In the armouries, meanwhile, the blade that Arsam had been working on was once more heated in the fire until it was red hot before being plunged into a vat of heated oil. Afterwards it was allowed to cool naturally to bring the tempering and hardening process to an end. The next day it was fitted with a walnut grip and Arsam himself brought it to the palace in the afternoon.
The throne room was packed when he strode across the stone tiles to present me with it. It had been encased in a red leather scabbard with brass fittings and Arsam looked very pleased with himself as he bowed before me and held out the sword. I rose from my throne, took it and then drew the sword from the scabbard. Like Lord Simuka’s weapon it had a black blade that had strange swirling patterns along its length.
I looked at the dozens of faces staring at me, including Kronos’ replacement, a serious native of Pontus named Chrestus who had travelled from his homeland with his former commander in the aftermath of his land’s occupation by the Romans.
All the company commanders of the cataphracts were present along with Vagises and his senior officers from the horse archers, while opposite them stood the cohort commanders from the Durans and Exiles. I smiled to myself — how tribal men were. Despite Dura’s army being composed of a myriad of different races once men joined a formation their immediate allegiance was to that unit and the men who were a part of it. They all owed loyalty to me but they died for their friends.
I stepped from the dais and nodded at Domitus who left his officers to face me. He raised his arms.
‘This should not take long,’ he shouted, prompting cheers and whistles from those around the walls. Gallia and the Amazons grouped around her laughed as Dobbai waved a hand dismissively at the racket and sat down on my throne, much to the consternation of Rsan and Aaron. Peroz glanced at the tall Scarab nervously but the latter was all reassuring smiles. I saw Arsam standing near the doors to the chamber, arms folded, in the company of Lord Simuka’s armourer. The latter, surrounded by a dozen of his brightly dressed warriors, stood nodding and smiled at me.
I drew my new sword from its sheath and threw the scabbard at Chrestus.
‘Remember,’ I said to Domitus who stood like a ravenous wolf gripping his gladius, ‘this is only to test my sword.’
He grinned evilly and then came at me with a series of blistering attacking strokes, hacking left and right in quick succession. I parried his blows as he forced me back towards the dais. The chamber was filled with whoops and screams as the spectators cheered us on. As I had a longer blade it should have been easy for me to keep him at bay, but he wielded his blade so deftly that I had difficulty and it took all my concentration to block it.
I jumped to the left and aimed two scything strokes at his shoulders that he met with his gladius before aiming a downward cut at my left leg. I blocked this and then raised my sword above my head and used it to deliver a vertical cut. In combat the intent would be to split an opponent’s skull but as Domitus was one of my dearest friends I aimed the blow to miss his head and left shoulder. Nevertheless, he instinctively raised his gladius above his head, parallel to the ground, to block the blow. The two blades struck each other and the top half of the gladius was sheared off and fell to the ground.
I stepped back as the tumult died instantly and a wall of faces stared in disbelief at what they had just witnessed. Domitus stopped, picked up his broken blade and looked at me.
‘That settles it, then.’
I examine the black-bladed spatha etched with its magical swirling patterns. ‘Yes, it is settled.’
The cataphract officers nodded to each other and smiled because they knew that they and their men would now be receiving these marvellous swords. I walked over to Lord Simuka.
‘You have your thousand gold bars.’
He bowed his head to me. ‘Majesty.’
After everyone had left I instructed Aaron to pay Lord Simuka immediately. He generously offered to stay at Dura for a few more weeks to ensure that there was no problem with the rest of the ingots, which in the proceeding days were transported from the storerooms in Orodes’ old mansion to the armouries. Arsam made the production of the new swords a priority, his task made easier by the fact that his armouries were already highly efficient centres of production. The small and costly army of smiths and their apprentices meant that the manufacturing process was both speedy and cost efficient, though if the cost of procuring the base metal was taken into account then Dura’s new swords would be the most expensive weapons in history!
Though Arsam himself had made the first sword, which had been fitted with a temporary hilt, it went back to the workshops to be fitted with a proper grip and was also sharpened. At Dura sword production was carried out in stages and in different workshops. First a blade was forge by two strikers, after which it was sent to a separate workshop for grinding. From there it went to a third workshop for hilting and then to a fourth where it was fitted with a scabbard. On average it took ten days to turn a round ingot into a sword complete with scabbard.
Even working day and night and paying for extra shifts the maximum that the armouries could produce was a hundred of the new swords a month, which meant ten months of work devoted to them alone. In addition, Arsam was also tasked with producing the new arrows as well as manufacturing replacement items — mail armour, scale armour, tubular steel armour for arms and legs, helmets, swords, daggers, bows and arrows — for the army. Aaron’s hair began to show flecks of grey as the weekly council meetings revealed the amount of gold that was being spent on the army.
A month later Lord Simuka and his men made ready to depart Dura with a thousand gold bars loaded on the backs of their camels. He had brought only a hundred men with him on his journey to the city but I gave him an escort of two thousand horse archers for his return trip. It became common knowledge that I had paid him a great sum for the precious metal he brought with him from east of the Indus and a paltry hundred men would be scant protection as Lord Simuka travelled back east. I was especially worried about his crossing of Susiana, Elymais and Persis, all of which were probably filled with roving bands of former soldiers of Narses now turned bandits. I therefore sent a courier to Nergal asking that he allocate more horsemen to Lord Simuka’s party when it reached the borders of Mesene, and another to Carmania to request that King Phriapatius meet with him when he reached his own frontier.
Soon afterwards we had a welcome visit from Orodes in the company of Axsen who had never visited Dura. The day was hot and sunny when he rode through the Palmyrene Gate in the company of his wife and received an ecstatic reception from the population, who lined the main street and threw flowers at the royal couple and their bodyguard as they passed. Many of the latter had been quartered in the city when Orodes had lived in Dura and they tipped the points of their lances towards the crowds so they could be garlanded.
Typically, Orodes and Axsen dismounted to get closer to the crowds, which the legionaries who lined the route had difficulty in holding back. Orodes had always been a popular resident of the city, famed for his generous and warm nature and the people had taken to him as one of their own. Now he was king of kings and they were doubly pleased. It took a full hour for the royal party to reach the Citadel and I was worried that that it might be overwhelmed by a wave of adulation and so despatched Domitus with two hundred legionaries to ensure the royal couple reached the palace in one piece.
Eventually they walked through the Citadel’s gates to polite applause from the city’s most important citizens who had been invited to attend the palace. Soldiers lined the walls and a hundred cataphracts on foot and in full dress stood to attention either side of the palace steps.