He looked to the west, where the sun was sinking beneath the horizon.
‘It won’t be dark for a while yet. If you want to be through the city before then I suggest you row.’
The man stared at him for a moment, then hurried to his bench and took up his oar, shouting imprecations at his comrades as he urged them to do the same. Propelled to the speed of a sprinting athlete by the oars’ additional thrust, the Night Witch flew across the water, Tertius grinning at his mates’ discomfiture as he steered her through the river’s bends towards the ruined city.
‘I know a little of the history of this place.’
Gurgen was at Marcus’s shoulder, his face unreadable in the growing gloom.
‘The name for it these days is Horaba, but when this was a great city of Assyria it was named Saddikanni. This place was built when your great city of Rome was no more than a collection of savages living in huts made of mud, and the empire of which this city was only a very small part endured for two thousand years, from the time when a weapon made of bronze was the deadliest thing a man could put in his hand. The men that built this city conquered Egypt, Babylon and Persia. They ruled the Phoenicians, the Syrians, the Jews and the Arabs. They defeated the Hittites, the Ethiopians, the Cimmerians and the Scythians. They rose to rule the world, Roman, in the same way that your empire aspires to control everything it touches, but it crumbled to dust, as all empires must when they no longer produce men with the strength and will to keep them vital. They became soft, and were overrun by the younger and more vital peoples around them, and now we do battle over the scraps of what was once the mightiest power in the world. Such is the way of all kingdoms, unless the strong act when they have the chance.’
He fell silent, and both men stood in silence as the boat rounded the last bend and slid into the ruined city’s deep shadow. The wind gusted, rippling the Night Witch’s black sail, and while the crew stared at it aghast, their oars momentarily forgotten, the breeze suddenly fell away to no more than a zephyr, leaving the canvas dangling emptily. The ship’s new master snarled an order at his men.
‘Row! Row like fuck!’
Even the previously amused Tertius seemed to have taken his crew’s nervousness to heart, bellowing at his men to put their backs into their rowing. On both sides of the river the wreckage of a once proud city rose above the river’s banks, themselves lined in the remnants of what was once a stone dockside. On the eastern bank rose a single tall column, above which stood the silhouette of a winged bull, still visible as a black outline against the deep purple sky behind it, and the nearest sailor to Marcus quailed at the sight.
‘It has no power! I am an acolyte of the light bearer, he who slew the bull and feasted in heaven above with the Sun God himself! The Lord Mithras will protect us from any evil that dwells here!’
The crew rowed even harder, caught between the ancient city’s terror and the hard-voiced tribune’s cast-iron certainty in his own god, but where several of them muttered their own prayers to Mithras, Gurgen simply shook his head and laughed aloud.
‘My god is Ahura Mazda, which means “the light of wisdom” in your barbarous tongue. All other deities are subservient to his will, and the sun and moon dance to his command. And this?’
He waved a hand at the ruins passing on either side of the vessel. ‘This is a warning, nothing more and nothing less. All empires come to dust in their time, when strong men are no longer to be found. Wake me when we reach anything of note.’
He sat alongside the once more recumbent Osroes, pulling the hood of his cloak down over his head and, it seemed, falling asleep almost immediately. With a final spurt from the oarsmen, the Night Witch left the last of the ruins behind her, columns and shattered walls almost invisible against the sky as dusk deepened into night, and Marcus stared back over the ship’s stern with a thoughtful expression.
‘You chose not to wake me, I see?’
Marcus shrugged at the big Parthian.
‘You asked to be alerted if we passed anything of interest. Are you especially interested in fishing villages?’
Gurgen grinned at him.
‘And it saved you having to bind me again.’
‘Quite so. Although if you’d asked nicely I would happily have put you ashore to spend the rest of your days eating fish and making little warriors with the local women.’
The nobleman shook his head, raising a hand in mock terror.
‘Spare me! A few days of untroubled wenching perhaps, but a lifetime?’
Marcus grinned back at him.
‘Quite so.’
‘So, master of my destiny, where are we now?’
The Roman stretched his weary body, pointing back up the river.
‘Back there is Sirhi, the last Parthian outpost on the river before we re-enter imperial territory-’
‘This is the Euphrates?’
The smile broadened a little.
‘Yes. After our encounter with the spirits of long-dead Assyrians at dusk last night, the crew kept rowing for much longer than seemed likely. And the Khabur was running faster than any of them has ever seen before, doubtless something to do with the huge amount of rainwater that has fallen across the mountains to the north. So, whatever the reason, we passed through Sirhi before dawn, not that there was much to see, and we’ll reach Dura soon enough.’
The desert fortress stood high on an escarpment above the river’s western bank, and Gurgen stared up at its high walls with thinly disguised irritation.
‘Everywhere on our empire’s borders with Rome we are confronted by naked force. Do you wonder that men like Narsai dream of taking your boot off our throat?’
Marcus nodded equably enough.
‘I understand. Just as I’m sure you know that this was a Parthian fortress, until the present King of Kings started the war that led to its capture.’
‘And having taken it from us, you keep it for no better reason than its position astride a major trade route. Palmyra is a hundred miles that way …’ He pointed to the west. ‘Which means that your empire takes two bites at the caravans before their goods can enter Roman territory.’
‘We probably also keep it because we’re quite attached to Palmyra, I’d imagine, since the crossing here is equally as passable to your cataphracts as it is to baggage animals.’
The two men fell quiet as the Night Witch coasted up to the city’s stone wharf, the exhausted sailors slumping at their benches as dock workers tied the boat to the quayside. An official came bustling along the wharf in high dudgeon, raising a hand to point at the disreputable-looking craft.
‘You can’t just turn up and moor up, you scruffy shower of-’
He took a step back as Marcus turned to face him, taking in the young Roman’s bronze breastplate and deliberately aristocratic mien.
‘Ah … my apologies … Tribune?’
Marcus nodded brusquely.
‘Tribulus Corvus, Third Gallic.’
‘The Third? You’re a long way from home sir. I-’
‘Quite. And you are?’
‘A humble slave, Tribune, dockyard overseer. I report to-’
‘Fetch him, please, whoever he is. I need this vessel resupplying with food and water, and I need a doctor immediately. There are wounded men aboard.’
Gurgen grinned at him as the slave turned tail and hurried away.
‘You know how to treat your underlings, I see.’
The Roman pulled a face.
‘It’s not to my taste, I have to say, but there’s no time to be lost. And no …’
He turned to face Tertius, who was hovering expectantly behind him.
‘You cannot give the crew leave to go ashore, nor do you personally need to go up into the fortress for supplies or equipment of any nature. The local whores will doubtless manage well enough without your custom, and not only do your men need a few hours’ sleep, but were we unwise enough to allow them off this vessel, I don’t expect we’d see half of them again.’