‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said, one leg drooped over the arm of my throne. ‘Trade appears to be thriving if what I saw on the road today is anything to go by.’
‘Indeed, indeed,’ smiled Rsan, ‘though our overheads are still high.’
I embraced my old friend Godarz when he arrived, who likewise expressed his happiness at my return.
‘Last we heard you were in some god-forsaken hole near the Caspian Sea.’
‘No place is god forsaken,’ I replied.
Later Domitus and Nergal arrived at the Citadel, the former giving me a hearty hug.
‘You are forbidden to go away again without the army at your back.’
He noticed my purple top. ‘What’s this, gone all oriental on us?’
‘No, Domitus, it was a gift from a friend.’
‘You should burn it,’ he sniffed, ‘the lads will think you’ve gone soft.’
‘And how are they?’
He grinned. ‘Lean and mean and ready for another fight.’
The next day, after I had spent the night hours and the morning alone with my wife, I called everyone together on the palace terrace. In the early evening the heat of the day had abated. Dobbai attended, as did Orodes, now a prince without a home, Malik and Byrd. I told them what had happened in Media and how we had been saved by Musa and Khosrou. Of how we had journeyed to Ctesiphon, where the rumours about Dura being given up to the Romans were confirmed to me by the high king himself.
‘What of it?’ said Gallia, ‘we are here and will defend our home no matter what an idiot king says, no offence meant, Orodes.’
‘And none taken, lady,’ he replied. ‘Would that there were more kings in Parthia who had your courage and determination.’
There were murmurs of approval from all present. Even Rsan managed an enthusiastic nod.
‘Phraates is not long for this world,’ said Dobbai, suddenly. She looked at Orodes.
‘You were lucky to escape with your life; your father will not be so lucky.’
Orodes was outraged. ‘You are wrong. No one would dare strike down the King of Kings.’
Dobbai laughed. ‘What is the King of Kings but the guardian of a meaningless title who sits in his palace at the behest of the other kings? You think your brother…’
‘Half-brother,’ Orodes corrected her.
Dobbai ignored him. ‘You think your brother will wait until your father is dead before he wears the high crown? And you think that viper of his wife cares about Phraates, whose weakness is apparent throughout the whole world? Mithridates wishes to sit on Ctesiphon’s throne.’
‘So does Narses,’ I added.
Dobbai stood up and began pacing the terrace. ‘You are right in that, son of Hatra, though the only thing you have been right in of late. Narses and Mithridates are united in their ambition, but their alliance is only temporary.’ She stopped and jabbed a bony finger at me. ‘You should have killed them long ago. Now they will return to haunt you.’
‘I have more urgent things to think about, the Romans for one.’
She raised her eyes to the heavens in despair. ‘The Romans, what of them?’
‘They will be marching on Hatra again soon enough,’ said Orodes, ‘now that my father has ceded Dura to them.’
Dobbai waved a hand at him. ‘The desert will rise up and see them off. You should look to the east.’
‘Speaking in riddles again, Dobbai?’ I queried.
‘The only riddle is why you let your enemies live?’ She then walked over to Gallia, kissed her on the cheek and shuffled from the terrace.
We resumed discussing matters at hand. It was agreed that Malik and Byrd should ride to Syria to discern the movements of the Romans, and to gather news of any new army that they were raising to throw against us. Rsan reported that Haytham had sent a large amount of gold to Dura’s treasury, half the proceeds of the sale of the Roman prisoners that we had taken at the battle near the city last year.
‘What about their engineers?’ I asked Domitus.
‘Growing fat and lazy on the food we give them,’ he replied.
‘And their siege engines?’
‘All safe and in working order.’
Nergal reported that he had visited Babylon as ordered and that Vardan and Axsen were safe and their city unharmed.
‘The walls of Babylon are high, Pacorus. Chosroes could not take it and so retreated after burning all the outlying villages.’
‘Will Vardan march against Chosroes, Nergal?’ I asked.
Nergal shook his head. ‘Not unless Dura marches beside him, but even then I suspect Babylon has no appetite for war.’
‘Chosroes will have to wait,’ I said, ‘we must look to our own defences first. Especially as we have a new lord high general who might just be tempted to try his luck against us.’
‘The last we heard,’ remarked Nergal, ‘he was preoccupied with subduing rebellious tribes in Sakastan.’
‘Perhaps someone will stick an arrow in him,’ said Gallia.
‘Alas, my love,’ I replied, ‘I doubt that we will be that lucky.’
‘The Romans won’t take kindly to have been given a good thrashing here, Pacorus,’ remarked Godarz. ‘They will be back.’
He was right, of course, but the question was — when would they return? It was late spring now, and I estimated that there would be no campaigning until the fierce heat of the summer had disappeared.
During the days that followed I went to see Dura’s lords to tell them the news of developments at Ctesiphon. I could have ordered them to attend me at Dura, but it gave me an excuse to visit them and to take Gallia and her Amazons with me. They liked entertaining their queen and I liked to show her off to the kingdom. Her blonde hair and her women warriors endlessly fascinated them, the more so since her exploits in defending Dura against the Romans. No Parthian woman had done such a thing before.
‘But I’m not Parthian,’ she whispered to me one evening as we were being entertained by a group of jugglers throwing swords above their heads as though they were scrolls.
‘You are now, my love. They have adopted you.’
My own escort included Surena, now a fully fledged cataphract, and Orodes, whose banishment from his own kingdom had been announced throughout the empire. It was a terrible slight but one which he took in his stride. Everyone made him welcome at Dura and Gallia wanted him to stay with us permanently. But though he maintained his jovial, endearing manner, I think his father’s abandonment of him cut him to the core. Surena, on the other hand, walked around without a care in the world, though I noticed that he always gave Gallia a wide berth. He never let an opportunity slip to be near Viper, though, and his boyish charm and confidence began to weaken her defences, just as a besieging army grinds down a city.
On the way back to Dura we diverted our journey to pay Haytham a visit. We found him at a much-enlarged Palmyra, which had become a veritable tent city. Trade was excellent and the Agraci had obviously profited handsomely from it. Indeed, there was even some discourse between Dura’s lords and Haytham’s people, a thing previously unheard of.
‘Trade means profit and while there’s money to be made there’s no point in slitting each other’s throats.’ Haytham may have been a king but his tent was austere and his clothing functional. No decadent comforts for him.
‘You should erect some buildings, lord,’ I suggested. ‘I can send you some of Dura’s architects if you wish.’
He shook his head. ‘We can pack up and disappear into the desert if the need arises. The whole of Palmyra can vanish like a mirage.’
‘Why would you wish to do that?’ asked Gallia, Rasha snuggled up in her arms.
‘We still have many enemies,’ said Haytham. ‘Romans to the west and Parthians in the east.’
‘The Parthians are not your enemies, lord,’ I said.
Haytham smiled wryly. ‘I like you, Pacorus, I really do, but sometimes my Rasha has more common sense than you do.
‘The Romans are like ravenous wolves. They will not be satisfied until they have conquered the whole world. And there are many Parthians who see the Agraci as cockroaches, to be stamped on.’