Rome's lost son

CHAPTER XIIII

The Tigris was being kind to them, flowing at a steady pace, its surface smooth, gliding them south at the speed of a trotting horse. Vespasian lay in their boat’s bow, looking up past the triangular sail at the cloudless sky and wondering how he could have lived for two years without seeing such beauteous colour; the intensity of the blue transfixed his eyes and it was as much as he could do to check the tears that he could feel welling up within him. Now that he had time to think, relief coursed through his whole being; relief that the dark ordeal was now over; relief at once again feeling the companionship of a fellow human being.

For the two days since they had come across the boat pulled up on the riverbank and covered with vegetation, Vespasian had lain prone in the bow as they sailed down the tributary river to its confluence with the Tigris. He had joined in some conversation with Magnus and Hormus but it had been an effort and he found that he preferred just to let his thoughts wander free and enjoy the exhilaration of having nothing over his head preventing him from seeing the sky.

He had listened to his companions’ account of how Magnus, having befriended the gaoler, had sold Hormus to him at a reasonable discount after they had murdered his original slave and the sexual ordeals that Hormus went through at the hands of that man for the six days that he had served him before their escape. Vespasian’s gratitude to his slave for sacrificing himself so that he could rescue his master was profound and he understood that Hormus was completely devoted to him, serving him in such a way that he could be trusted with anything. Hormus sat in the stern of the boat, holding the steering-oar as the current and the small sail, full bellied with wind, pushed them on towards Ctesiphon; his eyes fixed on the river ahead and his mouth set firm in concentration beneath the beard that masked his undershot chin. Vespasian studied the man and wondered what he had done to deserve such unquestioning, animal loyalty; he swore to himself that he would repay that loyalty by freeing Hormus at the earliest legal time: when he reached the age of thirty in a few years.

Magnus sat beneath the mast, his head on his chest, snoring; his splinted arm lay across his lap. Vespasian smiled at the sight. He had never dared give rein to the hope that his friend would find and rescue him in all those dark days; but there had always been a little flicker in the deeper recesses of his mind that it was a possibility. Now he was free he could afford to admit to himself that the reason he had survived relatively unscathed was because he had clung on to that tiny morsel of hope, nurturing it but not relying on it. He knew that he was extremely fortunate with his companions and, as they sailed on south, he said a prayer of thanks to Mars for holding his hands over him and promised the finest bull as soon as he was back within the Empire.

They kept to the middle of the river, a hundred and fifty paces from either bank, both of which were dotted with farms, small settlements and larger towns. The land was lush, most of it under cultivation and the communities that they passed seemed prosperous. Occasionally they would land just downstream from one and Hormus would walk back to buy food; they aroused no suspicion and other craft that they passed on the water would hail them cheerfully and sail on without incident.

Days melted into one another, the river widened and the temperature grew hotter. Gradually Vespasian began to feel the weight of his incarceration lift; he could sleep without fear of waking up to find himself back in his cell so that for the first time in two years he began to feel rested and strong and capable of an arduous caravan journey across the desert to either Judaea or Syria. As his strength returned so did his ambition: somehow he had survived an ordeal that would have left most people gibbering wrecks; he had done it with his will and, he was well aware, with the help of the gods. He was now sure that there was substance behind all the omens of his birth and the subsequent prophesies and signs. Mars was preserving him: how else had his mind been kept from cracking?

‘We should be getting there soon,’ Magnus observed, shading his eyes and peering forward. ‘When I looked at a map back in Syria, from what I could make out, it seemed to be about two to three hundred miles from Arbela to Ctesiphon. This is our fifth day on the river.’

‘How will we know that we’re at Ctesiphon?’ Hormus asked.

Vespasian sat up and looked south. ‘Because it will be the biggest city that you’ve ever seen outside Rome or Alexandria. It’s even bigger if you count the Greek city of Seleucia on the western bank of the Tigris.’

Magnus was surprised. ‘You mean there’s a whole city full of Greeks in the middle of the Parthian Empire?’

‘Yes, and most cities have a sizable Greek or Macedonian minority. Thousands of colonists came out in the wake of Alexander and most of them stayed. There are Greek speakers all the way to India. Parthia is not an empire just comprising Persians, Medes and Assyrians; there are many different peoples and all owe allegiance to the King of Kings, who, incidentally, is the son of the previous incumbent, Vorones, and a Greek concubine.’

‘They get everywhere, the Greeks,’ Magnus said, shaking his head in disapproval.

‘What have you got against the Greeks?’

‘What, apart from being liars and cheats with an uncommon desire to be buggered and a penchant for sleeping with close relatives?’

‘Yes, apart from all that.’

‘Well, nothing, I suppose, other than the fact that Pallas and Narcissus are both Greek and look at how much trouble they’ve piled upon us in their lives. Tryphaena turns out to be Greek and it would seem that she’s responsible for us being, without any obvious allies, in the middle of the Parthian Empire, which is ruled by some bastard who happens to be half-Greek. Do you want me to go on?’

‘No, no, fair enough; fucking Greeks, eh? Anyway, what we have to remember is that most Greeks are completely loyal to the regime …’

‘As loyal as any Greek can be, you mean?’

‘Yes, and as such it would be best not to let on that we’re Romans even to a Greek.’

‘Especially to a Greek; he’d sell that information faster than his sister once he’d taken her virginity. Did you hear about the Greek who took his new bride back to her family because he found out on their wedding night that she was a virgin?’

Vespasian frowned. ‘No.’

‘Well, he did, telling them that if she wasn’t good enough for her brothers then she wasn’t good enough for him.’

Vespasian laughed, long and loud; at first it was at the joke but then it became much more about the joy of freedom.

It was truly magnificent. Walls of stone, painted blue and yellow, decorated with animal motifs and studded with towers soaring to the sky, encasing a city almost the size of Rome; and that was just on the east bank of the Tigris. On the west bank, just before the river split in two to pass either side of a fortified island, there was another city, less old, set out in a grid pattern: Seleucia, the former capital of the Macedonian Seleucid Kingdom, built just over three centuries before. Equally as impressive in scale but without the painted walls, Seleucia’s ordered streets made it feel like it was purpose built; whereas the higgledy-piggledy maze of Ctesiphon’s layout showed a city that had grown slowly from nothing over the centuries. These two monuments to human achievement sat half a mile apart, either side of the Tigris, swarming with life, feeding off the great river that at the same time joined and separated them. Crafts of all sizes ploughed through the gently flowing water, browned by sewage, back and forth between the two cities as they supported each other in a symbiotic relationship of trade.

And it was because of trade that Vespasian, Magnus and Hormus had come, or, at least, to follow a lead based upon trade, and, as they steered their boat into the harbour just to the south of Ctesiphon’s walls, Vespasian realised that it would be a daunting task to find Ataphanes’ family: not even in Ostia had he ever seen so many mercantile ships. The quay was a mass of merchants and slaves; the merchants haggling and bargaining, the slaves lifting and humping. Sacks, bags, crates, baskets, amphorae and bales, all containing the produce of scores of exotic lands, were loaded onto and off-loaded from the traders in an endless cycle of commerce fuelled by greed and coinage.

‘Where are we going to start looking amongst all this?’ Vespasian said as Hormus slipped the boat into a free berth.

‘Spice merchants must congregate somewhere,’ Magnus observed, throwing a painter up to a young lad of thirteen or fourteen who seemed to have taken it upon himself to assist with their mooring.

‘Smell the air, it’s drenched with spices; there must be thousands of spice merchants here.’

‘Ah, but how many deal with the Jews of Alexandria?’ Magnus studied the activity for a few moments, watching a trail of slaves lug wicker baskets from a ship straight into one of the scores of warehouses lining the harbour. ‘I imagine all this is coming in from the East because I know from looking at that map that the Tigris flows out into the sea and then that sea will take you all the way to India. What we need to do is find the merchants who trade the other way; the merchants who take the goods out of the warehouses and then send them on caravans west.’

It seemed to Vespasian, as he clambered out of the boat, to be a decent point and as good a starting place as any. Hormus followed him out, eagerly accepting the help of the boy, who did not seem to mind the slave’s hands resting on parts of his anatomy that were not strictly in the way nor of much use for helping people out of boats.

‘Does he speak Aramaic?’ Vespasian asked as the boy looked with goggle-eyes at a silver coin that Hormus had extracted from the purse on his belt.

After a brief, unintelligible conversation, Hormus confirmed that his new friend did indeed speak Aramaic, which, judging from his expression, pleased the slave immensely.

‘Ask him whether the spice merchants who deal with exporting goods to the West have any guild or regular meeting place or whatever.’

A short conversation ensued, during which Hormus seemed to find it necessary to emphasise a point by gently stroking the Persian boy’s arm; the slave looked back at his master. ‘Bagoas here says that there are many associations of traders throughout the city and over in Seleucia as well.’

Vespasian thought for a few moments. ‘Ataphanes was Persian, I believe; not Median, Babylonian or Assyrian or any of the other sorts. Ask him where I should start to look for a Persian spice merchant.’

Another conversation followed involving a lot of eye contact, some shy smiles and, it seemed to Vespasian and Magnus, an unnecessary amount of stroking. ‘We need to go to the agora near to the royal palace,’ Hormus said, briefly dragging his eyes away from his informant.

‘Good, tell him there is a drachma in it for him to show us the way there and then act as our guide for the rest of the day.’ Vespasian paused before adding with a smile, ‘And night.’

‘You shouldn’t encourage him,’ Magnus grumbled as Hormus translated Vespasian’s wishes. ‘This is what I meant; he just can’t help himself. Everywhere we went it was the same thing; I wouldn’t have minded so much had all the grunting and groaning not kept me awake on so many nights.’

Bagoas whistled and another couple of boys emerged from the crowds on the quay; both were a year or two younger than him and, judging by their looks, were either his brothers or cousins.

Hormus eyed the boys with interest as Bagoas pointed to them and explained their presence. ‘He says that they will look after the boat for a drachma each now and another on your return in the morning.’

Vespasian shook his head. ‘Tell Bagoas that if he helps us find the people we’re looking for we won’t need the boat and he and the boys can keep it.’

After they had settled their account with the inevitable harbour official demanding mooring fees as well as a small donation directly into his own purse based on the number of people arriving in the boat which seemed to be in lieu of any goods in their possession worth stealing, Bagoas led them towards the city.

One look at the buildings lining the wide thoroughfare that dived, straight as an arrow’s flight, from the harbour gate, bisecting the maze of streets, into the heart of the city was enough for anyone to realise that Ctesiphon was the heart of power. Only the dwellings of the noble or the immortal were allowed in such a prime position; consequently it was a succession of brightly painted palaces and temples interspersed with paradises — areas of manicured cultivation whose beauty exceeded the Gardens of Lucullus. Wide, splendid and rich and lined with many varieties of trees and flowering shrubs, the thoroughfare had been designed to mask the haphazard planning and the nonexistent sewage system of the rest of the ancient city so that the Great King saw only beauty and grandeur and breathed nothing but sweet air as he made his way to his main palace at Ctesiphon’s centre. But today the Great King was not using his way in and out of the city so the population were graciously allowed to promenade up and down and stare at its wonders.

Inured though they were to the glories of great civilisations — coming from Rome and having visited Alexandria — Vespasian and Magnus still found themselves staring in admiration at the architecture, the scale and the human endeavour that it had taken to create this avenue.

‘That’s a stable!’ Magnus exclaimed, looking at a three-storey palace built around three sides of a courtyard in which horses were being exercised. A ramp led up to a wide balcony that ran around the first floor giving access to scores of individual stalls; a further ramp ran up to the second floor, which replicated the first. The stalls in the ground floor, however, were twice the size of those above. ‘Those horses have more room than most families back in Rome, or anywhere else for that matter.’

‘Easterners have always loved their horses,’ Vespasian pointed out, ‘and having seen the way that they whip their conscript infantry to almost certain death, does it really surprise you that the Great King’s horses are more valuable to him than his people?’

‘I suppose not; he seems to have plenty to replace the ones he loses and lots of different sorts.’

‘That’s an understatement,’ Vespasian said as Bagoas steered them through the crowds, mostly attired in the Persian and Median manner but many other styles of dress were on display reflecting the diversity of the huge empire of which this was the hub: the flowing robes and headdresses of the desert dwellers to the south, the leather of the horsemen from the northern seas of grass, dark-skinned Indians from the East in long-sleeved tunics and baggy trousers, Bactrians and Sogdians in leather caps, sheepskin jackets and embroidered trousers, Greek, Jewish, Scythian, Albanian, everything that could be imagined; but amongst them all there was not one toga. Although he knew that with their eastern clothes they blended in well, Vespasian felt conspicuous, foreign, and he wondered what Caratacus must have thought when the Britannic chieftain had been brought in chains to Rome, seeing such an alien place and alien people for the first time. Here he saw what he realised was the Rome of the East: the empire that had subjugated as many, if not more, races. He recalled Caratacus’ words to Claudius: ‘If you Romans, in your halls of marble, who have so much, choose to become masters of the world, does it follow that we, in our huts of mud, who have comparatively little, should accept slavery?’ That was evidently as true for the peoples of the East as it was for those in the West. Here, therefore, was the balance to Rome; here was the empire that would always rival her, fight her but never dominate her because no empire could comprise both East and West. Both would stay strong through fear of the other; both needed war to take their conquered peoples’ minds off their subjugation; both knew that to destroy the other would mean death because a super-empire with nothing to fear would break apart under its own weight.

And Armenia was the natural battleground on which Rome and Parthia could flex their martial muscles every generation or so, safe in the knowledge that it would prove fatal for neither side; Tryphaena had chosen her war well. He smiled to himself; Parthia was not a threat but, rather, a thing to be embraced. Conflict with this empire was a natural state of affairs; the skill was to know how to benefit from it.

He began to relax and feel less alien now that he had understood that this empire was a necessary part of Rome’s existence; entwined in a symbiotic dance of war — much like Ctesiphon and Seleucia with their trade — both empires strengthened each other.

His mind wandered and he barely noticed the royal palace, set in a paradise surrounded by high walls, as they turned to the right off the thoroughfare and twisted through some narrower, sewage-reeking streets, one of which opened into an agora that made the Forum Romanum look like a provincial marketplace in a backwater of the Empire. At least twice the size of its Roman counterpart it was equally as crowded; thousands of merchants thriving on commerce, bought, sold, bartered and haggled in a tooth and claw contest to extract the largest possible amount of profit from even the smallest item of trade.

Vespasian took one look and any last hope of success withered. ‘How are we going to find anyone in amongst that lot?’

Magnus looked equally as gloomy. ‘I’ve a feeling that an offering to Fortuna would be appropriate.’

Hormus set down his sack and laughed and then said something to Bagoas, who did not seem to share his amusement but looked puzzled instead.

‘Well?’ Vespasian asked. ‘Does he know where to start looking, Hormus?’

Another conversation in Aramaic ended with Hormus shaking his head. ‘He says that the only way to find these people is to go around the agora in one circle and ask people at random; but if the people that we’re looking for send caravans west then this is where they trade.’

Vespasian sniffed the air. ‘Well, at least the smell of spices is fending off the stench of sewage.’

*

But it was a hopeless task.

They sweated and cursed as they pushed their way through the swirling mercantile mass with Hormus asking the same question about a family with a youngest son named Ataphanes every few paces. And always, once the interviewee saw that Hormus wished neither to buy nor sell, he was met by uninterested looks and treated to dismissive words and hand gestures.

The sun westered, trade dropped off and the crowds thinned, but even so people were not interested in helping three foreigners and a boy find a family with only the clue of a long-dead youngest son, and by the time the light began to fade remaining in the agora was pointless.

‘Ask Bagoas if he knows of a clean inn nearby,’ Vespasian ordered Hormus.

The slave’s eyes brightened at the prospect of bed and dutifully asked the question. ‘He says that a cousin of his has a place a few streets away; we can find rooms and a meal there. He says that we’ll get a special price.’

‘I’m sure we will,’ Magnus muttered, ‘specially high.’

‘That can’t be helped,’ Vespasian said, nodding to the Persian boy to lead on. ‘It’s better than walking around, not knowing where to look. At least if it’s a member of Bagoas’ family they may well prove more trustworthy than a complete stranger.’

‘What? In that they’ll only charge us double and give us the smallest rooms and the toughest gristle in the thinnest of soups?’

Vespasian had a nasty feeling that his friend was close to the mark.

The clatter of boots on stairs and the splintering of wood jerked Vespasian from an uneasy sleep; he sat up, looking around in the dark, wondering for a moment where he was. Hormus’ shouts from the room next door instantly reminded him that they were in Bagoas’ cousin’s inn where their welcome had been falsely friendly and all of Magnus’ predictions had come true. He reached for his sword and then remembered that it remained hidden in Hormus’ sack; with a curse he jumped out of bed as the door to his room crashed open and three silhouetted figures rushed in.

With nowhere to retreat to, Vespasian barrelled forward into the lead man with his shoulder, flooring him and knocking the wind from his lungs while ramming his fist into the groin of the attacker to his left, doubling him over with a strangled grunt. The surprise at the ferocity of the counter-attack by quarry that should have been, if not asleep, then at least off-guard caused the third assailant, to the right, to step back and shout for help; it was the moment of indecision that Vespasian needed. With the flat of his hand he struck up into the man’s chin, cracking his jaw closed and his head back with a slop of blood as his teeth severed the tip of his tongue mid-shout. He fell to the ground gurgling in agony, clasping his hands to his damaged mouth as Vespasian barged past him out to an ill-lit landing.

He had a brief glimpse of Hormus being dragged down the stairs to his left as, to his right, Magnus was hauled out of his room, his splinted arm impeding his ability to defend himself. Without pausing, Vespasian crunched his knee into the thigh of the nearest of Magnus’ assailants, deadening the muscle so that the man half stumbled, loosening his grip. Magnus used his freed right hand to grab the throat of his other detainer as Vespasian pounced on the limping man with an anger that expressed itself as a guttural animal roar. With his limbs working as fast as an athlete’s in a foot race, he pounded his prey into screaming submission as Magnus deprived air from his victim’s lungs with a merciless grip around his neck. His clamp-like fingers ever tightening, he cursed and spat into the dying man’s purpling face as urine trickled down his legs and the stench of voided bowels clouded the air.

‘That’s enough!’ Vespasian shouted, leaping towards the stairs.

Magnus heard the urgency in his friend’s voice and bounded after him, leaving his man gasping and soiled.

Taking the stairs three at a time they clattered down to the common room on the ground floor. The innkeeper cowered behind the bar but there was no sign of Hormus or Bagoas. Caring not whether the man had had anything to do with the surprise attack, Vespasian ran straight for the door, pushing tables and chairs aside. With the one objective of freeing his slave before he disappeared into a city that could swallow a legion whole, he pulled back the door and ran out into a semicircle of club-wielding men.

He was dimly aware of Magnus screaming as a dark shape surged towards his head, heralding a splitting pain and a flash of light, closely followed by oblivion.

His head throbbed with every thundering beat of his heart as consciousness returned to Vespasian.

He felt himself lying on cold stone.

He opened his eyes and at first saw nothing; the room was dark. Then, as he grew accustomed to the gloom, he could make out a dim light not more than two paces away. It was seeping through a small, square window.

He peered harder and saw that the window was in fact a viewing hole in a door; a viewing hole with bars in it.

He was in a cell.

He was back in a cell.

Vespasian drew his knees up to his chest and clutched them; tight.

The wail started at the pit of his stomach and grew until it seemed to shake his entire being; it was long, hollow and full of emptiness and despair.

How long he had lain there, Vespasian did not know, but eventually the door opened and he was hauled to his feet; he moaned, it was more of a whimper. Unresisting, he was dragged through a series of dim corridors, passing the occasional flaming torch, and then up some steps; finally, a stout door was unbolted and he was thrown through to collapse onto some foul-smelling straw.

‘It’s good of you to join us, sir; although I’m sure we all wish for less limited circumstances, if you take my meaning?’

Vespasian looked up to see Magnus and Hormus sitting with their backs against the wall; above them daylight flooded in through a barred window. ‘How long have we been here?’

‘Two days,’ Magnus replied.

‘What happened?’

Hormus’ whole body suddenly wracked with sobs.

Magnus looked accusingly at the slave and then turned back to Vespasian. ‘I’m going to treat myself to an “I told you so”.’

Vespasian understood. ‘Bagoas?’

‘It would seem that way. I said his passion for boys would get him into trouble one day; I didn’t think that it would have us all wallowing in fucked-arse turds.’

‘I’m so sorry, master,’ Hormus cried, getting onto his knees and holding his hands out, pleading. ‘I beg you to forgive me.’

‘What did you do?’

Hormus sobbed a couple of times before managing to get himself under control. ‘After we had … well, I fell asleep. The next thing I knew they were breaking down my door and Bagoas wasn’t there; neither was our sack.’

Magnus shook his head. ‘I reckon he stole the sack and then finding our swords and other stuff that’s obviously Roman he made the right deduction, and him and his cousin must have decided to make a little extra on top of the boat and our cash and reported us to the civic authorities.’

Hormus wrung his hands. ‘It’s all my fault, master. I translated Magnus’ comment about Fortuna to Bagoas.’

Vespasian could see it all. ‘And he would have become suspicious about us as soon as he learnt that we worshipped a Roman goddess; especially as only you spoke Aramaic. That was a foolish mistake, Hormus.’

The slave nodded mournfully, his eyes never leaving the floor.

‘What’s done is done.’ Vespasian patted Hormus’ arm in a comforting manner and looked at Magnus. ‘So, what do they plan for us?’

‘I was hoping they might have told you that, sir.’

‘I’m afraid not.’ He got to his feet and walked to the door. ‘However, since they know we’re Roman I might as well tell them that they have a man of consular rank in their custody; hopefully that will make our lives slightly more valuable.’

‘It might make us more of an embarrassment and therefore make our hosts decide on a speedy disposal, if you take my meaning?’

‘I do, but have you got any better suggestions?’

Magnus shook his head. ‘I believe they’re very keen on impaling people here.’

Vespasian began to pound on the door and shout for the gaolers.

Eventually the viewing slat opened and a surprisingly elegantly barbered face peered in enquiringly and then astonished Vespasian by asking in fluent Latin, ‘You have a problem?’

‘Yes, I am a man of proconsular rank and you will cause a diplomatic incident by holding me here.’

‘We know exactly who you are, Titus Flavius Vespasianus. We found your imperial mandate amongst your other possessions in the bag along with the swords with which you were planning on attempting to assassinate our Great King.’

Vespasian looked at the man, aghast. ‘Assassinate the Great King?’

‘Of course. Why else would you arrive in disguise in Ctesiphon the day before Vologases returned here?’

‘We had business of our own to conduct.’

‘We shall see; that is up to the Great King himself to decide.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that he will decide what you were here to do and he will decide your fate when you appear before him to be judged tomorrow.’