He shook his head.
‘And you must forgive me my musing. I suggest you return to your fortress now, to spare Narsai the indignity of his departure from power being overseen by his enemy. And don’t allow my bitterness to lessen the gratitude I feel to you, Marcus Valerius Aquila.’
He embraced Marcus, turned to Scaurus with a brisk nod, and then turned away.
‘I will pray to Ahura Mazda for your safe delivery to those you love, and that your hunar will continue to burn with the same brilliance for the remainder of your days …’
Pausing, he turned back with a lopsided smile.
‘Unless, of course, we meet on the field of battle. On that day, look to your blades, Aquila, as I will look to mine. And remember, I know what you are capable of, but you have yet to see my mettle.’
Scaurus watched him walk away, then turned to the tent’s doorway.
‘He’s right. It would be unseemly to gloat over a man’s fall from power.’
They walked from the tent into the sun’s heat, a pair of Immortals to either side to safeguard their passage through the siege lines. Stopping to marvel anew at the destruction visited upon the fortress by the river’s torrent, Marcus looked about him at a sea of dried mud in which the scattered detritus of a major battle had been baked.
‘So Narsai used the Mygdonius to smash the wall, then sent his army to force their way into the city?’
Scaurus nodded, looking out across the scene of the battle from a new perspective.
‘Yes. And we were lucky, Tribune, that your colleague Varus happened to be the man in command when their cataphracts managed to get a foothold on the wall that we’d thrown up across the breach. They looked unbreakable, all that armour making them almost impossible to kill, and when Varus ran from the wall I thought his nerve had failed him again.’
He shook his head ruefully.
‘I misjudged the man. He rallied Ravilla’s marines just when they were on the point of breaking, with the Procurator dying and half their men shot with arrows, and he took them into the Parthian knights like a pack of mad dogs. I watched the whole thing from the city wall, as the Parthians stood firm and killed three men for every loss they took, expecting the marines to break and run a dozen times over, if I’m honest. But there was something in Varus that wouldn’t let them, some insanity that threw him at their line time and again, and in the end their sheer weight of numbers told. The cataphracts simply couldn’t stand against their ferocity, not with men being pulled from their line and hacked to pieces before their eyes. In the end it was they who turned tail, fighting their way back over the wall in bloody desperation, but for a time it was too close to judge the likely winner. If it hadn’t been for that young man and his burning urge for redemption …’
‘Did he live?’
Scaurus chuckled.
‘Live? He came through the madness without a scratch. You have a rival for the Tungrians’ affections, Tribune, given it was they who were being battered away from the wall when he intervened. Even Dubnus seems to respect the man.’
He started walking towards the fortress, and Marcus followed him, looking about him at the battle’s wreckage, weapons and discarded armour half sunk into the hardened mud.
‘One thing does occur to me though.’
Scaurus looked at his junior as they recrossed the bridge into the empty ground between fortress and besiegers.
‘What’s that?’
Marcus looked at the walls of the city for a moment as they walked across the expanse of dried mud, waving a hand at the battered walls and the ground before them.
‘I think Narsai was perilously close to getting it right. Indeed I think he only made one mistake.’
He turned to the legatus with an expression that made it clear he was deadly serious.
‘He chose the wrong brother. I rode for five days with Vologases, and I can assure you that if we ever face that man across a battlefield, it won’t be the easy ride Osroes gave us.’
Scaurus frowned.
‘You think there’ll be a war with Parthia? It sounded to me as if Arsaces was pretty much bent on avoiding such a thing. And Commodus’s concerns only extend to the next place he’s going to bury his manhood.’
The younger man shrugged, turning back to look at the Parthian lines.
‘Nobody lives for ever, Legatus. Not kings, and most definitely not emperors, especially those with a gift for creating enemies. One way or another, everyone dies. One way, or another …’