The Tortoise in Asia (16 page)

When the guard officer announces the decision, the entire cohort gives out a cheer. Marcus is helped up and is able to walk, but only with the support of two comrades. They make it to the end of the day, just, for he's near collapse. It's just as well he's as strong as he is.

That night he leads a small group of men who knew Quintus well in the sad job of burying their comrade. He can barely walk but insists on taking part. They carry the corpse to a few metres off the Road, dig a shallow grave and bury him with a denarius in his mouth.

After the burial Marcus moves to be by himself. He's grateful for the chance of standing up for Quintus when it would have been expedient to let him rot on the steppe. The virtue in it gives him some pleasure but he knows it shouldn't be exaggerated. It really wasn't much of a challenge despite the beating that had to follow; Quintus was a close friend and the code of comradeship demanded action. Besides, the effects of the beating are temporary. It's much worthier to do something outside the circle of friends and family, such as give honest advice at a critical moment. The lapse in the Command tent can't be assuaged just by what happened here. Today was close and personal; in the tent removed and objective, a different and, in a sense, a harder test. An opportunity needs to come for him to pass that type of trial. If it doesn't, the guilt that's obsessing him will never be expunged.

The next two days he rides in a wagon. Gaius has bribed the baggage train guard with a couple of denarii, which he has hidden in his belt, not to notice. Gradually Marcus recovers his strength and rejoins his comrades on the march, which carries on day after day in boring monotony, pushing further into the desiccated east.

Sometimes they pass caravans travelling in the direction of Carrhae with goods from far away. Lines of imperious camels, heads in the air, lope by in relaxed strides with wooden crates hanging off their sides. They're roped one after the other, like a string of pearls. The beasts seem contemptuous. Merchants in garments matching the dust ride them without a word. In some cases donkeys do the carrying, their shorter steps requiring more energy. They seem tireless though, albeit less regal.

Other camel trains come out of the horizon's haze ahead, their general shape emerging shakily, pass the alien soldiers by and disappear in the distance, silent and exotic. The prisoners have to move to the side of the track to let them by. Sometimes one from the west catches up and slides by at a faster pace. On occasion a halt is ordered so the Parthians can catch up with the news.

A guard who's just been talking to one of the merchants says;

“You might like to know that your general Cassius has escaped to Syria with his men. We tried to catch him but he got away. He's a tricky fellow.”

Does that mean the letter got through?

It's no surprise to hear of Cassius' success. If anyone could escape it would be that clever and calculating man. Without doubt, once he gets home, his abilities will ensure a career that'll influence the world. The thought gives a moment of vicarious pleasure, but then stirs up painful memories. Why the choice of Crassus over Cassius, Crassus over Caesar? Why the tendency to let expediency crunch principle? Cassius didn't allow it, and he survives, a free man who's returned home, like Odysseus.

It's tempting to become the sole point of concern, the centre of the tragic narrative. There, personal actions perform an exaggerated role. His choice in the tent could not have caused the disaster; Crassus was bound to make the fatal decision anyway despite his corrupt advice. But like it or not, he was part of the decision, however minor his role in it, however minimal his influence could have been.

Sometimes small things, in themselves of trivial account, can set off a chain reaction if the circumstances are right, that builds to create a major effect. Could his counsel, if it had been honest, have produced a different result ultimately, in a similar manner? For instance, could it have energised Cassius to some extent as the next step in the chain?

This line of reasoning only aggravates his guilt, which even without the enhancement, is heavy enough. In a morbid symmetry, it matches the enormity of the tragedy that followed. Fate has taken note and meted out a horrific punishment for being an agent in the catastrophe. Subtly, though he's dimly aware of it, the reasoning fallacy of
post hoc ergo propter hoc
has taken over – after that, because of that. He must resist it or go mad.

It's useless to stew over past actions – against the teaching of the Stoics. The present is what really matters, and the future. Face the dragon which fate has sent as best he can and don't worry about the consequences. Gaius does.

Every night the same dream arrives. In the distance a black spot appears and grows bigger and bigger. As it gets closer, it differentiates into a flock of eagles. They swoop over him in an arc, black against a grey sky. Screeching in fury, their beaks open wide, impatient to devour their prey. Talons drop down, sharp as the arrows that ripped apart the Testudo at Carrhae. They're going for his liver, seat of the life force. Just before the touching point he wakes up, blanket soaked in sweat. In half sleep he looks for them but they've vanished. It takes an hour before he can fall asleep again. What makes them worse is that they're a form of the Eumenides, the demonic avengers of wrongful deeds. They'll never leave him alone until placated, a requirement he has no idea how to satisfy.

❧

One morning he wakes up to a cold mist tumbling across the steppe and collecting in a grey shroud outside his tent. The summer has formally ceded it domain to autumn. For some time now darkness has been squeezing the day at both ends. The Parthians don't change the routine though; the march lasts the same number of hours. There's a vast distance to cover before reaching Margiana, the wild eastern boundary of their Empire. Most of them have never been that far east; they rely on Sogdian guides. Navigation is no trivial exercise for often tracks or even roads go off in different directions obscuring the true path. It's as if the Road takes fiendish delight in leading unwary travellers astray. Is it just being frivolous or is it sending out a coded message? The journey so far has shown there's counsel in its stones, however hard to interpret

Marcus strays a little away from his comrades in the pre dawn dark. He strolls towards a brazier which casts an unsteady light into the black background to reveal two Parthian guards sitting beside its warmth, eating breakfast. It's a pleasure never afforded the Romans. The guards let him approach, even say good morning in Parthian. He's learned a few words and understands. The loaves of bread they have are mesmerizing, flat and freshly fragrant. The Romans never get bread, only watery gruel, and then have to wait the entire day to receive it. They're always at the portal of starvation, kept just alive by the cunning provisioners who've worked out the minimum rations needed to prevent them from collapsing.

One of the guards silently offers a loaf, a whole loaf, as precious as a brick of gold. Without a word he shoves it under his tunic – someone might see. Embarrassed at the lack of civility, from him a man of civilization, he thanks his enemy in Parthian, adding a few superlatives.

As he walks away into the gloom, a mist of tears forms with realization of the irony in what has happened: the first kindness since the battle, from an implacable enemy, whose country he came to despoil. Gratitude springs from his heart – real thankfulness, a sensation he's never felt as deeply before. Self absorptive pride had always kept it shallow whenever he felt it was appropriate to show it. For a moment, the virtue embedded in the full feeling pulls him out of himself to connect with something outside, something spiritual, and it feels good. It's not without reason that it's said that gratitude is the parent of all virtues.

What if the situation were reversed? Would a Parthian soldier be wandering off with Marcus' loaf of bread? Or would that comfortable Roman contempt for inferiors hold fast? That attitude – once so vital to self esteem, now seems absurd.

Defeat at Carrhae has crushed his sense of superiority but it hasn't eliminated his xenophobia. But he feels it's on the way to doing that. The little act of humanity of the Parthian has crossed the cultural barrier and revealed a commonality, a universality, not apparent to him before. It tends to unpick the illusion he's been labouring under the whole of his life. The shock of fortune's reversal in the presence of kindness has opened his mind to see a new reality, or at least dimly so.

The foggy darkness of the hour offers a chance for concealment – an opportunity to devour the treasure unobserved. But the generosity of the Parthian rules out such behaviour. Some must be given away. There're too many Romans; a choice must be made, including how much to keep. The noblest thing would be to give it all. But keeping some won't make an appreciable difference. Anyway, being there to receive it gives the best title.

He breaks the loaf into three equal parts, carefully saving the crumbs that fall off. He gives two to the first prisoners encountered then moves away. The sublime moment of eating is to be enjoyed quietly, alone. As the first morsel slowly dissolves in his mouth, the aroma and the crumbly taste exclude everything else. Nothing is as important as this. Then the image of the whole loaf appears in his mind's eye – the round, flat, beautiful loaf, with a diameter the span of a hand. With emotion and reason allied at the deepest level, the form of the loaf arises in his mind, a Platonic revelation of the ideal. Ineluctably, something outside himself touches his soul, something real, and it feels good. It's the first time he's felt good since the catastrophe.

❧

On the Road, ever capricious like the gods, time passes by the cycles of the moon and Odyssean hope lets go at long last. In a way it's a relief for it looses a tension that has only added frustration to helplessness. An illusory dimension has been removed, opening the way to accepting a new existence. That may be so, but he has little will yet to try for it. Inertia hems him in, undermines positive thought. All along however, the kindness of the Parthian guard acts as a safety net to his depression, saving it from sinking further.

The sun's heat gradually flees the steppe and temperatures drop to below freezing at night, seldom warming up past it even at noon. Sometimes wisps of tiny snow flakes hardened in the wind sprinkle down from leaden skies like winding gossamer. It takes hours just to cover the frozen ground with a thin sheet, which the wind soon tears apart. The colder weather takes a toll on the weaker prisoners, those once strong men now undermined by wounds or sickness contracted along the Road.

The symptoms are sadly obvious. Vacant stares in opaque eyes show the will has lost its energy and the mind has given up. The number of men slumping down, impervious to the lash, increases each day as the knives in the wind slash their lifeline. It turns out that the permission to bury Quintus was an exception. The policy itself hasn't changed. Sporadic attempts have been made to force it but they've faded with exhaustion. Even Marcus has given up. The animus behind the successful push for Quintus can't be kept up.

The dead soldiers are left on the side of the road, discarded like rubbish tossed out after the daily meal. There should be more food now for the rest, but the Parthians keep the rations the same.

Grey winged scavengers which have been following the troupe in relays like merchants on the Road, wait politely until the last soldier has passed by and flop upon the bodies before they stiffen into lumps. Everyone is too exhausted to do more than note the loss. The cruel march is an acid, extracting humanity like leaching gold from a heap of rock and leaving nothing but tailings behind.

The trudge merges with the monotony of the steppe. Time slides into the distance they're covering and both seem as one. No one really cares. They just keep on walking, if they can, fixing on the present. Their past is a blighted memory and their future too terrible to contemplate.

Despite the severing of links, from time to time Aurelia's face appears in the morning mist, and sometimes on the wind when it blows across the steppe. It seems to be mournfully motioning him to come back, in a gesture of love that can no longer be. Occasionally there seems a touch of reproach in the beautiful eyes and Odysseus comes to mind.

The days pass through the savagery of winter into its later stages where frost seldom appears and then only in the early morning. It's best not to think of it as spring for that would bring to mind images of new life, something too unsettling.

The desolate column eventually comes to a barren land, all sand, where not even scrub or straggly grass adds the temerity of life. The guards say it's the great Black Desert. Ahead, a plethora of tracks snakes through the endless dunes, some subsiding into oblivion, others going in the right direction. It's almost impossible to tell which is which. The Road claims them all. At this stage it's a trickster, mischievously tempting the unwary into perdition.

It's also a cruel hunter, festooned with trophies of dead men. Romans are not the only ones; it's been awarded countless others, some from violent attacks, others from the callousness of the waterless domain that lies on either side. The promise of wealth can be counted on to produce many more over the years to come.

Just as it seems the dunes will last forever, the landform changes – full vegetation arrives with a sudden demarked edge, as sharp as a phase change. In its midst, a system of water courses spreads its tentacles like a shiny octopus, twisting and turning as it moves across the land. Mud brick buildings of a major city appear, interspersed with trees whose bare branches scratch the sky in dormant life.

The men, exhausted though they are, quicken their pace as they see the water, and break into a run. At last they'll be able to throw off the thirst demon. The guards can't stop the rush towards the shallow and not exactly wholesome stream. So eager are they to drink that they swallow almost as much silt as water. Spring coldness pains their throats as they gulp without restraint. Some become sick within minutes, but all are relieved.