The King of Persis turned his large round face to gaze down at me. Despite him being Parthian I was surprised at how fair his skin was, and his hair appeared golden in the sunlight. He also saw the dead soldier lying nearby. He pointed at it.
‘Remove this piece of carrion.’ Two of his men did so as the King of Persis regarded me, then strode over. Like Kaspar had done he too folded his arms in front of his chest, a look of contempt on his face, a glint of triumph in his brown eyes.
‘King Pacorus. We meet in far different circumstances from the last time we encountered one another.’
I looked at him with my one eye that remained open, as the other had closed due to the swelling around the wound to my eyebrow.
‘I would get up and greet you properly, but as you can see I am tied up and do not have my sword.’
His lip curled into a wicked smile as he unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to a subordinate who stood behind him. He then squatted beside me.
‘You smell disgusting. Still, I’m sure you will be made more presentable for your performance in Uruk.’
‘Uruk?’ Uruk was the capital of Mesene and the residence of King Chosroes.
‘Yes, boy, you are to be executed in the palace square so all may see what happens to those who cross me, even the famed young general from Dura who vanquishes his foes. How great will be the fear that I will create when people see your head on a spike.’
‘You would not dare?’
‘Would I not?’ he sneered. ‘I did tell you when we met last year that affairs between us would be settled, and so it has proved to be. But unlike you, I will not let my chance slip between my fingers.’
‘Kill me now, then, and have done with it.’
He looked genuinely hurt at my suggestion. ‘Kill you here, among a collection of hovels in this piece of wasteland? I think not. The death of a king should be witnessed by a multitude so the tale of it will be spread far and wide. And your death will be slow and painful, to give you time to reflect on your insolence towards myself and King Mithridates.’
I chuckled. ‘So Mithridates is still betraying his father?’
‘He betrays no one,’ he said curtly. ‘Once we have destroyed those kings who had the temerity to stand against us, we will keep Phraates as high king, as a sort of figurehead. But the real power will be in other hands. And I will make Parthia strong and feared.’
‘You will fail.’
Narses stood up, held out his hand and was handed back his sword. He buckled his belt. ‘The things that I dislike the most about you, Pacorus, are your ridiculous sense of loyalty and notion of honour. These things have held you back. You could have been the most powerful man in the empire, perhaps King of Kings yourself in a few years. You have a talent for winning battles, I grant you that, but you are sadly lacking when it comes to statecraft.’
‘You mean treachery?’
He smiled. ‘There you go again, talking nonsense. You seek to make the world a better place, to create heaven on earth. But you live in a fool’s paradise. You are blind to the realities around you. Take Chosroes, for example, a man eaten away by jealously. He rules a dung heap and is a pauper among kings, and so I offered him another kingdom if he would but join me, and such is his lust for riches that he readily agreed. I call individuals like him useful idiots. And to think, your father thinks of him as a friend, which is doubly ironic since the kingdom I promised Chosroes was Hatra.’
‘You will never take Hatra.’
Narses tilted his head to one side. ‘How long can a city hold out against a whole empire? Even now my army is marching with that of Chosroes to lay siege to Babylon. One by one your father’s allies are falling. Balas is dead, Farhad and Aschek are broken. So you see, there are none to stand in my way.’
At that moment two of Narses’ men threw Kaspar at their king’s feet.
‘You are the commander of this rabble?’ asked Narses.
Kaspar rose unsteadily to his feet and bowed his head, clearly still the worse for wear. ‘Yes, highness.’
Narses pointed at me. ‘This prisoner is to be taken to Uruk at once. You will commence your journey immediately, and to ensure that he gets there alive a dozen of my soldiers will accompany you and your men on your journey. Now go. Your appearance offends my eyes.’
Behind him the cataphracts and horse archers of Persis were bellowing and cursing at Kaspar’s men to get their horses saddled. The men of Mesene, feeling the effects of too much drink, were sluggish and resentful, but eventually they managed to saddle their horses and clamber onto the backs of their mounts. Kaspar sat on Remus and pulled his own horse beside him. He had attached a rope around my neck that was secured to his saddle — my saddle. He looked at me with bloodshot eyes, grinned and then yanked the rope, causing me to lose my balance and fall flat on my face. As I still had my hands tied behind my back I got up with difficulty, spitting dirt from my mouth as I did so.
Narses rode up to me as his men cantered from the village.
‘Until we meet again in Uruk, then.’
Then he and his men were gone and I began my journey to Uruk. It was late afternoon now and I comforted myself with the belief that we would probably not be on the road for long, not if Kaspar’s men were anything to go by. I stumbled along in the centre of the column, and could see that several of his men were already dozing in their saddles, their chins resting on their chests and reins wrapped around their arms for support. I also saw others lean over to the side and vomit onto the ground. These men were truly the slops of humanity, and I felt ashamed that I had allowed my men to be slaughtered and myself taken by such poor soldiers.
We had not travelled two miles, hugging the bank of the Tigris with a great marsh lying on the other side of the river and disappearing into the distance, when a great herd of water buffaloes suddenly appeared. The beasts with their grey-black coats, their huge heads sporting great backward-curving, crescent-shaped horns ending in sharp points, were nearly the height of a man. Either side of the lumbering beasts herdsmen whacked the animals with sticks, causing them to bellow and grunt with irritation. Within minutes the water buffaloes had collided with Kaspar’s horsemen and chaos ensued as horses and buffaloes intermingled. The men from Persis were highly indignant and shouted curses and threats at the herdsmen to get their beasts out of the way, to no avail. Each water buffalo must have weighed two thousand pounds, and from what I could see there must have been at least fifty of them. Soon they had ambled over to where I stood behind Remus, and I had great difficulty in keeping my feet as buffaloes walked past and threatened to gash me with the ends of their horns. Kaspar’s men, in stark contrast to the soldiers of Persis, did nothing but shrug, carried on dozing in their saddles or laughed at the vain efforts of Narses’ soldiers. Despite my dire circumstances I too found it amusing, but then my instincts told me that something was wrong and the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand up. I looked around and saw the herdsmen gently tapping the beasts, but they were not trying to get them past the horsemen; rather, they were deliberately herding them to get among the column of riders. And then I noticed that there suddenly seemed to be a lot of herdsmen, dozens in fact. Most strange. Then all hell broke loose.
A water buffalo had stopped right in front of me, flicking its tail to swat away the flies that were plaguing it, when suddenly one of the herdsmen raced forward and stabbed Kaspar in the thigh with a knife. The whole column was then assaulted by herdsmen from every direction. The latter, having got close to the horsemen under pretence of controlling their beasts, leapt at Kaspar’s men and slashed and stabbed at them with knives. They vaulted onto the backs of the water buffaloes and then threw themselves at the horsemen, aiming the points of their blades at eyes and throats or plunging their weapons deep into unprotected chests. Soon the air was filled with ear-piercing screams as the assailants went expertly to work. Kaspar’s men were cut down with ease, those who had been dozing or daydreaming being the first to die. A few managed to resist, but the proximity of their attackers meant they could not use their bows and had instead to rely on their swords, and they wore no armour to protect them from the deadly blades of the herdsmen. Neither did the latter, but Kaspar’s men were stationary in their saddles and became literally sitting targets. Most of the Mesenians did not even manage to pull their swords from their scabbards before they were felled. And when they hit the ground their foes were upon them, stabbing in a frenzied bloodlust, turning their victim into dead flesh.