he drove upwards, thrusting his sword. The point slipped off the armour. The two men were locked together. Ballista cracked the pommel of his sword on to the back of the Sassanid's helmet. The man grunted.
There was a deafening crack of thunder.
In the press of bodies, neither of the men could wield their blades. The Sassanid tried to bite Ballista's face. Horrified, the northerner twisted back. The man's beard scratched his cheek. Ballista dropped his sword. Its wrist strap dug into his flesh, the weight hard on his arm. He grabbed the plume on the Sassanid's helmet; dragged his head back with a convulsive lunge, and Ballista headbutted his opponent. The metal ridge of the northerner's helmet connected with the bridge of the man's nose. Both their faces were running in blood. The crush of bodies pressed further.
A vivid flash of lightning illuminated the hellish scene.
The Sassanid had freed his sword arm. Overhand, he was sliding the tip of the steel over the rim of Ballista's shield. Arms pinioned, the northerner struggled desperately. If only Maximus were here. The Sassanid set himself to thrust down into Ballista's throat. He spat blood, broken fragments of teeth.
There was a surge of pressure from behind Ballista. Driven backwards, the Sassanid adjusted the angle of his sword. His mouth opened. More blood, pouring into his black beard. The sword fell from his hand. He looked down at the Roman blade driven into his armpit. His body went into spasm, became limp.
'Gratius, Dominus.' The legionary withdrew his sword. The corpse of the Sassanid fell underfoot.
'I will remember,' said Ballista.
A space had opened up. The Persians were giving ground. Another boom of thunder, and the rain began. It fell in heavy curtains. Ballista could feel it beating on his back. It was driving into the faces of the enemy.
'One more step,' yelled Ballista. He launched himself forward.
Ballista did not know if anyone was with him. His boots slipped in the water. No arrows came at him. The rain had soaked the bowstrings.
The Sassanid in front of Ballista looked around, hesitated, then turned and ran. Another flash of lightning lit the gloom. All the easterners were running through the rain.
Ballista laughed to be alive. If the gods wanted vengeance on the oath-breaker, they were biding their time.
Julia finished inspecting the house in the Epiphania district of Antioch. Everything was in order. She dismissed the maids. It was important that a house was in order when the dominus returned. It was especially important in one with senatorial connections. She went and sat in a wicker chair on the shady side of the atrium.
It was hot, but the regular afternoon breeze was blowing up the Orontes valley. The wind moved the material on the loom propped against the wall. Julia looked at its two vertical timbers, shed race, weights and cross bars with something close to loathing. Its presence was necessary in a well-run household. Yet she liked it about as well as an Armenian tigress liked a cage. For women, the loom had always been there. Penelope in the Odyssey, weaving by day and unravelling by night, holding off the suitors while she waited, in the hope that her philandering husband might return. The character displayed an unpleasant mixture of passivity and cunning in the story, Julia thought. Maybe it had been necessary for a wife to weave in the primitive and poor heroic age at the dawn of time, but wealth had rendered the loom redundant for many women. The Roman imperium had added a new level of hypocrisy to the image: Livia, the wife of the first emperor, in a houseful of servants, sitting at the loom playing the dutiful matron of old, in between procuring young virgins for her husband to deflower. Nothing annoyed Julia more than those male doctors who claimed that such work was good for the delicate health of a woman.
Julia mastered her impatience. Ballista would not care or notice if the wretched loom was there or not. She did not know why she bothered. In the two months since he had escaped from Persian captivity, he had sent just two notes, both brief and impersonal. She knew as well as anyone the danger of the frumentarii intercepting a letter, but he could have sent something more intimate with a trusted friend. That little pleb he put such faith in, Castricius, had been in Antioch.
Yesterday, the second formal note had come: standard enquiries after her health and that of the children, then much of the public duties of a Prefect of Cavalry and Vir Perfectissimus. The Sassanids had made no further attempt on the Syrian Gates. Nor had they commandeered ships. Neither Seleuceia nor Antioch presently was in danger. The Sassanids had marched to the north to plunder Cilicia. Ballista was ordered to raise ships and men to pursue them. He would return to the house today at noon.
Except he had not. Three hours after the lunch things had been cleared away, a grubby little legionary by the name of Gratius had arrived. With an impertinent air, he had said that the Prefect of Cavalry had been summoned to the palace down on the island; there was no way of telling how long the emperors' consilium would last; war was a weighty matter.
Julia had dismissed him coldly. 'War was a weighty matter.' Indeed. Let war be the care of men, as Hector had told Andromache. Men — what fools they were. I would rather stand three times in the front of battle than endure childbirth, as a heroine in a tragedy had said. Both lines had been written by men, but the tragedian had been nearer the truth than Homer had. Julia thought of her childhood friend Metella, dead giving birth before she reached sixteen. If men bore children, it would put an end to their puerile glorification of war. How could the dangers of war compare with those of childbirth?
Now she was waiting. As always when he returned, Ballista would want sex — he was like an animal marking its territory. At least he was not a womanizer, did not bother the maids. Not like poor Cornelia's husband. He was a complete ancillariolus. Their house was almost unendurable with its endless tears and recriminations. Julia had always found Ballista's fidelity flattering, but strange. It was part of his barbarian upbringing, like his jealousy. There had been more than one terrible scene at dinner parties when he had thought that she was flirting. She did not want to be a Messalina, but his jealousy was stifling. It was un-Roman.
'Domina,' the porter announced, 'Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Perfectissimus, has returned.'
Julia stood and walked around the pool to greet her husband. Ballista smiled. His front teeth were chipped. He looked tired and careworn.
'Dominus.' Julia's senatorial family had not encouraged public displays of affection between wife and husband. Julia kept her eyes modestly down.
'Domina.' Ballista leant down. She raised her face and he kissed her on the lips.
Julia told the porter to summon the children. The silence stretched as they waited. She looked down again. The wind rippled the surface of the pool, making the fishes, dolphin and octopus in the mosaic at the bottom seem to swim.
A cry of pleasure, and Isangrim ran out. The eight-year-old hurled himself at his father. Julia felt a twinge of irritation. In a senatorial home, it was not just the wife who should behave with decorum. A son should greet his father solemnly, call him Dominus.
Ballista scooped up the boy, burying his face in his neck. They talked low together.
Julia noticed the new scars on Ballista's wrists and forearms. She had always liked his forearms. There was something different, attractive, about a man's forearms.
A high-pitched squeal. Dernhelm, not yet two, was being carried by old Calgacus. They were followed by Maximus and Demetrius. Setting his eldest son on his feet, Ballista took Dernhelm in his arms. Again he buried his face in his child's neck, inhaling the smell of him.
Having handed Dernhelm to Julia, and with Isangrim still clinging to his waist, Ballista embraced each of his freedmen in turn.
'Welcome home, Kyrios,' said Demetrius. The other two were less formal.
'Like a counterfeit coin, I knew you would return,' said Calgacus.
'So far,' replied Ballista.
'We must celebrate, have a drink,' beamed Maximus.
Before Ballista could reply, Julia cut in. 'It is time Isangrim was at his lessons, and Dernhelm must sleep.'
The three freedmen took the hint. Soon husband and wife were alone again.
Julia put her hand on Ballista's forearm. She led him through to the private cubiculum towards the rear of the house. The shutters were half closed, the covers on the couch drawn back. Man and wife made love, urgently, briefly.
Afterwards, they lay drinking and talking. They were naked. Julia knew that, after the wedding night, a
