‘My son, you have proved yourself a worthy son of Hatra. This day will be remembered by future generations of our people.’
I felt ten foot tall. I stretched out my arm and clicked my fingers. Vata gave the eagle to Gafarn, who rushed up and passed it to me. ‘My gift to you, father.’
He took the standard and admired it, then addressed all those knelt around him. ‘Rise, rise all of you, and bear witness to this great victory and the man, my son, who made it possible.’
The assembly rose and broke into applause. Bozan and Vata walked over to my father, and after they both bowed, Bozan grinned broadly at my father and the two embraced. My father congratulated Vata, for he too had covered himself in glory this day.
‘This will send a message to Rome, father.’
‘The loss of a legion will be a great dishonour to them, the more so because we, or rather you, have taken its precious eagle.’ He paused for a moment and a momentary look of concern spread over his face. Then he turned to me. ‘They will be back, Pacorus, rest assured.’
Flush with victory, I actually welcomed the opportunity to smash more Roman legions. ‘Let them come,’ I boasted. ‘We will beat them once more.’
My father smiled. ‘Perhaps we will. Though let us hope it is not for many years.’
But I didn’t want to hear of peace. I had become a man and had taken a Roman eagle. My thoughts were filled with more military glory, which would spread my name far and wide. I was so preoccupied that I did not hear the commotion behind me. I barely noticed the guards screaming as I turned slowly to see one of the prisoners running towards me with a spear in his hand. Then I saw that it was the man I had been talking to. Transfixed and rooted to the spot, I saw him bring the spear up to his shoulder, ready to throw it. Like a hare caught in the cold stare of a cobra, I could do nothing except watch and wait for the spear to slam into me. The Roman, wild-eyed, had a triumphant look on his face in the second before he threw his weapon, which suddenly turned to an expression of surprise, then disappointment and finally acute pain. The arrow had hit him squarely in the chest, stopping him in his tracks. He slowed and then fell to his knees, then keeled over to collapse onto the ground. I snapped out of my daze and marched over to where the Roman lay. I knelt over him, the arrow sticking out of his back and blood oozing from his mouth. As life ebbed from him, he tried to look up at me but his strength was draining away fast. I leaned closer to hear his words, which were faint, barely audible. He coughed, causing more blood to pump from his mouth. The only words I heard were: ‘We will return, Parthian.’ Then he died.
I stood and saw Vistaspa sat astride his horse with a bow in his left hand. He was the one who had saved me. I nodded at him in acknowledgement; his only response was a thin smile, which I swore turned into a sneer.
‘Keep those prisoners under control,’ screamed Bozan to the guards.
Vistaspa rode up. ‘Never turn your back on your enemies, even if you think they are unarmed. Next time I might not be around to save you.’
He kicked his horse and rode away to attend my father, who was shaking his head at me.
The next day we burned the dead, as is our custom. It took most of the morning for the prisoners to dig two pits, one for our men the other for the Romans. The one for the latter was far bigger for they had lost over a thousand dead. Normally we would have left the enemy dead to rot, but my father did not want their carcasses to pollute the soil of Hatra. We piled the wooden shields in first, all five thousand of them, coated the top layer with naphtha and then tipped the dead legionaries on top. Our own dead numbered less than four hundred, though an equal number had been wounded, along with three hundred horses killed. Most of the horse archers and foot, plus the Roman prisoners, servants and supply camels, headed south back to Hatra. Most of the cataphracts also headed for Hatra, accompanied by Bozan and Vata, who also took a rich haul with them: the twelve chests of legionary gold. The prisoners would be sold at Hatra, probably to another Parthian king, though we would only sell them to a king who ruled in the eastern part of the empire. This would make it very difficult for any to escape back to Roman territory, having to cross hundreds of miles of barren desert. This being the case, they would more readily accept their new position in life. Better a slave than dead.
I escorted my father on the journey to the city of Zeugma, along with his bodyguard and two hundred horse archers. Though I was loathe to let it out of my sight, the eagle was also sent to Hatra. We had won a great victory, and already riders were being dispatched to the four corners of the empire to announce the good tidings. And yet my father was troubled. The morning we set off for Zeugma he hardly spoke at all. Behind us two long columns of black smoke spiralled into the blue sky — the funeral pyres of our own soldiers and those of our enemies. Zeugma lay thirty miles to the north, and we made our way leisurely along the road, which was nothing more than a dirt track. We had scouts riding ahead and covering our flanks, but for hours we saw no other signs of life.
‘Strange, Vistaspa, don’t you think?’ asked my father.
Like most of us, Vistaspa had been lulled into a relaxed state by the heat and the gentle ride. ‘My liege?’
‘Only a day’s hard ride from Zeugma and not a scout in site. Where is the garrison? I would have thought that a Roman legion marching towards the city would have prompted some response.’
‘I have no answers, my lord,’ replied Vistaspa, unconcerned. ‘Not all kingdoms in the empire have our eyes and ears.’
He was right. The Parthian Empire was made up of eighteen separate but aligned kingdoms. These were Gordyene, Hatra, Atropaiene, Babylon, Susiana, Hyrcania, Carmania, Sakastan, Drangiana, Aria, Anauon, Yueh-Chih, Margiana, Elymais, Mesene, Persis, Zeugma and the oldest kingdom of all, Parthia. The empire stretched from the Indus in the east, north to the Caspian Sea and the border with the Uzbeks, and west to the frontiers of Pontus and Syria and south to the clear blue waters of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. All of these lands were ruled by the ‘king of kings’, Sinatruces, who sat in the ancient city of Ctesiphon. Hatra was, I liked to think, the strongest of the kingdoms. Sandwiched between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, its western side extended all the way to the border with the Roman province of Syria, though Sinatruces controlled a thin strip of land on the western bank of the Euphrates that was administered by the frontier city of Dura Europus. Hatra was rich and getting richer, and as such was looked on jealously by outside enemies and even other Parthian kings. So my father had created and maintained a large army and garrisons throughout his kingdom, especially the towns to the north of Hatra — Singara and Nisibus — and Batnae in the northwest. But he had also raised a large contingent of scouts who covered every inch of our kingdom, ever vigilant for threats. It was the scouts who had ridden hard to alert my father that the Roman legion had crossed the border. The city of Zeugma had its own garrison, but we had heard nor seen nothing of it since we had ridden north.