zone and turned back, accompanied by the jeers of the untouched Roman line.
‘Quiet,’ Valerius roared.
A single rider breached the gap. An archer in the final rank of the left hand cohort turned and loosed. His arrow took the Parthian in the base of the skull and the horse rode on with the rider dead in the saddle until it reached the pit line and went down in a cloud of dust screaming with the agony of a snapped foreleg.
Satisfied, Valerius waited until the surviving Parthians had gathered in a sullen group well out of bow range before he ordered the cleanup. Men from the second rank of the Roman line ran to where the Parthian injured lay stunned and groaning among the dead. The auxiliaries roamed among the carnage with brutal efficiency, cutting throats and providing the mercy stroke as they stripped men and horses of weapons and arrows and recovered bundles of javelins.
‘I want their coats and helmets, too,’ Valerius reminded them.
All through the long morning the men of Valerius’s little command stood in the burning heat and watched with growing dread the build-up of King Vologases’ forces. The Parthians were preceded by the sound of distant thunder that echoed from the valley walls, a deep, menacing throb that seemed to slowly work its way into a man’s soul. Gradually, the defeated survivors of the Parthian charge were absorbed into the mass of the army’s vanguard, the countless horde of light horse which swirled and flowed like the surface of a great river across Valerius’s front seeking some way to break the Roman dam. At first it was insubstantial, a veil of individual squadrons and regiments that lightly dotted the land, but gradually the veil became a blanket and the blanket thickened to become a great multicoloured swathe of humanity that blocked out the coarse grassland. The feeling of enormous pressure building up behind the vanguard grew, but they never ventured closer than four hundred paces.
‘Why don’t they come?’ Hanno demanded. ‘It would be the work of a moment to sweep us aside.’
Valerius nodded silently. Such a horde could turn the sky black with arrows and force the Romans into the tortoise formation — the testudo — that made them invulnerable to missile attack, but, conversely, would leave them open to a charge by the heavy armoured cavalry that were somewhere out there in that great mass. The answer came to him. His ruse had worked better than he had believed possible.
‘It is because they think we are a full Roman legion. Through his spies, Vologases will know that Corbulo has marched, if not exactly where. Perhaps he has informed his generals, perhaps not. But the tribal chiefs who lead those warrior bands have been told that Armenia is already won and they are but an escort to see Vologases to his throne. This was to be a progression. They might expect some opposition from roving bands of Armenian rebels, but not this. Whoever commands the vanguard will look at our shields and see the prospect of all-out war with Rome. He dare not make his move without consulting Vologases himself, and Vologases dare not move without gauging the strength which opposes him.’
‘Then we have won?’
‘If Corbulo comes.’
But the sun reached its zenith and still Corbulo did not come. Valerius ordered the last of the water distributed amongst the men behind the curved red shields and it was like nectar in their dust-caked throats. By now the cavalrymen were reeling on their feet and he wondered if they were even capable of meeting a Parthian charge, never mind repelling it. Yet when he marched along the ranks to inspect their dispositions they cheered him as if they had won a victory. He remembered Paulinus, the man he had to thank, for better or worse, for being here, and the stirring speech the then governor of Britain had made before Boudicca’s last battle. Valerius fervently wished he had the same words to say to his soldiers, but somehow they would not come. Not that it mattered. They knew the situation as well as he did. If Corbulo didn’t come, they were all dead.
Still Corbulo didn’t come. But the King of Kings did.
An ominous ripple ran through the ranks of the great army facing the Roman line and every man tensed to meet the attack. Valerius mounted Khamsin and took his place in the rear with Hanno and Serpentius at his side. From the centre of the Parthian horde a single figure emerged holding not a lance or a bow, but a branch of green leaves.
‘It seems the King of Kings wishes to talk,’ Hanno murmured.
‘Then let us not disappoint him.’ Valerius nudged his horse between the ranks and on to the plain, where he waited until Hanno joined him with an escort of mounted spearmen. Together they rode to greet the Parthian emissary.
They met midway between the two mismatched forces and Hanno spoke to the Parthian in his own tongue.
‘He says that Sasan, spear carrier to Vologases, King of Kings, overlord of Armenia, conqueror of Elam, protector of the Medes, and lord of Babylon, Sagartia and Margiania wishes to discuss the terms of your surrender.’
‘Tell him that we came here to fight, not to talk, but if this Sasan speaks with the authority of the King of Kings we are willing to hear what he has to say.’
Hanno spat out the translation and the warrior nodded. At a hidden signal the Parthian ranks opened and a dozen mounted men emerged at the trot, led by an astonishing figure who glittered with gold from the top of his helmeted head to the fringe of the chain mail trapper that covered his mount’s head, back and chest and extended to its knees. The rider was an enormous man wearing a long tunic of fish-scale armour, complemented by metal armlets and leggings. His gleaming helmet was topped by a plume of red horsehair and a mail curtain hung from the rear to protect his neck. This Parthian warlord had a face the gods had designed to project hatred. Dark eyes glared out from beneath beetle brows and the narrow, bitter mouth was topped by an enormous hooked nose and twisted in what might have been a smile or a sneer. Sasan wore his beard clubbed and plaited with brightly coloured ribbons and his broad moustaches fell below his cheeks. His escort carried spears twice the height of a man, but their commander’s only arms were a long sword hanging from a loop at his wrist and the curved dagger in his belt. Beside him rode a figure in an ornately embroidered tunic with a large drum hanging from either side of his saddle. Valerius remembered what he thought had been thunder earlier in the day and realized that the drums were the equivalent of the Roman trumpets which could carry signals across the noisiest battlefield. Vologases would know the outcome of the discussions before he and Hanno returned to the Roman lines. If they lived that long.
The leader’s horse stood a head taller than Khamsin, and Valerius studied his enemy carefully as Sasan brought the beasts nose to nose, making the Akhal-Teke quiver and shift. Tall, savage and as pitiless as the harsh landscape that surrounded them, the Parthian returned his stare with contempt.
‘For myself, I would cut off the arms and legs of every Roman who insults my people with their presence and impale them alive as examples of what awaits the next invader who passes this way, but the King of Kings graciously accepts your surrender.’ The words were in precise Greek-accented Latin and uttered in a tone of bored irritation. ‘He will allow you to leave this place unharmed and unmolested with your arms and your standards on condition that you go immediately and do not stop until you are beyond the Euphrates.’
Valerius frowned as if he was considering the offer.
‘Did I hear an ass bray, or was it the sound of an elephant farting?’ He directed the question at Hanno, but he noticed a glint of mild amusement in the Parthian’s eye. ‘We have travelled a long way and this legion is only one of many. They are weary and need rest. It would take several hours, perhaps days, to organize the march, so I must decline your king’s generous offer. Besides, the only invaders I see are the ones before me.’
Sasan sniffed and spat in Valerius’s general direction.
‘Do not think your pathetic little army frightens me, Roman. When I destroyed the legions of General Paetus at Rhandea I learned to read their strength by their standards. I see beyond your tricks. A wall of legionary shields with auxiliaries shitting themselves behind them. But it does not matter. The King of Kings could destroy you with a snap of his fingers. The only thing that prevents him is a desire for peaceful progress. What you see is but a fraction of the multitude which escorts the King of Kings to inspect his brother’s dominions. Do you deny him that right? You are like a mouse beneath a buffalo’s hooves. If you will not go, then move aside lest it squash you into the dust.’ His eyes noticed the walnut fist. ‘You have been careless, it seems. It would be unfortunate were you to lose any further extremities. Will they replace thy head with a wooden one when I take it for a trophy?’
‘My head will remain on my shoulders while your bones moulder in the dust, Parthian.’ Valerius matched the other man’s tone. ‘We are here at King Tiridates’ invitation and here we stay. Tell your King of Kings to go back the way he came and no harm will come to him. Tell him that if he attacks me, he attacks General Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, and if he attacks Corbulo he attacks Rome. Rome does not forget her enemies, but she remembers her friends. If your king is wise he will remain Rome’s friend.’
