'Do you think it unwise just to ride down the main road west – Regia and Hagioupolis to Antioch?' Calgacus asked.
Castricius considered for a time. 'Piso will be annoyed you have escaped. Of course, you three are of no importance, and Piso is naturally indolent. But he is desperate to appear competent in the eyes of his Macrianus the Lame. He might be so keen to suck his dominus's cock that he will send a troop of horses down the obvious route.'
'I have a friend in Hierapolis – well, a man I met on the journey out…' Demetrius's words trailed off.
'There is no direct road,' said Castricius. 'It must be about forty miles as the crow flies, tough going, but it still might be best to go south.'
Outside, a legionary was holding the horses. In turn, the fugitives thanked Castricius and mounted up.
'One thing,' said Maximus. 'Who was the easterner who led us over the roofs?'
The small centurion laughed. 'That was no local. One of my boys from Legio IIII – a scaenicus legionis. If you had to talk your way out of something, I thought it would be useful to have an actor to help you.'
As they rode away, Demetrius reflected on life's absurdities. Most legions, especially those stationed out in the east, contained a troupe of soldier-actors. It helped pass the time. A scaenicus legionis had appeared to save them like the deus ex machina he must have so often played.
Ballista was standing in the governor's palace in Samosata. He was watching the Sassanid envoy trying to control himself. Garshasp the Lion might have first won his cognomen in some battle in the east, but presumably it had stuck because it suited him. Unusually for a Persian, his hair had a reddish tinge. Long and thick, it invited comparison with a mane. When angry, as he certainly was now, his eyes flashed.
They had been in Samosata for nine days. Finally granted an audience with Macrianus the Lame, they had been left waiting in the basilica for over an hour. If you thought the Sassanid King of Kings the equal of a Roman emperor, the twin eyes of the world, the two lamps in the darkness of mankind, as Ballista had heard Garshasp put it, this was a studied insult.
Ballista himself had relished the delay. Every night that passed took him further away from the nocturnal apparition of the daemon of Maximinus Thrax. Ballista needed recourse to his familiar mantra – the daemon cannot physically harm you, avoid Aquileia and all will be well – less and less frequently There were other reasons Ballista welcomed the delay. Every day in Roman territory was a day he did not have to return to Sassanid captivity. Here in Samosata he could indulge the fantasy that all he had to do to be reunited with Julia and the boys was call for a horse and set out on the road to Antioch. And he wanted to be far away from the memory of the cell in Carrhae. Rolled face down, limbs stretched out, tunic hauled up; Allfather, that had been close. The assault had shaken the northerner more than he cared to admit.
To break the run of his thoughts, he looked around the basilica. The last time he had been here, there had been plague. It was long gone, but the ends of some of the swags of laurel – their scent considered a preventative of disease – had not been removed. The floor was unswept. If one were planning a coup, as Ballista was convinced Macrianus was, such incidentals might well be overlooked. Valerian's imperial throne had gone from the dais at the end of the long room. Instead, six seats adorned with ivory stood in a row – the curule chairs symbolic of high Roman magistracies.
The doors swung open. A herald announced Marcus Fulvius Macrianus, Comes Sacrarum Largitionum, Praefectus Annonae, holder of maius imperium in the Oriens. The titles rang out sonorous and impressive: the treasurer of the whole empire, its supply-master, with overriding military authority in its eastern territories.
Click, drag, step. Macrianus advanced down the aisle. Click went his walking stick, his lame foot dragged, and his sound one took a step. He was followed by two more youthful versions of himself. His sons had the same long, straight nose, receding chin and pouchy eyes, but Quietus and Macrianus the Younger walked easily, with a confident swagger.
Behind the family came three more men. All had deserted the setting sun of Valerian in time to rise high in the newly emerging regime. There was the elderly nobilis Pomponius Bassus, recently appointed governor of Cappadocia, the senator Maeonius Astyanax, as ever clutching a papyrus roll as evidence of his intellectuality, and, most sinister of all, Censorinus, commander of the frumentarii. Emperors came and went, but there was always a feared Princeps Peregrinorum like Censorinus in charge of the imperial secret service.
On the dais, Macrianus handed his stick to one of his sons. He pulled a fold of his toga over his head and poured a libation of wine. Raising his hands to the heavens, he said a prayer to the immortal gods of Rome. His tone was imbued with the fervour of true belief. This was a man who had caused untold suffering to his fellow citizens with his persecution of Christians. Few could be more dangerous, more inhumane than an active and shrewd politician guided by burning religious certainty.
Once everyone was settled in their seats, Macrianus the Lame indicated that the embassy should begin.
Garshasp spoke briefly. Avoiding Greek, the diplomatic language of the east, he used his native tongue. Having captured Valerian in battle, Shapur, King of Kings, would now accept a ransom for him. Cledonius and Ballista had been brought here to arrange it. Knowing Persian, Ballista noted that the interpreter filled out the phrases to make them less brusque.
Cledonius took the floor. Having served for many years as ab Admissionibus to Valerian, he was well versed in courtly etiquette. His speech was full and round in its Latin orotundity. He moved seamlessly between high-flown sentiments and hard details.
The words slid off Ballista's mind like rain off a tiled roof. No one expected this embassy to succeed; not Shapur or Valerian, and none of the men in this room. Macrianus the Lame had exercised great ingenuity and foresight in order to betray Valerian to the Persians. The very last thing he would want was the return of the aged emperor. Instead, as Quietus had told Ballista in a moment of fury, Macrianus intended that his sons take the purple. Cledonius's speech ran on. As the historian Tacitus had revealed long ago, the rule of the emperors had created a gulf between words and reality.
Suddenly, with a flourish, Cledonius produced a document from his toga. He began to read. It was a letter from Valerian to his loyal servant Macrianus. It was a direct order to the Count of the Sacred Largess to leave Samosata and come to the emperor in Carrhae.
In the silence that followed Cledonius's rhetorical device, Macrianus rose to his feet. He came to the edge of the dais and leant on his stick.
'Is anyone so insane that he would willingly become a slave and prisoner of war instead of being a free man?' Macrianus shook his head, as if overcome by the folly of it all. 'Furthermore, those who are ordering me to go from here are not my masters. One of them, Shapur, is an enemy. The other, Valerian, is not master of himself, and thus can in no way be our master.'
It was in the open. Macrianus had publicly denied that Valerian was emperor any longer. Although Ballista knew the devious Count of the Sacred Largess had been working towards this for at least a year, he still felt vaguely shocked. The northerner looked around to see how everyone else was taking it. Up on the dais, all heads except one nodded in solemn agreement. Quietus was smiling in exultation. Again, through the main body of the basilica, there seemed much muted approval. Ballista noted that the audience contained a significant percentage of those high-ranked senators who had followed Valerian to the east.
Macrianus pointed to Garshasp. 'You will return to your master tomorrow morning.'