The emperor Valerian inclined his head – his amici had spoken well. Marcus Clodius Ballista, the Dux Ripae, would keep his title and, with a force to be determined later, would set off as soon as possible to fight the Sassanids on the Euphrates.
As he rose to his feet and accepted the command, Ballista realized that, for all the years he had spent in the Roman empire, he could still be completely at sea in the ways of the imperial court. Hopefully, Julia would be able to explain the political manouverings to him. But he had what he wanted: he had an army, a chance to redeem his reputation. And yes, he wanted revenge – revenge on the Sassanids who had tortured and killed so many at Arete and, one day, revenge on the man who had ordered it: on Shapur, the King of Kings. Antioch was a big and confusing city. If you turned off the main street by the Pantheon into the street known as the Jawbone, the one where so many Christians were to be seen, and followed it down through, first, the potters' quarter then that of the tanners, eventually you would reach the Orontes. If you then turned left at the waterfront and, keeping the jetties and godowns on your right, walked south down Mariners' Street, after about a quarter of an hour you would come to the public baths named after a local woman called Livia. Just beyond the baths was the bar with the improbable name of Circe's Island.
The reputation of the bar for food and drink was not that good, but for girls it was excellent. It was a favourite haunt of Maximus. On the evening of 1 November, the kalends, he was sitting with another man out on the rickety terrace which overhung the water. The other man was older and strikingly ugly: he had a great dome of a skull and a weak chin with, between them, a thin, sour, shrewish mouth. The man's shoulders were shaking, and he was making an unpleasant grating sound. Calgacus, the body servant, or valet, of Ballista, was laughing. He asked, 'And are you being watched now?'
There was a pause. Maximus clearly mastered an urge to look round at the other few customers on the terrace before muttering, no, he probably wasn't.
'I have seen it before with men such as you,' the old Caledonian continued remorselessly. 'Cock of the walk for years, scared of nothing. Then one day it all goes. Scared of their shadows for the rest of their lives.'
'I wish I had never mentioned it,' said Maximus. 'The gods alone know how Ballista has put up with a miserable old Caledonian bastard like you for all these years.'
'Wiped his arse when he was the age his son is now, paid off the fathers of the girls he fucked back in Germania and fed and clothed the little bastard ever since we came into the imperium. Always made myself useful – unlike a bodyguard who thinks he is being stalked. It always follows the same course when it strikes men like you: first, they think about it now and then; after a time, it comes to dominate their thoughts, preys on their mind without cease, gives them no rest – and that is when it begins to affect everything, strips all their pleasures away. It is hard to get it up when you are always thinking that someone is creeping up behind you with a bloody great sword.' The nasty grating sound issued again from Calgacus as he poured himself more wine.
'I hope that Demetrius gets here all right. You know how easily he gets lost, and it is late,' said Maximus.
'Of course he'll get here all right. This is Antioch, the city that never sleeps – its streets are safer and better lit at night than at day. There is a civic police force armed with bloody great clubs, and the key job of its eighteen elected officers, the ones they call the Epimeletai ton Phylon, the Superintendants of the Tribes, is to knock up any shopkeeper who dares to let the lights outside his shop go out.'
'I thought the main job of the epimeletai was investigating unexplained corpses?'
'Well, that too. But, as I was saying, you are doomed to a life of misery. After a time, the irrational fear never stops preying on your mind. A hot little tart is spread on the bed in front of you, but what can you do? Nothing. Your sword sleeps in your hand. All the time, you are looking over your shoulder.'
Maximus was spared any more by the arrival of Demetrius. As he walked across the terrace, the secretary called to a serving girl to bring them more wine. The Greek youth was growing up, thought Maximus. Possibly the suffering and fear of the siege and flight from Arete had begun to make a man of him.
Demetrius pulled a brazier nearer to the table. A chill wind was getting up; it carried the smell of the first winter rains. 'Good news and bad news,' he said as he sat down. 'The good first: we all have tomorrow off. The dominus is going hunting in the mountains towards Daphne with Aurelian. He says that, if he took his secretary, it would look as if he were not devoting himself to the pleasures on offer; if he took his manservant, that he did not trust his host's cook; and his bodyguard, that he did not trust his host himself.'
'Which Aurelian?' Calgacus croaked.
'The Danubian one,' Demetrius continued. 'The Aurelian to whom a strange thing just happened as everyone left the palace. In his haste he mounted the wrong horse. Not his own, but the emperor's. He dismounted quickly enough when it was pointed out to him, but a few people noticed.'
'Something he should keep very quiet about, and something that others should not discuss in public,' Calgacus interrupted. 'So what is the bad news?'
'Aurelian has been appointed a deputy to the Dux Ripae.'
'Nothing much wrong with that,' said Maximus. 'Sure young manu-ad-ferrum, hand-to-steel, has a quick temper, likes a drink and is a savage one for the discipline. The troops fear him more than love him, but he is a good fighter. They say he killed forty-eight Sarmatians with his own blade in a single day.' Maximus began to sing a marching song: Thousand, thousand, thousand we've beheaded now. One man, a thousand we've beheaded now. A thousand drinks, a thousand killed. So much wine no one has as the blood that he has spilt. Maximus had been drinking for some time, but the staff and clientele at Circe's Island were used to boisterous behaviour.
A boat loomed out of the darkness and bumped up against the ramshackle tenement next door. Seemingly from nowhere, dozens of women and children appeared and, with much calling back and forth, set about unloading its cargo of fish.
'The Dux has been given two deputies. The other one is the bad news.' Demetrius paused. 'It is Gaius Acilius Glabrio.'
'The brother of that smug little shit at Arete? The one who has publicly sworn revenge on Ballista for his brother's death? That's insane. What is that old fool of an emperor playing at?' Maximus' flow of words was cut off by Calgacus placing his hand on his arm.
'It is not for us to debate the ways of our masters,' the old Caledonian said sanctimoniously. 'Now, Demetrius, I was just discussing Maximus' little problem. It seems he has been having trouble getting it up.'
'That is it!' Maximus rose to his feet. 'You, over here.' He took the wine jug from the serving girl and put it on the table. 'Do you want to come and watch?'
'Gods below, not in this life,' exclaimed Calgacus. 'I can think of nothing worse than watching your hairy arse going up and down like a harpist's elbow.' The assassin watched Maximus steer the girl to the stairs. It had been a bad moment when the Hibernian said he thought he was being watched. But he was only a barbarian – earlier, he had looked right at the assassin with no glimmer of recognition. Now the assassin knew for certain a time when the bodyguard would be away from the target. Now, he could strike.
The assassin signalled for a girl to come over, paid his bill and walked across the terrace, an unassuming man who drew no attention to himself. At the door, he looked back for a moment at the two still at the table. The ugly old man and the handsome youth sat in a companionable silence, all unsuspecting as they listened to the shrill shouts of the women and children unloading the boat and the heavy slop-slop-slop sounds of the wheels of the watermills on the far bank.
As he stepped outside, it started to rain. The assassin pulled up his hood and set off north up Mariners' Street. 'Magnificent.'
'Thank you very much,' said Ballista.
Julia laughed. 'Actually, I was referring to the political cunning of Cledonius.'
'That is rather deflating.' Naked, Ballista walked down the steps into the sunken bath and sat in the warm water. As the water stilled, he heard the storm outside, rain drummed on the roof and, somewhere in the house, the wind slammed a shutter or door. 'I thought you had told Isangrim's nurse to take him to visit the children of one of your endless cousins and had given the rest of the slaves the evening off so that we would be completely alone, so that you would have complete privacy to take care of your husband's needs.'
Julia was on the other side of the room, pouring drinks, putting some food on a plate. She smiled over her shoulder. 'I might force myself to do that later, but first I want to use this rare moment of privacy to make sure that my barbarian dominus understands the intrigues that surround his latest command.' She turned, the drinks and food temporarily forgotten.
'As ab Admissionibus, Cledonius cannot be away from the emperor. As he could not take this command on the
