are dead. Hold the line and we all live.' The men were not meeting his eye; it was not going to work.
A trumpet shrilled, cutting through the ambient noise of the disturbed night. The clibanarii dipped their awful lances and began to advance down the road at a walk. There was the jingle of armour, the ringing of their horses' hooves on the road, but no sound of humanity. They came on like a long serpent, scale-armoured and implacable.
Twang – slide – thump. The noise of a ballista shooting. Twang – slide – thump. Another. Then another. Louder than anything in the night, all the artillery on the western wall of the town of Arete was shooting – shooting blind into the dark night.
A terrible silence after the first volley. The clibanarii stopped. The legionaries froze. Everyone knew that the ballistae were reloading, the greased winches turning, the ratchets clicking, the torsion springs tightening. Everyone knew that within a minute at most the ballistae would shoot again, that again with superhuman speed and power, missiles would rain down across the plain, falling on friend and foe alike.
Twang – slide – thump. The first of the second round of ballistae was heard. 'Stand up. Stand up. Stand your ground.' Turpio's men were cowering, shields held pathetically above their heads in a useless attempt to protect them from incoming artillery bolts or stones.
Turpio turned to look down the road at the Sassanids, and started to laugh.
'Right, boys, now get up and RUN!'
There was a shocked pause, then they all realized that the clibanarii were cantering away into the night, back to their camp, out of range of the artillery on the walls of Arete. The legionaries turned and ran.
Turpio saw Ballista waiting in the gateway. The torchlight made the northerner's long hair shine golden. He was smiling. As he ran up to him, Turpio again started laughing. They shook hands. They hugged. Turpio was slapping his Dux on the back.
'Brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant,' Turpio panted.
Ballista tipped his head back and laughed. 'Thank you. I liked it. Not such a stupid northern barbarian then?'
'Brilliant… mind you, obviously I realized straight away that the ballistae were not loaded, that the mere sound would scare the reptiles off.'
The young optio was prepared to be most helpful. The matter reflected well on Legio IIII Scythica, and it reflected well on the young optio. The latter was a not inconsiderable factor for a junior officer with a career to make.
'Gaius Licinius Prosper, of the vexillatio of Legio IIII Scythica, Optio of the Century of Marinus Posterior. We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.' The salute was smart.
'Tell me exactly what happened.' Ballista returned the salute. Almost certainly the 'exactly' was redundant. Prosper clearly intended to have his moment, to take his time telling the story before he would lead them to the corpse. Ballista sniffed. He could smell the corpse, or at least what had killed him, from here.
'Last night, as the turma of Apollonius was withdrawn from guard duties at the military granaries so that it could take part in the raid on the Sassanid camp – many congratulations on the success of the raid, Dominus, a piece of daring worthy of Julius Caesar himself, or of -'
'Thank you.' Ballista spoke quickly before they were sidetracked into lengthy comparisons between himself and any daring generals from Rome's past whom the optio could recall. 'Thank you very much. Please continue.'
'Of course, Dominus. As I was saying… as the turrna ofApollonius was not guarding the granaries, you ordered Acilius Glabrio to select thirty-two legionaries drawn from the centuries of Naso, Marinus Prior, Marinus Posterior and Pudens to take over the guard duties.' Ballista stifled a yawn. It was the third hour of daylight. He had had no sleep the previous night and, now the excitement of the raid had drained out of him, he was very tired. 'You did me the honour of choosing me to be the optio in command of the guard detail.'
Ballista was careful not to smile. He had merely told Acilius Glabrio to put a small but adequate guard on the granaries last night. Until a few moments ago he had not been aware of the existence of the young optio. It is easy to collapse all hierarchies above oneself into one almost undifferentiated rank, to assume that your superiors know each other and that your commander-in-chief knows about you. 'You have more than repaid that honour by your diligence,' he said. 'Now please tell me what happened.'
The youth smiled broadly. 'Well, I thought it best to station two legionaries at the doors at each end of the granaries. I thought that, if there were always two legionaries together, there would be far less risk of them being overpowered or one of them falling asleep.' He looked suddenly embarrassed. 'Not that legionaries of IIII Scythica would ever fall asleep on guard duty.'
No, but I might at any moment, if you don't get a move on. Ballista smiled. 'Very good,' he said encouragingly.
'Of course this left only myself as a mobile patrol.'
Ballista reflected that the young optio – Prosper, must remember his name – might recount a lot of information that was unnecessary, but that was better than one of those tongue-tied witnesses you were always having to prompt and chivvy along, especially when he was as dog-tired as he was now.
'I first saw him in the fourth watch, at the end of the tenth hour of the night, just before you had the artillery shoot, when I was proceeding south towards the palace of the Dux Ripae, that is, towards your palace.' Ballista nodded weightily as if at the insight that he was the Dux Ripae and the palace was his. At least they were finally getting somewhere. 'He was walking north between the town wall and the eastern four granaries. Of course there is a curfew, so he should not have been there anyway. Yet there are always soldiers or their slaves out and about at night. He was dressed as a soldier – tunic, trousers, boots, sword belt – but I was suspicious. Why would a soldier be off duty last night of all nights? And he looked wrong somehow. Now I realize it was his beard and hair. They were far too long. No centurion would have let him get away with it, not even in an auxiliary unit. Not that you could tell now, not with the condition he is in.' The young man shuddered slightly.
'And he was acting suspiciously. He was holding a big jar in one hand, holding it away from his body, as if it were very precious, as if he were terrified of spilling a drop. And he was holding a shuttered lantern in the other hand. Again holding it unnaturally far from his body.'
'Excellent observation, Optio.'
'Thank you, Dominus.' The optio was in full flow now. 'As I walked towards him he saw me and turned into the gap between the first and second granaries. I called for him to stop, but he ignored me. I shouted the alarm. I ran after him and yelled to the legionaries on guard at the other end that there was an enemy coming down the eavesdrip and to cut him off.' The young optio paused as if to take questions. None came. He continued. 'When I turned into the alley I could not see him at first. I could see Piso and Fonteius blocking the far end, but he was out of sight. I knew that he must be hiding in one of the alcoves formed by the big buttresses of the granaries.'
One of those alcoves in which Bagoas had been beaten up, thought Ballista.
'As he was cornered, I thought that he might be dangerous. So I called Scaurus from my end to come with me. We drew our swords and started off very cautiously down the alley.' Ballista nodded to indicate that the course of action was both thoughtful and courageous. 'It was very dark. So we were going slowly, covering both sides, waiting to be attacked. Suddenly there is a noise of splintering wood up ahead. Then I am almost blinded by a bright light two alcoves down. There is a sort of whooshing sound, and a ghastly smell. When we can see again, we run forward. Piso and Fonteius are running towards us from the far end. We all get there at once. I will never forget it. Never.' He stopped talking.
'Optio?'
'Sorry, Dominus. It was horrible. I hope I never see anything like it again.'
'Please continue.'
'The bastard was crawling into the little ventilation opening at the foot of the wall. I don't know if he got stuck or if the pain stopped him, but he was just sort of writhing when we got there, writhing and screaming. Never heard anything like it. He must have torn away the wooden slats over the ventilator with his sword, emptied the jar of naptha over himself and, with the lantern, quite deliberately set light to himself. Then he tried to crawl into the ventilator. He turned himself into a human missile. It smelt like… like roast pork.'
'What did you do?'
'There were flames everywhere. The naptha had set the remains of the ventilator on fire. There were flames licking up the brick walls. Even the mud around him seemed to be on fire. Gods below, it was hot. It looked as if it
