The Curse of Babylon (65 page)

‘Don’t worry about the code,’ I explained. ‘But every block of characters is the name of a place in the Home Provinces, with a number after it to show the number of men stationed there. It shows preparations for an in-depth defence. Anyone looking at these numbers ought normally to be put off more than a spot of border raiding. However, I
am
the Lord Treasurer – and rather a good Lord Treasurer. I know every taxable unit in the Empire.’ I broke off and smiled. I thought again of the big map on my office floor – it should still be there as I’d left it. ‘Half a dozen of the fortified towns claimed here are heaps of overgrown ruins. Several other places would need to have more defenders than inhabitants. Taken generally, all the soldiers would need to be ghosts and their forts made from the morning mist. I’ve signed no orders to pay them or to maintain their defences. If the rest of the box is the same as this part of it, Shahin might as well be working for us. Timothy, by the way,
is
working for us.’ I decided not to talk about a silver coin that he’d almost certainly got from Priscus. ‘He’s come along to make sure the story gets believed. It wouldn’t be hard for me to think better of Timothy. But that takes nerve.’ I laughed. ‘In reality, the Home Provinces are without any regular forces at all. Everyone he hasn’t committed to holding back the Slavs, Nicetas has shipped off to Egypt. I’m told they have no kit for desert fighting and half are already dead of some local plague.’

Eboric coughed politely and looked over the edge of the gentle dip in which we’d taken shelter. ‘Rado’s taken a full muster of forces,’ he said.

I smiled at him and reached for my clothes. ‘Time for work,’ I said. I turned back suddenly and caught sight again of his face. A slight look of confusion there, I thought – perhaps too of jealousy. The bond between us could never be broken. He and Antonia had taken to each other from the start, and she’d welcomed him into the Imperial Family without so much as a raised eyebrow when told about the adoption. The bond could never be broken, but its nature was changed. Yes, so many changes, in so short a time – he’d need longer than he’d had to get used to them all.

Herself confused, Antonia had been thinking. She pulled at her daisy chain and crushed it in her hands. ‘If the cup is a fraud,’ she said slowly, ‘what work is there left to do? Don’t we just let Shahrbaraz scrape the paint off his parts of the box and wait for the Persians to withdraw?’

I shook my head. ‘You haven’t seen the size of the army he’s leading,’ I said. ‘Whoever prepared that box was expecting it to be carried off to Ctesiphon, where it would be looked at and argued over by men with some freedom of choice. So much care and plotting – so much killing and risk of death – and all for nothing. It won’t tip any balance now the invasion is under way. The army getting itself back in order on the other side of that mountain is big enough to roll over everything listed on the box – that and ten times more. Besides, you’ve got Chosroes nominally in charge – and he’s got the True Cross with him. The box really is as worthless a defence now as the cup would have been.’

I stood up. ‘We’re no longer looking at a quick jump on Shahin. I’m afraid the new plan has to be a direct attack on that army before it can get out of the mountains. The militia you’ve commandeered is the Empire’s only hope. If we fail, the road to Constantinople will be wide open.’

Antonia shut her eyes and thought. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said with sudden annoyance. I looked at her and blinked. I sat down again beside her. ‘I’ve missed two periods. A woman in one of the villages we passed by said I was surely with child.’ More annoyed still, she threw away the remains of her daisy chain. ‘How am I supposed to lead my men into battle?’ she asked.

I waited till my voice was likely to be steady. ‘I trust you’ll not make any fuss when I send you off to Trebizond,’ I said. ‘Eboric will ride with you.’

No question of jealousy, or even confusion, for Rado. A command of Greek I’d assumed was too basic to bother with testing was easily good enough for taking charge of the militia. I found him pointing with a stick at one of his pebble diagrams. He was surrounded by about a dozen boys and very young men. Behind him, more young men were trying on the Persian armour.

He got up and saluted when he saw me approach. I suppressed a smile and saluted back. ‘What news, General Rado?’ I asked in Latin.’

‘Fifty men and boys,’ he said briskly. ‘All of them able to ride in some degree. Not much discipline in the Greek sense – but practised irregulars, and all eager to give the Enemy a bloody nose.’ He pointed at a boy with a blank face who was rocking from side to side on his haunches. About fifteen, he already had the wiry look of nearly everyone else up here, but, once you discounted the insane look on it, his face was still bordering on the pretty. ‘He was brought in a short while ago. The Persians are raiding now on this side of the pass, though for the moment only beyond the mountain. They rode into his village yesterday evening. It was the usual bloodbath. The boy got away because the priest shoved him under the altar and the church wasn’t burned. The far side of the mountain’s crawling with foraging parties. It’s still safe this side because they can’t carry food back over the mountain paths. Or they might decide to come across for the killing. It’s hard to say.’

I’d called him ‘General’ with slight irony. He’d taken the promotion at face value and with good reason. In his easy authority among the other boys and men, he was beginning to remind me of Priscus at his best. I looked at the pebble map. ‘We’ll need more than fifty,’ I said. Rado nodded. ‘Unless you think otherwise, we’ll need a couple of hundred men at least.’ I sat down beside him. Though no one about us could have known any Latin, I dropped my voice. ‘What little experience I have of these matters tells me that discipline is everything in a pitched battle. It’s then that you’re moving men about like pieces on a gaming board and you need every one of them to do as he’s told. But all we’re looking at is a sudden wild attack – rather like one of your own people’s raids. It needs to look enough like a probing attack to scare Chosroes into listening to Shahrbaraz. Then we pull back and wait. Assuming we can find more men, how do you feel about that?’

Rado pursed his lips, almost managing not to look eager. ‘So long as they aren’t expecting us,’ he said, ‘and so long as we can go up another two or three hundred men, we’ll be good for one very sharp attack.’ He looked round. ‘None of these people has seen real action. Once they’ve seen their brothers and friends killed beside them, it won’t be so easy to manage a second attack.’ He thought a little, then let his eagerness show fully. ‘Have you seen some of them ride?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘It’s not bad for farmers. It’s mostly sheep and goats they raise up here. They need to be mobile.’ He stopped and looked again at his pebbles. ‘Your own plan is based on the assumption of an attack on foot. If we can get a few hundred horsemen this good, though, I’d suggest a frontal attack over rocky ground. My father – I mean my
old
father – once led an attack like that on a Greek army. It worked. But he said these things have to work straightaway. If the enemy doesn’t cave in, it’s up to you to ride off like the wind.’

We both stood up. Shading my eyes, I looked into the sun. This was a big plain and the mountain was a long way off, across a landscape of grass and woods and more undulations than I’d seen the night before. The nearest village was five miles away. The messenger we’d sent wasn’t back yet. What he told us would decide the matter. The earth walls I’d seen were encouraging, but not final proof. Was this a district where my law was in force and where the men had regular practice in arms? Or were the men here the same eunuchs with intact organs of increase who’d been slaughtered on the other side of the pass? If it was the eunuchs living here, we’d have no choice but to pull back to one of the armed districts. We could raise a decent force there and harry the Persians most cruelly. But there’d be no more chance of stopping them in their tracks. Over in the big pass, Shahrbaraz would still be pulling hairs out of his beard with the frustration of getting his army of soldiers and his armies of camp followers ready to start out in good order. Strike now, and we’d have a sitting target.

Even as I squinted into the sunlight, I had my answer. Their priest leading them, I saw another dozen men marching forward with spears pointing up. Their glitter in the noonday sun lifted my spirits for the first time since I’d left Antonia variously weeping and raging like Ariadne on Naxos.

I turned to one of the young men standing beside Rado. I remembered myself in time and spoke to Rado. ‘Not everyone will be riding,’ I said. ‘How long to march a few hundred men to the big pass?’

Rado shrugged. ‘My people never marched anywhere,’ he said. ‘Walking was for slaves and women. However, if we time the march so we can camp tonight in the mountain, we can keep out of sight tomorrow by skirting the far plain. That will get us in place for a dawn attack the day after next.’

‘Sounds reasonable,’ I said. ‘But it all depends on how much influence Shahrbaraz may presently have with Chosroes. I suppose we’ll soon have some indication.’ I pointed to the stripped bodies of the Persians. ‘Their non-return must by now have been noted. If the Grand General is still in charge, the whole army will stay put while he gets it ready for defence against a Greek army he’s pretty sure is lurking in the mountains. If he’s being countermanded by his raving lunatic of a master, there will be a search party for the missing ones and the army will be driven forward, ready or not.’ I touched his arm. ‘Which does my general prefer?’

Rado shut his eyes, as if thinking back to his days of national banditry. ‘I’d rather have the Great King in charge,’ he said. ‘An army on the move is always a better target. If you’ll pardon the comparison, that armed rabble we saw the other day is a bit like old Samo – attack him when he’s leaning against a wall and he’ll kill you; get him into a run down the road and he’ll fall dead for you.’ We both laughed.

There was a rider approaching. Rado was right about these people. He was coming up impressively fast. He stopped close by a heap of stones and jumped right off to run across the next few dozen yards to where Rado was sitting.

The young rider spoke rapidly in a Greek dialect with misplaced consonants. I had to interpret. Briefly put, he’d found Shahin and his jolly crew about twenty miles from the junction of the passes. They’d been joined by about a hundred men in uniform but there was no sign as yet of the main army.

‘We can presume it’s on the move,’ I said. ‘We’ll see which of the three forces involved gets first to the junction of the passes.’ Rado nodded. Almost absent-mindedly, he began tracing lines on the grass with his right boot.

Chapter 65

The lunch we ate exhausted all the supplies Antonia’s militiamen had brought from wherever she picked them up. But word had gone round every village of what was happening beyond the mountain. Every place we passed gave up its own tribute of food and clerical blessings and more armed men. By late afternoon, Rado had closed our numbers at just over three hundred, plus priests. There was no shortage of recruits, and all were on horseback. Rado put every one of them through a stiff test. Their horses were smaller than our own. The riders would have looked absurd if they hadn’t also been small. But a lifetime of riding up mountains and over bare hills, and two years or so of practising in arms – and even Rado was clicking his toung with approval as he watched them dash this way and that in the formations he’d ordered.

‘Come on, Alaric, I’ll race you!’ Antonia had called out as we approached another fortified village. My reply was a dignified harangue about her condition. In truth, I must have been the worst man on horseback in a hundred miles. Shahin, with his stunted legs, might have been less clumsy in the saddle than I was.

Three hundred we took for the fighting. Rado could have taken twice that number and more. But the unexpected number of volunteers only made him stiffen his test. Some earlier recruits he even sent back. We’d agreed there was a limit to the numbers we could effectively lead into battle. We also had to consider the need for a fallback defence if things went wrong.

Yes, leave out the priests, and we had three hundred men. Was I the only one of us to recognise the number’s significance? Silly question.

By the time we reached the foothills of the mountain and late afternoon was turning fast to early evening, we might have been taken for an army of several thousand. The numbers we would lead round the mountain might be limited. Not so the numbers following behind to see us off. As we came to a place where I could stand on some rocks and make the speech I’d been turning over in my head, I knew that, even if the attack did go wrong, those murder squads Chosroes had unleashed wouldn’t have it so easy here as on the other side of the big pass. Every man had his spear, every boy his bow and arrows. The very women were carrying arms.

I stood up and lifted my hands for silence. I waited for the tense babble of conversations to die away. I called Rado beside me. After a frigid stare in her direction, I allowed Antonia to come and sit at my feet. A speech in the Senate must be in the correct Greek of the ancients. You can be learnedly convoluted or as direct as Demosthenes. But the rule is to use a syntax and vocabulary, and even sometimes a regard for vowel quantities, that only those educated beyond a certain level can perfectly understand. If you find that the common people, when allowed in to watch the proceedings, are following what you say, you get some very sniffy looks from all the other persons of quality. It’s pretty much the same in gatherings of bishops. Today, I was speaking to an audience of illiterates. Most of them hadn’t so much as seen the walls of a city, let alone been admitted to its more refined entertainments. I needed to inform, and I needed to inspire. No room, then, for allusions to Marathon and Thermopylae, or other things of no meaning to these people. At best, I might work in a reminder to how Samson routed the Philistine army with the jawbone of an ass. And, if possible, I’d leave even that out.