The old man had left without a word of complaint.
Up on the tower, Ballista had waited. Calgacus needed time to collect the horses and clothes. The sun had crawled across the sky. Eventually, Ballista had summoned a Praetorian to go to Quietus with a message.
Before he left, Calgacus had handed over the things. The best black cloak lay at Ballista's feet. The writing things were in his hands. He must write something. A letter to his boys and wife? Depending on how things fell out, it might be twisted and used against them. He wrote, 'Legio III Felix'. Then he tore from the roll the thin strip of papyrus with the words and twined it round his fingers.
Ballista, stylus in one hand, scrap of papyrus in the other, leant on the crenellations and tried to calm his thoughts. The Norns had spun his fate. The length of his life and the day of his death had been fated long ago. Nothing he could do would unpick it.
His mind was not stilled. Too many questions were running through it, treading hard on each other's heels. Would Quietus come? Most likely – he was baited with treachery, and he was mad for treachery. Had Maximus reached Palmyra? Had Haddudad taken him to Odenathus? Had the Lion of the Sun believed Ballista's letter? Was Maximus out there watching this very tower from somewhere in the camp now? There was no telling for any of it. Would Calgacus save his boys and Julia? About this, the most important question, he felt oddly calm. He had no doubt that Calgacus could deal with the gaoler and his assistants. Of course Castricius would see them safe through the postern gate. Haddudad owed Ballista's family every hospitality. He almost smiled at the thought of Julia and Bathshiba together. But then, what of himself – would he succeed or fail?
And when it was done or not, what then? Was there an afterlife? The Christians seemed certain. It buoyed them up in the face of the steel and fire. Ballista had seen the insane resolve it gave them. But it made no sense to him. The resurrection of the body – what a nonsense. Why would you want to come back old and infirm, wracked with the pain of the thing that killed you? And if you had a choice, how could it work? You wanted to be thirty. You wanted to be with the twenty-year-old woman you loved then. But your sons were not born then, and you wanted to be with them too. As for the woman, maybe she had a better time of it with someone else. It would be an accommodating god that would give each Christian their own heaven.
Ballista's ancestral Valhalla seemed a far better choice: the slick-palmed excitement of battle every day. You took the pain, but then wounds miraculously healed, there was a feast every night – food, drink, poetry, the friendship of men, and later, as the stars wheeled across the bottomless sky, the love of women. But even here, problems crept in, like the Evil One. In Ballista's childhood, there had been no mention of books in the hall of the Allfather. But now, without reading, it would be a barren existence for him. And his boys – there could be no certainty they would join him. And being without them would be far worse than losing all the books in the world. Twenty-three winters in the imperium had changed him. The boys had changed him.
Ballista felt hungry. He called down for a Praetorian to bring him some bread and cheese, some ham as well. After the soldier had gone, he realized ham might be difficult in a town where the natives appeared not to eat pork. Still, Roman soldiers had never been renowned for their sensitivities to other cultures.
No sooner had the food arrived, ham and all, than the cavalcade of Quietus appeared in the street below. The emperor was dressed in eastern costume and attended by twenty gorgeously caparisoned Emesene cavalrymen.
Ballista was eating when the Praetorian brought a couple of the local troopers up. The latter searched the northerner with as much impertinence as they could muster. They took away his food, fingered his cloak and writing materials suspiciously, and peered around the minuscule fighting area for anywhere a concealed weapon might lurk. When satisfied, one of them went back down the stairs. Neither the other nor the Praetorian took their eyes off Ballista.
It took some time for the emperor to climb to the top of the tower. When he emerged, he was out of breath, leaning on the arm of an easterner. Another Praetorian followed.
There was barely room for Ballista to perform proskynesis.
Quietus shook himself free of the trooper. The four armed men wedged themselves close together at the top of the steps. It gave just a little room to the emperor and his Praetorian Prefect.
'Get up.' Quietus's voice was peevish. 'This had better be true.'
As Ballista got to his feet, he picked up the scrap of papyrus and the stylus. 'It could not be more so, Dominus.' He handed over the curling papyrus.
Quietus unrolled it and read. 'Your messenger said this was shot over the wall tied to an arrow. It is the identity of the unit that wishes to come over to us.'
'The first unit that wishes to throw itself on your clementia. There will be others,' said Ballista. 'It makes sense that it is Legio III Felix. A vexillatio of the unit is already serving you.'
'And you arranged a signal to confirm this with the archer?'
'I am to wave a black cloak from this tower. If a similar cloak is waved from the siege lines below, Legio III will come into the city by the Palmyrene Gate tonight.'
'Well, what are you waiting for? Get on with it.'
Ballista reached down and gathered the cloak in his left hand. He lifted it high above his head. Making quite sure it could be seen from inside as well as outside the city, he waved it vigorously.
'From where in their lines will they answer?' Quietus was leaning on the parapet, gazing out.
'I do not know, Dominus.' Ballista put the cloak down. 'We must watch and wait.'
'There! There it is!' Quietus was pointing, all his attention on the enemy outside.
Do not think, just act.
Ballista stabbed the stylus into the emperor's neck. Quietus, howling, tried to turn, hands reaching up for the wound. Ballista withdrew the stylus, dropped it. He heard movement behind him. He grabbed the emperor, one hand clutching the embroidered front of Quietus's tunic, the other at his crotch. Blood was flowing down both of them. Ballista hauled him up the battlements, pushed him backwards. Quietus's hands clawed. One locked in Ballista's hair, the other scratched at his face. More violent movements at the stairhead, out of sight. Ballista pushed Quietus out over the crenellations. Only the emperor's legs were still in the tower.
Ballista let go.
Quietus's pouched little eyes were wide in realization and fear, filthy little mouth open in a despairing scream.
Ballista felt pain as a handful of his hair was torn out.
Quietus fell, arms and legs flailing hopelessly as he scraped down the sheer stone wall and on to the hard, unforgiving rocks below.
No noise behind Ballista. He had not been attacked. He turned slowly. He was unarmed. He had even dropped the stylus.
The two Praetorians faced him. Swords drawn.
A pool of blood flowed out from where one of the easterners lay. It began to drip and then run over the top step. The other Emesene was nowhere to be seen.
Ballista looked at the Praetorians. One of them had a distinctive angular face, a huge hooked nose.
The Praetorians looked at each other, then back at Ballista.
As one, they reversed swords, held the hilts out, and shouted.
'Ave Caesar! Ave Imperator Marcus Clodius Ballista Augustus!'
An imperium of three men, one of them the emperor. There had been ten subjects, the whole contubernium stationed at the Tower of Desolation, but Ballista had sent one to each of the six legions, and one each to Castricius and Rutilus. None of them had come back. He was left standing at the base of the tower with Ahala and Malchus, the two Praetorians who had originally hailed him emperor.