Carrhae (86 page)

‘He well and truly duped you,’ said Claudia scornfully as we sat on the palace terrace watching the sun go down in the west. ‘He has poison in his veins. You should say no to his request.’

But I was old and tired and cared little for relics of a bygone age. ‘To what end?’

Her eyes flashed with mischief. ‘To annoy him, of course, and remind him that what he seeks to surrender cheaply was bought dearly with Parthian blood.’

I smiled at her. ‘You get more like your mother every day. I will reply that I will authorise King Pacorus of Hatra sending my eagle to Ctesiphon.’

She sneered. ‘Give me the letter once you have finished with it. I will attach a curse to it that will rot Phraates’ innards.’

‘You will do no such thing,’ I rebuked her. ‘It is my decision.’

‘The Pacorus of old would have refused to bow down to the Romans.’

I smiled at her. ‘And now I am old Pacorus and too frail to bow down to anyone, and in any case we have Romans living in Dura now.’

‘That is entirely different,’ she snapped in irritation.

But I was not to be swayed and so Phraates sent back the eagles and Parthia entered into a peace treaty with Rome. In the aftermath I received a very courteous letter from Caesar Augustus himself inviting me to Rome where I would be awarded the honour of addressing the Senate. I replied that though I was very touched by his kind invitation, I was now too old to make the long journey to Rome.

It was a most curious thing. I had spent my life either fighting Romans or making preparations to battle them but now we had them in Dura, merchants mostly, all making a handsome living from the trade that the city attracted. Some became wealthy and bought a mansion in the city, moving their families and slaves into Dura, though they adopted Parthian dress and after a while it was difficult to tell who was a native and who was a foreigner. No that it mattered; everyone was free to come and go as they wanted as long as they obeyed the law and paid their taxes.

Their wealth paled beside that of the man I had first known as a Cappadocian pot seller who had turned his hand to scouting. Byrd died one of the richest men in Parthia and Arabia, the owner of a vast transport system that used thousands of camels and mules to convey goods throughout the western part of the Parthian Empire, Agraci lands, Syria, Judea, Egypt, Cilicia and Cappadocia. He was courted by Roman governors, Egyptian pharaohs and Parthian kings but continued to live a simple life and had the appearance of a struggling travelling salesman to the day he died. I was at Palmyra when he suddenly fell ill and was taken to his tent. I held a sobbing Noora when he passed away. That was ten years ago now but it seems like yesterday.

Curiously, though I had been one of their most intractable foes, the Romans in Dura and Syria also sought my company. I received many invitations to be the guest of rich and powerful Romans but because it meant travelling far and wide I politely declined most of them. One invitation I did accept was from the Roman governor of Syria, one Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, a serious man with thick curly hair who had been instrumental in winning a great naval battle at a place called Actium that had secured the rule of his friend Caesar Augustus.

Claudia gave me two companies of cataphracts as an escort and the stables supplied a very docile mare for me to ride, not that I did much of that as my leg made sitting on a horse for long periods extremely painful. She also insisted that half a dozen squires attended me and gave strict instructions to the commander of the escort that I was to ride for only two hours at a time. But that journey to Syria was one of the happiest in my dotage. The cataphracts and their horses wore scale armour and pennants fluttered from every
kontus
. Every day the squires helped me into my leather cuirass and I wore my Roman helmet with a magnificent white goose feather crest once again, and at my hip I carried the
spatha
that had been gifted to me by Spartacus. And suddenly I was once more Pacorus of Dura as my griffin standard fluttered behind me and the sun glinted off whetted lance points. During the journey I thought I heard the steady tramp of thousands of hobnailed sandals on the sun-roasted earth behind me and on the horizon saw the fleeting shapes of black-clad scouts riding far ahead of the army led by Byrd and Malik. But then a gust of wind brought me back to reality and I saw my withered hands and felt the ache in my leg and knew that those days were long gone. Foolish old man.

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was a most excellent host, greeting me at the gates of Antioch and escorting me to the great palace in the city. If anything it had grown in size and was filled with more noise, though perhaps the truth was that I had diminished. He gave a great feast in my honour, to which all the nobles and their families were invited, and gave a most courteous speech stating that he was proud that I, the most famous man in the east, had accepted his invitation.

He may have been one of the most powerful men in the Roman Empire but his questions to me in the days afterwards were the same as those posed by all of his countrymen. What was Crassus like, was I the one who killed him at Carrhae and cut off his head, did I really ride a white stallion called Remus? I told him what I told them: Crassus was a most agreeable individual and in another time we may have been friends; no, I did not kill him, though I never told them that he had been killed by a woman, as that would have further sullied his reputation and that would have been unfair; and yes, my horse was called Remus. But most of all they wanted to know about Spartacus, the slave who had risen up and nearly toppled Rome itself. Most of them were not even born when he had been destroying Roman armies, or if they had would have been infants, and they were most curious to know everything about him. Talking with Agrippa and his officers I soon realised that the myth of Spartacus was very different from the reality. They had been told that he had been a giant who did not sleep and crept up on his foes in the dead of the night, that he stormed Nola with ten thousand men.

I shook my head. ‘We bluffed our way in with a handful of horsemen.’

‘It is well known that his wife was a witch who controlled the weather,’ announced a young tribune. ‘That is how he and his army escaped Crassus at Rhegium. She created a snow storm that blinded our soldiers.’

‘There was snow,’ I agreed, ‘but it was courage and discipline that got his army out of Crassus’ trap, not sorcery.’

‘Some say that Spartacus escaped from the Silarus Valley and lived out the rest of his life as a bandit in Bruttium,’ said another.

‘He died fighting in the Silarus Valley,’ I corrected him, ‘and the day after I and thousands of others attended his cremation.’

I told them of how I had been rescued by Spartacus on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius and showed them the
spatha
that he had given me all those years ago. Agrippa held the weapon as though it was a religious icon possessed of supernatural powers, while the others stared at it in awe. I had to laugh.

‘What was he like?’ asked Agrippa.

It was a good question. One that I had been asked a thousand times. ‘I believe that the gods earmark certain individuals for greatness, irrespective of their race or circumstances of their birth. Spartacus was one such individual.’

I saw their confused faces. ‘I can see you are sceptical but consider this. How was it that an ordinary man, a slave no less, could revolt against Rome in its own land, raise an army of slaves – slaves, not soldiers – and lead them to victory after victory, if not with the help of the gods?’

Agrippa looked most thoughtful. ‘Are you saying that he was a god?’

‘No, but I believe that he was beloved of the gods and that helped him. He was also brave, intelligent and resourceful and had the ability to appraise both individuals and circumstances to his benefit.’

I enjoyed their company but also envied them their youth and the lives that lay ahead of them. For me such events were interludes in a long period of loneliness. I had seen my friends and wife die but often wondered if the gods had reserved the cruellest fate for me by keeping me alive and enduring the slow death of old age. My body became frail and a playground for aches and pains and my senses dulled. At night I lay on my bed and thought of Gallia and the times we had shared together, always falling asleep clutching the lock of her hair that hung around my neck. I prayed for death but it never came, and the next morning woke to endure another day without her.

My return to Dura was barely noticed, though I am sure that the six squires who had been tasked with looking after me were glad we were back from Syria. I returned the mare to the stables and went back to using the small cart pulled by a cantankerous mule for my regular morning trips from the Citadel, through the city and then south to a quiet spot a couple of miles south by the river, to sit beneath an old date palm. The palace carpenter built a seat under the tree that I could rest on and I spent most mornings watching the river flow south, invariably dozing off to the sounds of lapwings, herons and warblers.

Today was no different: a morning with the sun already warming the earth from a clear blue sky. There was much activity in the Citadel as Claudia was in the throne room authorising trade licences that had been agreed by the royal council, which sat each week in the headquarters building, now given over entirely to civil rather than military matters. Petitioners were standing at the top of the palace steps, waiting to be admitted. As a groom brought my cart to the foot of the palace steps I ambled through the group. One of them, a man in his mid-fifties with a full head of brown hair and a neatly cropped beard, dressed in a white silk tunic smiled and bowed his head to me. Out of courtesy I smiled back but he continued to smile and look at me so I went over to him.

‘Do I know you?’

‘No, sir, forgive me staring. We met once, a long time ago, but there is no reason you should remember me.’

Now my curiosity was aroused. ‘I am old and unfortunately have no recollection of our meeting.’

Whoever he was he was obviously a man of some means for he wore soft leather boots on his feet and his white cloak was fixed to his left shoulder by a large silver brooch.

‘It was a long time ago, sir, so there is no reason you should remember. I was one of a score of Roman soldiers, the sole survivors of a legion, who stood on a rise of ground near the town of Carrhae expecting to die when you saved us.’

That was over thirty-five years ago. I extended my bony hand to him. ‘I am glad that you all survived.’

He took my hand. ‘Only because of your intercession, sir, for which I am eternally in your debt.’

‘What brings you to Dura?’

‘I have a wine-selling business in Syria, sir,’ he replied, ‘and hope to establish a shop here in Dura.’

‘Business is good?’

He nodded. ‘It is, sir. Peace means trade and trade brings profits.’

It was not always so. ‘What is your name?’

‘Lucius Cato, sir.’

I stayed and chatted to him about the Battle of Carrhae until Claudia ordered the doors of the throne room to be opened to the petitioners. I escorted him inside to ensure he received his licence. As thanks he invited me to dine with him and his family that evening, a request I gladly accepted. Claudia was bemused by my support for this Roman merchant but she did not realise that to talk with someone who remembered me as a great warlord was heartening. Only someone who has outlived his or her usefulness would understand.

A stable hand helped me onto my cart and my faithful mule walked from the courtyard to transport me to my usual morning residence by the river. I glanced at the memorial to the Companions that had space for one more name as I left the Citadel. The city’s main street was thronged with shoppers, travellers, sightseers, camels and mules loaded with goods and so it took me longer than usual to reach the Palmyrene Gate. Bored guards rested on their shields and others walked up and down on the gatehouse’s battlements. They stood to attention when they recognised me and I raised a hand in acknowledgement, then looked up at the stone griffin that had stood guardian over my city for so many years.

Its head moved, I swear it did, in a gesture akin to a nod of recognition, as I passed under the arch and exited the city. I pulled on the reins to halt my mule and then looked back up at the statue. It was immobile. Of course it was. Foolish old man.

My old mule knew the route he had to take every day and once we had descended the gentle slope that led from the gates he headed off the road heaving with carts, wagons, camels, mules and travellers on foot and ambled south, towards the fields and date palms of the royal estates. Fed by irrigational canals that had been vastly improved by the engineering skills of Marcus Sutonius, they grew the crops and fed the cattle, pigs, sheep and goats that sustained the palace and the garrison, as well as producing a surplus that was sold in the city. Dozens of villages had sprung up inland of the Euphrates where farmers and their families prospered.

I sat on the cart as the mule trudged down the dusty track leading to my bench. When he stopped I alighted the cart, unstrapped him from his harness and then led him to the shade of the date palm. I never bothered to tether him because he was too lazy to attempt to escape, being content to remain by my side apart from the occasional amble down to the river’s edge to drink.

I eased my creaking body down and rested my hand on my sword hilt. I don’t know why I bothered to strap it on each day because I was far too old and frail to wield it. But then I had worn a sword since my teenage years and it was a link to my past, to a time when I had been a warlord and commander of armies. It was also a link to the man who had given me it and whose memory I still revered. I watched the waters flow past and heard the comforting sound of birds overhead. The tiring bustle of the city seemed far away as I watched a dragonfly hover above the blue waters of the Euphrates. The air was sweet and pure and the silence was having a most sleep-inducing effect and soon my eyelids were closing as I drifted into blessed slumber.