No one in the pavilion was laughing now.
‘The unrighteous one who defiled the purity of fire with the corpses of the slain at Circesium, the sacrilegious one who extinguished the fire altar in the tent of Shapur. The servant of Ahriman who has the temerity to style himself Nasu the daemon of death. And he brings with him his heartless killer, the ex-gladiator Maximus.’
It was very still in the pavilion. The sacred fire crackled.
‘Mazda is the supreme requiter – none of the wicked is so high or low as to escape him either by force or by stealth. We of the house of the Mazda-loving king Sasan follow the customs laid down by our ancestors. The torture of the boats is an ancient Persian punishment. The malefactor is laid on his back in a boat. Another boat, carefully adjusted, is nailed over the first. Only the criminal’s head, hands and feet protrude. He is given good food to eat, milk and honey to drink. If he refuses, his eyes are pricked until he takes it. The sweet drink is tipped over his face. He is left, facing the sun. A swarm of flies descends to cover his face. Inside the boat, sooner or later, he does what must needs be done when men eat and drink. In time, worms and maggots seethe up from the corruption and rottenness of his excrement. Slowly they devour his body, eat their way into his vitals. It is not a quick death. Men have lived as long as seventeen days in the torture of the boats.’
Ballista held himself on such a tight rein he could not speak. Even his thoughts were stifled. He had been a fool to come here. Now he would be killed, and he had brought Maximus to this horrible death.
‘The Greeks and Romans traduce us when they talk of Persian cruelty.’ Narseh continued in the same flat tone of voice. ‘With us, even a slave has his services weighed against the number and gravity of his crimes before he is sentenced. It is true that you, Ballista, were gracious when mischance and the evil of the tent-dwelling Arabs brought one of the mobads into your house as a slave. Again, no one can deny that in Cilicia at the place of blood you saved the life of my brother Valash, the joy of our father Shapur.’
The faint flicker of hope in Ballista was stamped out by the next words of Narseh.
‘There are many crimes born in the darkness in the hearts of men. Mazda inspired our ancestors to create as many fitting punishments. Bring in the crosses.’
Six men in the soiled costume of labourers dragged in two crosses. They rolled back the carpets, set the crosses upright. In the previously quiet space the noise was fearsome as they hammered the wicked-looking things into the sandy soil.
The workmen left. They were replaced by four executioners; two held knotted whips, and two long swords.
This was all happening too fast. Ballista knew he had to do something. ‘Prince Narseh, son of…’
‘Silence,’ Narseh ordered. ‘Your words will change nothing. Strip them.’
It was no sooner said than done. Strong arms seized Ballista and Maximus. They were disarmed. Their hats, cloaks and armour were pulled off. They were left standing in their travel-stained tunics.
‘Five hundred lashes. Cut off their ears and then their heads. Carry out the punishment.’
Allfather, Ballista began to pray. He doubted they would survive the scourging to feel the severing of their ears. Allfather…
The executioners draped the cloaks of Ballista and Maximus over the crosses, tied them in place, fixed their native hats firmly on top. The ones with the whips steadied themselves, and then swung. With the utmost seriousness they went about their work. After a few strokes, the knots in the whips had torn great rents in the cloaks.
The condemned men began to laugh. A court official told them it was customary for men in their position to beg for mercy. Sheepishly, they both bleated, ‘Mercy,’ once or twice, quietly.
The men with the whips were running with sweat, panting hard, by the time they had finished. It had taken a long time. They had not stinted themselves. The cloaks were in shreds. The two with the swords approached the crosses. With a deftness approaching artistry, they sliced the lappets from the native caps – first one ear, then the other. A flourish of the blades, and the headgear was cut in two.
‘Humanity and piety are the kindly sisters of the virtues,’ Narseh said. ‘Valash and I have always been close. I could not stand my brother’s anger if I had killed his saviour. Besides, I believe we have much to discuss.’
XXIX
This paradise turned out to be roughly circular. As such places went, it was rather smaller than Ballista had imagined, not much more than a couple of miles in diameter from wall to wall. But there, it was an Albanian paradise, not a Persian one. They rode apart from one another. The horses, thin legs skittering, were dark shapes moving at a fast trot through the verticals of the trees. The riders were taking care not to catch their long spears in the branches.
Ballista was worried at the time it was all taking. Four days had passed in the camp on the Caspian shore after the symbolic punishment of him and Maximus. It had taken two days to ride up here into the foothills. Another three days had elapsed while the paradise was prepared. It was now, he reckoned, just short of a month since Saurmag had welcomed the Alani through the Caspian Gates. If they still held out, Calgacus and the others had been besieged in Cumania for twenty-five days. If they still held out. The little fort was strong, very strong. They should have more than enough provisions, ready access to water. But anything could have happened: treachery was an ever-present danger. Ballista was far from complacent.
The bright coats of the beaters flared through the shadows of the trees. The hounds, leashed now, surged about their legs, snarling. The riders trotted up, swung down, passed the reins to attendants and hefted the stout spears with the broad blades and wide cross-pieces.
‘He is in there.’ The chief huntsman pointed to a thick, broad tangle of undergrowth on the banks of a stream. There was clear ground in front, the only obstructions the wide-spaced trunks of a stand of mature beech trees. Prince Narseh told the head of the beaters to take his men across the stream, wait for the command and then slip in the hounds all at once from that side. Narseh spoke in Persian. Ballista considered whether the Sassanid prince knew that he and Maximus understood. They had been careful not to speak the language since they arrived at the camp. It was important to keep close anything that might be of advantage.
‘We will take our stand here. Spread out among the trees, in the shape of the half-moon, we will cut off all ways of escape.’ Now Narseh spoke in Greek to those around him. He turned to Pythonissa. ‘ Kyria, it would be best if you were with the guards.’
‘I have done this before,’ she said.
‘I do not doubt it, Kyria. Did not Xenophon write that all men who have loved hunting have been good, and also those women who have been given this blessing? But think of the consequences for Suania should something happen to you.’
Pythonissa acknowledged this gracefully. With an attendant leading her horse, she walked a little way back to where twenty or so Sassanid clibanarii stood in a body, weapons ready. They moved to hem around her like a wall.
The faces of the hunting party were strained. Ballista did not doubt that his was the same. It was no small thing they were undertaking. Ballista thought of the famous hunt in Calydon, not of the hero Meleager or the huntress Atalanta but of Ancaios in the dirt, castrated and disembowelled.
‘Among my people, the Macedonians, it used to be that a youth could not recline at table among the men until he had taken a boar,’ Castricius said. All murmured their approval of this hard old custom. Ballista wondered if the Macedonians had used nets and caltrops. Certainly the Greek Xenophon did not seem to have imagined doing without them. To face the fury of the beast in the open, with just a spear, as they would now, was the sternest of tests, bordering on the foolhardy. Oddly, Ballista had always thought Castricius came from Nemausus in Gaul. He was sure he had heard him say it many times. Perhaps there was some reason behind the little man’s shifting patria – Ballista would have to ask him about it one day when they were on their own.