He reached out, taking a grip of the collar of his brother’s armour.
‘So here’s what we’ll do. Our father here is going to entrust the investigation of this attempt on the throne to me, both as his heir and a potential victim. He knows that I’ll be unrelenting in my efforts, but he also knows that I understand the need to exercise the appropriate subtlety. The exercise of power is best achieved with the consent of the ruled. Isn’t that right, Father?’
Arsaces nodded, a sad smile creeping onto his face, and his son continued with the same quiet fury in his voice.
‘So here’s what I intend. I will summon the twelve kings, in our father’s name, and while we wait for them to assemble, you and I will spend some time together in the lower reaches of the palace. The old kings had a few cunning tricks when it came to finding out what they wanted to know, and I’m sure that you and I will soon enough come to a mutual understanding of what happened this morning, and what subtle discussions and alliances might lie behind it. When we assemble the kings there needs to be no further unpleasantness, simply a frank discussion with certain of them as to the thinness of the ice upon which they find themselves. Everyone will know their place in the world once more, and you, you may even still be able to walk among them with your head up. Or perhaps walking might prove a little too much – depending on how long it takes for you and I to reach that mutual understanding I was talking about.’
He paused, staring intently at his brother’s face.
‘Or would you like to spare us both all that unhappiness, and just tell me what I need to know now?’
‘Reinforcements, do you think?’
The northern wall’s duty centurion had summoned Scaurus and Julius shortly after midday on the fifth day after the final abortive Parthian attack, and the two men were looking out over the parapet, Julius using a hand to shade his eyes from the sun’s powerful glare.
‘Another thousand cavalry? They make an impressive sight, but it’s not cavalry that Narsai needs. And besides …’
The men riding into the Parthian camp were clearly a military unit of some nature, each man uniformly equipped with spear, bow case and sword, and all of them wore helmets and had shields strapped to their backs, but there was one glaring absence from their war gear.
‘What use would they be in battle without armour?’
First Spear and Legatus watched as the long column of white-tunicked riders trotted across the plain, each man mounted on a horse with the stature and power to carry a cataphract into battle. The legatus frowned as he stared out at them. The riders splashed through the Mygdonius at a fording point whose waters were already considerably lower than at their height a week before, an advance party of half a dozen men riding forward while the remainder dismounted and watered their horses. Pulling up in front of Narsai’s headquarters, a cluster of tents close to the siege line with a direct view of the gaping hole in Nisibis’s northern walls, their leader dismounted and strode forward with a pair of men on either side, while the sixth walked slowly towards the fortress, raising his hands to show that they were empty.
‘I don’t like the look of this.’
The newcomer was a distant but clearly visible figure, and as the Romans watched, the men guarding the tent threw themselves full length before him. A murmur of sound reached the walls, as the Parthian army woke up to the presence of the new arrival’s apparently exalted status.
‘Could that be …?’
Scaurus shook his head doubtfully at his first spear.
‘The King of Kings? I wouldn’t have thought so. He’s too old to be riding round his kingdom on a war horse, and I’d have thought that his arrival would have been announced with a good deal more fanfare. But I’ve an idea who it might be …’
The tunic-clad figure walked with deliberate care towards the improvised wall, now fifteen feet high, and stopped within shouting distance, his face partially hidden by the chain mail that hung from his helmet.
‘His Majesty Prince Vologases of Parthia has ridden from the imperial city of Ctesiphon at the head of the King of Kings’ Immortal Guard, at the direction of his father Arsaces, Forty-Fifth of his noble line, King of Kings, the Anointed, the Just, the Illustrious, Friend of the Greeks! His Majesty respectfully requests the presence of Legatus Gaius Rutilius Scaurus at a negotiation to determine the fate of the city of Nisibis! Further, His Majesty has bidden me tell you that time is pressing in this matter, and so further requests your attendance to be as prompt as can be managed given the obstacles to your leaving your fortress!’
Scaurus leaned out over the wall’s rampart.
‘I already have the fate of the city looked after quite nicely, thank you! And I decline the invitation to attend this negotiation! Rome still remembers the fate suffered by our general Marcus Licinius Crassus at Carrhae!’
The messenger looked up at him, putting both hands on his hips and allowing an impatient tone to creep into his voice.
‘I suggest that just this once, Legatus, you ignore the lessons you’ve learned from the history books. Prince Vologases has assured me that he isn’t going to be ordering any killing today.’
Scaurus started, and stared down at the man with wide-eyed amazement, while Julius shook his head and barked out a terse laugh, the sound drawing startled glances from soldiers who had grown used to his more usual saturnine view of their situation.
‘You cheeky young bastard! Stay there!’
The legatus hurried down to the temporary rampart and gingerly lowered himself onto the desolate plain of sun-baked mud, picking a careful path over to the waiting Marcus, who saluted crisply and gestured to the Parthian lines, having removed his helmet.
‘You’re out of uniform, Tribune. What sort of effeminate fancy dress do you call that?’
His junior rubbed the material of his sleeve between finger and thumb.
‘It’s raw silk, Legatus, and worth about as much as my armour and weapons, in the right market in Rome. And it’s the uniform worn by the King of Kings’ Immortals, when they’re not carrying enough iron to make a strong man’s knees bend.’
He pointed to the Parthian siege lines again.
‘If you’ll accompany me, the explanations you’re looking for are all over there.’
Following the younger man across the empty space between the fortress’s walls and the enemy’s waiting ranks, the legatus listened to a brief description of the journey down the Euphrates and the events that had unfolded in Ctesiphon, covering his eyes with one hand as Marcus recounted the death of their friend. Recovering control of his emotions after a moment, he shook his head apologetically.
‘My apologies, Tribune. I distinctly recall telling Julius you’d thank me for sending you south, but if I could have predicted that as an outcome …’
‘No …’
He looked up, to find Marcus staring back at him with emphasis.
‘Martos died quickly, and he died doing what he did best. He could never have gone home to the Dinpaladyr again, he told me as much, and what life is it for a king to wander the earth yearning for the one thing he can never have, and mourning the wife and children who died as a consequence of his actions? He was buried in the King of Kings’ own mausoleum dressed as a Captain of Arsaces’ personal bodyguard, honoured with weapons and armour as fine as Osroes was wearing when we captured him, and with a war horse sacrificed to his spirit and entombed with him.’
The younger man shook his head at the memory.
‘I’m not ashamed to tell you I shed tears over his corpse, and again at his interment, but all in all I’d say that if he’d known his fate in advance, he’d have been content. Now come and hear what Prince Vologases has to say on the matter. We may mourn it, but King Martos’s death defending Vologases’ father has put the King of Kings very much in our debt.’