Ballista indicated Castricius to remain. The northerner talked so that only Castricius could hear. The latter listened intently, the flaring torches scouring deeper the many lines on his face, highlighting its points and sharp angles. The talk was obviously of serious matters, but in the flickering light Castricius never looked more like a playful creature from a backwoods myth.
It was time to see if the raid could go ahead at all. Castricius clattered back up the stone steps. Ballista asked one of the legionaries on the gate — they were from III Felix — to open the postern. Following Calgacus through, he noticed it was big enough for someone to lead a horse.
The postern shut behind them. The rectangle of orange light vanished. Ballista was left in profound darkness. He stood still, waiting for his night vision. Beside him, Calgacus hawked and spat.
The nearly full moon was somewhere over Ballista's right shoulder. He stood in the deep shadow of the town walls. Beyond was the moon-blanched landscape. He went out into it. Calgacus followed.
The road ran away, very light, smooth and straight. Near at hand, on either side, prominent and reassuring to Romans of rank with a clear conscience, stood the symbols of the divinely inspired power which upheld the stability of the imperium. The crosses were empty, but there was a dark stain at the base of the one to the left. Ballista did not like to wonder what fluids were its cause. Maybe the local dogs pissed there.
The shadow of the right-hand cross pointed diagonally off down the road. The eastern necropolis of Emesa was like a reduced version of those outside Palmyra; the same tower, temple and house tombs, but most of them on a somewhat smaller scale. The houses of the dead were close-set. The ground between them was rough and stony. It would make it difficult to outflank the raiding party on the road. At least that was something good.
Little else was good. The necropolis ran for about two hundred yards. About the same distance further out were the picket fires of the Palmyrene army. They burned rose-red, were well made up, evenly spaced. Beyond them, yet another couple of hundred yards, were the bigger fires of another picket line around the main camp. These too looked well tended. There were Roman regulars among the blockading army. Vexillationes of at least three legions had been seen: III Cyrenaica from Arabia, XV Apollinaris from Cappadocia and, mirroring the detachment in Quietus's force, III Felix from Circesium. Yet Ballista considered that the Palmyrenes needed no guides in the craft of war — they knew what they were about.
As for Odenathus, he not only knew what he was about, nature was aiding him too. The moon, like some radical democrat in old Athens, wanted everything out in the open and treated all the same. It was bright as day but without the colours. The world was snow-blue or black. Anything that did not stay in the shadows was visible for miles.
As if the gods wanted to reiterate the point, a fox came out from behind one of the furthermost tombs. Ballista watched it cross the road. Its high ears and low body were strangely one-dimensional; its shadow had an unreal depth. But tricks of the moonlight aside, it was easy to see.
A single fox at a couple of hundred yards — what price five hundred men at twice the distance? This was hopeless. If pressed home, suicidal.
Ballista walked back to the postern and kicked it to signal that the operation should get under way.
The Palmyra Gate had not been oiled. The shriek of its hinges rushed away across the plain. Not all the torches had been extinguished. The Praetorians were orange-tinged silhouettes as they emerged. The gate shrieked shut behind them. The soldiers jingled and thumped into their new formation.
As if Odenathus did not know we were coming anyway, Ballista thought. Calgacus at his side, he took his place with Jucundus at the head of the column. Ballista ordered the standard bearer Gratius to signal the advance. Best get it over.
In the forsaken, luminous light, their shadows went on far ahead. The shadows ran on as if the men's souls had already left and were flitting away, searching for some fissure to slide down to Hades.
Ballista could hear nothing over the heavy tramp of boots and the higher notes of harness and weapons, like ten thousand bone dice clinking together. He could see no movement from the nearer picket fires. Even if not forewarned, the Palmyrenes must have heard or seen them coming. He knew they were walking into an ambush.
They were clear of the last of the necropolis. The land opened up all around, flat and deadly. Two hundred yards to go. No movement by the fires. Come on, come on. Get on with it. One hundred and fifty. They were within bowshot. In the darkness beyond the fires, the Palmyrene archers would be notching arrows, waiting for them to walk into a good, effective range — the range where the tip of an arrow can punch through the best steel armour and into the delicate flesh it covers.
Twang-slide-thump. From the wall behind them, loud in the night, the sound of an artillery piece. The lanterns were still shuttered in Calgacus's hands. Twang-slide-thump: the sound of another. Now there could be no question of surprise.
'Halt!' Even as Ballista's voice faded, a trumpet called from beyond the fires. Seconds later, no one in the column could help but duck as they heard the whoosh of arrows.
There was only one scream. The first flight had almost all fallen short.
'About turn. Quick march.' The Praetorians jostled to obey.
Again the horrible sound of unseen arrows. Again just a solitary yell of pain. The second volley had also been misjudged.
Ballista looked over his shoulder. He saw his own shadow, elongated into the distance. It was the moonlight. In the uncanny light, distances were hard to judge.
A terrible, huge, tearing sound. Screams behind them. Castricius had decided the time had come for his artillery to use missiles. All along the wall, from tower to tower, echoed the sounds of torsion artillery. They were shooting virtually blind into the night; aiming roughly at the picket fires. Yet it should be enough to deter any close pursuit.
'Run!' Ballista shouted.
The gate banged shut behind them. The orange torchlight could not have been more welcoming. They had not returned unscathed. The ever-efficient Jucundus reckoned ten men missing. It could have all been so very much worse.
The palace of Emesa, like that of Minos, was a maze. Of course, the Emesene priest-kings had had over three centuries to add architectural complexity. There had been a Sampsigeramus waiting all those years earlier when Pompey the Great had first led Roman arms into Syria.
Even if they had just been given instructions, it would be doubtful if Ballista, Castricius and Jucundus would have found their way to this secluded courtyard on their own. The morning after the failed raid, this had not been put to the test. Summoned in haste, they had arrived at the main gate and had been taken in charge by no less than sixteen of the Emesene royal guard. As Jucundus had muttered, the odds were worse than five to one.
Since the time of the first emperor, the Praetorians had been among the few who were allowed to be armed in the imperial presence. The more recent post of Prefect of Cavalry was one of the others. None of this held any longer at the court of Quietus. The Emesene guards had brusquely disarmed and thoroughly searched Ballista and the other two. Their weapons and armour were piled negligently against the wall. The easterners, uncaring of their wounded foreign dignitas, had hustled them like condemned prisoners through the myriad corridors of the palace.
Like the palace of Minos, at the heart of the maze was something unpleasant. Quietus at first completely ignored the new arrivals. The emperor was dressed in eastern fashion: long, flowing robes, a jewelled dagger in his sash. Arm in arm with Sampsigeramus, he wandered here and there across the courtyard. Quietus inspected things, issued commands and reproofs, even the occasional word of encouragement.
The open space was a hive of activity. At one end, slaves were laying out a huge array of precious things: paintings, sculptures, dinner services in gold, silver and electrum, intricate carpets and curtains, silken garments. Quietus studied them closely, head on one side, rearranging his hair with one finger. Sometimes he ordered an item removed and another brought out in its place. Opposite all this, other slaves were building an elaborate pyre, surely too close to the wall; with the amount of scented oils being poured, it would burn with an all-consuming ferocity.
Ballista had seen nothing like it before, but it was all oddly familiar.
There was an awning strung over the whole courtyard. It was torn near the centre and let in a column of clean light. The slaves walked tentatively around it, as if it were solid. The emperor and his friend avoided it as if it
