Ignoring the last comment, Ogelos jumped in. 'It would be hard for anyone to catch a pike or anything else here in the Euphrates now.' Talking fast and earnestly, he addressed himself to Ballista. 'My men tell me that the fishing boats I own have all been taken by the troops. The soldiers call it requisitioning; I call it theft.' His carefully forked beard quivered with righteous indignation.
Before Ballista could reply, Anamu spoke. 'These ridiculous searches at the gates – my couriers are kept waiting for hours, my possessions are ripped apart, ruined, my private documents displayed to all and sundry, Roman citizens are subjected to the grossest indignities… Out of respect for your position, we did not speak out at the council meeting, but now we are in privacy we will – unless that freedom is to be denied us as well?'
Again Ogelos took up the running. 'What sort of freedom are we defending if ten people, ten citizens, cannot meet together? Can no one get married? Are we not to celebrate the rites of our gods?'
'Nothing is more sacred than private property,' Anamu interrupted. 'How dare anyone take our slaves? What next – our wives, our children?'
The complaints continued, the two caravan protectors raising their voices, talking over each other, each drawing to the same conclusion: how could it be worse under the Sassanids, what more could Shapur do to us?
After a time, both men stopped, as if at a signal. Together they turned to larhai. 'Why do you say nothing? You are as much affected as us. Our people look to you as well. How can you stay silent?' larhai shrugged. 'It will be as God wills.' He said nothing more. larhai gave an odd intonation to theos, the Greek word for god. Ballista was as surprised as the other two caravan protectors by his passive fatalism. He noticed that Bathshiba glanced sharply at her father.
'Gentlemen, I hear your complaints, and I understand them.' Ballista looked each in the eye in turn. 'It pains me to do what must be done but there is no other way. You all remember what was done here to the Sassanid garrison, what you and your fellow townsmen did to the Persian garrison, to their wives, to their children.' He paused. 'If the Persians breach the walls of Arete, all that horror will look like child's play. Let no one be in any doubt: if the Persians take this town there will be no one left to ransom the enslaved, no one left to mourn the dead. If Shapur takes this town it will return to the desert. The wild ass will graze in your agora and the wolf will howl in your temples.'
Everyone in the room was staring silently at Ballista. He tried to smile. 'Come, let us try to think of better things. There is a comoedus, an actor, waiting outside. Why don't we call him in and have a reading?'
The comoedus read well, his voice true and clear. It was a beautiful passage from Herodotus, a story from long ago, from the days of Greek freedom, long before the Romans. It was a story of ultimate courage, of the night before Thermopylae, when the incredulous Persian spy reported to Xerxes, the King of Kings, what he had seen of the Greek camp. The three hundred Spartans were stripped to exercise; they combed each other's hair, taking not the least notice of the spy. It was a beautiful passage, but an unfortunate one given the circumstances. The Spartans were preparing to die.
Reaching out to pick up the carcass of one of the chickens, Turpio spoke for the first time that evening. 'Don't the Greeks call this bird a Persian Awakener?' he asked of no one in particular. 'Then we will treat the Sassanid Persians as I treat this.' And he pulled the carcass apart.
There was a smattering of applause, some murmurs of approval.
Unable to bear another, let alone a rough ex-centurion, getting even such muted praise, Callinicus cleared his throat. 'Of course I am no expert in Latin literature,' he simpered, 'but do not some of your writers on farming refer to a valiant breed of fighting cock as the Medica, that is to say the bird of the Medes, who are the Persians? Let us hope that we do not meet one of those.' This ill-timed scholarship was met with a stony silence. The sophist's self-satisfied chuckle faltered and died away.
The desert that now appeared consisted mainly of the usual things – fresh apples and pears, dried dates and figs, smoked cheeses and honey, and walnuts and almonds. Only the placenta in the centre was unusuaclass="underline" everyone agreed they had never seen a larger or finer cheesecake. The wine was changed to the sort of forceful Chalybonian said to be favoured by the kings of Persia.
Watching the Persian boy Bagoas anointing Mamurra with balsam and cinnamon and placing a wreath of flowers on his head, a gleam of malevolence shone in Acilius Glabrio's eyes. The young patrician turned to Ballista, a half-smile playing on his face.
'You are to be congratulated, Dux Ripae, on the close way in which you follow the example of the great Scipio Africanus.'
'I was not aware that I followed directly any illustrious example of the great conqueror of Hannibal.' Ballista spoke lightly, with just a trace of reserve. 'Unfortunately I am not favoured with nocturnal visits from the god Neptune, but at least I have not been put on trial for corruption.' Some polite laughter greeted this display of historical knowledge. At times it was too easy for people to forget the northerner had been educated in the imperial court.
'No, I was thinking of your Persian boy here.' Without looking, Acilius Glabrio waved a hand in his direction.
There was a pause. Not even the sophist Callinicus said anything. At length, Ballista, suspicion in his voice, asked the patrician to enlighten them.
'Well… your Persian boy…' The young nobleman was taking his time, enjoying this. 'Doubtless some with filthy minds will provide a disgusting explanation for his presence in your familia' – now he hurried on – 'but I am not one of those. I put it down to supreme confidence. Scipio, before the battle of Zama which crushed Carthage, caught one of Hannibal's spies creeping round the Roman camp. Rather than kill him, as is normally the way, Scipio ordered that he be shown the camp, taken to see the men drilling, the engines of war, the magazine.' Acilius Glabrio left time for this last to register. 'And then Scipio set the spy free, sent him back to report to Hannibal, maybe gave him a horse to speed him on his way.'
'Appian.' Callinicus could not contain himself. 'In the version of the story told by the historian Appian, there are three spies.' Everyone ignored the sophist's intervention.
'No one should mistake such confidence for overconfidence, let alone for arrogance and stupidity.' Acilius Glabrio leant back and smiled.
'I have no reason to mistrust any of my familia.' Ballista had a face like thunder. 'I have no reason to mistrust Bagoas.'
'Oh no, I am sure that you are right.' The young officer turned his blandest face to the plate in front of him and delicately picked up a walnut.
The morning after the ill-starred dinner given by the Dux Ripae, the Persian boy walked the battlements of Arete. In his head he was indulging in an orgy of revenge. He completely slid over such details as how he would gain his freedom or find the tent-dwellers who had enslaved him, let alone how he would get them in his power. They stood already unarmed before him – or rather, one at a time they grovelled on their knees, held out their hands in supplication. They tore their clothes, tipped dust on their heads, they wept and begged. It did them no good. Knife in hand, sword still on hip, he advanced. They offered him their wives, their children, begged him to enslave them. But he was remorseless. Again and again his left hand shot out, his fingers closed in the rough beard and he pulled the terrified face close to his own, explaining what he was going to do and why. He ignored their sobs, their last pleas. In most cases he pulled up the beard to expose the throat. The knife flashed and the blood sprayed red on to the dusty desert. But not for those three. For the three who had done the things they had done to him, that was not enough, nowhere near enough. The hand yanked up the robes, seized the genitals. The knife flashed and the blood sprayed red on to the dusty desert.