The three black-clad assassins moved slowly forward. Ballista pulled the robe up half over his head to cover his face, his long fair hair. If by some miracle he survived, he must thank Calgacus for finding a robe of the finest Indian cotton in the black that his dominus customarily wore. The dark figures advanced down the terrace. Moving ever so gently, the fingers of Ballista's left hand found the big silver food cover. He gripped the handle. His right hand found the heavy earthenware beaker from which he had been drinking. As weapons they were not much but they were better than nothing. He stilled his breathing and waited.
A fox barked away across the river. The three assassins stopped. They were a few paces short of Ballista. One of them waved, gesturing the one nearest Ballista to go under the portico. The northerner raised himself up ready to spring.
The door to the terrace opened. A rectangle of yellow light shone across to the wall, plunging everything outside it into a deeper darkness. The assassins stopped.
'Kyrios? Kyrios, are you out here?' the voice of Demetrius called. After a moment, when there was no answer, the young Greek could be heard going back into the palace. His shadow disappeared from the rectangle of light.
One of the assassins spoke softly in Aramaic. All three crept silently towards the open door. The one just inside the portico, his night vision spoilt by looking into the light, passed no more than four paces from Ballista. At the edge of the patch of yellow they stopped, drawing close together. Again one whispered in Aramaic, so low that Ballista probably would not have made out the words even had he spoken the language.
The first assassin slipped through the door.
Safe, thought Ballista. Let them come inside, run across the terrace, over the north wall, drop down into the alley, a few paces to the two guards on the north door, collect them, run to the main courtyard, collect the five equites singulares from the guardroom, pick up a sword, and then back through the main door into the living quarters. Take one of the bastards alive, and then we can find out who sent them.
The second assassin slipped through the door.
But – Demetrius. The Greek boy would be killed, maybe Calgacus too.
Ballista moved. As the third assassin stepped through the door, Ballista came up behind him. The northerner smashed the heavy beaker into the back of the man's head. There was a sickening thud, the sound of breaking crockery. With a gasp of pain the man turned. Ballista ground the broken crockery into his face, twisting the edges into his flesh. The man fell back, his face a bloody ruin.
Just outside the doorway Ballista assumed a fighting crouch, side on, the food cover held out as an improvised shield, the shards of the beaker drawn back to strike.
One of the assassins dragged the injured man out of the way. The third man leapt forward, stabbing underhand with his sword. Ballista took the blow full on the food cover. He felt the soft metal buckle. The impact jarred up his arm to his shoulder. He lunged with the broken beaker. The lunge was too short and the black-clad man swayed back out of reach. The man stabbed again. Ballista angled his improvised shield to deflect the blow. Again his counter-stroke failed to bite home.
The other uninjured assassin was crowding behind Ballista's assailant, bobbing about, desperate to be in a position to attack their quarry. Ballista knew that, as long as he held the doorway, they could come at him only one at a time. Another thrust sliced a chunk out of the northerner's inadequate shield. Ballista found that he was yelling, a deep, wordless roar of rage. Again and again his opponent's sword bit into his increasingly tattered shield. The food cover was awkward, offering less defence and feeling heavier with each blow it took.
The assassin unable to gain access to Ballista stopped hopping from foot to foot. He looked down at the three inches of steel protruding from his stomach. He opened his mouth. Blood came out. He was hurled sideways. Realizing something was wrong behind him, the assassin fighting Ballista ducked, turned and swung a cut at Maximus's head. The Hibernian parried the blow, rolling his wrist to turn the blade aside, and stepped inside to drive his own weapon up into the assassin's throat.
'Don't kill the other one. Take him alive,' Ballista shouted.
The injured man had crawled to the side of the room. There was a smear of blood across the chequered tiles. Before Ballista or Maximus could act, the final assassin got to his knees, put the point of his sword against his stomach, braced the pommel against the tiles and threw himself forward. There was an awful sound as the sword tore through his guts. He collapsed sideways, curled around his own blade, twitching in his death agony.
From the start things did not bode well for Ballista's dinner party.
It was not the setting: the great dining room of the palace of the Dux Ripae was splendidly decked out. The windows opening on to the terrace were open to catch the evening breeze blowing across the Euphrates. Hangings of fine material were in place to keep out insects. The polished cedarwood tables were arranged in an inverted U. Flouting the convention that diners should not outnumber the nine Muses, places were laid for thirteen. As much a council of war as a social gathering, it was to be an all-male affair. Dining with Ballista were his senior commanders Acilius Glabrio and Turpio, and the three caravan protectors turned Roman officers Iarhai, Anamu and Ogelos. Some less exalted officers were present, the two senior centurions from the two cohorts of Legio IIII, Antoninus Prior and Seleucus, the one from Cohors XX, Felix and Castricius, as deputy praefectus fabrum. The numbers were made up with three of the more influential town councillors – the bearded Christian Theodotus, a nondescript little man called Alexander and, most unusually of all, a eunuch called Otes. As poor Mamurra had often pronounced, things were very different in the east.
It was not the food, the drink or the service. Despite months of siege there was a sufficiency of meat, fish and bread. In truth the fruit was limited – just a few fresh apples and some dried plums, and the vegetables were few and far between ('How much for a fucking cabbage?' as Calgacus had been heard eloquently to exclaim) – but there was no danger whatsoever of the wine running out and the guests being reduced to the unhappy expedient of drinking water, and the servants came and went with silent efficiency.
All the way through, from the hard-boiled eggs to the apples, there was a spectre at the feast. Never spoken of but seldom far from mind were the three naked corpses nailed to crosses in the agora and the treachery they represented. At dawn Ballista had had the assassins stripped and publicly exhibited. On each cross beneath their feet was nailed a placard offering a large reward to the man who would identify them. The face of one was mutilated, but the wounds on the other two were to the body. They should have been easily recognizable. So far no one except one madman and two time-wasters had come forward. The soldiers had given them a beating for their temerity.
Near the end of the meal, as Ballista broke another loaf of unleavened bread and passed half to Turpio, he knew he could not be alone in thinking that the traitor had to be in the room. Pledging the health of his fellow diners, dipping his bread in the communal bowls had to be the man who had organized the attempt on Ballista's life the previous night, the man who would if he could betray the town to the enemy.
Ballista studied his fellow diners. On his right hand, Acilius Glabrio gave the impression that he would far rather be in other company as he drank deeply of his host's wine. To his left, Turpio gave the impression that he was privately enjoying the follies of mankind in general and those round the table in particular. The three caravan protectors, brought up in the hard school of their mutual loathing, betrayed nothing of their feelings. There was little to learn from the appearance of the town councillors: the Christian Theodotus looked beatific, the eunuch Otes fat, and the one called Alexander virtually anonymous. The four centurions wore suitably respectful expressions. Together the company looked as far from 'those inseparable in death' as could be imagined – a group of disparate men thrown together by Tyche, and one of them a traitor.