Thunder of the Gods

12

Scaurus closed the message tablet and handed it back to his clerk.

‘The enemy are on the move, it seems. Which means, as we expected, that Narsai expects the mud to have dried sufficiently for his infantry to advance across it and take our makeshift wall. Our task is remarkably simple, but may prove to be the greatest challenge we’ve faced since we left Antioch. I expect every one of you to provide our men with an example of the virtue and discipline that built us an empire and have kept it intact, despite the best efforts of our enemies to take large parts of it away from us. We cannot afford to take a single step back, gentlemen, because if we do, then we’ll be fighting in the streets of the city.’

He paused and looked round at them.

‘And we all know how that will end up against superior numbers. Talk to your men, gentlemen, and tell them that they’ve broken these barbarians once and they can do it again. Tell them that they’re the best soldiers in the world, and that these Persian animals will have to kill every last one of us before we’ll surrender that reputation by leaving thousands of women and children at their mercy. Julius?’

The first spear stood and looked around him at the officers gathered around the table.

‘We don’t have long, so I’ll keep this short. You’re all the sons of men immeasurably richer than your soldiers can even imagine. For them, wealth means having enough silver in their purses to fill their bellies, drink themselves half stupid and stick their dicks up something warm and wet. Your men don’t care about who the emperor is, or who gets seated where at dinner, they worry about the real problems in life. And right now they’re stood waiting for an army of sun-worshipping heathens with twice their strength to come at them with fucking great long spears. What fighting skills can you gentlemen add to their strength?’

He paused, looking around him.

‘Not much, if the truth’s being told. You’re all good men, but there’s not one of you I’d call an old-fashioned hero, born to hold the blood-slicked hilt of a notched sword. But you can give them one precious gift, if you have it in you.’

The silence stretched out until it seemed certain that someone would ask the question.

‘Equality. Today, just for a few hours, you have the opportunity to see the world from their point of view. You can fight alongside them, kill with them and risk dying with them. If they see you taking your part in the slaughter that’s going to win or lose this battle for us, they’ll fight with you and perhaps even fight for you, if you’re really convincing.’

He shook his head.

‘Enough. Just go out there and share the dangers that your men are going to be facing, and perhaps the men fighting with you will be moved to give that part of themselves they usually hold in reserve. For some of them that will include their lives, so don’t insult them by asking them for anything you’re not willing to give yourself.’

He paused and looked round the room again.

‘Make the legatus proud, and you’ll have done enough to earn my respect. Now, as to how this battle will be fought …’

With the briefing complete, the officers went back to their cohorts with serious expressions, while Scaurus, Julius and Petronius climbed the walls to stare out at the enemy formation marshalling to the city’s north, just outside bolt-thrower range.

‘It won’t be long now.’

Scaurus nodded at his first spear’s comment. The ditch in front of the Parthian siege lines had been filled with earth, and the flat ground behind it was packed with rank after rank of Median infantry who had been formed into a column fifty men wide and two hundred men deep, their spears and helmets winking in the sun. To either side looser formations of dismounted horse archers stood ready to advance, while at the infantry’s rear a compact block of shining armoured figures stood perfectly immobile. A horn blew, and with commendable precision the spear men started their march towards the fortress’s shattered walls, the archers walking easily alongside them with their bows strung and arrows nocked. Scaurus nodded at Petronius, who looked across the gap at his own senior centurion and pointed a finger at the enemy. The senior centurion’s gruff voice grated out a command over the distant rumble of marching boots.

‘Bolt throwers! Target, enemy infantry! Shoot!’

With a twanging thump the first bolts arced down into the leading Parthian ranks, punching one- and two-man gaps in the marching column. For every spear man killed by the missiles’ eviscerating impacts, a dozen more were sprayed with the blood of a man who had been walking beside them a moment before, but for all the horror that was being visited upon them, the column’s pace didn’t falter.

‘They’ve got discipline, I’ll give them that.’

Scaurus nodded grimly.

‘I can’t argue with you on that, First Spear. Archers, Prefect?’

Petronius raised two fingers, and the response was instant.

‘Archers! Target, enemy infantry! Loose!’

The legatus pursed his lips as the Hamians rose from the parapet’s cover and launched their first volley, arrows whipping out from the walls and hanging in the air for a moment before plunging down into the advancing Parthian line, hundreds of shafts peppering the raised shields or flicking between them to kill and maim the unwary and unlucky. The officers had debated which would be the best target for their bows, but in the end a blunt statement from Julius had ended the discussion.

‘It won’t be archers who win this fight, it’ll be infantrymen, and they have ten thousand to our five. Every Parthian spear man we kill with an arrow is one less man in the fight for that wall, and every man we wound is another obstacle in their way as they try to get bodies forward. Our archers have a parapet to hide behind, and the men on the wall have thick enough shields to keep the enemy arrows off. There’ll only be one rule in this fight – if we kill enough of their infantry then we win the battle, and probably the entire campaign.’

The oncoming infantry’s ranks were already looking ragged, with less than half the distance to the makeshift defence that plugged the walls’ breach covered, but Julius stared dourly at the marching men.

‘We’re hurting them alright, but the rear ranks haven’t even started moving yet.’

Scaurus looked down at the hastily constructed wall that filled the gap between the two ends of the inner wall, and the marine infantry waiting in its shelter, invisible to the enemy soldiers. Prefect Ravilla looked up at the same time and saluted, nodding in silent thanks for Scaurus’s display of trust in putting his men into the front line.

The legatus gazed at the stolid marines’ ranks, arrayed along the wall’s fighting platform in the cover of the four feet of wall that was their main defence against the Parthians’ spears. Avidus had been unable to do much more than throw up a rough stone rampart eight feet tall, backed by a twenty-pace long ramp that rose from street level to allow a cohort of legionaries easy access to the broad flat surface that the African’s pioneers had constructed four feet up the wall’s rear surface. At the ramp’s end a fresh cohort was waiting for their turn in the line, successive units queued up along the length of the strip of pitted and lumpy ground that was what was left of the street into which the wall had toppled.

‘I suggest we have the waiting cohorts prepare to come under attack from the enemy archers, First Spear?’

Julius nodded, and at the prearranged trumpet call, each of the units behind the wall moved quickly to erect unbroken walls of shields across their fronts. Another volley of artillery bolts snapped down into the advancing infantry, the leading units slowing their pace to redress their lines and allow men from the following ranks to fill the gaps, men dropping with each step forward as the Hamians poured arrows into them in a deadly rain of iron. The rattle of metal on stone and the whirr of flight feathers whipping past the wall’s defenders announced the fact that the enemy archers had advanced sufficiently to loft arrows at the men lining the city’s walls to either side of the breach. A Hamian to the officers’ left turned with a shaft protruding from his throat before falling to the parapet, his body shaking violently as blood flowed out across the stone surface.

‘Get him away from those pots!’

Another Syrian dragged his comrade clear of the earthenware containers that had been placed in the parapet’s protection earlier that morning, making the warding gesture as he did so. Standing, he was struck by an arrow that pinned his hand to his thigh, tottered for a moment and then fell into the gap between the inner and outer walls with a shriek that was only silenced by his impact with the moat’s mud and debris-filled surface.

The screams of the enemy wounded were now loud enough to break through the rhythmic footfall of thousands of boots, as the enemy infantry came on with the clear purpose of getting to grips with the men sheltering behind the city’s last line of defence, taking advantage of the slackening in the Hamians’ shooting as the archers took cover from the arrows being launched at them from below. As the greasy mud thickened underfoot, the spear men started to throw bundles of brushwood onto the soft, yielding crust that lay over the liquid layer beneath, repeating the action as more improvised fascines were passed forward to them by the men behind. Slowly, inexorably, the Parthian infantry crept closer to the wall, their pace increasing as they grew more confident with the firmer footing under their boots.

With twenty paces left to march, the enemy horns blew and the marching men lowered their long spears to point at the wall before them.

‘Man the defences!’

The marines rose from cover, raising their shields and swinging their own long spears to point down at the oncoming enemy. The Parthians were suddenly struggling, their pace slowing abruptly as they reached the ground where Avidus’s men had laboured hardest over the previous evening, pouring buckets of water passed out to the walls by a human chain of the city’s inhabitants to soften the dried mud, saturating it to the point where a booted foot could sink a foot deep without gaining any purchase. Reaching the space between the outer and inner walls, the gaps on either side between the two plugged with rubble to prevent any attempt to get between them, the footing got even worse for the attackers as they floundered into the deeper mud that filled the now invisible moat. The braver Hamians were leaning out over the walls, ignoring the Parthian archers’ threat to pour arrows down into the struggling enemy infantry as they floundered forward, dropping more bundles of brushwood into the seemingly bottomless mire. As Scaurus watched aghast, an officer who had been urging his men forward paid the price for making himself too obvious a target and went down into the mud face first with a shaft sticking out of his back, blood staining the mud red as his men trampled him into the swampy ground, successive ranks stamping his struggling body deeper into the ooze until all that was visible were two hands, the fingers no longer clenched as he lost the fight for life.

With a clash of spearheads on shields, the Parthians staggered onto the Roman defences and the two armies collided at close quarters for the first time, the marines stabbing down into the mass of spear men, while the Parthians sought to fend off their iron blades, thrusting back up at the men on the wall above them. One of Ravilla’s men fell back from the wall with his throat open, and his comrades pushed him clear for the bandage carriers, working their spears with renewed anger to reap the attackers whenever an opening allowed them to thrust in their long spear blades, but where an enemy soldier fell another swiftly stepped forward. Successive ranks of infantry crowded up behind the leading men, shields raised over their heads in an attempt to fend off the arrows raining down on them. A horn sounded behind the marines and they exchanged positions, the rear rank moving forward to take up the positions vacated by the men staggering back, already exhausted by the first moments of fighting.

‘Look!’

Scaurus followed Julius’s pointing finger, peering over the parapet at the dismounted cataphracts following close behind the rear rank of the infantry with swords already drawn. As he watched, a lone Parthian infantryman turned to run, clearly unmanned by the screams of the men dying under the city’s walls, only to be cut down before he had taken the second step back.

‘Gods below.’

The first spear nodded grimly.

‘They’re going to herd those poor bastards forward to be butchered, partly to exhaust us and partly to carpet the mud with enough dead bodies to give them firmer footing.’

‘Can it work?’

Julius shook his head.

‘I have no idea. But if they pile up enough corpses and get enough men over the wall to allow the rest of them time to get into the city, they’ll hack us to pieces. Petronius, order your bolt throwers’ captains to concentrate their efforts on the cataphracts!’

He leaned over the parapet.

‘Rotate the cohorts!’

The horn sounded again, and the next cohort stamped forward up the debris ramp while the marines kept fighting, waiting until they were pulled away from the wall by their replacements, faces white with exhaustion, to take their place at the rear of the queue of cohorts that stretched deep into the city.

Tribune Varus saw Prefect Ravilla walking towards him, blood flecked across his face and chest, his eyes still wide from the combat he’d been pulled away from only a moment before.

‘How was it, Prefect?’

The equestrian officer looked at him blank-faced, white with the shock of battle.

‘Their column seems to stretch back to the horizon, Tribune. Every man we killed was replaced by another, and their wounded fall into the mud and are drowned if they don’t die of their wounds. We were killing them, and killing them, and killing them … but there are so many of them.’

Varus let him pass, turning back to his own cohort with a thoughtful expression.

‘What’s going on, Tribune sir?’

Varus nodded at Sanga, smiling at the feathers poking upwards on either side of his helmet.

‘Congratulations on your promotion, Watch Officer. As to what’s happening, it’s all very simple. The enemy are trying to overcome our defences by means of overwhelming numbers, and we’re doing our very best to kill so many of them that they decide that the game’s not worth playing.’

‘An’ who’s winning, sir?’

Horns blew, and the cohort marched forward twenty paces. The tribune shrugged.

‘Who’s winning? It doesn’t sound to me like anyone’s winning.’

An hour later the enemy soldiers were no longer fighting against a four foot height disadvantage. As Ravilla had told Varus, any spear man unable to crawl away when the Romans’ questing blades pierced his armour was simply trampled under the feet of the men behind to form the foundation of a ramp of human bodies, some dead, some still clinging to life and protesting feebly at the indignity of being so cruelly used by their fellows. Goaded on by the harsh commands of the cataphracts close on their heels, the Parthians were still flooding forwards, stabbing up at the Romans lined up on the makeshift wall before them.

‘Petronius!’

Scaurus was having to shout to be heard now, the cacophony of agony from the battle below making it almost impossible to communicate in anything less than a parade-ground roar. The prefect turned to face him, then staggered and toppled over the rear of the wall’s fighting platform with an arrow in his face.

‘Shit! You!’

He reached out and took a Hamian centurion by the arm, shouting in the man’s ear.

‘Tell your men I want them to shoot at the enemy archers! Pass the word to your prefect!’

Julius strode down the wall, completely ignoring the arrows flying past him as the Parthian bowmen loosed arrows as fast as they could.

‘Why have we stopped shooting at the infantry?’

Scaurus pulled him into the wall’s cover.

‘Because if they manage to put arrows into you and me then the odds are that this defence will fail! And because every man we kill down there is being used to improve their footing. Before long they’ll be looking down at us from a ramp of their own dead! We need to try something else!’

He pointed at the earthenware jars.

‘It’s time for Petronius’s nasty little surprise!’

Julius nodded, lifting one of the jars with both hands, apparently finding it surprisingly light. He raised the spherical object for the men around him to see, bellowing an order over the battlefield’s cacophony.

‘Pass the jars! And don’t drop any of them!’

He pitched the pottery globe over the rampart, following its brief trajectory with a look of fascination as it arced down to land in the middle of a wave of fresh enemy infantry, the thin earthenware shattering as it hit the helmet of a hapless spear man. Out of the shards of creamy brown pottery came a fresh menace, utterly unexpected and clearly terrifying to the horrified Parthians. Unable to run in the thick mud, they floundered away from the jar’s contents, seeking escape in any direction possible as the enraged creatures scuttled across the soft ground with their stingers raised, seeking a target for their ire. More pots sailed over the rampart as they were passed to the men closest to the enemy, each one splitting to reveal dozens of black-bodied scorpions whose venomous power was only too well known to the men onto whom they were being showered. As Scaurus watched in fascination, a Parthian who had taken the brunt of a falling pot jerked spasmodically as half a dozen of the deadly insects stung him. The men around him pressed backwards, climbing over each other to escape from the swarming scorpions, fresh chaos erupting everywhere that one of the jars landed.

‘Throw them closer to the wall!’

More of the terrifying weapons arced down onto the spear men fighting for the makeshift barricade that blocked their path into the city, and the Parthians’ concerted effort to drive the Romans from the wall disintegrated into farce as the infantrymen dropped their spears and frantically stamped at the deadly insects, drawing their knives to brush the scorpions from their shoulders and arms while the archers on the walls above them drew and shot again and again to force the enemy bowmen to look to their own protection.

‘Rotate!’

The soldiers fighting at the wall looked over their shoulders as the Tungrians stamped hard-eyed up the ramp behind them, readying themselves to surrender their positions to the northerners while the attacking infantry were otherwise occupied.

Scaurus looked out over the parapet, realising immediately that something had changed in the battle’s pattern.

‘Look!’

Julius switched his attention from the handover taking place below them to the rear of the enemy formation. The dismounted enemy cavalrymen were pushing forward through the rear ranks of the spear men, bulling their way forward with their swords and maces drawn, their roars of command audible over the battle’s constant din as they shouted orders for the infantry to move aside and let them pass.

‘I’ve been waiting for this!’

He nodded at his legatus’s shout.

‘They’re the only men on the field with any chance of surviving long enough to get over that wall, and if enough of them make it they’ll hack our boys to mincemeat! But before that they have to-’

He jerked as if he’d been shot by one of the arrows, but when Scaurus followed his gaze he too found himself horrified at the events that were unfolding before him.

The Tungrians gazed over the wall at the sea of dead and wounded Parthians with the dispassionate eyes of men who had fought on too many battlefields to be troubled by the sight of blood, Varus pushing his way through them to stare down at the enemy below. The spear men had lost all heart with the unexpected and shocking rain of venomous insects, and most of them were looking down at the corpse-strewn ground beneath their feet rather than the men lining the wall, stamping down at the insects scuttling about them without regard for the wounded men lying helpless under their feet. Something caught the tribune’s eye beyond the men to their immediate front, the flash of a sword that rose and fell in the blink of an eye, and he stared out over the sea of heads to the cohort’s front, unsure as to whether he had seen the momentary flash of polished iron. The Parthians before him were still backing slowly away, half crouched under the protection of their shields, but it seemed that they were meeting a gradually stiffer resistance, some force from their rear first arresting their gradual retreat and then actually reversing it, driving them reluctantly towards the wall.

Faced with the choice of being crushed into the makeshift defence or escaping, the spear men spilled out of their column to either side. Frowning in bemusement, Varus craned his neck to see what it could be that was causing such consternation among the soldiers. As the flood of men escaping to either side started to thin, his eyes narrowed as glimpses of what was happening behind them gave him cause to doubt his sanity.

Scaurus looked down at the oncoming cataphracts in disbelief, the threat posed by arrows flicking past the defenders’ heads forgotten in the shock of what was happening at the rear of the Parthian column. Clearly realising that their attack was stalling before it had developed, the dismounted Parthian knights had taken action that rendered the two officers temporarily speechless. Fanning out to either side of the wavering column of spear men, they had drawn their swords, and were herding the infantry forward, summarily executing any man who tried to retreat. The legatus looked down at the scene playing out beneath them with an expression of horrified understanding.

‘They’re driving their men forward to be massacred. They know that every dead spear man makes it that much easier to get over the wall.’

Denied any means of retreat, the Parthian infantry had no choice but to advance across the acrid-smelling mire of blood, urine and faeces towards the makeshift wall, like cattle stampeding away from a hunting predator. All thoughts of retreat forgotten, as the crescent-shaped line of fully armoured men stalked forward and drove the infantry, now little better than a rabble, before them, the spear men washed back up against the defences, staggering almost apologetically back onto the defenders’ implacable spears.

‘Tribune?’

Varus shook his head, clearing the momentary spell of amazement, turning to find Dubnus at his shoulder. He nodded at the bearded centurion, drawing a deep breath.

‘Front rank – spears!’

Three hundred long spears swung from their resting positions, pivoting to point down at the hapless infantry being pressed up against the wall, more than one clearly already considering scrambling over the rough stone rampart to escape the crush.

‘Front rank – engage!’

Dubnus’s voice bellowed out over the Parthians’ terrified din, the unquestioned master of his craft calling his men to battle.

‘Strike!’

The long iron spear heads lanced out as the Tungrians lunged their right arms forward, stabbing into unprotected necks and faces with a ferocity that was made all the more devastating by the lack of resistance being offered by the enemy soldiers.

‘Back!’

Ripping their weapons free, the men around Varus leaned back, pulling their spear arms back behind their heads and waiting for the command, heads turning to the hard-faced first spear as he waited for the dead and dying enemy from their first strike to crumple, and for fresh targets to present themselves. Varus took a spear from a man in the second rank, swallowing his revulsion and swinging the weapon to point down at the milling infantry, drawing his arm back and waiting for the command the entire cohort knew was coming.

‘Strike!’

Thrusting the long shaft forward, he watched as an empty-eyed enemy infantryman opened his arms wide to take the blow, the Parthian’s body shivering as Varus’s foot-long blade slid through the base of his throat and erupted from his back, both wounds spraying fine mists of blood past the blade’s obstruction.

‘Back!’

This isn’t war, this is murder.

The thought struggled for escape through his mouth, the urge to murmur the heresy swelling to a need to scream it at the sky.

‘Strike!’

Looking down the spear’s blade he saw his next victim, a man who had been forced around in the panicking crush until his back was presented to the defenders, his helmet gone and the nape of his neck glistening with the sweat running from his scalp. The blade severed his spine as neatly as a priest’s ceremonial axe taking a bull’s life, dropping the stricken Parthian into the mud to increase the height of their ramp of bodies.

‘Back!’

This isn’t murder, this is slaughter.

‘Strike!’

His spear head lanced forward with those of the men to either side, part of a finely drilled war machine trained until it had no equal in the bloody art of war, three hundred spears striking out in perfect unison to flense the enemy army of its strength. A small part of Varus’s mind exulted in the joy of belonging, of brotherhood with the Tungrians’ warrior tribe and killing alongside men who had terrified him only a fortnight before, but even as he embraced the sheer joy of their collective deadliness, he looked down the spear again, and saw a soldier clearly no more than a child looking back up at him, blood flowing from his mouth as the long iron blade took his young life.

The cataphracts were concentrating again, closing ranks from the long crescent they had used to terrify their infantry forward and into the defenders’ spears, hammering their swords against their armoured shoulders in a rhythmic clash of iron that was slowly gathering pace as they stalked ahead. Spilling out to either side, the spear men scurried to clear a path for the oncoming knights as they headed towards the wall. Julius turned to his legatus with a grim expression, drawing his sword with an iron rasp.

‘I’m no use up here! This is going to come down to a goat fuck, with us as the goat if we’re not careful!’

He turned and was gone, running for the nearest tower with a snapped command to his trumpeter to follow him.

Realising the oncoming knights’ intentions, Varus turned to Dubnus.

‘They’re going to try to break through!’

The Briton nodded, drawing breath to shout a warning to his men.

‘Don’t let them across the wall!’

With terrifying abruptness, it seemed, the armoured men were up close, striding through the scatter of arrows lancing down into them from atop the walls to either side. One of them staggered, a shaft protruding between two iron plates that had become separated rather than overlapping, and as he tottered, his eyes narrowed with agony, the man behind him stepped in and administered the mercy stroke, pushing his corpse forward to lie face down in the mud. More knights flooded forward carrying the fascines that had been dropped by their infantry, swiftly throwing them across the heaped bodies that were piled up against the Roman defences, clearly working to provide a firm path across which an armoured man could pass without the risk of losing his balance, then pulled back to the main body that had halted twenty paces from the wall.

‘Oh no …’

The young tribune watched in horror as the cataphracts took the bows from across their shoulders, reaching back to quivers slung over their backs, and nocked arrows, drawing the strings until the flights touched their ears, forcing the power of their muscular frames into the weapons. The Tungrians needed no instruction, ducking behind their shields and into the wall’s cover, shouting warnings at the ranks of men wanting their turn at the wall, but the marines behind them had no time to ready themselves. The Parthians loosed, their arrows whirring across the makeshift wall and wreaking havoc among the blue tunicked men, nocking fresh arrows and shooting again, and again, each volley aimed a little higher, to fall among the cohorts waiting further back.

‘They’re trying to isolate us!’

Peering carefully over the wall, Varus realised that the enemy had dropped their bows and were striding towards the wall.

‘Up! Here they come!’

Moving as quickly as they could across the treacherously uneven surface of bodies piled up before the wall, and slowed by the weight of their armour, the Parthians were advancing with swords and maces drawn. Before the Tungrians could align their spears, the fastest among them were at the wall, throwing themselves at the low parapet with savage battle cries. Varus realised their predicament an instant before Dubnus, and bellowed the order that he knew was needed if the line was to hold under such an onslaught.

‘Rear rank! Swords!’

Leaping onto the wall’s top, the first of the attackers was still for an instant, regaining his balance and looking down at the soldiers before him, only his eyes visible between his helmet and the chain-mail veil that covered his nose and jaw.

‘Mazda!’

Striking down with the mace as he screamed the war cry, he smashed the closest soldier aside with brutal power, jumping down from the parapet and hacking about him with the sword in his other hand, seeking to drive the Tungrians away from the wall. The men in the rear rank came at him, three soldiers competing to be the one to claim his gold- and silver-chased armour, but the Parthian stepped into their attack with graceful purpose, allowing a stabbing sword to scrape along his armoured sword arm before backhanding the soldier away with his mace, a rising blow shattering his jaw with an audible crack. The other two men hesitated for an instant, and he was on them, stabbing his sword through the closer man’s throat, ripping it out and swinging it wide to strike fast at the last man, hacking the long blade into the base of his neck. Dubnus stepped in close behind him as the Parthian delivered the decapitating blow, swinging his axe’s pick blade into the square of the Parthian’s back, punching through the armour and contorting his body with the sudden agony as the centurion kicked him off the iron spike. But the damage was done. Seeing their comrade’s success in crossing the wall and engaging the defenders, a dozen more cataphracts had followed him up the grisly ramp and thrown themselves at the spot where he’d crossed the rampart. Hacking their way into the hedge of spears that sought to push them away, first one and then another of them succeeding in making it onto the wall’s top and jumping into the fight.

As they laid into the Tungrian front rank, forcing the spear-wielding soldiers to retreat before their flashing swords, more of them followed, their strength growing as the defenders to either side were pushed back until there were more than a dozen of them facing off to the defending soldiers. The cohort’s line was bowed around them, none of the men facing them eager to fight the armoured monsters who had hacked their way through their comrades, and with a sickening jolt of realisation, Varus saw that he was the only officer who could influence the rapidly worsening situation.

He looked around at the marines behind them, realising that Ravilla’s men were in no condition to fight. Fully half the cohort was dead or wounded, the prefect lying on his back with a pair of arrows protruding from his body in front of their ruined line. The remaining troops were effectively leaderless, it seemed, many of their officers seemingly caught in the barrage of arrows that had torn the heart out of their cohort. Making an abrupt decision, the young tribune turned away from the fight, ignoring Dubnus’s amazed stare.

Striding down the ramp he felt the eyes on him, knowing that Scaurus would be watching him from the wall above, and briefly wondered what the man would make of his apparent retreat from the fight that was developing at the makeshift wall. He stopped in front of the marines and raised his voice to a parade-ground bellow of the sort he’d heard the centurions using, but never expected to employ himself.

‘Marines!’

A few eyes lifted from the dead and dying men around them.

‘Marines!’

More men looked up at him, their faces hard with grief and anger.

‘Your comrades lie around you, killed without warning! Your officers are dead, and you do not know what to do! Those Parthian animals have pulled your world apart! And mine, marines, and mine! I have sworn an oath of vengeance to Mithras, that I will take my revenge or die in the act, and now is the time I intend to deliver on that oath! Are you with me?’

They stared at him in bemusement for a moment.

‘Are you with me? Will you stand here and cry over dead men or come with me and take bloody revenge on the bastards that killed them?’

A single marine stepped forward, drawing his sword and pulling the leather cord that held the cheek pieces of his helmet together to tighten their fit, ready to fight.

‘I’m with you, Tribune! I’ll have some of that …’

Another man joined him, and then, as if a collective decision had been made, with a low growl of anger that raised the hairs on the back of his neck, a flood of blue-tunicked soldiers stepped forward, until the only men not with him were either wounded or broken in spirit.

‘Arm yourselves! Swords only, this is going to be a close-quarters fight! Those men are too well armoured to fight fairly, so we’re going to kill them with weight of numbers! Get a man down, then find a gap in his armour and kill him, move on and do it again! My vow will be fulfilled when every one of those fuckers is either dead or on the other side of the wall! So if you’re with me …’

Varus turned back to face the Parthians and ran towards the fight, his last command a hoarse scream of fury.

‘Follow me!’

The gate opened, and Artapanes’ guard shepherded the comrades through it into the biggest garden Marcus had ever seen. Walled on all four sides, the brickwork high enough to obstruct any view from the adjacent palace, it stretched away before them, groves of trees, beds of riotously coloured flowers and stone terraces artfully arranged to provide a vista that was at once restful and stunningly beautiful. The priest gestured to the path before them, stepping forward to lead the three men into the garden.

‘This way.’

He led them into the garden’s grandeur, along a footpath formed of different-coloured paving stones and into a copse of trees, emerging onto a smoothly clipped lawn of lush grass around which stood four heavily armed and armoured palace guards. Beyond the two closest sentries was the familiar figure of Arsaces, deep in conversation with a man Marcus assumed was responsible for the garden’s maintenance, while a fifth guard waited close by with a short roll of golden cloth in his hands. Behind the king a pair of slaves were diligently working on a nearby flower bed, seeking out the first growths of weed and removing them with iron hand-trowels. Another stood close to the path, carefully raking away twigs and leaves that had fallen from the trees in the night, collecting them into neat piles before scooping up the debris with both hands and dropping it into a wooden barrow. Artapanes held up a hand.

‘The barbarians will wait here. Roman, you will come with me.’

Martos shrugged and gestured to Lugos, leading him away to the nearby copse, both men settling comfortably in the shadow of a fully grown cedar. Marcus followed the priest forward, past the closest two guards who turned to watch the two men as they passed, their eyes watchful despite the cleric’s trusted presence.

Prostrating himself, while Marcus bowed as deeply as he did at the first formal audience, Artapanes waited until the king turned from his conversation before speaking.

‘Majesty, I have delivered the Roman as you ordered.’

Arsaces gestured for him to rise, smiling at Marcus.

‘So, Marcus Tribulus Corvus, the time has come for you to leave us. As I promised, my oldest son Vologases will escort you to Nisibis in the company of a detachment of my Immortals. You are honoured. No Roman has ever ridden with them before, and I doubt the experience will be granted to any other. And here is your father’s sword.’

He held a hand out to the guard, who went on one knee to offer him the cloth-wrapped object.

‘I promised to return it to you. You would be wise not to draw it now, but I assure you that it is as it was when you surrendered it to my guards. Although I did suggest they sharpen it.’

Marcus reached out with his good arm and took the sword back, bowing again.

‘I think you, King of Kings. It will never be said in my presence that you fail to keep your word.’

Arsaces inclined his head fractionally.

‘And it will never be said in mine that all Romans lack hunar. I thank you once more for-’

Both men turned in surprise as the man who had handed the king Marcus’s sword grunted in surprise, staggering away from them with an arrow’s fletching sprouting from his chest. Spinning, Marcus saw the two guards closest to the trees slump, their armour inadequate to protect them against the deadly pointed arrows at such close range, then flinched as another pair of missiles zipped past to either side, felling the two men behind the king. Stepping in front of Arsaces, he tensed his body as the pair of archers who had stepped from the trees nocked arrows to their bows and raised them, ready to shoot, but the bowmen simply drew their strings halfway, ready to loose. A stocky armoured figure emerged from the copse behind them, stalking forward with the bow-legged gait of a man born in the saddle, and a moment later a slimmer, taller figure emerged from the foliage behind him. The shorter of the two paced forward slowly with one hand on his sword’s hilt, his words muffled by the silver chainmail across his mouth and nose.

‘Well now, here’s a scene I never thought to witness. The King of Kings hiding behind a Roman!’

Arsaces stepped forward.

‘My guards will-’

‘Your guards will do nothing at all other than take the blame for your death.’

The assassin stepped onto the grass, sliding the long sword from his scabbard. The polished steel sent reflections flickering across the trees behind him, and Marcus realised that the two Britons had sunk back into the cover of their branches.

‘Even the most fanatical of your priests knows that once blood is spilled it cannot be put back into a lifeless corpse, especially when the army falls in line behind your killer. They will quickly decide to overlook the probability of your son’s involvement in your murder, Majesty, and that of his brother, just as they will have no choice but to forget this!’

He struck with the speed and precision of a warrior trained from infancy, the sword stroke rising and falling in an instant. Artapanes staggered, cleaved from collarbone to navel, then collapsed backwards as the assassin twisted his blade and took a step backwards, ripping it from his body. He flicked the blade, sending a rain of blood droplets across Marcus and the king’s clothing, then dropped back into the fighting stance with the sword held out to one side, ready to strike again.

‘The priest’s close relationship with Ahura Mazda seems to have availed him little. A new cleric will be appointed after your death, Majesty, a more malleable man, although not entirely trustworthy, as Artapanes would have done well to have realised. It was his junior cleric Atardates who informed us that his master and the chief priest had colluded to bring the Roman to you, Majesty, a meeting that can only be presumed was the first step in a further treaty with Rome. Who knows what else you might have ceded to them in your weakness? Clearly it was the duty of the nobility to prevent such an error of judgement, and to remove a man who has become so fallible from the throne. So now, my king, regretfully, your time has come. I will honour your long reign with a swift and merciful death.’

His gaze switched to Marcus.

‘Whereas you, Roman, brought here by such divine providence …’

The eyes that were all either man could see of his face, narrowed with vicious amusement.

‘Your death will be a little more …’

He searched for the right Greek word.

‘… protracted.’

Tensing his body to attack, he faltered as a tumult broke out behind him, stepping back and sweeping the sword forward to deter any attack as he turned to see what was happening.

Martos had stormed out of the trees, launching himself headlong at the nearer of the two archers who still waited with arrows nocked to their bows. The Parthian loosed, but in his panic the arrow flew wide, and the Briton caught him in the mid-section, driving the breath from his body in an explosive exhalation. Rising onto his knees and knotting his fingers together, the Briton drew them back over his head, ready to club the reeling archer into insensibility, but the blow never fell. The second archer coolly raised his bow and put the waiting arrow into his chest, reaching into his quiver for a replacement as Martos tottered for a moment and then fell backwards. The fallen archer nodded his thanks to his comrade, getting slowly to his feet and reaching down to retrieve his bow.

With an ear-splitting bellow Lugos stepped out of the trees’ concealment, taking the hapless man by the neck and pulling him upright, the archer’s struggles helpless against his monstrous strength, then put a hand in the square of his back and threw him bodily at the second bowman just as he loosed. Struck hard by the flying body of his comrade, the archer staggered back, dazed by the crunching impact of their heads, but the arrow he had loosed flew straight, whipping across the short distance between bow and target to embed in the huge Briton’s thick calf. Bellowing again, pain and rage combined as he took one pace forward on the wounded leg, then another, barely able to walk, Lugos staggered towards the felled bowmen, tottering with every step as his intended victims slowly struggled back to their feet. Fumbling for an arrow, the man who had wounded the Briton nocked it to his bow with shaking fingers, failing at the first attempt before feeling the bow’s resistance as the missile’s grooved tail found the string.

Raising the weapon he sighted down the arrow, drawing it back to his ear and raising the bow, ready to shoot at the oncoming Briton, then died as Lugos swung a heavy wooden barrow that he had grabbed by one handle, smashing the hapless archer’s skull with a sweep of the improvised club. Fresh pain shot through Lugos’s body as the other archer sank a dagger into his foot, and he lifted the barrow over his head with an incoherent scream of fury, sweeping it down onto his wide-eyed victim’s face. Battered into the ground, the semi-conscious bowman raised an arm in supplication, staring up glassy-eyed as the giant looming over him lifted the barrow again, then died as the second blow smashed his windpipe flat and severed his spine. Staggering backwards, Lugos fell full length, unable to move for the pain in his leg and foot.

The stocky assassin turned back to Marcus with a chuckle.

‘How conven-’

The Roman was armed, his own eagle-pommelled gladius in his left hand and a guardsman’s longer sword in the right. The Parthian shrugged.

‘As I was saying, how convenient. Your barbarians and my archers have neatly dealt with the problem of witnesses. I’ll deal with your giant once this is done with.’

The second man walked slowly forward to join his co-conspirator, drawing his sword and ranging it alongside the shorter man’s.

‘And now there are two of us. Two of the best-trained warriors in the empire against a Roman aristocrat with only one arm. Give it up now, Roman, and go to meet your ancestors with dignity. I’ll make it clean.’

Marcus crabbed forward, raising the swords with their points aligned.

‘Who said I only had one arm? You’re not the only man who knows the value of seeming to be somewhat less than he really is. Get behind me, Majesty.’

‘Really? You think you can hold us off for long enough that help will come? Help isn’t coming, Roman. By now my brother is already dead, and as far as the rest of the palace is concerned, the King of Kings is already in a place of safety. By the time the priests realise what’s happening I’ll have had long enough to gut you and watch you bleed to death, as you try to push your own intestines back into your gaping belly.’

Marcus danced forward, his blades flickering out to clash with the assassins’ raised swords, forcing them to defend themselves as he stepped around to his left, threatening the taller of the two.

‘You’re the weak point, aren’t you? This one will give me a proper fight, but you, Your Highness …’

He flashed the long sword out in a lightning-swift attack. The taller man stepped back, and his comrade stormed into the attack, charging forward with a shout and swinging his sword in short, chopping arcs that forced Marcus back half a dozen paces as he crabbed around to his right, retreating further from the king with every step. His assailant’s eyes narrowed in fresh amusement as he readied himself to renew the onslaught.

‘See? You can’t back away for ever.’

Marcus grinned back at his attacker.

‘I don’t need to. Here will do nicely.’

He nodded, and with a jerk his assailant staggered forward, staring down numbly at the point of an armour-piercing arrow protruding from his chest. Dropping to his knees, the stricken man’s sword fell from his numb fingers, and Marcus stepped forward to stare at him through the chain mail mask that disguised his identity.

‘Go and meet your ancestors. Whether they’ll consider death at the hands of a crippled barbarian worthy of that hunar you all make so much of will be between you and them.’

He swung the mortally wounded man around to show him the bow in Lugos’s hands, another arrow nocked to the string and menacing the second assassin, then pushed him forward to fall face down on the immaculate turf. Stepping towards the taller man with a slow, catlike tread, the Roman raised his swords menacingly.

‘That’s enough, Lugos. The other one has to live, I’m afraid. See what you can do for Martos.’

The taller of the two would-be killers stepped back.

‘No … I …’

‘Thought it would be quick and easy? That it was for the betterment of the empire? Perhaps. And now you think you can talk your way out of this? Stand still!’

Quivering, the faceless would-be assassin froze where he stood, and Marcus stepped forward a slow, sliding pace.

‘Like your father, I suspect, I find myself more disappointed than surprised by this turn of events. You sought to kill the king, and take the throne for yourself, confident that the army and priesthood would unite under your leadership. And what now, now that you’ve failed? Perhaps you think you can make it right by grovelling at your father’s feet? Perhaps you can. Even if only because it’s the pragmatic thing to do, to maintain a united facade for the world to see, you’ll be expecting him to forgive you.’

He slid the other foot forward, his gaze intent on the other man’s eyes.

‘Yes, you know he’ll punish you, but it’ll be a gilded cage, won’t it? You’ll keep your rank, and he’ll send you away from the court to lick your wounds, and remove your malevolent presence from his side. Where any other man would be roasted alive, your punishment will be to keep your crown.’

He took the final step, gently resting the point of the longer blade on his opponent’s sword.

‘But when you put an arrow in my friend, you made an enemy of me. And unlike the king, forgiveness isn’t a word whose taste I find it easy to stomach when it comes to those who are close to me.’

The King of Kings started forward.

‘Roman …’

Marcus struck, the long sword’s thrust raising his opponent’s blade in self-defence, the gladius snaking out for the other man’s belly and drawing a frantic low parry while the spatha hacked down at his opponent’s sword hand, severing the fingers wrapped around the jewelled hilt in a spray of blood.

‘Arghhhh!!’

Shrieking, he raised the ruined hand, howling in pain and horror at the stumps of his fingers, severed at the lowest knuckle.

‘My hand!’

Marcus stabbed the long sword down into the grass, allowing the gladius to fall point-down into the turf.

‘And now, King of Kings, do as you wish with me.’

The king shook his head, taking the golden cloth in which the gladius had been wrapped and using it to bind his son’s wounds. With a sudden crash the gate through which Marcus and the Britons had entered moments before crashed open, and a dozen guardsmen burst through the copse, their eyes widening at the bloody slaughter spread out before them. Their leader stalked through the trees behind them, sword drawn.

‘Majesty! Mazda be praised, you live!’

He spotted Marcus standing to one side and his pace quickened, the sword’s point rising.

‘No!’

The officer faltered, finding himself faced by his king, then knelt on one knee.

‘Majesty?’

‘No man is to harm the Roman. He was not the assassin here, but my defender. This was the man who sought my death. My own son.’

He pulled away the wounded man’s chain veil, and the guard commander recoiled, his reaction an astonished whisper.

‘It cannot be …’

A man dressed in white silk splashed with dark red blood pushed through the guards, taking in the scene with a look that combined disappointment and resignation.

‘You live, Father.’

He crossed to where Arsaces stood and kissed the king on the mouth, then went down on one knee. The king looked down at him, his expression unreadable.

‘Yes, Vologases. As you see, I live. The assassin was this man.’

The prince looked into his brother’s face without surprise.

‘As ever, Osroes, everything you attempt eventually turns to ashes in your mouth, but this is your worst failure yet.’

He turned back to his father.

‘He sent killers to murder me in my bath, but by chance I was awake early this morning. They broke into my bathing suite only to find it empty, and were overpowered before they could do any more than kill my attendants. You disappoint me, brother …’

He waved a hand at the scene, realising that Marcus was kneeling over Martos.

‘The Briton?’

Lugos stared back at him, his leg covered in his own blood.

‘He dead.’

Vologases walked slowly across to the spot where the dead Briton lay, placing a hand on Marcus’s shoulder.

‘We are dishonoured by this, Roman. For a guest to have been killed in the palace is unthinkable, but for that guest to have been a king …’

Marcus turned and looked up at him empty-eyed.

‘Your dishonour means little to me.’

Vologases nodded levelly.

‘And yet so much to me. And to my father. Your friend the king died in the defence of the most powerful man in the empire, which means that I will stop at nothing to wipe away that stain.’

He stood, turning to his father.

‘This man died in your defence, Majesty.’

Arsaces nodded.

‘He shall be buried as a captain of my household guard who has died in battle, in my own mausoleum. He shall sleep with the kings of Parthia.’

Marcus stood, inclining his head at the king.

‘A great honour. His family will be proud to know he gave his life protecting one so powerful. I must nonetheless report back to Rome that a client king beloved of the emperor died saving the King of Kings’ life, and without full retribution being exacted. That, combined with the siege of a legally ceded fortress town, and the destruction of an entire cohort of legionaries while going about their lawful business in a client kingdom, which had been invaded by King Osroes and his accomplices, Narsai of Adiabene and Wolgash of Hatra …’

He paused to allow the statement to sink in.

‘We all know that wars have been fought over a good deal less. And Rome needs gold, King of Kings. Perhaps the man who stands behind the throne will decide to convince Commodus that your kingdom is ripe for another harvest, persuading the emperor to earn himself yet another triumph by unleashing his army. You know all too well that if Rome turns her fury east then no amount of astute intelligence work is likely to prevent half a dozen legions from repeating Avidius Cassius’s march on this city. Of course, you could simply kill me too, if you think it will prevent the news of this infamy reaching Rome. And if your pragmatism can overcome yet another stain on your honour …’

Vologases raised his hands.

‘If I might add an insight to our discussion, before we talk of yet more bloodshed between our two mighty empires? It seems to me that whilst my brother here and his bidaxs Gurgen were the arrows pointed at my father’s heart, another hand may have been on the bowstring?’

Osroes stared back at them defiantly, his eyes narrowed with the pain of his maimed hand.

‘You think I’m not capable of making my own decisions?’

The prince shrugged.

‘I know you best of all of us, little brother, and I think that while you’re capable of attempting our father’s murder, I’m far from certain that you would have done so without knowing you’d have the support of your fellow kings. Or at least those influential enough to ensure your coronation, were the king and I both to have succumbed to your plan.’

He reached out, taking a grip of the collar of his brother’s armour.

‘So here’s what we’ll do. Our father here is going to entrust the investigation of this attempt on the throne to me, both as his heir and a potential victim. He knows that I’ll be unrelenting in my efforts, but he also knows that I understand the need to exercise the appropriate subtlety. The exercise of power is best achieved with the consent of the ruled. Isn’t that right, Father?’

Arsaces nodded, a sad smile creeping onto his face, and his son continued with the same quiet fury in his voice.

‘So here’s what I intend. I will summon the twelve kings, in our father’s name, and while we wait for them to assemble, you and I will spend some time together in the lower reaches of the palace. The old kings had a few cunning tricks when it came to finding out what they wanted to know, and I’m sure that you and I will soon enough come to a mutual understanding of what happened this morning, and what subtle discussions and alliances might lie behind it. When we assemble the kings there needs to be no further unpleasantness, simply a frank discussion with certain of them as to the thinness of the ice upon which they find themselves. Everyone will know their place in the world once more, and you, you may even still be able to walk among them with your head up. Or perhaps walking might prove a little too much – depending on how long it takes for you and I to reach that mutual understanding I was talking about.’

He paused, staring intently at his brother’s face.

‘Or would you like to spare us both all that unhappiness, and just tell me what I need to know now?’

‘Reinforcements, do you think?’

The northern wall’s duty centurion had summoned Scaurus and Julius shortly after midday on the fifth day after the final abortive Parthian attack, and the two men were looking out over the parapet, Julius using a hand to shade his eyes from the sun’s powerful glare.

‘Another thousand cavalry? They make an impressive sight, but it’s not cavalry that Narsai needs. And besides …’

The men riding into the Parthian camp were clearly a military unit of some nature, each man uniformly equipped with spear, bow case and sword, and all of them wore helmets and had shields strapped to their backs, but there was one glaring absence from their war gear.

‘What use would they be in battle without armour?’

First Spear and Legatus watched as the long column of white-tunicked riders trotted across the plain, each man mounted on a horse with the stature and power to carry a cataphract into battle. The legatus frowned as he stared out at them. The riders splashed through the Mygdonius at a fording point whose waters were already considerably lower than at their height a week before, an advance party of half a dozen men riding forward while the remainder dismounted and watered their horses. Pulling up in front of Narsai’s headquarters, a cluster of tents close to the siege line with a direct view of the gaping hole in Nisibis’s northern walls, their leader dismounted and strode forward with a pair of men on either side, while the sixth walked slowly towards the fortress, raising his hands to show that they were empty.

‘I don’t like the look of this.’

The newcomer was a distant but clearly visible figure, and as the Romans watched, the men guarding the tent threw themselves full length before him. A murmur of sound reached the walls, as the Parthian army woke up to the presence of the new arrival’s apparently exalted status.

‘Could that be …?’

Scaurus shook his head doubtfully at his first spear.

‘The King of Kings? I wouldn’t have thought so. He’s too old to be riding round his kingdom on a war horse, and I’d have thought that his arrival would have been announced with a good deal more fanfare. But I’ve an idea who it might be …’

The tunic-clad figure walked with deliberate care towards the improvised wall, now fifteen feet high, and stopped within shouting distance, his face partially hidden by the chain mail that hung from his helmet.

‘His Majesty Prince Vologases of Parthia has ridden from the imperial city of Ctesiphon at the head of the King of Kings’ Immortal Guard, at the direction of his father Arsaces, Forty-Fifth of his noble line, King of Kings, the Anointed, the Just, the Illustrious, Friend of the Greeks! His Majesty respectfully requests the presence of Legatus Gaius Rutilius Scaurus at a negotiation to determine the fate of the city of Nisibis! Further, His Majesty has bidden me tell you that time is pressing in this matter, and so further requests your attendance to be as prompt as can be managed given the obstacles to your leaving your fortress!’

Scaurus leaned out over the wall’s rampart.

‘I already have the fate of the city looked after quite nicely, thank you! And I decline the invitation to attend this negotiation! Rome still remembers the fate suffered by our general Marcus Licinius Crassus at Carrhae!’

The messenger looked up at him, putting both hands on his hips and allowing an impatient tone to creep into his voice.

‘I suggest that just this once, Legatus, you ignore the lessons you’ve learned from the history books. Prince Vologases has assured me that he isn’t going to be ordering any killing today.’

Scaurus started, and stared down at the man with wide-eyed amazement, while Julius shook his head and barked out a terse laugh, the sound drawing startled glances from soldiers who had grown used to his more usual saturnine view of their situation.

‘You cheeky young bastard! Stay there!’

The legatus hurried down to the temporary rampart and gingerly lowered himself onto the desolate plain of sun-baked mud, picking a careful path over to the waiting Marcus, who saluted crisply and gestured to the Parthian lines, having removed his helmet.

‘You’re out of uniform, Tribune. What sort of effeminate fancy dress do you call that?’

His junior rubbed the material of his sleeve between finger and thumb.

‘It’s raw silk, Legatus, and worth about as much as my armour and weapons, in the right market in Rome. And it’s the uniform worn by the King of Kings’ Immortals, when they’re not carrying enough iron to make a strong man’s knees bend.’

He pointed to the Parthian siege lines again.

‘If you’ll accompany me, the explanations you’re looking for are all over there.’

Following the younger man across the empty space between the fortress’s walls and the enemy’s waiting ranks, the legatus listened to a brief description of the journey down the Euphrates and the events that had unfolded in Ctesiphon, covering his eyes with one hand as Marcus recounted the death of their friend. Recovering control of his emotions after a moment, he shook his head apologetically.

‘My apologies, Tribune. I distinctly recall telling Julius you’d thank me for sending you south, but if I could have predicted that as an outcome …’

‘No …’

He looked up, to find Marcus staring back at him with emphasis.

‘Martos died quickly, and he died doing what he did best. He could never have gone home to the Dinpaladyr again, he told me as much, and what life is it for a king to wander the earth yearning for the one thing he can never have, and mourning the wife and children who died as a consequence of his actions? He was buried in the King of Kings’ own mausoleum dressed as a Captain of Arsaces’ personal bodyguard, honoured with weapons and armour as fine as Osroes was wearing when we captured him, and with a war horse sacrificed to his spirit and entombed with him.’

The younger man shook his head at the memory.

‘I’m not ashamed to tell you I shed tears over his corpse, and again at his interment, but all in all I’d say that if he’d known his fate in advance, he’d have been content. Now come and hear what Prince Vologases has to say on the matter. We may mourn it, but King Martos’s death defending Vologases’ father has put the King of Kings very much in our debt.’

The spear men manning the section of the siege line they had passed through snapped to attention as the Roman commander walked across one of the heavily guarded crossing points over the twenty-foot wide ditch, and the two men walked the short distance to Narsai’s command tent. Dismounted Immortals were clearly in control of the situation, the king’s own guard outnumbered three to one by white-tunicked men, every one of them a good six feet tall. Vologases turned from whatever he was discussing with the king and greeted Scaurus with a regal nod, smiling as the legatus bowed to a respectful angle.

‘Legatus Scaurus, greetings.’

He waved Scaurus forward, dismissing his guards to stand out of earshot so that only he and Narsai faced the two Romans.

‘Your tribune has told me much of your exploits while we’ve ridden here from Ctesiphon, and so I feel I already know you. Clearly you are an opponent of whom to be wary, an impression not dispelled by the news that my cousin King Narsai has shared with me. It seems you have handled his army roughly?’

The Roman returned the smile.

‘Thank you, Majesty. King Narsai’s men displayed all the bravery we expected of them, and the use of the river as a battering ram was inspired. We were fortunate to retain control of the fortress.’

Vologases shrugged.

‘The affairs of state so often hinge on the smallest of things. However lucky you might consider yourselves, you are indisputably still in command of Nisibis, which is just as well, for if my cousin had managed to wrest it from you I would have been forced to demand in my father’s name that he return it to Rome’s control.’

Narsai was glowering at Vologases, and the prince continued with a grim smile.

‘As I said, the smallest of things can sometimes be the fulcrum for great events. Your Tribune and his friends from the northern lands that are not to be named by the pious intervened in an attempt to kill my father, an attempt carried out by my brother Osroes and his bidaxs Gurgen. My brother feigned lost wits until he was returned to the palace, then used Gurgen to gather support among the army for an attempt to take power by the planned murders of both the King of Kings and myself, leaving him as the only man capable of ruling. I escaped death by good fortune, while my father was defended by his guests at the cost of the life of King Martos and the wounding of his bondsman.

‘You have both the King of Kings’ thanks and his abject apology that such violence should have been done to men who had been declared guests in the palace. His shame at this turn of events is only made deeper by the unavoidable fact that the very person who was the beneficiary of their bravery in journeying to Ctesiphon was then responsible for such infamy. He has directed me to pass on his most fulsome apology to you and to Rome, under whose protection these men were travelling. He hopes that it will not become the cause for a disturbance in the long peace since the end of the last war.’

Scaurus inclined his head in recognition of the apology.

‘Your father’s thanks are duly acknowledged and respected, Prince Vologases. It dismays me to have lost such a friend, but for him to have perished in such a noble endeavour gives solace to my sorrow. As to Rome, however …’

Vologases raised a hand.

‘Permit me, Legatus, but there is more I must make clear. My father was, as you can imagine, perturbed in the extreme to be so cruelly assaulted within his own palace and by his own son, with the apparent collusion of his most trusted gundsalar, Kophosates. Reprisals for this betrayal were swift and severe, a fact of which I can assure you, since I was the chosen instrument of my father’s prosecution of the men involved. Five senior members of the court have been interrogated, admitted to their part in the plot and punished, four of them with a death whose grisly nature it would be unfair to burden you with. Suffice to say that an example has been made. The fifth was my brother, of course, who has been returned to Ecbatana, the capital of his kingdom, under close and attentive watch. During his questioning, conducted by myself, he swiftly confessed to having been only the spear tip of a cabal of several of the empire’s kings, a group of dissenters which it seems has included my cousin Narsai.’

Scaurus looked at the king, whose eyes remained firmly fixed on his boots.

‘You’ll get no reaction there, Legatus. I’ve warned my cousin that the slightest reaction on his part, anything that might excite the ire of his guards, will result in their wholesale slaughter swiftly followed by his own public execution, here, in front of the very walls he sought to defeat and make his own. When we’ve completed our discussion, in which he will take no part other than to listen, I shall gather my father’s Immortals and ride away, taking the king with me. His generals will disperse the army back to their various kingdoms, with express orders from the King of Kings to end these hostilities immediately, and to have marched away from here by this time tomorrow. They know better than to disobey such an order.’

He looked Scaurus up and down.

‘And so, Legatus, you find yourself victorious. Were it not for my cousin and my brother’s ill-judged intervention, my father would have found it difficult to overrule a king who sought to remove Roman boots from our soil. The siege would have continued, with whatever result. As it is, however, Narsai’s imprudence has proved to be a sword with two edges. The other conspirators will be warned as to the potential consequences should they be so unwise as to transgress against my father’s tolerance again, and provided with a practical example of the nature that his ire will take. An example provided by King Narsai.’

He turned to the downcast king, speaking swiftly in Pahlavi, spitting out the words with a vehemence that would have been simple contempt were it not for the edge of pure hatred. Narsai turned away without ever looking up, walking towards his private section of the tent. The prince watched him go with hooded eyes, his jaw set hard.

‘He is to equip himself in his finest armour, array himself with weapons and mount the horse he rode into battle with you. I will greet him with solicitude and the respect due to a king, and invite him to accompany me to Ctesiphon for an audience with my father. We will ride out together, in the company of my father’s Immortals, and I will escort him away to meet his destiny. He will treated with the honour and respect due to a man of his station, and will attend the gathering of my father’s kings as a peer among his fellows. And then, at the right time, he will admit to his brother monarchs that he plotted to kill the King of Kings, but came to his senses in time to avert a tragedy that would have endangered them all. He will then retire to his capital Arbela, where he will rule in name only. I will find a suitably ruthless man to play the role of his bidaxs, and in reality that man will control his kingdom.’

‘And you don’t have any concern that the king, armed and armoured, might kill a dozen or more unarmoured men before he is taken down? Including yourself?’

‘No, Legatus, in truth I do not. Narsai knows that if he were to attempt anything so foolish he would be overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers, disarmed, and then forced to watch his family be despoiled and beheaded, one at a time. His fingers may twitch at the pommel of his mace, but he’ll resist the temptation.’

Scaurus tilted his head again, his mouth twisted into a hard smile.

‘A pragmatic solution, Your Highness. You will clearly make an excellent successor to your father.’

Vologases’ laugh was tinged with a faint hint of derision.

‘Forgive my disappointment at receiving praise from a Roman, Legatus, some habits die harder than others. I will indeed follow my father’s path of keeping Rome at bay with soft words, and focus my efforts on the northern borders where the real threat lies, but in truth I fear your empire more than ever before. My father has presided over a period of gentle but inevitable decline, and the time may yet come when a new Roman emperor, a man stronger than the current fool, looks to the east and considers the wealth to be had by invading Parthia, stripping the western kingdoms of their wealth and enslaving the population. For all that I despise Narsai for his attempt on my father’s life, a small part of me is shouting that he was right to confront Rome now, before it’s too late.’

He shook his head.

‘And you must forgive me my musing. I suggest you return to your fortress now, to spare Narsai the indignity of his departure from power being overseen by his enemy. And don’t allow my bitterness to lessen the gratitude I feel to you, Marcus Valerius Aquila.’

He embraced Marcus, turned to Scaurus with a brisk nod, and then turned away.

‘I will pray to Ahura Mazda for your safe delivery to those you love, and that your hunar will continue to burn with the same brilliance for the remainder of your days …’

Pausing, he turned back with a lopsided smile.

‘Unless, of course, we meet on the field of battle. On that day, look to your blades, Aquila, as I will look to mine. And remember, I know what you are capable of, but you have yet to see my mettle.’

Scaurus watched him walk away, then turned to the tent’s doorway.

‘He’s right. It would be unseemly to gloat over a man’s fall from power.’

They walked from the tent into the sun’s heat, a pair of Immortals to either side to safeguard their passage through the siege lines. Stopping to marvel anew at the destruction visited upon the fortress by the river’s torrent, Marcus looked about him at a sea of dried mud in which the scattered detritus of a major battle had been baked.

‘So Narsai used the Mygdonius to smash the wall, then sent his army to force their way into the city?’

Scaurus nodded, looking out across the scene of the battle from a new perspective.

‘Yes. And we were lucky, Tribune, that your colleague Varus happened to be the man in command when their cataphracts managed to get a foothold on the wall that we’d thrown up across the breach. They looked unbreakable, all that armour making them almost impossible to kill, and when Varus ran from the wall I thought his nerve had failed him again.’

He shook his head ruefully.

‘I misjudged the man. He rallied Ravilla’s marines just when they were on the point of breaking, with the Procurator dying and half their men shot with arrows, and he took them into the Parthian knights like a pack of mad dogs. I watched the whole thing from the city wall, as the Parthians stood firm and killed three men for every loss they took, expecting the marines to break and run a dozen times over, if I’m honest. But there was something in Varus that wouldn’t let them, some insanity that threw him at their line time and again, and in the end their sheer weight of numbers told. The cataphracts simply couldn’t stand against their ferocity, not with men being pulled from their line and hacked to pieces before their eyes. In the end it was they who turned tail, fighting their way back over the wall in bloody desperation, but for a time it was too close to judge the likely winner. If it hadn’t been for that young man and his burning urge for redemption …’

‘Did he live?’

Scaurus chuckled.

‘Live? He came through the madness without a scratch. You have a rival for the Tungrians’ affections, Tribune, given it was they who were being battered away from the wall when he intervened. Even Dubnus seems to respect the man.’

He started walking towards the fortress, and Marcus followed him, looking about him at the battle’s wreckage, weapons and discarded armour half sunk into the hardened mud.

‘One thing does occur to me though.’

Scaurus looked at his junior as they recrossed the bridge into the empty ground between fortress and besiegers.

‘What’s that?’

Marcus looked at the walls of the city for a moment as they walked across the expanse of dried mud, waving a hand at the battered walls and the ground before them.

‘I think Narsai was perilously close to getting it right. Indeed I think he only made one mistake.’

He turned to the legatus with an expression that made it clear he was deadly serious.

‘He chose the wrong brother. I rode for five days with Vologases, and I can assure you that if we ever face that man across a battlefield, it won’t be the easy ride Osroes gave us.’

Scaurus frowned.

‘You think there’ll be a war with Parthia? It sounded to me as if Arsaces was pretty much bent on avoiding such a thing. And Commodus’s concerns only extend to the next place he’s going to bury his manhood.’

The younger man shrugged, turning back to look at the Parthian lines.

‘Nobody lives for ever, Legatus. Not kings, and most definitely not emperors, especially those with a gift for creating enemies. One way or another, everyone dies. One way, or another …’