Four troops of light infantry, all bowmen, emerged next, in no great order. These were not regular units of the Roman army but ad hoc bands of warriors, mercenaries, fugitives and exiles from the wilder reaches of the empire: 400 Armenians, 200 tent-dwelling Saracens, 400 Mesopotamians, 300 Itureans. They did not march. The men of the four numeri slouched or swaggered, each as the mood took him. At least the Itureans were famed for the deadly accuracy of their black-fletched arrows. They were followed by a new unit of slingers. Ballista had created this by combining a ridiculously small unit of a hundred and fifty sedentary Arabs with two hundred volunteers from the Armenians. He had appointed the young Danubian Sandario to command them.
We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.
The braying of mules and a stench of camel announced the approach of the baggage train. Ballista had appointed his old subordinate, Titus Flavius Turpio, as Praefectus Castrorum, to be in charge of it. The ever-humorous face of Turpio appeared. Ballista was glad to see him. It was important to have as many men as possible in place you could trust. When Ballista had first met the ex-centurion Turpio he had distrusted him intensely. Then, in Arete, he had found him guilty of embezzling funds from his unit. Turpio claimed he had been blackmailed into it, and after that his service, both in the siege and in the desperate flight from the city, had earned him the right to be trusted. Besides, Ballista had grown fond of Turpio. There was something deeply reassuring about the way he reacted to any news, no matter how bad, with just a slight grin and a quizzical look, as if once again surprised by the follies of humanity or the capriciousness of fate.
With shouts, and provoking animal squeals, the civilian porters gradually bullied the baggage train along. Ballista's mind wandered. 'The young eupatrid sends you this.' Ballista knew he had many enemies. Who among them would a hired blade from the backstreets of Antioch describe as well born? Gaius Acilius Glabrio certainly. The sons of Macrianus, Quietus and Macrianus the Younger, almost certainly. Videric, the son of Fritigern, the King of the Borani, just possibly, if racial prejudice was set aside. At any event, further attempts were far less likely while Ballista was in the heart of his army.
The squeal of an axle pulled Ballista's mind back to the present. In the midst of the baggage train were five carts. Ballista had given explicit orders that no wheeled transport was to accompany the army. Who had dared ignore his orders? Even as he formulated the question, an answer came to him: the carts were smart, freshly painted, expensive – the carts of a rich man, a high officer. In the interests of discipline, Ballista could not let Gaius Acilius Glabrio flout his orders.
At long, long last, the end of the baggage train passed. The stolid, almost bovine face of Mucapor appeared at the head of the Equites Singulares. It was time to go. Ballista turned in the saddle and took one lingering, last look at the window in the tower, willing himself to remember every detaiclass="underline" Julia's long, dark hair, the boy's golden curls. He raised his hand in valediction. He saw the frantic waving of Isangrim's small hand. He turned Pale Horse away. Breathing shallowly, controlling himself, he rode away down the road to Beroea and beyond to Circesium, the city on the Euphrates he had to save.
*
They made the discovery in Antioch the day after Ballista rode out.
The superintendent hated this side of things. All the other duties that came with being one of the Epimeletai ton Phylon were close to unalloyed joy. Striding through the streets at night, a troop of burly Club Bearers at his back, felt close to being a hero, even a god. The knock on the door at midnight, the placating smiles of the merchants as they hurried to relight the offending, extinguished lamp, the return to the warmth and mulled wine of his official office on the agora – it was all good. But this side of things was not. There were eighteen Superintendents of the Tribes, and it always seemed to happen when he was on duty. This was the third in as many days.
'Fish it out.' This turned out to be easier said than done. The corpse was wedged in a grating at the opening of a tunnel where a storm drain ran under a street in the Epiphania district. The heavy winter rains which had been falling up on Mount Silpius meant the water was running deep and fast. One arm of the corpse, about all that could be seen in the dark, swirling water, banged against the metal as if seeking to call attention to itself.
The Club Bearers busied themselves with ropes and hooks. So far, it was impossible to tell if the corpse was that of a man or woman, or even a child. The superintendent, hunched in his furs, looked at the skies. It was not raining now, but a leaden sky looked as it might presage snow. It would be colder than Hades in the water, the superintendent thought absently.
Eventually, soaked to the skin, the Club Bearers dragged the corpse out of the water. They deposited it at the feet of the superintendent. Part of him wanted to look away, but part of him was drawn to look by a morbid fascination. The gods below knew he had seen enough of the things.
It was a man dressed in just a ripped tunic. If he had ever had them, belt, cloak and sandals were long gone, taken by the water or his killers.
'He did not fall in. No accident or suicide. His throat has been cut.' The superintendent spoke out loud but to himself. He leant over to peer closely at the corpse. It was only a little knocked about; it had not been in the water long. The man had not been dead more than a day or so.
The superintendent straightened up, easing his back. These days, it always played up in damp weather. He hoped that his wife had told the new girl to buy the proper ointment this time. He looked down at the corpse, thinking. The third murdered man in three days. This one was a nondescript man with a jagged scar on his right hand. The big barbarian officer had ridden out the day before, and now here was the corpse of the leader of the street gang of his would-be assassins. The other two corpses from the previous couple of days could well be the underlings who had escaped from the attempt in the alley in the Jewish quarter. The superintendent did not yet see how this got anyone much further forward, but he was still thinking. It was starting to snow.
VIII
'Hercules' hairy arse… our heroic general, mooning over a letter like a lovesick girl… lost like a man in the Highlands with the fog coming down, oh shite, what chance have we got… doomed, we are all fucking doomed.' Then, at the same volume but in a somewhat different tone, Calgacus continued, 'Gaius Acilius Glabrio awaits your pleasure. He is outside in answer to your summons.'
The Caledonian's voice rang round the main room of the post-house of the cursus publicus in the town of Batnae, which had been taken over as Ballista's temporary headquarters at the end of the eleventh day's march out of Antioch.
'Well, are you going to fucking say something?'
Although taciturn to the point of monosyllabism when asked about his dominus in public, over the years Calgacus appeared to have developed the strange conceit that if, when in private with Ballista and the intimate members of his familia, he spoke in a self-reflective tone, as if just thinking aloud, his querulous mutterings would be perfectly inaudible. Volume did not come into it.
'Thank you very much. Once you have shown him in you can go back to bothering the baggage animals.'
Calgacus' thin, shrewish face gazed at Ballista for a few moments then turned away. 'Bother the baggage animals, and when would I find time to get my leg over anything, woman or beast, working my fingers to the bone night and day looking after you?' The tirade was cut off as Calgacus shut the door behind himself. Smiling, the object of his complaints slid the letter, seal untouched, under the daily log of Equites Primi Catafractarii Parthi, one of the several that he had been working through. The further postponing of the reading of it merely served to heighten his anticipation.