However, the auxiliaries had more pressing concerns than the identity of the man in their midst with the power of life and death: why were they fortifying a city in order to wait behind its reconstructed walls for a Parthian army that was rumoured to be heading their way and would surely outnumber the small Roman force by tens of thousands? But that question was not answered as their centurions and optiones bullied them and their civilian co-workers into working harder, faster and longer, hauling stones, shaping stones, lifting stones, placing stones and doing just about anything with stones that could be conceived even by the most imaginative of centurions.
In five days the four thousand men of the five cohorts and roughly the equivalent number of citizens had repaired most of the large gaps in the two-mile wall to a tolerable standard and it once again stood twenty feet high continuously around the entire city. Now the men were working on the lesser damage in the hope that they could bring the defences up to a state of near-perfection so that the host coming up from the south would break upon the walls when it arrived.
‘Then he said,’ Vespasian continued, ‘that we should at least reduce the number of hours spent repairing the defences every day from twelve to six.’
Magnus looked up to the royal palace that dominated the whole city. ‘So Paelignus is still trying to make himself popular with the men? It’s beyond me why he bothers. None of them is ever going to show that hunchback any respect more than is due to his rank. The way he tries to buy their favour is by slackening their discipline, which, of course, will make them into weaker, sloppier soldiers; and they’re the sort that generally end up dead. Who wants to be popular with dead men?’
‘Quite. I think that if I hadn’t been here, Paelignus would have four thousand very drunk and surly men with which to defend Tigranocerta from the Parthians.’
Magnus knotted his brow, puzzled. ‘From what I can make out, if you weren’t here then none of us would be. And I’m still trying to work out why we’re here anyway.’
Vespasian stopped and looked out to the south, shading his eyes from the midday sun, down the length of the Sapphe Bezabde pass with the Tigris glinting at its base, the Royal Road coupled to its eastern bank; at its far end, thirty or so miles away, the pass opened up into the Parthian satrapy of Adiabene in what had once been Assyria. ‘We’re here because we want the Parthians to attack us; whoever heard of a war without someone attacking someone else?’
‘Yes, but why do we want the Parthians to attack us? And if we do then why didn’t we bring enough men to make a decent fight out of it?’
‘We don’t want a decent fight. In a decent fight lots of men are liable to be killed.’
‘Oh, so fewer of our lads will get killed if we’re outnumbered ten to one than if we had even numbers; is that what you’re saying?’
‘It is indeed.’
‘Then you evidently know less about soldiering than Paelignus.’
‘That’s about to be tested,’ Vespasian said very slowly as his eyes narrowed.
Magnus followed his gaze south to the horizon and then after a few moments he too saw what had taken his friend’s concentration. ‘Fuck me!’
‘I think that we’re all going to be far too busy to take you up on that very kind offer.’ Vespasian did not look away from the dust cloud smudging the horizon.
‘I think you’re probably right,’ Magnus agreed, his eyes also fixed on the brown smear that stained the clear blue sky.
They both stood still staring into the distance because, even though it was thirty or forty miles away, they could tell that the cloud was not caused by a herd of cattle or a trading caravan; no, it was far too big for that, far too big for a legion or even two. This was the dust cloud caused by an army of magnitude.
The Parthians had come; and they had come in force.
‘We should leave immediately!’ Julius Paelignus squawked, recoiling, as if he had been punched, at the sight of the approaching horde.
‘And go where?’ Vespasian asked. ‘Even though they’re still two days away they would catch us out in the open if they were so minded. And I’m sure they would be; their cavalry can move a lot faster than our infantry. We’re safer in here; heavy cavalry are useless in a siege no matter how many they’ve got and their light horse archers will only shoot arrows at us from a distance. As for their infantry, they’ll be mainly conscripts who’re treated not much better than slaves and would rather be anywhere but here.’
Paelignus looked up at Vespasian, his eyes blinking rapidly as if there were specks of dirt in both of them. ‘But they’ll swarm all over us.’
‘How? We’ve got ample men to man the walls now that they’re rebuilt. Their numbers mean little to us. In fact their numbers aid us.’
Paelignus scoffed. ‘Aid us?’
‘Of course, Paelignus. How are they going to feed that massive army, eh? The crops haven’t even sprouted; they won’t be able to stay here for more than half a moon. Now, I suggest you use the time before they arrive to send out foraging parties and get everything edible within a ten-mile radius and bring it within the walls. And also check that all the cisterns are full.’
‘I still think we should leave.’
‘And I suggest that you stay — if you want to live, that is.’
Paelignus’ gaze flicked across the faces of his prefects, each with a wealth of experience of fighting in the East, and each nodded their agreement with Vespasian’s assessment of the situation. ‘Very well; we prepare for a siege. Prefects, send out foraging parties; as many men as we can spare from the final work on the walls. And have the city council round up anyone with suspect pro-Parthian or anti-Roman sentiments.’
‘That’s a very wise decision, procurator,’ Vespasian said without any hint of irony.
Two days later the entire length of the Sapphe Bezabde pass was filled with men and horses; but this huge host was not a dark shadow on the landscape but, rather, a riot of gay colours. Vivid hues of every shade adorned both man and beast as if all were competing to be the most garish in an army where conspicuousness was equated with personal prowess. Banners of strange animal designs fluttered throughout the multitude adding yet more colour and giving Vespasian, who had seen the apparel of many different peoples’ armies in his time, the impression that here was a culture totally alien to him.
The auxiliaries, drab in contrast to the arriving foe, lined the walls of Tigranocerta in regimented ranks of russet tunics and burnished chain mail, their expressions dour and fixed as they watched a party of a dozen or so horsemen cross the east-west bridge and then pick their way gently up the hill towards the main gate under a branch of truce. Each rider had a slave scrambling to keep up with him, holding a large parasol over his master’s head even though the sun had yet to pierce the cloud cover.
Vespasian stood next to Magnus with Paelignus and his prefects on the wall above the gates as the delegation halted a stone’s throw away: a line of bearded men, nobles, on fabulously caparisoned steeds, the richness of which was outdone by the dress of the riders. Brooches of great value, precious stones set in worked gold, fastened vibrant cloaks edged with silver thread over tunics decorated with rich embroidery that would have taken a skilled slave months to achieve. Trousers of contrasting colours were tucked into calf-length boots of red or dun leather that seemed as supple as the skin they protected. Dark eyes stared out solemnly from beneath dyed or hennaed brows that matched the curled and pointed beards protruding from each chin. The delegation’s lavish appearance was topped, literally, with flamboyant headgear littered with pearls and amber and then laced with gold thread.