Vespasian positioned himself directly underneath him; as Magnus hurtled to the ground he stretched out his arms, not in an attempt to catch him but to break his fall. The impact sent him crunching down onto his buttocks as Magnus bounced off him, hitting the ground with a lung-emptying thump before disappearing over the edge. Down he rolled, sending up clouds of dust and obscenities. With a quick check to see if Hormus was in one piece, Vespasian leapt after him as the first javelin quivered in the ground, just to his right.
The slope was loose scree and Vespasian found himself once again grateful for the trousers as his legs were spared much of the grazing and tearing from the sharp stones; his momentum increased. He could hear Hormus just behind him but could see very little, enveloped as he was in a cloud of dust on a moonless night. The slope gradually levelled out towards its base and his speed decreased until he stopped, jolting as he thudded into an object that groaned in pain as he hit it. Hormus then tumbled on top of him in a flurry of gravel.
‘Jupiter’s cock,’ Magnus grumbled, his teeth clenched as he gingerly touched his left arm, ‘you’ve got the whole fucking hillside to break your fall with and you both choose to do it on me instead.’
An arrow slamming into the ground next to them caused Magnus to cut short his complaint and in an instant they were on their feet sprinting towards the Parthian lines, two hundred paces away. Arrows whipped about them and shouts followed them. Vespasian glanced over his left shoulder and saw that the south gate remained shut; perhaps there would be no pursuit.
Magnus groaned with effort and pain as he ran, cradling his left arm and limping badly on the same foot. Vespasian slowed and put his arm around Magnus’ shoulders, taking some of the weight as they ploughed on through the darkness. The arrows trailed off as the gloom swallowed them and soon they felt safe enough to stop and assess the damage. Magnus slumped down on the ground and Hormus examined his arm.
Vespasian did not need to be told that it was broken; the angle of the wrist attested to the fact.
‘We need to get that set properly,’ Hormus said as Magnus shoved him away and nursed his injury protectively.
‘Oh yes? And where are we going to do that?’ he hissed.
‘He’s right, Magnus,’ Vespasian said. ‘If we don’t, you might never be able to use that hand again. We’re just about to walk through an army and if there is one profession that clings to armies almost as much as whores do, it’s doctors.’
Vespasian peered forward; the three men seated around the fire seemed to be dozing with their chins on their chests. It was the fourth such fire that they had checked but the first where the sentries seemed to be less fastidious about their duties.
Magnus tutted, in spite of his pain. ‘Asleep on duty; they’d be beaten to death by their mates in our army.’
‘Yes, well, let’s be thankful that the Parthians seem to have a more lax view of discipline,’ Vespasian said. ‘Hormus, you go first; if you’re challenged, give them your best Aramaic.’ He looked at Magnus in the gloom. ‘Just remember if you’re going to moan, groan, mutter or mumble to do it in Greek; there’re plenty of Greek speakers in the Great King’s army but precious few Latin ones.’
Magnus grumbled something in Greek as Hormus stood and walked forward, skirting the fire.
None of the guards stirred as Hormus approached. Vespasian and Magnus followed close behind, hardly daring to breathe, keeping as much in the shadows as possible. The noise from the camp, even at this time of night, was enough to drown their footsteps. Just as they were level with the fire, one of the guards snorted in his sleep, causing him to splutter and shocking him awake. He opened his eyes and looked directly at Magnus. Hormus shouted in Aramaic and the guard turned to see where the noise had come from. Again Hormus shouted a sentence and then the guard started to laugh; he nudged his fellows awake and said something to them which made them smile, bleary eyed. The guard shouted something back at Hormus and waved them on and then added, with a grin, what sounded to be a quip; Vespasian and Magnus did not need a second invitation and, grinning back at the guard, they moved on.
‘What did you tell them?’ Vespasian asked once they were well within the camp perimeter and feeling less conspicuous.
Hormus looked shyly at his master. ‘I said that my friend had broken his arm getting too close to the rear of a mule and we were looking for a doctor. They got the inference immediately and said that some doctors could be found towards the rear of the camp if we headed straight through. Then he asked if the mule needed a doctor too.’
Vespasian suppressed a laugh; Magnus mumbled something about jokes at his expense while he was in agony.
They walked slowly and with confidence through the camp as if they had every right to be there. After so long by himself in a sealed tomb, Vespasian found the variety of new sights, sounds and smells overwhelming and he had to fight the urge to take his slave’s hand again, telling himself that it would soon pass as he readjusted to being part of the world.
In the short time that it took them to traverse the Parthian camp Vespasian heard more than a dozen different languages, saw as many, if not more, styles of dress and smelt so many different and new spices and herbs on the steam and smoke wafting from the cooking fires that his head would have spun even if he had not just been released from a solitary cell earlier that day.
Having asked for directions a couple of times, Hormus eventually guided them to an area of the camp, near the horse-lines at the very back, that was populated with larger, plusher tents.
‘This looks to be the right sort of place,’ Vespasian said, noticing the ostentatious displays of wealth in the form of silver lamps and elegantly carved camp furniture laid out around each tent, guarded by expensive-looking slaves, bulked with muscle. ‘Giving false hope to the dying seems to be just as profitable here as it is at home. Go and make some enquiries, Hormus.’
The slave approached one of the huge guards and after a short discussion returned. ‘For two drachmae, he’ll allow us through; the best man for what we need is in the tent with the red and blue facings.’
‘Drachmae?’ Vespasian questioned.
‘Yes, I was surprised too,’ Magnus said, grimacing as he cradled his arm. ‘Apparently they’ve used the drachma ever since Alexander’s conquest.’
Vespasian nodded to Hormus to pay the man.
They followed Hormus to the appropriate tent and waited outside while the slave entered and tried to gain admittance for them.
‘Twenty-five drachmae,’ he said upon his eventual return. ‘Plus an extra ten due to the lateness of the hour.’
Despite the exorbitant fee, far more even that the most avaricious doctor would have charged back in Rome, Vespasian led Magnus and Hormus into the tent. A waiting slave bowed to them as he took the purse that Hormus proffered; having satisfied himself that it contained the correct coinage, he said something in Aramaic to which Hormus replied, causing the slave to switch languages to Greek. ‘Follow me; my master Lindos is waiting.’
Like so many doctors, Lindos was a Greek and, like so many Greeks, he treated those not of Attic blood and speaking serviceable but accented Greek with contempt. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked after Magnus had told him some rubbish about how he had broken his arm. ‘Your Greek is ghastly.’
‘We’re from …’ Magnus stopped and groaned with pain to cover his inability to answer the question truthfully.
‘Colchis,’ Vespasian answered after a couple of nervous heartbeats thinking.
Lindos’ expression made it quite clear what he thought of the morals and sexual proclivities of those who hailed from that far-flung kingdom on the eastern coast of the Euxine. Having made his displeasure clear at having to come into physical contact with lowlife hardly better than barbarians, Lindos went to work at setting the bone and splinting the arm with remarkable professionalism. Biting down on a strip of wood, Magnus fought the pain, which, judging by the way Lindos pulled on the broken limb and also by the variety of Magnus’s facial expressions, must have been considerable.