Fire in the East

IX

Ballista pounded through streets filling with excited people. Swerving round the crowds, pushing past them, Maximus and Demetrius ran with the northerner. The already out-of-breath legionary soon fell behind.

By the time he reached the artillery magazine Ballista's lungs hurt, his left arm ached from holding the scabbard of his long spatha away from his legs – and the building was well ablaze. Mamurra and Turpio were already there. The strong north-eastern wind which had been drying out the rain-sodden land was fanning the fire, driving it remorselessly onward. Flames were licking out of the barred windows and around the eaves, sparks flying high then being whipped dangerously away towards the town. Turpio was organizing a work party to clear a fire break and douse the houses to the south-west. Mamurra had a chain of legionaries passing material out of the doomed magazine. To encourage the men, he was conspicuously running the same risks they were, darting in and out of the southern door.

Ballista knew he could not expect his officers and men to do what he would not. He followed Mamurra into the building. It was so hot the plaster was peeling from the walls and; on the beams above their heads, the paint seemed to be bubbling and boiling. Scalding droplets fell on the men below. There was little smoke in the room, but that was probably deceptive. The fire was surreptitiously outflanking them, creeping high, unseen, and into the cavities of the walls. At any moment the beams could give, the roof come crashing down, trapping them, choking them, burning them alive.

Ballista ordered everyone out, shouting above the inhuman roar of the fire. He and Mamurra fled only when the last legionary reached the threshold.

Outside, all busied themselves moving the rescued stores to a position of safety upwind. Then they watched the fire rage. The building did not collapse immediately. Sometimes the fire appeared to be dying down, before bursting forth into ever more destructive life. At last, with a strange groan and a terrible crash, the roof gave way.

Ballista woke to a beautiful morning, clear and crisp. Wrapped in a sheepskin, he watched the sun rise over Mesopotamia. The vast bowl of the sky turned a delicate pink; the few tattered shreds of clouds were silvered. Pursued by Skoll the wolf, as it would be until the end of time, the sun appeared on the horizon. The first wash of gold splashed over the terrace of the palace of the Dux Ripae and the battlements of Arete. At the foot of the cliff the wharves and whispering reedbeds remained in deep blue shadow.

Ballista had had only a very few hours' sleep but, surprisingly, they had been deep and restful. He felt fresh and invigorated. It was impossible not to be full of well-being on such a morning – even after the disaster of the previous evening.

Behind him, Ballista could hear Calgacus approaching across the terrace. It was not just the uninhibited wheezing and coughing, there was also some very audible muttering. Unshakably loyal, in public the aged Caledonian was silent to the point of being monosyllabic about his dominus. Yet when they were alone he presumed on a lifetime's acquaintance to say what he pleased, as if he were thinking aloud – usually a string of criticism and complaint: 'Wrapped up in a sheepskin… watching the sunrise… probably start quoting fucking poetry next.' Then, at the same volume but in a different tone, 'Good morning, Dominus. I have brought your sword.'

'Thank you. What did you say?'

'Your sword.'

'No, before that.'

'Nothing.'

'Beautiful morning. Puts me in mind of Bagoas's poetry. Let me try some in Latin: 'Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! The Hunter of the East has caught The Great King's Turret in a Noose of Light.

What do you think?' Ballista grinned.

'Very nice.' Calgacus's mouth pursed thinner, more shrewish, than ever. 'Give me that sheepskin. They are waiting for you at the gate.' His mutterings – 'time and place… not find your father spouting poetry at the sunrise like a lovesick girl…' – diminished in volume as he retreated into the palace.

Ballista walked with Maximus and Demetrius to the burnt-out shell of the magazine. Mamurra was already there. Possibly he had been there all night.

'We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.' The praefectus fabrum saluted smartly. His face and forearms were black with soot.

'How does it look?'

'Not good, but could be worse. The building will have to be demolished. Almost all the artillery bolts are burnt. All the spare fittings for the ballistae – washers, ratchets and the like – are buried under that lot.' He ran a hand across his face, the gesture of a tired man. 'But all the shaped stones for the ballistae were stored outside, so they are all fine. I am going to have ropes rigged to try and pull the walls down outward. We may be able to salvage some of the metal fittings, some of the metal tips of the bolts – depends how hot the fire got in there.' Mamurra paused, took a long drink of water and tipped some over his head. The soot ran, leaving strange black streaks. 'Anyway, not quite the total disaster someone wanted.'

'You are sure that it was arson?'

'Come with me.' Mamurra led them to the north-east corner of the building. 'Don't get too close to the walls. They could come down at any moment. But have a smell.'

Ballista did, and his stomach turned. He saw again the pole slowly beginning to turn, the amphora above his head start to tip, remembered the screams, and the other smell – the smell of burning flesh.

'Naptha.'

'Yes, once you have smelt it you never forget. Not if you have seen it in action.' Mamurra pointed to a small, blackened ventilation louvre high up in the wall. 'I think they poured it in there. Then probably threw a lamp in.'

Ballista looked around, trying to picture the attack in his mind: Last hour of daylight; no one around. One man, or more? And would he have run or tried to mingle with the gathering crowd?

'There are witnesses. Two of them.' Mamurra pointed to two men sitting unhappily on the ground, guarded by two legionaries. 'They both saw a man in the street of the sickle-makers running away to the south-east.'

'A good description?'

Mamurra laughed. 'Yes, both excellent. One saw a short man with black hair wearing a rough cloak, and the other saw a tall man with no cloak, bald as a coot.'

'Thank you, Mamurra. You have done very well. Carry on and I will be back when I have talked to the witnesses.'

The two men looked cowed and resentful. One had a black eye. Ballista well knew the mutual antipathy between Roman soldiers and civilians, but he was surprised by the stupidity of the troops. These two men had come forward to volunteer information. By some misplaced process of guilt by association, they had been bullied, possibly beaten up. There was no way they would help in the future.

Ballista, having asked Maximus to go and fetch him some fresh water, spoke gently to the civilians. Their stories were as Mamurra had said. It was just possible they had seen two different men. There was some uncertainty about timing. But it was equally likely that they just remembered things differently. Neither had recognized the man. The questioning was leading nowhere. Ballista thanked them and asked Demetrius to give them a couple of antoniniani each.

Ballista returned to Mamurra. 'Right, here is what is going to happen.' He spoke quickly, confidently. 'Mamurra, have this building torn down and rebuilt about twice the size, with a wall round it and plenty of guards. There is nothing like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.' Mamurra smiled dutifully. 'You are also going to form and command an independent unit of ballistarii.The twenty-four specialist ballistarii already in Legio IIII will be transferred to you, as will another ninety-six ordinary legionaries. Each ballistarius will be responsible for training four legionaries. By the spring I expect a unit of 120 specialist ballistarii.' Mamurra started to say something, but Ballista cut him short.

'Also by then I expect your men to have built, tested and sited another twenty-one bolt-throwers – there is room for two bolt-throwers on every tower that now contains just one. You can requisition any civilian labour, carpenters, blacksmiths that you need. Select the legionaries yourself. Don't let Acilius Glabrio pass off his worst cases on you.'

A slow grin spread across Mamurra's square face.

As Ballista walked away, Maximus spoke quietly to him in Celtic. 'If your young patrician did not hate you before, he sure will now.'

The telones, seeing them coming down the main street, knew that this was no time for jocular anecdotes, about philosophers or anything else. Certainly it was no time for officiousness, let alone extortion. The boukolos straight away started to herd a family of tent-dwellers and their donkeys out of the way, roughly pushing animal and human off the road, cursing them foully for dawdling. Warned by an urchin who ran errands for them, the contubernium of ten legionaries hurriedly stopped playing dice and tumbled out of the guardroom. Pulling their equipment into order, they came to attention.

The Dux Ripae gently pulled up his horse. He held up his hand, and his entourage of four halted behind him.

The customs official watched the northerner look over the Palmyrene Gate. Gods, but he was huge; huge and fierce, like all his kind.

'Good day, Telones,' said the barbarian in good Greek, an agreeable expression on his face. He repeated the affable greeting to the boukolos and the legionaries, then indicated to his men that they should move on, and rode out of the city of Arete.

'Nasty-looking brute, isn't he?' The telones shook his head. 'Very nasty. I wouldn't like to cross him. Savage temper – they all have.'

About half a mile from the gate, where the necropolis ended, Ballista reined in Pale Horse. He studied the tower tombs. There had to be at least five hundred of them. Apart from at Palmyra, he had never seen anything like them. Each stood on a square stepped plinth as tall or taller than a man. Above the plinth was a first storey, two or three times as tall again, decorated with plain columns sculpted in relief. Looming above this were another two or three storeys, each resembling a flat-roof house and diminishing progressively in size.

The dead were placed in niches in the walls inside with the precious possessions they would take to the next world. Grieving relatives entered via the sole door and ascended an internal staircase up to the roof to eat a funeral meal. The sealing of the niches and the securing of the tomb were left to the undertakers.

It must have taken generations to build them all, thought Ballista, and we have three months to pull them down. Left standing, they could shelter an attacker from missiles from the walls, act as observation posts, be converted into artillery towers or destroyed by the Persians to provide materials for siege works. The citizens of Arete would hate it, but the eternal resting place of their ancestors had to be razed to the ground.

'Demetrius' – as he started to speak, Ballista saw that his secretary had his stylus poised – 'we will need cranes with wrecking balls. We will need haulage – lots of ox carts for the bigger debris, donkeys for the smaller.' Ballista paused to make sure that the Greek could keep up. 'And lots of labour. There are said to be 10,000 slaves in the town. We will requisition every able-bodied male – that should give us at least 2,500. Then we will impress citizens and employ the troops – hard work, but the soldiers do enjoy knocking things down. In areas where no one is working at the time the ballistae can use the tombs for target practice.' The northerner detected a qualm on his secretary's part. 'Oh, of course, we will let the families remove their loved ones first.'

Ballista played with Pale Horse's ears. 'And would you make a note about security at the gates? The northern and southern postern gates are to be closed unless I order them opened. The guards at the Palmyrene Gate and the Water Gate are to be doubled. Everyone entering or leaving is to be searched, not just for weapons but for messages. I want the searches to be thorough: shoes, seams of tunics and cloaks, bandages, horse furniture – messages can be stitched into bridles as easily as into the sole of a sandal. Let Acilius Glabrio know that I hold him responsible for carrying out these orders.'

Demetrius stole a glance at his kyrios. He seemed to draw energy from violent action, from physical danger. Fighting the Borani in the Aegean, rushing into the burning magazine yesterday – after both, the northerner had seemed invigorated, more purposeful, somehow more fully alive. Long may it stay that way. Gods hold your hands over him.

Demetrius could not stop his thoughts returning to the dream-diviner. The encounter had shaken him. Was the old man a fraud? He could have worked out that he was Ballista's secretary logically. Demetrius had given away the fact that he habitually used dream-diviners when he talked of the doors of ivory and horn through which the gods send false and true dreams. As Demetrius had never consulted the old man before, it could be assumed that he was new to town – and who but Ballista had recently arrived in town with a young well-spoken Greek secretary in tow?

The old man had predicted tumult and confusion, treachery and plotting, possible death. Were the dreams divinely inspired, or was their interpretation more prosaic – a warning, designed to unsettle and undermine? Was it in some way connected to the sabotage of the magazine? Should he tell Ballista? But Demetrius felt obscurely guilty about the whole episode and, more than that, he feared Ballista's laughter.

Yet at that moment Ballista's thoughts were also of treachery; he was also trying to divine the future. If he went over to the Persians and were appointed general, what would be his plan of attack?

He would pitch camp about here; five hundred paces out, just beyond artillery range. In his imagination, Ballista removed all the tombs from the approach, saw the defences as they would be that coming April. He would launch an assault straight away. It would go in across the flat plain – no cover of any sort. From four hundred paces out, artillery bolts and stones would start to fall, his men would begin to die. In the last two hundred, arrows and slingshots would kill many more. There would be traps underfoot, pits, stakes. Then a ditch, more stakes, more traps. The men would have to climb the steep glacis, ghastly things hurled and tipped on to them from the battlements, crushing, blinding, burning. Once the ladders were against the wall, the survivors would climb, hoping against hope that the ladders would neither break nor be pushed over, that they would not be hurled to the bone-breaking ground. And then the final few would fight hand to hand against desperate men. The assault might succeed. More likely, it would fail. Either way, thousands of the attacking warriors would die.

A plain covered in dead and dying men, a failed assault – what would Shapur do? Ballista thought of everything Bagoas had told him about the Sassanid. It was vital to understand your enemy, to try and think like him. Shapur would not be deterred. He was king by the will of Mazda; it was his duty to bring the bahram fires to be worshipped by the whole world. This town had played him false before, opened its gates then massacred his garrison. This latest rebuff would be but another sign of the evil nature of its inhabitants. He was Shapur, King of Kings, not some northern barbarian warlord little better than the warriors he led, not some Roman general terrified of the emperors' disapproval. Casualties would not be an issue: the men who died would be blessed, their place in heaven assured. Shapur would not desist. He would not rest until everyone in the town was dead or in chains, until only wild beasts slunk through the ruined streets of Arete.

The party moved on to the entrance to the southern ravine. Here they dismounted and led their horses down the stony slope. Ballista went first, boots sliding on loose stones, slipping in the mud. At the bottom it was wider and they could remount and descend further. By the time the walls of Arete loomed high on the left they were deep indeed.

It was obvious at a glance that no one in their right mind would try and storm the southern wall of the town. It would take an age to ascend for the slope was long and steep and, apart from the occasional small thorny shrub, the side of the ravine was completely bare. Open to any missiles from above, it was a perfect killing ground.

Not that the side of the ravine could not be climbed at all. There was a postern gate at the top, and it was crisscrossed with paths or goat tracks. A guard would have to be kept. Many towns had fallen because the attackers had climbed difficult places that the defenders had neglected to watch. But only surprise or treachery could get the enemy into the town here.

As they rode on, the ravine opened out in front of them. From this distance, the city walls were invulnerable to attack by ballistae. Ballista noticed a large number of caves high up the slope just under the walls. Several vertiginous paths led to them.

'They are tombs, Dominus,' one of the cavalrymen said, 'Christian catacombs.' He spat. 'They don't want to be buried with the rest of us in our necropolis, and we don't want their corpses there.' He spat again. 'If you ask me, they are the cause of all our problems. The gods have looked after us, held their hands over the imperium for centuries. Then along come these Christians. They deny the gods exist, will not offer sacrifice. The gods are annoyed, withdraw their protection, and you get the time of troubles. Stands to reason.' Thumb between index and forefinger, he averted the evil eye.

'I know little of them,' said Ballista.

'May the gods keep it that way, Dominus,' replied the trooper, getting into his stride. 'As for their "Thou shall not kill" bollocks, I would like to see how they feel about that when a bloody great barbarian has his prick up their arse – begging your pardon, Dominus.'

Ballista made a negating gesture as if to say, Think nothing of it, I am often of a mind to inflict anal rape on members of minority religious sects.

The ravine narrowed somewhat, then opened out as it reached the floodplain of the Euphrates. Away to the right were thick groves of tamarisk, the occasional poplar and wild date palm. Turning left, they came to a gate set into a wall in such a way that it was necessary to turn to the left to enter, thus exposing one's right, unshielded side. The gate was a simple affair, and the wall a feeble enough thing, not more than twelve foot high but Ballista was not at all worried by the paucity of these defences. To approach them, the Persians would either have to come from the river – unlikely, given that the defenders would have requisitioned or sunk every boat on the middle Euphrates – or follow the route Ballista's party had just used – and that would be foolhardy as it would mean marching over poor going for several hundred yards, continually exposed to missiles from the town.

'Demetrius, please make a note: we will position heavy rocks on the lip of the southern ravine, to be released on any Persians foolish enough to approach from there.'

The gate sprang open, and a contubernium of legionaries saluted. Ballista and his men dismounted and chatted to them. Inside the wall at the foot of the cliffs more legionaries were tearing open the entrance to one of the boarded-up tunnels. Ballista looked up at the cliff face. It was closely stratified, line after close line of rock ruled across like a ledger. He suppressed a shudder at the thought of what lay behind, of the dripping dark tunnel he had edged down anxiously two days earlier.

They continued north along the water's edge. Everywhere was bustle and activity. Skins of water were raised from the river by means of ropes running over rickety-looking wooden frames and pulled by donkeys. Donkeys and men then carried the skins up the steep steps to the Porta Aquaria. Boats pulled in from the rich fields across the river, their decks full of figs, dates and trussed and indignant chickens. Farmers carrying or driving their wares added to the jostling on the steps to the town. The smell of grilling fish drifted from the market.

It was some time past midday, well past lunchtime. Ballista's party made its way over and one of the troopers ordered their meal.

Their horses fed, watered and tethered in the shade, the five men sat and drank wine and ate pistachios. The winter sun was as warm as a June day in Ballista's childhood home. Men busied themselves preparing the meal. The gutted fish were grilled in a metal cage hung over the fire from the branch of a tree. Juices spat and sizzled and smoke eddied.

At the foot of the steps, a goat escaped its owner and a furious burst of shouting in Aramaic ensued. Ballista couldn't understand a word. The irony struck him that he could speak the languages of these people's conquerors, the Romans, and of their would-be conquerors, the Persians, but not that of those whose freedom had been entrusted to him.

The sunlight glinted off the Euphrates as they rode on, full of goodwill. Ballista wondered how firm was the footing on the nearest island. If the Persians did not acquire boats, it might make a refuge, if the city fell, albeit a transient one. It was vital to have some form of exit strategy. He would do everything in his power to defend this town, but he had no intention of Arete being the scene of his last stand.

Having paused for a few words with the guards, the party rode out through the gate to the north, a twin to its southern counterpart. The slopes of the northern ravine were also steep but there were no paths on its bare flanks. The figures far away and high up on the battlements above the postern gate were tiny.

The rains had brought down a section of the cliff under the town walls and the fallen rock and earth stretched out into the ravine like a poorly made siege ramp. It looked unstable, its surface treacherous. Some attackers could climb it but, with use, it would most likely soon give way and resume its temporarily halted descent into the floor of the ravine. Still in high spirits, Ballista knew that had he been at the top he would have been sorely tempted to set Pale Horse at it, just to see if they could make it down in one piece.

'Onager,' said one of the troopers quietly.

The wild ass was grazing about a hundred paces further up the ravine. Its head was down, its white muzzle searching out camel thorn.

One of the troopers passed Ballista his spear. Ballista had never hunted onager. The cornel-wood shaft of the spear felt smooth and solid in his hand. A gentle pressure of his thighs, and Pale Horse walked slowly forward. The ass looked up. With a rear hoof, it scratched one of its long ears. It stared at the approaching horseman, then spun round and, gathering its quarters under it, sprang away. Ballista pushed his mount into a canter. While nowhere near full gallop, the onager was moving fast, supremely confident on the rough going of the partially dried-out bed of the torrent. Its yellow-brown back with its distinctive black-edged white stripe was pulling ahead. Ballista moved Pale Horse into a gentle gallop. Sure-footed as the gelding was, Ballista did not want to risk his mount flat out on shaky ground. There was plenty of time. This would be a long chase. There was nowhere for them to go except up the ravine.

The ravine closed in around them. Ballista could sense Maximus and the others falling behind. The onager came to a fork. With no hesitation, it bounded into the right-hand passage. Easing Pale Horse, Ballista looked around. The sides of the cliffs were sheer here. He must be about level with the western defences but he was out of sight of the walls of the town and the plain. A bend in the path hid him from those following. On his own initiative, Pale Horse followed the ass into the right-hand passage.

Down here, the heat of the summer still seemed to reflect out of the rocks. Clouds of gnats, washed by the rains out of the air up above, stung Ballista's face, got in his eyes, invaded his mouth. On and on, up and up the path climbed. The onager's hoofs raised puffs of mud as it bounded tirelessly on. Pale Horse was tiring. Ballista steadied his pace.

Suddenly, Pale Horse shied violently. Hooves fighting for purchase, he stopped dead and dived to the left. Given no warning, Ballista was thrown forward. All that stopped him disappearing over the gelding's right shoulder was his stomach punching into the front right-hand horn of the saddle. The horse, eyes wide with panic, was spinning in fast, tight circles. The motion was forcing Ballista ever further out, pushing him beyond the point of no return where he must fall. Instinctively, he still gripped the spear in his right hand, its point banging and clattering over the stones. Clinging with all the strength in his thighs, Ballista reached out and caught the nearest saddle horn with his left hand. With a convulsive effort born of desperation he began to haul himself back on. He felt the saddle slip, the girth coming loose.

Nothing else for it: Ballista threw the spear clear, let go his grip on the saddle and kicked hard with his legs. With a sickening wrench, his left boot caught on the horns. As the horse turned, Ballista was spun almost horizontally through the air. He tried to kick his leg free. His head was inches from the sharp stones. Fighting against the centrifugal force, he kicked again. His foot came out of the boot and he crashed, rolling to the unyielding ground.

His right arm was skinned, his shoulder jarred. He did not stop to check his injuries. He saw the spear and scrambled over to it, half on his knees. The weapon in both hands, he got into a crouch and turned warily around, looking for whatever had panicked the horse.

The great yellow eyes, blank yet cunning, looked at him from about twenty paces away. A lion. A male. Fully grown; it must have been eight foot long. Ballista could hear it breathing. He could smell its hot fur, thought he could smell its rank breath. The lion swished its tail, showed its teeth. It snarled: low, rumbling, terrifying – once, twice, three times.

Ballista had seen lions many times, safely confined in the arena. One had been despatched in the morning beast hunt in Arelate on the day he had first seen Maximus fight. Now would be a good time for the Hibernian to arrive and pay off his debt by saving my life, thought Ballista.

He had seen lions kill before – criminals, as well as a few beast-hunters in the arena. They used their momentum to knock the man down, pinned him with their weight and wide-spread, razor-sharp claws and sank their long, long teeth, almost delicately, into his windpipe.

Ballista knew he had just one chance. He assumed a side-on crouch and, gripping the shaft of the spear tightly in both hands, he wedged the butt under his still-booted right foot.

The lion moved, accelerating faster than Ballista thought possible. One bound, two, three, and it landed, front paws together, for the pounce. Head forward, it launched itself into the air at Ballista.

The spear took the lion in the chest. Its jaws opened. Its momentum forced the spear out of the northerner's hands, out from under his boot. Ballista threw himself backwards. A paw caught him a glancing blow, claws raking his upper arm, and sent him spinning back.

The lion landed, paws together, chest moving down, driving the spear deeper into its body. The shaft broke. The lion tipped over, slid on its back, legs splayed.

It got to its feet. Ballista pulled himself up, tugging his spatha free of its scabbard. The lion collapsed.

Maximus and the Christian-hating trooper clattered into view. 'You are the man!' The Hibernian was beaming. 'You are the man!'

A group of some twenty peasants had appeared from nowhere. They formed a chattering circle around the body of the lion.

'They may well want to worship you,' Maximus called over. He was still beaming. 'Your lion has been terrorizing their village.' He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 'We've come all the way to the villages in the hills to the north-west of the city.'

Maximus having been set the tasks of seeing to the skinning of the lion and the transportation of the pelt into town, Ballista walked over to Demetrius, who was now standing with Pale Horse.

'What is wrong?' Ballista looked up from inspecting the gelding's feet.

'Possibly it may be unwise to make too much of killing the lion.' The boy looked unhappy. 'Back in the reign of the emperor Commodus, one of the ruling family of Emesa, one Julius Alexander, brought down a lion with his javelin from horseback. The emperor sent frumentarii to kill him.'

'Commodus was mad. Valerian and Gallienus are not.' He squeezed the boy's shoulder. 'You worry too much. It will be fine. And if I tried to keep it quiet and news got out, it might look suspicious.' Ballista turned away, then stopped. 'What happened to the man?'

'He had to flee to the Euphrates, to the enemy.'

Demetrius did not add that Julius Alexander had fled with a young favourite. The boy could not keep up. The man had dismounted, cut the boy's throat, then plunged the sword into his own stomach.

Four days had passed since he had killed the lion. It seemed to Ballista that every waking moment of those days had been devoted to meetings. The cast had varied – sometimes a small group, just his familia;at others more, when he had summoned his consilium. Once, he had asked the three caravan protectors larhai, Anamu and Ogelos to attend. The scene and the props had remained constant: a large plan of Arete spread out on the dining-room table in the palace of the Dux Ripae; the current general registers of Legio IIII and Cohors XX, both now accurate, propped open near by; writing blocks, styluses and sheets of papyri everywhere. Out of the endless talk and calculations, Ballista had formed his plan for the defence of Arete. Now it was time to tell it to the boule, the council, of the city – or at least as much of it as they needed to know.

It was the kalends of December, the first of the month. Ballista waited in the quiet of the courtyard of the temple of Artemis. It struck him again where power lay in this town. In any city where democracy was more than a word the bouleuterion faced on to the agora, where the demos, the people, could keep an eye on the councillors. In Arete the council met in a closed building tucked away in the corner of a walled compound. It was a democracy guarded from its own citizens by armed men.

Watching Anamu step out into the sunshine, Ballista experienced the strange certainty that he had done all this before. A sinner in Hades, he was condemned to repeat this unenviable task for eternity. He would wait in the courtyard, be greeted by Anamu and tell the councillors some hard truths, some things they did not want to hear, things that would make them hate him. Perhaps it was a fitting punishment for a man who had killed an emperor he had sworn to protect, for the killing of Maximinus Thrax.

'Marcus Clodius Ballista, greetings.' The down-turned corners of Anamu's mouth moved. Probably it was intended as a smile.

Inside the bouleuterion it was as before, some forty councillors arranged on the U-shaped tiers of seats. Only Anamu, Iarhai and Ogelos on the first tier, sitting far apart. There was a deep, expectant silence in the small room.

Ballista began. 'Councillors, if Arete is to survive, sacrifices must be made. The priests among you can tell you how to make things right with your gods.' Taking their lead from Ogelos, those priests nodded their approval. The hirsute Christian smiled broadly. 'I am here to tell you how we can make things right among men.' Ballista paused and looked at his notes, written on a piece of papyrus. He thought he caught a look of disappointment, possibly shifting into contempt, on Anamu's face. To Hades with that – the northerner needed clarity, not rhetorical effect.

'You all know that I am stockpiling food – prices are fixed, only agents of the Dux Ripae can pay more. Again, you all know that the water supply has been taken over by the military: all water consumed is to come from the Euphrates; the cisterns are not to be drawn on.' Ballista was softening them up, telling them things they knew, things to which they had no great objection.

'Various things will be requisitioned: all boats on the river, all stocks of timber for building and a great deal of firewood. Also requisitioned will be large terracotta storage jars and metal cauldrons, all cowhides and all the chaff in the town.' The northerner noticed that one or two of the councillors looked at each other surreptitiously and grinned. If they were still alive when the time came, they would see that the last few requisitions were anything but the odd whims of a barbarian.

'Again, you know that everyone and everything entering and leaving the city is being searched.' There was a quiet murmur from the back benches. 'It causes delays. It is inconvenient. It is an invasion of privacy. But it is necessary. Indeed, we must go further. From today there will be a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Anyone on the streets at night will be arrested and may be killed. All meetings of ten or more people must obtain permission from the Dux Ripae. Anyone flouting this order, for whatever reason, will be arrested and may be killed.' The murmuring was a touch louder but, so far, the councillors found little to which they could really object: if a few of the common people got killed in the streets at night so be it.

'Some soldiers are billeted in private houses.' The muttering ceased. Now he had their attention. Given as soldiers were to wanton destruction, theft, violence and rape, the billeting of troops was always deeply unpopular. 'So that troops can reach their posts quickly, billeting will have to be extended. Buildings in the second blocks in from the western wall and the first blocks in from the other walls may be affected. A reasonable compensation will be paid to the owners of the buildings.' There was silence. The councillors were the great property-owners. Providing they could keep the soldiers out of their own homes, they might do well out of this. 'Also, the caravanserai near the Palmyrene Gate will be taken over by the military. Compensation will be paid to the city.'

Sunlight was pouring into the room from the door behind Ballista. Motes of dust swirled in the golden air. Maximus and Romulus came in and stood behind him.

'The nine hundred mercenaries of the three caravan protectors will be formed into three numeri, irregular units, of the Roman army. They will be joined by the same number of conscripted citizens. The troops will be paid by the military treasury. Their commanders will hold the rank and draw the salary of a praepositus.' Iarhai grinned. The other two tried to look as if it were all a noble self-sacrifice, Ogelos rather more successfully than Anamu. It was a windfall: their private armies were to be doubled in size and paid for by the state.

'There is a terrible need for manpower. All able-bodied male slaves – and we estimate that there are at least 2,500 of them in the town – will be requisitioned into labour gangs. They will not be nearly enough. Some 5,000 citizens will be pressed into labour gangs as well. Some occupations will be reserved. Blacksmiths, carpenters, fletchers and bowyers will be exempt from the labour gangs but will work exclusively for the military. The boule will draw up the necessary lists.' The three caravan protectors betrayed nothing but, behind them, the other councillors exclaimed with barely suppressed anger. They were to have to organize the handing over of large numbers of their fellow citizens to slave-like labour.

'These labour gangs will assist the troops in digging a moat in front of the western, desert wall, and building a glacis, an earthen ramp, in front of it. They will also help construct a counter-glacis behind the wall.' Here goes, thought Ballista, unconsciously touching the hilt of his spatha.

'To make room for the counter-glacis, the internal earthen ramp, the labour gangs will assist in demolishing all the buildings in the first blocks in from the western wall.' For a moment there was a stunned silence, then men at the back began to shout in protest. Against the rising noise, Ballista pressed on.

'The labour gangs will also help the troops to demolish all the tombs in the necropolis outside the walls. Their rubble will be used as the filling of the glacis.'

Uproar. Almost all the councillors were on their feet, shouting: 'The gods will desert us if we pull down their temples… You want us to enslave our own citizens, destroy our own homes, desecrate the graves of our fathers?' The cries of sacrilege were echoing back off the walls.

Here and there were isolated islands of calm. Iarhai was still seated, his face unreadable. Anamu and Ogelos were on their feet but after initial exclamations they were silent and thoughtful. The hairy Christian still sat, smiling his beatific smile. But all the other councillors were up and shouting. Some were jeering, waving their fists, incensed.

Over the uproar Ballista shouted that, from now on, for ease of communication, his engagements would be posted up in the agora. No one seemed to be listening.

He turned and, with Maximus and Romulus covering his back, walked out into the sunshine.