Parthian Dawn (37 page)

And that was that. There was no more talk of Romans or war and so we sat and laughed and watched Rasha play with young Spartacus, and for a while I forgot about those things that troubled me.

The rest of our stay in Hatra was pleasant enough. I went to Vistaspa’s quarters and apologised to him for my rudeness, a gesture that took him somewhat by surprise. He was pleased, I think, for he invited me to stay awhile and we talked of Dura, the Romans and his friend Godarz. I think he missed his old companion, and so I promised that when I got back to Dura I would send Godarz to Hatra for an extended stay.

‘So, majesty, we are all agreed that war with the Romans is inevitable?’

‘I think we have known each long enough for you not to call me majesty, Vistaspa. And yes, I think war is inevitable.’

Vistaspa never really smiled as such, but a satisfied leer now crossed his face. ‘I think you are right and so does your father. Hatra will be ready for it when it comes, though. But what of the rest of the empire?’

‘Rome thinks that it can pluck each kingdom in the empire like ripe fruit’ I said. ‘Phraates made a mistake when he did not retaliate against Lucullus for occupying Gordyene. The Romans will have noted his pusillanimity and will act accordingly. But I think that their underestimation of us may be their undoing.’

He regarded me for a moment with his cold, black eyes, the eyes of a man without pity. ‘And yet, they will know, or at the very least will have heard, that you defeated the rebels and placed Phraates back on his throne. I’m sure that the new King of Dura is part of their calculations also.’

‘The one thing that I learned about the Romans when I was in Italy,’ I said, ‘was that they view all other peoples as inferior. We are all barbarians to them, Vistaspa, to be conquered and ruled over. That view above all will be dictating their calculations.’

‘Perhaps now you are underestimating them.’

I smiled at him. ‘If we can convince the Romans that conquering Parthia is too high a price, then they will think twice before launching a full-scale invasion of the empire. They only respect strength. It would be much easier, of course, if my father sat in Ctesiphon and not Phraates.’

‘You want to remove Phraates.’

I shook my head. ‘No, we elected him and the decision must stand, for better or worse.’

‘Then, Pacorus, let us hope it is for the better.’

When a month had passed Gallia decided it was time to make our way back to Dura. Her belly was starting to swell now, not by much, but enough to make her irritable and unhappy with her appearance. I told her every day that she was beautiful and that I would always love her, but though she was thrilled to be pregnant she disliked the inconvenient side effects of her condition. So we said goodbye to my parents at the foot of Hatra’s palace steps early one morning, the sky as clear and blue as Gallia’s eyes, and made our way south at a leisurely pace. Diana and Gafarn watched us go as well, and standing beside them was young Spartacus, who smiled and waved at us as we rode out of the palace compound.

Life at Dura went on much the same. Domitus drilled his legionaries and I began to increase the number of my cataphracts to five hundred, half a dragon. In addition, Nergal set about raising his horse archers. It was not difficult. Our recent victories had increased the prestige of Dura and men wanted to serve in its army. Recruits came mostly from the estates of Dura’s lords, who were happy to send Nergal their men, though others came from as far afield as Gordyene and Armenia. Curiously, a sizeable number of men began to arrive from Pontus. Rome’s war against that brave kingdom was coming to an end, and rather than be enslaved many of its soldiers decided to chance their luck in other lands. So they headed south, through Armenia and Gordyene and into Hatra or Media. If they entered Hatra the first city they reached was Nisibus, whose governor was Vata. He fed them, listened to their stories and let them rest their weary bodies in his city, for they would have spent weeks on tracks and roads avoiding Roman patrols, as Hatra was nearly three hundred miles from Pontus. Vata then sent them south on another long trip, to me at Dura. In a letter he told me that Hatra had little use for foot soldiers, being able to raise thousands if necessary from the estates of the kingdom’s lords, but that perhaps ‘your Roman’ might have use of them.

‘He’s right,’ said Domitus, his face and arms now turned dark brown by the Mesopotamian sun. ‘I’ve talked with some of them. All good soldiers who have spent years fighting.’

‘How do you know they are good soldiers?’ I asked.

‘Any man who leaves his homeland, tramps hundreds of miles with his shield and spear to get here instead of giving up and opting for an easy life as a bandit, gets my vote.’

We usually held our council meetings inside the palace, but today I decided that we would all sit on the spacious terrace overlooking the river. It was late afternoon and the sun was casting long shadows, a slight westerly breeze taking the edge off the day’s heat. We sat in large wicker chairs, while Gallia, who had taken to attending the meetings now that she rode little, reclined on a couch. She liked to be included in the affairs of the kingdom and no one had any objection to her doing so. Dobbai was also present on this occasion, though only because she found the view agreeable and the temperature bearable at this time of day.

Domitus rubbed his hands over his shaved head and fixed me with his eyes. I knew what he was thinking — two legions were better than one.

‘How many exiles from Pontus have presented themselves thus far?’ I asked.

‘Near two and a half thousand.’

I stared across the river at Hatran territory. ‘And more are coming in?’

Domitus nodded. ‘Every day. We can increase the size of the camp. We need more tents, that’s all.’

I looked at him. ‘Very well. I agree, see to it. Godarz, you will organise extra rations, clothes and weapons to be sent to the legion’s camp.’

Godarz saw the confused look on Rsan’s face. ‘The king means to have two legions instead of one. Is that not so, Pacorus?’

Rsan’s face went ashen. ‘Two legions?’

‘That’s right,’ I replied. ‘It would be criminal to waste the opportunity that has presented itself.’

Rsan started shaking his head. ‘But the cost…’

‘Will be met,’ I said. ‘The treasury is full, is it not?’

‘Yes, majesty, but if it is to remain so then I would advise against such an expenditure.’

‘And when the Romans come,’ interrupted Dobbai, ‘what will you do, tallyman? Throw coins at them from the walls?’

Rsan was now alarmed. ‘Romans? We are not at war with the Romans.’

Dobbai cackled like an old crow. ‘Not yet, tallyman, but they will come.’

‘And when they do we shall be ready, have no fear, Rsan.’

My words did little to assure him.

‘So,’ I continued. ‘Domitus shall raise two legions, Nergal is forming his horse archers and I shall have my additional cataphracts. Due to Gallia’s condition, Nergal, it is probably best if you command the Amazons.’

Gallia rose from her couch. ‘The Amazons are under my command.’

Nergal looked down at his feet and Domitus stared into the distance.

‘Time to reconsider, son of Hatra,’ said Dobbai.

Gallia stood defiant and I knew that she would not shift from her position. I shrugged my shoulders. ‘As you wish, my dear.’

Gallia smiled and retook her couch. ‘Praxima will command my women until I have given birth. She will answer to me and me alone.’

With Rsan still smarting from the news of a second legion, I informed him that I also wanted to establish a school in the city.

‘We have schools already, majesty.’

‘Yes, but this one will be different. It will be filled with the future officers of Dura, boys who will receive an education in the military arts, so that when they are men they will be able to lead others in battle. They shall be called the Sons of the Citadel.’

‘Parthian boys are taught to fight from an early age anyway, lord,’ said Nergal.

‘To ride and shoot a bow, I agree, Nergal. But I want boys to be taught tactics and strategy, to be able to converse with foreigners in their own tongue.’ I pointed at Domitus. ‘To know how many miles a legion can march in a day, and how to work in conjunction with foot soldiers on the battlefield.’

‘I doubt if there any tutors in Dura who can teach those subjects,’ offered Godarz.

I stood and started pacing the terrace. ‘Then we will bring them to Dura, Godarz. Greek and Egyptian scholars, Roman engineers, Chinese philosophers and holy men from Judea, Esfahan and Alexandria.’

‘But why, majesty?’ asked Rsan.

‘Dura,’ I said, ‘is prosperous. But what shall we do with that wealth, Rsan? Squander it on rich furnishings and gold statues, live a life of ease thinking that it will last forever? It will not. So we prepare, Rsan. We lay the foundations for a time when this kingdom will need its people and army to stand as one against adversity. A building with strong foundations stands more chance of surviving an earthquake.’

‘You speak well, son of Hatra,’ remarked Dobbai. I looked at the blank expression on Rsan’s face. He could not see my reasoning. But then, on this beautiful summer’s day with the sun slowly sinking in the west, a light breeze to stir the air and peace in the land, it must have been difficult to imagine horror. But I knew that if a kingdom wanted to remain strong it had to prepare for war.

And so it was. Every day exiles from Pontus, hard men with scarred faces and wounds from a score of battles, made their way to the legion’s headquarters in the Citadel. There they signed their names or made their mark agreeing to serve in Dura’s army. They served for pay, but it was not loot that had motivated them to walk all the way from Pontus to fight for me, it was revenge. They wanted a chance to kill more Romans. And they were all single men for those with wives and families stayed in their homeland and lived under Roman rule, or most likely were dead or had been enslaved. When they signed up they did so before Domitus, though surprisingly not one objected to serving under a Roman, for like them he too was an exile. In any case all of them had heard the stories of the prowess of Dura’s legion and its Roman commander, and they also knew that Domitus had served under Spartacus in Italy.

The armouries continued to work night and day, every day, week after week, month after month, producing swords, javelins, mail shirts, helmets, arrows, bows, maces, axes, scale armour for horses and men and the mighty
kontus
. Inside the brick buildings men worked with hammers, anvils, grinders, shears, vices and hole punches, while furnaces and bellows heated the steel that was hammered into shape to become sword blades.

Godarz enlisted so many armourers, blacksmiths, steel smiths, artisans, carpenters and saddle makers that we were forced to locate them to a campsite two miles north of the city. A large collection of tents sprang up near the river, and every day hundreds of men and some women made their way to their workplaces within Dura’s walls. The original garrison of the city, those score men who had greeted me on my arrival, were either paid off or given the opportunity to enlist in the new legion. Thereafter the guarding of the city, the Citadel and the area around Dura was the responsibility of Godarz. He and Domitus worked out a system whereby cohorts were rotated through the city to perform garrison duties, being replaced every month by a new cohort. In this way no legionary became used to the comparatively soft life of being a garrison soldier, which usually entailed nothing more than spending hours standing on sentry duty or patrolling the streets. With Haytham’s permission Domitus took the legion out on manoeuvres deep into Agraci territory, and days later I took my cavalry out of Dura to hunt it down. Malik and Byrd accompanied me, though it did not require any tracking skills to discern the path made by five thousand foot soldiers, nearly seven hundred mules and two hundred carts. We gave them two days’ start and then rode out to find them, five hundred heavy cavalry and their squires and a thousand horse archers led by Nergal. Praxima also brought her Amazons and a thousand camels trailed the host burdened with food, water and tents.

These exercises were always an excellent opportunity to keep the legion and my cavalry battle-ready. I always tried to make a mock assault on the legion at the end of the day, when the legionaries were constructing their camp for the night. Hours spent marching in full kit with packs is mentally and physically draining, and I thought that fast-moving horsemen stood an excellent chance of getting in among the legionaries. I was always proved wrong. And no matter how loud we blew our horns or how fast we charged, we always met a solid wall of shields, around which we galloped and hurled abuse at the ‘enemy’. And afterwards legionaries and horsemen shared an evening meal and Domitus told me how our approach had been seen from miles away.

‘Hundreds of horses kick up a big dust cloud. You never learn, you horse boys.’

The next day the legion and cavalry practised working together amid the heat, dust and flies. At first it was not easy. Roman tactics almost always placed cavalry on the wings in battle, but I wanted Dura’s army to be more flexible. So we spent time perfecting drills whereby the cataphracts and horse archers would retreat through the legion’s cohorts, who would endeavour to close ranks the moment the horsemen had passed through them. At first it was chaos, as cataphracts and horse archers rode between the gaps in the first-line cohorts, only to come up against a solid wall of shields of a cohort in the second line, as the legion’s second line was always drawn up in such a way that the cohorts covered the gaps of the first line. The front rank of riders pulled up and halted and those behind them did the same, so that in minutes there were hundreds of horsemen between and among the cohorts, shouting and cursing at the legionaries. Had it been a real battle the enemy would have had been hacking and spearing stationary riders with ease.

Nergal got very angry and jumped from his horse to confront the commander of the cohort whose men stood like a rock in front of his riders. The centurion strode towards Nergal and I thought they were going to clash swords, until the centurion removed his helmet and Nergal recognised him as one of the Companions, a great burly German named Thumelicus who lifted Nergal off the ground while giving him a bear hug. But the episode had revealed a major problem, which was solved by introducing a new drill whereby each cohort in the second line divided into two halves upon a specific trumpet blast, each group moving left and right respectively to deploy directly behind a cohort in the first line. This meant riders could ride though the first and second lines, which would close the gaps as soon as they were through. It took many weeks to perfect but I knew it would pay dividends in battle.