I went to protest but he held up a hand to me. ‘It is not a request it is a command, unless you would defy your king of kings.’
I bowed my head. ‘As you desire, lord king.’
Though I was pleased that my plan had been adopted I was less so by my new appointment. I had held the post before when the father of Orodes, Phraates, had been king of kings and had not particularly enjoyed it. Still, it gave me control over all the armies that Parthia could put in the field, theoretically at least. Orodes had my appointment proclaimed to the whole city and despatched couriers to the far corners of the empire to spread the news. No doubt it would be received coolly by the empire’s eastern kings whose armies had been worsted at my hands in the past. That did not matter. What did was to stop them thinking that there was any merit in supporting the returned Mithridates.
I said my farewells to an emotional Diana that afternoon in her private chambers in the palace, young Pacorus in attendance. The son they had named after me was seven years old now and had inherited his father’s slender frame and his mother’s amiable disposition. We were soon joined by Gafarn, Nergal, Praxima and Gallia, the latter embracing her friend and telling her not to worry.
‘Now that Pacorus is lord high general I will not worry,’ she said.
‘I hope I will be able to repay your faith in me,’ I replied.
‘I wish I was coming with you,’ remarked Praxima, ‘to kill Mithridates, I mean.’
‘Do not worry,’ I assured her, ‘there will be enough killing to go round before long.’
‘Will you see your sisters before you leave?’ queried Diana. Ever the peacemaker.
‘No,’ I stated flatly. ‘But I would advise you to encourage Adeleh to join Aliyeh when she goes back to Irbil to get them both out of the way.’
‘Adeleh would never leave her mother and Hatra,’ said a horrified Diana. ‘This is her home.’
I sighed. ‘Her home was Nisibus, but she lost that when she encouraged Vata to fight the Armenians, and am I right in thinking, Gafarn, that she pestered you to march against Tigranes as well?’
Gafarn looked uncomfortable but said nothing.
‘I will take your silence as confirmation of this. Clear heads and hard hearts are what are needed at this time. Sentimentality will get us all killed.’
‘Thank you Pacorus,’ said Gallia, ‘we are not a group of your officers.’
‘More’s the pity,’ I mumbled.
Later I sent a courier to Dura to alert Domitus to my intentions and to order him to bring the legions over the Euphrates and head for Seleucia. I also told him that Nergal was marching to the city to reinforce Haytham in the event of the Romans once more advancing from Emesa. Gallia informed me that she and the Amazons would also be travelling back to Dura with Nergal and Praxima.
‘You could stay here,’ I said as I finished a letter to Surena informing him of the decisions taken at Hatra.
‘I would only come to blows with your sisters if I did and that would upset your mother and Diana, so it is best I return home to be with the children.’
That afternoon we both went to see my mother in her garden. We found her sitting in the pagoda with a ghost from another time. My mother, dressed in a simple white gown with her hair gathered behind her head held in place by a large gold clip, was cleaning the fingernails of a woman we had brought back with us from Italy.
‘Rubi?’ Gallia scarcely believed her eyes as the ghost turned to look at the strangers who approached her.
She had been a slave whom we had rescued near the town of Rubi in Italy, after which Gallia had named her. The Roman slave catchers had cut out her tongue and so the only sounds she could make were grunts and hisses. She recognised Gallia instantly, jumped out of her seat and threw her arms round my wife.
‘Hello Rubi. It is good to see you.’
‘Rubi,’ snapped my mother, ‘please come and sit down.’
Rubi looked at my mother with a hurt expression and then slunk back to her chair and held out her hand to my mother.
‘How are you Rubi?’ I enquired.
She saw me and hissed, baring her teeth.
‘Don’t upset her, Pacorus,’ said my mother.
Slaves standing at the edge of the pagoda positioned two chairs near my mother for us to sit in as others brought fruit juice and pastries.
‘How has she been?’ Gallia asked my mother, smiling at Rubi.
‘She likes it here, among the flowers and trees. I have the Sisters of Shamash bring her here as much as possible.’
The Sisters of Shamash were an order of virgins who had pledged their lives to the Sun God. In addition to their religious duties they cared for the mad, orphans and cripples who were brought to the gates of their walled sanctuary positioned behind the Great Temple.
‘You are leaving, then?’ said my mother.
‘The affairs of the empire demand my attention, mother.’
She smiled at Rubi. ‘Well, when you return you must bring my grandchildren. I have not seen them in an age.’
‘We will bring them soon,’ promised Gallia.
We sat with them both as my mother finished cleaning Rubi’s fingernails. She immediately went back to the flowerbeds and began pawing at the earth with her hands. My mother shook her head.
‘Poor Rubi, she doesn’t understand.’ She sighed. ‘It seems like yesterday when you brought her here. So much has happened since then. Things have never been the same since Sinatruces died.’
‘Sinatruces?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she rebuked me, ‘he was the king of kings and since his death things have taken a turn for the worse.’
‘I hope things will return to as they were, mother.’
She frowned at me. ‘Don’t be absurd. Things can never be as they were. I hope you have not brought any more Agraci here. People took a very dim view of it.’
We left her in the company of Rubi and returned with sad hearts to our quarters. The death of my father had affected her deeply and I worried that she was losing her mind. She was like a lost soul and there was nothing I could do.
We left Hatra the next day, Gallia and the Amazons riding west with Nergal and Praxima towards Dura while I journeyed south with my horsemen to rendezvous with Domitus in southern Hatra, at a spot on the Euphrates some one hundred miles southwest of Dura and around eighty miles from Seleucia. We had heard from Babylon that Axsen was safe in the city and had sent troops of the garrison to reinforce Mardonius at Seleucia. I was not unduly worried about Orodes’ wife — Babylon’s walls were high and were surrounded by a deep moat. Narses himself had twice tried to storm the city and had failed. Seleucia was a different matter, though. Its defences were average at best and Marcus’ machines had done much damage to them during our recent assault on them.
The road was devoid of caravans and the small mud-brick forts that my father had established throughout his kingdom were also standing empty. Their garrisons had been sent north to the city. Just as the old year was dying so the Kingdom of Hatra appeared to be ailing — an indication that the empire itself was in a fragile state.
I rode at the head of our column of horses and camels in the company of Vagises, Scarab and Vagharsh, who carried my griffin banner in its wax sleeve. Ahead and on our flanks rode parties of horse archers to ensure we did not run into any of Mithridates’ soldiers, who were no doubt plundering far and wide anything of value. Beyond them Byrd’s men scouted our route. In his and Malik’s absence they became even more elusive and distant. Their commander, a gruff Agraci warrior with a thick black beard, rode in every night to report to me. He told me that that the land was empty and there was no sign of the enemy. Hardly surprising: we were moving in a southwesterly direction towards the Euphrates.
I had been tempted to strike southeast with just my horsemen to try and catch Mithridates before he reached Seleucia but the reports sent by Herneus at Assur estimated Mithridates’ army to be around fifty thousand strong — too many for four thousand horsemen to fight.