The man was untameable, giving his loyalty to none and his service to Narsai purely in return for gold, with an unveiled cynicism that would have long since earned him a swift death and an ignominious burial were it not for his unparalleled ability for swift and ruthless violence. He had bowed to his master on being brought before him, raising his dark eyes to stare unflinchingly at a man before whom he should in truth have been prostrating himself.
‘So, King. Your chamberlain tells me that my moment in the sun has arrived.’
He looked up at the crescent moon, his mouth twisted in irony. ‘And yet I see no sun. Only the moon, and a hunter’s moon at that.’
Narsai had shaken his head in amusement.
‘No man ever claimed to be your parent, Killer. No man knows where you were born, or how you came to be so skilled with blade and bone. You are nobody, as disposable as the water in which I shave, and yet you are the deadliest weapon at my disposal. You have served me well, and in return I have kept every promise I have made to you, have I not?’
The assassin inclined his head in acceptance of the point.
‘And now, King, with an enemy army camped one day’s march from a fortress so powerful that we may never break its walls, you call for me? What is it that you need that can be accomplished by a single man in the darkness? You wish the Roman general dead, perhaps?’
Narsai had smiled despite himself.
‘No. He goes everywhere in the company of more hard-eyed men than even you could defeat in combat. I have a different challenge in mind for you. A kill worthy of both your skills and your dark heart. A kill that will ennoble your descendants …’
Varaz had raised an eyebrow.
‘Ennoble?’
‘You have a son, by the slave woman I gave you. He shows promise with weapons for one so young, I hear. Would you like him to be raised as a royal prince?’
The other man stared back at him.
‘You offer to take my son into your household?’
‘Yes. I will swear the oath to the Sun God now, before my priest.’
His assassin’s face creased into a hard smile.
‘In which case it would be well if he were to commend my spirit to Ahura Mazda at the same time. For if you offer such a large inducement, I can safely assume that the price of delivering what you want of me will be that I have seen my last sunrise.’
Narsai had nodded, sharing a moment of understanding with his man.
‘I think that assumption is realistic. In return for your death I offer you a life of privilege for your son, and his sons and grandsons. You will catapult your blood to the heights of nobility, and fulfil your destiny.’
‘By killing King Osroes?’
Narsai had nodded tersely, aware that the man before him was quite capable of turning on him in an instant, even unarmed and in the presence of the royal bodyguard. The killer had looked at his booted feet for a moment before nodding his assent.
‘It was never my expectation to end this life in my bed. Fetch your priest, King. Make your oath and have him shrive me.’
Narsai completed his assessment of the men standing before him, nodding his approval to the gundsalar.
‘Time is short, so I will not waste it with unnecessary appeals to your virtue or duty. You all know why you have been gathered. You are the greatest warriors in our armies, the strongest, the bravest and the best of us, and your king has need of you. He is being held within the Roman camp, and while they have him we cannot mount an attack on them for fear of killing him. In the morning they will march again, and by nightfall the King of Kings’ oldest son will be a prisoner within a fortress city so strong that he might never be freed. Tonight, my brothers, you must enter the camp of the Romans by stealth, find the king and bring him to safety.’
The most senior of them bowed before speaking, a black-bearded officer with a fresh cut down one cheek from the battle on the hill, the wound’s edges roughly stitched together and black with dried blood.
‘Your Highness, we may well find the king, but bringing him to safety may be impossible if the Romans detect us. What then?’
Narsai inclined his head in recognition of the question’s ramifications.
‘In the event that you find yourselves alone among the enemy, then you must follow the instructions of King Osroes himself, whatever they may be.’
The noble nodded.
‘And if the king is not capable of making such a decision? His bidaxs Gurgen told us that he was suffering badly from the effects of a blow to the head.’
Narsai waited a moment, allowing the question’s full implications to unfold in the minds of the men before him.
‘In that case, you will have to make your own decision, for only you will be able to enact that choice.’
The noble held his eye for a moment, then nodded tersely.
‘We will do what we must. Come, brothers.’
The king watched them walk away with a carefully composed face, his thoughts racing as he watched the assassin follow in their wake.
In the darkness between the two camps the infiltrators paused, waiting for their eyes to fully adapt to the darkness, checking by touch that each other’s unfamiliar armour and equipment was as it should be. Then, following the big officer’s lead, they moved slowly around the Roman camp until they were approaching it from the east, removing any risk of their being silhouetted against the glow of the fires burning in the Parthian encampment.
When they were no more than one hundred paces from the sentries guarding the camp’s eastern gateway, the big man gestured for them to stop.
‘Stay here.’
Narsai’s killer shook his head, raising his hands to demonstrate the appropriate respect.
‘Lord, you are a man of the greatest possible honour. This is a task that ought to be undertaken by a man who, through his long experience of the dirtier aspects of serving his king, has already sacrificed his honour. If you will allow me, I do have some small measure of expertise in such matters.’
The bearded noble nodded, quietly relieved to have the responsibility lifted from his shoulders.
‘Go then. And do not fail.’
Varaz paced away into the night, smiling to himself in the darkness and permitting himself a whispered response once he was out of earshot.
‘And in addition, Lord, where I am expert at moving quietly in the darkness, you blunder around like a blind bull. Now …’
He sank to the ground and watched the guards from no more than thirty paces, quietly calculating the best point at which to strike. The legionaries were most strongly concentrated around the gateway in the middle of the earth wall, keeping close to the fires that burned on either side, which would seriously reduce their ability to see into the darkness. A pair of men were positioned at each corner of the camp, their beats a good fifty paces from the nearest sentry and who, he noted, tended to spend more of their time getting as close to the fire as possible and as little as they could actually patrolling their section of the wall.