‘You have brought the sorceress, Pacorus?’
‘She insisted on coming.’
‘Why?’
‘I have no idea,’ I replied. ‘More to the point, what are Khosrou and Musa doing here?’
‘All will be revealed,’ answered my father.
I had nodded to Khosrou and Musa when I alighted the palace steps but I had no opportunity that day to speak to them. After our journey we were exhausted and spent the afternoon relaxing while nursemaids attended to our children. Dobbai demanded to be shown to her quarters, after which she locked the doors of her room and was not seen until the following morning.
The three days before the wedding were filled with inspections of the garrison, tours of the walls, archery competitions, banquets and visits to the mansions of influential nobles. All very tedious and which diverted me from my aim of speaking at length to Khosrou and Musa concerning their presence at Hatra. I did succeed in speaking to Surena, though, when I ordered him to my quarters on the first morning after our arrival in the city. He told me that he had received an invitation from my father to attend Vata’s wedding and that not to be present would be an insult to the man who had done so much to support his war effort in Gordyene.
‘The wording of the letter was most insistent, lord,’ he said.
‘I can imagine.’
‘It is wise to keep the King of Hatra happy, lord, I think.’
I smiled at him. ‘I think you are right, Surena.’
‘Does Hatra wish to rule Gordyene, lord? Is that why I have been brought here.’
‘You know, Surena, at this moment in time I am as ignorant as you are regarding this matter. How are the Armenians?’
He smiled. ‘Still licking their wounds. I have heard that their king….’
‘Tigranes?’
‘Yes, lord. I have heard that he is sick.’
‘He will recover,’ I told him, ‘and when he does he will be looking to retake Gordyene.’
‘We are ready, lord.’
I did manage to avoid any appointments the morning before the wedding and took myself down to the poor quarter of the city where once Byrd had briefly lived, making a living by selling pots before I had persuaded him to accompany me to Dura. I stood before the one-roomed shop he had rented that fronted the grubby square. A wooden bench still stood before the room, though instead of Byrd’s pots it was piled high with sandals. There were around fifty people in the square inspecting and haggling over the products on display around its sides. I walked over to the sandal seller, a man in his early twenties with lank hair and sores on his hands who was arranging his goods. Behind him was a woman who looked twice her early years holding a naked infant with a dirty face. I picked up a pair of sandals as the man watched me, obviously confused why someone who wore expensive leather boots would be looking at poorer quality footwear. His wife looked at me with sorrowful eyes.
‘How much?’ I asked.
‘Three obols, sir,’ he replied.
Half a drachma — the daily wage of an unskilled worker.
‘I’ll take them.’ I took the leather pouch hanging from my belt and emptied a hundred drachmas on the table.
‘A fair price,’ I said.
He looked in disbelief at the pile of money on the table.
‘It is too much, sir.’
I looked at his miserable hovel and impoverished family and thought of the rich food and wine that would be consumed tomorrow at Vata’s wedding and of the great wealth that existed in this city, just a short distance away.
‘I knew the man who worked here once. I am forever in his debt. This is a way of repaying but a small part of it. But for an accident of birth our positions might have been reversed. How strange is fate do you not think?’
‘Sir?’
‘It does not matter. Keep the money.’
The wedding of Vata and Adeleh took place in the temple, the great building packed with kings, queens, nobles and their wives, and afterwards there was a huge feast in the palace. It was good to see Vata’s big round face wearing a smile again and I was genuinely happy for him and my sister. So now all my parents’ children were married. I had thought that Adeleh, being in her thirties, would remain single but now she went with her new husband back to Nisibus to begin her new life as the wife of Hatra’s northern governor, who had been created Prince of Nisibus in honour of his entering the royal family. I watched my mother wipe tears from her eyes as she bid her daughter farewell the day after the wedding.
With the marriage out of the way I was determined to finally speak to Khosrou at length about his campaign against the northern nomads, but I was again thwarted when Gallia and I received a summons from my father to attend him in his throne room that afternoon. My curiosity was aroused when Nergal and Praxima informed me that they had also been requested to attend my father. When we arrived I discovered that in addition to the dais upon which my father and mother sat as the rulers of Hatra, seven other temporary platforms had been erected in the great chamber in two lines extending from the permanent dais. Behind each one hung great banners carrying the symbols of the kings who would sit on each one: the red griffin of Dura, the double-headed lion sceptre crossed with a sword of Mesene, the horned bull of Babylon, the sun symbol of Margiana, the Caspian tiger of Hyrcania, the Shahbaz, the mythical bird of Atropaiene, and the white dragon of Media.
My father and mother were already on their thrones when Gallia and I were shown to our places along with Surena and Viper who sat down behind Gallia and me. Next to my father sat Gafarn, who nodded to me, and flanking my mother was Diana who smiled and waved at Gallia. Kogan’s guards stood every five paces around the walls while others stood in front of the great doors at its entrance. As Khosrou and his wife took their seats on their dais there was a commotion at the doors and I recognised the voice of Dobbai haranguing the guards. Kogan also heard it and left his place beside my father’s dais to see what was going on.
‘I will have entry,’ I heard Dobbai shout to the four guards who barred her way with spears.
‘Get the old witch out of here,’ ordered Kogan.
‘No,’ I shouted, ‘let her pass.’
Kogan stopped and turned to look at my father. I walked across to where the guards stood before Dobbai.
‘Put down your weapons and let her through,’ I commanded.
They knew that I was the heir to Hatra’s throne and yet they hesitated to move out of the way. They took orders from Kogan and my father, not from me.
‘Do not force me to draw my own sword,’ I threatened them.
I turned to look at Kogan who in turn looked at my father for guidance. A disapproving Assur leaned on his staff as all eyes in the hall fell on me. Orodes was frowning and Khosrou seemed mildly amused. My father nodded to Kogan.
‘Stand down and let her through,’ he ordered.
The guards moved away from Dobbai as she shuffled into the chamber and held up her arm for me to take.
‘I hope the chairs are comfortable,’ she said loudly enough for everyone to hear as I escorted her over to my platform. ‘The conversation of kings can be long and tedious and my back is old and frail.’
I gave her my large wicker chair that was stuffed with cushions as I stood next to her and waited for another to be brought. Assur went over to my father and said something into his ear, pointing at Dobbai as he did so, but my father shook his head and waved him away. Directly opposite us sat Atrax and Aliyeh, my sister curling her lip at the ugly old woman she now had to look at during the meeting, while Aschek and Musa were busy grinning at each other and pointing at Dobbai as she rearranged the cushions and settled herself in her chair. Fortunately there was room on our crowded dais to accommodate another chair and the five of us sat and waited for my father to speak. Normally only kings would have been invited to such gatherings, but he knew that Gallia would not have countenanced being excluded and neither would Praxima, and in any case Orodes would have been loathe to exclude Axsen from the proceedings so besotted was he with her. And in any case she had been the ruler of Babylon before their marriage. Thus all the wives of the kings had been invited though none was expected to contribute.