Fire in the East

IV

It was so frustrating. About half a mile to the left, Demetrius could see Cyprus, the island of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, sliding past. All his young life the Greek boy had wanted to visit her shrine there, but now there was no time to lose. It had been like this ever since the encounter with the Goths. It seemed to have energized Ballista. Fighting northern barbarians had stirred his blood in some strange way, made him keener to get at eastern ones. He had fretted away the four days on Syme that it had taken to repair the Concordia (the hypozomata, whatever that was, had needed tightening). Meanwhile, the dozen captives that had been fished out of the wreckage of the first Gothic boat were sold to slave traders. No promises had been made them; their future was not good. The Kyrios had paced the decks on the one-day crossing to Rhodes. His impatience was infectious, and when Cyprus appeared after three days, Maximus, Mamurra and Priscus, the acting trierarch, were pacing about as well.

During the crossing from Rhodes to Cyprus, the first time on the voyage when the Concordia had been deep out at sea, even the bookish Demetrius had realized that a trireme was a terribly crowded place. There was nowhere for the rowers to exercise or wash. They had to sleep at their benches. There was no provision for hot food. The routine whereby, if possible, a trireme came to shore twice a day – at midday for the crew to eat lunch, and again at dusk for them to take supper and sleep – now made complete sense.

The twin necessities of practicality and observing social niceties had enforced a two-day stop at New Paphos, the seat of the Roman governor of the island of Cyprus. He outranked Ballista and thus could not be ignored. The proconsul received them in a large house, well sited, towards the end of the headland, to catch any sea breezes. It had been an occasion of some formality, which had taken up much of the first day.

On the second day the travellers had each pursued their own duties or interests. Demetrius walked half a mile or so to the agora to buy supplies; the kyrios, accompanied by Calgacus, returned for more discussions with the proconsul of doings in the eternal city. Priscus and Mamurra fussed over the Concordia. New concerns with something called the parexeiresia had joined the ongoing worries about the hypozomata. Maximus went to a brothel and came back drunk.

The next day at dawn the Concordia pulled up her boarding ladders and left her mooring. The rowers took her out of harbour until a northerly air filled her sail and she stood away south-east from the island. Demetrius leant on the port rail by the stern. They were sailing away from one of the most sacred places in all the Greek world. Here, at the very dawn of time, Cronus had castrated Uranus and thrown his severed genitals into the sea. From the foam Aphrodite had been born. Somewhere just to Demetrius's left was the rock which marked where she had stepped from the scallop shell and, naked, first set foot on land.

A mile or so inland, Demetrius thought that he could see the walls of her sanctuary. This had been Aphrodite's first dwelling. It was so ancient that the cult object was not a statue made by man but a conical black stone. When taken in adultery it was here that Aphrodite had fled. Here, the Graces had bathed, anointed and dressed her, away from the anger of her husband and the laughter of the other gods.

Ballista said something that drew Demetrius's attention back onboard: 'So the great Greek historian Herodotus got it wrong.' How could the kyrios sit and listen to this drivel? Zoroaster, who had founded this Persian religion, was often counted as a sage, but the teachings that were peddled now were nothing but superstition and charlatanism.

Ballista continued, 'While he was right to say that a Persian boy's education consists only of being taught to ride, shoot a bow and not lie, he misunderstood the last part. Being taught not to lie does not mean that no Persian is ever economical with the truth, never alters reality just a little. Instead, it is a religious teaching that one should turn away from "the lie", meaning evil and darkness.'

Bagoas's head bobbed up and down fit to bust; Demetrius's heart sank further.

'And "the lie" is the daemon Ahriman, who is locked in perpetual combat with the god Mazda, who is light, and who is represented by your sacred bahram fires. And in the final battle Mazda will win and, from then, the lot of mankind will be a happy one… But how does all this play out in this life?'

'We must all struggle with all our might against Ahriman.'

'That includes the king Shapur?'

'Shapur above all. The King of Kings knows that it is the will of Mazda that, just as the righteous Mazda fights the daemon Ahriman, so in this world the righteous Shapur must fight all unrighteous, unbelieving rulers.' There was a gleam of certainty and defiance in Bagoas's eyes.

'So warriors are well thought of by Mazda?' Maximus, who had been sitting quietly with his eyes shut, giving every impression of being unconscious with his hangover, took up the questioning.

'Know that the Aryans are one body. The priests are the head, the warriors are the hands, the farmers are the belly, and the artisans the feet. When the unbelievers threaten the bahram fires, the warrior who does not do battle and who flees is margazan. He who does battle and is killed is blessed.'

'Margazan?'

'One who commits a sin for which he deserves death.'

'Blessed?'

'One who goes straight to the first of the heavens.'

It was five nights later, the very last night of the cruise, the middle of the night, maybe about the third watch. Ballista lay on his back. He did not move. His heart was beating fast, and he was sweating heavily. There again was the noise by the door. Already knowing what he would see, he forced himself to look. The small clay lamp was slowly going out, but it still shed enough light to illuminate the tiny cabin.

The man was huge, both tall and broad. He was wearing a shabby dark-red caracallus. The hood of the cloak was pulled up, and its tip touched the ceiling. He stood at the end of the bed without a word. His face was pale even in the shadow of the hood. His grey eyes shone malevolent and contemptuous.

'Speak,' commanded Ballista, although he knew what would be said.

In Latin, with an accent from the Danube, the man said, 'I will see you again at Aquileia.'

Gathering his courage, as he had many times before, Ballista said, 'I will see you then.'

The man turned and left and, after a long, long time, Ballista fell asleep.

Ballista woke to the rocking motion and the mingled smells of wood, tallow and pitch: he was safe in his small, snug cabin aboard the Concordia, about to embark on the final day of crossing the open sea to the trireme's ultimate destination, the port of Seleuceia in Pieria. Without conscious thought he knew that the wind was westerly, on the beam of the Concordia as she sailed north up coast of Syria. Surfacing a little from sleep, he wondered if Priscus was keeping the ship far enough out to sea, giving her enough leeway to clear the promontory of Mount Cassios.

Suddenly all comfort left him. The vague disquiets at the back of his mind coalesced into an awful memory. Fuck. Ithought I had seen the last of him. The sheet under him felt damp, clammy with sweat. He began to pray: 'Allfather, One-Eyed, Worker of Evil, Terrible One, Hooded One, Fulfiller of Desire, Spear-Shaker, Wanderer.' He doubted that it would do much good.

After a while he got up. Still naked, he opened the door, stepped over the sleeping Calgacus, went up on deck, and pissed over the rail. The early morning air was cool on his skin. When he returned to the cabin Calgacus was putting out his breakfast, and Maximus was eating most of it.

There was no point in asking, but he had to. 'Calgacus?' The Caledonian turned. 'Did you see or hear anything last night?' The ill-favoured old man shook his head.

'Maximus?'

The bodyguard, his mouth full of bread and cheese, also shook his head. After washing the food down with a swig of Ballista's watered wine, he said, 'You look terrible. It is not the big fellow back again, is it?'

Ballista nodded. 'Neither of you mention this to anyone. Anyone at all. The staff are jumpy enough ever since that bastard sneezed when we were setting off. Think how they would feel if they knew that their commander, their barbarian commander, came complete with his own personal evil daemon?'

The other two nodded solemnly.

'It could be that the staff are jumpy because they know where we are going,' suggested Maximus with a smile. 'You know, the very high probability that we are all going to die.'

'I am unfit,' said Ballista. 'Maximus, get our kit out. We need to practise.'

'Wooden practice swords?'

'No, naked steel.'

Everything was ready. It was the fifth hour of the day, just under an hour from noon. Although it was late October, it was hot. Ballista had chosen late morning for the practice fight with various things in mind. It allowed him to show politeness to the acting trierarch by asking his permission to practise on the deck of his warship. The delay let the crew eat breakfast and carry out any essential tasks. Above all, it gave a chance for expectation to grow, maybe even for some bets to be placed.

Ballista laced up his helmet and looked around. All the marines, deckhands and Ballista's own staff, as well as those rowers who could get permission, sat lining the rails of the ship. The audience would be well-informed. Only the marines were trained swordsmen but all aboard were military personnel. Where there were soldiers there were gladiators, and where there were gladiators there were people who thought they knew about sword fighting. Ballista stepped forward into the cleared area. The light seemed much brighter here, the space around him wider, and the deck, which until now had seemed to tilt or move hardly at all, heeled and shifted alarmingly. The sun beat down, and he squinted as he looked around at the circle of expectant faces. A low murmur ran through the crowd.

Ballista carried out his usual ritual, gripping the dagger, the scabbard of his sword and the healing stone tied to it in turn. He wondered why he was fighting. Was it a calculated attempt to impress his men? Or a way of washing away the memory of the man, dead for nearly twenty years, who had visited him last night?

Maximus now stepped into the makeshift enclosure. The Hibernian was wearing the same kit as Ballista – helmet, mail shirt, shield – but the two were carrying different swords. Maximus favoured the gladius, the short, primarily thrusting sword, which had long fallen out of favour with the legions but was still used by many a type of gladiator, including the murmillo. Ballista used the longer spatha, known more as a cutting weapon.

After a few fancy passes with his gladius – inside and outside rounds, figures of eight around his head and so on – Maximus went into the low crouch typical of a shorter man armed with a thrusting sword. Ballista found that he was twirling his spatha in his hand. He hastily slipped on the leather wrist loop. He got into his ready stance: upright, feet apart, weight evenly distributed, side on, shield held well away from his body, eyes looking over his left shoulder, sword raised behind his right.

Maximus came on at a run. Knowing the Hibernian's impetuosity, Ballista half expected it. Their shields collided. Letting himself be pushed backwards, Ballista stepped away to the right with his rear foot and brought his leading left foot back behind his right, turning his body through 180 degrees. His opponent's own momentum drew him in – a perfectly executed Thessalian feint. As Maximus slid past, Ballista brought his sword over, palm down and taking most of the force out of the blow, stabbed the Hibernian's shoulder. He was rewarded with a loud chink as the point of the spatha struck mail shirt. Less agreeably, a moment later he felt and heard the impact of Maximus's gladius in his back.

The two men circled and began to spar with more circumspection. Maximus, busily darting, feinting, keeping his feet moving, was doing most of the attacking.

The only other person who knew about the big man was Julia. She had been raised an Epicurean and dismissed dreams and apparitions as tricks of the mind. They came when you were tired, when you were under physical and mental stress. Ballista had not felt good since the encounter with the Borani. The words of their chief had, to some extent, struck home. Half a lifetime in the imperium Romanum had changed Ballista, had led him to do things he would rather not have done – and first among them was the killing of the big man. Maybe Julia was right: it was not a daemon, it was just guilt. But still…

Ballista jerked his head back out of the way as Maximus's gladius went past, far too close for comfort. Bugger, he thought. Concentrate, you fool. Watch the blade. Watch the blade. He fought best when he relied on a mixture of training, practice and instinct, letting the memory in the muscles deal with things as they happened. But his mind needed to be focussed two or three blows ahead in the fight – not on a killing seventeen years earlier.

Ballista moved to take the initiative. He shifted his weight on to his left foot and stepped forward with his right to make a cut to the head. Then, as Maximus brought his shield up to parry, Ballista altered the angle of his blow to aim at the leg. Maximus's reactions were quick. The shield came down just in time.

Maximus punched his shield towards Ballista's face. Giving ground, Ballista dropped to his right knee and swung the spatha in at ankle height below his opponent's shield. Again Maximus's reactions got him out of trouble.

Ballista aimed another cut at the side of the head. This time Maximus came forward, stepping inside the blow, and brought his gladius down in a chopping motion towards Ballista's forearm. The Angle was not quite quick enough dropping his arm. Maximus had turned the sword, but the blow from the flat of the blade hurt.

Ballista could feel his anger rising. His arm was smarting. He was buggered if he was going to be beaten in front of his own staff, bested by this cocky Hibernian bastard. His fear from the previous night mixed with the pain in his arm to form a hot jet of rage. He could feel himself losing self-control. He launched into a series of savage cuts, at Maximus's head, legs – any body part he thought he might hit. Again and again his blade nearly got through but Maximus either blocked the blow or twisted away. Finally, the opening was there. Ballista launched a vicious backhand cut at Maximus's head. The Hibernian's face was completely open. Ballista's spatha could not miss. The rowing master's pipes, shrill over the noise of laboured breathing and heavy footfalls, cut into Ballista's consciousness. At the last second he pulled the blow.

'Harbour. Seleuceia in Pieria. Off the starboard bow,' came the bow officer's call.

Ballista and Maximus stepped apart and put their swords down. Ballista physically jumped when the men cheered. It took him a moment to realize that they were cheering not the appearance of the Concordia's final destination but his and Maximus's sword work. He raised a hand in acknowledgement and walked over to his bodyguard.

'Thank you.'

'Sure, it was a pleasure trying to stay alive,' replied Maximus. 'You would have slaughtered a horde of worse-trained men.'

'And in my anger I left myself open again and again to a killing blow from a good swordsman if he wanted me dead. Thank you.'

'Oh, I knew you were not really trying to kill me. I would cost a lot to replace.'

'That was my main thought.'

It had been a bad mistake remaining in armour. As each member of his staff appeared on deck in clean clothes, looking scrubbed and cool, Ballista inwardly cursed himself for a fool for not thinking to ask the acting trierarch how long it would be before the Concordia docked at Seleuceia. He called for some watered wine. Tired and hot from his swordplay, he was sweating profusely under the Syrian sun.

Now, there was this added delay. A big fat-bellied merchantman had made a complete mess of wearing round in the fresh westerly breeze. Somehow she had fallen foul of an imperial warship. Their bowsprits thoroughly entangled, they blocked the mouth of the canal which led to the main harbour.

Standing on the prow, Ballista checked the position of the Concordia: To the south off the starboard beam rose the green hump of Mount Cassios. To the south-east off the starboard quarter lay the flat, lush-looking plain of the Orontes river. Directly ahead was Seleuceia, in the foothills of Mount Pieria, which rose in a long reach to port before falling away in a series of switchbacks.

The warship, a little Liburnian galley, freed herself from the roundship, spun round and, with an interesting variety of obscene gestures from the deck, skimmed off north-west towards the Bay of Issos. Possibly chastened, the merchantman plied its sweeps to push its way into the wind until it had enough sea room to make its intended course up or down coast.

Seleuceia, the main port of Syria, had two harbours. One was a wretched thing. Little more than a semicircle open to the prevailing winds, it was widely considered unsafe, fit only for the local long-shore fishermen. The other was an altogether grander affair, a huge manmade polygonal basin protected from the westerly winds by a long dog-legged canal.

Ballista was mindful of his imperial mandata to look to the safety of Seleuceia, if still unsure how he would carry this out when several hundred miles away in Arete. He studied the approaches to the city. As the canal was only wide enough for two warships abreast, it would be quite easy to rig up a chain or a boom to close it. There was no sign of any such thing.

The harbour was little more encouraging. It was large, and there were several merchant vessels moored, yet the whole had an air of neglect. A jetty had collapsed, and there was a large amount of floating rubbish. Of more concern to Ballista, there were only three warships in the water. The rams of another six pointed out of their ship sheds. This was the home port of the Syrian fleet, and there were just nine warships. Looking at the state of the ship sheds, Ballista doubted that any of the galleys within would be ready for action.

The Concordia, ignoring an impudent boy in a skiff who nearly disappeared under her ram, cut a tight circle through the harbour, came to a halt and neatly backed water to the main military dock. From the top of one of the boarding ladders, Ballista could see a well-turned-out welcoming party: sixty soldiers and a couple of officers with a standard-bearer in front. Certainly they had had plenty of time to prepare, both in the long term, as the Concordia was several days overdue, and in the short, as she negotiated the canal.

'The officer ordered to meet you is Gaius Scribonius Mucianus. He is the tribune commanding the auxiliary cohors.' Demetrius whispered the reminder in Ballista's ear. Some large Roman households would keep a special slave for such moments but in Ballista's small familia his secretary had to double as his a memoria.

The new DuxRipae began to disembark. He was very aware of all the eyes on him – those of his own staff, the crew of the trireme and the ranks of the auxiliary soldiers. It is strangely hard to walk normally when you are conscious of being watched. As Ballista stepped off the ladder, he stumbled. The dock seemed to shift under his boot, then rush up at him. On his knees, he had to think quickly. This was embarrassing. Worse, some could take it as a bad omen. Of course it was just his land legs deserting him after three days at sea, it happened all the time. It had happened to Alexander, to Julius Caesar. They had turned it to their advantage with a few clever words. As he climbed to his feet, trying to dust down his knees in an unconcerned way, he wished he could remember what they had said.

'I have hit Asia hard.' He spread his arms wide. With a grin he turned to the trireme.

The crew and his staff laughed. He turned to the auxiliaries. A laugh began to spread through the ranks. It was checked by a harsh look from the officer.

'Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Egregius, Knight of Rome, Dux Ripae, Commander of the Riverbanks.'

It seemed unnaturally quiet after the boom of the herald's voice. Possibly there was a moment's hesitation before the officer of the auxiliaries stepped forward.

'Titus Flavius Turpio, Pilus Prior, First Centurion, of Cohors XX Palmyrenorum Milliaria Equitata. We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.' The man snapped a smart salute.

The silence stretched out. Ballista's hot face turned pale as his anger mounted.

'Where is your commanding officer? Why has the tribune of the cohors not come as he was ordered?' In his fury the tribune's name had slipped Ballista's mind.

'I do not know, Dominus.' The centurion looked unhappy – but shifty too.

Ballista knew this for a terrible start to his mission in Asia. To hell with the stumble, it was this snub that made it so. This bastard tribune had disobeyed a specific order. Why this deliberate and very public rudeness? Was it because Ballista was only an equestrian, not a senator? Was it – much more likely – his barbarian origins? Flagrant disobedience like this could only undermine the authority of the new Dux among the troops. But Ballista knew that the more he made of it the worse it would become. He forced himself to speak in a civil tone to the centurion.

'Let us inspect your men.'

'May I present the decurion, commander, of this turma, cavalry unit, of the cohors?' The centurion gestured to a younger man, who stepped forward.

'Titus Cocceius Malchiana. We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.'

As the three men walked across the wide dock, the centurion Turpio kept up an anxious stream of talk. 'As I am sure that you know, the Cohors XX Palmyrenorum Milliaria Equitata is a double-strength unit of archers, over one thousand men. It is a mixed unit, 960 infantry and 300 cavalry. What makes us unique in the army is our organization. The cohors has only six centuries of infantry and five turmae of cavalry, but all are at double strength. So we have 160 men not 80 in a century, and 60 not 30 cavalry in a turma. We have twenty men mounted on camels as well; mainly for messages and the like, although they are useful for scaring untrained horses – how horses do hate the smell of a camel, ha, ha.' Ballista wondered at the mixture of obvious pride and extreme nervousness. The rapid flow of the centurion's words stopped as it reached the line of soldiers.

There were indeed sixty men in the turma of Cocceius. The troopers were dismounted, horses nowhere to be seen. The men were drawn up in a line thirty across and two deep. Their cavalry helmets and waist-length scale armour were brightly polished. Swords hung in scabbards on left hips. Combined quivers and bowcases poked over left shoulders. Right hands grasped spears and on each left forearm was strapped a small round shield painted with a picture of a warrior god. Above their heads the standard of the turma, a rectangular green signum, fluttered in the westerly breeze.

Ballista took his time. He walked the lines, looking closely. The troopers were indeed well turned out. But they had had plenty of time to get ready. A parade was one thing, action quite another. He wondered if he detected a sullen, dumb insolence in the men's faces – but possibly his stumble and the non-appearance of Scribonius Mucianus were making him oversensitive.

'Very good, Centurion. Have the men had lunch?' It was the eighth hour of daylight, nearly mid-afternoon. 'No? Then let them be dismissed to their quarters. It is too late in the day to think of setting out to Antioch. We will march tomorrow. If we leave at dawn we should be there with plenty of time before nightfall. Isn't that so?'

Having been assured that his understanding was correct, Ballista announced that he would make his way up to the acropolis of the town to make sacrifice for the safe arrival of the ship.

Assessing the defences of Seleuceia in Pieria under the cloak of honouring the gods was paradoxically depressing. The town was well fortified by nature. It had ravines on three sides and the sea close by on the fourth. It was well fortified by man. It had walls of fine ashlar masonry, with tall semicircular towers well placed at intervals. The great market gate on the road to Antioch was almost a fortress in itself. The only way up to the acropolis was by twisting and turning stairways cut steeply into the rock. It was eminently defendable. And yet, three years earlier, it had fallen to the Sassanids.

The bathhouse attached to the new imperial fortress in Antioch was sumptuously decorated. Turpio thought it typical of the imperium Romanum these days that it was fully functioning while the fortress was unfinished. He was waiting in the corridor outside the apodyterium, the changing room. Under his feet was a mosaic typical of bathhouses all over the empire: a black attendant, a water vessel in each hand, a wreath of laurel on his head.

Marcus Clodius Ballista, the new Dux Ripae, might rejoice in the three names which were the mark of a Roman citizen but he was a complete barbarian. On their ride into Antioch he had stared about him like a bumpkin. Turpio had lead him in by the bridge gate, through the town's colonnaded streets, then over to the island in the Orontes where the new fortress was being built. Trust the present empire to send an imperial favourite – and a barbarian one at that – above a Roman who had worked his way through military service.

Turpio looked again at the mosaic. An enormous penis escaped from under the attendant's tunic. The artist had carefully detailed the bell-end in purple. Turpio laughed, as the artist had intended. Laughter was good here. Bathhouses could be dangerous places and everyone knew that laughter drove away daemons.

At last they stepped out of the apodyterium. Like Turpio, they were naked except for the wooden clogs which would protect their feet from the hot floors. All except Ballista carried flasks of oil, strigils, towels.

'Fuck me! Calgacus, it must be one of your relatives,' said the one with the nose like a cat's arse, pointing to the mosaic on the floor. 'Look at the terrible size of the thing.'

The Greek boy blushed. Ballista and Calgacus ignored the comment. Turpio, unaccustomed to such bold talk from a slave, followed their example. Ballista in the lead, they went into the caldarium, the hot room, the way indicated by the attendant's jutting cock.

'Is it not true, Calgacus dear, that for years you were known in Rome as Buticosus, "the big stuffer"?' The bodyguard was enjoying himself.

Turpio noted that the slave called Calgacus actually did have a large penis. Well, barbarians were notorious for it. Their big cocks were indicative of their lack of self-control in matters of sex, as in all other matters. A small penis had always been the mark of a civilized man.

'They say that only the untimely death of that magnificently perverted emperor Elagabalus prevented the frumentarii kidnapping Calgacus here from the public baths so that he could employ that mighty weapon on his imperial majesty.'

It was amazing that this new Dux let one of his slaves go on in this way in the company of freemen, of Roman citizens. It was a sign of weakness, of stupidity, a sign of his barbarian nature. All of which was good, very good. It would make it less likely that Ballista would find anything out.

It was cold and foggy. The weather had closed in during the week in Antioch. Ballista pulled his waxed cloak up around his ears. It was just before dawn, and there was no wind at all. He sat on his new grey horse by the side of the road to Beroea. He was warm enough so far, and well fed: Calgacus had somehow produced a hot porridge of oats, with honey and cream. Ballista looked up at the outside of the gate: brick built, two huge projecting square towers. There would be double gates inside, creating a good killing ground, and shuttered ports for artillery among the ornamental brickwork.

Ballista's feeling of relative well-being began to fade as he studied the scorch marks around the artillery port holes. Seven days of buying supplies and organizing a caravan had allowed time to confirm his initial impression that Antioch was a reasonably strong site. To the east, Antioch climbed up the slopes of Mount Silpius to a citadel, while the Orontes river curled round the other three sides, creating a moat. At the northern extent of the city an oxbow lake enclosed a large island. The town walls looked in decent repair. Apart from the citadel and the fortress on the island, there were several large buildings (amphitheatre, theatre, hippodrome) which could serve as improvised strong points. The wide main streets made for good interior lines of communication and reinforcement. There was a fine supply of water from the Orontes and two small streams that ran off the mountain. And, despite all this, it had fallen to the Persians.

It was a typically Greek story of personal betrayal. A member of the aristocracy of Antioch, Mariades, had been caught embezzling funds from one of the chariot teams. Escaping from certain conviction, he had turned outlaw. After a brief but initially successful career as a bandit, he had fled across the Euphrates. When Shapur invaded Syria three years ago, Mariades had acted as his guide. When the Persians encamped a short distance from Antioch, the rich fled the city. The poor, maybe more ready for a change, maybe without means of escape, stayed put. Friends of Mariades opened the gates. If promises had been made to the traitors, it seems they were not kept. The city was looted and large parts of it burnt. Mariades had returned to Persia with Shapur.

For a man ordered to look to its safety, for a siege engineer, Antioch, like Seleuceia, was most depressing. There were two straightforward conclusions to be drawn. First, the Sassanid Persians were good at taking strong, fortified places. Second, the locals were bad at defending them. Ballista wondered how many locals would prove to be like Mariades, how many might decide to go over to the Persians, or would, at least, not fight against them. The more he saw of Syria, the worse his mission looked. He wondered what had happened to Mariades.

His thoughts turned to Turpio. Why was he taking so bloody long to get this turma of cavalry in order of march? He and Cocceius, the decurion, were riding up and down the column, in and out of the pools of torchlight, shouting.

To Ballista's eyes, individually, the troopers looked the part – horses in good condition, helmets and armour cared for, weaponry complete and ready to hand. They looked tough. They handled their mounts well. But something was wrong. They did not work together as a unit. Men were getting in each other's way. They appeared sullen. There was none of the banter Ballista expected in a happy unit.

At last, Turpio appeared. He was bareheaded, his helmet strapped to his saddle. His short-cropped hair and beard were damp from the fog.

'The column is ready to march.' It always sounded to Ballista as if Turpio were challenging him to question what he said while at the same time dreading just that. He had not called Ballista Dominus.

'Very good. Maximus, unfurl my personal banner, and we will inspect the men.'

The bodyguard took the protective covering from the white draco. The windsock shaped like a dragon hung limp in the still air when he held it aloft.

Ballista squeezed his horse with his thighs, and the grey set off at a walk. They first passed the rearguard, thirty troopers under Cocceius, then the staff and baggage train under Mamurra and, finally, the advance guard of the other thirty troopers, which would be under the direct command of Turpio. Leaving aside the usual problems with the hired civilians of the baggage train, all seemed serviceable enough.

'Good. I will ride here with you, Centurion. Send out two scouts ahead of the column.'

'There is no need. There are no enemy for hundreds of miles.'

Ballista knew he needed to assert his authority. 'Have them ride about half a mile in front of the column.'

'We are just outside the main gate of the provincial capital. There is not a Persian this side of the Euphrates. No bandit would take on this number of men.'

'We need to get used to being on a war footing. Give the order.'

Turpio gave it, and two troopers clattered off into the thick fog. Ballista then gave the command to begin the march, their long march to the client kingdoms of Emesa and Palmyra, and then to the city of Arete, that isolated outpost of the imperium Romanum.

'It was only three years ago that there were a lot of Persians here,' he said.

'Yes, Dominus.'

Despite the man's attitude, Ballista decided to tread carefully. 'How long have you been with Cohors XX?'

'Two years.'

'How do you find them?'

'Good men.'

'Was Scribonius Mucianus already in command when you joined?'

'Yes.' Again, at the mention of the absent tribune's name, Turpio took on that aggressive, hunted look.

'How do you find him?'

'He is my commanding officer. It is not my place to discuss him with you. No more than it would be my place to discuss you with the Governor of Syria.' There was no great effort to hide the implicit threat.

'Did you fight the Sassanids?'

'I was at Barbalissos.'

Ballista encouraged Turpio to tell the story of the terrible defeat of the Roman army of Syria, the defeat which had led directly to the sack of Antioch, Seleuceia, and so many other towns, to so much misery in the time of troubles just three years earlier. The attack by swarms of Sassanid horse archers had seen the Romans caught in a cleft stick. If they opened ranks and tried to chase the archers away, they were run down by heavy cavalry, the clibanarii, mailed men riding armoured horses. If they stayed in close order to hold off the clibanarii, they made an ideal, dense target for the archers. Hours in the ranks under the Syrian sun, tormented by fear with the safety of the walls of Barbalissos visible in one direction, tormented by thirst with the glittering waters of the Euphrates visible in another. Then the inevitable panic, flight and slaughter.

While Ballista heard little about the battle that he had not heard before, he did gain the impression that Turpio was a proficient officer – so why then was this turma of Cohors XX so miserable and unhandy?

'What were the Persian numbers?'

Turpio took his time replying. 'Hard to say. A lot of dust, confusion. Probably fewer than most people think. The horse archers keep moving. Makes them look more than they are. Possibly no more than ten to fifteen thousand all told.'

'What about the proportion of horse archers to clibanarii?'

Turpio looked over at Ballista. 'Again, hard to be sure. But a lot more light horsemen than heavy. Somewhere between five to one. and ten to one. Quite a lot of the clibanarii carry bows, which confuses things.'

'They were all cavalry?'

'No. The cavalry are the noblemen, they are the Sassanids' best troops, but they have infantry as well – the mercenary slingers and bowmen are the most effective; the rest are levies of peasant spearmen.'

The fog was lifting. Ballista could see Turpio's face clearly. It had lost some of its defensive look. 'How do they manage sieges?'

'They use all the devices we do: mines, rams, towers, artillery. Some say they learnt from us; maybe when the old king Ardashir took the city of Hatra some fifteen years ago.'

They were riding over one of the foothills of Mount Silpius. Dead black leaves clung to the trees which flanked the road. Wisps of fog wound round the base of the trees, slid up through the branches. As they neared the crest of the ridge, Ballista noticed one of the leaves move. Ahead, the sun was beginning to break through and Ballista realized that it was not leaf he had seen but a bird – a raven. He peered more closely. The tree was full of ravens. All the trees were full of ravens.

This time, Ballista knew that there was no phrase or gesture that might turn the omen. A sneeze had a human explanation; so did a stumble. But ravens were the birds of Woden. On the Allfather's shoulders sat Huginn, Thought, and Muninn, Memory. He sent them out to observe the world of men. Ballista, Woden-born, carried a raven as the device on his shield, another as the crest of his helm. The eyes of the Allfather were on him. After a battle, the stricken field was thick with ravens. The trees were thick with ravens.

Ballista rode on. Some long-forgotten lines of poetry came to mind: The dark raven shall have its say And tell the eagle how it fared at the feast When, competing with the wolf, it laid bare the bones of corpses.

V

Off to the left of the road Ballista saw signs that they were within a few miles of the city of Emesa. The pattern of the fields changed abruptly. The broad, rambling, often ill-defined meadows, normal in the valley of the Orontes river, gave way to smaller, rigidly rectangular fields in grids, their boundaries clearly drawn by ditches and marker stones. This system, centuriation, was the product of Roman land surveyors, agrimensores, imposed originally when Rome settled her veterans in colonies on land taken from her enemies. Later, as here at Emesa, it was adopted by Rome's subjects, either for practical reasons or to indicate their closeness to Rome, their aspirations to become Roman. Centuriation had been so wide-spread within the empire for so long that it now seemed the natural order of things here. But to those born and bred outside the imperium Romanum, including Ballista himself, it still looked alien, still carried a freight of connotations of conquest and lost identity.

Ballista pulled his horse to the side of the road and waved the column on, calling out to Turpio that he would catch up in a short while. The men passed at a walk. Nine days on the road had shaken the unit down to some extent. The men seemed a little bit more disciplined and quite a lot happier. Even the civilian baggage train, thirty pack horses and their drivers and the fifteen men of his staff, was no longer the atrocious sight it had been on leaving Antioch.

It had been an easy march, never more than twenty miles in a day, billets in a town or village at almost every stop, only once camping beneath the stars. An easy march, but it had done them some good.

Ballista watched the men as they passed. How strong was their commitment to Rome? The cohors was a unit of the regular Roman army, but its men had been recruited from Palmyra, at once a client kingdom and a part of the Roman province of Syria Coele. Their first language was Aramaic; for those that had a second it was Greek. Their Latin was limited to army commands and obscenities. Their helmets, armour, shields and swords were Roman army issue but their combined bowcases and quivers were of an eastern design, and highly personalized. Eastern ornaments swung and clashed on the tack of their horses and their own belts and striped and brightly coloured baggy trousers beneath the Roman armour pointed to the men's eastern origins.

How would this affect his mission in the east? He had always been told that Syrians lacked the courage for a fight, and the fall of the well-fortified cities of Seleuceia and Antioch seemed to bear this out. Yet generations of being told that they were cowards may have had an effect. Possibly the cliche shaped reality rather than reflecting it. And what about the client kings of Emesa and Palmyra? Would they feel Roman enough to give Ballista the troops he had been ordered to ask for?

The looming, uneasy task of asking for troops set Ballista's thoughts back down familiar paths. Why had he not been given Roman troops to bring to the east? Anyone could see that the two units in Arete were hopelessly inadequate for the task ahead. Why had he, who had no experience of the east, been chosen to defend these remote outposts against attack?

From human worries to supernatural was an easy step for one raised in the forests and fens of northern Germania. Why had the daemon of the big man sought him out again? Ballista had been free of him this last couple of years. No matter, he had faced the bastard down many times, once when Maximinus was alive and many times since Ballista had killed him. The omen of the ravens was different. It was much worse. No mortal could win against the Hooded One, the One-Eyed, Woden the Allfather.,

To shake such bad thoughts out of his mind, Ballista wheeled his grey gelding and set him to jump the ditch at the left-hand side of the road. The horse cleared it easily. With a rising yell not unlike his native barritus, Ballista pushed his mount into a wild gallop across the fields.

'Emesa is my kind of town,' thought Maximus. 'Get through the religion, and then it's time to plough the field.' He was not looking for any old field but a new and exotic one, with any luck, the daughter of one of the local nobles. In any event, a virgin, and a complete stranger.

It was the custom in these parts that every girl had to go up to the temple once before her marriage. There, the majority of the girls, a band of plaited string tied round their head, would sit in the sacred precinct. There, each had to wait until one of the men strolling the marked walkways threw a silver coin in her lap. Then she would go outside with him, no matter who he was, rich or poor, handsome or hideous, and let him take her virginity.

Sure, it must be tough for some of the girls (the really ill-favoured must be out there in all weathers for years) but, overall, it seemed an excellent idea to Maximus. The going outside slightly puzzled him. Surely they were already outside? Did it mean you had to hire a nearby room? Or were you talking about up against a wall in a backstreet? He had never been totally happy with that sort of thing since that unfortunate incident in Massilia.

However, that was not what had really caught his imagination. Although they could not escape the demands of their gods, the daughters of the nobility could not mix with the daughters of swineherds (actually, probably not swineherds, as these people seemed not to eat pork). They might all be forced to have sex with strangers, but certain social barriers had to be maintained. Surrounded by servants, the rich girls were driven to the temple in closed carriages. And, in those, they waited. Maximus savoured the thought.

He was even quite looking forward to the religious ceremonies. They were said to put on a good show, these Syrians – Phoenicians, Assyrians, whatever they were. If truth be told, it was rather hard to tell what the inhabitants of the city of Emesa were. Anyway, whatever they were, they were known for the elaborate ceremonies in which they worshipped their sun god, Elagabalus.

It took place just before dawn. The audience was stationed according to rank in a semicircle around an altar, each person holding a lit torch. They began to chant, and Sampsigeramus, the King of Emesa and Priest of Elagabalus, came into view. A band of flutes and pipes struck up and Sampsigeramus began to dance around the altar. He wore a floor-length tunic, trousers and slippers, all in purple and decorated with jewels, a tall tiara and a multitude of necklaces and bangles. Others joined him in the dance, twisting and turning, crouching and leaping. The music reached a crescendo and they stopped, each striking an attitude. The audience applauded, Ballista's entourage politely, the majority rather more enthusiastically.

The lowing of cattle indicated the next stage. A large number of bullocks and sheep were driven into the semicircle. The delicate-looking priest-king delegated the killing of the first two animals but inspected the entrails himself, lifting the steaming coils in his hands. They were auspicious; Elagabalus was happy.

The ceremony ended as the first rays of sun appeared over the temple. Splendid, a bit lacking in monkeys, snakes, and severed genitals, but splendid, and now that it's over… Maximus's thoughts were interrupted when Ballista motioned for his entourage to follow him into the temple. Inside, there was a large golden eagle, a snake writhing in its beak. But what dominated the scene was the dark, massive bulk of the conical stone that was Elagabalus. In the candlelight, the enigmatic markings on its smooth black surface seemed to move.

The diminutive priest-king Sampsigeramus spoke to Ballista, and the northerner turned to his men.

'The god wishes to favour me with a private audience.' His voice was neutral. 'Demetrius and Calgacus, you had better wait. Mamurra, Turpio, Maximus, you are free to do what you want.' The doors of the temple shut behind him.

Maximus wondered where to start. Presumably, the whole temple complex counted as a sacred precinct. Where were the girls?

With Mamurra following, he started by looking in the street outside the main gate. There were a few carriages, but people of both sexes were getting into them and driving off. Obviously they did not contain waiting virgins. He extended his search to the streets bordering the sacred precinct. Still no luck. Then, Mamurra still in tow, he cross-quartered the grove of conifers. Finally he searched in the courtyard behind the temple.

He marched back to the temple, turning on the Greek boy. 'Demetrius, you little bum boy, you set me up! There is not one fucking carriage, not one piece of fucking string around one head. There is probably not one fucking virgin in the whole city, let alone here.' The young Greek looked apprehensive. 'You told me there were virgins here. Just like you said that there were virgins waiting in the temples at Paphos, and outside Antioch, if we had got there.'

'No, no, not at all,' Demetrius stammered. 'I just read you the famous passage in Herodotus about sacred prostitution in ancient Babylonia and said that it was rumoured that the same had happened at Old Paphos, the grove of Daphne near Antioch, and here.' The secretary's face was an image of innocence. 'And that some people said that it might still go on.'

Maximus glowered at Demetrius, then at Calgacus. 'If I find out…' He tailed off, and looked back at the Greek boy. 'Oh well, I suppose that'll stop you moaning about not visiting that old shrine of Aphrodite on Cyprus – there's a bloody great black stone here that's just the same.' He turned to Mamurra. 'Still, no need to waste the whole day. A good huntsman knows where to spread his nets for stags. Come, my dear prefect, we are off to draw the coverts – I will sniff them out. Pity we will have to pay full price.'

He walked away, glad that he had got in that dig at Demetrius. His precious Greek shrines were just the same as those of a bunch of Syrians, or whatever the fuck they were here in Emesa.

Another dawn, another departure. Ballista stood by his pale horse: a four-year-old grey gelding with some dappling to his quarters but otherwise white. He was finer-boned than Ballista was used to but not too delicate. He had a good mixture of spirit and docility; what he lacked in speed he made up for in stamina; and he was supremely sure-footed. Ballista was pleased with him; he would call him Pale Horse.

Man and horse flinched as the gate was thrown open and orange lamplight flooded the palace courtyard. From behind there was a muffled curse and the sound of hooves scraping on flagstones.

Sampsigeramus minced into view, stopping at the top of the stairs. Ballista handed his reins to Maximus and walked up to him.

'Farewell, Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Egregius, Knight of Rome, Dux Ripae, Commander of the Riverbanks. My thanks for the honour that you have shown my home.'

You odious little fucker. I bet your arse is as wide as a cistern, thought Ballista. Out loud he said, 'Farewell, Marcus Julius Sampsigeramus, Priest of Elagabalus, King of Emesa. The honour is all mine.' Ballista leant forward and assumed an expression of wide-eyed sincerity. 'I will not forget the message the god gave me, but will speak of it to no one.'

'Elagabalus, Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, is never wrong.'

With a melodramatic swing of his cloak, Ballista turned, bounded down the steps two at a time and threw himself on his horse's back. He wheeled the horse, snapped a salute and rode out of the courtyard.

No troops. The king of Emesa would provide no troops to fight the Persians. An unambiguous refusal, followed by veiled hints about the possibility of troops being available for other purposes. As he and his party clattered off towards the eastern gate, Ballista considered why Emesa had become a hotbed of revolt. For centuries, if it existed at all, it had not troubled history. Now, in just over a generation, it had produced a series of imperial pretenders. First had come the perverted youth who was widely known by his god's name, Elagabalus (he had been despatched, shoved in a sewer in Rome in the year in which Ballista was born). Then, a few years ago, there was lotapianus (decapitated), and only last year Uranius Antoninus, who had been dragged in chains to the imperial court.

It might be money. The ever-increasing demand of the Romans for luxury goods had vastly increased trade from the east. Emesa was on the best trade route: India to the Persian Gulf, up the Euphrates to Arete, across the desert via Palmyra to Emesa and on to the west. It might be chance. A woman from the family of the priest-kings had married a senator called Septimius Severus, and he had later, quite unexpectedly, become emperor. Her sons had inherited the throne. Once a town has produced a couple of emperors, it feels it should produce more. It might be Roman failings. When Rome could not protect her from the Persians, the rich, confident, god-loved town of Emesa had to look to her own salvation.

The pretenders were all from different branches of the same family of priest-kings. You could see why the emperors had chosen to elevate this Sampsigeramus to the throne of Emesa. Surely if anyone in this extended family of turbulent priests would cause no trouble it was this ineffectual, mincing little man? But now he seemed to be acting true to his line: in these troubled times Emesa could not spare any men to defend Arete, a town far away and probably already doomed – but the brave men of Emesa would always answer Elagabalus's call in a just cause with a hope of success. There had been vague but not very veiled implications of revolution in the god's message to Ballista- 'the ordered world will become disordered… a dark-skinned reptile… raging against the Romans… a sideways-walking goat' – probably treasonous, although the obscurity of the prophetic language might make that hard to prove.

The reptile was, presumably, the Persian king. Was the goat meant to be Ballista himself? They could have come up with a rather more impressive animal, say a lion or a boar. It mattered little. He would write to the emperors with his suspicions. Despite Sampsigeramus's insinuations, Ballista doubted they would think him already implicated.

Allfather knew what sort of chaos they would find at the Palmyrene Gate. Yesterday, Ballista had agreed to a caravan owned by a merchant from Arete travelling with them. Turpio had strongly urged it. The merchant, larhai, was one of the leading men of Arete. It would be unwise to offend him. While it might avoid offence (had that bastard Turpio taken a bribe?), it would almost certainly cause confusion and delay, with camels, horses and civilians wandering all over the road.

The sky was a delicate pink. The few clouds were lit from underneath by the rising sun. Mamurra was standing in the middle of the road, waiting.

'How is it looking, Praefectus?'

'Good, Dominus. We are ready to march.' Mamurra had the air of wanting to say more. Ballista waited, nothing happened.

'What is it, Praefectus?'

'It is the caravan, Dominus.' Mamurra appeared troubled. 'They are not merchants. They are soldiers.'

'From what unit?'

'They are not from a unit. They are mercenaries – part of the private army of this man larhai.' Mamurra's almost square face looked baffled. 'Turpio… he said he would explain.'

Surprisingly, Turpio looked, if anything, slightly less defensive than usual. There was even the hint of a smile. 'It is quite legal,' he said. 'All the governors of Syria have allowed it. The great men of Arete owe their position to protecting caravans across the deserts. They hire mercenaries.' It was unlikely that the man was telling a straightforward lie.

'I have never heard of this, or anything like it,' said Ballista.

'It happens in Palmyra as well. It is part of what makes these two cities so different from anywhere else.' Turpio smiled openly. 'I am sure that larhai will explain more eloquently how it all works. He is waiting to meet you at the head of the column. I persuaded Mamurra it would be best if larhai's men led the way; they know the desert roads.'

Turpio and Mamurra mounted and fell in on either side of Ballista. With his bodyguard and secretary just behind, he set off at a loose canter. The white draco whipped above their heads. Ballista was bloody furious.

As they passed, men from Cohors XX called out the sort of well-omened things that one says before setting out on a journey. Ballista was too angry to do more than force a smile and wave.

The mercenaries were silent. Out of the corner of his eye the northerner inspected them. There were a lot; all mounted, drawn up in columns of twos, probably the best part of a hundred in all. There had been no attempt by authority to impose uniformity on them. Their clothes were of different colours, the colours faded by the sun. Some had helmets, pointed eastern or Roman ones, some none. Practicality had imposed uniformity in some things. They all wore eastern costume suitable for the deep desert: low boots, loose trousers and tunics, voluminous cloaks. They all had a long sword on a baldric, and a bowcase, quiver and spear strapped to their saddle. They looked disciplined. They looked tough. 'Marvellous, bloody marvellous, outnumbered by mercenaries we know nothing about. Bastards who are every bit as well kitted out and organized as we are,' muttered Ballista to himself.

One man waited at the head of the column. There was nothing showy about him or his mount, but it was obvious that he was in charge.

'You are larhai?'

'Yes.' He spoke quietly, in a voice that was used to being heard the length of a camel train.

'I was told that you were a merchant.'

'You were misinformed. I am a synodiarch, a protector of caravans.' The man's face backed up his words. It was deeply lined, the skin coarse, blasted by the sand. The right cheekbone and nose had been broken. There was a white scar on the left of the forehead.

'Then where is the caravan that your hundred men protect?' Ballista looked round, as much to check that none of the mercenaries was moving as for rhetorical effect.

'This was not a journey to help the merchants. It was to fulfil a vow to the sun god.'

'You have seen Sampsigeramus?'

'I came to see the god.' larhai remained expressionless. 'Sampsigeramus is why I needed the hundred men.'

Ballista did not trust Iarhai one inch. But there was something about his manner which was appealing, and mistrusting the prancing priest-king struck Ballista as a good thing. larhai smiled, a not altogether reassuring thing. 'A lot of you westerners find it hard to believe that the empire allows the nobles of Arete and Palmyra to command troops. But let me prove that it is so.'

At a gesture, one of the riders moved forward, holding a leather document case. It took Ballista a moment to realize that it was a girl, a beautiful girl dressed as a man, riding astride. She had very dark eyes. Black hair escaped from under her cap. She hesitated, holding the case out.

They are not sure if a northern barbarian can read, thought Ballista. He pushed aside his irritation (Allfather knew he had practice). It could be useful if they believed he could not. 'My secretary will tell us what they are.'

As she leant across to hand the case to Demetrius, her tunic pulled tight across her breasts. They were bigger than Julia's. She looked more rounded in general, a touch shorter. But fit from riding.

'They are letters thanking larhai for guarding caravans, from various governors of Syria and some from emperors – Philip, Decius, others – Iarhai is sometimes referred to as strategos, general.'

'I must apologize, Strategos. As you say, we westerners do not expect such a thing.' Ballista held out his right hand. Iarhai shook it.

'Do not mention it, Dominus.'

It was not just the girl that had made Ballista decide that he would ride with larhai in the lead; it was Turpio's discomfort in his presence.

The white draco of Ballista and the elaborate flag of larhai, a semicircle with streamers, a red scorpion on a white background, flew over the head of the column. The green signum was halfway down, where the eighty mercenaries ended and the sixty men of Cohors XX began. larhai had sent ten of his men ahead as an advance guard, while another ten had been despatched as flanking guards.

'Tell me about the weather at Arete,' said Ballista.

'Oh, it is delightful. In the spring there are gentle breezes and every little depression in the desert is filled with flowers. One of your western generals said the climate was healthy – apart from dysentery, malaria, typhoid, cholera and plague,' answered larhai.

The girl, Bathshiba, smiled. 'My father is teasing you, Dominus. He knows that you want to know about the campaigning season.' Her eyes were jet-black, confident and mischievous.

'And my daughter forgets her place. Since her mother died I have let her run wild. She has forgotten how to weave, and now rides like an Amazon.'

Ballista saw that she was not only dressed but also armed like her father's men.

'You want to know when the Persians will come.' It was a statement. Ballista was still looking at her when larhai again began to speak.

'The rains come in mid-November. We may be lucky and reach Arete before they fall. They turn the desert into a sea of mud. A small force like ours can get through, if with difficulty. But it would be much more difficult to move a large army. If that army was encamped before a town, it would be impossible to get supplies through to it.'

'For how long will Arete be safe?' Ballista saw little point in denying what they clearly already knew.

'The rains tend to stop in January. If it rains again in February it means a good growing season.' Iarhai turned in his saddle. 'The Sassanids will come in April, when there is grass for their horses and no rain to ruin their bowstrings.'

Then we must survive until November, thought Ballista.

It was the improbability of Palmyra's location that first struck Mamurra. It was a completely unlikely place to find a city. It was as if someone had decided to build a city in the lagoons and marshes of the Seven Seas at the head of the Adriatic.

It had taken six days to get there from Emesa, monotonous days of tough travel. There was a Roman road, and it was in good repair, but the journey had been hard. Two days climbing up to the watershed of the nameless range of mountains, four days coming down. In the first five days they had passed through one hamlet and one small oasis. Otherwise there had been nothing, an endless jumble of dun-coloured rock echoingback the noise of their passage. Now, suddenly, on the afternoon of the sixth day, Palmyra appeared before them.

They were in the Valley of the Tombs. Horses, camels and men were dwarfed by the tall, rectangular tombs which lined the steep sides of the valley. Mamurra found it unsettling. Every town had a necropolis outside it but not of towering, fortress-like tombs like these.

As Praefectus Fabrum, he was kept busy sorting out the baggage train, trying to stop it becoming entangled with the seemingly endless traffic heading to town. Most of the traffic was local, from the villages to the north-west, donkeys and camels carrying goatskins of olive oil, animal fat and pine cones. Here and there were traders from further west bringing Italian wool, bronze statues and salt fish. It was some time before he had been free to look at Palmyra.

To the north-east were at least two miles of buildings, row after row of ordered columns. Gardens stretched a similar distance to the far corner of the walls to the south-east. The city was huge, and it was evidently wealthy.

Its walls were mud-brick, low and only about six foot wide. There were no projecting towers. The gates were just that – simple wooden gates. On the heights to the west the walls did not form a continuous barrier. Rather, there were isolated stretches of wall intended to reinforce natural barriers. A wadi ran through the town, and the gardens pointed to a water source within the walls, but the aqueduct that ran from the necropolis would be easy enough to cut. Slowly, and with care, Mamurra came to the conclusion that the defences of the city were not good. He had once been a speculator, an army scout, and every abandoned identity left its mark. Mamurra was proud of this insight; the more so as he could not voice it.

There was a great hubbub at the gate but eventually they moved inside. The men and animals were allocated their quarters and Mamurra went to find Ballista. The Dux was standing waiting with Maximus and Demetrius.

'His name is Odenaethus,' the Greek boy was reminding Ballista. 'In Greek or Latin, he is known as the King of Palmyra. In their native dialect of Aramaic, he is the Lord of Tadmor. He speaks perfect Greek. It is thought that he put at least thirty thousand horsemen in the field against the Persians three years ago in the time of troubles.'

Iarhai, together with that wanton-looking daughter of his, approached on horseback. Mamurra and the rest mounted. Ballista requested larhai to guide them to the palace of Odenaethus, and they set off, progressing slowly through the busy colonnaded streets lined with shops. They were a riot of colour. The smell was overpowering but not at all unpleasant, exotic spices mixed with the more familiar odours of horse and humanity. They negotiated a fine square, passed an agora and a theatre, and arrived at the palace, to be ushered in with courtly grace by a waiting chamberlain.

Apart from stepping forward when presented and then stepping back again, Mamurra had no part to play in the reception of the new Dux Ripae by Odenaethus, King of Palmyra, so he was able to focus on the people playing their parts. Odenaethus made a brief formal speech of welcome: great distances had been unable to diminish Ballista's martial reputation… all confidence for the future now he was here, etc, etc. Ballista's reply, after an equally fatuous beginning, ended with a polite but unambiguous request for troops. Odenaethus then dwelt at length on the unsettled nature of the east since the Persian invasion – brigands everywhere, the Arabs, tent-dwellers stirring up to a fury of avarice; he was devastated, but all his men were employed holding, and only just holding, the peace in the desert.

It was hard to number the things that Mamurra disliked about Odenaethus, the Lord of Tadmor, and his court. You could start with the king's carefully curled and perfumed hair and beard. Then there was the delicate way he held his wine cup with just thumb and two fingers, the embroidered stripes and swags of his clothes, the soft, plump cushions he sat on, again thick with patterns, reeking of perfume. And, if anything, his court was even worse. The chief minister, Verodes, and the two generals were outfitted as copies of their lord, and the latter had virtually identical ridiculous barbarian names, Zabda and Zabbai. There was a simpering little son who looked like he should be selling his arse on a street corner and, to add insult to injury, both sitting there as bold as could be, were not only a eunuch (probably some sort of secretary if he was not part of the entertainment) but a woman (a sly-looking bitch called Zenobia – Odenaethus's new wife).

'It must be because it is in the middle of nowhere,' Mamurra quietly said to Ballista. The reception was over. They were outside again waiting for their horses.

'What must?'

'This, place.' Mamurra waved his hand around. 'Palmyra is as rich as Croesus. Has fuck all in the way of defences, and is held by a bunch of effeminates with fewer balls than their eunuchs or women. Its safety must lie in it being in the middle of nowhere. If you ask me, it is a good thing they are too scared to give us any troops.'

Ballista paused before speaking. 'I think that is exactly the conclusion I would have come to if I had not spent so long talking to Iarhai. Now I am not so sure.'

Mamurra did not reply.

Ballista smiled. 'Cohors XX was originally raised here, and still draws most of its recruits from here. They seem tough enough. Then again, there are larhai's mercenaries. Some are recruited from among the tent-dwellers, the nomads of the desert, but the majority come from here or Arete. Both towns have a tradition of mercenary service – for the Romans and for others.'

The horses were led up. As they mounted, Ballista continued, 'You and I expect warriors to look like warriors, a grizzled Roman or a hairy northern barbarian. Maybe in this case appearances are deceptive. Maybe not all easterners are cowards.'

'I am sure that is the way it is.' Mamurra was not sure. But he would not dismiss the idea out of hand. As was his measured way, he would mull it over.

In truth, Ballista's thoughts had been ranging wide when Mamurra's words had pulled him back. Ranging in many, many directions but always circling back to the refusal of the king of Palmyra, and before him the refusal of the king of Emesa, to supply troops. It was not that these Syrians were afraid to fight; they had fought three years before. It was that they did not want to fight. Why? Palmyra and Emesa depended for their wealth on trade passing between Rome and her eastern neighbour. They were poised between Rome and Persia. To refuse Ballista's request was in effect to refuse the request of the Roman emperors. Had they decided to incline to Persia? And then there was the confidence with which they turned him down, almost as if there could be no reprisal by the Roman emperors, nor even any lingering ill will. Had the emperors covertly told them that they could refuse Ballista's request? Did they all expect Ballista to fail?

The three frumentarii were in the sort of environment they liked, a backstreet bar. It was dark, dingy and secure. Their cover was in place. To anyone glancing in they looked like two scribes and a messenger having a few drinks, only a few, because their dominus had ordered yet another dawn departure. Tomorrow they would set out on the last leg of their long journey to Arete.

The frumentarius from the Subura placed three coins on the table. 'What do you think?'

From the three antoniniani three not all that dissimilar profiles of men wearing radiate crowns stared fixedly off to their viewers' right.

'I think that the rise in prices is appalling. But, working on the theory that a girl charges about a soldier's daily pay, you should still get a good-looking one for that,' said the Spaniard.

The frumentarii all laughed.

'No, Sertorius, you sad fuck, I wanted you to look at the heads on the coins, and think where we have been.' The Roman picked up one of the coins. 'Mariades, a rebel based in Antioch.' Then the other two. 'Iotapianus and Uranius Antoninus, two more rebels, both based in Emesa. And where have we been? Antioch then Emesa. Our barbarian Dux has taken us on a tour of the sites of recent revolutions. He is seeing if there are still embers of revolt.'

They drank in silence for a time.

'Possibly we should go in the other direction. Arete to Palmyra to Emesa gives you the western end of the shilk road,' said the North African.

'So what, Hannibal?' The Roman was as sharp as ever.

'The revenues from taxing the shilk road could fund any sort of uprising.'

'I am still not convinced that there is a silk road,' said the one from Spain.

'Oh, don't start all that again, Sertorius. You really do come up with some ludicrous theories. The next thing you will do is claim that this barbarian is not up to something. And we all know he is, that he is plotting treason because, otherwise, the emperor would not have assigned all three of us to this case.'

Unseen behind the curtain, a fourth frumentarius watched and listened. He was pleased with what he heard. His three colleagues were perfect – an object lesson in the dangers of frumentarii working as a team: the rivalry, the hothouse atmosphere that forced the growth of ever larger, ever more ludicrous conspiracy theories. To give them credit, perhaps they were all playing a duplicitous game. If one of them came up with a conspiracy plausible enough to convince the emperors, he would not be so stupid as to wish to share the glory of its discovery, let alone the advancement and material benefits that would follow. In any case, they were still perfect in another way: the Dux Ripae almost certainly suspected there were frumentarii on his staff, and if he searched, he would find these three long before they found him. Praeparatio (Winter AD255-256)