Tacitus, who was actually solemnly eating a piece of dry bread, which he dipped now and then in some olive oil, took his time in replying. 'Only in the evenings. Lettuce helps you sleep, cools the desires of the flesh. Last night, I admit, I ate a great deal of it. Usually I read myself to sleep but, obviously, not yesterday, it being the night after the day of the kalends – any fool knows that would bring terrible bad luck.'
To hide his smile, Ballista busied himself filling a plate with food: some cold pheasant, ham, cheese, bread, a little of the lettuce. Aurelian was no fool, but he ought to be careful teasing Tacitus, for the older man was no fool either. They made an odd couple. The elder was a circumspect, kindly man, abstemious, almost ascetic, in his habits, much given to superstition, while the younger, 'hand-to-steel', was impetuous, even hot-headed and – possibly Julia was right – altogether too keen on drink and food. It said a lot that they got along well. The very presence of the two puppies Sandario and Mucapor showed how the military men from the Danube stuck together. Ballista knew enough Roman history to know that it was only in the last generation that these Danubians had come to the fore in the army. Really, it was only in the last twenty-one years, since Maximinus Thrax had seized the throne.
Ballista had to suppress a shudder at even thinking the name of the long-dead emperor. He could not help picturing the great white face, the terrible grey eyes. Ballista remembered the final threat – 'I will see you again' – as the emperor died at his hand. All that was long ago. And it was a long time since Ballista's sleep had been disturbed by the unquiet daemon of the late and unlamented Maximinus Thrax.
Ballista sipped his wine. It was red, as was to be expected from Aurelian, made into conditum, warmed and spiced, just the thing for a cold morning following hounds.
Aurelian reverted to a topic that he had clearly been pursuing before Ballista's arrival. 'So the legionary, having seduced the wife of the man in whose house he was billeted, gets away with it. No discipline at all, and another bloody provincial who hates the army. If it had been down to me, I would have made an example of the bastard. Followed the lead of Alexander the Great. Find two saplings. Bend them down to the ground. Tie one of the legionary's legs to each. And let the trees go. Rip the bastard in half. A very public warning of what the men can expect if they flout discipline. Let them see what they are going to get before they do it.' Aurelian grinned. Ballista often found it hard to tell when his friend was being serious or was playing up to his nickname. 'Why the fucker could not just use one of the brothels like everyone else, I do not know,' Aurelian continued. 'It is not as if there is a shortage of brothels in this town.'
'They should all be closed,' said Tacitus. The other men looked at him. Was he joking? He had a reputation for strong self-discipline, but the brothels were so much a part of daily life that only the most radical of philosophers would consider getting rid of them. Even stern Cato had thought that a young man should use them in moderation. 'And the baths, the theatre, the hippodrome, and the amphitheatre – they should all be closed. After the disgraceful riot in the hippodrome, the Antiochenes should be punished. Take away their pleasures for a time; that would teach those shifty little easterners a lesson.' Tacitus' audience were spared further ways of instilling backbone into untrustworthy orientals by the arrival of Antistius, the other manservant of Aurelian, dressed in the embroidered coat of a huntsman, who announced that the horses were ready.
Outside, the night had grown worse. The wind still tore down the alley, and it had started to rain again. Before they had cleared the potters' quarter, let alone crossed the Kerateion, the Jewish quarter near the Daphne Gate, the little party was thoroughly bedraggled and wet. It was as well that torches carried by the servants Gillo and Antistius stayed lit, though they flared and guttered wildly, for the wind had blown out many of the lanterns that hung outside the shops. 'I will tell you what would happen if I were in charge.' Aurelian pushed back his hood to bellow at Ballista. 'I would liven up those bloody Superintendents of the Tribes. On a night like this, you would not find a single one of the epimeletai warming his arse by the fire or ramming his wife in bed. Oh no, the buggers would be out here getting soaked to the skin doing their job, making sure these storekeepers obeyed the law and kept their lanterns alight.'
'You could make an example of a couple of them,' Ballista shouted back over the storm. 'Something fitting the crime. Maybe burn one or two alive.'
'Hmm.' Aurelian grinned and pulled his hood back up.
The streets got wider but steeper as they entered the expensive part of the Epiphania district known as the Rhodion, the rose garden. The houses here were bigger, with wide grounds, often encompassing a whole block. There were fewer shops. There were even fewer lanterns. But the rain was letting up. The gatekeeper at the south-east postern was expecting them. Even at this hour he was civil, and in violation of the law he opened the gate. Obviously he had been bribed in advance. They dismounted and, one by one, led their horses through.
Outside, they remained on foot. The path Aurelian pointed out was precipitous. In single file they set off, leading their horses. To begin with, the walls of the town were close on their left, the ravine of the Phyrminus River at a similar distance on their right. Then both curved away, and the path climbed up through stands of trees, mainly firs, with some ash and wild olive. Progress was slow, the path steep. All except the servants used the boar spears Aurelian had given them as walking sticks. The horses laboured.
Over his own breathing, Ballista listened to the wind moving the trees above their heads, the sibilant sound of the leaves, the creak of the branches, a magical sound that reminded him of the sacred groves of his distant homeland. He noticed that the light of the servants' torches was turning a pale yellow. The rain had ceased some time earlier. The sky had gone from black to deep blue to a delicate azure. Scattered black clouds raced low over their heads and away to the south-east, tattered remnants of the night's storm. It was nearly dawn.
Suddenly they came out into the open on the crest of Mount Silpius. They halted, men and horses getting their breath back, stretching out from the hunched postures of climbing. Aurelian said that they should wait there for the huntsman and the hounds.
The great disc of the sun appeared on the horizon, and a pale gold light splashed over them. Aurelian handed his reins to Antistius and prostrated himself on the soaking ground. The others put their fingertips to their lips and, bowing slightly, blew a kiss to the risen god Sol Invictus. Ballista stood quietly, remaining upright, his hands not moving. The sun was not an invincible god in the pantheon of his youth. Indeed, at the end of time, Skoll, the wolf that chased the sun, would catch her in the Iron Wood and devour her, bringing darkness to Asgard, home of the gods, and to Middle Earth, home of mortal men.
Aurelian got up, brushing the leaves and mud from his clothes. He smiled almost apologetically at Ballista. 'My mother was the priestess of the Sun in my home village. Burgaraca was a dump. I enlisted when I was sixteen. But I miss her. And I think she was right. I am still alive. Sol Invictus has held his hands over me.'
They waited in the sunshine, both the men and their horses steaming slightly. Ballista looked back the way they had come. He watched the shadows retreat towards him as the sun rose behind his back over Mount Silpius. The clear sunlight revealed first the wide, flat plain of the Orontes, the little peasant huts small as toys, the smoke from their dung fires plucked away by the wind, then the suburbs of the city and the campus martius across the river and, finally, Antioch the Great herself, the half-built fortress-palace on the island, the broad line of the main street, the glint of the river running through her. Ballista looked all around, at the path they had followed from the west, at the citadel further along the crest off to the north-east, at the land to the east to which they had come to hunt, and then the realization struck him. He had not seen it before. In the week he had spent in Antioch the previous year, he had not found time to climb to the crest of Mount Silpius. The climb from the city had been steep, hard going for the horses. It would have been a Herculean labour of winches, pulleys and ratchets to move any siege equipment up from the city to the crest. But to the east, outside the defences, the land fell away gently, in a landscape of broad upland meadows and open woods. At one point near the citadel a saddle of rock almost overtopped the walls. The northerner filed the revelation away for future use. Despite the river, the walls, the fortress-palace, Antioch-on-Orontes, the Roman capital of Syria, the heart of the power of the imperium in the east, was almost indefensible.