Lion of the Sun

Something animal makes the body defend itself, even when the mind is dazed. Ballista found he was curled up on the floor, arms trying to shield his head. The kicks were hard, shrewdly aimed. One after another they came, in his kidneys, stomach, mouth, ears. Ballista felt blood pouring from his nose. His mouth was full of shattered tooth fragments. Relentlessly, the beating continued.

'Enough.' Vardan's voice seemed to come from miles away. The kicking stopped.

Ballista lay, muscles twitching, stabs of pain flickering through him. Several men seized him. He was rolled face down. His limbs were stretched out. Hands hauled up his tunic, gripped the waist of his trousers.

'Stop!' A voice new to the room, Persian but distantly familiar.

'This is nothing to do with you priests, Hormizd.'

'The great god Mazda has willed that everything is the concern of his mobads.' The voice was controlled but tight with emotion. 'I am sure that neither you, Vardan, nor the King of Georgia would be so unrighteous as to deny that the caste of warriors must abase itself before that of priests.'

There was a charged silence that seemed to indicate unwilling acquiescence.

'Even should you have been led so far astray by Ahriman the Evil One, it would be unwise for a vassal king or an officer in the service of the Lord Suren to ignore the will of the Mazda-worshipping King of Kings.' The voice was growing in command, becoming mellifluous. 'Shapur himself, may his name be praised, has commanded the prisoner called Ballista be brought before him at the first audience of the day, as soon as the pious King of Aryans and non-Aryans has performed the rites that greet the dawn. Now my servants will take charge of the prisoner. You may go.'

Ballista heard the men leave the room, their footfalls and mutterings dwindling down the corridor. Spitting out tiny bits of tooth, painfully, he turned over. A young man with an earnest face and a big beard was bending over him. Ballista ran his tongue over his split lips. Croakily, he spoke.

'Greetings, Bagoas. It has been a long time.' Ballista lay in the warm waters of the tepidarium. It had been agony getting in – the grazes had stung even sharper than the cuts – but now the water was supremely soothing. It was scented with carnations and cloves. Relishing the seclusion of the small private bath, Ballista checked his physical condition. His wrists, ankles and the soles of his feet were badly cut from the march. The rest of his body was covered in bruises and abrasions. He squinted into a small, highly polished metal mirror, which kept steaming up. His right eye was blackened, the left almost closed. His front teeth were broken; some at the back ached abominably. But apart from a stabbing pain in his left side when he moved – probably a cracked rib or two – he did not seem to have any broken bones. He was battered and exhausted yet, if a chance came, he could still run or fight.

A door opened and the young priest entered.

'Thank you, Bagoas… sorry – Hormizd.' The Persian youth smiled slightly in acknowledgement of the correction. 'You know,' Ballista continued, 'when you first joined my familia in Delos, I thought you were lying when you said that was your original name.'

'The idea had crossed my mind. I had no wish for anyone to know from what family I came before I was captured. Now the time of my servitude is something not spoken of at court. The divine King of Kings has declared that it should be as if it never occurred. It is as unmentionable as those traitors condemned to the Castle of Oblivion.'

'Why did you save me?'

'Such things are an abomination. When I was… with you, your men Maximus and Calgacus saved me from the same fate.'

'Thank you. But you had already repaid the debt. Maximus told me that you sent our pursuers on the wrong path after the fall of Arete.'

Hormizd smiled, his even teeth very white behind his black beard. 'One who seeks to be a virtuous man does not wait to incur a debt before doing good.'

'I am sure. But now I am in your debt. Although it is hard to imagine how I could be in a position to repay you.'

'One can never tell what great Mazda holds in store for a man,' Hormizd said seriously. 'Now, let me wash your hair. Talk is more free without servants.'

The young Persian knelt by the bath. His fingers worked carefully around the cuts on Ballista's scalp as he cleaned the northerner's long hair.

'Tell me,' said Ballista after a while, 'why does Vardan hate me?'

'For the loss of his jewelled hair-clip.'

'What?'

'The King of Kings gave it to him. After you tricked Vardan into letting you go outside Arete, it was taken back. I imagine that every time someone dresses Vardan's hair, the hurt rankles.'

Ballista laughed. 'The old Greek Herodotus was right: everywhere, custom is king.'

'Come, let me help you out of the bath. I will call my servants to dry you. There is time for a few hours' sleep before you are taken to the King of Kings.'

'Shapur really wishes to see me?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'That is not for me to say.' It was dark, a warm Mesopotamian spring night. Ballista was taken out on to the top of the citadel of Carrhae. At the eastern end of the terrace, off to one side, stood two iron tripods. Cledonius was sitting on one of them. Ballista was led to the other. He sat down with relief. Even in delicate silk slippers, it hurt to walk. As Ballista waited, he watched the eastern sky slowly pale to an eggshell blue.

The King of Kings came out of the palace and stopped in front of the high golden throne. The entourage that flanked him arranged itself into two divisions. On his left were the priests, on his right the high nobility and his client kings. Among them, Ballista saw, was Valerian. The Roman emperor stood some way from Shapur. The King of Iberia, Hamazasp, was significantly nearer the throne.

The great orb of the sun broke the line of the distant hills. Gracefully, the King of Aryans and non-Aryans sank down until he was full length on the ground, prostrating himself before the newly risen deity. There was complete silence as, from the very tips of his fingers, he blew a kiss. Then he stood up.

A pure white stallion was led before Shapur. High-stepping, its neck arched, the beautiful Nisean went consentingly to its fate. The King of Kings rubbed its nose, whispered into its velvet ears the message it would take then, suddenly, struck the sharp blade deeply into the base of the stallion's neck. With the deftness of long practice, he swiftly pulled the knife out and stepped to one side. A stream of blood as thick as a man's arm spouted out.

The horse stood quite still as its life blood pumped away. Everyone watched. For what seemed a long time, nothing moved, except for the gushing blood and the spreading dark, cloudy pool. Then, without preamble, the horse collapsed.

When the horse was dead and the communion between Shapur and his god complete, all the members of the court, Valerian included, performed proskynesis.

Shapur settled himself on the throne. A scribe moused forward. Giving the impression of keeping low to the ground, he began to read from a book. Although the Persian king's hands toyed with a strung bow, his eyes were attentive. The sound did not carry, but Ballista knew the dibir was reading the words spoken by Shapur the night before when he had been drinking.

At length the scribe had finished and was dismissed. Ballista and Cledonius were gestured forward. They got down on their bellies by the carcass of the horse, the smell of its blood strong in their nostrils.

'Rise.' The Sassanid king's jewels and crown glinted in the morning sun. His dark, kohl-lined eyes regarded them.

'But what is to be done? The will of heaven must be endured.' Shapur recited the Greek verse with but the slightest hint of an eastern accent. Recognition swam just below the surface of Ballista's thoughts.

'But how to ask what I want to know without causing you any pain, that is my dilemma. And yet I long to be satisfied.' Shapur raised his hands in mock-uncertainty.