‘You should take more care of your horse,’ she chided me.
I hauled myself into his saddle and pointed at Spartacus.
‘I had my hands full keeping him alive.’
‘So he will marry Rasha. All is well.’
I looked around at the hundreds of dead Roman bodies. ‘Yes, all is well.’
The battle was now over, the ground littered with discarded scutums, swords, helmets and legionary standards, in addition to the hundreds of dead bodies with arrows or lances stuck in them. A few Romans, their heads horribly gashed by sword or mace strikes, were still clinging on to life as their lifeblood poured from their wounds, others sat upright on the ground staring in disbelief at their bellies that had been sliced open by Parthian blades. A few poor wretches were endeavouring to push their guts back inside them, not realising that the hand of death was already upon them.
After the frenzy of bloodlust had receded horse archers and cataphracts looked on with pity at their defeated foes, though there remained a small group of Romans still fighting. The calls of horns alerted me to their presence a short distance away from where Spartacus had taken the eagle. There were a score of them, most wounded, some helmetless and all grouped around a figure with a badly gashed head who was holding a century standard, made up of a number of silver disks called philarae, mounted above which was a metal plate bearing the century’s title and from which hung two red leather strips. The standard was topped by an image of a human hand in silver. I had seen many of these emblems in Italy and Spartacus had amassed a great collection of them following his many victories.
The Romans stood in silent defiance, swords in hands as Vagises surrounded them with four companies of horse archers, who calmly strung arrows in their bowstrings and waited for the order to shoot.
‘Wait!’ I shouted, then nudged Remus forward to join Vagises.
‘This won’t take long,’ he said.
‘Don’t waste your arrows, order your men to stand down.’
He looked at me in confusion. ‘Why?’
‘Young Spartacus has his eagle,’ I replied. ‘We could have accepted the surrender of the Romans but Gallia persuaded me to fight them so a boy could marry an Agraci princess. A lot of men have died to facilitate that union. I see no reason to add to the butcher’s bill.’
He called forward one of his officers and relayed my order. Fresh horn calls led to the ring of horse archers placing their arrows back in their quivers and then wheeling about, leaving twenty Romans relieved and confused in equal measure.
‘You are getting soft in your old age, Pacorus,’ Vagises ribbed me. ‘They would not show the same mercy if the positions were reversed.’
‘That is why we are better than them, my friend.’
I nudged Remus forward and halted him around twenty paces from the Romans, who raised their swords at my approach.
‘Soldiers of Rome, you have done all that valour and honour requires and are now free to go back to Syria. When you reach Roman territory once more you can tell all those who will listen that only defeat and death awaits those who invade Parthia. Tell Rome that I, Pacorus of Dura, will crush every army that it sends against the Parthian Empire, just as I have destroyed your army.’
I wheeled Remus about and rode him north as my wife and the Amazons fell in behind me and then company after company of horse archers and cataphracts formed column to follow me. Spartacus rode behind myself, Vagises and Gallia, grinning like a simple-minded fool to all and sundry as he held the trophy in his hand. But the decision to fight for the legionary eagle had been bought at a high price when Byrd and Malik returned to us with news that Crassus had reached the safety of Carrhae’s walls.
Surena had chased him all the way to the town gates but a volley of arrows from the walls had forced his withdrawal. He had approached the gates under a flag of truce and requested a meeting with Crassus concerning the agreement of a peace treaty between Rome and Parthia, which was highly presumptuous on the King of Gordyene’s part but did at least confirm that the Roman commander was in the town. An officer replied that Crassus would reply to Surena’s demand the next day.
We made camp three miles south of the town, near the rippling waters of the Balikh River. At last we could immerse ourselves in its cool waters and wash the filth and blood from our bodies. We unsaddled our horses and brought them cool water to drink and then sat down to work out our next course of action. The prisoners were also allowed to drink from the river and wash their wounds, and their fate was our immediate concern.
‘How many do we have?’ I asked as we sat on stools in a circle round a fire as darkness enveloped the earth, the dim glow of torches on the walls of Carrhae visible in the distance.
‘Just under seven thousand,’ answered Vagises. ‘If we take any more they will outnumber us.’
‘The sensible thing would be to kill them,’ said Surena without emotion.
‘I am not in favour of killing prisoners,’ I said, ‘especially as we now have the means to feed them.’
Before night had fallen Vagises had diverted five hundred of his men across the river to take possession of the Roman camp a short distance away, from where Crassus had marched to engage us. They found it stuffed full of supplies and mules, which would all be conveyed back to Dura. A company was left to guard it while the rest brought back a horde of biscuits, wine, bread, cured pork and grain in wagons.
‘Once they have been taken back to Dura,’ I continued, ‘Orodes can decide their fate. Vagises, how many of the enemy do you think lie dead on this plain?’
He shrugged. ‘Difficult to say, but a guess would put the figure at around twenty thousand, give or take.’
‘That still leaves over twenty thousand Roman soldiers in Carrhae, lord,’ said Surena, ‘plus their commander.’
‘We must prevent him from getting back to Syria and raising another army,’ added Vagises.
‘We have no engines to lay siege to Carrhae,’ said Surena.
That was true but Carrhae was a small town and although it had walls it would not have the provisions to sustain twenty thousand soldiers in addition to its garrison and the population.
‘Crassus will have to either escape from the town or enter into a peace treaty,’ I told them all. ‘There is no other army in Syria to come to his aid and his Armenian allies have been defeated and are being pursued by Orodes. Tomorrow we surround Carrhae and wait for Crassus to come to us.’
Later, after the others had retired to their tents, I could not sleep and sat with Gallia, tossing logs onto the fire. We wrapped our cloaks around us for there was a cool wind blowing from the foothills of the Taurus Mountains to the north of Carrhae. It had been a remarkable two days that had seen Parthia defeat a numerically superior Roman army and take possession of no less than seven legionary eagles. As far as I knew this feat was unique in the annals of warfare. All that remained was to agree a peace treaty with Crassus.
‘Can you make a treaty without Orodes?’ she inquired.
‘Orodes is not here and the time to treat with Crassus is now, when his army lies in tatters and Syria is open to invasion.’
‘You think Crassus will agree to a treaty?’
I smiled at her. ‘He has no choice. He cannot leave Carrhae without my permission and the price of his freedom is a binding treaty.’
She giggled. ‘Crassus the slave, at the mercy of Pacorus, his master. I like that. And what are the terms of your treaty?’