levee and the irrigation sluices, prevented them from flooding the path that the Roman army must take. Had they done so, it would have stopped the army in its tracks, delayed them for days. The insufferable fool had returned a hero in his own eyes and even in the estimation of many of his men.
Angry as he had been, Ballista had somehow summoned the restraint to wait until they were in the relative privacy of the his tent before upbraiding Acilius Glabrio. It had done no good whatsoever. Yesterday's stupidity had merely served to reinforce the young officer's patrician pride. Six dead Persians, and he had had the gall to speak of a glorious victory. Ballista doubted the widows of the four dead troopers from Equites I Parthi would see it in the same light. Patting his ridiculously coiffed curls, Acilius Glabrio had started to talk of the famed celeritas of Julius Caesar. Unwilling to listen to a lecture on the efficacy of speedy action from the young fool, Ballista had summarily dismissed him from his presence. If only he could equally summarily dismiss him from his command. But the general could not. Acilius Glabrio had been appointed personally by the emperor. The fool had to remain cavalry commander, and the worst of it was that, now, he had been reinforced in his insubordination, now he would be even less ready to obey Ballista's orders. It did not look good – an insubordinate, arrogant fool, and possibly a murderous one… Who better fitted the assassin's description of a young eupatrid? At least he had not made an attempt on Ballista's life since Antioch.
Angrily, Ballista tried to push the patrician out of his mind. He returned his attention from the skies to the terrain his army must cross. Here, the cliffs started to run away to the west, opening up a wide, largely featureless plain between themselves and the Euphrates. Ideal terrain for cavalry. Ideal for the Sassanids; bad for the Romans.
A brassy peal of trumpets announced that the army was breaking camp. Ballista turned in his saddle to watch. He wanted to study the order of march that he had prescribed – to see it, as it were, from the outside, through the eyes of the enemy. Straight away, the four parallel columns that were the heart of the formation began to be apparent. First, out on the river, some one hundred boats of all shapes and sizes were being rowed, paddled and poled into position. Around the ungainly transports nipped five little one-banked galleys, chivvying like sheepdogs. Ballista was pleased that he had gone to the trouble of finding and requisitioning the galleys, partly crewing them with experienced boatmen from Legio IIII Scythica. He was even more pleased that he had bullied the military commander at Caeciliana into handing over five bolt-throwing ballistae to mount on the galleys. The galleys were manoeuvrable. The artillery on them had a far better range than any hand-held bow or sling. A Sassanid cavalry force was very unlikely to have any boats or artillery with it. The little improvised war galleys gave Ballista command of the Euphrates. And that secured one flank of his army.
Next, keeping as close to the riverbank as possible, came the land-based half of the baggage train – over three hundred indiscriminate beasts of burden: donkeys, mules, camels, horses and broad-shouldered slaves. Somewhere in that braying, surging mass were the ten spare mounts of Acilius Glabrio and the rest of his luxurious equipage. At least the latter was now carried on the backs of animals or men, not on lumbering wagons which got stuck at the merest hint of bad going. Ballista watched horsemen spurring up and down the column trying to instil some order. He was glad that he had not only seconded Turpio some legionaries for the galleys but twenty cavalrymen from the Equites Singulares. It was not just that they would help Turpio control the awkward land column; if everything went wrong, he would have some good men at his back to help him cut his way out of the rout. Ballista pushed the thought away. He was irritated with himself for thinking such an ill-omened thing.
The Dux Ripae switched his attention from the tail to the teeth of his army. Parallel to the baggage rode the cavalry: eight hundred heavily armoured men in column of fours. It was easy enough to spot Acilius Glabrio. One only needed to locate the standard of the lead unit, Equites Primi Catafractarii Parthi, and look just in front of it for the elegant figure in scarlet and gold who rode alone. Some way back, looming above the dust, was Ballista's own standard, the white draco. It marked the mid-point in the column where marched the Equites Singulares. The rear unit, the Equites Tertii Catafractarii Palmirenorum, was already completely obscured by the dust.
The fourth and final column was the tough outer carapace behind which the others sheltered. This was the column furthest from the river. Here was the infantry, Legio IIII Scythica followed by Legio III Felix: two thousand legionaries marching in a column four wide and five hundred deep. They were ordered just so, two paces between ranks to allow the bowmen, four hundred Armenians and four hundred Mesopotamians, to come and go. The tough, fiery Aurelian had taken his post at the centre of the column.
Finally, Ballista considered the three units that were not organized into the columns. Across the front and rear of the army were two thin lines of bowmen, turning the whole formation into a hollow square. But how very thin the line at the front looked – just two hundred Saracens. Ballista could not see them, but he knew that the line at the rear was little better, just three hundred Itureans. The last unit that made up the army was also lost in the dust. But somewhere between the columns of cavalry and infantry, the resourceful Sandario held his three hundred and fifty slingers ready to reinforce any part of the square.
It was quite good. Bits of it – the river flank and the infantry column – were very good. But there were undeniable problems. There was not enough heavy infantry. Another five hundred legionaries in the van and in the rear, and the square would have been nigh on impregnable – or rather it would have been nigh on impregnable if everyone obeyed orders and held their position.
As it was, Ballista was worried about the obedience of his command. It was not really the two columns of baggage under Turpio. Yes, the sardonic ex-centurion had been mired in corruption when the northerner had first met him. Turpio had sworn that he had been blackmailed into it. Ballista did not know what it was that had laid Turpio open to such coercion. Turpio claimed that it was resolved, that it could not happen again. But one never knew. Ballista tried to shrug all this away. Turpio had more than redeemed himself in action since then, and Ballista liked him. You had to trust your judgement. As for the infantry on the other wing under 'hand-to-steel' – Aurelian might be something of a hothead but, in a paradoxical way, he was also the personification of old-style disciplina. Ballista had no real worries there – unlike with the cavalry. It all came back to Acilius Glabrio.
How much damage could the young patrician do? Ballista would take his position with the Equites Singulares. They should not be directly affected by any foolishness of Acilius Glabrio. The Equites Tertii Catafractarii Palmirenorum rode at the rear of the cavalry column. Ballista was between them and Acilius Glabrio. Their prefect, Albinus, was a sound man, a long-service career officer. They should be all right. Which left Equites Primi Catafractarii Parthi at the head of the column. Again, their prefect, Niger, was a sound man. Ballista had told Niger not to let his men follow Acilius Glabrio if he tried to do anything stupid. But would the men heed the sensible prefect or the glamorous patrician? Allfather, do not let that arrogant young fool lead them off in another mad charge. And what if he did? What would Ballista do then? Watch them become isolated, surrounded, cut down? Or try and rescue them – and run the risk of dragging the whole army down in bloody ruin?
Maximus rode between Ballista and the Roman army, breaking into his worries. 'Time to go.'
The Sassanid scouts were coming on at an easy, loose canter. There were more of them than before, maybe forty or fifty. They were strung out across the plain in no particular order. From time to time, as if on a whim, an individual horseman would turn, now angling towards the river, now the cliffs, then again heading straight for Ballista and his small party.
Some way behind the Persian scouts rose a large, whirling dust cloud. There was no breeze, and it rose straight and tall. Its base was some miles away. It was moving towards them.
'It could be onagers,' said Demetrius hopefully. 'Turpio told me that when a herd of wild asses is attacked by lions, they come together in a dense pack to frustrate the predators. He said the dust was often mistaken for that raised by troops.' Keen for reassurance, the young Greek talked on. 'Turpio has been out here a long time. He knows what he is talking about, knows about these plains.'
'It could be onagers.' The flat tone of Ballista's reply showed that his mind was elsewhere.
'Time to go,' said Maximus again, more loudly. As if woken from a reverie, Ballista realized that the Sassanid outriders were coming into bowshot. He hurriedly made the signal, and turned Pale Horse. The Romans rode hard and straight for the safety of the army, only jinking around the occasional scrub of camel thorn. Behind them, the easterners swooped across the plain like swallows.
A couple of hours later, mid-morning, about the time when, in Rome, the courts stop sitting, even Demetrius could not cling to the idea that the dust was raised by onagers.
A fold in the plain hid the Sassanid army until it was quite close. The first things that could be seen quite clearly were the big standards: fierce beasts – lions, wolves, bears; and abstract, minimal designs – here a straight line, there a curve, something like the shape of a cup. They flashed bright in the sunshine, all colours:
