‘You’re not wrong there.’
Nergal froze him with an iron stare so Strabo bowed his head to me and scurried away. I told Surena to go back to the command tent and ready my armour and weapons for the morning, leaving me alone with Nergal.
‘Another battle tomorrow, Nergal.’
He grinned. ‘Another defeat for the Romans.’
There would be little time tomorrow for idle chatter, so I welcomed the chance to talk to my friend and trusted commander.
‘After we deal with this lot we will have to march north to aid Hatra, and after that Media. It seems there remains much fighting left to do.’
‘That is what we exist for, is it not?’
‘You sound like Domitus.’
He laughed. ‘That is a fine complement. You know what his men say about him?’
‘No.’
‘That his drills are bloodless battles and his battles are bloody drills.’
Now it was my turn to laugh. ‘I remember the first time I clapped eyes on him. It was when Spartacus had captured that silver mine near Thurri. Domitus was one of the slaves condemned to work in the mine. But after he had been freed he decided to join us. I am glad he did, for I think that I collected the greatest treasure that was in that mine.’
‘The Romans are going to get a surprise tomorrow when they see that there’s a legion facing them.’
‘By the time they realise,’ I said, ‘it will be too late.’
I looked at him. ‘I am sorry that Praxima is in Dura, I did not wish it so.’
He laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘It is not your fault, Pacorus. Praxima would never leave Gallia, you know that. I am proud that she stayed to stand by her friend.’
‘If we win the battle,’ I said, ‘I will have stern words with my wife.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Good luck with that.’
The day of battle dawned clear and windless. It would be hot later, and for some their last day on earth. Surena had laid out my armour the night before. The heavy hide suit covered in iron scales hung on its wooden frame. My Roman helmet, its crest filled with fresh goose feathers, perched on top. My boots he had placed at the foot of my cot, with my leggings and tunic folded on top of them. I always kept my sword on the floor beside me as I slept and my dagger under my pillow. Before I prepared for battle I knelt beside the cot and held the lock of Gallia’s hair in my hand. I closed my eyes and prayed to Shamash that He would give me courage this day, and that my conduct would honour my forefathers.
First I put on my silk shirt, followed by the tunic and leggings. By the time I had pulled on my boots Surena had arrived with a tray of fruit, bread and water. I invited him to join me for breakfast, while outside the racket of an army preparing for battle filed the air.
‘Stay with the other squires in camp,’ I told him. ‘If the worst happens, get your hide out of here as quickly as possible and get across the river.’
He looked surprised. ‘I have been told that you have never lost a battle.’
I thought of the last battle with Spartacus in Italy, in the Silarus Valley. All day we had fought the Romans, and though we had not lost, at the end of it Spartacus lay dead and his army broken. It was certainly no victory.
‘What has happened up to now counts for nothing. Just do as I ask.’
‘I have a sword and would like to fight.’
‘And I would like you to stay alive. Fighting Romans is not like ambushing the soldiers of Chosroes and then running back into the marshes.’
He nodded but I could tell that he was far from happy. He was filled with excitement, and being young he never considered that he might be killed. But then, all of us never really thought that we might die on the battlefield. Each soldier knew that battles were bloody affairs, but in his mind it was always the man next to him who was going to die, never him.
And so, once again, I prepared to fight the Romans. In truth there was much to admire about them and their civilisation. For me, their architectural achievements were things of wonder. Parthia had its great temples and palaces, it was true, but nowhere in the empire was there mighty stone aqueducts carrying water to towns and cities or straight, paved roads that connected its cities. The roads in Parthia were dirt tracks, their surfaces baked hard by the sun, which turned to mud when it rained, but Roman roads were a marvel to behold. They were never washed away by rains; rather, they had drainage channels on each side into which rainwater ran. And those same roads carried Roman armies to the far corners of their empire, from where they invaded foreign lands to fulfil the insatiable Roman desire for conquest. The Romans believed that the earth was theirs for the taking, irrespective of what other peoples thought. And in their thirst for conquest they had developed a military system that was the envy of the world. In Italy, no matter how many defeats they had suffered, the Romans always seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of soldiers with which to create new armies. But above all it was discipline and organisation that gave the Romans victory. Ever since I had returned to Parthia I had endeavoured to infuse Dura’s army with these same qualities. Today I would discover if I had been successful.
Stripped of its mystery and horror, war is a business, no different to farming the land or constructing a building. There are certain guiding principles that must be observed if one is to be successful. If a farmer plants his seeds and does not water them, his crops will not grow. If an architect does not use the proper materials or ignores the laws of physics, his building will collapse. It is the same with war. The building blocks of battlefield success are training, the right equipment, the correct tactics and good leadership. I knew my men were well trained. Domitus and Nergal had spent countless hours on the training fields putting their men through their paces, endless drills to build stamina and strength and to perfect tactics. Practising over and over so each man knew his place in the century, cohort, company and dragon, practising hard and so often that drills became second nature, performed without thinking, even in the white-hot cauldron of combat. I had beaten Roman armies before, in Italy, but this time was different. In Italy Spartacus had been my commander, but here all eyes were upon me. I was both commander and king. If I lost I would lose my army and my kingdom. It would all be decided in the next few hours.
Many people who have not seen the East believe it to be wholly desert, and whereas vast tracts of Parthia are indeed parched and arid, the lands either side of the mighty Euphrates and Tigris rivers are lush and green. The waters of these two rivers have irrigated the land for thousands of years. It is the same in Dura. The land along the western bank of the Euphrates is the home to an abundance of wildlife, watering thousands of livestock and feeding crops. But the area that we would fight on today is bone-dry and dusty. Dura itself had been built on rock that towers above the Euphrates. Immediately beyond the city’s northern wall was one of the two great wadis that flanked the city. Its sheer, high sides made any assault from the north impossible, and it was the same on the city’s southern side where there was also a deep wadi. Beyond the northern wadi the ground descends down to the plain in a gentle slope for a distance of around a mile. It was at this spot, on level ground, that caravans and travellers crossed the Euphrates via the pontoon bridge that now lay dismantled and stacked well inland on the far shore. The large caravan park that had been created to provide shelter and food for both men and their beasts sprawled over a vast area, both west and north. Further north still had been the tent city that had housed the workers who had strengthened the city’s defences and laboured in the armouries. They had all left now, and there were no longer caravans crossing the Euphrates. But they had all left their mark, for the land all around was flat, dry and barren — a giant dust bowl — ideal for a battle. Ideal for the battle that I intended to fight.