It had been a long, long day. Ballista found it hard to believe that he had seen Arete for the first time that morning. He sat sideways on the low wall of the terrace. The Euphrates was 250 feet below him. There were groves of tamarisk and the occasional date palm on this side; on the other cultivated fields stretched almost as far as he could see. A pair of plovers chased each other over the river. Julia would love it here. Bathshiba would too.
'I will have a drink, thank you.'
Maximus poured the watered wine and put the jug down carefully. He sat on the wall, one knee bent, facing Ballista. Neither felt the need for formality when alone.
'It is not good, your palace.' Maximus gave the word a strange emphasis and smiled. 'It is a death trap.' He took a drink. 'The first courtyard is all right, just the one great gate. The second has no security at all. There is a gate in the north wall for the stables, a gate in the south for the kitchens, and doors connecting back to the first courtyard and through here.' He nodded at the private apartments of the Dux. 'The doors are not the real problem. The walls are low, easy to climb. There is open ground to the south but buildings come right up to us on the north. In at least three places you could jump from one roof to another.' He took another drink and picked up an olive.
'Demetrius.' Ballista waved the young Greek over from where he had been waiting politely across the terrace. 'Help yourself to a drink, and sit down.'
The boy sat cross-legged on the floor.
'We must get some furniture out here.' As Ballista spoke, Demetrius produced a hinged wooden writing block and, with a stylus, wrote in the wax. 'So how does it look?'
Demetrius produced a piece of scrap papyrus. He studied his neat small writing. 'Overall, fine, Kyrios. In fact, we have too many provisions, far too much wine. We do not have enough papyrus but, apart from that, we have no worries about quantity or quality. The problem lies with the cost. I will make enquiries in the agora before we pay out a denarius to the archon, that man Anamu.'
'That's easterners for you,' said Maximus. 'They know an illiterate northern barbarian eats like a pig and drinks like a fish, and then they cheat him.'
The Greek secretary looked slightly pained. The three drank and ate in silence.
Ballista watched a boat make its crossing from the far bank. The current was very strong and the boat had set out a long way upstream to compensate. The two oarsmen pulled hard, taking the opportunity to rest when they could get into the shelter of one of the islands. They set off again. The angle looked right to bring them to the main jetty at the foot of the steep steps up to the porta aquaria, the water gate.
From the doorway came a strangled coughing, the closest thing to a formal introduction Calgacus could manage. Mamurra took it as such, and walked out from the portico.
Ballista got off the wall. 'Praefectus.'
'Dominus.' They shook hands.
'Please give me your report.'
'We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.' Mamurra stood very straight. 'I have chosen twenty men from Cohors XX to be your equites singulares, your horse guard. Ten for the nightwatch, ten for the day. I have posted two at the main gate, one each at the stable and kitchen gates, and another at the door to your apartments. The remaining five on duty are to be in the guardroom opening off the first courtyard. When off duty the men remain billeted and the horses stabled where they were.'
'It is good, Praefectus.'
Mamurra stood more at ease. 'All your staff are settled into the servants' quarters in the southern range. They have been fed. It has been a long journey. I gave all except one messenger leave for the night. I hope that is all right.'
Mamurra declined a drink when offered one by Ballista. He left and Ballista asked Calgacus to fetch Bagoas; he could sing some songs from his homeland to pass the evening. One Moment in Annihilation's Waste One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste – The Stars are setting and the Caravan Starts for the Dawn of Nothing – Oh, make haste!
The words of the Persian boy's song carried out into the immense Euphrates twilight. Even Demetrius and Calgacus, who could not understand a word, enjoyed it. Each was bound to his fate, like a dog to a cart. They were all a long way from home.
Across the moonlit city a man sat in a tightly shuttered room. Often he looked up from what he was doing to check that he was still alone.
If reading was a rare skill, almost entirely confined to the upper classes and a tiny minority of specially educated slaves, how much rarer was the ability to read in silence. Granted, as he followed his moving finger his lips formed the words, and he mumbled now and then, but he was proud of the accomplishment. In any case, his occasional mumblings were largely inaudible – and just as well, given his reading matter.
He knew he should not be so proud of his skill but at least he never boasted about it. Circumstances ruled it out: self-regard could jeopardize his mission.
He tipped the broken pieces of wax into the small metal bowl and placed it on the brazier. He opened the hinged wooden writing tablet. It was empty of wax. The words were written directly on to the bare wood. He re- read them for the third time. The northern barbarian sent by the emperors has arrived. He brings no troops. He talks of Valerian arriving with an army next year. He does not say when. People do not believe him. He does not expect to be attacked until next spring. The rains are late this year. When they are over, if it were possible to gather the army early and bring it here, it might arrive before the defences are ready. Was it not in February that the King of Kings crushed the Roman aggressors at Meshike, may the town now be known forever as Peros- Shapur, and killed the war-loving emperor Gordian III? In any event, I will unravel their sly secrets, unsettle their minds, and point my fingers at the weak places in their walls.
With an old stylus, he stirred the now molten wax. With a pair of tongs he picked up the bowl and poured the wax into the recess in each of the leaves of the writing tablet. Putting the bowl aside, he smoothed the surface.
He knew that many would call him traitor, many of those close to him, those he loved. Only a few would understand. But what he was doing was not designed to win passing praise from his contemporaries. It was a work to last for all time.
The wax had set. He took a new stylus and began to inscribe the blandest of letters in the smooth, blank surface. My dear brother, I hope that this finds you as it leaves me. The rains are late this autumn…
VII
Demetrius woke up and reached for his writing materials. He was anxious not to forget anything, but at the same time it was important to get things right. He looked at the water clock. It was conticinium, the still-time, when the cocks have stopped crowing but men are still asleep. He wrote, 'the fourth watch,' then, more precisely, 'the eleventh hour of the night'. Time mattered in these things. Then, 'vultures… agora… statue'. These aids to memory fixed, he relaxed a little and lay back on the bed.
He began to reconstruct events from the beginning. He had walked into the agora. But which agora? There had been a lot of people there, dressed in many different ways – Greek tunics and cloaks, Roman togas, the high, pointed hats of Scythians, the baggy trousers of Persians, the turbans of Indians – so no real help with the location there: large numbers of foreigners travelled to many of the great cities of the imperium these days.
What had struck him most was that none of the people had paid any heed to the vultures wheeling above. Dangerously close to sleep again, Demetrius followed his line of thought. The Persians laid out their dead to be eaten by carrion – crows, ravens, vultures. Would that mean that they venerated vultures (they were the instruments of their god's will), or had an overwhelming horror of them?
The vultures had been circling above the statue in the middle of the agora. The statue was gold; it glittered in the sun. It was big, possibly larger than life, but then it depicted a big man. He was nude, in the pose of a
