The Persian officer slammed his fist against my leather breastplate. ‘Move yourself, fuckwit!’ he groaned. ‘Must I tell you everything? Where were you this morning, when Shahrbaraz spoke to the army?’ Looking vacant, I let my mouth sag open. The officer swore again. He looked quickly about and leaned closer. ‘You don’t have security clearance,’ he whispered, leaving a gap between each word. ‘If you don’t want to be thrown head first over the edge, give me your sword. You can have it back afterwards.’ With another slap of his hand on leather, he pushed me towards the back of the disorganised and shivering mob of guards. ‘Go on, then — just get over there. Stand at the back and try not to look like a moron. Leave the horse for the grooms.’
I shuffled across to stand in place. I counted a dozen Royal Guards. These still had their weapons and stood in formation close beside the Great King. The rest of us, it was clear, were there to fill up the numbers. It was a bit of a come down from public appearances in Ctesiphon, where Chosroes wouldn’t have thought to show himself without the whole of the Royal Guard. How many had he brought with him? I wondered. The plain answer was that he must have brought all of them. The question, then, was where they were. Guarding the harem, perhaps? I had one answer as we were pushed and nagged by a couple of eunuchs into a more regular formation. Each of the Royal Guards was given his own sunshade bearer. The rest of us were left to get even wetter. Silvered armour doesn’t come cheap. When you’re already spent out on a gigantic invasion, a bit of rust on iron underlay becomes a serious concern.
One of the senior eunuchs now set about arranging us in detail. Speaking a Persian so rarified even the natives didn’t understand all of it, he poked and prodded with a cane until we bore some resemblance to a guard of honour. ‘Taller men at the front,’ he shrilled quietly at me and then at a hulking beast whose beard was so dense it made his face look like the back of his head. I gave up the pretence of not understanding and let myself be pushed into a standing place one away from the front, and perhaps fifteen men along from Chosroes on my left.
So long as the bearded one next to me didn’t breathe too hard, I could hear snatches of the conversation with the Grand Chamberlain. ‘If it isn’t in the iced compartment,’ Chosroes said in the silky drawl that, once heard, no one ever forgot, ‘it must have been stolen.’ He snatched up an ivory scratching stick and pushed it inside the front of his robe. Grunting like an ape that’s being fed, he rubbed it back and forth. He finished and took it out. He leaned forward to sniff the teeth. Displeased with the smell, he tossed it aside. ‘Why is no one looking for it?’ he asked.
The Chamberlain darted forward to pick up the scratching stick. ‘If I might suggest, Your Majesty,’ he wheedled, ‘somebody, somewhere in the baggage train must have a replacement. I can send out a demand once the review is finished.’
I couldn’t see him but Shahrbaraz now spoke. ‘Everything’s ready, Your Majesty,’ he said gruffly. ‘If we don’t start soon, the rain will get worse again.’ It wasn’t the hushed, deferential tone most would use to a borderline lunatic vested with absolute and arbitrary power. Then again, whether or not he was actually mad, Chosroes wasn’t stupid. If the only military leader of any talent thrown up on either side by eleven years of war didn’t choose to address the Great King in a deferential squeak, he’d not have a bowstring tied round his neck.
Chosroes held up a hand for attention. ‘My dear friend, Shahrbaraz,’ he cried sternly, ‘when Xerxes sat on a throne such as this at Abydos, it hadn’t been pissing down all day. He could see his entire fleet and army in one glance. If that mist comes any closer, the best I’ll be able to do is smell the assembled swine who call themselves my army.’
The reply was something I didn’t catch. Nor could I hear what Chosroes said after that. But the polite laughter from the Chamberlain and the other eunuchs told me it wasn’t relevant. Chosroes raised his hand again. ‘Enough, enough!’ he said. ‘Be seated beside me, O greatest of my generals. The army has been brought together and must see us together and at one in all our deliberations.’ He wriggled upright on his throne. Eunuchs ran forward to catch the loose cushions before they could hit the ground. ‘Where is my fucking melon?’ he suddenly spat. ‘I’ve been fancying it since breakfast.’ He took his scratching stick from Shahrbaraz and set about his calves.
Urvaksha looked up from muttering over his tangled strings. He turned conveniently sightless eyes in my direction. ‘The knots tell me one of the serving boys ate it,’ he cackled. ‘The knots are never wrong — just let them be read by one who understands them. The knots are never wrong, I tell you!’
They hadn’t served him well in the matter of the pickled goat’s brain I’d let him pilfer from my dish. But Chosroes was leaning forward and slapping his thigh. ‘Brilliant, Urvaksha!’ he called out. ‘Why is no one else willing to speak truth to power?’ He tugged affectionately on the golden chain, catching his seer off guard and pulling him into a puddle. ‘I will address the army on my feet,’ he said, getting up and stepping forward to where he had his best view of the tired and perhaps nearly mutinous assembly in the pass. If only I could have got past the armed guards to give him one hard shove — if only one of the sodden eunuchs hurrying forward with the canopy had stumbled in the right direction — it wouldn’t have been another missed chance of ending the war. But it was missed. As if he’d heard what I was thinking, he looked suspiciously round and stepped away from the edge.
‘Time, I suppose, to weep,’ he said in Greek. ‘A hundred years from now, not one of these men will be alive.’ He stopped for a low peal of thunder to roll down from the mountains. ‘If I have any say in the matter,’ he tittered into his sleeve, ‘a hundred years will be more than pushing it. Ten is too many for this assembly of human trash.’ He turned to Shahrbaraz. ‘I’m ready to face my loving people,’ he said in Persian.’
Somewhere behind me, a gigantic gong rang out, louder than the renewed thunder that accompanied it. I couldn’t see into the pass from where I was standing but there was a ragged blare of trumpets from down there. After a long silence, the eunuchs struck up in unison:
Dārom andarz-ē az dānāgān
Az guft-ī pēšēnīgān
Ō šmāh bē wizārom
Pad rāstīh andar gēhān
Agar ēn az man padīrēd
Bavēd sūd-ī dō gēhān
Their voices and the bell-ringing accompaniment died away to reveal more thunder. This was blotted out again by a roar of cheering from below. While this continued, Chosroes mounted a small platform that had been carried forward. How the canopy bearers kept him dry was a tribute to the education of his court eunuchs. The rain was coming on harder and beat against us in great, heavy sheets. But Chosroes had now put on his biggest crown and, his unwetted beard poking forward, he raised both arms to take in the adulation of his army. He spun round and round, the heavy silk of his robe spreading out to make him look like a cone. The priests stood up and bowed. The Royal Guardsmen roared and beat their swords on their shields. We, the military rubbish, let out an inarticulate cheer. Far above, the clouds lit up in a dim flash. This time, the thunder rolled on and on. Depending how wet you were, you could take this as a further nuisance or as a dramatic accompaniment. Chosroes was able — and, I suppose, required — to take it as the latter. He raised his arms and walked quickly up and down his platform.