‘ Cumania,’ the Suani prince Azo said. The gorge turned to the right here. The path was on the inside of the curve, hard up against the eastern wall. The river thundered along, trying to undermine the opposite rocks. Up above the waters, away to Ballista’s left, there were stone walls, slate roofs: a small fort perched on an outcrop forty or fifty feet over the Alontas.
‘The Gates,’ Azo said.
Ballista looked north around the bend: the river, the track, fallen boulders, the walls of the ravine. He looked harder, and there, in the torrent, the stumps of three stone piers – all that remained of the famous Caspian Gates.
‘Much work for you to do.’
The words of the Suani were borne out as the day wore on. While the prince sat on a sheepskin rug, drinking and talking with his warriors, Ballista and his familia scrambled and splashed about. The water was shockingly cold, the rocks slippery. Inspecting the fort, Ballista discovered that some of its roof timbers were rotten; parts of its walls needed replacing. Apart from raw stone and water, there were no building materials to hand.
‘My sister,’ Azo said. A mounted group was approaching. ‘She likes to hunt. Our brother has a hunting lodge beyond the Gates in the hills to the north.’ A slight look of distaste passed across the speaker’s face. ‘Saurmag often goes among the Alani barbarians.’ Ballista got the impression that neither barbarians nor brother pleased Azo.
Pythonissa headed the cavalcade that clattered up from the direction of Dikaiosyne. She was dressed for the chase, armed like a man. She rode astride. Perhaps for a woman’s respectability, there were two eunuchs in her train. The other twenty or so riders were warriors.
Azo and Ballista bowed where they stood in the road, blew a kiss. Pythonissa pulled up her mount a few paces short. She tossed the reins to one of the eunuchs, and jumped down. She bowed and blew a kiss back. She spoke to her brother in Greek about coverts and game, wild boar and deer, about nothing of any importance.
Ballista watched her. She reminded him of Bathshiba in Arete. Pythonissa was taller, her skin paler, her hair blond. She looked nothing like Bathshiba. But the wild Amazonian quality was the same.
The girl turned to Ballista. She stood unexpectedly close. He was terribly aware of what he had done to her life, no matter how indirectly. He framed a polite, neutral question. ‘What quarry are you after?’
She continued to regard him wordlessly. Her eyes were grey-blue.
‘You and your men are well armed,’ he continued. ‘Equipped to deal with big game.’
The girl spoke. ‘It is a mistake to decide in advance. Hunting is a lesson in the philosophic life. You sight the thing you have sought for a long time, then you lose it. The hunter learns to deal with extreme emotions: elation, despair, boredom.’ She delivered this in a mock-earnest tone. Then she became very serious. ‘I wanted to speak to the man who killed my husband.’
‘I am sorry it had to happen.’
‘Tell me how you killed him.’
‘I had set a trap for the King of Kings. Your husband rode at Shapur’s side. The wrong man died.’
‘An artillery bolt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he die well?’
‘He rode out that morning as a man. Thousands mourned him, tried to revenge him.’
‘His father, old Hamazasp, would have you dead.’
Ballista smiled. ‘I know it.’
She nodded, stepped back. When she spoke again it was to her brother as well. ‘I will be gone some time. I will see you on the way back.’
‘Not me,’ said Azo. ‘As soon as the Roman tells me what things he needs, I am leaving this desolate place.’
‘So be it.’ She got into the saddle unassisted, easily. She led her men off down the track, around the turning in the gorge. She did not look back. They watched her go off to the north, beyond the Gates.
Ballista decided that his first impression of Azo may not have done the young prince full justice. Certainly the Suani had a fine self-regard and a wariness close to hostility. Yet these, Ballista thought, might be the products of being brought up in a royal court, even one – possibly especially one – as obscure as that of Suania. At least Azo was capable, did what he said he would. After Pythonissa had left, Ballista had presented Azo with a lengthy list of the materials and men he needed: timber, cut stone, bricks, slates, sand, lime, rope, chains, nails, a forge; stonemasons, carpenters and a blacksmith, all with their tools, and as many labourers as could be gathered. Azo had summoned his secretary, told him to note it all down, and ridden south. Ballista had been impressed when the first deliveries began the very next day.
The fort of Cumania was the initial priority. A garrison in the pass had to have somewhere to live, and the gorge was narrow enough for arrows from the fort to dominate the track on the other side of the river. On its own it could not totally prevent people from using the track, but it could make it unpleasant and dangerous.
Cumania was a small, dark hold; roughly circular, no more than fifteen paces in diameter, four storeys high. There was a walkway around the roof. Luckily, the repairs needed were not too extensive. Only part of the roof needed replacing, and a few patches of the walls. Ballista had regular Roman crenellations added. In these he set three refinements – projections from the battlements, each with a protected hole opening on to the void below. The central of these was directly over the only entrance to the fort. The southern was fitted with pulleys, chains and buckets to raise fresh water coming from upstream. The northern had the opposite intention, being designed as a latrine from which the waste would be washed away downstream.
The fort was set on a crag in the western wall of the ravine. It was inaccessible from the heights far above. The sole door, a solid affair of iron-bound oak – Ballista tested it, replaced both frame and hinges – faced the river. It opened on to the second floor and could only be reached by a flight of stone steps which exposed the right, unshielded side of anyone ascending and rose straight from the water. The defenders now could drop missiles on the steps, while remaining in perfect safety directly overhead. The arrow slits were on the second floor and above, had stout wooded shutters and were not nearly wide enough to admit a man. With mines, ramps, siege towers and rams all equally out of the question, and with no artillery among the peoples of the mountains or the northern steppes, Ballista thought a handful of men could hold Cumania for ever. The only ways the fort could fall were starvation or treachery. He set about provisioning the place.
The actual ‘gates’ which would seal the pass demanded more thought. First, the easiest, part was to design a gate to block the road. This was to be of dressed stone, and bound into the natural rock. It would have a fighting platform above. It would look like almost any Roman gate anywhere. But detached buttresses would be built to the south in front of the main load-bearing sides of the gate. When the Alontas was in flood, hopefully these would catch some of the boulders and tree trunks carried downstream. If that worked, and the waters poured through the open gates, the structure might not be battered down and swept away.