Extending the gates across the river was the crucial problem. Ballista decided to employ the three existing stubs of piers as breakwaters. Like the buttresses on either side of the track, they might take the force of debris when the river was in full spate. He ordered three concrete pillars erected behind them. On these he planned to put a simple wooden walkway, with a palisade facing just north. Either end of the defences would be supported by the natural rock and his new stone gate. There was to be a wide clearance between the surface of the water and the walkway, to allow the river to rise several feet. To block this when the river was lower, to stop nomads creeping under the walkway, he designed a series of metal portcullises which could be raised and lowered.
Work on the ‘gates’ got under way slowly. Partly it was due to materials. There was no suitable sand or lime for the concrete in the whole of Suania. After a few days, a little was found in a royal store, just about enough for the new pillars in the river. Everything else would have to rely on local mortar. Again, the cut stone arrived slowly, in small quantities. But the sluggishness of the early stages of building was much more down to the workers. Azo had sent plenty of them, skilled and unskilled. The problem was not one of numbers but attitude. They were proud mountaineers, warriors. There was not one among these Suani, even if he had no shoes and wore a rag on his back, who did not regard such building work as far beneath him. They were worse than the Greeks and Romans; at least they reserved their contempt for labouring for money at the whim of another, rather than at the whole concept of hard, physical work.
Ballista suspected that his attempts to encourage by example – attempts he was sure would have worked with Roman soldiers – had failed completely. When Ballista, Maximus and the others stripped off their tunics and heaved buckets up the perilous timber scaffolding or stood waist deep in the fast, chill water to manhandle beams into position, the Suani just despised them all the more.
Ballista and old Calgacus wandered down the track, past the hammering and sawing, off to the north. It was hard getting any sustained work out of the Suani. The carpenters, stonemasons and blacksmith were not too bad – they had a craft – but the labourers… Ballista would have to ask Azo about it during the prince’s next fleeting visit. Still, it was not raining; for once, there was not even any mist. The sun was actually out. The sky was a translucent blue, with a few very high white clouds.
‘Another few weeks, even at this rate, and we are done,’ said Ballista.
Calgacus shook his head. ‘We might as well let the lazy bastards take their time. We cannot leave without imperial orders. Until we get new mandata, we are stuck here at the arse end of the world.’
Out of the noise and dust, Ballista was not going to let the Caledonian spoil his mood. Where the sun fell on the tops of the gorge, the rocks glowed pink. There was an incredible clarity to the air. ‘Do you see that eagle up there?’ They both craned their necks.
A terrible, loud crack, like a siege engine breaking. Ballista and Calgacus whirled around – hands on hilts. The noise echoed off the canyon walls, confusing its origin. A deep groaning of wood, followed by a volley of further cracks. Shouts and screams from back down the track. Men running towards them. Others running away, hurling themselves into the river. The scaffold high above the track over the beginnings of the gate shifted outward. It held for a second or two, slightly swaying. There were men clinging to the top of it. Another series of cracks, vicious splinters flying, a definitive lurch and the edifice collapsed out and down into the river. The limbs of those falling pumped futilely. With hideous abruptness, they vanished into the spray that masked the stony bed of the river.
A great pall of dust mushroomed up from where the timber structure had been. The noise of the river, the screams of the injured; all sounds seemed to come from a long way away. The water whirled a beam past where they stood. Then a man. He was floundering, but alive. He grabbed a half-submerged rock. Ballista shrugged out of his sword belt.
‘No, you fucking fool,’ Calgacus shouted.
The water was not deep, not up to Ballista’s waist. It was icy cold, the bed treacherous, stones shifting underfoot. He waded out. His boots were full of water. The man was only three or four more paces away. He was clinging desperately. There was blood – a lot of it – on his arms, his head.
‘Look out.’
Another chunk of timber was swirling down towards them. Ballista scrambled back – the curious, slow high-steps of a man in water. Not enough time. He hurled himself backwards. He went under, the water rushing in his ears, eyes blurred. As he came up, the shattered end of the beam caught him on the left shoulder. The pain was intense. There was blood in the water. He held the wound tight with his right hand.
‘Come on.’ Calgacus was with him.
‘I am fine. Help me get him.’
They waited, timing it, while other debris scoured the space between them and the injured Suanian.
‘Now!’ They spoke at once. Five, six stumbling steps. They had him, a hand under each armpit, dragging. They made no attempt to keep his head above water – drowning was the least of his problems in those few moments to the riverbank. They were there – crawling out, spitting, spluttering.
XXIV
Sabotage. There could be no doubt. It had been sabotage. They squatted on their heels in the dust and inspected the evidence – the neat cuts where several of the support beams had been sawn part way through, and the contrasting tortured ends where the wood had twisted or snapped.
‘Not too skilled,’ Ballista said. ‘They could have sawn through fewer beams and had a greater certainty of collapse.’
‘Sure, that is good,’ Maximus said. ‘No need to confine our suspicions to the trained carpenters.’
‘Two dead, two more likely to die, another dozen hurt; it will be bad for the spirits of the workers,’ Mastabates said.
Calgacus snorted; a horrible sound mingling contempt and derision.
‘Was it an attempt to kill you?’ Mastabates asked Ballista.
It was Hippothous who answered. ‘It is not likely. Ballista has been up on the scaffolding – we all have – but not continuously. The odds were exceedingly against him – any of us – being anywhere near it when it fell.’
‘Then who benefits by sabotaging our mission?’ Mastabates went on to begin to scout answers to his own question. ‘The Caspian Gates are designed to keep out the Alani.’
‘I have not seen any nomads around,’ said Maximus.
‘Would we recognize them?’ Ballista shrugged, then the pain made him wish he had not. ‘A lot of the Suani dress like men from the steppes – the caps with lappets, the furs, those animal-style buckles and clasps. I am still enough of a northerner to find it hard to tell one of these easterners from another. A Hellene such as Hippothous would be no better – worse probably. Apart from Mastabates, do any of us know enough of the language of the Suani to notice an unusual accent?’
‘It is against Sassanid interests for us to do well.’ Mastabates tried another tack. ‘Those bushy-bearded mobads hanging around Polemo would be in a good position to organize something like this.’
Everyone nodded at the truth of the words.
‘But it could be something more local, more personal,’ the eunuch continued. ‘Iberia is only a few valleys away. We all heard Pythonissa remind you that old King Hamazasp still hates you.’
This time Ballista remembered not to shrug. ‘A reciprocal thing,’ he murmured.
‘Of course, it could be something yet closer to home.’ Mastabates’ thoughts pressed on. ‘The eldest two sons of Polemo of Suania have met violent deaths. Members of that family do not die in their beds, nor does any dynasty in the Caucasus. Everyone in the mountains is enmeshed in feuds. If you have eyes to see, it is evident that the princes Azo and Saurmag hate each other. And who could tell what the girl Pythonissa wants – a priestess of Hecate, said to be skilled with poisons, angry, frustrated, a latter-day Medea.’