his broken shield into the man's face. The man grunted with pain. He swayed in the saddle. Flicking the hilt of his sword back into his grasp, Ballista swung with his right fist. The Sassanid jerked his head aside. Ballista felt a scrunch of bones as at least one of his knuckles shattered on the steel of the man's helmet. A stab of white-hot agony shot up his arm. Bellowing with pain, Ballista smashed the edge of his shield across the easterner's face. The jagged wood sliced through flesh. Screaming, the man doubled up, his hands flying to his lacerated face. Bright blood matted his black beard. Ballista chopped the blade of his sword down into the back of the man's neck, one, two, three times. Ignoring the sharp bursts of pain from his broken hand, he finished the job.
The Sassanids were no cowards, but they had been caught unprepared, trapped between the impetus of the Romans and the steep slope down to the river. Panic spreads through an army like fire across a Mediterranean hillside in high summer. Soon the only Persians left on the stricken field were dead or helpless and soon to die. Ballista kept the Equites Tertii Catafractarii Palmirenorum close in hand. He did not let any of them descend the banks of the Chaboras, although after a time he let some dismount to throw rocks down into the tangled mass of horses and riders struggling in the stream. Any recruits in the ranks now knew that a river running red with blood was not just a literary conceit.
Here in the south where the Chaboras had impeded their flight, the slaughter of the Sassanids had been prodigious. Some easterners had also died in the north, those who had been too close to avoid the charge of Acilius Glabrio and Equites Primi Catafractarii Parthi. In the centre, all the Persian horsemen had got away into the desert to the east. Mucapor and the Equites Singulares had merely run down some poor infantrymen. Yet Ballista's plan had worked. Although Acilius Glabrio's premature charge had let the majority of the Sassanid army escape, it mattered little. The easterners were scattered, their morale was broken.
As Ballista slid from the saddle to relieve the weight on Pale Horse's back, a wave of depression broke over him. What did it signify? He had beaten this army. The Sassanids would send another. And another after that. This was a religious war. The easterners would not stop until they had lit the Bahram fires, the sacred fires of Mazda, throughout the whole world. A black thought struck Ballista – even if he defeated Shapur himself, even if he killed or captured the King of Kings, the eternal war between east and west would continue.
XII
The aftermath of any battle is hellish, and the battle of Circesium was no exception. Under a high sun, the flat, bright desert stretched away. The ground was covered with the detritus of warfare: discarded, broken weapons, dead horses, the half-naked, humped corpses of men, sweet-smelling piles of horse droppings, the foul stench of human guts.
'Ave, I give you joy of your victory.' Acilius Glabrio had taken off his helmet. His usually purposefully teased curls lay flat to his skull. Sweat was running down into his beard. He was beaming, very full of himself. Ballista noticed the cut on the young patrician's cheek was still open. 'Celeritas and cold steel. Nothing a goat-eyed easterner can do about it.'
Ballista stepped very close to him. 'You insubordinate little prick. I ought to kill you now,' he hissed.
The smile stayed on Acilius Glabrio's face, but his eyes went cold. 'Be grateful, you jumped-up barbarian shit. I have just given us a great victory.'
'You have just given us half a victory, and thrown away the better part,' snapped Ballista. His right hand was swelling. It throbbed like hell. His temper was on a knife edge.
'You gutless barbarian bastard.' Acilius Glabrio's face was full of scorn. 'I have chased away the Sassanids you were so scared of, and now you can retake Circesium unopposed. A great victory. Enjoy it while you can. I have not forgotten what you did to my brother.'
Ballista struggled to control his fury. 'And what will you do about it? Hire another assassin?'
Acilius Glabrio's snort of laughter was genuine. 'You judge others by yourself. I would be as low as you if I stooped to such things.'
The cavalry prefects Niger and Albinus walked up. They said it was time to acknowledge the acclamations of the troops. Ballista, eyes still locked with those of Acilius Glabrio, stepped back. The terrible thing was, he believed him: the odious young patrician had not hired the assassin.
Bone-tired, Ballista hauled himself back into the saddle. Pale Horse's flanks were lathered in sweat, his head down. With his officers, Ballista slowly rode back towards the army's starting position. Everywhere was the frenzied looting of the dead. Many of the scavengers were civilians. There were far too many to have all come from the baggage train. Ballista had seen it on so many stricken fields that he did not wonder at it. No matter how remote a battlefield from human habitation, as soon as the fighting was over, the scavengers appeared. The skinny, furtive men and the hideous old crones, sharp knives in their hands and, always among them, always upsetting the northerner, the young children, far too young for that disgusting work.
Yet on the plain before Circesium, most of those despoiling the dead were soldiers. The Roman moralists were wrong. Disciplina was not a durable, inherent quality. On the contrary, it was terribly fragile. A victory could shatter it as easily as a crushing defeat. When the milites saw the cavalcade coming they stopped their searching. They drew their swords and, hunched over, chopped down, as many blows as it took. Then, as the horsemen drew near, they stood. They thrust out their right arms in a sort of salute, in their fists the severed Persian heads. One man had a head in each hand and the long black hair of a third gripped in his teeth. The gore ran up his arms, down the front of his mail shirt. As a Roman general should, Ballista inspected the grisly trophies, commended those holding them with a kind word or an affectionate look.
In the liberty of the moment, the soldiers called out whatever they pleased: praise, jokes, boasts. Small knots of men chanted the names of the officers. Ballista noted that more chanted for Acilius Glabrio than for himself. The northerner bitterly reflected how all his hard work, all his planning, counted for next to nothing in their eyes. One foolish, insubordinate charge – a charge which brought a half success and squandered total victory – had won the odious little patrician the hearts of the men.
'Gaius Acilius Glabrio! Gaius Acilius Glabrio!'
The chanted name rang through Ballista's angry thoughts. Acilius Glabrio was an arrogant, stupid, self- satisfied fool – but not a murderer. Ballista had been so convinced that he had hired the assassins. But there had been an honesty in the young nobleman's contemptuous retort – 'I would be as low as you, if I stooped to such things.' It had changed the northerner's mind.
'Gaius Acilius Glabrio! Gaius Acilius Glabrio!'
Ballista's thoughts scrabbled round like rats in a trap. Not Acilius Glabrio… then who? Ballista had never really thought it was the Borani prince, Videric. This conclusion was not from any misty-eyed sentiment that northerners such as himself would not resort to such underhand methods. They did. Often. Bloodfeuds in Germania involved murder. It was more that various things did not seem right: the assassin in the clearing shouting, 'The young eupatrid sends you this,' the pantomime masks and cavalry parade helmet in the alley, the man himself in the silver mask calling Ballista a barbarian. But if it hadn't been Videric or Acilius Glabrio who had hired the assassin, it must be the sons of the sinister Count of the Largess, Macrianus the Lame. But which one? Quietus, who Ballista had punched in the balls? Macrianus the Younger, who had been shown to lack the courage to help his brother? Or was it both of them? And what of their powerful, devious father? Was Macrianus the Lame a part of it? If he was, Allfather help me, thought Ballista. Apart from the emperor, there could be no more dangerous enemy in the whole imperium.
Voices were raised in anger. A fight had broken out among some of the looters. Ballista ran his right hand over his face. He felt a stab of pain. At least one knuckle was broken and the hand was swelling fast. I must get a grip on things, he thought. He had to take charge before this army descended into chaos, laid itself open to a Sassanid counterattack.
Ballista called his officers to him. He rapped out orders. Niger and Albinus were to send out patrols. They were to report immediately if any still-formed bodies of Persian troops were to be found within five miles. Mucapor was to recall the Equites Singulares to the standard and have them fall in behind Ballista. Legio III, under its prefect, Rutillius Rufus, was to secure the town. Sandario was to use his slingers and any other light infantry he needed to bring the fires there under control. Turpio was to get the baggage train in order and, as soon as possible, quarter it safely within the walls. Acilius Glabrio was to disperse the looters, sending the troops among
