David Wishart - Parthian Shot

‘Vitellius. How are you, my dear fellow?’ he said in Latin. Then he looked at me and his eyes narrowed briefly. ‘And Valerius Corvinus. A pleasure to meet you.’ He changed to Greek. ‘This is Callion.’

It seemed that Phraates wasn’t the only one making a sartorial statement here. The second guy looked as out of place as a duck next to a peacock; or maybe ‘swan’ would be better, because although he was wearing a plain Greek mantle it was the best, whitest Milesian wool with only its edges embroidered. Right; the Seleucian of the party, the definitely-not-Parthian descended from Alexander’s cavalry commander. He was tall — six foot, easy — good-looking in a sort of hard, chiselled way, late twenties, slim as a whip and clean-shaven, with his dark hair cut short as a wrestler’s and unoiled; serious, unsmiling. He nodded to Vitellius and held out a hand to me. Phraates, I’d noticed, hadn’t offered to press flesh: kings, even if they were only prospective ones, are above that sort of thing.

‘A pleasure to meet you, Corvinus,’ he said. I shook: a hard hand, this one, and there were muscles under that soft mantle. Wrestler was right, or maybe athlete, because his nose was intact. In any case, I’d bet he kept himself fit and that he was probably fanatical about it. ‘You’re Vitellius’s aide, so I believe. Strange; I haven’t seen you at any of our official meetings. Now why would that be, could you tell me?’

‘Valerius Corvinus isn’t directly concerned with the negotiations,’ Vitellius said smoothly. ‘He’s a newcomer to the service.’

‘But most welcome all the same.’ Phraates shot Callion a glance that carried a definite message with it. The Greek smiled.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘That would explain it. You’ve been out east, Corvinus?’

‘Sure. I lived in Athens for a few years. And I spent a while in Antioch.’

‘A beautiful city. Then you know Daphni, of course? Just outside, in the hills?’

‘Yeah. Daphni’s okay.’

‘You’d like Seleucia, then. Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, I mean. My own city. It’s equally old, and just as beautiful as Antioch, if not more so.’ He glanced at Phraates. ‘We Greeks are very proud of Seleucia.’

‘I haven’t been there myself, naturally,’ Phraates said. ‘Nor indeed to Antioch. However, I quite understand your feelings, Callion. You have every right to be proud. Parthia owes an enormous debt to Greece and the Greeks — a fact which my cousin Artabanus doesn’t seem fully to appreciate. You’d say the same, Zariadres?’

‘Oh, yes, lord.’ Zariadres bowed his head. ‘Definitely. Where would we be without the Greeks?’

A man with his back to us talking to another group turned round. ‘Perhaps in the happy state of discovering that we were Parthians, with a perfectly good culture of our own,’ he said. His Greek, like Zariadres’s, was perfect, but his accent was thicker. ‘Or was the question rhetorical?’

I felt both Zariadres and Callion stiffen, although the man was smiling. Phraates didn’t blink, but something about him shifted. I had the impression of a steel blade drawn from a sheath.

‘Osroes,’ he said quietly, ‘I am sorry, but you’re being unreasonable. Greek culture and Parthian differ, certainly, but they’re complementary and always have been. We learn from each other, and the learning benefits both sides, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, yes, lord. When it goes equally both ways. Certainly.’ The new guy — he’d be Vitellius’s Magian — dipped his head as Zariadres had done, but although I might’ve been mistaken the bow was just a shade less deferential. ‘Achieving a balance, though, if you’ll forgive me, is sometimes difficult. That’s my view, at least. Up to now…well, living in Rome for so long, sire, you may not altogether appreciate the fact, but hitherto the balance has been more than a little askew. Personally, I think the Greeks have had it their own way for rather too long. No slight intended to my colleague, naturally.’ He bowed to Callion.

I’d been watching the to-and-fro carefully. Phraates’s expression didn’t change, not a whisker, but Callion coloured up and Zariadres looked like he’d swallowed a bad oyster. These two, the court politician and the Magian, were pure cat and dog, I could see that: Osroes didn’t even glance at Zariadres. And Callion was looking fit to be tied. Not that that was particularly surprising, mind.

‘Surely that’s a matter for the Great King to decide.’ Phraates was smiling too, but the tone slammed down hard-edged as an axe blade. ‘Also, a dinner party is no place for politics. Or this one is not. You’d agree, I hope.’ Osroes’s eyelids flickered. He half-bowed in acknowledgement but said nothing. ‘Now. We’ll leave the subject, if you don’t mind. Let me introduce you. Lucius Vitellius you know, of course, but you won’t have met Valerius Corvinus here. Corvinus, this is my very good friend Osroes.’

Yeah, sure, and I was Cleopatra’s grandmother. If this guy was very good friend to anyone, least of all Phraates, then I’d eat my sandals. I could see he’d be a real bastard; not old — he was barely into his thirties — but he’d a mouth like a rat-trap, a nose so aquiline any self-respecting eagle would’ve curled up and died for it and eyes like flint chips. And he was sure of himself as hell. That came across in spades. Osroes might take a put-down from a future Great King of Parthia, but that’s what it would need. I’d bet that anyone else trying it on would have to watch their back.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.

I got a nod that was barely polite, and Vitellius didn’t do much better. Whatever else he approved of, Osroes evidently didn’t have much time for Romans, and he didn’t much care who knew it.

‘I must compliment you on how you’ve fixed this place up, Zariadres.’ Vitellius turned to the embassy’s leader.

Zariadres shrugged: an elegant lift-and-fall of the shoulders. ‘This is nothing,’ he said. ‘When you dine with the Great King’ — he bowed again to Phraates — ‘in his palace at Ctesiphon you’ll see real splendour. You Romans despise luxury, or you embrace it and let it dominate you, which is equally a mistake. Appreciating softness without becoming its slave is something that you can learn from us.’

‘True. That, Zariadres, is very true indeed.’ Phraates smoothed his beard and I caught the sudden, strong whiff of perfume. My nose must’ve wrinkled because he smiled at me. ‘Don’t fall into the trap, Corvinus, of thinking that we Parthians are soft just because we wear silk and jewellery and like fine scents around us. We can do without them if we have to. And the Parthian warrior is the finest of his type on earth. You wouldn’t disagree, Lucius?’

‘Certainly not, Prince,’ Vitellius grunted. ‘Your mounted archers are superb. Joined with our legions they’d make an army that would be invincible.’

Phraates laughed. ‘As we’ll see, no doubt, before too long. To my cousin Artabanus’s discomfort.’ A gong sounded quietly. ‘Ah. That’ll be dinner. You’ll now have an opportunity, Corvinus, if you haven’t experienced it before, of sampling Parthian luxury in another form. I hope you enjoy eating. Perhaps we can discuss your opinion later. I’d be very interested to hear it.’

Osroes shot me a dark look; Callion, too, although his was more considering. Yeah, right; well, I hadn’t made any bosom friends there. I stepped back politely and Phraates moved towards the dining-room.

I thought for a moment I’d walked into some sort of up-market club. The couches were laid out in the usual horseshoe arrangement, sure, but there were more of them, they were shorter than normal and separated off by clear space, and instead of a big central table each pair of guests had their own smaller version. The whole layout faced a sort of stage at the far end of the room beside the serving door. Odd, but perhaps this was standard Parthian practice; I didn’t know. In any case, Phraates had already reclined in the centre, with Zariadres on his right. A slave led Vitellius and me to the couch immediately left of centre; Callion had his back to us beyond, at the left-hand tip of the horseshoe, while Osroes was at the opposite tip on the extreme right, next to the serving door. As I reclined and another slave poured scented water over my hands I looked round the room at the faces I hadn’t seen yet.