brought cups and pitchers of wine and water. As soon as she had put them down, Hairan took her arm and led her to the stairs.
‘Excuse me,’ the Hatrene said, ‘it has been a long time.’
The girl appeared no less bored than before as she went up. As if by magic, an almost identical girl materialised behind the bar.
‘You survived the death march,’ Valens continued to speak in Latin. It was unlikely the serving girls could eavesdrop.
The older man poured the drinks. ‘Once a day they drove us to water like animals. There was never time for all to drink. Those that could not keep up, the Persians killed.’
‘I heard that Shapur slaughtered men to fill a ravine, so that he could ride his horse across,’ Aulus said.
‘So they say, I did not see it myself. Cruel things happen in war.’
‘And how are things with you now?’ Valens asked.
‘They could be worse. Shapur gave us land, told us to build a city. Bishapur, he named it, the “beauty of Shapur”.’ The old man chuckled. ‘We laid it out like a Roman camp.’
‘Except the best part is the palace he ordered us to build,’ the younger man said with bitterness.
The older man silenced him with a look. ‘It is not too bad. We built bathhouses and a circus. There were charioteers and musicians and actors among the civilians captured in Antioch.’
‘This season Gallienus is fighting in the west,’ Valens said. ‘When he has defeated Postumus, it is thought he will march east next year to free his father.’
‘There have been such rumours for the last five years,’ the older man said.
‘You do not want to go home?’ Aulus sounded incredulous.
‘We surrendered. If we managed to reach the border, our citizenship would be revoked.’
‘Surely not,’ Valens said. ‘Your Emperor ordered you to lay down arms. The fault lies with Valerian, not with you.’
‘Maybe so, but I am too old to move. Besides, I have married a Persian woman. Now I have a son and a daughter. The Persians value our skills. We are paid to build roads and dams and bridges, like the one here.’
‘They work us like slaves,’ the younger man said.
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