Companions (The Parthian Chronicles) (70 page)

‘Fall back,’ I shouted at Gallia and Surena as other horsemen retreated rapidly.

Akrosas made no protest as I screamed at my horse and dug my knees into her flanks to make her gallop faster. Gallia and Surena were beside me as we raced away from the scorpions.

‘Into the trees,’ I shouted at them and anyone within earshot.

We diverted our horses left to take them, and us, into the trees where we pulled up our mounts. I released Akrosas’ reins and apologised to him. But he was in a daze and barely acknowledged me. Other horsemen flooded into the forest, including Domitus, Drenis and Arminius. Domitus had a thunderous look on his face and nudged his horse forward when he spotted Akrosas surrounded by the surviving officers of his bodyguard. He was obviously going to give the king a piece of his mind but I called him back.

‘He has learned his lesson.’

And so had the other leaders. The short, bloody battle with the Romans had resulted in hundreds of Thracian and Dacian dead. With the defeat of the horsemen the other leaders had ordered their men to seek the sanctuary of the forests, the warriors melting into the trees, leaving the Romans free to recommence their march back to Macedonia. I rode back to the treeline with Domitus to watch them pass, the legionaries adopting a ragged square formation, in the centre the legionary eagle, the commanders on horses and mules pulling carts loaded with wounded I assumed. The Romans left no injured on the battlefield.

‘We inflicted substantial losses on them,’ said Domitus. ‘I see no horsemen, no auxiliaries and no scouts. Their pace is also slow. They are tired and thirsty, I’ll warrant.’

‘So are we, my friend, so are we.’

After the Roman column had departed only the moaning of the injured and the pitiful cries of wounded horses disturbed the quiet. Akrosas, plunged into deep despair, sat on the ground with his head in his hands; the soldiers of his bodyguard stood around, uncertain what to do. I examined my mare to ensure she had no wounds and rode her back into the grass. Gallia and the others accompanied me. Other groups were walking from the trees to search for lost comrades, kill those too grievously wounded and retrieve those still alive who were capable of walking.

‘All this was unnecessary,’ grumbled Domitus, looking around at the scene of carnage.

‘The most important thing is that we are all unhurt,’ said Gallia harshly.

‘What do you think the odds of that happening after all that we have been through?’ asked Drenis.

‘As Dobbai said,’ Gallia answered, ‘as long as we are seven then we will all return to Dura.’

But there were hundreds of others who would never return to their homes. As the hours passed it emerged that over fifteen hundred warriors had been killed. Draco had lost two hundred killed, Radu three hundred slain. Decebal’s foot soldiers had lost three hundred dead but the heaviest losses were among the Getea that had borne the brunt of the Roman assault. Akrosas had fancied himself as a new Alexander of Macedon but his men had been woefully deficient in weapons, armour and training and had suffered accordingly: no less than seven hundred of them had perished. Surprisingly our horsemen had lost only seventy killed, though the enemy’s scorpions had slaughtered and wounded three times that number of horses. I was deliriously happy when I discovered that Cleon and Burebista had survived the carnage, though the last of Cleon’s followers were dead.

That night men sat in stunned, silent groups round fires as they mourned their dead comrades and thanked the gods for their deliverance. But there was little food and even less fodder so everyone endured a miserable night, their heads full of morbid thoughts and their bellies empty. The next day the march back to Histria began. During the night my mare had gone lame so I walked beside her for the duration of the journey. The kings kept to their respective tribal warriors and avoided each other, while Akrosas avoided everyone. I comforted myself with the knowledge that nearly five hundred dead legionaries had been counted on the battlefield.

By the time we clapped eyes on the walls of Histria we were filthy, stank, our clothes were torn and dirty and there were black circles round our eyes. But as the gates of the city opened the residents, no doubt filled with dread at the prospect of being either killed or enslaved by the Romans, rushed out to greet their returning heroes. Men who had been hobbling along with the aid of makeshift crutches, and who had appeared to be at death’s door, suddenly underwent a miraculous recovery as vivacious young girls embraced them. Hand-drawn carts heaped with food, water and wine were soon among the warriors, their drivers demanding that their cargoes be consumed post haste. What semblance of order that had existed vanished as hardened warriors wept as they were cradled in the arms of grateful old maids.

A dazzlingly attractive woman no more than twenty years old offered Surena a full water skin. He smiled, took it and drank most of the contents, wine pouring down his neck. He wiped his mouth and promptly threw up, his stomach unused to the rich liquid after days of eating hardly anything. He looked shamefaced at the woman as we fell about laughing. But I wasn’t laughing when I went to visit Alcaeus who had volunteered to assist in the treatment of the wounded. A large warehouse inside the walls of the citadel had been designated a temporary hospital, the patients lying in rows on the dirt floor. Physicians, slaves and priestesses from the Tempe of Bendis attended to the wounded, their low groans unnerving me as I found my Greek doctor ordering two slaves to take away a dead man.

‘You look like I feel,’ I told him.

He cracked a weary smile. ‘Thank the gods you are alive. How are the others?’

‘All in one piece,’ I said. I saw the figure of Hippo kneeling beside a patient.

‘What is she doing here?’

He looked at the former high priestess. ‘She has been here since the hospital was established, working without complaint and undertaking the filthiest of tasks. I think she sees it as penance for her sins.’

‘The gods must have accepted her penance,’ I said. ‘Cleon survived the battle.’

‘She will be pleased. One thing you should attend to before the feast that will invariably be held tonight. Athineos got himself arrested while you were away. He currently languishes in jail.’

Alcaeus was wrong about the feast. So exhausted were the returning ‘heroes’ that they immediately fell asleep when they reached the square inside the citadel, servants arriving to take the equally exhausted horses to the royal stables to be watered and treated. Akrosas took himself to the Temple of Apollo to pray for forgiveness for letting the Romans escape, even Rodica being forbidden to enter the shrine. The king stayed there all night, the other kings returning to the palace to bathe and acquire clean clothing. I let Athineos languish for a further night in jail, being too exhausted to care about his welfare. One man I did make time for was Admiral Arcathius whose Pontic soldiers had garrisoned the city in the king’s absence.

He was dressed in his magnificent scale armour cuirass when I visited him on the palace balcony later that afternoon. We sat under a white linen sunshade as slaves served us wine, fruit and delicious honey cakes. I was careful not to indulge, as I did not want to empty my stomach as Surena had done earlier.

‘My congratulations, King Pacorus,’ he said. ‘You have saved this city from a terrible fate.’

‘I fear the Romans may be back, admiral, though at least we gave them a bloody nose.’

‘You have given King Akrosas time in which to muster an alliance of Thracian and Dacian tribes,’ he said, ‘and I will ensure that he does not waste it. The news of the Roman reverse will spread like wildfire through the kingdoms and I will make sure that the king fans those flames.’

He put his cup down on the small side table in front of us. ‘And you, King Pacorus, what will the hero of Histria do now?’

‘He will return home, admiral.’

Akrosas, wearing fresh clothes and now more at ease with himself following his night of penance in the Temple of Apollo, proclaimed two days of celebrations for the city’s residents. The royal stores were opened so that food could be distributed to the population. The royal treasury purchased all the fish that had been landed during those two days and also gave them to the residents. The priests of Apollo and Bendis gave thanks in their temples and the king and queen gave a magnificent feast for the kings who had accompanied him on his expedition against the Romans.

There had been a touching scene when Cleon had been reunited with Hippo, the two of them sobbing as they held each other in their arms. A less inspiring sight had been the appearance of an irritable and drunk Athineos who had been released as part of a general amnesty decree issued by Akrosas for minor offenders. I found the captain in his room in the palace, slumped in a chair with his head in his hands and feeling very sorry for himself.

‘I am a captain without a ship or a crew,’ he muttered. ‘The last of my shipmates have deserted me and taken service aboard some Greek merchant vessel.’

He reeked of self-pity as well as wine.

‘First of all stop drinking so much. You smell like an alehouse. Second, stop feeling sorry for yourself. You still have your health and your wits.’

He regarded me with bloodshot eyes. ‘If you came here just to lecture me then you have my permission to leave.’

He took another large gulp of wine from the
kylix
that he drained and refilled.

‘I came here to inform you that good fortune lies just around the corner for you, Athineos, though you might not know it. Because of you I have been able to fulfil what I regarded as a sacred quest. That being the case, I am in your debt and I always pay my debts. Therefore I desire you to accompany me back to Parthia so that you may be rewarded. I know the loss of your ships was a cruel blow so I wish to recompense you for your misfortune. So what do you say, Athineos?’

I heard a snore and saw his head slumped forward, the
kylix
dangling from his limp hand. He had fallen asleep!

‘The gods give me strength.’

A more attentive audience was Cleon and Hippo. The day after the banquet, when Radu and Draco were preparing to leave Histria with their men, I visited the makeshift hospital where Hippo had continued with her duties. Despite the smell of blood and guts and her gore-covered apron she still looked alluring, her dark brown eyes full of enticement. Alcaeus was very flustered and barely acknowledged me as I walked between the rows of lacerated and broken bodies. Cleon was loading soiled straw into a wheelbarrow, Hippo beside him.

‘This is no place for you, majesty,’ she said when I approached.

‘When you have seen as many battlefields as I have, lady,’ I replied, ‘this place appears mild by comparison.’

Cleon stopped shovelling blood-soaked straw.

‘You will be leaving soon, majesty?’

I nodded. ‘That is why I came.’

‘To say goodbye?’ there was sadness in Hippo’s eyes.

‘To say that I desire both of you to come back to Parthia with me.’

Cleon was surprised. ‘Parthia? What is there for two Greek exiles, majesty?’

‘A new and fulfilling life for you both,’ I told them. ‘You are free to make your own choices, but if you come back to Parthia with me I promise that you will no longer be exiles.’

Hippo looked at her beloved. ‘I do not understand, majesty.’

I placed a hand on both their shoulders. ‘All I ask is that you trust me. At the very least in Parthia you will not have to look over your shoulders out of fear that a Roman arrest warrant will be served on you.’

I looked around at the dozens of groaning, mutilated men lying on the ground.

‘A high priestess should not have to toil in such a place as this.’

She smiled sardonically. ‘Artemis is still angry with me, I think.’

‘If that was true, Hippo, then she would not have permitted you to leave Ephesus. She has a plan for you, for you both, and I am the agent of that plan.’

After the celebrations the city returned to normal. Akrosas invited Gallia and me to take refreshment with him and Rodica on the palace balcony. As we sat beneath sunshades to be served by bare-footed slaves in pristine white
chitons
Akrosas waved forward a thin, middle-aged man who had been loitering in the corner of the balcony.

‘This is Captain Hestiodorus, King Pacorus, who will take you and your people to Pontus. I have commissioned him and his ship and will allocate funds from the treasury so that you may purchase horses for your journey back to Parthia after you have landed in Pontus.’

‘You are most generous, lord king,’ I said.

He waved Hestiodorus away, the latter bowing deeply as he retreated from our presence.

‘I don’t suppose I could persuade General Domitus to remain at Histria?’ enquired the king mischievously. ‘He would be well rewarded and I would make him my high general.’

I laughed. ‘I fear he misses his children too much, majesty.’

‘His children?’

‘The soldiers of the army he has raised for me,’ I told him. ‘He oversees them like a jealous mother hen tends to its chicks.’

Akrosas smiled at his wife.

‘A great pity. I could use the advice of such a man. I fear the Romans may return.’