The country beyond Dura was as graceless as a dead lion, a tawny slump where they rode between the ridges of its ribs, shuffling up the powdered grit, scattering the little stones from a well-worn trail. The ribs they moved over were striated, as if by the claws of the jnoun which killed this great beast. They had travelled other deserts, from Tingis to Palmyra and now beyond, but all were agreed – this was a carrion land.
Drust did not know much of it for the first three days, but he came to it at last, round the comfort of a camel-dung fire with the soft gurgle of the beasts and the low murmur of conversation. The only spoiling in it was Praeclarum, grinning ruin down on his naked body.
She stopped smiling when she saw he was awake and the others saw the change in her face.
‘There you were,’ Quintus said, grinning his wide, white grin, as if to show Praeclarum’s fault in a worse light, ‘dreaming of that Gaulish girl in Milo’s and you get that.’
‘Perhaps you can ease his hurts better than me,’ Praeclarum replied flatly, going on with the delicate touch of expert fingers. Drust squinted down and saw the midnight colour of his side.
‘Ahh,’ he managed and Kag squatted by him, nodding admiringly to Praeclarum.
‘You carry on, girl, and ignore that long-legged lout. No one knows the secret of bruise healing like you.’
‘Unwashed wool, dipped into a mixture of pounded rue and fat,’ she said, sponging gently. ‘Plus prayers to Fortuna and Asclepius.’
‘There’s always a fucking Greek in it somewhere,’ Sib murmured, turning something sizzling on a grill over coals; the smell made Drust’s mouth water but he wanted more than food.
‘What happened? Where are we?’
‘Up Fortuna’s arse, trying to duck Jupiter’s fat cock,’ Quintus replied sourly.
‘Three days out of Dura,’ Kag answered, throwing a quick scowl at Quintus. ‘On the caravan trail to Singara, where we are to meet a man called Narseh. This is not a place you want to be if you have offended powerful deities.’
‘Narseh-dux,’ a voice corrected and Kisa thrust his smiling face into Drust’s eyeline. ‘He is one of the Shayk’s men.’
‘Like you,’ Kag growled and Kisa’s face closed like a stone clam. Not true, Drust wanted to say. He is the creature of Uranius, he wanted to say. But it all seemed such an effort, so he said nothing.
‘No matter his name,’ Sib said from beyond Drust’s sight. ‘Let’s hope he can get us decorated. Our own camels and herders are gone. Our equipment is gone. We have only a dozen Army camels now. Just about enough water to reach the next oasis, which we would be in now except…’
He stopped and busied himself with the meat and the fire.
‘Except,’ Kag finished, looking at Drust, ‘you kept threatening to fall off the camel and Praeclarum stopped us all before you did.’
‘If not, it might have made matters worse,’ Praeclarum interrupted; Kag acknowledged it with a flap of one hand.
‘All well and good,’ Sib argued, ‘but the oasis will have other trains and their guards. We have already lost almost all we possess, and if anyone is on our trail, we will lose even more.’
‘There will be folk on our trail,’ Kag grunted in reply. ‘If you are leaving tracks, someone always is – but we left riot behind us and that will gain us a few days.’
‘If there is pursuit it won’t be by the dromedarii,’ Kisa soothed. What he did not add, Drust thought, trying to ease the throbbing ache of his ribs, was that Attalus wouldn’t trust Uranius’s camel-soldiers. He’d send riders, all the same.
Drust looked round as best he could without moving more than his head. Almost everyone had filched a red cloak and a tunic that, stained though it was, was better quality and cleaner than the ones they’d worn to fight in the harena. His thoughts were drowned out by arguments, the voices low and urgent growls; Praeclarum stopped sponging and got Stercorinus to help her raise Drust to sitting so she could bind him, a process of shrieking agony that slowly paled to a dull red glow of pain. The binding was tight and made it hurt to breathe deeply, but it let him stand on wobbling legs.
‘He smacked you hard,’ Kag said, breaking off from growling at the others. ‘Still – that Army boy didn’t deserve a trio of daggers in the face.’
‘It is done,’ Drust answered curtly, not wanting discussion or even thought on it, because he remembered what he had done, could watch himself doing it and did not like the wash of shame and revulsion he felt. Yet the man had been set to kill him…
‘Done well,’ Quintus put in. ‘That greyback was set on sixing you for all that no deaths had been paid for.’
‘Expensive all the same,’ Sib spat back, ‘considering that we have lost everything we owned and are now pursued into the desert.’
‘Let’s just wait until we reach Singara,’ Ugo said, loud enough to drown everyone for a moment. They subsided, giving Drust a chance.
‘This Narseh,’ he began, and Kisa, squatting by the coals, looked up.
‘Narseh-dux,’ he corrected and Drust waved a dismissive hand.
‘I am less interested in what he is called than in who he is and what he will do for us.’
Kisa explained it. The Shayk would, as promised, rescue the group’s original camel train and the equipment they’d had to abandon in the amphitheatre – there were mutters about how that would be achieved, but Drust managed to silence them. Uranius had given them a dozen army camels, enough to get them to Singara, where this Narseh had been messaged to equip them with all they would need to get across the Red Serpent, meet with Manius and Dog and return with Hyrcanian tigers.
At the end of it, he grinned widely and clasped his hands, as if it was a deal already done. No one spoke for a moment. Sib doled out coal-fried lamb and passed round a bowl of oenogarum sauce for it, so that a long, peaceful moment was spent chewing and savouring. Praeclarum half turned from the rest to eat, since she could only cut small pieces and suck them soft enough to swallow; Drust knew her ruined mouth hurt constantly.
‘You need cages,’ Kag said eventually.
‘Big ones,’ Ugo added.
‘Not something you can easily disguise,’ Quintus pointed out, ‘so that the guards on this Persian Wall can be fooled enough to let us pass.’
‘We might build the cages there,’ Kisa offered and Sib snorted his derision.
‘There is no hiding a brace or more of those tigers on the way back,’ he pointed out.
‘Do these Persian guards care?’ said Stercorinus. He was sitting half naked and cradling his sword, though one hand was feeding meat into the hole in his tangled beard where his mouth lurked. ‘They let this Dog and Manius through and I am betting sure they had some carts with them.’
‘The Persians on the Serpent care,’ Kisa answered miserably. ‘The land of Hyrcania smiles on the new Sasan dynasty. I would not be surprised if soon it came under the banner of these new Persians – but no matter what, the tigers are prized by all. I cannot see them allowing strangers – Romans among them – to walk away with a pair or more.’
‘Ah well,’ Stercorinus growled and he might have been grinning, but it was hard to tell. His voice did not sound overly concerned and Quintus squinted at him.
‘Are you not worried at how we are to cross this Wall?’ he demanded, and Stercorinus paused in licking his fingers.
‘Would it help?’ he asked.
No one had a reply to that, so they sat and ate and then slept, taking turns on watch.
In the morning, before it was fully light, they loaded up the groaning camels and moved on along the trail, east to Singara.
They fell in with a long train filtering westwards, preceded by wary scouts and protected by leather-clad scowlers with shields and spears and bows. The owner of the caravan was a Persian, though he feared them as much as Romans and nomads.
‘They are all thieves,’ he growled. ‘It is good to know the road ahead is clear. The one in front of you is not – we saw horses and camels, from some desert goat-fuckers for sure, between here and Singara.’
‘What of Roman patrols?’ demanded Kisa and the caravan owner laughed.
‘There are too few Romans around here for that. We came across the remains of four wagons which had once carried grain. There were dead mules, but no men.’
No one needed to be told what had happened – a supply train had been attacked and stripped. The men had probably been taken, to be sold on as slaves elsewhere, and the caravan owner clearly thought that this would be the fate of Drust and the others.
They moved on, with Sib kicking a grumbling camel away from the others until he was out of sight. He was a good scout, but this was a strange desert for him and Kag said as much.
‘One sand-crawler is much like another,’ Quintus growled back.
‘I do not like the desert,’ Ugo pointed out and ducked, only just managing to avoid the yellow-toothed snap of his mount. ‘I hate this beast even more.’
‘It hates you,’ Kag said, grinning. ‘Look at the way it stares.’
All camels stared the same way, Drust thought, a head tilted haughtily to look down the nose, but everyone seemed to think it was a revelation for that particular beast.
Praeclarum came to him each time they stopped and he stumbled off the kneeling beast that grumbled and groaned when he did. The others smiled and nudged each other – all but Stercorinus, who was always stolid as a post, stern and blank-faced as any acolyte of Zeno.
‘You need a few days’ rest,’ she said to him. ‘If you don’t, the ribs may not heal properly.’
‘Listen to your ma,’ Kag said, grinning into Praeclarum’s scowl. Drust, however, knew the balm of her touch and the potions she used, so he laid one hand on her whipcord forearm and patted it, smiling. He was surprised to see her eyes drop and turn away, the flush that bloomed on her face.
Sib rode in at the end of the day and everyone stopped when they saw him flogging the beast up in a welter of chewed foam. It came to a halt and stood, legs splayed, and the pelt on it spiked with sweat.
‘There are men at the caravanserai ahead,’ Sib said, accepting water gratefully; the camel moaned at the smell. ‘They are Romans, maybe what is left of that wagon train, and surrounded by a great many goat-fuckers.’
‘How great a many?’ Quintus demanded.
‘Enough for us to circle wide to the south,’ Sib replied, dragging one hand across his mouth.
‘There is water in that caravanserai,’ Kag pointed out and held up the skin he had offered Sib. It hung like a wrinkled, accusing bollock and no one missed the point – they hadn’t enough water to bypass here and reach Singara.
Drust indicated to Sib to get a fresh camel and lead the way; the only thing to do was take a look, as Kag said. The three of them loped off, shuffling up grit, which was already hissing in a rising wind.
It was no more than a long lurch away and they ground-reined the camels with stones in the lee of a dip, then crept almost to the lip, belly-crawling the last, which was an agony for Drust.
The place was typical – a square of blocky buildings, blank walls to the outside, entrances leading off a central courtyard. Stables, sleeping places, stores, all mud-brick and solid.
Drust saw the men inside and knew they were Army simply because they were out in the open; all the others, the herders and sometime-guards and owners, were cowering in cover against a spatter of fire arrows arcing over.
There was smoke and two fires where a dry midden and a wagon had been set alight, but fire was no danger to a place made of solid mud brick.
‘Look there,’ Kag said, and they saw the muster of men, gathering in a dry wadi out of sight of the defenders. There were men waving their arms and gesticulating and these, Drust knew, were the leaders. It was the only way to tell them apart, for they wore the same stained robes, wraparound head-coverings, carried the same weapons as everyone else. Bows and spears and little round shields, he saw. Ladders, crudely made out of rope with wood hook-frames, for scaling the wall.
Inside the caravanserai they were oblivious to this, though they had been attacked once already. Drust saw the harness draped carelessly over a heat-split, rickety fence, the smoke trickling from open fires, the chimneys in what was a kitchen. There was a man by the main gate, squatting with a sword across his knee, keffiyeh looped round his neck and his over-robe snowy, the wind snapping it open to reveal the ring mail beneath. He was eating flatbread from one hand and drinking from another; they had no fear of thirst or hunger here, but the attackers had, so they’d need to break in and swiftly, which was why they were massing.
He wondered how old the place was, this oasis. Three hundred years? Older? Caravans of wanderers had come here with their camel trains, taking freely everything that was here when it was no more than an oasis, because that was the way of the desert nomads. Then came the ones with stronger resolve and bigger ambitions, handsome men and women who built and grew and made children, stocked goats and camels and tough little horses.
That time was dead now, buried under the weight of sagging poverty and dulled will. The life that was here now, Drust thought, was charged with the sound of failure – and now, with these people, with the taint of death.
These were not the handsome men and women of old. They were the skin-and-bone people spreading mule meat to dry on canvas torn from some other hands, cooking on old fires, the women swaying gauds rather than the veiled flowers of the old Persians or the followers of Alexander.
Now there were also Romans of the Army, dusty and desperate – and one who was neither, as Sib pointed out.
‘The size of him,’ he breathed. ‘He can give Ugo half a head.’
Drust had to admit that the man was big. He was dressed no differently from the others, but somehow he seemed like a leader, had that aura about him, emanating like heat.
‘Well,’ said Kag grimly, ‘we need that water. We should wait until dark and sneak in.’
‘You think a man like that will hand it out to us?’ Sib sneered back. ‘Should we even make it over the wall without the sentries skewering us?’
‘We need to fight our way in,’ Kag declared, then tugged at his cloak and grinned. ‘We are Romans after all.’
Back at the others, he made the same point and had a look from Quintus that would have stripped the gilt off a god’s statue.
‘And out? With water freely given by the Army?’
‘Quintus is right,’ Ugo rumbled, frowning. ‘We will have to attack these goat-botherers and drive them off.’
Now everyone cackled. ‘With what legion do you suggest?’ demanded Kag.
Drust held up one of the red cloaks, given the idea by Kag, who only now realised it. Quintus grinned and nodded.
‘If we hit those leaders,’ Kag added, stroking his beard, ‘that might work.’
‘There were at least a hundred of them,’ Sib offered anxiously.
‘Closer to fifty,’ Kag soothed.
‘Ah, that’s all right then,’ Stercorinus offered and Sib rounded on him.
‘You might at least show concern,’ he spat. ‘A little sensible fear. It will be a hard fight.’
‘Would it help?’ Stercorinus countered.
They rode out, taking all their beasts and looking carefully at the sky, for they wanted it twilight, that time when the desert light goes flat as it heads down to a glorious blood-drop sun and then darkness. In that half-light they would look like what they were attempting and that bluff had to be all of this, the fake ankle turn that dropped you to one knee, the stumble, the bad strike that seemed to leave you open so your opponent would gloat and fall in the trap of it.
Still, it was crazed, as Kag whispered softly to Drust. They sat and waited in the lee of a nearby wadi, tensed and sweating about being discovered by those already setting up the yip-yip fox screams to unnerve the defenders of the caravanserai.
‘Madness,’ Drust agreed and then managed a rictus grin at Kag. ‘Who’d have thought water could drive men mad?’
It was an old joke from another time, but it comforted like a fire on a cold night. They sat under a bowl of sky and a rim of stars in a place littered with rocks – a metaphor for us and the world, Drust thought. Living in the now, with the hot sky and an immensity that frightened folk with its vastness, dependent on one another, with the complete absence of a common sense that should have stopped them being there.
They were already shifting like a delicate mechanism, smoothing out back into the routine they had all perfected and would never be done with. They checked weapons with that old familiarity, felt the gritting rasp of dust in their mouths, bodies soaked with salted sweat under their red cloaks, camel-sticks held like javelins.
Drust blew out his cheeks. ‘Everyone know the plan?’ he called softly.
‘Run in, kill everything, run out,’ Ugo growled back and that got a few laughs.
‘We stand ready,’ Quintus added and that got a few more; it was the standard army response to any order, however bad it looked. It looked, Drust had to admit, quite bad.
There were a hundred – more – desert tribals crouched in a wadi not far from the wall of the mud-brick compound. They had ladders and bows, spears and blades, and for all that Drust had seen some big commander muster men in defence, they’d get over the wall and then numbers would do it.
On a nearby hill were about a dozen, perhaps more – the leadership of the tribals, overseeing the business next to the rope tethers of their camels and horses.
‘Get in amongst them,’ Drust had told them. ‘Stercorinus – you have a blade long enough to be used from the back of a camel, so you slash free their mounts and scatter them. The rest of us will ride in like dromedarii, loud and proud and making it seem we are part of many.’
The cloaks would do it, Drust hoped. That and the surprise. Cut the head off the snake, wreck their transport, and if that didn’t send all of them scattering, then run for the safety of the compound.
They came up at a shambling lope, Drust trying to kick the camel into running hard. There was a moment when the heads turned, staring in disbelief, which is when Kag bawled out, ‘Roma invicta!’ and Quintus went past, roaring with laughter at it.
Drust managed no more than a weary lollop, but saw Stercorinus come up alongside and pass him, heading for the tethered mounts. ‘Cut the ropes,’ he yelled, but had a mouthful of gritty dust and choked on anything else; he saw Stercorinus ignore the mounts and charge on past, heading for the huddle of men. They started to scatter and Stercorinus, both hands on the upraised sword, swept in, scything left, then right.
Cursing, Drust fought the camel to a staggering halt and then had to slither off, pain bursting all the way through him. He headed for the tethered line and struck, but it wasn’t tight enough to be cut in one and he had to begin sawing; a horse tugged, making the affair bounce, while the camel on the other side eyed him bleakly and chewed sideways.
A shadow flicked and he reflex-ducked – the blade that would have slashed his face hissed over his head and he yelped, spinning away and wincing at the shriek of bruised muscles. His enemy had a face with a scar along it, an old white wound that tugged the side of his mouth up in a permanent lopsided grin. He had a baggy robe a size too large for him, thrown over baggier Persian trousers, yet the stance, the way he handled the spatha told Drust he was no tribal.
‘You’re no fucking camel-botherer from the 20th,’ the man growled in Latin, and that confirmed it.
‘You’re no goat-fucker from the desert,’ Drust answered, backing up and looking sideways for help. The man laughed, a dust-harsh sound.
‘I knows who you is,’ the man said. ‘Dead man is who you is.’
‘Come ahead if you have the balls for it,’ Drust declared, then ducked under the tether rope and got among the mounts, which began to tug and mill. He slashed once at the rope and saw strands part; the scarred man scowled and sent a sweep of blade, easily dodged. It hit a camel in the face, which roared outrage and jerked away – the rope broke.
Drust was bumped and jostled – one horse’s rear sent him spinning into the dust and the agony of the fall drove air and sense out of him; he was struggling to rise when he saw Scarface closing in, squinting and crouched as he came up, fending off the milling beasts.
He saw Drust and snarled. Or smiled – it was hard for Drust to tell with that scar, but it didn’t matter. He bore in and slashed with the spatha blade; Drust had no time for finesse, did not use the flat of the gladius to catch it, but the edge and the force threw his arm out wide. Scarface launched a scythe that would have taken Drust in the face if he had not ducked. Then he stopped, grinning, which bewildered Drust.
He was getting to his feet when another beast hit him – camel, Drust thought as the hairy mountain of it knocked him off balance. He flailed his arms wildly for balance and felt a jarring as the gladius bit something; when he turned, a man was looking down it, his mouth wide and blood-wet, his eyes staring madly at the steel length that led from his throat all the way to Drust’s fist.
Coming up behind me, Drust thought – sneaky bastard. Then he realised why Scarface had stopped and half turned to see the man now boring in, his backstab plan a failure. Drust gave a shriek and wrenched the blade to free it, so hard that it hissed out and round, with no control at all.
They both felt the tug of it and both fell over. Drust wrestled with the grit and shrouded air, scrambling back to his feet in time to hear a high, keening scream. By the time he was back on his feet and in a fighting crouch, one side of his body an answering shriek of agony, he saw the noise came from Scarface.
He was clutching his belly to keep the pale, blue-white coils in, and the shock of it had rendered him to whimpering for his ma. Drust spat dust and managed a lurching turn as shadows flitted in the murk; somewhere, above the screaming, someone seemed to be babbling for forgiveness.
‘Not bad,’ said a voice and Quintus came up, his face a paste of sweat and dust. He casually struck out with his own sword, a serpent-tongue flicker that took Scarface in the side of the neck and rendered him instantly silent. ‘Shut up, you fuck. I have had horses die on me with less fuss.’
His grin was bright and wide and admiring. ‘I saw that,’ he said, nodding at the two corpses. ‘A backhand in the throat, a slash to the belly – if I’d known you fought this well, I’d have paired you in the harena and we could have had some real fights.’
Drust said nothing, not even how glad he was to see him. They lumbered out of the settling dust to see beasts galloping everywhere, some of them mounted. Men were down and the babbling came from Stercorinus, who was kneeling and praying to his sword, which was driven into the ground; Drust did not understand the language but he understood the blood that slathered the man to his waist, clotting in the dust.
‘Palmyran,’ Quintus muttered. ‘Or something. He is not right, that one.’
‘He kills well,’ Ugo growled, looming up and leaning on his axe. There was blood on his face and his sleeve, but it wasn’t his. ‘All these are his.’
A score or more were scattered, everyone with raggled necks and no heads. Kag and Praeclarum came up – still mounted, Drust noted – and Kag indicated some of the riders galloping to and fro.
‘They are from the caravanserai,’ he said. ‘Not your usual Army horse neither.’
They were not. They were mailed, with crested helmets and white cloaks; Drust felt a belly-flip of unease at that, seeing that these were escort horses for some Stripe.
‘Did we win?’
‘They ran,’ Praeclarum said, then frowned. ‘Did you fall off? Are you hurt?’
Drust did not want to be embarrassed by any more grins from the others, so he flapped one hand to dismiss it, then stiffened as a group of mounted men rode up to them, skidding to a halt in a shower of dust. When it cleared, he saw through his squint that a giant had climbed off a horse which, big and black though it was, seemed relieved at losing the weight.
‘20th Palmyra,’ the giant said, cocking his head to one side. ‘Timely and bravely done – how many are you?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, but went to the lolled body of Scarface, his blood a scummed paste that the giant did not care to avoid. He will ruin those nice boots, Drust thought. Expensive wine-coloured leather with gold, the sort a serious Stripe would wear.
The giant bent and grunted, then came up with a small leather pouch, torn from Scarface’s neck; Drust knew that there would be a signaculum in it, a small lead tablet that detailed the rank and unit of the legionary who wore it. It would be the last thing even a deserter would throw away.
‘Alexandros,’ the giant said after a cursory glance. ‘Legionary of the 3rd Parthica. Fucker.’
He turned and stared at Drust, who tried not to blink and failed. It was not the size, though, that was impressive – even Ugo was not as broad or tall – it was the face, which seemed carved from a block of rough stone, the nose broad and flattened, the chin solid as a farmhouse. Most of it was a browline that was all one long awning above eyes that might have been kind once, but were now glaring from under this hood. It was a club, that face, and the owner used it to beat anyone he stared at into the ground.
Drust did not allow himself to be beaten, but he was suddenly conscious of what the giant was seeing – a broken-nosed face, broad and full-lipped, framed with a cropped beard and close-cropped hair. Eyes slightly liquid, a little popped, with that fret at the corners which told those who understood how many distant horizons they had stared at.
The giant studied him, then stretched out one hand, placing the flat of it on Drust’s breast; it practically covered it like a breastplate, and even lightly done gave off a strength Drust wanted to recoil from.
‘No signaculum,’ he grunted, while Drust’s bowels fought against turning to water.
‘Not on a patrol such as this, yer honour,’ he managed to croak.
‘Maximinus,’ the giant said. ‘Praeses Mesopotamiae.’
Assistant governor of the province. Drust floundered, managed his name and an added ‘yer honour’, then his dry mouth clamped.
‘Attalus send you out?’ he demanded.
‘Uranius,’ Drust managed. ‘Patrol. Singara. Roads clear…’
‘Uranius,’ Maximinus repeated thoughtfully, rolling the name round in his mouth as if chewing it to shreds. There is something there, Drust thought… but the giant had turned, was waving for a trooper to bring the horse.
‘I heard there was rebellion in Dura. Legionary uprising.’
Drust managed to shake his head. ‘Nah, your honour. Bit of a riot at some Games – one of their own decided to take on gladiators and lost. The 20th sorted it out.’
The giant levered himself onto the horse, which seemed to sink a little, then grinned as he took up the reins. Drust had never felt so sorry for a beast before.
‘Good unit, the 20th. You will proceed with my grain wagons to Singara – Sempronius here will help you with food and water. I will mention your exemplary performance here to Attalus – and Uranius.’
Then he clattered off, dragging a trail of troopers and dust. The one left behind, presumably Sempronius, spat in the dust and blew out his cheeks.
‘My men will help round up your beasts. That was timely, mark you.’
‘Who was that?’ Ugo demanded, and Drust could see he was measuring himself against the giant and coming up short. Sempronius saw it too and laughed.
‘You have met the Thracian. Maximinus Thrax they call him, but not to his face. Assistant governor of Mesopotamia.’
‘If he had been in the harena,’ Quintus noted, ‘he’d have been a big hit.’
‘He’s the one Uranius warned us to keep away from,’ Praeclarum muttered in Drust’s ear, and he remembered it as soon as her words were tumbled out. Well, too late now, he thought.
‘Kag, Quintus – get Stercorinus cleaned up and quiet or we’ll never get the camels back here.’
‘You encountered Maximinus Thrax?’ Narseh-dux said. ‘He is riding the line, it appears.’
‘Riding the line?’
‘The defences,’ Kisa interrupted. ‘Mesopotamia has garrisons…’
He became aware of Narseh’s glance and fell silent under it. The Persian took a date from the dish and popped it in his mouth, worrying the stone out of it as he chewed. He was a large man with a large beard and a matching laugh, who wore blue, sleeved robes over white and had thick fingers which bore the old, pale marks of rings which had been cut off when they grew too tight.
He spat a stone sideways and Drust waited, knowing it was always best to wait when questions crowded at your teeth. He sat on cushions on a woven hemp mat on the cooled floor of a dim room, listening to the banging of pots and bowls, the calls of street vendors, the bray of a donkey.
There were conversations, too muted to hear, and Drust knew this had been measured, so that the room, a square on top of a square on top of a square, had slat-shuttered windows for the breezes, but was too far above the courtyard for any conversations to be overheard.
It had been a long, hot journey, painful with every jolt of the grumbling camel. Praeclarum had done her best with her ointments, but too much had been done to him for it to be easily alleviated. Then there was Stercorinus; it had taken five bucket-sluices from the well to wash the blood from him and even then the garrison eyed him warily as he stood in a pink, muddy slush with his filthy loincloth and his sword.
They’d asked him what had happened. Drust told him he was supposed to have cut the animal tethers, not dashed off to lop off heads – and what had that been about anyway?
‘Destiny,’ Stercorinus said dully, and Kag grabbed the man’s matted beard, snarling close to his face.
‘You disobey again, you streak of ugly shit stain, and I will show you destiny…’
Drust had had the loincloth stripped off him and found him a tunic and Persian trousers. Stercorinus had put up no argument, but had balked when the shears came out for his beard and hair; they’d given up on it in the end.
Narseh-dux clapped his hands and Drust shifted a little to ease his blazing side, which made Kag glance over and question with his eyes. Drust shook his head, but closed his own eyes, trying to let the pain and weariness flow away from his tired limbs, trying to focus his mind. A camel bell’s cracked clank and the harassing bark of dogs made him give up.
A slave appeared with a box, four fingers square all round and the length of a good arm, and handed it to Narseh-dux, who made a show of placing it on the low table, opening it and removing what looked like a scroll. Drust saw Kisa stiffen just a little, like a dog scenting rats, but it was nothing to do with the sudden strong waft of sandalwood.
‘See here,’ Narseh-dux declared, grinning brownly as he unrolled the affair and took two small polished stones, shiny black, out of the box to weigh down the edges. They all peered at a meticulously drawn map.
‘This is the line,’ Narseh-dux said, tracing an invisible one with a fat finger, joining up dots one by one. ‘This is Singara – the Roman camps are a long spit from this caravanserai and contain the 1st and 3rd Parthica.’
He tapped the map. ‘You would think that a great security, two legions of Rome, but it is not, for they are scattered in pieces all along the line, from fortress to fortress – here at Resaina, at Nisbis and elsewhere. Also, the garrison at Resaina killed the commander of the 3rd not more than a week ago, when he would not take the purple they offered him. Those who tried to rebel then fled. Some have joined the House of Ardashir of Sasan in his fight against the old order. Some have become bandits, joining with the desert tribes.’
Drust and Kag exchanged looks; this was quality news and a measure of the man who offered it. Drust caught that Kisa’s eye did not miss the signal – here was a man who knew a great deal, and if he knew it, Shayk Amjot knew it.
‘There are desertions everywhere,’ Narseh-dux went on, ‘which will help you – everyone is concentrating on watching his neighbour. Maximinus is galloping up and down cracking heads to put a stop to it all, but the same is happening all over – Flavia Firma, the Scythian, all the legions are unhappy, unpaid and unfed.
‘This is the way you should go – out to Nisbis,’ Narseh-dux said, then offered his grin to Kisa. ‘This one will calculate how many camels it will take to reach the Red Serpent – but no one knows what you will find there.’
‘Is it manned?’ Kag demanded, and Narseh-dux shrugged, began rolling up the map. Drust saw Kisa’s face grow cold, as if the sun had abandoned him.
‘It has always been manned,’ Narseh-dux replied, ‘but now no one knows how well or where is weakest.’
‘What lies beyond it?’ Drust asked, and the fat merchant beamed and nodded.
‘A good question. They are wolves – you know it as Hyrcania, but the true name is Verkana, land of wolves. The peoples there are grassland riders – Tschols and Saka and others. In the mountains further east they are horseless, but both use bows to great effect.’
‘How do we cross this Wall?’ Kag demanded, and the merchant shrugged and closed the box.
‘That is your affair. I have instructions only to provide camels and herders and guards – and this.’
He drew a fat purse from inside his robes and dropped it heavily on the table, where it made a sound that brought Kag’s lips up in a smile that showed teeth. Narseh-dux was grim.
‘I did this once before – purse, camels, men – for those other two, the one with night in his eyes and the other – may the gods keep me safe – with the face of death. They have never been heard of again and so I think it will be with you.’
‘It is not your money nor camels nor men, o wise one,’ Kisa said, and Narseh-dux scowled.
‘No, blessings be for that,’ he declared, folding his fat hands over his massive belly. There was no chest that Drust could see, but he marvelled at the breasts, which seemed as plump as any woman’s.
‘One hundred and forty amphorae for three days,’ he added. ‘Eight hundred and forty-eight pints of wine.’
‘Eight hundred and forty,’ Kisa corrected quietly. ‘It makes a total weight of 1561 librae. You can get all that on five camels. I have calculated, with fodder and food for herders and guards, for the packloads of trade goods – eighty-three camels. Eighty-five to be safe.’
‘Trade goods?’ Drust demanded and Kisa spread his hands.
‘Wool, linen, glass, some tinware… the usual poor trade items along these roads. Rome’s goods do not match the worth of silk and gems and spices, so we are also known for carrying coin, mostly gold.’
Kag chuckled. ‘This is why you will come with us.’
Kisa’s face went white and his eyes almost rolled up to match it. ‘My part ends here,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I have no instruction or desire to go further.’
‘You may believe so,’ Drust said, and Kisa heard the tone, saw the faces, and everyone else saw him look for a way out.
‘Do not run,’ Narseh-dux said quietly to him. ‘I am thinking it would not be an idea much liked, by them or the Shayk, my master.’
Then he smiled and clapped his hands for slaves to bring wine and food, beaming like some well-loved old uncle.
‘The bandits are too weak to attack such a train as yours,’ he said soothingly to Kisa. ‘And the Sasan are too busy trying to take over the old Empire. You will have a pleasant walk to Hagmatāna, then north to the Red Snake, where your honours’ glib tongues and bribes will see you through.’
Everyone agreed. Drust said nothing. Kisa trembled and ate little.
Drust said nothing for three days after they left Singara, then in the glimmering dim of a lamplit tent, after the camels had been bedded, meals eaten, guards posted, he called Kisa and Kag and the others.
He had no sandalwood box and no carefully notated map, just the gritted sand between mats, but he drew swiftly.
‘We turn north tomorrow,’ he said and Kag nodded, knowing why – if you are leaving tracks, you are being followed. Kisa opened and closed his mouth once or twice and Drust leaned closer to him.
‘We head for the western shores of the Hyrcanian Ocean, leave the camels and take ship to the other side.’
‘Sail round the Wall,’ Ugo growled admiringly.
‘Like every clever raider who ever came down from the north on Britannia,’ Quintus added, grinning.
‘Leave the camels?’ Kisa managed. ‘How will we get back?’
‘Pick them up on our return. Or buy more.’
‘And the trade goods?’
‘Sell them. Buy a boat if we cannot find one to carry us.’
Kisa’s face writhed with arguments, each one discarded when the flaw was seen. Drust did not give him time to find one that worked; he put his face closer still to Kisa, who drew back and then looked at the shadows of the others, which now seemed like a fence to him.
‘From now,’ Drust said grimly, ‘we are all brothers in this. Whatever you were ordered to do, Kisa Shem-Tov, you had better forget it. It has taken me a time to get to it, but I saw your look when Narseh-dux unrolled that map and when he threatened you with the Shayk. You work for Uranius. You are supposed to go back to him and… what? Tell him which way we took? Steal that map?’
Kisa seemed to tilt a little, like a bag of grain that had spilled. He passed a hand over his face as if cobwebs had fallen on him.
‘Narseh-dux is not clever enough to have made such a map. Shayk Amjot made it and probably has more, all handed out to his agents who will update them with new information when it becomes known. The Shayk probably knows as much about Rome’s defences here as the Palatine does – this was Uranius’s concern.’
‘What of Maximinus Thrax?’ Ugo wanted to know and they all knew he was obsessed with the man now. Not often a giant meets his like, Drust thought, but even so…
Kisa waved a dismissive hand. ‘He is what he appears – a brutal man sent by the Emperor to keep weak and greedy people from being forced into taking the purple by the disaffected. Like the commander of the 3rd Parthica. Maximinus does not know who to trust and yet must keep forces sharp against the Persians – he has until these Sasan people clean out the old crew.’
‘And Uranius?’ demanded Kag.
Kisa sucked in a breath, then let it out. ‘Is the Emperor’s man. Some people do not care for family ties.’
They waited and Kisa eventually gave in. ‘Lucius Julius Aurelius Sulpicius Severus Uranius Antoninus,’ he said and stopped, waiting.
Praeclarum got to it first. ‘Severus,’ she said and Kisa nodded.
‘He’s kin to the Emperor?’ Kag demanded furiously and Kisa nodded.
‘Distant, but of the family. He is sampsigeramus – you know what that is?’
‘A priest of the Sun God,’ Stercorinus said blankly. ‘Emesan.’
‘Why would you work for Uranius?’ Sib chimed in, though he was more curious than angry. ‘You are a Jew, who are always stiff-necked about their religion. And you work for a priest of the Sun God?’
Kisa looked from one to the other and it seemed to Drust as if his face unlocked, then he fumbled round his neck, pulled out a bag and brought out the lead lozenge inside. Drust read it and looked at the little Jew.
‘You are a frumentarius.’
Quintus flung up his hands. ‘Jupiter’s hairy arse – a spy for the Army. Spying on Uranius? On us?’
Kisa said nothing, but Drust filled in the blank of his face.
‘On Uranius, because he is the current boy-Emperor’s creature and a priest of Elagabalus – the god, not the strange boy who was Emperor until they dragged him off. He thinks you work for him, but you are a creature of the Hill. You spy on us because of Dog who is also a priest of Elagabalus the god of Emesa, if he is anything at all these days. Some folk do not care for that – they have had enough of pouring blood on a black stone in the Temple of Jupiter.’
‘That’s why Dog was chosen for this,’ Quintus said, seeing it suddenly. He sat back, grinning. ‘He always has a fat cock for boy-emperors of the Severan family. Gods above and below, that lot never ends – all the men are chanters at the Sun and all the women are called Julia. They are everywhere.’
‘Chosen for what?’ Drust demanded and everyone stopped speaking and stared. Kisa spread his hands.
‘I do not know,’ he said bitterly. ‘Uranius does but he will not tell me, a mountain Jew, and besides, he thinks I am simply his paid man.’
He leaned forward meaningfully. ‘But not tigers. Not that.’