The king said, “Is he not a slave?”
“How is that relevant? Is that not a horse you are riding? Whether the animal belongs to you or is borrowed from another, are you still not upon its back? Does it still not function exactly as a horse?”
How comforting, master, to find that though the years have greyed your hair and stolen from your once stately height, your penchant for hurling spears of unstudied disregard continues still, undulled and unabated.
“General,” Cassius persisted, “the matter of the Parthian.”
Crassus laughed. “Longinus, I heartily approve of your caution. But reason it out. Let us assume the man is a spy. Let us say the next ear in which he whispers is that of Orodes himself. The only thing this spy could tell his master is, ‘I have seen the Romans. Save yourselves.’”
Dominus turned in his saddle to look over Abgarus so he could face Melyaket eye to eye. “Melyaket puhr Karach, you have nothing to fear from Rome. When Parthia has become our easternmost province, life in your little village of, what was it? Shingar?”
“Sinjar.”
“Life in Sinjar will change not one jot. We are here to negotiate a peace. The skirmishes that have scarred our frontiers need not continue. If your king will but swear allegiance to Rome, Parthia will continue as it always has. So, if you are a spy, be certain when you depart to relay that message to your master.” His tone and smile were avuncular.
“I would do so, my lord, were I ever to see him, but I doubt he would believe me.”
“Why is that?”
“Two reasons. If a man walks into a room where another is sitting and demands his chair, how can he trust that life will continue as it always has if he must give up his seat? At best, the chair the man owned will no longer be his and at worst, the man will be left standing.”
Cassius almost whined with ardency, “General, let me take him into custody, I beg of you.”
“With apologies, great general,” Melyaket said, glancing at Cassius with a twitch of an eyebrow that said I am no threat to you and you are no match for me, “some version of that very thought is in the mind of every person who has seen the dust raised by this column, a cloud surely visible from here to Aleppo. It is no trick to imagine what everyone across the Euphrates, even the king, is thinking.”
“Even so, we prefer peace. Let us hear the second reason.”
“The second lies within the first. The king is fond of his gold.”
“You seem to know much about the mind of King Orodes.”
“He is a king. Is this not true of all kings?”
Everyone laughed, with the exception of Cassius, who was already planning to post two guards on this Melyaket wherever he went; four when he was near the person of the general.
•••
We had come into a very large, tree-lined plaza with six roads radiating out like the spokes of a wheel. At its “hub” rose a massive fountain: a charioteer road half-immersed marble waves, water spraying from the nostrils of his four flying mounts. The city sprawled before us, spreading out from the banks of the river, crawling westward as far as it could up the steep flank of the mountain to our left. The road we traveled continued south through the plaza; off in the distance rose gently sloping hills and the misty outlines of a high-walled garrison. The circle that defined the plaza was not quite complete, sliced through by parks and gardens that honored the banks of the Orontes. Just ahead and to the right, a gently arcing bridge crossed the river to an island so large I did not recognize it as such. We turned to ride to its apex, then Crassus bid us halt. We turned and looked back, watching as Marcus Antonius and Octavius passed at the head of endless ranks of men eager to shed their gear in the fort beyond the palace.
“Your highness, I would be honored,” said the general to the king, “if you would accompany me to the palace.” He turned to Cassius. “Go follow Octavius. Let him know I’ll be laying on a feast for them after these games. And pass the word, once they’ve been billeted, three days leave. After that, drilling as usual. Alexander-with me.” As always, the cream of the evocati, fifty of Crassus' most trusted legionaries accompanied us over the wide bridge. I looked behind me and caught a glimpse of Malchus and Betto. I did not wave, that would be unseemly, but big Malchus gave me a wide grin. Betto looked too uncomfortable on his mount to smile at anything or anyone.
•••
Yes, reader, I could have told you earlier that this Melyaket puhr Karach was the very same irritatingly attentive old ruffian to whom I had introduced you many scrolls ago. Are not my gnarled joints tired and stiff enough? Have you no responsibility whatsoever? You might have rummaged through these ramblings to see for yourself. One might also ask, how many Melyakets does one meet in a lifetime?
The truth is, I was not paying much attention to either Crassus or anyone else. The marvel of Antioch was unfurled before me; my eyes and mind were filled with little else. Here there were great works of art, a theater, temples to Athena and Ares that not even the Romans dared disturb. Somewhere hidden among these graceful, paved streets there was even a library which had stood for almost two hundred years. Antiochus III had enticed the epic Greek poet, Euphorion of Chalcis to be its first librarian. I ached to find it, and hoped that Crassus might give Livia and me leave to spend a few hours amid its wonders.
A nagging consternation was finally resolved as we crossed the pillared bridge. Something was missing. As we approached the tall, open gates on the far side, I realized what had been troubling me. There was no smell! No. Better. Antioch was fragrant! Here the scent of flowers and baking bread were not smothered to a barely recognizable ache by the stench of sewage clogging the Tiber or by orphaned clumps of filth and excrement simmering to eye-watering perfection in the summer sun. This was not Rome. Antioch was healthy, or appeared to at least make the effort to care for all its people in a way that at home was restricted to the noble and the wealthy.
We completed our crossing of the bridge and passed beneath a high, stone archway decorated with lapis blue tile and exquisite mosaics. We had entered the Regia, the palace of the kings of the Seleucid dynasty, now surrendered, first to Armenia, then to the rule of Rome. For the past ten years the Regia had served as the residence of the Republic’s governors; now it belonged to my master.
Chapter XXIX
54 BCE — Spring, Antioch
Year of the consulship of
Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and Appius Claudius Pulcher
“General, the proconsul is waiting for you in the gallery. Which is this way.” The little man who had met us at the blue and gold double doors of the governor’s private residence within the palace appeared to be a shorter, squatter version of me, if you added makeup, jewelry, pursed lips and painted toenails. By which I mean to say I believe our escort was to Aulus Gabinius what I was to Marcus Crassus. Dominus, followed by his retinue of a dozen legionaries and as many personal attendants and baggage haulers, had turned right down a wide, columned hall lined with tall, glazed urns filled with potted plants whose vines draped themselves almost to the ground. On the marbled floor, the soldiers’ caligae sounded like an invasion. A water boy stood wide-eyed with his back to the wall as we passed.
“What’s down this way?” Crassus asked as the out-of-breath servant shuffled to catch up. We were approaching a dead end and another set of deep blue double doors, these carved with receding squares inlaid with silver.
“Those are the governor’s private quarters.”
“Are they indeed? Then we’ve come to the right place, haven’t we?”
“But proconsul Gabinius awaits my lord in the gallery…my lord.”