‘I have placed adder’s tongue wrapped in cloth on the area of the break but the bone is too baldy shattered to heal properly.’
‘You put a snake’s tongue on Byrd’s leg?’ I said with disgust, ‘no wonder it will not heal.’
She may have just turned thirteen years of age but Claudia was wise beyond her years. ‘Adder’s tongue is a healing herb, father, as most people know.’
‘I have also placed a charm in his room to ward off evil and have asked for the assistance of Gula, goddess of healing, to look favourably on him,’ she continued.
‘What charm?’ I asked.
She walked over to Dobbai’s chair and sat in it. ‘Elderberries, rosemary and tarragon all mixed together and wrapped in a white cloth tied together with red twine. Tarragon is a favourite herb of the goddess and will prevent the leg becoming rotten.’
‘So it will heal?’ I said.
She looked at me and sighed. ‘The leg has been saved and Byrd will be able to walk on it after a fashion, but it will be painful for him to do so. He will probably need a crutch.’
‘For how long?’ I asked with alarm.
‘For the rest of his life, father.’
The pall of gloom that had hung over me after the Battle of Carrhae suddenly returned as I realised that if my daughter’s words were true then I had lost my chief scout. Gallia saw my head sink.
‘Perhaps his leg will heal properly.’
‘No, mother, it will not.’
The appearance of Spandarat lightened the mood somewhat. He had finished making his final rounds in his capacity of military governor of the city and now pulled up a chair, leaned back in it and belched, much to the consternation of Claudia.
‘So, I suppose you want your city back?’ he said to me.
‘I would be most grateful.’
His eyes sparkled mischievously. ‘Now that you have beaten the Romans you will be leading an expedition into Syria, no doubt.’
I shook my head at him. ‘Not this year, Spandarat, but I promise that if there is an attack against Syria you and the other lords will be accompanying me.’
He rubbed his hands with glee. ‘I have heard that Syria is dripping with riches.’
Claudia rolled her eyes and Gallia smiled. He may have been the foremost lord of the Kingdom of Dura but he was just an old horse thief at heart.
‘Syria also has cities with high walls,’ I said.
He winked at Gallia. ‘But no garrisons now you have killed them all. I heard you killed Crassus and chopped off his head.’
‘I neither killed him nor severed his head,’ I answered.
‘Surena killed him after I had shot him,’ said Gallia coldly.
Spandarat nodded approvingly. ‘He had it coming. I just wish I had been there to see it. There’s no one left to fight now the Armenians and Romans have been defeated.’
‘There is always someone left to fight, Spandarat,’ I said.
But it appeared that my roguish lord was correct in his assessment, at least initially. With an oppressive peace forced upon the Armenians and Crassus dead and his army destroyed it seemed that all Syria lay at Parthia’s mercy. But for one young man such matters paled into significance before the prospect of seeing his beloved again.
Spartacus had wanted to ride straight to Palmyra the day after he had taken his eagle but I reminded him that he was a soldier in Hatra’s army seconded to Dura and was therefore obliged to obey my commands. So he had ridden back to my city and in the days following had continually pestered me regarding when he would be allowed to go to Palmyra. So irksome did his tormenting become that I threatened to have the eagle melted down before his eyes unless he silenced his tongue. So he paced the palace muttering to himself until, a week after we had arrived back at the city, in which time Byrd’s leg had healed sufficiently to allow him to ride in a wagon back to his wife, we set off for Palmyra.
Initially our column was small — the Amazons, Malik, Byrd sitting on a wagon, Spartacus, Gallia and myself — but the day after we had left Dura we were joined by Spandarat and half a dozen other lords, who wanted to see Haytham hand over his daughter to this upstart prince who had made good his vow. Spartacus himself rode at the tip of the column holding the eagle in his right hand, the sun glinting off its silver wings. He was so happy that he could have left his horse at Dura and ran the route to Palmyra.
As we neared Haytham’s capital more and more of the curious, the religious and those who wanted to see a piece of history attached themselves to our column that now trailed behind us for several miles. On the third day a hundred Agraci warriors met us on the road to ensure that Spartacus did indeed have an eagle, otherwise their commander was under orders to kill him on the spot — Haytham never forgot his threats. Malik smiled as the commander of the Agraci force insisted on touching the eagle to ensure it was really silver and not a piece of painted wood!
Malik slapped my nephew on the back and then left us to ride on with the warriors so he could be at the side of his father when the king honoured his promise. On the last night of our journey before we reached Palmyra there must have been over a thousand hangers-on attached to our party. Their commotion filled the night air as we sat on stools round a fire and Spartacus cradled the eagle in his arms.
‘Where will you live?’ asked Byrd, his splinted legged stretched out in front of him.
‘I have given no thought to that,’ answered my nephew. ‘Hatra I suppose.’
I thought of Gafarn’s hostility to the notion of his marriage and raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
‘You will live in the palace at Dura, of course,’ insisted Gallia. ‘Rasha should spend the first months of her new life in familiar surroundings before you take her away from her people.’
Spartacus beamed with delight. ‘Thank you, aunt, that would be most agreeable.’
Indeed it would, for he found the relaxed atmosphere at Dura far more convivial than the strict social mores that existed at Hatra.
‘Nevertheless,’ I added, ‘as the heir to Hatra’s throne you will be expected to make your home in the city, notwithstanding that by marrying Rasha you will relinquish its throne.’
‘Parthians no like Agraci,’ said Byrd, ‘you will not find peace at Hatra. Will have to find your own kingdom.’
‘I will find my own kingdom,’ boasted Spartacus, his delirium of happiness having warped his senses, ‘and I shall make Rasha its queen.’
‘You know he just might,’ Gallia whispered to me as Spartacus took the gleaming eagle over to Byrd to show it off to him.
Later, as she lay beside me in our tent, I kept thinking about Byrd’s words.
‘He is right.’
Gallia was drifting off to sleep. ‘Mmm?’
‘Byrd. He was right about Spartacus and Rasha not being able to live in Hatra. The people would not look kindly on an Agraci princess in their presence.’
‘You worry too much. Go to sleep.’
Dura was fast becoming a refuge for exiles, what with Gallia’s offer that Spartacus and Rasha could live with us in the palace, plus Roxanne already living there and eagerly awaiting the return of Peroz. If they too got married I feared that the King of Carmania would not accept his son’s union and might even banish him. All would be settled either way soon.
Roxanne was finding life as a prospective princess far more agreeable than that of a whore, albeit a highly paid one. Following her arrival at the palace she had been regularly entertained by Aaron and Rachel, Miriam and even Rsan, who felt it incumbent upon himself to offer her his hospitality as the future bride of Carmania’s prince. Even the city’s wealthiest residents had invited her to gatherings, no doubt hoping that by doing so they would ingratiate themselves with Prince Peroz, whose reputation had soared following his battlefield triumphs.
After my return to the city I had visited Miriam to convey to her my deep sorrow at the death of Domitus, a loss I think I felt more keenly than she did. They had only enjoyed a brief time together and now she was a widow for a second time. I was filled with remorse concerning his death but she was very kind as we sat in the mansion that they had made their home, assuring me that her god was kind and that she and Domitus would be reunited in the afterlife. I thought of my dead friend’s worship of Mars, the Roman god of war, and wondered if that angry deity would release the soul of such a great warrior as Lucius Domitus to be with his wife. Shortly afterwards Miriam left the mansion to live in the residence of Aaron and Rachel, who were now parents to two young sons, preferring the laughter and unruliness of children to a life of lonely solitude. Thus once more did the mansion that had formally belonged to Godarz become empty.