King of Kings Read online

  ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’ The soldier looked down as he flatly intoned the ritual words. Bathshiba got up and walked away.

  When the empty jar was passed back to Ballista he dropped it at his feet. He raised his right boot and brought it down on the jar. There was a loud snap then a series of sharp clinks as it shattered. Studying what he was doing, he stamped his heel, three, four more times, breaking the vessel into small shards. He crouched down and selected thirteen similar-sized pieces, which he laid out in a row. He picked up two of them. With one he scratched the single Greek letter theta on the other. He scooped up all thirteen shards and dropped them, the twelve blank and the one marked, into his upturned helmet and rattled them around.

  Ballista stood and held the helmet. Everyone was watching it as if it contained an asp. In a sense it did. Ballista felt his heart beating hard, his palms sweating as he turned and offered it to the man on his left.

  It was the scribe from North Africa, the one they called Hannibal. He did not hesitate. His eyes locked with Ballista’s as he put his hand in the helmet. His fingers closed. He withdrew his fist, turned it over and unclenched it. On his palm lay an unmarked shard. With no show of emotion he dropped it on the ground.

  Next was Demetrius. The Greek boy was trembling, his eyes desperate. Ballista wanted to comfort him, but he knew he could not. Demetrius looked to the heavens. His lips mouthed a prayer. He thrust his hand into the helmet, clumsily, almost knocking it from Ballista’s grip. The twelve shards clinked as the boy’s fingers played over them, making his choice. Suddenly he withdrew his hand. In his fingers was an unmarked piece of pottery. Demetrius exhaled, almost a sob, and his eyes misted with tears.

  The soldier on Demetrius’ left was called Titus. He had served in Ballista’s horse guards, the Equites Singulares, for almost a year. Ballista knew him for a calm, competent man. Without preamble he took his shard from the helmet. He opened his fist. There was the theta. Titus closed his eyes. Then, swallowing hard, he opened them, mastering himself.

  A sigh, like a gentle breeze rustling through a field of ripe corn, ran around the circle. Trying hard not to show their relief, the others melted into the night. Titus was left standing with Ballista, Maximus and Calgacus.

  Titus smiled a sketchy smile. ‘The long day’s task is done. Might as well unarm.’ He took off his helmet and dropped it, lifted his baldric over his head, unbuckled his sword belt and let them fall too. His fingers fumbled with the laces of his shoulder guards. Without words, Maximus and Calgacus closed in and helped him, lifting the heavy, dragging mailcoat off.

  Unarmed, Titus stood for a moment, then bent and retrieved his sword, unsheathing it. He tested its edge and point on his thumb.

  ‘It does not have to be that,’ said Ballista.

  Titus laughed bitterly. ‘A stepmother of a choice. If I run I will die of thirst. If I hide the reptiles will find me, and I have seen what they do to their prisoners – I would like to die with my arse intact. Better the Roman way.’

  Ballista nodded.

  ‘Will you help me?’

  Ballista nodded again. ‘Here?’

  Titus shook his head. ‘Can we walk?’

  The two men left the circle of light. After a time Titus stopped. He accepted a wine skin that Ballista offered and sat down. He took a long pull and handed the drink back as Ballista sat next to him. Back in the camp the lanterns went out one by one.

  ‘Fortune, Tyche, is a whore,’ Titus said. He took another drink. ‘I thought I would die when the city fell. Then I thought I would escape. Fucking whore.’

  Ballista said nothing.

  ‘I had a woman back in the city. She will be dead now, or a slave.’ Titus unfastened the purse from his belt. He passed it to Ballista. ‘The usual – share it out among the boys.’

  They sat in silence, drinking until the wine was gone. Titus looked up at the stars. ‘Fuck, let’s get it over with.’

  Titus stood up and passed over his sword. He pulled his tunic up, baring his stomach and chest. Ballista stood close in front of him. Titus placed his hands on Ballista’s shoulders. The hilt of the sword in his right hand, Ballista laid the blade flat on his left palm. He brought the point up ever so gently to touch the skin just below Titus’ ribcage, then moved his left hand round behind the soldier’s back.

  Ballista did not look away from the other man’s eyes. The smell of sweat was strong in Ballista’s nostrils. Their rasping breathing was as one.

  Titus’ fingers dug into Ballista’s shoulders. An almost imperceptible nod, and Titus tried to step forward. Pulling the soldier towards him with his left hand, Ballista put his weight behind the thrust of the sword in his right. There was an infinitesimally slight resistance and then the sword sliced into Titus’ stomach with sickening ease. Titus gasped in agony, his hands automatically clutching for the blade. Ballista felt the hot rush of blood as he smelt its iron tang. A second later there was the smell of piss and shit as Titus voided himself.

  ‘Euge, well done,’ Titus groaned in Greek. ‘Finish it!’

  Ballista twisted the blade, withdrew it, and thrust again. Titus’ head jerked back as his body went into spasm. His eyes glazed. His legs gave way, his movements stilled, and he began to slide down the front of Ballista. Letting go of the sword, Ballista used both hands to lower Titus to the ground.

  Kneeling, Ballista pulled the sword out from the body. Coils of intestines slithered out with the blade. Shiny, revoltingly white, they looked and smelled like unprepared tripe. Ballista dropped the weapon. With his blood-soaked hands he closed the dead man’s eyes.

  ‘May the earth lie lightly on you.’

  Ballista stood. He was drenched in the blood of the man he had killed. Maximus led several others out of the darkness. They carried entrenching tools. They began to dig a grave. Calgacus put his arm round Ballista and led him away, quietly soothing him, as he had when he was a child.

  Four hours later the moon was up and they were on the move. Ballista was surprised that, after Calgacus had undressed him and cleaned him, he had slept a deep, unhaunted sleep. Wearing new clothes, his armour burnished, he was back on Pale Horse, leading the diminished party towards the west.

  One by one the stars faded. When the sun rose again there were the mountains ahead still blue in the distance. And behind was the dust of their hunters. Much nearer now. Not above two miles away.

  ‘One last ride.’ As Ballista said the words he realized they were double-edged. He thought a quick prayer to Woden, the high god of his homelands. Allfather, High One, Death Blinder, do not let my careless words rebound on me and mine, get us out of this. Out loud, he called again, ‘One last ride.’

  At the head of the column Ballista set and held the pace at a steady canter. Unlike yesterday, there was no time to dismount, no time to walk and let the horses get their breath back. As the sun arched up into the sky, relentlessly they rode to the west.

  Soon the horses were feeling their exertions: nostrils flared, mouths hanging open, strings of spittle flecking the thighs of their riders. All morning they rode, the mountains inching closer. Some god must have held his hands over them. The track was rough, pitted and stony, but there were no cries of alarm; not one animal pulled up lame or went down in a flurry of dust and stones. And then, almost imperceptibly, they were there. The track began to incline up, the stones at its side grew bigger, became boulders. They were in the foothills.

  Before the path turned and began to grade its way up the slopes, before the view was blocked, Ballista reined in and looked back. There were the Sassanids, a black line about a mile behind. Now and then sunlight glinted perpendicular on helmets or pieces of armour. Certainly they were within thirteen hundred paces. Ballista could see they were cavalry, not infantry. He had known that already. He estimated there were some fifty or more of them. There was something odd about them, but there was no time to stop and study more. He coaxed Pale Horse on.

  They had
to slacken the pace as they climbed. The horses were labouring hard. Yet they had not been in the high country long before Haddudad said, ‘The Horns of Ammon.’

  They turned left into the defile. The path here was narrow, never more than twenty paces wide. It ran for about two hundred paces between the outcrops that gave the place its name. The cliff on the left was sheer. That on the right rose more gently; a scree-covered slope a man could ascend, lead a horse up, probably ride one down.

  ‘At the far end, where it turns right, out of sight the path doubles back behind the hill,’ Haddudad said. ‘Place archers up on the right, hold the far end. It is a good killing ground, if we are not too outnumbered.’

  As they rode up the defile Ballista retreated into himself, planning, making his dispositions. When they were about fifty paces from the end he stopped and issued his orders. ‘I will take Maximus, Calgacus and the girl with me up the hill. She is as good with a bow as a man. The Greek boy can come to hold our horses, and you’ – he pointed to one of the two the remaining civilian members of his staff, not the North African scribe – ‘will come to relay my orders.’ He paused. He looked at Haddudad and Turpio. ‘That leaves you two and five men down on the path. Wait round the corner, out of sight until you get my command, then charge down into the reptiles. Those of us above will ride down the slope to take them in the flank.’

  Haddudad nodded. Turpio smiled sardonically. The others, exhausted, hollow-eyed, just stared.

  Ballista unfastened the black cloak he had been wearing to keep the sun off his armour. He dropped it to the ground. It landed with a puff of dust in the middle of the path. Then he untied poor Titus’ purse from his belt. He opened it. There were a lot of coins. A soldier’s life savings. He scattered them on the ground just beyond the cloak. As an afterthought he took off his helmet, the distinctive one with the bird-of-prey crest, and tossed that down as well.

  Haddudad grinned. ‘Cunning as a snake,’ he said.

  ‘Among your people that is probably a compliment,’ Ballista replied.

  ‘Not always,’ said the Arab.

  Ballista raised his voice to reach them all. ‘Are you ready for war?’

  ‘Ready!’

  Three times the call and response, but it was a tired, thin sound, almost lost in the hills.

  Turpio brought his horse next to Ballista. Quietly, he recited a poem in Greek.

  Don’t cry

  Over the happy dead

  But weep for those who dread

  To die.

  Ballista smiled and waved them all off to take up their positions.

  ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

  Ballista lay full length on the crest of the hill, an old grey-brown blanket over his shoulders. He had rubbed handfuls of the dun-coloured sand into his hair and over his face. Twenty arrows were planted point down in the ground by his head, looking like a clump of desert grass or camel thorn. Those with him were resting behind the brow of the hill.

  Staring at something for a long time in bright sunshine began to have a narcotic effect. The scene seemed to shift and waver, inanimate objects start to move. Twice Ballista had tensed, thinking the moment had come, before realizing his eyes had deceived him. It was not long after noon. They had made good time. The Sassanids must have halted for a rest in the foothills, confident their prey could not escape them.

  Ballista blinked the sweat out of his eyes and shifted slightly in the hollow his body had made in the stony ground. He very much doubted this was going to work. Ten fighting men and the girl against at least fifty. Strangely, he did not feel particularly frightened. He thought of his wife and son and felt an overwhelming sadness that he would not see them again. He imagined them wondering what had happened to him, the pain of never knowing.

  A movement, at last. The Sassanid cavalry walked round into the defile and Ballista’s heart leaped. He saw what had been odd about their column – each Sassanid led two spare horses. That was how they had narrowed the distance so fast. Sixty horses but only twenty riders. The odds were no worse than two to one. And, Allfather willing, he could improve on that.

  The leading Sassanid pointed, called something over his shoulder, and trotted ahead. He reached the things lying in the track and dismounted. Struggling to keep a grip on the reins of his three horses, he crouched down and picked them up.

  Ballista grinned a savage grin. The others had not halted. Instead they trotted up and bunched behind the man on foot. Fools, thought Ballista, you deserve to die.

  Shrugging off the blanket, Ballista grasped his bow and got to his feet. As he took an arrow and notched it, he heard the others scrambling up to the crest. He drew the composite bow, feeling the string bite into his fingers and the tension mount in the wood, bone and sinew of its belly. Intent on their discoveries, the Sassanids had not noticed him. He selected the man he took to be their leader. Aiming above the bright red trousers and below the yellow hat at the black-and-white striped tunic, he released. A few seconds later the man was pitched from his horse. Ballista heard the shouts of surprise and fear. He heard those with him release their bows. Another arrow automatically notched, he shot into the bunch of riders, aiming low, hoping if he did not get a rider he would hit a horse. Not looking to see where the arrows struck, he released four or five times more into the group in quick succession.

  The floor of the defile was a picture of confusion, bodies of men and animals thrashing, loose horses plunging, crashing into those still under control. Ballista swung his aim to the untouched rear of the column. His first shot missed. His second took a rider’s horse in the flank. The beast reared, hurling the warrior backwards to the ground. The other two horses he had been leading bolted.

  ‘Haddudad, Turpio, now! Demetrius, bring up the horses!’ Ballista yelled over his shoulder. He shot off some more arrows as the crunch and scatter of loose stones grew louder behind him. When the Greek boy appeared with his mount Ballista dropped the bow and vaulted into the saddle. Guiding with his thighs, he set Pale Horse at the slope. From up here it looked far steeper than it had from below, an awkward surface of large slabs of ochre, grey and brown, with patches of treacherous scree.

  Ballista leant back against the rear horns of the saddle, dropping the reins, letting Pale Horse find their way. He could hear the others following. Down and off to his right he saw the seven Roman riders, Haddudad and Turpio at their head, thunder into the defile.

  As Ballista drew his sword, Pale Horse stumbled. The long cavalry spatha nearly slipped from Ballista’s grip. Cursing mechanically, he recovered it and slipped the leather thong tied to the hilt over his wrist. The riders with Haddudad had ploughed into the head of the Sassanid column. They had bowled over or cut down three or four of the easterners, but the lack of space and sheer weight of numbers had brought them to a halt. There were loose Persian horses everywhere. Clouds of dust billowed up the scarred cliff face opposite.

  Although taken by surprise and now leaderless, the Sassanids were experienced warriors. They were not ready to run. A Roman trooper with Haddudad toppled from the saddle. An arrow whistled past Ballista. Another landed in front of him, snapping and ricocheting away. Everything hung in the balance.

  As Ballista neared the bottom, the closest two Sassanids stuffed their bows back into their cases and tugged their swords free. They were at a standstill. Ballista was moving fast. He wanted to use that. At the last moment he swerved Pale Horse at the warrior to his right. The brave little gelding did not flinch and crashed shoulder to shoulder into the Persian horse. The impact threw Ballista forward in the saddle. But the enemy horse was set back virtually on its quarters, its rider clinging to its mane to keep his seat. Recovering his balance in a moment, Ballista brought his sword across Pale Horse’s neck in a fierce downward cut. The Sassanids were light cavalry; few of them wore armour. The blade bit deep into the man’s shoulder.

  Retrieving his sword, Ballista put Pale Horse to cut round the rear of the injur
ed Sassanid’s mount to get at the other one. Before he could complete the manoeuvre a third easterner lunged at him from the right. Ballista caught the blade on his own, rolled his wrist to force the Persian’s weapon wide and riposted with an underhand cut at the man’s face. The Sassanid swayed back. As Ballista’s blade sliced harmlessly through the air he felt a searing pain in his left bicep.

  Now he was caught between the two Sassanids. With no shield, not even a cloak to guard his left side, Ballista had to try to parry the attacks of both with his sword. He twisted and turned like a baited bear when the dogs close in, steel rang on steel and sparks flew. A hammer-like blow from the right hit Ballista in the ribcage. The Persian’s lunge had broken one or two of the mail rings on his coat, forcing the jagged ends into his flesh. But the armour had kept out the point of the blade.

  Despite the pain, Ballista forced himself upright and swung a horizontal cut not at the man on his right but at his horse’s head. It missed but the animal skittered sideways. Painfully sucking air into his lungs, Ballista swivelled in the saddle, blocked a blow from his left and lashed out with his boot, kicking the Sassanid’s mount in the belly. It too gave ground. He had bought himself a few seconds’ reprieve.

  Ballista looked up. There was nowhere to go. In front of Pale Horse were four or five loose horses, milling, blocking the way. Again, the fierce dark faces closed in. Again, Ballista twisted and turned like a cornered animal. But he was getting slower. His left arm throbbed. His damaged ribs were agony as he moved. It hurt like hell to draw breath.

  Just when it seemed that it could only end one way, Maximus appeared. A deft cut, almost faster than the eye could follow, there was a spray of blood and the warrior on Ballista’s left toppled from the saddle. No time for thanks, Maximus spurred on and Ballista turned all his attention to his remaining adversary.