ship, one bank of a trireme, were to be disembarked on the islet at any one time.
Ballista and his comites spent the time looking over at the hills to the north-east of Corycus. Nothing moved on the scrub-covered slopes. The coast road was empty. A lone cormorant worked a patch of water. As he watched the long-necked bird, Ballista noticed the lack of gulls. Back home in the north, the air would have been thick with them, wheeling and screaming around the fleet.
Back home. Now Julia and the boys were dead there was nothing to stop him returning to Germania. Except, of course, when it became known, a messenger would come from the imperium demanding his father hand him over. And his father, the good of his people always coming first, would have to agree. The cost of non-compliance would be too high — the end of subsidies, the strong likelihood of a Roman-sponsored revolt — failing that, even armed intervention by the legions.
Anyway, what would Ballista find in the north? It was twenty-two years since he had left. Much would have changed. Would he still be welcome in the halls of the Angles? It was unlikely that his half-brother, Morcar, his father's heir, would be overjoyed to see him. And Ballista knew that he himself had changed. Twenty-two years in the imperium, five years of high command. He was now Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Ementissimus, Praetorian Prefect, no longer Dernhelm, son of Isangrim. Maybe the smoke in the halls, the parochial concerns, would stifle him. The imperium changed everything it touched.
'There.' Maximus pointed.
Around the headland, about three hundred paces from the town walls, were the standards. Below them, a line of legionaries. Castricius, dependable as ever, had come.
'Time to go.'
The Lupa won her anchor. Oars dipped as one, its ram sliced through the swell. Spray flicked back into Ballista's face.
There was no artillery in Corycus. The trierarch had his orders to take them right into the western harbour. Beyond the mole, the water was nearly still. The great galley came to a halt about a stone's throw from the dock.
A short wait, and a tall standard appeared: an abstract shape in red, a little like a sword, on a yellow cloth. Below it stood a man in steel and silk, with long black hair.
'I am Marcus Clodius Ballista, Praetorian Prefect. Draw me a bath and prepare me a meal. I have come to offer terms of surrender to the framadar Zik Zabrigan.'
'Fuck you, and your terms,' the Persian on the wall jeered. 'Oath-breaker. You will not wash or eat here, you arse-fucking cunt.'
Things were thrown from the wall. Ballista and the men on the prow ducked behind their shields. The missiles fell short. Some splashed in the water; others exploded on the dock. Clouds of white powder puffed up: flour, or salt.
'You have your answer,' Zik Zabrigan shouted.
The Lupa backed water, turned and left.
'Arse-fucking cunt,' said Maximus.
'Anatomically interesting, but certainly inventive,' conceded Ballista.
'Sure, but they were quick to reach a good judgement.'
Calgacus ushered Valash forward.
'Joy of Shapur,' said Ballista, 'we need your explanation.'
Unlike the others, the Persian was not laughing. 'Vulgar abuse. Unseemly in the mouth of a framadar but to be expected at a siege.'
'No, I meant the other thing — the bags of white powder.'
Still Valash did not smile. 'Salt. They condemn you as a perjurer. Persians swear on salt.'
'The oath I took to Shapur was in the Greek fashion.'
'They are Persians. They will assume you took the oath in the form they know. As your Herodotus said: everywhere, custom is king.'
'Just so,' said Ballista.
As the sun arced up across the sky, they took to waiting again. This time, their attention was on the hills directly behind Corycus.
Over his shoulder, Ballista heard Calgacus telling Maximus an unlikely story: 'When Archelaos of Cappadocia ruled Corycus, he had a beautiful daughter.'
'Did she have big tits?'
'Huge — anyway, there was a prophecy that she would be bitten by a snake and die. Now, worry almost drove the king out of his mind. So he built her a palace on this islet of Crambusa — not a snake in sight. Safe as you like.'
'Sure, she must have been lonely — a hot-blooded girl, all alone, in need of company.'
'Certainly. Now one of her admirers — a far better-looking, better-set-up man than you — sent her a present, a basket of fruit from the orchards below Mount Taurus. But hidden among the apricots was an asp.'
'Fuck you, and your stories. I am not in the least scared of snakes. Never have been. And, anyway, we are not on the island.'
The two men bickered on amiably.
When the sun was at its zenith, the hills shimmered with heat, and the white, limestone walls of Corycus were almost painful to look at. When it was time to eat, Ballista gave an order for Hippothous the Cilician to join them.
As they had left Sebaste, an insignificant fishing boat had smuggled Hippothous out to them. He had been desperate to avoid Trebellianus and, it seemed, with good reason. Hippothous, on his own account, was one of the leading men of the upland town of Dometiopolis. His story, if true, was alarming. When those Persians now in Corycus had ventured inland, he claimed, they had been guided by Lydius, one of Trebellianus's boys. They had passed by Germanicopolis, leaving Trebellianus's hometown untouched, and had fallen instead on Dometiopolis.
Hippothous was sandy-haired, more refined than the average rough Cilician. Yet Ballista had no doubt he was cut from the same cloth as Trebellianus. All these men were trying to turn the calamity to their own advantage.
'You have claimed that the Persians handed some of your fellow citizens over to Lydius,' said Ballista.
A look of distaste passed over Hippothous's face. 'Handed them over, and then watched, laughing, as the Cilicians carried out their disgusting sacrifices. They hang the victims, men and beasts, in a tree. They cast javelins at them. If they hit, the god Ares accepts the sacrifice.'
'And if they miss?'
'They get a second throw.'
'I take it you do not agree with your countrymen's religious practices.'
'Oh no,' said Hippothous. 'I am not Cilician by birth. Mine has been a long and tragic path. I was born in Perinthus, the noble city close by Byzantium. My father was on the Boule. When I was young, I fell desperately in love. Hyperanthes was nearly my age. Stripped for wrestling in the gymnasium, he was like a god. And his eyes — no sidelong glances or fearsome looks, no trace of villainy or dissembling.'
As they ate, Hippothous told them a tale of love, lust, subterfuge, murder, flight, shipwreck, loss and exile — a tale worthy of a Greek romance.
'Probably from a fucking Greek romance,' muttered Calgacus.
'Do you think Trebellianus will come?' Ballista asked.
'Oh yes,' said Hippothous. 'These Persians are witnesses to his treachery. He will want them dead.'
An hour or so after lunch, the trierarch called them. From the prow of the Lupa, they looked at the hills. Through the heat haze, the thin woods above Corycus seemed to be moving. Trebellianus and his men had come.
'Let us go and talk with Zik Zabrigan again.'
This time, the framadar offered no physically implausible abuse. Totally cut off by land and sea, aware that the main Persian army was far away, defeated and in retreat, he had to accept the game was up. Although suspicious, his attitude, as they stood between their forces on the seaward end of the mole, was reasonable.
'Lay down your arms, give up your booty and any prisoners, surrender yourselves into my hands and, despite
