Over the laughter, Ballista asked, 'Did it not cross your mind that this bearded local might have been less than serious?'
Maximus held up his hand. 'Not for a moment. I have never heard a man in greater earnestness.' A sly look came across his face. 'And let me tell you, he knew a thing or two. For example, did you know that, among the peoples of Germania, among whom I believe your own people, the Angles, stand very high, the men will be taking the handsome boys for wives, with a proper wedding feast and no shame at all?'
'Bugger,' said Ballista. 'I thought we had managed to keep that quiet.'
Maximus stretched. 'Anyway, all this talk of physical passion is, as Demetrius might say, threatening to undermine the rational part of my soul.' He got up, only a little unsteadily, and went off to strike a deal with a serving girl.
'I am for my bed. I cannot take the drink any more,' Ballista said. After they had stood to bid him goodbye, Turpio and Calgacus exchanged a look.
'It is a fetish that has grown on him the last few years,' said Calgacus. 'The idea that, the next time he is in combat, he will die if he fucks another woman.'
'Well, that woman of his is a likely-looking piece.' At Calgacus' sharp glance, Turpio went on, 'Oh, do not come on like Maximus. I am only talking. Drink talking.' As Calgacus' thin mouth twisted into what was probably intended as a smile, Turpio got up. 'It is the Maiuma. If you do not mind holding the table, I hear the irrational part of my soul calling too. Do not worry – as many women have told me, I do not take long at all.' Afterwards, Turpio rearranged his clothing. He slapped the girl on the arse and gave her a small tip. The actual fee had been paid downstairs, to the owner. Leaving the narrow room, Turpio stood for a moment or two leaning on the rail of the first-floor gallery. Below, he could see Maximus gesticulating as he explained something to Calgacus.
The Hibernian was still talking when Turpio reached the table. 'Clitoris like a slingshot, I tell you.'
'That is me done. I am going back.' After saying goodnight to the other men, Turpio left.
Outside in the alley, it was quieter than before. It was getting late. Strange, he thought, how not only Ballista but his two slaves had become close friends. Still, they had all been through a lot together. A turn of the stars, and who knew what you would be. 'A Stranger in Bactria.' He smiled and realized he was quite drunk.
Turpio had no trouble in retracing his steps. Crossing the Scirtos, he saw that most of the lights on the banks had gone out. After passing the fish ponds, he gathered his strength for the steep climb up the northern face of the citadel to their quarters in the Winter Palace of the old Kings of Osrhoene.
When he reached the entrance to the courtyard, he stopped to get his breath back. Immediately he knew something was wrong. The waning moon lit the empty space. There was no sentry at the foot of the stairs. Turpio looked around. Nothing. There was no sound. Suddenly, he felt very sober.
The sentry might have just gone to relieve himself. Turpio half thought he had heard footsteps as he approached. He wondered whether to draw his sword. He would look foolish if the sentry wandered back. Turpio drew his sword anyway. It came free with a rasp that sounded loud to him in the quiet building. As silently as he could, he crossed the cobbles to the stairs that ran up the inner wall of the courtyard. He stopped to look and listen. Nothing at all out of the ordinary. Along the first-floor veranda, bars of golden light gleamed out from behind the shuttered windows where the night lamps burned in the outer rooms of their sleeping quarters.
Placing his feet quietly, carefully keeping the blade away from the stonework, Turpio went up the stairs. At the top he stopped again. Still nothing. Immobile, he probed the night with all his senses. He half thought he caught an unusual smell, but it was too faint. He could not tell. He waited, fully alert.
There! An extra chink of light. One of the doors was a tiny bit ajar – the door to Ballista's quarters. Without thought or hesitation, Turpio glided along the veranda. At the window, he ducked down and peered between the slats of the shutter. The outer room appeared to be empty.
Straightening up quickly, Turpio moved to the door. Sword ready, he pushed it open. The outer room was empty. There was a strong smell of waxed canvas. The door to the bedroom was half open. In three steps, Turpio was there. He kicked it open and dropped into a fighting crouch.
The big man in the hooded cloak dominated the small room. He was standing over the still figure on the bed. The blade in his hand shone in the lamplight.
Yelling incoherently, Turpio lunged. The hooded man whirled around. Sparks flew as he drove Turpio's blade wide. Instinctively, Turpio ducked, and the riposte whistled just over his head.
The combatants drew back for a second. Turpio could not see the man's face under the high hood. On the bed, still Ballista did not move.
The hooded man feinted low then thrust high. Jerking his head out of the way, Turpio neatly stepped forwards and to the right. Holding the hilt with two hands, he rammed the point of his sword at his opponent's stomach. The man's own momentum did the rest. Impaled on the steel, face to face with Turpio, the man shook and gasped out his life. The room was filled with the slaughter-house smell of violent death.
Bracing his right hand against the dead man's chest, Turpio used his left to withdraw his blade. It came free with a horrible sucking sound and a rush of blood. The body crumpled, and Turpio pushed it away. As the corpse hit the floor, its hood fell back, revealing a swarthy face.
Turpio looked at his friend. Ballista was alive. Unmoving, the northerner stared wide-eyed at the corpse.
'You all right?'
Ballista swallowed. He tried to speak. No sound came out.
'He tried to kill you, but it is all right now. He is dead.'
Still Ballista could not speak. Eventually he nodded.
Uncertain in the face of his friend's fear, Turpio looked away. His sword was dripping blood on the rug. He bent down, flicked back the dead man's cloak, found an unsoiled piece of tunic and cleaned his blade.
Ballista pulled back the covers and swung his legs off the bed. He sat staring at the corpse. The northerner was naked. The hair on his chest and legs was so damp he could have come from the baths. After a time, he spoke softly. 'I thought it was someone else.'
'Who?'
Ballista continued to look at the dead man. When at last he spoke it was in a monotone. 'A long time ago, at the siege of Aquileia, I killed Maximinus Thrax. I had little choice. If I had not killed the emperor, either I would have been executed by him or murdered by the conspirators. But I had taken the sacramentum, the military oath that I would protect him. In Germania, when you swear an oath to a warleader, if he falls, you do not leave the field. And I killed him. Stabbed him in the throat with a stylus.'
For a time Ballista relapsed into silence. Turpio said nothing, waiting.
'They cut his head off, sent it to Rome. They mutilated his body,' Ballista continued. 'They denied him burial, condemned his daemon to walk the earth for ever. At times, at night, the daemon comes to me. It speaks. It always says the same thing – 'I will see you again at Aquileia' – sometimes it laughs.'
Ballista looked up and grinned shakily. He was regaining his self-control. 'In death, as in life, the emperor Maximinus Thrax favours a big, hooded cloak.'
Turpio smiled.
'Only Julia, Calgacus and Maximus know,' Ballista said. 'I would like to keep it a secret.'
'Of course.'
Ballista stood up, walked over and embraced his friend. He leaned back, looked into Turpio's eyes. 'Thank you.'
XXIX
It was a moonless night. At least that was part of the plan. The hinges of the Gate of Hours had been oiled. Quite pointless, thought Ballista. It was not possible to assemble an army that still numbered over fifteen thousand men in a besieged city and the attackers not be aware. Anyway, as even the lowest water-seller in the agora had known for several days when the field army would march, it was impossible the Sassanids had not been forewarned.
Ballista stood, holding Pale Horse's bridle, at the edge of the imperial entourage. Turpio was beside him. There no longer was a baggage train for them to command. Orders had been issued that a new one was not to be
