On Avidus’s advice he led them to the northern breach, where the walls had fallen inwards and presented the defenders with a hundred paces of brick-strewn ruin.
‘They’ll put their main attack in here, because once the mud out there is dry their advance to the defences will be nice and easy, unlike the other side where the walls collapsed outwards.’
The African waved a hand at the rubble-strewn street, illuminated by torches held up by citizens of the city who had volunteered to play a part in their own defence, working as fast as they could to tear up the rubble and carry it to the breach in the northern wall. Bricks from the walls’ collapse were strewn five and six deep, mortared in place by the mud to form a vicious obstacle course where a man could advance only with the greatest of care.
‘If you have the brick field on the other side of the southern breach sown with the caltrops we pulled out of the battlefield on the hillside, I can’t see how they’re going to get across it to attack us. Just try for yourself Legatus, and see how long it takes you to pick your way over this lot. One wrong move and you’ll break your ankle, so take it easy sir. We’re having to pull the bricks out with iron bars.’
He led them to the breach, and Scaurus stood and marvelled once more at the devastation visited upon the twin walls by the river’s destructive power. Hundreds of legionaries were labouring at the point where the inner wall had stood, their arms and legs filthy with mud as they pulled bricks from the wreckage and passed them to the wall’s foundation in human chains, one in every two being packed into a roughly constructed rampart while the other was hurled over the slowly growing wall into the muddy plain’s slowly drying mire.
‘We can’t rebuild the wall the way it was, not without a lot of skilled labour and a month or two to spend on the job, but we can put together something to slow the bastards down. It’s slow work though, and the men are exhausted after a couple of hours, so we’re rotating the cohorts in two at a time.’
‘How tall can you get that defence by dawn?’
Avidus looked at the roughly constructed rampart for a moment.
‘No more than eight feet tall. I could go faster with some light, but if we use anything more than the moon’s giving us then the enemy will realise what’s going on and start sprinkling us with arrows, and that’ll make us go a lot slower. It won’t stop a determined attack, but it’ll give them something to think about. And I’ve got one or two more tricks up my sleeve.’
‘So have I. I think it’s time you saw something I’ve been hoping not to have to use, Legatus.’
Slightly baffled, Scaurus left Julius to organise the preparation of the debris to the fortress’s south for the sort of defence that Avidus felt would be sufficient, following Petronius back into the city. The prefect led him up a staircase to the top floor of an otherwise nondescript building, and Scaurus looked about him curiously in the light of the torch the prefect was carrying at each landing, noting to his bemusement that the rooms to either side were stacked with earthenware jars. On reaching the top floor, Petronius waved an arm at the hundreds of wicker cages stacked on all sides.
‘We were fortunate that this little farm was built at the top of the building, to keep it as dry as possible, so the mud had no effect. As you can see.’
He handed Scaurus the torch with a broad grin.
‘Take a look, Legatus, and tell me what you think.’
Late the same evening, as the three friends were readying themselves for sleep with the expectation of beginning their journey north the next day, Artapanes opened the door to their suite and beckoned Marcus to join him. Outside the door the same two guards were standing duty over the foreigners, but they ignored Marcus as he followed the cleric down the corridor that he knew from experience led into the palace.
‘What-’
The priest raised a hand to silence him, and whispered a rebuke over his shoulder.
‘Say nothing. I cannot answer your questions, for I do not know the answers. And, since I am already asleep in my bed as far as anyone other than those two guards is concerned, I was clearly never here.’
Bemused, the Roman followed him along the same route as before, but where they had previously forked left into the anteroom, the priest led him to the right, and up a corridor that climbed as it turned. Reaching a torch-lit landing, Marcus recognised the robed figure of the high priest, Bagadates. The senior cleric waved a hand to his subordinate, and Artapanes bowed, staying where he was as the older man led Marcus deeper into the palace, speaking quietly as he walked.
‘You made a favourable impression on my master earlier. He has ordered me to effect a further meeting between you, a meeting that will never have taken place as far as the scribes and the bureaucrats are concerned. And which the generals must never even suspect. Here …’
He indicated a door.
‘I will wait for you here. Enter.’
Marcus found himself in a room no larger than a good-sized office, a small fire burning in one corner. The walls were decorated with richly embroidered tapestries, the floor carpeted with ornately knotted rugs. A guardsman stood impassively by the door in the opposite wall, his unblinking gaze locked on the Roman. The door beside him opened and Arsaces entered the room, closing the door firmly behind him.
‘Greetings once more, Marcus Valerius Aquila.’
Stunned, Marcus remembered to bow after a moment of indecision, and the king waited gravely until he was upright once more.
‘You seem discomfited by our meeting, Roman. Or is it perhaps the fact that I have greeted you by your real name, rather than the alias under which you presented yourself, that troubles you?’
‘I … how?’
Arsaces ignored the question, taking two cups from a table in the corner of the room.
‘Rome sees me as a tired old man, does it not? Scarred by my defeat twenty years ago, haunted by the sacking of this very city, and kept on my throne mainly by the power struggle between my priests and generals. A weak ruler, I am tolerated by a dozen lesser monarchs who fear the civil war that would follow my death more than they dislike the current uneasy peace that I keep between them. Rome, Valerius Aquila, takes me for a man of straw.’
He poured two cups of wine, handing one to Marcus.
‘Sit.’
The Roman obeyed his command, still clearly mystified by the king’s knowledge of his true identity.
‘At least you have the good grace not to hide your perplexity. I like honesty in a man …’
Arsaces took a sip of his wine.
‘After all, I see so little of it.’
He sipped again, then put the cup aside.
‘In truth, Rome’s view of my abilities is not entirely unfair. I do pit my vassals against one another, reminding them that we face enough enemies to make my rule essential to wielding our collective strength against the threats to the integrity of our borders. To the north-east are a multitude of barbarian tribes, true barbarians, godless animals from the boundless grasslands who forever press up against the empire’s northern kingdoms. They are horse archers without peer, taught from childhood to ride, and shoot, and kill, and their single intention is to steal, to burn and to rape at every opportunity. Against them we range our own horsemen, equally brutal, equally skilled, an imperial army larger than any force our individual kingdoms might put into the field. The day will come when these nomads swell to such numbers that they will burn a swathe of destruction across both my empire and yours, Roman, but not in my time!
‘To the east is nothing but desert, through which the caravans from the distant silk lands struggle only because of the rich rewards to be had. No threat will come from there. To the south there is ocean, and peaceful trade with the dark-skinned men who sell us spices and the finest iron in the world. But to the west …’