Rome's Lost Son (19 page)

‘Two each!’ Vespasian shouted at the men. ‘And then follow me as fast as you can. Hormus, bring burning branches from the cooking fires in the trenches.’

A mighty shout rose to the sky drowning even the pounding of the war drum; Vespasian did not need to look to know that the Parthian cavalry had collided with Mannius’ cohort. It was now just a matter of time.

Vespasian led his scratch incendiary unit at a lung-burning pace back across the siege lines directly to where the uneven cataphract-versus-infantry battle abutted them. He scrambled up the edge of the final earthwork, his arms cradling the Naphtha pots, struggling for balance and dislodging loose soil that tumbled down into Magnus’ face behind him. His head cleared the top of the defence and he looked along the length of Mannius’ cohort’s line, all the way to the city walls, a bowshot distant. And it was ragged, beset by armoured killers mounted upon beasts almost impervious to the weapons being wielded against them. With their horses pressing their huge bulk against the cohort’s front rank, pushing them down and back with cracked skulls and broken limbs, the Parthian troopers used their far-reaching kontoi to stab razor-edged points down into the faces of desperate auxiliaries in the second and third ranks, preventing them from using their weight in support of their comrades before them. Screams rent the air as eyes were pierced and throats were gouged; dying men dispersed sprays and mists of blood with their final explosive breaths as the juggernaut of cataphract cavalry pushed into the Roman infantry with the ease of a voyage-weary sailor penetrating a dockside whore. Javelins, swords and knives could not halt them, but Vespasian held in his hands the only weapon that would: fire.

Kneeling, he set down one of his pots. ‘Hormus! Bring the brands.’

The slave clambered up the bank with three thick sticks with red-glowing ends.

Without thinking of the dangers or whether he was doing it correctly, Vespasian proffered the Naphtha. ‘Light it!’

Hormus touched the glowing end of the brand to the trailing rag; it smouldered for a moment and then flashed alight as if impregnated by some accelerant, shocking Vespasian. Panicked by the rapidity of the fuse’s burning, Vespasian leapt to his feet
and brought the pot, two-handed, behind his head, bending his back and legs, and then levered it forward with the pressure of his whole body unfurling behind it. The pot soared along the Parthian line to crash down onto the unarmoured rump of a front rank horse, twenty paces away, splintering into jagged shards and spilling a viscous brown liquid over the beasts and troopers close by; but it was virtually unnoticed in the chaos of battle as it did no more than that.

Vespasian dropped back to his knees. ‘Shit! Nothing happened.’

Magnus stuck his fingers into the wax seal of one of his pots, breaking it. ‘That should help. Hormus!’

The slave had more life in his eyes than Vespasian had ever seen before; he touched the glowing brand to the rag and, as it flared up, Magnus jumped to his feet with his right arm stretched behind him and his left arm crooked in front, balancing, and, with one fluid motion, he hurled the pot, with as straight an arm as an onager’s, so that it outdistanced Vespasian’s throw by a few paces. It ignited an instant before it crashed onto the helm of a second rank rider, immediately engulfing him and his mount in flame and splattering his comrades close by with sticky, burning slops. With a sudden detonation, the contents of Vespasian’s pot exploded with the deathly fury of the fire god. The agonised, terrified shrieks of both man and beast drowned the clash of weaponry and for a few moments all conflict ceased as the combatants watched the immolating horses buck and rear, dislodging writhing riders as both were roasted alive within the metal ovens that were supposed to make them almost invulnerable.

‘Centurion!’ Vespasian shouted above the continuous screams. ‘Now that you’ve seen how these things work, take your men along the rear of our line and throw as many pots at those armoured bastards as you’ve got.’

With a grin the veteran saluted and, grabbing a couple of the brands from Hormus, loped off with his men following to cause burning mayhem. Magnus lit his second pot and tossed it at the cataphracts nearest the earthworks who had resumed beating down the lessening resistance of the overwhelmed auxiliaries. As
they too were engulfed by the fire god’s wrath, howling their pain to their own uncaring deities, the Parthians closest to the two conflagrations began to disengage, unwilling to risk sharing in the skin-shrivelling, fat-sizzling, baking deaths that were being meted out seemingly from the heavens.

And then clumps of flames burst forth from the Parthian line, one by one, at irregular intervals, marking the progress of the centurion and his men along the rear of the auxiliaries. With the exception of one poorly aimed shot that was bringing a searing death to a dozen or so screaming Romans, the centurion’s men had managed to lob their deadly incendiary missiles over the infantry to cause their enemy’s cohesion to fracture in many places as the animal instinct to run from fire became the cataphracts’ overriding motivation.

And those that could turned and fled. Some with patches of sticky fire clinging to them, adding urgency to their retreat; others with armour heated by close contact with blazing comrades and steeds; and then others, the majority, untouched by fire but not untainted by the fear of it. Within a few heartbeats the surviving cataphracts had turned their tails and were heading back towards the horse archers who, in turn, withdrew to facilitate their comrades’ withdrawal.

But it was not the fleet and nimble flight of the fresh and unencumbered; quite the reverse. Despite their powerful fear, the great beasts were unable to generate much speed, having been armoured for a few hours now, plus having charged and fought. All they could muster was a lumbering walk that left their exposed rumps open to the unthrown javelins of the jeering Romans; and, as Mannius realised the opportunity was there, they were used without pity. To the bellowed, succinct commands of their centurions each century hurled their primary weapons at the slowly retreating cavalry, adding to their panic as their hind-quarters were riddled with deep wounds, causing many to collapse from stress and over-exertion.

Mannius, however, was a commander of experience and he kept a tight hold on his men, forbidding them to follow up their retreating foe and, instead, held them steady as Fregallanus’
cohort began to follow the baggage train across the Tigris. The extreme right of his cohort abutting the city walls had started to peel back, century by century, to follow their comrades heading for the bridge.

Vespasian, Magnus and Hormus stood on the top of the earthen embankment surveying the field in astonishment, now littered with heaps of flaming metal that flared and sizzled as the bodies encased within them gave up their fat; smears of dark smoke, stinking of burnt man- and horse-flesh, drifted between the line of auxiliaries and the beaten, retreating Parthians. The cries of the wounded were surprisingly few and mainly confined to the Roman side, for neither cavalryman nor his mount could survive the broiling temperatures of the weapon given to man by the god of fire, Apam Napat.

‘That’s how to do eastern bastards who like to cover themselves with cooking pots,’ Magnus observed, his blood-encrusted face now blackened with the smoke’s residue. ‘I’d say they were well done, if you take my meaning?’

Vespasian did but was in no mood for levity. ‘You seemed to know something about that stuff.’

‘I might have come across it in Rome,’ Magnus muttered evasively. ‘You wouldn’t want to know the details.’

‘I’m sure. Come on, we’ve still got work to do.’ He turned and slid back down the slope as the centurion and his eight lads returned from their inflammatory rampage. Behind them Fregallanus’ cohort had begun to cross the bridge. ‘That was good work, centurion; now follow me.’ He scrambled out of the other side of the trench and made his way as fast as possible back to the artillery; there were still a couple of dozen Naphtha pots piled next to the onager. ‘Get these onto the wagon,’ he ordered, pointing at Hormus’ vehicle, which remained where Magnus had abandoned it.

As Fregallanus’ men cleared the bridge and Mannius’ battle-weary cohort began tramping across, carrying their wounded, the wagon was loaded. Vespasian rested, watching the men whom he would have condemned to certain death make their way across to the relative safety of the northern bank of the
Tigris, relieved that he did not have to bear the responsibility of their violent demise on his conscience. He offered up a prayer to the fire god of these lands in thanks for the inspiration that he had blessed him with and also for the gift of Naphtha.

There was no sign of the Parthians returning in force as the last century of Mannius’ cohort crossed the bridge with the wagon loaded with pots following close behind.

Mannius was waiting for Vespasian on the other side; he gave a tired salute. Vespasian returned it. ‘Well done, prefect. I thought you would all die.’

‘I know; we’ve all had to give those orders in our time and I sympathised with you; what else could you have done? Fortuna, however, had other ideas.’

Vespasian smiled faintly. ‘There’ve been a few gods at work here today and we shall thank them with the appropriate sacrifices once we unite with Radamistus’ army. But first I want as many of the abandoned wagons, dead animals and as much other detritus as possible piled onto the bridge; we’ll cover it with the rest of the Naphtha and make a fire that will burn for a day to slow Babak down while we head north. Let’s make the bastard angry enough to really want to catch us.’

CHAPTER XI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘What about Radamistus?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘How did you find all that out?’

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

‘And?’

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

‘You should never speak with your mouth full.’

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

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

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

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

‘Mindos, master.’

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

‘Yes, master.’

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

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

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

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

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

Hormus looked confused as he left.

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

‘Of course.’

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

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

‘I expect it to suddenly become the truth.’

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

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

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

‘Fuck knows; jumpy sentries?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Who told you that?’

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

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

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

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