‘He can’t just rush out of bed every morning,’ Magnus muttered as one man, even more elaborately dressed than his companions, his beard a bright red, kicked his horse forward to address the waiting garrison.
‘I am Babak,’ the noble called out in fluent Greek, ‘the satrap of Nineveh; the eyes, ears and voice of King Izates bar Monobazus of Adiabene, loyal vassal of Vologases, Great King of all the Kings of the Parthian Empire. To whom do I address myself?’
Paelignus puffed up his pigeon chest and stepped forward and then glanced involuntarily at Vespasian, who nodded his assent.
‘I, Julius Paelignus, Cappadocia procurator, commanding here,’ Paelignus shouted in appalling Greek. ‘What want you, Babak, Nineveh of satrap?’
If Babak was surprised by the standard of Paelignus’ Greek he was far too well mannered to show it; Vespasian now understood why the procurator had addressed his troops in Latin.
Babak indicated the rebuilt walls. ‘The tidings that were brought to me were not unfounded.’
Paelignus looked momentarily confused as he tried to translate in his head; then his eyes brightened. ‘What news to bring found you?’
Babak frowned and then held up his hand for silence as his fellow nobles began muttering amongst themselves. ‘I bring no news, Paelignus, just a request: dismantle what you have rebuilt and return to Cappadocia with your lives.’
This was evidently far too advanced for Paelignus and, as he struggled with the meaning, Vespasian walked forward to take over the negotiations before there was a calamitous error of translation. ‘Honoured Babak, satrap of Nineveh, I can speak for all here without fear of misunderstanding. We are here to safeguard the border of the Emperor’s client kingdom of Armenia while a state of uncertainty prevails.’
‘You have rebuilt the walls of Tigranocerta; there is no uncertainty about that. Equally, there is no uncertainty that that is in direct contravention of the treaty that we have between us. I must ask you to undo what you have done and leave.’
‘And if we do, Babak, will you too leave with your army or will you stay to impose your master’s will on this country and bind it closer to Parthia?’
‘Although my master Izates has recently embraced Judaism, I remain a follower of Assur, the rightful god of Assyria, and continue to fight hitu, the False, with kettu, the Truth. I will not dishonour either the Lord Assur, myself or you, Roman, with a lie; no, we will not leave. We will garrison Tigranocerta and then move on to Artaxata where we will remove this Radamistus and replace him with Tiridates, the younger brother of the King of Kings, Vologases, as he himself has commanded.’
Vespasian smiled inwardly, impressed by Tryphaena’s accurate prediction of events. ‘I thank you for your honesty, Babak. I am sure that you will understand our position: if you will not leave then we cannot do so either; not until honour has been satisfied. However, Babak, we will not cast the first javelin nor release the first arrow.’
Babak nodded to himself as if he were unsurprised by the answer he had received, his fingers twisting the point of his beard. ‘So be it; we shall see honour satisfied. I shall dress for battle.’ With a deft twitch of the reins he pulled his mount round and set off at a canter back down the hill; his entourage followed, leaving their parasol-bearing slaves scampering after their masters to the jeers of the auxiliaries lining the stone walls of Tigranocerta.
‘Well, that told him,’ Magnus observed as shrill horns blared out from the Parthian host. ‘You had him pelting off with his tail between his legs to change his clothes, no doubt for the fourth time today.’
‘Honour to be satisfied? What does that mean, Vespasian? What have you condemned us to?’ Paelignus hissed, his Greek evidently just adequate enough to understand that phrase.
‘Nothing that we can’t cope with, procurator; I suggest you order your prefects to stand the men to and have the Civic Militia mustered and issued with bows and javelins.’
‘You do it, seeing how all this seems to be your suggestion.’ With a suspicious glare Paelignus stalked off.
Vespasian called the prefects over. ‘Gentlemen, our esteemed procurator has left it to me to make the dispositions, which I think is, in the circumstances, a very wise and far-sighted decision.’
‘In that he doesn’t have a clue what to do?’ the prefect Mannius asked.
‘He is the best judge of his own abilities.’ Vespasian suppressed a smile. ‘Mannius, your First Bosporanorum cohort takes this southern wall.’ He looked at the four other prefects. ‘Scapula the east, Bassus the west, Cotta the north, and you, Fregallanus, will keep your lads in reserve. All of you will mount your ballistae on the walls; fix them well — we won’t need to dismantle them for we’ll not be taking them with us when we leave.’
‘When we leave?’ Mannius questioned.
‘Yes, Mannius, when we leave.’ Vespasian’s tone precluded any further discussion on the subject. ‘All of you divide up the Civic Militia equally between you until we get a clue as to which of the walls the Parthians will be favouring with their attentions.’
‘With an army that size it’ll be all of them at once,’ Fregallanus, a battered-looking veteran whose nose seemed to take up half his face, commented sourly.
Vespasian gave him a benign smile. ‘Then splitting them evenly between the walls now is the right decision.’ He glanced south at the enemy; there was much movement within their ranks as units of both light and heavy cavalry peeled off to either side followed by scores of covered wagons. ‘I suggest, gentlemen, that you keep one half of your men resting and the other half on watch and rotate them every four hours. Have the women set up kitchens every two hundred paces and tell them to keep the cooking fires going day and night; I don’t want any of the lads to complain about fighting on an empty stomach. And also have teams of boys and older men ready with fire-fighting equipment, as I imagine that Babak will try and warm things up for us. It would be churlish not to return the favour, so have as much oil and sand heated as possible in case they should make an attempt to get over the walls.’
The five prefects saluted with various degrees of enthusiasm, although Vespasian judged that they would do their duty, and dispersed to carry out their orders. Vespasian joined Magnus who was watching the unfolding manoeuvres of the Parthian army. The cavalry were still splitting off left and right but were making no attempt to encircle the city. One column were crossing the bridge to the western bank and then dismounting and setting up tents and parking their covered wagons on a grassy hill half a mile to the south of the city while the other column headed north, past Tigranocerta, following the Kentrites towards the pass in the next mountain range, some fifty miles distant, leading to Lake Thospitis and the heartland of Armenia.
‘Babak doesn’t seem to be very interested in using his cavalry,’ Magnus observed as yet more of the troopers disappeared north.
‘I think we’ll see why very soon,’ Vespasian replied, straining his eyes further down the Sapphe Bezabde pass. ‘In fact, I can see them now.’
Magnus shaded his eyes and squinted as the last of the cavalry left the pass leaving behind an infantry force that would easily outnumber the defenders of Tigranocerta by at least five or six to one and, behind them, as many slaves. ‘Fuck me!’
Vespasian, once again, declined the offer.
For the remainder of the day the Parthian conscript infantry and slaves crossed the bridge to the western bank and swarmed like ants around the walls of Tigranocerta, just within bowshot and well within the range of the carroballistae, which by midafternoon were all rigged on the defences. Vespasian, however, kept his word and did not give the order to shoot; he knew it was vital for Tryphaena’s scheme that Rome should not be seen as the aggressor, and the more he had thought about her plan, the more he had become determined to see it through to a successful conclusion.