Corbulo gave a thin smile. ‘Naturally. I have already heard tales of his bargaining skills… and certain mysterious losses. Mucianus was most put out. He is old-fashioned in his way, and the thought of a slave wearing the Emperor’s uniform had him calling for the lictors. But I have seen your man exercising and I can understand why you would want him close, and with a sword in his hand. He looks quite impressive. A Spaniard I would guess, from his looks and his tongue.’
Valerius nodded. ‘A Spaniard and a gladiator.’
‘A formidable combination. Would that more of my army had his bloodline and his temper. In any case, there will be no further obstructions. A cavalry-trained horse is at a premium in these troubled times, but I will issue orders that your needs be met.’
As he was leaving Valerius’s eye was drawn to what looked like a model of a siege tower on a cabinet by the doorway. Corbulo noticed his interest.
‘Another diversion of mine and one of my own invention. It is based on Caesar. I call it Caesar’s Tower.’ Valerius saw now that the tower consisted of four of the boards they had played the memory game on, set eight inches apart one on top of the other. Caesar was a game contested on a single level by legionaries in their short hours of leisure time. The two players each had twelve identical markers, white for one side and blue for the opponent. In addition, each had a thirteenth, smaller counter about the size of a rabbit dropping. The large markers could only move a single square at a time in any direction, but Caesar, the small token, ruled the board and could move anywhere as long as it was in a straight line. The aim of the game was to capture the opponent’s stones by ambushing them between two of your own and it ended when one side captured the other’s Caesar. It was a game of strategy that could be fiendishly complex when played by two skilled players, but this was different. ‘I have developed it so that it is played in three dimensions,’ Corbulo continued. ‘I have never been defeated,’ he smiled at his daughter, ‘though Domitia has come close. Perhaps, when we are on campaign, you would care to try.’
Valerius could think of no worse field punishment than spending his nights being made to look a fool by his commanding officer, but he was a soldier and sometimes a soldier had to make sacrifices.
‘Of course. I would be delighted.’
Domitia picked up the kitten which had been rubbing itself against her feet and stroked it. ‘If the tribune could spare an hour this afternoon, perhaps I could teach him the basics of the game?’
Corbulo blinked and Valerius thought he saw a flare of suspicion in the grey eyes. He struck before it could develop into something worse.
‘I fear I will be too busy with our preparations, lady,’ he said quickly. ‘Perhaps when we return.’
‘Such a pity,’ the dark-haired girl pouted. ‘My father takes so much delight in beating his enemies into submission that it would have done him good to face someone who might show him the meaning of humility.’
While Corbulo glowered, Valerius bowed his farewell and made his escape. It occurred to him that Domitia was more dangerous than Boudicca.
XXIV
Valerius’s Thracian cavalry escort set up camp outside Antioch close to the temporary mud-brick fort that was currently home to the Legio Tenth Fretensis. When they were settled, Valerius rode out to greet its commander, a solemn, bearded young man who introduced himself as Claudius Hanno, a Roman citizen, but born and brought up by his Syrian parents in the oasis city of Palmyra.
The main Thracian force remained at Cyrrhus, halfway to the crossing point of the Euphrates. Hanno reported their readiness was high, although he produced the usual list of complaints about the quality of the replacement horses and equipment they had been given.
‘It will be good for once to have a friend at headquarters. Anything you can get for us in the way of harness and saddlery would help. Boots, too. The desert air is not kind to leather.’ Professional eyes ran over Valerius’s horse. ‘Though I see from your mare that it is not worth begging for a new batch of remounts.’
Hanno’s mood brightened when Valerius revealed Corbulo’s order for the cavalry to carry extra javelins.
‘He has something special in mind for us, then.’ The Syrian grinned. ‘The general always thinks two moves ahead of any other commander. He is a great man,’ he said, almost reverentially. ‘When he led us to Artaxata, he cut through the enemy like a sword piercing a beating heart. The booty we collected there made me a rich man, may the gods give me time to spend it.’
On the Rhenus or in Britain, an auxiliary ala milliara would be a flexible mixed unit equally split between cavalry and infantry. In Syria, since the threat from the Parthians was mainly horse-borne and because of the vast distances they had to patrol, the Third Thracians were a thousand-strong wing of mounted archers and spearmen. Valerius watched as Hanno put the fifty men of his escort detachment through a series of exercises designed to show off their skills. The Roman had worked with cavalry often enough, but he was impressed by the horsemanship, speed and agility of the Thracians. The spearmen would ride full pelt at a man-shaped target, launch a pair of spears and turn almost in the same instant, and they never missed the mark. They rode in twos and swapped mounts in mid-stride; they leapt from the saddle and raced round behind their horses before remounting at the run. The archers could turn backwards in the saddle, fire three unerringly accurate arrows over their mount’s tail and return to a normal riding position in less time than it takes to tell it. Afterwards, Hanno showed him the bow his men used, an exotic recurved weapon made of wood, bone and sinew that was half the length of the hunting bow Valerius had once owned, but shot arrows twice as far.
Valerius commented that the auxiliaries, whether carrying bow or spear, seldom touched the reins to control their mounts.
Hanno nodded gravely. ‘All of our horses are trained to respond to heel and knee as well as to harness. It is a skill you will be familiar with?’ the Syrian suggested, nodding in the direction of Valerius’s wooden hand.
Valerius smiled, remembering the long hours of practice and the number of times he and Hercules had parted company as they decided to go in different directions. The horse he had been given at Seleucia was only trained to the rein. That didn’t matter too much on the road, but it would be different in battle when he would need his left hand for a sword.
‘I will require such a horse when we cross the Euphrates,’ he said.
‘Of course.’ Hanno bowed. ‘But if you are prepared to wait, I will choose him personally from our herd at Cyrrhus. You will have plenty of time to get to know him on the march. By the time we reach Tigranocerta you will have a proper cavalryman’s swagger and a proper cavalryman’s backside. Made of leather.’
Valerius joined in the laughter and decided he was fortunate to have this man under his command.
Dusk had fallen by the time he returned to the palace, but he decided it would be unwise to ignore Corbulo’s instruction to report on his progress. He walked quickly through tiled corridors lit by oil lamps that created shadows on the painted walls and the statues of great men which lined them. Two guards checked him before he entered the general’s private quarters, but there were none outside the study where he had met Corbulo that morning, which presumably meant he must be elsewhere in the palace. Valerius turned to go.
And froze.
It was the rhythm his mind detected first. Not his ears, because the sound was barely even a sound. His mind. As if he could feel someone’s heartbeat in the air.
Slowly, he turned back to the doorway and moved the curtain a handspan aside. Now the sound was clearer, a gentle rhythmic hiss as if a hunted deer had stopped to listen with the breath blowing softly through its nostrils. Everything seemed peaceful, yet he could feel the danger as if someone had doused him with a bucket of ice water. His eyes ranged over the small area of the room he could see through the gap and his heart stopped as they fell on the kitten, Puss Puss. She lay on her side in the centre of the marble floor, with her front legs stretched out straight and two tiny spots of red halfway along the pale fur of her side. He froze as he noticed the animal’s face: her eyes were wide and her lips drawn back in a rictus of agony, showing every tiny fang. Puss Puss was dead, but what had killed her? What was making the noise?
His hand crept to his belt and he cursed as he remembered he had handed his sword in at the palace entrance. Still, he couldn’t ignore the threat. An inch at a time he squeezed through the doorway, careful not to move the curtain and alert whatever or whoever was waiting for him inside.
Gradually, more of the room came into view. On the far side, partially obscured by a high-backed couch,
