Domitus looked askance at her and rolled his eyes.
‘You should bring him to heel,’ Domitus said to Orodes.
‘Alas, my friend,’ he replied, ‘the only way I could do so would be to march an army into Gordyene and conquer the kingdom, which I have neither the resources nor desire to do. Parthia is not Rome. The empire is made up of separate kingdoms whose rulers swear allegiance to the king of kings whom they have elected. In my grandfather’s time any disloyalty was severely punished but then Parthia was strong and was not threatened by powerful external enemies.’
‘Surena’s war serves our interests for the moment,’ I said, ‘in that it keeps the Armenians from marching south against Hatra. My main concern is that his depredations may enrage Artavasdes and goad him into launching an offensive at the same time as Crassus invades the empire.’
‘You could attack the Armenians first,’ suggested Domitus.
‘But then Crassus would surely cross the Euphrates while we were preoccupied in the north, swinging north to trap our army between him and the Armenians. I cannot risk that.’
‘The scales are finely balanced,’ said Axsen.
‘Indeed,’ I replied, ‘which is why we need to buy as much time as possible.’
‘And what of the eastern kings,’ probed Axsen, ‘will they assist you?’
‘Phriapatius is loyal,’ I replied, ‘but if the western kingdoms fall I doubt those in the east of the empire will mobilise their forces to fight a war west of the Tigris. They will prefer to wait for the Romans to come to them, thinking they will be stronger on home ground, which will be their undoing.’
‘But you have fought and defeated the Romans before, Pacorus,’ said Axsen, ‘and you have your sorceress on your side.’
I smiled at her. ‘Perhaps I should send her to fight Crassus.’
‘It will take more than sorcery to defeat the Romans,’ said Orodes glumly.
I looked at Domitus who caught my eye but remained stony faced. He had been at Dobbai’s ceremony and had witnessed the strange mist, the ghostly howling and seen the empty places where the clay hounds had been. Did he believe? Did I believe? I wanted to and was thankful when Tigranes had died and Aulus Gabinius had turned back from invading Parthia, but were these events miracles or just coincidences? I wanted to see more miracles to convince me that the gods were truly on our side, but would thinking these things anger them and stop them from assisting us further? I tortured myself with such thoughts as I rode back to Dura from Susa with my horse archers, Domitus and two squires. The latter were in high spirits, Spartacus because he was going back to Dura and so would be nearer to Rasha, Scarab because I had told him that he would be my permanent squire when Spartacus became a cataphract. Scarab would never make it into the ranks of the heavy horsemen. He could shoot a bow with a reasonable degree of accuracy but his sword skills were almost non-existent and his horsemanship left a lot to be desired. Spartacus, like most Parthian males, had been in the saddle almost before he could walk and had learned to shoot a bow and wield a sword and lance from the saddle at an early age. These skills he took for granted because they had been part of his upbringing, but years of experience and learning could not be condensed into months. Some had been surprised that Surena, being from the southern marshlands, had adapted so well to Dura’s horse archers and cataphracts, but he too had been fighting and riding from an early age, albeit horses stolen from the enemy.
So Scarab would remain my squire and servant, but as a free man.
‘There are no slaves in Dura’s palace,’ I told him as we rode along the eastern bank of the Euphrates on the way back to Dura, ‘you know this.’
‘That means you can leave Dura at any time,’ Domitus told him,’ ‘if you get tired of washing Pacorus’ shirts.’
‘The king saved me,’ said Scarab, ‘therefore I am forever in his debt and will only leave him if he dismisses me.’
He really did not understand the concept of freedom.
‘Being free means taking your own decisions, Scarab,’ I said, ‘not being told what to do. To forge your own destiny and live your life in freedom and not in chains.’
‘My destiny is to serve you, majesty. That is what the gods have decreed and it is unwise to ignore their wishes. Therefore I pledge my life to your service.’
‘Sounds like slavery to me,’ grinned Domitus, who then eyed Spartacus, ‘a bit like marriage.’
‘What about your family, Scarab?’ I asked, ‘would you not like to search for them. Being free means that you can travel back to Egypt and find them.
He shook his head. ‘I was sold into slavery when I was an infant and do not know the location of the market where I was sold. I have no knowledge of my family.’
‘I am sorry,’ I said.
‘It is the will of the gods,’ he replied casually. ‘You have known your family, majesty, and Spartacus his, a great blessing. And you, lord general,’ he asked Domitus, ‘do you have knowledge of your parents?’
I smiled knowingly. Scarab might as well ask a stone by the side of the road to explain its ancestry for Lucius Domitus never spoke of his past.
‘My mother was a kitchen slave, a cook, in the villa of a Roman patrician in Capena, near Rome. The man was very rich and had been a commander of a legion, a legate, and had been richly rewarded for his services by a grateful Senate. My mother was the daughter and granddaughter of slaves so she told me and had been purchased in the slave market by her master, a white-haired man named Quintus Sergius.
‘You are probably thinking that I was born to slave parents but you would be wrong. My father, if you can call him that, was the son of Quintus Sergius, a tribune who took a fancy to the good-looking slave girl in the kitchens and raped her, though others might say he seduced her. I believed my mother in the matter. He returned to Spain where he was killed soon afterwards but his father knew the truth and when she gave birth to me he treated her kindly, giving her light duties in his household and ensuring that her son prospered. She was still a slave of course and he would never admit that the slave baby she bore was his grandchild, but the guilt he felt over his son’s actions compelled him to attempt to atone for the great affront done to my mother, and I think that in me he saw a memory of his son. He was quite old when I was born and his wife was older and so they would never have any more children.
‘I grew up a kitchen slave but one who was taught to read and write. Quintus Sergius also told me stories of Rome’s wars and life in the legions and was delighted when I said that I wanted to join the army. And so, on my seventeenth birthday, he gave me a formal manumission, which meant I was free and became a Roman citizen. As a citizen I could join the army and with my former master’s letter of recommendation my acceptance was assured. My mother did not wish me to leave, of course, but he had filled my head with notions of glory and adventure and I could not wait to wield a sword and kill Rome’s enemies.
‘I can still see her, standing near the villa’s entrance in her apron with the other slaves as I rode with Quintus Sergius to the nearby legionary barracks. It was a bright spring day and the air was full of the aroma of pine and I thought myself very special riding next to a war hero to follow in his footsteps.
‘I never saw my mother again though she wrote to me often. Two years later Quintus Sergius himself wrote to me saying that she had died of a fever. So you see, Nubian, like you I have no family except those I call family who live in Dura.’
I nearly fell off my horse. In all the time that I had known Domitus I had never heard him divulge this information.
‘I am glad that Quintus Sergius died before I was condemned to the silver mine,’ Domitus continued. ‘It would have upset him greatly and I did not desire that. He was always good to my mother and me and I owed him a great deal. If he is watching me now I hope that he is pleased with the army I have helped to create.’