Fire in the East

XI

Gaius Scribonius Mucianus was dead.

Violent unexpected death in peacetime always draws a crowd. A dense throng of soldiers and civilians, old and young, clustered under the eastern wall by the entrance to one of the old water tunnels.

Romulus shouted something in Latin, then Greek, and finally Aramaic and reluctantly the crowd shuffled sideways, opening a small path to let Ballista and his entourage through. Mamurra, Acilius Glabrio and a centurion from IIII Scythica stood over the body. They turned and saluted.

Ballista looked inquisitively at Demetrius, who leant close and whispered 'Lucius Fabius' in his ear.

'Lucius Fabius, would you get the crowd to move back, at least thirty paces?'

The centurion rapped out orders and his legionaries used their heavy javelins as herdsmen use their crooks to herd the bystanders away.

Scribonius Mucianus lay on his back, arms and legs sprawling, head twisted sideways at an unnatural angle. His clothes were stained with long-dried blood and green mould. His face was a mottled yellow-green turning black. Ballista had seen more corpses than he wanted. Five years earlier, the siege of Novae had given him the unwanted opportunity to observe the dead decompose. In front of the walls defended by the northerner and his general Gallus thousands of Goths had lain unburied under the summer sun for nearly two months. Ballista guessed that the tribune had been dead for at least two months. Quietly he asked Demetrius to fetch a local doctor and an undertaker to make independent estimates.

'How do you know it is him?' Ballista directed the question to all three men still close to the corpse.

'Of course it is him,' Acilius Glabrio replied. 'Not that his looks have improved.'

Ballista said nothing.

'One of the soldiers recognized his seal ring,' said Mamurra. The praefectus fabrum thought for a while. 'And he wears the gold ring of an equestrian, the sword belt is fancy, the clothes expensive… There were thirty silver coins near the body.'

'Near the body?'

'Yes, his purse had been cut from his belt, the coins tipped out on the floor.' Mamurra handed over the purse.

'Not robbery then.'

'No, not unless they were disturbed.' Mamurra slowly shook his head. 'He was searched. The seams of his tunic and his sandals were slit. Searched but not robbed.'

There were stentorian shouts, loud military oaths. Again the crowd, which was growing by the moment, reluctantly nudged apart. Through the narrow passage opened to the corpse strode Maximus and Turpio.

'Well, he did not burn our artillery magazine,' said Maximus straight away. All the group, except Ballista and Turpio, turned to look intently at the Hibernian. 'Come on, it must have crossed everyone's mind. Now we know he didn't do it. He has been dead too long. By the look of him he was dead before we even reached Seleuceia.'

All the time his bodyguard was talking, Ballista was watching Turpio. The latter's usually humorous, mobile face was very still. He didn't take his eyes off Scribonius Mucianus. Finally, very low, he said, 'You poor bastard, you poor fucking fool.'

Ballista got down on one knee by the corpse and studied it intently, starting at the head and working down, his nose inches from the corrupt flesh. Demetrius, his gorge rising, wondered how his kyrios could bring himself to do such a thing.

'He was robbed of something if not of money.' Ballista pointed at the ornate sword belt. 'See – here and here, two sets of thongs which have been cut. These ones secured this purse.' The cut ends he held up matched. He picked up the other thongs. 'And from these hung a -

'A writing block,' said Turpio. 'He always had a writing block with him, hanging from his belt. He was always fiddling with it.' A wry smile passed across the ex-centurion's face. 'He was always opening it to do sums and write figures down.'

'Was it found?' Ballista asked. The centurion Lucius Fabius shook his head.

'Would someone get me some water and a towel?' Ballista didn't look but heard someone moving away. Allfather, power is corrupting me, he thought. I give orders and expect them to be obeyed. I do not even know or care who obeys. The corruption of power is as certain as the natural corruption in this corpse.

Steeling himself, fighting his natural repugnance, Ballista gripped the decaying corpse with both hands and rolled it over on to its face. He resisted the impulse to wipe his hands. Life in the imperium had taught him not to show weakness.

'Well, at least it is easy enough to see how he was killed.' Ballista pointed to a savage wound to the side and back of Scribonius Mucianus's left thigh. 'That brought him down. He had his back to his killer. Maybe he was running away. A sword cut from a right-handed man and, from the size of the wound, probably a standard military sword, a spatha.'

A pitcher of water and a towel were placed on the ground. Ballista shifted to look at what was left of the back of Scribonius Mucianus's head. The mess of congealed flesh and brains was totally black. Liquid oozed out. The wounds resembled coal tar and seemed to have its faint iridescence. Ballista was beginning to feel sick. He forced himself to tip water on the wounds, to wash them with his bare hands.

'Five, six, seven… at least seven sword cuts to the back of the head. Quite probably the same sword. What every master at arms likes us to do – get your man down with a leg wound, on all fours, on the ground, then finish off with as many hard blows to the head as it takes, as many as you have time for.' Gratefully Ballista let one of his scribes, the one with the Punic accent, pour water over his hands. He thanked him and took the towel. 'Who found him?'

The centurion waved a legionary forward.

'Gaius Aurelius Castricius, soldier of the Vexillatio of Legio IIII Scythica, century of Lucius Fabius, Dominus. We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready, Dominus.'

'Where did you find him?'

'Dominus, in a side gallery of this disused tunnel. Dominus, down there.' He pointed to some steps leading down to a black hole.

'What were you doing down there?'

'Ordered to search all the side passages and galleries, Dominus.' The legionary looked vaguely embarrassed.

'Castricius here had the skills for the job,' his centurion interjected. 'On account of his having plenty of experience in tunnels before he took the sacramentum, the military oath.'

The legionary looked more embarrassed. No one went down the mines by choice. As a civilian, Castricius must have been convicted of something bad to end up there.

'Well, Castricius, you had better show me where you found him.' Telling Maximus to attend him and everyone else to wait above ground, Ballista followed the legionary. Just inside the tunnel they paused to light lamps and let their eyes adjust. The soldier was making small talk. Ballista was not listening; he was praying.

This tunnel was worse, far worse, than the other one. The footing was rougher and more slippery. There were reasons it had been boarded up. Several times they had to climb over piles of rock fallen from the ceiling or collapsed from the walls. Once they had to crawl through a gap little wider than the northerner's shoulders. It must have been hell getting the corpse out of here. Down and down. It was very dark. It was very wet. There was water underfoot, water running down the walls. It was like a living descent into Niflheim, Misty Hell, the bitter-cold realm of unending winter, the realm of the dead, where the dragon Nidhogg gnawed at the roots of Yggdrasill, the World Tree, until the end of time.

'Here. I found him here.' They were in an abandoned side gallery, a dead end, too low to stand up in.

'Exactly where was he?' Ballista asked.

'Just here.'

'What position was he in?'

'On his back. Arms outstretched against the walls. Feet together.'

'Maximus, would you mind lying down in the position of the corpse?' Filthy as all three men already were, the bodyguard shot his dominus a look that suggested he minded quite a lot. Nevertheless, the Hibernian got down on the floor and let Castricius arrange him in precisely the right position.

'Scribonius Mucianus was certainly not killed here. Maximus, would you get on your hands and knees?'

The bodyguard looked as if he were going to make a joke, but decided against it. Ballista drew his spatha. He tried to mime a cut at Maximus's head. The ceiling of rock was far too low.

'It must have been hell getting the corpse down here,' said Ballista. 'It must have taken more than one man.'

'Almost certainly. But maybe one very strong man might just have been able to do it,' Castricius replied.

Emerging into the sunlight, they were confronted by a ring of faces. At the front were the army officers, Mamurra, Acilius Glabrio and Turpio. They had been joined by the three caravan protectors, on the grounds that, as commanders of units of numeri, they were also army officers now. Behind them, still kept back by the legionaries, the crowd had grown yet bigger. It was fronted by the other councillors, Theodotus the hirsute Christian well to the fore. The ordinary people, the demos, were further back and further back still were the slaves. At any gathering, the people of the imperium tended to arrange themselves by status, as if they were at the theatre or the spectacles.

'The poor fool, the poor fucking fool,' said Turpio. 'As soon as he heard of your appointment he started acting more and more strangely. Just before he disappeared, two days before I set out to meet you at the coast, he had taken to talking to himself. Several times I heard him mutter that now everything would be all right, he had found something out that would make everything all right.'

'What did he mean?' Ballista asked.

'I have no idea.'

Ballista was fighting the urge to leave his desk. He had a vague sense of unease, a strong feeling of restlessness. Several times in the past hour he had given way. Pacing about did no good. Yet it could have been worse. It was not as if he had received a nocturnal visit from the big man. Indeed, thankfully, the late emperor Maximinus Thrax had not made an appearance since that night on the Concordia off the Syrian coast. Did this undermine Julia's Epicurean rationalism, her view that the daemon was nothing more than a bad dream brought on by fatigue and anxiety? Since Ballista had reached Arete he had been dog-tired, and no one could deny he had been under great stress – one of his chief officers missing then discovered murdered, the other insubordinate and insufferable; the loyalty of the leading locals questionable; the artillery magazine burnt down. And at least one murderous traitor loose in the city.

It was the military dispositions for the defence of the town that were troubling him now. As a Roman general should, he had summoned his consilium, heard their opinions, taken advice. But ultimately the decisions were his alone. His plans had been finalized, making the best use of the pitifully inadequate manpower at his disposal, and were ready to be unveiled to his staff and put into operation. Yet he worried that he had missed something obvious, that there was some terrible logical flaw in them. It was ridiculous, but he was less worried that the thing he had overlooked would cause the fall of the town, lead to bloody ruin, than that the omission would be obvious to one of his officers straight away, that he would be exposed to the mocking laughter of Acilius Glabrio. A large part of him remained the barbarian youth of sixteen winters dragged into the imperium of the Romans. He still feared ridicule above all things.

Ballista got up from his desk and walked out on to the terrace of the palace. The sky was a perfect Mesopotamian blue. It was winter, the sixth of December, ten days before the ides of the month. Now the sun had burnt off the early morning mist, the weather was that of a glorious spring day in Ballista's northern homeland. He leant with his back to the wall of the terrace. From the river far below the sounds of the water carriers and the fish market, now all under military supervision, floated up. Nearer at hand, off to his left beyond the cross wall which separated the terrace from the battlements, he heard children playing. Turning to look, he saw four small children throwing a ball. One clambered up and stood precariously on the crenulations. Without thinking, Ballista started towards him. Before he had gone more than a few paces a woman in the flowing robes of the tent-dwellers snatched the boy to safety. Her scolding carried in the clear air.

Ballista thought of his son. Marcus Clodius Isangrim he had named him. No one could object to the first two names: nothing could be more conventional than the first son taking the good Roman praenomen and nomen of his father. Julia, however, had objected as vociferously as only an Italian woman can to her son carrying a barbarian cognomen.

Ballista knew that it was only their exquisite good manners, the manners that came with generations of senatorial birth, that had stopped Julia's relatives sniggering at the naming ceremony. Yet it was important to Ballista. Fear ridicule although he did, it was important that the boy grew up knowing his northern heritage. As he had tried to explain to Julia, it was not sentiment alone that had decided the choice. The imperium used diplomatic hostages as tools in its diplomacy. At any time, if the emperors became dissatisfied with Ballista's father, they would without a moment of hesitation uproot Ballista, send him back to the north and, backed by Roman arms and money, attempt to install him as the new Dux of the Angles. If Ballista were dead, they would send his son. Such things seldom worked out well, but neither Ballista nor his son would have any choice in the matter. So the boy was called Isangrim after his grandfather and he was learning the native language of his father.

They called him Isangrim. He was very beautiful, his hair a mass of blond curls, his eyes a green-blue. He was three years old, and he was playing hundreds of miles, several weeks' journey away.

And what of his familia here? Bagoas had taken a bad beating. He would be laid up for some time. Calgacus had been right that the boy should be followed. It did seem that, in his naive way, the boy was playing at being a spy. It was lucky that Maximus had been there. Calgacus was tough, but it was unlikely that the old Caledonian could have dealt with four legionaries on his own. There were two particularly worrying features to the incident. First, the legionaries had been encouraged, at least indirectly, by Acilius Glabrio. Second, two of the equites singulares had watched and not intervened as the boy was dragged off. And what should Ballista do with Bagoas when he recovered? Yet another cause of an uneasy mind.

The usual coughing, wheezing and muttering heralded the arrival of Calgacus.

'That hot-looking Syrian girl you want is here. I said you were busy, but she said she needed to see you badly.' The stress on 'badly' was accompanied by a lascivious leer of epic proportions. 'I hope you can give her what she badly needs.'

'Thank you for your concern. I will do my best. Would you show her in?'

'Dressed as a boy she is, trousers and the like.' Calgacus showed no sign of moving. 'Turn her round and you can have the best of both worlds.'

'Thank you for the advice. If you could show her in, you can get back to whatever appalling things you get up to in your own quarters.'

The Caledonian moved off in no great hurry, muttering at his customary volume. 'Whatever I get up to… looking after you morning, noon and fucking night, that's what I get up to.'

Ballista drew himself to his full height. Chin up, shoulders back, he willed himself to appear attractive.

Bathshiba walked out into the sunshine with Calgacus and one of her father's mercenaries.

'The Dux Ripae will see you now,' the Caledonian said with some ceremony, and left.

Bathshiba walked across to Ballista. The mercenary stayed where he was.

'Ave, Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Egregius, Dux Ripae,' she said formally.

'Ave, Bathshiba, daughter of Iarhai,' Ballista replied.

'My father wishes to extend his condolences to you on the death of your officer Scribonius Mucianus, and to offer what help he can give in catching the murderer.'

'Thank your father for me. Did he send you with this message?'

'No. He sent Haddudad there. I told Haddudad I would come with him.' She laughed, her teeth very white, her eyes very black. 'People get very nervous confronting barbarians in their lair. Who can tell what they will do?'

Ballista wished very badly to say something light and witty. Nothing came. There was just the hollow feeling of desire. As real as a waking dream, he pictured himself taking her arm, leading her back into the palace, to his room, to his bed, throwing her down on it, unbuckling her belt, dragging down…

She shifted on her feet and brought him back to reality.

'Would you like a drink?'

'No, I cannot stay long. Even with Haddudad here it would not be good for my reputation.' There was a naughtiness, a hint of wantonness about her smile that further unsteadied Ballista.

'Before you go… there was something I wanted to ask you.' She waited. 'I saw a statue in the agora the other day.'

'There are many statues there. Most set up by the grateful inhabitants of the town to celebrate the virtues of caravan protectors like my father.'

'This one was of Anamu's father. He was called Agegos.' She did not speak. 'The inscription said that Agegos was satrap of Thilouana. The island of Thilouana is in the Persian gulf. It is part of the empire of the Persians. It is ruled by Shapur.'

For a moment Bathshiba looked puzzled, then she laughed a laugh of genuine amusement. 'Oh, I see what you are thinking. You are wondering how loyal to Rome can a man be whose father was a satrap for the Persians.' She laughed again. 'My father will be furious that I have thrown away an opportunity to blacken one of his rivals to the new Dux Ripae… although he has been strangely pacific recently, even towards them.' She thought for a moment then continued. 'It is all perfectly normal for a caravan protector. The wealth of other rich men in the imperium ultimately depends on land. The caravan protectors own land around the villages to the north-west and across the river. They receive rents from their tenants, and from the properties they own in town. Although it is seldom mentioned, they lend money out on interest. But their real wealth comes from escorting caravans between Persia and Rome. To protect the caravans as they cross the frontier they need contacts, connections in both empires. They have many connections also with the tent-dwellers of the deep desert who acknowledge neither Persia nor Rome.'

'Thank you,' said Ballista. 'But one thing puzzles me. How does this protection generate their wealth? The inscription spoke of Anamu's father protecting caravans from his own resources.'

'You have a lot to learn.' She gave the big northerner a very different look from before, possibly a look of uncomplicated affection. 'Possibly there is some truth in the image of the… naive barbarian from beyond the north wind. My father and his like act out of the generosity of their souls. No merchant would dream of offering payment, and a caravan protector would be offended for it to be offered, but a suitable gift, a completely voluntary contribution, is quite a different matter. Merchants are grateful for protection.'

They were standing close together. She was looking up at him. He began to lean forward. She stepped away, the look of mischief back in her eyes.

'Don't forget that you have a wife – and Haddudad has a sharp sword.'

Winter advanced on the town of Arete.

It was nothing like the iron-bound winters of the land of the Angles. There, the snows could lie heavy on the fields, over the huts of the peasants and the high-roofed halls of the warriors for months on end. Beyond the stockades the freezing fogs enfolded the improvident and the unwary. Men and animals died in the cold.

Winter in Arete was a different beast, gentler but capricious. Most nights in December and January there was a frost. On the days that it rained, many as the old year died but fewer after the solstice, it rained hard. The ground turned into a sea of mud. The air remained chill. Then the strong north-eastern winds would blow away the clouds, the sun would dawn in splendour, warm as a spring day by the northern ocean, and the land would dry – before it rained again.

In some ways life in Arete continued as normal. The priests and the devout celebrated the festivals of their particular gods – Sol Invictus, Jupiter, and Janus, Aphlad, Atargatis and Azzanathcona. Criers preceded the processions through the streets warning those of less, different or no faith to lay down their tools lest the priests and their deities catch the ill-omened sight of men at work on the holy day. Ballista had bowed to popular pressure and rescinded his edict banning gatherings of ten or more. He hoped that this concession might make the other stringencies he had introduced more bearable. Certainly this concession was welcome at the two great festivals of the winter, at the Saturnalia, the seven days of present-giving, gambling and drinking in late December when slaves dined like their masters, and again at the Compitalia, the three days in early January when extra rations, including wine, were issued to the servile.

As ever, the first of January, the kalends, saw the garrison and those provincials eager to impress the authorities renew their oath of loyalty to the emperors and their family. On the same day, new magistrates took up office, Ogelos replacing Anamu as archon in Arete. As ever, the soldiers looked forward to the seventh of January: pay day, with a roast dinner to follow the sacrifices – to Jupiter Optimus Maximus an ox, to Juno, Minerva and Salus a cow, to Father Mars a bull. As ever, rents had to be paid on the first of January; debtors fretted at the approach of the kalends, nones and ides of each month, when interest on loans became due; and the superstitious feared the unlucky 'black days' that followed.

Yet in many, many ways this winter in Arete was abnormal. Day by day the city became more like an armed camp. Under the slow but careful eye of Mamurra the physical defences of the town began to take shape. Gangs of impressed labourers tore down the proud tower tombs of the necropolis and teams of oxen and donkeys hauled the debris to the town. More labourers heaped the rubble against the inner and outer faces of the western wall, slowly shaping it into the core of huge ramps – the glacis and counter-glacis. Once padded with reeds and faced with mud brick it was hoped these ramps would keep the walls standing in the face of whatever the Sassanids could throw at them. As each area of the necropolis was cleared, further gangs of workmen started to dig the wide ditch that would hinder approach to the desert wall.

The interior of the town was likewise loud with activity. Blacksmiths beat ploughshares into swords, arrow points and the heads of javelins. Carpenters wove osiers and wood to make shields. Fletchers worked flat out to produce the innumerable arrows and artillery bolts demanded by the military.

In every home, bar and brothel – at least when there were no Roman soldiers within earshot – the abnormality of the winter was discussed. On the one hand, the big barbarian bastard was roundly condemned: homes, tombs and temples desecrated, the slaves freed, the free reduced to the state of the servile, civic liberties stripped away, the modesty of wives and daughters compromised. On the other, only the Dux offered any hope: perhaps all the sacrifices would prove worth while. Round and round the arguments went, down the backstreets and the muddy alleys from the little sanctuary of the Tyche of Arete behind the Palmyrene Gate to the stinking lean-tos down by the waterside. The citizens of Arete were both outraged and scared. They were also tired. The Dux was driving them hard.

The soldiers were also working hard. On New Year's day Ballista had unveiled his dispositions for the defence of the town. No one, not even Acilius Glabrio, had laughed. The northerner had concentrated his manpower on the western wall facing the open desert. Here the battlements would be manned by no fewer than eight of the twelve centuries of Legio IIII Scythica and all six centuries of Cohors XX Palmyrenorum. The arrangement was that each section of battlement for two towers would be defended by one century of legionaries and one of auxiliaries. An additional century from IIII Scythica would be stationed at the main gate. At the extreme north of the wall only one century of Cohors XX would be available to cover the last four towers, but here the northern ravine curled round to provide additional defence and the towers in any case were closer together.

The other walls were far less well defended. The northern wall facing the ravine was held by only one century of IIII Scythica and two dismounted turmae of Cohors XX. The eastern wall facing the Euphrates would be guarded by the irregular numerus of Anamu, with one century of IIII Scythica seeing to the Porta Aquaria, the tunnels and the two gates down by the water. Finally, the garrison of the southern wall above the ravine would consist of the numeri of Iarhai and Ogelos, with just one dismounted turma of Cohors XX guarding the postern gate.

The real weakness of the plan was the small number of reserves – just two centuries of IIII Scythica, one stationed around the campus martius and one in the great caravanserai, and two turmae of Cohors XX, one guarding the granaries and one the new artillery magazine. At current levels of manning, that amounted to a mere 140 legionaries and 72 auxiliaries.

Yet the plan won guarded approval. Surely the main danger did lie on the western wall. It would be held by no fewer than 560 men from IIII Scythica and 642 from Cohors XX. The auxiliaries were bowmen and the legionaries expert hand-to-hand. They would be backed by twenty-five pieces of artillery, nine throwing stones and sixteen bolts.

The senior officers had been further reassured when Ballista outlined the additional measures that would be put in place when the glacis, counter-glacis and ditch were complete. The last two hundred yards to the western wall would be sown with traps. There would be thousands of caltrops, spiked metal balls. No matter which way a caltrop landed, a wicked spike always pointed upwards. There would be pits. Some would contain spikes, others the huge jars which had been requisitioned, filled with the limited stockpile of naptha. Stones to drop on the enemy would be stockpiled on the walls. There would be cranes equipped with chains, both to drop the larger stones and to hook any Sassanid rams which neared the wall. Large metal bowls of sand would be heated over fires. At the siege of Novae, white-hot sand had proved nearly as effective as had the naptha at Aquileia.

On the sixth of January, his plans well in hand, Ballista decided he needed a drink. Not an effete Greek or Roman symposium, but a proper drink. He asked Maximus if he could find a decent bar – does the Pontifex Maximus shit in the woods? – and tell Mamurra that he was welcome to join them. It was the day after the nones of January, one of the 'black days', but Ballista had not grown up with the superstitions of the Romans.

'This looks all right.' Ballista ran his eyes over the bar. The room and the girls looked clean. On the wall opposite him was a painting of a couple having sex balanced on two tightropes. The girl was on her hands and knees, the man taking her from behind and drinking a cup of wine. He looked out at the viewer with a complacent air.

'I chose it because I heard that Acilius Glabrio had ruled it off limits for his legionaries,' said Maximus.

'Why?' Mamurra asked.

'Oh, because when he comes here he likes some privacy to be buggered senseless by the barmen,' replied Maximus.

Mamurra looked owlishly at the Hibernian before starting to laugh. Ballista joined in.

A pretty blond girl with big breasts, few clothes and a fixed smile came over with their drinks and some things to eat. Maximus asked her name. As she bent over, the Hibernian slid his hand down her tunic and played with one of her breasts. He tweaked her nipple until it was erect. 'Maybe see you later,' he called after her as she left.

'Poor girl. Working here must be like walking round with her tunic pulled up, endlessly being pawed by bastards like you,' said Ballista.

'Just because you're not getting any,' Maximus replied. 'Not even from Bathshiba.'

'Do you want to talk about Massilia?' Ballista's words closed the exchange and the three men drank in silence for a while.

'Right, let's talk about the two things we have to talk about. Get them out of the way so we can relax.' Ballista paused, and the others looked expectantly at him. 'Who do you think killed Scribonius Mucianus?'

'Turpio,' Maximus replied with no hesitation. Ballista looked sharply at Mamurra, who quickly swore he would not speak of this conversation to anyone else. 'He had motive: Scribonius was blackmailing him. He had opportunity: he was Scribonius's second-in-command. The timing fits: on Turpio's own account Scribonius disappeared two days before Turpio left to meet us. And without Scribonius around to mess up his story, Turpio has done well. Rather than being punished he has been promoted to Scribonius's position. We have not traced the money Scribonius embezzled; Turpio probably has that too. He's a five-to-one on certainty.'

'If he did it, he had an accomplice,' said Mamurra. 'It would take at least two men to drag a body down there.' Seeing the look Ballista was giving him, Mamurra continued, 'After you left, I got Castricius to take me.'

'But in the days before he was killed Scribonius talked about having found out something that would make everything all right,' said Ballista, 'maybe something to make me overlook his corruption and his running his unit into the ground. It would have to be something so important that someone would kill to keep it a secret. They killed him and searched his body to check he had nothing on him to implicate them. They took away his writing block. The evidence was written there.'

'We only have Turpio's word for the last mutterings of Scribonius,' said Maximus. Ballista acknowledged this and asked the Hibernian to check if anyone in Cohors XX could confirm Turpio's account, and to be discreet, very discreet.

'Right, what about the other thing? Who burnt down our artillery magazine?'

'Bagoas.' Again there was no hesitation before Maximus spoke. 'All the legionaries and some others are saying that it was Bagoas.'

'And do you think he did it?'

'No. He was with Calgacus at the time. Sure, the Persian boy hates Rome – although not as much as he hates tent-dwellers – but he does not see himself as an underhand saboteur. He sees himself as a scout – one brave man venturing alone into the camp of his enemies, collecting information, ferreting out their deep secrets, then returning openly in a blaze of glory to the bosom of his people to point out where to place the battering rams, where to dig the mines, how to overthrow the walls.'

'The boy must be nearly recovered from the beating,' said Mamurra. 'What are you going to do about him when he is up and about?'

'Either make sure he does not escape, or help him on his way making sure he takes the intelligence we want the Persians to have with him.' Ballista took a long drink before continuing. 'Well, if he did not burn the artillery, who did?'

This time Maximus did not jump in. He remained silent, his quick eyes darting from one to the other of his companions. Mamurra's mouth stayed tightly closed. His massive, almost cubic head tipped slightly to the right as he studied the ceiling. No one spoke for quite some time. Eventually Ballista started trying to answer his own question.

'Whoever it was wanted our defence to fail. They wanted the Persians to take the town. So, who here in Arete, soldier or civilian, might want the Persians to take the town?'

'Turpio,' Maximus said again. Seeing the scepticism on the faces of the other two, he hurried on. 'Somewhere out there is evidence – evidence he cannot suppress – that he killed Scribonius. He knows this evidence will come to light at some point. So Turpio prefers the promises of a new life under the Sassanids to the certainty of ultimate disgrace and death under Rome.'

'Wel!… it is possible,' said Ballista, 'but there is nothing to support it.' Mamurra nodded.

'Right, if you do not like Turpio, I give you Acilius Glabrio, patrician and traitor.' This time both Ballista and Mamurra smiled straight away.

'You just don't like him,' said Ballista.

'No… no, I don't like him – I cannot stand the odious little prick – but that is not the point.' The Hibernian pressed on. 'No, no… listen to me' – he turned to Ballista – the point is that he does not like you. Our touchy little aristocrat cannot bear to take orders from a jumped-up, hairy, thick, unpleasant barbarian like you. The Sassanids play on the little bugger's vanity, offer to make him satrap of Babylon or Mesopotamia or something, and he sells us all down the river. After all, what do a bunch of ghastly barbarians, Syrians and common soldiers matter compared with the dignitas of one of the Acilii Glabriones?'

'No, you are wrong.' For once there was no pause for reflection before Mamurra spoke. The great square face turned to Ballista. 'Acilius Glabrio does not dislike you. He hates you. Every order of yours he has to obey is like a wound. He wants to see you dead. But he would like to see you humiliated first. I agree with Maximus that he could be behind the fire – but not that he would go over to the Persians. What is the point in being an Acilius Glabrio if you are not in Rome? Possibly he wants to hamstring your defence of this town. Then, when you have been exposed as a stupid blundering barbarian – sorry, Dominus – he steps in to save the day.'

'It could be,' said Ballista. 'But I can think of about forty thousand other potential traitors – the whole population of this town. Let's be honest, they have little reason to love us.'

'If the traitor is a townsman, we need only look to the rich,' said Mamurra. 'The fire was started with naptha. It is expensive. Only the rich here in Arete could afford it. If the traitor is a townsman, he is on the boule, the council.'

Ballista nodded slowly. He had not thought of that, but it was true.

'And who are more important on the council than the caravan protectors?' Maximus interrupted. 'And all three of them have links to the Sassanid empire. And now all three of them are entrusted with defending the walls. We are all completely fucked, fucked beyond belief!'

The blond girl came over with more drinks. Her smile became more fixed than ever as Maximus pulled her on to his lap.

'So,' said Ballista, turning his gaze to Mamurra, 'a rogue officer or an alienated councillor – we don't know which.'

'But we know that it has only just begun,' Mamurra added.

'If it were you, what would you do next?' Ballista's question hung for some time as Mamurra thought. With an ease born of practice the blond girl giggled like she meant it and parted her thighs to admit Maximus's hand.

'I would poison the cisterns,' Mamurra finally replied. There was a long pause. In the background the girl giggled again. 'I would contaminate the food stocks… sabotage the artillery.' Mamurra was speeding up. 'I would make sure I had a way of communicating with the Sassanids, then one dark night I would open a gate or throw a rope over an unguarded stretch of wall.' The girl sighed. 'Oh, and there is one other thing that I would do.'

'What?' said Ballista.

'I would kill you.' Obsessio (Spring-Autumn AD256)