Until this moment Ballista had not known if the Sassanids held to a similar practice. Asking Bagoas had produced no useful answer – 'Of course, Shapur, the beloved of Mazda, has no fear of the weapons of his foes.' More and more the northerner wondered just how much or how little the Persian boy knew about war. Bagoas clearly came from the Persian elite, but was it becoming ever more likely that he was from a family of scribes or priests than one of warriors?
Shapur and his men reined in just outside artillery range. Animated conversation could be seen. The King of Kings was doing most of the talking. Informing his high-status audience of his view of the direction the assault should take, Shapur made wide arcs and sweeps with his arms, the streamers flying behind him.
Ballista stared intently not at Shapur but at two distinctive humps of stone left on either side of the road. The sides facing the wall were painted white. They marked 400 paces, the maximum range of his artillery. Come on, you cowardly eastern bastard. Come on, just have the balls to get within range.
Forcing his mind away, Ballista issued orders for the men to take their lunch no less than two hours earlier than usual. As the messengers moved away, the northerner realized with a nasty lurch that he had not issued the far more pressing orders for every piece of artillery to aim at the Persian king but not to shoot until the Dux Ripae gave the command. As the next batch of messengers moved away, Ballista was slightly reassured by the thought that their message most likely was redundant – it would be a very poor ballistarius indeed who had not already trained the weapon on the man on the white horse.
The trick of turning the washers, slackening the torsion and decreasing the apparent range of the weapons was an old trick, an obvious one. Had it worked? And even if it had, would the traitor have betrayed it? Was the Sassanid mocking him?
Shapur kicked on, and the white horse moved down the road towards the Palmyrene Gate. Past the whitewashed piles of stone, with his meteor trail of the powerful, Shapur came on. Allfather, Deceitful One, Death-Bringer, deliver this man to me.
Ballista was painfully aware of the expectation surrounding him. The dead silence on the battlements was broken only by the small noises of well-oiled machinery being subtly adjusted as the ballistae tracked their target. Wait until he stops moving. Do not snatch at this. Wait until the right moment.
Nearer and nearer came Shapur; closer and closer to the white-painted section of wall at 200 paces.
He stopped.
Ballista spoke.
Antigonus hoisted the looked-for red flag.
Twang – slide – thump: the great twenty-pounder by Ballista hurled its carefully rounded stone. A moment later it was joined by its twin on the gatehouse roof. Then, twang – slide – thump, twang – slide – thump: all the artillery along the western battlements joined in. For a couple of seconds the northerner admired the geometry of it all – the fixed line of the wall, the moving triangle of missiles all converging on the fixed point of the man on the white horse.
The rider in fur next to Shapur was plucked from his horse. Arms wide, the empty sleeves of his coat flapping, the man looked like a large six-limbed insect as the bolt threw him backwards. Towards the rear of the entourage two, maybe three horses and riders went down as a stone reduced them to a bloody shambles.
After the strike there was a shocked near-silence. Only muted sounds could be heard: the click of ratchets, the groan of wood and sinew under gathering pressure, and the grunting of men working frantically. The near-peace was broken by a rising roar of outrage from the horror-struck Sassanid horde.
Shapur took both sides by surprise. Putting spurs to his mount, he kicked it into a gallop straight ahead. Thundering towards the Palmyrene Gate, he pulled his bow from its case, took an arrow from his quiver and notched it. About 150 paces from the gate he skidded to a halt, drew and released the arrow.
Ballista watched its flight. With a superstitious dread he felt that it was coming straight for him. As they always do, it seemed to gain pace as it grew nearer. It fell just short and to the right of the northerner, clattering off the stone of the wall.
Shapur's mouth was moving. He was yelling his outrage, his anger, but the words could not be made out on the wall. Two horsemen drew up on either side of the king. They were shouting. One went so far as to try to grab his reins. Shapur used his bow as a whip to knock the hands aside. The white horse was spun around and, with a shake of his fist, the King of Kings was racing back towards safety.
Twang – slide – thump: the artillery pieces started to speak again. At this distance, against a fast-moving target, Ballista knew there was next to no chance of a projectile finding its mark.
Back in safety, Shapur could be seen riding along the front of the line haranguing his men. They began to chant: 'Sha-pur, Sha-pur.' Along the walls of Arete spread a counter chant: 'Ball-is-ta, Ball-is-ta.'
The Dux Ripae took off his helmet. The south wind caught his long fair hair and blew it out behind him. He waved to his men. 'Ball-is-ta, Ball-is-ta.'
'So, who was it we just killed?' He spoke conversationally.
'Prince Hamazasp the son of Hamazasp the King of Georgia.' Strong but hard-to-read emotions played across Bagoas's face. 'If his spirit is not avenged it will forever more be a stain on the honour of the King of Kings. Now there can be no quarter.'
With a child-like spontaneity Ballista threw his helmet in the air and caught it. 'That should concentrate the boys' minds.' Laughing, he turned to the soldiers on the gatehouse. 'I don't know about you, but I don't fancy letting those magi get their hands on me.' The men laughed in turn. By nightfall, the exchange, often altered and embellished, would have reached every corner of the city.
'How long until their line comes into extreme artillery range?'
'At least a quarter of an hour, maybe more.' As was only right, Mamurra, the praefectus fabrum, the man who was meant to know siege machinery, answered his Dux.
'Then, Calgacus, can you find us some food? Trying to kill the despot of half the known world has made me very hungry.'
Demetrius watched his kyrios eating bread and cold pheasant, talking and joking with the other men: Mamurra, Turpio, Maximus, Antigonus, the crews of the artillery pieces. They were passing a jug from hand to hand. The young Greek had never admired Ballista more. Did the kyrios plan these things or did they just come to him in a divinely inspired flash? Did he always know what he was doing? However it was, it made no difference: it was an act of genius. The hideous actions of the magi, the death of the Georgian prince and the exchange with Bagoas came together to tell a story that anyone could follow. By nightfall every soldier in Arete would be stiffened by the knowledge of what would happen to him if he fell into the hands of the Sassanids: capitulation meant torture and death; better to die on one's feet, weapon in hand.
Soon enough the Persians drew near the line of signs that marked 400 paces from the wall, maximum artillery range. The Dux Ripae had repeatedly stressed the need for these range markers, and those at 200 paces, to be inconspicuous. They were to be visible to the artillerymen but not to attract the attention of the besiegers. The majority of artillery crews had gone for carefully arranged, hopefully natural-looking low humps of dun-coloured rocks. There was not an artilleryman in the town who had not laughed, although only surreptitiously – never when the big man or his vicious-looking bodyguard were around – at the markers opposite the Palmyrene Gate chosen by the Dux himself: 'well, brother, that is a northern barbarian's idea of inconspicuous: two bloody great piles of stone followed by a bloody great wall, the whole lot painted white.'