Land of the Sacred Fire

Chapter 3

Just after noon on the eleventh day, the triremes reached the Syrian coast, left the open sea and entered the estuary of the Orontes River. The sea winds died and the remiges worked the oars to take the vessel upriver. They passed by shimmering green crop fields, clusters of juniper woods, stretches of golden dust and sun-bleached rocky hills before coming to a small timber dock. Two auxiliaries stood at the end of the jetty, wearing light linen tunics and felt caps to protect their scalps from the sun. This pair helped dock the ships and then showed them onto the road to Antioch.

So the vexillatio set off along a road that followed the banks of the Orontes, through a series of valleys carved by the great river. At first, the march was a welcome relief after weeks at sea. Pavo marched at the rear of Zosimus’ century, clacking his cane on the flagstones to keep the men in formation, occasionally marching ahead to talk with Zosimus and Sura.

But as the afternoon wore on, the dry air seemed to sap the spring from their steps. The cicada song grew ferocious and the dust seemed to cling to their throats. After a while, the only noise was the crunch-crunch of boots and the grunting of Centurion Quadratus slapping a persistent mosquito from his neck repeatedly, then swiping at it with a volley of curses as it buzzed around his head. When he threatened to rip its wings off, the insect seemed to take heed at last and leave him alone — only to buzz across Pavo and Sura’s heads and set about feasting on Centurion Zosimus’ stubbled scalp.

Pavo chuckled at this, then winced, feeling the sun sting on his arms — more than at any time on the deck of the trireme. He had noticed how Sura’s fair skin had become dappled with freckles from their time at sea. But now his friend had definitely turned a shade or two pinker, with his neck approaching an angry red.

‘The sun here feels different, eh?’ Pavo said, marching level with his friend

Sura shrugged nonchalantly.

‘Here, tie this round your neck,’ he insisted, pulling the linen batting that padded the inside of his intercisa and offering it to Sura.

But Sura waved him away; ‘Back in Adrianople, they used to have this fire walking thing. In the alleys behind the basilica. People would bet that they could walk on hot coals for a count of ninety. Nobody managed past seventy. Not one,’ he puffed out his chest and jabbed a thumb against his breast.

‘Until you?’ Pavo snatched the words from his friend’s mouth.

Sura confirmed this with an all-knowing nod. ‘By the time we reach Antioch, I’ll be in fine fettle. I’ll show them how to drink, and I’ll give the local women a bit of Thracian charm,’ he chuckled at this, a mischievous grin spreading across his face.

Pavo cocked one eyebrow in doubt then took a swig from his water skin. ‘We might have to be cautious here, Sura. From what I hear, Antioch — indeed, this whole land — isn’t like Thracia or Moesia. They’re devout Christians in these parts. Sober, solemn types. There won’t be taverns full of roaring, ruddy, drunken dogs.’

‘Cah!’ Sura swiped a hand through the air as if swatting an imaginary gnat. ‘Not till we get there.’

Pavo tried and failed to stifle a chuckle. ‘We should tread carefully, that’s all I’m saying.’

Sunset cast a deep pinkish-orange light and stretched shadows across the land, and brought a welcome cooling of the air. At the last light of day, they rounded a bend in the valley and set eyes upon the magnificent city of Antioch, Emperor Valens’ headquarters for his struggles with the Persian Empire.

The panting of the column died away at the sight. They had all seen the majesty of Constantinople; this place was smaller but by no means was it any less magnificent. The city’s colossal, baked limestone walls enveloped a section of the Orontes valley. The northern and southern walls bridged the river and the eastern walls strode undeterred up the steep slopes of Mount Silpius, the battlements up there surely providing a fine vista of the Syrian Desert that lay to the east. Sturdy square towers studded the wall, crested by purple imperial banners. The battlements were well garrisoned, sentries patrolling every twenty feet or so. Up on the mountaintop walls, he saw the outline of ballistae, the bolt-throwing devices fixed and pointing eastwards. Inside the walls, he could make out a sea of marble structures; palaces, arches, aqueducts, domes, columns, arenas and many Chi-Rho topped Christian churches. The majority of these structures seemed fresh and unblemished — clearly recent constructions.

As they came closer to the city, Pavo noticed activity on the wall up ahead. A few hundred feet east of the point where the Orontes flowed under the bridged section of the wall, the flagstoned road they marched on met with the Porta Orientalis. This arched, north-easterly gate was low and wide. Atop the two towers bookending it, a cluster of sentries filed into place to scrutinise the approaching vexillatio.

Just then, one raised a buccina to his lips and the sound of the horn keened through the valley. It echoed between the mountains either side, as if a thousand shade armies were signalling in reply. When the melody of the horn finally died, Pavo and the vexillatio came to a halt before the gate. Pavo saw that the men up there were legionaries, silver Chi-Rho emblems etched on their blue shields, and each of them wore the stoniest of glares. A faint breeze blew around Pavo’s shoulders as if to highlight the silence.

Finally, Gallus stepped forward. ‘Tribunus Manius Atius Gallus of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis,’ he held up a scroll and shook it. ‘Emperor Valens awaits our arrival.’

The legionaries on the gatehouse seemed deaf to his words for a moment, then grudgingly gave a curt nod and signalled for the gates to be opened. Pavo glanced up just before they marched under the shade of the gateway. The legionaries glowered down on them, noses wrinkled, eyes flinty.

Sura leant in to Pavo’s ear. ‘Friendly bastards, eh?’

Gallus stood in the cool shade of the palace campaign room, awaiting Emperor Valens. The marbled floors and towering arched ceilings seemed intent on magnifying his every shuffle or clearing of his throat. The Christian mosaics adorning the walls glared down on him accusingly, their gold-flecked and austere lustre amplified in the dancing lamplight. He had been given the chance to bathe in the nearby thermae then dress in fresh clothes before this meeting. Now he stood in his freshly polished mail, helmet clasped underarm. He was ready.

Ready for what? he mused, not for the first time. The emperor’s brief had been succinct, to say the least; Bring your best men to Antioch.

He sighed and turned his gaze on the eastern wall of the chamber. There, a tall, arched window lay ajar. A clement night breeze tumbled in and brought with it the thick scent of incense, burning on the sill. Outside, blackness reigned, punctuated only by starlight and torches. The crickets lent a chorus to the endless babbling of the Orontes. A lectern stood before the window, bearing a scroll with a chart of the night sky etched upon it. In the centre of the room, a map of the empire covered a broad oak table. Upon it were carved wooden pieces — each representing a legion. Gallus eyed the clusters of pieces in Thracia and those here in the east. Everywhere else, there were precious few pieces.

Footsteps shook him from his thoughts. He stood rigid and readied to salute, his eyes darting to the doorway. When Valens entered, he wore an earnest, welcoming look that belied the austerity all around him. His snow-white fringe partially masked the network of frown lines on his forehead and dangled to a point just above arched eyebrows and sharp, studious blue eyes. He wore a long, purple robe and a ceremonial, muscled bronze cuirass. Flanking him were two candidati, the tenacious warriors who seldom left his side. They wore no armour, preferring just light and pure-white linen tunics for swiftness of movement. They carried gold-threaded spears, spathas and white shields emblazoned with a gold Chi-Rho emblem.

Valens stopped before Gallus.

‘Imperator!’ Gallus barked, throwing an arm up stiffly.

‘Tribunus Gallus,’ Valens said with a nod and a gentle smile. ‘At ease. Much has happened since last we met.’

Gallus felt pleasantly disarmed by the emperor’s familiar tone. And Valens was right, he realised, thinking of that brief spell at the palace in Constantinople over a year ago. He had dined with the emperor and a rabble of power-hungry vultures whose ambitions lay masked behind senatorial and ecclesiastical robes. The calamitous Bosporus mission had followed soon after. The months that followed saw the Danubian Limes torn apart, the XI Claudia forced to flee into southern Thracia as the Goths went on the rampage. ‘Much has happened, Emperor, and much of it regrettable.’

‘The regrets are for me to reflect upon, Tribunus. You and your men have done your utmost to protect the empire — indeed, that is why you are here,’ Valens said, then turned away and paced across the room. ‘Perhaps one day the empire will be but a distant memory. Yet the people who choose to remember it will recall the legacy of the brutish Emperor Valens.’ He spread out his arms by the open window. ‘In times of relative peace and prosperity I have embellished the cities of the empire in an effort to breathe life into those ancient settlements and hope into the hearts of their peoples. Constantinople, Alexandria, Nicomedia, Adrianople, I have cared for all these places as if they were my homes. Here in Antioch I commissioned the fine, open space of the new forum, dedicated to my departed brother,’ he pointed to the circular clearing across the river, part-hidden in the sprawl of domes and marble structures. There, a column stretched into the night sky, with a gilded statue of Valentinian perched on its tip, in muscled armour, one hand on his heart and the other holding a spatha skywards.

Gallus stared at the sight of the dead Western Emperor. His top lip twitched. Hatred built in his veins. He thought of Olivia, of Marcus. It had been under that cur’s reign that. .

‘I spent vast sums from the imperial treasury on revitalising the Great Church of Constantine,’ Valens continued, stirring him from his dark thoughts, nodding to the largest of domes to the south-east, ‘because the people implored me that I must. And there are the baths, the arena, the gardens. . ’ he stopped, his head dropping a little. ‘But this will be forgotten. The dark tide of war will be my legacy. Yes, I have waged wars, and bloody ones too.’ He shook his head as if stirring from some troubled memory. ‘But now the tide of war has turned against the empire, Gallus, and ferociously so.’

‘Thracia can be saved, Emperor,’ Gallus interjected. The words came from his heart.

‘From where do you draw such hope?’ Valens asked, looking over his shoulder from the window, one eyebrow arched.

These words seemed to search inside Gallus’ armour. At once, he touched a hand to his purse, feeling for the idol in there. ‘Mithras stands with the legions back in Thracia.’

‘Then let us pray he betters Wodin and the Gothic hordes,’ Valens said with a mirthless snort. ‘But the fate of Thracia must wait. For a more ferocious and wily enemy now prowls at our door. The eastern frontier is on the brink, Tribunus.’ He swung round from the window, his eyes shaded under a deep frown. ‘Persia’s gaze is upon us.’

This was it, the moment Gallus had been waiting for. The brief that had brought him and his men east. ‘Emperor?’

‘Shapur has taken control of Armenia. Ten thousand Persian riders now patrol those lands and puppet the fickle princes who once swore loyalty to Rome.’

‘And you suspect the king of kings now readies to invade the empire?’ Gallus’ eyes narrowed as he said this, his gaze flicking to the campaign map.

‘Nobody knows what is brewing in Shapur’s mind. But I have heard rumour and counter-rumour that he is coming under ever-increasing pressure to make a decisive move,’ Valens’ expression darkened. ‘There are many within Persian lands who resent the House of Sassan. They see no reason why their ancient houses should not rule Persia in Shapur’s stead. They will demand that Shapur moves upon our empire or they will have his head and seize his throne. The taking of Armenia serves as a dark portent. Roman Syria is in absolutely no state to deal with an incursion of any kind.’ He strode over to the campaign table, resting an oil lamp near the centre of the map. Beckoning Gallus over and gesturing to the stools beside the table, he sat and tapped the spot on the map north-west of Constantinople, where the new temporary limes had been set up in Thracia. ‘Had it not been for the Gothic migrations across the Danubius, I would not have had to divert many of my eastern legions to those lands.’ He then swept his finger across the map, almost tracing the route of the XI Claudia’s voyage, bringing it to a rest in the area just east of Antioch. Here, more than forty soldier-pieces were spread out in a line running north to south. ‘The number of pieces here is misleading. Many of these legions are little more than vexillationes, some numbering only a few hundred like your own. Barely twenty five thousand men, stretching from northern Syria, all the way down to Egypt. And nearly half of them are mere limitanei. . ’ he looked up, fixing Gallus with his gaze. ‘I mean no offence, Tribunus. The border soldiers here barely compare with your kind — and that is exactly why I summoned you.’

Gallus smoothed at his chin with a thumb and forefinger. ‘Yet the eastern defences are sturdy, are they not? The fortifications along the Strata Diocletiana are legendary,’ he suggested, drawing a finger along the line on the map that ran from Armenia in the north down past Palmyra in the south. He had heard many tales of the proud network of stone forts that studded that desert road. ‘Surely — limitanei or otherwise — these legions here could bed in and man our strongholds should Shapur choose to invade?’

Valens pulled a wry smile. ‘The Strata Diocletiana has fallen into grievous disrepair. There are scarcely enough legionaries to garrison those forts, let alone funds to repair them. If Shapur turns his armies upon them, they will fall.’

Gallus frowned. Suddenly, the memory of the ballistae lining Antioch’s mountaintop eastern walls took on an air of desperation — like some final bastion. ‘And the Persians, what forces can they muster against us?’

Valens’ gaze grew distant. ‘Including the Armenian garrison, nearly one hundred thousand warriors. Perhaps a third are paighan — peasant infantry, many of them chained and forced to march. But the heart of the Persian army, over half, are Savaran.’

‘The Savaran?’ Gallus asked. ‘The Persian cavalry?’

Valens’ brow knitted in a frown. ‘Cavalry? Aye, perhaps you could call them that. Though the empire over I have yet to see riders so fierce.’

‘Emperor?’ Gallus asked, agitated by the sense of unease creeping back into his gut.

‘The detail we can come to later on,’ Valens waved a hand as if swatting a mayfly, ‘but you should be aware that the Sassanid rulers have changed the Persian way of war. In these last decades, they have shed the last vestiges of the old Parthian dynasty. They have fine forts, broad roads — they even model their borders on our limites. Their standing armies are as well-drilled as any legion.’ He stopped, screwing up his eyes and pinching the top of his nose as if fending off a headache. ‘Suffice to say they are a formidable foe.’

Gallus smoothed the tip of his chin. ‘Perhaps their unity — or lack of it — might be exploited? If Shapur has his enemies as you say,’ he offered.

‘A salient question, Tribunus, and one I have exhausted in these last months.’ Valens’ eyes sparkled keenly. ‘Unity is a multi-faceted concept. To a man, the Persians fight under the banner of their Zoroastrian god, Ahura Mazda, and unanimously rail against anything they see as the work of his antithesis, Ahriman. After that, internecine rivalries and power struggles muddy Persian politics so wickedly that few have a clear picture of how things truly stand. The spahbads who answer to Shapur control vast wings of the Savaran. They are like kings themselves, fiercely proud of their satrapies and their ancient and noble houses. And then there are the Zoroastrian Magi who walk before the armies, carrying torches that blaze with the Sacred Fire, a symbol of their faith. These men are mystical, powerful figures who control the hearts of people, armies and kings alike.’

‘It sounds like we could stoke some trouble that might keep them occupied?’ Gallus persisted.

Valens’ lips played with a smile. ‘Again, you echo my thoughts of recent times. Indeed, I have tried. Last year I sent a party of riders into The Satrapy of Elam in an attempt to bribe the spahbad and his army.’

‘Did the riders return?’ Gallus asked, sure he knew the answer already.

‘In a manner of speaking, yes. Their heads were delivered to a fort on the Strata Diocletiana, mouths stuffed with Roman coins,’ as Valens said this, his gaze faltered. ‘The Persians will not turn upon one another for a few bags of Roman gold. . and our coffers are all but empty in any case,’ he said dryly. ‘Subterfuge of any other kind — stoking up rivalries, instigating blood-feuds, that kind of thing — takes time, Gallus. And I fear time is running out. This year, next year at the latest, the Persian armies will fall upon these lands.’

‘Very well,’ Gallus nodded, his gut twisting further. ‘So if invasion is inevitable, and our fortifications cannot withstand such an assault, then why have you called us east, Emperor? Surely my vexillatio can offer little to change this?’

Valens shook his head slowly. ‘On the contrary, Tribunus. I know that you and your hardy men can.’ He clapped his hands and a pair of slaves hurried in with a jug of watered wine and a plate of fresh bread, figs and cheese. ‘Fill your belly and I will explain.’

Valens poured a goblet of wine and added three parts water, then swirled the concoction, gazing at the surface. ‘Fourteen years ago, an emperor died on the edge of a Persian blade.’

‘Julian,’ Gallus nodded, folding a piece of bread around a chunk of cheese and chewing upon it. He washed the mouthful down with water, forgoing wine as always. ‘I remember his reign. I was a young lad at the time. The Apostate, they called him — he had little time for Christian meekness.’ He said this with the beginnings of a dry chuckle, then remembered that Valens was a staunch Arian Christian and thought better of it.

Valens beheld him with a solemn gaze; ‘Then you will know of the man who succeeded him.’

‘Jovian,’ Gallus affirmed. ‘I remember little of his reign, other than that it was short. Very short. He was dead within a year, was he not?’

‘Jovian was a sot, Tribunus,’ Valens said, the stark words echoing around the chamber. ‘He stumbled into power and then swiftly drowned himself in wine, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. They say he died of accidental poisoning, but I heard the truth — he was found, soaked in his own vomit, surrounded by wineskins. Yet it was not wine that killed him. It was fear — a fear that he could escape only in a drunken haze. It takes a brave man to bear the burden of empire on his shoulders. The deaths of countless thousands haunting your dreams. The staring eyes of the living.’

Valens’ tone was clipped, yet his eyes betrayed a hint of glassiness. Gallus wondered if this was pity for poor Jovian, or for himself.

‘But on the day he acceded to the purple — the day after Julian had been slain, when the Roman army were pinned like wounded deer to the banks of the Tigris by the Savaran lances — Jovian found himself forced to concede a humiliating peace with Shapur. He gave away almost everything the empire had worked so hard to gain. Centuries of struggle, oceans of legionary blood, gone in a heartbeat.’ Valens leant forward, the lamplight dancing in his eyes. ‘But there is a chance, just a sliver of chance, that Jovian negotiated one thing in Rome’s favour that day. Something that, all these years later, could be the saviour of the east.’

Gallus’ spine tingled. The oil lamp on the edge of the table flickered as a cool night breeze tumbled in through the window like the breath of a shade.

‘Shapur is a ferocious adversary, but a noble one. It is thought that somehow Jovian convinced the shahanshah to agree to a lasting truce. That the lands west of the Euphrates were forever to remain unburdened by the Persian yoke.’

Gallus’ eyes widened. ‘That’s everything. . Antioch, Beroea, Damascus, the Strata Diocletiana.’

‘Now you are beginning to understand, Tribunus?’ Valens’ earnest smile returned. ‘A perpetual peace. The border kingdoms — Armenia, Iberia and the hordes of Saracen nomads in the Syrian Desert — would support such a treaty. They would stand with us against any Persian invasion.’

‘Then we must present this treaty. . ’

Valens held up a hand, fingers splayed. ‘Five copies of the treaty were prepared. Five scrolls. Two were given to Jovian and his retinue, three remained with Shapur. But in the flight across the Tigris, the Roman copies were lost. Indeed, much was lost; some soldiers took to wading into the river in their armour and drowned in their haste. Many arrived back in their homelands starved and dressed in filthy rags like beggars.’

Gallus nodded. ‘Then the Persian copies?’

Valens shook his head solemnly. ‘Over the years, they too have vanished. The copy held in Ctesiphon was destroyed when rioters ransacked the library. The copy in Susa, too, was lost in a great fire that ravaged the city. The third copy was sent to the Satrapy of Persis. But the camel rider disappeared on his journey there.’

‘Disappeared?’ Gallus’ nose wrinkled in suspicion.

Valens held out his palms, at a loss for an answer. ‘Slain, lost, consumed by the sands. I don’t know. But he vanished and the scroll with him.’

‘If all of the scrolls are lost, then this is a false hope, surely?’ Gallus leant back with a frustrated sigh.

‘Indeed, but something has come to light in recent months, Tribunus.’ Valens countered. ‘The last scroll — the one sent to the Satrapy of Persis — may still exist.’

‘So where is it?’ Gallus asked.

‘That, we do not know, Tribunus,’ Valens sighed and clapped his hands, ‘but this man may be able to help in that respect.’ The slaves led a man of some forty years into the campaign room. He was tall, with knotted limbs and sun-burnished skin. His grey-streaked, fair hair dangled to his chin, straw-like and bleached by the sun, while his thick beard was pure white. His haggard features and crooked shoulders told of a hard life while the fine tunic he wore spoke of a recent change in fortunes. A Christian Chi-Rho hung on a strap around his neck. Valens continued; ‘It is a miracle that Centurion Carbo even stands before us. He was captured by Shapur’s armies at the sack of Bezabde. He spent many years in the Dalaki salt mines.’

‘Dalaki?’ Gallus frowned.

Valens nodded. ‘Right in the heart of the Satrapy of Persis.’

Gallus beheld Carbo. Carbo met his gaze, then swiftly averted his eyes.

Nervous, or something to hide? Gallus thought. He batted the idea away and listened as Valens spoke.

‘Speak, Centurion,’ Valens prompted him.

Carbo shuffled and stood proud. ‘In my time in the mines I met many rogues, criminals and prisoners of war. There was one Persian — a man sentenced to spend his life underground at the salt face. I slept nearby him in the days before he asphyxiated from the lung disease of the mines. He spoke much with his last breaths. He cursed himself incessantly, whispering of his folly in ever laying hands on some scroll. A scroll that bore the mark of Jovian and Shapur.’

Gallus sat forward, interest piqued.

‘This rogue, he had a final lucid moment. He claimed that he and his band of brigands were the ones who had seized the scroll, ambushing the desert messenger. One by one, his band were captured, tortured and slain. All except him. He hid high in the Zagros Mountains for months, living off carrion left behind by vultures, sleeping in caves. All the while clutching the scroll, his only possession. He had stolen it in hope of selling it for riches, but instead, it brought him only poverty and misery. Finally, maddened by heat, hunger and isolation, he came down from the mountains and stole into Bishapur in search of food. Coinless, he snatched a loaf of bread from a baker’s stall then hid in a shaded alley to devour every last crumb. As he made his way through the streets to leave the city, he said sentries seemed to follow him like shadows, their eyes darting and furtive whenever he met their gaze. Then, when he came to the city gate, a sentry barred his way, and another two rushed him from behind. He panicked, sure they recognised him as the scroll thief. He said he had never run as far or as fast in his life from those who pursued him. All through the city he fled, through palaces, temples, squares and gardens. But they caught him in the end, and in the end they suspected nothing of the scroll. It was the stolen loaf of bread that saw him sentenced to the mines.’

Carbo finished and silence hung in the chamber.

Gallus cocked an eyebrow, looking to Valens and Carbo in turn, expecting more. ‘And the scroll? Where is it?’

Valens sighed; ‘In the mountains, perhaps, in one of the caves this wretch hid. In Bishapur, even. Or maybe deep in the mines.’

Carbo shrugged. ‘The man did not go as far as to tell me.’

Gallus slumped back with a sigh, clenching and unclenching his fists. ‘This is tenuous indeed. How much faith can we place in the words of some filthy and maddened beggar at the foot of a mine?’ he asked. And you; how much faith can we put in a man who has spent many years in deepest Persia? he thought.

Carbo held out his hands. ‘All I can tell you is that he said this with his dying breaths. Why would a man lie with his last words?’

Now Carbo seemed to hold Gallus’ gaze earnestly. Gallus’ eyes narrowed, unable to judge this character.

‘It is a thread, Tribunus.’ Valens said, pinching his thumb and forefinger together. ‘The finest of threads. But we must grasp at it. We must seek out the scroll.’

Realisation dawned on Gallus. He sat upright and met Emperor Valens’ unblinking gaze. ‘You summoned us here to send us into Persia?’

‘I would not have brought you here if I had any doubts as to your suitability,’ Valens replied firmly. He clapped his hands again.

This time a short, stocky man in his late twenties was shown into the room. He could have been described politely as swarthy, but the truth was he was filthy and unshaven. He wore a frayed tunic and a dark-brown, Phrygian cap, with jet-black, oily locks dangling from the rim. Overall he had the look of an unwashed Mithras, Gallus thought, his nose wrinkling.

‘Yabet is half Greek, half Iberian. He will guide you into southern Persia and the Satrapy of Persis.’

Gallus’ mind spun. He glanced at the campaign map and the most direct route into Persia; Mesopotamia. The area between the Euphrates and the Tigris was shaded a light green to indicate the fertile earth that distinguished the ancient land. ‘Across the two great rivers? Those lands are thick with Persian forts and settlements, are they not? Like the Roman limites, didn’t you say?’

‘Exactly,’ Valens replied, ‘so you are to take a far lonelier route.’ He traced his finger from Antioch, dragging it south-east, across the stretch of map that skirted Mesopotamia and was shaded in unbroken yellow. ‘The Syrian Desert is treacherous, but Yabet will see you all the way across it.’ His finger stopped near the tip of the Persian Gulf. ‘Once at the Gulf, you are to stow your armour and anything that identifies you as legionaries, then buy a berth on some trade ferry — something that will take you across the water. On the far shore is the Satrapy of Persis. Once you have infiltrated that land, your ingenuity will be the key. Comb the towns and cities, buy what information you can from the rogues that litter the Persian alleyways, leave no stone unturned. Greek-speakers are common in those parts. Find this scroll, Tribunus, and save your empire.’

Gallus worked hard to suppress his urge to challenge this epic proposal.

‘Your vexillatio will be complemented by a century from the city garrison. The men of the XVI Flavia Firma are good soldiers, Tribunus. And they’ll be led by a good man. A brave man eager to march into enemy lands.’

Gallus followed Valens’ extended finger and saw that it pointed to Carbo.

His eyes narrowed and his mood grew darker.