The Sassanid was hauled before Ballista. There were tigers or some other big cats embroidered on his torn tunic. Ballista had seen him before, more than once. Demetrius undoubtedly could have named him straightaway.
'We were promised our lives if we surrendered.' Behind the dust-stained beard, the young man addressed Ballista in Persian, his face angry and desperate.
'You were fools to trust these Cilicians,' Ballista replied in Persian. 'You have killed and raped their kin.'
The Sassanid made a gesture of contempt. 'You are no better than them. The superstitious among my men think you are Nasu. But you are no daemon of death. I know you — from Arete, from your surrender outside Edessa. I saw you swear an oath in Carrhae. You are Ballista — the oath-breaker.'
'I swore to return to the throne of Shapur. At Soli, I did.'
'Just twisted words — you Romans lie and cheat as soon as you can crawl.'
'And everyone knows Persians never lie. It is against your religion. Yet your priests flay men alive, pour boiling oil in their eyes.'
The Sassanid spat. 'And your men here are far less cruel.'
'I know you now,' said Ballista. 'You are Valash, son of the King of Kings, the joy of Shapur.'
The Sassanid sneered. 'And like your kind, you see a way of making a profit. You think my father will pay a ransom for me.'
'I am sure he would. But I am not going to ask him for one. Although you killed my friend Turpio, left his severed head on a pike, I am going to return you to your father for nothing. Pick six of your men. They can go with you.'
The Persian looked horrified. 'How can I make such a choice?'
'War is a harsh teacher. Make the choice, or they will all die.'
Once it was explained to him, Trebellianus acceded to this turn of events with outward good grace, but the throng of Cilicians were not so politic. They were clearly unhappy.
As the selected Persians were bundled towards them, Maximus again spoke softly in his native language. 'This is wrong. You cannot leave the other fuckers to this mob. I thought you were back to your old self.'
'Maybe I am.' Ballista's face was set, impassive. 'But, as I told the Persian, war is a harsh teacher. These Cilicians outnumber us — twenty to one or more. They will follow Trebellianus, not me.'
Maximus looked round then nodded reluctantly.
'Anyway, even if we could save all the Persians, we do not have troops to guard them all. And there are another three thousand of the bastards still to fight to the west at Corycus.'
About three miles down the coast west from Sebaste was the town of Corycus. The most notable thing about it was the island lying offshore. It shared a name with other islets: Crambusa, the dry or parched one. It was indeed waterless, small — no more than two hundred paces by one hundred — and the majority of its shore was rocky. But when the mainland was in enemy hands, its utility to a fleet was immense.
Ballista's flotilla had sailed down from Sebaste the day before. Arriving, the ships had made a martial display close in to the walls of Corycus — nine triremes, ten liburnians and twenty transport vessels. The latter, to aid the bellicose impression, had been tricked out with military standards, and their decks had been covered with marines seconded from the warships. With luck, the Persians in the town would not realize the roundships were empty except for food and water but would think them packed with troops.
Now, in full sight of the city, the ships were moored off Crambusa. The bare islet gave the rowers of the warships a chance to get away from their cramped benches, to stretch their legs, to cook, eat and sleep ashore. Admittedly, if a storm got up, the fleet would have to run for shelter, either east to Sebaste or west to the delta of the Calycadnus river. But the summer weather looked set fair.
Indeed it was a beautiful night. High, benign clouds, backlit by the full moon. The sea was calm as a millpond, silvered by the moonlight. The ships, black silhouettes, rode easily at anchor.
Ballista stood at the prow of the Lupa, the trireme that carried his standard. He gazed up at the sky. The clouds moving across the face of the moon made it look infinitely distant. In the face of such immensity, mankind seemed very small. It was the trick of most consolations to emphasize the so-called smallness of grief against the enormity of something else. Ballista thought with repugnance of Sulpicius Rufus's famous letter on the death of Cicero's daughter. Do not be profoundly affected by your private sorrow when men like us have lost everything we value: our honourable name, patria, dignitas, all our honours. Cicero had written back saying it had helped. How could even the narrow-minded leaders of a failing oligarchy have thought in such disgusting terms?
Much better Plutarch's consolation to his wife. Despite the tiresome repetition of the necessity of self-control, despite peddling the evident untruth that giving way to grief was as bad as giving way to pleasure, between all the philosophic platitudes, there was the true grief of a father for his lost child: the most delightful thing in the world to embrace, to see, to hear.
Time is a great healer. Every one of them said it. All the great minds — Plutarch, Seneca, all the rest — reduced to the soothing of a nursemaid: there, there, time will make it better. And the sad thing was, it was partly true.
Ballista was beginning to feel a little better. Julia and his sons were no longer in his thoughts all the time. Now he woke with just an unfocused sense of something wrong, before the loss of his wife and boys filled his mind. Here and there in the day, he did not think of them at all. Then he remembered, and felt guilty of neglect.
At least he was not raving any more. His thoughts were no longer a seething, incoherent riot of pain, revenge and Euripidean tragedy. At Sebaste, Ballista had shaved, bathed, had his hair cut. Old Plutarch had written something along the lines of looking after the externals helping the inner man. Ballista wondered if it was possible to feel any emotion that was not filtered through the thoughts of others. Did the things one had read or heard just give words to one's feelings, or did they shape them, twist them into different forms? Whatever, did it make the emotion less real?
Behind Ballista came a stage cough. Calgacus had the Persian prince, Valash, with him. So far it could not be said that the King of King's son seemed over-grateful for having his life spared. Perhaps, Ballista thought uncharitably, it had also occurred to the joy of Shapur that being returned to his father, with or without ransom, might not prove to be all that easy. Or it could just be that he did not trust the man his troops — his troops who now lay massacred at the bottom of a chasm called the place of blood — had thought the daemon of death.
'The Persians in Corycus are commanded by a framadar called Zik Zabrigan,' Ballista said in Persian. 'His position is untenable. In the morning we will go and talk to him.'
Valash smiled in a superior way. 'Now I see why you were keen to save me. You think I will help you persuade Zik Zabrigan to surrender. I will not.'
'You mistake me.' Ballista was not going to admit that he would have rescued all Valash's men if he had felt able. 'I do not give a fuck if you talk to him or not. And I do not give a fuck if his men lay down their arms or they all die.'
Valash glowered silently.
'But I thought,' Ballista continued, 'you might prefer them not to fall into the hands of Trebellianus and his rough Cilicians.'
Valash made the sign to avert the evil eye. 'You may not be Nasu, but you are a lover of the lie, a true follower of Drug. One day Mazda will deliver you again into the hands of the righteous.'
Ballista was too tired, not physically but emotionally, to have the energy to be angry.
Maximus stepped out of the shadows and did it for him. 'You owe him your life. If you have any honour, you should keep a civil tongue in your head.'
The tall, thin figure swung round, reaching for the long sword that was not on his hip. The sons of the house of Sasan were not reminded of their honour by others, never by non-Aryans. Valash mastered himself. 'You are right.' He turned back to Ballista. 'Although I did not ask you, I owe you a debt.' With an innate grace he performed proskynesis: a small, elegant bow, fingers brushing his lips. 'But I will not seek to persuade framadar Zik Zabrigan to surrender. I know your transports contain no soldiers. I will not lie to him.'
Ballista smiled. 'To ride, shoot the bow and avoid the lie.'
Valash nodded gravely. 'Just so.' In the morning, there was a slight choppy swell running from the west, nothing bad, but enough to make the ships fret at their anchors. Ballista had them all move into the shelter of Crambusa, as far as that was possible. Orders were given that no more than one-third of the rowers from each
