‘What are you thinking?’ Atrax asked me.
‘Let the Armenians attack the caravan, except that it will not be a caravan, it will be a trap. Time to give the Armenians a bloody nose.’
Atrax grinned mischievously. ‘Count me in.’
The headman in charge of the caravan was informed that his camels would not be able to commence their journey on account of a landslide on the road fifty miles from the city. Vata told him that he would have to remain in Nisibus for another seven days while the debris was cleared from the route.
The road to Edessa heads north from Nisibus and then west along the base of the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, running parallel to the forests that blanket their slopes. The Armenians usually established their camps deep in these forests, from which they launched attacks against the caravans. Vata often sent large parties of troops into the trees to track down and destroy these camps but it was a time-consuming business and he did not have the resources to establish outposts all along the road. I hoped that such a large caravan would attract a substantial number of Armenians.
For our trap we used four hundred of Dura’s camels and strapped empty wooden chests from Nisibus on their backs. Each camel would have two attendants who would actually be a pair of Duran horse archers, their bows and quivers secured to the camels and hidden by canvas covers.
The fifty covered wagons would not be transporting highly prized items from the east but rather hand-picked legionaries, each wagon carrying eight men and their weapons and equipment. It would be a tedious journey for these men, cooped up under oilskin covers made to resemble a wagon piled high with goods. But at least they could take it in turns to be drivers. Only when the Armenians took the bait would they be able to spring into action. But then war is mostly long stretches of tedium and routine interrupted by brief periods of terror.
We left Nisibus three days later, four hundred legionaries hidden in the wagons and eight hundred horse archers disguised as camel attendants. I walked at the head of the column with my second-in-command camel herder — Orodes — while Atrax and a hundred of his Median horse archers provided the illusion of an escort. The weather was warm and mild and Mount Masius in the distance looked tall and imposing. The day after we left Vata and his thousand riders would follow us at a distance. This was to deceive the Armenian spies whom he knew operated in Nisibus and who provided Tigranes with exact details of the movements of caravans. He and his horsemen would be able to close the distance between them and our caravan easily enough.
The first two days were uneventful, a pleasant enough stroll through a country seemingly at peace. We saw hares observing us warily from the long grass and antelopes peering at us from the safety of the trees that began around a quarter of mile to our right. The forest was a blanket of green, a vast covering of oak, sycamore, wild olive trees, pine, juniper, fir and cedar.
On the third day, having covered around fifty miles in total, my leg was beginning to ache from the walking and I began to develop a slight limp. Atrax, who was riding beside us, saw my discomfort.
‘Ride for a while on my horse, Pacorus.’
‘No, thank you,’ I replied. ‘For one thing your own limp will make a prolonged period of walking most uncomfortable for you, and for another it will look highly suspicious if the commander of the escort gives up his horse to a camel herder.’
‘You think we are being watched?’ asked Orodes, looking like a vagabond in his long beige robe and head cloth.
‘Undoubtedly,’ I answered.
Atrax turned and peered at the trees.
‘Perhaps we could move off the road and onto the plain, to increase the distance between us and the trees.’
‘I think not, my eager friend,’ I said. ‘We want them to take the bait. Just you make sure that you and your men desert us when they attack.’
He was most unhappy. ‘I should not leave my friends to fight alone, it is dishonourable.’
Orodes said nothing but I knew he was thinking the same.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘The whole aim of this little expedition is to entice the Armenians from their forest abode into the open where they can be destroyed. When they appear, Atrax, you and your men will run, thereby convincing them that we are defenceless. Remember the plan.’
‘I hope your foot soldiers know what they are doing,’ said Atrax with concern.
I smiled at him. ‘Don’t you worry about them. They are led by a burly German named Thumelicus who knows what he is doing.’
‘What’s a German?’ he asked.
‘An inhabitant of a land called Germania, a great distance from these parts.’ I tilted my head towards the trees. ‘I have never been there, but the Germans in my army tell me that it is mostly forests filled with wild beasts and even wilder people. Even the Romans fear and respect them.’
Atrax looked at the forest and then behind us to the road where the wagons ambled along in two sections, each one of twenty-five wagons, one of which contained Thumelicus.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said to him, ‘we will still be here when you return with reinforcements.’
The rest of the day and the morning of the next passed without incident and I was beginning to think that we might have wasted our time. Perhaps my father’s words and our show of strength had intimidated Tigranes into issuing orders that there were to be no more attacks on the Silk Road caravans. I looked up at the puffy white clouds that filled the sky and the blue in between them and smelled the pleasing aroma of mint and lavender. Atrax had fashioned me a walking stick from a branch that he had cut and now I held it in my left hand while Orodes walking beside me on my left led the camel, an evil beast with a nasty bite and a vindictive nature.
‘I’m going to ask her to be my wife,’ he announced suddenly. ‘Even though I am only a prince and she is a queen.’
‘Marry? What are you talking about?’
Orodes suddenly stopped to face me.
‘Axsen, Queen Axsen. I am going to ask her to marry me.’
He wore a look of a man who had just been told he had minutes to live instead of one gripped by joy. I burst out laughing. Only Orodes could tinge such a happy announcement with severity.
‘You think I have no chance, that I offend protocol by thinking a prince, a landless prince, could ask for the hand of a queen in marriage?’
I laughed even louder, which caused his face to darken even more.
I laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘My friend, I think that she would be both honoured and flattered to receive such a proposal. I think the gods will smile on your union.’
He now wore the look of a man who had been reprieved moments before his execution.
‘You really think so?’
‘Axsen is possessed of a kind heart and noble nature. She has been looking for her prince for many years and now she has found him. I am truly happy for you.’
He grinned. ‘And you and Gallia will come to the wedding, if she accepts my proposal, that is?’
‘She will accept and yes, we will come to the wedding. Nothing will stop us.’
His grin disappeared as he looked past me. ‘They might.’
I turned to see a great mass of men emerging from the trees, hundreds of them. So, they had come at last.
I dropped my stick and threw off my robe, then with Orodes loosened the straps that held the waxed canvas cover in place on the camel’s back. We pulled our bows from their cases and then slung a quiver strap over our right shoulders so we could pull arrows from our quivers with our right hands. I glanced down the road and saw that the other archers were doing the same, each one taking up position behind the front and rear of their camels. Atrax galloped towards me.
‘Go, go,’ I shouted at him.
He halted, turned and then galloped back down the road with his riders thundering after him. So far, so good.
Like Orodes I wore only a shirt, leggings and boots under my robe, which I now discarded, though I also had my silk vest under my shirt. My sword and dagger were hanging from my hips. I scanned the tree line, in front of which was a great black mass of advancing men carrying what looked like round shields and spears. They were walking towards our now stationary column, the men inside the wagons still hidden from view and our ‘escort’ having fled for their lives. I also saw horsemen coming from the trees, no doubt tribal chiefs and their personal bodyguards — men in helmets wielding swords and carrying round, brightly painted shields. These men rode to the head of the warriors on foot and began to gallop up and down the line, waving their swords in the air as they did so. No doubt they were encouraging them with promises of loot after they had slaughtered us.