Carrhae

Chapter 9

Two days after we had returned to Dura another letter arrived from Silaces, this time addressed to me. It was delivered during the weekly council meeting in the headquarters building where a sweating Arsam, fresh from his workshop, was informing everyone that the last deliveries of the new arrows had been issued to Vagises’ horse archers: the final batch of half a million steel-tipped missiles that could go through our own shields with ease and could also pierce mail armour. The expenditure, as Aaron informed us after Arsam had been dismissed, had been extremely high, not only in steel but also in additional labour costs.

‘The armouries are already filled with bronze arrowheads,’ he stated, reading from the detailed itinerary handed to him by one of his clerks, ‘and now they are to be packed with additional arrows. I have to tell you, majesty, that the army is draining your treasury.’

‘You sound just like Rsan when he was treasurer,’ said Domitus, causing my governor to frown.

‘We must be prepared for when hostilities break out, Aaron,’ I said.

‘My men are eager to test their new arrows on the Romans,’ said Vagises.

‘I remain to be convinced,’ sniffed Domitus. ‘No Roman army has ever been defeated by arrows alone. It will take more than a few archers to stop Crassus.’

‘We will have more than just a few archers,’ I told him.

‘Perhaps Prince Peroz might like to issue his men with the new arrows,’ suggested Aaron, ‘then we could charge his father and thus alleviate the burden on Dura’s treasury.’

Domitus shook his head and smiled while Rsan nodded in agreement and Dobbai snoozed in a chair by the window. She opened her eyes and tugged on Gallia’s sleeve as she gazed into the courtyard at a courier pacing towards the headquarters building.

‘Ill tidings.’

Moments later one of the guards knocked on the door and entered, saluting stiffly.

‘Letter from Assur, majesty.’ He handed me the folded parchment, bowed his head and then left, closing the door as he did so.

I broke the seal and read the contents. I threw the letter on the table.

‘Surena has attacked Armenia.’

Domitus took the letter and read it himself, running a hand over his cropped skull as he did so.

‘Looks like the peace with the Armenians is over, then.’

I placed my elbows on the table and held my head in my hands. Silaces had reported that Surena had written to him that he had unleashed his Sarmatian mercenaries, supported by five thousand horse archers, against the Armenians. Silaces did not know why he had done so other than to provoke Artavasdes into retaliating and launching another invasion of Gordyene, which Surena could once again defeat.

‘I told you, son of Hatra,’ said Dobbai, ‘when a wild creature is in pain it will lash out in fury, and so it is.’

‘You should write to Surena ordering him to desist his activities,’ said Gallia.

‘It is too late for that, child,’ said Dobbai. ‘The marsh boy has tossed a burning torch onto a pile of hay. It will cause an inferno that will sweep over the land.’

‘Even if Surena obeyed you,’ said Domitus, ‘the Armenians will want revenge for what he has done.’

‘They will want his head on a spear and Gordyene returned to Armenian rule,’ said Dobbai. ‘Are you prepared to grant them those things, son of Hatra?’

I looked at her. ‘No.’

At a stroke my carefully laid plans for the forthcoming campaign had been wrecked by Surena’s foolishness. In his black despair the notion of burning and looting Armenian towns and villages may have been appealing but his actions had placed Hatra in great danger. At the end of the meeting I gave the order to prepare the army to march north and afterwards sent riders to Ctesiphon and Uruk to alert Orodes and Nergal respectively of developments and to ask them to bring their armies north. I wrote other letters to Atrax and Aschek alerting them of events in Gordyene and requesting that they march their forces west to Hatra. We would now have to fight and destroy the Armenians before Crassus arrived.

Dura’s army was up to strength and fully equipped but I worried about the forces of the other kingdoms. Babylon had been ravaged in the recent civil war and had lost many fine soldiers at the Battle of Susa, as had Media, and while I did not doubt the courage and leadership of Orodes and Atrax I was concerned about the quality of the soldiers they led.

Nergal’s horse archers I had no worries about: they were well-equipped and professional soldiers. My only regret was that there were only five thousand of them, the other five thousand he had previously brought with him being the retainers of his lords and thus part-time warriors. And then there was the problem of Hatra’s army, formally one of the most formidable in the empire but now shaken by losses and defeats. Only Dura’s army remained as strong and formidable as it had always been.

As the cataphracts and horse archers were gathered at Dura and squeezed into the legionary camp that held the Durans and Exiles, I summoned the lords to the city to explain to them my plan of action and their part in it. As usual the one-eyed Spandarat was their leader of choice. His hair was almost entirely grey now and was thinning alarmingly, though he was still possessed of that irreverence that he had displayed when I had first come to Dura.

I sat beside Gallia in the throne room and explained to the score of grizzled old warriors that once more they would be responsible for the safety of my kingdom and would provide garrisons for the two large forts at the northern border, the other one on the southern border as well as the additional smaller forts in between. Apart from a small retinue of full-time soldiers that were in effect their bodyguards, the only soldiers that Dura’s lords could call upon were the farmers that worked their lands and the servants that lived in their strongholds.

‘We would prefer to fight,’ said Spandarat to murmurs of agreement from his hoary companions.

‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘there will be plenty of fighting to do in the coming months, but for the moment I need you here watching my back while I deal with the Armenians.’

Gallia smiled at him. ‘Spandarat, we would like you to move into the palace and take care of our daughters.’

Once it had become clear that I would have to march north to fight the Armenians, Gallia had declared that she and the Amazons would be joining me to avenge Viper’s death. I could not see how the Armenians were responsible for Viper’s demise but made no protest — in this war we would need every bow and sword.

He winked at her and smiled. ‘Would be an honour, princess.’

‘Excellent,’ I said, ‘that is settled.’

They grumbled between themselves for a while but Gallia mingled among them and won them over. It was not difficult to do. They had always admired her for her fighting prowess and forthright nature and she in turn always told them how dear they were to her. Initially they had lusted after the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Queen of Dura but now they were older they regarded her as an adopted daughter and doted on her.

It was just as well that they were so compliant as the next day I received a despatch from Gafarn stating that Armenian troops were mustering at Nisibus. A great many of them! His missive dripped with fear and uncertainty and it was clear that his nerves needed steadying.

‘Hatra is a mighty fortress,’ said Domitus dismissively as I sat in his tent while he read the letter. ‘The Armenians have no siege engines and even if they did it would take them many weeks to drain the city’s moat and breach the walls.’

‘Gafarn is not a soldier like you. All he sees is the Armenians massing to the north and Crassus about to arrive to the west. Hatra badly needs a victory.’

He tossed the letter on the table. ‘Hatra badly needs a king who can fight.’

‘You are being unkind, Domitus. Gafarn is capable enough and he has Vistaspa to command his army.’

Domitus stood and started to pace up and down, tapping his right thigh with his vine cane as he did so — always a bad sign.

‘Vistaspa is old and had the stuffing knocked out of him at Susa. Does he even command Hatra’s army now? Vata should have been leading it but he managed to get himself killed. There is only one logical course of action.’

He stopped pacing and fixed me with his stare.

‘Would you care to enlighten me, Domitus?’

‘You must go to Hatra and take command of its army.’

In theory it might have been a laudable idea but if I did as he was suggesting it would fatally undermine the authority of Gafarn and make it impossible for him to remain king. There was already a growing number of dissenting voices within the city that were questioning the legitimacy of his reign. They said that it was not right that a former slave of the royal household should have succeeded my father, especially as the rightful heir was alive and ruling Dura. They wanted the two kingdoms to be united under one ruler and it was not Gafarn.

‘I cannot do that, Domitus, for to do so would emasculate my brother’s authority and that I am not prepared to do.’

He walked back to his chair and retook his seat. ‘You’ve been spending too much time in the company of Orodes. You are beginning to sound like him. In any case you are lord high general so in theory you can take control of Hatra’s army as part of your duties.’

‘No. Gafarn needs actions that reinforce his authority, not undermine it. We shall muster the armies of the kings at Hatra and then engage the Armenians, and afterwards march north to retake Nisibus.’

‘And what about Crassus?’

I managed a weak smile. ‘Hopefully we will have defeated the Armenians before he appears. But if he arrives sooner then I will have to deploy the reserve to delay him until we can march back south to engage him.’

He looked baffled. ‘Reserve?’

I tapped my nose. ‘Bringing back Silaces from Gordyene was not only designed to muzzle Surena’s aggression.’

‘Just as well,’ he said ironically.

‘It was also for the purpose of creating a reserve. Lord Herneus, the governor, can muster ten thousand horse archers from the lords under his control. Added to the seven thousand under Silaces that makes a sizeable number of horsemen who can be deployed rapidly north or west.’

Domitus was not convinced. ‘Seventeen thousand horse archers cannot defeat the Roman legions plus auxiliaries and Roman cavalry.’

‘You are right, my friend, but they can slow them down and give us time. Time, Domitus that is the key. I also intend to transfer the horse archers under the command of Apollonius in western Hatra to Herneus. That will give him an additional five thousand men.’

‘And in doing so,’ said Domitus, ‘you will sacrifice those towns in western Hatra.’

I held out my palms. ‘What can I do? I cannot be in two places at once. Thanks to Surena the Armenians are preparing to launch an attack against Hatra. Ideally we would have been waiting for Crassus at the border but now have to battle the Armenians instead.’

It took only a week before Nergal and Praxima arrived with their five thousand Mesenian horse archers and the thousand camels loaded with food, fodder, tents, spare weapons and arrows. They had crossed the Euphrates near Uruk and then travelled up the western bank of the river through Agraci territory before reaching Dura’s southern border. They camped two miles south of the city while their king and queen were lodged in the Citadel. I was disappointed that Nergal did not bring ten thousand men but he told me that he could not empty his kingdom of soldiers in the face of the impending Armenian and Roman threat.

From Palmyra came Byrd and Malik with their fifty bearded, dishevelled scouts on their wild horses, some of them approaching middle age now but having lost none of that semi-feral nature and appearance that set them apart from the rest of Dura’s army. They really were a law unto themselves; paid by Byrd from an allowance that was sent to him each month by Aaron and taking orders from no one save their paymaster and Malik. Most of them were Agraci but even Malik said that his own people viewed them as rough loners. Domitus believed Dobbai had created them by casting a spell but the truth was that they had become the lucky mascots of the army. Soldiers are very superstitious and when setting out on campaign every man always looked for the wiry men dressed in ragged robes that galloped out of camp before dawn and were not seen again until dusk.

It took a further week for the Babylonians to arrive: five hundred cataphracts of Orodes’ bodyguard, a further five hundred horsemen of Axsen’s Royal Guard, seven thousand horse archers and five thousand spearmen on foot. There were in addition a further three thousand foot soldiers from the Kingdom of Susiana, Orodes’ homeland that had been the location of the battle where we had finally defeated and killed Narses. Unfortunately for Susiana its troops had been on the losing side that day and had suffered accordingly. Still, it was fitting that a small number had marched with their king to represent him and their kingdom. I was delighted to discover that he had also brought Demaratus with him as his second-in-command.

The Babylonians made camp across the Euphrates opposite the Citadel, a sprawling collection of different sized and coloured tents pitched in ever widening circles around the purple marquee of Orodes, which though rectangular and larger than the rest was not as grand as the great pavilion used by his predecessor, King Vardan, while on campaign.

‘And there are no half-naked slave girls to serve you wine,’ he informed me as I settled into a plush chair in the central area of his marquee.

‘That is a shame. I always looked forward to seeing their oiled bodies when I visited Vardan on campaign.’

In order to leave us alone he dismissed the four officers from the Royal Guard in their gleaming dragon skin armour. He slumped into a chair opposite. He looked as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

‘Axsen has gone back to Babylon,’ he said. ‘She would not stay at Ctesiphon alone and when I am away she likes to have Nabu and Afrand close by her.’

Nabu was the high priest at the Temple of Marduk in Babylon, a dour, imposing individual who exerted great control over the city’s population. Afrand was high priestess at the Temple of Ishtar, a beautiful seductress who wore few clothes to cover her voluptuous body.

He sighed. ‘So we march again, my friend. It appears to be our destiny to spend our lives living in tents and tramping to war.’

‘The gods have willed it so.’

‘I sometimes wonder if they are any gods,’ he said bitterly, ‘or if there are why we waste our lives worshipping them and building great temples in their honour.’

‘You sound just like Surena.’

His brow furrowed. ‘What are we to do with him? I made him King of Gordyene as a reward for liberating the province but it seems I have created a monster that is out of control.’

‘He is still a good commander,’ I said, ‘but the deaths of his wife and child have unhinged him.’

He looked at me sympathetically. ‘As a man I cannot blame him for his anguish but as high king I must rebuke him for his recklessness when I next see him. Unless the Armenians kill him and defeat his army, that is.’

I thought of the training that Surena had received at Dura and that day when I had inspected his army.

‘I do not think you need worry about his battlefield prowess, Orodes.’

My friend’s mood was lifted later when I gave a great feast in the palace and invited all my senior officers and those of Mesene, Babylon and those with Peroz, the banners of these kingdoms hanging on the wall. The chamber was filled with laughter and chatter as the wine and beer flowed and men reaffirmed friendships and forged new ones. Thumelicus insisted on arm wrestling a great hairy brute from the Zagros Mountains who served in the ranks of the Susianans and we were stunned when he failed to beat him with ease. The bout ended in a draw and with the two of them, both very drunk, embracing each other and weeping like small children. It was a most curious spectacle.

Orodes was seated on the top table in the place of honour flanked by Nergal and me, with our wives beside us. Next to Gallia sat Domitus with Miriam beside him. She was uncomfortable with the rowdiness going on a few feet in front of her. She picked at her food and engaged in polite conversation but appeared horrified at the behaviour of some of her husband’s officers.

‘It is good that they can indulge themselves,’ he told her, ‘some of them won’t be coming back.’

Matter-of-fact as usual, his words did nothing to brighten her mood.

Gallia, once again in the company of her former second-in-command Praxima, displayed no such concern. She and the Amazons were eager to get to grips with the Armenians and the Romans, particularly the Romans. Much about Rome I admired, especially their military methods and just as Spartacus had copied them in Italy so had I adopted them for Dura’s army, but Gallia hated the Romans. She hated them all for enslaving her, for invading Dura when we had returned to Parthia and, strangely, for reducing the Gauls to a subject people, despite the fact that she derided her own race for their passivity.

I was still worried about Peroz’s welfare and was debating whether to leave him and his men behind at Dura. But the affront to his honour would have been great and in any case I needed all the soldiers I could muster, especially with Nergal’s shortfall, and so he would be coming with us. In any case he and his men had been doing a lot of work on the training fields working with Vagises and his horse archers, so to leave him behind would be most unprofessional on my part.

Regarding the Babylonians, their foot had fought beside the legions at Susa and their horsemen had likewise battled the army of Narses and Mithridates. The purple-clad foot soldiers had suffered heavy casualties and had crumpled during the battle but at least they were professional soldiers, unlike those from Susiana who had been recruited from farmers and hill men judging by their threadbare appearance. I would have preferred it if Orodes had left them in his homeland but for political reasons he had felt compelled to bring them.

Dura’s army, marching twenty miles a day, could reach Hatra in under ten days, but Babylon’s foot soldiers were not as physically fit as Domitus’ men and so the rate of march our combined forces achieved was fifteen miles a day. Fifteen miles tramping across hard-packed dirt under a hot sun with the air thick with dust kicked up by thousands of feet and tens of thousands of animals. The assembled army numbered fifteen hundred cataphracts plus their squires and camels, five hundred men of Babylon’s Royal Guard, twenty thousand horse archers, eighteen thousand foot soldiers and their hundreds of wagons and mules, and the camel trains of Dura and Mesene — two thousand beasts in all.

And because there were no water holes between the Euphrates and Hatra water was strictly rationed. So we marched with parched throats, sweating bodies and dust-covered clothes. The luckiest ones were the scouts: companies of horse archers who provided an immediate screen around the army and, further out, Byrd and Malik’s ghost riders riding far and wide to ensure we not surprised by bands of Armenian raiders. If the enemy was mustering at Nisibus it was highly likely that they would send parties of horse south to gather intelligence as to our movements.

‘There is no point in them sending out scouting parties,’ said Domitus sweating in his helmet under a spring sun. ‘All they need to do is talk with the drivers and guards of the caravans to learn what is going on.’

‘One of the disadvantages of so many caravans traversing the empire,’ I said. ‘The Silk Road carries gossip as well as goods.’

Apart from the scouts on patrol all the other horsemen were on foot leading their horses. There was no point in sitting in the saddle tiring our horses while we marched at the rate of a legionary on foot carrying his furca — a four-foot long pole with a crossbar at the top, to which was strapped a rolled-up leather bag holding his stash of personal equipment, which could weigh up to sixty pounds. Then there were of course the oxen pulling wagons loaded with Marcus’ siege engines. So Gallia, Peroz, Nergal, Praxima, Orodes and myself led our horses as Domitus left his position in front of the colour party of the Durans carrying their golden griffin standard to join us.

He looked at Orodes. ‘Shouldn’t you be on your horse, being king of kings and all that? I bet your brother never walked while on campaign.’

‘First of all,’ said Orodes, ‘he was my stepbrother. Secondly, I do not intend to change my habits just because I am high king.’

Domitus turned to Peroz. ‘What about you, young prince? Do you think King of Kings Orodes should be on his horse?’

Peroz, clearly awed by being in Orodes’ presence, was reticent to say anything, smiling awkwardly and then bowing his head when Orodes looked at him.

‘Leave him alone, Domitus,’ said Gallia. ‘Orodes has always been down to earth and will not change despite being high king.’

Orodes smiled at her. ‘Exactly.’

‘What is more remarkable?’ I asked. ‘That Orodes is king of kings, that Nergal and Praxima are regarded as gods in Mesene, or that Domitus managed to find a woman who would agree to be his wife.’

Everyone laughed and Nergal slapped Domitus on the back. It was just like the old times when we had all been together and Orodes had been a mere exiled prince. How things had changed since then.

For five days we made steady progress in a northeasterly direction towards Hatra. Each night we erected a large camp with an earth rampart, ditch and palisade toped by stakes that contained all the men and animals. It was a giant square in the middle of the barren landscape, each side measuring twelve hundred yards with four gates at each point of the compass. The men of Dura and Mesene slept in oiled leather tents; the officers of Babylon in round, voluminous tents and the foot soldiers of Babylon and Susiana in the open with only a blanket for warmth. I thought it most unprofessional but Demaratus informed me that the royal treasury did not have the money to purchase tents for its foot soldiers.

‘But it has enough money to provide the men of the Royal Guard with great canvas lodgings when on campaign,’ I remarked one night as I walked round the camp with him and saw the sorry sight of his foot soldiers sleeping on the ground, huddled together in their threadbare blankets.

‘They are lords and the sons of lords, majesty. Men of quality who live in fine houses and enjoy rich living.’

‘They are soldiers, Demaratus, just like these men lying on the ground.’

He looked in puzzlement at me and then at his foot soldiers. ‘These men are not nobles, majesty, they are merely poor villagers or homeless city dwellers who joined the army because it gives then regular pay and food.’

‘But you expect each one of them to lay down his life if called upon.’

‘Of course, it is their duty.’

‘And what of your duty?’ I asked him.

‘My duty is to serve my king and queen, majesty.’

‘Of course, but what of your duty to your men?’

He looked at me as though I was trying to trick him. ‘I do not understand, majesty.’

‘Every man in my army is clothed, fed, housed and treated the same regardless of whether he is the highest-ranking cataphract or the lowliest legionary. Each soldier in Dura’s army knows that his weapons and armour are the best that money can buy, and he also knows that his commanders, right up to the king, will never waste his life needlessly.’

‘But everyone knows that Dura’s army is…’ he stopped himself from saying any more.

‘Speak freely.’ I ordered him.

‘Forgive me, majesty, but it is common knowledge that Dura’s king is beloved of the gods and that its army is protected by the spells of his, that is your, sorceress. That is why it is invincible.’

I laughed aloud. ‘If it is invincible then it is because it is well trained and well armed and every one of its soldiers is proud to be a part of it. It is the small things, Demaratus, that make the most difference.’ I put an arm round his shoulder. ‘For example, if you provide your foot soldiers with tents they will fight better for you.’

He looked at me and then at the thousands of men sleeping on the ground in front of us in bewilderment.

‘Truly,’ I said.

He obviously found it hard to believe me but it was hardly surprising. Parthian nobles were born into privilege and viewed those beneath them with contempt, especially lowly foot soldiers who could not even afford a horse. It was convenient for them to believe that Dura’s army was so effective not because of its lowly foot soldiers but rather because it had the favour of the gods and its very own sorceress.

On the sixth day, roughly halfway between Dura and Hatra, Byrd and Malik came galloping back to the army with a score of Hatran horse archers. It was two hours before midday and their horses were sweating and breathing heavily as they were brought to where the kings were once again walking with their own horses. As Byrd and Malik raised their hands to us their commander slid off the back of his horse and went down on one knee in front of me.

‘Urgent message from the King of Hatra, majesty.’

He reached into a small leather bag slung over his shoulder, pulled out a folded parchment and handed it up to me.

I held out a hand to Orodes. ‘Get up. This is King of Kings Orodes. His eyes should read it first.’

The officer, mortified, looked wide eyed at Orodes and went down on his knee again.

‘Forgive me, highness.’

Orodes took the letter, broke the wax seal and read the contents. He shook his head, sighed and handed it to me. Peroz, Nergal, Gallia and Praxima looked with interest at the document I was reading. I finished and pointed at the officer.

‘You and your men report to the quartermaster and get those horses watered. They look as though they are about to drop, and get up.’

He rose to his feet. ‘I am ordered to return with an answer as quickly as possible.’

Behind us the great column of men, wagons and animals continued to march northwest towards Hatra as Orodes took off his floppy hat and wiped his brow with a cloth. He looked at the others.

‘It was from Gafarn. A great Armenian army is approaching Hatra and he urgently requests our presence in the city.’

‘It will take us another seven days to reach Gafarn,’ I said as the Hatrans followed Byrd to find Strabo. Malik dismounted from his horse and joined our little group.

‘The horsemen could be there in three days,’ suggested Orodes.

I heard footsteps and turned to see Domitus and Chrestus running towards us.

‘Problems?’ asked a concerned Domitus.

‘A large Armenian army is approaching Hatra,’ I said. ‘Our presence there is urgently requested.’

Domitus shrugged. ‘So they close the gates and let the Armenians waste themselves in a useless siege. They will retreat in a few days anyway when they learn of our approach.’

‘Gafarn has sent an urgent appeal,’ said Orodes gravely, ‘we must answer his request. It would be best for the horsemen to ride to Hatra as quickly as possible.’

Domitus looked at me in alarm. ‘I would strongly advise against dividing the army.’

Orodes looked most concerned. ‘Ordinarily, Domitus, I would agree with you. But these are not ordinary circumstances. Hatra is one of the largest cities in the empire. If it falls it would do irreparable harm to our cause and would embolden the Armenians further, to say nothing of the Romans.’

Domitus took off his helmet and ran a cloth over his sweaty crown. ‘Why would Hatra fall? Have Armenian siege engines suddenly sprung from the earth?’

Orodes frowned at his levity. ‘I intend to ride forthwith to Hatra with my horsemen. I will not command you to do the same Pacorus and Nergal, but as friends I ask you to do this for me.’

What could we say? Domitus was correct in what he said but Orodes only saw Hatra in danger and believed that he had the means to save it. Above all he believed that the office of high king demanded that he put the interests of the empire foremost in all things. Gafarn, shaken by his earlier defeats, had obviously panicked but Orodes could not refuse an appeal for assistance from another king in need.

‘My horsemen are at your disposal,’ I said.

‘As are mine,’ added Nergal.

‘And mine,’ said Peroz loudly before blushing.

Domitus stood with his hands on his hips shaking his head as Orodes laid a hand on Peroz’s shoulder.

‘I have heard that there was courage in Carmania and now I have seen it with my own eyes.’

Peroz puffed out his chest with pride as Domitus replaced his helmet on his head.

‘You and Byrd and your scouts will remain with us,’ he told Malik, ‘otherwise we will be blind.’

‘I will stay with the foot,’ I announced. ‘It would be wrong for all the kings to desert them.’

Orodes and Nergal nodded. Nergal used to be my second-in-command and was used to leading horse archers in battle while Orodes had formally commanded Dura’s cataphracts, so I had every confidence that they would reach Hatra safely.

An hour later fifteen hundred cataphracts and their squires, five hundred Babylonian Royal Guards and twenty thousand horse archers were riding into the distance and kicking up a great cloud of dust in the process. Gallia had decided that she and her Amazons would also remain with the army to assist Byrd and Malik’s scouts.

‘Has anyone thought that another Armenian army might be heading south towards us?’ she asked as she stretched out her lithesome legs in my command tent that evening.

‘Have seen no enemy,’ remarked Byrd as he chewed on a hard biscuit and sipped at a cup of warm water.

‘Gafarn needs to get a grip on his imagination,’ said Domitus, pointing at me. ‘If you were king of Hatra, which you should be, you would relish the prospect of luring the Armenians into a siege knowing that a relief army was only a few days away.’

I held up a hand to him. ‘Don’t start all that again.’

Later, as Spartacus and Scarab were cleaning my own and their swords, my nephew casually mentioned that he had spoken to a woman earlier.

‘Woman?’

He slid my sword back in its scabbard and picked up his own.

‘Yes, she was standing by my horse while I was grooming him.’

I looked at Gallia in confusion. ‘There are no women in Dura’s army aside from the Amazons.’

Spartacus shrugged. ‘She was not one of the Amazons. Perhaps she was attached to the Babylonians.’

‘I doubt it,’ I replied. ‘Are you sure you haven’t been suffering from sunstroke?’

Scarab laughed but Spartacus froze him with a stare. ‘She was real enough. Said that the city of Assur was in danger.’

Alarm coursed through me like a raging torrent. ‘What did you say?’

Spartacus stopped cleaning his blade. ‘She said that Assur was in great danger.’

‘What did she look like, this mystery woman?’ queried Gallia.

Spartacus thought for a moment. ‘Tall, thin, long black hair. It was a most curious thing. Even though I had never met her before she felt familiar. Her eyesight must have been poor, though.’

Gallia leaned closer to him. ‘Why?’

Spartacus grinned. ‘She called me “little one”.’

The next morning he and Scarab were mounted on their horses in front of the Amazons as I stood before an increasingly irate Domitus. Zenobia held the reins of Epona as Gallia, her hair tied in a plait behind her back, put on her helmet.

‘You are riding to where?’ asked my general.

‘Assur, Domitus, it is in danger.’

He looked behind him at Byrd and Malik who had been alerted that we were riding to Assur.

‘Have your scouts been riding near to Assur.’

Byrd shook his head, as did Malik.

‘Assur too far east,’ said Byrd.

Domitus turned back to face me. ‘Why would you want to go to Assur?’

‘It is in danger, Domitus.’

‘We have received no word from Herneus appealing for aid,’ he said, still disbelieving that I was riding with my wife, two squires and the Amazons to Assur.

‘We received word last night, Domitus,’ I replied.

Domitus would not let the matter go. ‘No one entered the camp last night or I would have heard of it.’

I walked over to him so that Spartacus would not hear me. ‘It was Claudia, Domitus, she was the one who delivered the message.’

He did not realise who I was alluding to. ‘Claudia?’

‘The wife of Spartacus.’

He went to laugh but then saw that I was deadly serious. ‘She is dead. I saw her body burn to ashes.’

‘Listen my friend. You will have to trust me in this. Get the army to Hatra and await me there. But I cannot ignore this warning.’

He looked at me and then Gallia and scratched his head. He then looked at Byrd and Malik. ‘These two and their scouts are staying with me otherwise this army is blind and one of us has to keep his wits about him.’

I smiled and slapped him on the arm. ‘I will see you at Hatra.’

It took us two days of hard riding to reach Assur.

A rider galloped ahead of us to announce our arrival as our tired beasts plodded their way along the dirt track, their heads bowed from exhaustion. A squad of foot guards from the gatehouse dressed in white leggings and shirts barged people out of the way with their spear shafts and shields to allow us to enter Assur. The city was its usual bustle of disordered activity on our right side, the southern part of the city where the general population lived and worked: a sprawling collection of one- and two-storey homes and businesses squeezed together alongside stables, brothels, market squares and animals pens. Overcrowded and noisy it also stank of animals, rotting food and sweating people.

‘I need a bath,’ said Gallia, stating aloud what I was thinking, and turning her nose up at the pungent aroma that was being brought to our nostrils by a southerly wind.

Our escort left us at the gatehouse of the governor’s palace, a large, three-storey building with shuttered shooting ports on every level. The palace was surrounded by a high stone wall with round towers positioned in each corner and along its length, though I saw few guards either on the walls or standing guard by the open twin gates. The palace itself was a single-story rectangular building arranged around two courtyards and as I dismounted in front of its steps the governor, Lord Herneus, escorted by three of his senior officers, descended them and bowed his head to me.

‘Greetings, majesty.’

Gallia also dismounted and handed the reins of Epona to a stable hand. The Amazons behind us did likewise.

I stretched out my arms as Remus and the other fatigued horses were led away to the stables.

‘Get their saddles off quickly and rub them down,’ I commanded, ‘they have had a hard ride.’

I turned to Herneus. ‘As have I. Are you well, Herneus?’

He nodded his bald head. ‘Well, majesty. This is a most unexpected visit, and it is good to see the Queen of Dura grace this city.’

Gallia had taken off her helmet and smiled wanly at him. She looked pale and tired, we all did.

‘We need to bathe to wash the grime from our bodies,’ I said, ‘but while we are taking advantage of the palace’s comforts you need to send couriers to your lords to order them to muster their men and bring them here, and fetch Lord Silaces also.’

He looked confused. ‘Lord Silaces is not here, majesty. He and his men left for Hatra a week ago, along with my lords and their horsemen.’

My legs suddenly felt weak. ‘Hatra?’

‘Yes, majesty. The king summoned all the horse archers in and around Assur to his side to meet the Armenian threat, foot soldiers too.’

I hardly dared to ask the next question. ‘How many men of the garrison remain?’

‘Five hundred.’

I looked at Gallia and then back at Herneus while the Amazons stood in tired groups.

‘Is there a problem, majesty?’ he asked.

‘Has there been any reports or sightings of Armenians in this area?’ I replied.

He looked at his men.

‘None, lord,’ said one dressed in a bronze and iron scale armour cuirass and a sword in a rich red leather scabbard at his hip.

I looked at Gallia and the Amazons, then at Spartacus and Scarab, all of them wearing tired expressions.

‘We will refresh ourselves, Herneus. Please arrange it.’

The guest quarters in Assur’s palace were even more luxurious than the ones at Babylon, though not as expansive. The walls were painted white and decorated with murals of Parthian victories over the eastern nomads, while the rooms were both airy and spacious. As we changed out of our dirty clothes slaves filled with water a great round bath sunken into the floor in a white-tiled room next to our bedroom. Throughout the palace grooves in the paved floor brought fresh water to the kitchens, latrines and private chambers, and other tiled channels beneath the floors carried wastewater to the city’s sewer and then to the nearby Tigris.

Slaves laid out fresh robes on our bed and took away our old ones to be cleaned as I eased myself into the clear, cool water as Gallia did the same opposite me. She had untied her plait and she slid under the water and then re-emerged and began to refresh her supple body with soap made from water, mineral salts and cassia oil. Despite giving birth to three children her belly was still flat and her skin did not bear any stretch marks or scars, unlike mine. By comparison I had scars on my back, one on my face, another on my leg and a new one on my left arm courtesy of Nicetas at Seleucia.

After we had bathed sweet-smelling slave girls wearing short white gowns massaged the aches and pains from our bodies with oil, their long fingers working the balm into my flesh and lulling me into a sense of utter calm.

We were awakened from our deep slumber by frantic banging on the door.

‘Majesties, the governor urgently requests your presence in the hall.’

We rose bleary eyed and dressed in our new robes; I in a white silk shirt and baggy red leggings and Gallia in a flowing white robe.

‘You look ridiculous,’ she told me as I pulled on my boots and buckled my sword belt.

‘And you look very feminine,’ I smiled.

She went to the door, opened it, told the guard to be silent and ordered him to fetch her a pair of leggings and a top. He returned breathless with brown leggings and a beige shirt. The slaves had taken away our silk vests so to hide her modesty she put on her mail shirt and then we went to see the governor.

The sight of guards and officials running round and the ringing of alarm bells outside told me that something was wrong before I set eyes on Herneus’ grim expression. He was a man of only medium height but his iron-like visage and deep, commanding voice gave him an air of authority. Now in his fifties, he had held the east of the Kingdom of Hatra for over twenty years.

I strode into the main chamber and Herneus rose from his chair on the dais to let me sit in it. He had also arranged for another to be placed beside it for Gallia.

‘I take it the Armenians have arrived,’ I said indifferently.

Herneus raised an eyebrow. ‘You knew they were on the way, majesty?’

‘I suspected. Where are they?’

Herneus pointed at a dust-covered soldier. ‘Tell the king.’

The man went down on one knee and bowed his head. ‘Ten miles north of here, majesty.’

‘Get up,’ I told him. ‘How many?’

He glanced nervously at Herneus before answering. ‘Thousands, majesty, mostly foot soldiers. I also saw rafts on the river being pulled by ropes from the bank.’

I dismissed him and turned to Herneus. ‘You have closed the gates?’

‘Yes, majesty.’

‘Get the people into the temple district.’ Herneus nodded to one of his officers who scurried away to organise the evacuation of the people from their homes and businesses to the temples in the northeast area of the city. These buildings were large and could accommodate the city’s residents, and hopefully their priests would provide them with solace. The main temples in the city were dedicated to Marduk, the supreme god of Babylon, the Sky God Anu and the Sun God Shamash. But there were also places of worship dedicated to the Storm God Adad and Assur, the chief deity of the city since Assyrian times.

‘Our defences will be stretched thin, majesty,’ said Herneus. ‘There are not enough men to man the entire length of the walls.’

I nodded. ‘That was the intention all along. We will reconvene in an hour.’

With Gallia I went back to our quarters where our cleaned clothes were laid out on the bed. I changed into my leggings, vest and white shirt and Gallia did the same. Spartacus and Scarab brought my leather cuirass and helmet, the latter having a fresh goose feather crest. Zenobia reported to Gallia and after eating a quick meal of fruit and cakes the five of us walked to the main hall. Herneus and his officers were waiting for us in their scale armour cuirasses, helmets in the crooks of their arms.

‘Let us take a look at the enemy,’ I said, striding past them towards the entrance hall.

As we walked from the palace across the courtyard and through the gatehouse groups of soldiers ran past us heading towards the walls. I thanked Shamash that both my father and his father, King Sames, had devoted much time and resources on strengthening Assur’s defences. In addition to the river that protected two sides of the city and a moat that covered the other two sides, a double wall, the space in between filled with buildings to house troops of the garrison, surrounded the city on the landside. On top of the outer wall was a parapet protected by battlements, the latter containing narrow slits from where archers could shoot on attackers below.

I gestured for Herneus to walk beside me.

‘I had hoped that when Tigranes died Armenian military expertise would die with him, but it appears that I was wrong. By massing a great army north of Hatra they have drawn all the forces of the western empire there, including my own army, but it appears that it was a ruse to divert our attention from their real target — this city.’

‘If Assur falls,’ he said grimly, ‘then the enemy will control the kingdom’s main city in the east and a major crossing point over the Tigris.’

‘And will deny our allies in the east the means to get forces over the Tigris,’ I added. ‘They have played their hand well.’

I could tell that Herneus was infuriated with himself that he had allowed his lords, Silaces’ horse archers and half his garrison to be taken away from him, and perhaps a part of him was also annoyed with his king, but his sense of loyalty would never allow him to say so.

We walked through the gate in the inner wall and then ascended the steps that led to the parapet on the outer wall beside the Tabira Gate, in the northwest of the outer wall. All three of the city’s gates had been closed by now and troops of the garrison, armed with bows, stood ready behind the battlements, but they were spread very thinly. The length of the outer wall facing the landside was over a mile in extent, with the rest of the perimeter fronting the river to the north and east.

The Armenians were making no attempt to approach the walls; rather, they were deploying their forces to the west and south of the city in preparation for an assault against the three gates. Their troops were dressed in bright uniforms of blue, red and orange; huge banners bearing the Armenian six-pointed star fluttering in the southerly breeze. I thanked Shamash that a deep, wide moat encompassed all the landward side of the city else the enemy would swarm over the walls and into the city with ease.

It was now three hours past midday and despite the breeze it was very warm notwithstanding that the sun was beginning to descend in the west, right into our eyes. The battlements were high on the outer wall to protect everyone on the parapet so we stood on large steps to see over the walls.

‘They mean to attack immediately,’ I said. ‘They wish to take advantage of their superiority in numbers and will have the sun behind them when they assault us.’

I turned to Herneus. ‘Send pigeons to Hatra and Irbil to request aid.’

He turned to one of his officers and gave him the order, the man running down the stone steps to a waiting horse that would take him back to the palace. Hatra was only sixty miles to the west; Irbil ninety miles in the opposite direction. A pigeon could reach Hatra in just over an hour and Irbil thirty minutes more. If we could hold out for two days then Assur might yet be saved.

‘They are going to try to smash through the gates,’ said Herneus, pointing ahead at what appeared to be a great tree trunk mounted on a large four-wheeled carriage. I now understood why the Armenians had been using rafts on the Tigris: it was to transport their battering rams. One ram was drawn up directly in front of the Tabira Gate and I could see another opposite the Western Gate. A messenger confirmed that a third was being readied to smash through the South Gate.

‘When they get near the gates they will be cut down easily enough,’ said Gallia confidently.

But I could see frantic activity around the battering ram as its large crew assembled a protective roof of planks topped with iron sheets over the tree trunk and its carriage. And behind the ram I could also see foot archers in bright blue tunics and leggings. They would provide covering missile volleys when the ram approached the gates.

‘We must concentrate our forces at the three gates,’ I said. ‘Herneus, give the order to abandon the defences on the riverside. The Amazons and a hundred of your men will defend the Tabira Gate, the rest of your garrison will be divided between the other two gates.’

He nodded and then beckoned over another of his officers to convey my order.

‘One more thing,’ I said. ‘Send soldiers to the temples asking that anyone who can shoot a bow is to report to the walls immediately.’

Each of the gatehouses on the outer wall had two storeys, each one having shooting slits for ten archers, and now they began to fill with troops as the garrison was concentrated at the three entry points to the city. Slaves from the palace ferried quivers of arrows from the armouries as the Armenians completed their preparations and made ready to assault Assur.

After an hour the enemy began its advance. In the van were the battering rams — sharpened tree trunks mounted on sturdy carriages with four thick wheels fashioned from the same thick trees that had been used to make the rams, each of them protected by crude iron and wood roofs.

Men wearing no armour or helmets clustered all around the ram’s carriage underneath its roof. They strained to heave the heavy ram towards the Tabira Gate. The trunk was secured to the carriage by ropes so the Armenians would have to literally ram it against the gates, relying on its weight and momentum to smash through the thick wood.

Behind the ram were the foot archers and behind them blocks of spearmen who would force their way into the city once the gates had been smashed in. They looked very colourful in their red tunics and yellow leggings, though as far as I could see they wore no armour on their bodies or heads. Armed with short stabbing spears and oval wicker shields, they would be useless in a battle but very effective for butchering civilians if they got into Assur. The archers and spearmen were grouped in blocks that numbered around a thousand men: two thousand archers and five thousand spearmen in total. Seven thousand Armenians were about to assault the Tabira Gate.

Herneus received reports from the other two gates that approximately the same number of Armenians was deployed against them — over twenty thousand troops against six hundred.

‘Long odds, majesty,’ he said without emotion.

‘Hopefully we can thin their numbers before they reach the gates,’ I replied. The Amazons were now lining the walls either side of the Tabira Gate and were inside the gatehouse itself, ready to shoot at the oncoming enemy. Full quivers lay on the parapet behind each Amazon, though I was concerned that there appeared to be too few for our requirements.

‘My lords and Lord Silaces took many quivers with them when they rode to Hatra,’ reported Herneus.

‘We will need runners, then,’ I replied.

Gallia looked at me. ‘Runners?’

‘Boys, children, majesty,’ replied Herneus, ‘who run around picking up the arrows that the enemy shoots into a city under siege.’

‘They run the risk of being hit by other arrows while they do so, surely?’ she said.

I shrugged. ‘If the enemy captures the city they will be either killed or enslaved anyway. See to it Herneus.’

He bowed his head and left us at the same time as those who had answered my summons from the civilian population began to ascend the steps to the parapet. My heart sank when I saw them. Most of them were either very old or crippled and deformed in some way: humpbacked, bandy legged, crook-backed or one-eyed.

‘This lot would be better off dead,’ I mumbled.

Gallia jabbed me in the ribs. ‘As they have volunteered to stand against the enemy the least you can do is show some courtesy.’

I smiled at her. ‘If it will amuse you, my sweet, then of course.’

An elderly man, tall with sinewy arms turned dark brown by years in the sun, was brought before us by one of the garrison’s officers. He must have been over seventy at least and had a bow slung over his shoulder.

He went down unsteadily on one knee before us. ‘I am Asher, majesty, and have been instructed to report to you.’

Gallia walked forward and helped him to his feet. ‘Rise, Asher. We are glad you and your men are here, are we not Pacorus?’

‘Ecstatic,’ I replied without conviction, earning me a Gallic glare.

‘I served under your grandfather, King Sames, majesty,’ Asher declared with pride.

I nodded. ‘I am sorry that the Armenians have dragged you out of retirement, Asher.’

‘I can shoot a bow as well as any man, majesty,’ he said defiantly.

‘I have no doubt,’ I replied, doubting whether his aged eyes would be able to even see the Armenians let alone shoot at them. ‘You and your men will take up positions either side of my wife’s warriors.’

‘The famed Amazons,’ he beamed.

‘Indeed,’ I said.

‘They’re coming,’ shouted Spartacus behind me as suddenly the air was filled with the din of drums and horns.

I turned and walked to the steps next to the shooting position he was standing behind and stood on them so I could see over the battlements. Already arrows were hissing through the air and striking the walls as the archers behind the ram began shooting at us.

I jumped down. ‘To your positions!’ I shouted.

Asher and his hundred misshapen wretches were directed to their positions as Gallia kissed me on the lips. ‘The gods be with you.’

‘And you,’ I replied.

She stood next to Zenobia as I pointed at Scarab and Spartacus. ‘You two are with me.’

I ran into the gatehouse and then ascended the steps to the roof clutching my bow with two quivers slung over my shoulder. Each quiver held thirty arrows and on average a skilled archer could loose up to three aimed shots every seven seconds, but such a rate of arrow expenditure would soon exhaust our ammunition supplies and also our archers, particularly the Amazons. Like all Parthian archers they used recurve bows made from sinew, horn and wood, but because they were women their bows were slightly smaller and thus had a reduced draw weight so they would tire less quickly. It did not mean their arrows were any less deadly than those used by any of my other soldiers, though. A bow is, after all, no more than a spring whose power comes from its user and the springs of the Amazons were deadly.

I watched the ram edge closer to the walls and above the tumult of the horns and drums I could hear the curses of the officers who were in charge of it as they shouted at their men to redouble their efforts. Behind the machine the blue-uniformed archers maintained a steady barrage of missiles at the gatehouse and walls, and then the Amazons began shooting.

The ram was around six hundred paces from the walls when their arrows were shot from the battlements. Gallia had given orders that half the Amazons were to shoot at the men pushing the ram, the other half loosing missiles at the archers behind them. Above all they were to shoot accurately.

Loosing arrows at a steady rate of five every minute, soon unprotected enemy archers were being felled as bronze tips landed among their densely packed ranks: two hundred and fifty arrows being shot at them every minute. The other half of the Amazons, including all those in the gatehouse, shot at the approaching lumbering ram. I released an arrow then nocked another, my nephew beside me relishing the chance to show off his archery skills to Scarab beside him. He shot an arrow, nocked another, shot that and then strung another in the space of a few seconds.

‘Don’t waste arrows,’ I told him. ‘Choose your targets.’

He flashed a grin. ‘Even Scarab could not miss that ram, it is so large.’

Arrows clattered against the walls and hissed overhead as the Armenian archers tried to silence our shooting. But Assur’s defences had been well designed and it was all but impossible to shoot an arrow through the slits in its battlements from several hundred paces away.

Many of the ram’s crew were hit and disabled and killed, but replacements were sent from the ranks of the spearmen who were following the archers. Individuals ran forward holding their shields above their heads as they tried to reach the ram. Most did but some were hit and collapsed to the ground with arrows in them as more of their comrades were despatched to take their places. And all the time the ram got closer to the gates.

I left my position and ran to the right side of the gatehouse to check on Gallia. There she was, calmly selecting a target and loosing an arrow. I kept my head down for the volume of enemy arrows being shot at us was prodigious. I saw Asher pull back his bowstring and release it, and then watched the man beside him jump onto a step to look over the wall and being struck in the face by an Armenian arrow.

I returned to my shooting position and used another five arrows then reached again into my quiver. Empty!

‘Arrows!’ I shouted but there were none left and one by one those either side of me stopped shooting once they had exhausted their ammunition. After a while only empty quivers remained.

I looked ahead and could see the amount of missiles being directed at the enemy was dropping alarmingly as we ran out of arrows. I ran down the steps to the next level and out onto the parapet. Gallia and some of her Amazons were still shooting but the others were similarly out of arrows.

I ran to Gallia’s side. ‘Deserting your post, Pacorus?’

‘We have no arrows left. As soon as you are out withdraw to the inner wall.’

Above our heads hissed dozens of arrows being loosed by the Armenians, many more hitting the walls in front of us.

‘We are going to die here,’ she said, looking above at the hundreds of arrows in the air.

Suddenly slaves from the palace came up the steps to the battlements clutching large bundles of arrows and began dumping them on the parapet. Others carried bundles into the gatehouse. A man in a short-sleeved white tunic and sandals placed at least a hundred arrows behind Gallia and bowed his head.

‘These are arrows shot into the city?’ I asked.

‘Yes, highness.’

‘Have many boys died collecting them?’ asked Gallia.

‘Dozens, highness, both boys and girls.’

I touched Gallia’s elbow. ‘This is no time to die,’ and then I ran back into the gatehouse as other slaves brought more bundles of arrows to the outer wall. Our shooting re-commenced and felled dozens of enemy archers but now the ram was close to the gatehouse — no more than three hundred paces away — and though resembling a pincushion was slowly but inexorably rumbling towards the gates. I cursed the fact that the bridges across the moat were made of stone otherwise we could have fired them, but as it was even if we poured burning oil onto the ram its roof would have protected it.

Armenians archers were collapsing in heaps as Gallia’s women and the army of cripples shot them down but still the ram came on. Now it was less than two hundred paces from the gates and I could hear the men groaning as they hauled its bulk forward.

‘They will reach the gates soon,’ said a concerned Spartacus.

‘Then we will greet them with our swords,’ shouted Scarab, releasing his bowstring.

The roof at the front of the ram was angled down to prevent us shooting arrows into its interior as it got nearer and so our arrows became less effective as it closed to within fifty paces and stopped.

‘They are about to ram the gates!’ I shouted.

Though wagons and braces had been piled up behind the gates there had been no time to reinforce them with rubble to build a bank of earth. We heard a great collective groan and then the ram rumbled forward across the bridge and into the gates. There must have been forty or more men under its roof and they managed to give the ram enough momentum to splinter the gates and force them apart. The spearmen out of range of our own archers began cheering and hoisting their spears aloft as the ram was hauled back in preparation for another charge. By now my right arm and shoulder ached from shooting arrows and the inside of my fingers were red-raw from clutching the bowstring.

The Armenian archers were taking a fearful battering as every arrow loosed by the Amazons found its target, but to give them credit they held their ground and carried on shooting, though I noticed that the density of arrows being directed at us had dropped markedly since the start of the assault. They too must have been suffering ammunition shortages.

There was a great blast of horns and those archers still left standing about-faced and ran back towards the spearmen, while the latter lifted up their shields in front of them and began to march forward, just as the ram was once more hurled against the gates. This time there was a cracking sound and then a grinding noise as the ram prised the gates apart and forced the supports behind them back. The outer wall had been breached.

‘Back to the inner wall!’ I screamed as the spearmen approached the stone bridge.

I was nearly out of arrows again so I grabbed the three remaining behind me and gestured frantically to the others to get down the steps in the gatehouse and to the inner wall.

And then I heard a new sound.