A brisk step sideways, a sharp cutting motion with his palm, and a sheet of purple silk billows down from the wall behind him.
Two hundred men gasp at what they see; they did not expect this. But they see and they read and soon two hundred swords batter two hundred shields, for how could they not?
HORGIAS. LUPUS. SYRION. MACER. PROCLION. TAURUS. HERACLIDES, KNOWN AS T EARS…
The names are chiselled indelibly into the wall of Antioch, Syria’s greatest city, the third greatest in all the empire after Rome and Alexandria. And above them all, an Eagle flies for ever, and the number of their legion: XII: WITH HONOUR DID WE DIE FOR YOU.
I meet Pantera later, in the house that they have given us. He stands in the doorway, looking in at me.
‘Did you see it?’
‘I heard. It was a good speech.’
‘But you didn’t watch?’
‘No.’ I have a flask of wine in front of me. I have not drunk. I have not drunk at all since my return. I hold it out to him as he enters.
He shakes his head. ‘You could still join,’ he says. ‘He’dmake you camp prefect even now, if you asked for it. Or primus pilus. Legate of the horse. Anything you wanted.’
‘I don’t want anything.’
He comes into the room and sits down opposite me. We are on the third floor. The view from the window looks out over green and brown hills, but if I close my eyes I could be in a tavern in Hyrcania, watching him fletch an arrow with which to kill an upstart king. I have his Parthian bow. He has not asked for it back.
I say, ‘I’ve given to the Twelfth all that I can. Vespasian will let me go if I ask it. He will sign my manumission himself.’
‘Do you want that? Truly?’
‘I don’t know.’ I have water in my beaker. I dip my finger in it and draw a picture of a running horse; a thing I have not done since childhood. It is a child’s drawing, not at all lively. I smear it away with the heel of my hand.
I say, ‘Hypatia could tell me what I want. She sees into men’s souls better than they do themselves.’
‘You can see as well as anyone. You just need to accept what you see. You were born a horse-trader, but it’s not who you are now.’
‘No?’ I do look up then. Pantera is regarding me quizzically, his head on his arm and his arm propped against the wall just inside the door. He kicks the door shut with his heel, and it shudders on the door jamb.
‘What will you do?’ I ask.
‘What I am ordered to do. As ever.’ And then, because I am still looking at him, ‘I am ordered to Rome.’
‘By the emperor?’ I cannot keep the disdain from my voice.
Pantera shakes his head. ‘By the spymaster who serves the empire,’ he says, and I am reminded of the sick colour of his face, relaying the news of Corbulo’s death. Not Nero. The man who should have taken his place. And then, at another time, Who does he remind you of?
Corbulo.
Thoughtfully, I draw another picture. We both look at it. I say, ‘Vespasian has asked me to be part of his personal bodyguard. That way, if I don’t want to be part of the new Twelfth, I can still be with the force that takes back Jerusalem.’
‘He knows the value of a good man when he sees one. Like good horses, they are few enough, and to be cherished.’ Pantera stands. Neither of us is good at saying goodbye. He says, ‘I’m leaving in the morning. I’ve left the Berber colt in your care. You’ll need a good mount while your roan filly becomes a brood mare.’
I blink at him. ‘When will you come back to claim him?’
He is looking down at the Eagle I have drawn in water on the oak table. ‘If I come back,’ he says, ‘it won’t be to claim him. Or the bow.’
He leaves me, then. I sit a while longer, before I smooth out the drawing and stand.
I drink the water, and a little of the wine, and then I go to tell my general that I will be honoured to serve in his bodyguard for as long as he has need of me.