The fires roared again and the bodies of our friends disappeared from view as ravenous flames greedily devoured them. I had given the order that when the fires had died down the ashes were to be placed in copper urns and taken back to Dura where I would build a great mausoleum to house them. It was the least they deserved. We had lost another ten Companions during the battle and with their deaths a few more links with my time in Italy had been severed. I wondered how many of us would live to enjoy old age.
Gafarn had little time to grieve for our losses as Kogan brought a most pressing matter to his attention: the burial of the Armenian dead. Our own dead had been speedily cremated with due military honours but there remained tens of thousands of corpses lying half a mile to the northeast of the city. Ordinarily men from the army could be used to carry out the grisly task of stripping the dead and throwing them on pyres. However, the various armies would soon be marching north and east and could spare neither the time nor the men for burial duties. Gafarn therefore ordered a proclamation read in the city calling for volunteers to assist in disposing of the Armenian dead. To encourage willing participants he promised a few drachmas daily to those who came forward. Treasurer Addu protested at this but was overruled. It was now almost summer and very hot and soon the stench of rotting bodies would be carried on the wind to the city. But far worse would be the plague of flies that would envelop Hatra. Lacerated bodies lying in the sun became breeding grounds for maggots and flies by the million. And with the flies would come the threat of disease that might ravage the city.
So a long line of wagons and people trudged to the battlefield under the supervision of city engineers and companies of the garrison to deal with the army of corpses that we had created. The people who took part were the poorer sort who hoped to find valuables on the bodies of the dead, such as a pouch of money or a gold or silver necklace that they could sell. And after the corpses had had been searched they were loaded on wagons so they could be transported further away from the city where they could be thrown into burial pits. The city’s chief engineer was worried that to bury so many bodies near the city might risk polluting the underground springs that gave Hatra life, and so the dead had to be transported five miles further north.
Bodies that had been cut to pieces, together with severed limbs and the corpses of animals, were cremated where the battle had taken place, the shields of the vanquished providing wood for the mass pyres. Soon great columns of black smoke were snaking into the cloudless sky as the cadavers were burned.
I stood with Surena on the city’s northern battlements and watched the columns of smoke rise like giant cobras rearing up, about to strike.
‘Why don’t the city authorities burn all the Armenian dead?’
‘They do not have the wood,’ I answered. ‘There are simply too many.’
‘There are never enough Armenian dead,’ he sneered.
‘Ordinarily, of course,’ I continued, ‘we would use enemy prisoners or burial details but your Sarmatians appear to have killed all the stragglers and those who wished to give themselves up.’
‘Prisoners need feeding,’ he said dismissively. ‘We do not take prisoners in Gordyene.’
‘You cannot kill everyone, Surena.’
He looked at me with eyes that were devoid of emotion. ‘I learned long ago that in this world you have to kill to prevent yourself being killed.’
‘Is that the king or the marsh boy speaking?’
He suddenly looked very sad. ‘My grandparents died.’
‘I had no idea. I am sorry, truly. I liked them.’
He looked into the sky. ‘I used to receive regular reports about them from Nergal at Uruk, who was notified by couriers sent by my people. They died peacefully, my grandfather first, then my grandmother a month later. They say she died of a broken heart. They had many years together and one could not live without the other. It is an emotion I know only too well.’
He attempted a half-smile and then left me as the black cobras of death filled the horizon.
Later, after a meeting with my senior officers in my command tent, I sat with Gallia at the table and discussed with her the imminent expedition into the west. She had declared that she and the Amazons would be accompanying me, seeing little merit in remaining at Hatra.
‘You could always return to Dura,’ I suggested.
She shook her head. ‘I do not intend to remain idle while a Roman army invades my homeland. Besides, I want to test out these new arrows that Arsam has produced.’
‘Remember we go not to give battle to Crassus but to slow his advance,’ I reminded her.
‘If I put an arrow in his guts that will slow him down for good,’ she growled.
Our conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Spartacus, who was in a most agitated state.
‘You ride west tomorrow, uncle?’
‘Yes,’ I answered.
‘You will not forget your promise to take me with you.’
I had forgotten. ‘Your place, as a prince of this city,’ I said, ‘is beside your father. Lord Vistaspa for one will be expecting you to accompany Hatra’s army north to Nisibus.’
He began pacing up and down and fidgeting with the hilt of his sword.
‘I would ask you to speak to my father, uncle.’
‘Of course Pacorus will speak to him,’ said Gallia reassuringly.
‘I will?’
She frowned at me. ‘Yes.’
So half an hour later we sat with Gafarn, Diana and my mother in a small dining room near to the royal bedrooms. Slaves served us pastries and fruit juice as two others cooled my mother with great fans made from ostrich feathers.
‘I was sorry to hear about your Roman,’ she said. ‘I liked him.’
‘He will be sadly missed,’ I said.
‘And now you both go once more to fight our enemies,’ she said. ‘I pray that you both return. We seem to have nothing but war now, not like in the reign of Sinatruces when the empire had peace.’
‘His death heralded many testing times for Parthia, I agree,’ I said, ‘but now we have a chance of forging a new era for the empire.’
‘Pacorus has a favour to ask you,’ Gallia said to Gafarn.
My brother opened his hands. ‘Consider it done. Nothing should be refused the hero of the hour.’
‘I would like Spartacus to accompany me tomorrow.’
Gafarn looked perplexed. ‘If you are deficient in cataphracts I will get Vistaspa to give you some of Hatra’s companies.’
‘This concerns the Agraci girl, does it not?’ smiled Diana.
Gafarn held his head in his hands. ‘Not this again.’
My mother was most curious. ‘What Agraci girl?’
‘Spartacus has fallen in love with the daughter of King Haytham, who has insisted that he can only marry the girl if he captures a Roman eagle.’
My mother’s eyes lit up. ‘Like the one in the Great Temple.’
‘That is correct, mother,’ I said.
‘I think it would be better,’ insisted Gafarn, ‘if I took Spartacus with me to Nisibus so he can forget these nonsensical ideas about marrying an Agraci woman. He is the heir to the throne of this city and should start acting like it.’
‘Princes should not marry beneath them, I agree,’ said Diana, ‘after all, we do not want a member of a low-born race sitting on Hatra’s throne, such as an Agraci woman.’
Gafarn nodded triumphantly. ‘Precisely, my dear, I could not have put it better myself.’