Rome's lost son

CHAPTER XI

‘The King of Armenia runs from no man no matter what my aunt Tryphaena expects me to do.’ Radamistus did not look at Vespasian as he made this pronouncement but, rather, stared straight ahead at a bust of himself posing as Hercules that was placed next to the tent’s entrance. Sitting bolt upright on a weighty throne, the one concession he made to Vespasian’s presence was a dismissive, languid wave of the royal right hand in his direction. He had, with ostentatious magnanimity, deigned to grant Vespasian an audience in his camp guarding the east-west bridge over the Kentrites while the Romans built their camp to protect the north-south bridge across the Tigris.

‘You are not the King of Armenia, Radamistus,’ Vespasian reminded him, keeping his voice in check despite his growing anger. ‘Not until Rome says you are. And if you want Rome to confirm you on the throne then you will do what Rome tells you to do, and Rome says that you will retreat inland.’

‘Does she? I’ve heard Rome say otherwise.’ Radamistus turned his eyes, dark as a wolf’s on a moonless night, on Vespasian and stroked his beard, twisting the pointed end as if in deep thought. ‘Why should I retreat from an army that has already been beaten once? I was prepared to make the strategic withdrawal that Tryphaena had advised in order to draw a stronger army inland where we could starve them to defeat; but now things have changed: I’ve already defeated the force they sent to hold the northern road; the rest of the Parthians can be stopped here. Rome has requested it; I heard her voice just as I’ve heard her say that I am king.’ The sickly sweet perfume with which his tightly plaited hair, like so many black rats’ tails, was liberally doused turned Vespasian’s stomach and he took a step back. Radamistus misread the move. ‘That’s right; you should fear the King.’

‘You are not king, Radamistus,’ Vespasian repeated.

‘I am! And I will not have some second son of a low-ranking family insult me by suggesting otherwise. Your insolence in refusing to bow your head to me was insupportable and if you carry on with your impudence I shall have that head removed.’

Vespasian wondered how Radamistus was so familiar with his background. ‘Don’t try to threaten me, Radamistus, especially with something that you know only too well is not within your power.’

‘His Majesty is well within his rights to issue such a threat, Vespasian,’ a nastily familiar voice said from behind him.

Vespasian spun round to see a hunched little man entering the tent. ‘Paelignus! What are you still doing here? The Parthian army is just a mile away and there’s only one river between it and you.’

The procurator smiled malevolently and then made a great show of bowing to Radamistus, further upsetting Vespasian’s stomach with the sight of a Roman paying homage to an eastern upstart. ‘Your Majesty.’

Radamistus acknowledged the abasement with barely a nod. ‘Explain the situation to this deluded man, procurator.’

‘My pleasure, Your Majesty.’ Paelignus bowed again quite unnecessarily, his curved back forcing his head almost vertical, before turning to Vespasian. ‘As procurator of Cappadocia, the Roman province nearest to Armenia, I have confirmed His Majesty in his position of king. I will write to the Emperor informing him of the move, which I know he will support because it’s in Rome’s interest to have a strong king in this kingdom that’s so vital to our security in the East.’

‘And what has this king given Rome in return, Paelignus?’

‘He has pledged to drive the Parthians out of the country, which, since my victories over their infantry and then their cataphracts, will be easily achievable.’

‘Your victories? I can’t remember seeing you since the Parthians first appeared.’

‘I command the army therefore I take the credit, remember?’ Paelignus leered, baring buckled teeth. ‘Tomorrow our combined armies will cross back over the Tigris and defeat Babak’s severely mauled rabble in front of the gates of Tigranocerta.’

‘You won’t defeat Babak; most of his cataphracts survived — as you would know if you’d actually been there.’

‘King Radamistus has brought two thousand Armenian and Iberian heavy horse with him as well as four thousand horse archers and half as many again on foot; with that force combined with my auxiliaries we’ll be undefeatable. I will tell the Emperor of this famous victory, the third in two days, in my letter informing him of my actions concerning the Armenian throne. I fully expect him to award me an Ovation as he did Aulus Plautius for his similar service in Britannia.’

Vespasian stared at the little man in mute amazement having never been in the presence of such a delusional fantasist before — with the possible exception of Caligula on a bad day. With a knotted-browed shake of his head he turned on his heel and, without even a glance at Radamistus, strode from the tent.

‘The trouble is that technically he’s doing the right thing: confirming Radamistus in return for his quick action in repelling the Parthians,’ Vespasian informed Magnus not long later, over a glass of wine in their own tent. ‘So I can’t criticise him for it without it looking suspicious.’

‘So what’s wrong with what he’s doing?’

Vespasian sighed, feeling that he was no longer fully in control of the situation. ‘Well, I suppose nothing really, apart from risking and then probably losing the lives of a good many of his auxiliaries. If he does attack Babak tomorrow he’ll be badly mauled as he crosses the bridge; the Parthian horse archers will disrupt his manoeuvring and he won’t have time to form up into battle order before the cataphracts hit him; as he would know if he had the slightest bit of military experience.’

‘What about Radamistus?’

‘What about him? He’s evidently a glory-seeking idiot with as much sense as his little friend.’

Magnus contemplated the contents of his cup as he digested this. ‘Sounds like it’ll be a shambles.’

‘It’ll be a deadly shambles, but it’ll produce the same result. Radamistus will fall back north with whatever remains of his army and, having garrisoned Tigranocerta and securing his supply lines, Babak will follow, making war unavoidable. I was just trying to achieve the same thing with minimum loss of life.’

Magnus drained his cup as Hormus came in with a steaming pot containing their supper. ‘I hope you’ve got the amount of lovage in that correct this time, Hormus.’

Smiling, Hormus almost met Magnus’ eye. ‘I think so, Magnus.’ He put the pot down on the table. ‘Half a handful for every four handfuls of chickpeas and pork.’

Magnus sniffed the contents of the pot then looked approvingly at Vespasian’s slave. ‘That’s smelling quite good, well done, son.’

Hormus’ smile became even broader. ‘Thank you, Magnus,’ he said, going back to attend to the rest of the dinner on the cooking fire outside.

Vespasian was surprised. ‘Since when has he started calling you by your name?’

‘Since I told him to. He’s a good lad. It turned out that the boy he’s bedding is a little too inquisitive and has evidently been sent to penetrate our little circle, if you take my meanings?’

Vespasian chose to take only one of them. ‘By Paelignus I would assume, seeing as he appeared when we left Melitene.’

‘Yes, apparently he’s boasted to Hormus of friends in high places in Cappadocia.’

‘How did you find all that out?’

‘By questioning Hormus about their pillow talk as we were waiting to cross the bridge this morning.’

‘And?’

‘And Hormus admitted that the boy was very keen on asking if he’d overheard any interesting conversations and he’d always ask with his mouth full, if you further take my meaning?’

‘You should never speak with your mouth full.’

‘That’s what I said to Hormus and I think he was quite upset when he realised that his lover had such bad manners; so to get back at him he’s agreed to slip him whatever lies we like.’

‘That could be a great help.’ Vespasian looked thoughtful as Hormus re-entered with a smaller pot and some flat bread.

The slave placed the rest of the dinner next to the pork and chickpea stew and then laid out plates, knives and spoons; in the absence of couches Vespasian and Magnus sat up to eat.

‘What’s your boy’s name, Hormus?’ Vespasian asked as he spooned food onto his plate.

‘Mindos, master.’

‘Mindos?’ Vespasian broke a flat loaf in half and scooped a mouthful of the stew onto it. ‘Well, tell Mindos that you overheard a conversation between me and the prefects of the five auxiliary cohorts this evening. Say you couldn’t hear very well but it seemed that I was telling them that I would lead their men home to Cappadocia in the morning and leave Paelignus with Radamistus. Tell Mindos that you think that they all agreed to come.’

‘Yes, master.’

Vespasian took a bite and chewed thoughtfully before swallowing. ‘That really is very good, Hormus.’

‘I told you I’d get him cooking to a decent standard, didn’t I?’ Magnus said through a mouthful. ‘That was just the right amount of lovage.’

‘I thought you said that you considered it ill-mannered to talk with your mouth full.’

‘It depends on the meat that you’re chewing on.’ Magnus grinned and masticated noisily.

Vespasian nodded to the open tent flaps. ‘You get off, Hormus, and give Mindos his supper; hopefully he’ll be as ill-mannered as Magnus.’

Hormus looked confused as he left.

‘Do you think he’ll do it?’ Vespasian asked.

‘Of course.’

‘I think you’re right. He seems to have got a lot more confidence since we came out East. He could, eventually, even become useful.’

‘I’d say he already is. What do you expect will happen when Paelignus hears your little lie?’

‘I expect it to suddenly become the truth.’

Vespasian was woken by bucinae, not sounding the reveille but, rather, the alarm.

Jumping from his low camp bed in his tunic as Hormus came rushing into the sleeping quarters, he began buckling on his back- and breastplates as his slave dealt with his belt and sandals; with his sash of rank secured around his midriff and his sword belt slung over his shoulder he crashed through the tent, tying the chinstrap of his helmet in a secure knot, to find Magnus waiting for him eating a bowl of cold pork and chickpea stew for breakfast, seemingly unconcerned.

‘What’s happening?’ Vespasian asked, not pausing on his way out into the night.

‘Fuck knows; jumpy sentries?’

The Roman camp to the untrained eye would have looked like chaos, but as Vespasian glanced around the torch-washed lines of tents he saw only the orderly assembling of the almost four thousand soldiers of the five auxiliary cohorts as each man made his way to his muster station, having dressed in double-quick time. Bucinae carried on unnecessarily blaring out the alarm as centurions and optiones bellowed at their men to form up on their standard-bearers; slaves scuttled about lighting more torches so that soon the square half-mile encompassed by a wooden palisade was ablaze with flickering light. By the time that Vespasian and Magnus arrived at the praetorium, the command post at the centre of the camp, they could see that most centuries in the two cohorts forming up along the Via Praetoria were at full strength with only the final few laggards being beaten into place by the vine sticks of their centurions. Whether the Armenian and Iberian troops in their camp just to the east of the Romans’ were in the same state of readiness he did not know, although he hoped that, for their own sake, they were, as Radamistus had eschewed building a stockaded camp on the basis that the King of Armenia hides from no man.

And then, just as he was about to enter the praetorium, above the roars of the officers and the shrill notes of the horns came an even shriller sound; a sound that Vespasian recognised immediately and he knew with certainty that Hormus’ loyalty was absolute.

‘Don’t you try and deny it, you traitors! You renegades! Deserters! Cowards! You’re relieved of your commands. Guards, seize them and then bring Titus Flavius Vespasianus before me in chains!’ Paelignus panted, his protruding eyes bulging more than usual; he stared at each of his auxiliary prefects in turn as Vespasian walked into the tent leaving Magnus to wait outside. The soldiers on guard had made no move to obey Paelignus’ screeched order.

‘I heard that you were asking to see me, procurator,’ Vespasian said, as if Paelignus’ demand had been the most polite and well mannered of invitations.

Paelignus glared at Vespasian, his eyes bulging even more, his chest heaving and his tongue hanging out like a dog’s, as he drew a series of quick, ragged breaths. ‘Seize him!’ he eventually managed to ejaculate, his throat evidently constricted with rage. A trembling, hooked finger was levelled at Vespasian to help the guards identify the miscreant deserving of arrest. Once again they did nothing. ‘Seize him! I order you!’

‘Whatever is the matter, procurator?’ Vespasian asked in the tone of one trying to ascertain the cause of a recalcitrant child’s unruly behaviour.

‘You’ve been plotting behind my back, all of you; now that I’ve relieved you of your commands I shall have you all executed.’

‘Will you? Perhaps you would like to tell us why you feel such an extreme move to be necessary?’

‘You’re going to take my soldiers away.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘I know; you had a meeting in your tent earlier this evening, Vespasian. The prefects agreed to follow you back to Cappadocia and desert me, your rightful commander.’

Vespasian looked at the prefects, who all seemed equally as puzzled by the ravings of their slavering procurator as he was. ‘Do any of you recall such a meeting, gentlemen?’

Fregallanus looked at Paelignus in disgust. ‘I don’t recall such a meeting, Paelignus, because there wasn’t one. We are men of honour and would consider conspiring against our commander, whatever we may think of him, as a conspiracy against the Emperor himself.’

Mannius spat on the ground. ‘If there had been such a meeting I would not have agreed to disobey your orders and take my cohort back to Cappadocia, despite my personal feelings about your military ability and even though you were planning to risk all our lives in the morning in an ill-advised attack. But now? I resent being called a coward by a man who I didn’t see once on the wall whilst we were under attack yesterday. I have never served under a man who is so unfit to command; a man who, given a choice, will invariably make the wrong decision. You have relieved us all of our commands, runt; now we reinstate ourselves. Guards, seize him!’

This time the men responded to the order and strode forward.

Paelignus yelped and darted away from the desk. Vespasian watched in fascinated disbelief, as the little man ducked and dived, dodged and weaved around the tent while the two guards attempted to apprehend him as if it were a chase in a theatrical comedy; despite his abnormality he was as quick as a lithe rodent and soon outsmarted his pursuers and nipped out of the tent.

‘Let him go!’ Vespasian ordered the two embarrassed guards; he turned to the prefects. ‘He’ll no doubt run to Radamistus.’

‘That arrogant piece of eastern shit is welcome to him,’ Cotta said, speaking for all present judging by the murmurs of agreement. ‘So what do we do now?’

The question was directed at his fellow prefects but it was to Vespasian that they all looked for an answer.

‘It seems that you have a choice between withdrawing to Cappadocia or withdrawing north into Armenia with Radamistus; unless, of course, you would rather fight a battle here that you can’t win.’

Mannius asked the question that they were all wondering about: ‘So why did we come in the first place? You can’t possibly hold a country like Armenia with five auxiliary cohorts.’

Vespasian shrugged. ‘You’ll have to ask Paelignus that; it was his idea. I just came along to offer suggestions if they were needed.’ It was not a nice lie but a convincing one in the light of the procurator’s behaviour. However, now that the auxiliary cohorts had served their purpose he was anxious that they should return to their bases without further loss of life. ‘Personally, I think that you’re well out of it now that your former commander has revealed himself to be an unstable imbecile. If you’re going to have to withdraw in the face of a superior force, then, rather than go north into unknown territory, I would return home and send a message to the Governor of Syria and hope that he comes with one or two of his legions to help remove the Parthians.’

As the prefects began to talk amongst themselves, discussing their options, the bucinae began a fresh bout of blaring; again it was the alarm. Vespasian headed out of the tent with the prefects following. ‘What is it, Magnus?’

‘I’ve no idea, sir; but if it really is trouble it’s just as well that the lads are all up and dressed and standing in those lovely ranks and files that the centurions are so keen on.’

Vespasian looked up and down the Via Praetoria, lined with soldiery, no doubt all wondering, as he was, what was going on. A horseman appeared galloping fast completely against the standing orders in any camp; in fact, riding horses in a camp was frowned upon as unlucky.

‘Where’s the procurator?’ the man shouted as he pulled his mount up to a skidding halt.

‘Disappeared,’ Vespasian said. ‘What’s the alarm for?’

‘The Parthians have surprised the garrison on the bridge. They’re now in control of it and are crossing in force.’

‘That’s impossible, there was half a cohort guarding it.’

‘Not our bridge, sir; the other one guarded by the Armenians. They made the broken bridge passable again and crossed the river to come behind Radamistus’ army.’

Vespasian struggled to contain the shock on his face and looked at the assembled prefects. ‘Well, gentlemen, I suggest that you deploy a holding force to the east, in case the Parthians break through Radamistus, to protect us whilst we strike camp as quickly as possible. It looks like the decision has been made for you; the route north is now blocked.’

Vespasian pushed his horse as fast as he dared in the growing dawn half-light; ahead, Radamistus’ unfortified encampment was in uproar, drowning out the sound of the auxiliaries striking their camp and the horns of the cohort deploying as a screen. But although there were hundreds or thousands of raised voices, as yet he had not heard the clash of arms or the screams of the maimed and the dying.

He was unchallenged as he passed through the perimeter of the Armenian camp, which was a mess of cavalrymen mounting and forming up without any clear sense of order. He negotiated his way through the chaos as fast as possible without causing injury to one of the many who seemed to be running about in circles for no good reason other than just to be seen to be doing something. He eventually came to Radamistus’ tent to find the King, resplendent in the tall crown of Armenia and a tunic of scale armour, stepping into a ceremonial four-horse chariot.

‘What are you doing, Radamistus?’ Vespasian shouted, pulling up next to the usurper.

Radamistus ignored the question as his mounted guards closed around him pushing Vespasian away. Then Radamistus paused for a moment and looked at Vespasian, frowning as if in thought; he called out in his own language into the shadows and received a reply that sounded affirmative to Vespasian. The chariot’s driver cracked his whip over the team’s withers and the vehicle moved off, surrounded by bodyguards, towards the bridge that Radamistus’ army had been supposed to hold.

‘The King is going to negotiate,’ Paelignus said, stepping from the shadows leading a horse and accompanied by half a dozen royal bodyguards. ‘Now that my men have deserted me we only have half the numbers that we thought we had and we’re surrounded.’

Vespasian looked down at the procurator. ‘What’s he going to do? Surrender?’

Paelignus scoffed. ‘The King of Armenia surrenders to no man; he’ll fight if necessary.’

‘He’s not the King.’

‘He is; you may have noticed that crown he was wearing on his head. I placed it there in Rome’s name just now to confirm him in his position. That’ll give him authority in his negotiations with the barbarians.’

‘You little idiot. He needs to earn that from us, not be given it without conditions attached.’

One of Paelignus’ guards knitted his hands; the procurator stepped on them and struggled up into the saddle in an ungainly manner. He looked at Vespasian as his guards mounted. ‘Come and join me to see the result of the negotiations; in fact, Radamistus has asked that you should come. I think you’ll be impressed by the wording of his oath of loyalty to Parthia. Of course, the King of Armenia is under no compunction to keep his oath to a man as lowly as the satrap of Nineveh. Parthia will retire, Radamistus will renounce the oath and stay on the throne with a crown presented by Rome, and I will have scored the greatest diplomatic and military victory since Augustus negotiated the return of the Eagles lost by Crassus at Carrhae. I look forward to being amply rewarded by a grateful emperor.’

‘Parthia will never tolerate the breaking of that oath; they’ll be back within a month of Radamistus repudiating it,’ Vespasian replied and turned his horse, happy in the knowledge that if Radamistus were to swear loyalty to Parthia and break the oath then war would be unavoidable and his mission complete. ‘But no thank you; I won’t join you despite Radamistus’ kind invitation. I’m going back to Cappadocia; I’ve seen enough of how things are done in the East.’

‘Oh, but you haven’t, Vespasian; there’s one more thing that you should see.’ Paelignus pulled his gaunt face into what was meant to be a pleasant smile but looked to Vespasian as if he was in an advanced stage of rigor mortis. ‘It wasn’t an invitation from the King to come with me.’ He signalled to his guards. ‘It was an order.’

Six spear heads immediately pointed at him; he was surrounded.

‘Take his sword,’ Paelignus ordered, riding off after Radamistus, ‘and tie his hands.’

*

Vespasian sat on his mount, his wrists bound tight and then secured to the horns of his saddle so that he had no possibility of riding off. Paelignus took regular gloating, sidelong glances at him as if he were anticipating a sweet moment. Ten paces ahead of them, Radamistus stood in his chariot, facing Babak, having a long conversation which had been punctuated with many polite gestures, in what Vespasian assumed was very flowery language as each sentence in the unintelligible tongue seemed to go on for an age. Although Paelignus too had no idea of what was being discussed, Vespasian saw him nodding in agreement occasionally and then noticed that the bodyguard to his other side was whispering a translation into his ear. Behind him the Armenian army had formed up for battle, while behind Babak a small force of dismounted Parthian cavalry held the bridge. They were not enough to attack and defeat the Armenian host but were certainly enough to impede their passage.

Vespasian felt confident that Babak would cede to Radamistus’ terms and let him pass so that he could head north. Babak would remain in Tigranocerta until news of Radamistus’ treachery travelled down to him; then he would lead his army into the heart of Armenia and Tryphaena would have her war.

The negotiations seemed to be coming to some conclusion; Vespasian pulled on his bindings. ‘Untie me, Paelignus.’

‘You’ll be released soon enough.’

As the procurator finished speaking, Radamistus turned around and signalled to the guard holding Vespasian’s horse’s reins; he led the beast forward. However, he did not stop when he was level with his master, but, rather, carried on to Babak who signalled to one of his entourage to take the reins.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Vespasian demanded.

Babak signalled to his men on the bridge who began pulling back to let the Armenian army cross.

As he crossed the bridge with Babak at his side, Vespasian repeated the question.

‘It’s custom to conclude business with a surety in my country,’ Babak informed him. ‘And you are just such a thing. If Radamistus breaks his word and Rome sends her armies in to support him, then, until they are removed, you will spend the rest of your life in the darkest dungeon in Adiabene.’

‘But you know that he’ll break his word.’

‘Do I? He swore on Ahura Mazda; for him there is no more powerful a god.’

‘But he swore to you and he considers you to be too far below him in status to be able to hold him to his oath.’

Babak bridled at the implied insult. ‘Then it would seem that things are not going to go well for you as a hostage of Parthia.’