Parthian Vengeance (59 page)

‘Burn it,’ I ordered.

I stood the cataphracts down as the sweating but jubilant legionaries filed back to camp to once again pitch their tents. They would sleep like the dead tonight. Orodes and his men led their horses back to the camp’s stable area, they and their horses soaked with sweat and gripped by frustration.

Vagises returned after dark and reported to me immediately. He looked tired, filthy but elated, which only increased Orodes’ discomfort.

‘We chased them all the way to the walls of Seleucia,’ he beamed. ‘They ran their horses into the ground trying to flee us.’

‘Well done, Vagises, you and your men have earned their pay today.’

He took a jug of water from the table, filled a cup and then emptied it.

‘One thing you should know, Pacorus. We saw lots of foot soldiers on the road, all of them heading into Seleucia, horsemen as well.’

‘They must be reinforcing the garrison,’ said Orodes.

‘Your plan has worked,’ I said to Byrd, ‘they must be sending troops from Babylon in response to our presence here.’

Vagises shook his head. ‘We did not stay around long enough to get an accurate assessment of what was happening, but there are hundreds of tents pitched outside the city walls. Very odd.’

‘Tomorrow we will find out what the enemy is up to,’ I said.

As a rule Parthians do not fight in the hours of darkness but I increased the number of sentries that night as a precaution against an attack. Acting like thieves in the night suited Narses and Mithridates and it was obvious that their attention had now turned towards us following Vagises’ report. But no attack came and in the morning we struck camp, cremated our own dead and marched south once more, leaving the enemy corpses to rot in the desert. Our own losses had amounted to a hundred legionaries killed and thirty wounded, with a further fifty horse archers slain. It had been another easy victory.

The army had not marched seven miles before Byrd and Malik returned to report that their scouts had detected another force approaching, this time from the southwest. Then they rode off to gather more information. This was getting tiring! For the third day the army deployed into its battle positions and waited for yet another enemy force to present itself. Would we ever get to Seleucia?

Again the cataphracts deployed behind the legions with the horse archers on the wings. The legionaries stood or sat on the ground and chatted to each other, relishing the thought of another day’s easy slaughter.

Domitus sauntered over to where I was sitting on Remus next to Orodes.

‘Your turn today, Orodes,’ he said.

‘Depends on what they send against us,’ I said.

‘If it’s a bunch of kitchen maids armed with spits then Orodes is your man,’ beamed Domitus. Orodes was far from amused.

We waited an hour before the familiar black shape of a large group of men appeared on the southwestern horizon. Worryingly neither Byrd nor Malik had returned to us. I prayed that they had not been captured or killed. I felt a knot tighten in my stomach. I would exchange all the victories I had won for their safety. I closed my eyes and prayed to Shamash to deliver them back to me safely.

The shapes grew bigger, shimmering in the heat and appearing like black liquid. Centurions blew whistles and their men dressed their ranks and awaited the coming clash in silence. The enemy was moving at speed, heading directly towards our right flank, a great banner fluttering in the centre of their line.

‘I recognise that banner,’ said Orodes straining his eyes. ‘It is Nergal.’

I did not believe him and stared at the approaching horsemen to identify them myself. Utter relief swept through me as I saw that it was indeed the banner of Mesene that came towards us. And beside Nergal rode Malik and Byrd, and I also saw the black-robed Yasser with them.

I clasped Nergal’s arm as he eventually halted before us, smiling as ever, and then greeted Orodes.

‘We found them wandering in the desert, lost,’ beamed Malik.

‘Glad to have your men with us, Nergal,’ I said. ‘Vagises told us that there is a great army gathering at Seleucia, which is now probably heading this way.’

He looked surprised. ‘No army is approaching, Pacorus. Narses and Mithridates have fled back across the Tigris, taking their army with them.’

‘And Babylon?’ Orodes looked momentarily concerned.

‘The city is safe. My horsemen made contact with the garrison yesterday.’

‘The last I heard,’ I said to Nergal, ‘you were beset by the hordes of King Phriapatius.’

‘If I can wash the dust out of my throat,’ he replied, ‘I will tell you our story.’

That night he revealed what had happened in Mesene and Babylon. The Carmanians under Phriapatius had indeed invaded Nergal’s kingdom and had marched towards Uruk. But Nergal had called on Yasser for help and as the enemy advanced on his capital Nergal’s horsemen launched a series of hit-and-run raids against the Carmanians.

‘Small parties, mostly,’ said Nergal, chewing on a biscuit, ‘just to slow their advance. But we kept up the pressure on them day and night to fray their nerves. And you know how Parthians hate to fight at night.’

‘I’ve never understood that,’ remarked Domitus. ‘War is not a game. The enemy is there to be beaten irrespective of whether it’s night or day.’

‘Those of us who follow Shamash believe that it is better to fight during the day when we have His protection,’ I replied, ‘though I would not expect a heathen such as you to understand that, Domitus.’

‘Better a living heathen than a dead worshipper,’ he sniffed.

‘The enemy got as far as Umma, a town less than fifty miles from Uruk,’ continued Nergal, ‘but I had strengthened its walls and the garrison was not to be intimidated, and we continued to launch raids against the besiegers until it was they who were besieged.’

He smiled at Yasser. ‘It got worse for them when Lord Yasser arrived. After five days the Carmanians gave up and fell back towards the Tigris. Two days later Phriapatius asked for a truce. So you see, there was never a battle and Uruk was never threatened.’

‘I get the impression that Phriapatius is a rather lukewarm player in the grand scheme of Mithridates and Narses,’ I said.

‘That is why I am here, Pacorus,’ replied Nergal, ‘to take you to see him.’

The next day I gave command of the army to Orodes and told him to take it directly to Babylon to secure the city. Mithridates and Narses may have retreated but there were still probably roving bands of the enemy at large that had either been deliberately left behind or had deserted and were nothing more than groups of brigands. I took a thousand horse archers with me as I accompanied Nergal and Yasser south. We travelled at speed through a land laid waste by a cruel enemy. Every village we came upon had been destroyed and its population either killed or carried off into slavery. The bodies of the slaughtered still lay where they had been cut down, the stench of decomposition filling our nostrils and making us want to retch. Occasionally we saw a dead dog next to a corpse where a master and his faithful servant had been killed side by side.

We rode into the now deserted Jem det Nasr and straight into a scene of horror. The enemy had obviously killed those remaining members of the population before they had fled. As we made our way to the centre of the city we rode through streets strewn with bodies, mostly the elderly, frail and children, those who were not strong enough to endure a forced march. Any able-bodied men and women and teenage girls would have been taken away as slaves, though we did come across the naked corpses of women whose breasts had been cut off, no doubt having first been raped before their mutilation and murder.

‘And they say that we are savages,’ remarked Yasser.

At that moment I was ashamed to be a Parthian, ashamed that Parthians could do such things to each other. It was worse than the scenes I had witnessed at Forum Annii in Italy when Crixus and his Gauls had stormed that place and butchered its inhabitants. There was literally no one left alive, in fact nothing left alive, just the usual repellent odour of death that hung over the whole city.

We reached the centre of the city where the Temple of Shamash stood, its massive twin doors shut. It fronted a large square and behind it was the governor’s palace and the royal barracks. We filed into the square and Nergal organised parties to search the palace grounds to see if there were any survivors. Fortunately the enemy had not had time to torch the city.

Yasser seated on his horse looked at the shut doors of the temple.

‘There are no braces against the doors, they must have been shut from the inside.’

‘Perhaps there are people in there,’ said Nergal.

I looked at the temple, the barred doors facing east like every temple dedicated to Shamash. They were set back from the yellow stone columns that surrounded the building on all four sides to support the high arched roof. There was a smaller entrance in the west wall of the temple but an officer reported that it too was closed.

I dismounted and walked up the dozen stone steps that led to the main entrance. There were square windows cut high in the walls allowing the rays of the sun to enter the temple. In the mornings the priests would welcome its first rays, signifying that Shamash had left the underworld to bring the sun to warm the earth once more. The sound of hundreds of horsemen riding into the square would have been carried through those windows to whoever, if anyone, was inside. Aside from horses scraping at the ground and chomping on their bits there was silence. Any people inside would probably be filled with terror at the thought that their tormentors had returned. I stood in front of the doors.

‘I am Pacorus, King of Dura and a friend and ally of your queen. If there are any within the temple let them come forth in the knowledge that I am here to protect you.’

There was no reply to my plea.

‘I say again, my name is King Pacorus of Dura and I am a friend of Queen Axsen. The enemy has left your city. You are safe.’

I looked behind me to where Nergal was sitting on his horse beside Yasser, the latter smiling and shaking his head at me. I walked back down the steps.

‘What now?’ asked Nergal.

‘We will break down the doors.’

I called forward the commander of the horse archers who organised an empty stone water trough to be used as a battering ram. A dozen men, six on each side, supported the trough on iron bars and rammed it against the doors, which were eventually forced open after being struck a dozen times.

The pungent aroma of dead flesh and emptied bowels met our nostrils the moment we stepped inside the temple, shoving aside the tables that had been used to brace the doors. Light was still flooding through the windows, illuminating the interior where bodies lay on the marble-tiled floor. Only Nergal, Yasser and I entered the temple, picking our way through the dead towards the altar at the far end. I knelt down and examined one of the bodies. There were no marks on it, no signs of a violent struggle and no gaping wounds. The expression on the woman’s face was one of calm resignation. I went to another corpse, this time an old man in his sixties. Once again there were no marks on the body, no signs of violence. The eyes were closed and I saw an empty cup in his hand. Looking around I saw other cups scattered on the floor.

‘They took poison. Hemlock, probably,’ I said.

‘Suicide?’ Nergal was shocked. Parthians generally frowned on the taking of one’s own life, seeing it as a cowardly and disgraceful act.

‘The priests have also taken their own lives,’ I said, pointing to the high altar where white-robed figures lay on the dais. ‘They must have authorised the distribution of the poison and thus sanctioned the act. That being the case, I assume that the suicides were a way of protesting against submission to tyranny, and in the women’s case a way of avoiding the shame of rape. Shamash will care for their souls.’

I ordered that the bodies were to be removed from the temple and consigned to funeral pyres along with the other corpses in the city. That night we camped outside the city walls to sleep well away from so much death.

The next day I left the horse archers to garrison the city and rode on with Nergal and Yasser. Amazingly, as we journeyed south we encountered small groups of people who had come out of hiding and were making their way back to their homes. Some had fled from Jem det Nasr and were now heading back there, though perhaps it would have been better if they had not, such was the scene of desolation that awaited them.

As we rode from Babylonia to Mesene we left behind death and destruction and travelled through a countryside untouched by war. Nergal told me that Phriapatius had kept his men under control and his own attacks had confined them to a small corridor that extended from the River Tigris to Umma. We slept at the latter place the night before my meeting with the King of Carmania. Praxima had ridden to the city to await her husband and me, and I embraced her warmly, my face engulfed in her wild red hair. She told us that High Priest Rahim had things in order at Uruk and had delivered a sermon to thousands of people at the White Temple in the city, telling them that the retreat of Carmania’s army was a miracle worked by Anu and proof that Nergal and Praxima were beloved of the gods.

‘He told me that he frowns upon the Agraci being in Mesene,’ she said, smiling at Yasser as we were served roasted chicken coated in a delicious sweet sauce.

‘Let Rahim believe that the gods saved the kingdom,’ said Nergal, washing his hands in a bowl of warm water. ‘I am glad that eight thousand Agraci warriors are with me.’

‘You do not believe your gods are helping you?’ asked Yasser.

‘The gods help those who help themselves,’ replied Praxima.

‘It is as my wife says,’ added Nergal.

‘Then the gods must look favourably upon our alliance with your people, Yasser,’ I said.

‘That is one way of looking at it,’ he agreed. ‘If I had been told that one day I would be sharing a meal with Parthian kings…’

‘And a queen,’ interrupted Praxima. Yasser smiled at her.

‘Then I would have told them they were mad. And yet here we are, so perhaps the gods are indeed weaving their magic around us.’