Maximus and Demetrius. The white draco hung limp behind them. They waited.
After an hour the indefatigable Calgacus appeared, followed by a train of slaves carrying water and wine. The Dux Ripae and his companions drank thirstily in silence. There was little to talk about. Even Maximus, out of sorts for the two days since the underground disaster, had nothing to say.
When it happened there was next to no warning. There was a loud crack. The wall near the tower shook. It seemed to ripple. Held in place by the great earth banks, unable to fall outward into the plain or inward into the town, it slid vertically about two paces into the ground. It shuddered, cracks zigzagged across its face, but it remained standing. A stunned silence. Another loud crack. The south-east tower lurched drunkenly forward. Its descent caught by the outer earth bank, it leant at an angle. It shook. Some of the makeshift parapet came away, bricks raining down. The tower remained upright.
Ballista thought that the two volunteers on the tower were screaming. But no, clinging to what was left of the battlements, they were howling, howling like wolves. The howling echoed along the whole wall as soldier after soldier joined in. Then a chant began: 'Ball-is-ta, Ball-is-ta.'
The tall northerner laughed. Men slapped him on the back. The defences of Arete still stood.
XVI
Ballista lay in the pool of the frigidarium. The cool water was scented with carnations or cloves. He was alone; both Maximus and Demetrius had asked for the evening off. To anyone who knew them it was no surprise after such a day. They would look for release in their different ways. Maximus would find his with a woman; Demetrius would opt for the less physical, the rather less tangible comforts offered by a dream-diviner, an astrologer, or some such charlatan. Ballista had been happy to grant their requests. Solitude was a rare commodity for a man in his position.
Putting his thumbs in his ears and blocking his nostrils with his forefingers, he submerged himself. Motionless underwater, his eyes shut, he listened to the beating of his heart, the plink, plink of water dripping. It had been a good day. Things had worked out well at the tower and the wall. But every danger surmounted brought on fresh dangers in its train.
Ballista surfaced, shaking water out of his hair, wiping it from his eyes. It had a taste of carnations or cloves too. Idly he wondered where Calgacus had got this new, unlikely scent. He lay motionless. The ripples in the pool died down. Ballista looked at his body, the forearms burnt dark brown by the sun, the rest pale white, the two long scars on the left of his ribcage a still paler white. He flexed his left ankle, felt the bone scrape and click. He yawned a big yawn, the right-hand side of his jaw scrunching where it had been broken. He was thirty-four. Sometimes he felt much older. His body had taken a battering in the thirty-four winters he had walked the middle earth between the gods above and Hell below.
Ballista started to think of the siege. He pushed the thoughts away, keen to hang on to the momentary feeling of peace the bath had brought. He thought of his son. It was over a year – thirteen months – since he had left Isangrim in Rome. The boy had turned four in March. He would be growing fast, changing fast. Allfather, do not let him forget me. Deep Hood, Fulfiller of Desire, let me see him again. Ballista felt crushed by longing, by sadness. Unwilling to give way to tears, he plunged under again.
Standing up abruptly, the water sluiced off his heavily muscled, battered body. Stepping out of the pool, he wrung the water from his long fair hair. From nowhere Calgacus appeared and handed him a towel. The northerner began to dry himself. Somehow he had never got used to the Roman habit of having others towel you down.
'Did you like the perfume?' Calgacus asked, his intonation showing what he thought of it.
'It's fine.'
'It was a present. From your mincing little tribunus laticlavius. Seeing how fond you and Acilius Glabrio are of each other, I tested it on one of the house slaves. He did not die, so it must be safe.' Both men smiled. 'And here is the robe you asked for; the finest sheer Indian cotton-you sensitive little flower,' wheezed Calgacus.
'Yes, I am, renowned for it.'
'What?'
'Nothing.'
Although he spoke at the same volume, Calgacus as ever affected to believe that a change of tone rendered the asides he came out with when they were alone completely inaudible.
'I have put some food and drink out on the terrace for you. It is in the shade of the portico. There is a cover over it to keep the flies off.'
'Thank you.'
'Will you need me again tonight?'
'No. Go off and indulge in whatever frightful drunken lechery your vices demand.'
With no word of thanks Calgacus turned and walked away. As his domed head receded, his complaints floated behind him. 'Lechery… vices… and when would I find the time for them, working my fingers to the bone all hours looking after you?'
Ballista pulled the soft robe around himself and walked out on to the terrace. In the gathering gloom under the portico he found the food up against the back wall. Lifting the heavy silver cover by its handle, he poured himself a drink, scooped up a handful of almonds. Having replaced the cover, he went over to his accustomed place on the wall of the terrace.
It was the best time of the day. To the west the farmland of Mesopotamia was purple-hazed as night advanced. A cool wind blew over the Euphrates. The first stars shone. Bats hunted across the face of the cliff. But none of it brought back to Ballista the fleeting peace of the bathhouse.
Things had gone well today. But that was luck. Ballista had had the earth banks built to protect the walls and towers from artillery and from rams; that they had saved the defences from undermining was luck. Yet, Ballista smiled ruefully in the dark, if others put it down to his farsightedness, that was no bad thing for morale. He had issued orders to capitalize on his luck. Throughout the night men would labour, packing the leaning tower with earth. By the morning the parapets of tower and wall should have been replaced or shored up.
The Persians had thrown all the instruments of siege warfare at the city of Arete: siege towers, the great ram – the Fame of Shapur – the siege ramp, the mine. All had failed. The defences had held. Now it was the first of October. The rains should come in mid-November. There was not enough time for the Persians to gather the materials and begin new regular siege works. But only those defenders of very little understanding could believe that the danger was passed. The King of Kings would have no intention of slinking away defeated. The frustrations, the losses, the stain on his glory – all would have increased his resolve. Shapur would have no intention of lifting the siege. If his siege engineers could not deliver the town to him, he would punish them – probably savagely – and revert to a simpler strategy. He would decree another attempt to storm the town.
Five and a half months of siege had taken their toll on the defenders. Casualties had mounted. When the Sassanids launched another assault, Ballista wondered if there would still be enough defenders to deny them. The storm would not come tomorrow; there was not enough time for Shapur and his nobles to whip their men up to fighting frenzy. It would come the day after. Ballista had one day. Tomorrow he would send more men to the desert wall. He would go among them. He would speak to them, try to encourage them. Tomorrow evening he would hold a last supper for his officers and the leading men of the town; try to put heart in them. Inauspiciously, he thought of the final dinner in Alexandria of Antony and Cleopatra. What had they called the diners? 'Those inseparable in death' – something like that.
Finding that he had finished his drink, Ballista wondered for a second if he could throw the heavy earthenware beaker all the way over the fish market far below and into the black waters of the Euphrates. He did nothing of the sort. Instead he walked back to the portico. It was very dark behind the columns. He only found the food because he already knew where it was.
There was a noise of something scraping on brickwork. He froze. The noise came again, from the south of the terrace. Ballista crouched down low. From over the south wall a shape appeared. Compared with the darkness under the portico where Ballista waited, it was reasonably light out on the terrace. Ballista could make out the black-clad figure that dropped down over the southern wall, the wall that led into the town. More sounds of
