A burst of noise from behind. Voices raised in shock and anger. The clash of steel. It was coming from the praetorians leading the packhorses.
Telling those with him to follow, Ballista pulled Pale Horse out of the line and cantered back down the column.
As they came alongside, four or five men could just be seen running away. In moments they were lost in the darkness. One of the praetorians detailed to lead the packhorses was down. Several others were gathered around him. More than one were holding wounds. Ballista dismounted.
'Bastard legionaries,' a praetorian said. Obviously, the lure of the thinly guarded imperial treasures had been too much for the disciplina of some.
Ballista examined the man on the ground. He was dying, a deep sword thrust in his chest. There was no time for compassion. The packhorses were holding up the rear of the column. The front had not halted. A gap was opening in the middle of the army. The northerner spoke to one of the man's companions. 'Do the right thing. Then get moving again.' He remounted. He heard a blade drawn, a slicing sound, a death rattle.
Riding back into position, it struck Ballista that he had just assumed command of their tiny detachment. Turpio had followed his orders without complaint. The quizzical-faced bastard was a good man. Did not stand on his dignitas like most Romans. Starlight glittered on that ridiculously ornate Persian bracelet he always wore. Now was not the moment, surrounded by others, but Ballista would apologize and thank Turpio later – as if over the last few days he had not thanked him enough both for saving his life and for then keeping quiet about Maximinus Thrax.
Anamu was leading the army to the right of the first outcrop of the hills, to the north-east. The road to Samosata that Ballista had travelled before ran to the north-west. They were marching into country he did not know, country he suspected next to no one in the army would know. Off to his right, he noticed a large, solitary rock with an outline vaguely like a crouching lion.
With more and more frequent halts, they marched on through the night. The trail rose, twisting this way and that, until they were up in the rolling highlands, the black shapes of mountains all around.
'Prepare to receive cavalry!' The shouts rolled back down the column. No trumpets, but enough noise to wake the dead.
'Which direction?' a dozen or more officers called out.
'Right!'
'Left!'
The answers came back indiscriminately out of the dark.
Ballista made the best disposition he could, Turpio and eight troopers facing left; Ballista himself, Maximus, Calgacus, Demetrius and the remaining four troopers facing right.
Shouts continued to ring out: 'Over there!' 'Enemy in sight!' 'Stand down!' 'No, hold your position!'
Ballista heard the rattle of hooves. He drew his sword. Into his vision thundered a solitary horse. It was a white stallion, riderless, running free. It carried no saddle or bridle; no tack at all. It was indescribably beautiful. It galloped back down along the column the way they had come. In moments it was gone.
There was a strange hush after it had passed. One or two men laughed nervously.
'Resume line of march.'
From the head of the column, two riders spurred back towards where the imperial standard flew. Even at a little distance in the dark, Ballista recognized the baggy trousers of Anamu. The other was a Roman officer. Telling Turpio to keep the boys in line, Ballista edged forward up the side of the column.
Drawing closer, Ballista recognized the officer as Camillus, the tribune commanding Legio VI Gallicana, the Danubian Aurelian's old legion, transferred from Mogontiacum on the Rhine. Ballista had met him several times, and knew him for a sound man.
'No, Dominus, I am afraid there is no doubt,' Camillus was saying. 'My legion marches at the head of the infantry. My eyes have not played a trick on me. When we stopped for that loose horse, they carried on. The cavalry have gone. All of them.' Camillus added under his breath, 'Again.'
'What is to be done?' Valerian asked plaintively.
'No cause for alarm, Dominus,' said Quietus. 'See, Anamu is here.'
The old emperor looked at the Arab like a lost child recognizing its parent.
Anamu's long face smiled. 'They have some of my guides with them, Dominus. They know the route. When they realize we have lost touch, they will halt and wait for us. No cause for alarm in the Achaean camp before Troy. We have left the easterners far behind. There is not a Sassanid for miles.'
'I would not be so sure,' said Camillus. 'I have heard men on horses shadowing our march.'
'Wild talk which lowers morale,' the Princeps Peregrinorum, Censorinus, interjected softly. 'It cannot be allowed.' Camillus fell silent. When the head of the frumentarii made a veiled threat, most men fell silent. The tribune of Legio VI Gallicana was no exception.
Valerian seemed not to notice the interchange. 'Then we just continue the march?' It was more a question than a statement.
'As ever, Dominus, you make the wisest decision.' Anamu kissed his fingertips and bowed towards the emperor. 'With your permission, Dominus, I will return to the head of the column.' He turned to Camillus. 'Perhaps the tribune will ride with me?'
Camillus saluted Valerian, shot an unhappy look at Ballista, and turned his horse to follow.
As inconspicuously as possible, Ballista moved back to his place in the column. As they moved forward again, he told Turpio what he had heard.
'A loose horse. The cavalry vanish. But not Anamu. Quietus and Censorinus to hand,' Turpio mused. 'An odd accident.'
'No accident at all?' asked Ballista.
'Maybe not.'
'Still,' said Ballista, 'it was a beautiful horse.'
'Very,' said Turpio.
They rode on through the night, over the dark, rolling hills. They halted, set off, halted again. They skirted the black, folded mountains, turning west then east. Sometimes they doubled back on themselves. Once, off to the left, Ballista saw a solitary rock with the profile of a crouching lion. He checked the stars to make sure they were not back near where they had started, marching south. No, at that point they were heading north.
Tired, lulled by the rhythmic creak of leather and the hypnotic tread of Pale Horse, Ballista's thoughts wandered. A man had tried to kill him. A few days earlier, Quietus had said the northerner's usefulness was at an end. If there had been any doubts in Ballista's mind, the behaviour of Censorinus had dispelled them. Two years ago, in Antioch, the head of the frumentarii had worked hard to try to discover who the northerner's would-be killers were. This time, he had not even gone through the motions. Two years ago, Censorinus had not been a close amicus of Macrianus the Lame.
With a jolt, Ballista wondered if Macrianus might be right. The army was stumbling to disaster. Had the gods deserted them because they had not eradicated the atheist Christians? Had Ballista contributed to the divine displeasure by freeing the Christians from the prison by the state agora in Ephesus?
But, on the other hand, was it just possible the Christians were right? Only one previous emperor had ordered an empire-wide persecution. Soon after, Decius had been cut down by the Goths. Valerian had commanded the second, and now he looked likely to share a similar fate at the hands of the Persians. Was there one all-powerful, vengeful god who was not to be mocked?
It was inherently unlikely. All the different peoples – the Romans, the Persians, the chaste Seres, the adulterous Bactrians – how could one god fulfil their different needs, enforce their different moralities? If there was one all-powerful god, why had he made such a bad job of making his presence known to the majority of mankind? No, a god of compassion could never have a son who would say that a man who loved his father or his mother or his children more than the by-blow of divinity was unworthy.