could already taste the joy of an easy kill. His first indication of danger was a flash of iron to his left, but as he dragged his ten-foot ash spear round to meet it, he was already too late. Khamsin smashed into the Parthian’s flank, a thousand pounds of solid muscle at full gallop, sending horse and man tumbling with a crash fit to wake the gods. The impact threw Valerius from the saddle, the breath knocked out of him and his sword sent flying. He felt the skin of his right cheek tear as he skidded across the unyielding earth. Desperately, he struggled to his knees to find the Parthian staggering towards him. The man’s spear had snapped in the collision, but he had recovered the final four feet with its gleaming spiked tip and now he held it in front of him like a sword. A big man, with a heavy beard, his nose had been smashed almost flat when he landed. But he was determined and he was dangerous and he only had one aim as he advanced towards the unarmed Roman.
Valerius let him come. His eyes flickered between those of his opponent and the point of the spear, searching for the moment of decision. In many ways it was easier to face a man with a spear. A sword could come at you from any angle, but a spear had only one focus of attack. The question was: high or low? The throat or the guts? Which would he choose? A gutter fighter might feint with his eyes or the spear point, but the Parthian’s tentative approach suggested that he was more accustomed to fighting on horseback than man to man on foot. High or low? The eyes said low and the spear followed them. Valerius twisted in a desperate sidestep that allowed the point to crease his right side, then spun along the shaft to smash the spearman in front of the ear with a fist of solid walnut that had all his weight behind it. The impact should have crushed the weak point of his enemy’s skull, but the blow was high and the rim of the Parthian’s helmet sapped the force of it.
The big man roared like a bull elephant and his arms enveloped Valerius, who realized when a leg wrapped round his that he had underestimated his opponent. The Parthian might not be a gutter fighter, but someone had taught him to wrestle. Sensing his advantage, the spearman used his weight to unbalance Valerius and they fell, the Parthian’s bulk pinning the Roman to the ground. Valerius bucked and wriggled for all he was worth, lashing out with both hands and kicking with his iron-shod feet, but he could make no headway against the implacable solidity of the man whose only aim was to kill him. The Parthian had recovered his spear and now he stabbed the point down at Valerius’s face. Somehow, Valerius managed to get his left hand to the other man’s wrist in time to check the plunging iron. At the same time he smashed at his enemy’s face with the wooden fist, but the Parthian ignored the blows as if they came from a child. Slowly, a hair’s breadth at a time, the needle tip drew closer, aimed unerringly for Valerius’s right eyeball. Screaming with frustration and fear, the Roman used every desperate ounce of his strength to arrest the progress of that wicked iron spike. The Parthian’s lips curled back from his yellowing teeth and his hand shook as he maintained the pressure, but the movement was unrelenting and Valerius let out an involuntary cry as he felt the point touch his eyelid. The cry was echoed by the Parthian, but it was no yell of victory. His eyes bulged and the pressure on Valerius’s left hand eased at the same time as he heard an obscene crunching sound. With a last shuddering intake of breath the spearman fell to one side to reveal Tiberius, swaying on his feet and with the jagged stump of the sword bloody in his hand.
‘I think we are level now,’ the young tribune said, before his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed in a dead faint.
XXXII
Sweat ran in rivulets from Tiberius’s forehead and he bit so hard into the strip of toughened leather that Valerius wondered his teeth didn’t break. His eyes were screwed tight shut in a face set in a grimace of pure agony that twitched with every movement of the iron forceps.
Gaius Spurinna, Corbulo’s personal physician, and a man with a wit as dry as the old bones he transported with him everywhere, kept up a cheerful running commentary as he worked. The bones had been collected for scientific study from the battlefield at Carrhae just south of their route, and he speculated that a particularly fine backbone might have belonged to Crassus himself.
‘If you had been more fortunate the arrowhead would have continued through to pierce the other side of the leg and I would have been able to saw it off and withdraw the shaft as sweet as a prick from a silky virgin crack. Of course, you wouldn’t have enjoyed the sawing. Then again, you could have bled out before your comrade here got you back to me, so we must be thankful for what we have.’
Tiberius didn’t appear thankful. Despite the tincture of poppy Spurinna had administered his face had taken on the colour of grey parchment. As the physician worked, his head began to thrash from side to side in his delirium and Valerius was forced to push down hard on his shoulders to keep him still.
‘The trick is to manoeuvre the grip of the forceps around the head of the arrow and therefore nullify the effect of the barb, whilst doing so without disturbing any of the major tubes which facilitate blood flow and killing the patient. As you can appreciate, it requires a combination of delicacy and strength which only a physician of my exceptional attributes has at his disposal. Hold still, damn you. A sip of wine, please.’ Valerius placed the cup to his lips. ‘In your case the operation is made more problematic by the fact that the arrowhead appears to be lodged in the complex group of bones which make up the knee. Fortunately, you are in the hands of no ordinary physician, but a man who knows his bones. In the hands of an ordinary physician you might be reduced to crawling on all fours like a dog. Yes!’ Tiberius gave a low howl not unlike a dog. Gaius Spurinna grunted with effort and his muscles bulged as he worked the forceps free with an obscene sucking sound, slowly bringing the shaft of the arrow with them. When it was clear, he gave a huge sigh, drained his wine and refilled the cup before washing the point of the arrow clean in it.
‘With a little good fortune, it won’t have been poisoned — for barbarians the Parthians are relatively civilized — and it carried no cloth into the wound, so if my theory is correct the chances of mortification are reduced. You may thank me, my boy. It is possible you may yet live to die on the battlefield.’
He looked down at Tiberius, who was drifting in and out of consciousness, muttering to himself like a child in a dream.
‘Ungrateful wretch.’ Spurinna smiled benevolently. ‘Come,’ he said to Valerius. ‘We will report to the general. He favours the boy, you know.’
Valerius was about to follow, but Tiberius’s next words fetched him up short of the door.
‘I cannot do it. I cannot.’ There was something desperate in the way he spoke, as if he was pleading with someone only he could see. ‘Honour. Duty. Discipline. Honour, duty…’ The mantra faded as Valerius took the young man’s hand in his. ‘Yes!’ Tiberius’s eyes opened, but they were looking at something beyond the tent and Valerius made the sign against evil. ‘Yes, I see. It is clear now. I have no choice.’ The eyes closed again and his harsh breathing subsided.
Relieved, Valerius stood up to go, but a last whispered word froze him in place.
‘Treason.’
The army of the Corbulo travelled steadily northeast, skirting a range of low, featureless hills and alert for darting raids by the now ever-present Parthian scouts. Valerius stayed with the column, regularly checking on Tiberius’s progress in the two-wheeled cart that had been cleared for him.
Tiberius was still weary and talked of nothing but getting back into the saddle, but gradually Valerius steered the conversation round to what was concerning him.
‘When you were under the poppy you still seemed troubled by what happened at the village.’
Jammed into the corner among sacks of grain to reduce the effect of iron-shod wheels jolting across the rocks, Tiberius shook his head. ‘I can remember very little apart from Spurinna’s gentle ministrations.’ He smiled. ‘Besides, I know you were right. A Roman soldier’s job is to obey, and let others concern themselves with things like morality and justice.’
‘There was something else. An unguarded word. A word that can never be spoken lightly. Treason.’
For a few moments Tiberius might have been made of stone; then his expression changed. ‘It’s just a word. I didn’t know what I was saying.’
Valerius said steadily, ‘If there is something you know, Tiberius, you must tell me. It is much more dangerous to keep the knowledge to yourself.’
Tiberius hesitated. ‘There is talk.’
‘Talk of what? There is always talk. Have you ever met a soldier who didn’t have something to complain about? If they’re not complaining about the food, it’s the quality of their boots or the weight of their shields. A
