Empire of Dragons (11 page)

‘But what does this have to do with what I asked you and with what the king told me?’

‘Probably nothing. But it’s the only personal element – if we can call it such – that I could imagine might involve the King of Kings, the radiant Shapur, our sovereign.’

Artabanus searched in the eunuch’s eyes for the meaning behind his subtly allusive expression.

Ardashir began in a different tone of voice, as if he were trying to explain something quite simple to someone a little dull-witted. ‘Shall we make a hypothesis? Just a little game, of course. Let us imagine that the king was smitten by this female and was no longer able to rid himself of the thought of her. Imagine that when he received Gallienus’s proposal he made a counter-proposal . . .’

‘Zainab in place of a sum of money?’

‘It’s only a hypothesis, mind you. You’ve said it, Excellency, not me. But suppose for a moment that the hypothesis is valid: many things tally up, wouldn’t you say? The king could certainly not make a request directly to Odenatus, who had just recently stolen his plunder and a good part of his harem through a treacherous attack. But he could demand that Gallienus oblige the general to give up his wife in reparation for the insult suffered by the Persian king. An agreement destined to remain a secret between the two emperors: Valerian in exchange for Zainab.’

‘If that were the case,’ replied Artabanus, ‘Gallienus was therefore unable to compel Odenatus to turn his wife over, and thus the negotiations for the release of Valerian reached a deadlock.’

‘Obviously we’re talking about a completely imaginary hypothesis,’ said Ardashir. ‘You know how we eunuchs are: always fascinated by great love stories, precisely because experiences so sublime and at the same time so terrible have been denied us.’ He concluded his phrase with a long sigh.

‘Of course,’ replied the vizier. ‘Nothing more than an imaginative hypothesis and a bit of court gossip. I’ll keep that in mind. But you understand, my good friend, that in my position I must take everything into consideration, even the warbling of the birds and the sigh of the wind in the royal gardens.’

‘Quite true,’ replied the eunuch. ‘In any case, it has been a pleasure to exchange a few words with you, Excellency. Consider me always at your disposal.’

They left each other with a kiss on both cheeks, and the eunuch made his way towards the door, his flesh quivering at every step.

Artabanus sighed. Ardashir the eunuch had probably found the correct interpretation of what had happened. It explained Shapur’s silence as well. The king would never admit – not even to his loyal minister – that he had become obsessed with a woman and that he was mixing fundamental state affairs with a sordid matter of personal passion. In any case, the vizier felt relieved. There was no lack of trust towards him; if anything, what was involved was a kind of shame or perhaps discretion that did not reflect on him in any way. He felt reassured and quite certain that he had received – in an allusive form, naturally – the correct information regarding the mystery of why Valerian had not been ransomed.

He leaned back into his chair and enjoyed a few moments of serenity, then took the papers that his secretary had prepared for him and began to read his correspondence. He jotted a response at the end of each page, stopping only for a short meal at midday, and continued working in complete tranquillity for several more hours. Only the waning of the light streaming in through the window made him realize that the sun was setting and the dinner hour approaching.

His servant would soon enter to tell him that the table was ready and his secretary would come in to remind him of the names of the guests and the reasons for which they had been invited to dinner.

Instead, one of the imperial guards walked in, without even knocking at the door. ‘The king wants you.’

The vizier rushed down the corridor and arrived, breathless, at the audience hall, where Shapur was waiting for him. The sovereign spun round as he entered. A glance was sufficient for Artabanus to see that he was furious and that part of that ire would rain down on him.

‘Vanished!’ shouted the king. ‘Disappeared, and no one knows where to!’

‘Excuse me, My Lord. Who has vanished?’

‘The Romans! Those bastards have vanished without a trace! How it that possible?’

‘I . . . don’t understand . . . weren’t you told that Valerian had died?’

Shapur tried to contain his rage and turned to a man whose presence Artabanus had just noticed. The king motioned for him to speak.

The man stepped forward from the shadows and explained. ‘Yes, Valerian died, but there were ten men with him who have disappeared. A cavalry unit entered the camp, alerted by the strange silence that reigned there. They found most of the prisoners locked up together in the same shack, but the ten Romans were missing, and their weapons are missing from the armoury. We’ve searched for them everywhere, but haven’t found the slightest trace. An old convict who had been in the camp such a long time that he acted as an assistant to the guards has also disappeared.’

Artabanus drew closer. ‘What about the armed guards?’

‘Dead. Killed.’

‘The prisoners somehow managed to get hold of their weapons, killed the camp guards and escaped. Where is the mystery?’ asked Artabanus.

‘There were more than thirty guards, well armed and well fed, and there were only ten of them, prostrated by forced labour and malnutrition. They don’t even look like human beings any more when they’ve been in the camp that long. What’s more, the outskirts of the camp are garrisoned by over three hundred men on horseback who control every way out. And not one of them saw a single thing.’

‘I don’t believe in miracles,’ said Artabanus. ‘They must have gone somewhere and they’d better be found, or the man in charge of the camp will pay the consequences.’

‘The guard in charge of the camp was killed,’ explained the messenger, ‘but the head of the external garrison has launched an exhaustive search. He’s requested reinforcements from the closest units and is combing the area inch by inch. Most of the land is barren and deserted. There’s no place they can hide. We’re sure to find them, My Lord. Our commander says that he’s certain the hunt will be successful. In any case, he wants our lord the king to know that he is not responsible for their escape. The chief guard was to blame for having underestimated the Romans’ resolve and he’s paid for that with his life.

‘It is very probable, My Lord, that at this stage they have already been captured. I left Aus Daiwa ten days ago, as soon as we realized the Romans had escaped. I would not be surprised if another messenger arrived very shortly to tell you that the runaways have been caught.’

Shapur, livid with anger, said nothing: an evident sign that the vizier was expected to take care of the inconvenient matter.

Artabanus gestured for the messenger to follow him. ‘Our lord and sovereign has been sufficiently disturbed by your impudence. Come with me and we shall try to make sense of this heap of nonsense.’

But the messenger was reluctant to move.

Shapur ordered him to come closer. ‘What more is there? Don’t make me lose my patience!’

‘My Lord, I must give you more bad news. The guest with the piercing eyes has also escaped.’

‘What?’

The messenger replied, trembling, ‘At nearly the same time. He had asked to visit a Zoroastrian monastery and was accompanied there by our men, but then somehow he managed to slip out of their sight. The priests had no idea of where he was and when the guards realized he had disappeared it was too late. We have alerted all of our garrisons, from here to the Ocean. He doesn’t stand a chance.’

Shapur seemingly no longer had the energy to lose his temper. He gestured for the messenger to shut his mouth and called Artabanus. ‘Send a group of couriers as soon as possible to warn our friend to be on guard. He must be told that our guest has fled, and may reappear when he least expects it. Inform him that there was surely a conspiracy involved in his escape, and that he should watch his back. Ensure him of our utmost support in searching for the fugitive, who will be captured as soon as possible, and so on and so on. We cannot afford to lose his friendship. It is with him and with his government that our most important commercial agreements are to be forged in the coming years.’

‘Have no fear, My Lord, your message will arrive before any other.’

‘I’m counting on you,’ replied the king. ‘You are the only one I can trust. How is the work at Persepolis proceeding?’

‘Very well, Majesty, the work is almost finished. And what a wonder it is! An enormous bas-relief showing Valerian on his knees begging for mercy in front of Your Majesty on horseback, in the splendour of your glory. The inscription celebrates your deeds in Persian, Parthian and Greek.’

‘Excellent. Go now, there’s no time to lose.’

Artabanus bent low in a deep bow, took the messenger’s arm and went out into the corridor.

As soon as they had left the audience chamber, he pushed him roughly up against the wall and hissed, ‘The truth, if you want to leave this palace alive.’

The man lowered his eyes and said, ‘I left after two days of incessant searching within a range of seven
parasangs
from the Aus Daiwa camp.’

‘Seven
parasangs
? They couldn’t have covered that much land in two days, given the condition they were in.’

‘Several patrols went out even further, but they found no one, not a trace, not a sign.’

‘They vanished into thin air, then, as the king was saying.’

‘I don’t know what to say, Excellency. We turned over every stone and searched every caravan within a range of seven
parasangs
and we found no one. The men on the second ring of guard towers never left their posts and yet they didn’t see a living soul go by.’

The vizier took his hands off the man and ordered him to follow him to his private study. ‘If they didn’t find them far away, they must look for them closer, understand?’

‘What do you mean to say, Excellency? We inspected the camp inside and out.’

‘Were the other prisoners interrogated?’

‘Yes. They said that the Romans locked them up in a shack and that they had no idea where they were headed.’

‘Now, listen to me well, if you don’t want to end up impaled. Go back to the camp and have all of the sheds, the mine tunnels and the guard routes searched thoroughly. They cannot have disappeared. They may be hidden very close by, waiting until you stop looking before they start moving. Find them and bring them here, do you understand?’

‘Yes, Excellency.’

‘And get news to me about the guest with the piercing eyes as soon as you manage to locate him. I have to account for him as well.’

‘Very well, Excellency.’

‘Leave immediately and send me good news as soon as possible, about both one and the other.’

‘I will do so, Excellency,’ babbled the messenger, white as a sheet.

‘Move, then. You don’t have a moment to lose.’

The man went off in great haste. Artabanus, back on the balcony of his private apartments, saw him gallop out of the southern gate of the palace and disappear in a cloud of dust.

The vizier immediately summoned the man in charge of the courier service and handed him a message that would have to travel as fast as the wind.

M
ETELLUS WAITED FOR
his comrades to return with the supplies and for darkness to descend to the bottom of the gully before he widened the hole in the mine wall and finally emerged.

He raised his eyes and saw the sky teeming with stars. He saw the Milky Way crossing his narrow field of vision between the two walls of the deep gully like a bridge of light and he felt tears surge up and wet his cheeks and his breath swelled in his chest like the first breath of his existence, as if he had been born a second time.

He bent down and sank his hands into the dry sand and the pebbles smoothed by the water and the wind of countless seasons. He breathed in the fragrance of a horse-mint bush and brushed the blossoms of a hard little broom plant growing out of the wall. He had the marvellous sensation of seeing and touching the world for the first time.

The suffering of these dreadful years, the loss of his wife, the separation from his son, the death of his comrades and of the emperor: everything seemed to fade away in the sweet air of freedom. He realized that his life had been given back to him, and that he would do anything to defend it. He felt strength and invincible power: he was sure deep down that he could face any trial in life after such a miracle. He felt that he would be able to bend events to his will by means of a new and indestructible determination.

He did not find the stink of death that he had expected, because omnipotent and ever-changing nature had already dissolved the corpses, transferring their substance into other substances, into other ways of being: wild animals, the sun, the wind, the dust . . . In the distance he could see, in the reflected glimmer of the limestone walls, the gleaming white of scattered bones. The bones of so many unlucky wretches, the bones of his companions who had come to die in a distant and desolate land.

Those first instants of regained freedom were so intense that Metellus lost his sense of time and when Quadratus’s hand landed on his shoulder he felt as if he was waking from a dream.

‘Commander . . .’

He turned to look at his men: they were hairy, emaciated and bore the signs of their inhuman imprisonment on their bodies and souls, and yet a magical light shone in their eyes, a mad light, capable of piercing the black of night. The light of victory over death, over darkness, over desperation.

He embraced them one by one, stared into their eyes burning with emotion and tears, and with every embrace the clanging of breastplates sounded, iron against iron. The embrace of diehard soldiers, ready again for anything, for they had endured it all.

But in that same instant Metellus realized that basking even for a short time in that indescribable joy could mean the end of everything they had achieved. ‘Now we have to mask the breach we’ve opened in the sandstone wall. You, Publius, you’re the thinnest of us. You go back inside and wall up the opening, leaving only just enough room for you to get out. We’ll do the rest from the outside. But let’s eat first, and drink. We need to get our strength back.’