The Lost Ten

by Harry Sidebottom

  Fuck it. He couldn’t wait forever. If the sentinel descended, Valens would deal with him like the other two bastards.

  Valens went back into the room.

  The rug was ruined with blood.

  The old man held the boy tight in the crook of his left arm. In his right was a tiny knife, the sort of thing with which you might peel an apple. He shouted something in Persian.

  ‘Easy, grandfather.’ Valens moved slowly, calculating his leap.

  ‘Not another step!’ The aged Persian knew Greek. ‘I will not let you harm him.’

  Valens spread his hands wide. ‘I have not come to harm him.’

  ‘You will not take us alive.’

  Valens looked at the boy. ‘You are Prince Sasan, son of Prince Papak?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘I am Marcus Aelius Valens, a soldier of Rome. My men are outside with horses. We have come to rescue you.’

  CHAPTER 30

  The Castle of Silence

  ‘NADUK,’ THE OLD MAN WHISPERED.

  Turning, Valens saw the huge figure filling the doorway.

  Naduk the zendanig smiled. ‘Never trust a Roman.’

  Unlike the guard, the warden was not foolish enough to draw a long sword in a confined space. His dagger only looked small because his hand was so large.

  ‘And never trust the clan of the Suren. Treachery is in their blood.’

  Valens stood stock still. His eyes never left Naduk.

  ‘Unfortunate for you that I was standing guard on the battlements. I enjoy watching the sunset. The sunlight on the snow is very beautiful.’

  Valens started to back away.

  ‘But you are favoured by Mazda, Roman. Circumstances demand that I kill you quickly. The traitor Narses and the rest of your men will die with every refinement of cruelty.’

  Valens’s calf bumped into something. The table and brazier were behind him.

  ‘Eunuch, take Prince Sasan into the inner chamber. His time has not come. He should be spared the sight of more death.’

  ‘No,’ the boy said. But the old eunuch was dragging him away.

  The enormous sombre figure waited until the hanging fell back, obscuring the eunuch and the boy.

  ‘Put down the knife, Roman.’

  Valens said nothing.

  ‘Kneel and offer your neck. All your fear will be at an end.’

  Valens grinned. ‘Are you not so good at killing men who can fight back?’

  Behind the immense red beard, the warden smiled. ‘If I had time, I would make you beg for me to repeat that offer.’ Through the window, from far away, came the sound of men shouting. ‘Enough talk,’ Naduk said.

  Valens stepped forward, then turned and jumped over the table.

  Naduk roared with laughter, his massive shoulders shaking. ‘There is nowhere to run. Why postpone the inevitable?’

  Snatching the flagon from the tray, Valens threw it at the Persian’s head.

  Naduk ducked. The metal vessel sailed out onto the landing and clanged against the outer wall. Some of the wine spattered on the tunic of the zendanig. He looked at the stains dispassionately. ‘A waste. You should have drunk it.’

  Naduk stepped carefully over the corpse in the doorway. Once he was in the room he somehow seemed even larger.

  Valens kicked the table across the room.

  The big man let it hit his legs, then stamped it into splinters. The plates and the food were scattered across the floor.

  ‘Did you think that might stop me?’

  ‘No, but this might.’ Valens grabbed the leg of the brazier, and hurled it.

  With a speed and agility unexpected in such a bulky man, Naduk leapt aside.

  Valens started for the door and Naduk moved to cut him off. Sidestepping, Valens lunged with his knife.

  *

  Steel scrapped on steel as the blow was blocked by Naduk’s blade. The warden brought the heel of his left hand smashing into Valens’s face. Tasting blood, Valens staggered back.

  Now Naduk lunged. Somehow Valens twisted inside the attack. The big man’s momentum drove them together and across the room. Valens slammed into the wall. The back of his head cracked against the stone. His vision blurred. As if at a great distance, he heard his knife fall to the floor.

  Naduk changed his grip on Valens, and smashed him into the wall again. A surge of pain from deep in his stomach made Valens retch. The warden pinned him to the wall with one great paw, and readied the other for the fatal thrust.

  ‘Leave him!’

  Not slackening his grip, Naduk looked over his shoulder.

  The old eunuch had emerged from behind the hangings. He had the young Prince in a headlock, the minute dagger at his throat.

  ‘What will Shapur do, if you have let Prince Sasan die in your care?’

  ‘Put the knife down, you old fool. Everyone knows a eunuch lacks the courage to do such a thing.’

  The eunuch’s hands were trembling. The tip of the blade pricked the tender skin. A drop of blood as red as a ruby rolled down.

  ‘Drop the knife! Think of the pincers and the hot knives, Barbad.’

  Valens hung, limp as a rag doll, momentarily almost forgotten.

  ‘Think what you will suffer in the cellars.’

  No matter how big and tough and strong, every man has a weak point. Valens grabbed Naduk’s crotch. His fingers closing, he squeezed and twisted.

  The big red mouth in the big red beard bellowed with pain.

  Bracing his right boot against the wall, Valens hurled them both to the ground. He landed on top of Naduk. The impact jarred the knife out of the warden’s fist and sent it skittering off across the rug.

  Now Valens drove the palm of his hand into the other’s face. There was a crack as the nose broke. Valens rolled off, and scuttled on all fours like an animal towards his fallen knife. He heard Naduk getting to his knees. As Valens dived, a hand seized his ankle. His fingers closed on the hilt as he was yanked backwards. Twisting, Valens drove the blade down between the huge shoulders. Naduk bellowed like a bull in the arena. Valens wrenched the knife free, stabbed down again and again. Eventually the noise ceased.

  The dead weight was heavy on Valens’s legs. It took him a moment to summon the strength to push it off.

  The eunuch and the boy were standing staring at the dead man. The knife was no longer at the boy’s throat.

  Valens got unsteadily to his feet, trying to clear his mind and orientate himself. The coals from the overturned brazier smouldered on the rugs. The breeze from the window brought a tang of woodsmoke. There were things to do before he got out of here.

  ‘Gather anything you can’t leave behind,’ Valens said to the boy.

  Prince Sasan and the eunuch just stood there.

  Kneeling, Valens found the ring with the seal of the zendanig. He severed the finger it was on, took the ring, and threw the finger away.

  ‘Get your belongings, only the essentials. You are coming with me.’

  ‘Not without Barbad,’ the boy replied.

  Valens looked at the aged eunuch. ‘Can you ride?’

  ‘I am a Persian.’

  ‘You too, then.’

  They vanished into the inner chamber.

  Valens went to the door and picked up the sword of the dead guard.

  The eunuch and the boy reappeared. The eunuch had a small wrapped bundle. The boy was clutching a toy lion. Both wore hooded travelling cloaks.

  The first flickers of flame were snaking up one of the wall hangings.

  The keys!

  Which of the two dead guards was the one from outside?

  Valens could not remember. He took the sets of keys from both their belts. Then, for good measure, heaved Naduk over and took his as well.

  ‘We need to go.’

  When they reached the bottom of the winding stairs, luck was with Valens. The very first key he tried fitted, the tumblers clicked back, and the lock opened.

  Swinging wide the door of the tower revea
led a scene of chaos.

  Thick smoke billowed around the courtyard. The sun had set, and the gloom of the evening was lit by lurid fires. Horses and men were milling and shouting. The stable block was on fire.

  ‘You took your time,’ Narses said.

  The Persian was waiting at the foot of the outer steps. The shapes of other men and horses were around him.

  ‘Everyone here?’ Valens said.

  ‘Yes. Things went well with you?’

  ‘Never better. And I see you have been busy.’

  ‘Bad idea having the kitchens under the same roof as the hay stalls,’ Narses said.

  ‘Oddly, I think the tower might have caught fire too,’ Valens said. ‘Is the sentry still at the postern?’

  ‘Yes. Shall I deal with him now?’

  ‘Not in that way. Show him this seal stone, and tell him the zendanig has ordered him to open the gate.’

  Narses moved off. Decimus led up two spare horses, and gave the boy and the eunuch a leg up.

  As Valens swung into the saddle, he looked around the courtyard. Some of the garrison had formed a chain to pass buckets from the well. It was an enterprise doomed to failure.

  ‘The postern is open,’ Hairan said. ‘It is time we left.’

  *

  Before they crested the ridge that would take them out of sight of the castle, they reined in. As if by a prearranged compact, everyone looked back.

  The castle was a couple of miles away, etched black against the night by the flames. The north wind lifted great gouts of fire from the tower. They went streaming off into the sky. The walls of the tower were of stone, and might stand, but the floors and rafters were wood. The buildings in the courtyard would be burnt to charred beams and ashes. Despite the strength of the conflagration, at this distance nothing could be heard.

  For I know this thing well in my heart, and my mind knows it:

  There will come a day when sacred Ilion shall perish.

  The lines of Homer that Decimus recited were famous.

  ‘When Scipio said those words watching Carthage burn,’ Clemens said, ‘he was thinking one day the same fate would fall on Rome.’

  ‘Poetry, always fucking poetry,’ Aulus said.

  ‘There is divine truth in the greatest poems,’ Iudex said. ‘Although the works of men are nothing but the blink of an eye to the Demiurge.’

  Hairan laughed. ‘The King of Kings will be needing a new prison.’

  ‘And a new gaoler.’ Narses clapped Valens on the shoulder. ‘None of us would have put money on you.’

  ‘They will never find the bodies in the tower,’ Narses continued. ‘If the gods are kind, the garrison will suspect nothing. Perhaps they will think the boy died in the fire.’

  ‘He was wearing a cloak, but the guard on the postern may have seen him leave,’ Valens said.

  Narses smacked his hand to his forehead. ‘You should have let me kill him.’

  ‘I was not thinking far enough ahead,’ Valens said. ‘I was beguiled by my own cunning in taking the seal of the warden. It was a mistake.’

  ‘It makes little odds,’ Decimus said. ‘When they realise that we are truly departed, not cowering from the fire somewhere on the ridge, suspicion will fall on us.’

  ‘The confusion should give us a head start of a day or two,’ Valens said. ‘By the time they send out messengers, we will be well on our way. Narses, take point, and lead us out of these mountains.’

  *

  For a day they remained on the track, then Narses turned them onto a hunters’ trail running alongside a mountain stream. For two days they followed the bright water. At times the descent was precipitous, and they dismounted to lead the horses down in a shower of dust and sliding stones. The old eunuch was very frail, and had a persistent racking cough. Others had to lead his mount on the difficult stretches. But some indomitable spirit kept him going, and he never complained.

  They waited until darkness on the third day to come out onto the plains.

  Some miles off to the east, where the track down from the castle reached the low ground, were pinpricks of fires. Narses had said that a town called Varoshag was near that place. Valens asked him if these were its lights. Wordlessly, the Persian pointed to the north-east, where its fainter lights glimmered. They did not speak of this when they camped in a wood for the rest of the night. But they had no campfires, and they kept the horses bridled and close.

  The morning dawned clear and cold, but there were rain clouds building up to the north-east where they were headed. The countryside here was open, and already assuming the flatness of the Steppe. Narses said that the Walls of Alexander were two easy days’ ride to the north.

  They rode through wide pastures with many sheep. The flocks regarded them until they were close, then ran away bleating. Narses and Hairan spoke affably to the shepherds, but the herdsmen were uncommunicative and suspicious. Valens hoped it was caused by nothing more than their lonely calling on the margins of society.

  About midday they spotted a dust cloud coming down from the north. It was tall and thin, and none of the soldiers doubted it was raised by a column of mounted men.

  At least the plain was cut by many watercourses coming down from the mountains. They took shelter in one deep enough to conceal them from anyone not actually on its bank.

  The stream was no more than a trickle. But its bed was wide. In the spring, when the snows melted on the heights, it would be full. Valens and Narses lay in the reeds at the top of the slope. They were bareheaded and their faces and hair were plastered with dust.

  Slowly the pillar of dust crept across the plain.

  They did not speak, and the only sounds were the wind moving through the reeds and the muffled coughing of the eunuch.

  Narses broke the silence. ‘The westerners are unhappy about the eunuch.’

  ‘Unless the cavalry come very close they will not hear him over the noise of their own movement,’ Valens said.

  ‘They think eunuchs are ill-omened, that they bring bad luck, like monkeys. Aulus suggested they might smother him quietly one night.’

  ‘I will speak to them,’ Valens said. ‘The eunuch is useful to look after the boy, and I owe my life to his intervention.’

  Now the mounted men were closer, the hidden watchers could hear the thud of their hooves, and clearly make out the individual riders. A troop of Persian horse archers, fifty men in columns of twos, led by an officer in magnificent armour and a standard-bearer carrying a large banner embroidered with an image of a panther or some other big cat.

  Marching fast, alternating between a canter and a trot, they passed about a hundred paces away from the watercourse, and headed south. If they remained on that bearing, they would reach the foothills roughly where the Romans had emerged.

  ‘Warriors from the clan Karen,’ Narses said. ‘Good fighters, not as good as the Suren.’

  ‘A routine patrol?’ Valens asked.

  Narses shook his head. ‘When I was stationed here, the only patrols were north of the wall, keeping an eye on the nomads. Of course, they could be looking for a raid from the Steppe that has slipped across the frontier. But, with the camp at the foot of the main track, it does not look good.’

  They went down to join the others. Valens told Aulus to take some food, and go up to keep watch. The rest he ordered to see to the horses – including the mounts of Aulus, the boy and the eunuch, as well as the spares – and then gather to eat a cold meal. While they chewed hard tack and bacon, he briefed them on what had been seen. He spoke in Latin to avoid alarming Prince Sasan and Barbad. When he had finished, Iudex went off to one side to pray. Today, Iudex scooped some water from the stream into his mess tin, and then sat cross-legged, staring at its surface, seemingly lost in meditation. The rest remained sitting in a circle. The anxiety was evident on every soldier’s face.

  It was Decimus who voiced their concern. ‘It looks like they are expecting us.’

  ‘There has been no time for a rider to get
down from the Castle of Silence.’ Valens hoped the words sounded more confident than he felt.

  ‘Then they already knew we were coming,’ Decimus said.

  ‘If they did, I know who told them,’ Clemens spoke as weightily as a senator in the Curia.

  Everyone looked at Clemens.

  ‘Narses here is a Persian,’ Clemens said. ‘They are his kin.’

  ‘When have I betrayed our brotherhood?’ Narses spoke with quiet anger.

  ‘You made sure you did not kill any of your own at the supply convoy.’

  Narses looked disconcerted.

  ‘And now you are leading us straight to the Persian troops on the Walls of Alexander, promising us some cunning way of getting through the defences that you will not tell us.’

  Narses rallied. ‘I am no traitor. Put me to the test. Place a hot iron on my tongue, have me drink sulphur, pour molten metal on my chest; if I do not lie, it will run off me like milk.’

  Valens noted that Decimus seemed not to disapprove of this ghastly and divisive procedure.

  It was Hairan who put an end to talk of an ordeal. ‘The gods know, as a man of Hatra, no one has more reason to hate the Persians than me. But Narses has faithfully guided us to the Castle of Silence and then out of the mountains. Without him we would have been lost, as helpless as children. If he were a traitor, he could have deserted us at any time. When he returned with Persian warriors, we would have been at their mercy.’

  Gravely, Narses put his fingers to his lips, and blew Hairan a kiss.

  The handsome young Hatrene bowed in return. ‘Not all Persians are cruel, untrustworthy bastards. Even if they do fuck their own daughters.’

  Clemens was not quite finished. ‘Then how exactly are we going to slip through the walls manned by thousands of Sassanid warriors?’

  ‘We are not.’

  ‘What?’

  Narses told them his plan. They looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

  ‘It is insane,’ Hairan said, ‘but brilliant. I have always loved you – although not in the way your mother did.’

  ‘We have to leave.’ Iudex took a last look into the water, then tipped it away. ‘Now. We are in danger.’

  The laughter had died.

  ‘Anything?’ Valens called up to Aulus.