Iarhai, who was still standing, held his cup up towards Ballista. 'My congratulations on your destruction of the Persian siege ramp yesterday. It was a fine stroke.' As the northerner dipped his head in acknowledgement, larhai went on. 'The defence goes well. The end of the ramp was a turning point. Now the danger is less.'
Inwardly Ballista sighed. larhai could not believe that the danger was in any way passed, any more than Ballista himself did. The caravan protector was fully aware of the Persian mine from the ravine, the possibility of another all-out assault, the ever present threat of treachery.
'I think that it is a long road before we are safe.' Ballista smiled to try and take any sting out of contradicting his guest.
There was a short silence as they all took a drink.
'Things go well in the east. Your arrangements down by the river are good.' As there had been no repetition of the one failed Sassanid venture by water, Ballista had allowed some fishing boats to go out, under strict military supervision. At least one legionary from the Porta Aquaria went with each boat. The ten legionaries who had brought the grain boat down from Circesium had proved useful.
'Yes, it is good to eat fresh mullet and eel,' said Ballista. He was wondering where was this going. Iarhai had established his loyalty by talking about his soldiers, then pretended that the danger was past, and now he had brought up the river. The northerner took another drink. When he had first met larhai he had considered him wonderfully straightforward for an easterner. Quite a lot had changed.
A muscle twitched in larhai's broken right cheekbone. 'I own a few of the boats.' He looked away across the river to the approaching Mesopotamian night. 'One of them is called the Isis.' He pronounced the name of the goddess with distaste. 'She is large for a fishing boat. She has benches for ten rowers. Before all this I used to use her to go upriver for pleasure trips – fishing, hunting – sometimes as far as Circesium.'
'Everyone in the west believes that it is impossible to take boats up the Euphrates, the current is too strong,' Ballista said. He glanced at Bathshiba. She was sitting very still. Her face gave nothing away.
'The current is strong. Usually you row for short spells then come to shore. Taking a boat up the mother of all rivers is hard work. But it can be done. It would not be in the interest of the caravan trade for the authorities in Rome to know that it can be done.' Iarhai smiled. For a moment he looked like his old self.
'Well, I will not tell them unless it is necessary.' Ballista smiled too, but the warmth had gone from Iarhai's face.
'I would ask you a favour.' larhai stopped. He said no more.
'I will grant it if I can,' said Ballista.
'I want you to give the Isis back to me. I want your permission for ten of my men to take her to Circesium. I want them to take my daughter there.'
Ballista took care not to look at Bathshiba. He could sense her stillness. 'I am afraid that I cannot grant you this. It could not be done in secret. Once it was known that you had evacuated your family to safety, everyone would assume that the town is about to fall. It would cause panic. If I let you do this, how could I refuse the others? Anamu, Ogelos, the councillors – all would want a boat to take their loved ones, themselves, to safety.' Aware he was talking too much, Ballista stopped.
'I understand.' larhai's mouth was a thin line, like the mouth of a fish. 'I will not trouble you further. I have to do the rounds of my men. Come, daughter.'
Bathshiba got down from the wall. As they made their formal farewells, Ballista could read nothing in her face.
Calgacus appeared and led them out.
Ballista leant on the wall and looked out into the night. On silent wings an owl was hunting over the big island. Again he heard the bark of a fox, nearer now. There was a light footstep behind him. He turned fast, his hand going to his sword. Bathshiba stood there, just out of reach.
'That was not my idea,' she said.
'I did not think that it was.' They looked at each other in the pale moonlight.
'I am worried about my father. He is not himself. The fight has gone out of him. He hardly ever goes to the battlements. He leaves everything to do with the troops to Haddudad. He stays in his rooms. If you ask him his opinion about anything he just says that it will be as god wills. You must have seen. He is even being nice about Anamu and Ogelos.'
Ballista took a step towards her.
'No. My father is waiting at the gate. I left something.' She walked around Ballista and picked up her cap from the wall. She pushed it on her head, piling her long black hair under it. 'I must go.' She smiled and left.
Back sitting on the wall, Ballista took the amulet from his purse and turned it in his hands. MILES ARCANUS – literally secret or silent soldier. It was the mark of a frumentarius.
Ballista was sweating like a Christian in the arena. The air was very bad down here, close and fetid. It was hard to draw breath properly. At Mamurra's gesture, the northerner moved at a crouch to the far right of the gallery. The sweat was slick on his sides. Kneeling down, he put his ear to the first of the round shields held to the wall. The bronze was cold to his ear. He listened. He would have liked to shut his eyes to concentrate on listening, but he feared what would happen when he opened them again. He had done that once before, and he had no wish to relive that almost physical surge of panic that ran up through his body as his eyes told him that he was still in the tunnel.
After a time he looked at Mamurra and shook his head. He could hear nothing. Mamurra gestured to the next shield. His fear making him clumsy, Ballista shuffled along and put his ear to this one. He put his hand over his other ear. He tried to calm himself, tried to filter out the thumping of his heart, the small scratching noises as the shield moved imperceptibly against the rock. Yes, now he thought he heard something. He listened some more. He was not sure. He made a gesture of uncertainty, palms up. Mamurra pointed to the final shield. With this one there was no doubt. There it was: the steady, rhythmic chink, chink, chink of pickaxe on stone.
Ballista nodded. Mamurra pointed, his hand describing an arc from straight ahead to about forty-five degrees off to the left. Then, still without speaking, he held out the splayed fingers of his right hand, once, twice, three times. The enemy mine was approaching from the left; it was about fifteen paces away. Ballista nodded and jerked his head towards the entrance. Mamurra nodded back. Still crouching, Ballista turned to leave, hoping his pathetic relief was not too evident.
Back above ground, back from the realm of the dead, Ballista sucked air into his lungs. The hot, gritty, dust- laden air that hung over the town of Arete was like the coldest, cleanest air off the northern ocean of his childhood. Gulping it down, he used his scarf to mop the stinging sweat and dirt from his eyes. Maximus passed him a skin for water. He cupped a hand, filled it and bathed his face. Above him, the wind sail over the entrance to the mine hung limp. One of Mamurra's engineers was tipping a bucket of water over it to try and make it draw better.
'Now I can show it to you from up above,' said Mamurra.
In contrast to what had gone before, the view from the battlements of the south-west tower was Olympian. There off to the right was what remained of the Persian siege ramp. Broken-backed, it lay like a stranded whale. Beyond it was the broad sweep of the plain. Shattered missiles, scraps of clothing and bleached bones broke the wide, dun-coloured monotony that stretched all the way to the Sassanid camp.
They kept low behind the much-repaired parapet. Since the fall of the ramp shooting had been desultory, but a man in full view would still attract missiles. Mamurra borrowed a bow from one of the sentinels. He selected an arrow with bright fletching. He looked round the crenellations to find his mark, ducked back into cover, took a deep breath and stepped out to draw and release. Ballista noted that Mamurra drew the bowstring not with two fingers but with his thumb, like the nomads of the steppes.
'Hmm.' Mamurra grunted as the arrow embedded itself in the ground, its bright red feathers quivering. He considered for a moment or two. 'You see the arrow? Now move your eyes five paces to the right. Now almost ten paces away. Not as far as the scrap of yellow material. You see what looks like a large molehill?' Ballista saw it. 'Now move further away, twenty-five, thirty paces. You see the next one? Then, at a similar distance, the one beyond that?'
'I see them. That was not a great shot,' Ballista said.
'I have done better.' Mamurra grinned. 'It served its purpose. Now you can see the air shafts the reptiles have dug up from their mine. The Persian tunnel is considerably longer than ours so those air shafts are necessary.
