The unwieldy tail of the army straggled about in no sort of order. Turpio had been given just one unit of Dalmatian cavalry, nominally five hundred men, in reality not much over three hundred, to keep them in line.
Still, the journey so far had gone reasonably well. They had marched in easy stages from Antioch, via Hagioupolis and Regia, to reach the Euphrates at Zeugma. Now they were moving north, the mighty river off to their right, up to Samosata. Until they arrived there, they should be safe enough within the borders of the imperium.
When they crossed the Euphrates at Samosata, things would be very different. Then they would face the eastern horde. Shapur had taken the field in early spring. The King of Kings had divided his army and was besieging the towns of Edessa and Carrhae in Mesopotamia. The Roman plan was very simple. A detachment under the ex-consul Valens had remained in Zeugma to prevent any Sassanid attempt to move west and invade the provinces of Syria. Another sizable detachment, under the Comes Largitionum Macrianus, would stay in Samosata to likewise block the road north to the provinces of Asia Minor. The remainder of the field army, the aged emperor Valerian at its head, would advance south-east from Samosata. If Shapur wished to take Edessa and Carrhae, he must stand and fight.
The plan was straightforward, but Turpio did not think it was good. Carrhae was not a good place for Romans. Long ago, the army of Crassus had been annihilated there; thousands of legionaries were left dead, thousands more marched off to end their days in oriental captivity. Old Crassus himself had been decapitated, his head used as a stage prop in a production of Euripides' Bacchae. Much more recently, in Turpio's childhood, the emperor Caracalla had been killed near there. Riding to the temple of Sin, the moon god, he had dismounted to relieve himself. He had been crouched, trousers round his ankles, when the assassins had come for him. An inglorious death.
And it was more than just the ill-omened name of Carrhae that gave Turpio pause for thought. The army was in little better order than its baggage train. Valerian seemed to lack the will to impose disciplina. There were no regular roll calls, no athletic competitions for the men, no training manoeuvres for the units. If the silver-haired emperor did not impose better order by the time the army marched out of Samosata, disaster beckoned.
From his position on the edge of the bluff, Turpio surveyed the line of march. Below and in front of him, the road crossed the river Marsyas, a tributary of the Euphrates. There was a fine stone bridge. It was wide enough for ten men abreast, but it was a bottleneck for an army of this size. It had taken three days for the majority of the fighting men to cross. The gods alone knew how long it would take the bloated baggage train. As he looked, Turpio saw the huge, purple, sail-like flags that marked the personal baggage of the emperor edging through the crush towards the lip of the bridge. Off to the left, just in front of a stand of eucalyptus trees, a group of Arab nomads watched. Wherever you went in this part of the world, the tent-dwellers appeared from nowhere. They would stand and watch, completely impassive. Usually, they had their herds with them, children running about. But these were just a dozen or so men, standing still, watching.
As Turpio tiredly ran a hand over his face, the gold ring, the symbol of his new membership of the equestrian order, flashed. He turned it this way and that, noting how well it matched the golden bangle he had taken from Shapur's tent, taking pleasure in both of them. He had risen far from being a humble legionary. But he was not going to let it go to his head. Worldly success was transient. A poem came into his head: For mortals, mortal things. And all things leave us. Or if they do not, then we leave them. Nice lines, fitting. Their author, Lucian, had been born in Samosata.
Down by the bridge, Turpio could make out the big figure of Ballista. Turpio felt intensely sorry for his friend. Nine months in the wilderness, then recalled to the standards and given the humiliating post of deputy to the Praefectus Castrorum, deputy to his own ex-subordinate. Turpio thought Ballista may well be right that it was a deliberate slight engineered by Macrianus the elder. Not that Turpio believed the northerner's theory that the Comes Sacrorum Largitionum was plotting to overthrow Valerian. Whatever Quietus had shouted in Ephesus was just the juvenile outburst of a spoilt brat. The oily Quietus may have returned to court in something approaching triumph after his inventive massacring of Christians, but no one would stand him or his pampered brother on the throne of the Caesars any more than they would stand the old cripple of a father. Turpio knew that Ballista was hurt that even those closest to him did not give his theory any credence. Still, the northerner was bearing everything stoically. Turpio would do everything he could to make his position as least embarrassing as possible. Worldly success was transient.
Movement to the left of the bridge caught Turpio's eye. More Arabs were coming out of the trees. They were mounted, leading more horses. Those standing were swinging up into the saddle. They were all kicking on towards the bridge. They had spears and bows. There were at least twenty of them. Gods below, the camel-fuckers were raiding the baggage.
Turpio gathered his cloak in one hand and held it above his head, the army signal for enemy in sight. He roared a warning. No one in the jostling throng by the bridge noticed. Although it was a mild spring day, Ballista was sweating heavily. His voice was hoarse from shouting orders. Which was the more bone-headedly recalcitrant, a camel or an imperial porter?
'Get those fucking wagons in line astern.'
Faces looked at him with incomprehension or dumb insolence. So this was what it had come to: the son of the warleader of the Angles, a Roman Dux, reduced to little better than a porter himself. Ballista realized his post as deputy to the Praefectus Castrorum was a deliberate slight. Still, if Macrianus thought injured pride would cause Ballista to slip up, he was mistaken.
'You there, with the emperor's charger, go next. You, with the imperial chariot, hold back here near me. The rest of you, with the wagons, wait over there where you are. There is only width on the bridge for one of you at a time.' His voice was almost lost in the braying of animals and shouting of men. The nearest wagon driver was not paying the least attention. He was looking over the northerner's head. Ballista filled his lungs to curse him. The man dived over the far side of the wagon. Something thumped into the wood next to Ballista. Shrill yells filled the air.
Ballista turned. An arrow was coming straight at him. He leapt sideways. The arrow missed by a hand's breadth. There were about twenty Arabs, mounted, armed, closing fast. He looked around. Chaos everywhere. Baggage handlers screaming, running, some trying to hide under wagons, others throwing themselves over the parapet of the bridge. A couple of Dalmatian cavalrymen, dismounted like himself, were nearby, standing open-mouthed. He roared at them to form up on him. They shuffled either side of him. The three men were without helmets, armour or shields. Ballista drew his sword and wrapped his black cloak around his left arm. He missed Maximus at his side. Typical of the Hibernian to choose this moment to go and see to their horses.
The tent-dwellers sheered off to either side. They had no intention of fighting armed men if they were not forced. They were intent on plunder and the easy pleasure of killing the unresisting. Just to Ballista's right, by the columns that marked the start of the bridge, half a dozen raiders surrounded the purple, gem-encrusted chariot and its four almost snow-white horses. The groom who had been too slow to flee was cut down. One of the Arabs jumped into the chariot. He was gathering the reins.