Orodes and Atrax were aghast at her words and Gallia was fuming, while Nergal and Praxima looked distinctly uncomfortable.
‘You should have come sooner, Pacorus,’ said Adeleh. ‘Vata was your childhood friend.’
‘You waste your words, sister,’ hissed Aliyeh. ‘Our brother has become Haytham’s pet and takes orders from Palmyra, not Ctesiphon.’
At a stroke she insulted both Orodes and me by insinuating he was a weak high king who had no control over his empire. I jumped up.
‘Enough! I did not come here to be insulted by you. One day you will talk your head off your shoulders.’
Atrax then rose slowly from his chair. ‘You forget yourself, Pacorus. Aliyeh is a queen and should be treated as such.’
Aliyeh smiled maliciously at me. ‘It is quite all right, Atrax. Pacorus has spent too long in the company of the Agraci and has adopted their manners and customs, it seems.’
Gallia leapt up and pointed at Aliyeh. ‘And you need to learn some manners.’
Aliyeh looked at Gafarn, a hurt expression on her face. ‘Are you going to allow me to be spoken to thus in the palace where I grew up? My father would not have allowed such a thing.’
‘Do not speak of my father,’ I warned her.
Gafarn raised his hand. ‘Can you all please compose yourselves and sit down. This is no time for a family squabble.’
Aliyeh regarded me contemptuously. ‘Is he a member of our family? I sometimes wonder.’
‘And I often wonder how such a spiteful, mean and nasty woman could be the daughter of my parents.’
‘If you insult my wife once more,’ said Atrax, ‘I will have no choice but to draw my sword against you, Pacorus, though I would rather die a thousand times before I did so.’
‘You are a true friend and man of honour, Atrax,’ I said, ‘and because of that I will withdraw from this assembly since I can see that my presence offends some among it. For I would rather cut off my own sword arm than raise it against you.’
I bowed my head to him and then Orodes, turned on my heels and walked towards the doors. Orodes and Gafarn called after me to stop but I ignored their pleas. Gallia likewise took her leave and came to my side.
After we had left the throne room we went to search for my mother, finding her in the garden she had tended so lovingly for years. She was kneeling in front of a bed of red chrysanthemums when we walked slowly up to her and halted. Sensing our presence, she stopped her digging and turned and smiled. I was shocked by her appearance. Her long black curly hair was now streaked with grey and she had lost a lot of weight so that her arms were thin and her face somewhat gaunt. Her brown eyes were full of pain and sorrow and my own eyes misted as I ran over to her and held her tight. She began to cry but then stiffened and released me, composing herself before she walked over to Gallia and embraced her.
‘How are you, mother?’ I asked.
‘Worked off my feet, Pacorus. I have been trying to bed in these chrysanthemums but there are never enough hours in the day.’
I smiled. ‘You have a small army of gardeners to help you.’
‘Oh, they are competent enough but flowers require loving care for them to flourish. Your father is always telling me…’
She stopped and held a hand to her mouth, then turned away from us and went back to her digging. I knelt beside her.
‘I am sorry about father. I wish it had been me in his place.’
She cupped my face with her hand. ‘No, Pacorus. It was his time. He died fighting for what he believed was proper and just and I think events have proved him right. Orodes is a good man.’
‘Yes he is,’ I agreed. ‘And Gafarn is a good king.’
‘Your brother thinks that you should be King of Hatra but I told him many years ago that the gods decided you should take a different path.’
She put down her trowel and stood.
‘Gallia, dear, you are looking very well. Did you bring my grandchildren?’
Gallia looked at me in alarm. It was as if nothing existed to my mother beyond this garden and the Armenians and Romans were mere figments of our imagination.
‘We left them in Dura, mother,’ replied Gallia, linking her arm in hers, ‘but we will bring them very soon.’
And so we walked with her under cypress trees, willow and date palms; along paths between ponds filled with carp and goldfish; the sweet fragrance of jasmine and myrtle filling the air. White doves flew around us and peacocks displayed their plumage. It was a place of serenity and beauty where one could forget the horrors of the outside world and the creeping doom that was approaching Hatra; a sanctuary that my mother had escaped to and in her mind would never leave.
The armies of the kings had made their camp to the north of the city and that was where Gallia and I slept that night, happy to be away from the poisonous barbs of my sisters. Adeleh I could forgive because of her grief but Aliyeh had incensed me.
‘I have a mind to ride back to Dura in the morning,’ I said to Gallia as we sat outside our tent waiting for Scarab to return from the field kitchens with our evening meal.
‘Orodes and Gafarn need you. We must present a united front against the Armenians.’
I scraped at the earth with the heel of my boot. ‘She never used to be like that, Aliyeh I mean. She was always serious and somewhat aloof but never scheming or malicious.’
‘Power has corrupted her,’ mused Gallia.
‘No doubt she has been bending Atrax’s ear about launching an attack against the Armenians to avenge Vata.’
‘You do not think we can defeat the Armenians?’
I shrugged. ‘If we fight them it must be on our own terms, not theirs. At the moment Tigranes is strong and has inflicted two successive defeats on us. He and his army will be confident that they can do so again. On the other hand, if we wait his strength will only increase when the Romans reinforce him. The next few days will be crucial.’
Scarab returned with freshly roasted goat and chicken, plus wine that Gafarn had sent from the city earlier. I told him to eat with us but I could tell he was most uncomfortable because he hardly ate anything and watched both of us all the time, offering to refill our cups after we had sipped from them and generally acting like a slave. Old habits die hard and it would take him a while to adjust to his new life.
The ending of the day was far more agreeable than its earlier part when Nergal and Praxima arrived with a hundred of their horse archers dressed in red kaftans, over which they wore scale armour cuirasses and helmets on their heads. Scarab fetched two more stools so our friends could sit with us while their men dismounted and I told them to go and get themselves something to eat.
The sun was casting long shadows and the sky was now turning orange and purple as the day waned and evening approached. Scarab threw more sticks on the fire and served our guests wine. Praxima found it difficult not to laugh as he bowed and called her ‘divinity’.
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘you are correct to address them so, for to the people of Mesene they are gods.’
Scarab looked most impressed by this news and bowed even lower, averting his eyes from theirs as he retreated from our presence.
‘Where did you get him from?’ asked Nergal.
‘We picked him up during our recent meeting with the Romans,’ I said. ‘He was a slave and now he’s my squire.’
‘There is a meeting in the palace tomorrow, Pacorus,’ said Nergal, changing the subject, ‘to discuss how we are going to deal with the Armenians.’
‘Sending my eldest sister to batter them with her tongue would be a good start,’ I suggested.
‘The Armenians need to be stopped,’ said Praxima, ‘else they will swallow up all the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates.’
She was right. Tigranes stood on the verge of victory and there appeared very little that we could do about it. I thought back to that night when Dobbai had performed her ritual. Where were the gods; had it all been in vain? Perhaps I had been wrong to put any faith in a rambling old woman.