I crouched beside him. ‘Do you think he waits for you?’ I meant Proclion, but did not have to say so.
‘I am sure of it. I dream him often, standing at the river’s edge, looking back at me as I live this half-life without him.’ Horgias flicked a glance at me sideways. ‘Don’t think I’m in a hurry to die. He’ll wait as long as it takes, and I will kill as many Parthians as I may before I join him.’
I shook my head. ‘If you were going to die soon after him, you would have done so by now. There’s been enough opportunity.’ Not more than a skirmish or two as we left Tigranocerta, but sufficient for him to have thrown himself on an enemy spear if he had wanted to. ‘I just wanted to know where he was.’
Other than my father, Proclion was the only man I knew well who had died, and I would have trusted him with my life in ways I would never have trusted my family. It was good to know he watched over Horgias.
I took out my own pack and set about mixing beans andcorn and dried mushrooms and garlic, taking the same care as had Horgias. As they did in battle, my senses became sharper, so that I heard Lupus’ footsteps long before I heard his voice and knew who came up behind me, and exactly when he drew breath to speak.
‘Tell me we’re not going to be stoking up the cook fires to build palisades through the night by their light.’ I stood, turning as I spoke.
Gravely, he said, ‘You’re not going to be stoking the cook fires and building palisades through the night by their light.’
Something was wrong with Lupus. He had never in his life made a joke, and his eyes were not laughing; quite the reverse.
‘What then?’ Horgias was holding his dagger ready to lift one of his meal cakes from the mess tin. He looked eager, ready to fight.
‘We are to sally out tonight, before dusk. Paetus will lead us. All except the first cohort of the Fourth, which is travelling to Arsamosata, with the care of the general’s wife and infant son as their only priority.’
‘ What? ’
‘He’s sending the first cohort away?’
‘But the palisades aren’t finished. They aren’t even begun. Is he completely mad?’
Syrion, Horgias and I spoke all together. Lupus affected a deafness which left him immune to the treachery spoken around him; then, in a voice so sharp, it would have cut through wood, he said, ‘Our governor’ — he spat the word — ‘is of the belief that he was given command of men to fight for him, not wooden walls; that Vologases’ army will be sleeping in their tents, so why should we not do the same? He would meet the Parthians at the Lizard Pass in the Taurus Mountains. He believes we can hold them there.’
‘So we will hold the Parthians until Corbulo can get here?’I said. ‘That, at least, makes sense.’ After a fashion, it did; we had crossed the mountains through that pass twice in the summer, going out, and coming in. We knew it as well as we knew anywhere here.
Lupus shut his eyes. ‘I have suggested,’ he said faintly, ‘that a message should be sent to General Corbulo requesting his aid. Cadus and the camp prefect added their voices. Paetus, however, is of the opinion that we will not need any man’s help to defeat the King of Kings.’
Nobody spoke then; there were limits to what we could say and not be flogged for it, and in any case Lupus was distressed enough. The reason was obvious: Paetus was afraid of Corbulo’s genius. To get himself into a crisis and then cry for help? It would ruin his political career.
To me, Lupus said, ‘It might be that you could send a message to your old commander, wishing him well before you march out to die?’
‘Aquila? But he’ll send any message straight to Corbulo!’
‘Who might choose to send us help. Or not. But at least he will know what has happened. I am sending a similar message to Hygienus, a centurion of the Tenth, and Cadus will write to a man he knows in the Third. We have need of a courier to deliver the messages. Would you-’
‘No.’ I faced him square on. ‘I fight with my unit. Anyway, you can’t send me away. I’m the signaller.’ I fixed his gaze with mine. ‘There are couriers enough in the other legion.’
He nodded, not surprised. ‘Tears?’ Tears had become our second courier, on the strength of my bay mare’s second foal.
‘The same,’ Tears said. ‘I’ll stay. We fight together, all of us.’ There were still only seven of us; they had not made up our unit after Proclion’s death. It made us weaker in the battle lines, but at the same time it made us stronger of spirit.
‘Right.’ Lupus nodded, rising. ‘You understand that I had to ask. We’ll find another courier. He won’t be as well mounted, but there are staging posts in Syria; he can find new horses on the way.’
He was turning away when Syrion said, ‘When do we leave?’
‘As soon as the tents are packed. Eat first. I said I would have none of my men march on an empty stomach. But be ready to move out by the next watch. He would have us march double time through the night if we have to.’
There are those in Rome who will tell you that the second of the day’s ill omens occurred as we marched out of the camp; that our javelins caught the late afternoon light and shone, all in a streaming ribbon as we marched, so that we had silver in front and behind, and flashes of gold among us.
The naysayers will tell you that this reflected Parthian greatness, for it was known that the cataphracts loved their spears above all other weapons and the gods were saying that spears would be our death. But for us it felt like a benediction, a spark of light in the dark road ahead, a sign that the gods had not abandoned us so completely after all.
We marched faster for it, and long into the night, pitching our tents by the light of the falling moon, as it hung vast and gold on the westerly horizon, throwing shadows all about.
The light kept the watch sentries alert, while the rest of us slept with the stupor of men who will store sleep against famine later, and begrudge every moment of waking.
Chapter Eighteen
This close to death, time passed faster than it had ever done and it seemed I had barely risen before I was lying down again, this time face down beneath a stand of cedars high above a mountain pass a dozen miles from our camp.
Tears lay on my right and Horgias on my left and we watched in dreadful silence as four spears split the early light and four men of the IVth lost their lives in a trap as perfectly planned and executed as any I had seen.
The shouts that followed were Roman and Parthian mixed, but more Parthian, and louder, for while a half-century of the IVth had been sent out to scout the enemy’s position they had been met by at least twice that many Parthians, and the speed and ferocity of the enemy attack had heightened their advantage so their numbers seemed greater.
The slaughter was fast and efficient and from our eyrie, a hundred feet up, it had the dance-like elegance of a mummery made for our entertainment, with pale faces raised and dark mouths opened in muted shouts and barely any blood spilled, except at the end, when the centurion of the IVth — first centurion of the eighth cohort, I think, but I hadn’t looked closely at the men we were following — was decapitated bya Parthian warrior who rose high in his saddle and used his sword with both hands. That blood was a fountain; it soared and fell and stained the rock and the hard winter’s earth beneath.
Horgias rose then, drawing both blades. Tears caught his arm, holding him back. ‘Don’t. We have to get back. Cadus needs to know what’s happened.’
Our orders had been clear: our role was to observe and report, nothing more. On no account — none, on pain of execution — were we to participate in any action.
Cadus had been categorical when he had called us out of the parade lines. ‘We need to know what’s happening. It serves nothing if you give your lives and the rest of us are taken unawares. Ride a long way behind and don’t let the men of the Fourth see you. If one of them is taken and questioned, they can’t give away what they don’t know.’