desert him and the next sword thrust or arrow would not wound but kill, not scrape down his ribs but punch through them into his heart.
Thinking now of his companions, Ballista said, 'For the sake of thoroughness, perhaps we should check what is on sale in the alley? Would you two like to do it?'
Demetrius's refusal was immediate. He looked indignant but also slightly shifty. Why was the boy acting so strangely?
'I think I am qualified to do it on my own,' said Maximus.
'Oh yes, I believe you are. But, remember, you are just looking at the goods, not sampling them.' Ballista grinned. 'We will be over there in the middle of the agora, learning virtue from the statues set up to the good citizens of Arete.'
The first statue Ballista and Demetrius came to stood on a high plinth. 'Agegos son of Anamu son of Agegos,' read Ballista. 'It must be the father of our Anamu – a bit better-looking.' The statue was in eastern dress and, unlike Anamu, he had a good head of hair. It stood up in tight curls all around his head. He sported a full short beard like his son but also boasted a luxurious moustache, teased out and waxed into points. His face was round, slightly fleshy. 'Yes, better-looking than his son, although that is not hard.'
'For his piety and love of the city' – Ballista read out the rest of the inscription – 'for his complete virtue and courage, always providing safety for the merchants and caravans, for his generous expenditure to these ends from his own resources. In that he saved the recently arrived caravan from the nomads and from the great dangers that surrounded it, the same caravan set up three statues, one in the agora of Arete, where he is strategos, one in the city of Spasinou Charax, and one on the island of Thilouana, where he is satrap (governor). Your geography is better than mine' – Ballista looked at his accensus – 'Spasinou Charax is where?'
'At the head of the Persian Gulf,' Demetrius replied.
'And the island of Thilouana is?'
'In the Persian Gulf, off the coast of Arabia. In Greek we call it Tylos.'
'And they are ruled by?'
'Shapur. Anamu's father governed part of the Persian empire. He was both a general here in Arete and a satrap of the Sassanids.'
Ballista looked at Demetrius. 'So which side are the caravan protectors on?'
In the afternoon, about the time of the meridiatio, the siesta, it started to rain. The man watched the rain from his first-floor window while he waited for the ink to dry. Although not torrential like the first rains of the year, it was heavy. The street below was empty of people. Water ran down the inner face of the city wall. The steps which ran up to the nearest tower were slick with water, treacherous. A lone rook flew past from left to right.
Judging that the ink was dry, the man lit a lamp from the brazier. He leant out of the window to pull the shutters closed. He secured them and lit another lamp. Although he had locked the door when he entered the room, he now looked around to check that he was alone. Reassured, he picked up the inflated pig's bladder from where he had hidden it and started to read. The artillery magazine has been burnt. All stocks of ballistae bolts are destroyed. The northern barbarian is gathering stocks of food for the siege. When he has gathered enough, fires will be set against them. There is enough naptha for one more spectacular attack. He has announced that the necropolis will be flattened, many temples and houses destroyed, his troops billeted in those that remain. He is freeing the slaves and enslaving the free. His men strip and rape women at will. The townsmen mutter against him. He has conscripted townsmen into army units to be commanded by the caravan protectors. Truly the fool has been made blind. He will deliver himself bound hand and foot into the hands of the King of Kings.
His moving finger stopped. His lips ceased inaudibly shaping the words. It would do. The rhetoric was pitched a bit high, but it was not part of his plan to discourage the Persians.
He picked up two oil flasks, one full and one empty, and placed them on the table. He untied the open end of the pig's bladder and squeezed the air out. As it deflated, his writing became illegible. Taking the stopper out of the empty flask, he pushed the bladder inside, leaving its opening protruding. Putting his lips to the bladder and silently giving thanks that he was not Jewish, he reinflated it. Then he folded the protruding swine's intestine back over the spout of the flask and bound it in place with string. When he had trimmed away the excess with a sharp knife, the bladder was completely concealed within the flask, one container hidden within another. Carefully he poured oil from the full flask into the bladder in the other. As he replaced the stopper in both, again he looked round to check he was still alone.
He looked at the oil flask in his hands. They had stepped up the searches at the gates. Sometimes they slit open the seams of men's tunics and the stitching of their sandals; sometimes they stripped the veils from respectable Greek women. For a moment he felt dizzy, light-headed with the risk he was running. Then he steadied himself. He accepted that he might well not survive his mission. That was of no consequence. His people would reap the benefits. His reward would be in the next world.
In the queue at the gate, the courier would know nothing. The flask would arouse no suspicion.
The man took out his stylus and started to write the most innocuous of letters.
My dear brother, the rains have returned… From the colonnade at the front of his house Anamu regarded the rain with disfavour. The streets were again ankle-deep in mud: the rains had put him to the expense of hiring a litter and four bearers to take him to dinner at the palace of the Dux Ripae. Anamu did not care to be put to unnecessary expense, and now the litter-bearers were late. He tried to smooth down his irritation by summoning up a half-remembered line from one of the old Stoic masters: 'These four walls do not a prison make.' Anamu was not sure he had it word perfect. 'These stone walls do not a prison make.' Who had said it? Musonius Rufus, the Roman Socrates? No, more likely the ex-slave Epictetus. Perhaps it wasn't a Stoic at all – perhaps he had written it himself?
Warmed by this secret fantasy of other men quoting his words, men completely unknown to him drawing comfort and strength from his wisdom in their time of troubles, Anamu looked out at the rainswept scene. The stone walls of the city were darkened by the water running down them. The battlements were empty; the guards must be sheltering in the nearby tower. An ideal moment for a surprise attack, except that the rains would have turned the land outside the town into a quagmire.
The litter-bearers having eventually arrived, Anamu was handed in and they set off. Anamu knew the identity of the other guests due at the palace. Little happened in the town of Arete that Anamu did not quickly hear about. He paid good money – a lot of good money – to make sure it was that way. It promised to be an interesting evening. The Dux had invited all three of the caravan protectors, all of whom had complaints about the barbarian's treatment of the town. Iarhai's daughter would be there too. If ever a girl had a fire burning in her altar, it was her. More than one paid informer had reported that both the barbarian Dux and the supercilious young Acilius Glabrio wanted her. And the sophist Callinicus of Petra had been invited. He was making a name for himself- he'd add culture to the mix of tension and sex. With the latter in mind Anamu got out the scrap of papyrus on which earlier, in privacy, he had written a little crib for himself from Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae, The Wise Men at Dinner. Anamu was widely known to be very fond of mushrooms and it was most probable that, as an act of respect, the Dux would have instructed his chef to include them in the menu. To be prepared, Anamu had lifted some suitably esoteric quotes from the classics about them.
'Ah, here you are,' said Ballista. 'As they say, 'Seven makes a dinner, nine makes a brawl.'' Since his rather impressive rhetorical display at the gates, Ballista had gone down and down in Anamu's estimation. The northerner's bluff welcome did nothing to restore the position. 'Let us go to the table.'
The dining room was arranged in the classical triclinium, three couches, each for three people, arranged in a U-shape around the tables. Approaching, it became clear that at least the Dux had had the good sense to abandon the traditional seating plan. The northerner took the summus in summo, the highest place, at the extreme left. He placed Bathshiba on his right, then her father; on the next couch were Callinicus the Sophist, then Anamu and Acilius Glabrio; and on the final one reclined Ogelos, Mamurra and then, in the lowest place, imus in imo, Turpio. Traditionally, Ballista would have been where Ogelos now was. The problem would have lain in who would have reclined on the northerner's left, imus in medio, the traditional place for the guest of honour. As it was, the caravan protectors were each on different couches and none of them was either next to the host or in the place of honour. Anamu grudgingly admitted to himself that this was cleverly done.
The first course was brought in: two warm dishes – hard-boiled eggs and smoked eel in pine resin sauce and
