‘Fifty men and boys,’ he said briskly. ‘All of them able to ride in some degree. Not much discipline in the Greek sense — but practised irregulars, and all eager to give the Enemy a bloody nose.’ He pointed at a boy with a blank face who was rocking from side to side on his haunches. About fifteen, he already had the wiry look of nearly everyone else up here, but, once you discounted the insane look on it, his face was still bordering on the pretty. ‘He was brought in a short while ago. The Persians are raiding now on this side of the pass, though for the moment only beyond the mountain. They rode into his village yesterday evening. It was the usual bloodbath. The boy got away because the priest shoved him under the altar and the church wasn’t burned. The far side of the mountain’s crawling with foraging parties. It’s still safe this side because they can’t carry food back over the mountain paths. Or they might decide to come across for the killing. It’s hard to say.’
I’d called him ‘General’ with slight irony. He’d taken the promotion at face value and with good reason. In his easy authority among the other boys and men, he was beginning to remind me of Priscus at his best. I looked at the pebble map. ‘We’ll need more than fifty,’ I said. Rado nodded. ‘Unless you think otherwise, we’ll need a couple of hundred men at least.’ I sat down beside him. Though no one about us could have known any Latin, I dropped my voice. ‘What little experience I have of these matters tells me that discipline is everything in a pitched battle. It’s then that you’re moving men about like pieces on a gaming board and you need every one of them to do as he’s told. But all we’re looking at is a sudden wild attack — rather like one of your own people’s raids. It needs to look enough like a probing attack to scare Chosroes into listening to Shahrbaraz. Then we pull back and wait. Assuming we can find more men, how do you feel about that?’
Rado pursed his lips, almost managing not to look eager. ‘So long as they aren’t expecting us,’ he said, ‘and so long as we can go up another two or three hundred men, we’ll be good for one very sharp attack.’ He looked round. ‘None of these people has seen real action. Once they’ve seen their brothers and friends killed beside them, it won’t be so easy to manage a second attack.’ He thought a little, then let his eagerness show fully. ‘Have you seen some of them ride?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘It’s not bad for farmers. It’s mostly sheep and goats they raise up here. They need to be mobile.’ He stopped and looked again at his pebbles. ‘Your own plan is based on the assumption of an attack on foot. If we can get a few hundred horsemen this good, though, I’d suggest a frontal attack over rocky ground. My father — I mean my old father — once led an attack like that on a Greek army. It worked. But he said these things have to work straightaway. If the enemy doesn’t cave in, it’s up to you to ride off like the wind.’
We both stood up. Shading my eyes, I looked into the sun. This was a big plain and the mountain was a long way off, across a landscape of grass and woods and more undulations than I’d seen the night before. The nearest village was five miles away. The messenger we’d sent wasn’t back yet. What he told us would decide the matter. The earth walls I’d seen were encouraging, but not final proof. Was this a district where my law was in force and where the men had regular practice in arms? Or were the men here the same eunuchs with intact organs of increase who’d been slaughtered on the other side of the pass? If it was the eunuchs living here, we’d have no choice but to pull back to one of the armed districts. We could raise a decent force there and harry the Persians most cruelly. But there’d be no more chance of stopping them in their tracks. Over in the big pass, Shahrbaraz would still be pulling hairs out of his beard with the frustration of getting his army of soldiers and his armies of camp followers ready to start out in good order. Strike now, and we’d have a sitting target.
Even as I squinted into the sunlight, I had my answer. Their priest leading them, I saw another dozen men marching forward with spears pointing up. Their glitter in the noonday sun lifted my spirits for the first time since I’d left Antonia variously weeping and raging like Ariadne on Naxos.
I turned to one of the young men standing beside Rado. I remembered myself in time and spoke to Rado. ‘Not everyone will be riding,’ I said. ‘How long to march a few hundred men to the big pass?’
Rado shrugged. ‘My people never marched anywhere,’ he said. ‘Walking was for slaves and women. However, if we time the march so we can camp tonight in the mountain, we can keep out of sight tomorrow by skirting the far plain. That will get us in place for a dawn attack the day after next.’
‘Sounds reasonable,’ I said. ‘But it all depends on how much influence Shahrbaraz may presently have with Chosroes. I suppose we’ll soon have some indication.’ I pointed to the stripped bodies of the Persians. ‘Their non-return must by now have been noted. If the Grand General is still in charge, the whole army will stay put while he gets it ready for defence against a Greek army he’s pretty sure is lurking in the mountains. If he’s being countermanded by his raving lunatic of a master, there will be a search party for the missing ones and the army will be driven forward, ready or not.’ I touched his arm. ‘Which does my general prefer?’
Rado shut his eyes, as if thinking back to his days of national banditry. ‘I’d rather have the Great King in charge,’ he said. ‘An army on the move is always a better target. If you’ll pardon the comparison, that armed rabble we saw the other day is a bit like old Samo — attack him when he’s leaning against a wall and he’ll kill you; get him into a run down the road and he’ll fall dead for you.’ We both laughed.
There was a rider approaching. Rado was right about these people. He was coming up impressively fast. He stopped close by a heap of stones and jumped right off to run across the next few dozen yards to where Rado was sitting.
The young rider spoke rapidly in a Greek dialect with misplaced consonants. I had to interpret. Briefly put, he’d found Shahin and his jolly crew about twenty miles from the junction of the passes. They’d been joined by about a hundred men in uniform but there was no sign as yet of the main army.
‘We can presume it’s on the move,’ I said. ‘We’ll see which of the three forces involved gets first to the junction of the passes.’ Rado nodded. Almost absent-mindedly, he began tracing lines on the grass with his right boot.
Chapter 65
The lunch we ate exhausted all the supplies Antonia’s militiamen had brought from wherever she picked them up. But word had gone round every village of what was happening beyond the mountain. Every place we passed gave up its own tribute of food and clerical blessings and more armed men. By late afternoon, Rado had closed our numbers at just over three hundred, plus priests. There was no shortage of recruits, and all were on horseback. Rado put every one of them through a stiff test. Their horses were smaller than our own. The riders would have looked absurd if they hadn’t also been small. But a lifetime of riding up mountains and over bare hills, and two years or so of practising in arms — and even Rado was clicking his toung with approval as he watched them dash this way and that in the formations he’d ordered.
‘Come on, Alaric, I’ll race you!’ Antonia had called out as we approached another fortified village. My reply was a dignified harangue about her condition. In truth, I must have been the worst man on horseback in a hundred miles. Shahin, with his stunted legs, might have been less clumsy in the saddle than I was.
Three hundred we took for the fighting. Rado could have taken twice that number and more. But the unexpected number of volunteers only made him stiffen his test. Some earlier recruits he even sent back. We’d agreed there was a limit to the numbers we could effectively lead into battle. We also had to consider the need for a fallback defence if things went wrong.