Valerius nodded, and the general returned to the game. ‘You have improved remarkably over the past week. I fear you have me at bay.’ Valerius was surprised when he began to remove the pieces and place them in their starting positions. Corbulo saw his look. ‘We will not be finishing this game. Traianus was right. Vologases is no fool. He knows that time is his enemy as well as I do. Soon he will realize that we have turned away from Tigranocerta and he will wonder why. At some point he will send his light cavalry ahead to secure the Cepha gap. I intend that you will be there first. I want you to take four cavalry wings of archers and spearmen and enough fodder, rations and water
for
five days. You will ride ahead of the main column and avoid all combat until you reach the gap. Your orders are simple. Once there, you will defeat any enemy forces who confront you, form a defensive line and hold the position until you are annihilated, relieved or the main column arrives. Have you any questions?’
‘None, sir.’ Valerius risked a smile. ‘As you say, my orders are simple.’
Corbulo came close and grasped the younger man by the arm, his grip firm. ‘Win it for me and hold it for me, Valerius, and together we will inflict a defeat on the Parthians they will remember for a thousand years.’
XXXIV
Athens, Greece
HIS WORLD SEEMED
to be closing in on him, until it had been reduced to this tiny dungeon in the palace he had commandeered on the slopes below the Acropolis. It had all seemed so different this past week.
For a few days during the Games on Mount Olympus he had felt as if he was soaring with the gods themselves. The wonder of his songs and oratory had beguiled the greatest artists in Greece, the cradle of culture and civilization, and they had hailed him as an Olympian on the very mount that had given the Games their name. In those few glorious moments he had left behind the troubles and consternation of the Empire and been able to bask in the glory of his own genius, to bathe in the cheers of the multitude and to drink the ambrosia of Zeus, Artemis and Apollo.
He sighed.
And now Tigellinus had dragged him back to an earth which, even at its best, was tawdry by comparison. The smell of burning flesh reminded him of the Great Fire.
The two men hanging from the seven-foot iron triangles were brothers and until recently they had been the governors of the two Germanias, Superior and Inferior. Tigellinus had brought Rufus and
Proculus
Sulpicius Scribonius to meet their Emperor on the pretext that they were to receive the triumphal regalia for their victories over the Chatti and the Cherusci, Germanic tribes who had plagued Rome’s frontiers for centuries. But instead of honours, all they had received was pain.
Nero walked past the torturers and lifted the chin of the elder Scribonius, Proculus, so he could see into his eyes. He had been very brave. Had offered himself for the glowing iron and the knives and the pincers if it would only spare his brother the trial. Instead, Tigellinus had used his courage against him and had the younger brother trussed up first. Nero had watched Proculus throw himself against his bonds as they had placed the red-hot barbs in Rufus’s flesh, torn his nipples out and removed his nose, all to the accompaniment of the torturers’ chorus of shrieks and howls and agonized groans. Then he had ordered the older brother’s legs broken, so he had to crawl to the triangle where he could bring an end to his brother’s suffering by replacing him. Of course, that could not happen. Each was the other’s weakness. They must witness the other’s pain and mutilation while Tigellinus and his clerks recorded the names that must eventually be uttered through broken teeth and torn lips.
‘You were my friend, Proculus. Why must all my friends betray me?’
It was astonishing the change that fire and iron could accomplish in such a short time. The brothers had been young men in the prime of life when they walked into the receiving room. In their senatorial robes, they had carried themselves like the patricians they were: dark, leonine heads held high, proud of their achievements and proud of each other. With their long noses and eyes that disdained all but their own kind, men like this had opposed him at every turn since the day he had donned the purple. They had blocked his improvements, refused him the money he needed to emulate his illustrious ancestors, laughed behind their hands at his performances and sneered at his pleasures. Yet he had taken the brothers Scribonius into his trust. Not for them the tender mercies of Tigellinus, the threat of the arena, the sequestration of their estates and property. Not even the seduction of their wives. He
had
rewarded them with advancement, not because they were worthy, but because they were too indolent to do harm.
In the hands of an able governor either of the two Germanias could swiftly become a threat on Rome’s doorstep. The legions of the Rhine frontier were elite, battle-hardened soldiers, who protected the Empire from the eastern hordes. They complained constantly of poor pay and poor rations and poor accommodation. It made them fractious and difficult to control. And dangerous. No Corbulo would ever command in Germania while he was Emperor. It would be like handing a condemned man a sword. Instead, he had given command to wastrels like these, in the sure knowledge that they would spend their time gossiping and entertaining. But they had proved him wrong. For the brothers Scribonius had plotted.
‘Names, Proculus,’ he said softly. ‘Give us names and places and dates and your brother will be spared.’
Through the lightning bolts of agony that tore his body, Proculus Sulpicius Scribonius heard the voice. He had called on all the courage of his ancestors to be able to bear his torment and he would have borne it until death. But his baby brother’s shrieks had eroded his resolve until he could take no more. His delirious mind screamed at him to save Rufus. Whatever the cost.
He sobbed like a child and the names began as a trickle, grew into a stream, and finally became a torrent.
Nero turned to Tigellinus. ‘When you are certain you have it all, they go to the fire.’ He hesitated. ‘No, they were once friends. I will be merciful. Have them take their own lives, if they are capable.’
For the next two hours, Tigellinus checked and double-checked the names and the dates, taking the brothers to new levels of pain to ensure not a single conspirator, or conspirator’s wife, or friend, or acquaintance, had been missed. By the end there was no need for either brother to go to the trouble of killing himself.
Left to his own devices, Tigellinus would have added another name to the list, whether it came from the vomit-stained lips or not. But the roll call of betrayal was recorded. If Corbulo’s name was on the list, the Emperor would call in the clerks to confirm it and, if he bribed them,
they
might even reveal that Tigellinus had placed it there. He couldn’t risk that. He would find another way. The man now shivering in terror in the dungeons below the Palatine would provide it.
Willing or not, Annius Vinicianus would condemn his father-in-law. And, if not, there was always the Egyptian.
XXXV
VALERIUS STRUGGLED TO
stay awake as the mare picked her way over dry, rolling pastureland that stretched into the distance. No shortage of fodder now – the land would provide – but water for man and horse continued to be strictly rationed. They had been in the saddle for two full days, riding by the light of the moon after the sun went down, with only a few short rest periods. Corbulo had said that time was his enemy’s enemy, but Valerius knew that it was also his. He had spent the hours after the general’s conference organizing, cajoling and chivvying to ensure that the four cavalry regiments he had chosen for the mission were ready to march at dawn. Hanno rode at his side. The Syrian’s Third Thracians led the column, which contained a second wing of mounted archers, the Augusta Syriaca, plus two wings of light cavalry, the First Ulpia Dacorum, which Corbulo had drafted in from Cappadocia, and the Numidians of the First Praetoria, one of the general’s veteran regiments. They were still a long day’s ride from the Cepha gap, but Valerius was determined to reach his destination before nightfall. Away to his left, rippling in the heat from the fierce sun, lay the endless line of hills he recognized from Corbulo’s sand table. Somewhere to the northeast stood Tigranocerta and he prayed that the general was right and the Armenian fortress’s commander would stay where he was. If the Armenian broke his word and decided to change
his
allegiance from Tiridates to his brother, Valerius’s little force would be crushed between two armies like a grape in a wine press. Even now Vologases could already be crossing his front and Corbulo’s plans would be smashed to dust along with the thousands of men he led.
‘Do you think they are out there?’
Hanno turned wearily in the saddle. His eyes were just visible in the folds of the dust-caked cloth that covered his helmeted head and his shoulders, but Valerius sensed he was smiling. The Syrian shook his head. ‘We would have seen signs. More activity ahead; cavalry patrols seeking out our spearhead.’ He waved a hand behind them to where the other cavalry units were hidden in a plume of yellow. ‘Dust.’ Of course, an army as large as that of the Parthian King of Kings would perpetually carry with it a cloud that cloaked it like a ready-made shroud.
Hanno removed the cloth from his face and spat. He had a feel for this land that no man who wasn’t born here would ever match. ‘Every sign of movement we have seen has come from the south, and nothing since we moved into this valley.’ Valerius had never thought of the grasslands they were crossing as a valley, but he supposed it was true. The hills to the north were matched by mountains to the south which had started as low foothills the previous morning, but now created the formidable barrier that stretched eastwards to the far horizon. Unbroken. Yet somewhere out there was Corbulo’s gap. If it existed. He dashed the thought from his mind, remembering the specific instructions he had been given. Riding behind them beside Serpentius was an engineer who had been with Corbulo from the start. The man had created Corbulo’s sand table and he brought with him a leather scroll case containing detailed maps: maps he had drawn during the general’s expedition during the consulship of Petronius Lurco. The gap was there. All Valerius needed to do was reach it before the Parthians.
‘And we’re sure we packed the special equipment?’
Hanno laughed. It was the third time Valerius had asked the question. For answer he adjusted the unfamiliar heavy shield that hung behind him and cursed its awkward unwieldiness. Valerius tested the sword slung on his back in a harness designed by Serpentius so he could draw it
over
his right shoulder. The cavalry
spatha
Corbulo had given him was a fine weapon, but the Medusa-pommelled
gladius
he had carried since Boudicca’s death was a talisman that had accompanied him this far and he would have felt naked without it.
When the sun dropped close to the western horizon he began to fear that they’d missed the valley entrance. The chances of finding it in darkness would be slim for the sharp-eyed Thracian scouts even with a three-quarter moon to aid them. Fortunately one of the patrols stumbled upon a shepherd and his two herder sons and Valerius set off with Hanno to their camp to question them.
The man and the younger boy sat by the fire that had alerted the Thracians to their presence. The elder son stood belligerently by the flock of about thirty skinny, ragged sheep daring any of Hanno’s men to come near them.
The shepherd waved Valerius to the place of honour on the upwind side of the fire and Hanno crouched beside him and made the traditional salutations in his own language. Valerius’s nostrils twitched at the rank animal smell emanating from his host, but he nodded as the man answered Hanno’s questions, revealing a mouthful of blackened teeth.
‘He says he has seen no Parthian patrols,’ the Syrian translated. ‘Or he would have driven his flock to the higher pastures on the hills yonder. The Parthians would take his sheep, unworthy though they are, and cheat him. He knows the Roma are honest men who would never deprive him of his livelihood and would be happy to negotiate a price.’
‘Ask him if he knows of the Cepha gap.’
The shepherd shook his head, but Valerius saw a flash of understanding in the dark, liquid eyes of the boy, probably less than ten years old, sitting opposite him.
‘Ask him again, but more forcefully.’
Hanno grinned, but when he spoke his voice contained a hard edge and the shepherd glanced nervously at Valerius before he replied.
‘He says, yes, now he understands what you mean, but he knows it by a different name, the Road of Sorrow, for this is the way the
kings
of Parthia and Seleucia have ever ridden to milk the lands of Armenia.’
‘Tell him he will be well rewarded if he takes us there.’
The smile didn’t reach the shepherd’s eyes and he gestured regretfully to his sheep.
‘Alas,’ Hanno translated, ‘he says he and his family must stay with their sheep. Without them they will starve when winter comes, as the north wind says it soon must. And there are wolves from the mountains; you have doubtless seen their tracks. He honours you, but he must decline, though he will gladly provide you with directions.’
The shepherd nodded and smiled ingratiatingly.
‘Then the boy will take us.’ Valerius pointed to the younger son and two of Hanno’s escort lifted him to his feet.
The father began to wail, but Hanno snarled at him and he lapsed into silence. ‘Now he is willing.’ The Syrian grinned at Valerius.
‘No, the boy will take us. I do not trust the father. He would find some means of slipping away in the night. Bring him.’
They remounted, leaving the shepherd standing beside the fire with the older son, who had abandoned his charges.
‘What will we do with them.’ Valerius understood it was not a question, but a reminder. ‘If we leave them behind and a Parthian patrol stumbles on them as we have …’