He had a brief glimpse of Hormus being dragged down the stairs to his left as, to his right, Magnus was hauled out of his room, his splinted arm impeding his ability to defend himself. Without pausing, Vespasian crunched his knee into the thigh of the nearest of Magnus’ assailants, deadening the muscle so that the man half stumbled, loosening his grip. Magnus used his freed right hand to grab the throat of his other detainer as Vespasian pounced on the limping man with an anger that expressed itself as a guttural animal roar. With his limbs working as fast as an athlete’s in a foot race, he pounded his prey into screaming submission as Magnus deprived air from his victim’s lungs with a merciless grip around his neck. His clamp-like fingers ever tightening, he cursed and spat into the dying man’s purpling face as urine trickled down his legs and the stench of voided bowels clouded the air.
‘That’s enough!’ Vespasian shouted, leaping towards the stairs.
Magnus heard the urgency in his friend’s voice and bounded after him, leaving his man gasping and soiled.
Taking the stairs three at a time they clattered down to the common room on the ground floor. The innkeeper cowered behind the bar but there was no sign of Hormus or Bagoas. Caring not whether the man had had anything to do with the surprise attack, Vespasian ran straight for the door, pushing tables and chairs aside. With the one objective of freeing his slave before he disappeared into a city that could swallow a legion whole, he pulled back the door and ran out into a semicircle of club-wielding men.
He was dimly aware of Magnus screaming as a dark shape surged towards his head, heralding a splitting pain and a flash of light, closely followed by oblivion.
His head throbbed with every thundering beat of his heart as consciousness returned to Vespasian.
He felt himself lying on cold stone.
He opened his eyes and at first saw nothing; the room was dark. Then, as he grew accustomed to the gloom, he could make out a dim light not more than two paces away. It was seeping through a small, square window.
He peered harder and saw that the window was in fact a viewing hole in a door; a viewing hole with bars in it.
He was in a cell.
He was back in a cell.
Vespasian drew his knees up to his chest and clutched them; tight.
The wail started at the pit of his stomach and grew until it seemed to shake his entire being; it was long, hollow and full of emptiness and despair.
How long he had lain there, Vespasian did not know, but eventually the door opened and he was hauled to his feet; he moaned, it was more of a whimper. Unresisting, he was dragged through a series of dim corridors, passing the occasional flaming torch, and then up some steps; finally, a stout door was unbolted and he was thrown through to collapse onto some foul-smelling straw.
‘It’s good of you to join us, sir; although I’m sure we all wish for less limited circumstances, if you take my meaning?’
Vespasian looked up to see Magnus and Hormus sitting with their backs against the wall; above them daylight flooded in through a barred window. ‘How long have we been here?’
‘Two days,’ Magnus replied.
‘What happened?’
Hormus’ whole body suddenly wracked with sobs.
Magnus looked accusingly at the slave and then turned back to Vespasian. ‘I’m going to treat myself to an “I told you so”.’
Vespasian understood. ‘Bagoas?’
‘It would seem that way. I said his passion for boys would get him into trouble one day; I didn’t think that it would have us all wallowing in fucked-arse turds.’
‘I’m so sorry, master,’ Hormus cried, getting onto his knees and holding his hands out, pleading. ‘I beg you to forgive me.’
‘What did you do?’
Hormus sobbed a couple of times before managing to get himself under control. ‘After we had … well, I fell asleep. The next thing I knew they were breaking down my door and Bagoas wasn’t there; neither was our sack.’
Magnus shook his head. ‘I reckon he stole the sack and then finding our swords and other stuff that’s obviously Roman he made the right deduction, and him and his cousin must have decided to make a little extra on top of the boat and our cash and reported us to the civic authorities.’
Hormus wrung his hands. ‘It’s all my fault, master. I translated Magnus’ comment about Fortuna to Bagoas.’
Vespasian could see it all. ‘And he would have become suspicious about us as soon as he learnt that we worshipped a Roman goddess; especially as only you spoke Aramaic. That was a foolish mistake, Hormus.’
The slave nodded mournfully, his eyes never leaving the floor.
‘What’s done is done.’ Vespasian patted Hormus’ arm in a comforting manner and looked at Magnus. ‘So, what do they plan for us?’
‘I was hoping they might have told you that, sir.’
‘I’m afraid not.’ He got to his feet and walked to the door. ‘However, since they know we’re Roman I might as well tell them that they have a man of consular rank in their custody; hopefully that will make our lives slightly more valuable.’
‘It might make us more of an embarrassment and therefore make our hosts decide on a speedy disposal, if you take my meaning?’
‘I do, but have you got any better suggestions?’
Magnus shook his head. ‘I believe they’re very keen on impaling people here.’
Vespasian began to pound on the door and shout for the gaolers.
Eventually the viewing slat opened and a surprisingly elegantly barbered face peered in enquiringly and then astonished Vespasian by asking in fluent Latin, ‘You have a problem?’
‘Yes, I am a man of proconsular rank and you will cause a diplomatic incident by holding me here.’
‘We know exactly who you are, Titus Flavius Vespasianus. We found your imperial mandate amongst your other possessions in the bag along with the swords with which you were planning on attempting to assassinate our Great King.’
Vespasian looked at the man, aghast. ‘Assassinate the Great King?’
‘Of course. Why else would you arrive in disguise in Ctesiphon the day before Vologases returned here?’
‘We had business of our own to conduct.’
‘We shall see; that is up to the Great King himself to decide.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that he will decide what you were here to do and he will decide your fate when you appear before him to be judged tomorrow.’
CHAPTER XV
The barrel-vaulted ceiling towering over the great audience chamber in the royal palace was partially veiled by a thin haze of fumes. Despite the bright shafts of sunlight flooding through a long line of identically shaped arched windows, high in the walls, slashing through the heavy atmosphere alive with motes, the cavernous, long interior burned with thousands of lamps. It was a hall of light, both natural and artificial, the like of which Vespasian had never seen before. And the light illumined the colours in the marbles of the floor and columns, in the paintwork of the statuary, in the dyes of the occupants’ clothes and beards and in the fired, glossy tiles of the walls and ceiling, each individually crafted to fit together, depicting scenes of hunting and warfare and other heroic acts of the Arsacid dynasty of Parthian kings.
So much colour and so much decoration in one magnificent chamber; but it was not that which struck Vespasian as he, Magnus and Hormus were led through the highly polished, dwarfing, cedar doors: it was the power that emanated from the seated figure on a dais at the far end of the room.